Helo,

The WS almost always says things that hurt IF they are being honest. Here is something you two need to figure out. It is the difference between "radical honesty" as espoused by Harley, and "brutal honesty" that is often confused with the former. One can say some very honest things in a way that shows that saying such will and does hurt the other. As opposed to saying them in a way that suggests the speaker doesn't care.

Frankly, honest, even painful honest done with care is a step toward recovery. What you two really need to learn is to communicate and learning to communicate sensitive, painful, embarrassing, information will make communication on other subjects easier to discuss.

You asked about the 15 hours, do recreational things, Xmas shop together, talk about the kids, talk about your dreams, her dreams, in short simply share your lives one on one.

It sounds to me like you are doing very well, for this early in recovery. Hang in there Helo.

God Bless,

JL

Okay, Helo. Where have you been? I know you've read your wife's thread. I think it's time to revisit your own and let some of the veterans help you through this. It sounds like you guys have been struggling.

Helo, if you live in a small town you are going to have a very hard time recovering your marriage. She plans on "accidentally" running into the OM as we speak. EVery chance meeting is a another chance of resumption; every chance meeting puts her back to day 1 of recovery.

Helo -

She has already been in contact! She had to send him an e-mail for work. The contact doesn't have to be a physical one. I would say she is back to Day 1 for Recovery already.

NO CONTACT for life.

Yes I've been off the grid for a while. Living through the highs and lows of the rollercoaster. We recently took a family vacation and it was symbolic of how things are going...the first half was great; I felt things were good between us, we had some time alone, then in the second half things seemed to go off the rails for her - and I didn't really understand why. She said basically that's the way it goes.

So now that we're back home we've got to hunker down again. I feel that we've been pretty good about avoiding love busters, being open and honest, and trying to meet each others top emotional needs. We need to work more on the emotional needs; I've completed the Emotional Needs questionnaire a couple times but my wife hasn't done it yet. She will do it this week. I think once we each have the information from each others questionnaire it will really help and provide more guidance for us.

The key thing that we need is to spend time together. We both know this and acknowledge this. But with two young children having school activities and extra-curricular activities, and no easy access to babysitting, it's pretty hard to get several hours of "us" time each evening without running into the middle of the night. I also tend to have a philosophy that parents sacrifice for the kids; We have made some changes to our schedules and bedtimes for them in order to create more time...but I'm not prepared to do things like move them away from their friends, move them to different schools or take them out of their activities just so that it's easier for my wife and I to create our time together.

We want to fix us, but we also have two great kids to raise. Is there no flexibility in the concept of 15-20 hours per week of quality/uninterrupted time? Is there no allowance for the other realities of life? Are we destined for divorce just because we can't always achieve 15 or more hours per week of together-time?

3+ hours every day until you can't keep your hands off each other, 2+ hours every day after that.

Learn to schedule your UA time, and the kids and thier "lives" are no excuse;

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8112_care.html

Unless you mean for your sacrifice to be teaching your children how to have a miserable, unloving, unfaithful marriage... how to settle... then, NO, you do not sacrifice your marriage for your children. It's an extreme disservice to your children.

As an adult who dealt with adultery, separation, divorce, arguing, dishonesty, and about every poor marriage example you can possibly think of growing up, I can tell you that using the kids as an excuse to sacrifice your marriage is bull$#!+.

You have been practicing lots of flexibility. How has that worked for you? Are you madly in love? If flexibility worked, then why isn't it working here?

You are asking this as if it is some arbitrary rule you have to follow. You don't have to follow any rules. You don't to have to even spend 2 seconds together. You are free to do whatever you want as a free American adult. This program is as flexible as you want to make it.

However, if you don't spend TWENTY FIVE hours of undivided attention together, this program won't work, you will never fall in love. If you know of another way to make it work without that step, please let us know.

If you don't do that step, then all the need meetin in the world will be of no effect because you WON'T BE IN LOVE. If you are not in love, you are very likely to get divorced.

You are asking us to be "flexible" about reality and unfortunately, reality is a very stubborn thing.

I know I haven't been on the forum for quite a while. Athena and I have been working on us, spending time together. We felt that things were moving forward. But yesterday I needed to reveal something that I'd been holding inside for a long time. Basically, I'd been lying to her and to all of you as well.

Here's what I had been holding back: I knew about her affair for a long time before she revealed it to me. About a year and a half before it was revealed, a mutual acquaintance told me about the affair. Athena had confided in the acquaintance some time ago and the acquaintance subsequently told me. I guess a real man would have confronted the WW immediately...I however did not. I was terrified that revealing my knowledge would push her away. I guess I thought that living in a lie, still with her, was safer than risking an end to our lives.

I'd like to think that knowing what I know now (like the tools we've picked up from Marriage Builders and other sources...a greater willingness on my part to open up and discuss difficult emotional issues)...I'd be better equipped to deal with this situation. And going back in time I'd like to think that I would have immediately confronted the issue - but I can't go back in time. I can't change the past.

I finally told Athena last night about this. About my knowledge of the affair. About my failure to do the only right thing and stop it in it's tracks a long time ago.

All the good work and feelings that we've recently developed has been undone I feel.

Today I'm finally confronting all the guilt about not stopping the affair when I had the chance. I allowed this destructive thing to continue by being unable to face reality, face my fears and confront my WW.

Now, instead of being a victim of an affair, I'm a contributor. I allowed it to continue. Athena now rightly questions my will, my fortitude, my motivation. I just allow things to happen to me...I am not an active participant in my life, in my marriage.

It's almost as if I validated a reason for the affair (i.e. she didn't do anything wrong since I don't care).

What did I do? What will I do now?

I don't even know if I deserve your help anymore.

Helo,

Well I am glad that you have actually come clean with the knowledge of the affair, it is strange to me to that you chose to just sit back and wait for the affair to end on it's own........don't think I could have done that, I'm sure you have been living a hell each day watching her do this.............
I can see why she would see it that you didn't care, I guess all you can do is try to convince her your fear was the biggest emotion for you, and that you couldn't lose her and chose to put up with affair to keep her in your life......
Tell her that losing her all together to the other man was more than you could have handled......
Helo, affairs turn normal people into people we don't know, this is the same for you. We are expected to some how make sense or rationalize someone else's decisions, we aren't experts, we are hurt beyond belief and just try to hang on to our lives......Right or Wrong.
I hope Athena can understand the concept of affairs turning us all into people that don't know what to do, I think all you two can do is forget all the mistakes the two of you made and work on being a new couple who make better decsions for the marriage and each other.......
Tell Athena, given a choice you would have done things differently just like she would have when it comes to the affair.
Just enjoy each other and today and all that is good, don't worry about yesterday. life is to short to make more mistakes.......
jessi

Helo, I don't fault you for what you did. You didn't know what you were supposed to do. You were doing what you thought you had to do to keep your marriage together. While it is now something that you wouldn't have done, I commend you for telling the truth about it. I was almost afraid that you were going to say that you had had a RA because of it. THAT would have been something to beat you up about.

How are things going on other fronts? Have you two figured out the UA time yet? Are you using the POJA?

How do you explain this lack of caring? I understand you can't go back and change it, but you sure can change the present. And if you cared so little in the past, what has changed now? I am just astonished you did nothing to save your marriage...

Well MelodyLane, I guess everyone is different.

Thanks for your feedback everyone. It will help me going forward.

Helo-

My situation was different, because I was actively being gaslighted, but my husband's OW's father ( follow all that? LOL) contacted me about 8-9 months before I went with nuclear with exposure and with getting my life back on track.

Knowing what I know now, I should have come here, and made a plan, and confirmed what the father said, and not what my wayward husband was saying.

So although I didn't do exactly what you did, I do understand the feeling of paralysis, the wanting to believe that if you were just good enough or better, or found a magic wand, it would all get better. I also understand wanting to find a place to bring your favorite pillow and hide underneath the stairs and wait to wake up from a bad dream.

But you know more now, and you know better now, and when you know better, you do better, so don't let that define your recovery. And don't let your inaction at the time ameliorate the severity of what she did, or give her a wedge into turning you into the story of the affair.

That's all on her shoulders.

Helo, your recovery is not going to go anywhere unless you lead with a PLAN here and get to work. This is not going to happen my magic. I would put together a PLAN, present it to your wife and get going. There is no reason for it to take 4 months to find a babysitter and to be no further along than you were on D-Day. That is ridiculous.

Your wife is over there whining that the program doesn't work and you two are not even DOING the program. If she won't do the program, I would strongly suggest you consider Plan B because your life is going to be pure hell unless you recover this marriage. It will be a crippled version of your pre-affair marriage, if you can imagine that. And I wager she will have other affairs if you don't fix this.

Were you interested in saving this marriage?

Helo,

I commend you for being so open and honest (O&H) with your wife! I'm sure that was a very difficult thing to admit to her! Great job! Maybe you can now encourage her to be just as open and honest with you?

Thanks for your feedback. We had kind of a rough day on Wednesday, but we got talking Wednesday evening and things improved again.

I may be naive, but I have no reason to doubt her right now. I have full access to her communications, I have access to the GPS tracking on her phone so I know where she is. I have no reason to think that the affair or any contact is continuing. I believe she is being honest with me...and herself.

Your marriage is not going to improve if you don't have a plan. A lull in the fireworks is not a plan. Having no plan is a plan to fail. Helo, you need a plan, not a lull in the fireworks. You have tried to achieve peaceful coexistance for a very long time and look at what that has wrought? A wrecked marriage. And it will stay wrecked until you fix the dry rot that is supporting your shaky marriage.

I'm glad you have been snooping to confirm no contact, but I was actually talking about being honest about what she wants out of the marriage. Now that the affair is over, you both can start working on the rebuild. She needs to complete the emotional needs questionaire and you both need to have an O&H talk about what you both truly need from each other to make the marriage work. Let her know that you will be open to whatever her needs are and do your best to accept them and make changes if necessary. It won't be easy, but it's the best way to clear the fog in her head.

I'm just one step ahead of you over here (my thread is Betrayed Again). I just recently broke through the fog in my FWH's head. Let me tell you, it was so nice to have him back again! It was like he was taken over by aliens for a while and then BOOM, he was back! It's truly amazing how the fog can make them different people. You will get your wife back too if you follow the MB plan together.

You know where her phone is.