SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Thanks for the insite all. Just ordered Not Just Friends. I have read so many self help books in the last month I got a bit overwhelmed and had to stop for a while. Time to start again.

[This message edited by brokenheart149 at 5:33 AM, July 14th (Thursday)]

Not Just Friends is a very good book. I'm also reading First aid for the betrayed and Getting Past the Affair.

Still nothing makes any sense

I started reading this one a few weeks ago. I didn't get the feeling that it was blaming the BS but I stopped reading when I got to the chapter about the different types of Love. It made my skin crawl that it used that word to describe in any way what WH had with his skanks. I haven't picked it up again and not sure if I will.

My WH is reading "Not Just Friends" and said it's pretty good. I may pick up another copy of that to read instead.

In addition to the Glass standard, Not Just Friends, I would suggest "How to Help Your Spouse Heal From An Affair" by Linda MacDonald. It's short, to the point, and sounds like it was culled from this site

Nice option for someone more receptive to a handbook than an in depth study. Kinda like a "how-to" manual.

Now, it doesn't stand alone, and is no panacea. But its a great jump-start.

Good luck!

A lot of the books on infidelity are very good books but the timing is key.

After The Affair, Torn Asunder and Surviving An Affair are all good books but not so much for those early in recovery. After the Affair moves quickly into what was wrong, Torn Asunder moves quickly into forgiveness and Surviving An Affair moves quickly to meeting his needs meeting her needs.

I read Private Lies-Infidelity and Betrayal of Intimacy early after D-day and blew a gasket when I read the section about "Unintentional Affairs" tossing the book. Ironically years later it was part of my course work and actually met the author Frank Pittman when he was guest speaker at a conference. But at the time I was insulted by the concept of "unintentional"

If you are only a short time from D-day these are not messages you want to hear.

Not Just Friend and Surviving Infidelity (Subotnik and Harris) are much better for those early in recovery.

[This message edited by stunned-dad at 8:52 AM, July 17th (Sunday)]

If you read After the Affair with thought that it is trying to tackle healing from infidelity and addressing core marital issues that likely existed in many marriages before the infidelity, it might be useful to you.

Chapter 5, Learning from the Affair, does have an early piece that goes "This chapter asks you to stop pointing fingers at each other and accept the appropriate share of responsibility for the affair. It's not that your'e equally culpable; your not, if only because no one can make another person stray. But instead of haggling over percentages -- how much was your fault, how much mine -- you both need to look at how you contributed to your problems at home."

If that paragraph is a non-started for you . . . then you may want to just not read the book.

For me . . . I know that my wife made the poor choices that created the affair. I don't own one bit of those choices. I also know that BOTH of us failed in the marriage. We BOTH let things fall apart. So, I can read a book that addresses both the ifidelity and the marriage we want to have and keep it as distinct issues in my mind. It doesn't trigger me. But I understand that isn't true for everyone.

[This message edited by WarpSpeed at 9:20 AM, July 17th (Sunday)]

WH bought After the Affair early on. I just could not handle it. Count me as another who tossed it in the trash.

After the Affair was one of the first books I got after my 1st d-day. Hated it, for the same reasons many others have said. I felt it blamed the BS and I thought referring to the OP as "lover" was insulting and romanticized cheating. I knew as soon as I read the part about the BS accepting responsibility for the problems in the marriage that my now-exWH would use that to continue to blame me for his cheating.

Thanks for the insights into these books. I don't think that "After The Affair" would be a book that I would like. "Not Just Friends" and ""How to Help Your Spouse Heal From An Affair" sound like books that I would find helpful.

I just finished reading "When You're Lover Is A Liar" by Susan Forward and I liked it. It isn't just about infidelity but explores other lies and acts of betrayal.

Another vote for Not Just Friends over After the Affair.

After the Affair is like a bad MC who has the BS examining how he/she can improve to fulfill the WS's needs better.

But worst of all is one of the later chapters in which the author discusses whether or not it is useful to the WS to confess an affair or whether that would just make life far too unpleasant for the poor dear.

Straight to the circular file, as my junior high teacher would say.

I read 'after the affair' and really enjoyed the beginning portions. It helped me to see what I was going through physically and emotionally was normal. I thought I was going crazy honestly. I read the beginning chapters over and over.

I didn't read much of the rest of it, especially the exercise parts towards the end.

I have to say, I didn't think it blamed the BS. It actually clearly states that there is no excuse for an affair. What it does state is that almost always, before an affair, there are problems in the marriage, and that some of them are due to each spouse.

I'm reading both After the Affair and Not just Friends at the same time. Honestly I don't feel blamed so much as the BS and I think After the Affair has targeted my WW's issues prior to us ever meeting that help lead to this. As a BS whether we like it or not, we did things oR lack of things, that contributed to our M souring. If you think you didn't you're living no more a fantasy world than your WS. Problems in the marriage are 50/50. But yes the affair is there's.

In reading the first chapter or so in Not Just Friends it made me sick. All the details they were talking about between Lara and whomever....how they were attracted. I found it really hurt because I was relating it to my WW doing that with the OM. It almost made me cry. I took a break and I'm going to skip through it a little. I guess my issue is that my WW is unremorseful and isn't interested in R right now. She may never I don't know. She goes about her daily life like nothing has happened.

Biggest problem I find is that all these books revolve around both spouses wanting to reconcile. Or just where the BS has a decision to stay or go. I don't know of one, unless someone could suggest, of how to handle my situation. How to act, how to carry myself and mostly

how to get self esteem back. I feel destroyed with no help in sight. I don't know how to even talk to her anymore. That never used to be the case before all this.

I've read ATA, I found it to be too focused on the EA or LTA rather than explain different emotional investments by WS. I've read Surviving Infidelity, and really enjoyed it, so helpful. I'm only 6.5 months from DDay, so it was so helpful to see the calming/coping exercises, as well as see the examples of the types of affairs on a continuum.

I think After the Affair also placed a disproportionate amount of blame on the BS.

The use of the word "lover" made me want to throw up.