D-day was June 24th, 2012, right after coming home from a week long family vacation (with suspicion on my part). This November is our 20th year married. Two kids, boys, 14 and 10.

I have a relatively quick question, quick because I don't feel like recounting the whole story, at the moment. Suffice it to say, he cheated over a couple months, she is married and got pregnant (says it is his, but her husband (apparently) believes it is his child--my husband tends to believe her that it is his, you know, because she is so moral, or something ridiculous).

Devastated, in love and with two children, I begged him to stay and did what I could to keep him. He has never left (I think mostly because of the kids, but I suspect somewhat because he is a coward), he finally got another job, and supposedly has stopped contact, but again, without belaboring the details, he repeatedly lied over the course of the summer regarding level of contact (mostly phone calls and then email). I continued to figure out different methods (much to his annoyance). Many heart wrenching revelations and arguments occurred.

It appears that now he is maybe finally trying to work on things, but I have got to say, after the repeated times that I extended myself to him, and held out hope for a change, only to have him lie blatantly to me, my love for him turned to hatred. I hate him for so easily lying and deceiving me (totally living a double life, deceiving friends and family), hate him for looking outside of our marriage, hate him for continuing the lies, hate him for worrying more about hurting her feelings than the devastation he caused me, ahhh, you get the picture.

I realized that I have never really felt hate before. I thought I hated HER, but I realize that my hate for him became stronger.

So presently, I am in my marriage, supposedly working on things. I know the advice is to tell the kids, but I couldn't do it to them. They know dad got in trouble due to some bad friends that he got from his last job. So they see the tension, and understand it to a degree, but I couldn't bear to put them through the burden of knowledge, unless I know it is over for good.

I don't know if I can ever believe him again on anything he says. I wonder how likely it will repeat itself (whether with her, or someone else that he meets at work), as well. Sometimes things feel almost normal at home, but his attempts at hugging me make me feel awkward. He feels like a stranger. I initially had engaged in physical relations, out of desperation, I think. Now I would feel revulsion to even try.

He has agreed to counseling, finally. So I guess we will try that. I am now leaning towards a divorce, though he doesn't know I am there mentally. I even have been imagining my life without him, which actually doesn't look so bad....I certainly would not be filled with constant thoughts of worry and dread. But I guess I feel an obligation, not to him, but to my children, who do love their father, to try a little more, since he does SEEM to be putting forth more of an effort. Though, it does feel like too little too late.



So the question is, Can I Come Back From HATE?--In Ideal Circumstances, Could I Come to Love Him Again?

I just wonder if anyone here has gone from completely hating their wayward spouse, to loving them again.

Thanks for the input.

Kaybee

Kaybee,

First you need to establish who the father is, and please do the OWHs a favor and inform him of this uncertainty.

If OW is pregnant by your WH then the OWH has a right to know, you don't need to go through life with this horrible crime hidden to come out at a later date.

God Bless
Gamma

What about saving her MARRIAGE, Gamma? You know, Marriage Builders advice? what she came here for?

Kaybee, Dr Harley recommends that you say nothing about the possibility of this child being your husband's. For your marriage to stand the best chance of recovery, your H needs to end all contact with OW and keep out of that child's life. If he insists on establishing his paternity over that child, then you children will lose out, for life, and your marriage will struggle and might not survive.

That child is legally her husband's unless one of them decides to bring legal action to establish paternity. Focus on your marriage and the needs of your children, not hers.

I think you should click "notify" and ask for this thread to be moved to Surviving an Affair. There is much more help over there with the affair that is still present in your marriage. Your marriage is in the emergency room and needs a defibrillator. Do not focus on this supposed other child, who has a father and mother.

What about saving her MARRIAGE, Gamma? You know, Marriage Builders advice? what she came here for?

If OWs has WHs child you think it's just going to disappear, her WH is on the hook for life, he does not stop being the biological father. This is fundamental to the recovery of her marriage. This is a land mine in their lives.

God Bless
Gamma

He ISN'T the biological father unless a court orders a DNA test that proves that he is. He ISN'T the biological father just because some woman says he is. If she really feels that he is, she can court-order a DNA test. Until then, she is just trying to drag this H back into the affair and maintain contact with him with a false claim, and they should not fall for it. He is not on the hook for life when she gives birth to this baby, but he will be on the hook for life if he volunteers that he is the father, and is court-ordered to do a test and ends up paying maintenance.

You are propping up an affair here, Gamma. Your advice for him to tell OWH that he is the father of the child is not what Dr Harley recommends. Dr Harley is the expert on saving marriages, and he does not say anything about this being fundamental to the recovery of the marriage. That is your own view.

You are letting your own personal obsession about your own status rule your advice to every couple that comes here after an affair with a pregnancy. What you would do for yourself is not Dr Harley's advice, and you have no right to promote it here.

A reminder to posters that our board is for discussing Marriage Builders methods and concepts: Dr. Harley's advice. OC situations are inherently complicated, and Dr. Harley has very specific recommendations for such situations. Please help this poster with Marriage Builders concepts.

Dr. Harley on telling the children:

here



here

here

I just wrote you a really long post and I lost it! I will summarize in this post. Yes, you can fall in love again with your husband if you take a very specific path. This is the only program that I am aware of that effectively affair proofs your marriage and restores the romantic love in your marriage. This is a step by step approach that is outlined in the book Surviving an Affair. It works all the time when it is followed.

The first step is to affair proof your marriage which is followed by restoring the romantic love by implementing the 10 basic concepts.

One of the glaring problems I see in your situation is that the affair has been kept a secret. That is a huge mistake. The affair should be exposed to the OW's husband, your children, close family and friends. Keeping it a secret hinders your ability to recover your marriage because it keeps the fantasy alive in your husbands head. Your children have every right to know what your husband has done to their family.

Please read the link in my signature about exposure.

First of all, thanks for the responses so far.

Secondly, I understand in generally the policy for telling the children. I just wonder who here has done that, and how did it go?

Thirdly, it is not a total secret. His parents know (staged a type of intervention with them, immediately). They are totally on my side, not on his side one iota. They want nothing to do with OW and even the OC. Our closest friends know. Once again, 100% support for me, 0% for him. My parents know now. I had decided to not tell them, up front, because they have always loved him, and I was afraid that if I told them (and we worked things out), they may not be able to get over it. But told mom last week. She has offered to pay lawyer bills, and for me to go back to school for Master's Degree. Moms are awesome. My siblings don't know. All(4) out of state. Sisters are both pregnant and one brother's wife just had a baby. Don't need to be burdened right now. Also, would have trouble getting over it if it works out.

That is interesting about keeping the fantasy alive in his head. I guess with me not exposing her to her husband has allowed that. The reason I did not expose it to her husband and family (found out info using white pages, though) is because of the baby. If her husband feels baby is his, then I have been hoping that they enter into a happy baby-taking-care-of stage.

However, I have planned that if things go very south here, I will of course tell her husband. But first, I will personally go to her parents house with a family photo, and explain to them exactly what their daughter and my husband did (all the sordid details). She put me through hell these last few months(and he of course has as well), and destroyed the life I was supposed to have. At least I can leave a legacy for her so that her family doesn't think she is so great, and thinks my husband is pretty rotten too, if they end up together after all is said and done.

Kaybee

There is nothing we can do to help you if you insist on keeping the affair a secret. Affairs thrive on secrecy so keeping it a secret only serves to ENABLE it. It is very hard to save a marriage when you enable the affair.

You are making strategic mistakes and will probably lose your marriage if you don't expose the affair. As long as the affair is kept secret, the affairees are free to resume the affair. All of your family members, along with the OW's husband need to know NOW, not later.

You have a MORAL obligation to tell the OW's husband so he can protect himself and his children from your husband. How else will he find out if you don't tell him? You don't have to tell anyone what the OW said about it being your H's baby. That is probably a lie anyway. Telling her H can put that lie to rest.

Please make a plan to expose this affair to everyone. It is your most potent weapon in saving your marriage.

And almost all of us have told our children. It was not fun but most of the kids already knew something was wrong.

Kaybee,

You need the OWH to keep a watch on his WW, if she is pregnant with your WHs child it is almost certain OW will continue to contact your WH. There is going to be no happy baby time between OW and OWH if OW is hiding this colossal secret from OWH her marriage will fall apart and OW will run to your WH.

As for your in-laws wanting nothing to do with OC, that illustrates why OCs are difficult, the OC may be their grandchild in a very real sense yet they are rejecting the child even before it is born. I'm an OC myself and understand the costs of being born from sin.

God Bless
Gamma

Kaybee,

I am fairly new here, though have been reading for months. Please, please, please listen to MelodyLane. She is right. The vets here know EXACTLY what they are talking about. They have been through it and have seen situations just like yours countless times.

Once I actually listened and EXPOSED the affair, things started to finally look up. I was just like you. Exposing only to a select few people, but that just kept WH's secret, so the affair continued. After exposing far and wide, we are finally on the road to recovering our marriage using the Marriage Builder's concepts. I was afraid to expose to OWH, family and friends. It was the best thing that I could have done. My WH actually thanked me for doing what I did, so that we could truly start working on things.

Your situation is just like many others on here. I encourage you to PLEASE heed these people's advice.

Good luck and God Bless.

She shouldn't even bring up the OC story since it is probably a lie. If it is true, it should come from the OWH after a DNA test. OW are notorious liars so this story should not be repeated without absolute proof. And if it is true, then Dr Harley's methods should be observed, which is that her H have nothing to do with the OC.

Thanks Fatherseyes.

Melody,

I am not trying to be difficult about this, by any means. I am trying to wrap my brain around it I guess. I come from very private people. So to have the most embarrassing and humiliating as well most devastating thing to have ever happened to me be exposed to everyone I know is daunting, to say the least.

I would be curious to know how it works for people, having everyone know? Everyone being family, especially? How do family gatherings work after that? Frankly, if I knew that my BIL cheated on my sister, for instance, I don't know how I could stand to be around him after that.

I am beginning to understand, though, about enabling. I didn't think of it as enabling, of course. I was trying to protect myself and the boys, and protect our family unit overall. But perhaps in a misguided manner.

I started off this whole thread because of the hate I feel. Frankly, I am not even sure if I want things to continue. I was looking at the spyware topics last night. I will probably invest in some things, to see if he has an alternate email. I did so much snooping before that he may have a pay as you go phone, so can't track things phonewise. Maybe a voice activated recorder for his car. He has a new job, but could be emailing her from work email, for all I know.

I don't think I want to keep living like this, with suspicions and worry. I can see how complete exposure could shut things down, or force them together, if it comes to that. But then, what will stop him in future with someone else?

It is a wonderful feeling having everyone know, because of the mass support you receive. The more people who know, the more people to give you and your family some much needed support and to hold your husband accountable.

It also is very therapeutic for your husband for every one to know. It helps him wake up from his fog when he forced to see himself through the eyes of others.

It is probably the most effective tool in recovery. And even if you decide not to save your marriage, it is best for everyone to know the truth so that lies are not told.

When you (anyone who would feel comfortable sharing) exposed the OW (or OM) to their spouse, how did you go about it? Did you call, or write a letter? How did the OW's husband accept info? Did you have to provide details? Just wondering. I like to have an idea of what could possibly happen. How did your spouse react initially?

There was actually some concern, on our part, to the husband's reaction. I don't know anything about him, really. The OW is in the Reserves, so I think that there could be a weapon in the house. A lot of people around here hunt, so there could be a weapon regardless. We actually considered possible retaliation, which was my in-law's concern. Did anyone have problems with such a thing? What if either of them is unbalanced?

All of this may seem silly, but has been a real concern. I mean, my husband didn't "trade-up". He kind of scraped the bottom of the barrel. Which is confusing and insulting (and even more insulting that he continued to care for so long. I think he got off on someone sort of idolizing him, frankly). But as my girlfriend said, at least isn't defeating and demoralizing, if it had been someone more attractive and accomplished than me (she is quite the opposite in all counts).

What will stop him in the future is affair proofing your marriage. If you know everything he does, it will be impossible to conduct the necessary secret second life. One of the first steps is eliminating the conditions that led to the affair. For example, if your husband travels, that should be eliminated.

If your husband leads a completely transparent lifestyle and demonstrates trustworthy behavior over a long period of time, you won't worry so much anymore.

I am not suspicious about my husband because I know what he is doing all the time. We lead completely transparent lifestyles so it would be almost impossible to have an affair.

But your "trust" in the past has been part of the problem. It is too much trust that leads to affairs. It is not a lack of trust that leads to bad marriages, but a lack of boundaries.

It is a wonderful feeling having everyone know, because of the mass support you receive. The more people who know, the more people to give you and your family some much needed support and to hold your husband accountable.

It also is very therapeutic for your husband for every one to know. It helps him wake up from his fog when he forced to see himself through the eyes of others.

It is probably the most effective tool in recovery. And even if you decide not to save your marriage, it is best for everyone to know the truth so that lies are not told.

_______________________________________________________________

(I don't know how to do the box around someone else's quote, which is above the line)


Melody, I will say that the people who do know are extremely supportive. I know my sibs would definitely be on my side and would rally. So I can see the truth to that. I believe a lot of thinking has been to protect my kids and impact them as little as possible. My decisions may not have been right, but my motives were for the best.

How do wayward spouses deal with everyone knowing? I kind of thought before that it would be easier to resume our lives if few people knew. (of course, not considering that it also made any contact between them easier). If I were the wayward spouse, I would probably have a nervous breakdown if everyone I knew, knew what I did. Of course, I am thinking as if I would have a conscience. I feel like my husband's is so scarred over right now.

The best way to do it is to contact him so that it can't be intercepted by the OW. She will intercept any emails, etc or block your calls if she can. I would try calling him at work if you have his # there. If you don't, you might call the house using *67 to disguise your # and speak to him. You can also just take a friend and drive there and tell him.

One thing you shouldn't do is tell your husband beforehand because he will warn the OW.

Her husband will be devastated so you will want to be as compassionate as possible. Be prepared to hand him your contact information because once he gets over the initial shock he will have follow up questions.

Millions of we Americans have guns, it does not mean we are murderers.


I think that it is unbalanced to have an affair.