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Now that I have disclosed the general details of the affairs I have had, we (my BS and I) are now going to be going through and discussing them in detail. I am curious what others have experienced in similar situations. What is the hardest part of telling the details of the affair? Is there any way to disclose the details without causing further damage? Are there any pitfalls to look out for?

BS input is more than welcome!

Thank you all in advance!

[This message edited by melhav at 10:43 PM, April 12th (Friday)]

The hard parts of telling details from the affair - the pain you see in your BS, not to mention the shame of telling them what you have done.

Is there any way to disclose without causing damage? Take it from someone that was really bad at disclosing and lied for months after the initial DDay - the damage is already done. Do the details add damage? Yes, some, but not nearly as much damage as not disclosing does.

Do. Not. Trickle Truth!

So many stories here of the WS saying, "It was just one time, vanilla sex. Nothing fancy." Come to find out, months down the road, the BS finds proof where it was actually wild monkey sex 4 times a week for like 2 years.

Don't leave details out. Be honest. Be forthcoming.

It's hard. Confession sucks. It's humiliating. But...it's a consequence of our actions. I chose to have an A, I need to tell the person I hurt what I have done. In however much detail he needs.

I cringed telling my husband the details. But he deserved to know what I had done. He needed to hear what I had said/thought/done so that he would know how bad it was, and so he would know what he was going to try to R with.

Seriously don't TT. My SO and I discussed details constantly. I remember a convo that lasted 3 hours and it was him asking me question after question about how many times, how did it feel, how big was he, how did you feel in that moment, was he better then me, did you enjoy it, why dis you throw up, were you trying to replace me.....3 hours and I answered every question. Sometimes it hurt me to my soul to answer the things asked but I did it. We cannot guarantee our spouses no pain as our very actions have already torn them apart. All we can do is give them honesty.

My BH wrote questions down and I answered them in writing. It helped me to remember. We ended up discussing the details verbally but writing things out seemed to help both of us.

Writing a detailed timeline can help both you and your BS. There are some threads about written timelines...I don't remember if they were in the healing library or in the forums.

BH here. Answer everything. No matter how painful you may think it will be for him to hear. True, total disclosure took about 2 months in sporadic gulps. I'd ask questions til I literally either was in tears, sobbing until I couldn't breathe or vomited. After I felt recovered enough, I would ask more questions.

FWW answered everything. After the first 3 days of TT, she completely opened up. It wasn't her calling a halt to the sessions, it was me.

If you are really in this, be prepared. You are about to devastate another human being by disclosing actions you took willingly. I am not saying that to discourage you, but to prepare you. This will also cause a lot of pain for you also. It may cause you to want to minimize his pain during disclosure. I beg of you, please don't. On the few occasions my fWW did, it wound up causing deeper pain later.

As a BH, I desperately wanted to believe, believe this person who betrayed me was finally giving me the truth. The whole unvarnished truth. I would take what she said and set it as such. Further revelations of something I already knew would send me even deeper than I was the first time. Consistent honesty. That's all I can recommend.

He's gonna ask the same questions over and over in many different ways looking for small discrepancies. Be patient. I know this sounds odd given the subjects you will be discussing, but be kind. Don't get angry and tell him you've answered this before. His whole world view is in flux. Black is white and east is west. Believe it or not, you can be the key to settling that down.

I know you're scared. You should be. The best hope you have right now is total complete transparency and honesty. Answer what he asks. If there is something he doesn't ask, but you think is pertinent, ask him if he want's to know. Don't lie by omission. However, also don't force it on him either. Some people just don't need all the details. Let him be the judge.

Good luck in your disclosure. I am a big fan of people reconciling.

Hi

Tell EVERYTHING. Do not hold back please. For the sake of your relationship.

After almost 3 years I still think daily of leaving. Now it's not because of the multiple LTAs but because I still don't believe I have the whole story.

Laura

BS here. It will be very difficult. And the little voice in your head may scream at you to sugar coat it, or lie about some things by ommission. Please dont. Your pain, shame, embarrasment will not kill you, may feel like it, but it wont. I was given TT for weeks after DD1, I got 3 months of false reconciliation because he never told me about OW2. DD1 was bad enough, but after DD2, my feelings are different, i am more distant, unaproachable, unsure of what the real truth is from him. Always waiting for another bomb to go off. If you really want this R, please answer all his questions as honestly as possible. PLEASE DONT SAY I DONT KNOW! I have a post in General..title.. "I dont know (graphic)"....just this little 'I dont know' from my Wexfiance feels like the straw that broke the camels back. Dont let that be you. Hang in there

It helped both of us when my WS answered my questions in writing. It was much less stressful. We still talked but that helped us so much.

A written time line would be very helpful. Be honest and transparent for sure. No TT.

Be kind and remorseful if you truly are. If not then let him go. He deserves peace.

I personally take comfort knowing my wife told me everything- I mean EVERYTHING! It hurt both of us and was horrible- not to mention totally humiliating for her- but for me it showed she really wanted honesty between us- essential in moving forward.

Get it ALL out at once. Seriously. Spill all of it. Do it all now.

You want only 1 major shock. After that, you will have to repeat the stories, but that is part of the gradual processing system.

When you tell the story, there is a system you should use:

1. Raw data: who, what, were, when, $$. Tell all the FACTS that you remember

2. What were you thinking THEN? What were you feeling THEN? What did you tell yourself to make it ok?

3. What do you think of it NOW? What do you feel about it NOW? Why was it NOT ok and what should you have done?

Make sure you say, "my preception then_______ vs. my preception NOW______" Make it very clear that you see where your thinking was flawed before and that you see it clearer now. Make a distinct differentiation between THEN and NOW every time you talk. That will prevent your BS from feeling you STILL blame them for the A.

Sometimes my WH talks about how he felt while in the A and it sounds like he is talking about how he feels now and I mistakenly feel like he is still blaming me. BE VERY VERY VERY CLEAR on Then vs Now.

This is very formulaic but trust me, it will work. Stick to it. Your BS will appreciate it. 3 steps: Facts, Then, Now.

To paraphrase Laura:

"After almost 3 months, I still think daily of leaving. It's not only because of the LTA but because I still don't believe I have the whole story."

As sorry you are and as much as you want to save your relationship is as much as your BS needs you to be honest and forthcoming.

Good luck with this painful but necessary step.

Thank you everyone for your great advice. I do appreciate all of the input.

Do. Not. Trickle Truth!

As a BS who got about 11 months of this, all I can say is please don't put your BS through it. It gets to a point where you detach just to protect your emotions and one lie erases a thousand truths. Because she was willing to swear to me that I knew it all so many times, only to find out it kept getting worse, it really makes me wonder if she is still hiding even worse details. Good luck. Rip that bandaid off once and fast - don't keep slowly peeling it off and watching the wound bleed again.

Just be completely open and honest. I wanted to know so I didn't always wonder. Yes it hurt to hear that another man was doing what should have been something only shared between my wife and I but helped settle my mind. I would recommend breaking it into chunks because in talking it will lead to other discussions. You both may get weary and he may get very angry. Judge the situation and his emotionall mood during the conversation.

[This message edited by IForgiveHer at 10:25 AM, April 15th (Monday)]

BS here. I have had nothing but TT. It does more damage than good. When you have been served up with the ultimate deception you become very very good at smelling the difference between truth and lies. I wanted to know certain amounts of info at certain times when I was ready to hear it. I needed to know in order for me to process what was really happening and why. WS simply did not have the courage and that only led me to believe that the affair was not over or that he had much stronger feelings for her than me. If you truly love your spouse and want to heal them and your marriage fess up any details on request but only what they have asked. Some people need to know more than others. Some over longer periods of time but for me my WS didn't always give me the true answers to my questions and that hurts. The truth always has a way of surfacing and because he couldn't bring himself to be totally honest when I requested info I now do not believe anything he says. Really guarded now and still unsure of the future. Still vigilant and it's soul destroying. Tell the truth. Your BS will feel it, smell it and it will make such a difference in the healing. Good luck and all the best.

[This message edited by Titanium at 6:15 PM, April 15th (Monday)]

That is the hardest part. Telling the details of the affair.

A couple people did mention it though, don't tell any lies about your affair. You need to be straight forward about everything.

My husband knew what happened but didn't know all the details. So one day, probably a couple months ago I sat down with him and went over everything. And I mean everything. I went over every gory detail there was to know. From text messages, to what lead up to the sex, and the details of said act, to the details of my second sexual encounter with my AP which consisted of a blowjob.

He now knows everything about that time period. And yes, it was the hardest thing to do. To go over every detail about how I had sex with someone else. It was hard to see the hurt and pain in his eyes.

It is going to be a really hard thing to go over the details of your A. But after everything is out, you will feel a whole lot better. When everything is out in the open and nothing remains a secret, it feels good.

After everything is out, the healing starts.

WS here. One of my first questions was: Did she meet our kids. No. (Thank goodness) Did you meet hers? No. These were the questions more impt. to me bc obviously it wasn't just about them.

Honestly, I did not ask what positions they did or where was the wildest place they had sex. I couldn't see how that would help me heal from the pain I was already in.

The details that hurt me the most were finding out how the first time happened and what he would tell me in order to leave for a golf trip one day sooner in order to be with her before the acutal trip.

Whatever I asked though, he answered and he did so with patience. When I raged he let me rage almost as if he was watching from a distance which I read in another book is the way to do it. He always apologized. He has always been remorseful which has helped me come so far in the past 4 months since D-Day. He didn't do TT with me but if I thought of something 4, 6, 8 weeks down the road and asked, he would answer. These things were so random but were important to me.

We read After the Affair together. There is a chapter in there about "how to talk about the A". You might want to pick that up.

Finally, I am reading a book right now by Emily Brown called: Affairs - A Guide to working through the Reprocussions of Infidelity. There is a chapter in there about "obsessing" over the details. I think this is a normal part of the process BUT, you don't want your spouse to get stuck there. I got the book bc I found I was doing that.

I wish you well.

[This message edited by LA44 at 7:43 PM, April 15th (Monday)]

Cannot emphasis what others have said enough....do not TT. Get it all out at once. I spent months torturing my BH with TT and refusing to admit to him (and myself) the details.

Writing worked best for me. It allowed me to think things thru. My BH also gave me questions and I wrote out answers to them. That helped me to think things thru instead of answering reactively.

Get it all out. There is no good way. It will be painful - for both of you - but neither of you can begin to heal until it is all out on the table.

Good luck.

I agree with many who have responded. I lied for years about what I did and it caused more damage than any of my actions. Do not trickle truth, get it all out now.