Is there anyone here who had a good M before your WS had the A? I am aware there are no perfect M's but there are those who know about the Needs being met,the Negotiating,the Honesty, learning to communicate,etc who have a wonderful M and are happy and functional.

It seems that it is always believed that an A cannot happen in a happy,functional M. There is always that attitude of there just HAS to be something wrong with the M or with the S. I have been told that if the M was good, then there was something wrong with me ??? Was I too controling,too dominating,too this or not that......how frustrating. I have heard it all.I have done everything I know to do. MC,IC,MB,books,internet and this forum.

The main thing I have tried to do is talk with my FWH and find out what the problem was. He says there was nothing wrong with us or the M. It was all something wrong with him. He does not want to talk about the A or the FOW. He has said for over 2 years that it is too shameful,too disgusting and too humliating for him to talk about it because he knows what a great W he had at the time he got invloved with FOW. He says that I had more reason to have an A than he ever had,yet I never did anything but love and support him in every way. He says the guilt is as painful for him as the betrayal is for me. Hmmmmm....I do not buy that one.I have forgiven him and I love him deeply.He is soooo wonderful and good to me.

We are doing wonderful in many ways. I struggle with thoughts,triggers(less now than before),and we have had some rough and rocky roads to travel to get to this place in our recovery. I wish I had known about this site much sooner in the situation. I am thankful that we have progressed and doing so beautifully together. But I wonder if there are others out there that are in this same situation??? I am curious and need some support. Thanks,kk

My H and I had a very good M. We loved each other very much. We were the envy of everyone we knew. Our problem is that we both had some personal problems (he was a conflict avoider and a passive/aggressive and I was controlling at times). Over the years we managed to get through any minor problems we had.

In the year or so prior to my H's brief A, we started growing apart so slowly that neither of us realized what was happening. Due to some issues with our children and career we both got depressed and anxious (didn't know what was wrong at time)...I also got very moody.

The OW was the next door neighbor. If you want you can read some of my early posts on the recovery board from Dec/Jan timeframe to learn all the details.

Bottom line...the A was extremely out of character for my H! According to SH and our IC/MC this would have never happened without the events happening just as they did...he wasn't type of person to look to an A to solve his problems. According to them and my H this was a true anomaly. He was lost and temporarily insane.

The A was a huge wake up call for us...we both look at it as a near death experience.

We realized that we needed to resolve our personal issues (both went to IC) and we needed to learn how to always communicate without LB's. We also agreed that MB principles were sound and we were going to follow them.

All people have some personal problems/issues and baggage that they bring into the M...I think everyone can benefit from some IC and MC.

Because we both worked so hard we had a very short recovery. We are now happier then ever!

kk,

Hard to say....but I do think that my marriage was basically good....the A was more a process of situational vulnerablity than a lack of compatibility or needs not being met. His job just forced us to be apart all the time...once for a whole year. We were trying to meet needs but it became so difficult when we hardly saw eachother. So our marriage was vulnerable, but not really because we had a bad marriage. My Husband has aways contended that I am a fabulous wife and he loves me and that he eventually gave into lonliness and sexual frustration. He regrets it, and so do I. But we are now in recovery and are putting this mistake behind us.

forevertogether, I appreciate your response so very much. I guess this is one of the last puzzle pieces that I am needing. You said....
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">My H and I had a very good M. We loved each other very much. We were the envy of everyone we knew. Our problem is that we both had some personal problems (he was a conflict avoider and a passive/aggressive and I was controlling at times). Over the years we managed to get through any minor problems we had.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> All people have some personal problems/issues and baggage that they bring into the M...I think everyone can benefit from some IC and MC.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I have stated in previous posts that we were referred to as the poster couple for a happy M.
You are right about each person bringing their own issues/problems,etc into a M.
I just always believed that because we had a wonderful relationship,a fantastic sex life,and I was so devoted,loving,compassionate, patient and longsuffering through the hard times,that we(he)would be all right.I looked at it as a temporary thing and that one day(which is now)it would all be behind us and we would be stronger and closer than ever.We are there and getting better.

H had issues that I now understand better than before.

We are past all of that and doing good.I can honestly say that even though my H has not gone to IC since ending the A, this whole thing has opened his eyes and behavior to a lot of things and ways that was needed long before now.It just might be the "therapy" HE needed.


star*fish, Thank you. </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> the A was more a process of situational vulnerablity than a lack of compatibility or needs not being met. His job just forced us to be apart all the time...once for a whole year. We were trying to meet needs but it became so difficult when we hardly saw each other. So our marriage was vulnerable, but not really because we had a bad marriage. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">We had to be apart alot in the year before the A,too.I stayed in overtime doing everything possible to make sure he was taken care of in every way from meals,emotional support,sex,a listening ear,compliments,appreciation, personal appearance(mine and his),financial support,etc,without ever being resentful or unkind. We had both been in a bad M previously and we promised to do it right and always stay together and be faithful and honest with each other.

I am thankful for the progress and the rebuilding we have done.I do not feel that I am the trusting person I was before this but the IC says that is all right.I know that I am forever changed by it and I am still doing all I know to do to have a wonderful M.
There are things(as the result of the A) that are positive. A closer spiritual walk, an H who shows me more of all good things than ever and it was wonderful before so just imagine, and being a witness to others that you can work through this devastation and have your M,your sanity and a good and happy life.
At times,I need to come here and vent,read(I do that a lot),compare,share,etc. Thank you,again.kk

<small>[ August 26, 2003, 07:07 AM: Message edited by: kings kid ]</small>

kk,

I think it's true that you never have the same innocence or faith and trust in your marriage AFTER an affair, that you did before it. But I am grateful that the pain is no longer a part of my daily life. For a while, when my H left....I felt so sick inside. Now I am at peace again....but it took a long time. I know my H loves me, but I wish with all of my heart that he had kept his vows and been a stronger man. I forgive him....but forgetting....I am not sure that is possible. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" />

Kings kid,

My EA was mostly a result from some personal problems/issues/weaknesses and baggage from my past. Although the blame of the A is all mine and I&#8217;ve made the wrong choices myself, I certainly know that all these personal factors played a huge role and had a major impact on my life, actions and feelings etc. I've had a very difficult and partly abusive childhood (physical and sexual) and my father wasn&#8217;t emotionally really there for me. The OM I was involved with is 15 years older than me and unconsciously filled some &#8216;gaps&#8217; in me. The most of my issues was resolved during IC and was of tremendous help and gave me a lot of insight into myself. I have a very good husband and a strong and happy marriage (also prior to the A). Although my marriage is not 100 % perfect in every way (no marriage is) and although there is some personal differences in me and my H&#8217;s personalities, which will sometimes contribute to some meets being unmet in some ways, at least we are aware of it now and can work on these areas together. Now I&#8217;m also aware of my own weaknesses & vulnerabilities and in future will take provision not to make these same mistakes again and to protect myself. One of my choices is to never became involved in a single friendship with another man ever again, except if it is a couple or mutual friend of BOTH me and my husband. And even in these cases, I will still be very careful not to became vulnerable or too close again.

<small>[ June 27, 2003, 05:35 AM: Message edited by: Suzet ]</small>

star*fish, I am so glad for you that the horrible pain of the betrayal is not a nagging part of your life any longer. I do not endure the intensity of it that I once had and it has gotten better with time and our rebuilding.But it does still hurt and I still have occasional triggers.I make an immediate effort to focus on something else when they come and they are happening less and less.I will be free of it all some day and I am looking forward to it.

I have been very disappointed with myself that I am still feeling any of this pain after 2 years and we have such a great M now and then I come here,read and see that it is ok.I am not alone and it is normal(???).I can stop being so hard on myself now.
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">. I know my H loves me, but I wish with all of my heart that he had kept his vows and been a stronger man. I forgive him....but forgetting....I am not sure that is possible.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">My feelings exactly.I do appreciate your sharing with me.I hope that you will continue to be happy and growing in a positive way.

Suzet, I especially appreciate you sharing with me as a WS.I thank you from my heart as I know it must be difficult for you as I see the struggles my H has gone through.
When my H was first involved in the EA/PA,before I knew what was going on,I knew something was not right and he agreed to IC. He said that he was having probelms similar to the emotional ones he had received therapy for many years ago.It was before we were together but I was aware of the situation so I became very concerned.He lied to the counselor about the A but the counselor realized something was not right as his behavior was not that of the past that he claimed had returned.He stayed in therapy for 2 months(involved in the PA during the time) and some of his personal issues were addressed.The wonderful thing was the counselor discovered what a wonderful M we had and he would talk with H and sometimes just with me and then the two of us together.The counselor made me feel so good saying that my H was fortunate to have someone like me. In hind sight,I see now that he(IC) was trying to save our M. Most IC are only concerned with the individual but he was an exception. When the first Dday came,My H refused to go back and face the counselor.

I feel a little uneasy at times that he has not gone back for more IC but I cannot make him.We had a fantastic MC. He helped a lot though we only went a few times. MB has truly been a lot of help and encouragement.
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> Now I&#8217;m also aware of my own weaknesses & vulnerabilities and in future will take provision not to make these same mistakes again and to protect myself. One of my choices is to never became involved in a single friendship with another man ever again, except if it is a couple or mutual friend of BOTH me and my husband. And even in these cases, I will still be very careful not to became vulnerable or too close again.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Amazing! My FWH, now, says the same thing. Thank you for your encouragment.I am so proud for you that you have gotten the help you needed and that you are doing so great.I wish you the best. kk

KK

I don't usually post on this forum, but this particular question has always been close to my heart. One of the things I found hardest on the recovery board was the insistance by some well meaning posters that my m was not as good as I thought it was, or my w would not have had the A. My w also found this hard to stomach, she has accepted ALL the blame, called me a perfect h etc, etc. Now I was never perfect and we did not have the perfect m, but we always felt that our m was as good as any pre A. At the moment our r has not been as complete as FT's, but I continue to work on that.

But if the m was good, and I was basically a good h, the blame or the weakness seems to fall on my w. Why, when in the safety of a close and loving m, was she unable to withstand the attentions of the OM? Complacency, naivety, childhood issues(Like Suzet, she had a very unhappy childhood and a father who has never been there for her emotionally)?

Kind regards MrBC

I personally am of the opinion that I had a very good M pre-A. In fact my Ex for a long time post-A said the same thing and that I was her Soul Mate/Best Friend etc <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="images/icons/rolleyes.gif" />

Except that in my case she was a walking timebomb child abuse victim <img border="0" alt="[Teary]" title="" src="graemlins/teary.gif" />

Neil.

I thought our marriage was pretty good. We didn't have the communication tools we do now, but it sure didn't justify an affair.

Just about a month ago there was an article in People magazine about this very topic. The author has spent years studying this. She claims that there are more and more affairs in otherwise happy marriages today. This is due to the increased numbers of women in the work place (which is where most As take place).

I could totally relate to that article. I think sometimes people just get selfish and like the attention their opposite sex coworker gives them. It starts with talking and ends with disaster. Hardly worth it!

What alot of people don't realize is that you can have a good marriage and it can still be vulnerable to an affair. When I first got here...I really felt like people jumped on me a bit. Told me I was responsible for my H's affair....when I knew I was not. I was a good wife (not perfect, but kind and loving and loyal). I met his ENs. I stayed attractive. I wasn't a big LBer. So why were we vulnerable? Well lots of reasons really. As I mentioned before, H was gone at least half of our marriage. We had horrible outside stresses....we moved 17 times in 20 years, were in politically unstable foreign countries where we were subject to evacuations and safety issues. On top of that, the oil industry is notorious for encouraging extramarital affairs. They often excluded wives and families from trips....sometimes inviting secretaries and mistresses instead. It was very challenging. And my husband was morally weak...and that is the truth.

But when I first came here and tried to say I was a good wife....people kept thinking I was just lying and that the truth of my failure would come out at some point. There were a couple of times where I felt really insulted because I guess I sounded too good to be true if I had a husband who cheated. I got some angry and sarcastic questions.

He betrayed me on a drunken night out with coworkers and hired a call girl in a Thai brothel.....I was home nursing the baby. My husband like some of the others here....always told me it had nothing to do with me....that he didn't deserve me. It doesn't make me mad anymore. I've been around here long enough for people to know what I am really like....but it was almost as if I had to prove myself....and I still don't like that.

I have been out of town over the weekend and just returned home today. Didn't want anyone to think I ignored their response.

MrBC, It does help to know there are others who understand. I have been hesitant to post at times because I felt noone could relate to this particular situation.
One of the first things posted to new comers is to find out what was wrong in the M and find out what needs have not been met,etc.I am aware this is a problem in most betrayals.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> But if the m was good, and I was basically a good h, the blame or the weakness seems to fall on my w. Why, when in the safety of a close and loving m, was she unable to withstand the attentions of the OM? Complacency, naivety, childhood issues(Like Suzet, she had a very unhappy childhood and a father who has never been there for her emotionally)? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I wish I had the answers for your questions.I had an unhappy and difficult childhood as well yet I was not the one who had an A.I just do not understand a lot of things.

I want to tell you that I have gone back and read some of your other posts and enjoyed and received a lot of positive things from them. Thank you for sharing with me on this thread.

Porsche, You have been there,too.Thank you for posting and I hope that your FWS has gotten some IC for her past problems. I wish you the best in your recovery.

Maggierose,
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">She claims that there are more and more affairs in otherwise happy marriages today. This is due to the increased numbers of women in the work place (which is where most As take place).

I could totally relate to that article. I think sometimes people just get selfish and like the attention their opposite sex coworker gives them. It starts with talking and ends with disaster. Hardly worth it!
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">My H's A was with a coworker.You described his situation...started talking and ended with disaster! She is a mental case(dangerous) and floored him with things she did after he left her and returned home.Like you say, hardly worth it.
I appreciate you responding to my post.

star*fish, Your words are encouraging and I thank you. </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">But when I first came here and tried to say I was a good wife....people kept thinking I was just lying and that the truth of my failure would come out at some point. There were a couple of times where I felt really insulted because I guess I sounded too good to be true if I had a husband who cheated. I got some angry and sarcastic questions.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">The sarcastic remarks I got was from FWS's. I did have some who insisted that there had to needs not being met,or that I must be a problem W. Like you,I know who and what I have been. I am glad that you have kept hanging in there and post.I have gotten a lot from some of your posts.

You have a had a rough way to go with all of the moving and the circumstances that your H's job has placed you in. You are a strong and resilient woman.Stay that way and always keep your head up and know that you are a good wife and you never did anything to deserve the betrayal.I am so glad that you doing good and do not have the anger and pain that some here are still experiencing.I honestly do appreciate your answer and response. kk

KK-

I am pasting one of my favorite articles ent by someone on this or other forum I think that helped me the mopst with this very same question:

JACK218

Marriage and the Family

Affairs Mean Don’t Mean Your Marriage is Bad

Do you think you had an affair because your marriage was bad? Here's a little test you can try at home. Ask yourself when it was that you had the lowest opinion of your marriage? Was it the week or the day before you started your affair? If you are like most people the answer is no. This is not to suggest that your marriage or anyone's was always in a state of perfect nuptial bliss. But if someone asked your opinion back then the chances are you would have said your marriage was a good one and that you expected it to last. A basic belief in its worth and long-term survivability is something you held close and didn't seriously question.

An affair is most often not something carefully planned in order to remedy a bad marriage. In truth, they usually begin rather haphazardly at a Christmas party or on a business trip, vacation, or something like that. Affairs can happen in good marriages because both partners are responsible for their marriage, but only one partner is responsible for an affair. Now ask yourself when you had the lowest opinion of your marriage and felt the greatest amount of doubt that it would last forever? Let us guess, during your affair perhaps?

Suddenly you began to feel like you loved your spouse but weren't in love, that you were comfortable but not very excited, and you were no longer certain that your marriage would endure. Some people say that as their affair progressed they could "feel their marriage dying" as the search for happiness turned away from the spouse. Before long you begin to think that "real love" is outside the marriage instead of inside the marriage. All the while your marriage is engaged in a competition with the thrill and newness of the intimacy of the affair, something no long term relationship can really be measured against, and with one of its partners, you, putting your best energy and effort into the affair. Now the affair relationship has two people fully devoted to it and the marriage has only one, your spouse. Not surprisingly, against such competition the marriage slowly weakens or dies. The spouse is perceived as dismissive and uncaring, the affair partner as more appreciative and caring. The spouse seems remote or distanced, the affair partner close and connected.

So what is now missing from the marriage that was not missing before? The answer is you. Your passion, your interest, your affection, your devotion, your honesty, your reliance, your faithfulness, and the fullest measure of your love are no longer present. Now, suddenly but not surprisingly, the marriage doesn't seem so good, not as good as it was before, and it has become stale and lifeless because you are not fully in it. The distance you correctly sensed between you and your spouse is the distance you created in order to have your affair close. The loss of intimacy you felt is the intimacy you had to give up in order to let another form of intimacy exist. It is impossible to be intimate with your spouse when you are walling off your spouse in order to lead a secret life with someone else. The deception and secrecy of the affair, the sharing of one's deepest feelings with the affair partner, as well as the diversion of interest, are all incompatible with spousal intimacy. For in the end, intimacy is born of privacy, when you give up the privacy of your marriage you are simultaneously giving up the intimacy of your marriage.

Much of this is the simple result of losing the sexual privacy of your
marriage because it is so powerful in breaking down all other barriers. Many have noted the instant connection and powerful attachment formed from but a single sexual liaison with someone outside the marriage. Once you have let someone see what you are like in the most private part of your marriage what is left to hide? Soon the remaining areas of privacy are lost as well. Not only are your vulnerabilities given up, but the frailties of your spouse, the arguments you had, the things he or she said or did, and how those things made you feel are trotted out for the affair partner's comments and sympathies, however biased those may be. Your marriage is now open for inspection by an intruder, it is no longer private, and the intimacy you think has been lost is the intimacy destroyed by the affair.

In contrast, preserving the secrecy of the affair actually builds intimacy with the affair partner and this begins to replace the lost intimacy of the marriage. The affair and not the marriage becomes the joint enterprise, the place for sharing and building. People having affairs feel that their affair partners “know” them better than their spouses without realizing the paradox this presents. Their spouses cannot “know” them because they are acting in unknowable ways. Almost by definition the person you are having an affair with suddenly knows you better than your spouse because that person knows more about your life at that point than your spouse does, and of course accepts you fully. This feeling of being “known” is often the affair’s most powerful lure, even though it derives from the inherent nature of the affair itself. The more secrecy and involvement that occurs in the affair the less “known” people feel by their spouses because the ability to live in secrecy automatically distances the spouse. People also become more open and relaxed in their affairs than they are in their marriages and enjoy the feeling of being able to do or say anything without constraint. When people are open in their affairs and hiding in their marriages it is no surprise that they soon begin to feel better in their affairs. In the affair the partners can discuss their spousal relationships and even their spousal sex lives with each other but the reverse is never true, they cannot discuss such intimate aspects of their affair with their spouses. Likewise, they can talk about other things without the weight or consequence of spousal reaction or disapproval and feel more accepted. “Our special thing,” is how the participants usually describe it.

Needless to say the marriage is no longer a special thing because of the new connection formed with the affair partner based upon the breaking down of reservations and the selfishly appealing enjoyment of talking with someone who always wants to know more about you. It is strange that people never seem to stop and realize that when their spouses first came to “know” them they liked what they saw so much that they committed their very lives to them and still would. How many affair partners are willing to do that? Yet the affair partner soon becomes more valued than the spouse based solely upon this superficial interest, even though the interest is, in a very real sense, bought and paid for by the favors given in the affair. A patient once told me in a very revealing statement that it was more exciting and attracting for him to be “in consideration” by his affair partner than it was to have already been chosen by his spouse! The way he shifted his energy from trying to make his spouse love him, something he basically took for granted, to making his affair partner love him reminded me of the difference in the way we behave in job interviews and after we have been hired. We go from putting our best foot forward to confidently relaxing, and soon we also notice that the people who hired us never seem to reach that level of intense interest and careful attention than they did when we were only “in consideration.” We like being chosen but we miss the chase because it energizes us.

Once this shift in energy to the affair partner occurs there is a contributing and reciprocal response from your spouse. When you are not putting all your effort into the intimacy of the marriage guess what your spouse starts to do? He or she gets the hint and stops contributing too. It is like taking food off the table and then complaining that you are hungry because there is not enough there for you both to eat. Throughout the course of an affair the involved spouse is sending out a very powerful but often subtle message to be left alone, to be allowed to have the affair without interference from the spouse, a message that says I can't be intimate with you now. Spouses having affairs want to do their own thing, closeness makes that difficult and also risks detection or the giving of a sense that something is wrong. The unknowing spouse must be isolated and kept at a distance, causing the marriage to suffer. So the short answer to our test is that bad marriages don't really make affairs, affairs make marriages really bad.

A typical case is one of my recent patients. Her lowest opinion of her
marriage occurred during her affair and her opinion of her marriage prior to her affair was that it was pretty good. In other words, she was like most people. So when do you think she had her highest opinion of her marriage? After her affair ended and when she was reconciling with her husband, even with alienating and hurtful effects of the affair now confronting them both. But the key fact is that this perception occurred in the absence of the affair relationship and during a period in which she had given her time and energy solely to the marriage. Intimacy grew from her confiding the details of her affair to her spouse rather than confiding the details of her marriage to her affair partner. To be sure this is no coincidence, only a reflection of a time honored truism, marriage is what you make it, or in the case of an affair what you are not making it, your primary focus.

What is the point of all this? It is to recognize that marriage counseling in the aftermath of an affair is a useful component to reconciliation and recovery, particularly in dealing with the damage and pain it caused. But we should remember, and couples in counseling need to understand, that the affair was more a product of bad conduct and bad choices than it was the product of a bad marriage, and the marriage itself is probably stronger and in better shape than we give it credit for being. Simply put, if the marriage did not have more love, more happiness and more vitality than the affair, it would have ended long ago, especially given the self-gratifying intensity present in most affairs. Counseling is helpful to improve the way couples handle the challenges of a successful long term marriage, but in a basic sense, most of what it requires to endure is just the undivided commitment of both partners.

Making a marriage better is always a worthy goal, but affairs are not really marital problems at all, they are personal problems rooted in some very deep-seated individual causes ranging from ordinary emotional problems, ego traits, and personality issues, to more serious neuroses and complex personality disorders. A marriage can't be affair proof until the people in them are affair proof and this requires curing the individual not the marriage.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by kings kid:
<strong>Is there anyone here who had a good M before your WS had the A?

It seems that it is always believed that an A cannot happen in a happy,functional M. There is always that attitude of there just HAS to be something wrong with the M or with the S. I have been told that if the M was good, then there was something wrong with me ???
The main thing I have tried to do is talk with my FWH and find out what the problem was. He says there was nothing wrong with us or the M. It was all something wrong with him.
</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">That has been exactly my WAH's reaction and he is happy to go to divorce because of it- I have found it frustrating because it has meant that how ever hard \i have tried and what ever I have done he has refused to change his mind because its all with him. I finally learnt to accept it and let him go to make his own mistakes and am contentdly getting on with my own life.

Jante

Hi jack218, Very interesting reading!

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> Affairs can happen in good marriages because both partners are responsible for their marriage, but only one partner is responsible for an affair. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> Much of this is the simple result of losing the sexual privacy of your
marriage because it is so powerful in breaking down all other barriers. Many have noted the instant connection and powerful attachment formed from but a single sexual liaison with someone outside the marriage. Once you have let someone see what you are like in the most private part of your marriage what is left to hide? Soon the remaining areas of privacy are lost as well. Not only are your vulnerabilities given up, but the frailties of your spouse, the arguments you had, the things he or she said or did, and how those things made you feel are trotted out for the affair partner's comments and sympathies, however biased those may be. Your marriage is now open for inspection by an intruder, it is no longer private, and the intimacy you think has been lost is the intimacy destroyed by the affair. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">So true!

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> Making a marriage better is always a worthy goal, but affairs are not really marital problems at all, they are personal problems rooted in some very deep-seated individual causes ranging from ordinary emotional problems, ego traits, and personality issues, to more serious neuroses and complex personality disorders. A marriage can't be affair proof until the people in them are affair proof and this requires curing the individual not the marriage.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I do,now,understand that the problem is with my H individually. I cannot get him to agree to any more IC or MC for now.He says he will never,never,ever again hurt me like this again.He says he received therapy with the realization that he had messed up and almost lost his M and me.He says he learned more about himself and how his behavior almost cost him the best and most important things in his life. I do not think that can solve his individual problems but it is all I have for now.
This is great reading,jack.Thank you! This is like finding the exact wording after looking and hoping for so long for an explanation and some understanding.Thank you,thank you.kk

jante, I am sorry that your M has not worked to recovery. I do understand your frustration. Sadly enough,your WH will more than likely wake up one day and realize what he has lost and live with the regrets.Especially since you have gotten your life together and moving on with your life.
I hope that you will be happy and have a very fullfilling life.The article that jack218 posted above is very good reading and might help you feel better about yourself and why the M did not work.It is your H that has the problems.Not much comfort for a lost M but at least for your self esteem. I wish you a good life and the discovery of someone who does not come with all of the baggage of individual issues that causes them to make such horrible decisions. Maybe your WH will wake up soon and realize that he needs help for his issues and you can get back together and be better than before. Wishing you the best. kk

Thankyou KK- I'm no longersurewhat I feel about the possibility of reconciliation- though it is of course a possibility if my ex does wake up. Hope things begin to improve in your situation.

Jante