Is the OW still a member of your church?

Can't agree more! It's a breeding ground for disaster!
I will have a talk to the church leader today and depend on how it goes, we will make decision from there.

I just realized now (last 24 hours) that there is SO MUCH more to live than this church that we invested all our life into, including sacrifice our marriage for... There was no balance in life!

Just wonder what was wrong with me in the first place!

Their family were asked not to come to our meeting time (they go to other meeting time FOR NOW). She probably still is church member, for how long I don't know.

Yes it is interesting .. another interesting thing was right after the pastor had counseled them into separating .. he went on a sembatical for 6 months. (sorry .. spelling) It actually made me wonder if HE was the affair partner for my mother in law. Turns out he wasnt .. but my mother in law was the worship leader and her AP was one of the other music team members. They started their affair by doing music practice together. My wife and I BLEW the A out of the water for grandpa because he was in the dark while she gaslighted him into thinking it was all HIS fault. Grandma had the church convinced at first she was not having an affair until we exposed on facebook. They removed her from the worship team and she left town to go to another church with her new partner in crime where no one knows who she really is. She figures its gods will she is with her soulmate now and cant wait to marry him. I told her .. there is NO WAY god would want her to run off with another man when she promised to be with her hubby forever. God would not say "Go have an adulterous relatioship becasue he is right for you".

LEAD your heart ... DO NOT follow it. It can lead you into trouble.

I used to think my H was trust-worthy, EVEN THOUGH he proved to me untrust-worthy several times in the past 17 years together. I guess it was much easier to let go and trust the person than to live a life that one always constantly carrying a nagging thought of being lied to and cheated to. OR is my husband little lies were not big enough for me to be bothered?

I don't know even if these things I am bring up are valid enough for me not to make an attempt to trust H (beside his affair).

Throughout our marriage, I caught him occasionally (to my memory, 7 times total)either involved with online porn, inappropriate emails to other for porn or sex, called his ex girl friend... But please note that this happened through out 17 years, not all in one time. A lot of it happened when we were younger, the most recent one was online subscription to 3 porn sites (about 2.5 to 3 years ago).

Each time he was pale and so afraid and swore never happened again. Now is an affair that he was caught (the OW confessed to her H).

The last 4 weeks since D Day, he insisted me that he did not love her, was not attracted to her, did not have any emotional affair with her, did not have sex with her (she said they did).

Then I reached out to a male friend when I was in crisis, lied about those conversations, got busted, then the whole aspect of emotional affair came up. As I evaluated my screw-up and tried to completely understand where I was at, I realized that I was setting up a good foundation for an emotional affair by reaching out to the man while I was in distressed. Then today I watched a video on affair (someone posted it for me) and realized that my H systematically went through every step described.

1- He gave room for the W to entertain his emotional needs, disregard all my warning. Is this an emotional affair already or is it the pre-emotional affair? ( I did the same thing, but ended right at this point)
2- Then the flirting and expressing of feeling for each other. This is definitely an E.F. Or is it an affair?
3- Then the meeting up and kissing.
4- Then the meeting up and kissing again with (or without I can't determine) sexual intercourse.

I did this analysis myself, I confronted him today over the phone and he half-heartedly agree on it.

I think it's full of Sh** for him to "just happen to have an affair" without feeling for the OW.

Was it radical honesty when he could not tell me exactly how his feeling/ relationship with the OW was?

Also, I made it clear that I would check all his emails and stuff. He opened a secret email account to communicate with this OW during the affair. Of course I did not know! Hell knows if he has any other email account out there with her that I am not aware of?

He NEVER told me he checked my emails, apparently he did, and even dug into things like translating my Veitnamese emails into English (my emails to my HS friend), and almost never told me about. I don't have a problem with him reading my email, but as he claimed radical honestly, are the things he does exempted from radical honesty?

How far does radical honestly go? everything or only things pertaining to the affair? I asked this because there are other things that I found odd, that he only told me when he was cornered.

I am not sure how strong my desire to rebuild this marriage is... I feel like we are playing a game to win whatever I am not sure.

Another example that made me livid was that 2 days after he discovered my conversation with the male friend, we spoke extensively and things seemed to be OK, he believed me that I did not have an inappropriate sexual relationship with the guy, then he had a meeting with our church leader. I told him it's his decision to tell him about it or not (I did not pressure him either way because then it only raised more suspicion on what I did). He told me he would not do it because he did not want to "tarnish my reputation". I was grateful and happy (I guess there was a love bank deposit).

He went in and told the church leader. I felt betrayed. First, I rather have him to tell me exactly what he would do instead of pretending to be such a knight in his shining armor to protect his love. It turned out that my reputation was NOT tarnished, because with church standard, I did not cross any morality line, just embarrassing.

But the fact that he turned against me like that made me feel very betrayed. 3 years or so ago when I found his 3 or 4 online porn subscriptions, he begged me not to bring it up to church leader (that was a serious morality line crossing in our church standard), I did as he asked. This one and only one time I did something that hurt him (which resulted from his very own affair), he figuratively threw me to the wolf).

With his sporadic lying throughout our marriage, with his semi-honest attitude, with his affair that he did not explain truthfully why, should I even try to believe he will be honest in the future? OR is it normal behavior or just a little bit bad but not bad enough for me to blow out of proportion like this?

You should keep all your posts to one thread... makes it easier for people to gather info about your situation so they can give you better guidance instead of them having to search to find out whats going on.

MNG

Minjo, your husband has proven to you over and over again that he not trustworthy. My suggestion would be to not make that mistake again. I would plan on checking everything he does. This way you can hold him accountable. Here is what Harley says about trust:

"Dr Harley wrote:
One topic is loss of trust. How can a spouse ever trust an unfaithful partner again? My answer is that the spouse should never have been trusted in the first place. I shouldn't be trusted by my wife, and I shouldn't trust her. The fact is that we are all wired for infidelity, and under certain conditions, we'll all do it. The way to protect your marriage from something that has been common to man (and women) for thousands of years is to recognize the threat, and do something to prevent it from happening. Basing a marriage on the Policy of Radical Honesty and the Policy of Joint Agreement goes a long way toward preventing an affair. Being each other's favorite leisure-time companions, and not being away from each other overnight are also important safety measures. Meeting each other's most important emotional needs, avoiding Love Busters and building an integrated lifestyle, free of secret second lives, are all ways to affair-proof your marriage. With these measures in place, we end up trusting our spouses because an affair becomes almost impossible to achieve."

With your current state of pain and anger, every dent and scratch in your marriage will seem enormous.

But, to answer your thread title; don't trust him. Do not trust your spouse to not be an infidel.

Implement extraordinary precautions to protect your marriage from invasion.

I realized that I was in a low spot today. I need to get better. Sitting around, stewing on anger for a while is OK, but harboring it long is destructive.

What would be the first things you suggest me to do now to start rebuild my marriage?

H said he already cut all his contact with the OW since D Day. He was doing radical honesty that I found shaky. Apparently I did not follow that, and not really sure I wanted to. It feel like I wanted to hold off things to protect myself from something (being hurt again, maybe?)

I am not saying I am planning to lie to him, but I feel I could be very vulnerable if I am radically honest and when I am not sure about where he stands.

He came home all sweet and nice, (he always is, even during his affair), give me lots of compliments that I am afraid to inhale. It sucks living like this.

I don't feel like wanting to accept anything from him, but if I don't, I will be love busting for him, and then the cycle goes on. The stress I feel is huge, that means the stress he feels is even bigger. I am afraid at some point in time I will break him and then I self fulfill my own prophecy that he will leave me.

Sorry for rambling on. Bottom line: what do you suggest me to do at this point to rebuild my marriage.

As bad as it sounds, I don't think my H is a bad man. As angry as I vented, I believe I still love him, and it makes it hurt more. Should I believe he loves me? ( I know, dumb question).

Thank you!

I came across someone else's thread and had 2 questions, I was told to go back to my thread to ask and will be answered. So, here they are:

I thought radical honesty is used WHEN there is an affair, but some post said it's NOT! What do you use then when there is an affair? When do you use radical honesty then?

Also "we are not here to share personal opinions, but to help newcomers understand and use Marriage Builders. "

How do you help newcomers to understand without sharing personal opinion?

Thanks!

All advice given here is MB advice - not personal advice. The mods will intervene if people go against MB. The site is aimed at giving newcomers feedback from others who have used MB.

Also, keep your posts on one thread so we can understand what has happened. If you click notify at the bottom of this post, you can ask the mods to merge your threads into one.

You can't use radical honesty when fighting an affair because the wayward spouse is only interested in attacking you and making you look bad. Like what happened with your church. He is afraid of what you might tell people and so is trying to discredit you. For exmple BSs shouldnt tell WSs you are planning exposure. Sometimes you shouldnt tell them you even suspect an affair - so you can snoop without tipping them off.

Radical honesty is part of a marriage. There is no marriage while an affair is ongoing or the spouse is still wayward.

Yours is still wayward. He has expressed no honesty, put no changes in place for you to trust him.

Follow the advice of the vets



1) Write down a list of questions you want answered about the affair - get him to write down his answers.

2) Book a polgraph test. Tell him a few days before. Tell him if he needs to come clean about anything, he should do so because you expect him to pass.

3) Ask for all passwords, access to accounts, put a key logger on computer without his knowledge to monitor use on computer, put vars in the house, GPS on his phone. He should be accounting for all his time in ways that can be proven. He should not be going off alone for any period of time where he cannot account for himself.

Has exposure been done? Forgive me if this has been answered elsewhere.



Words mean nothing. He said the same words during the A.

Ask him to SHOW love by completing the above actions.

MB forum guidelines <~~~ Read this

Hi Minjo, I saw your post on another thread. I am no vet but to make things easier I have posted your question here. Please try and keep your questions about your situation to your own thread. It will help people follow what is happening for you and get you more responses.

Firstly minjo, please re-read indiegirl's post below:

Please follow Melody's and Indie's advice. These are steps you need to take.

IMO your WH is blameshifting, he is still wayward in his thinking. OW seducing him? Please, don't fall for this. With him not taking full responsibility for the affair, you are right not to move forward. Of course your WH wants to move forward. He wants to rugsweep. But rugsweeping leaves your marriage exposed to future affairs if not the reignition or the going underground of this one.

Follow the plans. Have your read SAA?

And remember, a truly remorseful husband would be volunteering and suggesting EP's. He would be answering any questions you had. He would be doing whatever it takes for however long it takes to recover your marriage. And whenever he was unsure, he would be posting here for advice.

From your questions, he is not doing this.

Caracal and all who have been reading and helping me,

Is SAA "Sureviving an Affair" book? If so, I ordered it through Amazon per someone's suggestion and will read when it arrives.

You hit the nail on the head by saying "IMO your WH is blameshifting, he is still wayward in his thinking. "

Last night I was able to point out to him that even though he acknowledged that he was the wrong wayward spouse, that he caused me so much pain, but he was not quite willing to subject himself to my terms and whatsoever it takes to recover. He wants to set his own punishment, he wants to be his own judge.

I want to make it clear that he expressed so much remorse and pain and regret, but when I put too much pressure on him, he still fought back...

I was able to give him some clear instructions such as no contact, radical honest(the 2 that he claimed he already did), read and learn from this MB site, stop arguing and being defensive, stop blaming his affair on our marriage nor on me having a male friend (at the same time he always had many female friends of the same friendship level, stop justifying his action as "since I did not have sex, my affair is not a full blown adultery affair, I never had the intention to have sex with her, I knew I would not have sex with her". I did not have any feeling for her, I was not attracted to her....

Here is a part of his email for me the other day:

I learned that I need different boundaries. I had poor boundaries before the OW, but I was fortunate that none of those women were aggressive. I promise to completely change my interactions with women. That is not difficult to do � I neither desire the company of other women nor want their attention. My bad boundaries left me open for bad things� if I don�t leave it open I will not have a problem because I never went after or chased after a women in any way.

I think you�re correct � I was getting some kind of emotional fulfillment from different women at church. I never thought of them in a romantic way, nor did I know I was cheating you out of what should have been your attention, but in hindsight I was getting some kind of emotional thrill from women that I worked closely with at church. I think I felt safe because they were church women. I know much better now.


The other day I learned some interesting insight that affected our relationship as I spoke to our church leader who has an adult son with ADD: my H has a real case of adult ADD with manifested behaviors that never went away since his childhood and our marriage has suffered much because of it. I was completely ignorant about the whole thing. I was told by his mother that he had ADD and that was the extend of my education about this matter. H always dismissed it, saying it was his childhood ADD, and sine he could learn new skills, keep a good job, holding a mature, intellectual, decent conversation, I did not think he had ADD. But now I see that many behaviors that H did throughout our marriage were to ADD related but interpreted as thoughtless, careless and insensitive...

I am bringing this up to say that we did the best as we could throughout 17 years together, we loved and supported and forgave each other as much as we could, providing he has ADD and I am ignorant of how it affected us. This means his feeling and troubles about our relationship is true (he appeared to be irresponsible, thoughtless, selfish, childish, I appeared to be a giant B**ch.

My question is: Does ADD have hindering on his part of recovery from the affair and that we have to approach it differently?

Thank you for reading my long post.

Does he know right from wrong? if yes ... then your answer is NO ADD should not hinder your recovery.

Yep, Surviving an Affair. A must read along with reading as much as you can on this site.

minjo, I am not a vet and stand to be corrected on this. It sounds to me that your WH is still minimising. However, "punishing" him for his affair will not aid you in recovery, nor affair proof your marriage. Please read up on Just Compensation, Extraorindary Precautions (EP's), Policy of Radical Honesty(PORH) and Policy of Joint Agreement (POJA) here.

Can't we just forgive and forget:
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5042_qa.html


Okay minjo, I have put in bold what strikes me as important. Your WH admits he needs boundaries put in place to avoid an affair, he needs to completely change his current boundaries (or lack thereof) to never have another affair and that these poor boundaries leave him open to another woman meeting his EN's. He knows this now, but knowing this is not enough and will not result in recovery. You need actions, not words. So what actions is he taking to put these boundaries in place?

EP's are vital to recovering after an affair and affair-proofing your marriage. What EP's is your WH putting in place? If remoreseful and committed to recovery, you should not be the only one doing the hard yards. He should be making suggestions on EP's and listening to you as well. Being proactive. EP's are not negotiable. Negotiating on them can lead to a false recovery, and do you ever want to go through this again?

Let us know the EP's in place. That will make much more difference in your marriage recovering from an affair than focussing on WH's ADD. Actions, not words.

Hello everyone.

Two and a half month since D-day. I have not posted, but kept reading from this forum and the articles from this site.
I believe we have made much progress. There are 2 big things that help changing the dynamic of our situation: we spoke with Steve Harley and I am no antidepressant.

Many things have been done by my H. The extraordinary precaution is in place, there is a no contact plan that he repeats to me every other day. I am comfortable that he has no intention nor opportunity to contact that wh*re, and I know exactly every minute of his time, where he is at. He has no hesitation to take a polygraph test. Initially Steve brought it up with me,asked me I to ask my H to take one, but then Steve did not ask (did not think it's necessary).

The issue of honesty has been resolved well, I am sure that all about the affair has been out, and more than that, he volunteered many other secret things (not affair) he kept from me for years. It stunned me, but it made me feel actually much better to now the truth. I just have to learn to love a person that I did not fully know for the last 17 years. It sounds scary, but sadly, it's the truth!

We actually get along much better nowadays. I am trying to look at who he is now and how wonderful it would be in the future, and not to look back to the past. It's hard though, there are triggers every where and I can fall apart at any moment. It's not pleasant for him when I go through my emotional hell, but he is there for me.

The way to recovery is at time so rough. My emotion is up and down. I am very glad after the counseling with SH, my H has been very patient and understanding and has been there for me to help me to get through my low point of pain and anguish, thus make me to be nicer and willing to work with him more.

We will speak again with SH next week. The one thing that we are stuck with is "what led to the affair".

My H went over this again and again hundred of times with me, and every time, his answer was consistent that he did not have boundary, that he got into a habit of letting women in general to meet his emotional needs, that wh*re came at the right time, she was aggressive and plan to "get him". I believe that because I have found out from my own sources of some very mean, betrayal acts she did TO ME beside the **edit** affair. I have to say, I've never met a person that evil like her. It appeared like she was actually went after my family to break it up. Stupid woman, she has her OWN family with 4 kids!

Any way, I am sorry about my language and anger I expressed here, and it's way unrelated to the subject. I should not focus on that nasty bag of scum!

Get back to my situation, when we drilled on what emotional needs that I did not meet, that the wh*re met, he is stuck. He can't figure out. It was not about sex, but he can't find why he was drawn to do such a betray act, beside his lack of boundary and protection from an A.

I thought a typical A starts with a unhappy spouse with unmet emotional need. But he did not think I missed anything. Our marriage was not the best, we had fights and stuff, but he was not unhappy. But there HAS to be something that was lacking in our M and the wh*re could meet.

I read many situations where the Ws cheated on their Hs because of their unmet emotional needs, and those are spelled out pretty easily - a H typically was too involved with work, had little or no time for his W. She does not feel loved and care for, there is lack of attention and affection and time together...

But I did not read any situation where the unmet emotionl needs of wayward husband is clearly pointed out.

So, my question is; what are the typical unmet emotional needs from the wayward husbands? Often we hear "sex", but it's not in my situation.

Is my H still lying?

Any suggestions on what else should I do?

I know it's my own personal matter that we need to figure out what E needs of his that I did not meet, but any suggestion?

What does a man often fall for to commit adultery?

Thank you all!

Hi,

I posted the above a week ago and did not get any respond, so I am posting this one in hope that some kind person here will give me some thing - an encouragement reply, a slap on my head... something for me to get back to the MB mood.

My H had the A, but I have ALL the withdrawal symptoms... What is it? I feel like our recovery or path to recovery does not follow the normal route. Why is it me that feel the withdrawal and desire to end the M but not my H?

3 months after D day, about 1 month into recovery, counseling with Steve H on 01/23. Things were good for about 2 or 3 weeks. Hit a bump, small bump but I don't feel like I can get over it. I feel hopeless, I feel that I want a way out of this M. If I did not have 4 kids, I would have been long gone. I want to be out badly. I just feel so out of love, so hopeless of the reconciliation, I am weary of the pain and heartache that I go through, and my H try to blame it all on my depression!!! Had he not screw up, I would not have been depressed. Now, he acted as if I could take a pill and everything is fixed!

I feel so alone and please someone give me a supporting hand!

Are you spending 20 hours of UA time together?

the desire to end things is not unusual as you recover. Where is your focus? is it on the Affair or on reconciliation/the future?

CV