Just to give you all a bit of background, I found out about my H's A exactly one month ago. It's a long distance relationship that started with one meeting, transitioned into daily emails and phone calls and then into a second visit. It lasted 1 1/2 years (he professes that his contact has now stopped). I found out by way of a cell phone bill that listed some calls to Europe (I guess this sounds familiar to some of you). Then I proceeded to check his email logs and wow, the pain hits your entire being. At that time, I really believed that death was better. I confronted him and he basically owned up to it. In October 2000 after the OW's second encounter with my H, he suddenly told me that he was unsure of his feelings for me. He thought that maybe we were over. This revelation was huge for me since I just never believed or realized how bad our marriage was. I also trusted him so much that I never thought it was because of another woman. We had just had our first child (she's now almost 2) and I was focusing so much on her that I guess I ignored all of the danger signals. <P>Anyway, we started counselling a week after d-day and it's really been a roller coaster ride. He's so angry at me most of the time now. Is this normal? Despite his anger and his lashing out, I am trying very hard to follow Plan A and not react. Another thing I'm confused about is that he gets angry over any questions I may ask. His response is that I will never trust him, how can this ever work, etc. He says that he can't live being questioned all the time but he gets so angry, almost violently so. Is this all normal or does he just miss the OW too much? I'm just not sure anymore if the fog is really fog. <P>Thanks for listening. It felt good to write it.

Hi Terrified,<P>It is true that many of the things you describe in your post are things very similar to what most of us have experienced. My husband also had an affair, and it included daily phone and email contact along with meeting about twice a week for six weeks.<P>I noticed my husband's anger first, even before I knew of the affair. My normally sweet, good-natured husband became an angry, abrupt stranger. Immediately after discovery, he stopped exhibiting the anger for a while, but when the affair restarted, the anger returned and actually increased.<P>After a long time on this forum, I would have to say that the anger is quite usual, but NOTHING about this whole mess seems NORMAL!<P>Best wishes,<P>Peppermint

Terrified,<P>From my experience, the answer to your question is "YES". My W, who is the one that had the affair, has been so angry at me at times she can't see straight. I too never saw the vulnerability she had or saw any problems that would have led up to it.<P>If he hasn't already, be ready for your H to blame you for anything and everything under the sun. My W has done a very good job at it. On several ocassions, she has convinced me that everything is my fault and that she never had an A. However, evidence indicates the contrary. I couldn't live with the fact that it was my behavior that destroyed our marriage. I now know otherwise. I own up to my contributions that put our marriage to a point of her vulnerability, but she made the (POOR) decision to do what she did. The point of my rambling is to prepare you for the blame scenario - its one of the WS's most powerful tools because of your emotions.<P>good luck<BR>welcome to this wonderful website<BR>keep up posted <BR>the people here genuinely care about your situation as you will probably find with time<P>S&C

Dear S&C and Peppermint:<P>I'm not sure about either of your situations...are you both still married? Does the anger subside? My H just decided at today's session that he's not ready to continue with counselling simply because he hasn't made a commitment to our marriage. He's in decision mode right now. So what do I do? Continue with Plan A?<P>

Terrified,<P>My W is still angry about various things it seems like. Right now she is mad that I have information confirming her A, but won't tell her the source of the information. Yes we are still married, but she says that she is filing for divorce. My W has stopped going to counseling. I am in the process of Plan A-ing as much as I can, but not giving her the information that she wants.<P>good luck<BR>keep me posted

Terrified...We are still married,in recovery since Aug 20,00. I am BS and My H had an internet affair that went PA for about 3 weeks. Whole thing lasted from about mid May to Aug 20.<BR>He was alternately distant and sometimes warm in the months before the EA began. He was unhappy in the M but unable to communicate it to me, he felt. He certainly could have but chose not to. We can communicate NOW,but this issue is now in the middle. Would have been so much easier without the A.<P>Once the EA really began, in mid-June, when sex talk between them reared it's ugly head...every thing became my fault. I mean EVERYTHING and it stayed that way for the length of the A and then some. I confronted him about his attitude on Aug 2 and got the standard WS responses.I wound up leaving...and he was horrible to me...said terrible things...MEAN. But I had no idea about the A, at all.So I didn't know what was happened to us.<P>Anyway, when he came home,he was still angry with me. I think he blamed me for causing him to be unhappy and having the A. Boy, was he screwed up. He had convinced himself that I was a bad person...and that's just NOT true. But SHE was so wonderful to him, he had to justify,you see.This from a man that called the AIDS hotline the morning after Dday to see how soon he could tested. But she is wonderful?<BR>This was her second A, I have always been faithful...she's great,yaeh,right.<P>It took NO contact for him to finally see his portion of what happened and accept total respnsibility for the A. Once contact stopped, he was a different person. And now he misses the person I used to be, who he so disliked. What a waste...<BR>We are in counseling and will remain as long as it takes. He is willing to do just about anything to make the M work, as am I. Difference is I always would have been,if I had known.<P>They are angry because they NEED a reason...when the anger goes, they HAVE to look at themselves.<BR>

Hi again,<P>Yes, we are still married. My husband's anger towards me is completely gone, although now he sometimes gets frustrated because of having to constantly deal with the aftermath of the affair (our children and other family members knowing the truth, my hurt, his guilt, etc.).<P><BR>Counseling has really helped us to save this marriage, and even though it is still not where we want it to be, we have real promise that it will be again.<P>Best wishes,<P>Peppermint

I'd have to say that yes, the anger is totally normal.. on both sides. It seems like us BS's seem to get over the anger far quicker though. The WS's, IMO, take longer to go through the anger phase b/c of the guilt/surprise at being 'discovered'.<P>As far as the 'blame' goes, my H puts the blame on me with a twist... by telling me that I am ALWAYS right, and he is AWLAYS wrong, so what's the point of talking things through? He gave up a LONG time ago. I now realize that his blaming me, has more to do with a lack of self esteem on his part, but that's another story..... grin<P>Karen<BR><P>------------------<BR>Empathy is such a wonderful thing, but in situations like this, it's a shame we know how.

If I didn't know better I would have thought this was my story. My Wife was in a rage, her rage lasted fo months in that time she pushed the divorce through caused great finacial disater. She said aful thing about me to family nad friends, I quess to justify leaving me for a man on the internet. She never met this man until she left and moved in with him. She is still angry and has been with him for almost 3 months, I quess she is very happy. I have had no contact for almost 2 months. She is still angry and blames me for everything bad in her life. I wonder sometimes how long this can last, I am trying to move forward, but remainung open in case the fog ever lifts. Be patient and take care of yourself.<P>

Topie...I,for one,don't think there is anything a BS can do while the WS is still involved in the EA...except PLan A. Be the best person you can be...to yourself,first and foremost and to him. SOOOO hard, we didn't find MB til way into recovery and I truthfully don't know if I could have done it, even if I had known what it is.<P>You are always right and he is always wrong, so why bother...Yup, I heard that one here,too! Well, we are BOTH sometimes right and sometimes wrong...but when I was right, even about stupid things, he became more angry,like it was a personal affront to him. AND he said nothing to me about it. I have an "I told you so" tendendacy. But even when I didn't "I told you so",he heard it from his head...because I was already judged.<P>And you are right about the self esteem thing.Look, WE are right! That plays such a big role...you just take care of you...Your H thinks he loves her...My H thought he loved the OW,too. And during that albeit short time period, I was dirt. Plan A,PLan A...hope it works for you

I can comment as a ws. Before the A I was not very happy, our, marriage was not one of the quiet ones though, we knew we had problems and have been in counselling for years. But to little avail, so periodically we would have um......not blow outs, but sometimes heated arguments. Nothing would get resolved, we would just not talk till it died down. I think this is sorta like earthquakes, where the emotional tension would have to get released somehow. <P>Anyways during the A (which lasted 6 months, and came to be known recently) we actually argued less, mostly cause we were pretty much ignoring each other alltogether. In the past I precipitated most confrontations as I tried to communicate somehow what I felt to my W, and I stopped doing that, and just stayed out of her way. That isn't meant to sound blaming, that is just how our marriage worked, I am sure I didn't communicate right, or hear her right either. After the discovery and since we have had arguments again (naturally) but I have observed something else. I get much more angry, to the point it scares me sometimes. <P>I have tried to understand why, and have an idea, it may just be the eternal fog everything is blamed on... (and which I think is overstated, but agree does exist, but for both parties ws and bs, and is really a label for the intense emotional disarray of a marriage in serious trouble)... I can only speak for myself, but for the rest of you dealing with ws maybe this will help. I do not blame my wife, and despite my frankness with my feelings in other posts, I really do not project these on her as fault (most of our conversations are about my failure, we talk little about her). Further I have told her repeatedly that the A was my choice, and was wrong. But I have resisted saying my feelings are wrong, so we struggle with whether or not to try and fix our marriage or divorce. During this period I have blown up a number of times, leaveing the house in kind of a rage, throwing things occassionally, saying some mean things (name-calling and/or hurtful, like I hate you). I never did these things before and it makes me feel like I should just leave and be done with it, for both our sakes. That of course reeks of self-serving rationalization. I wonder if we can rationalize emotionally just like we can mentally and is part of the process our psyche uses to affect the outcome part of us wants (to end a marriage). We usually think of anger as a control tool, but anger is also a powerful seperating tool. That's one reason (and speculative, I am just suggesting it). <P>For me, I can tell you how I actually feel.....2 things trigger me, one is when my wife brings the children into it (4, youngest 15), she uses them as a weapon..... you are hurting the kids, they don't like you now etc.... She does not think it is a weapon, but it feels like it to me. This is about us, her and me, yes others are affected (I already know, I do not need to be beat over the head with it), but when she brings in others, whether it be kids, family, friends etc, I feel like I am being ganged up on. I give her signals as I feel the rage build, but she won't stop, finally I explode. The other time is when I try to express my really deep feelings of unhappiness and why, she brushes them aside, goes on about how they are wrong (and she has a million reasons why they are). I feel myself dissappearing, ceasing to exist, and I explode. I wonder whether it is just some problem I have, but both the counsellor and the pastors have repeatedly and ever more vigorously told her she is a highlty critical (the kind who does it for your own good, not maliciously) person, and needs to stop, she says ok, and just keeps on trucking. So maybe, for some of you, your ws is a survivor and the A was how the liferaft they jumped into before they drowned. The anger comes when we feel we are being yanked out ot the raft, not to a waiting rescue boat, but back into the water to drown. So maybe I am full of fog, and am just a bad guy with no morals needing to be "fixed", but that is some of how I am acting and feeling. If it would be helpful to any of you, I am willing to talk about the anger more. I think many of your ws may have similar feelings, just are not as predisposed to introspection as I am, so don't understand themselves even. A curse and a blessing, but I really am trying to understand what is happening to me and my W. <P>She would rather I just repent, accept her notion that all will be well if we just "try", I am not so sure, and my issue is survival. That is a powerful behavioural motivator, and helps explain the seemingly erratic behaviour of not only ws, but some of the desperate behaviour of the bs as well. IMO that is why the plan A stuff makes sense, it offers emotional safety, and if there is something actually to be saved, that will do it. Triggering anger in your ws is counter-productive (and of that I can personally assure you). <P>We go to retrovaille this weekend, so I may not respond anymore here till sun eve or monday. I don't know how helpful it will be for the real marital issues (which we never get to anyways) but I am hopeful it will improve our ability to communicate. The strange thing is I am the one pushing going, she does not want to, I havn't figured that one out yet. Also for the record, just in the interest of contributing to the mix here. I am not sure how I would respond to a plan A, my wife has read the site, and understands, but is unable/unwilling (I don't know which) to do that. She is trying the guilt, and you made vows technique, I can say with almost total certainty, that is not helping at all. The guilt is indeed increasing, but mostly makes me want to run away, and helps in triggering the anger.<P>btw, my wife does not really have the rages, she rather takes the thousand pins approach, just keeping pricking me till I give up, along with a lot of guilt about this is killing her. I know it is hard, but it is hard for both of us. Does anyone really want a spouse to stay with them based on feeling guilty?

Dear Sad_n_lonely, Your response seem to describe my husband in ways. However, the main differences is that we definitely focus on my failures and not his. I'm definitely saying I'm sorry most of the time because truthfully, I really am sorry for all the things I did and didn't do. He did mention that the A was his way to survive and I do think his anger is triggered by the same things you mentioned. Do you have any words of wisdom for behaviour in Plan A that would help him sway my way? Thanks again for responding.

Before I knew for sure what was going on, my husband became very distant, abrupt and angry. Like Sad and Lonely's marriage, the problems were there, but I chose not to see them. He pulled away further and further. He even referred to his feelings as "being in a raft" just floating... Like Sad and Lonely's wife, I used the guilt trip approach. He was a piece of crap, etc, etc, etc. We had several violent encounters where it could have been ugly. I slapped him once and he pushed me into a wall. I had some bruises that two weeks later he asked how I got them. That was not a good night. I too talked to the kids about stuff I shouldn't have and that angered him.<P>Finally I found marriage builders, got into some counseling and started Plan A. Being the blabber mouth I am, it was hard to keep my mouth shut and I backslid in a big way on several occasions.<P>After nearly a year and a half of plan A and him still "floating around", I finally left. According to him, he knew as soon as I was gone that I was not the whole problem. He had some depression issues and finally got some help and medication. He eventually transferred to another city and began contacting me almost every day. It took a long time (nearly a year) but we addressed the issues in our marriage that had driven us apart and we are in the process of "fixing" our marriage. For the most part, all is good and it does take paying attention to what's going on and not falling back into the old habits. Both of us have accused the other of not showing affection, etc. I guess if one feels neglected and acts hurt or cold, the other one reacts like "if he's mad, too bad. I don't know what I did". We are working very hard not to feed off a negative feeling the other might have. <P>Enough of my ramble. Yes, the anger you are sensing is a normal thing. It is hard to maintain the plan A, but let me assure you that kindness and patience will take you much further than the alternative.<P>Take care.

Terrified, thx for your kind request for words of wisdom, but I doubt I have much wisdom to offer re MB stuff, and I am the ws, and not particularly repententant. Mostly I just try to figure out what the heck is happening to me and my wife. Affairs are life altering events, nothing will ever be the same, that much I know. Nothing can change that (or any life altering event), but we do have control over how we deal with such things. IMO that the affair occured is of little import (except for concern over sexually transmitted diseases if applicable), what is important is why it occured. In assessing that why, both parties will determine whether they wish to continue, and it must be both, and it must be a free choice, not a guilt, not a better than nothing, not I have all this time invested, but a choosing, an I want YOU, for this most intimate of human relationsips. <P>That IMO takes a lot of soul searching and truthfullness re feelings. Reading about many of these ws and maybe even a few of the bs, I wonder about the worthiness of some of these marriages, but that is another issue, partly philosophical/spiritual. However, if one is determined to make a marriage work, and survive an affair, I find the MB approach makes the most sense. You can only focus on what you can do, the ws must be won back, that is the nature of the beast. However, I do wonder at long term plan A's. I think after some reasonable periond (like 6 months) and if ws behaviour is particularly outrageous, plan B should be ready to go. Personally I think that if after discovery and not much happens positively, is time to cut the ws loose, move on sadder but wiser, and seek a life partner who values you. This is really tough when kids are involved (which seems like all the time) and each has to decide for themself, but that is how I see it. Spending the rest of your life trying to make something that was bad move to barely tolerable does not strike me as mentally healthy. The MB are absolutely right about how affairs must be handled, the no contact, accountability thingy. Personally this is my one and only affair, now I know, and it will never happen again. <P>But if the marriage ends, it is not cause of the affair exactly, it is the underlying issues. Still, I and my wife will never really know if the affair had not happened might we have somehow fixed things. On the other hand, I doubt she would ever have been as motivated as she is now due to the affair. <P>So terrified, if you want to save the marriage, my advice is to do a plan A like your life depended on it, realizing that whether it works or not, you will be a better person because of it, move to plan B when necessary, and remember you are a good person, and if your husband cannot love you, someone will. Whatever fault you have brought to the marriage will be rectified by your willingness to change (plan A), you can look yourself in the mirror and know you did your best, that's all any of us can do. As for anger, ask him about his feelings when he is angry (ask when things are calm of course), don't comment particularly, just say you want to understand, then try not to trigger. Obviously counselling can be helpful too. As for me, I just wish my wife would stop with the triggers, and failing that, stop when I ask her to (we tried using time out, that lasted only a few days, she said I used it to much *sigh*, and that she has every right to show me how wrong I am, so things are rapidly going from bad to worse in my houselhold).