My cousin recommended this site and said it saved his marriage marriage of 35 years but forgive me if my abbreviations are not spot on because I have not been on here long.

My wife and I have been married for 6 years with a 4yr old boy and a 2yr old girl. On Thanksgiving of last year I began an affair of 8 months with a woman that I worked with. Our families were close outside of work as well. When the affair started my wife had just lost both of her grandparents to cancer and I had lost my great-grandmother. In addition to that my wife had been hospitalized twice. She was in the hospital for a week for mono after her grandfather passed and again for a week for a ruptured cyst on her ovary which was removed. We both work 50+ hours a week at all hours of the day. I say all this to show that I have no excuse and take full responsibility for what I did. I do not blame my wife for any of it and I do not get angry with her when she brings up my poor choices.

I told her in June that I did not love her anymore because I did not know how to come back from what I had done and at the time I was a coward. In August I told my wife that I had cheated on her but I did not tell her everything. I offered trickle truths until I made a mistake and she discovered my secret phone. I have since turned 180 and realized everything. I work relentlessly to put us back together. I transferred to a different location and am actually in the process of changing jobs altogether for a (hopefully) more family friendly job with a 20k reduction in pay per year. We are short selling on our house and went from living with my parents to moving into an apartment. I got rid of my truck that reminded her of the affair and will make every sacrifice possible to be with her. I did horrible things during the 8 months. Things I despise myself for but I am willing to do anything to get us back.

We have good days and bad. On the bad days she is angry and fearful. She says that she does not feel in love with me and has no hope. On the good ones she sees us together for the rest of our lives. We are going to counseling and seeing our pastor as well but have not gone to counseling in almost 2 months. It has been 4 months since I have told her everything and I am an open book. I have found my faith again and she and our kids have just been baptized but it feels as if things are getting more worse than better. I need any and all advice.

My wife is the most important thing in the world to me. My cousin has urged us to get on here but she has been reluctant so I am confessing myself and laying myself out there. Please help!

I will answer any questions that will help.

Has the BH of your OW been told?

Have you been tested for STD/I?

What EPs have you put in place?

Will your BW come here and post?

BH?
Yes
No contact, deletion of number, letter of no contact, changing jobs... too many to name. I have no desire for the other woman and have prepared myself if I ever do.
BW?

I am new here and am still learning the acronyms.

Hi Whateverittakes, welcome to Marriage Builders. You are in the right place. You have done many of the right things in affair proofing your marriage so you are on the right track. The next step is to create a romantic marriage with your wife using these steps. Those steps are outlined in Dr Harley's book, Surviving an Affair. I would get that book and follow the program outlined there.

In the meantime, please take a look at this link: How to Survive Infidelity

Welcome to Marriage Builders. Have you looked through the first thread at the top of the forum? (It's called Start Here First.) There is information about acronyms and the thread details where you should start first.

We have already read the book at the behest of my cousin but it was shortly after I came clean.

I would go back through it, chapter by chapter, and follow the lessons in each chapter. You can also get the workbook, Five Steps to Romantic Love, that has all the worksheets in it. [they sell it cheap in the bookstore section] That is a great help. The goal is to create a marriage that was BETTER than what you had before to fill the huge hole left by your affair. Otherwise you will end up with a crippled version of your pre-affair marriage.

How do I help her when she brings up the past. How do I help her with the anger and fear? I feel as if I should suffer as well and I don't want to shh her because I don't want her to think I'm dismissing it. When she brings up the affair I remind her that I am focused on our future and building us back.

Will she come here and speak to us?

A good response is to hug her and tell her how sorry you are that you hurt her. Let US tell her to stop bringing it up. If you tell her, it sounds self serving.

What conditions allowed for the affair to begin?

One of the crucial steps is developing complete openness, honesty and transparency.

Those would be some of the EP's, (Extraordinary Precautions) that would aide in developing trust. Allowing your BW, (Betrayed Wife) full access to all of your computer and cell phone activities and passwords will help. Having a GPS tracking APP on your cell phone so she can see your current location will ease her mind.

The more that you offer to do on your own initiative, without prompting will show through actions versus words of your sincerity.

You can never apologize too much. BE Sorry and Remorseful in all of your comments and actions. Hold her hand or hug her when she is having a rough time.

Another is to write out a complete historical timeline of All the events from beginning to current related to every aspect of the affair.

Read many other stories on here to "Feel" the amount of hurt and total unfathomable devastation your BW is going through.

Download the free APP for the Marriage Builders Radio broadcast, which has one segment per day and then continuously loops for the next 24 hours until the next show begins and listen to it every day. Better yet, you and your W listen togethet and discuss the segment with each other. It's free and a very educational and entertaining productive use of time.

Get that Surviving An Affair book and the book with the worksheets as suggested and then follow up with the Love Busters book. Read them together and take time to discuss them.

LTL

She said she is willing...

I have established complete openness and transparency with her. She has access to everything that I own. All these thing you have offered we have done. It's when we are apart that she begins to get upset. I sincerely understand the pain I have inflicted upon her. I don't know the pain but I understand it. What sets us back is if she sees something that reminds her of the deceit and she does try to control it but sometimes it is too much.

Why does this upset her? Where do you go? What do you do? Who do you see?

Make it so she has complete access to and knowledge of where you are going. Install GPS, be available by phone, take a photo of where you are. If need be, don't go.

Dr H says the betrayed spouse should be able to check up so often and see such consistent behaviour that it literally becomes boring for them to check.

Even in his own marriage, which has never suffered an Affair, I have heard him say he is super transparent about his whereabouts. He says if Joyce got upset with him going somewhere he either would not go, or invite her along if that was needed.

Have you read this?
What is Just Compensation?

These are called triggers and they cannot BE controlled. All triggers must be scoured out and eliminated as much as possible. Some people have to move if they live very near big triggers, such as where the A took place.

Hi, I'm the BW mentioned in this post. I have been very anxious about reaching out, but since my husband has taken the time, I figured I could as well. I will admit I am still trying to get a handle on my anger. Most days I do a pretty good job keeping it under control, but there are days where it just becomes too much. I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the time in our lives when this happened and the fact that I did not, in NO way, see it coming. And the actions taking by my husband and the OW (my friend) that made me an active participant in their affair.

I want nothing more than for our marriage to make a complete recovery and I am turning to the Lord and everything that I do, but it's a constant fight with the enemy. I pray everyday that my heart will open back up, so that I may feel the love that I once had for my husband.

Hi Nikster, thanks for signing up and posting to us. I am glad you are here. Do you want to start up your own thread so we can help you?

I am assuming the OW is completely and totally out of your lives? Am I right? And what is triggering you the MOST?