We have been in recovery for 4 months. am i supposed to accept, we just grew apart, as the reason why. i am told by counselors, that i may never know why, that he may not be able to tell me. i can't accept that. or should i? i want to know how and why and when it ended but he only says that he was tired of the lies and that he will never see her again. i am told not to ask details, that it would only make it harder for us to move forward. but he wasn't even honest enough to say how long it had been going on. He said a year, but i know it was longer than that, after i found some evidence. i feel like i should have my questions answered but i'm cautioned not to ask. am i going to be more confused now that i am seeking advice from so many? i despartely want my family to be whole and happy.

Trublu,<BR> acording to Dr. H's books complete honesty is how we achieve the emotional intimacy tha holds a marriage together, along with the other EN's being met is how we "fall" back in love with with our spouces again. knowing all the crummie details is painful but it helps me not resent my W. I haven't asked the real particulars but i know most of the basics, who , what where , how long. youknow what i mean.<BR> Good Luck and take care<P>------------------<BR>BB<BR>

Trublu:<P>I firmly believe that if you and H are going to move past it, he needs to tell you what you want to know. The question you should ask yourself, however, is: "How will knowing this help me recover?"<P>I have to admit that when I found out about W's affair, I made her tell me everything. A lot of what I wanted to know probably didn't help me that much. I wanted details. I wanted to know EXACTLY what they did, how often they did it, where they did it, etc. In the long run, that information is really trivial. The fact of the matter is THEY DID IT.<P>For me, however, once I got her to tell me EVERYTHING, I was able to put it behind me. I have a very active imagination, and knowing EXACTLY what they did helped me to keep my imagination from running wild on me.<P>You need to LOVINGLY explain to your H that you need to know these things for peace of mind, not because you want to embarass him, or because you want to use it against him later. He needs to tell you these things because ANY secrets between you two are detrimental to the marriage, and could result in further growing apart.<P>Your counselor is right that you may never know WHY. I still don't know WHY. I mean, I know how she was feeling at the time and what led up to the affair, but I will never understand how she could actually convince herself it was okay to do it. That's the part that you'll never know.<P>The details are important to you, so, in the spirit of complete honesty, H should tell you what you want to know. Perhaps then you can put the actual events behind you and move on.<P>------------------<BR>/// Lone Star * ///<P>

When I learned that my husband had been involved in an affair, I wanted to know the emotional details. I resented her intimacy with his mind, heart, and soul! I wanted to know the whys and the hows. My H had been my rock when it came to morality, values, and ethics. I'd always thought of him as devoted and of myself as very needed. As parents died, kids got older, and times changed one stable factor was our relationship (I thought). I very much needed him to be open and help me figure out those things. <P>Our counsellor advised against sharing of information, but it certainly did not work for me. Relying on her advice and using it as authority for the easier course for him, he kept it inside for a long time - or more accurately revealed as little as necessary. Finally, he realized that this was not working.<P>Dr. Harley's position is gospel for me. I suppose it may vary for some, but I think we need to know that they are at least willing to give up the secrets and shared intimacies whether or not we choose to ask.

It has been almost a year for me since my H had his affair and to this day I am still in the dark about any of the details. He totally refuses to talk about it at all. In his mind he seems to feel that since he is home and she is no longer in the picture that things should be just as they were before and I should be happy. With this mode of thinking, I can only speculate and it drives me nuts. What are they thinking when they don't want to talk about it? Are they ashamed of their actions...are they afraid that if they talk about it that it will bring up all those feelings for the OP...what do you guys think?<P>How do you get them to be honest?

I think shame is sometimes part of it. What is scary to us is the thought that they are holding on and preserving the specialness of the relationship.... maybe they just don't want the "specialness" tarnished. <P>I think that makes it all the more important that they talk. A counselor is better at dealing with this than we are because, when we point out the faults of the op or unrealness of the relationship, that just seems to make them more resentful of us and more defensive of the "soulmate" or the "once in a lifetime true love." That resentment thing was very true for us early on in recovery.

that's it! You hit it on the head! I think that H is using what the couns. says to make it easier for him. I do wonder if the reason he won't answer my questions is because he wants to preserve his secrets and the specialness of the relationship. although he says he knows that it was wrong, etc., i wonder if he really sees adultery for what it is and that no memory, event or any part of it is good, precious or special. how can we both know that it will never happen again if both of us do not know what need was not being met by me? He says he doesn't like have ing to be on the edge of his seat,that i do not have to punish him or remind him of what he did. he says he punishes himself often enough and that can't continue to feel like he is an @$$ for the rest of his life, that bringing up the past is not moving us forward <BR>it is holding us back. i almost want to believe that, but why can't i let it go?

Trublu sounds as if you and I are in the same situation. I can't let it go either for it was most the devastating thing that ever happened to me and in the past year since it happened, I still don't know what happened that caused him to become involved with another woman. It is hard enough to be put through all the heartache of an affair only to be left in the dark and speculate all the whys. How can we let go when we have no idea what we are suppose to be "letting go of." How do you get them to open up and help us let it go?

my sharonna, if we only knew......

hello trublu and mysharona, be careful what you ask for-you may get it!<BR>I would suggest both of you really look at the reasons you want to know anything about the affair. How will this help you heal? <BR>Harely does encourage total honesty, asnwer all the questions. While I usually agree with Harley, this is an area that needs some tempering! <BR>I asked and asked. Finally I got the details I had been seeking, H spilled his guts and instead of lying and minimizing, he told. It was very very ugly. Nothing I needed or wanted to hear AT ALL. It was very painful, did nothing to help me me or the relationship, negated all the repair work done to that point. Talk about 2 steps back!! I fell off the cliff.<BR>I would encourage you to look deep inside your heart and see why you wnat to know any details. Does it really matter if they had dinner together once or six times? Does it matter if they had sex on the floor or in the bed? Does it matter if they bought souvenirs from a park? Does it matter how many times they had oral sex and where?<BR>NO, what matters is getting to the root of the affair. Why did this happen at all? How are we going to fix it? How am I going to move forward? Where is my heart and soul at this moment? Where would I like us to be in 5 yrs? How do we make sure this never happens again? (((hugs)))

I agree with cl, and included my exact thoughts on the subject in my thread "My departing words". Please go read it...<P>------------------<BR>Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you are among the stars!!

Total honesty is a double edged sword. All of us who have had to live through infidelity have had questions. All of us have gotten answers.<P>The question we have to ask our selves first, is do I really need to know this, and why. cl, new_beginning and Lone Star all explain this very well. . .sometimes the answers we receive are as devastating, if not more so than the fact that the infidelity occured in the first place.<P>I think Lone Star said it best when he said <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>I will never understand how she could actually convince herself it was okay to do it.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>It doesn't matter what "details" we learn. We will probably never know the answer to this particular question. Our spouse may not really know the answer to this themselves.<P>Yes we have a right to answers, but we should all stive to seek only those answers which will help us to rebuild our marriages, not those answers which are going to cause even more pain.<P>God Bless

The only details that I am after are why he felt the need to go to another woman....was she just a friend as he has stated...was she an old girlfriend as he has stated....was it a need of a midlife crisis...what was he thinking when he started with the whole thing....what was he unhappy about....why did he hang on to items she had given him....why did he come home to me only when I filed for divorce and was going to do all the financial damage I could do to him....why did he give her a cashiers check for all our savings to hold for him....why did he run back and forth between us for 4 months, this is what I want to know, not if they slept together, when and where, but the root of the problems and what was behind it. I have been told so many lies instead of sitting down and talking about it with no stone unturned, that I can't move on until he fesses up to these questions....so I wait...in agony...with his secret life at that time to hopefully be exposed to me and I can regain the intimacy that we once had. Until then, here I am, right back at square one.<P>When they won't talk to you, what do you do? Do you just try and forget the whole thing happened and tell yourself that it was all a bad dream? Do you keep throwing up those little comments about the affair until you make them mad enough to start talking or do you just sit quietly with ulcers?<P>Yes he is home and yes things are better in the marriage but there is a gap....a big gap...that needs to be filled and I can not get him to understand the hurt that I have and am going through. <P>I may never get over the affair that happened one year ago...that scares me for I love him deeply...but each day that I sit and try and figure it out, with no input from him, I feel myself pulling away from him and I don't want that to happen. Does that make sense?

To all, but especially MySharona (by the way, love that song! ,<P>Yes, it makes sense, and yes, you need to know the things you've asked of your H so that you can recover... but can you live for the rest of your life with this man if he never tells you the truth? You have a choice to make. It won't be an easy choice, but it's there nonetheless... what if he NEVER tells you what you need to know. You need to consider your options. You can either: 1. Live with this or 2. Wait and see if he ever tells you (both of these choices involve a risk to your physical and emotional health) or 3. Leave him to his secrets and take care of YOU. And remember, as Lonestar said, you may not really want to know the answers. I'm sure you've played a worse case scenero in your head... like, let's see... you asked: <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>why did he come home to me only when I filed for divorce and was going to do all the financial damage I could do to him?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Now, what if he answered your question with: "I came home because I know what a hateful vindictive b*tch you can be and I was afraid that you would withhold MY hard earned money from me and this way I can keep my hands on it and send some to OW when she needs it" (Worse case scenero, and I'm not saying that's what he'd say...) but what would you feel if he said that? Would you ever forget that? Would it help to know? <P>Think carefully. Like the saying says: be careful what you wish for, you may just get it!<P>It is a good thing that your H is home and trying, it IS! I do not want to interject negativity here... just feel that, at least in my marriage, knowing the answers DESTROYED ALL HOPE of total reconciliation.<P>Best wishes...<P>------------------<BR>Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you are among the stars!! <p>[This message has been edited by new_beginning (edited November 21, 1999).]

New Beginning you are so wise. I have thought about how I would react to the answers I may get, but I feel that I need those answers as bad as they may be in order for me to decide if my marriage is worth all the work. I think I can deal with things regardless of how bad it may be if I know exactly what it is that I am dealing with and for a whole year now, I don't even know if it was an affair at all. H has indicated on a couple of occassions that it was all a joke that went to far, and then at other times indicated that it was more than just a joke, like when I have threatened to go to her and ask her what it was all about with them, have been told that would be a bad idea for it would keep those fires burning....what fires...his or hers? Is he trying to squelch a flicker there and he has thoughts of going back to her at some time, or is he telling me that it is over and let sleeping dogs lay? If there is still some feelings there for this woman, I certainly don't want to live the rest of my life wondering when and if the next shoe is going to drop. It is crazy to live that way and he needs to fess up and be honest with not only me, but himself as well. Sure we have been married for 17 years and he is 53 years old, but if he is not happy in this marriage (yet swears that he is) have I not shown him how much I care for him in the fact that I did take him back and that I am here for him and that I do love him with all my heart enough that he can tell me the truth, my stars, I have been through the worst of the matter already, (I think). Is it asking too much?<P>

MySharona,<P>No, it isn't asking too much. But if you are going to beat your head against a wall trying to get answers that never come, my god, how long can you live like that??<P>Truly, my heart goes out to you... best wishes on whichever way you choose to go... and it is YOUR choice!<P>------------------<BR>Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you are among the stars!!