My wife was acting strange a week ago and came home from work to tell me our marriage was over and that she had an affair with her coworker. Since this time, the coworker is no longer a coworker and she has expressed deep regret and wants to make our marriage work. We are currently attending counseling sessions weekly to work through this difficult time. I obviously have many emotions right now, and wanted to find out how you all were able to get through and have your marriage survive?

When she first told me she was leaving, my heart sank. I love her so much and she is a good person, with the exception of this infidelity. When we decided to reconcile and work on things I was glad. Fast forward a week later, and now I don't know if it is truly what I want anymore. I love my wife and kids to death but something seems absent from my heart right now and I don't have many feelings towards her. Is this normal? I really do want nothing more than to work through this and build a stronger marriage, but right now my heart is telling me it is time to move on as individuals. I am so torn.

Jayhawker,

If you just found out a week ago, you are not in recovery, hit the notify button to ask the moderators to move your thread to "surviving an affair" you will get more assistance there.

God Bless
Gamma

I apologize. I just realized my mistake. I notified them.

Hi jayhawker, welcome to Marriage Builders. Sorry you are here.

Who is the OM? Is he married? And why did he leave the company? What happened? How long was the affair?

Can you give us the complete low down about the affair and the OM?

Does he still work at the same company? And how can you verify any of this? Have you spoken to him?

I know the owner of the company and have verified that he no longer works there.

The OM is married, and his wife knows. The company is a small one and they realized that the working relationship could not continue so he was transferred to a subdivision that has no contact with the company they both worked for.

The affair was short lived, and I believe my wife about this. It started out as an emotional affair earlier on in December as he was always there to listen.

The affair happened after texting back and forth and they both decided it was what they wanted.

Since this happened, the OM and his wife are also working on their relationship from what I understand.

I do have full access to phone, e-mail and everything. Her life is an open book right now.

I just have so many back and forth emotions, which I am sure are very common. It feels like these are unique feelings that no one else has ever felt and I know that every person who endures this feels all of the same emotions.

JH,

The OM is married, and his wife knows.

Confirm this with OMW, if OM or your WW told you this assume they are lying, you need to confirm that OMW knows the full extent of the affair, and is keeping an eye on OM for you.

God Bless
Gamma

JH, not trying to be glib, but the best thing you can do right now, is to not do anything right now!

By "do", I mean anything directly as regards your wife and your marriage.

What you should be doing is reading this site voraciously, and making absolutely certain there is not any contact between the APs.

You're about to take a ride on the "Roller Coaster From Hell", my friend. Stay seated and keep your arms and legs in the car!

I have been in contact with the OMW and she knows the extent and he is back in their house now. She will watch him like a hawk now. I knew her before they were married and I am sure she is making this as hard on him as she can.

I appreciate the support. I don't plan on making any life altering decisions right now. I just want to work on my marriage and hopefully we will come out on the other end in a better marriage than we have ever had before.

I plan on introducing this site to my wife and going through the steps one at a time with her.

JH,

I plan on introducing this site to my wife

Some other folks might comment on this, but for now MB should be your resource, the thing is that your WW might read up on some of the counter-affair techniques detailed on MB and take the affair underground. Be cautious about revealing your intelligence sources.

God Bless
Gamma

Gamma,

This is a very good point. I enjoy the help and support on the site. It is nice to have others that unfortunately have been through the same thing and can relate.

JH, thanks for answering my questions. It sounds like you are in a good position to recover your marriage. Most marriages stay together but do not ever recover from affairs. They limp along in a crippled state of the pre-affair marriage and are worse off after than before. Recovery is a very narrow path. Harley describes it here: Requirements for Recovery from an Affair

And here is an outline of the programs that MB offers. In the first program, the do-it-yourself, substitute Surviving an Affair for His Needs, Her Needs. here

To give all those that helped an update. Most have been supportive in our community. We received a nasty letter from someone close to the other couple who basically told us we were not welcome and that she started everything and she was the root cause of everything. This is hard to read, but it is past us now.

She continues to prove to me that she is in this. I have my doubts about the relationship at times, but I am sure that is a normal feeling. I do love her very much and look forward to the rest of my life with her and the kids.

It is hard for me to completely trust her and she knows that this will take time to rebuild. We are still seeing a counselor and will continue to do so until we are better in our marriage.

Any advice from anyone on the best way to get the images out of your head? I don't think about it all of the time, but the images of what I think they were doing at the time pop in my head and it is hard to handle. Any advice here would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again.

Managing Memories and Dealing w/ Triggers

thanks for the update, jayhawker. I would be very cautious about marriage counseling. Most have no idea how to save a marriage after an affair. They have an 84% failure rate and have a higher personal divorce rate than the general population. Unless this counselor has an actual PLAN to a) affair proof your marriage and b) transform your marriage to a romantic, passionate relationship, you will end up with a crippled version of your pre-affair marriage. Most MC don't even believe it is possible to create romantic love in a marriage, much less know how to do that. We see the destructive fallout from your typical marriage counselors on this forum every day. They have no idea what they are doing.

So please exercise great caution. Ask for his PLAN to restore the romantic love in your marriage. If he has no plan, you are wasting your time.

The pain will fade in time as long as you replace your current marriage with a GREAT marriage. If your marriage becomes a happy, romantic, safe place, the sting of the bad memories will fade.

Thank you Tiger & Melody for your great advice.

I know of many couples who have used this counselor and they speak very highly of her. Most have survived an affair and are still married and most tell me that she has helped them to have a better happier marriage. I will still be cautious though.

JH,

but the images of what I think they were doing at the time pop in my head and it is hard to handle.

Did you get the full truth of what happened? The actual truth may be much tamer than what you imagine.

God Bless
Gamma

Do they have ROMANTIC marriages? Do you know the answer to that? Does this counselor know how to do that? Is that his/her GOAL? The goal of Marriage Builders is to create a romantic marriage. Versus peaceful co-existance.

Do you have the book Survivng an Affair? If you have that book, you can better guage the quality of the plan you are getting. If the plan only involves having sessions together, then you are probably screwed. But if the counselor counsels you APART from each other and only uses that time to guide and assess your plan progress, then you are probably in good hands.

Most marriages do stay married after affairs, but they never create a romantic marriage.