<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr> Last Monday I found an email my WS had sent to OW, it was a HI, I miss you email but still, I lost it - told my H to get out - that I was done. He refused to leave so I told him that he had a choice to make - That I was willing to do anything to make our M work except put up with the OW. That if he wanted to have contact with her then I was done and if he wanted to stay then I needed for him to work with me on saving our M. One Wednesday, I asked him for his answer and he told me that he would "try" but that was all he could promise me.
Since then I can tell he is trying - Friday we went shopping together for easter gifts for the kids, Sat. his brother and wife came over and Sunday he went to my parents with me. We even had sex twice this weekend, Saturday night has become the regular night but Sunday he asked me if I would like too.. and last night he came over and shared the couch with me. Ok so here is the problem - Is this good or do I just want it to be good? I'm almost afraid to hope at this point. I'm afraid to ask him the "how are you?" question just because I dont want to rock the boat - You would think I would be happy that he is acting like this but.... I dont know its just a big but.... <hr></blockquote> <p>Ok so that was the week before easter and my H is still at home, not seeing OW (as far as I can tell) Still in counseling and seems to be trying. I had surgery on Friday (tubes tied - we had decided to have this done before D-day) and he took care of me - He still wont show me affection enless I ask but if and when I do he is willing to give me back rub if I ask or a hug and kiss but only if I ask or do it first - I'm still not willing to ask questions because I'm afraid of the answers but god - I really want to ask questions - When if ever is the right time push issues or do I just let things go as is? I'm so afraid of doing the wrong things and pushing him away again. [img]images/icons/confused.gif" border="0[/img]

I feel for you!! I asked myself this same thing over and over. We went 3 rounds before the fog finally lifted and we are in true recovery.<p>I have to ask you a question . . . Have you truely forgiven him? If so, answers to 1,000 questions won't make a difference. I don't beleive they are needed. I am not saying that I didn't feel like I needed answers, but God tells us that He wants us to forgive other just as He forgives us.<p>I know we are human and not perfect like God, but He would never ask us to do something if it was going to affect us mentally. <p>Praying has given me soooo much peace! God is awesome! Listen to Him and He will be your best friend through this!!<p>Le

This is an excellent question.
I too would like much more information then my WS gives me. But I am afraid to ask because I do not want to be lied to and I do not want to push her away. So I want.
I do find that asking questions is somewhat more effective during our marriage consoling sessions.
Try that.

I forgave him as soon as I found out and he told me he is going to try to make our M work - I know that sounds weird but I can understand why he did itand as long as its over (and it better be over) I can deal with the rest (depression, mini-midlife crisis, selling mini van, getting a new tatoo, things like that) Its a hard line - When do you really know it's going to work - two weeks ago all he could promise me is that he is going to "try", he doesnt tell me he loves me and I have no Idea if this is all him "trying" and this is great - but how can you tell if all this "trying" is working? does anyone understand this at all????

I too would like much more information then my WS gives me. But I am afraid to ask because I do not want to be lied to and I do not want to push her away.<p>I can tell you from personal experience that if you have those lingering questions that you have a right to have them answered. My wife had an A 8 years ago and a lot of those questions were not answered. Part of the reason was that I was afraid of the answers. Time went on and we drifted and I carried around the hurt in my head it made me feel horrible I thought that she really didn't love me that she was settling for second best. <p>6 years later our intimacy was nonexistint and guess what? she had another A. I carried that hurt around for 6 years and it did a lot of damage to our relationship. I know the A wasn't my fault but I know this unfinished buisiness had a big effect on our relationship.<p>Funny thing about it is we picked up an A book that I bought when the first A happened and one of the first things we read was " If you don't talk about the A and you just bury everything I can guarentee you with a that there is a high chance that this will happen again" the author even stated his reputation on it. And that's not the only book I've read this in.<p>Now we are truly on the road to recovery and I can tell you that there's a big difference between how we handled it now and how we handled it back then.<p>Back then I thought like you did, now I communicate and even though this stuff is hard to talk about I can now talk about it to my wife if I feel the need and I always feel better after I get everything out in the open.

We arnt in marriage counseling together - He see's his counselor and I see mine - His feels that he needs to deal with his issues (was abused as a child, parents multiple divorices, depression, not trusting...) before we comeback together - we did have one session before I found out about the A - that was when he was leaving me because he "just wasnt in love with me anymore but he still loved me" and "whated to find his soul mate" what a line of bull... his OW had convinced him that she was his soul mate, and when I called her H she fessed up to everything that had gone on and hasnt talked to my H since. she used him - and he was mad at me for losing His "friend". I dont think I will ever understand that. I realize I was NOT meeting his EN's and have been working hard at doing more and bringing back the little reasons he fell in love with me in the first place -but god its hard somedays....

R,<p>I know where you're coming from. For me, I really try to think out what the answer to the question is going to do for me? And it truly is all about us. I have a few friends I talk to about this daily and they have been great in keeping my focused on me. For example, for my WH, I have to make sure he's comfortable enough that he does'nt feel I'm going to attack him. ( you know, you can catch more bees with honey than vinegar?) We may begin a conversation talking about something fairly innocuous (sp?) like what my daughter ate or said today, then I work in a serious A question, like "How did you feel when you with her the first time?" What did you do about the guilt?" I try to only ask questions that will yield me something tangible I can use to aid in the recovery. What I was trying to find out with these questions was how did he justify this deception at the time and how does he think about his actions now that they are exposed and in the open. Anyway, my H is much more likely to answer a few questions each day, rather than a 2 hour sit down with a barage of questions about the A. His guilt/laziness won't let him look at me (with a face filled with pain )much longer than an hour or so. I'm not sure if this is me caretaking him again or me just being practical. I figure if I want to get my questions answered, I need to take the tactic that's most likely to work, right?<p>That's what worked for me. But I do think you need to get your questions answered eventually or they will fester and you can never truly heal yourself.<p>Hope this helps.<p>Take care.<p> [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img]

RD: I have to agree that you will need to get your questions answered one day. I am a WS and I have answered many questions, especially the ones that hurt. I realized that they were part of the healing, and that my being willing to answer them (especially the ones that hurt to answer) showed my BH how much I care about US. You need these answers to put the questions to rest. I think Angel hit a good point with trying to think of the answer first so as to enable yourself to respond/react productively. If he feels attacked he may be more likely not to want to answer your questions. Me, I was the opposite, I got bitter sometimes with questions that were asked. Why? Not because I wanted to keep a secret, but because I already knew the pain I had caused and knew that by answering it was going to cause pain again. However, I came to learn that it did help. It put a lot to rest and allowed us to move forward. Part of why I didn't want to answer some questions was because I hid behind the answers and didn't want to see them because it hurt to look at myself as this awful person who was capable of doing this. I felt I was this horrible person, and didn't want my BH to see me that way. Now I've realized that he didn't and doesn't - actually he had respect and appreciation for me answering the questions. That's another thing to keep in mind - let him know you appreciate it when he does answer questions. We need to know we are doing the right thing even though it seems so damaging. <p>As for asking a couple at a time - yes that will work to start, however, our counselor explained that there will come a day that he will need to talk about it all in one session (so to speak) with me. That I will need to let him express all his feelings, ask questions, etc., even things I've heard and discussed already. That he will need to get it all out at once, and I need to let him for him to heal. Know what? She was right. The day I let him do that, and mind you I said very understanding. I consoled him, held him, comforted him, and answered everything he asked - that day was a one of our big break throughs.<p>Anyhow, one thing I would suggest is that you express to him that you need to have your questions answered. Just as you may never fully understand why the affair happened, because you aren't on that side of the fence, he may never fully understand why you need these answers (he's not in your shoes either). However, do let him know that you understand it will be difficult for him to do this, and when he is ready to let you know. This expresses your need and your understanding of his. Hopefully he will realize this, analyze it, and work toward being able to have these conversations with you.<p>It takes time and patience. He may not even have all the answers yet. Let him know that it's ok not to have all the answers, but that you still need to talk about it to move forward past it.<p>Best to you. I hope this helps.

Thanks for the answers - I will try the few questions during the appropriate times approach. My H gets very defesive when I ask a question, he actually gets mad at me to the point he's asked me "why dont you just let it go?" "it is over and done with why do we have to keep talking about it" I'm guessing that this is his guilt talking and I know he must feel guilty even though he tells me he doesnt really care how I feel.<p>He actually got mad at me this morning because he turned off the alarm clock and didnt goto the gym before work and then got up late - somehow that was my fault. He isnt sleeping (maybe 3 hours a night - my fault too...) and to my way of thinking his body needed the rest and took it but NO.... somehow its my fault.