I made it in to work and had some time to really read over your posts.

First of all:



yes, TG, has there been past infidelity in your M?

Next,


OK...that's where you need to stop. You admit that you did wrong, and you understand that it will take time (and patience!) to possibly restore your M. That's right-on.

But then...


Yes, you are justifying! And please, I am not calling you a horrible person. I am saying your actions are horrible. I am a FWW, I have been there, done that.

You asked about compensation. I hope you've read up on "extraordinary precautions" (EPs). You need to put those into place regardless of whether you and your BH are together or separated. The first one needs to be: 1.) ELIMINATE FB. You showed you had weak boundaries and part of the equation was FB and it's easy access to pretty much anybody you had a past relationship with. I should know, my A started on FB.

A poly is also an option. I took one. You have to understand that your words are worth nothing to your BH right now, and actions are everything. And even then, he is not going to trust/believe your actions are genuine. How much belief he can have in you depends on more than the A itself...how honest are you being now? Does he know everything? I mean everything??? Do not hold anything back for fear of "hurting your BH more" or fear of "losing him forever." Again, been there, done that. It is not a question of hurting him more...you've already dealt a mortal blow. If you're withholding from your BH, you're only trying to protect yourself - not your BH or your M.

Your actions have to do the talking for you. You need to try to meet your BH's needs, whether he lets you or not. And sometimes, all you can do is work on cleaning up your side of the street, and trust me, hon, as a wayward, we all have cleaning up to do.

We had our firstborn 11 months after getting married. Struggles began, life was hard as we were both working, babies add stress to any marriage especially a new marriage. I discovered some things about a year after she was born (phone calls, internet porn access, dating hotline calls, etc. that he had been doing while I was pregnant and after having our child. I had the proof, phone bills, internet logs, etc. I confronted him, but he never admitted to any of it or said he was sorry. There was never any resolution. I wanted to go to counseling then but he wouldn't go. As far as I know there were no meetings but lots of phone calls and hits on the internet sites. We separated for about 6 months, during which time I did date another person. I chose to leave, he begged me to stay but he wouldn't admit so I just couldn't. I wasn't seeing anyone while we were still living together. Nobody in his family and only a few of mine know about these things, still to this day. They had been going on for over a year without my knowing. We actually had lawyers involved then, I was given custody of the baby, he had visitation, and we were apart for 6 months. I decided to try to repair then because of the baby and because I loved him and didn't want to be a victim of divorce. It was hard to get over especially because he still denies what happened. There is a lot of details I won't go into because of time and length, but it was very ugly and I'm not sure we ever really recovered from it. I resented that he wouldn't confess and he resented that I dated someone else. He didn't want to talk about it at all, just wanted to forget and move on. So I tried to...I KNOW how he feels because he did it to me. The difference is I admitted my wrongs and asked him for forgiveness and to try to rebuild. He never did that...the anger and resentment never really went away for me because he lied and to this day still hasn't admitted or apologized.
To answer other questions, I have offered to close FB, but he has access so he can see anything I do on there. He says he doesn't care and I can do/see/date whoever I want because he doesn't care anymore. Yes I wrote a letter for no contact, and made a phone call, which there hasn't been since end of Feb. I have written numerous letters/emails/texts/and called H to tell him what I can/will offer to do which is basically anything he wants of me at this point. I am not sure about the boundaries still, need to read more about that and EPs but I am not in situations where I am around other men, and that wasn't the problem. I knew this person, he friended me, it wasn't somebody I hooked up with at work/bar/etc. There isn't a history of getting hooked up with other men I don't know. He has complete access to any account or password, I am not in a situation where I am around the OM or any other males for that matter. There hasn't been a history of other affairs throughout the marriage, other than the above mentioned.
I guess this is where I am: I know I made a mistake. I admitted it, I've offered counseling together because I thought it was a step in the right direction and a place where we could get ALL the junk out in the open, from the past too because I think it all has to come out to be resolved. I never demanded he go, and its his choice, but I thought offering was a step in the right direction. He isn't interested. I think because he doesn't want his junk brought out....so maybe I am justifying, but I think unless you know the whole story you don't understand my situation.....hopefully it is more clear now. I was wrong, but he hasn't been perfect either. I'll agree to anything he is willing to agree to. If I give passwords up, then he should do the same. If I take a poly, he should do the same. If I agree to hand over the phone, he should do the same. I have offered those but he won't budge. Again, the denial and not wanting past brought out is likely to blame. I know it doesn't justify what happened recently....not trying to do that at all. I just don't understand why my behavior is so horrible (it was) and what he did we can't talk about....doesn't seem quite fair to me. He isn't the lone victim here...

Sounds like he has passed on that offer.

You need to take a step back and focus on yourself.

Breathe ... and look at your situation today. He is currently not living with you. You have no control over him. He may or may not divorce you, he may or may not forgive you, he may or may not change ... THAT IS YOUR REALITY TODAY!!!

All you have at the moment is yourself, so what are you going to do for you today? What actions are you going to do for you today? What is your plan?


....so maybe I am justifying, but I think unless you know the whole story you don't understand my situation.....hopefully it is more clear now. I was wrong, but he hasn't been perfect either.

Blaming him, wanting him to be something different, begging him, pleading with him, is no plan and it will only make the situation worse.

There is nothing you can do today accept make a difference in your life.

Stop ... figure out what you need to do to get healthy. What actions do you need to do in order for you to forgive yourself today?

A Plan

1) Just Compensation - what can only you do today to give him just compensation? If that means leaving him alone and accepting his choices today, then you must do that.

2) Read SAA, HNHN, Lovebusters, this forum, and get counseling with Dr. H. Only for you Teacher. None of this will be for him.

3) Take time for yourself today. Take time for you. Get a massage, get your nails done, take a bath, visit a friend, volunteer at the homeless shelter, knit hats for the NICU babies, whatever you do just do!!!!

4) Determine where you want your life to be in 30 days, 180 days, one year, and five years. What are your goals? Find something to work towards (getting your hubby back isn't on the list). What do you plan to do for you?

You need to remove your BH out of this picture and focus on you. If he isn't willing to recover today, then let him be and recover yourself. Only time can give you the answers you seek, so today you must focus on healing you and focusing on what you need to become to be a better person and a great mom.

hooo, boy...ok, lots of stuff going on.

Yes, his behavior in the past - internet porn, dating sites, etc - was infidelity. It appears your M never recovered from that, for starters. You also dated while you were separated from your H, which is also wrong. Separated does not = single. I don't know how serious you were about your dating partner while separated, since you just mention dating "another person."

All of these past issues are compounding your current one, which is your A. It doesn't matter who it was with, it doesn't matter that you didn't cat around to bars and club-hop. My A was with someone I'd known in the past as well. I wasn't a person who bar-hopped. My H said to me that he never thought I was the kind of person who would do what I did. I was the good girl. Good family, stable childhood, parents in a happy marriage (over 40 years for them), etc etc ad nauseum. If anything, he'd said he would have thought he'd be more likely to cheat b/c of his past. However, HE had strong boundaries that he put into place and enforced - because of his background.

All I'm saying is that it doesn't matter who you are, or how you characterize the A. In the end it doesn't matter if the A was with an old flame, a coworker, someone you met in a bar. It is all infidelity.

I know you want to try and fix what was wrong in the past. I wanted that too. But you simply cannot address the past until you address the immediate damage from your A. Having a RA, even years later, compounds the original damage.

What you can do is focus on cleaning up your side of the street. Follow toughlove's advice. Get in touch w/the coaching center or email the radio show. There are things you can do to try and encourage a resistant spouse to get on board with MB. I did 2 coaching sessions w/Jennifer and she helped me come up with a plan to work on my LB's, meet my H's needs, and try to introduce him - gently - to MB. The thing is, though, you can only encourage, not force. Your BH sounds like he doesn't want to hear that right now. Begging and pleading will only make things worse. It makes you clingy and needy and unattractive.

My H moved out almost 4.5 months ago. He has told me he has no interest in reconciliation. It doesn't matter what happened in the past, it is the BH's decision to decide what he can or cannot move forward from. I've had to learn to accept that. I've reached a point where I know that I don't need my H, but I want him in my life. I've reached a point where I will accept what he is willing to give me, without pressuring him to come back to the M. Yes, it's hard. Many days I have no hope left at all. But I keep going. Maybe my M will never be restored. But I will be a healthier, happier woman and a better mother when I get through my own personal recovery.

If your M is restored, then you can start addressing what is not working in the relationship. But right now you need to give your BH the time and space he needs and focus on you. No dating this time around! I'd still cut out FB, allow your H access to anything he needs. Do that whether he asks or not. Focus on being a woman he would be proud to be with - and a woman that YOU are proud of being.

Uh... if you "dated someone else" while you were married, then this is the first time you have committed infidelity.

Sister, you need to correct your rectal-cranial inversion.

Thanks for the comments....I am looking for a counselor but was hopeful it would be something we would do together. Since it appears it won't be then I do plan to go on my own...just looking for someone I can see in person, locally, who has a good reputation for counseling and hopefully I can find a pastor or counselor with a Christian background. I will add that H has asked a few times for dinner as a family with the kids which I've done, and we see each other when kids are exchanged, but it seems to always end in fighting because every time I see him he makes comments or starts in on me telling me how terrible I am and how awful I acted....I already know that and having it pounded in my brain is only stomping the very tiny bit of self esteem that I have left if there is any at all. I wasn't a bad wife, and I too would consider myself a very "good girl". I don't drink, no drugs, go to church every week, don't even go out with friends.
I have been a good mother, pretty much taking care of most of the kids needs by myself because of his work schedule. All the appointments, homework, laundry, housework, meetings, drop offs and pick ups, etc. I took care of. The kids are 13 and 9, so there are quite a few years there I have been a very busy mom and wife. Plus I work full time even in the summer and have just finished graduate school as previously mentioned. I cooked meals just about every night, ironed all the clothes, generally kept the house tidy but not spotless. He would not argue with these facts at all and would tell you I took good care of him and the kids. He has said this to me himself. I come from a terrible background, broken home and verbally abusive father who left my mother with 3 kids for another woman when we were all grown. I also experienced repeated episodes of sexual abuse from a relative as a child/teen, from a family member but it wasn�t my dad. So, my past has been rocky and I have never had a stable male in my life until my marriage. Then within the first year the previously mentioned events with H occurred and I don�t think I ever got back my trust in him. He has lied to me on repeated occasions, not concerning women but other issues such as money, purchases, his whereabouts, and so forth.
It appears that my only choice now is to just let him have his space, but I don�t want that to send the message that I am done and don�t want my marriage back. I don�t want to push him away and be a nagging, whiney, clingy wife, and I guess that is what I have been. I have also been trying to take care of myself. I�ve been working out, lost weight (not that I needed to but the stress plus recent braces helped with that) bought new clothes as I can afford them, and spent lots of time working on the house I�ve moved into. He will occasionally tell me nice things about how I look and he will occasionally hug me. He even says he misses me and he is lonely, but those messages usually come late at night. I try not to contact him unless he makes contact first, so as not to appear naggy or needy. It seems like he wants to be around me but just can�t stand to be around me for very long. I am just lost as to how I should even act. I try to look my best around him, offer to do things I think he would like to do, and anytime he asks to see me I am available. He got very mad at me on Mothers day because I went to see my mom instead of spending the day with him, but he didn�t ask me until Saturday night before and I already had plans to spend the afternoon with her. He was angry and told me I always put everybody else before him. Not sure how else I could have handled that situation. Little things like that keep popping up, and it seems every move I make just makes him snap. I try to not get pulled into the argument but it is so hard to listen to him rant on and on about what happened over and over. When he starts yelling the name calling begins and he even does this in front of the kids. I just try to lay low and not upset him but some days I do it and don�t even know what I did to set him off. Just wish I had some pointers as to what I can do to minimize these blow ups and make our interactions more peaceful. I don�t understand why he would ask to see me if he says he doesn�t want the marriage back. I feel very confused but he says he just doesn�t know what he wants right now. I know that he loved me very much, and think that he still does. I know he is reeling from all this and that he needs time to sort through it all. I just want to know what I am supposed to do and how to act so as not to make the situation worse. I am doing what I thought was the right thing but maybe I�ve been going about it wrong. I am truly sorry for what I did, I have been completely honest with him about the A and I will do all I can to meet his needs but I don�t know what they are.

teachergirl, can you do us a favor and break your posts up into paragraphs? It is too hard to read like that. thanks

You have to do whatever you can to get yourself put first at the moment.

1) I strongly encourage with your background at least one phone call with Dr. H. He will allow you get a good start on a Plan that you need to execute.

2) Until you are healthy your marriage may have to put on hold. That doesn't mean divorce, but a just hold. If your husband is not willing to reconcile, then your only option is to reconcile yourself.

3) Continue to Plan A him if you desire, but keep in mind you need to establish some strong boundaries of your own. Dr. H. will allow you to figure out how to go about establishing these boundaries.

Teacher you are going to have to start today with you. You are going to have to the books needed to begin to heal you. This will be one of the hardest paths you will take in your life.

You need 1) Support 2) a Plan

Stop telling us about how your childhood and your husband have failed you. That does you no good as an adult. What you have to do is recognize you need to work on yourself to get you on the right path and that path is called, "Healthy!"

You can save your marriage by recognizing you are the only one you can control. You have to let go of your husband at the moment, and decide for your marriage, your children, and your health you must start on you today.

In time you will see how that is the most successful path to rebuilding a marriage, a family, and your children. That may or may not be with your current husband.

Your posts seem to be all about you.

You DID act terribly and awfully.

I'm sorry, you just stabbed your husband in the back and now you're worried about your self esteem?

Yes you were. "Good wives" don't get involved with other men.

But you DO have affairs.

If you were a good mother, you wouldn't have destroyed your family for purely selfish reasons.

I suggest you stop trying to convince people how good you were. Your actions speak louder than your words. And it really must turn your husband's stomach to hear you talk that way.

Well, two wrongs don't make a right, and the fact that his prior conduct was deplorable doesn't make yours less deplorable.

As someone else has said, you can't fix him; only HE can do that. What you CAN do, what YOU can control, is taking care of your own stuff. This does not involve carrying a mental clipboard & keeping score of "who's wronged who more." The fact that you've had an emotional affair (which in its breach of emotional intimacy is pretty much the same as a physical affair) speaks to the fact that you've got enough issues to work on that demand your full time & attention.

In this perspective, your stance of "I'll agree to anything if he agrees to it" is imposing a conditionality on your willingness to try to save your marriage. It comes off as sounding like you won't start cleaning up your stuff until he starts cleaning up his. (That may not be the stance you intend, but that's what it may sound like to him.) That sense of conditionality will get you to divorce court, more bills for separate lawyers, separate households, and shuttling the kids for visitations on weekends & holidays & vacations until they're 18.

Speaking to you with compassion here as a guy who had an affair, my first piece of advice would be to drop the conditionality of your approach to trying to save your marriage. Case in point: Facebook was the main instrument of your affair -- how it started & continued. I gather you have not closed it. You say you've offered, but your husband hasn't insisted. Teachergirl, so what if he hasn't insisted? You need to take Extraordinary Precautions against renewed contact with this other guy -- that's a core part of the MarriageBuilders approach to killing & preventing affairs. Look it up on this site. Your husband sees you keeping this avenue of possible contact open. He probably sees that as ambivalence on your part about reassuring him. Reassuring him doesn't mean you do the minimum you think you can get away with doing; it means you go all-out to help protect his feelings so that he can begin -- in increments -- to feel safe, to feel like you've got his back. Cancelling FB is such a small, easy step! It's not the only step you must take, but it's such a no-brainer. Do it already. And change the phone numbers and give him the passwords to your e-mail & phones anyway, regardless of whether he is ready to reciprocate. That's a tiny start to taking care of your side of the street.

YOU had your affair. Your marriage may have been weak or vulnerable because of misdeeds & inattentiveness on both your parts, but nothing forced you to look outside in such a personal way as sharing confidences with another man. You chose that route of your own free will, and your husband deserves none of the blame for that choice of yours. Therefore, my second piece of advice is, if you want to save your marriage and restore love for & from your husband, then one thing you must certainly do is own that choice in its entirety. Hint: "Owning it" does not mean saying you're at fault but then qualifying your statement with some weasel-words about how your husband shares blame. Yeah, he may share blame for the state of your marriage; but he does not share blame for your choice to engage in an affair. This "owning it" won't be sufficient, but it is necessary, for saving your marriage. So own it.

Re: some things you said earlier, let me take a stab at an example of what "owning it" might sound like:
I'm not saying you won't need to deal with H's issues. I suggest you get the book "Surviving An Affair." Read the parts about radical honesty. But you've got enough on your own plate to keep you busy for now.

Try ID'ing his top emotional needs. Try meeting them, without making your efforts conditional. Yes, eventually, there'll come a time when he'll need to decide to get back on-board with trying to save the marriage, and with understanding how his past behavior depleted your love-bank. But you have a lot work to do in order to help him feel emotionally safe enough to engage in that effort. And you need to start now, without waiting for assurance that it'll work out. You need to exercise some faith here: After all, you're asking & expecting him to trust you again; and the only way that is going to work (since you've had an affair) is for you to commit daily acts of trust, by placing your heart into his hands, for him to reject or reaccept someday.

After I confessed my affair & begged my wife to keep me, she let me stay. But really, I had no assurance it'd work out. I had no way of knowing that she wouldn't decide, after a couple of weeks or a couple of months, that she just couldn't get past what I'd done, how I'd lied to her & deceived her. But if I'd held back & made my efforts toward her conditional on things she'd do for me, I just might have sealed the outcome I most dreaded.

If you don't want to make beyond-minimal efforts without having the outcome all wrapped up in a bow before you really get started, it won't work, and you might as well dial your lawyer. You're either all-in or all-out. There's no sitting on the fence anymore for you if you want to build a marriage that's better than what you've had before.

Ok, what does this have to do with the price of tea in China? You are grown up now, not a child. If you want to interest your H into taking you back, I would stop with the self pity and start focusing on what you can do to attract him back.

And PLEASE, use paragraphs.

Well, I suppose folks could have called me a "good wife" and a "good mother" too, before I had an affair. "Good" wives and mothers don't have A's. Selfish people have affairs. You want to justify having an A? Here's the only justification - I was selfish, so I decided to have an affair.

You cannot blame anyone or anything else for that decision: your "unhappiness," your BH, your childhood, your parents, high gas prices, whatever. And as GO said, two wrongs don't make a right.

The field of work I'm in, constantly you hear tales of woe used to excuse present behavior. "I was abused as a child, that's why I brutally murdered those 6 people." I'm not saying that childhood traumas don't affect people - but I have a dear friend who was repeatedly sexually abused by her father until she was old enough to move out of the house. Does she cheat on her H? No. She's a gentle and loving wife and one of the very best mothers I know, who I'd trust with my daughters in a heartbeat. I have another friend whose parents divorced when she was young. Does she cheat on her H? Nope.

Me? I was date-raped in college and had an abortion when I was 23. Did that cause me to cheat? No. Poor boundaries caused me to cheat. Selfishness caused me to cheat. Rampant stupidity and rectocranial inversion caused me to cheat. No one - I mean no one - held a gun to my head and made me do it.

It's a choice we made. And choices have consequences, and we don't get to choose what those consequences are going to be, or put conditions on them.

Part of what it means to clean up your side of the street is to fully take ownership of your actions. If you can't do that, if you can't see where you failed to have boundaries in place, then what's to stop you from cheating again the next time you're "not happy"?

I have given him passwords, or at least I offered them to him. He said he didn't want them because now that we are separated it didn't matter what I did or who I talked to. I wanted him to have the access as a way to show him that I am not hiding anything from him. I don't have any other male friends on FB other than blood relatives, and there is no other person on there that could even be considered a threat. All women, most of them family and coworkers. He has read the texts and emails; I've closed all the email accounts. I offered keys to my house, but he won't take them.

There has been no contact of any kind at all since Feb. I seriously doubt he will ever try to contact, but I�ve promised to tell H if that happens. He says he�s worried about later down the road, not immediately. How does he know I won�t do it again? What can I do at present to reassure him it won�t happen? I can�t provide him any proof even though I feel very strongly about doing anything I can to ensure this man doesn�t interfere in our lives again. Contact is broken, and I have no withdrawal effects, I don�t sit and mope and feel depressed about OM at all. I realize it was a mistake, a wrong choice, and a selfish decision. Making the break was hard, and at first it was sad for me because I really had feelings for this person, but I love my husband more and realized that I was going to have to do this if I wanted to try to save the marriage. Each day got easier and I am now moving towards anger at OM for what happened.

I tried in a recent conversation to talk to husband about the Emotional Needs explained in Dr. Harley�s books that I�ve read. I told him that the books explains how women/men have different needs and that we both are/were probably unaware of what the other wanted and expected from each other. Reading that made so much sense to me, it was like I realized what the source of many of our conflicts might have been. (How I wish I�d read that book just a few months previously!) I even asked him what I could do to try to make him happy�what did he want from me now and what his needs are. I tried to share the lists from the book with him and asked him to read them and give me his list.

He got very frustrated with the conversation, said I was being pushy, so I dropped it. I don�t know what his needs are. I know that sounds awful after being married for 14 years, but I would guess he wouldn�t know how I would arrange the list of needs either. I don�t think either of us really knew the other the way we should have. I do know that he needs lots of attention and I don�t, (he likes holding hands, snuggling, etc.) and his sex drive is high, mine almost doesn�t exist�but I can�t really meet either of those needs presently because we are separated. So my question to all the posts telling me to try to meet his needs is: How do I meet them if I don�t know what they are and he won�t tell me? I am guessing at them and obviously getting it wrong.

I am here to ask for suggestions and advice about what I should/shouldn�t be doing at this point. I know it was wrong, a bad choice, my fault and he doesn�t have to try to work things out. I do have resentment for things that have happened that were never resolved. Wish I didn�t but it is there�another reason I thought counseling would help and I do plan to seek that on my own. If he needs time, then I will give him time. This has been difficult for him to say the very least, but it has also been a devastation to me and the kids. I want to try to fix it, to make right the wrong and hopefully give our kids back their family. I understand it is broken because of me and feel that it is my job to try to repair; just don�t know how�.

I have told H it was my decision, I accept the blame for it, and that I should have come to him about the emotional disconnect I felt prior to this relationship starting. There were contributing factors, but the choice was mine to make. None of the things that I experienced in childhood or during our marriage made it ok for me to go to the OM, but I can�t undo what�s been done. All I can do is try to make it right. Nobody made me do anything, and I wasn�t looking for nor did I have any physical interactions with OM. H says he wished that it had been a stranger and had been a sexual affair instead of an emotional one, because it would be easier for him to get over that.

I didn�t choose to have the feelings for OM. Having known him from the past, the emotional connection was quick to develop. I did choose the actions that put us in a bad situation, and I chose to begin and continue conversation with him. It truly was an addiction and was extremely difficult to break free from. OM didn�t end it, I made the decision entirely on my own. It just took some time for me to get to the point that I was ready to do it. I�ve always heard that alcoholics have to want to get better before they can benefit from therapy, and I can understand that now because in the midst of what happened I was not interested in stopping. Even though I saw what I was doing to my family, and I knew I shouldn�t be talking to him, I couldn�t and didn�t want to stop. H tried his best to end it but until I chose to do so nothing anybody said mattered to me. Looking back now I realize many things I couldn�t see at the time.

Um... Can I say this is one of the clearest best posts I have read from you? Thank you WPG. It is 100% spot on.

I wish the forum had a "like" button

I read in one of Dr. Harley's articles on this site that a spouse should not repeatedly bring up past events which harm the other and destroy love between them. We both are guilty of that, but he blasts me with it every time we are together. I don't know how to go about meeting his needs when he is still in a rage. His behavior is erratic, and I don't mean that in a bad way but he will seem to be ok, we are getting along well, and then he snaps into anger/rage mode with little or no warning. I don't really know what sets him off. It's like he starts thinking about it and it gnaws at him until he blows up. Sometimes I have no idea what happened to set him off. Does this mean that it would be best for us to just stay apart for a while? That seems to go against the recommendations from Dr. Harley. Contact was broken almost 3 months ago with OM. Read that time frame can be up to 2 years for recovery. Everyone keeps saying try to meet his needs....how do I find out what they are? I have asked him....

So, somewhere along justifying your affair, you fog babbled about an emotional disconnect.

Translation; I only keep my vows when you keep me happy, and I will lie by omission about my happiness, and seek another man if I am not happy.

I'll give you a sad, sad hint at how easily he can be triggered; he looks at the woman in front of him, thinks how much he loves her, then thinks how little it must mean to her, and how little she tossed it aside for.

My H and I are in recovery at this point, and the ONLY reason I am still with him is because he completely owned the adultery. He will offer absolutely no, "well, if you had..." or "I wouldn't have if only you had..." He states that he knows he was a "selfish idiot." If he had not shown complete unqualified remorse, I wouldn't be here. The just compensation has been a must, too. He has worked very hard to meet my emotional needs better than ever. The marriage must be better than pre-affair.

Your H is trying to "understand" how his wife could have done this. It is natural for him to be up then down; it's called the roller coaster, and it's horrible.

As for your H's emotional needs, you already have figured out that he needs affection and sexual fulfillment. According to Dr H., most men also list recreational companionship among the top five. Admiration and physical attractiveness two other common needs of men. I suggest heading in that direction. Be as gently affectionate as he will allow at this time. Perhaps offer a couple of suggestions for fun things you could do together. Just a start. Always look your best and smell nice. These are generalizations Dr. H. has made based on surveys, and any individual man may have different needs, but it's a good start.

I totally understand your resentment about your H's former behavior, but at this point, he is feeling betrayed by your actions. Since you currently have no control over his actions, only over yours, do all you can to completely own up to what you did. When/if he returns and the marriage goes into recovery, then you can both work to be radically honest with each other and on making this a great marriage. But if you do anything other than work on yourself at this time, you are likely to drive your H away.

Finally, although your H did some pretty stupid things, so did mine, and I never, not once, was unfaithful, either emotionally or physically. I maintained absolute fidelity, not because of him, but because of the person I wanted to be.

Quite frankly, Teachergirl?

I'm siding with your husband. I wouldn't be interested in dealing with you at all, because you are looking to make excuses, and to drag him into your blame pie.

I'd do just as he is doing. Say no thanks.

I am sure this has been said, and you know it- but emotional disconnection is not a contributing factor to the affair. It's a factor in your marriage, but it's not causation for the affair.

You don't seem to grasp that. And until you do, if your husband were here, I'd advise him to do just as he's doing. Which is stay away from you.