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I am sorry we upset you with our advice, auth..
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt Exposure 101
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Joined: Jan 2012
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hi authea. i was in your shoes (only you did a whole lot more things right at the beginning than i did). i see melody has already caught you up on ENs - that was my first guess. one of the great things about MB is that it takes the guesswork out of your relationship. your spouse can be O&H with you about what their needs are and how they best like them met. and vice versa, of course. the love languages book is a good book, but it doesn't really help with specifics like MB does. love languages is a theory, MB is a practical, working programme. UA time is the other thing. a lot of people *think* they're having UA time because they are together. however, when they are together they are not focused on meeting the top intimate needs. ua = undivided attention on those needs. back to being in your shoes. i never asked much in the beginning either, because i was too overwhelmed. so now i can see that it was no surprise that 5 years later, i not only still thought about it, i was starting to feel less and less "better." in the end, we made an appointment to discuss my questions so that we would never have to talk about it again. i provided the Qs a week in advance. i took my time (about 2 weeks) making the list. i introduced my questions to my H by amending Joseph's Letter here on the mb boards, to help him understand why i was bringing this up after so many years. i was not healed. not even close. btw, we did this outside of our home and with a facilitator. not saying you need one, but we had trouble learning how to talk with each other, and needed the guidance then. plus, i didn't want the conversation to taint our home (any further). despite this full disclosure, i still ended up with other Qs weeks later after my mind thought them over a bit. however, i asked myself if the drawbacks of bringing up the a were worth the value of the answers. it wasn't (no, i didn't ask, i figured "no" out by my little self, lol). since then, using MB, we have made our M happier and healthier than it has ever been. it's been 6 years since i found out about my H, and although the knowledge never leaves me, it doesn't hurt and doesn't occupy any more time than it takes to have a thought and tell it to get lost. i do not allow myself to dwell, even when i have a trigger, now. anyhow, i think you should make a time to speak with your H. assure him that you want to put it behind you, never speak of it again. but that you need to know what happened so you can be sure, via EPs that it doesn't happen again. that's the MB way.
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whoops. i typed my reply and hour before i hit "submit." trip to the market interfered. i hope she comes back. it's really bothering her, and we can help.
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That was a great post, Letty! Hopefully she appreciates the time and thought you put into it. If she doesn't, another poster will get something out of it. 
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt Exposure 101
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I am sorry you are upset.
Very little of the conversation you related having with your H about the affair and his feelings about OW rings true. He clearly is terrified of hurting you (understandable) but he does NOT sound honest.
He is telling you what he thinks you want to hear.
I also think you are continually triggered by seeing OW's family members on a reg basis.
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thanks mel  i have a feeling she's in that "don't want to rock the boat" stage, because she's afraid, like we've all been, about hearing the whole unvarnished truth. it does indeed suck. but oddly enough, it is like cleaning and cauterizing a wound. once you have the full truth, you can only get better!
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Gotcha? really? Is this what this is? I thought you were trying to help! Now I feel like I'm on the defensive just because I don't know your "lingo" ...
I DO know my husband's needs! We had a talk tonight about all of this (part of our UA that we have every day...dinner conversations). He again reassured me that I was NOT to blame...that he even "used" my weight gain as an excuse for his attraction to her, but now that he's out of that "fog" he was in during the affair, he knows now that's all it was...an excuse. In reality, he said HE let himself get complacent with our marriage. He said he basically was in a "mid-life crisis" and was flattered and then excited when the OW made a play for him. He said he never was emotionally attached to her, nor loved her. He felt attracted to her, was enticed with the newness...but actually got bored with the sex pretty quickly. He assured me that he loved me now more than ever, because he realizes now how wonderful I am, how devoted, how faithfilled, what a great wife, mother, and grandmother I am. And I wasn't HUGE...I went from a size 12 to a size 8 in losing that weight! It's not like I was obese or anything! I've always taken pride in my appearance, but some medical issues I had had promoted some weight gain. I asked him point blank tonight what I had done or failed to do to cause this and he again said nothing...you have always been a great wife, and I've always loved you and always will. He said he would always regret this action and would spend the rest of his life doing his best to make it up to me. He answered all the questions I had for him. Some of the things I asked were "did you ever love her? (no) did you ever tell her that you did? (no) did you ever go anywhere you didn't already tell me about (one restaurant) (no...he didn't want to be seen with her)do you ever think about her? (only with disgust that she enticed him to do this...he has since found out from her ex that she has done this numerous times) do you wonder if our relationship gets "routine" you will be tempted again? (NO! I now realize how amazing you are, and how important our marriage is and I will never do this to you / us again!) We had just read a devotional (by Dr. James Dobson) about marriages going through romantic periods and serene periods and how normal that was. He told me that if we were in the "serene" part of our marriage some time in the future again, (as it was in at the time the affair began) he would either be fully content with the serenity of it, or do things to heat up the romance again. He also told me (and he's never told me this until tonight) that I am a better lover than SHE ever was. (This WAS one of my fears!) The excitement of newness and illicitness quickly wore off, and after that happened he said it was actually boring...he was looking for ways to break it off with her BEFORE I ever discovered about it; he'd actually tried twice, but she became so depressed (she was on meds for bipolar / mental issues) that he feared she would hurt herself or her kids. All of this came out tonight and actually made me feel great! I didn't cry; he was very sincere and offered to tell me anything I asked. I still don't know some of the details, but I don't think I need to know anything else.
I know he loves me. I know I love him. I know that we will make it. And if it takes years to fade away, so be it. I'll deal with it.
And, quite honestly, I won't ever get on this site again.
This is not to say it doesn't do good; it does. It has helped me...sometimes just putting words down does that. Sometimes the words were wise. But sometimes the words have been very judgemental, frivolous (shopping for a new kitchen???), and wrong! What it has done is caused ME to dwell on it, and I refuse to do that. All of the actions I initially took I did on my OWN purely by my instincts (months later, as I read books or sought counselling did I learn I took most of the right steps!) So, I am going to CONTINUE to deal with this in my own way with the love and support of faith, my husband, family, and depend on them. Goodbye, and please be careful what you say here...people are in a vulnerable state who come here. Remember that. Your husband is correct in saying that you are not to blame for his affair. He allowed someone else to meet his emotional needs, and he should not have. If he had followed The Policy of Radical Honesty of MB at that time, he would have told you right away of his attraction to this woman. And according to the Policy of Joint Agreement of MB, you would not have been enthusiastic about him going over there any longer. There are spouses who ARE meeting all emotional needs, but due to sloppy boundaries, they end up in an affair. We who post on this forum are bound to the Terms of Service guidelines, which means we have to post Dr. Harley's advice. We could post advice from Love Languages, but the reason we are here is because MB worked for us and not Love Languages. (no offense meant for Love Languages.) It's not about just the lingo being different. These are two completely different programs. MB is much more specific and based heavily on Dr. Harley's many years of research.
Married 1980
DDay Nov 2010
Recovered thanks to Marriage Builders
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Even getting on this site makes me feel guilty...like I'm dwelling on it/prolonging the agony! Awwwwww Authea .... You' are experiencing hard-to-describe irritants during your recovery. There is no guilt or shame in that. Does ANYONE who's been betrayed have the answer to when it will leave the forefront of my thoughts and become just a faded memory???? There is no one answer. But there is an average timeline. Once the A has ended permanently, and there is no chance of further contact with the OW, and both spouses are doing what they are supposed to be doing .... the average timeline is about 2 years. Having said that, I still had problems up until around 4 years after H's affair was ended. Forgiving OW? Who cares? She is not a participant in your marriage. One day, sometime in the future, you will realize you only feel pity towards her. It won't take any effort on your part. She will become very trivial. Like a footnote. The most important thing you wrote is: But I also guess that part of me was killed when DD happened. I thought our marriage was SO strong, SO happy, and that we could totally trust each other. Because of that betrayal, can I ever say that it's better than ever? I wish I knew. I know we love each other, and our marriage is everything to us. Is that love going to eventually bury these thoughts of his affair from being on my mind all the time? That's what I don't know. I used to feel exactly like this! I felt my optimism was lost forever. My natural cheerfulness was replaced by a weird glum suspicion that doom was just around the corner. I was tense and anxious. But guess what? I'm not any more. You may think there is one recovery door you can just walk through and all that painful garbage will be faded from your memory .... but it''s not like that. The pain and disappointment is more like a huge mountain. The biggest object you can imagine. At first, you are being crushed by the mountain. You can barely breathe. You don't know how you managed to live through the pain it was so overwhelming. Slowly you become strong enough to take steps away from that mountain, but you are most definitely in it's shadow. For a long time, you feel it's darkness. As you and your beloved H work on your love, your marriage, you are taking steps further and further away from the mountain. But, you can still see it. It has not yet disappeared from the horizon. It will. There is no guilt in having residual pain. Don't waste your time with that. Or with thoughts of OW. Look away from the mountain as much as possible and know that as you keep moving you will eventually only remember the mountain, but you will no longer feel it's shadow over you. Take care.
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