My husband had an emotional affair with one of my friends at church. He and she had always enjoyed joking around, and I never manifested jealousy because for the first 12 years we were at our church their relationship was confined to general contacts at church or at family parties. I figured this friend supplied a little something that maybe I did not; my husband did not supply all my needs and I did not begrudge his enjoyment of this friend. He and I had many other ways to enjoy each other's company.
Our church was full of people who wanted to live Acts 2:42-47, which presents a picture of committed, loving community. We all supported each other, went to each other's major events and helped each other out in countless ways, as well as working together on charitable projects and praying together regularly in avenues provided by the church. My husband and I became an integral part of the place and I was grateful to God for the community surrounding our children as they grew up.
Of course a church full of people is a church full of imperfect people. I'm not saying there were no problems. But the underlying commitment to love each other as Christ loved us held all of us together, trained us to forgive each other, helped us to change and grow.
In early 2007 this friend invited my husband to join her and a few others for a Lenten ministry. I was not asked to join. I was part of another regular ministry in which my husband joined occasionally; I had invited him many times to join the ministry with me; he tended to be less involved at church than I, and I needed to have projects to work on with others, a sense of moving forward in community. At times he was part of a counseling ministry.
The Lenten ministry involved performing (which my ministry did as well). My husband seemed to be enjoying it very much. At this time I was striving to raise my income; I had been a stay-at-home, home schooling mom. By 2007 our oldest kids were in college, the younger two in high school.
There had long been frustration between my husband and me over money -- planning a budget and sticking to it -- agreeing on major decisions. In 2006-2007 he got injured on the job. A snafu arose with workmen's comp; my husband failed to follow through on some very important paperwork, so that year we did not receive workmen's comp pay that we badly needed. I was taking on more and more freelance work, barely functioning in my regular church ministry, and keeping track of all finances as I had for many years; my husband and I in 2007 had been married 30 years.Looking back, I see how busy I was and how much frustration was building between us.
Our parents were having illnesses in this period, except for my mother. In 2008, my mother-in-law and my father died. Two of my siblings became dangerously ill with organ disease. Between traveling to help my mom and sibs, trying to keep up with freelance work and my kids' needs as they sought to move into careers, and holding onto my ministry at church (which was a place of prayer and stability for me), I was dimly aware that my husband and this friend seemed to be having more contact; and his voice was tender when he spoke of her.
Starting in 2009, my husband seemed to be on the telephone with this friend -- might as well call her OW -- several times a week. She was angry with the church leadership about matters involving her position as part-time paid associate leader. I would hear my husband on the phone telling her how courageous she was to confront the leadership (as if no one else ever had). Then I walked by our computer and saw flirtatious e-mails from OW. I did not think of her as OW at the time, nor could I define for myself why I felt threatened and jealous. By April 2009 or so, I started to tell my husband that I did not appreciate this increased contact. He would rebuff me and say he was counseling OW.
The pattern became established for the next two years: I would protest the too-frequent calls and the e-mails signed "Love, [OW]," etc. My husband would angrily say he was counseling her and that she was only a friend, no attraction. The contacts would appear to back off for a while.
Early in 2010 I spoke to OW about this matter. I could see my husband would have a hard time backing off from too-frequent contact if she kept contacting him. She wept and apologized, but I had this underlying feeling her tears were impulsive, momentary, not emanating from real empathy for me or from real consciousness of wrongdoing on her part -- she was feeding me the expected reaction.
I then tried to be trusting and believe that my hsuband and OW would return the pre-2007 level of relating. However, my husband kept getting involved in more and more projects with her at church. Both my siblings died in 2010, plus my best friend from high school, who had led me to Christ. Our oldest was getting married and we had to plan that wedding. 2010 was a kind of a nightmare of grief and overwhelming busy-ness for me. My husband was making some financial decisions with inheritance money from his mom without consulting me -- not bad decisions on the surface, but ones with which I did not agree and that did not take into account some big education expenses.
Early in 2011 the wedding took place -- a great joyful event at our church. I was able to get some rest at last. A month or so later, I had carefully structured my husband's birthday so I would have time for him without any interference before and after he went to work. Both in the morning and in the evening, though, he was "too tired" to have sex with me. He went to bed at 9:00 p.m. At 1:30 a.m. I wakened without him in the bed beside me. I knew in my heart he was on a social networking site with OW. I went downstairs to where our computer is and indeed he was "counseling" her in real time -- the crisis this time being her prolonged bad marriage -- this bad marriage had not surfaced at all in 2009, when her crisis was about her church job, but had become a topic during 2010, and now early in 2011 apparently my husband was making a prearranged midnight contact appointment to help OW with her marital troubles.
I didn't reveal at that moment that I had seen OW's face; I made a noise in the kitchen, which is just off the computer room, and my hsuband jumped and hid the screen. I asked if he was okay and he said he had just had some stomach trouble. I went back upstairs. When he came up a few minutes later, I told him I was disturbed by seeing OW's face on the screen. His excuses began. I just listened, but after he fell asleep, I went and slept in one of our kids' beds (empty nest time).
To tell all about the first quarter of 2011 -- stormy time, seeing a counselor at church together, yelling at each other a lot -- would take a long time. Fortunately, my husband had a hernia and had to be home for 8 weeks. My freelance work was light at this time because I had become too exhausted by the preceding years and had to cut back. My husband and I were together a lot and it helped.
The counselor did not know enough to tell us that we should take extreme measures to prevent all further contact between my husband and OW. Contact certainly backed off. But my hurt was not only based on discovering the ongoing existence of that relationship. My husband and OW had apparently gone to a lot of trouble to defend their "friendship" in their heads. One device was to deconstruct me. My husband told me that she was a wonderful friend and that I didn't have friends that I just went and hung out with, so I didn't understand this terrific friendship. He would be happy for me to have a friend like this, my husband told me, and he didn't care if it was a man.
I told him that HE was that special friend to me, and that I had made him that person on purpose. He kept saying I should have someone else to talk to, "I don't even care if it's about me." I told him that I wasn't going to have another man in my life that I talked to that way and that if I had problems with my husband, I would talk to a professional counselor (which I had at times, that is, gone to church counselors -- had wanted my husband to come, but he very rarely would -- that was back in the 1990s).
My husband also told me that I didn't know how to have fun -- that I got my enjoyment from making projects happen with others, but I didn't really understand fun -- that I was like an accountant who had fun adding up figures. Because I am not a party type like my husband, though I went with him to many parties and danced with him, etc., and because I really DO get more enjoyment out of making something happen with others, my self-confidence was badly shaken. I was being told that despite my efforts to cope with our long marriage and try to be a good wife, it was not enough; my husband needed this other relationship.
I was very tempted at this time to do just as my husband asked (find a friend and have it be a man), but decided on another course of action. I decided I would set up a fake social networking site with Jesus as one of my contacts, and somehow contrive to have my husband discover me on the site in the mmiddle of the night, and have him see me talking to Jesus. But I couldn't rig it so that the name at the top of the site screen would be Jesus and I dropped the idea. I realized I just wanted to hurt my husband like he had hurt me.
Instead I created a g-mail account and dialogued with Jesus. I would write to him and he would write back. Obviously, I am the one who typed replies from Jesus, but in "his" replies much healing and comfort would come to me; scriptures would arise in my mind that stabilized and soothed me. I felt like I could remember that God loved me and that I was a worthwhile person.
At church, only the counselor and two really important friends knew of the trouble; the friends are an older couple that my husband and I both know and trust. Much later, our senior pastor became aware of it. One of our grown children who still lives at home and commutes from home to work also found out pretty soon, and was confused, and very angry at my husband.
In late March or early April 2011, still feeling very threatened by the OW's presence at church even while trying to believe we could be friends again, I Googled "husband had affair with best friend" and ended up at Marriage Builders. What a revelation! There I discovered my pain perfectly described, my distress explained. There I also discovered some really unhealthy habits of mine (such as finally giving up on a discussion in frustration and starting to yell) that I could see were hurtful to our long marriage. I greedily read the Basic Concepts and everything I could find regarding not only infidelity, but other issues in marriage as well. I told my husband about the POJA and Policy of Radical Honesty and I implemented them from my end.
Though I could see that Marriage Builders would advise my husband and me to leave our church, I did not want to believe that we should do so. We have been there for so long and have so many friends there.
One problem I haven't mentioned is that starting in mid-2009, if my husband got upset with me, he would yell that if I didn't do thus-and-such, he would divorce me, he would leave me. At first I didn't take issue with this, but by mid-2011 I finally asked him to stop saying he would leave me. He had been yelling at me a lot about not trusting him because, in line with Marriage Builders' advice not to mention an affair again, I had kept my mouth shut whenever I began to feel anxious that my husband and OW might again be in contact behind my back. My depression was evident, though, and my husband would press me to tell him what was the matter. When he finally dragged it out of me, he would yell at me for one to three hours that I should trust him and he had always been faithful to me, etc. He would mention another involvement he had with a woman at work in 2000 and 2001 -- a case in which he claims that even though very tempted, he had not sex with that woman even though she asked him to sire a baby with her -- if I said something like, "How could you allow the relationship to arrive at the point where she would have confidence she could ask that question?" he would go ballistic -- anyway, he would use that past thing to show me faithful he was and how wrong I was not to trust him regarding OW.
Sometimes after one of these browbeating sessions, he would apologize. It was in late July 2011, after one of these apologies, that I asked him to stop saying he would leave me. He went ballistic again and didn't calm down for at least two hours.
This e-mail is long. . . . In late September 2011 I saw the counselor again myself. She said I was indeed seeing red flags (like when I walked into the bathroom where my husband was about to shower and he leaped behind the curtain -- with his cell phone, I realized a few minutes later -- after which I had felt anxious and depressed, and again my husband dragged out of me why, and again when I said why he browbeat me some more about not trusting him).
Next day after seeing the counselor, while my husband was at work and I was home doing freelance work, I figured out how to access our cell phone records on line. The record for my husband's number displayed about 25 contacts (half incoming, half outgoing) each day for the last several weeks with a number I did not know. A few minutes later, my husband called me to ask why he had just received a text from our phone company saying "Happy to assist with accessing your records" -- his phone is primary on the account. I told him that a number had shown up with great frequency. He had to work, I had to work, we hung up. I later called the number and got OW's voice mail -- she had changed her number.
To describe the ensuing storm would take too much time. I didn't yell because I had learned not to from Marriage Builders, but it was clear my husband was infuriated that I was demanding again that this relationship stop. Because he and OW did not go to bed together, he could maintain that they were just friends and that he was again counseling her through marital crisis; he said that adultery occurred only when physical sex outside of a marriage occurred.
We have not been back to my church since. The impetus not to return came from me; my husband didn't see why we couldn't go back; often when he was talking about OW or saying things like, "Why shouldn't we go back to church? I'm not ashamed," he would look to me exactly as his father had many years ago whenever very drunk (his father was alcoholic).
In the last 9 months we have not been at our church. I do not think my husband has had any contact with OW. We have gone to a nearby Roman Catholic church that is big and anonymous.
Over time, gradually my husband admitted that he was very wrong to have had this affair. I haven't said much about it, though on occasion we have been able to talk through some things; the whole mess has so many ramifications, we have to deal with them one by one and over time.
My big problem right now is that I miss the church community terribly. Many friends called or contacted us electronically, wondering where we were. I felt shamed and dishonored -- ashamed that my husband, an elder in that church, would do as he had. I also felt sure that if I spoke of this matter, people would think there was probably something wrong with me or my husband would never stray, and they knew already that OW's marriage was often a problem for her. (Her husband seems like a nice guy, but both seem very immature to me; their kids did not do well -- oldest managed to finish high school and eventually marry a good man, but the middle two did not finish high school, got involved with sex and drugs and a gang -- painful for me, as I had watched those kids growing up and tried to help while I was still OW's friend).
I also felt, and at times still feel, deeply ashamed because I figure that my husband's relationship with OW (he still refuses to call it an "affair" or "adultery" of any kind) -- I worry that what I call an emotional affair may have further damaged OW's already compromised marriage and contributed to the problems of her children.
My husband is committed to our marriage. For me to read Marriage Builders material helped me understand the withdrawal period. As that period has passed, my husband has become more and more contrite.
The problem for me now is that I miss my community. I have never explained to anyone else in the community besides the counselor, older couple, and senior pastor what happened; when friends have asked, I have only said that personal issues of long standing came to a head and it was necessary for our marriage that we stop coming to that church. I have explained that space opened between me and my husband and misunderstanding came in, so we shut everything else out and concentrated on us. Our friends understand that sort of talk and have not pressed me for more details.
Though I have viewed the posts about exposure on Marriage Builders, I don't feel that in our case exposure would have been best in that church body. I feel it would have opened a door to a lot of gossip and rumormongering.
And as I said before, I also feel deep inside that even my good friends would assume that if my funny, outgoing husband developed a relationship with someone else, then something must be very wrong with me. Even our counselor, after our last session with her in early October 2011, later e-mailed me that "there must be some reason why your husband is attracted to this woman that he finds so fun and interesting." I cried helplessly for two hours after she sent me that message; I was so exhausted; she was telling me that despite my efforts to change and work things through, I was still just not good enough, I wouldn't do, my husband's behavior was justified.
Another problem regards our senior pastor. Because long ago I had fallen in love with him -- a star-fan type of love to which I am prone, though I never was deceived enough about my motivations to try to pursue my feelings -- I had not gone to him for counseling, but had accessed the female professional counselor of which I have spoken. However, my hsuband and I did each see the senior pastor in mid-December 2011, basically to say good-bye. We each saw the pastor separately. In my session my pastor said he had told my husband, "You're wanting to give your wife's pain a 6, and for her it's a 10." I appreciated that. But the pastor also told me that what my husband and OW did wouldn't even be on some people's sin radar. I protested vigorously that even if what happened didn't seem so bad, the degradation of my husband's personality and relationship to me in that time showed how bad it was. Another thing that the pastor had said at a sort of unguarded moment was that he had no doubt that if I had not held steady at my end -- that is, stayed together with my husband -- that OW would have gone after my husband. Perhaps I looked startled; I had felt all along that OW possibly had real designs on splitting me and my husband apart since she didn't want her husband anymore, but I had never told anyone that. The senior pastor started to back-paddle, saying how common it was for a hurting woman to fantasize being married to a sympathetic man. I know he is right, but at the same time, in that moment I realized he must have known how much pressure my husband's and my marriage was under, and I wonder if he could have acted more strongly to intervene.
This pastor has officiated at weddings where a person who has become divorced while a member of our church gets married to another. I never was close to any of those situations, and never commented on them to anyone, but deep in my heart, in the year prior to leaving our church, I kept having this thought: that if my husband left me for OW, the pastor would deem my marriage beyond repair, marry OW and my husband, and I would be expected to forgive and forget.
I don't know if this notion is in accord with reality, but it kept coming to my mind and troubling me.
As I write this, I feel that perhaps it really is better that my husband gradually end all relationship with that church. Despite our long association with it, perhaps what happened to my husband and me happens in a climate. Perhaps it is God's time for us to really seek another place together.
Tonight the women of our church are gathering to have a wedding shower for a church member whose husband died of sudden illness three and a half years ago. Now she is marrying a single man who came to our church through a recovery ministry. I really want to go, but I know that OW will be there. I am not ready to face OW. Yet it seems utterly unjust that I am cut off from my friends and she gets to keep ministering and enjoy the fellowship.
My husband noted my depression this morning before he went to work, and confronted me. He said he is doing all he can, still doesn't agree that what happened should even be called an affair (yet I know he does not wish to return to that relationship), and that he doesn't know what else to do to make me happy. Several times I have told him that I think I need more help to get past this whole matter, and he has always seemed disturbed. But this morning he was open to me entering the MB forum.
So here I am. At times I am still furious deep inside that my husband would so behave that I had to leave the church fellowship and feel stuck, unable to be close to my friends. At the same time, I feel that the church now would not be as healthy climate for us as we need. Yet to find another place where so many care for us so much -- I don't even want to go there, because I still miss everyone at our church terribly -- I miss seeing them and hugging them all week after week, and all the interactions I have described above.
I'm sorry this e-mail is so long, but the situation seems pretty complicated to me. I am grateful for any and all perspective.

That was very, very long - I'm afraid you might miss out on some excellent replies because of it, can you post some short highlights for others.

Anyways, I did read it.

Your marriage CAN survive this ... but ... not if you both continue to place your church community ahead of it. You both know that your marriage comes before other people in your church.

Your husband had an affair with a woman at the church. You have had an inappropriate 'love' with a pastor. This church is not a good environment for you now, or EVER. If you wish to re-attend another church later when you've both worked on your boundaries then okay, but until then, you are both walking into minefields.

It starts with exposure. This church cannot be a part of your life anymore and they need to know why. I'm sorry, I know that isn't what you want - but you aren't going to recover this marriage by sitting in the place where these things happen. This program is specific - you don't get to be anywhere near OW ever again. EVER. And people must know what is going on.

You have both developed a LOT of bad habits in marriage (ie. LoveBusters) and you can work on that. But it doesnt matter what you do as long as you continue to keep putting your marriage in danger over and over again each week.

And I'm afraid you will need to demand a polygraph from your husband - I wouldn't believe for one second that this was only emotional.

Welcome to MArriage Builders. In order to receive the most help possible, please cut that post down to about 3 paragraphs. You won't get much help if folks have to read through a long post to get your story. I know I don't have time to read that. Folks here have careers and families and want to help, but we don't have the time to read a long post.

We don't need alot of information to get the picture, so if you could summarize this in 3 paragraphs, you will find you get many more responses.

Thanks!

Alis, thank you very much.
We have not been at our church now for 9 months, but obviously have not broken off connection with it completely, either.
I will work on a three-paragraph summary of my long post. Should I start a new thread if I do that?

Thanks, MelodyLane! See my reply to Alis.

Who has your affair and your H's affairs been exposed to?

Please read. Exposure 101

I read the post and here are the key facts for fellow MBers to chip in and help.


WH had long EA with a fellow church lady.

WH cut off contact with OW (or no more contact observed by the BS),

BS and WH no longer attend church with OW and BS misses the community there.

WH has verbally committed to the marriage but still denies EA even though he and OW were scheduling late night chats about her supposed bad marriage and signing emails with "love ...".

BS confronted OW and OW put on the waterwoks but carried on contact with WH

OW and WH have high position within the church but NONE have been exposed.

OW BS has not been exposed to.

BS does not want to expose due to gossip fears and fear of being blamed for the WHs bad decision to have an A.

Kids not exposed to.

WH and BS have tried several councellors some of wich fed the BS fear as to the A being her fault.

WH Gaslights BS by throwing temper tantrums and demanding that she should trust him every time she asks anything of him or questions his behaviour with this OW or previous OWen.

I think this just about covers it.

Steuggling

I hope it's ok that I helped you with the key facts so you can get the immediate help you need, I summarised hi lighting the infomarion that is most needed to get you the help. This does not mean that I don't care about the rest of it and your feelings, I have read your post and I am truly sorry you are struggling.


Everyone on here will tell you that exposing the A is the first step you need to take in order to recover your marriage. How can you say your WH is committed to anything when he is clearly still foggy and is denying a very obvious EA at the least even though he has read and understands the MB literature?

Your WH is still Wayward in thought if not in actions too.

How can you be sure there is NC between him and the OW? What snooping have you done? Was there even an NC letter sent to her?


People at your church have the right to know what happened and the right to remove any bad eggs from their community so exposing to them is really really important.

Many people come here and second guess what others reaction will be when they expose and hardly and of them get it right. People respond to honesty and openss. I guarantee that many people in your former church have noticed and have gossiped about the OW and your WH behaviour already. The way to stop the gossip and the assumptions is to expose the A and be honest with the people you consider your extended church family.

Strugglg, I did read your whole post because I had to drive a lot for my job today. Please understand that you are in a whole new world now. Old friends may have to go by the wayside. Your old church, which was a huge element in your life (possibly too much so) needs to go. There is a poor history there, on the part of both you and your husband.

To whom have you disclosed your H's affair? I am specifically interested in the members of the church. I read that you haven't attended in quite a while. You need to let the members know why. This is sin sitting squarely in their congregation. They need to be aware that OW will close the Bible and ignore it in order to meet her needs. Include your husband in that, as well.

Please find another church, because that seems to be a cornerstone for your lives. Let the membership know WHY you are there and why you left your other church.

I would also suggest that you consider putting your considerable energies into your marriage first, your church family second. God never intended to have you use His Son's Church as an avoidance tactic to dodge having to face your marital issues, which is what I think you've been doing. You've escaped the marital issues you have by spearheading church activities in order to feel some sense of control. You're controlling the wrong thing.

Have you read this article? Emotional Needs

MB,

I don't why I couldn't get the link to open so I'm posting it again.
The Most Important Emotional Needs

Thanks, BH. I'm not sure either - it's the same link I use every time.

Struggl, I'm seeing that you haven't really responded in a solid way to the posts that have been made to you. Please let us know your thoughts.

NB28, your reduction is helpful and you were kind to do it.
To sort through all my facts and choose the ones that are important from the MB perspective was confusing to me. I was going to settle in and do it this morning, but you have already accomplished it.

maritalbliss,
Your comments are on target. We were both very involved at our church because my husband felt called to become a pastor years ago and joined the lengthy pastoral training course. I was not avoiding marital problems so much as trying to be supportive by engaging myself in what I thought would be his life work.
HOWEVER -- your comments are still very much appreciated. Even if we had seemingly valid reasons for so much involvement, I have to agree that church was too large an element in our lives. I might not have agreed before we stopped attending it, but after nine months of not being, I KNOW you are absolutely right.
I asked my husband to go with me for counseling many times over the years (we have been married 35 years). He very rarely went and I was left to deal with my frustrations on my own.
I would say NEITHER my husband nor I had the high concept of marriage -- mutual agreement and complete honesty -- that I have discovered through Marriage Builders.

MaritalBliss,
We have exposed the affair to nobody except two members of our household (the second oldest of our four adult children, who lives at home and commutes to work), and a nonrelative lady who became a member of our family -- very old; also our church counselor, a married couple who are older and who also paryaed with us and gave us counsel, and (to a much lesser degree) the senior pastor.
I can't be absolutely certain my husband has had no contact with OW. I just don't see the personality negatives that accompanied his contact with her. Instead, he has gradually become much more honest and a lot more appreciative toward me.
I make certain that we are together a lot, especially late at night, when he likes to view old movies on his laptop. His job tires him -- don't want to add identifying details, but it is quite physically demanding -- and old movies are his way of winding down. . . . I know he is not contacting OW on his cell phone because I still check those records.
Given the timing of his departures and arrivals to and from work, my diligent awareness of what he is doing if I am in another room working, and the very welcome changes in his behavior, I just don't think OW is in his picture any more.
There is an elephant in the room that I need to figure out how to define. My posts get long and I have to work a while. (My husband is at work. I try to make my freelance work hours match his hours.) I will post again later.

Both you and your WH need to be exposed.

Have you read the exposure thread I posted to you?

Please read. Exposure 101

MaritalBliss,
I just wrote a 1,600-word reply, but that is too long.
I did read the Exposure 101 link -- had read it before.
I can't see my initial post right at this moment, but in it I may have failed to note something really important, which is that in the depth of our worst time in early October 2011, I did tell my husband's close relatives and also mine (of my own generation and the next generation up). When I told my husband that I had called his close relatives, he reacted exactly as Exposure 101 describes. He knows of my having told one relative on my side, but his reaction was so infuriated that I didn't tell him about the others on my side. He and I visited his close relatives (I'm being vague to avoid identifying details). They basically told him that they knew there were two sides to every story, but if the situation was what it sounded like, he had to end the relationship immediately. I know that what they said influenced him heavily and continues to influence him. He was desperately embarrassed. He knows I would definitely do a lot more exposing if I ever rediscovered a connection between him and OW.

From things he has said recently, I also believe that he genuinely believes his behavior was wrong. He even said recently (not sure how topic came up) that what he did was "horribly wrong." I felt I had not heard him say it so starkly before, and said so. He claimed he said that all along, and then started to recant, repeating his past thin defenses that he never had agreed it was an EA -- he really has always had a tough time admitting fault, but does eventually if I don't back down from my point of view but also give him time.

His repentance shows more in action than in words. I'm a word person, but maybe I have to leave some room here for our personality differences and not push him so oppressively for certain words that I wreck the progress that I see happening.

As far as exposing the matter: In my longer reply I explored how I envision trying to expose the matter at my church. As I wrote that other reply, I realized how weird our church has become since an important associate pastor left in 2007. (It was at about that same time that the illness of my family and the heightened need for me to earn more money started to take a lot more of my time. Space opened between my husband and me in which the EA could develop.)

The "elephant in the room" I mentioned in my past post was that my attraction to the senior pastor continued for several years in the late 1990s -- a time when my husband was in some kind of depression, very passive, running up credit card bills in an effort to improve the home in financially advantageous ways without a real repayment plan, hardly getting up for work on time, leaving home improvement messes that I had to clean up while trying to cope with the bills, and then spending his late nights watching TV reruns. The words in the senior pastor's sermons about accountability and planning addressed some heavy emotional needs of mine and I don't think it's any mystery I got attracted to him. I confessed this attraction to my husband at that time because it really disturbed me; he asked if I wanted to leave town with the pastor, which I didn't, and my husband seemed to think the matter would pass. I did not seek to develop a relationship with the pastor and kept my contacts with him infrequent.

But because of my anger and frustration with my husband, the attraction persisted inside me. At one point he asked me about it, and I denied it because I could see that if I admitted it, we mmight have to leave a place (the church) that was providing me needed stability -- not through that pastor, rather through the many friends I had made in the women's groups and Sunday school activities. I didn't see why my sinfulness should destroy all the other good the church brought us.

My honesty was not at the level of Marriage Builders, as you can see. But neither did I carry on with the pastor.

Still, about three months ago, having absorbed a lot of MB material, I told my husband that that old attraction probably hurt our marriage relationship. He almost shouted, "No! Not an issue!" I said no more about it.

Since the associate pastor left in 2007, something changed. I was less comfortable in the church and couldn't say exactly why. But I was too busy to analyze it, and letting go of the stability the church brought me was not about to happen.

My husband and I each met separately with the senior pastor in December 2011, after we had not attended our church for two months. The meeting was basically to formally say we could not come back. I wanted to meet with the senior pastor together, but my husband wanted to meet separately.

In my session the senior pastor told me that he had said to my husband, "You're giving your wife's pain a 6, and for her it's a 10." I appreciated that, but the pastor also said that what my husband and OW did would not even be on some people's sin radar. I felt he was making excuses for the EA, not wanting it to continue if it bothered me, but also diminishing its impact.

OW's husband is not a stable person -- on antidepressant medication, a retired guard who owns a gun -- it is not hard to believe OW has needs.

Exposing the EA to that church family would be an iffy thing. OW is till a popular minister there, and if I were to "expose" what happened more widely than I have, after not attending there for 8 months, I don't believe the effect would be to reveal truth. The more I think about it, the more I think that exposure would result in a lot of confusion in a congregation that is not being well led enough to understand what happened. I think a lot of people would defend OW and that enmity would form toward me. The result would be division in a group of people whom I can no longer be part of anyway.

My tone has changed from when I first posted, yes? I first posted because, as I saw it, I had to leave a beloved community because of what my husband did. But I have a lot more peace about leaving the place now. My husband definitely wants to part from it permanently. He had difficulties at times with the senior pastor that seemed like difficulties he's had with many other authority figures in his life -- lots of complaining about his father, his supervisors at work, about other pastors, you name it, he complained. I now believe, though, that my having been attracted to the senior pastor added to those difficulties, even if my husband does not wish to say so.

I don't bemoan leaving that congregation any more. God will give us ways to tie off relationship with it. My husband and I have done a lot of Marriage Builders work (especially the POJA and, at least from my end, the Policy of Radical Honesty). Certainly my husband has been a lot more communicative with me about what he does with his time, and I have also been more diligent to see that we get our 15 hours a week together. It is all helping.

I think we will be okay. Saying so doesn't mean I am no longer interested in your replies or that I have received all I need from Marriage Builders. I will be reading MB the rest of my life. I have recommended MB to all my children and they have read it; one child is married and has told me that MB is being implemented; another is engaged and has put the site to good use with fiance.

And you might still have some things to say that I need to hear.

Sorry, I really have trouble writing short posts.

Why don't you do the online program or call the Marriage Builders coaching center?

So, are you ready to expose to your own family and your church family?

Please listen to this radio clip of Dr. H telling the steps of fighting an affair and the first step is exposure.

Radio clip on Killing the affair with exposure and Dr. H's feelings on affairs.