My wife started her affair a couple of months before our 2nd anniversary, and it continued for about a year until DD. We separated for a few months, and then reconciled to what I considered a great marriage.
Seven years later out of the blue, I ask her if she had had any contact with him over the years, and it turned out that after taking a 4yr hiatus, they had resumed the affair for several more years though by this time he was married and living 100 miles away, so the affair was low key.
Since that time (12yrs ago) my wife has been perfect in every way, and I really couldn't ask for more. So what would I have done differently? I would have divorced her 19yrs ago. Why? Because before an affair, you not only don't think your spouse would do such a thing, you don't think that they would be capable of such a thing. Once they've done it though, you can never forget. We deserve better than this for ourselves.

It sounds like having a "great marriage" is no insurance against her affairs. How long do you think it will be before her next affair? Has anything changed to prevent it?

You can't prevent an affair when someone is determined to have one, that's the reality of it. My wife has always claimed that there is nothing that I could have done differently, and until she started her affair she was content. I worked hard to make my marriage a success, but as they say, it takes two. I don't want to be a spy, watching the phone bill, checking computer history, mileage on the car, etc. I wanted someone I could trust. After all, that's what the concept of marriage is about.

While I do think that Dr. Harley has some great advice and concepts, I do have a strong disagreement on his position that we all are wired for an affair.

To have an affair, you must possess certain traits:
1). You must be a liar.
2). You must lack empathy, especially for those who love you.
3). You must be promiscuous to some degree.
Cruelty, betrayal and the other things that affairs bring will develop with time, but without the first 3 traits, it's unlikely that an affair will develop.

Dr Harley claims that 60% of all marriages will suffer infidelity, so simple math would show that while 30% of spouses will eventually be unfaithful, 70% never will be, and it's because they don't have the character flaws that would ever allow it. Unfortunately, it's not until your spouse has an affair that you understand their true character.

But just think, if you had not trusted her you might have taken the steps to ensure she couldn't have an affair. It is too much trust that often leads to affairs. It is not a lack of trust that ruins marriages, but a lack of boundaries. And it sounds like your wife has poor boundaries. If she observed appropriate boundaries her affairs would not have happened.

People with good character do have affairs. The ones who typically have affairs are the ones who say they would never do it. Know why? It is because they have pisspoor boundaries around members of the opposite sex.

Were you interested in affair proofing your marriage? Affair proofed marriages do not happen by accident or through force of will.

There is ALOT you can do to prevent affair #3. If you don't change the things in your marriage that led to affair #1 and #2, you will be facing affair #3. It was that "great marriage" you refer to that led to those affairs. And will lead to another unless it changes.

We can help you avoid a repeat if you are interested.

Whose concept? It is sure not the "concept" of those in healthy marriagess. It is not a lack of trust that ruins marriages, but a lack of boundaries. Your "trust" of your wife was inappropriate and is what led to her affairs.


But you can prevent yourself from being a victim to such a person. Why stay married to someone who is determined to have an affair? That makes no sense...

How do you explain the fact that most adulterers don't possess those traits BEFORE or after their affair? Sure, a few do possess those traits, but most don't so your assertion is not true. The typical adulterer exhibits those traits when they are involved in adultery.

Are you saying your wife has all those traits? If so, why are you still with her?

Burnedout,

by this time he was married and living 100 miles away, so the affair was low key.

Did you do the OMW a favor and inform her of what her new husband was doing to her?

Did your WW tell you everything you needed to know or did she try to force you just to move on?

God Bless
Gamma

To me, this reads that you have spent the last 17 (?) years basically feeling unsafe in your M and that this had led to, inevitably, your feeling resentful and unhappy that you stayed with your W.

Had you followed Dr Harley's plan for recovery all of this could have been avoided...

Dr. Harley agrees with you. His plan for recovery puts the responsibility on the wayward spouse to take what he calls Extraordinary Precautions to make sure an affair cannot happen, and he usually advises a betrayed spouse to prepare for a separation if the wayward spouse is not willing to meet this condition of recovery.

These are the kinds of traits that addicts develop, to prop up their addiction. Get somebody addicted to heroin, for example (which is EXTREMELY addictive), and they will very likely lie and betray everybody that cares for them if that is what it takes to get their next hit. They may likely become promiscuous as well, and of course that's a given when the addiction is to a person (i.e., an affair) because when you pass the romantic love threshold, you feel like being sexual with the person you are in love with.

Dr. Harley says that essentially in the addiction of an affair, the wayward spouse can develop a full blown Narcissistic Personality Disorder that was not there before.

In Dr. Harley's plan for recovery, it is not your job to make her be faithful. That is her job. You check to see what she's doing, but that's not in order to make her be faithful. That is in order to cause you to feel the feeling of trust.

Trust is a natural feeling with a specific cause. If you check up on your spouse until you feel bored about it, you will feel trust. If you would like to have trust in your marriage, this is the way to create it. Trying to pretend you feel it when you don't is a recipe for disaster. Dr. Harley is a clinical psychologist who knows a thing or two about feelings, and he knows you can't just make yourself feel a certain way. Your spouse's behavior will have to cause your feelings.


Quip: the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Are you going to do it the same way this time, or different?

Hey, burnedout, you really need to ask the mods to move this to your own thread, rather than taking over this one.

I didn't just blindly trust my wife, but it was earned over a period of time, just like in most relationships, and until her affair it was well deserved.

My wife is one of those people who has definite boundaries, and not only has she always made them quite clear, she has always been adamant about enforcing them. That was always a big attraction for me to her. In fact, the only boundary issue she has had in the 23yrs we have been together has been with one particular person, the OM.
As far affair proofing my marriage, our methods have been pretty much identical to Dr. Harley's principles. My wife claims that until she began her affair, her marriage was as perfect as she could have desired, and still doesn't understand why she decided to cheat with this person.

BO, instead of just throwing out very generalized "Oh, we did follow the principles and it didn't work", why don't you start a thread and tell us your story in specifics so that we can help you pinpoint where there was a breakdown.

For instance,

Who was the affair exposed to (original dday and 2nd dday)
How did the affair start and where did she meet OM (this will help us to determine the EPs that should have been implemented?
What EPs did your W follow?
etc

Trust is a basic concept of not just marriage, but in most relationships. My trust of my wife was earned over a period of years, and until her affair was justified.

If someone has an affair, it's because they were determined to have one with their potential affair partner. It's not an involuntary act, it's willful.
I stayed married to her because until the discovery of the affair, I had no idea that she had been determined to have one, or that she decided to resume the affair after years of a hiatus.

I stayed married to her because I truly love her, and when I had the last DD, the affair had been ended for quite some time.

Doesn't that suggest, then that she does not have the "traits" you listed in your post above, but that she decided at some point that it was okay for her to shift those boundaries and allow someone else to meet her needs?

She isn't a born liar - or not any more than we all are. We are all capable of lying to get ourselves out of trouble, or to (wrongly) avoid causing someone else pain. If lying were not an intrinsic potential in all of us, it would not be specifically prohibited in the 10 commandments, and our parents would not put in the years of training that they give us so that we learn that lying is wrong and ultimately harmful.

What child hasn't stolen something they wanted, and then said "no I never!" when challenged? But we grow up to be adults who do not lie or steal by training ourselves not to do those things. We do the same in our marriages. You and I have never allowed anyone other than our spouses to meet our emotional needs by avoiding the kinds of interactions that enable those needs to be met; no coffee breaks or lunch with opposite-sex work colleagues; no chatiing on Facebook with ex boy/girlriends. We could do those things if we wanted to, and we would lie about them to keep out of trouble if we were suspected - but we stay well away from what we know to be dangerous activities. Your wife didn't do that, and she lied to cover up her activities - but you must know that you too could lie if you wanted to. It isn't impossible for you to lie. Lying isn't a "trait", except for fantasist Walter Mitty-types. It's a rational way to behave to keep doing something you want to do that you know you shouldn't.

Giving us your generalized philosophy on marriage and affairs, especially in your "betrayed spouse" state is not useful to other posters and it doesn't help us to understand your situation at all.

Not to mention we are here to learn about Dr Harley's principles based on his experience working with thousands of couples.

Her affair is justified?


Inspite of her being a liar, w/o empathy and having a tendency to be promiscuous? This makes no sense.

x 2

buenedout - since this is the False Recovery thread, though:

You had a false recovery, and like all of us, you must have found that experience to be at least as devastating as the original betrayal. For most of us, it was indeed much worse to find out that our spouse saw the effect that the original D Day had on us and the marriage, and to decide to continue hurting us anyway.

Is there anything you have learned about how you (both, or just you) might have avoided the recurrence of the affair? Is there anything you regret not having done? Is there anything that you did correctly, that your wife went to extraordinary lengths to circumvent or undo?

What advice could you pass on, if anything? That is the purpose of this thread. If people don't want to take the advice that is posted here from those who have suffered FR, that's fine. Nobody is trying to make them do that; but this thread's purpose is to provide advice from the battle-scarred.