I had the affair and now my marriage appears Over

[Lousy Husband]

I hope nobody shames you. You are here, putting yourself out there, in order to help others.

Your wife misses and loves your family. I know that with us, I spent the time with H's family, because I enjoy them and don't know if they will be my 'family' anymore. I try not to be distant towards my H during these functions, but its hard to balance my hurt/pain. Your W could have just 'bagged' the entire function and not gone at all, so that's good she went. She sees that you are back, you are doing all the right things, but she is so worried she is going to get hurt again. She is protecting herself with the distance and lashing out.

Don't feel self centered. You are going through this as well. You are hurt, sad, and lonely too. You have realized that you did something wrong, and now you are living with the guilt too. I honestly feel bad for my H, where he is, the mess he constantly has to think about, I wouldn't want anyone I care about to feel that way.

Take care, I think things will get better.

Thank you for this post. every day is just a case of up and downs. Sometimes I honestly feel like W is flirting with me. Then 30 minutes later she is cold and almost rude to me. I know I have to take the good with the bad. I have thought of myself for so long, why should she not get to think of her self. When she tells the kids to tell me what they want for Christmas it is as if she is telling me I will be apart.

She and the kids leave tomorrow. I have been trying to Act As iF and show 180s. I have no idea if it is working and frankly I can't begin to measure because I never got any feedback before.

I have poured myself into my kids these last five days and have tried to show her what she would be giving up. I have had no suspicious behaviors. We went to see Mr. Magoriums Wonderful Emporium this PM with the kids. It was great. But, there was NO sharing of emotion between her and I though I wanted desperately for there to be.

I have no idea what the car ride will hold tomorrow and I am scared about what tonight holds after dinner. I want to be together at Christmas and for the future, forever. I know it is what is in the best interest of the kids. They keep telling me how much the love and miss me.

again, I am trying to be strong, but inside I am tortured. I just wish she would talk.

[Lousy Husband]

What to do??? I spoke with a DB counselor yesterday and did as she suggested, sending an email to W noticing her new found strength and limits over the holidays. Not a peep about it. I hope she noticed.

She did however when I called this AM tell me where she is enrolling our son in Kindnergarden next year. Didn't ask me what i thought or if I cared. Just said this is where he is going.

Should I say anything? Don't I have a right to be asked or at least talk to this issue?

I don't want to start an argument.

[fooled again]

I am a newcomer and I read your thread with great interest since you are probably the only affair spouse who has his own thread.

My H and I have been married 10 years and have a 6 yr old daughter. We have been separated for over 6 months. My H had an affair that lasted over 1.5 years. For the first 6 mos I had no idea about it, and the rest of the time he was lying and telling me it was over, but secretly continuing to see the OW. I think I ended it because I contacted the OW and found out the truth, blew apart all the lies and hopefully made her go away.

I want to ask you to explain to me how you can want your wife back after everything you've been through with the OW? What is making you try so hard to get her back? What would you say or do (if she let you) to make her believe that you are sincere after all the lies you told and after everything you've done to her?

I'm asking you this because my H is now in the same place you are - he's telling me he wants me back, that he made a terrible mistake and he doesn't want to lose me. He says he never stopped loving me.

I was ready to end our marriage and now I just don't know what to believe, what to trust. I don't know if I'm willing to take that chance, to open myself up to being hurt again. The affair nearly drove me crazy, brought me to the darkest place I could ever imagine being and I am only now feeling like my feet may be on solid ground. How can I (and how can your wife) put myself in a situation that could bring me back to that level of pain and suffering, no matter how much I love my husband?

What would you say to her if you could?

[Lousy Husband]

I am a newcomer and I read your thread with great interest since you are probably the only affair spouse who has his own thread.

My H and I have been married 10 years and have a 6 yr old daughter. We have been separated for over 6 months. My H had an affair that lasted over 1.5 years. For the first 6 mos I had no idea about it, and the rest of the time he was lying and telling me it was over, but secretly continuing to see the OW. I think I ended it because I contacted the OW and found out the truth, blew apart all the lies and hopefully made her go away.

I want to ask you to explain to me how you can want your wife back after everything you've been through with the OW? What is making you try so hard to get her back? What would you say or do (if she let you) to make her believe that you are sincere after all the lies you told and after everything you've done to her?

I'm asking you this because my H is now in the same place you are - he's telling me he wants me back, that he made a terrible mistake and he doesn't want to lose me. He says he never stopped loving me.

I was ready to end our marriage and now I just don't know what to believe, what to trust. I don't know if I'm willing to take that chance, to open myself up to being hurt again. The affair nearly drove me crazy, brought me to the darkest place I could ever imagine being and I am only now feeling like my feet may be on solid ground. How can I (and how can your wife) put myself in a situation that could bring me back to that level of pain and suffering, no matter how much I love my husband?

What would you say to her if you could?

Well, I would say to you first that I have read the D-remedy and D-Busting and I realize my own flaws and faults. I have learned that forgiveness and trust are decisions, or better yet, gifts that one can give to another. I have thought long and hard about our vows and what they really mean, for better or for worse. This has definately been WORSE for her and me.

It was my decision alone to have an affair. I did so because I felt I had totally lost myself and was with a spouse who did not know how or care to love me. At the time she found out, I asked why should I not divorce her after all of the times I had begged to go to counseling before the affair. She said because she accepted responsibility for her part in setting the conditions and she had now had her ah-ha moment. Now, the roles are reversed and I am asking for a start because I have had mine. I am saying the same thing she said in the past. Here is my point.

We have kids, we don't do drugs, we are not abusive and we don't hurt each other. While infidelity is more despicable and socially unnacceptable, the bottom line is we both hurt each other and there is no scale for measuring hurt. We have never fought together and tried to begin anew, smarter. We have two beautiful children together. I love my wife and I took her for granted. I played the victim and blamed her and did not take responsibility for my own life and actions. She is a new person now, no longer the same person she was before. Well, you know what, so is your husband and so am I. I am looking for my wife to believe in me, just look at me and ask me to prove to her that I am faithful. I have been desperate for some expectations from her. They say secrets are what kills relationships, and right now with her not talking to me I feel there are secrets and it is killing me. I have no idea what she is thinking and/or doing. I know it was wrong of me to lie to her. I did not make a living doing it.

Why should you fight, because if you fast forward thirty years and think of your family......if you have remained together this time in your life during the affair will be dark, but relatively short, a bump in the rode. I hope and pray that my wife and I can tear apart every piece of our lives together and know each other forwards and backwards. That is what I want and all I have ever wanted. It is a priviledge to fight for my wife. She deserves to be chased....why does it matter to anyone why I should want to work so hard? All I want to do is to make her happy, make her life be all that she deserves. I know how to love her and love myself now. What are you afraid of......finding you really love your husband, being vulnerable....or getting hurt again? He wants desperately to talk to you, for you to understand, and for you to begin the healing process together. That is what I want from my wife.

That is what I would say and I hope your husband would say to you.

[runningoutoftime]

Lousy Husband,

Don't expect to save your marriage. Don't expect her to believe you, or change her mind, no matter what you say or do. You have to work on your own strength and character for YOU. My guess is you may need to go through a lot more pain, separation and personal growth before you are ready to be back in your marriage (or any healthy relationship for that matter). OW is a dead end. Hopefully you will have the strength to avoid anything remotely like that again.

All you can be is a friend to your wife and give her the time and space to figure out where she wants to go in her life. You also need to let the affair go and let go of your guilt. You can't dwell there. Yeah, you did it, and afterward you felt like scum and now you never want to be there again.. But this is a new chapter in your life. You need to cut off the past like a gengrene limb and spend the future working on creating a better and more healthy you. Time to grow...

[hurtandlost]

Hello,

I can't call you by your nick name because I feel it's too condescending.

Don't get me wrong I really praise you because you are trying to work things out.

Something about your speech bothers me though and I can tell you in advance I am being biased.

I think there's no excuse for cheating, it seems you are still attached to those excuses. Monogamy is a choice, to be trusted is a choice, either you want to make them or not. I've been there, done that, it's not like someone is pointing a gun to your forehead.

I truly believe the moment you comprehend that, it will be easier because it will emanate from your acts. And your spouse will feel it in their guts.

The question here as the person who is the betrayed is if I want to spend the rest of my life with someone who undervalued me. Not my vulnerability or risks of being hurt again. That can happen anyway, in my marriage or out of it.

Many times when my H says I want to make you happy, I think he is doing some sort of sacrifice. What do I care to be happy if he is unhappy with me? I want us both to be happy.

We are all seeing one tree not the forest now. For the forest is the future. We can't reach deeper than the bottom. So my friend, I say it's only going up now. But remember it's always easier to go down than to reach the top.

Find out want she wants instead of what you want and see if you can compromise with that. And if you decide you can, go for it, she will notice. You will be amazed.

[fooled again]

Hi Lousy,

Thank you for replying to me. What you are saying is the same thing my H has been saying. And some of the way you describe your marriage sounds like ours. We have hurt each other, we made each other feel insecure by our actions and inactions, we stopped telling each other what we needed, we stopped showing each other how much we loved each other. Part of it had to do with our daughter becoming my sole focus, and part of it had to do with his traveling for work too often. We drifted so far apart that he felt I didn't love him anymore. I didn't know he was feeling this way, but I did know that our marriage was not great. He said that the OW made him feel good and gave him what he needed.

But I have a lot of trouble believing that it's now over and that he is totally committed to us now, even though he keeps telling me. You see, he told me on several previous occasions that his affair was over, but he simply continued seeing the OW. He lied to me so many times about so many things for so long, and each time he told me it was over, it took me a long time to open myself up to him. Eventually, though, the lies started to show through and I became suspicious each time, eventually finding out that the affair was still ongoing.

I understand that your affair lasted a long time, part of that time your wife was aware of it. Now your affair is completely over and you are honestly trying to show your wife your sincerity, love, dedication, honesty and faithfulness. I want to believe that my H is at that place too. How can I tell for sure? How do I know that he is not seeing the OW anymore, that he is not trying to have his cake and eat it? Recently little things and one bigger event has made me suspicious and upset and I am afraid that he is back with her again, or maybe the past couple of months of him trying to convince me have been a ruse. I wish I could know.

Sometimes I feel so crazy with the thought of him still being unfaithful - I feel sick, I can't concentrate on anything, I can't eat, I can't sleep. The only thing that helps is to not talk to him, not tell him how I feel, pull back into myself and put up a wall around me to protect myself from being hurt. I know this is not how to save my marriage, but the alternative is to be so obsessed with the affair that I can't function. I don't want to end up putting up a wall so thick and high that eventually I stop wanting to make my marriage work. I wonder if that's what your wife has done - create a wall that insulates her and that is why she won't talk to you and let you know what she is thinking or doing. These secrets that we keep from our unfaithful H's give us strength, make us feel protected, less vulnerable. When we open ourselves up, we don't feel safe anymore, and if we can't depend on our H's to protect us because they were the ones who hurt us, we focus on protecting ourselves, controlling our world in order to survive.

I feel in my heart, right now anyway, that I will continue to fight for him, or wait for this thing to be over so that we can finally do the work we need to do. But I can't commit to working on our marriage if I think he is still being unfaithful. And I don't know how many times I can do this, I don't know how many times I can be beat down, before he completely destroys whatever love I have left for him and I give up on our marriage.

I want to ask you, what could I do to make sure that he gives her up for good (that is, if he is still seeing her, and I don't know for sure either way)? What did you need from your wife that would have made you give up your lover? What could she have said or done? Or was it simply a matter of you coming to your own realization of what was truly important and nothing your wife could have done would have expedited the process? And when it was really over, how could she know for sure that it was over? What did you do to show her?

I feel that you may be the only person who can answer these questions for me because you are on the other side, and I suspect that you have been for a long time. Please help me understand.

[25yearsmlc]

Dear LH,

what a wonderful opportunity you have to answer FooledAgain's questions, and to understand where your wife might be coming from. A chance for insights for both of you.

One thing LH, about your wife using the term "mine" when referring to the kids and making unilateral decisions about them. Yes you do have the right to input on these decisions. How you tell her this is delicate. Maybe you can say, "W, I know we are separated/estranged/maritally challenged" (whatever you think she'd call your sitch) "and (if this is true) "you've shouldered too much of the responsibility of decisionmaking for the kids in the past, but I have the right to be involved in these choices, and I want to be more involved, so please keep that in mind..." OR if that's not applicable, what about saying "W, thanks for the info, keep me posted on that so we can talk..."??

She may feel the A wasn't just cheating on her, but on your vows/marriage/family. And she's not totally wrong, is she? No, I'm not trying to shame you. Just saying that I wouldn't read too much into it about whether she'll cut you off from seeing them, etc. based on those comments. Sounds as if she values father-child time together and that is a huge advantage you have.

Sorry if I'm repeating myself since I've said this so often: No mother is untouched or unmoved by seeing the father of her children lovingly interacting with them. It's sooo important and to many, an emotional turn on. It's just one dimension of my love for my h, who did more than take me for granted. But it has helped me work on forgiveness and seeing his value in my life and theirs, when I was tempted to see none.

What will it take for her to trust you again? Wow, time + whatever else she needs. Let FA help you with that. I don't know how much you lied or how often, about the A or other issues. That will have a lot to do with this I think.

Let the DB coach guide you on goals, (as well as us here). As for the holidays, you need to figure out how you'll be part of it. What exactly are the plans so far?
Keep on keeping on, b/c you ARE making progress. Even if it's ultimately just for the R's you have with your kids, that's no small feat. And I doubt from what your telling us that your wife isn't noticing. She WANTS to trust you. I really believe that. But of course she is afraid. I was. I also felt that my h wasn't the man I thought him to be, given the choices he was making, which shocked me. I sometimes still wonder about that at times. Like, "is he the type of man I can spend my old age with? Would he be here for me if I were sick? Will he hurt me and the kids again?" and last, "Does he DESERVE my love?" THAT question was a struggle for me because when I realized that actually was about "teaching him a lesson" and not coming from a place of love or boundaries, or self respect, then I dropped that last question from my "list". But my gosh, it took a lot of forgiveness work with DB counselors for me to lose that attitude. Part of me just wanted to walk away and say, "You're a fool for doing what you did and you killed my love for you so...see you later." It was the realization that at some level, whether he "deserved" it or not, I was being punitive. It's not my job to punish him. Just to figure out whether we can have a future together. We were more or less apart for 2 years and now have been re-united for 4 months and it IS getting easier, finally. But no, it's not the same. I'm starting to like him again, and to respect him again, and that's a start. Plus, he IS cute. I hope my love fully returns, or grows even more. I AM less resentful and that is huge. I knew I had to lose that anger or we'd fail and what the hell is the point of all this DB work if I wasn't going to let go of the past?

But my h also says things now that he didn't say before, realizations he's had that may be overdue, but better late than never. Priorities, etc. Changing his work schedule to match our kids' schooling, instead of centering our lives around HIS schedule. (He's a physician and our family has a long history of revolving around his call schedule, etc.) That's one "new thing" that I really noticed in him. He actually looked at their schedule online himself instead of me reminding him 10 times. Oh, btw I had stopped doing that when he left. I let him be responsible for HIS time with the family, and he "got it." And he has pent up demand for kid time, likes putting d10 to bed and reading to her at night. I'm so fine with that! After having the kids 24/7 I can use some "alone" time even if it's in the next room or the bath tub.

Don't give up. And if thoughts of OW come into your mind, put a STOP sign in your head. That's what the LBSers have to do to cope with the obsessive thoughts of infidelity. It is so gross and consuming to feel betrayed that way. Maybe if you let yourself think of your W with another man for a minute, you can see that it's a deep blow. She's had to put up some "thought blocks" so you may have to as well.
Hope this helps.
j-

[fooled again]

I'm wondering where you went L-Husband? I was so hoping you could give me some insights, especially if you are still stuck trying to get OW out of your life/mind/heart or whatever. I imagine it must be a very difficult thing. I was hoping to learn what you are feeling so that I can understand maybe what my H must be feeling. Maybe just knowing something of what that experience would be like would give me strength to wait this out, to see my way to the other side, to have hope that one day I can live without doubt.

I hope that you are getting somewhere with your W, and maybe you are so busy working on M that you don't have time or need to post.

[Lousy Husband]

Thank you for these insights. It truly is a challenge. I can only hope that she notices the effort I have been putting in. I know it is not about me, but about her. I am trying to be patient and that is the hard part. But, I look a the patience she showed me and it gives me hope. As for the holidays she initially invited me from the 24th to the 26th but it has now expanded from the 20th to the 27th. Then she is going to see her family with the kids.

As for what it is like to think of her with someone else, I have nightmares about it. I really do. I hate myself for what I did and I am committed to doing the things that I need to do to help her. I have been working with a DB counselor. It has been helpful. I sometimes want to call her all the time, the counselor, to ask for guidance. But I have been patient and everything she has told me has come true so far, so I am cautiously optimistic. Again, I love my wife and I know I have been attentive to my needs and not hers. I am trying to let me actions speak that she is the most important thing to me.