Ok. Aside from weekday evenings, how much time will you have alone? Any weekend days or nights?

Can you plan a night in a hotel combined with dinner and a fun activity?

Getting away from your house will help you avoid distractions.

Keep the fun activities up through the week. Set up dates in advance.

Ice skating (obviously a northerner talking - what climate are you in?), walk through the city, walk through a park, visit museum, attend sporting event.

What did you and H do together before you had kids?

Thank you athena for posting on my thread, as I went back and read your story from the beginning and seriously want to reach out to you. I feel so sorry for you and know the pain that you are going through and feel like if you can get through it, anyone can. Is it getting easier for you? Its so nice to have people out there who are in the same boat as we all give strength to each other, I believe.

A couple weeks ago, H and I stopped in a rural bar/grill for lunch and a beer and a game of pool. Haven't done that alone in a long time. Had a blast. We put money in the jukebox and sang along.

struggling - I felt the same reading your thread. Our stories are not unique and these lovely people here have seen it before - letting them help is a very good thing.

It is getting easier over all. Though I still think of OM a lot more than I should (wondering what he is up to, how his marriage is doing) I KNOW I made the right decision. I think I am still grieving over the loss of my friend. But it was a friendship that disrespected our marriages and had to end. I have terrible boundaries and need to work on that.

BH and I talked last night and agreed we are in a better place, though we still have the ups and downs. The downs frustrate me because I am disappointed in myself for letting them happen (I am lazy). But he pointed out that we are able to talk a lot better than before and he doesn't feel as anxious when we get into the hard stuff. A few months ago, he was on edge all of the time waiting for me to pack a bag and walk away.

To me, the plan is simple to lay out, but I am procrastinating on the action part. The UA part is CRITICAL. We have done a bit to rearrange our schedule, but with kids in sports, it is tough. At least we are down to 2 nights a week where the kids are at their activities until 7:30pm (it used to be 3). My antidepressants make me very tired and I often curl up with one of the kids to get them to sleep and BH wakes me at our bedtime. I am starting to exercise more in the hopes that will increase my energy levels - but finding that extra time in my day is tricky. I am not mentally strong right now and all of this takes will power and effort.

I had a rough time with post partum depression (untreated) and neglected myself a lot when the kids were very little. When I started to see that I could take time for myself, I went overboard and got very selfish (hence the A). I still need to shake those bad habits and start behaving like the person I want to be.

We will have a whole 7 days (Fri PM - Fri PM), so one weekend included. I am excited about planning things to do. We rarely spend time alone away from the house. I want to make the best use of our time and not waste it. This week is our opportunity to really kick start things, get into some good habits, and make a lot of $LB deposits. Hopefully enough deposits so that we keep the momentum going once the kids return.

With the kids taken care of, we will actually be able to commute together again for that week. Something we haven't done in years. It will be nice to have a guaranteed 1.5 hours a day to talk. In fact, starting in September, the kids will all be old enough to attend before/after school care so we will be driving together every day - I can't wait! Right now we share morning/evening duties for dropoff/pickup and it separates us a lot.

I just sent him an email - we are going to start planning our week Thanks for the encouragement.

Hello folks. Thought it was time for an update as I am in desperate need of advice again.

To bring you up to date, we have been putting in some good effort lately. The kids are away for spring break with their grandparents and we have done some bonding. We went away for the weekend and had a wonderful time. Not that MB is not a valuable resource (it is THE main reason why I have come this far), but I also picked up a bunch of other books on the subject of infidelity to supplement our healing and efforts to work through what my affair has done. I found one in particular, called �NOT Just Friends�, to be amazing. While I disagree with the author completely about her wishy-washy approach to no contact, she was bang on in representing my experiences as a wayward and I related to it. The book was great in that I read it aloud during our drive to and from our weekend destination and it was the perfect way to talk about how the affair started, continued and what we went through during discovery. I was able to bring up details that were difficult to do �out of the blue� as the book brought up the topics for us to discuss.

When the mini-holiday was up, we came home and planned a week of activities to do together, some recreational and some much needed chores. It was looking to be a fun time.

Then last night, he dropped a bomb on me.

When my affair first started, I had confided in a relatively close friend that he was also close to. I trusted her and took her into my confidence. Over the course of the affair, she gave me much advice such as �leave� or �tell him before he finds out on his own�.

Well, he tells me last night that 2 years ago, over 1.5 years BEFORE I told him about the affair, this mutual friend revealed it to him.

I was shocked to say the least. He held onto this knowledge for over 1.5 years and didn�t do anything about it. He let me spend so much time with OM � at work, at social events, car pooling, � the list goes on. I had no idea he already knew.

On the one hand, I feel even worse because he was struggling with this knowledge and it was killing him. He was inexperienced and had no confidence in how to deal with it. He said living in limbo was better than living alone. He didn�t want to reveal his knowledge of my affair for fear it would drive me away. I get this.

But now, what I also get is (and I know it is not fair, but it is how I feel):
- he didn�t care enough about me to stop me from sleeping with someone else
- it wasn�t worth his time to even research what to do about the situation or seek help
- he just did nothing and waited for it to fix itself

I always felt like everything else was always more important to him than me. But I felt awful saying it because �gosh, it just couldn�t be true�. I feel like those feelings have now been justified.

How am I supposed to respect someone who doesn�t even respect themselves?

I�m proud to say that we didn�t argue or fight about this. But I know he is hurting a lot and I don�t know what to do.

I did say to him that I need this to change. I need him to stop �doing nothing� and start doing something. Actions speak louder than words and he hasn�t done anything (in my opinion/view) to engage in this marriage on his own.

I had an affair.
I sought answers.
I ended the affair.
I sought counseling.
Our counselor sent him to another counselor (he had 2 sessions and stopped).
I sought answers on MB.
I encouraged him to come to MB.
I read books.

He � waited.
He � did what I asked, but not more than that.

I don�t see him getting involved unless I push him. I feel so alone and don�t know how to deal with this. I don't feel important to him, yet he says he loves me. Actions ... not words.

I still can't believe he knew all that time and did nothing. I know he was hurting and probably in shock. I need help in dealing with this properly.

Please help!

Hey, Athena! I was just thinking about you this morning, wondering how things were going! Good to see you checking in!

If this helps any, for some reason we see this a lot with betrayed husbands. They have absolute knowledge and come here with it. We tell them what they can do to end the affair and get their wife back, and then they argue with us and find reasons not to do it! Crazy, huh? I can only assume that the idea of taking on an authoritative role in killing the A is an idea that paralyzes some men.

I'm glad you've spoken out this way. Because this is confirmation of what betrayed husbands need to hear: their wayward wife will not respect them if they act like a door mat. Their wayward wife will assume the marriage is not important to the betrayed husband.

We've had whole threads dedicated to this very thing.

Athena, I have posted on Helo's thread as well.
I think the news you heard about from your husband about not saying anything about knowing about your affair has come as a shock to you, as did him finding out about your affair,
He decided that he loved you so much that he was willing to put up with 1/2 a marriage so he didn't have to lose you........
He was scared and was devasted by your choices, I'm sure he didn't feel like he had any right any longer to request anything from you......
Athena I think you have to understand that affairs turn people into human we dont' even know anymore, you with the affair, him by just sitting back and letting the affair fizzle out.......neither was right, both were hurtful, both were unloving acts........but we all do what we can to protect our own feelings and sanity.......
Maybe he was so hurt that he couldn't even imagine you leaving him for another man, it simple was to much for him to even approach you..............
You were more important to him than anything else, he could have said when he found out, get out, you have betrayed me and our marriage, but he didn't he held on to you in his way...........he could have just walked away himself, you two could be seaparated or divorced by now.......
We all make mistakes that don't make sense and the other partner is just trying to figure out how to hang on to their lives........
Just forget about all the mistakes of the past and just be happy in today and the future you two can build........
sure it's not what a lot of us would have done, but we all do what we need to in a very difficult situation, remember we have never had to deal with this kind of pain..........we simply don't know what to do

Athena, if a young girl were raped, repeatedly, and she didn't tell anyone for 1.5 years, would you be mad at her?

You were not the betrayed spouse, and you may not know what it feels like to be the one on this side of the fence.

Let me tell you a little bit about my story. My WH and I have been together since I was 16. I always knew he had female friends, I had male friends. He had 2 different women at work, who I called "work wives." These were women whom he worked closely with and spent his lunches, breaks, etc with them. They were at different times, but one after the other. I don't know if he had affairs with these women, but he definitely could have. I KNEW about them. I didn't stop it.

On November 9, 2007 at 119pm, I received a phone call from my WH workplace. It was a woman and she was telling me that my WH was going to lunches and breaks with OW. That he was leaving work early to be with her. I didn't even know about OW. I immediately called my WH and he came home. He told me that OW and he were "just friends." That the caller was an old friend of OW's and she had made advances on WH and he turned her down. That was why he figured that she had called me. She wanted to hurt OW and get back at my WH. I believed him. It's not that my WH is a good liar, I am a good believer.

There were many arguments about the "friendship" between my WH and OW. I KNEW it was wrong and I wanted it to stop. There were 2 YEARS of attacks and blowups(I am ashamed to say that I was full of AOs, DJs and SDs back then). I didn't know what to do. I often felt like throwing myself down stairs or crashing my car into a wall, just to end the pain. I was devastated and I didn't have "proof" of an A. I didn't know what to do. I felt lost and I felt like I was drowning. Then I found MB. Through MB, I found the courage to install a keylogger on our computer. I saw chatlogs. I was upset, but I now KNEW. I was able to put a plan in place. I grabbed onto MB and haven't looked back. It was my saviour.

See, I feel guilty because I "wasted" 2 YEARS of my life not doing anything. And the things I did do, were actually making my marriage worse. I still sometimes feel badly about what I did and didn't do for those 2 years. But, I look back, when I am not sad, and I realize that I wasn't ready then.

I think if you give your BH some slack, you will realize that he just didn't know what to do.

He could have done so many things differently, and so could have you.

My dear, you were an adulteress. You need to clean up your side of the fence. Even if this marriage doesn't get saved(and I see GREAT potential here), you need to heal YOURSELF. You need to make amends for what YOU have done.

Maybe this isn't the action you were looking for, but if he didn't love you he wouldn't have stayed for 1.5 years while you were actively engaged in an affair. Staying is action.

Do you think there is a chance your D,BH was saying "gosh it just couldn't be true" and hoping against hope you weren't having an affair for those 1.5 years?
You bet he was in shock. Men (all people, I suppose) deal with agony in different ways. In some respects, maybe bringing up the A and confronting it would have caused a lot more blatant, tortuous pain then sweeping it under the rug and hoping it wasn't true, or that it was over, or that you two were really ok.

The vets are giving you some sound insight and advice. I know you are hurting, but try to understand where your BH is coming from--a hellish place of pain, betrayal and fear. Should he have stood up and slain the dragon of your affair with his mighty, righteous blade? Yup. Every BH should have. But almost none of us do...not right away. Some never do. It's tough to slay a dragon and save your wife when she just stuck her own blade in your back.

You want him to be the hero and fight for your marriage--you want to respect him--but you also have to understand that he is human, men are not like we are in the movies, and wives have a great deal of power to build up--or destroy--the confidence, the manhood, of their husbands.

Thing is, this was totally in character for him. Before the affair, I felt like many things were just too much effort or not worth his time. Showering with me ... nope, not enough room in there - OMG ... it's not just about getting clean!

Neither of us was properly equipped to deal with real marriage issues and behaviours, so when troubles emerged, we didn't handle them properly. That is what set the stage for it to get to this current stage.

But now, here we are and I feel like I have been trying to make changes, all the while he sits on the sidelines and lets it all just happen. Surely to god our relationship is worth getting involved it?

He wasn't just letting it fizzle out. He had no plan. What hurts the most is that he wasn't trying to resolve his own issues - no research, no counsellors, no confidants, ... He just waited.

Athena, you said this on 01/06/11.

Last I heard (forgive me if I'm wrong) OM had been reassigned, but was still with your employer. I only read back about 15 pages so I might not know the full story... but...

Are you still in contact with OM at all? Does he still get brought up at work, do you have colleagues-of-colleagues talking about him?

These are all triggers that would keep you in the fog, and contribute to your struggles. And, while you seem to have a lot of positive progress from the last few months, you still seem kind of foggy to me.

You want to blame DH for not stopping your affair. You want to blame him for not caring enough to do X, or Y, or Z... I understand why you're hurt by thinking he doesn't care. But you were in the midst of an affair. It was your choice, your decision not to stop it. Not his. There was no way it could have been his decision. I promise you that every second that went by was torture for him. And you want to blame him for not "caring" enough to stop YOUR affair?

Extremely unfair and unrelated comparison to make. Helo is an adult. I understand his reluctance to confront me, but I don't understand how he could not seek out any guidance or help in that length of time.



You didn't have proof. He did.
You sought out help. He didn't.
Once you knew, you made a plan. He didn't.

I know it is unfair to compare to people's reactions. I just find it insulting that he didn't care enough to do anything about it.

And before you all point out that I am no angel (believe me, it is not forgotten) ... it doesn't mean that anything he does is automatically a non-issue.



I am making a lot of changes and I am proud of what I have learned about myself. I now know how I let a friendship turn into an affair. I now know what I should have done to recognize and avoid it. But I need Helo to start standing up for this marriage too. He can't sit on the sidelines and do more waiting for it me to fix it. He has been on the sidelines since before the affair - I need to see that change.

I recognize that Helo's confidence and self-esteem are shot - and it is my fault. I am looking for how to work through this new revelation - UA and POJA are not the tools I need right now.

I think we both need to see a counsellor and that maybe he needs one for himself to deal with his self-esteem issues. I don't have the right tools to help him through this on my own.

I am still reeling from this and my thoughts and feelings should simmer down soon. I just can't shake the ones that reinforce my nagging suspicions that I wasn't important enough to step out of his comfort zone for.

Well Athena I can see that you aren't happy with his part in the recovery, then say that don't say well he didn't stand up for me when he could have, I don't see either of you two standing up for the marriage, the marriage is in the place it is because of the lack of feeling safe for either one of you, and this is what needs to be worked on, that doesn't just mean you, it means both of you........
I was in a marriage as well that wasn't the greatest before my husband's affair, that is 1/2 my fault and I think we both have agreed to that, but the affair is another story, that was a selfish decision on his part and wasn't in my best interest or the marriage...........that in my book makes one extra mistake he has made, some times right or wrong I think he should tow the line more than me.....
But then the adult in me says that gets me no where, I have to accept him and the changes he has and is making.........all we can do is inspire someone to change how they act towards us and resenting them because they aren't living their lives how we want them to is wrong and it does not help the marriage in fact in my case that might have been part of the problem in the first place......
Affairs and relationships are about ourselves, we have to conduct ourselves in a loving caring way at all times and just be grateful someone loves us back warts and all..........
Most affairs end by themselves in a 2 year period anyway according to Dr. Harley maybe that was your husband's plan.......no one knows what is happening in someone else's heart.......I would just do what you want to do to love your husband and if he responds he responds if he doesn't he doesn't at least you will be conducting yourself in an honest, loving way.
I'll bet he will slowly start to change, teach him how to love you, don't make him guess, slowly talk about what you need, make sure you thank him when it is good for you............
He waited with no plan and you are still married, he could have done something based on the hurt he must have been feeling and be gone.....
This isn't over, just needs to be worked on.

Thanks for these helpful words. I do realize how I play a HUGE factor in his confidence and manhood and that I failed him so profoundly.

I need to find a way to work through this and get a plan for changing this behaviour and I don't think I am being unfair. I need to start showing respect and admiration to build up his confidence, but I also need to see him make changes too. I am scared that I can't make those requests since I am just a WS.

I was having issues regaining some attraction to him already and I know this revelation has set that back in a huge way. This roller coaster is making me sick, but I am not the only one who keeps it moving.

My first reaction is that he just doesn't give a ratsass about his marriage. That is evidenced by his do-nothing reaction. We have many men on this forum who act just the same way. They can't be bothered to get up off their dead [censored] and fight for their marriage and their children's family.

How does Helo explain his complacency?

And I am NOT excusing your bad [censored] at all. It is 100% your fault that you had an affair. But it is also very telling that he couldn't be bothered to fight for his marriage? SAY WHAT?

Nope, haven't seen him in 4 months - cold turkey. I am still feeling foggy - I told BH just a couple of weeks ago that I still missed OM (big step for me being honest with him like that). OM was my best friend and was meeting my needs so well. I haven't been getting those needs met by BH to that level, so I am still feeling like I am missing something.


I don't think I expected him to stop it, but I did expect that he would do SOMETHING to try and deal with it - maybe not directly with me, but for himself. Look up stuff on the internet on how to deal with a cheating spouse, find a counsellor to discuss what to do, ANYTHING!

I guess I am attracted to men of action and realizing that BH doesn't show this trait, set me back a great deal on my goal to become attracted to him again.

I don't want that quality in a husband. I need this to change. Just as I want to change so that I don't have the qualities he finds unappealing. I have made changes - I need to see the same from him.

I think he failed him in a much more profound way. You don't even come close.

Wimps don't appeal to anyone. I agree this is a terrible shortcoming on his part. It has not served him well.

And that is the direction I am looking for ... what next?