So, how can you tell if you are in a fake recovery (FR)? I have read some threads similar to mine, only to find out that the couple was in a FR and I want to make sure this doesn't happen to me.

I have followed Plan A (having FWH set boundaries, exposure, no contact letter, meeting needs, snooping, etc.). Is there something more I should be doing, or am I pretty safe from a FR because I followed the plan? If I'm safe from a FR, I think I might start a new thread in the recovery section. What do you all think?

Hmmm. Well, I haven't experienced a false recovery, but I would think the only real way to know one is in hindsight. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

I think you're doing great! Your WH is going to need time to get the concept of boundaries ingrained in his head. Remember, I mentioned that 'boundaries' was a totally foreign concept in my M. You think once you get 'all grown up' that all that stuff just comes naturally and works efficiently. Not so, as we've seen, sadly.

But the good news is that you are aware of them now! Just keep working with your WH to help him learn that boundaries protect both of you and will keep your M safe. Who wouldn't want that, right?

It would be great to get him on here and posting. Barring that, I'd print article off and read them together. I forget, did you get Surviving an Affair? That book was an excellent tool for my recovery.

Thanks Marital Bliss! We have been working so hard on recovery and it's good to know that someone thinks we are doing great.

My H seems to be doing pretty well with boundaries. He had a slip up a few weeks ago (he brought a co-worker to the airport), but he has done really well since then. We recently went to a dinner party at a neighbors house and he did really well with focusing on talking to men and avoiding personal discussions with women. I know it was difficult for him because he always wants women to think he's so funny and charming, but he did really well. I was relieved.

I have asked him to post on this website. He considered it, but hasn't gone through with it. I think he's worried he will be torn apart by some of the other posters. He has read a lot of things on the discussion forum though. We ordered Surviving the Affair, but by the time we received it we were already deep into plan A (we had already exposed, written the no contact letter, filled out the emotional needs questionaire and working on meeting each others needs). We are currently reading "His Needs, Her Needs - Building an Affair Proof Marriage," which seems more appropriate given where we are at this time. So far His Needs, Her Needs has been extremely helpful.

Yep. Same with my H. Your H has an EN for admiration. Stay aware of that and admire him! He's got to be an admirable guy - you picked him, after all!

Actually, repentent waywards who are trying to earn their 'F' are quite welcome here. We'll let him know if there are any patches of foggy thinking, though, as a way of helping your recovery.

There is limited patience for waywards who come here trying to justify their A. Or posters who come here with made up stories and waste our time. Those posters won't get quite the warm reception afforded serious posters.

Tell him to give us a shot.

I messed up.

One of my neighbors mentioned that she saw my H "talking to someone" near the bookstore on his day off (while I was at work).
I immediately assumed that he met OW, so I accused him of lying about NC. He denied the situation stating that he didn't talk to anyone. He said he was on his phone the whole time he was near the book store.

I have since confirmed that he was, in fact, on his cell phone during that time (according to the phone log, he was talking to his sister and then he talked to the doctors office), so he could NOT have been talking to OW! So NC is still in effect. YAY!!! I think my neighbor meant he was talking to someone on the phone.

Anyway, now my H is angry and is acting down and disconnected from me. He says he is frustrated that he is working so hard on recovery, but that I don't see any of what he is doing. He is upset that my first instinct is still to assume the worst.

I feel I am justified in assuming the worst. Should I feel justified? If not, does my H have a right to be upset about my false accusations?

I don't know if I should feel bad for falsely accusing him, or if I should be angry that he isn't more understanding about what I am going through.

Well, he's just going to have to suck it up and be patient for awhile. You've got every right to question things to make sure you're safe. You'd be foolish to assume the best. Hasn't he already shown you that? You're only responding to the poor hand he dealt you.

It's going to take some time for you to heal from this, hurt. Your mind is currently in 'protect' mode. Don't feel bad that you feel this way. Your WH has more than earned your hard scrutiny.

I told my H after his A that one of my conditions for recovering the M was that I would do whatever it took in order to feel safe. He needed to understand that going in, or all bets were off.

Midway through our recovery I questioned something (can't remember now what it was - something small) and he said "I don't think I deserve a lifetime of this." I looked him squarely in the eye and said "You know my conditions. If you don't think you're up to my scrutiny we'll have to go our separate ways." And he knew I meant it. He shut up.

Thanks MaritalBliss! That makes me feel better. I know I have a right to feel the way I do, but I just need a little affermation from others sometimes.

I have another question though. I have access to my H's work emails. All of his emails are about work. I haven't noticed any personal conversations, but I have noticed that one of the women he manages often puts smiley faces in her emails to him (again, all content is work related aside from the smiley faces), but then my H often adds a smiley face in his responses back to her. I think this is very unprofessional and could lead to a friendship between them.

Should I say something about this or am I just being petty and picky? I don't want to Love Bust my H by constantly naggin him about his boundaries, especially after falsely accusing him of breaking NC. But, at the same time I know I need to be O&H about how I feel.

So basically I need to decide between doing a Love Buster (annoying habit - nagging) and being O&H by telling him the smiley faces make me uncomfortable.

Advice?

I would not consider it a LB to speak to him about this at all, for a couple of reasons. First of all, it is inappropriate for a married man to send a woman an email that has happy face emoticons in it. Unless it's to his sister

Second, you'll be doing your WH a favor by letting him know that it is very unprofessional to send a work email with an emoticon in it. I don't care who it's going to - funny pictures have no place in a work email. Suggest that he use this rule of thumb: would a potential employer see that email and be impressed by your H? Would his current employer see that email and be impressed by his professionalism? That's not something he should risk, for your M OR his job reputation.

I just finished reading through this entire thread and I want to say I am impressed with the great job you are doing. You have listened to the seasoned vets and read the material and are following through with everything you can. The only thing I can think of that might be of help is to read Surviving an Affair, an excellent book that you'll wish you'd read Day One. And Dr. Harley would have been a better choice for marriage counseling, but I understand finances are an issue. (However, Divorce is much more financially devastating than any marital counseling costs.)

I don't see any reason H can't come on here and post...I think like was already mentioned, the ones that get hammered are the ones that aren't accepting responsibility for themselves, are super fogged or blaming others for their situation. If he wants honest help in putting the marriage back together, posters can help him with their suggestions. We, after all, have been through it.

You mention worry about a FR, I think there is no guarantee, some people are expert at fooling people and if that's their intentions, they can pull it off for a time. However, you have your greatest chance of success by following all of the guidelines and being honest with yourself, not making excuses for him, paying attention to red alerts, listening to your own instincts, etc. You seem to do very well with that and in voicing yourself to your H. O&H goes a long ways as does building those safeguards in place like boundaries. Sometimes WHs balk at boundaries but they need to understand the reason for them isn't restrictive, but to safeguard the M.

When I look back at the time surrounding my (now ex) H's affairs, I can see we were doomed...I see so many red flags that I should have recognized and paid heed to...it wouldn't have changed anything ultimately because he was unwilling to do what was needed to save the marriage, but it would have saved me time and ultimately money. One was his stalling me about working close to home so he could be with me during the week as well as weekends. At first he seemed genuinely sorry he'd hurt me but it wasn't long and he was trying to gloss over it...he did not accept full responsibility for his actions as he should have. It's very important that they man up and "take it" when they have to go through the aftermath of their actions...namely, our questioning them. If they have to go through a lifetime of that, well, who brought that on? It takes time for us to get comfortable and even then we need to continue awareness and boundaries in place for the rest of our lives.

Good luck to you, I think you have a very good chance of recovery in this marriage, so long as vigilance is continued.

Thank you so much for your positive comments! I truly appreciate that you took the time to read my thread and provide feedback!!!


I do plan to read Surviving an Affair. Most of the chapters were available on this website, so I had printed them off and read them with my H before we received the book. I'll probably read the rest of the book on my own sometime.

At this point, my H doesn't want to read the rest of that book because he feels that we have already "survived" the affair and we are now rebuilding our marriage. He wants to finish reading HN,HN and then he wants to read the Love Busters book. Honestly, I'm just happy that he actually wants to read marriage books, so I'm not going to complain about which ones he wants to read.

I will consider counseling with the Harley's if our efforts to recover on our own do not work out. Right now, Plan A seems to be working for us, but if NC is broken or my H doesn't fix his boundaries, I will definitely start counseling with the Harley's. I'm hoping it's not necessary though.


I have asked him to post again, but he is just not interested. He doesn't like to talk about the A anymore. It seems to make him uncomfortable. I think he hates the feeling of guilt he has when it's brought up. He just wants it all to be over so we can move on. I can understand that. Who wants their mistakes repeatedly brought up? I just wish it was that easy for me to let it go.


I do think my H has been able to "man up" and take responsibility for the affair. He has acknowledged that his boundaries are poor and he is working to fix the problem.

Last week, I told him I was uncomfortable that he added smiley faces to his emails to his co-worker and he said he would stop doing that. He even told me that he was happy that I told him how I felt. He is certainly open to fixing his boundary issues. I'm really happy with his efforts. I just hope he can keep it going long term...only time will tell I guess.

If your husband was taking responsibility he would man up more and read ALL of SAA, the whole book is good, not just part, and he would do whatever would help, including coming here. It's not your responsibility to fix the marriage, it's up to BOTH of you. It doesn't matter that he feels guilty or embarrassed, he needs to own responsibility. Don't excuse him, he needs no excuses. Don't let him off the hook. If he only goes partway, your marriage will go into false recovery and you'll be back where you were only it will be worse the next time. I've been there! We want to excuse them because to hold them accountable makes it all more real and admitting there's a problem is always harder than saying you're recovering. The truth is, recovery is not comfortable or easy, it's not for the fainthearted, but the goal that needs to be kept in mind is recovering the marriage...not to be the same as it was before with it's disastrous results, but better than before.

Thanks for your feedback. I'll talk to him again about reading Surviving the Affair. I'm sure he would read it with me if I told him it was important to me, but my point was that he WANTS to read HNHN. I think that is a great sign and proof that he is taking responsibility.

He has never liked discussion boards. He has never posted or read discussion boards before. It's just not his thing. Again, I'm sure he would post here if I told him it was important to me, but I don't want to make him do anything he doesn't want to do.

Honestly, I think it's pretty normal for men to be disinterested in reading marriage books and discussion boards. In fact, when I stated earlier in my thread that my H wanted to read marriage books, I was told that men don't like to read marriage books and that he was just telling me what I wanted to hear. So, I don't think it means that he isn't taking responsibility just because he doesn't want to read Surviving the Affair. He is just being O&H about which books he has more interest in reading.

All I know is that I'm HAPPY he actually WANTS to read His Needs, Her Needs with me. HN,HN is an excellent book that is designed to make our marriage better. I'm not going to complain about that.


Believe me, I have not made any excuses for my H. I have NOT made any of this easy for him. In fact, there have been times over the past three months when I made his life a living hell. I will never excuse his adulterous behavior. Never.

I'll agree with you that a lot of men don't like to read. My H is the same way - unless it's the sports page, of course.

So I read much of the book to him. I also printed off a lot of things from this site and read them to him. That worked pretty well. (Opposite how I would be - I'm almost immediately distracted by being read to and prefer reading the material myself. Being read to seemed to work for him better, though.)

True. Far more than 50% of the marriage books sold on the market are bought by women.

Dr. Harley's books (HNHN, at least) is designed to appeal to a wife to buy and a husband to read after it is handed to him by his wife.

For non-readers, there are lots and lots of great Marriage Builders options:
* Marriage Builders radio: in addition to five shows a week available freely on the net, there are also show archives with thousands of hours of material
* Audio editions of several books, including HNHN and FiLSiL
* Audio material included in the home study and seminar courses (many hours of material)
* A couple of DVDs


I wouldn't complain about that, either, but, from the radio show, I've heard Dr. Harley state that HNHN is sometimes dangerous for the wayward spouse to read first, because he/she can form the idea that the betrayed spouse is responsible for the affair. SAA is supposed to make this clearer.

Thanks for the suggestions marital bliss. I actually have printed off many articles from this site and he was happy to read them. He is very open to reading articles, much more so than books. I think short articles seem less overwhelming than a whole book. Actually that's how I got him to read most of surviving the affair. I printed chapters off and handed them to him separately. That seemed to get a much better response.

Wow, thanks Marcos! I was not aware of that! I definitely don't want him to think that! He did already read much of SAA before we started HNHN, but I will talk to him about this issue to see if he forming the wrong idea about who is responsible for the affair. He has never tried to shift the blame to me, but I don't want him to start either.

I will ask him if he would rather listen to the radio show or DVDs. He might like that, but I think I can get him to read SAA if everyone thinks that's best. My H is actually the one that ordered all of the books (HNHN, SAA, and Love Busters). I didn't order any of them. So he did originally plan to read it. It was only after we looked at SAA after receiving it that we realized that we had already read most of it from the website.

So my H has said he will do whatever I need to rebuild our marriage. My only concern with reading SAA right now is that it will trigger memories of the affair for H. We are at the point where we are trying to avoid triggers and I feel like SAA will be a huge trigger for him and me. It could cause my H to experience memories and withdrawal and it will trigger pain for me. It just doesn't seem like the right book for this time in our recovery. Does that make sense or do you all think we should read it anyway?

I've read it and I thought it was an excellent book with guidelines or putting the marriage back together, usually it's read early on in discovery though. Maybe you could read it and share what you think are notable parts with your husband? Don't worry about making him feel guilty...it's not good to avoid those feelings, it's better to work through them...this isn't unlike grieving, where you need to experience it rather than avoid it, otherwise it doesn't get worked through, and it's still there waiting no matter how much time goes by.

Thanks Kaycstamper. I like the idea of reading SAA myself and sharing notable parts with my H. That way I can control the possible triggers. I think that's what I will do.

My concern isn't really about making him feel guilty (in fact, I would love to lay a guilt trip on him every day), but I'm worried that he will start thinking about the A and feel withdrawal again. We are to the point where we don't even mention the OW name to avoid a trigger. I just feel I need to be really careful right now because he just overcame withdrawal and I don't want him to regress. Does that make sense?

Maybe I'm just obsessing too much about triggers? My biggest fear is that my H will be triggered somehow, go back into withdrawal, and then break NC. Am I wrong to think reading SAA will trigger thoughts about the affair?