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Originally Posted by violette
I do want to be a better person but all my survival instincts tell me that I will be destroyed. I know, drama queen.

I don't believe you want to be a better person. A person who wants to be "better" does not continue to harm others. Your words do not match your actions.

Are you here to waste our time? Because unless you tell your family the truth you are wasting our time. There is nothing we can do for you if you refuse to tell the truth. Nothing. There are forums that support and condone lying but this is not one of them.


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

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Originally Posted by violette
[There is way more trouble in the marriage then just my affairs. I really wanted help on the other stuff but once I mentioned my affairs, it was over. So I will just have to figure out things for myself.

All that "other stuff" is a needless distraction. That is like saying you want to focus on "other stuff" while the Titanic sinks. Focusing on "other stuff" is a waste of time, ours and yours.

Until you get serious you are wasting valuable time that could go to people who are serious about saving their marriages. You only seem serious about continued deciet and fraud. Look around you. These other people are serious. You are not.

We won't help you commit fraud on your husband.


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

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The title of this thread is almost comical:

"fixing marriage after an affair"

I haven't seen one thing, violette, that indicates you are willing to do ANYTHING other than make excuses.

Did you even READ the basic concepts? Obviously not. Begin with the one on radical honesty and then move on to the ones regarding how to recover from an affair.

Please stop wasting our time. Let us know when you are serious and willing to do something other than take the EASY way and we will be here to help you. Good grief!


Ddays 2007 and 2011
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Ditto on what Melody said.

You will find that YOUR PROGRAM, (the half azzed one) probably won't work Violett. If you do not come clean and choose wisely to be an HONEST WOMAN and stop the serial infidelities around you (and please please don't give excuses as to WHY you felt entitled to cheat, as there is NO EXCUSE TO CHEAT ever)I'll not post to you again, my life IS precious, as are MY minutes alive and I won't waste them further.

Prove me wrong. WOMAN UP!!!


Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don't believe is right. ~Jane Goodall
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I was sexual abuse and grew up with an abusive alcoholic father.

My dreams as a kid where surviving my childhood and move out and never to rely on or trust a man. Because one thing I could always count on is being let down. I survived my childhood but numbing myself with drugs and alcohol starting at the age of 12 years old. So compared to my parents, I am a saint. I am not sure I have respected myself or others when it comes to sex. No I never planned on having affairs.

I guess I am selfish. I only recently starting following my religion. My moral compass is pretty much broke and do struggle with many sins. I guess I learned how to lie and fake it at a young age.

Yes I believe adultery is wrong. I keep secrets but have not had to directly lie. My husband keeps secrets too and I have caught him in many lies. I just ignore them. It is not worth arguing. There is way more trouble in the marriage then just my affairs. I really wanted help on the other stuff but once I mentioned my affairs, it was over. So I will just have to figure out things for myself.

I have only mentioned my daughter because she is my biggest concern but I do have 3 teenage boys. I just can't imagine the destruction that will happen if I come clean.

I do want to be a better person but all my survival instincts tell me that I will be destroyed. I know, drama queen.




Violette, My story .... well..... here goes.


I hope you have time to read. I am not sure if I have ever even posted the entire thing anywhere on MB in one place. I guess now is as good a time as any.


When I was seven, my older brother began sexually molesting and raping me. He did this over the course of several years, until I was around the age of 10 or 11. I was spared continuation, because he was sent to VietNam. I suppose war is good for some people. While the rest of my family was devastated, I was thanking the God I prayed to for relief.

Meanwhile, back at home, I was also raped by two teenaged males who lived down the block from us. One of them also beat me as I was walking home from school a few days later. I required some medical attention and surgery to the throat. At the time, I was so afraid of my father's rages that I did not report the rape, only the beating. I told my mother.

My father was not mentally stable. I say this now because I more fully understand his condition at this point. He beat me quite often, leaving bruises and contusions that were readily visible to anyone who might have given me a cursory glance. Nobody did. I was often found hiding in my closet, in order to avoid being seen by my father. This was the easiest way to avoid being beaten, because the rule seemed to be that if he saw me, he beat me. Avoid his sight-line, avoid the fist. One time, he shoved my head in a toilet. Another time he beat me for.......having bruises from the beating the day before.

My younger brother was gravely affected by the situation at home. He witnessed so much abuse of me by my father that he wanted to stop and couldn't, that he was severely psychologically damaged. He once witnessed my dad trying to beat me with a kitchen chair, and this became some sort of major psychological event for him. Later in his life, my brother attempted to commit suicide (twice). In one of his sessions, he discussed this chair-beating event as though it occurred to HIM, and not to me. He had psychologically taken my place, to rescue me from my father's hands. This was no ordinary situation in my home, Violette.

And no, my dad did not drink. I often wonder, though, if this had any relationship to his use of medications for migraine headaches. I may never know.

As a teenager, I would pray nightly for the memories of the sexual abuse to just go away. I wondered why God allowed such memories to plague me, why He allowed such things to happen. I was haunted by these memories, daily, hourly, moment-to-moment. God did not save me from them.

I dated a few boys. I was an angry young woman, with a quick temper, but a heart that was also quick to attach. I met a boy and we dated for about three years. It was a terrible relationship. That guy was an alcoholic, and he and I would drink way too much, way too often. And we would argue, mostly because I was insecure, and he was drunk and also angry due to his home life.

Oh- I would love to let you know this....his home life was one where his parents were together "for the kids". They were Catholic, did not want to divorce. The mother no longer loved her husband, and was waiting until the kids graduated because she wanted them to have a "happy home". They divorced as soon as his little sister graduated from high school. The parents never told the kids any of this - but the kids most certainly were aware.

Anyway. We fought often. And this guy beat me regularly, whether I needed it or not. At one point, he threw me out of his car. While it was moving. On Main Street. Before we finally broke up, I actually spent time in protective custody - in jail - because he beat me so badly and the police believed he might KILL ME. And the very next morning, I went back to him. I apologized to him for...MAKING HIM BEAT ME.

The next day.......I met my husband. It wasn't but a day later that I figured out that not only could I leave that guy, but I SHOULD leave that guy. And I did.

Ultimately, I married my husband. I had a one-night stand. My husband had a one-night stand. We were pretty stupid that first few months of our marriage, but we recovered and figured stuff out.

At one point, my husband told me that he didn't love me, he never loved me, and he never would love me. He left me for about three months, and went off to pursue another woman. That fantasy never came to fruition for him. The day after his return to our marriage, he had another one night stand.

I stuck it out with him. For many years, we were okay. I had what I now understand was an emotional affair for about two months back around 1982. I realized what I was doing, and stopped that behavior. My husband had an emotional affair, or a grief affair, or something, with the widow of his brother, when his brother died back around 18 years ago.

We had many years of good marriage. He had a physical affair almost six years ago now. That about devastated me, and nearly devastated him, because right on the heels of d-day we found out that my H had cancer.

So we were recovering from the blow of d-day, only to find out that my H may never be able to have sex again due to his cancer and the subsequent surgery. That his last sexual encounter just might very well have been


the. other. woman.


That is one he// of a d-day.


God was hearing some prayers from this Schoolbus. There were many times that I wondered if He was deaf, so often those prayers were screamed. Just in case. blush

H recovered from the cancer, thank you very much. kiss


Do I have "excuses" for not telling the truth?
Do I have "excuses" for not doing the right thing for others?
Do I have "reasons" for not connecting with my husband?
Do I have a past to point to for being "the way that I am" and for basically


REFUSING TO CHANGE?



Yeah, I suppose I do, if I were to CHOOSE to anchor myself to the past, and to CHOOSE to take the wrong way out for myself.


I suppose I could do drugs and say, "Well, you know, I was sexually abused as a child, so I do drugs."

I suppose I could become an alcoholic and say, "I drink because I was beaten by my father as a child."

I could cheat on my husband and say, "You know, I had this boyfriend who used to beat me, and I just cannot trust men."


That is all on ME. All of these bad behaviors are my CHOICE. They have absolutely nothing to do with what happened to me as a child, because when I woke up this morning


nobody was beating me
nobody was dragging me by my hair
nobody was kicking me with mountain climbing boots in the crotch
nobody was shoving my head in the commode
nobody was trying to get their dog to....
nobody was....doing anything to me


I control my SELF. I choose where I place my anchors. I choose what I drag with me, and what I leave behind. I have realized that the people who abused me did so because

THEY HAVE PROBLEMS

and not because I have problems.


So I leave them to their problems. I do not drag them with me through the rest of the days I have for living. They are too heavy, and I have but two arms for carrying - and those I love are whom I CHOOSE to carry.



For me, I have been there, and done that. I own that I had sex outside my marriage. I did not do this because I was abused as a child. I did this because I chose to, and I chose to knowing full well that it was wrong, that it went against what my inner voice was telling me to do, that I was making very weak excuses for doing it, that I was thinking of many ways to blame my husband, and that I was trying to rationalize the crappola out of it.

I did it anyway, because I had NO SELF-CONTROL, and did not want to be controlled, either.


I didn't want any "rules" right then. I wanted whatever I wanted. Period.

Schoolbus


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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Amazing post schoolbus


What would you do if you were not afraid?

"Fear is the little death. Fear is the mind-killer" Frank Herbert.

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Originally Posted by SusieQ
The title of this thread is almost comical:

"fixing marriage after an affair"

I haven't seen one thing, violette, that indicates you are willing to do ANYTHING other than make excuses.

Did you even READ the basic concepts? Obviously not. Begin with the one on radical honesty and then move on to the ones regarding how to recover from an affair.

Please stop wasting our time. Let us know when you are serious and willing to do something other than take the EASY way and we will be here to help you. Good grief!

Warning - whining. I am still working through the details.

Yes - I did read it. And I have been reading through some of the other threads. I have to say it is more scary then giving me hope. Telling my mom, my kids and the OMW. I think my mom already knows. I live in a small town. Everyone would know. The OM has anger issues. The whole thing sounds like a nightmare.

The details would be embarrassing. I had a death wish and was doing some pretty crazy stuff. It was more about the danger, violence, the unknown then the sex. I know I would have to tell my husband but would the kids know the details too.

I have no problem with the NC because it has been over 5 months and I am not interested in seeing any of the men. It actually makes me sick to think about it. Not interested in having a PA with anyone. But the EP and giving out all my passwords would be awful. I would lose all privacy. I have 3 female friends that I talk to on-line that I would not want to share with my husband. Two I can see at the gym but one lives in another state. I have a male training partner that I would probably have to stop training with. I am not even sure I would be allowed to go to daily mass or prayer group since my husband does not like one of the men that also goes.

I couldn't imagine taking a lie detector test.

I am very private and secretive even before the affairs. We don't tell each other where we are going and don't share that much about our lives. I called my husband today to let him know I just got our of Eucharist Adoration and was heading to the gym. That is not like me but I thought I would try to include him in my life.

I like the love bank information. 15 hours a week of alone time with my husband would be difficult. He is a workaholic. His first love is his company. I am lucky to get 15 minutes. We don't even talk before or after sex.

A lot to think about.

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School bus - thank you for sharing. I am so glad that God answered your prayers and your husband is okay. Makes my story sound like a picnic.

I do that through most of my 44 years of like, I had choices and usually made the wrong choice. Most of my choices only hurt me. This one hurt my husband and kids.

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You are wasting our time and yours, Violet. This is not a place that will support you in your fraud and deceit. Why not come back when you are serious?

What do you want?


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

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Violette,

Do you think a person can't confess an affair without his/her spouse leaving or throwing the adulterer out?

Do you think a person can't be forgiven for an affair?

Do you think a person can't learn to live with the self-inflicted humiliation, can't learn to re-invest in a marriage, can't learn a more mature, realistic and practical way to look at his/her marriage, and emerge better for it?

Do you think a re-born marriage where the spouses are open & honest & transparent with one another, more attentive to one another's emotional needs, and more cognizant of the dangers of poor boundaries & how to avoid them, is not within the realm of possibility for you?

I thought -- or at least feared -- all that stuff. Once. Before I came clean about my affair.

Violette, I hit rock bottom on the day my affair-partner's husband found out about us. For a few moments that day, I was not sure whether I would be alive the next day. (You can read a little about it if you're curious: http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2461619#Post2461619 )

I threw myself on God (even though I'd willfully ignored him for the previous 2 & a half months), and bet the house on my marriage. It wasn't fun, especially those first few months. It was humiliating, it was life-changing, it was a huge shock for my wife and the life we'd been living up to that point.

But in coming clean, I gradually got myself out of something, out of a mindset, that could've ruined my life. And I got a second chance; and while I hate that I had the affair and put my wife & myself & my family through what I put us through, I love the marriage my wife & I have today.

There's no guarantee things will work out this way for you, but please know that the chances of your ever building a happy marriage without openness & honesty are infinitesimally small. This is like a surgeon who tries to repair a stab wound, but who sutures the knife-blade up inside the patient.

Please don't go drawing lines too tightly around what's possible if you pursue the path of greater integrity.


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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Originally Posted by MelodyLane
You are wasting our time and yours, Violet. This is not a place that will support you in your fraud and deceit. Why not come back when you are serious?

What do you want?

I'm done. I'll see if I can delete the thread.

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Originally Posted by violette
Originally Posted by MelodyLane
You are wasting our time and yours, Violet. This is not a place that will support you in your fraud and deceit. Why not come back when you are serious?

What do you want?

I'm done. I'll see if I can delete the thread.

Good idea. Come back when you are serious and you will find lots of help. Until then, you are just wasting our time.


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

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You don't need to warn us you are whining, we can see it without the heads up.

You and your family are the ones being hurt by your inactivity and dishonesty, not us.

You know full well that your being secretive is one of the problems which made it likely and possible you would have an affair. And will likely have another.

If you were not secretive it would not have happened. You need to be totally OPEN and honest. About absolutely everything

If you want secrecy, go be single.

So what if the OM has anger issues, most OM are worthless in some way. People deal with it

Then there's whining about being embarrassed, chatting on line with friends and giving up a male trainer -blah, blah, blah

Are these things really more important than your marriage!!!!

As for the poly, you should be grateful that a tool exists which you can use to put your BH's mind at rest that you are now truthful (should this day ever come for you)

You are supposed to be more than embarrassed by the way. You are supposed to come clean humbly, saying there are no excuses for the terrible things you did. Have the courage to take FULL RESPONSIBLITY, to not be defensive and not blame it on your h not talking to you etc. Which is frankly beside the point.

When are you going to get those rotten floorboards sorted?

When are you going to tell the TRUTH?


What would you do if you were not afraid?

"Fear is the little death. Fear is the mind-killer" Frank Herbert.

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Originally Posted by violette
I keep secrets but have not had to directly lie.

That's called lying by omission.

IMO it can be worse than downright lying, because now the person that you're lying to not only has to worry about what you say, he also has to worry about what you're not saying.

My WW claimed she never lied to me, using the same "rule" you're using above. It made matters worse.


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Originally Posted by GloveOil
Violette,

Do you think a person can't confess an affair without his/her spouse leaving or throwing the adulterer out?

Do you think a person can't be forgiven for an affair?

Do you think a person can't learn to live with the self-inflicted humiliation, can't learn to re-invest in a marriage, can't learn a more mature, realistic and practical way to look at his/her marriage, and emerge better for it?

Do you think a re-born marriage where the spouses are open & honest & transparent with one another, more attentive to one another's emotional needs, and more cognizant of the dangers of poor boundaries & how to avoid them, is not within the realm of possibility for you?

I thought -- or at least feared -- all that stuff. Once. Before I came clean about my affair.

Violette, I hit rock bottom on the day my affair-partner's husband found out about us. For a few moments that day, I was not sure whether I would be alive the next day. (You can read a little about it if you're curious: http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2461619#Post2461619 )

I threw myself on God (even though I'd willfully ignored him for the previous 2 & a half months), and bet the house on my marriage. It wasn't fun, especially those first few months. It was humiliating, it was life-changing, it was a huge shock for my wife and the life we'd been living up to that point.

But in coming clean, I gradually got myself out of something, out of a mindset, that could've ruined my life. And I got a second chance; and while I hate that I had the affair and put my wife & myself & my family through what I put us through, I love the marriage my wife & I have today.

There's no guarantee things will work out this way for you, but please know that the chances of your ever building a happy marriage without openness & honesty are infinitesimally small. This is like a surgeon who tries to repair a stab wound, but who sutures the knife-blade up inside the patient.

Please don't go drawing lines too tightly around what's possible if you pursue the path of greater integrity.
Violette, if you don't read what I wrote, please read again what wulffpack_gurl wrote about the floorboards.

Please sleep on it.


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 have 3 female friends that I talk to on-line that I would not want to share with my husband.
I thought you said you didn't have any female friends to talk to ...


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8 kids ...
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Originally Posted by ManInMotion
Originally Posted by violette
I keep secrets but have not had to directly lie.

That's called lying by omission.

That is how she justifies her fraud and deceit of her husband and her children. But, this is all a waste of time because she is not serious. She is wasting our time.


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

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Your life now sounds exactly the same as your life at the time of your affairs.

Want to carry on living like this and have your kids live in such an unhealthy environment with a cheating mother and workaholic father? Go ahead just learn to live with it and understand you made this choice.

Or

If you want to improve life for you and your kids and husband stop making pathetic excuses and do what's right. Tell the truth work with your husband to fix your marriage and teach your kids about honesty.

You only get one life and inmo your wasting yours making excuses instead of acting the right way.


BW 36(Me)
WS 38
Married: 2000
DD1November 22 2008 - DD2 October 2014
PA Duration September 08 - November 08
Second discovery- 6 online affairs 4 sexual one emotional. October 2014.kids: DS 17, DS 14, DS 12, DS 10 . Baby after divorce DS 18months

Divorced

Was misled into thinking we were in recovery for 6 years.

If you were shocked reading any of this, that this is the consequence of not following MB to the LETTER.

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Originally Posted by GloveOil
Originally Posted by GloveOil
Violette,

Do you think a person can't confess an affair without his/her spouse leaving or throwing the adulterer out?

Do you think a person can't be forgiven for an affair?

Do you think a person can't learn to live with the self-inflicted humiliation, can't learn to re-invest in a marriage, can't learn a more mature, realistic and practical way to look at his/her marriage, and emerge better for it?

Do you think a re-born marriage where the spouses are open & honest & transparent with one another, more attentive to one another's emotional needs, and more cognizant of the dangers of poor boundaries & how to avoid them, is not within the realm of possibiity for you?

I thought -- or at least feared -- all that stuff. Once. Before I came clean about my affair.

Violette, I hit rock bottom on the day my affair-partner's husband found out about us. For a few moments that day, I was not sure whether I would be alive the next day. (You can read a little about it if you're curious: http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2461619#Post2461619 )

I threw myself on God (even though I'd willfully ignored him for the previous 2 & a half months), and bet the house on my marriage. It wasn't fun, especially those first few months. It was humiliating, it was life-changing, it was a huge shock for my wife and the life we'd been living up to that point.

But in coming clean, I gradually got myself out of something, out of a mindset, that could've ruined my life. And I got a second chance; and while I hate that I had the affair and put my wife & myself & my family through what I put us through, I love the marriage my wife & I have today.

There's no guarantee things will work out this way for you, but please know that the chances of your ever building a happy marriage without openness & honesty are infinitesimally small. This is like a surgeon who tries to repair a stab wound, but who sutures the knife-blade up inside the patient.

Please don't go drawing lines too tightly around what's possible if you pursue the path of greater integrity.
Violette, if you don't read what I wrote, please read again what wulffpack_gurl wrote about the floorboards.

Please sleep on it.

Thanks for sharing your story. I have read all the post and even called my spiritual director about telling my husband. I just am unsure and not ready. He wants me to talk to my priest first. He does feel that I will eventually need to come clean but feels I should get farther along in my recovery first.

I think it depends on the people involved whether or not it can survive.


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Originally Posted by violette
Thanks for sharing your story. I have read all the post and even called my spiritual director about telling my husband. I just am unsure and not ready. He wants me to talk to my priest first. He does feel that I will eventually need to come clean but feels I should get farther along in my recovery first.
Have you read wulffpack_gurl's story over in the "Recovery" section? It is a powerful lesson in what can happen when you try to recover a marriage without coming clean at the start.

Ignore this lesson at your peril.

Think hard about it before you try to pull a nice clean carpet over those rotten floorboards, Violette.

God please help you. It seems I can't. I am sorry.


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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