My husband had an emotional affair with one of my friends at church. He and she had always enjoyed joking around, and I never manifested jealousy because for the first 12 years we were at our church their relationship was confined to general contacts at church or at family parties. I figured this friend supplied a little something that maybe I did not; my husband did not supply all my needs and I did not begrudge his enjoyment of this friend. He and I had many other ways to enjoy each other's company.
Our church was full of people who wanted to live Acts 2:42-47, which presents a picture of committed, loving community. We all supported each other, went to each other's major events and helped each other out in countless ways, as well as working together on charitable projects and praying together regularly in avenues provided by the church. My husband and I became an integral part of the place and I was grateful to God for the community surrounding our children as they grew up.
Of course a church full of people is a church full of imperfect people. I'm not saying there were no problems. But the underlying commitment to love each other as Christ loved us held all of us together, trained us to forgive each other, helped us to change and grow.
In early 2007 this friend invited my husband to join her and a few others for a Lenten ministry. I was not asked to join. I was part of another regular ministry in which my husband joined occasionally; I had invited him many times to join the ministry with me; he tended to be less involved at church than I, and I needed to have projects to work on with others, a sense of moving forward in community. At times he was part of a counseling ministry.
The Lenten ministry involved performing (which my ministry did as well). My husband seemed to be enjoying it very much. At this time I was striving to raise my income; I had been a stay-at-home, home schooling mom. By 2007 our oldest kids were in college, the younger two in high school.
There had long been frustration between my husband and me over money -- planning a budget and sticking to it -- agreeing on major decisions. In 2006-2007 he got injured on the job. A snafu arose with workmen's comp; my husband failed to follow through on some very important paperwork, so that year we did not receive workmen's comp pay that we badly needed. I was taking on more and more freelance work, barely functioning in my regular church ministry, and keeping track of all finances as I had for many years; my husband and I in 2007 had been married 30 years.Looking back, I see how busy I was and how much frustration was building between us.
Our parents were having illnesses in this period, except for my mother. In 2008, my mother-in-law and my father died. Two of my siblings became dangerously ill with organ disease. Between traveling to help my mom and sibs, trying to keep up with freelance work and my kids' needs as they sought to move into careers, and holding onto my ministry at church (which was a place of prayer and stability for me), I was dimly aware that my husband and this friend seemed to be having more contact; and his voice was tender when he spoke of her.
Starting in 2009, my husband seemed to be on the telephone with this friend -- might as well call her OW -- several times a week. She was angry with the church leadership about matters involving her position as part-time paid associate leader. I would hear my husband on the phone telling her how courageous she was to confront the leadership (as if no one else ever had). Then I walked by our computer and saw flirtatious e-mails from OW. I did not think of her as OW at the time, nor could I define for myself why I felt threatened and jealous. By April 2009 or so, I started to tell my husband that I did not appreciate this increased contact. He would rebuff me and say he was counseling OW.
The pattern became established for the next two years: I would protest the too-frequent calls and the e-mails signed "Love, [OW]," etc. My husband would angrily say he was counseling her and that she was only a friend, no attraction. The contacts would appear to back off for a while.
Early in 2010 I spoke to OW about this matter. I could see my husband would have a hard time backing off from too-frequent contact if she kept contacting him. She wept and apologized, but I had this underlying feeling her tears were impulsive, momentary, not emanating from real empathy for me or from real consciousness of wrongdoing on her part -- she was feeding me the expected reaction.
I then tried to be trusting and believe that my hsuband and OW would return the pre-2007 level of relating. However, my husband kept getting involved in more and more projects with her at church. Both my siblings died in 2010, plus my best friend from high school, who had led me to Christ. Our oldest was getting married and we had to plan that wedding. 2010 was a kind of a nightmare of grief and overwhelming busy-ness for me. My husband was making some financial decisions with inheritance money from his mom without consulting me -- not bad decisions on the surface, but ones with which I did not agree and that did not take into account some big education expenses.
Early in 2011 the wedding took place -- a great joyful event at our church. I was able to get some rest at last. A month or so later, I had carefully structured my husband's birthday so I would have time for him without any interference before and after he went to work. Both in the morning and in the evening, though, he was "too tired" to have sex with me. He went to bed at 9:00 p.m. At 1:30 a.m. I wakened without him in the bed beside me. I knew in my heart he was on a social networking site with OW. I went downstairs to where our computer is and indeed he was "counseling" her in real time -- the crisis this time being her prolonged bad marriage -- this bad marriage had not surfaced at all in 2009, when her crisis was about her church job, but had become a topic during 2010, and now early in 2011 apparently my husband was making a prearranged midnight contact appointment to help OW with her marital troubles.
I didn't reveal at that moment that I had seen OW's face; I made a noise in the kitchen, which is just off the computer room, and my hsuband jumped and hid the screen. I asked if he was okay and he said he had just had some stomach trouble. I went back upstairs. When he came up a few minutes later, I told him I was disturbed by seeing OW's face on the screen. His excuses began. I just listened, but after he fell asleep, I went and slept in one of our kids' beds (empty nest time).
To tell all about the first quarter of 2011 -- stormy time, seeing a counselor at church together, yelling at each other a lot -- would take a long time. Fortunately, my husband had a hernia and had to be home for 8 weeks. My freelance work was light at this time because I had become too exhausted by the preceding years and had to cut back. My husband and I were together a lot and it helped.
The counselor did not know enough to tell us that we should take extreme measures to prevent all further contact between my husband and OW. Contact certainly backed off. But my hurt was not only based on discovering the ongoing existence of that relationship. My husband and OW had apparently gone to a lot of trouble to defend their "friendship" in their heads. One device was to deconstruct me. My husband told me that she was a wonderful friend and that I didn't have friends that I just went and hung out with, so I didn't understand this terrific friendship. He would be happy for me to have a friend like this, my husband told me, and he didn't care if it was a man.
I told him that HE was that special friend to me, and that I had made him that person on purpose. He kept saying I should have someone else to talk to, "I don't even care if it's about me." I told him that I wasn't going to have another man in my life that I talked to that way and that if I had problems with my husband, I would talk to a professional counselor (which I had at times, that is, gone to church counselors -- had wanted my husband to come, but he very rarely would -- that was back in the 1990s).
My husband also told me that I didn't know how to have fun -- that I got my enjoyment from making projects happen with others, but I didn't really understand fun -- that I was like an accountant who had fun adding up figures. Because I am not a party type like my husband, though I went with him to many parties and danced with him, etc., and because I really DO get more enjoyment out of making something happen with others, my self-confidence was badly shaken. I was being told that despite my efforts to cope with our long marriage and try to be a good wife, it was not enough; my husband needed this other relationship.
I was very tempted at this time to do just as my husband asked (find a friend and have it be a man), but decided on another course of action. I decided I would set up a fake social networking site with Jesus as one of my contacts, and somehow contrive to have my husband discover me on the site in the mmiddle of the night, and have him see me talking to Jesus. But I couldn't rig it so that the name at the top of the site screen would be Jesus and I dropped the idea. I realized I just wanted to hurt my husband like he had hurt me.
Instead I created a g-mail account and dialogued with Jesus. I would write to him and he would write back. Obviously, I am the one who typed replies from Jesus, but in "his" replies much healing and comfort would come to me; scriptures would arise in my mind that stabilized and soothed me. I felt like I could remember that God loved me and that I was a worthwhile person.
At church, only the counselor and two really important friends knew of the trouble; the friends are an older couple that my husband and I both know and trust. Much later, our senior pastor became aware of it. One of our grown children who still lives at home and commutes from home to work also found out pretty soon, and was confused, and very angry at my husband.
In late March or early April 2011, still feeling very threatened by the OW's presence at church even while trying to believe we could be friends again, I Googled "husband had affair with best friend" and ended up at Marriage Builders. What a revelation! There I discovered my pain perfectly described, my distress explained. There I also discovered some really unhealthy habits of mine (such as finally giving up on a discussion in frustration and starting to yell) that I could see were hurtful to our long marriage. I greedily read the Basic Concepts and everything I could find regarding not only infidelity, but other issues in marriage as well. I told my husband about the POJA and Policy of Radical Honesty and I implemented them from my end.
Though I could see that Marriage Builders would advise my husband and me to leave our church, I did not want to believe that we should do so. We have been there for so long and have so many friends there.
One problem I haven't mentioned is that starting in mid-2009, if my husband got upset with me, he would yell that if I didn't do thus-and-such, he would divorce me, he would leave me. At first I didn't take issue with this, but by mid-2011 I finally asked him to stop saying he would leave me. He had been yelling at me a lot about not trusting him because, in line with Marriage Builders' advice not to mention an affair again, I had kept my mouth shut whenever I began to feel anxious that my husband and OW might again be in contact behind my back. My depression was evident, though, and my husband would press me to tell him what was the matter. When he finally dragged it out of me, he would yell at me for one to three hours that I should trust him and he had always been faithful to me, etc. He would mention another involvement he had with a woman at work in 2000 and 2001 -- a case in which he claims that even though very tempted, he had not sex with that woman even though she asked him to sire a baby with her -- if I said something like, "How could you allow the relationship to arrive at the point where she would have confidence she could ask that question?" he would go ballistic -- anyway, he would use that past thing to show me faithful he was and how wrong I was not to trust him regarding OW.
Sometimes after one of these browbeating sessions, he would apologize. It was in late July 2011, after one of these apologies, that I asked him to stop saying he would leave me. He went ballistic again and didn't calm down for at least two hours.
This e-mail is long. . . . In late September 2011 I saw the counselor again myself. She said I was indeed seeing red flags (like when I walked into the bathroom where my husband was about to shower and he leaped behind the curtain -- with his cell phone, I realized a few minutes later -- after which I had felt anxious and depressed, and again my husband dragged out of me why, and again when I said why he browbeat me some more about not trusting him).
Next day after seeing the counselor, while my husband was at work and I was home doing freelance work, I figured out how to access our cell phone records on line. The record for my husband's number displayed about 25 contacts (half incoming, half outgoing) each day for the last several weeks with a number I did not know. A few minutes later, my husband called me to ask why he had just received a text from our phone company saying "Happy to assist with accessing your records" -- his phone is primary on the account. I told him that a number had shown up with great frequency. He had to work, I had to work, we hung up. I later called the number and got OW's voice mail -- she had changed her number.
To describe the ensuing storm would take too much time. I didn't yell because I had learned not to from Marriage Builders, but it was clear my husband was infuriated that I was demanding again that this relationship stop. Because he and OW did not go to bed together, he could maintain that they were just friends and that he was again counseling her through marital crisis; he said that adultery occurred only when physical sex outside of a marriage occurred.
We have not been back to my church since. The impetus not to return came from me; my husband didn't see why we couldn't go back; often when he was talking about OW or saying things like, "Why shouldn't we go back to church? I'm not ashamed," he would look to me exactly as his father had many years ago whenever very drunk (his father was alcoholic).
In the last 9 months we have not been at our church. I do not think my husband has had any contact with OW. We have gone to a nearby Roman Catholic church that is big and anonymous.
Over time, gradually my husband admitted that he was very wrong to have had this affair. I haven't said much about it, though on occasion we have been able to talk through some things; the whole mess has so many ramifications, we have to deal with them one by one and over time.
My big problem right now is that I miss the church community terribly. Many friends called or contacted us electronically, wondering where we were. I felt shamed and dishonored -- ashamed that my husband, an elder in that church, would do as he had. I also felt sure that if I spoke of this matter, people would think there was probably something wrong with me or my husband would never stray, and they knew already that OW's marriage was often a problem for her. (Her husband seems like a nice guy, but both seem very immature to me; their kids did not do well -- oldest managed to finish high school and eventually marry a good man, but the middle two did not finish high school, got involved with sex and drugs and a gang -- painful for me, as I had watched those kids growing up and tried to help while I was still OW's friend).
I also felt, and at times still feel, deeply ashamed because I figure that my husband's relationship with OW (he still refuses to call it an "affair" or "adultery" of any kind) -- I worry that what I call an emotional affair may have further damaged OW's already compromised marriage and contributed to the problems of her children.
My husband is committed to our marriage. For me to read Marriage Builders material helped me understand the withdrawal period. As that period has passed, my husband has become more and more contrite.
The problem for me now is that I miss my community. I have never explained to anyone else in the community besides the counselor, older couple, and senior pastor what happened; when friends have asked, I have only said that personal issues of long standing came to a head and it was necessary for our marriage that we stop coming to that church. I have explained that space opened between me and my husband and misunderstanding came in, so we shut everything else out and concentrated on us. Our friends understand that sort of talk and have not pressed me for more details.
Though I have viewed the posts about exposure on Marriage Builders, I don't feel that in our case exposure would have been best in that church body. I feel it would have opened a door to a lot of gossip and rumormongering.
And as I said before, I also feel deep inside that even my good friends would assume that if my funny, outgoing husband developed a relationship with someone else, then something must be very wrong with me. Even our counselor, after our last session with her in early October 2011, later e-mailed me that "there must be some reason why your husband is attracted to this woman that he finds so fun and interesting." I cried helplessly for two hours after she sent me that message; I was so exhausted; she was telling me that despite my efforts to change and work things through, I was still just not good enough, I wouldn't do, my husband's behavior was justified.
Another problem regards our senior pastor. Because long ago I had fallen in love with him -- a star-fan type of love to which I am prone, though I never was deceived enough about my motivations to try to pursue my feelings -- I had not gone to him for counseling, but had accessed the female professional counselor of which I have spoken. However, my hsuband and I did each see the senior pastor in mid-December 2011, basically to say good-bye. We each saw the pastor separately. In my session my pastor said he had told my husband, "You're wanting to give your wife's pain a 6, and for her it's a 10." I appreciated that. But the pastor also told me that what my husband and OW did wouldn't even be on some people's sin radar. I protested vigorously that even if what happened didn't seem so bad, the degradation of my husband's personality and relationship to me in that time showed how bad it was. Another thing that the pastor had said at a sort of unguarded moment was that he had no doubt that if I had not held steady at my end -- that is, stayed together with my husband -- that OW would have gone after my husband. Perhaps I looked startled; I had felt all along that OW possibly had real designs on splitting me and my husband apart since she didn't want her husband anymore, but I had never told anyone that. The senior pastor started to back-paddle, saying how common it was for a hurting woman to fantasize being married to a sympathetic man. I know he is right, but at the same time, in that moment I realized he must have known how much pressure my husband's and my marriage was under, and I wonder if he could have acted more strongly to intervene.
This pastor has officiated at weddings where a person who has become divorced while a member of our church gets married to another. I never was close to any of those situations, and never commented on them to anyone, but deep in my heart, in the year prior to leaving our church, I kept having this thought: that if my husband left me for OW, the pastor would deem my marriage beyond repair, marry OW and my husband, and I would be expected to forgive and forget.
I don't know if this notion is in accord with reality, but it kept coming to my mind and troubling me.
As I write this, I feel that perhaps it really is better that my husband gradually end all relationship with that church. Despite our long association with it, perhaps what happened to my husband and me happens in a climate. Perhaps it is God's time for us to really seek another place together.
Tonight the women of our church are gathering to have a wedding shower for a church member whose husband died of sudden illness three and a half years ago. Now she is marrying a single man who came to our church through a recovery ministry. I really want to go, but I know that OW will be there. I am not ready to face OW. Yet it seems utterly unjust that I am cut off from my friends and she gets to keep ministering and enjoy the fellowship.
My husband noted my depression this morning before he went to work, and confronted me. He said he is doing all he can, still doesn't agree that what happened should even be called an affair (yet I know he does not wish to return to that relationship), and that he doesn't know what else to do to make me happy. Several times I have told him that I think I need more help to get past this whole matter, and he has always seemed disturbed. But this morning he was open to me entering the MB forum.
So here I am. At times I am still furious deep inside that my husband would so behave that I had to leave the church fellowship and feel stuck, unable to be close to my friends. At the same time, I feel that the church now would not be as healthy climate for us as we need. Yet to find another place where so many care for us so much -- I don't even want to go there, because I still miss everyone at our church terribly -- I miss seeing them and hugging them all week after week, and all the interactions I have described above.
I'm sorry this e-mail is so long, but the situation seems pretty complicated to me. I am grateful for any and all perspective.

That was very, very long - I'm afraid you might miss out on some excellent replies because of it, can you post some short highlights for others.

Anyways, I did read it.

Your marriage CAN survive this ... but ... not if you both continue to place your church community ahead of it. You both know that your marriage comes before other people in your church.

Your husband had an affair with a woman at the church. You have had an inappropriate 'love' with a pastor. This church is not a good environment for you now, or EVER. If you wish to re-attend another church later when you've both worked on your boundaries then okay, but until then, you are both walking into minefields.

It starts with exposure. This church cannot be a part of your life anymore and they need to know why. I'm sorry, I know that isn't what you want - but you aren't going to recover this marriage by sitting in the place where these things happen. This program is specific - you don't get to be anywhere near OW ever again. EVER. And people must know what is going on.

You have both developed a LOT of bad habits in marriage (ie. LoveBusters) and you can work on that. But it doesnt matter what you do as long as you continue to keep putting your marriage in danger over and over again each week.

And I'm afraid you will need to demand a polygraph from your husband - I wouldn't believe for one second that this was only emotional.

Welcome to MArriage Builders. In order to receive the most help possible, please cut that post down to about 3 paragraphs. You won't get much help if folks have to read through a long post to get your story. I know I don't have time to read that. Folks here have careers and families and want to help, but we don't have the time to read a long post.

We don't need alot of information to get the picture, so if you could summarize this in 3 paragraphs, you will find you get many more responses.

Thanks!

Alis, thank you very much.
We have not been at our church now for 9 months, but obviously have not broken off connection with it completely, either.
I will work on a three-paragraph summary of my long post. Should I start a new thread if I do that?

Thanks, MelodyLane! See my reply to Alis.

Who has your affair and your H's affairs been exposed to?

Please read. Exposure 101

I read the post and here are the key facts for fellow MBers to chip in and help.


WH had long EA with a fellow church lady.

WH cut off contact with OW (or no more contact observed by the BS),

BS and WH no longer attend church with OW and BS misses the community there.

WH has verbally committed to the marriage but still denies EA even though he and OW were scheduling late night chats about her supposed bad marriage and signing emails with "love ...".

BS confronted OW and OW put on the waterwoks but carried on contact with WH

OW and WH have high position within the church but NONE have been exposed.

OW BS has not been exposed to.

BS does not want to expose due to gossip fears and fear of being blamed for the WHs bad decision to have an A.

Kids not exposed to.

WH and BS have tried several councellors some of wich fed the BS fear as to the A being her fault.

WH Gaslights BS by throwing temper tantrums and demanding that she should trust him every time she asks anything of him or questions his behaviour with this OW or previous OWen.

I think this just about covers it.

Steuggling

I hope it's ok that I helped you with the key facts so you can get the immediate help you need, I summarised hi lighting the infomarion that is most needed to get you the help. This does not mean that I don't care about the rest of it and your feelings, I have read your post and I am truly sorry you are struggling.


Everyone on here will tell you that exposing the A is the first step you need to take in order to recover your marriage. How can you say your WH is committed to anything when he is clearly still foggy and is denying a very obvious EA at the least even though he has read and understands the MB literature?

Your WH is still Wayward in thought if not in actions too.

How can you be sure there is NC between him and the OW? What snooping have you done? Was there even an NC letter sent to her?


People at your church have the right to know what happened and the right to remove any bad eggs from their community so exposing to them is really really important.

Many people come here and second guess what others reaction will be when they expose and hardly and of them get it right. People respond to honesty and openss. I guarantee that many people in your former church have noticed and have gossiped about the OW and your WH behaviour already. The way to stop the gossip and the assumptions is to expose the A and be honest with the people you consider your extended church family.

Strugglg, I did read your whole post because I had to drive a lot for my job today. Please understand that you are in a whole new world now. Old friends may have to go by the wayside. Your old church, which was a huge element in your life (possibly too much so) needs to go. There is a poor history there, on the part of both you and your husband.

To whom have you disclosed your H's affair? I am specifically interested in the members of the church. I read that you haven't attended in quite a while. You need to let the members know why. This is sin sitting squarely in their congregation. They need to be aware that OW will close the Bible and ignore it in order to meet her needs. Include your husband in that, as well.

Please find another church, because that seems to be a cornerstone for your lives. Let the membership know WHY you are there and why you left your other church.

I would also suggest that you consider putting your considerable energies into your marriage first, your church family second. God never intended to have you use His Son's Church as an avoidance tactic to dodge having to face your marital issues, which is what I think you've been doing. You've escaped the marital issues you have by spearheading church activities in order to feel some sense of control. You're controlling the wrong thing.

Have you read this article? Emotional Needs

MB,

I don't why I couldn't get the link to open so I'm posting it again.
The Most Important Emotional Needs

Thanks, BH. I'm not sure either - it's the same link I use every time.

Struggl, I'm seeing that you haven't really responded in a solid way to the posts that have been made to you. Please let us know your thoughts.

NB28, your reduction is helpful and you were kind to do it.
To sort through all my facts and choose the ones that are important from the MB perspective was confusing to me. I was going to settle in and do it this morning, but you have already accomplished it.

maritalbliss,
Your comments are on target. We were both very involved at our church because my husband felt called to become a pastor years ago and joined the lengthy pastoral training course. I was not avoiding marital problems so much as trying to be supportive by engaging myself in what I thought would be his life work.
HOWEVER -- your comments are still very much appreciated. Even if we had seemingly valid reasons for so much involvement, I have to agree that church was too large an element in our lives. I might not have agreed before we stopped attending it, but after nine months of not being, I KNOW you are absolutely right.
I asked my husband to go with me for counseling many times over the years (we have been married 35 years). He very rarely went and I was left to deal with my frustrations on my own.
I would say NEITHER my husband nor I had the high concept of marriage -- mutual agreement and complete honesty -- that I have discovered through Marriage Builders.

MaritalBliss,
We have exposed the affair to nobody except two members of our household (the second oldest of our four adult children, who lives at home and commutes to work), and a nonrelative lady who became a member of our family -- very old; also our church counselor, a married couple who are older and who also paryaed with us and gave us counsel, and (to a much lesser degree) the senior pastor.
I can't be absolutely certain my husband has had no contact with OW. I just don't see the personality negatives that accompanied his contact with her. Instead, he has gradually become much more honest and a lot more appreciative toward me.
I make certain that we are together a lot, especially late at night, when he likes to view old movies on his laptop. His job tires him -- don't want to add identifying details, but it is quite physically demanding -- and old movies are his way of winding down. . . . I know he is not contacting OW on his cell phone because I still check those records.
Given the timing of his departures and arrivals to and from work, my diligent awareness of what he is doing if I am in another room working, and the very welcome changes in his behavior, I just don't think OW is in his picture any more.
There is an elephant in the room that I need to figure out how to define. My posts get long and I have to work a while. (My husband is at work. I try to make my freelance work hours match his hours.) I will post again later.

Both you and your WH need to be exposed.

Have you read the exposure thread I posted to you?

Please read. Exposure 101

MaritalBliss,
I just wrote a 1,600-word reply, but that is too long.
I did read the Exposure 101 link -- had read it before.
I can't see my initial post right at this moment, but in it I may have failed to note something really important, which is that in the depth of our worst time in early October 2011, I did tell my husband's close relatives and also mine (of my own generation and the next generation up). When I told my husband that I had called his close relatives, he reacted exactly as Exposure 101 describes. He knows of my having told one relative on my side, but his reaction was so infuriated that I didn't tell him about the others on my side. He and I visited his close relatives (I'm being vague to avoid identifying details). They basically told him that they knew there were two sides to every story, but if the situation was what it sounded like, he had to end the relationship immediately. I know that what they said influenced him heavily and continues to influence him. He was desperately embarrassed. He knows I would definitely do a lot more exposing if I ever rediscovered a connection between him and OW.

From things he has said recently, I also believe that he genuinely believes his behavior was wrong. He even said recently (not sure how topic came up) that what he did was "horribly wrong." I felt I had not heard him say it so starkly before, and said so. He claimed he said that all along, and then started to recant, repeating his past thin defenses that he never had agreed it was an EA -- he really has always had a tough time admitting fault, but does eventually if I don't back down from my point of view but also give him time.

His repentance shows more in action than in words. I'm a word person, but maybe I have to leave some room here for our personality differences and not push him so oppressively for certain words that I wreck the progress that I see happening.

As far as exposing the matter: In my longer reply I explored how I envision trying to expose the matter at my church. As I wrote that other reply, I realized how weird our church has become since an important associate pastor left in 2007. (It was at about that same time that the illness of my family and the heightened need for me to earn more money started to take a lot more of my time. Space opened between my husband and me in which the EA could develop.)

The "elephant in the room" I mentioned in my past post was that my attraction to the senior pastor continued for several years in the late 1990s -- a time when my husband was in some kind of depression, very passive, running up credit card bills in an effort to improve the home in financially advantageous ways without a real repayment plan, hardly getting up for work on time, leaving home improvement messes that I had to clean up while trying to cope with the bills, and then spending his late nights watching TV reruns. The words in the senior pastor's sermons about accountability and planning addressed some heavy emotional needs of mine and I don't think it's any mystery I got attracted to him. I confessed this attraction to my husband at that time because it really disturbed me; he asked if I wanted to leave town with the pastor, which I didn't, and my husband seemed to think the matter would pass. I did not seek to develop a relationship with the pastor and kept my contacts with him infrequent.

But because of my anger and frustration with my husband, the attraction persisted inside me. At one point he asked me about it, and I denied it because I could see that if I admitted it, we mmight have to leave a place (the church) that was providing me needed stability -- not through that pastor, rather through the many friends I had made in the women's groups and Sunday school activities. I didn't see why my sinfulness should destroy all the other good the church brought us.

My honesty was not at the level of Marriage Builders, as you can see. But neither did I carry on with the pastor.

Still, about three months ago, having absorbed a lot of MB material, I told my husband that that old attraction probably hurt our marriage relationship. He almost shouted, "No! Not an issue!" I said no more about it.

Since the associate pastor left in 2007, something changed. I was less comfortable in the church and couldn't say exactly why. But I was too busy to analyze it, and letting go of the stability the church brought me was not about to happen.

My husband and I each met separately with the senior pastor in December 2011, after we had not attended our church for two months. The meeting was basically to formally say we could not come back. I wanted to meet with the senior pastor together, but my husband wanted to meet separately.

In my session the senior pastor told me that he had said to my husband, "You're giving your wife's pain a 6, and for her it's a 10." I appreciated that, but the pastor also said that what my husband and OW did would not even be on some people's sin radar. I felt he was making excuses for the EA, not wanting it to continue if it bothered me, but also diminishing its impact.

OW's husband is not a stable person -- on antidepressant medication, a retired guard who owns a gun -- it is not hard to believe OW has needs.

Exposing the EA to that church family would be an iffy thing. OW is till a popular minister there, and if I were to "expose" what happened more widely than I have, after not attending there for 8 months, I don't believe the effect would be to reveal truth. The more I think about it, the more I think that exposure would result in a lot of confusion in a congregation that is not being well led enough to understand what happened. I think a lot of people would defend OW and that enmity would form toward me. The result would be division in a group of people whom I can no longer be part of anyway.

My tone has changed from when I first posted, yes? I first posted because, as I saw it, I had to leave a beloved community because of what my husband did. But I have a lot more peace about leaving the place now. My husband definitely wants to part from it permanently. He had difficulties at times with the senior pastor that seemed like difficulties he's had with many other authority figures in his life -- lots of complaining about his father, his supervisors at work, about other pastors, you name it, he complained. I now believe, though, that my having been attracted to the senior pastor added to those difficulties, even if my husband does not wish to say so.

I don't bemoan leaving that congregation any more. God will give us ways to tie off relationship with it. My husband and I have done a lot of Marriage Builders work (especially the POJA and, at least from my end, the Policy of Radical Honesty). Certainly my husband has been a lot more communicative with me about what he does with his time, and I have also been more diligent to see that we get our 15 hours a week together. It is all helping.

I think we will be okay. Saying so doesn't mean I am no longer interested in your replies or that I have received all I need from Marriage Builders. I will be reading MB the rest of my life. I have recommended MB to all my children and they have read it; one child is married and has told me that MB is being implemented; another is engaged and has put the site to good use with fiance.

And you might still have some things to say that I need to hear.

Sorry, I really have trouble writing short posts.

Why don't you do the online program or call the Marriage Builders coaching center?

So, are you ready to expose to your own family and your church family?

Please listen to this radio clip of Dr. H telling the steps of fighting an affair and the first step is exposure.

Radio clip on Killing the affair with exposure and Dr. H's feelings on affairs.

As I say, I have exposed to my own family and to my husband's. Perhaps you mean to our children who have not yet been exposed. I believe that has to happen. Right now I know it will be hard to make it happen because so much time has passed and I can tell my husband wants to just move on.

Exposing to the church family beyond the few we have already told is dicey. There are ways in which my husband felt quite hurt over the years by the leadership, who did not always view him the way he wanted them to. Although in some ways I don't agree with his point of view, in other ways I definitely do. To return after 8 months and start talking to people about the EA seems unworkable because it puts him back into those unresolved issues apart from the EA.

"Emotional affair" is a term that not everyone is familiar with.I wasn't familiar with it until I got hurt by one. I am certain many people at the church would not even view what happened as an affair, and would think I was exaggerating my hurt. That the EA would precipitate our well-known family permanently out of the church community would seem ridiculous to most. And I don't think the leadership would back me up, as I have said.

To be repeatedly explaining the threat and hurt I felt to a series of friends, and describing the degradation of my husband's personality and treatment of me as the affair progressed, would not compute well.

My own family listened to what I was telling them with incomplete understanding. At the nadir of the whole thing in early October 2011, when my husband wanted to go away to see his family for a few days WITHOUT me, one of my older relatives thought I should let him go -- and I knew, not just from MB but from my internal threat-o-meter, what a terrible idea that was. I would have expected my own family to understand better than that. I did go with him to see his family (this was after I had, at last, called them and told them what was going on because my husband's behavior got SO weird).

What I'm saying is that I would not expect to meet understanding if I went back to other members of the church family.

I have written out for myself all that happened so many times, and tried to cut it down so many times, that I find I have left some important info out of earlier posts. Here's a piece: I did tell two other church friends about it in April, older women with whom I still pray once a week. I had not intended to tell them, but needed to -- could not take the internal pressure. They did understand, and agreed my husband and I could not return to the church community.

I haven't told you half of how twisted this whole thing got. At one point early in 2011, before I rediscovered the EA, my husband was acting as go-between, taking messages between OW and her BH, ostensibly counseling them by Internet and phone-- all without telling me, because I "wouldn't understand." (In that same time period I was saying to my husband not to get involved with that family's troubles again.) I believe that OW's BH was self-deceived enough to accept such crazy procedures, and if he heard now that the relationship is considered a serious EA, I don't think he would react calmly; he has abused OW physically in the past, and I just don't see him as stable before such a revelation.

Consequently, the step of formally telling OW and her family in a letter that they must never have anything to do with us or our family again has not yet happened.

As I write, I DO feel more and more that there are a few closer church friends that we should find a way to tell, not so much to expose though exposure is good, but because they are our friends and keeping secrets from them is not fair nor wise.

My husband would resist extremely. Despite all his words to me about how I didn't have friends and so couldn't understand his wonderful friendship with OW, in fact his friendships do not contain nearly the degree of self-exposure and reality checking that is needed to induce deep trust between friends.

As I write, I believe I have failed to demand the level of honesty from my husband that I really need, from the get-go. His ways of resisting that demand includes saying things like, "I just can't live up to your standards!" -- especially when I wanted him to stop making independent money decisions (though he never gambled etc., always did stuff for the family, just didn't work with me to see if what he had in mind was possible considering the OTHER things we had already decided to take on).

I have a habit of accommodating intolerable behavior and finding ways to make a situation work around it.

There is so much more work for me to do on my marriage and on being a person who could have a marriage at the MB level. Thank you for your patience.

Struggling,

Exposure does not involve you having to Educate people as to what actions constitute an A and what actions don't,

You expose by giving clear facts and evidence as to any contact you observed and know of that made you feel uncomfortable and put your marriage at risk.

No one here is telling you to tell the people at church anything about your hurt, suffering etc. what we are asking you to do is let the people at church know WHY you left and give them a chance to hold their so called pastor accountable.

Expos� because you need to ensure long term and permanent NC between your WH and the OM.

Expos� because the OWBS has a right to know that his marriage is at risk because his wife has no boundaries.

Expos� because the pople at your church have a right to know about how dangerous the OW is and they can protect their H from her.

Expos� because you need to stand up for your marriage and what is right.

Expos� because your H needs to realise the full consequences of his actions and see fully what people think of married men who befriend marrid women and risk destroying their marriage.

I could write 1000 reasons why you need to expose. But I fear that you have landed yourself in a false recovery and all the while your accepting the denials and the little breadcrumbs your WH throws your way from time to time you won't be in a position to see that your marriage is still in serious trouble and you have a whole lot more pain coming your way at the hands of your WH unless you set the bar high and demand what is absolutely necessary from him to recover the marriage. Starting with a full NC letter from your WH to th OW.

You really need to stop making excuses and accepting his bad behaviour. For example you stating that he has a hard time admitting fault and has had issues with church leaders before is not really relevant. Who cares about how he used to feel about church leaders of a church your no longer part of??? How is that in any way relevant as an excuse not to expose?

If he can't accept fault that his problem not yours, what are you supposed to do for the rest of your married life?? Accept everything is everyone else's fault and keep covering up and defending him even when it's crystal clear he's done something wrong?? Your his WIFE not mother, he's a big boy and needs to be left to see and deal with the consequences of his actions..

Unfortunately, affairs, emotional and physical, are very common in churches. You will need to leave that church.

He, and you, cannot return to that church. There are other churches. Go to one of them. Your goal is not to meet understanding. Your goal is to inform. Your husband needs to write this letter, and it needs to be done now.

I get the impression that you are very concerned about your relationship with your current church family. You shouldn't be. Your first concern should be with your OWN family - not your CHURCH family.

ITA. good post, NB.

NB28,
You're right on all counts and I am ready to start the work.
I woke in the middle of the night and realized how fearful and accommodating I am.
Because I dexterously accommodate to avoid conflict, I produce confusion and extend mistreatment.
In the night the words came to me: "If somebody does something egregiously wrong, the truth must be spoken to all stakeholders." This is a different phraseology for what all of you at MB are saying.
Maybe I needed to understand it in words of my own.
Thank you.
My husband is off on Friday. I told him I need to speak to him. I don't think it will be easy, but not that hard, either.

MaritalBliss,

Thank you for your clear statements.

My husband is off in a few days and I told him we have to talk. He knows I mean a serious talk that will take time.

My goal is to get the letter to OW written then. Also to say that I think he should call back the friends whom we have left hanging and tell them the truth -- in whatever form that may take, talking by phone, us going to see them, whatever.

Also to explain that I am not willing to keep our children in the dark anymore, but feel they need to understand why we can no longer have any contact with OW's family in any way.

They were our friends. Despite my anger and hurt, it is also very sad to me to see how that family deteriorated and lose the friendship.

It's true that I am concerned about my relationship with the church family. I love those people very much, and they love us.

Our church is not a place where we went and got a dose of worship on Sundays. It really is a family. My husband's involvement with my friend, whom I really loved, is just about as painful as if he had gotten involved with my sister.

I now believe my concern about whether the church family will view me negatively is false. The two friends I pray with once a week understood very well. Others will understand too.

Even if they don't, as you say, the issue here is the truth.

Having to leave that place for something so stupid and avoidable as an EA is to waste years of support and of valid relationship-building with my friends. If my acceptance of departure is slow, it is because I have to leave behind so much for such a low-down reason.

I have to accept it and move on in the Lord.

I told one of our distant-resident adult children about it yesterday. I didn't get shock as a response, but relief and some resentment that we had kept silent so long -- "I figured it was either that or a conflict with [OW]'s children" -- who are not doing well. This child also shared some perceptions about church that surprised me; didn't think the negative changes would have been that obvious to such a young person.

My early life involved certain types of abuse and secret-keeping. Guess it became ingrained in my personality. Freedom from secrets is a relief.

This is the exact reason Dr. Harley stresses the importance of exposing to the children (age appropriate of course). He says we should tell children as young as four.

Children are smart and very perceptive and for people to think "they can't handle the truth" are underestimating their children.

Secrets will destroy a family.

Last night I had an unexpected opportunity to speak to my husband and took it. Explained that I was wrong back in October not to take counselor's suggestion of a no-contact phone call or letter.

At that time I didn't want my husband to initiate ANY contact with OW -- I said back then that IF she contacted him, tell her then that all contact should stop.

Last night I explained to my husband: now I realize that no NCl left the situation undefined; that it would be healthier not only for us, but for OW and her family, to define the boundary absolutely.

I told him of my conversation with our adult child who lives away. I asked that we speak to our other two away children.

Husband quite upset with me. Says "No contact forever is punitive, unforgiving, like you're bound and can never be free." He does not believe counselor meant NC permanently.

I said unforgiveness is not the issue, but recognizing the nature of what happened and setting both families free to go separate directions.

He is very concerned about exposure. Said to me, "I would never tell the children all your sins! You could sleep with another man and I wouldn't tell them."

I said, "But you SHOULD."

His dad was severely alcoholic; my dad committed some abuses against me and my sibs, especially emotional, at one point low-grade sexual; both his family and mine were raised never talking about these things outside family or even to each other. In adulthood we finally spoke to counselors and each other and found healing.

Secrecy is very ingrained in us and confused with honor. MB has strengthened me to end this.

I keep remembering the many places that scripture tells us to call each other out when we sin (Leviticus 19:17 Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt.; Luke 17:3 If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.; the structure outlined in Matthew 18:15-18; Galations 6:1 Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.).

With much appreciation for your help and prayers.

NB28,
Rereading your summary of my initial post with appreciation.

Today my WH and I have had little time to talk aside from his expression of anger at me before he left for work. He came home in a couple of hours b/c he has a pestering joint. Spent most of the day with our adult live-at-home child -- went to work with child, came home, desultory conversation, went to sleep on couch. He is genuinely tired, but I also know these are avoidance tactics.

Tomorrow I will insist on NCL and present idea that what our kids need is for their dad to model how to cope head-on with truth, not confuse cover-ups with protection.

I noticed on another post that the Harleys do not counsel couples together as they feel it is damaging. Wow, do I confirm that! I will tell my WH, b/c if he knew the counseling was separate, he just might go for it.

About ready to change my display name from Strugglg2moveon and use Addictd2Truth instead. I can never go back to my former ways of compromising truth in order to reduce conflict.

No, it's not. It's really quite simple. You meet with them and you tell them.

This is totally irrelevant to your current situation. Ignore this and don't involve your childhood or any other youthful dynamic. It doesn't apply to unfaithfulness as a married person.

Hi, Maritalbliss,
My husband just walked out on me with his laptop and a packed bag of clothes.

He is off today and tomorrow. I talked to him this morning and said again that a no contact letter and telling our other adult kids the truth were needed for me to move on. At first he said that it was not needed and that it would make him look really bad; also make OW look bad; and the whole matter wasn't so bad.

I tried to answer these objections by pointing out that the adult child I talked to did not react at all by thinking Dad is bad; rather, relieved and "oh, okay." This child called my husband yesterday to say, "I love you," but my husband just said, "I'll call back" -- which he has not yet done.

Goodness, my husband just came back home and said he would be talking to all the members of my family.

Heck, I'll keep you posted. Thank you, Maritalbliss.

Struggling I suggest you are present when your WH tells anyone,

At this point he has shown himself to be still foggy/wayward and he is still somehow fighting you on any steps you ask him to take regarding recovery, therefore he is not at the stage where you can trust that he will tell anyone the truth as it happened rather than 'his version' of events.

Thank you, NB28,

I totally agree with how you assess my husband's state of mind.

I kept a longstanding lunch date with a church friend and this time I told her exactly what had made us leave and named names. She wept with relief that I trusted her (and I cried some too). She completely understood why the NCL should happen and why we could not return to church. All my fears of unleashing this secret were groundless.

My family (meaning on my mom's and my side -- not that many of them) were apprised of the whole mess in October. I wish my husband WOULD call them. I felt uncertain of how folks in my church would react, but I know for certain my family would do what his own sibs did -- urge him to follow through with NCL and truth as I ask.

Just talked to my mom and feel so free to continue exposure as the Lord leads.

My husband just texted me b/c he wants to be there when an away child arrives at airport tonight. I texted of course he should be there.

So we are communicating a little.

We are in a spiritual battle but I will persist. I believe it will end well (though I also realize diligence for truth as described by Marriage Builders will be the permanent approach by which our marriage must now operate).

Husband home. Lots of talk with all kids except for one on plane. We'll see that one soon.

WH did give his version of events. But our kids and I have always had very open communication so I was able to speak w/each and present what occurred from my point of view. Oldest pretty concerned "about the extend of the damage that seems to have occurred."

Think I am a bit numb. A few minutes ago, late at night here, WH said he had to get something from car (only he uses that car). Came back shortly, went into bathroom. I asked what he got and he hesitated before answering it was his nose makeup to cover a blemish; then a moment later saying it he also got his Bluetooth b/c he had left it in the car to charge . . . but I thought he used it for an hour to talk to our oldest tonight. . . . Red flag? Or am I hypersuspicious? I'll find out.

Did not approach topic of EA yesterday b/c the one child left to tell came home from extended absence and spent most of yesterday sleeping. We will talk today. Too bad it is Father's Day.

I know MaritalBliss believes my husband's and my growing-up family training in hiding our fathers' sins is irrelevant. But why else would I permit myself to be mistreated for so long? Shame and habits of covering up.

I think EAs and PAs are common in churches, where families are close, because there is unspoken common belief in hiding sin -- terrible bondage to lifeling habits of fear and shame -- and NOT enough practice of Ephesians 4:15 ("Instead, speaking the truth in love . . . ") and Eph 4:25 ("Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor") as well as Eph 5:11 ("have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness but rather expose them").

This is a new beginning for me. I will never go back to my confused, helpless past.

Have not yet exposed to just-home child -- very tough extended college semester, sleeping a lot.

Talked to WH this afternoon. Absolutely refuses NCL -- "It wouldn't be Christian. It leaves no room for future reconciliation and forgiveness."

Still upset I talked to kids. Explained I've talked to three friends, all of whom reacted not with horror, but with love, concern, and complete understanding of why we cannot return to the church.

WH still wants to claim that we left b/c of his own disagreements with leadership (which he has complained of many years but which did not result in departure) instead of b/c I could not go there while OW remains.

WH says I do not respect him for disagreeing about NCL and that I am forcing our kids to choose between us because he and I are not a united front about NCL or even exposure.

He says he has had no contact w/OW and that he avoids talking to church friends b/c of what I might suspect. I know he knows I would want him to talk to friends about the EA b/c they would urge against it.

Three years ago, even one year ago, even 9 months ago I thought he really would leave me if I exposed; and I was ashamed and afraid everyone would think I must be an awful wife; and I was uncertain it was anyone else's business. An EA seems too deeply personal to tell to any but a few.

How wrong I was.

I would love to change/delete my initial post. I don't see how to. It is ridiculously long -- I was fearful of leaving out important details, couldn't select the important ones well -- now it annoys me whenever I come here.

Husband just walked out on me -- he absolutely resists NCL and is angry about telling kids -- just went out with our youngest child (age 20) -- praying.

Because he swim in waywardness right now...he isn't repentant and isn't serious about your marriage. Prepare for Plan B.

The NCL is absolutely essential to recovery...it is the first step on a very narrow path to recovery.

Do you want to delete your initial post, or delete the truth? It shouldn't annoy you - it should keep you on task. Don't be afraid, Strugglg!

He is very wayward and may well be still involved with OW. Are you planning to go to Plan B?? He will need to leave if he is not willing to recover your marriage.

Thank you, Praying Incessantly and MaritalBliss.

I just reviewed Plan A and Plan B.

Husband and youngest child home. Child is a prayerful person, goes to an excellent Christian college. Expressed confidence Dad and Mom will come through this. Listened to me carefully as I explained that I wanted to tell kids what happened because they should know and also so they can take warning and not get trapped as my WH did. Child nodded; did not divulge content of WH's talk, but confirmed that pastor at college said things in accord with exposure and with the policy of radical honesty.

All to bed peacefully, but after WH fell asleep (us two reading, not talking), I realized I cannot sleep nor continue w/o NCL.

Not sure I've done Plan A so well. I was very insistent about NCL -- may have overstepped boundaries of respect, though I never raised my voice, said anything insulting, etc. -- just kept insisting against WH's resistance.


Not ready for Plan B. Dr. Harley comments on its risks. Would I leave or make WH leave? So difficult. I will pray and consider the scenarios.

It IS a risk. One that a brave, strong betrayed person makes to protect their spirit from continued direct abuse of betrayel. It is critical that you do a decent Plan A directly into transitioning to a Plan B.

You would have WH leave.

Thank you, Reading,

I reviewed a link on how to implement Plan B.

My disappointment over WH's refusal to implement NCL pushes me toward plan B. The specter of losing a very beautiful family life devastates me.

Exposure to kids and some church friends is not a week old and I feel I am still in Plan A. My husband and I talked in the wee hours of this morning. I felt some progress happening b/c he started saying things like, "You really feel I have to do this [NCL] and maybe I should, but we should both be ready for it." I did not point out that "ready" is now, not something he can just do when he thinks he feels like it, because historically, during these monologues with me listening, he talks himself toward doing what is right. If I raise an opposing point the progress toward what is right stops and a new pointless argument starts.

I don't think he so much really wants OW as he wants not to feel his hand has been forced or that he has been made to appear "a horrible husband and father," as he put it.

I realize my marriage is in serious danger and Plan A cannot continue forever.

He spoke with his sister last night and she told him the EA is none of our kids' business. I plan to call her and point out that if my husband attacks the core of our sacred marriage covenant (its exclusivity), that is very much our children's business, and a lot of other people's too.

Big transition in my thinking for which I thank MB.

He's trying to gaslight you so you don't have him write the NCL.

If he was truly remorseful he'd write it.

Here.
Please explain gaslighting

Yes, Brainhurts, I agree.

I'm familiar with the term gaslighting, but reading the post showed me a list of phrases whose intent, if not exact wording, is so like things my husband says, it's like someone was following him around with a notebook.

Yesterday afternoon during a go-round he suddenly said he HAD written that OW should not contact him anymore. I exclaimed that he never told me that -- it would have made so much difference. He claims that "according to agreement," when last w/counselor Oct. 2011, when an e-mail came from OW shortly after he sent a reply saying he would not respond to any more contacts.

"Why do you think there haven't been any more contacts?" he asked. "I stuck with the agreement. That's why I keep saying this No Contact letter is unnecessary."

Not true. He had been saying the NCL did not accord with Christian reconciliation and forgiveness.

I was set back a little but then pointed out that he did NOT follow our agreement b/c I was supposed to see all future communication from OW and was supposed to be there for the NC response.

Same thing this afternoon -- he can converse by cell phone while working for a while -- had a similar go-round until he finally yelled, "All right! Once again you have shown me the error of my ways and how miserably I failed you! I'm not coming home!"

But I am determined to get my NCL.

As I write, I realize how much my WS does gaslight about most things. In his deeds he mostly comes through -- not a gambler etc., always gone to jobs he has often hated to support his family, ran up bills never for some fancy car but for home improvements or to take the kids somewhere -- problem was he did independent expenses of this nature w/o plan w/me, so prior plans of ours for education and bills got shorted -- but when I confront him, lots of gaslighting all our lives. Eventually we work something out.

This time I have to insist fully on NCL. I actually think I will get it.

Good. Don't back down on that NCL.

He also need to follow the policy of radical honesty.
PORH


His anger is a sign that you hit on some truth.

Thanks, Brainhurts!

We gave the NCL etc. a rest last night. We had a quiet evening w/two adult kids plus godmother home and enjoyed each other.

My WH could be thinking that I have backed off. But he has also been reminded of how good our home life was pre-EA.

Up to now I considered how much I had to lose if WH kept our marriage in danger.

Now I also realize that WH has a LOT to lose. I believe he will ultimately dump OW utterly rather than lose what we have.

We will see.

I have decided now to call my friends and family and tell them to pray hard for this NCL. I am praying for how to continue the battle for the NCL.

Without the NCL (I now realize), my husband gets to retain a piece of the EA in his heart. The EA is a cancer and will fight to grow again. It has to die.

The battle consists not only of directly insisting -- too much of that just sparks WH's habitual resistance and he says the most ridiculously illogical things out of pure stubbornness -- what he says would be funny if the stakes were not so high --

The battle also consists of inspiring the community around him to completely give up this relationship and to name it for what it is.

It took this forum for me to understand the need for exposure.

I needed MB to realize that infidelity affects a widening circle of MANY people, not just the married couple.

Adultery is NOT a personal problem just between husband and wife.

Give him a date that he needs to have that NCL written by.

Also what condition are you ready to hold to if he doesn't write the NCL letter?

Lessons I learned in the weeks and months following D-Day:

1. Refusal to write a no contact letter indicates the wayward spouse is either still in contact or hopes to be in the future.

2. Even after proportedly telling all there is to know, if a wayward spouse does not commit to 100% honesty and openness about everything, he is still lying.

3. Neither of these issues indicate a readiness to commit fully to the marriage. The result is a huge physical and emotional toll on the betrayed wife.

I tolerated my H's dodging around for far to long and regret not going into Plan B.

AM

Brainhurts,
I have no set of conditions yet.
The ultimate condition is that WH would move out.
At this point I am not ready to split the family.
The question for me right now is whether I am better off limping along with an incomplete recovery but an apparently intact family, or pushing for full recovery and perhaps losing this imperfect but precious family unity.

Splitting the household over this seems kind of crazy at the moment.

Thanks, Armymama,

WH's refusal of NCL informs me that he dreams of seeing OW again.

I'm going to keep pushing for NCL from a lot of different angles.

As Brainhurts points out, naming no conditions means WH can afford not to comply.

Can I be in love with a man whom I must discipline in order to receive the love of a husband?

I don't want to lose my family!!!!

Praying hard. Back to work.

Limping along without recovering is reconciling yourself to a miserable future. Doing this longterm causes significant health problems for women, both physical and emotional.

IF your husband changes, commits to NC, commits to your marriage, stops gaslighting and bullying you, provides just compensation for his affair, you can recover the marriage and the love.

One of the other things I learned was that our marriage could not recover as long I was "pushing and pulling" H into the marriage and H was along for the ride. When H took responsibility for the lead in marital recovery, we started healing. You cannot make him do this. You can only define your own boundaries and expectations for the behavior you will accept from him.

AM

ArmyMama,
Thank you for your response.
How/why/when did your H start taking the lead in marital recovery?

Strugglg2,

D-Day was in April 2008. My H left his job in July 2008 and reluctantly wrote an NC letter to the OW his last day of work. Sixteen months later, while staying with his mother for a few days after her stroke, H contacted the OW via email and they corresponded via email and phone for about 10 days. H lied to me about the contact saying that he emailed OW, but she didn't respond. H was very foggy and I told him that if he didn't commit 100% to the marriage, I wanted to never see or speak with him again. My conditions included attending an MB weekend (now the online program), commiting to working the course, apologies to all that had been hurt (our children, close friends, other family members). At first, H was limping along, not contributing much and I could not live that way. H then made the arrangements for us to attend an MB weekend in Minneapolis.

The week after we returned, H told me the truth about his contact with OW. I am not certain what our coach told him in the first phone call, but H's attitude completely changed. He became the one to take out our MB workbooks. He completely adhears to the policies of joint agreement and radical honesty. He tells me he is very happy in our marriage. In fact, there are times when I believe he is much more in love with me than I him.

My entire thread is on the recovery forum and is entitled "Recovery - Take Two". I don't post too often to it. Recovery doesn't seem too exciting.

As I said in the earlier post, my H really changed when he recognized that I was serious about remaining in an empty shell of a marriage.

AM

Thank you, ArmyMama!

I told my H tonight that I was fasting and praying regarding the NCL. He asked if I was trying to manipulate him into writing the letter so I would not starve. I explained that I was focusing spiritually.

He went through his things that he says -- now incorporating this supposed NC message he already sent OW about 8 months ago -- which I can't verify.

One change was that he is now saying the whole thing was really wrong. He has said that in the recent past but his words and attitude are different now. He doesn't come across now like he's resentfully deflecting criticism. He seems to mean it.

Having to tell his side to our kids made him repeat a version of his own actions, and each of our kids has heard my side. I think this repetition has begun to show WH the true import of his actions; also the kids' reactions have impressed reality on him. (They are all grown.)

We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Words mean nothing if he doesn't follow them with actions.

Without a repentant WH you are set up for a false recovery, my friend.

True, Brainhurts -- words w/o action are just words. But at least I'm getting some very different words.

This morning during a long painful discussion about the whole NC demand, my husband agreed to delete OW and family from all social networking connections ("That's okay! There's no contact there anyway!"). We both had to turn to work matters then, and rather inconveniently, tonight we had a small celebration of my birthday with two adult kids that are here and their godmother. My husband was startled when he realized again that I was not eating (been drinking V-8, tea with milk, but no food). (I will not let myself starve -- no real desire to eat yet and will eat again as the Lord leads.)

We did not do the website disconnection today, but my husband has to stay off the next few days for a work-related injury. We will do the websites tomorrow morning as soon as we get up and I will continue to press for the NC letter.

One of our kids remarked that at college, all the married couples (counselors etc.) stuck to joint social network sites -- no solo accounts. I think my husband would agree to deleting our solo sites and setting up a joint one.

One away child called to wish me happy birthday. I had said to read the Wikipedia article "Emotional Affair," which could have been a journalist's description of what happened between WH and OW, not to mention its impact on me. This child said from WH's self-defensive description alone, what happened was obviously an emotional affair -- never mind the details I filled in.

At least our kids are getting an important education. They all say to me that they wish they had known much, much sooner.

So when is he writing the NCL? It's very concerning that he's still dragging his feet on this.

What EPs has he written?

When is your date for him to write the NCL? You need to start planning for Plan B if he keeps hedging on the NCL.

Brainhurts,
What is EP? I copied and pasted the acronyms list from another person's posting, but EP is not on it.

We deleted/unfriended OW from Facebook and two other sites this morning. WH gave me passwords to FB and two other sites.

A little while later I realized he keeps saying, "Fine! There's been no contact through those channels anyway!"

He may be telling the truth but also omitting it. I will have to ask him if he HAS been contacted via another channel.

Also, I just now recalled that he has a gmail account. I did not ask for that password and he did not volunteer it. I don't think he uses it and so forgot it, but obviously I have to verify that.

He isn't always quick regarding matters involving a tough choice, so dragging on NCL may not be dragging so much as typical slowness coming to decision. That is why I have not been as concerned as it seems I might be.

I have not set a date by which the NCL must be written because that means saying, "Or you must leave."

If I end up saying he must go, does he get to take his car, laptop, etc? Don't want to let him take anything. But how do I stop him from taking his property with him?

I SO do not want to go there!!!!

I earn freelance $$ but not enough to be financially independent. I depend on WH for mortgage, health benefits through his job, and some bills; my income pays other bills plus ridiculous property taxes.

Our youngest has one more expensive year of college that would simply not happen if my husband were to leave and deny us his income.

I still can't believe this is happening to me.

Extraordinary Precautions

In additiion to this please listen to this radio clip on EPs.
Radio clip on EPs

Can't get my little computer to open the EPs clip. I will find it elsewhere on the MB site.

I have read MB articles on EPs and should have guessed what it meant.

I sent WH an e-mail stating why the NCL was needful (intentionally flee temptation and definitely indicate so to OW, consider what it would be like for me to have to encounter OW, acknowledge to self that temptation for OW triggered by encounters is not good for her either).

We are both at home, me working and he with injury -- we have talked a lot and I have not gotten much work done -- writing the e-mail was more important.

He responded. He says such a letter, esp. after 8-9 months, would be hateful and indicate we thought OW so odious we rejected her utterly; my H says he wouldn't do that to anybody.

I responded (as I have many times in disucssion, now in e-mail writing) that forgiveness is not the issue, but wisdom about emotional triggers (which got him and OW back into trouble in the past) and consideration for me. Don't know if he saw that e-mail yet; he had to leave to take care of a (very unfair) traffic fine.

Watching him get ready to go, I was overwhelmed with how much I really do love him. I see on other posts descriptions of marriages that show me that my H and I really do have a lot of love and good in our marriage.

Defining what is happening is hard. H naturally does not want to be strong-armed into writing the letter -- he is more resistant to being convinced by reason than I tend to be -- and I leave room for him really believing that an NCL would be unkind.

I wrote that I believe the Holy Spirit will reveal the necessity of the NCL to him.

My persistence has overcome his objections to things like disconnecting from electronic sites etc. (I didn't ask yet about his gmail but will tonight). Also in his e-mail responses today he indicates a lot more recognition of how wrong the EA was, without using pastoring as an excuse any more.

Because I did not enact nearly enough exposure until last week, and because I do see serious progress in WH admitting how wrong the whole things was, etc., I really believe I am in Plan A and need to remain so a while longer.

I almost wish I did not love my husband so much; makes it easy to go too easy -- but have achieved important things including important changes in dialogue about NCL and will persist.

I see no hate involved in letting someone know that there is no future with them. Close that door. It will be an act of kindness for all of you. Does your husband not wish to conduct an act of kindness for everyone concerned (mainly you - I am appalled that he would still be considering that woman's feelings over yours.)

Struggling, have you put a keylogger on his computer? I'm sorry - I'm sure this has been suggested to you before, but it doesn't sound like you've done so.

Ditto. Please listen strugglg2moveon. This is what we've been trying to tell you.

Thanks, MaritalBliss. When you put things in words so clearly, I am able to implement them in my talks with my husband, and I do.

No keylogger. Is that a device that would be installed or software that would be downloaded? At this point my H would not agree to it. And I am not ready to do that level of snooping. I know MB recommends it, and if I have to I will, but the thought of having to do that nauseates me. I will get used to the thought if I have to -- just the way I got used to the thought of exposing to kids and friends -- but if I get a keylogger, I'll feel like a jailer.

We each have our own laptop.

Long discussion this morning in which I was able to use the A word -- adulterous -- without H running out of the house.

He wants to claim that his relationship with OW was never in competition with his relationship with me. I was able to say that a relationship of emotional closeness with another woman is always in competition with his marital relationship because emotional closeness is the core of the marriage, not physical sex. He said adultery was only physical sex outside of marriage. I told him that any relationship with another woman in which he lied to me, deceived me, and in so many ways put her ahead of me was adulterous. He said, "Okay, by THAT definition it is" -- a first.

At that point he was getting really upset and telling me not to keep nailing him to the wall -- that when he says he wants to leave me (which he has said a few times this week), it's because I always nail him to the wall.

Until he sees the EA for what it is, I don't feel safe.

Toward the beginning of this discussion he said something about being willing to write a letter that says the relationship was wrong -- THAt is progress -- but not include language that would indicate he will intentionally do all possible to avoid running into OW.

I will not let that point go, however.

We got into a discussion of the meaning of exposing sin. He says it is unkind and started naming examples of people we have known caught in sin. I pointed out that their sin did not stop UNTIL the person was exposed. He is still smarting over my exposing to kids and friends. He does not recall that only after I exposed to his brother and sister in October did he finally agree to counseling and finally stop running out of the house with a packed bag, then calling me from an undisclosed location via cell phone and bullying me with threats of abandonment.

It's hard for him to see this "wonderful friendship" (as he put it) as something that was point-blank wrong. Until he does see that, we can't go forward. This revelation is the work of the moment. It's really hard work. But it is happening.

I am going to get my NCL.

After one of these discussions, my husband and I just stay apart for half an hour or so. (He is home with work-related injury.) Then we see each other and can't stop looking at each other with love.

Much defining of what constitutes friendship, adultery, appropriate exposure of sin, is occurring for my H and me. You at MB are deeply familiar with all these concepts, but I had to get used to them by reading the site for many hours, and via me, my husband is getting used to them too. As are my kids.

Sorry. I have seen all this before - in my marriage in 2008. Your husband is in contact with this woman and is in "the fog". He is more involved with this woman than he has admitted to you and he is gaslighting you.

You NEED a keylogger on any computer your husband is using. Your husband is lying and you need to identify the extent of what is happening.

AM

Another obstacle is my WH denies ever thinking of running off with OW. It was just a close friendship, he says. If I said, "Wouldn't it be kinder for OW to know she has no future with you?" he would deny either he or she saw a future together in the first place.

He was trying to be there for OW so she could handle her bad relationship with her husband -- that is his idea. (All during 2009 when I was protesting the growing closeness, the issue was not her husband, but her contention with the church leadership over pay and position -- her H was never mentioned.)

With so many beclouding excuses, applying meaning to actions becomes an occasion for argument. That's how the relationship persisted so long despite my protests and discomfort; and how my H could see clear to accuse me of not understanding his heart, and deny emotional infidelity.

The clouds are evaporating in the attack of light (exposure).

Affairs are addictions. Your H does not want to give up the "high" feelings he gets from contact with OW. And who knows what they talked about? Waywards lie about everything and make all kinds of excuses to justify their behavior.

AM

Put a keylogger on now.
Keylogger Programs

Your WH is gaslighting you.
Please explain gaslighting

Please listen to these clips about a woman in denial about her WH's affair.
Radio clip of a BW in denial of her WH's Affair
Segment #2
Segment #3

Big breakthrough last night. My husband and I had been communicating by e-mail as well as talking. He sent me an e-mail claiming he would not have big feelings stirred if he saw OW again at some church function because he has repented and that the close friendship he had with OW did not in any way equal his relationship with me nor compete with it and he never stopped loving me.

I was so depressed after that -- my husband could see it -- and I really couldn't eat even though my fast has made me hungry. I decided yesterday that I would tell him today that he would have to leave. (If I act too fast on matters of intense feeling, I do not control my anger well. MB's Lovebusters articles showed me how damaging my anger had been so I enact measures to control it.)

When we came to bed last night he asked if I needed to talk. I told him bluntly how that e-mail devastated me. He completely reversed his defenses. He fully admitted that the relationship went completely wrong and severely damaged our marriage. He said he was willing to write the NCL. He said he wasn't willing to put in "forever and ever," but would agree to "for the foreseeable future."

I want the languge to be more permanent than that. I believe I will arive at that point. We will write the NCL today.

I respect your experience and am not rejecting getting a keylogger. I couldn't listen to the radio clips because my computer won't open through the link, but when I can later I will find them through the MB site. (I still have to get my freelance work done through all of this.)

Thank you for your liberating words, and for your amazing time, support, and wisdom.

I do recognize my H and I are still vulnerable and I cannot let down my diligence for both our sakes going into the future. Nonetheless, I believe this breakthrough is real. I will post again as soon as I can after we write the NCL, which I intend to make happen this morning.

If he sees her at a church function or anywhere will allow all the affair to be reignited.

Why don't you follow the template from here? No contact letter samples

Brainhurts,
I do have those samples stored in my computer. They have helped a lot.

Rereading the SAA articles on the MB site have helped, too.

After yesterday morning's discussion, I asked if I could draft an NCL. WH said yes. Then we spent the day together taking care of some things. Late at night, WH approved all of the letter except for the line "As you know,OW, part of healing our marriage is my permanent commitment to BW not to see or have any further contact with you."

Even that line is good except for the word "permanent."

I told him that is the most important line in the whole letter for me.

He said, "Maybe futher PERSONAL contact." But he dropped that right away w/o me saying a word b/c he knows I won't accept such a huge loophole.

I just read the fog link, so I'll use the term "fog." He reverted somewhat to fog -- "I should be able to go to our church friend's wedding this coming Saturday, and if OW is there, obviously not talk to her, but I mean if I can't even see her in the distance without you worrying, then we are bound! I'm a prisoner in my own house!"

He commented that it was like we wouldn't be able to go to any friends' functions w/o asking for the guest list.

Beyond pointing out that I would make the commitment of signing an NCL for him, and pointing out definite times when I had backed off from an opposite-sex relationship because I could tell it discomfited him, I did not argue. My points hit home because he can't deny they are true; we were even able to talk about my crush on the senior pastor long ago and establish further that I had never tried to pursue it. He remembers that I had told him about it right away.

My husband is at a stage I myself have only just passed through: growing realization of the wide consequences of this EA, and the pain over the loss of so much social interaction with loved people.

Today we went to a church we had not visited before. During the worship I felt God tell me to tell my husband we would return to the NCL tomorrow morning. I did so. He nodded and is outside painting a fence he built.

Here's something important: In the middle of last week, My husband sent a letter resigning from our denomination to our senior pastor (who leads the denomination, and to whom my H was accountable as an elder).

He has complained for many years that he wanted to do that. He's giving himself an exit story by doing it now. This may work much to my advantage (though it won't protect him from further exposure of the EA).

I believe WH will sign the NCL tomorrow because, among other things, (1) we have been away from our church so long, and have visited enough other churches, that I can lay out a vision for developing new friendships, (2) my husband doesn't even want to stay in our denomination, in which OW is entrenched (3) my H knows our kids want him to sign the NCL, (4) he knows what it means to me and seems more and more cognizant of how terribly the EA affected our marriage.

Nonetheless, I am reviewing Plan B. We are at a critical moment.

Struggling

All the while refusing to write an NC letter, my H tried to baragin for 1) remaning friends with OW and then 2) seeing OW only at work and then 3) limiting interaction with OW to prefessional interaction. Needless to say, he refused to write an NC letter. They had a touching good-bye his last day at work. I launched to the moon. Only then did he write the letter. AND then, 16 months later, he sent her an email detailing how unhappy he was and asking whether she was happy.

Quit gobbling up the crumbs he is throwing your way, and go Plan B. I did this - and can see it when it happens. Your husband is not near any commitment to your marriage.

AM

I agree.

Get your Plan B aligned up and set it in play. Then he might take you seriously. He isn't doing that now.

Also Struggling please listen to this clip of what Dr. Harley says a remorseful WH should do for his BW to let him back into the M.
Excellent radio clip where Dr. H talks about what a WH should do for his wife to give him another try after his affairs. He explains it like an addict.

Radio Clip on a WH on what to do to get back with his wife 3:50 mark

Every time I've read your thread in the last week, I think of 1 Cor. 6:18 -- "Flee from fornication". That is all you're asking him to commit to doing -- fleeing from a circumstance and an individual that puts him (and her) in clear and present danger for sexual immorality.

As as Christian, I can't see why he'd have a problem with that.

Of course, we can all see plenty of reasons why a fleshly man would rather not commit to stringent no-contact.

Which does he want to be?

Armymama, thanks.

Yesterday evening while cleaning paintbrushes, my husband suddenly turned to me and said he would sign the NCL as is.

He signed it this morning and we mailed it.

Brainhurts, my little computer won't play the MB radio clips from a link. I've been with my WH so much in the last several days, I haven't had time to figure out how to get to the clips on the MB site. I'll do that.

He is out with youngest adult child and godmother shopping just now. His injury will mean at least another week home.

Maybe I will find out you are right and I wrong, but I think he is committed to our marriage.

My WH's situation is not as laden with opportunity for wandering as other WH's jobs. My H is not in front of a computer while he works or even with other people except in the mornings as the workers get ready for their day's labor (which again involves no computers). His job is connected with the federal government, which means he periodically gets tailed by a federal inspector in normal random checks to make sure the work is going as it should. He must finish within required hours -- no chance for secret meetings. He has no way to communicate with anyone during the day except by cell phone and he knows I check those records.

Because he is an off-again, on-again money manager, I have carefully managed our money for more than a decade. I have access to all financial records and would know immediately if unexplained expenses began to appear or unexplained money disappeared.

This past week he and I exchanged usernames and passwords for all electronic communication paths, and deleted OW and family from those, as well as deleting numbers from cell phones. My H knows I will query unfamiliar numbers in the cell phone record and check all other records.

He knows that any discrepancy in the time it takes to come home from work will be queried. He never leaves early for work.

I don't believe he wants to go back to the situation with OW. Maybe he has more conscience than some other WHs. I think also he just really doesn't want to be a WH any more.

Maybe he is a really good guy and this thing is over, though my diligent watchfulness can never be over.

I can be with him every minute he is on his laptop if I want, and he knows I will walk in randomly and look at his screen.

My carefully opening to him all potentially private aspects of my own life has influenced him to do so as well.

I do feel Plan A has worked. My H may be what Dr. Harley would consider a reluctant spouse, but he is not someone who just lies about everything or is persistently irresponsible with money and work. He lost his job in 2001 as many did after 9/11 but has held this present tough job since early 2002 and kept this family afloat. He indulges no expense for himself; my frustrations over money are at an end because we really do POJA with all financial matters now -- have been for more than a year and it is working well.

I'll try the radio clips through the MB website.

Got to get some work done. Was all morning with H at doctor's about his injury.

Here's some advice on the links.

Struggling,

Mailing the NC letter is a good step.

I am confused about some things you wrote. You said that your H's work and lifestyle don't provide an opportunity to have an affair. So, how did he have an EA with this OW? Some of it was by computer and you don't have a keylogger installed.

Conscience has little to do with it. Ending an A and recovering a marriage involves 1. no contact forever with OW 2. changing the environment that allowed the A to occur 3. establishing a romantic relationship within the couple.

AM

You're right, ArmyMama, about conscience having "little to do with it." I know my WH felt guilty -- especially when the EA was even partially exposed -- but that didn't stop the EA.

I was trying to explain that I don't leave my H alone with the computer any more. His work environment leaves no leeway for computer contact.

The EA happened mainly at church and at the home of one particular couple in OW's circle of friends. My H established a sort of parachurch group that included OW, those friends, and a few others. His and my mutual friends were in the circle of elders, which is not OW's circle.

The parachurch group would meet some at our home and some at this other couple's home. I was not always able to go with my H to the meetings/social nights, esp. 2009 and 2010 when several of my family members were mortally ill and then dying.

My H saw nothing wrong with us having some friends not in common. I tried to not feel threatened by it. I wished he would help me more, but he was not responsive to my requests.

Once I found MB in about late March 2011, I saw that my situation was a classic one for an affair.

My H knows there will be no more contact with OW's circle. He says he misses them. I don't respond when he says that, because I will no longer let myself in for an argument.

The few church friends we still talk to and see include the older couple to whom I first exposed the EA. This is a very different circle in character from the circle he had created around himself.

My H knows I will talk to the older couple if I suspect anything and that I will talk to other friends in the older couple's circle as well. He knows they will support me.

He knows I refuse any associations that cause my internal alarm to even twinge.

The part of the EA that occurred by computer was much less than through church. After I found OW and WH in real-time online conversation in the middle of the night in Feb. 2011, I started making sure my H and I always went to bed at the same time. In the evenings whenever he was using his laptop I brought mine in to the little office area and sat beside him working.

That is why he and OW turned to texting in summer 2011. My H would erase all record in his phone of calls and texts. When at last I accessed the Internet record and he knew I had a way to check up on him, the texting and calls ended.

He knows I now can no longer be pummeled into backing off if I exert diligence -- that I will tell kids and family and friends if his behaviors resurface.

I think my H is vulnerable to an EA via the "damsel in distress" route. I am not a damsel in distress and I don't stroke my H's sense of adequacy from that direction. OW stroked his hero complex in spades. Apparently she has been unhappy for many years and has created her own roster of vulnerable men who respond to her distress while her marriage continues downhill.

My WH himself did re-start the hero fantasy with OW a few times. Before we finally left our church, I had discovered and protested the EA a number of times. The contact would back off for a while, and then I would discover it re-starting by more clandestine means. My H defended OW saying he himself had initiated contact by asking how she was doing because he got worried about her.

It was hard for me to combat a fog that was self-created. Exposure alone does that. I can't believe I resisted exposure so long. I guess I wanted to preserve my kids' illusions. They didn't need that.

My goal now is to keep affirming my H and find ways to engage him with me in things that advance our family and our dreams. Church was one such route for a while, because about two decades ago my husband felt called to become a pastor. Our heavy involvement in church was part of making that dream a reality.

Some of my pain over this EA was seeing that dream fizzle badly. But I won't look back. We have other routes to explore.

This forum has strengthened me enormously to move on.

Meanwhile, I AM learning about keylogging programs.

Ok if you're affair proofing your M.

What are your WH's top EN and how are you meeting them?

Are you engaging in any love busters? If so which ones?

Hi, Brainhurts,
I think I have eliminated my customary love busters (angry outbursts, mainly).

I also have gotten deft at not letting myself start or be dragged into arguments. In a sinful-nature, selfish way, I love to argue and be the one that is right. This has been terrible for our marriage.

My husband automatically turns to argument devices without realizing it when he feels put on the spot. I'm finding many ways to approach tough issues without sparking that on-the-spot sense. I don't let myself drive to be right all the time.

The POJA has been HUGE since I discovered it on the MB site in March 2011. Hugely helpful, I mean.

I tried to get my H to list ENs more than a year ago. It wasn't time. I could do it now, I think. I know he likes to be the center of attention at a party and is a marvelous host. We don't have a party circle just now.

Must go -- thanks --will check in later --

I would have both of you do this.
EN questionnaire
Love Busters questionnaire

Yes, I can find a way to do those questionnaires.

My H will want to feel like things are okay, at least for a while. So I have to come at the questionnaires roundabout. Maybe not use the questionnaires themselves, but use their basic content.

We have done a lot about eliminating love busters. I introduced those last year and my H has been good about eliminating independent action (we both had to work on that). We don't do angry outbursts any more (though he did some last week during the crisis as we moved toward the NCL -- and in face of my calmness, had to admit he was the one yelling). Apart from MB, on our own over the years, we had already done a lot to address annoying habits, selfish demands, and disrespectful judgments, though having them identified the way MB does is quite helpful.

Dishonesty is the Love Buster we are working on now. At this time I would consider it addressed.

At the moment I feel like OW is finally out of the picture (even if keeping a lookout never will end).

But I also feel like I don't have much intellectual or creative life with my H. The dream of my life is for him and me to work together on creative things. We are equipped by our training and inclinations to work together. But he very rarely wants to. I've directly asked him to a number of times. He says he can't think of a way.

He worked intensively on event-planning type projects with OW at the church during the awful years.

We have worked very well together raising our kids. I have been supportive of his personal projects and he is supportive of mine. But he won't work on creative things with me. I've asked him if I need to change something to make it happen. He says that's not it. He just can't think of how we would do it.

It may be that he has emotional needs I don't pick up on, despite my efforts, and those needs block his desire to work with me.

He wants to go some places I don't. One upsetting discovery during our winter-spring 2011 crisis was that he and OW had created a fantasy beach together on FB. He insisted that it wasn't just between him and OW -- that OW's husband and youngest child "had also been there" as well as the couple who had social gatherings at their house (another reason I don't feel comfortable having any contact with them any more). My H didn't seem to notice that I had not even been informed of this beach, never mind invited. I am not sure what EN this fantasy fulfilled. I tried creating a FB fantasy with him in summer 2011, and he joined me on it for a while, but it fizzled.

I need for us to do the EN questionnaire. I feel like my husband tends to give me a lot and deny the intimate creative togetherness that I want most.

I just have to work out how to make the sharing of ENs happen without my H feeling like, "Here we go again. There's no end to her telling me I'm not a good husband."

Then you need to work on your approach when you talk to him about things.

"I would love it when.... I'd love it if you'd ....

How do you feel about....

Do you have the book "Love Busters"?

How do you bring it up?

At first I looked at your approach ideas and thought, "Yeah, been there, done that."

I've worked hard on approach because if anything smells of criticism at all, my husband shuts down -- even things that aren't a criticism, just a note about something needing adjustment (scheduling, expenses).

But I think I tend to be more direct than what you suggest. "Can we talk about something for few minutes tonight?" "I wonder if you'd mind . . ."

I have said things like, "I'd love to be able to work with you on something [with his artistic interest]." Immediately he is irritated. He won't explore the idea or ask me what I mean.

My kids have commented to me that my H often takes even aimless comments as criticism. I feel my H's hypersensitivity has held him back in career matters.

So maybe he's just harder to talk to than some people. Maybe I'm the hardest person to hear anything but affirmation from because I am the closest.

The Lord will help me work on approach.

Many men have the EN of admiration in their top 5 EN's. From what you have written before, it seems as though that may be true for your H. Can you find some things about him that you admire and express them?

And the MB way of asking a spouse to do something (or not) is "How would you feel if ...?" It feels stilted at first, but after using it for a while, it really sets up the negotiation in getting to a joint agreement.

AM

Thanks, ArmyMama.

I will use the MB approach to broaching a subject.

You're right about my H's need for admiration. I have really tried to feed my husband admiration and will continue to do so.

Reading all those MB articles tuned me in to that need in men. I am sure it fueled both of his EAs (the one for which he just sent the NCL, and one in 2000-2001 that is long out of the picture). He wanted to feel like he was accomplishing something for a hurting person who fed him undiluted admiration. Filling that need necessitated a lot of fog.

My needs are less for admiration and more for planning ways to carry forward with our life work.

Planning is not my H's long suit unless he is planning a party-type event. He is masterful at that and I used to suggest he somehow get into catering/event planning.

As far as life direction, we're back to square one. Before we joined the church that we just had to leave, I felt like our family was drifting with little direction and no plan to cope with expenses incurred buying a house. I worried about handling our growing children's needs.

Then my husband got into our church's pastoral training program. (Fortunately, he got a raise at his former job, too.) For a decade and a half, despite my H's complaints and some problems that slowly manifested in the leadership, there was a sense of direction -- I was supporting him with involvement in the church, and he was moving toward ordination as a pastor in the denomination -- a process that only partly got completed in all that time -- he got as far as being ordained an elder.

He sent a letter to the senior pastor last week, resigning from both the pastoral program and the church.

The organization that gave direction to our lives is now out of our lives.

We both have personal gifts to keep developing (I am in the process of publishing an e-book, and he writes music) -- but now our supporting community is gone. The EA destroyed my H's progress with his music. At the same time, what music he did accomplish during the EA at least had a small audience. The audience is gone. We can't be in that circle of friends anymore.

A weird dangly feeling.

I have to push on with my book and my freelance work, and pray a lot. Sometimes only the Holy Spirit can give me the answers when I come up empty.

I so appreciate your support and your suggestions! -- though I am concerned that I not take up time in the infidelity forum if the infidelity problem is no longer acute.

If you don't feel the need to be on this forum any longer, you could ask the mods to move your thread to the recovery forum. It is pretty slow paced over there, but there are several who check in on a regular basis. Most of the threads are posters with occasional hiccups in the program or interpretations of MB principles.

Do you and your husband have at least 15 hours of undivided attention each week? My H is not a big planner either. Often, we will sit together and plan, both short term and long term.

AM

Thanks, ArmyMama,
I think the recovery forum is appropriate. I was in touch with JustUss2 before I accessed the forum -- I'll ask JustUss2 to move my thread to recovery.

My H and I have been making that 15 hours a week of undivided attention happen. Helps that he has been off with injury -- doesn't help the pocketbook, but it has helped us.

My H and I had a contentious encounter yesterday, of a type we have had too many times to count. Thanks to MB, and to your comment about using "I would love to . . . " I realized that my prior attempts to modify my approach to expressing a desire had not modified nearly enough. Also, my huband realized how much he tends to misinterpret what I say as struggling for control instead of just expressing a desire. I find hom hypersensitive and he finds me rude.

I told him that his feelings were important to me and I would work much harder to modify my presentation b/c I want my H to be comfortable.

He immediately extended me credit for wanting to negotiate solutions best for both, not gain control.

We've had much more profitable disucssions in the last 24 hours -- not about the EA, b/c in minor ways he keeps acknowledging that, however each of us may view that relationship, complete dissociation is now necessary. Instead, we've progressed to discussing problems we both have with how the theology of our church had changed compared to when we first joined it. We are finding the common ground we need to search for a new church.

Plainly my deafness to my H's hurt at my "rudeness" contributed to the climate that fostered the EA. I'm not excusing him. I'm just saying, here's another piece of the puzzle.

Thanks, HDW,
Sure, if my H is still bent on keeping the EA going, he could find a way around any watchful devices I instigate.

I have not been seeing the time discrepaancies that using a pay phone would entail. He absolutely can't use a pay phone while at work, and he has been off work and with me almost every minute the last two weeks b/c of his injury.

Concealing a separate affair phone would be difficult b/c I periodically clean out my H's car, his side of the room, etc. -- been doing that many a year -- not always happily, but I tend to be a better stuff organizer.

He does not have a way to pay for a separate phone w/o me knowing; I have watched over finances for many years b/c I am good at keeping track and my H really isn't.

There are countless things he IS good at and I rely on him for those things; but administration of the keeping-track type is done by me.

That's why I discovered the EA in the first place.

My big error was trusting my friend not to keep the EA-type contacts going after I confronted her in 2010. If I'd known what MB has to share, we'd have left the church then. Temptations overcome the best of hearts -- MB has helped me understand that reality.

How did you cope when your wife used the pay phone and the affair phone?

If you have all your questions answered you must stop talking about the affair. You've read/heeard what Dr. Harley says about this, correct?

Hi, BrainHurts,

Yes, I've read what Dr. Harley says about not talking about the affair any more.

My struggles with false recovery owed to my following the no-more-mention rule without having instituted the other necessary actions (enough exposure to kids, family, friends, not just a few counselors; commitment to share all passwords etc.; leave the climate in which the affair occurred -- our church -- didn't do that nearly soon enough; NCL; ways of keeping close tabs).

This time a year ago, I was limping along trying to keep my mouth shut when I was seeing red flags all over, still attending our church, not exposing, and not obtaining the NCL.

Now these things are accomplished. I have not spoken of the EA. Now my H and I talk about our future together.

Until I got on the forum and enacted the rest of the SAA steps, I kept having a dream in which OW would show up in my house or at a family picnic and I kept telling her to just get out and stay out. I've had no recurrences of that dream.

At this time I combat floating sadness -- so much time wasted, so much foolish behavior and pain -- but at least I know how to not let my H treat me that way anymore. I kinow how to treat him a lot better, too. On to the future. :-)

Hi, just wanted to say thanks for everything.
My WH has been home since June 19 with a work injury, so we hve had a lot of time together this summer.
We have become ever more separate from our former church body. I've healed a lot from missing everybody; we still are in touch with a few friends who were not in OW's circle.
Now I'm able to assess ways in which I held my own life back by devoting so much time to church work. I was looking for a level of companionship that replicated some conditions of my life when I was transitioning from child to adult. I think there are ways in which our marriage never deepened because we did not realize how much we had to put into it. Our focus on each other these last 2+ months has helped a lot. We have continued to identify and disown hurtful ways of relating to each other that were always present in our marriage to a degree. We'll always have our weaknesses, but we have identified so many of them that everything between us works better. That intimacy that we both want is happening.
It is plain to me that even if OW left our former church, we could never go back, because the climate the church sets up, while loving, tends toward inappropriate closeness without the clear, firm boundary definition that Marriage Builders provides.
Again -- thank you so much.