Gamma, I feel that at this point you are allowing your personal needs to colour the advice that you are giving other people, and this goes against Dr Harley's advice.

Dr Harley does encourage the WS to give the facts about the affair to the BS. The BS needs to know who OP is so he or she can be avoided, and also things like how long the affair lasted and whether they went away together, or had sex in the marital home, or met each other's children.

He specifically discourages the BS from probing the WS about feelings and reasons. He does encourage the discussion of unmet emotional needs that made the affair attractive, but he does not want the WS to tell the BS about the intensity of the sexual feelings or the sexual positions, or to compare those to the feelings that were felt for the BS. He does not want the WS to probe over and over for reasons. The BS does need to know about circumstances, such as the affair taking place during overnight travel, or during working hours in hotels, but Dr Harley is very much against exploring the detailed intricacies of physical and emotional feelings, as you often encourage in your posts.

For one thing, there can never be a reason that makes any sense. The BS will possible never be satisfied with any reasons given, because, whatever those reasons were, the WS always had an alternative to having an affair, and often did not talk to the BS about any unhappiness he or she felt. An affair will rarely make sense as an answer to any marital problem, to the BS who was in the same marriage and never had one.

As fifteen says, she cannot explain how she was able to have a happy marriage and be in love with her H, and still compartmentalise enough to have an affair. And how do you suppose she could ever explain her feelings during the affair in a way that will make her H feel satisfied with the answer? What can a WS ever say about how indifferent they were to the BSs feelings, that will make a BS feel that this or that particular answer is acceptable?

Digging deeper into the WS's feelings is unlikely to ever reach a satisfactory conclusion or make the BS feel at peace. What it is very likely to do, though, is keep the affair centre stage in the marriage and make the present as unpleasant as possible.

You bring your own obsessions to bear when advising a WW, especially. I think that your own problems in your marriage are that first, you treat your wife's pre-marital infidelities as on a par with her post-marital ones, and even though you knew about at least one of her infidelities before you married, you refuse to let those go, and second, she won't tell you anything about the post-marital infidelities.

That is different from fifteen's position on the past affairs. She isn't withholding the facts from her H. Fifteen's H's problem might well be that she has never changed job and this makes him feel unsafe, and he refuses to consider her leaving the job. But fifteen has talked about her past affairs, and talking about them has brought nothing but further misery for him. Please stop encouraging her to go on with this.

15Y,

He also CANNOT stop bringing up the A. He keeps going over and over in circles wanting me to give him answers that I don't have.

I cannot explain why I did it because there will never be a reason that justifies why? I am sickened by my weakness and actions. I think about it every day and it infuriates me, just as it does him. He keeps throwing Affair punches at me though and I don't know how much longer either of us can take it!

Is it that you cannot or do not want to go back in time and remember your reasons because you think they will hurt your BH too much if you are honest?

15years. His family is a huge part of your problem. I'm pretty sure that I would have never recovered if I ran to toxic support every time I triggered.

I agree with everyone that you would benefit from the coaching center when DH returns home. They are experts at getting reluctant spouses on board...and being on board is how he will recover himself and your marriage.

Otherwise, his anger will follow him through life.

I think you need to have a consult with steve Harley ASAP

There are still some areas I believe you need to address in yourself. I still think that a large bulk of this problem may be continuing contact with an OP. And if that's the case, you can fix everything and then some, and it won't be enough.

I'd be delighted to be wrong...this just feels off to me.

I agree. Please up your snooping.

I believe he went to his parents house. I checked his phone records and there were a lot of calls to his mom, dad, and brother. This however is not the best of news since none of them support us and they pretty much disowned me

I was listening to Dr. H the other day and his advise to a BS was that he had to let the affair go because bringing it up was not doing anything for recovery. The H was convinced that bringing it up was helping him but Dr. H explained that if it was, then why did he have to keep bringing it up. I believe my H is in this same place right now.

I'm convinced that what's kept the resentment of S.R.'s husband alive for so many years is that he has found it to be an effective way to control and punish her whenever she doesn't do what he wants. Whenever they have a fight, he brings it up, and it causes her such guilt that it gives him a decided advantage in winning the argument.

By this time, I don't believe that her affair is the problem that she thinks it is. Instead, it is an issue that her husband is using to get the upper hand in his relationship with her.

MB and Marcos,

I have read this article before and just reread it and it fits my situation perfectly. He does have this control over me and I think he knows it. But the A is so raw that I feel that I have no justification in fighting back right now.

To answer your question about last night right after he left there was a phone call to his mom and then a return call from her. All of these calls happened in a matter of five minutes. There is also a 13 minute conversation between my H and his brother. I am assuming (and only assuming) that he either stayed at his parents or brothers house. Again, I have no solid evidence of this and did not verify because I was so mentally exausted by the bomb that the dropped on me last night.

My question now is, should I call him and see if he is coming home tonight?