Exactly! Everything we have said about the OM applies to you too and I am reassured you are realizing that fact. You were using him too.


Your H has really stepped up to the plate here and done a good job of protecting his marriage. Bravo to him!!

This is all very, very good, Athena.

No, you don't suck. But you used to (and I don't mean that in the sexual way, lol)

It's normal to feel guilt after you begin to realize just how bad your actions were, and just how devastating they were to people around you. Use this in a positive way. You can't take back your actions, but you can commit yourself to positive actions going forward. Direct these toward your H and your M.

Pick something. Anything positive that requires action.

Pick up flowers on the way home from work and give them to your H.

Make his favorite meal.

Take a walk with him.

Run a bath for him.

Think about what brings him happiness. What can you do to contribute to his happiness that requires action, that requires effort?

Maritalbliss!!!

BH and I talked about that yesterday - needing to put our own needs aside and focus on meeting the other's needs. Instead of selfishly trying to get our own needs met, if we are each meeting the other's needs, we should be happy. Is that the right way of looking at it?

I also took at peek at the "Marriage Builders 101" link (http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8114_plan.html) and think BH and I need to start thinking about our plan to get back our romantic love. Do we need to start with the questionnaires/forms? I need a curriculum. Or is this too soon? I have had a lot of momentum the last few days and am scared of it all happening too fast (though any slower would not be successful I am sure). I don't want to get ahead of myself here.

Ack! Though it was a bit nasty, thanks for making me smile this morning.

The questionnaires are a good place to start. Begin with the Emotional Needs questionnaire. It helps you both you assess your needs and also promotes positive conversation between spouses.

But first, have you answered all your husband's questions about your A to his satisfaction? He will probably have more questions at a later time since this is all so new.

This is part of the Policy of Radical Honesty. You will also be working through the Policy of Joint Agreement and the Policy of Undivided Attention.

He hasn't asked a lot of questions yet. Do we need to get the questions all out of the way before we can truly start recovery?

oh nononono!! You do not put your own needs aside. The ticket to falling in love with your husband is teaching each other to become experts at meeting each others needs. Happiness comes from him meeting your needs and vice versa.

It will likely happen. Let him drive that cart, though. Don't be the one to force the conversation, but let him know that the door to laying it all on the table is open.

It's possible he may not ask, too. So, again, don't get hung up on that - just continue to be willing to answer what he feels relevant, and remember to him that whatever feels relevant, IS relevant.

FWW blocked me for a while on this, and I feel like it stunted recovery for a while.

Yeah - that makes more sense We each have needs and we need to show each other how to meet them. Where I went wrong was not telling him what I needed and then going outside of my marriage to have them met.

When I said "put our own needs aside" I was thinking about not trying to get my needs met on my own and to let him meet them - it doesn't really make much sense. Thanks for clarifying.

I will let him ask the questions when he is ready. And I will answer them. I am done lying.

exactly! Sucking it up and suffering in silence is sacrifice, which makes people vulnerable to affairs. When your H is not meeting your needs, it makes it easy for someone else to come along and do that. So our job as spouses is to MAKE SURE our spouse knows when we are unhappy. A complaint is an opportunity for improvement in a good marriage.

The practice of sacrifice also leads to an entitlement mentality that keeps SCORE. And when the score is not kept even, we feel entitled to have affairs: "i have given and given now it is my turn!!"

Everyone is different. I had to know every last tidbit. I had a million questions. It wasn't that recovery never started. It was part of the initial recovery process. Your BH may not have as many. Also, expect him to go through periods where he has no questions, and then may have a ton. It's part of the processing. That's his timetable. Be patient with that.

He may also ask what sounds like the same question, over and over. Be patient with this as well. Avoid prefacing your answer with "But BH, I already answered that!" Maybe you did. Maybe he needs to hear it a few times in order to process it. Maybe he's at a different point in healing and is better equipped to process it at that point.

Be patient with him.

Well, we exposed to one of our closest friends today. It actually made me feel better to get it out there - something I honestly never thought would happen.

Hmmmmmm - maybe you guys were right about all of this stuff after all

Well. You know, it's what we do.

My FWH got a great feeling when he started being completely O&H with me, and others. He says it's refreshing to be an open book and not have dark little secrets.

Athena, can I ask how you came about reading SAA? My wife sounds so much like you and I think reading it might give her some hope but it wouldn't be well received coming from me.

Honestly, OM was reading it and told me how much "Sue" in the book sounded like us. And if MB could fix "Sue's" marriage, maybe there was hope for us. I picked it up a while later and read through the first 5 chapters.

When I got to chapter 6 which was about recovery, I stalled. I didn't "feel" like I wanted to fix my marriage. I couldn't read that next part and spent the next day thinking about it. I wanted to know how to get past that lack of desire to fix things, so I started posting here.

I am no expert on this. But I know reading the first 5 chapters gave me some hope. I had also had a passing knowledge of some of the other concepts such as POJA and the Love Bank. But obviously not deep enough to know how to apply them to my marriage.

For me, I think it came down to reading the book and having the right moment hit me. I knew I wanted to tell BH - I even asked some leading questions on the night of D-Day #2, hoping to open the door and make it easier for me to spill it. I still had no "desire", but I was starting to feel the weight of the "right thing" and needed to push myself over the edge so I couldn't go back.

I really thought SAA was a bunch of junk and that my marriage was dead. Until I gave it a chance. NC is the best thing. It's only been one day and already I feel like I accomplished the impossible.

But I also know things are far from recovered. I want my marriage to be amazing and I actually have hope now that it can be. Seriously, less than one week ago I was in a counsellor's office hearing that my marriage was over and to fake it through Christmas, for the kids' sake. My next appt was in Jan where we'd go over the steps of me getting out.

I am SO glad I started posting here and cancelled that Jan appt. I knew I needed to surround myself with people and opinions that matched my goal. Don't be around negative people when you need a positive outcome. I needed to be smothered with the right message and have it repeated over and over until it sunk in. But I was also lucky in that I was receptive to it at the right time.

Even just posting here and venting my feelings about OM was tough, but necessary. I needed to have those feelings shot down and replaced with the truth. NOBODY else in my circle had done that - I'd never given them the opportunity - the only person I talked to was OM (who is the enemy).

I don't think I would have done anything that BH asked. I was feeling so alone. For me, I really did have to pick it up on my own.

I do think your wife should read it, but I don't what would be the best way to suggest it. In my opinion, she has to want to.

@athena99: Expect it to get a bit worse before it starts to get better, okay? The withdrawal pains were very difficult for my FWW. She lashed out, was sullen and withdrawn, and it was an extremely difficult time. TELL your husband how you are feeling. Don't throw the OM in his face, but be willing to say if you are sad, happy, feeling withdrawal, etc. And the usual thing to ask for if he wonders how he can help is "hold me", "clean house with me", or something like that. Do something together.

Withdrawal will suck. You're barely scraping the surface of it so far from a long-term affair. Expect it to take three to six months if you're typical. But be willing to ask for help from your betrayed husband, and be willing to meet the needs he asks for as well.

He has plenty to fix on his side of the fence, too. Once you've both read "Surviving An Affair", the next book to read aloud together is "Love Busters". That book will transform your life as you learn to avoid the behaviors that made one another miserable.

You're working on the triage (emergency room) care for your marriage right now. You've ended the affair. Your husband is informed. You're quitting your job if OM doesn't. The next step is to establish your three Conditions For Recovery together. These usually are:

1. No contact for life with the other man.

2. Decide with your husband on "extraordinary precautions" you can put into place to prevent recidivism. At a minimum, these usually include
A) Changing your phone numbers
B) Changing your email addresses
C) If social networking was used to further the affair, abandon the social networking sites.
D) Absolute radical honesty with your husband about your feelings and experiences throughout the day. Don't spare him your struggles with NC; he needs to know.
E) Complete transparency into all your business. If a computer was used to further the affair, set up keyloggers on your computers that will mail him a report every morning of all your activity. Make sure your phone records are all sent to him, not you. Swap phones regularly so he knows you have nothing to hide on your phone.

3. Immediate commence work together on a program for marital recovery, and plan on doing the coursework together over the next year or two. Dr. Harley outlines several such programs at http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi9000_courses.html . If both of you are motivated to recover together, then usually his recommended course of "Surviving An Affair", "Love Busters", "His Needs, Her Needs", and the "Five Steps to Romantic Love" workbook get the job done. It did for my FWW and me.


Once your triage is done -- NC in place, NC letter sent to OM (by your husband, not by you!), you & OM no longer working together, EPs decided on, and program for marital recovery commenced -- you'll start hearing more about things like Care, Protection, Time, and Honesty. Remember that until No-Contact is firmly in place -- it's not yet since you work together! -- you're still in the emergency room together, and the bleeding hasn't stopped.

Good luck in your recovery. Once you're completely over your longings for OM in six months or so, take a look at the "In Recovery" forum on this board.

How's it going today, Athena?