| Statement: | Wife of 21 yrs had an 'affair' with our neighbor for 4 weeks in Feb '00 during a period where I was commuting to a new job. I was only home for weekends. My wife initially confessed to feelings for the OM as well as intercourse, then retracted the statement regarding her feelings and claimed that he took advantage of her (manipulated) during my absence. After some work at recovery she revealed sexual abuse that occurred during her childhood and claimed that he used the resulting emotional weaknesses to manipulate her. After several years working to reconcile this view of the affair, I decided to organize a large number of deleted email messages I had recovered from our computer shortly after D-day. After organizing these messages, I could clearly see (and prove to my wife) that she truly did have feelings for the OM and she was significantly responsible for maintaining the affair. Learning (confirming) these facts helped me tremendously (the facts began to fit) although it was like a new D-day had occurred (March ’03). Since that time I feel that we have developed a more balanced view of her responsibility for the affair, both direct (actions she took) and indirect (failure to take action). We are continuing to work and are making progress toward a full marital recovery. Even today I struggle with dismissing her responsibility for the affair, probably because I find it too difficult to forgive her for that aspect of the affair. |