I just found out my wife of ten years and my best friend of 25 years have had sex in a hotel three times sense december. We had some problems back then and went to a counsler and thought we resolved the issues. We have two small kids together and i believe she wants to make this work ( she told me about the affiar). I had a gut feeling for a long time now but it went from my gut to my heart and my mind. I have sense told my so called friend to stay away and to not contact her again. Same was told to her. I can get through the act and the lieing but i can't get the mental picture out of my head. The two of them together and all the things i know they have done. I need help! This is driving me crazy. We are already seeing the same cousuler again together. Nothing seems to get the picture out of my head.

<small>[ September 17, 2003, 07:11 AM: Message edited by: GTM ]</small>

What an awful double betrayal. I hope you contacted this so-called best friend's wife and informed her. Your wife needs to send a no contact letter to him and to be tested for STD's.
It is good that you have started counseling. The behavior is so disrespectful and painful. You may wish to ask your wife how she would be feeling if the roles had been reversed? I am shocked that your best friend of 25 years could do this to you and your wife picking him to have an affair with.
I am so sorry for you but you sound like you are trying to recover. I am curious but what kind of explanation did she give you for her behavior? Does she show remorse or is she sad because you caught her?
Your story is so sad. I wish you luck.

I am very sorry you are now feeling th epain of what I have had these last 16 montsh...WH of 17 yrs best friend of 12...Its as if you are losing so many people all at once...Hurts like the dickens...Your trust is destroyed because hte two people you trusted most have hurt you....The good news it does get better...Those pictures, those nightmares, find something snything to distrat yourself. When they pop in you get busy...

It will take months, but the image will fade. The link in my signature line will point you to a lot of tools to help make that happen. You are right in not wanting them to have ANY further contact, and "Surviving an Affair" (which is among the tools referenced below) explains why.

GTM,
your current situation is exactly what mine was. my W and my best friend...i found out when i walked into my house at an inopportune moment!

my reaction was to vomit! right there on bedroom floor! and i still feel like vomiting when my mind triggers back to that scene! my G-D, i felt then and still feel sometimes like i'm a bit acter in a cheap soap opera.

my W couldn't understand why i made such a big deal out of the whole thing!..."it was just sex after all! just a friendly little buddy f@#K!" well i dispelled her of that notion quickly when i made sure that every living person that all 3 of us new, (including my ex-best friend's wife) new exactly what had been going on! when people began seeing her in this kind of "light," they began treating her a bit differently and she didn't like that at all!

i took it one step further, however. i also, made every effort to find out who among our common aquaintences & friends new what was going on...her girlfriends, other friends we shared, (the 3 of us), and i wrote every one of those persons off...out of my life for good!

i may have had to make peace with my W for the sake of keeping my family together but that didn't mean that i would ever again have anything to do with any of those others.

that's when my my W found out how serious i was about the whole thing and she really woke up. until then she was sorry all right...sorry that i caught her! but in the aftermath of the debocle she came to know a new me, just as i had to come to know a new her.

you see...for me, she was no longer the person i married...she was this stranger that looked like my W but for the life of me i couldn't believe it was really her. i had to get to know who this stranger was...and it took time.

i still have trouble believing that this traitor was the person who i told everything to...who i confided my most intimate feeling to...who i trusted with my feelings, my insecurities my hurts and my fears. for me it wasn't the sex images that haunted me...it was pictures in my mind of the two of them...laying in bed together lauphing at me...at the things i confided to them both! what a good joke i must have been for both of them!

it will pass, the pain i mean,..at least mine did...but i will never forget!...and i just can't make myself trust her again. and i'm not talking about worring that she will have another affair! i just can't trust her with my vulnerability. that's my loss.

good luck to you & sorry for the vent.
coach

Thanks for the response. I ordered Surviving an Affair and this site has a lot of great info... As to my friends wife i told him that was his issue he had to live with or tell her about. I don't want her to be feeling the way i am and i do think this affair is over. So to spare her was my thought.

<small>[ September 17, 2003, 07:15 AM: Message edited by: GTM ]</small>

GTM,
I am very sorry for your situation. I like a couple of others above and like you were in your situation. As coach did, i found out who i thought knew of this among a group of friends. Do this and write them off forever. I did. My wife and I had a group of friends and we all used to hang out, watch ball games, cook out etc. Hell, I even had one friend that allowed my wife and OM to meet at his home. He told me he knew nothing. They are all in the past for me now and after i felt betrayed by him and his wife as well,...snip, snip cut them loose too. Another thing that coach told you was that she is no longer the woman you married. TMCM really helped me with this in the fact that I wanted the woman that I married, however she was gone forever. I finally got it thru my head that the illusion that once was my wife was not reality. My situation now is that I am still getting to know her again. It has been a year for me now and it is still hard. Do I trust her completely..no. Do I trust her more...yes. She will never have total trust but it is getting better.
I contacted the OM wife (since we were all friends once)and we somewhat kept tabs on cell phone records and general behavior. I hope the best of your situation. I was 1 day from divorce and now I am still in recovery. Good Luck.

KarlM

How did you turn things around in the 11th hour?

GTM, many here will agree the other man's wife should be told so that she can help ensure there is no further contact between him and your wife. Also, her marriage has already suffered the damage of infidelity. She needs to know it so she can make fully informed choices. She already knows something is wrong on some level--you will just help her to put a name to it and begin to deal with it. Knowledge is power and she deserves this. Blessings to you. You have begun a difficult journey.

SAB,
The first thing that I done that in my opinion helped me was to file for divorce about 1 week after finding out. This was step #1 back into reality for her. Step #2.. I contacted the OM wife. This was easier for me to call her since we had all been friends and she was not a complete stranger. The conversation was not easy at all. I also quit begging for her to come back to me although I never stopped telling her that I love her. I simply accepted the fact that I was headed for divorce.
After filing, initially things were ugly. She threatened me with taking the kids, money, etc. Hell, she even got a restraining order against me because the day after she told me I grabbed her by the arm, pulled her around the room towards the door and told her to get the hell out. I never hit her nor would I ever. Looking back at this I would have never done what I done. My attorney luckily got this lifted.
Finally, the night before we had agreed to sit down and work things out with our personal possessions and the kids. After we were done, I got up to leave and go back to my fathers’ house since I had been staying there. Then she asked me..”Is this what you really want?” I told her that she already knew my answer to that and she had to make up her mind. We sat back down talked some more and that was it. Granted it had NOT been easy, but we have been in recovery since. BTW, OM wife called my wife and had a prety heated discussion, and of course he was still with his wife. I think that reality finally set in with my wife and she realized the A was not real life and the they were living in a fairy tale world when together.

<small>[ September 17, 2003, 08:11 AM: Message edited by: KarlM ]</small>

GTM: Tell his wife. If SHE knew, and you didn't, wouldn't you want her to tell YOU? You say you are doing this to "protect" her, but all you are doing is leaving her vulnerable to the same thing again, because she doesn't know the truth. You are letting him get away with hurting her, and that makes it much more likely he will do it again. One of the main reasons people do bad things is simply because they can.

GTM please read Dr Willard Harley's books 'Surviving An Affair','His Needs Her Needs' and 'Love Busters'; Dave Carder's 'Torn Asunder'; and all the articles on this website. Below my post you'll find quick links to many of those important articles.

If you are going to emotionally survive the emotional rollercoaster that her 'fog' and 'withdrawl' will put you through then you will to have to emotionally detach from her. Emotional detachment(ED) will get you off the emotional rollercoaster by giving you control of your negative emotions like fear, anger and despair which can sabotage all of your well thought out and hard earned efforts to save and rebuild your marriage. ED will make it possible for you to exercise the patience and perseverance that are necessary elements to save your marriage. How do you emotionally detach? By conquering your fear of ending your marriage and not getting your hopes up by relying on her words alone (the old saying 'actions speak louder than words' very much applies here). What you are actually detaching from is fear, anger and despair NOT love.

One last thing, affairs are born from dishonesty (without it, they can't exist) and one way to eliminate dishonesty is for you (and her) to open up to each other. Want to know how to do that? Create an emotionally safe environment where your W can tell you what her innermost thoughts and feelings are, no matter how unpleasant they are for you without the fear of being punished by you for doing so. But you won't achieve this if you are resorting to love busters (habits that destroy romantic love: angry outbursts, selfish demands, disrespectful judgements, annoying habits, independent behavior and dishonesty) for they are the emotional toxic waste that will kill her love for you. Start by developing empathy for her, and validating her feelings (not the same as condoning the affair) so that she will start taking steps to share more and more of them with you, and will make it a lot easier for her to break contact with the OM for good IF she is still in contact with the OM.

Good luck and keep us posted.

<small>[ September 17, 2003, 09:24 AM: Message edited by: T00MuchCoffeeMan ]</small>

I found out 5 weeks ago. Husband with friend. He told me. It happened 3 times, in our home, while I was sleeping upstairs. He says it was just sex, it meant nothing that it happened because he was intoxicated. Even says he didn't c@%^! I also suspected her ... she's single and I could tell she was attracted to him. But I trusted him 100%. Never believed that he could be so weak. He keeps telling he doesn't know why it happened. He's sorry and what's our marriage to work. He will spend the rest of his life to make it up to me. Today for the first time I'm mad. He must think I'm really stupid. The worst part is that I see her at least twice a week. Her son plays hockey with mine. It's torture. It's a constant reminder. I keep seeing them together in my mind. People say that marriages can survive this. Today I see him as a weak, selfish man. How I'm I supposed to work on a marriage when I find him totally disgusting and unrespectfull ??

Sylvie: Your reactions are normal, and they are part of what makes recovery difficult. Please click on the link in my signature line for references to some tools to help you cope, including a couple of the books that TMCM has recommended. One other thing: There is no such thing as "just sex". That is just something WS's, especially men, say to make themselves feel a little less guilty. But don't take that to mean that I think he is lying to you, even though that is also a possibility. One of your tasks in recovery is for both of you to come to an understanding of what sex means to you and to your spouse.

Some people here may think I am making a disrespectful Judgement by saying "There is no such thing as 'just sex'", so let me explain what I mean. I understand the phrase: "It was just sex" to mean: "It was only about the physical pleasure, I was not emotionally involved". As a guy I find that difficult to believe for two reasons. One: masturbation can be more physically pleasureable than sex, because we have a perfect feedback mechanism (nerves) built into us that allow us to give ourselves the best FEELING sexual experience possible. If it was really "just about physical pleasure", then he would masturbate, and not risk his marriage with an affair. Duh! Two, men are wired so that sex affects us emotionally. We couldn't escape that if we wanted to, (though some men do dull that connection by use of pornography, masturbation and one-night stands). Any man who wants to can prove this to themselves by trying to masturbate without using any fantasy at all. For many, it will not be possible. For the rest, it will take a lot longer. Why do you think sex is so important to men? It makes tham feel loved and accepted!! That is far more powerful than physical pleasure, at least on this planet.