Hello everybody, I really need your help in finding answers. I don't know how to deal with the fact that my relationship is being destroyed by an A. About a year ago my W had an affair but I just found out the total truth last Wednesday and I am devastated. I am super angry, I think about it and I go crazy of anger. I feel ashamed that now I am a person whose W slept with another man. The questions that bother me the most are Why did she let it happen? Why? Where were all the nice moments that we spent together? Where were all those I love you that we said to each other? Where? Why? Did she thought about what she had with me? What did this guy told her that she did not care about my feelings or how I was going to feel? The only answer I've found so far is that we were not meeting each other emotional needs, but why we were so blind to don't even notice it? Why didn't she tell me when she felt atracted to this guy? I don't know, but I want to understand her. And also I want to forget it because I love her. I love her.
Everything started last year. She was awarded with a scholarship to go to study to Argentina for a year. The first months she was away, there were only fights between us. I was very unsopportive with her about the experience. She was going crazy partying and I did not agree with that. Everytime I wanted to talk to her I had to ask her for a phone call and she used to reply that she was going out with her friends or she had something to do. She was so selfish with me and her experience. I felt totally left out. This situation continued for about three months until she came back to visit because we had my INS interview. They were two amazaing weeks. We enjoyed each other like never before. She left again and two weeks later, the fights began again because she was going crazy. I got super angry with her because she didnt sleep at all for talking to this AHole. I felt threatened. I told her and she promised she was not going to date anybody, I felt I could trust her. The matters were getting worse. My brother felt into a big deppression because he was ending his relationship with his girlfriend who also had affair. He was devastated. This hard time made me super vulnerable, my family was being destroyed. My brother wanted to commit suicide. I started calling her for support and little by little it started to be more and more difficult to be close to her when I needed her support. She was getting away from me and that devastated me even more and made me more angry. At the same time, we were talking about traveling together to Rio de Janeiro. We were making plans for it. But we were having so many fights. In fact, two times I was talking to her by phone and I finish telling her a phrase and she did not reply. I was Hey, hey, hey, are you there. And I asked her where you paying attention to me? It was evident that she was not listening to me. I knew there were something wrong. She all by the sudden started cutting the conversations with me. The conversations were intense. She traveled to Mar del Plata with her friends. I did not know this AHole. was going there. Well two weeks later, when the communication was almost broken I decided to get into her email looking for answers. I found them. There were several emails where she was telling her best friend that she would be willing to have sex with this Ahole. The friend told her to not be stupid. The friend told her that I loved her so much that I was going to be devastated. Then another email said that the relationship was getting intense with this guy. I couldn't handle it anymore, I called har super angry. She denied it, she said she liked the guy but nothing happened. I was destroyed. Three weeks later we met in Rio de Janeiro and again a wonderful time traveling together for three weeks. The fact that she denied her A made me be able to say it is not true what you read. She is being truthfull Nothing happened. When I came back and she stayed in Argentina, the things changed. I stopped asking her for phonecalls and attention like I did before. The things got much better. No fights, no nothing. It was super nice, we never fought again. She felt supported because she thought I was giving her space but the reality was that the thought was hunting me. I started to place a distance between both of us. The things continued and the relationship got stable. But I was angry because I knew something had happened even though she denied it. Two months later then it was me the one having the A. I met a girl with whom I slept three times. I did it out of anger. I wanted to say if you did it, look me too. I stopped the A three weeks after it started. Then everything calm between both of us. Obviously, I did not tell her. 3 days before she came back home for good. I left to Mexico for eighteen days. One day before leaving I was crying because I did not know if I really wanted to be with her. The fact that she might had an A killed me. In Mexico again happened. I slept with two different women out of anger. When I came back to the U.S. and finally saw her after 4 months of not seeing her, I was happy. But the things were not the same, I wasn't able to see her in the way I saw her before. I did not get really excited about seeing her. A week later she confessed she kissed the guy and I confessed my first A. The nightmare was coming back. Fights, fights, fights. I started to be more distant now that she confessed it. However, we also had wonderful sex and wonderful times. Three days ago she confessed she had sex with this guy and I in retaliation confessed my two other A. What can I do? I am angry, devastated. I feel horrible. I feel used, humiliated. Why did we let this happen?

Welcome to marriagebuilders. Luckily you found us in time.

All of this probably happened because of your separation from your wife. Some people have issues that make it hard to be separated from there partner.

Start in Plan A and read all about the emotional needs here. That is the place to start. Come here and post and read. It will really help you.

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.

Very curious, Where do you live?
Ali

You slept with 2 women because you "thought" she was having an affair?

or you knew for a fact?

Hello, I really appreciate your responses. It made feel much better to know that there is a place where I can get some help.

Believer,
Johnh39,
Ali88,
BOG,

I want to share this with all of you. Fortunately her lover and my lovers are out of the scene. She told me she doesn't have contact with him since August and I did stop all contact with the three women I slept with; at least a small part of Plan A is done. However, we haven't been able to stop hurting each other because it took her a year to confess everything and it took me four months to confess everything even though, the evidence was straightforward. We got trapped into a destructive dance where we placed distance between us, fight and reconcile. However, the doubts for both were still there. Is she telling me the whole truth? Should I tell her the whole truth? That situation went on for four months. Until last week she confessed everything and I did too. That is why we are so devastated. What makes the matter worse is that in this four months we haven't been able to fulfill our most basic needs, even though we've been going to a councelor.
When she confessed the kisses and I confessed my first affair we decided to go to the MC; she is really good by the way but we were not working over the whole truth. I think that if it wouldn't be for her we would have already separated. She remind us why we loved each other. And the day after we confessed the full truth of our affairs we had an appointment with her. There we handled the full truth. All in front of her. Thank god she was there.
Yesterday, I spent most of my day reading the articles in the website and your replies. Believer, I read the emotional needs section and I found out she is not fully meeting my needs right now and neither do I. John, I bought Dr. Harley's "Surviving an affair" and I am currently looking for "the message of the affair" too. I told her about it yesterday and she is willing to work again to restore the love. However, she is a little deffensive because we hurt each other a lot and we have to deal over 4 affairs. The only thing that makes me happy is that if we get through this one, we will build a super strong relationship. Yesterday night she had a stomach ache and I made her feel better, he have great sex twice and we slept all night on top of each other. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

Ali88, I live in West Los Angeles. CA.

BOG, the evidence was really straight forward on the email that she was having an affair. However, she denied it and I put myself on a wishfull thinking state of mind but I knew that I was wrong.

I will pray for all of you.

I forgot to mention that I planned a French food party for both of us tonight and she happily accepted the idea.

<small>[ March 29, 2004, 05:15 PM: Message edited by: janei ]</small>

You ask, "why did it happen?" Maybe that is what your wife should be asking you instead of you asking that. You said because you thought she was having an affair you ended up having 3 affairs. What kind of logic is that? The minute you allow someone else to take the place of your spouse, you are dishonoring her, disrespecting her, and attacking her. When you marry someone, you are supposed to honor and protect them. Biblically, when two persons were united in the flesh, they became one. If you are already married and become intimate with someone else, it is like you are divorcing your spouse. You did that even before she confessed, not once but three times.
Where are you from? Why is she alone for so long? It is hard to predict what will happen in your case because there has been a violation of trust and disrespect both ways.
Think about it for a second, you thought she was cheating on you, so you had three affairs. Hummm... If she uses the same logic, which I hope she does not, you owe her two more indiscretions to her so that the score is even. You both need counseling in a serious way, but your logic is seriously flawed. Good luck.

<small>[ March 29, 2004, 03:31 PM: Message edited by: Why-me? ]</small>

Hello Why me,

I know what you mean, my logic was not working at all; anger was the driving force. In addition, the fact that I found out in June, we only met in July for 3 weeks, I did not saw her until January and we did not talk a lot during this months helped my affairs to go on. I do not justify my actions at all. I feel so ashamed and guilty of inflicting this pain on her. She feels bad for hers and then she has to deal with mine too. It was a total stupidity from my part to retaliate. I am feeling a profound pain and remorse for what happened with her and for the way I acted. However, it helped me to recognize that I have trust and anger issues. I am going to work on them because whatever the outcome is, I don't want her or me to put us in a situation like this again. I am happy that we were able to reach back yesterday after these devastating news. I am seeing light at the end of the tunnel. I can assure you that I wont do this ever again, it is too painful and not worth it. We are willing to forgive each other for what we did and work in our relationship because at the end we recognized that we love each other.
The reason why she stayed alone for so long was that she went to study overseas for a year. Regarding your question where I am, I am from Mexico. I found out that there also comes some issues of double standard and macho pride. Even though, I am super open for being a Mexican, I still have some cultural issues that I will have to overcome and that I was not aware of them.
I want to mention that I planned a French food party for both of us tonight and she happily accepted the idea.

<small>[ March 29, 2004, 05:16 PM: Message edited by: janei ]</small>