I found the following letter at Peggy Vaughns website. The letter, plus Harleys rule on honesty, as well as letting my H know that he could trust me are all factors that assisted me in helping H to understand how important it is that I know the truth about his life.<P>I know you are feeling the pain of guilt and confusion. I understand that you wish all this never happened and that you wish it would just go away. I can even believe that you truly love me and that your indiscretion hurts you emotionally much the same way it hurts me. I understand your apprehension to me discovering little by little, everything that led up to your indiscretion, everything that happened that night, and everything that happened afterwards. I understand. No one wants to have a mistake or misjudgment thrown in his or her face repeatedly. No one wants to be forced to “look” at the thing that caused all their pain over and over again. I can actually see, that through your eyes, you are viewing this whole thing as something that just needs to go away, something that is over, that he/she doesn’t mean anything to you, so why is it such a big issue? I can understand you wondering why I torture myself with this continuously, and thinking, doesn’t he/she know by now that I love him/her? I can see how you can feel this way and how frustrating it must be. But for the remainder of this letter I’m going to ask you to view my reality through my eyes.<P>“You were there. There is no detail left out from your point of view. Like a puzzle, you have all the pieces and you are able to reconstruct them and be able to understand the whole picture, the whole message, or the whole meaning. You know exactly what that picture is and what it means to you and if it can effect your life and whether or not it continues to stir your feelings. You have the pieces, the tools, and the knowledge. You can move through your life with 100% of the picture you compiled. If you have any doubts, then at least you’re carrying all the information in your mind and you can use it to derive conclusions or answers to your doubts or question. You carry all the “STUFF” to figure out OUR reality. There isn’t really any information, or pieces to the puzzle that you don’t have. <BR>“Now let’s enter my reality. Let’s both agree that this affects our lives equally. The outcome no matter what it is well affect us both. Our future and our present circumstances are every bit as important to me as it is to you. So, why then is it okay for me to be left in the dark? Do I not deserve to know as much about the night that nearly destroyed our relationship as you do? Just like you, I am also able to discern the meaning of certain particulars and innuendoes of that night and just like you, I deserve to be given the opportunity to understand what nearly brought our relationship down. To assume that I can move forward and accept everything at face value is unrealistic and unless we stop thinking unrealistically I doubt our lives well ever “feel” complete. You have given me a puzzle. It is a 1000 piece puzzle and 400 random pieces are missing. You expect me to assemble the puzzle without the benefit of looking at the picture on the box. You expect me to be able to discern what I am looking at and to appreciate it in the same context as you. You want me to be as comfortable with what I see in the picture as you are. When I ask if there was a tree in such and such area of the picture you tell me don’t worry about it, it’s not important. When I ask whether there were any animals in my puzzle you say don’t worry about it, it’s not important. When I ask if there was a lake in that big empty spot in my puzzle you say, what’s the difference, it’s not important. Then later when I’m expected to “understand” the picture in my puzzle you fail to understand my disorientation and confusion. You expect me to feel the same way about the picture as you do but deny me the same view as you. When I express this problem you feel compelled to admonish me for not understanding it, for not seeing it the way you see it. You wonder why I can’t just accept whatever you chose to describe to me about the picture and then be able to feel the same way you feel about it. <BR>“So, you want me to be okay with everything. You think you deserve to know and I deserve to wonder. You may honestly feel that the whole picture, everything that happened is insignificant because in your heart you know it was a mistake and wish it never happened. But how can I know that? Faith? Because you told me so? Would you have faith if the tables were turned? Don’t you understand that I want to believe you completely? But how can I? I can never know what is truly in your mind and heart. I can only observe you actions, and what information I have acquired and slowly, over time rebuild my faith in your feelings. I truly wish it were easier. <BR>So, there it is, as best as I can put it. That is why I ask questions. That is where my need to know is derived from. And that is why it is unfair for you to think that we can effectively move forward and unfair for you to accuse me of dwelling on the past. My need to know stems from my desire to hold our world together. It doesn’t come from jealousy, it doesn’t come from spitefulness, and it doesn’t come from a desire to make you suffer. It comes from the fact that I love you. Why else would I put myself through this? Wouldn’t it be easier for me to walk away? Wouldn’t it be easier to consider our relationship a bad mistake in my life and to move on to better horizons? Of course it would, but I can’t and the reason I can’t is because I love you and that reason in itself makes all the difference in the world.<P>

Wow, just WOW! Are ya gonna use it? I don't see how it could fail to at least make the WS understand why we question...I think my H feels like I'm trying to torture him and make him pay...but it is exactly as stated. This is now MY life again, I want to know who I'm living it with.<BR>Thanks for posting this...I'll see if he'll read it...

Great, Great, Great, I intend to compose one of my own and mail it to my WH. I trully believe that he has told nonone the whole truth, even though God knows it, he must confess it to someone, hopefully it will be God first and then me. I don't think that any of us whether WS or BS can trully heal without the whole TRUTH! Thanks, what is Peggy Vaughns Website about, and where do I find it! SEF

Great, Great, Great, I intend to compose one of my own and mail it to my WH. I trully believe that he has told nonone the whole truth, even though God knows it, he must confess it to someone, hopefully it will be God first and then me. I don't think that any of us whether WS or BS can trully heal without the whole TRUTH! Thanks, what is Peggy Vaughns Website about, and where do I find it! SEF

That is a really great illustration of how we, as BS, feel. I am also going to print it for my H, so hopefully he can at least begin to understand how I feel and why I question him about so many things. Thanks for sharing it!

I thought the letter was good and would be something I want to say to my wife. However her reaction based on a similar letter I wrote was still the same, "The past is the past, that was then, this is now. Why bring up the past. If everyday you are thinking how bad I was, it can only hurt the relationship. I want you to think I was a little bad but mostly I am good. I am a good woman. I always was a good woman. Don't torment me by continuing to bring up issue about the "thing" that happened. I don't want to talk about it. Quit thinking about it. It is bad for your health to be so obsessed. What happened was wrong. Yes it was 100% wrong. Why do you need to know details? They are not important. Are you happy everyday thinking about this? I did not love thos man. The sex meant nothing to me. I love you 100%. I loved you 100% then. The main thing is our happy future together. Just forget the past."<P>That's the kind of response I got no matter how many angles I tried to get the whole story. I told her the exact thing about the puzzle analogy. I told her she keeps giving me clues and little pieces of the puzzle. I tell her how much I appreciate it when she tells me a little more. I don't complian at her when she says something about what she did. I am not angry at her anymore. Yet I cannot get her to really talk because she just wants to move on and forget it. She is not in the situation that I am in so she cannot get the same feeling. My feeling is a broken heart feeling her understanding of my feeling is an intellectual feeling not a broken heart feeling. So the feeling is not the same. <P>Well I hope the above (good) letter does help some people but don't be surprised if it still does not work.

That letter, combined with having him read the rule of honest at <A HREF="http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3800_honesty.html" TARGET=_blank>http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3800_honesty.html</A> <BR>plus my promising commitment to the marriage no matter what worked for me. Believe me, he told me everything ..... Neither of us has regretted it. Here is an paragraph from the rule of honesty <BR>"Maybe you don't really want to be known for who you are? That's the saddest position of all to be in. You'd rather keep your secret than experience one of life's greatest joys--to be loved and accepted in spite of known weaknesses. "<P>The letter was found at <A HREF="http://www.dearpeggy.com/" TARGET=_blank>http://www.dearpeggy.com/</A> <P>