Is there a reason why you and your husband are playing cruel headgames with your BIL? It is like a cat toying with a mouse. The POJA does not apply to being cruel and mean to others. Isn't that a violation of your moral principles?

Why not stop playing head games with the man and just tell him the truth?

All of this drama could have been avoided if you would have just told the man the truth the first time.

Trying to force a known, practiced liar to tell this man the truth is a ridiculous expectation that has only led to alot of unnecessary drama and frustration. The most important thing is that your BIL is told the truth about his own life.

Please just tell the man the truth.

You are allowing her issues to negatively affect your marriage by toying with the BIL's head. Just send him a text telling him the truth and be done with it. You are driving this man crazy.

Is there a reason why you would have a part in that? If I watched my husband doing such a thing to another human being I would seriously wonder if he had a wayward mind. Your husband might be foggy but you are not. You know better!!

Oh didn't answer one of your questions. We only know the first name of the SIL's OM. But my BIL knows him as he was a casual friend of his. He of course lied and told BIL that all they did was kiss when confronted.

Just read your last posts. My husband has told him what he knows as evidenced by his email. They messed around, she gave him oral sex, they got naked, but didn't have sex.

All is out in the open, unless you want us to tell him that the SIL said she can't stomach having sex with her husband unless she fantasizes about OM.

I think that would be cruel.

Where did he say that? I missed that post..

Sorry. It was a bit hidden. And through subsequent graphic texts from BIL I can confirm that he knows what we know.

BIL EMAIL: I don't know if they went to his house n got naked or if she gave him a bj or what

My H's email: Those two things you mentioned are what I know about. Kinda weird that u mentioned those exact acts.

We were not trying to play a cruel game with him. My H came clean to me all on his own regarding the worst part of his affair. I guess we thought she would come clean if she knew we were going to spill all.

I know what it feels like. This is the same SIL who lied to me, fixed my H up with her best friend and encouraged the affair all while being nice to my face and giving me presents for Christmas and my birthday. And this is the same BIL who told me to leave him out of our personal matters when I went to him for help.

So, yes I know what it feels like for someone to be cruel. And I have tried to help these very same people. I'm sorry if we didn't handle it perfectly but it is difficult in the midst of the drama. If I was cruel and didn't care we wouldn't have told him what a lying cheating woman he's married to.

BIL already knows about SIL's secret second phone. I don't know of anything else that we haven't already told him, other than the comment SIL made about fantasizing about OM when she has sex with her husband, but I don't feel comfortable telling him that,which would seem cruel and unnecessary. Do you think it right to tell him that? He knows the OM. They were casual friends.

I read that and I don't consider that giving him the facts. Vaguely confirming some of his guesses is not the same thing. And it leaves him with the impression that there might be more. Which is confusing. It would be confusing to me.

Would it be so hard to text him with the FACTS? To say something like:

"They messed around, she gave him oral sex, they got naked, but didn't have sex."

AND give him any other facts that you know?

I wouldn't say they didn't have sex, because obviously they did. But my point is to say would it be so hard just to text this man and give him straightforward facts about everything you both know?


But you wouldn't give him the facts to support that conclusion. He can only work with FACTS, not vague, cagey allusions.


BUT, the issue was that he needed to know the truth. Your desire for her to "spill all" was superseded by his right and need to know. And it is the obligation of whoever knows to tell him. It is very unrealistic to expect that a liar will tell the truth.

ITA with ML.

The text response that was sent wasn't clear at all. All the facts that are known to you both should be given to him in a straightforward manner with the statement "this is everything that we can think of that we have been told about this affair" or something along those lines.

Because this poor BH was given such confusing information, it will make it all that much easier for his WW to gaslight him.

Ok. Husband texted BIL all the facts, so please stop calling me cruel and mean and stop questioning my morals.

I was trying to help those that hurt me so badly and in the process your comments have hurt me. I guess I don't take criticism well.

Did your H send him another text giving him those facts?

Would you agree that it is cruel to withhold facts from an adultery victim? You might not have meant it that way, but that is the outcome when you won't tell someone they are being harmed behind their back.

Can you imagine if the BIL would have teased you with vague references to an affair but refused to give you the facts?

YES. AS I SAID HE SENT HIM A TEXT WITH THE FACTS.

What would you call this same BIL when he refused to help me, give me any information and told me to deal with my husband's affair by myself because he didn't want to be bothered? He is also good friends with my husband's OW. It seems like we helped him (albeit not perfectly but at least we tried to help) whereas he was no help at all. And now I am getting ripped a new one by you, Melody Lane. I don't even want to post on this board any more.

I would call him a jerk. But you are not a jerk. You are a good person who knows better.

I wasn't going to post again but I'm really at the end of my rope.

My anniversary is next Tuesday and my husband and I had planned to each take the day off from work and spend the day together. Well he started working for someone else. That had been one of my issues- his business made very little money plus being self-employed made it easy to sneak away and see the OW. So I am happy that he is now working for someone else and should make more money. He has to go out of town for a job. (He's merging his business with the new employer.). He knew I was anxious about that so a friend from church who knows about the affair will be going with him.

So I asked him the other day if he'd still be able to take off for our anniversary and he replied "I guess I have to". Not the reply I was wanting. Before the affair my husband would never take a Friday off to spend with me when I asked him. (I work part time and have off on Fridays.). But he would take days off to golfing with his friends and of course took days off to see the OW. His excuse was that Fridays were always busy wrapping up jobs before the weekend.

I had hoped that he would do something special for this anniversary since it's the first one since finding out about his affair 7 months ago.

Plus I've been asking him for a current business debt schedule for 6 months. That is also an issue I have. I would like to have the debt paid off in three or four years and get a plan in place for doing so but we can't do that if he won't even get the schedule together. I am willing to help pay it off. Before this new job/merger I made 4 times what he makes, which bothered me. I am worried that the debt number is higher than what he had told me in the past.

So I am incredibly frustrated. He just doesn't seem to have a clue. I have asked for the debt schedule every couple of weeks. And shouldn't he be trying to make amends and really do something special for our anniversary and not make it seem like a burden to him?

Seems like I am putting more into this marriage than him. I've lost 30 pounds, meet his SF need enthusiastically 3 times a week, stopped disrespectful judgements, cut way back on AO (I still have some) and plan most of our UA time. He is concentrating on work and making more money.

I'm planning to work that day and play in a softball game the evening of our anniversary. It doesn't seem like a special day anymore with his attitude and the fact that he completely disregarded our wedding vows. He still wants to do something at night but I'm just not feeling it after his remark and affair.

When will he ever "get it"? Am I just overreacting? Or is the first anniversary after an affair usually sucky?

Should this thread be moved to recovery?

Well I'm going to provide an update even though nobody has responded to my last few posts... Tomorrow one year ago my husband met his OW. I met her the next day. Their two month affair ended when I found a text. My SIL introduced them and encouraged him to leave me.

I have good days and bad days. We are still doing counseling and my husband feels terrible for what he did and we are trying to move forward, but I get stuck thinking about the past. Today is bad and I'm lying in bed crying and thinking about the affair. I found out from my MIL that my SIL is no longer mad at me if you can believe that. (She was mad initially because I told my husband that he shouldn't talk to her.) But she's mad at my husband because he told her husband about the affair she was herself having for several years. She basically told her husband that we were lying and she was just friends with the OM and they kissed. And she had a secret cell phone because she knew her husband wouldn't like them talking.

So she is still friends with my husbands OW and told my MIL that given the chance she would do it all over again. My MIL apologized for her daughters actions. She said she will try to reason with her so that we could reconcile one day. My FIL kept pushing for us to forgive and forget but my husband finally told him in clear terms that would not be happening. He agreed to sit down with us and listen to the events which caused us to cut all ties with my SIL.

Anyway my question, if anyone cares to reply, is about writing the OW a letter. I never got to tell her how I felt. I doubt I would get an apology but wonder if I would feel better and be able to move forward if I wrote a letter.

Feeling depressed.

Hey help needed

I am so sorry you are still struggling, my opinion is not to write the letter, the OW is simply not worth it, all you will do is give her the satisfaction of knowing you are still suffering thanks to her actions. If she was a decent person she would have never messed with a married man. Women like that are deeply disturbed and don't need anymore attention. I had days where I was desperate to contact the OW thankfully I came to realise that it's not a good idea and I would have deeply regretted it, she is a nasty direspectful piece of trash and does not deserve any attention or consideration ever again.

What concerns me most about your post is that you are still struggling this far into recovery. Are you following the MB program to recover your marriage??

How is UA time going?
How is RC gong?
How is Meeting EN's going?

You mentioned a councellor, is this councellor An MB councellor?

I was stuck in FR for 3 years after my FWH PA, there was no further contact with the OW one year after DD as although their A ended on DD they still worked together for a year afterwards. Even after he quit work and true NC started it still took 2 years it get into recovery and that's because we cherry picked the MB principals, we went to a bad councellor and we didn't follow the advice given here. It was pure hell and I felt like you do now, having spontaneous crying days, being regularly triggered and thinking about (and stalking on FB) the OW way too much.

It all changed when we started to follow MB fully and not taking any shortcuts.

I am in DDay period right now and we are doing well so there is hope.

What is going on that's stopping you from recovering?

Hi helpneeded, good to see you back. The biggest red flag I see here is taht you and your husband are not using the program. That concerns me terribly because if that huge gaping hole is not filled with a romantic, passionate marriage, your resentment will not die, it will GROW.

The biggest things I see here are:

1. you are still talking about the affair - stop talking about it. Dont' write skanky a letter with your feelings. it will achieve NOTHING other than bringing the tragedy of the past into the present. Don't talk about it and don't write about it - PERIOD

2. I am unclear on something, is your husband actually traveling? Do you spend nights apart?

3. How are you doing on the policy of joint agreement?

4. are you getting in 20-25 hours per week of undivided attention time? Are you going out on dates?

This program doesn't work unless you are thorough and complete. You won't get away with cherry picking it.

Is this a Marriage Builders trained counselor who has a plan of action to recover your marriage? Are you talking about grievances in your sessions?

Thank you thank you for replying. I just feel like I am down in a pit. Stuck. My friends don't realize what a daily struggle this is for us. I just feel alone.

UA time is probably not as high as it should be. We both work a good amount. We are trying to get out of debt. Financial support is one of my ENs. And my other top one is Honesty and Openness. The lying and deceit necessary for him to carry on the affair trampled that need. Although I believe he is no longer contacting the OW or his sister I don't fully trust him. Or my ability to recognize a lie as I didn't have a clue about the affair until the text I accidentally found. Looking back there were signs. Hopefully I would notice if it started again.

I am meeting his needs. SF, RC (golf) and attractive spouse. I used to have lots of angry outbursts due to the failing business and debt. And eventually I was just a miserable person to be around because I felt so much financial pressure and my husband just didn't see being $100k in debt while making less than $20k most years as a concern. I had to provide most of the support obviously. And I was a bit*h. Of course I know now that I should have communicated better years ago.

So his whole family didn't know all the financial details and just thought I was mean and made him unhappy, which is why his sister thought he should leave me. And I guess it feels like this will never be over because we are reminded about the affair due to the absence of his sister in our lives. With the holidays coming up all of our traditions are changing because her family came here for Thanksgiving and we went to her house for Christmas Eve. It is crazy because I never got along with her. (She's been married four times and has had at least three affairs.)

Our counselor is from our church. I've told him about MB. He is of course working to restore our marriage. He asked about prescribing meds so maybe that would help.

I guess I need to reread the SAA book. I'm sure that's warranted since I read it (multiple times) over nine months ago. I just think these next two months will be hard with the holidays and knowing that this time last year he was having sex with her. He was even texting her half naked pics of himself on my birthday the day after Christmas.

I just don't know how to get out of the pit. I am a bit OCD. I also review others people work at my job and point out the things they did wrong and need to fix. So I guess I obsess and find the bad things in my persona life too. I am not the optimist- my husband is. I'm just waiting for him to leave or have another affair. I just don't feel loved because of what he did. I know he's changing but it just doesn't mean I can forget what he did.

The only way you will feel any security and trust within your marriage is if you prioritise your marriage and affair proof it. There is no other miracle cure.

Prioritise your marriage above work.
Prioritise your marriage above finances.
Prioritise your marriage above friends and I dependant behaviour.

UA time is essential for both of you if you can't do the 20-25 hours a week there is little chance you will ever get out of this pit. There is no way round it. Date nights are part of this.

Have you done any of the MB questionnaires??

Have you read the books together (SAA? HNHN?)

What EPs have you put in place to avoid another A???

It seems to me that you are in a Pit because you have not followed the advice given by the vets not because it's the DDay time of year.

As I stated before I am in DDay time of the year, when my H was shacked up in a dirty hotel room with the OW instead of being at home with me when I was emotionally struggling with the anniversary of the day our son died and we resuscitated him. It was traumatic, our son survived but has some brain damage. 354 days of the year I cope and put the event to the back of my mind but on the 5th of November (the anniversary of that trauma) I fall apart and let the pain out. Before the A we would support each other through that day but when my H was having his A he choose that nigh of all nights to have sex with the OW claiming he had to work a night shift, leaving me at home alone dealing with the pain.
Now the 5th of November is double pain day but as we approach it this year I am calm and we are in recovery it does not hurt as much because we have UA time and a million other good memories that we made during recovery to get me through that one hard day.

All I am trying to say by sharing that is, your friends won't and can't understand and help, meds ease things for a bit but if you don't fix the underlying issues, you will be stuck in this pit indefinitely.

Take MB seriously , it's your exit from this pit.