hi, this is my first time to forum. i found out 6 weeks ago that my husband had an affair w/ his assistant, i know.. very cliche'. she was also a friend of mine. we went to counseling the day after i found him sneaking in the house one morning. he promised from day 1 to stop all contact, and she was forced stopped working there. however, i discoverd that for the first 5 weeks, the two of them would instant message and email each other. all along when i would find out, he would fess up, but not until caught. they are "innocent" contacts, mainly trying to encourage one another to move on he says. after a couple of weeks, he has told me that their affair was the biggest mistake of his life, he only loves me, and hates himself for what he has done. now i have just discovered that there were other times they were together,one being in my house while i was out of town, and baby sleeping in next room. along with that i learned alot of intimate things he told her, and promised to her. now basically, i feel like an sucker not just because it happened in the first place; but then for each and every time he cries and says he is sorry for the contact and promises "it will stop" and that i "know everthing this time" i believe him--- only to have the same conversation 4-5 more times later. i know it has only been a short time in the process, but as much as i love him and feel he loves me, i am scared with him lying each time saying i know everything. my trust has rapidly declined to near zero even though he showed me the last email telling her no more contact period.
i dont sleep at night because each creek in main door makes me wonder if he is sneaking out to see her. i am obsessed thinking of the two of them together in intimate ways. in addition, he is trying so hard at home to make me happy, and i am lashing out with nasty horrible things every chance i get, and then greatly regretting it later. i am slowly losing my mind i feel! any advise on what i should do to get off this roller coaster?
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Dear Stunned Hurt,
I am certianly no expert, But I wanted to try to respond to your post. I found out that my H had a brief EA leading up to a one night PA in August. So we are 5 monthes into recovery, if thats what you call it. He called off the A himself and has had no further Contact. (He also confessed) I have flashes of them together sexually daily. Sometimes I become phycically ill and I am only dealing with one night. What I do know is that these visions and thoughts are changing. They no longer totally debilitating for me. I am able to redirect my thinking most of the time. So my advice to you is hang in there and as everyone here says - time is our only healer. Remember we can choose to be right or married. It is a daily struggle for me to not lash out and scream I hate you for what you have done. But the bottom line is I want my marriage to not only survive, but thrive as well.
Someday I am sure it will not be such hard work!
Hope this may somehow help - but as you can see I am still struggling deeply myself. It just helps to know that you are not alone in what you feel.

Stick with the program here. My H has tried to reconcile 11 times. Each time I listen to his lies only to find out he is back with OW. When they are having an A, they are deeply in the fog. They try to do the right thing, but a addicted. It is just like a junkie trying to get off heroin.

Read all the information here and keep posting. If you follow the plan, you can have a better marriage than before. Don't give up.

Time for Plan A, though it looks like the time for Plan B might be fast approaching. Read the information below, talk to your MC (or get another) and start working on your plan. </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> You can recover. Many people have. It isn't easy, and not everyone succeeds, but as long as you are both working on it, your chances are close to 100%. If your spouse is NOT willing to work on your marriage, is denying involvement in an affair despite the evidence, and/or is continuing an affair, read What Are Plan A and Plan B? after reading the "Basic Concepts" links below. In that case, you need to start Plan A with the help of a marriage counselor (see item #2, below). There are a couple terrific posts about Plan A that are worth reading at: Plan A, Doormats and Love Busters by Zorweb and Cerri on Plan A, which will help you avoid some of the common pitfalls. Your situation is harder, but your chances of saving your marriage and actually making it better than before are still good. But, whether your spouse is "on board" or not, you should do three things:

1.) Learn. The most important and helpful single source of information for my wife and I was “Surviving an Affair” by Willard Harley (hereinafter referred to as “SAA”) available at the Bookstore, Amazon.com, and bookstores all over. SAA is THE best book on the market for helping one get to the root of “the message of the affair” (BUT YOU HAVE TO DO THE QUESTIONAIRES!). It (along with the Basic Concepts section of this site) is also helpful for giving you a vision of what a great marriage should look like. The approach of SAA to this problem is that the best defense against affairs is to have a great marriage. My wife said we had a good marriage, but she still had an affair. She was kidding herself, but it was not until we read SAA and saw what a great marriage should look like that we could clearly identify the problem areas and had the tools necessary to fix them. So that you can get started right away, while waiting for SAA to arrive in the mail, read everything in the Basic Concepts section of this site. Next, read all the Q&A's on infidelity on this site. They are found at How to Survive Infidelity

The phrase “the message of the affair” is from the book “Torn Asunder”, by Carder (hereinafter referred to as “TA”). I personally think this is the best book on affair recovery we have read. In particular it deals with the two different paths the recovery of the betrayed spouse (BS) and the wayward spouse (WS) need to take, and deals w/ remorse in a way that I prefer to SAA. Read it together, if your spouse is willing. If not, go through it yourself. If you or your spouse has issues with control, you might also want to read “The State of Affairs”, (SOA) by Todd Mulliken, which also treats the remorse issue similarly to TA. SOA also deals with "the vision thing" for marriage, which is neglected in SAA.

2.) See a marriage counselor. This is hard. You need help. These boards are populated by amateurs. MC’s are professionals. There is a difference. They can help deal with issues the books don’t cover, and customize things to your individual situation. That said, there are lots of bad MC’s in the world. Read, and take to heart, How To Find A Good Marriage Counselor. You do not want an MC that is going to teach you how to live with an awful spouse, or how to adjust to divorce. Too many of them do, as is documented here: Hazardous Counseling. Reading that link may scare you off counseling, but it should give you some good ideas to ask a potential MC before you start w/ them, so you can avoid those that give you the wrong answers. You need one that is committed to helping couples have great marriages, and knows how to do that.

You are on an emotional rollercoaster right now, and there will be times that you will think it would be best to just divorce your spouse and go on with your life. Though there are no guarantees, recovery IS possible, but it takes time and effort. You will hate yourself if you don't do everything you can to make that happen. Give yourself the time you need.

3.) I understand that you may not be a person of faith, but for me, getting my spiritual life in order was crucial. As I said, this is hard. I knew I would need all the help I could get. Repenting of the habitual sins in my life let me stop pushing God away so I could hold on for dear life. I had to humble myself and ask Him what I had done wrong, and what I could do to be the husband He wanted me to be for his child, my wife. This was not about blaming myself. It was about doing what I could to do my part in having a great marriage. My wife could participate or not, but I had to know I had done everything I could do. It also helped me to let go of thinking about what SHE needed to do, since I couldn't control her, anyway.

You might also want to read through: WAT's Quick Start Guidelines for Betrayed Spouses, but keep in mind that these are the writings of amateurs. Get the books, read the articles, and see a GOOD counselor - you need the best help you can get.

Of course, that is just my opinions and what worked for me, who experienced it once, first hand. Harley, who has helped HUNDREDS of couples through this process, lays out his program in the following link: How to Survive Infidelity You will find that I mostly followed his plan. It works. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">

Stunned, It has been 3 months since my wife admitted her affair and things have not gotten better. I feel as if D-Day was yesterday. My advice to you is this...Read all you can here and buy the books that are recommended. Some of the books have ideas in dealing with the obsessions and nasty images...they have been helpful. Keep the "lashing out" at him to a minimum, I cannot control mine and we are currently working out the details of a seperation. If you love your husband do what I tell you. I love my wife and now I am in jeopardy of losing my family. I know it sounds backwards for the BS to be kissing up to the WW but it works...at least the very few times that I have tried it. i cannot tell you about the rollarcoaster...I am still on it. Hang in there, and good luck. God Bless

Sevenselves

thanks everyone very much for your time and support. i will try my best to respect myself first, but also to listen to what he has to say, minimize the lashing out best i can, and live day by day. he claims i know everything now and they have called off all communication, and i will trust this once again. it is all i have to work with at this point in our relationship. we have been together 11 years by the way i forgot to mention, have 1 child. both very excellent reasons along w/ the fact i still love him to try to give it more than 6 weeks time to work with. our wc is good, but dont see her as much as maybe we should. right now very delicate state we are living in, things tend to go south very easily. but at least she has taught us how to actually talk to each other. anyway, i will be back here i am sure <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> thank you so much

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> he claims i know everything now and they have called off all communication, and i will trust this once again. it is all i have to work with at this point in our relationship. we have been together 11 years by the way i forgot </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Ack! No! No trust! Why should you??? He should be PROVING to you that what he says is true. If not, you have no reason to trust him - he lied before, what is to keep him from lying again? Read the recovery plan in SAA - there is no trust. Believe his actions.