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He has a job for sept 20 mins away. The kids will go to the same school. We have friends locally who are not 'their' friends and I run a photography business. Why can't they move?????
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He has a job for sept 20 mins away. The kids will go to the same school. We have friends locally who are not 'their' friends and I run a photography business. Why can't they move????? You can't control what "they" do, but you can take control of where you live. If you do not get yourself and your wayward husband (WH) away from the other woman (OW), you risk the chance of your WH resuming the affair. In addition, you will be miserable seeing OW all the time. If there isn't a particularly strong reason for you to stay there, then I think you should consider moving. That's just my opinion. I'm no veteran though, so maybe see what others here say...?
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Please help!
Now I walk in shame, I am no longer proud and our children have definitely been affected....as my daughter said, she is very disappointed and doesn't know if she will ever love him in the same way ever again.
Sorry for the long post - please help. I want to recover but do not know how to. Hi AEK, So very sorry you had to come here. Maybe i can help you from one betrayed spouse to another. I don't think anyone has addressed this yet. I too felt shame, I still get angry (three years later), I was proud. We were the "golden couple", and our kids knew immediately as well. Do not feel shame. His sin is his sin, not yours. you didn't do this and it was not your fault. Anger is normal. It's what you do with the anger that matters. Direct it towards restoring your marriage. Take the angry energy and use it to work on fixing the boundaries, meeting emotional needs and be honest with him and yourself. I though our kids would hate my wife forever... Thankfully, it is not the case. She is making strides towards recovery (we still have a ways to go), and my kids love her and respect her now more than before. Not because of the affairs, but because of how she has responded after. We rarely do things perfectly (well, never actually), but we continue to strive and work. This builds a common bond and love grows from this. As for pride... I was prideful of our marriage and when things became stressed, it blinded me to some of the warning signals. My pride kept me from meeting her needs and her meeting some of mine. It is a painful thing to admit, because it always comes before the fall. That is a truism. What I have learned the hard way, and strive to do now is to walk humbly, speak circumspectly and work hard with both eyes wide open. Be encouraged. There is hope. The kids can be restored to your husband, you can love him more and better. He can improve his boundaries, put eP's in place and earn your trust. In time he can love you more than you ever dreamed possible. Be strong AEK1, you can do it. Listen to the folks here. They are experienced and knowledgeable. A humbled newbie, CV
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If he wants the OW, he is welcome to her - she is trash and he would realise that very soon.
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AEk1,
Your story is the same as mine... in fact I could have written your first post myself. I decided to try to save the marriage because that POSOW was going to steal my kids, husband, house, money and life over my dead body. Keeping it all together was my revenge. My plan was to try wholeheartedly for one year and then revisit my decision.
Do you think your kids deserve this chance to have their parents together? Do you want to share them with POSOW?
I will let the vets advise you on NC letter, boundaries, et al.
Listen to them - they have a plan that gives you a good chance.
And that is what you need - a PLAN.
I will tell you from my personal experience that you CANNOT run in the same circles as POSOW. She will drag you down every time you see or hear about her. Don't give her this power. Take control of your life and move as far as you can.
It is not fair for the kids to have to interact or see this POSOW who they thought was a friend and who almost destroyed their world. It kills them!
ME: BW
HIM: FWH
Married 18 yrs
DDay 09/2008 and 12/2008
Recovered
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Sorry, I hit submit before I was done.
I wish that I had known about MB when I was going through this. I floundered around trying to figure out how to keep it together. The principles and the personal experience of the posters here are golden.
Really, get yourself and your kids out of her circle.
Stay strong. You will make it through this.
ME: BW
HIM: FWH
Married 18 yrs
DDay 09/2008 and 12/2008
Recovered
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AEK,
You can survive this affair. It takes work and it takes time.
It also takes a husband who must do work of his own as well. He cannot just "want you to move on" - because that is NOT the solution.
You deserve to have each and every question answered with the complete truth. You deserve this because you deserve the truth of YOUR LIFE.
I want you to find a thread on here called "Joseph's Letter", and print that letter out. Give it to your husband to read, because he needs to understand exactly why your questions deserve truthful and complete answers.
I live in a town where I have to deal with seeing the OW. She has now been elected to a political position, so I see her in the news, too. I suppose I would hate her, but that takes actual effort, and she isn't worth any. My hope is that one of the other betrayed wives will expose her for what she is. Wouldn't that be great? I just do not have the energy or ability at this point to do it, because of life situation right now, or I simply would.
The anger you feel is quite normal. My guess is that when you begin working the MB plan and you get your husband on board, you will begin to feel better.
there is hope
work on the emotional needs questionnaire, and start meeting his emotional needs
and STOP blaming yourself, because he is 100% to blame for his affair
and yes, it is no surprise he picked an ugly fat chick
SB
Lucky to be where I am, in a safe place to get marriage-related support.
Recovered.
Happy.
Most recent D-day Fall 2005
Our new marriage began that day. Not easily, but it did happen.
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Is she worse because she suggested the affair to him or is he as bad as him?
I am sorry that there is no answer to your question (above) that will be satisfying. If your husband instigated the affair, it means he made awful, horrible choices. On the other hand, if the OW instigated it, it means that your husband was a stupid, mindless dupe with absolutely no sense of proper boundaries. Which hypothesis do you prefer?
In fact, that's a false dichotomy. As Melody Lane told you, they are both equally culpable. Which is to say, there is no mitigation to be found. Your husband should have known better than to establish an emotional attachment with a woman who was not his wife. He may not have realized, when he was putting his first foot out on the slippery slope of an emotional affair, that by allowing her to meet some of his more important emotional needs, he was setting himself up for an affair; but he nevertheless made every choice to carry the relationship to each successive step. Just because she may have initiated, doesn't mean that he was forced to reciprocate, or to even continue the relationship. Fact is, he thought he could get away with indulging himself in just a little more repartee, just a little more banter, just a little more flattery, just a little more of that "special" feeling of extra attention that she was giving him, a lingering touch on the shoulder -- and so he CHOSE to allow it, and CHOSE to condone it, at every step of the way.
Even if (as I still consider plausible in my own case) he might plausibly never have gone out looking for an affair if she would have never crossed his path in life, that's scant mitigation, because it's counterfactual, i.e., it didn't happen that way in real life -- it'd be kind of like me saying "Hey, if I'd been teleported to Mars as a child & lived among a colony of sexless aliens, I'd never have had an affair, so I must be a good guy." Well, whoop-dee-doo for me then! But in real life, he made (just as I made) plenty of deliberate, selfish, rotten choices -- hundreds of them -- to get into the affair & carry it on. There's no room for "Woulda, coulda, shoulda." Too late for that.
I wish I could say that, in the run-up to my affair & during it, someone had held a gun to my head, or that someone had drugged my coffee & made me not responsible for my actions back then. But that's not how it was. At the core, the reason I had an affair -- the reason your husband had an affair, and the reason anyone has an affair -- is that we were acting out of complete selfishness.
That isn't a satisfying answer, but there is no better or truer answer that you'll ever find.
In order for you to recover your marriage & to give yourselves a chance of making your marriage better than what you had before the affair, your husband is going to have to acknowledge this core selfishness in his conduct at the time; Because if he doesn't acknowledge it, then he can't resolve to change it. If he faces it square-on, with no pretense of trying to evade responsibility for his lousy & selfish choices, then it's possible for him to become the guy you'd like him to be. But there aren't shortcuts. Blaming the OW for her own reprehensible choices isn't wrong, but it would be a mistake to blame her one iota for your husband's equally reprehensible choices. If he is not actively taking this blame, then it may be one reason why your recovery is off to a sluggish start
Me: FWH, 50
My BW: Trust_Will_Come, 52, tall, beautiful & heart of gold
DD23, DS19
EA-then-PA Oct'08-Jan'09
Broke it off & confessed to BW (after OW's H found out) Jan.7 2009
Married 25 years & counting.
Grateful for forgiveness. Working to be a better husband.
"I wear the chain I forged in life... I made it link by link, and yard by yard" ~Jacob Marley's ghost, A Christmas Carol
"Do it again & you're out on your [bum]." ~My BW, Jan.7 2009
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If he wants the OW, he is welcome to her - she is trash and he would realise that very soon. AEK1, I don't know if this will help or not... I sit on our Church's session with the three other elders. We have been given care of the congregation and the issue of wants comes up all the time. Everyone has wants, and they seem to change constantly. I have wanted a smooth sailing career and normal kids. What I got was not that... I have a 20yr old with a 18"mohawk, a daughter with one arm thanks to a birth defect, and a pretty thankless (but rewarding) vocation. The confusion come in when we have trouble telling the difference between wants and needs. Your spouse may feel like he "needs" someone else, but what does he really need? One type of need is really just a want and the other is a genuine need. I differentiate between them as felt needs and real needs. What your husbands real needs are, is you, the kids, and a healthy marriage, because it really is the only way he will ever be successful. You are in a type of "ground zero" right now (and so is he) and this produces what is called a fog. He is not thinking right because of his exposure to the OW. You are stressed, angry, sad, hurt, and if you felt like me, I felt like my chest would explode and I would simply die. What you really need is the same thing your husband needs. Restoration and reconciliation. Don't let him go without a fight. He may think it was all good craic, but it is really just a lie disguised as fun. It is eating away at him and killing him inside. If you love him, fight. In addition to doing the materials here, have your husband do them as well. Make lists of pros and cons (I am a list type of guy). What are the benefits of staying with him and having a healthy marriage as opposed to separating and never solving anything between you? Nothing worth having is ever gained by just letting go. Sorry this is so long. I want to encourage you to fight for him. Dig into the trenches, wipe the tears, sweat and pain away and stand for what you want. What you need. You can do it. Many here have. This forum has encouraged me to stand and fight again. To look at my FWW and see that so many of the things that I fell in love with her over are still there. Buried, yes... Some... dusty, yes... some, polished? more and more every day. but not without a fight. Hang in there. It *DOES* get better. CV
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I would love to counsel with Steve but I can do this from the Uk? Is the price of $995 for the counseling? Would love to find the money to do it but with no job, it's hard.
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OK get this - last night he said that he still had feelings for her. He missed her company and the physical side of their relationship. Do I throw him out? Is it normal 5 months in that he still has feelings for her?
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OK so I am really trying but it is having the reverse affect. I am pushing him away. I cannot help by talk about OW and is very nasty terms. He then becomes defensive of her which really hurts. There is no contact between them but he still 'cares' which I guess is acceptable/normal; after all their affair was discovered.
How do I wake up positive? How do I stop thinking about the OW? How do I cleanse her from my brain. I know both my husband and I want to grow old together but how do we do this when there is so much anger/resentment around. I want to feel sexy and loved again. I was to feel proud of myself. I want to have my family back together.
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You have to move away as far as possible. That is prerequisite of recovery (which itself takes years but you havent even started it). Of course you cannot stop thinking about OW if you see her!
You can have your life back but before that you have to remove OW from your life.
And please snoop - how can you be 100% sure if there's no contact?
Me (FWH) 44
Mrs_Recon6mo (FWW) 42
Married 22 years
2 Children 20 and 22 years
Last D-Day for me: May 2009
Last D-Day for her: October 2008
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OK get this - last night he said that he still had feelings for her. He missed her company and the physical side of their relationship. Do I throw him out? Is it normal 5 months in that he still has feelings for her? AEK, are you snooping?
D-Day 2-10-2009
Fully Recovered and Better Than Ever!
Thank you Marriage Builders!
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OK so I am really trying but it is having the reverse affect. I am pushing him away. I cannot help by talk about OW and is very nasty terms. He then becomes defensive of her which really hurts. There is no contact between them but he still 'cares' which I guess is acceptable/normal; after all their affair was discovered.
How do I wake up positive? How do I stop thinking about the OW? How do I cleanse her from my brain. I know both my husband and I want to grow old together but how do we do this when there is so much anger/resentment around. I want to feel sexy and loved again. I was to feel proud of myself. I want to have my family back together.
Even allowing himself to entertain positive thoughts of OW will short-circuit his emotional withdrawal from her. You should snoop (as others have advised) to ascertain that there's no contact between them; it may be that the last contact was so recent that his withdrawal clock has been reset closer to "zero" than to "5 months" (which is where it ought to be if the affair had been properly ended).
Beyond this, you will NEVER be able to feel comfortable & emotionally safe with him until he takes certain steps & follows through on certain actions upon which he has yet to take or follow through.
First, you NEED to read Surviving An Affair. Both of you. If you do nothing else, do this. (You may wish to pay heed to the points regarding LoveBusters, including Angry Outbursts -- and you can look them up on this site.)
Second, does your husband care about your marriage to talk with a guy who was a former cheater, who can go over what he's doing & not doing and what he's thinking & not thinking? If he's serious about "growing old together" with you then send him here, have him start a thread of his own. I'll give him advice from the vantage point of someone who has been in his shoes, and it's free. (Not to mention the even-better bonus advice from plenty of betrayed & former wayward spouses who've been at this longer than I.) That's my challenge to him.
I hope he doesn't intend to rely on his own best thinking & try to recover your marriage his way. Because his way, his "best" thinking, is what got him into this mess.
Me: FWH, 50
My BW: Trust_Will_Come, 52, tall, beautiful & heart of gold
DD23, DS19
EA-then-PA Oct'08-Jan'09
Broke it off & confessed to BW (after OW's H found out) Jan.7 2009
Married 25 years & counting.
Grateful for forgiveness. Working to be a better husband.
"I wear the chain I forged in life... I made it link by link, and yard by yard" ~Jacob Marley's ghost, A Christmas Carol
"Do it again & you're out on your [bum]." ~My BW, Jan.7 2009
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I am not sure he wants me anymore. last night was ugly - I called her lots of names, I was disrespectful and this morning he is very off with me and seems to have lost the will to make things worse. Why is all the pressure on me to make things right and show he the right signs. Me being negative is really not helping the situation but how do you dust yourself down and get on with life?
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I guess I am trusting him that there is no contact. I have access to nothing so would have no idea anyway.....
A
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No snooping....nothing to see to be honest. I need to trust him otherwise i will go mad.
We had lunch together but I could tell he wanted to be alone. My constant questioning and being rude about her has pushed him away totally. He was sol cold today. I tried to explain that I am upset and angry and yesterday found a necklace that triggered off my emotions once again. It was a necklace that she gave me one week after my father died and one week before she approached my husband about an affair. She gave it to me saying that I was 'her best friend ever'. I wore it for his funeral and now that makes me feel sick. yesterday I saw the necklace and sadly for my husband a nice day turned in to a terrible evening. Wht is best for me? Keep trying? Trying to be positive? Forgive him and move on?
He read some of the forum last night and said 'well that Forum is floored'. This made me feel worthless; I was hoping his reading it would show him how sad and hurt I am. This was a silly comment but it made me made and I then ranted about the OW, her physique and personality. He was quite defensive and found my ranting and use of language ugly (I agree) and then said that he still hand feelings for her and missed her. He has said that my constant verbal abuse of her has meant that he has thought of her a lot more than if I had kept silent.
Today is a bad day - I have lined up all my pills to see if I have enough. I feel lonely, I feel as though I have failed and now I think my husband is giving up on me.
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OK so he is speaking well of her but I guess this is him being 'honest' at last. She never did anything wrong in his eyes. He doesn't see/accept that she is a manipulative woman because he enjoyed the attention. How long is it acceptable to be ok with him having 'feelings' for her?
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