I am truly looking for someone whose husband was manipulated and then blackmailed into an affair. Yes, I realize many of you say he had to be a willing participant. While I believe the first time he was so taken by surprise and didn't say no and then the incident was over and he went to his car and beat the living daylights out of the steering wheel and cried. He then was blackmailed into continued sexual activity by this woman who was one of my best friends, because we were always together and she would say to him, "you better make time for me tonight or I will tell your wife tomorrow at lunch - I can be a cold hearted bitch if I have to be." (I heard the same words from her regarding her children and teachers or coaches) My H has cried every day since March 15th and I believe that his manhood and the fact that he had been manhandled is truly bothering him. I don't know how to help him. He became so blatant that he would for sure get caught because he didn't know how to get out. He has truly shown me more love and devotion in the last 7 months than in any part of our 20 year relationship. From that day he has never contacted the OW and when we even talk about her he has thrown up. She has contacted him and shown up places he is and he runs to me - either by phone or physically leaving where he is immediately. His friends have seen this happen and heard how mean he is to her on the phone. He hates her and everything that she stands for. Me too! Even thought I hurt so much, lately I am hurting for him as well. For some of you I know that you will not understand where I am coming from and believe that I am a PollyAnna and that I am coping with my hurt by displacing blame. But, if you coulld see the total humiliation, hurt, and reactions of my husband - you would believe.
Is there anyone out there in a situation similar to this? I need to know how to heal me, but also help my husband who is hurting so badly - even I don't cry every day anymore, except when I see him so distraught with himself.
Stop beating yourself up so bad. You are entitled to feel which ever way you feel. Your feelings are real, they are valid and they are right for YOU. You don't have to defend yourself for feeling compassion for your H. God he went through hell too.
Kelly, you can be hurt from the initial first day of the A and the continuance AND feel compassion for your H for how she manipulated him.
You sound as though you feel quilty for having compassion for him.
This is a nasty situation that you are BOTH in.
You know you are not alone, someone else here went through a similiar thing. All of these A's are a little different but the pain is still the same.
Don't feel like you are any different from any of us. You are not.
Jump into this family and let us help you. You are not an oddball and nobody here thinks that.
Thanks - okay - so you made me cry. I just want to feel "normal" again. My husband and I have always been best friends and we still very much are. But now he doesn't want to do anything with anyone but me. I asked him if he didn't trust himself to go out with his buddies. He said "absolutely not, I totally trust myself, I will never even allow myself to be friends with another woman. I never want to give you any doubts or make you feel uncomfortable ever again. I can't stand to see you hurt. How could I have done this to my best friend?" and on and on. He checks on me at work at least 7 times a day and outside of work we are always together. I want for us both to move past this.
For me - I work in the same place as my so called "friend" "OW" and for me that is like pouring salt into an open wound. But every day I am becoming a stronger person about that. I am afraid to show my hurt around my H because he becomes so very upset and so remorseful that it even pains me more. I think that he is afraid to go back to the counselor because the counselor knows how manipulated he was and he is so embarassed by that. He knows I read and sometimes write here and thinks that is great for me, but I know that he doesn't really want others to know about the blackmail. Some of his closest friends know and they too see his pain.
Try to get your H back into C. It is going to be hard as heck for him but he needs to deal with it so he can get past it. He is bending over backwards for you so maybe you can take advantage of that to help him get the help that HE needs.
Something to consider here is that a lot of WS were manipulated also. Maybe not to the extent that he was, but they were still manipulated. My H was one. Our OW befriended me in order to get to him. She talked politics, even though she disliked it because she knew I didn't like it but H did. Manipulation. She faked O's because she knew H fed on that. Manipulation. She lied about her clothes being burned up in a fire so he would buy her new ones. More manipulation. She was a pro and he was a sucker. Same stuff just a different twist. And H is imbarrassed about it now. But he knows he is not alone. He reads here and on the open board. The people here have helped him a lot.
H told me the other day that some day he is going to get on the open board and thank everyone here for all of their help. He is just afraid to right now because he is afraid he will say something that will upset me.
Now YOU. You have your own hell to deal with and you are holding it in trying to protect him. YOU are the real victim here. You can't keep holding it in. You have to deal with it. Coming here is good but he needs to know how hurt you are. He needs to deal with WHY he had the A in the first place. It's OK if it hurts him. YOU are hurting MORE and you both are hurting because of what HE did. He NEEDS to be accountable even if it hurts.
Helping eachother is great but there are still serious issues to deal with that are being held back because HE is hurting.
I don't mean to sound cold toward him at all so please don't take it that way.
Get back to the MC and encourage him to get on the open board. That is probably a long shot but it's worth a try. Tell him these people won't ever know who he is so that helps to make it a safe place. Who cares if he makes a fool of himself here. No one really knows him anyway, or us for that matter.
Many of us become good friends like WR and Bart but that is by their choice. So he is safe.
