gwill24,
start with just being totally honest now, you can't hurt her anymore than you have, but a showing of honest can help, she will think at least you respect her enough to come clean now.....
It's a start if you think you are willing to work on your marriage......

What am I afraid will happen?

I have seen her literally crumble mentally ...and revive a little. When I mention the fact that we went to dinners and lunches, it further shows how much of a life I had with the OW's, which I should have been having with her. That is a devastating thing to confront and deal with. I can't give that back to herand I really wish I could. I was selfish and on a high and now, I'm at the other end of the spectrum but that was the choice I made and I have to deal with it....after I help her recover.

Helping her recover is how you deal with it, for her and for you. If I was MelodyLane I could post and link for you the article, but I dont know how to do that, but Dr Harley says that when the WS has been honest and provided Just Compensation to the BS in the form of Extraordinary Precautions and using MB principals to build a marriage of romantic love that the BS feels little resentment and the WS feels little residual guilt.

Making your M better than it has ever been and helping your W recover will help your depression, because even though you cant go back and change the past, you can decide right now that you wont be that person ever again and start doing things the right way from now on. You will know you have made yourself a better person, and you will know that you have helped to heal the victim of your past selfishness. You will feel better, and so will she.

gwill,

There is a difference between brutal honesty and radical honesty.


Read on this website about radical honesty, so you understand what that means.

Radical honesty means telling the truth. It doesn't mean tearing the other person down in the process.

You can tell your wife how you felt about the other woman, and do it without saying things that tear your wife down in the process.

My husband thought that he was superman, he needed an ego boost, he thought that because he had lost a whole 14 pounds he was Mr. Cool.

Big whoop. He was still about 40 pounds overweight. Those 14 pounds made him feel so sexy? Nope, but he had lots of other stuff going on, and he needed an ego boost. OW gave him that

and I didn't.

I was focused on the 40

she was cheering the 14.

That was the difference - at least in part.


That is radical honesty.

He could have said, "You always said I was fat, you always told me I would never lose weight, and the OW was telling me I was great and sexy and I hated you...."

That is brutal.


He didn't do that. We both did have a few brutal moments, but we learned about the difference.



Your issue is that you just won't tell her the story, and it is killing your recovery. You are holding back information, and using this "protection" thing as a shield.

Your wife can live with the truth.

She will not make it through, and your marriage will not make it through, if you continue on that track.


There is research out there that shows that a marriage after an affair will collapse at around the point of six months after where the wife has attempted to work on the marriage, and the husband has failed to reveal truth or participate in the recovery effort.

In other words, if the husband does not open up and give the information and get on board at about the six month mark, the wife is more apt to throw in the towel and walk away, having given up on him - no matter what he says he "wants" to do.


What's your clock say?

RFA

I am committed to not being the person I was but that's something that has to be shown over time. The consequences of that lifestyle is too devastating to my W and my D. I feel at this point that I've already lost them but I'm trying to get them back. I've told my W about the A's ...how they starched and why they started which were my my weakness. The flattery got to my head.

Thanks for your optimistic outlook.

Unfortunately SB, it wasn't about my clock. Her clock said today. My BS just informed.confirmed that the M is over and we will be going our separate ways.

So, thank you all for reading my posts and offering advice.

Good luck in your respective Recovery.

After my last post, we had a discussion and the earlier decision was changed. We will continue to work on our relationship until the end of the year. At that time we'll make a decision on the future. So.....all is not lost and I realize the challenge is great but I intend to give it my all.

Gwill,

See how the twisted wayward mind thinks - treating your W with respect and being a H which you should have been throughout your whole life, is now called a challenge .

Meeting your W's emotional needs, being open and honest is not a challenge, it is normal humane behaviour and common courtesy, a natural part of a marriage. If you will take that as a huge challenge, you will fail, because you would then come up with several excuses why you cannot do this part or that part, because this is just so big of a challenge and you are just a poor guy...

It is not hard to become a normal person when you start doing right things. Good luck and keep posting here, read a lot and most important of all - get counceling from Dr Harley.