In the middle of May, my wife told me she was having anxiety attacks and wanted to see a counselor by herself (we had seen a marriage counselor a several months previous). I asked her what they were about. She said she didn't know. I asked more pointed questions. Are they about work? No she says. Are they about this? No. About that? No. About us? I don't know, she says. A light went off, and I left it alone for a few days. Finally, I drag it out of her that she has come to realize she is happier when she is not at home. (she travels alot for work). I ask why, she says she has issues with me, that I don't spend enough time with her on weekends. This is probably true, as I was spending most weekends wallowing on the couch, doing nothing. I asked her if there was someone else, perhaps they haven't consumated anything, but maybe she is interested. She says no.
I am suspicious. A couple days later, we spent a nice day on the golf course together, came home, and she went to get a pedicure. She left her email open. I snooped and discovered that she has invited another man to go to Cabo San Lucas with her, on what was supposed to have been a yearly girls trip with her friends. She has asked her friends to cover for her. I confront her, and she admits to it, agrees to not speak with him unless she absolutely has to (they work together in different states, i think different states anyway, who knows, she lied before). She agrees to tell me when they have spoken.
She flies off to her job, and on Monday tells me she spoke to him. I ask about what. She tells me. And it is a bunch of crap. We are in the same business, and I know damn well that what they claimed they had to speak about was unnecessary. I let that slide. On Tuesday, she tells me they had to speak again. Again, more crap. They are making excuses to talk to each other. I check her chat client log in, and she has added him back as a contact. I call her, ask her if she removed him as a contact, and she lies.
I am frantic, crying etc....She flies home early, and arrives drunk. I tell her this has to stop, I rant, she just sits there. Then she tells me she's moving out. She needs "space" to figure stuff out. Whatever. The next day at the counselors I tell her she has all the space she wants, but she doesn't have time. Finally, several days later, I tell her that she needs to decide, and she needs to decide now, do you want to work on this or not? Not, she says. I rant, rave, etc... She changes her mind. We will work on it.
However, last night, I take her to the airport. On the way, I ask her when was the last time she saw him. She gives me a different story than what she had said the previous week. My doubts are back. She is lying again. I have caught her in other, unrelated, meaningless little fibs. But if she lies about the meaningless stuff, what else will she lie about?
Also, she still wants to go to Cabo with her friends. She says the scumbag isn't going, but how do I know? She says they haven't consumated anything, but how do I know? After these other lies mentioned in the previous paragraph, I don't know what to think. I asked her, "is Cabo a deal breaker for you?" I don't know, she replies. Doesn't know? What the hell? I called her back, put it another way..."Is a week in Cabo more important than our marriage?", now she says No. She won't go. I want to trust her. I want her to have contact with her friends. But I don't know what to believe.
Ian, I feel for you...the period when my H was still playing those games was hell...I had to find out exactly what was going on so I could know what I was dealing with and what I should do...I believe that we have to do whatever it takes to know what is going on in our marriage...We have only one life to live...
Our spouses are addicted to their personal little drama and are temorarily insane...they will lie...they will hide things...they will deny...It was only when I found proof that he could not deny, and drew non-negotiable bounderies that we were able to begin healing...When my H complained about my snooping and making bounderies, I explained without apology that I was fighting for my marriage...
Good luck, hang in there and let us know how it is going....
My plans? I don't know. I can't make up my mind. Currently, we are going to counseling, and trying to work on it. At times, she seems willing. She listens to me and my doubts and insecurities, which I know must be hard on her. She has apologized several times. Says she has cut off contact with him. Offered to let me speak with her boss (I know him fairly well) regarding the locations of the scumbag at various times. In short, there are positive things, but I don't know. I am afraid to open up to her, to give her a chance, as I may be hurt. It would be so much easier to walk away.
I also know as hard as this is on her listening to me, and essentially calling her a liar, hypocrite (she has been cheated on before by boyfriends in college, and is extremely judgemental of those who conduct affairs with married people, which begs the question, what does she see in this creep?), etc... It is magnitudes worse for me.
She had spoke to me of the creep. Had me help edit his resume. Never for a moment did I doubt her, my faith was so complete.
I want and hope to work it out. But it is hard, and I am afraid. Hope brings dissappointment. I don't know what to do. Try and salvage a marriage with someone I love? Cut my loses and move on?
(b.t.w. she is not a heavy drinker, that was out of character for her. Nevertheless, callous, and it hurt.)
Your wife appears to either still be in the affair or in a place we deem to be lala land. An affair is a fantasy. It is the perfect world with none of the imperfections and obligations (kids, bills, etc) attached to the family or spouse. It truly is having your cake and eating it to. An affair is an addiction that is hard to break for some spouses.
Affair recovery is possible if BOTH parties want it. Unless they do you will be just banging your head against the wall. However, you must make your own decision about staying, leaving, whether its worth it or not.
Most betrayers when they end their affair go through a period of withdrawl.....sadness, depression, etc. That high is no longer there for them and they may think they are "in Love" with this other person. A good counsellor may be able to help out here.
There are some books that I suggest you get and read....available online or at most bookstores.
After the Affair
The Monogamy Myth
Not Just Friends
Post here often as we have all been through the pain of betrayal and may have some good suggestions and comments to offer.....we refrain from offering advice since we aren't qualified (mind you all of us should have PHD's in affair pain). However we are willing to through in our 2 cents and provide support and a shoulder......maybe even a cyberhug or two.
A nuclear bomb blast just went off at your house so take some time to absorb what is happening before you make any important decisions.
To heal your spouse needs to:
1. break it off with this guy preferably by phone or email and in front of you
2. make a committment to work on marriage
3. become an open book (passwords to all email, cell phone, bills, etc)
4. take responsibility for their actions
Failure to do the above usually indicates a lack of remorse and committment to work things out.
Okay I have filled your head with enough to think about for now...............(((((((((hugs)))))))))
Check out our members section, if you haven't already. Perhaps there are situations there that you can relate to and maybe ask questions of those members when you feel comfortable. There are both sides of infidelity situations represented there.
Geez, there is so much uncontrolled thought running about my head at this time, it is hard to organize, but here we go.....
Last night, we talked. We shouted. We hung up on each other. I called back. We cried, we threatened. It sucks. She cried, apologized. She went into some of the things I have done to hurt her in the past. How the OM(poking around, picking up on the lingo) made her feel special, and I wasn't. She told me she is hesitant to talk about how I have hurt her, as she doesn't want me to accuse her of making excuses, of not taking responsibility for her actions. Essentially, she says, "I was unhappy, but I handled it completely innappropriately."
I have hurt her in the past. I can be a heel. I know this. I feel guilty. I feel I deserve this. He made her feel special. I made her feel unloved, unwanted. Marie and Kid have said it is like an addiction. I can understand this. Those feelings can be powerful.
Already read "after the affair." LOL. I'm running through books and websites and whatever else I can get my hands on to make sense of this. I've heard of the others, and plan on those too.
RE: the 4 things Kid says must happen...
She says she did break it off with him last week. This came after I had called her on the excuse making. She says she wants it to work. That she loves me, and is sorry. She says that she knows if she continues contact with him, that any efforts we mmake will ultimately fail, and she will put us both through alot of heartache for no reason. Although, she did not do this in front of me, and I cannot confirm it, I told her it was o.k. to do it this way, as I have to give her some rope. She can use it to hang our marriage from, or earn back my trust. She has told me that her urges to contact him are subsiding. I don't know if I believe it. It is coming awful quickly for such a powerful emotion. If she talks to him, I'll know eventually. I feel I am learning how to read her like a book.
She says she has made the commitment. She says that she will not leave. She says that I will have to leave if our marriage breaks apart, she will not do it. This is encouraging, yet I am still hurt by her indecision and flip-flopping immediately following the discovery. I am confused as to what to believe. My judgement has proven itself to be completely unsound. How much do I not trust her vs. how much do I not trust myself?
She has given me all her passwords yet expresses discomfort at me checking her email. I don't (at least try not to, and haven't in awhile) check up on this. I feel dirty doing it. I feel sneaky, and it leaves me feeling worse when I look into it and discover nothing amiss. Still, I wonder if she has other email accounts. She should know if she does that I will find them. We are both engineers and know our way around computers. I know how to find stuff better than she knows how to hide it. So I don't think she would be that stupid, but, as marie said, she appears to be (has been, i hope?) temporarily insane and not completely rational. I now have access to all our finances (she handled that mostly before).
She says she takes responsibility for her actions. She also read "after the affair." She keeps repeating that she made the choice, and chose poorly. She keeps telling me it breaks her heart to see me in such pain. But still I wonder, I can't help it. And I hate myself for not trusting her.
I have poked around a bit. I noticed that (H2C in fact) on other threads there are discussions of this taking years to get over. That scares me. I don't want a watchdog relationship with her. I don't want her to think this will take years. She will run. I will run. I am sick of talking about it with her. I want to rebuild. But I know we must, otherwise, resentment will pile up. I want to build something better than before. I hope we can.
I don't know if what I wrote here will still be how I feel tomorrow, or even in the next hour. There is no stability. I never imagined how hard this could be.
Looking around here, seeing so many others that have suffered and are still suffering breaks my heart. I lose my faith in humanity. How is it we inflict so much hurt on those so close to us? People can really suck sometimes.
Imagine if you will rebuilding a nice extravagant house on a shaky foundation and never knowing when it will tumble to the ground again. Now dig deeper and find the root of the problem, solve it and rebuild your house. Pretty obvious which one works best. That's what a marriage has to go through after infidelity. The WS especially has to re-examine everything held deep inside them to determine why they did what they did. Only then can you rebuild a marriage on a solid footing.
Your marriage as you knew it is gone. There definitely is a chance to rebuild should you both be so inclined, but it will take time, patience and lots more time. You cannot have the same marriage you had, but you can have a different, possibly more open one if you both work hard.
This is so hard. She had told me he sent her an email, business related, but again unnecessary. He had bcc her on something sent to someone else. I asked to see it. Then I went through some others, and found a chat transcript she had sent to her friend. It was horrible. This hurts like I've never imagined.
I lost it w/ her. I called her all sorts of terrible things. Scumbag, etc...
I told her I wanted her to call him, to tell him what "no contact" means. To tell him that if he continued she'd go to HR. If not, we would divorce. She basically said fine, we will divorce.
I lost it again. I begged. I have no pride. We went to the MC, and now we are working on it again. I don't know what to do. I need help, I need advice. Is there somebody who can chat r/t with me? Help.
PS to Cindy....
Thanks for coming to talk w/ me. My wife and I started talking. I had to, I am compelled (sp?). I hope all is well. I still need to talk to someone who has gone through this. I need to know how to cope. What will help.
This message has been edited by igboyd on Jun 26, 2005 8:58 PM
Was fighting w/ the W. I was trying to install some drivers on her computer, googled something and noticed she was googling his family tree. She says she's not talking to him, but...
How can she concentrate on us if she is obsessing about him?
How can I concentrate on us if I am obsessing about him?
I want this to go away. Hurt just doesn't describe it. I wonder if it is getting worse.
When I asked her about the googling, she got mad. Angry. We fought. She said she was sleeping in the other room, I wasn't to bother her the rest of the night, and she didn't know where we were going to be the next morning. Begging, pleading, anger doesn't work. I threatened to send chat transcripts to their boss, their hr manager (they were faking a "mentoring" relationship in order to justify their contact), finally, she pays attention.
I don't like that threat. I don't like that the only time she will respond, pay attention, is if something is said that may have an affect on her.
I don't like what I am becoming. My god, this is hard. How do I cope? With visuals, my anger, my hate, my contempt, my agony.
Frontal assault won't work on someone who isn't engaged or doesn't want to engage.
(Old-timers around here will positively die laughing that I wrote that. I spent YEARS trying to fight it out with my wife, but as soon as I displayed anger, she shut down and hid emotionally. I was banging my head against a stone wall that got higher and thicker every time. A losing proposition.)
The other option is to pull back completely, disengage, and wait. You may need help from your doctor temporarily (anti-anxiety medication).
Clearly fighting with your wife isn't gaining you any ground, and it may justify her withdrawal. So just stop.
Pull back, pull away and make her realize that her actions are going to affect her in that she is not going to get her needs met by you if she is still in contact with him.
Plus.....if you start to withdraw now it may make it easier in the long run. Stop giving her anything, she doesn't deserve it. Arguing is not getting anywhere so its time to try a new approach!
You guys are right. I know this. I knew this from the first day. Intellectually, anyway. Emotions are harder. I will go to the doctor if I find I cannot control myself....
Can I ask you to be more specific about disengage? Don't give her anything?
She is making some efforts. I should acknowledge these?
I should be kind? Understanding?
Should I try to express my hurt in more constructive ways? With just her, without the MC? Only in front of the MC?
Or, does disengage mean emotionally turning myself off entirely?
I fear if we both are disengaged, if we both wait for the other to make some effort, then there is no hope. It is lost. In a sense (not a sense, maybe exactly), we are both afraid to be close, to reach out. So if neither of us tries, if neither of us edges a little closer to each other, the rift will grow. This does not mean I don't understand what you have said (in fact, she has told me when I get angry, she just wants to run to the OM).
I am wondering though, I feel we must both endeavor to be kind. Is this correct?
she has told me when I get angry, she just wants to run to the OM).
I hear these things being said to me too from my partner. He says if I keep on asking about the woman on the Internet he could just as well be having an affair because in my mind he is already guilty. Well, I finally told him to quit threatening me, it was not my problem in the first place that caused my questions. This solved nothing but it did establish my boundary.
What I realize though is that he and I deal with conflict differently. He is a middle child and wants peace at all costs. I am a first born and used to taking the heat for everything. So I am used to conflict, in fact I kind of enjoy it and perhaps even invite it as an exercise to solve problems. He is used to not dealing with it and thinks any conflict signals something horrible is going to happen.
My point is that often, if I don't pursue the agenda like something from Judge Judy, he will bring it up later when he feels less threatened. I am learning that I don't always have to have an answer, I can leave stuff be and it sometimes loses its significance to me. By not beating everything to death and getting angry we can be kind to each other, and separate the problem from the person. Such hard work.
Okay, I'll spell it out (and maybe Cory will even jump in with part of his story).
Be civil and pleasant, as you would in an office setting. That's all. (For more on this, see "doing a 180" in the book "Divorce Busting" by Deborah Weiner-Davis.) Don't do anything for her that you usually do. Allow her to experience the withdrawal of love and support...the same withdrawal YOU are experiencing.
Be forewarned...the same two outcomes are possible here as any other way: she'll decide she can't live without you, or that she can. This technique is merely one way to try and make her decide faster.
Chris.
edited to add
PS. The rift can't grow. It's already huge. The rift needs to shrink, and she needs to be the one reaching out to you. Somewhere here is a lengthy post from an interview with Shirley Glass...whose main point is, the person having the affair is the one not giving enough to the marriage.
This message has been edited by chris924 on Jun 27, 2005 5:01 PM
"I was trying to install some drivers on her computer, googled something and noticed she was googling his family tree. She says she's not talking to him, but..."
Your right Ian, she can't even think about your relationship in a good way if she's obsessing about him. I feel that was a big red flag and hope you listen to your intuition about it. Sometimes we cling (in desperation) to our relationship and are in a little denial. I clung just as you are describing too, lots of us did, even when in hindsight I wish I hadn't. It is normal. It is also normal to try to believe them even when everything points to the fact that you should NOT believe them. She is giving excuses that she wants to run to him when you get angry and she is likely rationalizing to herself that you are the reason she is being intimate with someone else. She feels guilty and wants to pin it on you. It isn't right but most betrayers do it.
One think to be careful about is your anger. You will cause her to close down if you don't try to control it. She is very unlikely to be honest with you when she knows you will show anger over something that upsets you. Cry if you will but try your best to keep too much anger at bay around her. Working out heavily at the gym helped me out a great deal during that time. I was able to get my anger and frustration out there instead of with him.
You've probably read lots of other e-mails that say this, but things will get better regardless of what happens to your marriage. I'm now out of that 15 year marriage and happier than I've been in years. I wouldn't have chosen to end my marriage myself but it was for the best.
I call it "choosing your battles"...it was hard for me to sit on my hands and decide if XYZ was that important for me to have a fight over it....sometimes it was and sometimes it was not. HOWEVER.. it took me a long time to get there...
I started developing that approach once I realised that my out of control behaviors were hurting only ... ME and no one else...
Later on I was able to detach with loving feelings and asked him again to .. please... leave. He did with my blessings. He needed to experience totally the life he was living in stolen moments....
Q: Do people push their partners into affairs?
Dr. G. No. People can create a pattern in the marriage that is not enhancing, and the partner, instead of dealing with the dissatisfaction and trying to work on the relationship, escapes it and goes someplace else.
Q: That is the wrong way to solve the problem?
Dr. G. Yes. There are some gender differences in the ways partners handle problems, although everything we say about men can be true for some women, and everything we say about women can be true for some men. Generally when a woman is unhappy, she lets her partner know. She feels better afterwards because she’s gotten it off her chest. It doesn’t interfere with her love. She’s trying to improve the relationship: "If I tell him what makes me unhappy, then he will know how to please me; I am giving him a gift by telling him." Unfortunately, many men don’t see it as a gift. They feel criticized and put down. Instead of thinking, "she feels lonely; I will move toward her and make her feel secure," they think, "What is wrong with her? Didn’t I just do that?" They pull away. If they come in contact with somebody else who says to them, "oh, you’re wonderful," then they move toward that person. They aren’t engaged enough in the marriage to work things out. The partner keeps trying, and becomes more unpleasant because he’s not responding
Q: She becomes the pursuer, he the distancer.
Dr. G. When she withdraws, the marriage is much further down the road to dissolution, because she’s given up. Her husband, unfortunately, thinks things are so much better because she’s no longer complaining. He doesn’t recognize that she has detached and become emotionally available for an affair. The husband first notices it when she becomes disinterested in sex—or after she’s left! Then he’ll do anything to keep her. The tragedy is that is often too little too late.
In one of the innappropriate conversations my Wife had with OM, she mentioned that he had said it was "safe that they banter back and forth like this" (That's what he said, I saw it.)
She went on to say to me that she is wondering what he meant by that. That perhaps the emotional feelings were not reciprocated, and that what he meant was "safe for us to have sex, but not get involved."
I'd like to think she's right. Seems to me that any man who doesn't have the morals to stay away from another man's wife may see a married woman as just that. An opportunity to "get some" without all the baggage. She takes the baggage back to her husband.
That's accurate, I think. I ran into that same attitude when I confronted OM. He said, "You don't have anything to worry about.", meaning that he wasn't trying to take my wife from me. He just wanted to use her for sex on the side. And said that like it was a reasonable request, like I was nuts for being upset. So if I start working on your wife, it'll be ok with you, right?
And this part blows my mind about my wife's affair. OM was married for 32 years (us,31). My W asked him at some point where "their relationship" was headed. Are we gonna leave our spouses kinda thing. He jumped up like he was insulted or something and barked at her, "Don't even go there." At that point a reasonable person would have seen that it was just about sex for him. And there is that attitude that you described.
Eddited to add: Sometimes I wish that he really wanted to win her over. Ian, do you think it makes it any easier to accept like this? Surely at some point in the affair, your wife must have known that she was just swapping sex for compliments. But by then they are too emotionally involved.
This message has been edited by hurt2core on Jun 30, 2005 2:43 PM
When she told him they couldn't talk anymore, he apologized to her for the misunderstanding. That supports my theory, methinks. Again, yesterday, she sent out a global email saying goodbye to her working group, he was included in the list. She then sent out a follow up with contact info, and excluded him from that. He contacted her asking for contact info. She wouldn't givve it to him. He apologized again, something to the effect of "I'm sorry I confused your husband." She called him on that crap, said "i'm not buying your spiel." Again, supports my theory, methinks.
Does it make it any better? No, maybe worse.
What is tough for me is that this only went on for 3 1/2 weeks. That's 3 1/2 weeks from the time they first met until she invited him on this trip. They only saw each other face to face for the first week. And they only went to dinner at the end of that first week. Most of this took place over chat, email, im. She says they didn't have sex, and I tend to believe her. It took 3 1/2 weeks (less really, just a couple days, considering ramp up times) for her to emotionally detach and decide she was not married anymore.
It is worse because I feel bad for her. Look above, that q/a with Glass, that describes us. I put her in a place to be emotionally available to his advance. Now she feels rejected. He had the hots for her, this I am pretty sure. At some time, she must have let it slip that she was emotionally vulnerable, available. He pounced on that, she responded. All because I didn't give her the attention, love she deserves.
I would so desperately like to hurt that worthless excuse for a man. But I won't. I can't. I am better than that. Doesn't mean I don't fantasize about it.
This message has been edited by igboyd on Jun 30, 2005 3:19 PM This message has been edited by igboyd on Jun 30, 2005 3:07 PM
I was tempted to let you believe without contest (for a while) this statement that you made. """"All because I didn't give her the attention, love she deserves."""" But, because this website is founded on the very basic principle of telling the truth the way we see it, I have to respond now. It would not have mattered who she was married to. You could have been a perfect husband in every way. This was a selfish act on your W's and OM's part. It really had nothing to do with you or what situations were going on within your marriage. She broke a promise to you to forsake all others (assuming you had marriage vows). I know it is easier to blame OM (been there, done that, have the T-shirt) than to blame the one who really betrayed you. It's easier to think of your wife as a victim. OM did not betray you (unless he was a close friend). OM just took advantage of the situation. His advances were accepted (not rejected) by your W. Since they were accepted by your wife, that means that she has issues that she needs to find and deal with. I'm not trying to cause problems for you and your wife. I'm trying to help by saving you some time in figuring this out.
Emotionally this is hard to do. But here are the traps that I recognise for you. Don't accept any of the blame for your W's affair. She chose to go outside of your marriage, you didn't. Don't think of your wife as the poor victim in this. She is no more of a victim than OM is a victim, or no less either. Don't place all the blame on OM. I spent over 2 1/2 years thinking about what I would do to OM. You want some good ideas, call me. I'm not willing to put them in writting.
Wish you well, H2C
This message has been edited by hurt2core on Jun 30, 2005 4:33 PM
Maybe it is just easier to believe, or I want to convince myself, that I had some control. I didn't. They didn't ask me my opinion. We did take vows. And they have all been broken. Except, perhaps, for the "worse" part.
I have hope. For myself, for my wife, for our marriage. Hope is a two-edged sword.
I'm on ativan now. Anti-anxiety medication. It helps, but I feel resentful towards her for reducing me to this.
I've got lots of ideas myself. Play out the scenario, and they all end up w/ me in prison.
on the trip the OM was invited on. I tend to not think he is going as, she invited me to go along with her (could be a bluff), he has told her she got the wrong idea (she did, sort of, he wanted sex, she was thinking more. now there is a big fuss).
We had a good week. She's been reading something she got off of aftertheaffair.net. From that, I think she has been getting some ideas on how to handle my craziness. Everytime I brought up something that was hurting, making me angry, doubting, etc. She would apologize, hug me if she could, and apologize again, profusely.
She's also been talking about long term type stuff with me. Upgrading our house, how nice it's going to be to stay home with her new job, etc. This is encouraging.
She hasn't brought up anything in regards to other problems in our marriage, as though she realizes we are going to have to deal with this first.
Still....
The OM is like a drug. After the googling incident she said she wouldn't do that stuff anymore. Checked her browser history, and she had done a people search for OM on yahoo on Monday and visited his domain Tuesday. There is a possible explanation for this, she wants to know how I found out his yahoo id's and she doesn't know them. But who knows.
She did write to a friend of hers that she doesn't know if we are going to make it, but she has hope. It's like she wants to work things out, but is compelled.
Ian, glad to hear there has been some progress...especially that she is reading aftertheaffiar...it is very positive that she is open to reading and learning about As, and not too far gone as a lot of WS are...
The OM is like a drug...but she can detox...my H did...
First few weeks he said he missed his friend...then he would say he missed his drug, when he started to realize it was the escape that he really missed...Within a few months he was at the "WTF was I thinking being around her?" phase...It can happen!!
Ian, I can't remember how I got through it...Pathetic, huh? I was such a mess in the beginning....It took him a while to get the fog cleared...at that time he still thought she was such a great person, etc...That sucked...
I think it was once he got into counseling that he really started seeing reality....and started seeing it was the escape of the A that he was digging so much...not her...It could have been anyone...she was just someone low enough to sleep with a married man....It is easy for someone to look good for a few hours a week with no kids, no bills....just fun, fun, fun...Ans when they were together they could focus on nothing but bs ego-stroking which is something that they get addicted to also..
Eventually, when my H gave up the fantasy about her, he said straight out that it was really hard to look honestly at her and admit that he risked our marriage for someone who was soooo not worth it....Also, for them to admit that OP is not that great is for them to admit that this person who was stroking their ego really would stroke anyone's (It was BIG for my H to admit that OW really was a slut who would sleep with anyone....his ego had built it up that she was sleeping with him because HE was so great...) So for a lot of reasons it is HARD for them to admit negative things about the OP...As my H said, if he admits to himself that she was an idiot, then it makes him feel even more stupid for getting involved with her....
So what helped me was the people here who told me it could have been anyone even before H got it, and reading about the high of the A, and how they seek that....the thrill of someone new wanting them as well as the fantasyland of it...
the false boost to their ego...That is what they are truly into....they just think it is the person ...(That's why as one of my books says, OPs are often less attractive then spouses...it's not that our spouses picked THEM out of a crowd as someone to be involved with...they just were the ones that played the game...our spouses then have to build them up into something great because, hey, why else would they be doing what they are doing????)
Remember all of the lies that WS tell themselves to justify the As??? Well, they also lie to themselves about the quality of the AP....Otherwise, they could not live with what they are doing...In Lusterman's book, he has a quote from a woman who said she had to convince herself that she was in love with the A partner...otherwise having an affair would make her a bad person in her own mind...so she had to convince herself that she was in love with the A partner....
<<How long after your discovery did his affair/contact end?>>
Well, my discovery was a slow nightmare....
It took almost 2 months from the time I became suspicious and started confronting him until he finally admitted the A and broke it off...Those 2 months were hell...he was seeing her more and more and was out late (which he never did in all the years we were married)...he'd come home with this story or that about where he had been - never anything I could really prove...He admitted to being friends with her...I started checking his cell phone, etc...we were literally fighting EVERY day and he would not admit the A and quit it...I would call his cell phone when he was out late and it would be turned off...(that took a while to recover from! he couldn't even be bothered with a phone call from me when he was with her!)Finally I started following him to where he said he would be, and I was finally able to nail him down in a lie so obvious that he couldn't weasel out of it...and then he still tried to deny the A part of it, I told him that whatever was going on, A or not, I couldn't live like that anymore, me home crying all not long while he was out doing whatever..so told him that I was leaving unless we resolved what the hell was going on THAT day...He finally admitted it and ended it....
Then started the slow lifting of the fog which as I said took a month or so to complete...at first he would talk about how he missed her and how he felt bad because she was such a good person....gag, gag, gag...
I guess about 2 months out from d-day, he got to the "what was I thinking?" point of really seeing OW for what she really is...His recovery really took off when he started IC though we did MC from just after d-day...
Marie
Thanks for your post. Your comment about taking some time for your WS to come out of the fog was hopeful. It's been 6 weeks since d-day for me and my W is still unwilling to commit to our marriage, but prefers continuing the affair. I moved out on Monday to leave her to her fantasy relationship. I am praying that she comes back to reality and doesn't really want to just walk away from our 11-year marriage without even fighting for it.
Ian - My heart goes out to you in sharing this kind of new pain. I keep hearing that it does slowly get better with time -Rob
I've followed your story and it has brought me to tears. My wife has at least verbally(superficially?) committed to working on our marriage. Time will tell how deep that commitment is. I am, however, impressed with how you seem to have dealt with your heartache, as painful as it must be for you. Showing concern for others when you are in such pain tells me you havve a big heart, and I feel for you. And, frankly, envy your strength.
I'd like to think, regardless of the outcome, we will all get through this, and be better for it.
Marie, Ian, Rob: Thanks for your honest posts, they help me not feel so crazy at the end of my relationship. Even though we are not married and have only been together for just over a year, it still is difficult to process the lies. It's like me saying "look at that huge 18 wheeler" and him saying, "what do you mean, there's no 18 wheeler there." Crazymaking.
A counselor once told me that people lie when the truth will produce a change in the relationship that's too painful to handle. Like me leaving him, I suppose, which happened anyway.
Good luck to all of you. I ended a long marriage so I know something about how very painful that is. Be gentle with yourselves.
Judy
This message has been edited by newday52105 on Jul 8, 2005 10:45 AM
Ian - I don't know anything about handling this well. I don't think I would characterize myself that way. I have moved out, but I get overwhelmed by the sadness at times and will just start crying when I am not angry. I've also lashed out at my WS in hurtful ways.
Just came from the MC and I am furious. See my post under my original thread - 4-weeks. Anyone sees this and wants to chat, I'll be in the chat room for awhile. 2:15pm -Rob
WOW! Your story is almost the same as mine. I am TRYING to work mine out as well but trust has gone out the window. I see her name on his cell and he is quick to hide his IMs. I wish you all the luck and hope it works out for you and the children in the end.
N
I learn a bit more about OM. He had been flirting innappropriately with another married women, which he has since fallen out with. I know this as he and my wife had talked about it. She had demonstrated some jealousy. He had also expressed to my wife his attraction to yet another married woman, and again, she expressed a bit of jealousy. (at the time, this was in late May that they had this conversation).
So, here we have a guy, flirting with one married woman, designs on a second, and inches away from bedding a third (my wife). And this is what she was going to leave me for?
This really gets to me, you see. I had thought that ethics and morals were important to both of us, and she still says they are, but this inconsistency is really bugging me.
Whenever I ask her to reconcile this, she gets upset, whether it is late or early in our "issue" conversation. She tells me she thinks I am calling her stupid (I believe that is what she feels, as she should).
The best she has come up with so far, is that she overlooked his faults (WOW!, gotta have on some pretty think beer goggles...) because she was "unhappy". B***S***, lots of people are unhappy, they don't all do what she has done. But from this, she says, she saw him as an "escape," and had started to view me and our marriage in a very bad light, overlooking all the good, while viewing him in a very good light, overlooking all the bad. This makes a bit of sense, I think.
Also, OM has had a hard time understanding what NC means. She tells me when he tries to contact her, and the last time she did, I asked her to send an NC email (she had had the conversation re NC over the phone, without me present previously), and let me see it. She did so. This is good, I think.
My gut tells me she is trying very hard. I have read Kenny's story on the members board, and the way he dealt with things rings with me. I too have a hard time letting go of the past, and I continue to relieve the discovery and her poor behavior in the month that followed. I dwell on the negative, I am a pessimist.
I am going to have to learn to let the past go, and work on the future. Although, I wonder if it is too much to expect of me, by her and by myself, to do so so quickly when discovery is just under 2 months past, and it has only been 3 weeks, by my observation and her own admission, that she has really started trying.
Hi Ian, I'm glad it sounds like you guys are making progress...
You wrote:
<<she saw him as an "escape," and had started to view me and our marriage in a very bad light, overlooking all the good, while viewing him in a very good light, overlooking all the bad. This makes a bit of sense, I think.>>
Yup, this is typical...text-book stuff, and you are right...they DO feel stupid when they open their eyes and see how irrational their behavior was...I've read it again and again, that once they come out of the fog they do feel stupid that they risked so much for so little...
I've also read that while in the A, they are in a "bubble" of seeing what they want to see...Once out of the A, when they are forced to talk about everything it the light of day, it becomes harder for them to deny the truth about things like the quality of OP....Frank Pittman writes about how while in the A, their only feedback about the A and OP comes FROM the OP...Therefore, everything is warped and they think it is all so great...Once the A is exposed, and they are getting feedback from other people (the BS, counselor, etc), they often start loosing the illusions and delusions that they had about the OP.......
Oh, something else I read on another board about the quality of OPs...Someone wrote that it often seems like married people having As do it with OPs that they never would have even dated when they were single....This was true in my H's case...He admits it was the attention and ego-stroking that he was craving - she could have been anyone whom he met at that time...While in it, he thought she was such a good person...now he sees her as a very sick woman...things change in the light of day....
Hang in there...It sounds like you guys are going along as well as can be expected!
Current Topic - One month today.... and I still don't know.
