My wife of 18 years (two kids, 13 and 9) had an affair. This affair occurred with a person who lived in another state. She made 4 trips to see him over 7 months. The physical affair ended on August 1 and all contact with him by her ended on about August 20th.

Her affair was motivated by our unhappy marriage (all the stuff on this webpage is familiar) and some drug use. (Wife has an illness that requires many medications. Combinations of meds affected her judgement. That combined with problems in marriage led to the circumstances that caused the affair.)
She was breaking it off when I found out. I confronted her when I had suspicions. She denied (just as everyone does.) I dug deeper and discovered proof of the infidelity. In the course of finding out, I came to believe that she was done with me and the kids and filed for divorce.

When I told her, everything changed in an instant. I was mistaken about her motives; she did love me and wanted to be with me. I stopped the divorce. I did not want the divorce, but I felt I had no choice as I truly believed she was leaving us and I needed to protect myself and my kids.

We�ve intuitively done about everything necessary to move on. She�s asked for forgiveness, and offered �compensation� along the lines marriage builders suggests. She cut off all contact with her lover and with everything else in her life that was harming her and our family. He lives 300 miles away so we�ll never see him again.

We are meeting each other�s needs in a way that we never have. For the first time in 18 years I feel like I have a partnership with her. I�ve always loved her, and she has always loved me. Sex has always been good and frequent between us, but now it�s better and more frequent. I can see in her eyes that she loves me and is truly sorry for what she did. She freaks out if I ever discuss how me not meeting her needs contributed to her bad choices as she does not want me to take any blame. She�s answered every question I�ve had and has seldom acted as I was burdening her with these questions. She�s become transparent and allowed me to track her movements, etc. She�s ended all her secrets. She is in counseling. We also to counseling together and our counselor thinks we are months or years ahead of where most couples are in our situation. In short, either though luck or God�s Providence we�ve intuitively taken every step necessary to save our marriage and family.

Here�s is the problem, however. She can�t forgive herself. She often cries and cries about how she can�t believe what she�s done. When she �sobered up� and realized what she was doing, it was horrifying to her. She knows she was about to lose everything. There is very little out there about how a truly repentant adulteress can do. I�m glad she is regretful and remorseful. But given the effort she has put in to reconcile and repent, I don�t want her to suffer. How can I help her move on? What do I do?

Hi Jason! welcome to Marriage Builders. I think what you mean is that she suffers guilt, which is a natural reaction to a violated conscience. That is a good sign, not a bad sign. The conscience is our fire alarm system that warns us when we are doing something wrong. She can use this experience to avoid letting that happen again.

The pain will lessen over the years as she makes amends to her victims. I will add that if this man has a wife, part of making amends is making sure the wife is told the truth. Dr. Harley recommends that the betrayed spouse tell the other betrayed spouse, without forewarning your wife. [you can tell her afterwards]

I agree with her that it is not appropriate to blame yourself for the affair. That is not why it happened and it probably does make her feel bad when you say that becasue she knows it is not true. She had an affair because a) she travels for a living and b) she has poor boundaries around men. If those 2 things are not changed, she will have an affair again. Has her overnight travel ended? Has she ended all opposite sex friendships? Those are all very basic and necessary steps in recovering from an affair.

My usual suggestion is that the person who had the affair do the right thing regardless of how they feel. You can follow this recovery program whether you forgive yourself or not, and if husband and wife both follow it, they will have a great marriage and will not continue to go on and on about the affair.

Do you have the book Surviving an Affair by Dr. Harley? Are the two of you spending 15 hours a week meeting each other's intimate emotional needs? Are the two of you taking the extraordinary precautions Dr. Harley describes to avoid an affair? If those things are true, if the behaviors are right, the feelings will follow.

Where do you stand on this checklist?

From Surviving an Affair, pg 66-67

The extraordinary precautions do more than end marriage-threatening affairs; they help a couple form the kind of relationship they always wanted.

These recommendations may seem rigid, unnecessarily confining, and even paranoid to those who have not been the victim of infidelity. But people like Sue and Jon, who have suffered unimaginable pain as a result of an affair that spun out of control, can easily see their value. For the inconvenience of following my advice, Sue would have spared herself and Jon the very worst experience of their lives.


Checklist for How Affairs Should End

_____The unfaithful spouse should reveal information about the affair to the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should make a commitment to the betrayed spouse to never see or talk to the lover OP again.

_____The unfaithful spouse should write a letter to the lover OP ending the relationship and send it with the approval of the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should take extraordinary precautions to guarantee total separation from the lover OP:

_____Block potential communication with the lover OP (change e-mail address and home and cell phone numbers, and close all social networking accounts; have voice messages and mail monitored by the betrayed spouse).

_____Account for time (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a twenty-four-hour daily schedule with locations and telephone numbers).

_____Account for money (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a complete account of all money spent).

_____Spend leisure time together.

_____Change jobs and relocate if necessary.

_____Avoid overnight separation.

_____Allow technical accountability.

_____ Expose affair to family members, clergy, and/or friends.

Jason, my husband had terrible dreams after his A, wild demons chasing him. It takes a while, it looks like you are about two months into recovery. All I can say is that it takes time. You two should brainstorm a list of things you can do when she starts feeling down.

It may be counterintuitive, but she should not be talking about the A anymore. Avoid triggers, the more she talks about it, the more she'll think about it. Help her stop talking about it, change the subject, do something that grabs all her attention.

Agree x100.

Am concerned about the large amount of your post that seems to be trying to take responsibility from your W for the affair or paint her as someone who wouldn't "normally" do this.

If you are well versed in MB, then there is no need for all the explanation for WHY it happened - we already know. Affairs are so tempting and common that if marriages are not safeguarded from it happening, then there is a good chance it will.

And if your W is on medication that affects her judgement and you truly believe she is at risk for falling into affairs moreso than an average person....then you'd better implement MORE extraordinary precautions. Please make sure you outline specifically what has been done/not done in the precaution checklist that ML posted for you.

Thank you for your replies. I don't blame myself as much as my message would lead one to believe. The subject make it seem that way.

I have another question: I am, of course, hyper-aware what my wife is doing. I check who she calls every once in a while, for example.

Does my concern about her movements and who she is contacting mean that I am not in the process of forgiving her?

As I said in the OP, she's done all she can to distance herself from her old life. She's done nothing suspicious. How long to I need to be sensitive to what she's doing? I'll always be on the lookout for something strange, of course, but how long should I actively monitor her?

You should monitor her until it gets boring. Right now it is an amazing asset that helps build trust. You need to be able to see what she is doing when she thinks you are not looking. That will make you feel safe.

And she can EARN forgiveness, but that takes a long time. More important is that she gives you just compensation. Check this out: Can't We Just Forgive and Forget?

Thanks, Melody. This is a reaction to something that happened this weekend. I thought she was, for some reason, acting strangely about her phone Sunday. I checked the phone records and found some texts originating from the area code of the affair. These texts were completely non related to the affair. But me asking upset us both.

I want to stop talking about the affair, but it seems to come up every once in a while. There was a point where we went almost 2 weeks with out talking about it but in the last 4 days it has come up twice. Once by me and once by her.

I know it is going to be hard for me, but I really want this behind us. Our marriage has been wonderful since I found out about this. I like the husband I've become and I like the wife my wife has become. I don't want to jeopardize that by being paranoid.

What was she upset about? You did the right thing by checking and asking. She needs to keep you in the loop about any texts, emails or other communications she receives. Has she changed her # so the OM can't reach her?


Seeing those texts from the OM's area code is a good reason to bring it up. When a new condition, event arises, you have to talk about it. Just bringing it up to bring it up is not a good idea. BUT, if a threatening condition arises, you should address that immediately as you did.


If a person gets hit by a car by crossing the street, they are not "paranoid," they are aware of the dangers. If your wife wants to earn your trust and put this behind you, then she needs to be very, very transparent. She needs to go out of her way to prove that she is being trustworthy.

The fact that she got "upset" about you bringing this to her is a huge red flag that should concern you. It may be nothing, but a WS who is serious, goes out of her way to be transparent and ASSURE their spouse.

What is she doing to ASSURE you of her trustworthiness?

here

Is there a reason you did not answer this post?

This is extremely important information for us to know - so please go down the list and let us know what has and hasn't been done.

I don't mean to alarm you but this is cause for concern.

Especially given your large post emphasizing how remorseful and upset your W is for causing all this turmoi in your M. Then to get upset about being questioned about something that is supposedly innocent doesn't jibe.

When my ex was supposed to be completely invested in our R and was acting very remorseful, he would also get upset that I would snoop and question him about things - and it was because he still was clinging to his SSL (secret second life)...

I want to point out here that some WS (mine included) will emphatically express their remorse, tears and all over the pain that they have caused you and this shouldn't be considered PROOF that your WS is out of the fog or going to give up their marriage wrecking behavior.

As we say often on this forum - it's a WS's ACTIONS (again, referring to the EP checklist) not their words (or tears) that need to be looked at.

Wife has radically changed her life. She is much more committed to me. She's cut off contact with everything directly related to the affair. I can't ask for more. Pretty much everyone who gives advice about this agrees about what must happen to save the marriage thought this, and we have done it. We are committed, I just don't want to mess up.

Wife is not upset because I asked, but because I asked in a very condescending, accusatory tone. Which is likely the truth.

My wife has changed, I have as well. Our marriage counselor agrees she is different. (We are seeing the same one we saw earlier so she is able to compare.)

I consider myself very lucky considering almost everyone's story I've read.

This can work out for people. And work out well. I'd never recommend an affair, of course, but for me and my wife God seems to have made something good out of it. Everyday that I have an intact family and loving wife is one step towards complete healing for me.

I think this has all been done to my satisfaction.

I know all the details about the affair.

We have really been focused on each other since this happened. We do all our leisure activities together. This is not forced. We feel like our relationship is new and want to spend all out time with each other.

By "technical" accountability if one means access to phone, etc, then yes. However, one can't prove a negative. My wife, if she wanted to carry on a secret life, could still do so She could have secret emails, instant message accounts, and even a secret phone with out my knowledge. As far as I know, she has no contact with her affair partner. She sent a message to him informing him that she was going to completely reconcile with me and that he was not to contact her. He is 300 miles away, so that should be fairly easy.

The "exposure" has not been as extensive as suggested by marriage builders. That's got to be our choice. Many people know in both our families, and I think that is enough.

This whole process was aided by the fact that we really want to reconcile.

I am looking at actions not words. Starting with me finding out about this, and going as far as actually filing for divorce, my wife's actions have NEVER suggested her willingness to recommit to me and out kids. Her words have matched that as well of course, but I know talk is cheap.

I've never once since this went down doubted her sincerity to reconcile.

I'm convinced that my wife getting upset was a combination of how I asked her and by the fact that she is having a very hard with her health right now.

I agree with you that this would generally be alarmingly inconsistent.

Thank you for you continuing replies. They help so much.

Thanks, Melody. I don't think my wife's attitude in perfect in this respect but I also don't see much value in snooping. If, for example, she wanted to continue her secret life there are too many ways she could do this with out my knowledge. So what has happened is that no matter how often I snoop, and don't find anything, I just think she is using some other means. I can't proof a negative, and neither can my wife.

I snoop, and I don't like it when I do. It really just started to drive me crazy so i am doing everything I can to quit doing it. Because once I start, I can convince myself very easily that the more places I look and don't find anything, that just means she's using some account that I don't know about. And then I have to obsess and look for that account. The more I look, the more I'm convinced something is there. Etc. Etc. Etc.

I did not explain it very well, but I hope you get the idea at why I don't really want to snoop.

I am relying on the hope I can watch my wife's behavior toward me to ensure she is not straying again. Looking back, her behavior should have been an indication that she was up to no good. I hope I'll see those signs it they show up again. To me this is more reliable and less nerve racking than trying to use her phone to catch her at something.

This weekend, I checked because I saw a particular behavior that troubled me. I asked and got answers.

BTW, my wife knows I'm posting these questions and she is reading along with me.

And I must say that this is the most constructive forum I've found. I wish I would have found it weeks ago.