Take it from me, two wrongs dont make a right. As a cheater, I feel your husband has an obligation to cut off all contact, if he has any intention of preserving his marriage. I did. Now, be wary of falling into a "tit for tat" cycle. I currently feel that is what my wife's stance is, even though I severed not just my affair, but all female contact after I was caught. Either you or him need to put the brakes on everything, and make it so you either focus on each other, or get divorced. Just my opinion.

are you guys saying he's always going to feel slighted by that I "one-upped" him? If so, what can i do? might he try a "re-do" to make things even?
How can I help him? We have the POJA and boundary guidelines....

He may try a redo, or he may go back to her. Resentment can perpetuate itself, which is why I say you guys should just try and put the breaks on everything, and start from the ground up. You had your affair, he had his, it is time to work together for the both of you. Otherwise, it could turn into the situation I am in, where my wife doesn't trust me (because I cheated) and I dont trust her (I feel she is stringing me along and is insincere about working on our marriage).

I would say that your BWH will eventually not feel slighted even though you one-upped him to the 5th degree.

After you being a WW then a BW you have to have an idea what a BH goes through post dday.

After being on MB you know how trickle truth has set back what was 2.5 year old news to you is now .5 year not so old news to your BH.

He has to come to terms with the new info that revealed the extent of your PA.
He has to come to terms with how he fell short in the RA department.
He has to come to terms with that even if his PA was better then your's it would of not solved any recovery problems.
He has to come to terms with that whether one is a WS, BS, or both there is no score keeping or getting even when there are affairs.

So what have you been doing to recover? Both read SAA, HNHN?

Why did you confess to your BH? Why not keep it a secret?

Many a time the BS has to lead the way through recovery. Even though you were a WW first you need to do what ever you have to do to get BWH back on the recovery road.

Your BWH is acting out.
He was working on recovery but when you revealed the whole truth you not only mad him feel he lived a lie during the affair, but the last 2 years that he thought was a good recovery was also a lie. His trust level is down to zero.

Have you been doing the UA time every week?

Thing is I don't condone BWH having a tantrum because of the way everything turned out either. My talking about your one upping was to see a side to the issue that you were not seeing.
And you can't say I sorry or admit where he fell short. That will only crush his ego more.

Now to get things back on track you would best be served by a counseling seession with the Harleys. Their great at giving strategies and developing plans to get you and you husband working together to heal.

K,

Do you have children? My H had a RA that turned into a PA. When I found out I exposed him to my parents, (his parents already knew and were okay with it because we were technically separated...another story) and to our children (my 15 year old son is actually the one that convinced me to snoop). My husband was furious and excused me of turning our children against him. He would not talk to me for two days.

However, it was our children that truly convinced him that what he did was just as bad as what I did. This was at the beginning of January and he still struggles with feeling justified in reasons why he did what he did.

Luckily he defogged very quickly but he still Love Busts me occasionally about the reasons why he did it and exposing him to our children.

My husband also said that his affair was 80% ego and 20% revenge. The reasons however don't matter on either end. An affair is an affair and no reason is good enough to have one. I would suggest making sure that he continues to see how sorry you are through your actions. You also need to be honest with him about how his affair makes you feel, no matter the reasons or how far it got.

Be honest with each other and use MB to help guide you. This has taken my husband and I in a much better directions. We are moving very slow and still have A LOT of work to do but each and every day we are getting there.

I am praying for both of you,

Fifteen

we have kids but they are out of the house. We just went and spent time with two of them yesterday and he really enjoyed himself.
he hasn't slept through the night in forever and I asked why just now and he said he has been traumatized by the last two year's events.
He knows I hurt too and feels so guilty I think he goes back to his own bad feelings from what I did to at least feel like the betrayed and not the wayward...just my opinion... or, he's got something else to hide or something is going on with him. Still no evidence the A lingers.

Your BWH feels bad that his wife had an affair.
Your BWH feels bad that he had an affair and it did nothing to remedy his WW's affair but only add more pain.

I assume you have a keylogger going, var, gps, etc, to verify NC. So if you are doing all you can and can not find evidence then chances are his PA is over.

What ever healing your BWH has done was undone due to the trickle truth wounding him anew revealing that you had a lot more SF with the OM then what he was allowed/thought to believe what originally happened.

This is why he is not sleeping well. Trumoil from him realising that a RA was not his silver bullet, as well as a delay in the truth coming out after two years.

I have beed trickle truth about every 3-5 years over the last 30 years. Waiting for the next truth to get trickled has left me unable to sleep well for at least the last 5 years.

You need to just keep on verifying NC and following the MB steps for recovery. And remember the first dday was 2.5 years ago but the trickle truth has made the dday date revised to a half a year ago. You can not expect BWH to be 2.5 years out from this mess. Or you for that matter with his PA added to everything.

Recovery is a 2-5 year process. So just keep on MB'ing you way back to normal.

Kstockett,

Basic question is your BH/WH on board with marriage builders has he read up or posted on MB? I ask because many of the feelings he has I had before I ran into MB.

God Bless
Gamma

He's read the book and he knew the A needed to end. In Harley's book when the person found out her husband was having an affair she was hurt but respectful and kind.
When I found out I hit my husband over the head with his cell phone and demanded to see it when he grabbed if from me and threatened divorce. I called him every name in the book and marched him over to her house to tell her husband. I gave him no heads up on exposure. I was cruel and controlling. For this, he is resentful. He actually said last night he wanted to end it himself and I said you had three weeks to end it. He had no argument for that. He also said in time he would have ended it. I said in fairness to me it couldn't go ONE MORE DAY.
He agreed. He's just pissed.

When a BS catches their WS having an affair there are no rules to how they should react.

Not advocating violence but smacking a cell phone over one's head hurts more mentally then physically. It's more in the line of old movies where a man crosses the line so bad he accepts the temporay insanity of his wife. A smack is different then a beat down where first aid to emergency room care is required.

Any way after your own affair you learnt about the importance of exposure and I commend you to forcefully execute it.

"I gave him no heads up on exposure. I was cruel and controlling. For this, he is resentful."

Exposure rule No 1: do not forewarn WS that you will expose or threaten to expose if the affair does not end.

You did nothing wrong. Exposing is not cruel or controlling. Exposure has nothing to do with POJA.

"He actually said last night he wanted to end it himself and I said you had three weeks to end it. He had no argument for that."

BWH is reacting normal as any affair addict. Your exposure has removed the source of his addiction he is not going to be happy. So he will offer any response to deflect the heat off him self.

So being pissed is a normal response by your BWH. With the added pressure to be pissed even more because his WW out affaired him as well as out exposed him.

"I said in fairness to me it couldn't go ONE MORE DAY.
He agreed. He's just pissed."

BWH agreeing is a sign of his own defogging. Soon he'll be out of piss.

Hello ks,

The problem is now that you have both ended your A's you are looking at each other to fix what you both broke...

instead of getting to work on the MB plans.

I don't see ANYTHING about you and your WH meeting each others EN's, spending at least 15+ quality undivided time with each other and stopping the LB's.

All I see is anger and resentment against each other for the A's.

Even if HE doesn't participate initially in the plan YOU must to get the ball rolling.

Right now he sees it as unfortunate his A did not go as far as yours did.

You know what that matters?

Nothing.

You BOTH need to see the other working on the plans to provide a better M for each other.

In time if your H's EN's are being met by you he will see the BENEFIT TO HIM of working the plan.

Mrs.Flint didn't want to work the plans in the beginning either...

Most WS's don't.

After she saw the benefit to HER and me changing my viewpoints on several things she saw how they benefited HER and we started working them together.

Right now, he has absolutely no reason to want to be married to you.

You are a source of PAIN for him, which is why he doesn't sleep at night.

All he sees is your gloating over your exposure of his A, and in his mind his didn't even go as far as yours!!!

Give him a reason to want to be married to you without expecting anything back in return and see what is reaction to you is.

You BOTH owe each other compensation for your A's.

You had your A and fortunately learned how to fix it from MB.

Part of your compensation is to love him enough to do the same for him.

God bless.

Jim

Believe me, we are spending time together and I know his needs, he knows mine and we are trying our best to fulfill them. I am not gloating over the exposure of his affair. I listen to him and try not to love bust back to him. It's hard but I express my frustrations here...
I see your point....this is the hardest thing I've ever done. I am in agony every day but I have to put on a happy face in front of him.

k, I don't see that you answered my question and I am really curious of your thoughts.

Do you think it's possible/probable that WH working 100 yards of OW has anything to do with your problems with him now (either triggering him and keeping him foggy or that he has actually continued seeing her)?

Do you think this can work out for the long term (them working walking distance of each other)?

Do you think Dr Harley's advice for potentially having to move to a different town in order to prevent contact applies to your situation?

And, k, if your answer is that you think this situation doesn't need to change in order to R your M, that's OK but I think it's only fair to let posters (like myself) know your position so we can either try to change your mind or move on.

at this point I don't know. He certainly doesn't seem to be missing her... the affair lasted 3 weeks. I think he's angry he got caught, angry I took control of the exposure and angry I had an affair that was sexual and he didn't expose the way I did.
I am finding no evidence of continued contact. He can't see her office when he drives to his office but they are about 2 blocks away.