It's all hit me now. All the reprocusions of the affair my wife had with a friend. I'm up one day with a little hope and the next I want to shoot the other person or her.

In my world there is right and there is wrong. You do right because it is right, or you do wrong for some reason. That's the sticking point... she can't give me a reason. She just says, "I was stupid," or "I can't explain it." None of that makes any sense to me. How can we work this out if there are no reasons. She id say that she felt like everything she did caused me trouble and that she couldn't do anything right. But, I never said that to her, it's just something she said that she, "felt." I have feelings all the time and I don't act on them. I thought that's what seperated us from the animals. Feelings... seems to be the only reason any of this happened.

I need answers! How can I fix something, if I don't know what's wrong?

Anyone?

Help.

Hello,

I am so sorry for your pain. You are absolutely correct that you deserve answers. Your wife made a deliberate choice to be sexually intimate with another man, betray your marriage and put your health at risk. There are reasons why she did this. Saying she does not know why is ridiculous. Otherwise why would she not do it in the future?
You both need marriage counseling immediately. Only honesty will help heal your marriage. She knows the reasons and she knew the consequences of her actions. If she refuses to discuss the reasons with you then she is still disrespecting your feelings and your marriage. If the only reason she can give you is that she felt she wanted to screw somebody else then you have real problems. Again marriage counseling is a must.

On another front. If the OM is married it is absolutely essential to contact the OM's wife and expose the affair to the light of day. It is important because that person has a right to know and these are the consequences to her actions. No consequences to her actions equals no motivation to change.

I wish you luck.

As we say around here: Welcome to the rollercoaster!

I mostly agree with Bryan (especially about telling the OM's wife - you would want to know, wouldn't you?), but I only agree with the second half of this: </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> Saying she does not know why is ridiculous. Otherwise why would she not do it in the future? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">It is critical you find out why, so you can feel safe that she will not do it in the future. It is actually fairly common for WS's not to know "why", or not to feel safe in telling a BS "Why", or to feel so ashamed that they cannot admit to "why". My wife's answer to the "Why?" question changed over the months as she gained a deeper understanding of herself.

Reading the books "Survivng an Affair" and "Torn Asunder" together, and discussing them and doing the exercises, were a great help BOTH at getting at the "why" question, and helping us to move forward. There is some more detail on how to recover below. </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">

Hi Help,

I believe you can find some of your answers here.

One of the things that is hardest is that you want an answer so badly - and one of the things you would like to hear is that somehow there is a reason that will make this not so bad. If you had something you could work on, something you could fix, then you would have direction.

After watching these boards for quite some time, I do believe that many times the reasons - though they exist - are not known or understood by the party that enters into the affair. (sorry Bryan, sometimes I do agree with you.) There are times when affairs are calculated, and are planned in advance - premeditated - as they say in 1st degree murder cases. There are also cases where the person feels a pull, and goes along but doesn't understand it, and regrets it - wishes it never happened. Your wife's experiance sounds like the latter type.

I think if you are willing to study - both by reading the basic concepts part of this site, and also getting the books "Surviving an Affair" abd "His needs, Her needs," by Dr Harley, you can come to undertand what happened, and prevent it from ever threatening your marrage in the future.

I am not saying she did no wrong, or that she is innocent - but if you want to make this work, you have to do first things first.

The first thing is to learn - so you know BOTH what happened, and ALSO how to prevent it from ever happening again. John gave you some good references - please read as much as you can, and leave off asking her why until you have learned more and can better understand and interpert her answers. I promise if you read the books it will make a great deal of difference to you, and make it much easier to go on and be successful in recovery.

Probably the best way to think of this right now is that she was caught in an addiction, and you are helping her cope with it - both to stop the addictive behavior, and to put her life back together after it it is over with.

It is true that you have been hurt also - but someone has to be the one to fix things, and you are here, so you get to start on it.

It is also true that you can quit if you want, you don't have to recover, you don't have to take her back. It is a choice you get to make, and we will help all we can if recovery it what you choose.

Please think about this - often it is that we base our actions on our feelings - but this is what got her into trouble, and if you base your reactions on YOUR FEELINGS it will have a similar bad effect. Dr Harley is successful because he has studied what really works, as oppesed to doing what we feel - and written a recovery program based on what works. I think you will understand much better after reading the material.

Meanwhile, we are sorry for your pain, and wish this had never happened to you. I know I can't make things better by what I say, but you can if you will learn, and do the work. Please let us know how you are doing from day to day.

SS

<small>[ April 18, 2004, 06:01 PM: Message edited by: still seeking ]</small>

HFSW: I too can feel your pain. I'm two months in from DDay (see "Not sure what to do next...but maybe this will help someone else" in this forum). I too am a "fixer," but it is one thing you will have to learn that you can only control yourself and your reactions to the events of your life. Hopefully, your W will join you in your recovery. As John suggested, get the books, they've been helpful to me. Though that doesn't stop the bad days. (Yes, I have both good and bad days though it feels more like bad days and only slightly better days.) And I still find myself thinking of ways to retaliate (both against the OM and the W-I wish I could avoid those thoughts, though they aren't as frequent as they used to be). Good luck!

<small>[ April 26, 2004, 09:02 AM: Message edited by: Recovering H ]</small>