I could use some advice on what to expect emotionally and physically from anyone who has been the FS in an affair. My wife and I have been married for a number of years and have no children. Until recently, we had a great marriage – until she had an EA (that included one kiss) with a former co-worker.

About 2 months ago I had begun to notice a change in her demeanor and when I would question her about it, I always got the same response “nothing is wrong.” Then about 2 weeks later I asked if we were okay (as in our marriage) and then she told me about the OM. I was devastated to say the least. She told me about how they had met for lunch and that they were in communication via e-mail. I asked her to cease all communication with him and she agreed. She was very distraught over the situation too, she cried for 3-4 days and kept reiterating how sorry she was for this and for hurting me. We agreed that we would be truthful and honest with each other from now on so that this would not happen again. However, this was not the end of the EA, it continued once again in secret.

During the past month and a half, they continued to e-mail each other regularly and IM on occasion. I had a gut feeling that contact had resumed and when I repeatedly asked her about, she always denied it. I would always reiterate that without total truth and honesty our marriage was based on nothing and she always agreed and said that nothing was going on. I was never able to shake the feelings I had and I once again began noticing the changes in her demeanor and in the look of her eyes again (it was a pained look – not happy). About 2 weeks ago they met again for lunch and this was when they kissed. During this time, we had what seemed like good conversations about our marriage and us. We even talked about how it was okay for her to have men as friends (since she mostly works with men) as long as it wasn’t the OM and she agreed.

Everything came to a head this week. She wasn’t feeling well the day I found out and stayed home from work. It was during this time that they had their e-mail and chat session. Even after I got home, she secretly e-mailed him about meeting for lunch. Just about an hour before I found out about her continued contact with the OM I asked if the OM had resumed contact and she denied that any contact had taken place. She then began to accuse me of not trusting her and telling me how she couldn’t be herself around me without me jumping to conclusions. Needless to say, I felt horrible for thinking the way I did, I mean was I really wrong in my assumptions? Was I really that far off base? Did I not trust her enough to believe what she was saying? I was working on the computer and found a file that contained their chat. It was at this point that I had the proof I needed to confront her about it. She confessed to their relationship and told me that she never did end the contact from the first time. Unfortunately, she was still holding back on some information – the fact that they kissed. She denied that any physical contact had occurred, not even holding hands. It wasn’t until I discovered another e-mail where she had said that she told me everything except for the kiss. She told me later that she wanted to spare me from the pain of knowing that she kissed another man.

I sent the OM an e-mail (in all caps, bolded and using a very large red colored font) telling him to cease all contact with my wife, period (I even gave him a list detailing what no contact meant, just so he was crystal clear on what I meant). I also had my wife log into her other e-mail account and I sent a reply back to his e-mail about their lunch plans telling him to see my other e-mail (again in all caps). She had her work block his e-mail addresses and she forwarded me the confirmation of this. I have blocked them at home as well. She did send him a good-bye e-mail just before her work blocked his addresses because he replied using another e-mail address (which was also added to the block) saying that the others were bouncing back. In his reply he showed no remorse for what he had done, in fact he even said that if she ever wanted to start it up again that he was ready to do so. I forgot to mention that the OM is married too – his wife has no idea about his extra curricular activities.

That is the background of what happened.

Since finding out for the second time, I have run through every emotion, many simultaneously. It was much worse the second time around because of the lying, right to my face, and the fact that she had still withheld the information about the kiss, until I forced the issue with proof. I was quite literally shaken to the core. For a couple of days I couldn’t even look at her or her picture in my office without all those feelings running through my mind. The intimate attachment to her was temporarily gone. I am able to look at her now, even hold her close and kiss her (a very big step) without those feelings of disgust over the situation. Fortunately, we had scheduled a marriage counseling appointment a few weeks ago and are now going to be going weekly. I still love her and want to work through this because our marriage is worth fighting for. However, I am having a lot of difficulty with the issue of trust. She is being very open about everything and says that she is willing to do whatever it takes to prove herself and make things right between us. I won’t be overbearing by listing things that she can and can’t do, by having to give me an update of everywhere she goes, with whom and for how long, checking in regularly, etc., but I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to know all the details. Again, this goes back to the broken trust. I know that I have to trust her and take her at her word that she will no longer contact the OM, no matter what. If I hold on too tightly, that will eventually just drive a wedge between us and potentially ruin our marriage or prolong the problems, but how much slack is too much? I am really having a difficult time with this one. Since she was so distraught after the first time, but yet continued the affair, I don’t know what to believe this time around. At least some things are different this time; the OM’s e-mail addresses are now blocked and we are in marriage counseling working to fix our marriage. She is being very open about what happened, is committed to fixing our marriage, and I have no doubt that she loves me. I just don’t know what to do.

Any thoughts on what to expect in the future or advice will be much appreciated.

Hello,

I am sorry for your pain. I do think that you are making a huge mistake by not informing the OM's wife of what has been going on especially since he said he wished to resume it. Having your wife doing this a second time is very disheartening. I wish you luck.

I admit that I have thought about letting the OM's wife know, but I think it is out of vengeance more than anything else. My wife says they have a messed up marriage right now and she told him to fix it or get out in the good-bye letter. I do know that if I find out there has been any contact I will not hold back, vengeance or not - I will make sure his life will be miserable.

thehubby,
Bryan's suggestion to expose the affair to the OM's W was not as much for the revenge factor (although the thought DOES occur! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" /> ) but to expose the affair to the light of day. You see, affairs are all about fantasy, secrecy, sneaking, etc. To expose it eliminates all those feelings. It becomes REALITY, which isn't that easy to escape. And usually, when the OM's spouse discovers the affair, the OM will go into his "denial-survival" mode, showing his true colors to your W.

"I know that I have to trust her and take her at her word that she will no longer contact the OM"

No, you DON'T have to automatically begin to trust her and take her at her word. She has betrayed that trust and needs to earn it back. And she can do so by making her life an open book to you. No secrets. No lies. Total honesty to ANY and ALL questions you may have. And ask them! Now is your time to work through this instead of pushing it under the rug. If you don't ask those questions and get the details you need, they will come back to haunt you and make recovery that much more difficult.

It's good to hear you are in counseling. Bring up these questions during a counseling session for help in dealing with them. You don't want to react to her answers in anger or throw her responses back in her face ever! Make it safe for her to talk to you.

And, finally, Welcome to Marriage Builders. I hate to have to welcome you here, knowing the difficulties that caused you to find this place, but you WILL find help here. Help and lots of support. Please be sure you read all parts of this site, starting with the post at the top of this forum----Welcome to New Builders. Lots of VERY useful information in there, important links and help in understand the replies you will receive.

Keep posting and stay strong...

Most women start affairs because of emotional needs. Check out the EN questionnaire here and find out what her top ones are, and start meeting them.

Also check out Plan A. Good luck, you can do this.

Thank you for the welcome and the feedback. I do want to use the marriage counseling as a safe place to ask questions and receive answers. I am doing my best to keep emotions out of this and approach it from a logical standpoint, which would normally be easy for me - but not so much this time.

I still am running the gauntlet of emotions, any ideas for when this might begin to subside? I picture the happier times we had to help me through it, which does work...so far. It's all still new to me so there are hundreds of simultaneous thoughts coursing through my mind at any given time - some times are worse than others.

I will check out the posts recommended and see where those lead.

Those wild crazy raging emotions are normal for this early stage of discovery. Now, KNOWING that doesn't make it any easier to cope but at least know you're not unusual. I was VERY suprised when I read "After the Affair" by Janis Spring (I highly recommend this book BTW) that I wasn't completely "losing it."

You might consider checking with your doctor regarding anti-depressants. Many people on the forum take them during the early stages of recovery. There are many different kinds so check with your doctor regarding the effects and side effects.

TheHubby:

I have been through something very similar to your case. If you give your wife the space she needs for the purpose of not wanting her to be mad at you, she will likely continue to lie and will continue with her affair with the OM.

You enable her to continue the affair because you want to trust and believe in her like in the past. She has now learned that lying and being deceitful to you allows her to continue with her fantasy affair which is very exciting to her.

This is terrible because your wife will do or say whatever to keep the affair alive. She may even negotiate with you so she can keep her "friend".

Exposing the affair is your best friend. Your wife will hate you for it but you must disrupt the affair to break the fantasy and to bring the fantasy into the real world. You not wanting to hurt your wife will continue to hurt your marriage. Expose, Expose, Expose the affair to make it more difficult for the affair to continue in secrecy.

She may feel she is in love with the OM so you may be in for a rough long road back to a version of your marriage. It may never be the same I am told by others. I am only 90 plus days out of my wife's EA and it has been hell.

Good luck to you.

Thank you all for the wonderful feedback. My wife and I are now talking through a lot of the issues about the EA and are making good progress. She is beginning to see how the OM preyed on her weaknesses to seduce her. Now that such things are coming to light, she is beginning to see this from the viewpoint of what it really was (total manipulation by him) and not the fantasy viewpoint of what a wonderful person he was.

She has not tried to bargain in any way with me to allow contact with the OM. She is being open and telling me about any possible avenues of contact that might exist and the e-mail addresses of his have been blocked at her work by IT and by me at home.

I know that I may never get all of the answers I want (not the details of what happened but why they happened), just because she doesn't know why she did some of things. Fortunately, I have this forum to come to and learn from the knowledge of those who have been there before. I know there is a long way to go and with the help of marriage counseling we will get through it. I plan on using the marriage counseling as a safe place for my wife and I so that I can ask the direct questions about the affair without them being seen as attacks. I am going to address the issue of informing the OM&#8217;s wife in our counseling sessions. I do see hope for us and that is very refreshing.

Good for you with your progress. Remember, these are addictive feel-good relationships and egos are built from them. Hopefully your wife will find out how selfish the OM really is. He was willing to destroy the marriage for his own personal gain.

Love your wife but trust her with reason and proof at this point in time in your marriage. Keep us posted.

thehubby:

I can't say that I'm glad to see you here, but you've come to a good place for help. This forum has been extremely helpful for me. I'm basically 8-9 weeks from d-day. The first two weeks and week 5 were the worst. Everybody is different though. Things have started to settle down (emotionally) for me. I've read here and in books that it generally takes as long to recover from the affair as the A itself took. But generally around two years.

My W tells me that after her and the OM started the EA, it took about 2 months for it to go to a PA. I thought I would have been ok with the EA, but as I've been working through this, that's not much difference (both include lies and deceit). Hope that helps, good luck and take care!

I am doing just what is suggested by trusting her with reason and proof. She is being very open about everything and our discussions really help me to glean insight into the affair.

Recovering H, I am sorry to hear about your situation and thank you for the response on your experience with this. I am hoping repairing and rebuilding our marriage won't be years in the making, but I am being realistic that this will take some time. Her affair lasted about a two months so fortunately it wasn't too long. We have a very special relationship that I will protect any way I can. I will never allow forward progress to stop or stall, it's just too important.

Thehubby:

Remember, the truth is in the details. If she becomes evasive or can't remember little facts, keep pressing her. Make her prove herself to be truthful and that will begin to allow you to trust her some. Be prepared for possible setbacks from her too. She may be compelled to make contact just to see how the OM is doing post affair. Keep fighting that part.

I am ahead of you in time and I will tell you the roller coaster ride will keep you on your toes. One day you can forgive your wife and the next day you can't understand how she can betray you, lie to you and deceive you. Your perception of your wife and your marraige has now been changed and you can't put back what you had before the affair. At this point, you can only survive and build from here. Good luck to you.

<small>[ April 20, 2004, 09:25 PM: Message edited by: Midwest101 ]</small>

It’s been a while since I have updated the progress of the recovery. MC is going well and my W and I are making good progress. However, I am having difficulty with my W’s feelings for the OM now that the affair has ended. I just can not understand why she is so attached to him; it is almost the same or more attachment than she has for me after 14 years (at least that’s how it feels). She still deep down wants to re-establish contact – but she won’t because of the pain it would cause to her and I and what it would do to our marriage. She feels very warm feelings toward him even though she now knows how he manipulated her from the very beginning into his way of thinking – which was opposite of hers. I just can’t understand her feelings for him at all.

I am having a difficult time right now dealing with the pure hatred I have of the OM. I can’t stand him @&*$%#!!! I have been praying about what to do with this because I have never hated anyone like this before. I feel that I am supposed to let go of the hatred, which is very hard to do right now, and begin to let things heal. The problem though is that as I release a little of the hatred I have for him, I get overwhelmed by the feelings of loss and how my W could have done this to me. I guess the hatred is acting as a dam blocking up the flow of emotions and I don’t know which is worse right now. The feelings of how could she do this are the worst. They are shaking me to my core right now – just like when I found out about the affair.

The feelings I have for my W are obviously a deep hurt over this whole situation, but there is no hatred. I definitely want (and am working) to help with the reconciliation. There is nothing I want more than her in my life - I love her so very deeply. I just want to get past this and move on, the pain of this sucks!

thehubby,
yes...it does. But, it seems that you are doing a good job of restraining your emotions when you need to. It is more than difficult to do so when you are angy, and hurt, but from what I can tell, you are succeeding. Do not let your WW make you feel guilty for your doubts...my H has done that to me repeatedly, but, unlike your W, has not admitted to the A. Of course, they would like to forget about it all, that would be so much easier for them, but at least your W is in MC with you, and that says alot. Good luck to you and your W.
Justinie97

justinie97, thanks for the feedback. Fortunately, my W hasn’t tried to make me feel guilty for my feelings since the A was uncovered. The strides we are making together and in MC give me great hope. She told me the other night that she is going to “pull herself up but her bootstraps” and try to stop dwelling on the past and move ahead together with me. She also said that between me and the OM, there is no choice, she chose me. That also made me feel great! Working past the A is difficult, but we will make it!

I am still working on letting go of the hatred for the OM. I guess that once I let that go, everything is going to hit like a ton of bricks, but that’s the only to way to really heal isn’t it? My W is surprised that I don’t have a hatred for her for doing what she did. I have told her that I am hurt but I that don’t hate her – I hate the situation. I just don’t know what feelings and emotions will hit me once I remove the dam that is holding everything back.

It’s all so confusing…