Please do not condemn me or stone me. I just want to share my experience for those who may be suffering the betrayal of your spouse and for those who may be planning on engaging in affairs. IT IS NOT WORTH IT!
I have been married to a very good man who was understanding and a man most women would want as a partner. He is loyal, a good provider, a good father, moral, supportive and kind. He is all of those things in addition to being physically attractive. I think I have lost him and everything I had with him.

I come from a dysfunctional family where there was little respect between my parents. My parents were abusive to us and did not treat us like their children. Anger and hostility were common in our house. I guess I just did not have a good example at home and grew insecure of myself and what I wanted out of life. That is not an attempt to excuse my actions, but rather to shed some light for those who are victims of infidelity that there may be multiple reasons and you are not necessarily to blame.
To make the long story short, I reencountered an old friend from my past. He is someone who had courted me, but because of the circumstances we could not date. Since my H was not with me, I guess I felt I had the freedom to do things I would not normally do and started calling that man. Well, things happened and I tried to hide it by unfairly attacking my spouse. I started to look for faults in him and I wanted to make his life miserable, so he would feel some guilt if he ever found out. He eventually found out and life has been terrible for both of us since.
He lost his job as a result and we are now living of our savings. I fear that our two children will be affected by all of this. I pray to God for strength and for my husband to find it in his heart to forgive me and get out of his depression. I just wish I could go back and undo the damage, but I can't.

This is sad.

1. Where are you on your timeline? When was D-day?
2. How did D-day happen? (discovery, confession, like that)
3. How did H lose his job as a result?
4. Drugs, alcohol, or porn or gambling addictions?
5. Counseling?
6. Have you read the MB concepts on the home page?

Welcome to MB ....

Sorry you ended up here.

Pep

No you can't go back, but you can go forward...

I can only offer a little advice but I'm sure others better qualified will offer some soon ..

I am sorry for your pain. The fact that you are here shows that you are looking to fix things and you came to the right spot.

First thing you both should read Surving an Affair you can pick it up here on this site at the bookstore or look at your local bookstore. If the Affair hasn't ended then end it .. break off all contact with OM.

You seem like you love your husband .. if you do then he deserves to know the truth all of it .. I would also recommend having your husband and yourself get some anti D's from your Doctor.. it will help with the ups and downs..

Good luck.. keep us posted

Wanted to chime in and say that you do have to live with it but this A doesn't have to define you or who you are.

Why wasn't your husband with you. He wouldn't happen to be military would he?

You are in a good place for figuring out how to proceed from here.

God bless

<small>[ November 20, 2003, 04:24 PM: Message edited by: d_rose ]</small>

You can't navigate the highways of life only looking through the rear view mirror.

Instead, focus on what's ahead and only glance back when you need to be reminded of how far you've come.

What are rear view mirrors mainly used for anyhow? Going backwards.

My husband was not in the military. He was an Executive for a large corporation. He fell into depression and could not perform at work and during a reduction in work force he was told that he could not be retained. He was told that is was a budgetary decision, but he is certain it ws because of his diminished performance since D-Day.
I started all of this during a vacation in which my H had an important job duty to fulfill and he did not want for me to feel lonely. So, he offered me a vacation. The OM is out of the picture. He basically made promises and lied to me and when I told him about what I was going through, all he said was that it was my problem and not his.

I know its hard for your H to do this but he NEEDS to dedicate himself fully to getting another job, not just to financially survive but so that he has a purpose to regain some of his lost self esteem which will in turn help him cope with the double whammie he got (your affair and his layoff). He also needs to take care of his health and that means eating well, getting plenty of sleep and exercise. While you can't force him to do all these positive things for you, you can appeal to his parental side by saying that his children need him to be healthy and with a will to fight for them.

As far as what you can do to help him, I will suggest for you to not argue or try defend yourself, but agree with him even though some of what he may say is painful and unfair to you. You see, his lashing out is more his way of expressing pain than an actual attack on you. Remember that he endured your verbal abuse when you were having your affair because he loved you, and it is now time for you to show your love for him by enduring his (for a time anyway).

Keep posting for more folks will come by and give you their wise insights to help you and your H. In the mean time please read all the articles on this website and books like Dr Willard Harley's 'Surviving An Affair', 'Love Busters' and 'His Needs Her Needs' as well as Dave Carder's 'Torn Asunder' and Michelle Weiner Davis's 'Divorce Remedy'.

God bless you and yours.

I understand your situation- I too am in your shoes (Please see I NEED SOME HELP) Nomatter how bad we are hurting inside for doing this, our husband's are hurting 10x worse. If your husband needs to lash out at you let him and you just listen because at this point, that's all he can do besides break the marriage which you definitely do not want. All we can do right now is pray and show our husbands how much we love them and how sorry we are. It is hard for me because this is new and we are avoiding each other, but I am not doing anything to make him think otherwise. I will pray for you too and hopefully God will see fit to answer them. If you would like to talk privately you can email me through the board.
ln21

Honesty - Wow!

may God richly Bless you in your endeavors - He is a very forgiving God - seek Him if you don't know Him. My WW has turned away from all that she loved to be where you were at - she finds no fault in this other man but only sees that I am so wrong on all I am trying to do. Praise God that you have come to this sight and rejoice in the fact that you have turned from your ways! Your H will come around - it takes time. I can be honest to you and tell you that as the BH - I am struggling with trusting anyone right now. Even my dearest friends I argue with. My emotions are rough to handle and he is in the same boat.....

Jesus I pray for your love and restoration to come into there lives. You are truly able. Give them strength to follow your principles and to meet each other where they are at to move forward into a glorious future! Amen

Shame

Can you get him on this website?

One of the first and most crushing feelings I had was I was all alone in this....me against the cold cruel world.

It was very helpful to find others dealing with what I was and to realize I was not alone in this even if it felt that way at first.

This site can be a tremendous help to a betrayed spouse.

I also had an affair on my H. It has been 2 months since he found out and he is still struggling. I believe that my affair was because of the attention. I grew up in a home with a step-father that physically and mentally abused my mother and I was sexually assulted at the age of 4. I believe that I had the affair as a way of getting more attention. I love my H to death and I dont ever want him to leave me. We are working through our marriage. We plan on getting a counselor and we now go to church every week (he never attended church till now) We take a bubble bath together every night (nothing sexual). We talk every night now. We have also stopped drinking (he had an alcohol prob till 2 months ago today). We have completly changed the way we were living. He has posted things on MB and I believe it is helping him deal with his pain and I also talk to him about it because he doesn't need to go through this alone. Please tell your H to visit this website even if it's just to read what other people say. It will be helpful to him. Good Luck and May God Bless You and Your Husband

SOM:

I am sorry to hear of your husbands loss of virtually every shred of his dignity, self-respect for himself and any feeling of honor,loyalty,commitment and trust he had for you.

I too was in an excellent professional position when my WW had her affair. I lost everything I knew...except my will to survive. My WW, now my ex-WW, (as of last week) managed to undo in 15 short months,what we had spent 15 years building. And,she did an incredible amount of damage to our two young sons.

I was forced to divorce my wife, evn with her going to re-hab, a minor look at counseling and the continued abuse of the family.

I am sincerely sorry for you and your family. Your little soiree has cost you more than you realize. And the bill has just been given to you. It is a debt that you will never be able to fully re-pay.

I hope and pray, that YOU will do all within your power to help all that has been lost. Just do not lose the one thing that you can use to rebuild. HOPE. It is all you have right now.

I will tell you this very plainly. Divorce SUCKS.
It is a living death and you do not want it ever to touch your family.

Do all you can to save your marriage and re-build your love once again.

Best to you.

<small>[ June 25, 2004, 01:43 PM: Message edited by: Why-me? ]</small>