Well, my H said he spoke to the OW and didn't really say much else. He has been home most of the week in the evenings. I was tempted to follow him last night, he said he had a meeting. I checked his clothes when he left for work this morning (the ones he had on yesterday). Low and behold there was semen stain in the underwear. What the HELL! We are slated for counselling on Monday. Do I keep my mouth shut about this or tell him. He will think I'm nuts for checking the underwear but the proof is there. He is givin mixed messages. He has been kissing me good bye every morning and before bed. He even suggested that we spend the wekend at my parents house this weekend as we will be out that way for my daughter's hockey. When he left this morning he asked if we wanted to go out for dinner. I said sure. What is up with him?? I don't want him to get to counselling on Monday and cut me off cold turkey if that is what he is waiting for. He does not want to discuss things until there is a third party present, meaning the counseller. I have mixed messages. Anyone else been at this point? I think on Thursday I will follow him from his work to his "work social gathering for an employee that is leaving" and then he is going to visit a friend who broke his leg. Anyone ever done some following before??

HELP>

<img border="0" title="" alt="[Embarrassed]" src="images/icons/blush.gif" /> OK, color me embarrassed to say this but I think its worth saying. Guys (and I am one) get erections for lots of reasons. Yes, that may be a semen stain, but what caused it? Was it left after jumping on her, thinking of you, reading a Playboy (whoops, I forgot you don't "read" Playboy) Anyway, just thoughts before you assume you know the answer.

Kinda reminds me of the last Monica Lewinsky joke I think I had heard a long time ago...Turns out Monica stopped by the dry cleaners to drop off a couple of garments. She was in a hurry and hollered to the attendant that she was in a hurry and to have the garments ready next Friday. The elderly proprietor could not hear what she said over the steam press and said "come again" and Monica replaied, "No, its mustard this time" <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

Your joke made me smile (first time in a week). I am not sure where the semen stain was from, but it was there none the less.

We have not had sex since D-day (not sure if I want to at this point). Is there a point where you actually have a physical relationship while going through this crap?? He still kisses me every morning and when he gets home. Our first counselling session is not until Monday so I am not sure what kind of bombshells are waiting for me. I don't want to comit to him physically until I know for sure he is committed to working on the relationship.

Anyone have any suggestions??

As you read this board you will discover that yes, there is sex again, and sometimes it even gets better. But that is between you and him and when you both reach a comfort level. And right now, its NOT comfortable and you are "normal" for thinking that way, and HE will have to be understanding of you. However, let him know excactly what your thinking.

Now about your comment on the meeting with the conselor....I know you think its all his fault right now. And you are worried (and yes, even embarrassed?)that he will have first crack at his side of the story which will lay all the blame on you. But I betting you a six pack (or a bottle of wine if you prefer) that there are things BOTH of you have failed to do. Now before you get pissed off at me for saying that, just one more thing. Marriage and affairs are all about the level of communication or lack thereof. Listen to what is being said if you expect to be heard in return. There are a lot of folks here who would be envious to get their spouse to: Go to counselling, and talk openningly while they are there. Sounds like you are both already on the right track...go girl.... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

Thanks - I do know that the lines of communication in our relationship have failed. I am not totally blameless for this. I sort of gave up, with him not being home too much, involved in the day to day chores of life (14year daughter). I wrote him a letter last night explaining my feelings and thoughts. I told him I loved him and I would be patient in waiting for him to get out of his fog. I also do not want to be his door mat and have him in total control of the outcome of our relationship. I know he read the letter this morning as I left it on his shaving kit. He did kiss me goodbye this morning (thought I was sleeping). I am hoping to get through the weekend without a total outburst/breakdown. I am having to catch myself and be strong. I don't want to look too weak or vulnerable. I have decided not to follow him to his function tonight. Instead I am going to my friends to watch survivor (ironic huh?). I have not told any one about this situtation between us nor do I wish to get into with the girls. They tend to be catty about such things.

I am not sure how much to push him into communicating with me over the weekend, I think I will just let things be until Monday when we get to the counselor. Antidepressants are a wonderful tool in helping deal with the anxiety, paranoia. etc.

Thanks for any input or any more input anyone has.

Thanks - I do know that the lines of communication in our relationship have failed. I am not totally blameless for this. I sort of gave up, with him not being home too much, involved in the day to day chores of life (14year daughter). I wrote him a letter last night explaining my feelings and thoughts. I told him I loved him and I would be patient in waiting for him to get out of his fog. I also do not want to be his door mat and have him in total control of the outcome of our relationship. I know he read the letter this morning as I left it on his shaving kit. He did kiss me goodbye this morning (thought I was sleeping). I am hoping to get through the weekend without a total outburst/breakdown. I am having to catch myself and be strong. I don't want to look too weak or vulnerable. I have decided not to follow him to his function tonight. Instead I am going to my friends to watch survivor (ironic huh?). I have not told any one about this situtation between us nor do I wish to get into with the girls. They tend to be catty about such things.

I am not sure how much to push him into communicating with me over the weekend, I think I will just let things be until Monday when we get to the counselor. Antidepressants are a wonderful tool in helping deal with the anxiety, paranoia. etc.

Thanks for any input or any more input anyone has.

Stated, I have just read your message, and thought I was reading about myself, our situations are so similar. Almost everything you wrote could have been written by me.

My husband and I have been married for 20 years (come this September). We have just one daughter, slightly older than yours (she was 16 a few weeks ago). I too have found semen stains on my husband's underpants (on several occasions). I too am getting mixed messages - kisses, affectionate glances, compassionate remarks, whilst he still continues to see his OW). I too rarely make love: my husband says he is too 'guilty' to initiate it, and I feel too uncomfortable. You say how 'devastated' you were when you discovered your husband had been unfaithful. I am in exactly the same position. My devastation was such that I am now on antidepressant tablets (which I swore I would not resort to) and sleeping pills (which don't even work) and have to see my doctor regularly. I have contacted my local vicar to come round to give me support, because I am just unable to cope with the increasing stress and heartache of my husband's continuing infidelity - with all that means - the rejection, the heartache, the terror, the isolation, the loss of all security and familiarity, the lies, the cheating, the feeling that I count for nothing.

As regards what you say about how your daughter would be 'crushed if she knew her dad cheated', I am again in exactly the same position as you. Our daughter is very close to her father, trusts him absolutely, goes sailing and climbing and cycling with him, and would be absolutely destroyed if she found out he was an adulterer. Have you read about what this discovery does to young teenage girls - the fact that they usually do not ever want to see their father again, and that their whole lives are changed, as they find it impossible to trust anyone ever again? Many become sexually promiscuous as a desperate attempt to escape their pain; a lot develop anorexia or bulimia - some even attempt suicide. How can we let our precious daughters go through this?

For this reason, I am still living with my husband despite the hell he is putting me through. I also happen to believe strongly in marriage, and can't just throw away twenty years of my life with this man because of a crazy, adolescent infatuation. I still love him - with the kind of love his OW would not understand in a million years - and so am desperate to keep my marriage with him intact.

How I understand about the pain of those terrible terrible discoveries, like the stained underpants. I have wanted to die at these times. In addition to the underpants, I have found receipts from places near her house, showing he was with her on occasions when he told me he was somewhere else, a set of her house keys in his jeans pocket, the directions to a country cottage he went to last autumn to spend a few days with her, when he had told me he had 'gone on a cycling tour', text messages she has sent to his mobile phone - and worst of all, about twenty emails from her which I found stored on his computer just the other day, and which were full of the kind of intimate kind of trash you expect from this other women - such things as 'I bet you can't wait to go on a moonlight stroll with a young woman - well, young in relation to your wife!', 'let me know if you want me to book tickets for a hoe down tomorrow - should be fun!' (this on a night he told me he was working); and 'I love you - the way you smell, the way you sound, the way you feel, the way you taste - in fact, I love all that is you'. To read such emails in my own home made me physically sick - I had to go to the bathroom I felt so ill.

There are just two differences between your situation and mine. One - your husband obviously cares enough about you to have agreed to give up his OW, and to go for counselling. Mine has not. He refuses to even discuss the possibility of either - and is showing all the classic signs of the addict, which Dr. Harley addresses so clearly in his articles on this website. And two,
my D-Day occured over 6 months ago - on 13th September, rather than just a few days ago as did yours. I had suspected (ie. 'known', but was too terrified to accept it, so went into denial) for about two months that he was involved, at least in an emotional affair, for I had found out that he took this woman 'friend' of his out to the pub, and also went round to her house to 'play the guitar'. He was changing around this point, as all men involved in affairs do, saying rubbish like he wasn't sure of his 'feelings' for me', 'he was 'confused', and he 'needed a friend' - all the usual mid-life crisis jargon. In other words, he was comparing the besotted juvenile infatuation of his immature affair with the real, committed, caring, devoted love we had had for in our marriage for twenty years.

Stated, I wish I had some advice for you, but as you can gather from my rather incoherent and rambling message, I am still looking for answers myself! I am going through too much havoc and devastation myself to offer much practical advice, but what I might be able to do to help if you would like that, is to send you some of the things I have spent the last six months writing, about what this experience is like. It is very personal - ie it deals specifically with MY husband's infidelity, but it is general in that so many of the situations and feelings will be applicable to ALL betrayed wives. I have actually kept a diary since D-Day in which I have poured out all my feelings, and I am sure this would be of help to other suffering wives. If you will give me your email address, I can send some of what I have written as an attatchment, and I think that just to know there is someone going through everything you are - especially as our situations are so similar - will be of help to you. My email address if you would like to write to me is: bronwen@wrigley65.freeserve.co.uk, and if you would like to read a couple of my poems, I have posted them in the Poems forum - one is called I Will, and the other 'Just Another Lost and Lonely Wife.'

I wish I could give you some PRACTICAL advice, but as I am still trying to sort things out for myself, and make the decision as to just how long I can carry on sharing my husband with another woman, I am afraid I wouldn't be much use at that. What I can offer is lots and lots of understanding, sympathy and compassion at what you are going through - which I recently read is thought to be, by women who have gone through both events, to be worse than gang rape. At least gang rape is a crime carried out by STRANGER. Whereas adultery is a crime carried out by the person we are meant to be able to trust implicitly and who promised to love, honour and cherish' us for life.

I wish I could stay longer, but have to go now, and want to get this off to you before the computer crashes - as it is in the habit of doing on a regular basis! Also excuse any mistakes as I wasn't able to preview my post for some inexplicable reason.

Please get in touch with me, and I will do all I can to help you in any way possible. For now, just hang in there, and keep hoping. Keep reminding yourself that your husband LOVES you, but is confused, and thinks he is IN LOVE with his OW. But he is actually just trying to run away from reality by escaping into fantasy. Don't give up. You will come through this.

All my very best wishes to you and all your family.

Bronwen
(stilltrusting)

Stated, have just read through all your other threads. As regards your question about sex, everyone is different about this. Some wives can't bear to even touch their husband's hand - others become absolutely desperate for sex, because they want to show they are still desirable, still desired, and are longing to feel close to their husband.

In my case, I started off in the few weeks after D-Day being unable to keep away from my husband. I wanted to make love every night and morning, and did things I have never done before! It felt to me as it used to do when we were courting, and our love life had never been better.

However, as time went on, things grew increasingly distant between us because of my distress and my husband's guil. The fact that he NEVER initiated lovemaking - it was always me who made the first move - made me feel totally rejected. I have asked him about this a few times, and my husband always looks stricken with anguish. He insists he is not rejecting me, but says he feels so guilty at what he is putting me through that he just can't approach me. He doesn't realise that he is punishing me doubly by not allowing me near him. How things will pan out with you and your husband depends on many things - but if he doesn't initiate sex with you, DON'T get the idea, as I did, that this is because he no longer wants you or loves you - it is the fact that he is overwhelmed with guilt and remorse at what he is doing.

As regards those 'mixed messages', I think your husband is very confused. He is probably eaten up with guilt and horror, but is unprepared to give up his OW at present. (I'm sorry, I got things wrong on my last mailing - thought he had said he would not see her again). My husband told me several times on D-Day that he would 'go round and sort something out' and also said, 'Just give me time'. But he did nothing - he in fact carried on seeing his OW even more than he had been doing before I found out, even going over to spend the whole night with her less than a week after D-Day!

But as all the books and articles on adultery make clear, a man involved in an EMA is temporarily insane - he is a man with half a brain as Dr. Harley says, an adolescent, an addict, and totally incapable of making a rational decision or seeing what he risks doing or losing by his behaviour. This is what my husband is like at present. He loves me, he loves our daughter, he believes in marriage, he doesn't want to lose our home, our financial security, his good reputation with other people (who all think him so responsible and trustworthy), the regard of his family, or the shared history he and I have had together since we met in 1980. And yet, he will not end his affair: evidence that he is not thinking coherently.

Try to keep busy if at all possible this weekend. I have MS, and am unable to do so many things which could help me cope, but you are presumably ok, and could go for a long walk, or shopping with your daughter, things like that. Also, read a lot. This website it excellent, but there are loads of articles about affairs, as well as good books. I recommend Frank Pittmann's 'Private Lies' which is very much on the side of sticking with the marriage. Also try TOW - a website called 'The Other Woman' - which sounds as though it would be very upsetting, but actually isn't, especially if you go into the 'Endings' forum. You will find there lots of Other Women who tell it as it is - that straying men hardly EVER leave their wives. There are actually some very comforting things on that site (as well as horrible ones, I have to say) - one of the best being from an other woman who says that if there was a war - a really bad one with bombs raining down, like in Baghdad - who would the married man chose to be with - his wife, or his OW? The OW says to all the other OWs - 'you know the answer to this!' This all helps - and you need all the help you can get in these early stages. Also try reading Proverbs chapters 6, 7 and 8 in the Old Testament - some brilliant passages about 'immoral women' and the dangers of a man getting involved in adultery. It all makes you feel a bit more as if things are going to turn out ok - in the end.

God Bless, and get in touch soon.

Bronwen

Stilltrusting - Thank you so much for all the advice and response you have given me. My husband and I are to celebrate our 20th anniversary in September this year (really wierd all the parellels huh??) I am keeping busy and we (both of us and my daughter) plan on spending the weekend at my parents for a visit (he suggested it). I wrote him a long letter last night and gave it to him. I spoke once with him today and he sounded okay. He is going out tonight for a work function and I have decided that I will not follow him. I am going out to a friends to watch survivor. I want to forget tonight. My daughter still does not know anything is up and I plan on keeping it that way. She has ADHD and struggles with life at the best of times. I do not want to put her through any unnecessary emtional turmoil right now. The fact that my husband suggested counselling is a thread of hope for me. Maybe he is just using this as a screen to help let me down easier, not sure. I do trust in my faith and have spoken to my doctor about this and she is also praying for me. I found out about the affair by a lot of detective work. I am very resourceful. I got all his credit card bills displayed over the internet (fraud, I am not sure). Anyway it gave me all the evidence, as well as notes I found in his brief case and recepits in his wallet. I think he wanted to get caught. His tracks were not covered very well.

Anyway, I am off to the gym ( have to look my best). I am training for a marathon in May. My husband has been very encouraging and supportive in this endevour so far. I guess it got me out of the house long enough to call the OW. I still do not know who she is and am not sure I really want to. I told him in my letter that he needs to stop all contact with the OW or our marriage will not work. I will not have a three way relationship. If I cannot fill his needs, voids, etc. then I can't. I will try my best to change and I will give it my best effort.

Thank you so much for your input it really has helped me, this site. I have ordered the books and some CD's (his needs, her needs). I plan on getting my husband to read these as well. I have boughten some other books and I think he has flipped through them, as they are not in the same place on my night stand. Hopefully he gets some insight into his infedility.

Like your husband, mine too is a well respected person in the business world and with our circle of friends. I do not plan on ruining his reputation (just yet anyway). If our marriage works I will thank God for his help.

I will post again Monday after our counselling session, and I will e-mail you with an update.

- sorry for the rambling.

Stated, I can't stay around today as I have a horrendous headache and also my daughter will be home from school soon. But I just wanted to thank you for your reply, and to wish you all the very best for your first counselling session on Monday. My thoughts and prayers will be with you.

You sound like a very strong woman, who is determined to battle through this awful situation, but are not prepared to be a doormat and share your husband with anyone else. This is exactly the right attitude - it is all too easy to get into the frame of mind after a while of almost being satisfied that we are 'number one' in our husband's life - ie. that we are more important than his OW - when of course we should not be 'number one', but THE ONLY ONE. The only thing I would say is to not make a decision too quickly to separate, and rush your husband into making his choice. I have had people tell me to give my husband an ultimatum - her or me - but as I realise he is not in a rational state of mind, but is literally 'insane', I don't want to do that in the fear that he will choose his OW - and then all the work I have put into restoring our marriage will be lost. Worst of all, our daughter will then know about her father, and a pandora's box will have been opened.

But yet I know that as things are going, my husband is just getting the best of both worlds, and that he is living the proverbial 'cakeman' life (have you read that article on TOW website? - it sums wayward men up to a tee!) Therefore, unless his OW decides she has had enough with only seeing MY HUSBAND once or twice a week, then I am going to be the one who has to make the decision, and be strong, because he isn't going to at present, whilst he is still 'addicted' to his affair. This is going to feel as if my world has ended, as I still love my husband very much, but there is only so much we betrayed wives can take. As Dr. Harley says, an affair is almost certain to end within two years at the most, but by then, the wife will be an 'emotional basketcase' and has to think of herself somewhere along the line.

Hope you had a good time at the gym - wish I could go, but I can't even get as far as to the bottom of our road because of my MS. I just have to cope by doing things like reading, writing, sitting in my garden (which refreshes and comforts me very much - thank goodness Spring is here) - and praying. I have a copy of the Book of Common Prayer by my side most of the time - the psalms especially are wonderfully helpful. I will send you a list of the ones I feel are most helpful for our situation when you email me with your update.

Meanwhile, let's pray that when September comes around, we will both be celebrating our 20th Wedding Anniversaries with our husbands back with us, and that this ghastly, traumatic situation will be behind us for good. If you didn't live in the US, and me in Britain, I would suggest us getting together if that happened to have a never to be forgotten party!! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

Must go now, Stated - but will be thinking of you this weekend. Look after yourself and your daughter, and keep safe.

God Bless,
Stilltrusting