@Constant Process,

The book is:

"Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting out of the box" by The Arbinger Institute.

Worth every penny.



@gwill,

If you have read this thread, you should understand that your excuse that "it will hurt my wife to hear the truth"

is drivel to me.

You are not protecting her.

You are protecting yourself - in your ongoing selfish way. It is no different now than it was when you were keeping your affair secret. You choose now, as you did then, to keep your behavior a secret from her because


YOU ARE ASHAMED OF IT.


To tell her the details means you have to OWN THEM.


Sit with that.

Now, sit with this:

You already DO own them.



The fact that you keep these secrets does nothing to reduce the shame you carry. It does nothing to improve the relationship with your wife.

Keeping these truths from your wife does the following:

1. It dimishes your wife's respect for you.

2. It reduces your wife's ability to believe ANYTHING you have told her, because until she feels she has the entire truth, she will NOT believe anything you tell. NOT ANYTHING. Why? Because without the entire box of puzzle pieces, she cannot solve the problem. As a result, she cannot trust that the pieces you give her bear any validity whatsoever until she can see the entire completed puzzle properly connected.

3. Your wife's anger will only increase. Knowing, or even suspecting, that you are purposely withholding information that would help her solve the problem in her mind is tantamount to ongoing betrayal in her mind. Because you withhold information, this can be seen as your ongoing need to PROTECT THE OTHER WOMAN. As long as you continue to do that, YOU WILL NEVER SEE YOUR WIFE MAKE PROGRESS IN REGAINING HER TRUST FOR YOU.

4. This behavior results in your diminishing your wife's capacity for self-esteem. By setting yourself up as some kind of "decider" of what she can and cannot know, what she can and cannot handle, you take control of a part of her life that is rightfully HERS. When this happens to people, their self-esteem takes a huge hit. Warning: this type of behavior can backfire - you may find that she will see you as an enemy to her heart, and she could find herself walking away simply because you are NOT protecting her interests in supporting her need for self-esteem. And here you thought you were being the big-guy-protector and all.

5. Your wife can easily decide in her imagination that the things you are still hiding are MUCH LARGER than they really are. After all, if you cannot even tell her about them, they must really be horrible, huge, disgusting, awful, and unforgiveable, right? So if you won't tell, her mind will go to work and she will imagine her worst nightmares. Then, you will be fighting THOSE THINGS.



gwill - You have to choose. If you choose to trickle it out, I will guarantee that this will bring YOU the torture. It is the matter of time.................first your wife receives the torture


then


you will.


Only the issue is, what kind of torture does SHE choose?


SB

Agree with SB to the T. The more disrespect you show because "She wont understand" the more she is losing self-esteem. This is her sacrifice and choice BTW, Now who is protecting who?




You are confusing clearing your conscience with honesty. You should be seeking to be radically honest with her because she IS part of you. yes a timeline would help, but thier is no reason for waiting to constantly express how you want to tell her whatever she wants to help the marriage. At her pace, whenever, two years from now, next week, whenever she is ready or needs to process it emotionally. Not in an overwhelming blast that makes you feel better. KWIM?

You would not function well if your hand lied to your shoulder, but that would be obviuos. We are talking about growing into a functioning couple that is like one and knows the deeper parts of itself, faults, weaknesses, mistakes and all sorts of imperfections. Do you have an imperfection? Do you deny it to yourself and try to walk on say, a broken leg? Or do you go and get treatment and do what the Doc says? How can you be together without the truth between you? You can't, and thats part of being in love.

I think it might help you to study her and how graciuos she has been. Then you can tell her the important things when she asks and on a timeline you both agree upon. If it is really hurting her its because she is sensitive. In time she will not be broken hearted as you reveal the truth, she will be set free from her own worse fears or imagined ones. She will see you broken and willing to share your life with her. She will trust you again. Can you let her see how childish and stupid you were to betray her? That is the thing to do, being honest is dangerous work but its the only way we can live free. If you are afraid of losing her respect, maybe thats a good thing.

Schoolbus,

I want to thank you for sharing your story with me and if I did not understand the concept of making a choice, I do now.

I am sorry for not responding sooner, but I was home for an extended weekend with my wife and we decided to try and reconnect and not focus on timelines or our past but to take a break from our issues and have a nice weekend.

Again, thank you for taking the time to share what had to be difficult to talk about and hope that you will continue to share your thoughts/advice as I continue on this forum.

An update...

I was home for an extended weekend with my wife and on Saturday, I had a family wedding to attend.

Based off of all of my past disclosures recently, my wife decided not to attend with me.

Prior to the wedding, I had called up my mom to let her know that my wife would not attend and told her why.

At the wedding, as I was listening to the words spoken by the priest and the vows exchanged, I fully understood why my wife could not attend and why I felt so upset, sad and why I was glad I said something to my mom (instead of using the excuse that she was sick and could not attend).

I guess sitting there and listening to the words and reflecting on the recent events, I put some of the following together.

Don't cover up your past with excuses if you want to get better.

Take responsibility for your actions. Realize that others were hurt or could be hurt.

Given the opportunity to come clean to others, do it, you'll feel better and maybe they will learn something, as well.

I know that is what a lot have said in the post to me previously and I did get it at the time, but it really sank in as I sat there without my wife.

One other thing to add.

I do want to add one thing about the wedding that I went to the other day and why I could not expect my wife to attend.

The wedding was on 10/9 and our anniversary is (was) 10/11.

Knowing that I broke my vows within a year and a half of our wedding and never respected them for the 23 years that we would have been married, would have been difficult for my wife to hear them and think about all that has happened rather than what could hae been.

As I said in my earlier post. I sat there and listened to them and as I listened to them I felt sad and upset.

Sad and upset at myself for not following through with one of them.

Sad and upset at myself for making my wife feel that we can never renew our vows (she doesn't think that she could respect/follow through with them since I never did) or have a day that is special to us.

I know that I want to get to a point where she may reconsider renewing our vows, but I know that I am a long way from getting to that point. I have a lot of years to go before I prove anything to her (that I can, have or want to change).

Make that two things to add.

At the wedding, I had an opportunity to spend some time away from everyone with either my two brothers or my father.

Now I am not especially close with any of them, but since they saw me at the wedding without my wife, coupled with the fact that my mother probably said something to them when they asked why she wasn't there - only one asked me how I'm doing.

I guess I was hoping that they would ask rather than not even acknowledging anything was up.

When my one brother asked, I told him that we were having problems and I mentioned that it had nothing to do with me traveling or money being tight (since I had ben out of work for so long) rather that it was a past affair and the continued lying that made it difficult for my wife to be here.

It actually felt good to say something to him. It wasn't as difficult as it was when I had mentioned it to my mother a week or two prior.

I guess I wished that everyone didn't just not acknowledge the issue, but I guess that it was a happy event and maybe they didn't want to ruin it with what was happening between the two of us - but I guess I just wanted to tell someone, that I was pissed with the lack of response.

But now that you know about how much she loves you, and what it could be if you gave everything to it, can you think of any better way to spend your life but waiting while loving her? I bet not.

Constant,

I agree. I hit her with a lot of stuff and she still wants to stay married to me and I am grateful and extremely happy.

I'm willing to wait while I prove to her that I can change and I have always felt that if I can change, then over time, she might as well.

If not, I'm still with her and get the opportunity to create better/new and most importantly more memories.

CGIR,

A few things:

Kudos for the public admissions.

Kudos for telling us all how the wedding went, and your openness with the thoughts and feelings you are having. (And, you probably thought it might just kill you - but here you are, feeling better about it all.....talking about this will make it better and better, and you will be able to process the changes you are making much faster and progress faster, too!) I have to tell you that I'm pretty happy for you right now. Keep on this track.

Regarding your brothers not asking, and your desire for others to ask you about this mess? Generally speaking, most people won't know what to say or how to ask, so they won't. They WANT to, but won't know how to break the ice. So if you want to talk about it, you will have to do it - just as you did at the wedding. The upshot of this is that you will gain something you never expected:

RESPECT

for your honesty, your forthrightness, and your sensitivity to their need to know.

Also, by being open about it, you make GAINS with your wife.

Lots of movement and progress, just by being open and honest with others who have a need to know. And that doesn't even cover the gains to your own self-esteem and mental growth through this.


Another thing I wanted to tell you about was that my H and I renewed our vows. My H also had multiple affairs during our marriage. When I found out about the most recent one, I was devastated, just as BV is. My H was grateful for the chance to recover the marriage, because he was certain I would divorce him. I thought I would have too, but it just wasn't right for me.

That surprised me.

Anyway.

It took him about 18 months, and we were going on a cruise. He saw a vow renewal deal in the cruise literature, and one night he just got down on one knee and proposed, in a way that was so different from the first time. He cried, and asked for a chance to start over

to keep the vows

to make the vows in a way that meant something to ME, and to him,

so that he could spend the rest of his entire life being the man I deserved, and making up for what he had done. He said he just wanted that chance.

I was already married anyway, so I said yes.


My H has earned losing his "wayward spouse" status, and even his "former wayward spouse" status. I don't use the FWH abbreviation for him, because he truly has made every concerted effort to change.

Is our marriage perfect? NO.
Is our marriage on track? You bet.
Is our marriage work? Oh he// yes.

It was work before. But now, at least we know what we are working FOR, and what kind of work to DO!

My bet is on no infidelity again. It isn't because there is blind trust. It is because we are accountable to one another, and we work to stay in love - to be each other's number one.


You CAN earn this, CGIR. I mean it. My H did it.


Our fifth anniversary of d-day for his third affair is in about a week or so.


5 years.

Recovered. Marriage Builders got us there. Read everything, and listen to people here - even those you don't like. It all teaches you something.

SB

Schoolbus,

I guess what most annoyed me about my one brother was that there was opportunity to ask what's up in a private setting (after the ceremony and before the reception) rather than ignoring it and acting as if everything is normal.

Home this weekend and talked about this with my wife and she said that my mother probably gave him a heads up (didn't think about that at the time), so that he had an idea of something but still would have liked some type of acknowledgement.

As for my wife and me wanting the possibility of renewing our vows in the future - I guess that it is something for me to work hard at trying to achieve. I do want to give her what I did not provide all these years. I know that it will be work on my part (actually on both our parts), but it will be a goal to work towards.

Again, I want to thank you for taking the time to provide your insight into my issues. I do appreciate your input and try to work on / take to heart your comments.

I'll keep posting as I do feel that all of the people on this sight are my support group. I know that I have a ways to go, but do feel that I am making strides to turning things around.

At some point, I would like to respond to others posts, but feel that I have to earn my stripes before I do that.

Thanks again!!

CGIR

CGIR,

Einstein said, "No problem can be solved at the level of consciousness at which it was created."


An interesting concept here.

In order to solve any problem, you must raise your level of consciousness ABOVE the level of consciousness you had when you made the mess.

Where were you when you made the mess - cognitively, morally, emotionally? You have to evaluate that situation, that status of your "self", and then

rise above that level

before you can EVER BEGIN to solve the situation.


The same is true of your marriage.

When you began to have affairs, there were issues with you, with the state of the marriage, with the relationship and how the two of you "made" a marriage.

The solution lies in evaluating how your marriage operated - then - over the years - and understanding the things that were flawed

the things within you
within BV
and within the marriage "operating system"

and then

rising above THAT consciousness level in all those areas.....


to SOLVE the problems. This is what the program at MB does for you. It provides the basic concepts - the structure - for you to be able to place a consciousness about the restructuring of the marriage, and of the self (BOTH "selves") within the marriage.


Your chance, at this point in your life, is to choose to raise your consciousness.

What an amazing experience you can have! Imagine the possibilities - to purposely go about changing yourself, your consciousness, your LIFE, to become the best man you know.

Can you really think of any better purpose?

SB

Schoolbus,

One of the things that my wife and I have to complete is a joint timeline of our marriage.

From that we should be able to identify where there were disconnects in our marriage using the Marriage Builder concepts.

Instead of just saying that I was focused on this and she was focused on that - using Marriage Builder concepts, we can say that I prioritized these needs, while she prioritized these other needs and we could see where the disconnect was and how come problems arose.

My recently completed timeline has helped me to gain some kind of understanding as to why I did what I did and how I impacted my wife.

The next timeline is to see how we impacted each other and like you said, how we can take our marriage to another level.

I know that I still have a lot of work to do and I am pretty sure that my wife feels that we have a lot of work to do. A joint timeline will help us and using MB concepts when we do it, will help us even more.

CGIR, I have a feeling you are still trying to figure out the past and how MB concepts work. I understand that belive me I do. Just remember we all do this when we fail, blame ourselves and others, when the point is simple. Stop doing the bad behavior and never do it again while living in forgiveness towards each other.
Just afraid you are trying to figure out everything and i am afraid it could lead to justifcation instaed of freedom from the past mistakes.

Hope you know what I mean and that helps in some way.

Constant,

I guess what we are looking to do is to try an understand the past so that we don't revisit it in the present.

I don't think that we are trying to justify our behaviors or to show who was more at fault.

I think that we are trying to work hard in the present by following the Marriage Builder concepts. I think that we both know what we need to do to be successful, but I think that the joint timeline could help.

I understand that I have to make a choice to do the right thing, make the right decisions and not choose to make the same bad decisions that I did.

I think I know that you feel that it is time to heal and it will be something to watch out for when we get to doing the timeline.

Thanks for the input.

I don't think you are trying to justify either. i was warning it could turn out that way.

I understand you want to identify problems and see whaen things went wrong. really you can only work this out between you. At least you both are working on it.

Best of luck.

I think the timeline approach is a good idea, because your wife needs to have an idea of the truth of her life. The timelines also put your relationship into perspective for you, so as far as this process goes, I think its a good idea.

CP brings up a concern that you not get too bogged down in trying to figure out "reasons" for your affairs. I tend to agree with this. Reasons and justifications can lead your wife to think that you may be looking to excuse your behavior. Be careful that you are trying to UNDERSTAND your thoughts, and not looking to EXCUSE the behavior. There is a difference, and an important distinction.

As you review the timelines look at your "level of consciousness". Consider where you were then, and where you are now.

Then, the REAL task?


Consider what level of consciousness it will require for you to take your marriage to the next level. Because to SOLVE the issues you identify will actually require this "next level" of ability.

You will need to understand that and get yourself there.


The good thing?


Read your first post, and compare to where you are now.


You've already raised your level, CGIR.


SB

Schoolbus/Constant,

I do understand what you are both saying. We are not trying to place blame but rather gain an understanding of what we were thinking/feeling at different points in our marriage.

I had an affair after 1 1/2 years of marriage and the next affair happened 17 years later. My wife would say that another one did not happen during that 15 years in between as another opportunity did not present itself.

I guess I probably can't argue against that, but I feel that during that period, maybe there were reasons that it did not happen and a joint timeline might help to identify reasons why.

As to where I am now.....

I feel that I have learned that someone other than me matters and that I need to be protective of her feelings.

I also know that my past may have influenced the way I am today but ultimately, I have a choice to make every day.

I can choose to do the wrong thing, be selfish and not think of others and how what I am doing or about to do will impact that person or I can choose to do the right thing and actually think about the impact of my actions on others.

I feel tha I am in a better place, but still have a lot to learn.

Thank you both for taking the time, these past few weeks, to keep up with my post. I appreciate the input / value the experience and insight that you provide and look forward to seeing your posts.

Continuing on this thought...

I am talking to my wife this weekend and through my timeline she feels that she can make sense of some of her thoughts regarding my affairs - my actions/feelings lineup with her thoughts.

Now she is trying to figure out if I ever loved her based off of my actions, lying, continued lying and basically taking her for granted all of these years.

My feeling is that between the first affair and the second - there were 15 years.

In between those 15 years, to me there were a lot of good times. Maybe if we look back at those years using MB concepts, I may have been meeting some emotional needs, but not the right ones.

Also, maybe there were times where I was not adding to her love bank or her to mine, but there was always love there.

I think it is easy to remember the more recent past (in this case the 2nd affair and the continued lying about it and other things) and group the entire marriage into that thought.

Due to how difficult that recent past was to get through and understand, you tend to look back on things with that one thought and not see past that thought.

I can see that I have to figure out a way to explain to her that although I was selfish all that time and put me first - I was in love with her, but just did not know how to make her see that / feel that.

This make take some work as I am not sure how to explain it or make her understand it.

Continuing on my thought.

After the first affair, there was 15 years prior to the next one. During that time, I lied about the first one and concealed my use of porn from her.

Why? - I wanted to continue watching porn and if another opportunity to flirt with another woman presented itself, I would want to do that.

Was this all consuming (always in my thoughts) - was this something that was important to me, something that I thought about all the time? - NO.

On a day to day basis, I wanted to be with my wife and I thought that I was doing some things correctly in my marriage, but I was keeping my secrets from her.

Does this mean I did not love her, no. I guess looking back and seeing that I was lying, was concealing from her and was not meeting her emotional needs at the time would cause her to feel that I did not lover her, but I know that was not the case.

I guess if someone feels that you were dishonest from just about day one, then they will feel that way and nothing I can say or put in a timeline will help to convince them otherwise

I know that I don't want her to think that way and I don't know how to change her mind.

Anyone with a thought that could help?

CGIR,

You wrote:
"I think it is easy to remember the more recent past (in this case the 2nd affair and the continued lying about it and other things) and group the entire marriage into that thought."


When you discussed the issue of your wife looking back over the entire marriage, and painting the whole thing with the emotions that she feels most recently, there IS an error of memory that does speak to this issue. One thing that I know about is memory, and the errors that memory makes are one thing that fascinates me. (Yes, I am a nerd.)

Memory does have a tendency to say to you that "oh, I feel this way now, therefore, I must have ALWAYS felt this way". This is an error we make, and quite frequently, I might add. It takes some work to look back over time and really evaluate where our minds and feelings were at a given point, and understand that the truth is we did NOT always feel the way we feel today - especially when we have been betrayed, or lied to, or even "in love" or "not in love".

Your timeline should help you in understanding YOUR feelings. In doing so, you should be able to see that you were in love with your wife, and you should be able to point to events through the marriage, things you did during certain times, that show love.

Her sense of betrayal is fresh. Her sense of long-term betrayal is normal, given the circumstances. Over time, the error should eventually correct - if and only if there is enough truth shown to reveal that there is an error, and if the future moving forward shows that the CURRENT state between the two of you shows love; given this she should be able to recover the sense that you do love her.

What has to happen is time, your dedication to truth, a consistent meeting of the needs she has which show your love for her, and the revealing of loving events in the past.


And for what it is worth, I do understand that a person can go for a long time without an affair, and still love their spouse. My husband went about 28 years or so between his affairs.

I felt much like your wife - that the in-between time was negated, that it was ALL questionable, ALL lies, ALL just worthless.............


I was wrong then, wasn't I?


Time, and consistency, after his TRICKLE TRUTH stopped, helped heal it.

SB