After 23 years of marriage, my husband told me on 9/17/03 that he had a six year affair with a divorced coworker. The affair started on 8/31/97 and ended on 9/17/03. The OW ended the affair. He told me that he loved me and wanted to work on the marriage. After the initial shock, I thought I was willing to try to work things out. On 10/21/03, he admitted another affair that happened in 1993 with a married coworker. The OW ended this affair. I also found out that he was secretly calling another woman before he told me about his affair on 9/17/03. I only discovered this from our past cell phone records. As much as I try, I have not been able to control my anger. He has continued to lie about these affairs since they were revealed to me and I am getting so tired. Just thinking of all the lies he told me to maintain these relationships for the past ten years makes me angry. He is seeing a counselor -- I am not. He acts likes nothing has happened, going about his day as before and never misses a minute of sleep. I, on the other hand, can't sleep or eat. The only time we talk about rebuilding the marriage is when I bring it up and ask him to read materials I have printed from the marriagebuilders website. When I ask him questions about the As, he get angry and then when I get angry, he walks out of the house. HOW DO YOU CONTROL THE ANGER? Sometimes I think I am ready for the NUT HOUSE.

TooHot, I think you need to also get into counseling to relive some of your stress. You both need to discuss this, but you need a safe place where you go and vent lest you inflict some new damage on your marriage. At the very least, come here every day and unload on us.

You also have to accept that you are supposed to be angry as hell. This is the greatest betrayal a spouse can commit. It will take a while to recover from this *IF* he works hard to rebuild the trust in your marriage. It will be important to your recovery that he answer all your questions, otherwise you will not be able to put this to rest. Is he being as open and honest as possible?

At first he answered questions but after I talked to the OW, I found out that he was either lying or not revealing the whole story. Most times he would admit things only AFTER the OW told me. This just made things worse. I told him that but he continued to do it and later would say he was scared to tell me the truth. What makes things worse is that we have an 18 year old son at home that thinks his dad is trying to save our marriage and that I am not, so he is taking his anger out on me. I just don't think I can do this much longer. I am getting so very tired of hurting and I want it to be over. I have lost 30 pounds in the past two months and have now started to experience physical pain in my back and abdomen. I get 2-3 hours of sleep at the most each night, even with the sleeping aids prescribed by my doctor. I am also on anti-depressants. Everything I have read says it could take 2 or more years to recover from the affairs. I won't last 2 years in this situation.

There is something you can look at in all your anger at your H for sleeping well through the night. He told the truth. The lies are out. The relationship with OW is over.

Yes, you need to come to terms with all his lying, but something ended for him, and it feels good for him. It feels good to have the lies and the betrayal and the A with OW over.

Your H told you about the A because he didn't want to go on living a lie. The A with OW could have ended and you never would have known, but he told you so that he could reestablish intimacy with you.

I would guess that he doesn't want to discuss the A with you because of your reaction -- he may not have expected quite the reaction he got -- a 30 lb weight loss, ADs, sleeping pills, etc. He may be in "damage control" -- keep the mouth shut until things settle down somewhat.

Do I think you are overreacting? Not at all. I had such a respect for fidelity that I wouldn't have had an A even if my H was so horrible that he broke my arm 12 days after I had the only major surgery of my life, surgery which put me in the hospital for 5 days and caused me to have a catheter bag for 4 weeks, 2 days. I had to go in for arm surgery wearing a catheter bag, and my excuse for the broken arm was that I had lost my balance due to complications from the first surgery. My first surgery was 12/5/01, the broken arm was 12/17/01, and due to Christmas, the arm surgery was delayed to 12/28/01.

Jerk. He did a horrible thing. But you know what was worse? He didn't visit me in the hospital the day after my first surgery. He went and had lunch with Sophia. He called in the morning and said, "Do you want me to visit?" I said, "No, no, if you're too busy, don't come." So he didn't.

I'm not sure that people realize what they do to their spouses when they have affairs. You have one positive in this mess, and that is that he told you. Think about why he told you. Don't think about why he is hiding things now -- that's obvious -- it's because of your reaction. Think about why he told you in the first place. He could have kept it hidden.

Maybe sit down and ask him why he told you. And listen with compassion. It is good that he told you. He owned up to his actions, he cut off all possibility of rehooking up with OW (WHORE), and he took a leap of faith that you would stay with him despite the God-awful thing that he did in forcing you to relook at years of your life as lies, lies, lies. It took courage and hope and faith in his relationship with you and faith in you for him to tell you.

<small>[ November 11, 2003, 10:31 PM: Message edited by: broken heart and arm ]</small>

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Too Hot2003:
<strong> At first he answered questions but after I talked to the OW, I found out that he was either lying or not revealing the whole story. Most times he would admit things only AFTER the OW told me. This just made things worse. I told him that but he continued to do it and later would say he was scared to tell me the truth. What makes things worse is that we have an 18 year old son at home that thinks his dad is trying to save our marriage and that I am not, so he is taking his anger out on me. I just don't think I can do this much longer. I am getting so very tired of hurting and I want it to be over. I have lost 30 pounds in the past two months and have now started to experience physical pain in my back and abdomen. I get 2-3 hours of sleep at the most each night, even with the sleeping aids prescribed by my doctor. I am also on anti-depressants. Everything I have read says it could take 2 or more years to recover from the affairs. I won't last 2 years in this situation. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">You won't last long at all if he continues to withhold information and you get dribs and drabs of information. Every little piece of information puts you both back to DAY ONE of recovery. It is like dying a death of a THOUSAND CUTS. He is making it almost impossible for you to recover as long as he persists in holding secrets with the OW that you are not privy to. As long as that is the case, he will NEVER rebuild trust.

Could you get him to go into counseling with Steve Harley? The Harley's are some of the best counselors in the country and it would be well worth the money. He might be able to get your H on the right track.

Didn't you suspect all these years that he was having an affair?

I never ever suspected my husband was having an affair, let alone the 2 sexual and 1 emotional that I now know about. He worked a normal work schedule and came home every night. His work never took him out of town or for overnight business. I found out that he was seeing them mostly BEFORE work. He has always had to be at his job 2 hours before I had to be at mine so my alarm was set later than his. He counted on the fact that I was not a "morning" person. I didn't always know when he left for work. Sometimes he took vacation from work to be with the OW during the day. At least once he told me he was dove hunting. Three times he took our younger son to her house so he could earn some money fixing her swimming pool and then my H would send my son on an errand. While he was gone, they would have sex. I didn't question his activities with our son along. Whenever he was going to be away from the plant, he would call me. Whenever he was going to be a few minutes late from work, he would call me. He would let me know when he had classes or meetings or doctor/dental appointments. He would call to check our plans before he made plans for golf, hunting, fishing, etc., with his male friends. I trusted him completely. He was very clever to do things in a way that wouldn't cause suspicion. It wasn't until after he disclosed the latest A that I noticed some things, but even these were so ambiguous that if I hadn't known about the affairs, I probably wouldn't have questioned them. I think if I had been suspicious, knowing would have been a relief. This way I am completely shocked and very angry.

Broken Heart and Arm
You said you thought my H may be able to sleep because he has revealed his A. I have never known him to lose any sleep even when he was seeing these OW. Maybe he was worn out from all the sex he was having. I guess what troubles me most about him sleeping is that I can't sleep and need someone to talk to. He still goes to bed by 9:00 PM and leaves me alone. Maybe if he had taken a few days of vacation to be with me, we could have talked this out but he never even offered. He took vacation time to be with his OW and he woke up early to see them before work. He doesn't get up early to spend more time with me. I am truly beginning to resent him. I can't let go of my anger and I know that isn't good.

TooHott2003,

Hi, I hear you on the anger issue. I was so incredibly angry when I found out, that I trashed everything that was sitting on my dresser and flung it all onto the floor. One night after MC, I was so devastated and angry at WH that I took an end table and smashed it into a gazillion pieces. I have also punched the outside of my house, bruising my fist and also punched the hood of my car a few days later making the same fist swell up again.

Then the night came when I cold-cocked my WH in the face while waiting for our last MC session and was arrested becuz he called cops. I was now even more infuriated, and damn ready to divorce him.

I also lost 30+ pounds in 2 months and that's the best part of all this I might add. It took about 1 week later before I decided all on my own to seek out an anger management class. I am currently halfway done with it. I hated going to the first 4 sessions, but the 5th was very beneficial for me. The AM class along with my newfound relationship with God has brought me to where I am at today, a much more calmer, more forgiving, person who is hopeful again for reconciliation with the only man I want to be with, my husband. This whole process has taken about just shy of 4 months for me to get this far. I learned in AM that it is very unhealthy to live a life consumed by bitterness and anger.

You need to let it go. However, it takes time to be able to do that. I have since chosen to ask God to shoulder the anger and bitterness and to allow me to shed it from me, and I believe I have done that. I feel better for it too.

Hope this helps, and hope you do get into either AM or IC or both, it does help. Just call any of your local counseling agencies and/or the county mental health dept. and ask about AM classes. Hope you can hang on. If you visit this site and continue to vent here and seek advice, I believe you will hang on.

FF

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, he can do to make up for the deception of taking your son along to OW's house and then sending him on an errand so he could have sex with her.

This is not something that can be fixed with a weekend of attentiveness.

I think that he is having a healthy response to the situation. He is sleeping. Depression creates sleep.

Years from now, you may realize that knowing the truth was the only way to rebuild your relationship. Better you find out now than 10 years from now with another 10 years of deception under his belt.

I have suffered so much from my H's deception and yet it was 8 months long and I had enough clues to go into counseling and contact Sophia nearly every month during the A. What you are dealing with is much, much deeper and more hurtful.

I don't think there is any way for you to get around or get past the pain in a short period of time.

Would it make sense to have a separation for the first several months of recovery? I did such awful things as go after him at his father's
wake (the father went downhill two days after the A came to light and died two weeks to the day after he was told of his son's behavior), ran after him outside when I was partially naked, called Sophia's pastor AND told her 8 year old daughter "Your mother kissed another man on the lips."

Someone told me after D-day that I need to move on. I regret not having separated immediately after D-day because I just could not handle the truth. That may be wise for you. It doesn't end the M. It gives you time to regain your composure.

Think about it. Your behavior, however understandable, is hurting your M. It does not compare to your H's behavior, but it does hurt your M. If you get away from him, it may help. Right now, I couldn't imagine anything he did helping you to recover. You're just too hurt -- and understandably so.