Hi all- First I want to thank everyone for all their posts, I have been reading them as a guest for well over a month now, and the support I have seen given has been great.

My wife is in the military and I am a Dept of Defense contractor, and was in the military at one time. We met in college in 1993, dated for two years and were married when I graduated in 1995. We were married while I was in my basic course for the military and went to Korea for over a year. So of course we were physically separated. After being in Korea for 10 months I had an affair. The affair started with a drunken night at the clubs, but quickly escalated when she thought she was pregnant with my baby. Of course the spiral started from there and the affair continued for two months, until my chain of command found out, I was accused of adultery and asked to resign. The baby was not mine. Of course through all this I told my wife. I was delayed coming home by five months, missed our planned church wedding, and finally made it home in March of 1997.

My wife and I lived together for two months until she had to go to some military training for 6 months. I moved down to where she was after two months and we started going to counseling. The counseling wasn’t affective, we both just decided to forget about the affair and move on. Big mistake. I couldn’t answer her questions as to why, didn’t want to think about it. I was stuck in self pity and a rut for the next five years, focused on my own self esteem issues, let myself slide physically and lost track of her emotional needs. We moved to Germany, traveled had great fun as best friends , but never reconnected on that emotional level or intimate level. Sex was maybe every two weeks and she says she only did it for my sake, she never really wanted too. Since she didn’t enjoy it, I didn’t enjoy it either.

Anyways over the last five years I have done little to repair the damage that was done, only repaired myself slowly. I focused on graduate school, professional development and my job. I never picked up one book on how to recover from infidelity, never learned why it happens and never even looked at her emotional needs. Holidays are important to her, and I always disapointed her, do to my lack of listening to her, once again more focussed on myself. Since then she has created three serious EA’s with OM in the military. Each time we are apart she finds one person who satisfies her needs. She says they haven’t been PA’s and I believe her. During those I was very jealous, didn’t understand why she would have them, but that was while I was in my rut. She would get very mad at my jelousy, it was a threat to her independence.

Now I am deployed to Afghanistan until November. I left in May of this year. Within a month she developed an EA with a co-worker. He has moved to another state now, but she talks to him daily, emails all the time and I think is planning to meet him over a weekend coming up. This is the first time she has planned to see one of the OM after they were physically separated. I know she must be important to him because he is paying the money to fly across country to be with her. I know it will just be the two of them.....

She says that she tried to reconnect with me, but I was un-willing. I know I was so selfish, worried about myself, my own self esteem, she is right. I couldn’t face what I had done. I had ruined my career, my self esteem, and seriously harmed my marriage. Over the last four months I have started coming out of my rut and reading about what I did and didn’t do. She says that for five years she has not felt intimate with me, feels guilty all the time, can’t forget about the baggage. That is why when I am gone she can be free, independent, and do what she wants without feeling guilty. She says that these EA’s start on a different level and she needs them to feel good about herself. She says there was sexual chemistry, but her marriage vows kept her faithful. She flirts with them and shares more intimate secrets with them than she does with me. I am afraid the current one will develop into a full blown relationship and I will be left out…. I am just now seeing my mistakes, telling her and trying to show her, trying to meet her EN's and bring life back into our relationship. Hard from over here though......

I am no longer jealous of the EA’s, I understand that my not meeting her EN’s led her to them. We talked on Sunday about the EA’s and I told her what I had learned about them and about how they are just as bad as PA’s. She understood. But she says she is going to continue the current one because she “needs it”. I think that this EA is very serious. I told her that our marriage will not be able to recover until the EA stops, she said she knows, and might just need closure. She said that she might want to see OM for that closure, I asked her if she was planning on it. She flat out said no not right now, but what if it does happen?

I got her to fill out the EN questionnaire. I haven’t received it from her yet, but she is working on it, and I sent her mine today. I actually already have a good feeling of her EN’s and have been trying to meet them for the last 40 days. There has been no response, except to laugh at my attempts, laugh at any romantic things I try to do. It is hard being 6000 miles away. I feel like I am being compared to the OM. Any ideas on romance or EN’s from a distance? She says she wants to work on the marriage and isn’t giving up, but I don’t always get that feeling from her.

She is afraid she will never be able to get over the guilt she feels for the past, guilt about me having to change jobs to follow her military career, guilt about hurting me with the EA’s, guilt about everything. She says when she is with me she always feels bad about something. I tell her that she doesn’t need to feel guilty. I have finally started to reconcile with my own forgiveness of my self, and return to the type of person I was five years ago. I know that I can forgive her, because I am seeing that my lack of action were a major contribution to this mess.

I know this was a long post and disjointed. I have started a journal to help sort through all of this. If anybody has ever started to repair a relationship from years of pain and infidelity suffering I’d love to hear about it or any ideas. I can’t come home till November and everyday is killing me knowing that she is possibly moving farther away from me. She says it is weird to her to see me being romantic, and trying to flirt. I can understand that.

How do I get her to stop the EA? She says she needs closure. If I tell her to stop, she’ll get very upset, she is so independent, tell me I am jealous and that she doesn’t expect me to give up my friends. I'm following the advice of not educating her. She admits they are EA’s, not good for us, but doesn’t want to end it, says she needs it. It kills me to know that she might be planning to see him, without my knowing.

I have been reading the Marriage Builders site constantly looking to learn about what I have done to the marriage and how start fixing it. We both agree that the EN’s are what were primarily lacking, I can fix those, but how to fix her feelings of guilt…..

Thanks for listening.

<small>[ August 21, 2002, 05:03 AM: Message edited by: stuck_in_the_stan ]</small>

hi stuck -
I've got a few thoughts from my point of view. I can understand her not wanting the romantic things you're doing right now. Although Affection is a high need of mine generally, I have no desire to have my husband fulfill that one right now. Without honesty and openness and conversation, an adequate answer to the "why" on your affair, and proof that you've changed, affection just feels like you're trying to skip over the problem or buy her off (at least to me).

Also, you shouldn't worry about her feelings of guilt, it's normal, given what she's doing, only she can work on that - by ending the EA. You can only work on what you can do to give her a reason to want to do that.

I've been counseling with SH for 3 weeks now and, even before working on the EN, he's having my WS and I go through 3 steps: 1. Discuss What/Why of the affair honestly. 2. Understand the BS feelings 3. Form a Plan to guarantee success. Maybe you could do some of that to show her that you're serious about changing. If she believes that, she'll have much more reason to want to end the EA.
good luck,
dinah

Dinah,

Thank you for the different point of view. 5 years ago when she asked me why I had the affair I wasn't able to say why I did it. Now after five years and much thought it is becoming clear to me. She and I talked about it a little the other day. She just doesn't want to deal with these issues over a distance, says she doesn't want to hurt me. She says she has things to say that she doesn't want to say over the distance, that scares me. I have over 75 days left till I might get home, that is killing me.

I am trying to schedule an appointment for next week with SH. I really hope that I can get in. I am going to do this first one on my own and then ask my wife to schedule one with him. I only hope it isn't too late with this ongoing EA, I can feel a bigger distance between us each day.

Earlier this week she was very upset over two of her soldiers losing a baby who was only 4 months old. I could tell she was upset, made myself available to listen to help, but she wouldn't talk to me. I have a strong feeling she talked to the other OM about it. That hurts very badly.

One thing I have done to feel better this week is to stop snooping. I just don't want to see anything else. I have read and re-read the entire site several times this week.

Thanks Dinah.