I'm new, not sure if I'm doing things the right way here.
We have been married 40 years. I never ever thought this could happen to us . It hasn't been a great marriage but I always trusted wh and thought he was faithful .
I found out 2 weeks ago that my wh has been having an EA with my sil for the past 5 years. it had escalated to contact with calls, notes and letters since March . My sil has turned him down flat, told him no way .
DD occurred when I got the mail and found a card my sil had returned that wh had mailed her, I opened it . Called her, found out what was going on, called our pastor. Then called wh and told him he needed to come home . Wh said he loved sil and would til the day he died . Agreed to talk to our pastor.
We have been in counseling with our pastor plus wh meets with pastor separately .
I am having such a hard time dealing with wh telling me that he really liked sil as soon as he met her(a couple of years after we were married ) and has wished he hadn't married me so he could have married her .
Our pastor and I believe that he's using this as an escape fantasy instead of dealing with our marriage. I really think this has got to be some sort of mental problem with somebody living a double life for this long .
Sorry - shouldn't have written a book

Countrycookie,

Its possible that they have had sex and she is now trying to break it off with him.
I suggest that you schedule a polygraph to get the full story

CC, I am sure sorry to hear about this. Did they actually have an affair? Or was your husband just chasing her all these years? Was this a one sided infatuation?

Is the SIL married? And if so, does everyone know about this?

Jedi knight-nope, no sex, she and are close like sisters,plus there was no actual opportunity

Melody-yes, it was a completely one sided obsession/ fantasy. sil has been divorced for over 20 years, husband(my brother) just passed away this past August .
I'm reading SAA. So far I'm doing ok as far as no angry outbursts type thing. Just such a horrendous,debilitating pain ,then numbness sets in.

Thanks CC. The solution will be 2 pronged: to make sure there is never contact again AND to create a romantic, passionate relationship WITH YOU. We can teach you to fall in love again so he can derive his happiness from your marriage.

I am glad to hear you are reading SAA. That book can transform your marriage if you will follow the steps for recovery. Another key thing will be to follow the policy of undivided attention. That will make the most dramatic impact on your marriage the fastest. Here is an article outlining the Policy of Undivided Attention: here

And here is the worksheet that you will want to use: UA worksheet

You can also get some great help by listening to the MB radio show. You can listen to the reruns or get the show live every weekday at noon cst. here

Thank you. We meet with our pastor again this Tuesday -he gave me the SAA book to read.
Romantic,passionate relationship might be a bit of a stretch, we're both in our 60s and there hasn't been very much of any of that for quite some time.
I've just started going to a counselor for help in how to handle this. although I may only be going to her this next time. She wanted me to write a list of all my faults,and also told me I need to change int the type of person my sil is so I can correct my problems. I'm already feeling very worthless , after being told that wh really didn't want to be married to me and this counselor really didn't help that.

Believe me, it is not stretch. We do it all the time. That is the answer. We can help you have a better marriage than you have had in many, many years.


You probably are not even aware of what you and your husband are doing to destroy the love in your marriage. Your husband has also caused you to fall out of love with him. So this is not a one sided thing. What we would do is walk you both through the book Lovebusters so that you BOTH stop doing the things that erode the love in your marriage. From that point, we would teach you BOTH to meet each others intimate emotional needs in a way that will create romantic love.

Dr Harley would probably tell you to start with this book after you affair proof your marriage: Lovebusters

He didn't want to be married because he was high on an addiction to your SIL. It is like a crack head who gets high on crack. Remove the crack and the high dissipates. That can happen as long as your H stays away from your SIL.

How far away does she live? Does he EVER see her? Anywhere?

If it was a one-sided infatuation, why are you referring to it as an affair? Frankly, I don't see how it could have lasted 5 years if she hadn't been responding to him. You may have felt "close like sisters," but she obviously didn't because she kept this a secret from you for all those years. I would be shocked if nothing physical ever happened between them. If I were you, I would cancel the individual counseling sessions and schedule a polygraph.

I don't see a guy seeing a woman for FIVE YEARS with no sex...especially in an affair!

Jessica-Ok- guess I need to have some different terminology,didn't know what else to call it other than an emotional affair but it would be better described as an infatuation
Karmasrose- There was no contact before last March .

Melody -Sil lives 4 hrs away, he never sees her unless with me .As far as counselor, I was disappointed because I needed help in dealing with this devastation, some coping tips. I did not need to be told I've got to turn into a completely different personality to match up with wh's fantasy world . As far as I'm concerned it was absolutely no help.
I do understand that we have to both be willing to work on issues and I'm completely in agreement and willing to do that . I've been trying to do that for the past 40 yrs but since wh has been turning to his fantasy instead of dealing with real life and marriage it hasn't been very helpful .

It wouldn't have mattered what you did in the past if he was in love with your SIL, because you have been competing with a fantasy. Once a person gets married, the competition is supposed to be closed. That did not happen here. I am sorry you had to hear this. The bigger concern is for your husband to give you just compensation. HE will need to learn to meet your emotional needs in a way that until now he has failed. Unless he makes a 180 degree turn in his approach to what it means to be a husband, your marriage won't recover, it will be a crippled version of your pre-affair marriage.

I would print this up and read it together with your husband. Can't We Just Forgive and Forget?


EXACTLY!

You do realize the SIL needs to be cut out of your lives forever, right? I understand and accept that she probably had no part in his infatuation, but keeping her around will keep him addicted and keep you triggered in a terrible way. In order for your marriage to recover, that contact needs to cease. It's not a matter of punishment; but a matter of survival.

Melody-Thank you. Got to sign off for tonight, we're in the middle of that ice storm.
Wh and I spent the whole day in the house like polite room mates

\\

hugs to you, friend. See you soon.

If you and SIL are as close as sisters, why did she keep this hidden from you for the past 5 years? You only discovered it by accident. And if it was strictly one-sided, why did she tolerate it for all those years instead of simply shutting it down?

Also, what did you mean by "there was no contact before last March" and how do you know the extent of their contact? I'm concerned that you may be choosing to believe whatever they tell you.

But the main reason this story doesn't make sense to me is because he says that he was/is in love with her. If you read Dr. Harley's basic concepts, you'll see that feelings of romantic love are triggered when a person's "lovebank" is filled to the romantic love threshold. In order for that to occur, the other person must be making massive lovebank deposits and avoiding withdrawals. It is possible that her lovebank could have been filled from by conversation alone, since conversation is a top emotional need for most women. However, conversation isn't a top emotional need for most men, so conversation alone probably wouldn't have been enough to trigger his feelings of romantic love. In order for his feelings of romantic love to be triggered, she would have to have been meeting at least some of his top emotional needs. For most men, that would include sexual fulfillment.

Do you believe they had no physical contact simply because that is what they told you? I hope that is the truth, but I would get it verified with a polygraph.

JC,

Doesn't the love bank model fall apart when a person has legitimate mental instability?

Out of the blue one day (four years ago) a man sent two dozen roses to my wife's work claiming to be in love with her. He was a father of one of the kids at DS daycare. She never even spoke to him before. He then started calling and was making plans to leave his wife and two children so he could pursue my wife in good conscience. We ended up calling the police and I had to put the fear of the Lord in him to get him to back off. DW was absolutely frightened.

If she did fill his love bank, it was unwittingly on physical attractiveness alone. But when I called his wife to tell her what was going on, she told me he had been unemployed for months and had stopped taking his meds about a year earlier.

It doesn't change the fact that he needs to go NC on SIL for life and give JC, but for the story to make sense there has to be at least some variety of personality disorder that should be treated. If not, then yes...there is more to the story.

Mindmonkey-thank you, somebody on here gets it. My wh has had this in his mind only for the past 4-5 yrs,.He says he always had affection for sil way back 38 years ago but it escalated to love / obsession in his mind 5 yrs afo. He only contacted sil a few times starting in March. Sil didn't contact me because she was hoping it would stop,plus on advice of her pastor who thought this was some sort of school boy type crush.
I'm wondering if I should have posted on this thread but was just looking for some support for me and advice.

Jessica-I can see I haven't made things very clear,this is a strange situation. Wh was attracted to sil when they first met 38 years ago but evidently it was just a strong affection, remember this is all taking place in his mind. 5 years ago, for some reason it escalated to love,again in his mind only . He started making contact with sil last March. On the advice of her pastor sil basically ignored it,refused phone calls, tore up cards etc,until the last card which she returned.
Since then I've been doing my best to try to pick up the shattered pieces of my life. My wh has never been good at communicating, keeps things very much to himself.

countrycookie,

I'm a new poster. You are in the right place. Have you done what MelodyLane and the other vets have suggested in your thread?

I'm rooting for you. Hang in there.

Everything you've told us about their relationship and interactions--everything you believe to be true--is based soley on what they have told you. You haven't independently verified anything, and you aren't going to verify anything with a polygraph. Correct? WH kept his feelings a secret from you for 5 years, and SIL kept her interactions with WH a secret from you since March. In order to keep this from you for such a long period of time, they must have entrenched habits of lying and/or withholding information from you. What are the odds that they simply broke those habits the moment you discovered this? And if you believe that your husband has some sort of mental illness, that is even more reason why you shouldn't simply believe what he tells you.

As far as I am concerned an EA is an EA, whether it is one sided or not. I would expose it far and wide. Start there.

CV

Please read this and listen to the clips.
What is Just Compensation?

You may not realize it yet, but you are getting good advice. I hope you stick around.

The first rule is to stop believing everything your WH tells you because you have found that he is capable of deception. Trust only what you can personally verify. It may sound cynical at first but think about it. Why would you believe that he has somehow suddenly become honest just because you found his SSL. He needs to earn your trust.

Affairs are fantasy and deception by definition. It does not mean your WH has a mental illness. In MindMonkey's example, the guy was diagnosed and prescribed medication that the guy stopped taking.

Has your WH been diagnosed with mental illness? Have you ever suspected that he was mentally ill before this?

Also I know it's your SIL and not sister, but this is a good thread.

Also, listen to the clips at the end of the thread.
Husband's Affair with My Sister

CC, have you snooped and gone through all of your husbands emails, call logs and texts to verify this story? I does seem like there is a huge missing gap in this story.

I know you think you know your SIL but we know cheaters. And cheaters always lie. We have heard the most amazing stories on this forum and they turned out to be lies. This is why it is so important to do some snooping.

It is important for you to sit back and remove any narrative given to you by your H and SIL and just look at their actions alone. Look at the actions coupled with the evidence you have and what story does it tell you?

Please remember that you don't know for a fact that it was all taking place in his mind. All you know is that WH and SIL want you to believe it was all taking place in his mind.

I think something happened 5 years ago, and that is the missing piece of this puzzle. You need to find out what happened that caused him to fall in love with her at that time. She must have been making huge lovebank deposits, and that couldn't have happened if it was "in his mind only" and there was no contact between them.

She may have "basically" ignored it, but she didn't refuse all of his calls and ignore all of attempts to contact her. For all you know, she could have been contacting him as well. Moreover, she seems to be blaming her pastor for her failure to tell you the truth. Can you discuss this situation with her pastor? I wouldn't be surprised if she actually went to her pastor because she was feeling guilty about her inappropriate relationship with your husband, and seeking advice on how to end it.

Based on all of his phone calls, letters, etc. to SIL, he has no problem communicating or expressing his feelings. He has simply been withholding information from you. That is not a communication problem; it is an honesty problem.

Also, if I understand correctly, your SIL lives 4 hours away, and she and your brother got divorced 20 years ago. (Please correct me if I got those facts wrong.) I'm wondering why a former SIL who lives that far away would still be in close contact with you (and your husband) 20 years after she divorced your brother.