How is the injured spouse supposed to be acting toward her wayward husband during withdrawal? I am the wayward husband and am taking a long time in withdrawal, with lots of ups and downs. My wife wants to wait until I have absolutely not an ounce of feeling for my friend (this was an emotional affair, nothing physical)before we start reconciliation. My thinking is that the sooner we start reconciliation the faster the remaining feelings will go away and the more sure my recovery. We have been married nearly 44 years and this is the first (and only) affair of our lives. Comments?

WeTwo, as long as you are more concerned about your feelings for your OW than you are for your BW, you cannot expect your wife to have one ounce of sympathy for you.

And nothing will repulse your wife more than knowing you refer to a lying, sneaky, destructive cheatfest that tore out your wife's very soul as "an affair of the heart" with "a friend".

Where is your empathy for your betrayed wife?

Do you have contact of any kind with your OW? If you do, that's why withdrawal is taking so long. You must understand that you will NEVER go through withdrawal as long as there is contact with the OW in any way, shape or form.

Ummm...this was the first and only affair of your life. It was the first searing betrayal of your BW's life by her most trusted companion in her most sacred relationship.

Your BW is too wounded to be ready to "reconcile" with you until she is sure she isn't going to get destroyed again. What are YOU doing to help heal the pain you have caused her?

Very, very cautious. Some BS' may choose to give the perpetrator an opportunity to prove he is sincere about ending recovering the marriage, but it must be backed up by actions. What have you done to ensure you don't do this to your w again?

Have you ended all contact with your OW? If she is married, has her H been notified? Have you sent a no contact to this OW?

What is your plan to recover the marriage and protect your wife in the future?

Mulan,
Thanks for the reply but I am not the least concerned for the feelings of the OW. I don't know how you read that. I have empathy for my wife, and I know I have put her through hell, for which I am very sorry. I am avoiding all contact with the OW as much as possible. We are in the same social group and see her when my wife and I go to group gatherings. This is difficult for me but I am making progress. We are considering moving.

Recovery can start AFTER No Contact has been achieved. If you see OW occasionally then your affair is pretty much still alive. Your BW is very smart to not believe you talking about recovery in a situation like that.

WeTwo,

If you have not done it already, get and read the book "Surviving an Affair", by Dr. Harley. Then follow the advice in it without deviation. You must end all contact with the OW for life. Moving is an excellent idea. You and your wife can then recover your marriage, making it better than ever by determining and meeting each other's most important emotional needs.

You and your wife have many years together. Best wishes to both of you in getting through this. Here on the forum, the time after discovery is referred to as the rollercoaster. It can last quite a while. You can help by 1) ending all contact 2) being entirely transparent in your activities and communications 3) providing just compensation (read about it on this site).

BTW, referring to OW as your friend and your adultery as an affair of the heart is insulting to your wife. Most of the posters on this forum will deliver a swift 2X4 for that kind of wayward speak on this forum.

AM

Since this is your �first� time, maybe you should just use this as a learning experience. You will know better next time it happens what to do.
Since you are obviously entitled and beyond reproach����..
Maybe you should seek treatment for your irrational wife?
Affair of the heart���HAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

Wetwo, have you read all of the materials provided here for you?

How did your BW find out about your affair?

Who has been told about your affair? Have you exposed to your children? What about the social group?

The first thing that you need to do is end ALL contact with your affair partner. This is the MINIMUM that a wayward spouse needs to do.

This is not good enough. ALL contact has to end in order for you to withdraw. Every sighting puts you back to day 1 of recovery. Apparently, you are not taking steps to avoid her. You need to QUIT that social group. Does that social group know that you and the OW got it on in a filthy affair? Your friends need to know this so they can protect their marriages from you both AND keep an eye on you.

Is the OW married, and if so, does her husband know what you did?

If your wife won't reconcile until you withdraw, then she needs to know you will NEVER withdraw this way. The affair really hasn't ended all contact ends.

Hi there,
I'm so glad you made it here to this site, it is never to late to learn how to be a great spouse and how to consider their feelings as well as your own,
I have been married and together with my husband a long time as well.
44 years is a long time to feel safe in a relationship, I'm sure your wife's security and feeling safe with you in gone now.........her belief system has been shattered.
First of all for your wife's sake all contact with the OW has to end, you never have to see the woman that shattered your wife's life again, why would you do that to her. You have created a problem and you have to take the situation and control it for her.......You do not have any contact with the OW at all from here on, you gave up that right and it's a cruel thing to do to your wife.............
Then you work at meeting your wife's needs for now, and when she is ready she will let you know, until then you remain faithful and be the man she can rely on and trust her emotions with.
This isn't about you anymore or the affair, this is about your marriage and your wife.........
If you can't live with no contact and put your wife's feelings first then leave and move on with your life............
Your wife is hurt and is not trusting you to make decisions that her best interest at heart, you have proven you are capable of this.........it's your job to prove yourself now...........

I would put the For Sale sign in the yard. If it's 'difficult' for you to see OW at social gatherings, think what a nightmare it must be for your BW. Obviously you can no longer attend those gatherings. I can't imagine why you are continuing to do so in the first place.

END ALL CONTACT.

Get your wife posting here.

I read your lack of concern several ways: Because you refer to the OW as a "friend", and because you refer to your cheating as "an affair of the heart". You don't seem to have considered how sickening it is to your betrayed wife to hear you talk like that.

Do you realize that the following lines are right out of the Wayward Spouse Script?

1) I loved her, therefore it wasn't an affair.
2) I didn't love her, therefore it wasn't an affair.

Maybe you think that if you were helplessly swept up in love with your girlfriend, it means you just couldn't help yourself and you are therefore innocent of bad intentions. Sorry, but nobody here will buy that. You made a choice to cross the line with your OW and then you continued to make the same choice day after day after day.

There was nothing special or wonderful about your affair. It was nothing but a knife in your wife's back. Do you think that is special and wonderful? When you stop thinking of it as special and different and wonderful, then maybe you can have some empathy for your betrayed wife.



Sorry, this is not good enough. You can never see or talk to this OW *at all, ever* - not if you want to get through withdrawal and save your marriage.


Once again, you only talk about how difficult it is for you. You are not a victim here. You chose this course and now the mess is yours to clean up. So again: Where is the empathy for your wife when she has to look at the woman you ignored her for and lied to her for? How does your wife feel about having to see her husband's girlfriend?

Considering moving? MOVE. If you think that's expensive, it's nothing compared to the financial and emotional cost of divorce when your wife finally leaves you because you think having a girlfriend for a while shouldn't be that big of a deal (especially when she's a "friend" and it's "an affair of the heart") and why can't your wife just get over it?

But the bottom line is: You will have no empathy for your wife until you break off 100% of your contact with your OW. You'll be like an alcoholic who is still drinking and you won't be able to see the damage done until you're completely off the booze.

Dear Mulan,

I am not more concerned with my feelings than with those of my BW. Sorry for that impression. I came on this site to ask a question for my BW who wants to know what to expect of her own feelings during the period of my withdrawal.

For the record,with no justification for me intended,this affair was not sneaky. I walk our dog twice a day in a park with a number of friends from our social group. I have tried a number of times to get my BW to join me in this little bit of recreation. She was fully aware of my walks with the OW as my BW and I cared for her dogs when she was away and we all had many interactions over a period of 4 years. I do "get it" that I should refer to this as my infidelity. Thanks for your input.

WT - you are still trying to defend and justify and minimize your affair. If your wife was "fully aware" that you were walking your dog with OW, your wife probably said nothing because 1) she did not want to look like the jealous clingy wife, and 2) she trusted you.

A whole lot of now-betrayed wives fell into that trap.

And certainly there was plenty more going on here than dog-walking, or there wouldn't be a problem now.

Something you may not have thought about: You can insist all day long that this was "only" an emotional affair and sex was never a factor, but your wife will never know that for sure. The lies you told her while you were cheating have wiped out that option. It's something she will have to live with for the rest of her life, no matter what happens to the marriage.

Will your wife post here? She could get much support. You can of couse continue to post on your own thread, but she will have her own and you should never post on each other's threads.

Please invite your wife to post here.

Thank you so much for your very helpful and considerate reply. I can live with no contact and am diligently observing that principle. We and the OW live close to each other and our locale is a small place where everyone has some chance of seeing each other. The OW is part of our circle of friends and this is the hard part for both my BW and I. In your opinion, should we let the others in the group know that we are leaving them socially and explain why? All of them know of my affair. We have been talking about moving for some time as a function of downsizing and now we have an even more compelling reason. We are preparing our house for sale.

Oh OK we get it now!! It was your wife�s fault! She should have walked your poodle, if she had, none of this would have happened!! (Edit)

Huh?? Just a few hours ago you said:
And now you're also saying:

Which is it?

To answer your question: it's really very simple if your circle already knows about the affair. You tell your friends that, while you love them, you have chosen to exclude yourself from this circle of acquaintances in order to protect your M.

Yes, the more transparency, the better for all. I take it her husband knows of the affair?


Great idea!

Have you two read HNHN? That will be a good step in the recovery process. But always always NC is the first priority. The rest of it doesn't matter if NC isn't firmly in place.

BTW, regardless of whether your W is doing an adequate job at meeting your ENs, I hope you realize that the responsibility falls solely on you to NEVER allow another woman to meet your ENs...

WeTwo, how did your BW find out about this affair?

I feel so sorry for your wife. I think infidelity is often worse than death because after the death of a loved one, you grieve over the loss of the future together that you had hoped for. But in infidelity you also grieve for the past, wondering if you wasted your life trusting someone who could treat you so badly. And in your case, 44 years is a lot of past.
Somehow you have to find a way to convince her that you 'get it' and for the moment, the real problem is you don't. Or at least you don't seem to from my perspective.

WT,

My H had an affair with a person who was in our "circle of friends".

I told that wh*&^ on d-day that if I ever saw her face again, I would beat the living sh*(&* out of her.

I also told her that she was to leave me alone, my H alone, and MY FRIENDS alone - forever - because she had no right to be in

MY CIRCLE

at all.


Somehow, she's afraid to come around my friends. She and her hubby fell off the face of the earth from MY CIRCLE of friends.


My husband was MAN ENOUGH to go no contact, and

NEVER ONCE

whined about how hard it was for him to withdraw.


WHY NOT?

Because he realized that the best thing he ever had was ME in his life, and he took

100% of the blame for the affair.


You are not doing that. You need to do some reading, and quick. Because you are expecting your BW to somehow heal

YOUR WOUNDS?????


You have stabbed her in the heart and are now complaining about the blood on the floor.


Get a grip, WT. You had an affair, you broke your wife's heart, and YOU DO NOT NEED HER TO DO ANYTHING FOR YOU.

If you want your marriage to heal.....YOU need to do the heavy lifting - not your wife.


Sheesh.


SB

WeTwo,

As a BW I can tell you that she will not begin to regain any sense of trust, integrity on your part until there is 100% NC! That means, as hard as it is and as harsh as it is that you must leave your "social circle" and start anew. That would be my number one priority right now.

WeTwo, some of this will sound harsh, but you asked for advice, and so here's my 2 cents, from the perspective of a guy who had an emotional-then-physical affair, and who has recovered his marriage & made it better than before, thanks to my wife's forgiveness, facilitated by my stopping being stoo-pid! Take your medicine:
Why are you focusing on some notion of how she is "supposed" to act toward you? Why don't you focus your mental & physical energies on what you can control: namely, behaving how a husband is supposed to behave toward his wife? (Hint: This doesn't include self-pitying whining & pining about how you long for another woman's friendship! Having been married longer than I've been alive, do you really not understand this yet? Are you stupid? These aren't just rhetorical questions. What are your answers?)
That's your choice. It's not something that is just happening to you, it's your choice. You have been choosing to spend time pining for the other woman's attentions. Be a man, grow a pair, and own your choices. I did. You can.
Two comments: (1) An emotional affair is no less serious than a physical affair. One leads to another if left unchecked. You get no "points" for "only" having an emotional affair. All this means is that you & your wife don't need an STD test. Otherwise, an affair is an affair. You had one. You chose it. Own your choices. (2) As the person who had the affair, it's on you to make the first moves, and to show her why she should keep you. (Not tell her -- because your words aren't worth the old gum on the bottom of your shoe right now -- but in deeds. You show her. Unconditionally. Like you once promised.)
Yes, you're correct -- your withdrawal from the emotional addiction of the affair will go faster if your wife meets your needs. But she'll be more willing to do that over time if you meet hers. And if she's reluctant, then no matter; you learn HER needs and you make your best effort to met them. That's how it's done.

What extraordinary precautions have you put in place to ensure "no contact" and to give your wife confidence that you're not continuing the contact with the interloper in your marriage? (Hint: Yes, you should ditch this circle of friends, to the extent that the other woman is part of that circle. That "friendship" is toxic to your marriage. One of the precautions you can & must take is to steer clear of any situations where the other woman will be present. That's actually a pretty basic precaution -- not even all that extraordinary!)

You can't really withdraw if you see this other person regularly. You have to have no contact for life. If that means you give up your social circle, then so be it. The social circle can come see you without OW.

Seems WT must have left the building.

Got too hot for him, and he didn't have anyone blowing smoke up his skirt about how terrible HIS life is because his BW is being so unreasonable regarding his affair.

Itty-boo.

Yep, just looking for justification....

I love how people come on her looking for advice, even admitting they did something wrong, and they get attacked. That is wonderfully helpful. Just love it.

Suggestion: if you see an "attack" why not click on "notify" and let the moderators moderate instead of lecturing other posters? I see the moderators did remove the attacks, btw, so I don't know why this is your concern.....

Oh, WAAAAAAAAHMBULACE! I WAS MADE TO LOOK IN THE MIRROR! IDONWANNAIDONWANNAIDONWANNAIDONWANNA.


Which is what I assume the OP is doing right now.

ML, I just don't understand what good it does you or the person you are writing to to criticize them when they are simply asking for advice and help. Especially when they are already doing the hard part and admitting fault.

If you believe that, why are you criticizing other posters on this thread? What good does that do? To answer your question, I disagree with your sweeping generalization about criticism. Criticism can be a very valuable tool for change. For example, it is good for an adulterer to see how others react to them. IT helps them see themselves when they can view themselves through the eyes of others.

Criticism is not the same as an "attack," either.

Tom, I don't think ML, or anyone else here for that matter, is posting advice, critical or otherwise, because 'it does them any good'. They are doing it purely for the good of the person requesting advice.
And I think that it is a measure of the person if they can take the criticism. Not instantly, not many of us can absorb criticism instantly but if they can go away, think about it, acknowledge their mistakes and then come back for more, then I think they probably have it in them to sort out their problems. If they fall at the first hurdle then they probably won't make it anyway.
And I think this is true of BS's and WS's. I've seen BS's get strongly criticised too and I sometimes feel sorry for them (my sympathy for the WS's is a bit more rationed) because they are not the ones at fault but that's when you see their mettle.
None of us know what we are capable of until we are tested and what WeTwo has faced here is peanuts compared to recovery. The real value of a person is not in the mistakes he makes but in how he handles them.

I've seen many a WS leave the building way to soon. How can we help them and their BS if they don't come back.

The reason?

Too many people don't know the difference between swinging a 2x4 and a hardwood log.

Some people skip the 2x4 and the log and they go straight to swinging the log cabin. Especially when they feel they are the point of the complaint.

I think he probably showed up here to try to ease his conscience a little, get some assurance that he really is not responsible for his own actions. When he didn�t get the reaction he was seeking, he bailed.
I do apologize for my rude comment earlier, however I have zero sympathy for this guy.

Yep. We're known around here for cutting to the chase with unrepentent waywards. Repentent ones who wish to learn get a much warmer reception.

It's what we do.

But then, you already know that, don't you.

TomOlympus, what this guy wanted was to be told that his wife was being unreasonable, that she should "get over" his affair...blah, blah, blah. He was not looking for advice on how he could help her, but looking for people to encourage him in his pity party.

He did not get attacked; he just did not get away with blowing smoke up people's heinies and he got some EXCELLENT advice!

These kind of discussions drive me insane. A WS who is sincere about saving his marriage could not be driven off by wild horses. This guy didn't come here for help, he came here looking for ammo to use against his BS to force her to get in line. He didn't get that validation thankfully.

As posters we have no control over who leaves or comes, so it is ludicrous to imply we do. WE have BS's who leave because they don't hear what they want to hear. But we don't see folks crying over them. *I* have left at times myself but I don't blame others. Because others have no control over me.

The bottom line is that if someone truly wants help, they cannot be "run off."

as one who did want the help - desperately - and yes I wriggled and squirmed and tried to weasel my way out of doing the hard stuff like any other WS

if you are serious about getting help nothing I say or what anyone says can easily drive you off.

being blunt is not attacking and it was not here.

and frankly if I had got "boo hoo dear what a terrible mistake you made here's more tissues lets all commiserate with you'..... I would be divorced and miserable and shunned by my family ... instead of married and mis... no joking... absolutely overjoyed. even if he watches far too much bleeding cricket to all hours !!!

Amen!

Tom, I am curious how you came to this interpretation of the OPs posts. I didn't see remorse, admission of wrongdoing or even asking for advice of what HE himself could do to improve the situation. In his first post he fails to mention there is still contact and instead asks for help on how to get his BW to meet his ENs even tho she is upset that he is still pining for OW...

I hope I am wrong but it seems to me he was looking for advice on how to continue cake-eating... It is a GOOD thing that no one here fell for it!

It has been said for centuries. You will catch more flies with honey then vinegar.

Justified scaring a WS off.

Then justify that their BS will not get MB help.

Thumb screws turned slowly work better then all the way at once.

That's all well and good if you're in the fly-catching business. This site is devoted to marriage building, not condoning the actions of unrepentent waywards. As such, by definition the posters here will typically NOT condone an unrepentent wayward. They are manipulative by nature, but that manipulation will not work here.

Flip side of the coin: they may show up here, swinging their club and demanding to know who's in charge of this sanctimonious bunch. I've watched those posters stick around, slowly start lowering their club, and listen. Those are the ones who will benefit by staying here.

The ones who take their bat and go home weren't seriously looking for help in the first place.

The truth is always harder to hear when you have been acting badly.

The very thing that made WT angry is the exact thing that he needed to hear. He does not feel much for his wife, and needs to see other people's view of his "position" from a REAL standpoint, not from a politically correct one.

His post was self-centered, and he was still looking for ways that others could powder his butt.

Sorry, this is not the place for powdering. We push buttons because it opens eyes.

WT and TO come here and post, but do not know the POINT of MB.


At the center of MB is a concept called radical honesty.

I happen to practice it.

Again, a sincere wayward could not be "scared off." That indicates he wasn't here for help, but for validation of his complaints about his BS.

Read the threads of some WS who STUCK AROUND, in spite of not getting told what they wanted to hear.

Cantgetitright - for one - was pummelled by ME. He hung in there, realizing that the posts had VALUE because they were honest and meant to point him in the right direction. His changes are visible in the progression of his posts. The tone and content really changed as he stuck around, took his hits, and worked hard to read and understand.

PapaBear and others have good threads to look at.

When WT is ready to change his position with his wife, he will be back. Because he knows he will not be mollycoddled, but will hear the truth - as hard as it is to take. He will appreciate being judged, because although it is hard to be judged, it also has a place in society............it works to get people to look at their bad behavior and see how others see them.

Besides, his friend Tom O. will be happy to help him return, I'm sure.


SB

TomO, I came here in August'09, after 8 months of recovery, expressed more remorse off the bat than WeTwo, and got hammered just as hard or harder. (Sorry I can't show you, as my first few weeks of posts were lost in the 2009 server crash.) But it was important in:
--helping me more fully appreciate the pain infidelity causes;
--helping me appreciate the inadequacy of words (as opposed to sustained deeds) to the process of recovery;
--helping me realize that my residual sympathy for the other woman was percecptible, thus hurtful to my wife & thus a remaining danger to my marital recovery;
--helping me realize the little ways in which I had not internalized the degree to which my own selfish choices, not merely the bad luck of running into the wrong person at the wrong time, were responsible for my affair;
--helping me stay focused on my wife's needs.

Almost everyone who swung a 2x4 at me also weighed in with a point of advice. And as I read & re-read it, and as I reflected on things over days & weeks & months, a lot of the wisdom of it sunk in & began to resonate. Yes, it was also important that some words of empathy & encouragement were sprinkled in by certain posters whom I won't single out, but to whom I'm grateful to this day. And I do remember a couple of folks who had nothing constructive to say, and who are generally useless to waywards; I simply put them on "ignore" after a few posts (that's what the "Ignore this user" link is there for). But recovery requires enough introspection, enough of a thick skin, and enough good sense not to reject good advice together with bad.

Either WeTwo is serious or he's not, and none of us knows enough to judge. You've been here for at least 5 months, and putting in your two cents since Day 1 about how people should have more sympathy & be nicer to waywards. Point made. I'm here as a former wayward to tell you that if a guy's heart is in the right place, he's not going to be dissuaded from the truth by a few barbs on an internet forum. Life is full of rougher stuff than that, for goodness sakes.

Having the guy who promised to be faithful look you in the eye and lie to you without blinking, like I did to my wife, is pretty rough, for instance. It's actually pretty deeply appalling. Merely calling someone out on the flawed thinking that leads a guy to look his wife in the eye and lie, is not even in the same league of offense. Not even close. People who run, run because they don't like the truth of what infidelity is. That doesn't mean they won't confront that truth someday, but it means they're not ready to stop running & hiding yet. That's on them, not on me or any of the folks here who are telling it like it is. Infidelity in a marriage -- the breaking of faith with one to whom you made a sworn promise -- is an ugly, ugly thing. There is no sugar-coating it, no soft-soaping it, no overstating it.

Yeah, but honey won't clean crud off the bottom of your work boots. Vinegar will. It takes both.

There are many ways to condem. Going straight for the jugular is the same logic as one wrench will fit all bolts. Trying to match response to meet each individual will take more effort but may result in catching a few more followers of MB.

Everyone has no problem justifying they got rid of a WS here. But ignore the point that they are condeming that WS's BS also.

So those BS's doesn't make the extra effort worth it by many's standards here.

No one "got rid of" him, Road. He has his own computer & keyboard, and can choose to sign on whenever he wants. His BS suffers because of his muddled thinking, not because of anyone here.

Oh quit already, no one "got rid" of a WS. Good grief..

***EDIT***

You assume that unrepentent waywards are unique in some special way because they have different posting names. They're not. They are garden-variety, entitled waywards. The response is the same to all of them. The only difference you will see is how posters will respond to a wayward who takes the licking and keeps coming back. Each time they come back they get more responses - and the responses remain the same. Those waywards eventually 'get it'. I've seen many of them come back and confirm that they needed to hear some unvarnished truth without the warm fuzzies in order to shake that sense of entitlement.

Look at it like this: BS's sometimes need to revisit and analyze certain parts of their spouse's affair in order to make sense of it. A patient spouse goes over it again and again (if they're doing it right) until the BS is able to process that part of the affair. After that, they move on to their next point of healing.

A wayward is similar in analyzing the damage of the A, but is coming from a self-interested place. It's all about 'me' with a wayward. My impression is that some of WS's who post here need to have it explained over and over why they weren't justified in having the A, why their spouse is so upset, why they need to do the heavy lifting. It takes them awhile to get it. But the 'it' that they need to get is the same for all of them.

I am not interested in mocking you, but I would like to comment on your post.

First of all, if you haven't been on here in months I'm not sure how you know that no one is here? I see a great deal of traffic on this site almost every time I log on. We have 41 guests on here right now and 18 registered, and it's an early morning workday (at least where I am. Of course, we've got posters from all over the world coming here frequently, as well.)

There is typically a thread that will evolve into a self-policing discussion over whether responses are helpful or not to the person posting. The end result is always the same; the poster would not remain to work through their issues, or they hung around in order to argue the concepts of this site. The advice always remains the same, in line with Marriage Building concepts. I don't think it's bad for these threads to occasionally merge into a discussion like this. It keeps everyone on track.

As far as the BW having to depend on her WH to 'bring' MB to her? When I found out about my H's affair I went online to try to find resources to help me. I didn't wait for him to bring anything to me. I took MB to HIM. It is unfortunate if a BS doesn't seek out help, but we can't make them do that, obviously. When they get here they are welcomed with open arms.

Hey, Say? Why don't you check out a few other threads? There are a lot of good things going on here. There's a BS over on 101 who is beyond thankful that she- SHE, not her wayward husband - found this site.

Take the good stuff. Leave what you wish.

**EDIT***

**EDIT**

If you have an issue with the forum, please email the moderators, but don't disrespect our hosts when you are a guest here!

This thread is locked. Please get back to marriage building!