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#419497 12/02/02 03:46 PM
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I have written in this forum once before, but I think I was actually replying to someone else by accident. I will try to summarize my story, and I would love advice. My H and I have been married for 9 1/2 years and we have 6 awesome kids, the oldest being 8 yrs old and the youngest being 10 mos. Up until these recent awful months, my marriage has been wonderful. My husband has always been wonderful to me, and to our kids. Although he has never been much of a talker, so communication has always been lacking for us, mostly on his part. As of about 2 mos. ago, he broke the news to me that he never loved me, and that our wedding day was the biggest mistake of his life. This was a total blow - and completely out of the blue. I knew something wasn't quite right with us, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Well about a month later, I realized that he had hidden one of his credit card bills from me (for which he had a believable excuse, of course). Then I realized that I hadn't received a cellphone bill in months (I am the bill payer of the household -- designated so from day one). I called the company and found out that the bills from the past 3 mos. had not only been paid, but they added up to $1200!! Our monthly wireless bill is usually $40. He swore to me that they were mostly calls to his parents and some to his buddy out of state, but that there were no women on these bills. When I finally got ahold of the bills, I found that almost all of them had been made to a woman - one woman, a girl who had been his direct subordinate at work for years. Then we started finding more and more bills and things in his work e-mail that led to the conclusion that there was something going on between them. It looks as though it's physical, too, but I only have hotel bills and circumstancial evidence, nothing concrete (because he makes believable excuses for those, too). Anyway, I need some advice on how to confront him. He really gets angry if I even bring up her name, or anything to do with my suspicions. People in his family have confronted him, and he has vehemently denied it to everyone, including his own dad. In fact, he has even lied to a priest (and up until recently, he has been a model Catholic). I really want to save this marriage, so I want to go about this in the best way possible. Any advice?

<small>[ December 02, 2002, 02:48 PM: Message edited by: tcojco ]</small>

#419498 12/02/02 03:57 PM
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Read everything on this website!!!! REad the articles, read the message boards. Snoop. If he is spending $1200 in 3 months on calls to another woman it is an emotional affair (EA). It's an affair.

Buy the book Surviving an Affair, available on this website. Read it. When the time is right, have your H read it too.

Right now he is living in fog by denying relationship and maintaing secret life. Until he sends her a No contact letter it will be hard for you to move forward. Read, read read, and post.

Welcome to MB. You are in the right place.
DB

#419499 12/02/02 04:07 PM
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Dazedblonde,

Thank you so much for your advice and your support. I think this website is going to be such a huge help for us. We are going to see a marriage counselor/psychiatrist whom I've already seen alone tomorrow. I don't know if we'll be going in together or separately, but I hope that this Dr. will be able to see thru H's lies b/c otherwise I think we're just wasting our time and money and the Dr.'s time, too. I guess I'm getting a little impatient about him coming clean. Thanks again for your support!

#419500 12/02/02 04:24 PM
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In some ways I'm jealous of you because you're going to mc. We aren't doing that.
As you see by my sig line, this isn't the first time I've been through this. The first was more a ONS. However, this time I would like to make some changes in our marriage. I think MC would be really great. I read everything and post on here a lot. It's like therapy for me. I wish my WH would at least post on here. I bought the book Surviving an Affair and just finished it this weekend. I am going to give it to him tonight and sure hope he reads it.
I hope your husband admits soon. I think, just like an addicted person, they first have to admit they have a problem before the problem can begin to be fixed.
Good Luck.
Karin

#419501 12/02/02 04:25 PM
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Ok, deep breath, and welcome, im sorry your here.
I snooped and found out. Its really hard to deny when its your voice on tape. JMHO. Do you have access to his cell phone. Do you know his pass word, i know it feels wrong, (probably would never have do it before now but sometimes you just have to take care of you) however, you need to have something to fight with. (not litterally) i mean, you know something other than what he is saying. Because evade and lie is the game. Hide it and it will be like its your fault, not his responsibility. I know, been there and done that. Hate the t-shirt <img border="0" title="" alt="[Mad]" src="images/icons/mad.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

Best wishes, s

#419502 12/02/02 05:08 PM
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i'm not sure you need to dig any further.you know somethings wrong.a lie is a lie.there is a risk of digging to much.you may find things that you didn't really want to know,or need to know.just use your imagination on this one.anyway,about you guestion.the best way to pursue this.this is no good way to confront him.nothing will be good about it.but it does need to happen.look at it this way,he's lieing to you and its wrong,so would it be right for you to lie to him and pretend you dont know.not to mention the longer it goes on the more he may become attacted to her.from this point you only have two choices,walk away and eat your losses or fight for him.but what ever the decision is it needs to happen now.
just remember when you do confront him ,you need to keep the upper hand.you know he is doing wrong and cannot accept blame yourself.he will give every exuse.but we both know there is no exuse.i blamed myself for my wifes' afair and it really tore me up.she was the one cheating and i felt sorry for her.she had convinced me it was my fault.i also knew weeks before that it was going on but chose to ignore it and accept her lies.that is very hard to deal with now.i couldn't have stoppped the A from starting,but i could have put a stop to it.thats the point your at.dont make the same mistake i did.

#419503 12/02/02 05:56 PM
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Well, here are my mistakes. You can take them for whatever value they may have.

Mistake #1: Not having a plan for what I wanted to say during the confrontation.

Mistake #2: Because of #1, I failed to state definitively that I KNEW of the affair. Instead, I just caved in and said I suspected. She denied it during the first confrontation and tried to make me feel bad for even suspecting.

Mistake #3 (according to MC): After the second confrontation, revealing my sources of information to her. Our MC has told me that it would have been helpful to have these sources to check up on her and see if she was now telling the truth (about contact with OM).

So, if you confront without evidence, you can expect outright denial. It is a good sign that MC was agreed to, but my WW also agreed to MC after denying the affair. I felt that we couldn't go without a full confession - otherwise, what would we be working on in MC?

If you think you have enough evidence, but cannot decide how to proceed, perhaps a one-on-one with your counselor can give you guidance. I can tell you what I did. The second confrontation was a letter - I wrote out point by point what I wanted to say but didn't trust myself to get across verbally. I gave an ultimatum - either confess to what she did or else we could talk through our divorce attorneys instead. She chose to confess, and we are now in MC. Things have been looking up for the past couple of weeks. In retrospect, I wish I had just written the letter and used it as a script for a verbal confrontation. OTOH, I was so furious after her lying during the first confrontation that I'm not sure I could have listened to what she had to tell me when she did confess (and it was far more painful than I imagined - she admitted 2 additional affairs I had no knowledge of).

Good luck to you. Whatever route you choose, this site is a valuable resource, if only to vent your frustrations.

#419504 12/02/02 07:17 PM
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i definately understand where you'r coming from there.i had all the proof i needed and still couldn't beleive what she was saying.i mean i lost it when she confessed.that why i told the poster there is no good way to do this.no matter how prepared you think you are ,it hits too hard and to fast.i thought i had it all frigured out,knew all there was to know about her affair,boy was i wrong.every day after the confesssion i found out alittle more.by the end of the week,i thought i married a monster.by the end of the month i was ready to just quit.
what i dont want the poster to do is sit back in denial.the three weeks i set back is when most of the activity took place.perhaps i could have prevented some of that.i'll never know now.i stil have some unanswered questions and maybe if a had waited and snooped more i may have got those answers,but i may have also lost her forever.
there is no easy answer to this problem.hurt is unavoidable.more than is already there.
i dont feel its important as to how much evidence one has as much as what they plan to do with it.if she is planing to walk away,she doesn't need any evidence(maybe for self justification),if she plans to work it out and stand by her man,same thing she doesn't need any eveidence.she knows theres a problem,the degree of the problem is less important than how to solve it.she could have photos of her husband and he will still denie it.ussually ones gut feeling is the truth.she has a long road ahead of her,the sooner the porblem is dealt with the sooner the recovery can begin.

#419505 12/03/02 12:42 PM
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Well, he is obviously having an affair, hopefully the MC will not accept his lies. Recovery cannot really start without honesty, so that is the first step. You have received some good advice about evidence and planning what to say, if the MC turns out to be inneffective at bringing out the truth. Beyond that:

1.) Learn. Read everything in the Basic Concepts section of this site. Then buy and read “Surviving an Affair”, by Willard Harley, (hereinafter referred to as “SAA”) available at the Bookstore. SAA is THE best book on the market for helping one get to the root of “the message of the affair”. It (along with the Basic Concepts section of this site) is also helpful for giving you a vision of what a great marriage should look like. The approach of SAA to this problem is that the best defense against affairs is to have a great marriage. My wife said we had a good marriage, but she still had an affair. She was kidding herself, but it was not until we read SAA and saw what a great marriage should look like that we could clearly identify the problem areas and had the tools necessary to fix them.

The phrase “the message of the affair” is from the book “Torn Asunder”, by Carder (hereinafter referred to as “TA”). I personally think this is the best book on affair recovery we have read. In particular it deals with the two different paths the recovery of the betrayed spouse (BS) and the wayward spouse (WS) need to take, and deals w/ remorse in a way that I prefer to SAA. Read it together, if your spouse is willing. If not, go through it yourself. If you or your spouse has issues with control, you might also want to read “The State of Affairs”, (SOA) by Todd Mulliken, which also treats the remorse issue similarly to TA. SOA also deals with "the vision thing" for marriage, which is neglected in SAA.

2.) See a marriage counselor. This is hard. You need help. These boards are populated by amateurs. MC’s are professionals. There is a difference. They can help deal with issues the books don’t cover, and customize things to your individual situation. That said, there are lots of bad MC’s in the world. Read, and take to heart, How To Find A Good Marriage Counselor. You do not want an MC that is going to teach you how to live with an awful spouse, or how to adjust to divorce. You need one that is committed to helping couples have great marriages, and knows how to do that.

You are on an emotional rollercoaster right now, and there will be times that you will think it would be best to just divorce your spouse and go on with your life. Though there are no guarantees, recovery IS possible, but it takes time and effort. You will hate yourself if you don't do everything you can to make that happen. Give yourself the time you need.

3.) For me, getting my spiritual life in order was crucial. As I said, this is hard. I knew I would need all the help I could get. Repenting of the habitual sins in my life let me stop pushing God away so I could hold on for dear life. I had to humble myself and ask Him what I had done wrong, and what I could do to be the husband He wanted me to be for his child, my wife. This was not about blaming myself. It was about doing what I could to do my part in having a great marriage. My wife could participate or not, but I had to know I had done

#419506 12/04/02 04:19 PM
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Thank you everyone for your wonderful advice. We went together to the MC (I went by myself the first time, and I felt like he was really going to get to the bottom of the matter). At the 2nd appt., my H went in first, and then the Dr. called me in. We got absolutely nothing accomplished. I felt as though everything that the Dr. and I had talked about on my private visit went out the window. He didn't even bring up the possibility of my H having an affair. They only spoke of one conflict that my H thinks we have in our marriage (which truly can only be resolved after the affair stuff is taken care of). I don't know, maybe he was trying to get my H's trust, so that he could get the truth out, but the Dr. seems to be in no hurry to get this affair out in the open. Does anyone have any ideas as to how to go about getting my husband to admit it and end it? I feel like I'm at the end of my rope, and I don't know what to do. I never know if he's lying or telling the truth about anything anymore. Any suggestions?


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