I'ts been a little over a month since D-Day, and my H has been wonderful....we both feel like we've fell in love all over again. I can't think of a thing he could say or do that he hasn't to make this easier for me....the thing that nags at me though is this....she lives 300 miles away, so he saw her six different weekends over six months. The total A lasted six months. They communicated thru email and phone calls. He knew I was suspicious for the last four months of the affair. I even told him how devestated I would be if he were having an A and how much I loved him.
When I finally had hard evidence and he finally confessed, he sat and bawled and begged me to give him another chance. He has cried many times over this last month, is very patient and willing to answer all my questions and do whatever it takes to get thru this. Says he never loved her, just loved the way she made him feel....loved and needed. I feel like I understand how the affair started, what led to it and all that....what I don't understand is why at that moment of confession does everything change. Why did it take me discovering the A for him to sort of wake-up? He cut off contact with her immediately thru an email that we wrote together. She sent one email after that that we just didn't respond to. He doesn't seem depressed, or seem to miss her at all. Says it's a relief, that he had wanted to end it for a while but didn't know how to get out of it without her telling me. ( which she did, she called me the next morning after they were caught to give me details) Says he felt guilty all the time, and like he was leading two lives. But what is it about that moment of discovery that seems to change everything? Does it just knock them back into reality to be caught? I don't know why I need the answer to this question...but it has bothered me alot this past few weeks. It was like all of a sudden he woke up and is back to being the man I married, even more romantic and attentive than he ever was....WHY?

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Why did it take me discovering the A for him to sort of wake-up?</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I’m a BS also so I can’t give you an answer based on how I felt. I can share some of the principals I learned from my W and it may help you understand a bit more of how this phenomena works. I don't it's so much that they woke up as it is they finally found relief.

Often a WS is caught in a terrible place; they have guilt, fear, self-hatred, and shame on one hand. Then somehow they have a perceived debt to the OP. In the fantasy world this other person “knows them or understands them” They struggle with not wanting to hurt anyone, yet they somehow they know they are hurting everyone including themselves. Your H always knew the right thing to do was confess his poor decisions and do the right thing. But fear drives people not too. He was afraid to loose the OW on some level and I would venture to guess more afraid that if he told you, you would leave him. In essence he would have been responsible for destroying the lives of 3 people. So out of fear he chose to say nothing, thinking he would eventually end it on his own. My W ended her A on several occasions, but the OM would call her or she would have a weak moment and call him, since no one knew, what was the harm, after all the offense had already taken place.

When I learned of the A my W was also relieved. Relieved that her worst fear did not come to light, I did not leave her, expose her to the world, or kill her or the OM. Instead I fought for her. Her relief was from the fact that now I knew and if she had a weak moment it would no longer be, no one knows so where’s the harm. She found relief in the fact that she was now accountable. She found relief and strength in the knowledge that I would fight to save our M this time, but if contact continued I would walk. So at a weak moment she was armed with reality.

Once the A was exposed, she had guilt for what she had done certainly, but they day to day guilt that she was keeping me in the dark subsided, continued contact and self loathing over it subsided. For us D-day is our worst nightmare, for a WS it can be relief.

Hang in there,

Oz