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melhav posted 4/2/2013 00:35 AM

hi everyone
I have committed to my bh to do a final/full disclosure this weekend regarding the affairs I have had and the all the lies and disrespect that followed. discussing details has been hard for me and has taken almost 9 months but I still have a few things that are particularly painful to reveal. I was wondering what experiences others had that held out and what might have worked or went bad for you.

I am looking for BS perspective as well. If your ws held out a couple of bombs till the end, how did you deal with it and do you have any advice having gone through that?

Thank you all.

5454real posted 4/2/2013 00:52 AM

Please, please, please,please let your your BS know everything. Personally,I think that I can deal with everything as long as I know what I have to handle.

Don't make your bs go back to the beginning. Don't try to save him from the pain. Doesn't he deserve to know?

sad12008 posted 4/2/2013 01:31 AM

First, congratulations to you for making the commitment to give a full disclosure; I know that's a scary prospect.

We didn't get to the full disclosure (DDay3) until 8 months after DDay 1; however, this was a chosen deferment due to other variables in our lives that were critical to our family's long-term financial well-being. We were in MC and IC during the interim and my FWH had physically removed himself from the geographic area where I'd discovered he was up to no good (he'd been working two consecutive travel jobs out of state).

My FWH had a LOT to come clean about and in my profile I wrote about the experience. There were cluster bombs, nuclear bombs, and plenty of them.

His IC (one half of our MC team) recommended he write out a full narrative of everything. Night after night he'd go out into our garage and work on it. This technique helped to remind him of details he'd forgotten, get the timeline down, etc. It also helped on DDay 3, as it was what he read to me (it was in the form of a letter....a 19 page letter, if I remember correctly).

If you are scrupulously honest, share ALL the details, lay bare all the secrets you have that your BS could probably "never know" if you kept silent....as agonizing a scene as that will be, it is the ONLY way. I know how in my many, many struggles to feel safe after DDay 3, to try to trust even a tiny bit, the ONE THING that MOST gave me a little faith in my FWH ...the thing I'd keep reminding myself of when I felt the most insecure...was the fact that he did indeed tell me painful things that I quite conceivably would not have ever known of otherwise. We moved around a lot during our marriage (military moves) and so the cast of characters changed on a regular basis, something that definitely plays in a cheater's favor. However, he ran the gauntlet and told ALL.

It was hell. Anger, sobbing, anguish like no other; crying so hard I threw up; disdain, hatred of what he had done and who he had been to do what he'd done; the list goes on. It will not be a fun time....but you know that.

Some advice to a Wayward trying to reconcile that I read here long ago (I think the member is still around), was something like "when you feel like running away, run toward!" In other words, when the BS is such a raw ranting raging sobbing devastated soul that it's making you want to get away from it all, THAT is exactly when your BS needs you the most. You can't say a heartfelt, earnest "I'm so sorry I did this, I'm so sorry I hurt you" too many times, in my opinion.

Own every bit of your sh*t; for example, you didn't "make a mistake". A mistake is bringing home a Cobb Salad when your BS asked for a Club Salad. You made choices, selfish choices, and the devastation is the result.

I wish you (and your BH) well. It is one hell of a long and difficult journey. However, I can say we just celebrated our 20th anniversary, the 5th since DDay 1. Depending on the individuals involved, your marriage can survive this. It will never be "the same"; it can't be. However, that doesn't mean it will be forever broken either. It can rise from the ashes as a new entity that is worthy in and of itself....but you can't get there without the critical first step of brutal and complete honesty. No secrets with any OP; no one should know anything that went on between you and an AP that your BH does not know from YOU. It should be like he was a fly on the wall and observed it all.

sodamnlost posted 4/2/2013 07:32 AM

My WH hasn't done a full disclosure day but several smaller Dday's where he had to admit lies I found about. Coming clean about lies to your BH that he did not find out about on his own is huge. The lies do more damage in the long run than the actual A i tend to think. Showing your BH you feel he deserves to know the truth speaks volumes of your growth i think.

Yes it is going to be back at Dday for him most likely but in the long run its the only REAL and RIGHT way to do this IMO. (((((hugs & courage)))))

Sam793 posted 4/2/2013 07:37 AM

Do it and do it all no matter what. I didn't do it all at once and my BW found out from the AP and various other ways. Now that everything is out its hard for her to believe me. So make sure all of yours is out so if something comes up in the future you're not back at square one.

Pudding posted 4/2/2013 07:38 AM

BS here.

Tell her everything. That is the way to regain trust.

We imagine things far worse than the reality and finding out the truth may not be as bad as what we have feared

Card posted 4/2/2013 07:46 AM

From the healing library - I've never seen anything else that puts it so well;

Joseph's Letter

To Whomever,
I know you are feeling the pain of guilt and confusion. I understand that you wish all this never happened and that you wish it would just go away. I can even believe that you truly love me and that your indiscretion hurts you emotionally much the same way it hurts me. I understand your apprehension to me discovering little by little, everything that led up to your indiscretion, everything that happened that night, and everything that happened afterwards. I understand. No one wants to have a mistake or misjudgment thrown in his or her face repeatedly.

No one wants to be forced to 'look' at the thing that caused all their pain over and over again. I can actually see, that through your eyes, you are viewing this whole thing as something that just needs to go away, something that is over, that he/she doesn’t mean anything to you, so why is it such a big issue? I can understand you wondering why I torture myself with this continuously, and thinking, doesn’t he/she know by now that I love him/her? I can see how you can feel this way and how frustrating it must be. But for the remainder of this letter I’m going to ask you to view my reality through my eyes.

You were there. There is no detail left out from your point of view. Like a puzzle, you have all the pieces and you are able to reconstruct them and be able to understand the whole picture, the whole message, or the whole meaning. You know exactly what that picture is and what it means to you and if it can effect your life and whether or not it continues to stir your feelings. You have the pieces, the tools, and the knowledge.

You can move through your life with 100% of the picture you compiled. If you have any doubts, then at least you’re carrying all the information in your mind and you can use it to derive conclusions or answers to your doubts or question. You carry all the 'STUFF' to figure out OUR reality. There isn’t really any information, or pieces to the puzzle that you don’t have.

Now let’s enter my reality. Let’s both agree that this affects our lives equally. The outcome no matter what it is well affect us both. Our future and our present circumstances are every bit as important to me as it is to you. So, why then is it okay for me to be left in the dark? Do I not deserve to know as much about the night that nearly destroyed our relationship as you do? Just like you, I am also able to discern the meaning of certain particulars and innuendoes of that night and just like you, I deserve to be given the opportunity to understand what nearly brought our relationship down.

To assume that I can move forward and accept everything at face value is unrealistic and unless we stop thinking unrealistically I doubt our lives well ever 'feel' complete. You have given me a puzzle. It is a 1000 piece puzzle and 400 random pieces are missing. You expect me to assemble the puzzle without the benefit of looking at the picture on the box. You expect me to be able to discern what I am looking at and to appreciate it in the same context as you. You want me to be as comfortable with what I see in the picture as you are.

When I ask if there was a tree in such and such area of the picture you tell me don’t worry about it, it’s not important. When I ask whether there were any animals in my puzzle you say don’t worry about it, it’s not important. When I ask if there was a lake in that big empty spot in my puzzle you say, what’s the difference, it’s not important.

Then later when I’m expected to understand the picture in my puzzle you fail to understand my disorientation and confusion. You expect me to feel the same way about the picture as you do but deny me the same view as you. When I express this problem you feel compelled to admonish me for not understanding it, for not seeing it the way you see it.

You wonder why I can’t just accept whatever you chose to describe to me about the picture and then be able to feel the same way you feel about it.

So, you want me to be okay with everything. You think you deserve to know and I deserve to wonder. You may honestly feel that the whole picture, everything that happened is insignificant because in your heart you know it was a mistake and wish it never happened. But how can I know that? Faith? Because you told me so? Would you have faith if the tables were turned? Don’t you understand that I want to believe you completely? But how can I? I can never know what is truly in your mind and heart.

I can only observe you actions, and what information I have acquired and slowly, over time rebuild my faith in your feelings. I truly wish it were easier.

So, there it is, as best as I can put it. That is why I ask questions. That is where my need to know is derived from. And that is why it is unfair for you to think that we can effectively move forward and unfair for you to accuse me of dwelling on the past. My need to know stems from my desire to hold our world together.

It doesn’t come from jealousy, it doesn’t come from spitefulness, and it doesn’t come from a desire to make you suffer. It comes from the fact that I love you. Why else would I put myself through this? Wouldn’t it be easier for me to walk away? Wouldn’t it be easier to consider our relationship a bad mistake in my life and to move on to better horizons? Of course it would, but I can’t and the reason I can’t is because I love you and that reason in itself makes all the difference in the world.

windowsnotwalls posted 4/2/2013 07:57 AM

Have you ever been completely honest with ANYONE, ever??? It's probably a safe bet you spend most the time even selling lies to yourself....

THAT'S why full disclosure meant something to me. His As took SO much from me, from us, irreplaceable things. I would never be his last first kiss, I would never be his first of so much or his last of so much. He hadn't bankrupted my trust, he had taken it into the negative.

There was something left though, something, NO ONE had ever been given before.... his walls, fully down, totally vulnerable, giving me 100% honesty, knowing full well if I saw the true monster he had been, how weak and broken he actually was, I'd have no reason to stay. All that time, since we were 15 years old, his greatest fear was I'd realize he was never good enough for me....and now he was going to drop all the walls and show me, this man I believed he was, wasn't him, he was wretched and weak and had done terrible terrible things.

The result? It was THE --I repeat THE--thing that turned things around for me, THE thing I've gone back to when I was ready to end it all even in R, it is THE gift I have that no one else on this planet ever has had from him. 100% transparency, FULL disclosure, all the shit I'd never have found out on my own, a true sign of a remorseful recovering spouse.

It comes with consequences....he's felt at times I've punished him since full disclosure.....but he's dealt, and he's stayed, and he's in IC now to help him heal too from having to face my pain on a daily basis. We are working our way through. There are no consequences greater than the reward of full disclosure. Even if I had left, he would be a better man today for experiencing that full vulnerability, the true gift he gave me. It is SOOOOOO worth it. Please, tell him everything he wants to know. It is the ONLY door to recovery. I believe that 100%.

toomanyregrets posted 4/2/2013 08:41 AM

BH here.
DO NOT LIE ANY MORE
Tell him everything.

Keeping anything back will only make things worse.

It may hurt and it may end things but the truth is what your BH needs, good or bad.

wifehad5 posted 4/2/2013 08:42 AM

Try to set up a time frame for this. It helps knowing when it will be over.

When you're done telling, try to plan some time for him to process things. I know that right after hearing things, I was much too raw to talk about it. Giving myself 24 hours to process help a lot.

Good luck

heartbroken2012 posted 4/2/2013 09:31 AM

I agree with the other BSs. Tell everything ALL at once. My Wh told me what I thought was everything, but then several days later told me more and those later things seems to hurt more....as it changed the timeline/picture for me.

The truth, even how painful it is, is best to rebuild trust. Just know that the trust will NOT be rebuilt immediately and there will be good days...and BAD ones.

sarahm49 posted 4/2/2013 09:43 AM

The truth is not always painless, but it is always right.

still-living posted 4/2/2013 09:55 AM

My wife felt relieved because it was the beginning of no. more. lies. It was the beginning of her new life. This is why you are doing it. Let him know this. No. more. lies. This is what you want to live the most fulfilling life possible.

Deeply Scared posted 4/2/2013 10:12 AM

windowsnotwalls...

Have you ever been completely honest with ANYONE, ever??? It's probably a safe bet you spend most the time even selling lies to yourself....

Please do not speculate about melhav's honesty or anything about any member here, it's very insulting that you would assume such a thing.

We ask that you post constructively and with respect towards others.

Thank you.

hurting1600 posted 4/2/2013 15:46 PM

I have to agree with windows. How many of us have ever been completely open. I am a bs and cannot claim that. I think the gift of that openess is of great value.

SurprisinglyOkay posted 4/2/2013 18:44 PM

Good for you!

I had an A in the beginning of our relationship. I held onto that fact for 6 years. I didn't tell a soul. It was my take to the grave secret, and it was taking me to mine. Holding it in was holing me back, more than I realized.
My BS had a gut feeling there was more. So when I finally told him he was relieved!
It was really hard to tell him, one of the scariest things I have done. I realized that either I had to tell, or leave the relationship. My anxiety level has dropped massively since I let that go. My healing really began that day.

You'll be okay!

windowsnotwalls posted 4/2/2013 19:09 PM

I apologize if my previous post seemed too harsh. The entirety of the message was meant to be hopeful.... that it is a rare gift, something that can truly spark a feeling of healing... being 100% honest....for the very reason it is so rare.

melhav posted 4/4/2013 22:19 PM

I wanted to thank you all for your helpful suggestions. I was able to make a change and open up to my husband. Things are progressing forward. I am hopeful.