In the last 6 days my life has become living hell. I received the most absolute bombshell of my life. My wife tells me she has been having a passionate love affair with her former best friend's husband for over a year and they both are going to get divorced and will marry. There are 2 families and 5 kids (2 are ours) involved. We spent so much time together and even vacationed together in the summer at the Beach. You can see why they are former best friends. They had a big blow out last summer at the beach because his wife said my wife was trying to ruin their marriage and I did not believe it. In fact I encouraged my wife's friendship with him because I thought it was good from my wife to have good friends and I thought she was helping him with their problems. What a dope I was?

Our marriage followed the passionate love affair of my life over a 2 1/2 year courtship. (We were single and not cheats but I call it a love affair). My wife now is not sure about it although when I present facts she agrees.

We have been married over 12 years. After a year and our first child our troubles started. We slowly grew apart because of many of the slights we do to each other. Financial pressures, my starting to work too much to try to get ahead, religous differences and some others. And we did not try to fix it. I regret keeping so much internalized and slowly losing our love. My working too much was in an entreprenurial venture which doesn't seem to either fail or work and it has drained me and us. But, we agreed that it made sense and never jointly set a deadline to stop or at least change my priorities. She agrees that I am good father and have made that a priority but not her and she is right.

2 years ago my wife had a "mid life crisis" and it seems I was not too helpful which is probably somewhat true. I have much to regret and feel very much equally at fault for the decline of our once happy marraige.

She claims I missed all the cues and should have known she was so unhappy. That I didn't even discover the affair also shows how little perception I have. Maybe, but I deserve her to be clear and tell me I am missing the clues and what she needs and how unhappy she is. Even if I react defensively, should she tell me how bad it is and she wants out.

At the very least, I really believe that this deceptive screte was just so wrong. You need to deal with your problems which I had failed to do by interalizing and going along. What she did is deal with them without me and present me with her solution. I really am commited to our family and really belive I would have changed my priorities. I would have tried to change my conflict resolution approach. I think it could have been fixed and I was too blind and scared to try.

Now she feels so committed to her new love and will not even consider any attempt although she will go to a conselor once for me to help with my feelings about how this was done.

I just can't believe that this approach was fair to me or the children. I could accept being told clearly what is wrong and failing to fix it after effort. I just can't accept a few somewhat ambiguous hints and this immense betrayal as being fair.

Does anyone know how to get someone who is taking such huge risks and causing so much damage to see this when they are in the middle of this wonderful romantic love affair. Since they were friends first and they are very compatible my wife is absolutely convinced she has met her soul mate. I am convinced that if this affair didn't happen and she was clear to me about all her unhappiness and where it was leading we would have been able find our love again.

Does keep telling her about the damage to the kids and the risks she faces just make it worse? She is being so closed minded. I know what love can do because we were like that before and got married when there were some logical warnings we ignored (which indeed foretold some of our problems).

God. Please. Somebody help me. Sorry to be so weird. But, I have turned in less than 1 week from a together person to a wreck. I do not sleep or eat.

Michael,

I also found out about my husband's affair 6 days ago, so I'm not experience enough to offer you alot of help. Read everything on this website. Stop fighting with her and trying to point out how she's ruining her life. She's currently in a fog, and nothing you say will bring her out of it. Make an MC appointment right away, you'll need to try to get the MC to get a committment to go through the process of trying to save your marriage. Sometimes a 3rd party can see what neither of you can, and sometimes they can edge into the fog.

Look for threads that johnh and watt have written, they have some great advice on books to read.

God bless you, I know EXACTLY how you are feeling.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> I am convinced that if this affair didn't happen and she was clear to me about all her unhappiness and where it was leading we would have been able find our love again. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">The thruth is that you can find your love again anyway, IF SHE LETS YOU, and she will not let you while the affair is ongoing. So, you need a strategy for ending the affair. AFTER reading through the "Basic Concepts" section of this site(click on the "Concepts" link below the Marriage Builders header on this page), read through: What Are Plan A and Plan B?. You will need to start w/ Plan A. Beyond that, click on the link in my signature line.

Can this Plan A thing work if both my wife and the OM seem completely committed to getting married and blowing up both families. The OM even moved out of his house to an apartment yesterday. It doesn't appear that I can control any of this. How do you slow it down? If I told her even in the nice way of Plan A she has to stop seeing him totally she would just say she couldn't. And I can't see how Plan B would work for me. I can't leave my kids. I can't have them see me leave and think I abandoned them when I am the betrayed.

Welcome imfuchs

It will do no good to tell her about Marriage Builders or Plan A right now. You would be seen as trying to "educate" her, which would be a Love Buster.

Rather than waste your money on a marriage counselor, if I were in your shoes, here's what I would do:

1. Make a phone counseling appointment with the Harleys ASAP;
2. If you go ahead with the marriage counselor as your wife has agreed to do for just one time to help you, Do Not Vent, Do Not Express Anger, and Say Nothing You Will Regret. Let her do all the talking. Don't ask her a lot of questions. Let the counselor do all the work.
3. Then, Counsel With The Harleys.

Now, soak yourself in Plan A. Read all about it. It's for you, not for your wife. It's first and foremost about keeping your sanity and then about not destroying any good feelings she still has toward you.

Come here, vent, wander the boards, join the Women's Bible Study group if you're religious, go to Prayer Requests, and re-read the posts of the people who answered you before me on your thread. They will help you.

Don't jump to the conclusion that Plan B means your leaving the home and the kids.

Invest in a good lawyer, because you need to protect your home. You didn't stray, so you don't leave the home now.

Secrecy is one of the keys to keeping an extra-marital affair hot. Now real life is setting in. It will implode, honest it will. And Plan A will keep you sane and make you look like the best thing since sliced bread.

Please go to the book store and purchase Surviving an Affair ASAP...your wife sounds just like Sue the main character in the book. If you can get her to read this...just maybe it will help.

Best Wishes!

Forever together is right about getting a hold of the Harley book 'Surviving An Affair' and I would add to also get the Harley books 'Love Busters' and 'His Needs Her Needs'.

Keep in mind that most FWS(former wayward spouses) have said the same thing your WW(wayward wife) said to you (it's almost scary how they seem to read from the same script) to their BS(betrayed spouses). So for what it's worth, your situation is not unique and far from hopeless.

What you (and especially your WW) fail to realize that wanting and having something are two totally different things. Your WW and OM(other man) have not lived together and faced the day to day realities of life. Their relationship has been absent of any daily stresses, and once these stresses start affecting their relationship, their foggy attraction will start to go away. At the beginning of any loving relationship between a man and a woman, there is infatuation with each other, and this is precisely the case of your WW and OM. But infatuation is only transitory, and if a couple doesn't have the relationship tools to go beyond the infatuation phase, the relationship will begin to deteriorate (like it did with yours).

The worst things you can do at this moment is to plead, beg, threaten, say 'I love you' 'I have changed' and all the other usual things that a BS does when s/he is told by the WS that they are in love with another person and they don't want to work on the M(marriage). This is viewed by the WS as 'control', and the more 'control' they perceive coming from the BS, the more the desire to get away from the BS and the M. If you take the opposite approach, and tell your WW that as much as you love her and wish that both of you would try to rebuild the M, you will not stand in her way (this does not mean that you will roll over and play doormat for her by giving her the things she wants the way she wants them) this will remove you as an 'irritant' and will show her that you are strong enough to survive this ordeal if worse comes to worse. You may not beleive this, but a confident BS, unafraid of what may come, starts getting noticed by the WS and may later cause the WS to question the wisdom of ending the M.

Please give some thought to what I've said.

<small>[ March 07, 2003, 02:04 PM: Message edited by: 2MuchCoffeeMan ]</small>

Do most of the more experienced people on this board think I should not be going to this counseling next week? Everyone points to Hartley's approach. This counsellor seemed pretty good to me. Does anyone think I am risking more damage here?

If the counselor is committed to saving marriages, it should be good. Otherwise, it probably won't be.

Yes, as long as the counselor is a pro-marriage saving professional, it should be fine. S/he may not be a disciple of Harley's methodology but many methodologies (Michelle Weiner Davis, author of 'Divorce Busting' is one that comes to mind) share similar principles as Marriage Builders and only differ in small details. I guess you could say that there are certain truths that are universal and are acknowledged by professionals in the field of marital recovery. You can find out by asking whether his/her approach is pro-marriage by asking what is his/her opinion of Dr Willard Harley and Michelle Weiner Davis methodologies to saving marriages. If the answer is a negative or wishy washy one, then you are NOT dealing with a pro-marriage professional, and you would be wise to keep on seeking one that is.

Received the following in an e-mail from my inlaws also sent to my wife:

>>"Just wanted to pass on a couple of thoughts to you. I've been thinking that the counseling session on Tuesday could be used in a very positive way to help you decide on what is best for the lives of the Children & your own personal futures. I know you are going through an extremely stressful time & it might be good to have a "third party" who is not emotionally involved in the issue to help you sort through the details of the separation.
At this point I think it would be worthless to try to go through the reasons this all happened - you both are well aware of this. The focus needs to be on getting on with your separate lives & showing the kids that you both care very much about them. And that you do care about each other in a platonic way & have respect for each other even though you will no longer be living together. The calmer you can remain, the better the kids will adjust.
For sure we will support both of you & will never do any name-calling or presenting of any negative thoughts about either of you to the kids. We hope that your relationship will remain amicable for the benefit of everyone.
We wish you both the best in your future lives. Mom & Dad">>

Why have they sent this? Are they trying to keep us from even trying to see if there is something that can work?

mifuchs:

Why have they sent this? Are they trying to keep us from even trying to see if there is something that can work?[/QB][/QUOTE]

Please don't think the worst of them. At least they have sent the same thing to the both of you. Their position is really awful. I interpret the email as a gesture of caring, they are anxious to be in contact with the grandkids, and don't want either you or your wife to pull away from them or blast them and make it difficult to see the grandkids.

They could very well hope you will reconcile. If you were to reconcile, they don't want the bridges between them and their daughter and between them and the father of their grandchildren to be burnt beyond repair.

I agree with Bellevue, I am a grandmother and my grandchild is the most important little short person in my life.

I am sorry to see you in this postition, but do take heart in the great advice you are getting here. As a BS I can assure you I heard much the same as whats coming from your wifes lips now ( aahh we all did),her lips might be moving but its not her really talking. And the clues you missed, man we all missed them,probably because they wernt supposed to be found.

Now that the affair is in the light of day, reality will sneak in and take snippets off their perfect little hideaway, bit by bit...chunk by chunk.

read all you can , post away with your worries. If you are having trouble sleeping and eating , I would suggest a trip to your local health care professional for perhaps some short term help. Looking after you is very important all the way through this rollercoaster ride. A healthy body , helps with a healthy clear thinking mind.

Take care.

I would like to get some feedback on part of what I intend to propose at our probably only counseling session tomorrow:

After my wife is done with her story and finally says that she has made up her mind (which she has) on am going to offer the following:

I understand what you have deciede but I still want to try to work out our problems. If you change your mind before it is too late I will still be here to try. I will even agree to move near your parents in Florida (far from where we live) to work it out there far away from the OM and the whole situation. This move to be near her parents is something she would have like to do at many times in the past and I opposed it. While I was never prepared to do that before, I am now because I see this loss as too important and I will now be able to give this to her. Plus, I know there is no way we could work it out anywhere near the OM.

Does anybody think this is a bad idea?

Raising my hand here. I think it's a bad idea, because even though it's something she wanted before, she is in the fog and if you were to offer her Paradise, streets paved with gold, endless orgasms on demand, and a Rolls Royce, it wouldn't appeal to her because she is in Fogland.

But, my marriage is not the best, so I'm not an expert.

I suggest again, listen to her, don't say anything to burn the bridges, and don't vent, and also don't beg! It's okay to tell her you love her, that you believe in your marriage and your commitment, that you are willing to work on improving things. But you'll be surprised how fast the 50 minute hour will fly by, and

you should not be surprised when, at the last minute of the session, she drops a bombshell.

Be prepared. When it's too late in the session, when you're on your way out the door, she will say something offhandedly, and it may not hit you until a day or an hour later. She will say it when there's no time or opportunity to go into it with the counselor.

(I am not psychic; I am a veteran of the marriage counseling wars)

Do not react. Do not emote. You will not help your cause.

Also I repeat, please counsel yourself with the Harleys. Don't insist your wife counsel. Please give the Harley's a chance.

The best chance you have, I believe, is to let the affair run its course and sink itself of its own weight. Plan A, read the books, be good to yourself. And don't give up. Work quietly behind the scenes.