SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

This is my first post, so forgive me if my acronyms are terrible.

I’m a WW. BH and I have been married for 12 years together for 15, no kids.

The AP was an old friend with whom I reconnected on fb (he sought me out) and was for about 8 months a EA (he lives 1500 miles away) via text an email. There was only one sexual encounter that I immediately regretted (in Aug/15).

Just over 3 months ago BH was told about the A by the husband of my best friend while I was out of town. BH called me in the middle of the night, told me he knew what had happened, and told me that upon my return home, I was not welcome to stay at our home. I ended up staying with a friend for a few weeks until I could find a place of my own. The entire process, BH was a mixed bag of emotions and I essentially tried to avoid him at all costs so as not to make things worse for either of us. I lived on my own for 2 months, recently made the decision to return to our home for financial reasons and because we both wanted to R…or so I thought.

BH sporadically attends IC, I go to IC weekly (a condition of R), and we have attended 2 MC sessions together.

We did all the wrong things in the beginning. Since then, I have read the books, educate myself, gaining insight, and apologized every chance I get, NC with AP, practice full disclosure, am 100% honest and I thought things were getting better. Then in our MC yesterday, BH said he wanted “space”, then not to work on our marriage, then a D. I was completely blindsided. Our counselor and I both believe this is his choice of “flight” instead of “fight” because the hard work of examining our marriage has started and it’s very difficult for him to see light at the end of the tunnel, that he is acting out of fear. I am trying my best to be supportive without being pushy or making choices for him. He still seems very receptive to my activities and actions to fix things so I’m finding it hard to believe that he’s serious about D. I think he’s just is in so much pain that he is having a hard time imagining that things will get better. I feel at times that I’m being tested…to see if I’m serious.

I am going to continue to let him know that I love him, that I am not giving up, and asking him to hang in there for awhile more. It’s all I know to do as so much of what I’ve read says that his feelings (the rollercoaster) are typical and normal.

Does anyone have any experience getting over this hump? What should I say or do to BH to make him feel safe and that this is what’s best for both of us in the long run….even if down the road we agree to D.

BH here and I see no stop sign.

Well it appears to me that between you and your great MC that you want to blame your BH for not wanting to do the work to repair this.

You also said you returned to work on the marriage for financial reasons.

Take a close look at yourself and ask why would any

BH want to reconcile with you given the info you have posted.

I returned to my *home* for financial reasons (we couldn't afford to upkeep two residences). I had always expressed my desire to work on my marriage to BH.

We have a wonderful, highly regarded MC, who is doing her job well.....which includes being honest with both of us when she thinks we're not being honest in the process with ourselves or each other.

I have always worked to do what is the best long term interest of my BH. And he is in crisis and is hurting and it would be a sad thing for him to disengage in therapy and healing because of fear.

Do you think it was good that your husband found out?

How do you feel about the husband of the friend who told your husband?

How did you react when your husband told you he knew?

Did you ever contact your affair partner after your husband found out?

It was absolutely necessary for him to find out. I chickened out multiple times when trying to tell him. I knew I was going to have to disclose it.

I have cut off all contact with both my "friend" and the husband (who I was also close with). For reasons I won't get into here, it became painfully clear that neither of them cared much for either of our feelings. The husband seemed to take glee in having been the one to rat me out. He seemed oblivious to the pain it caused BH.

When BH called me and told me he knew, I was stunned. I never denied it. I apologized (I did feel truly awful). I answered any question he asked 100% truthfully. At the end of the call, I felt strangely relieved. I hated carrying the secret around, but I was furious at how he found out.

I contacted the AP only to tell him that we couldn't have any more contact in any way.

To be honest, I kind of agree with Sam. That statement your MC made really did rub me in the wrong way. Divorce is not running away. In most cases it is the natural consequence to cheating, especially if cheating is a deal breaker for the BS. In terms of what you should do, you need to be ready to lose this marriage to save it. In the meantime, continue to show your husband that R is what you want.

I am sorry. You have not always worked on what is the best long term interests of the BH. The best long term interests did not include fucking around. The sad thing is that he is in therapy for a circumstance that he had no part in creating. He is trying to protect himself from an attack from a blind side he never, ever anticipated.

I also agree with Sam. Your MC is suspect. Flight and fight are both defensive actions. They are not right or wrong. Your BH wants to flee a very dangerous situation doesn't make him wrong. It might save his life. Just because it doesn't fit your scenario doesn't make it wrong for him,.

He will test you in actions and attitudes and not so much in words. He won't likely think you know what's best for him. The cheating communicates to the BH that you did not love him. Now you say you do love him, but that conflicts with what your actions were. You have now started some actions that are communicating you love him, but still not so long ago you were cheating. So doubts remain. Over a long period of time of you keeping the current kinds of actions of loving him, you will be able to earn back his trust and get rid of his conflict and doubts. Consistency over actions for a long period of time.

You and your MC had a conversation about your husband and his "real" reasons for his words and actions. What does your husband think about your conversation with the MC? Does he agree you and MC both know what is best for your him, like he doesn't know what's best for himself? Does he agree like your MC and you that he is afraid and runs away because it is too much work for him to fix the marriage?

An alternate possibility is he has doubts about a person who cheated for 8 months and only discovered the truth of his life because a rat finally snitched. Maybe your husband disagrees the word of "rat" and maybe he is skeptical about the "real" reason you are furious over it.

My wife cheated on me and she got over the hump to make me feel safe. It was based on her actions consistently over a long period of time.

You can't control him, only yourself. You can act consistently over a long period of time. Take a STD test and give him a copy. Offer to take a polygraph if he has any doubts about your truthfulness. Every morning and night, tell him you are sorry, you love him, and you will make it up to him for the rest of your life.

Don't be impatient. Be patient. This is a long process, 2 years at least. The affair lasted 8 months. It is just over 3 months since he found out. What is the rush? Why not let him get over the hump when he is ready?

Then in our MC yesterday, BH said he wanted “space”, then not to work on our marriage, then a D. I was completely blindsided. Our counselor and I both believe this is his choice of “flight” instead of “fight” because the hard work of examining our marriage has started and it’s very difficult for him to see light at the end of the tunnel, that he is acting out of fear.

I have always worked to do what is the best long term interest of my BH. And he is in crisis and is hurting and it would be a sad thing for him to disengage in therapy and healing because of fear.

Melozia, I'm a betrayed husband. I see no stop sign so I'll respond to it. I'll try to be as gentle as I can. So, I have a question for you. Why you and your MC believe that you can know your husband's mind better than himself (what's good, what's bad, what's right, what's wrong, what's sad and even what's fearful for him)? Well, I can't read his mind but let me tell you something as a man and a BH. What you describe as "flight" or "fight" is most probably an internal struggle between your husband's deal breakers and eventually an exception to that rule. It's possible that he thought he could reconcile (seeing an exception to that rule) and him most probably understanding now that it is though a deal breaker. It is also possible that he still struggles to understand both what his deal breakers are, what the exceptions are and how that everything fits to his personality as well as to the type of a man he is. It took me almost three years to get to the point of understanding all the connections and put my thoughts straight. And don't forget he'll also need to forgive himself not only staying with you but even for having those deal breakers and exceptions. He's not running anywhere but is in the middle of the most difficult struggle and fight of his life. He needs to be respected and reassured for this. I'm saying this because I BTDT. My wife was extremely remorseful and doing everything beyond perfect to let me heal and it still took years for this process. It is only now that I came to SI that the good popele here helped me to sort everything out. In fact, our true reconciliation begins only now. So, patience and endurance are also important virtues you'll need to cultivate.

I really try to sort my words so that you do not feel offended. I apologize in advanced if you feel so because it is not my intention but I feel yours and the MC's approach has a little bit of arrogance to it if you decide for your husband that he's fearful. If you want to encourage your man to be strong you don't do this by throwing in his face how fearful he is but by cultivating the opposite virtues. For example telling him how strong and courageous he is for what he's doing. Especially when he tries to fight for the marriage that is very courageous! I think this is what you should make him feel through your words, actions and your attitude and not giving him even the slightest feeling that he is weak by deciding to leave the marriage. Now, I can't tell you for sure how your betrayed husband feels because I'm not him. Yet, from a man's perspective (who was betrayed) I can indeed give you a few examples of how it might look like. One thing I know it has nothing to do with him being weak and running away. As others said, divorce is a natural consequence for cheating. Reconciliation is a legitimate choice too. Whatever he decides, he is justified in his actions and choices. Nothing in there points to weakness or him running away. I see there a man who's fighting the hardest battle of his life and is not weak at all. If you want to help your husband you need to change the way you view and your attitude towards him. Your MC actually too! If not think about changing that MC.

Edited to add another thought: if I understand it correctly you cheated for eight months, mostly an EA that culminated in a physical one in one occasion! You have here all the most devastating elements in an affair! The long period of time, the combination of both the emotional as well as physical aspect as well as him finding this everything not through your own confession but through a third party himself! In my opinion (and he will not tell you this) the chances that he feels emasculated by your actions are high. Now, try to imagine how emasculating even sensing a notion of this attitude or even you telling him directly that he's weak for leaving this marriage can be. It's like adding the salt of humiliation to the wound of emasculation. To help him heal you must give the feeling that he's the most powerful and strong man for still being there for you or doing whatever he does. The problem is it's not only your actions. Your actions must mirror your attitude (and your words as well as intentions) and your attitude (as well as your words and intentions) must be in sync with your actions. If not it doesn't look authentic. And he can sense that. It is something you have to work on yourself as well.

[This message edited by MrSpock at 5:34 AM, February 7th (Sunday)]

I appreciate everyone's point of view, even when delivered a bit harshly. But, as I've pointed out to my IC, nothing anyone can say could possibly make me feel worse than I already do. I realize that my original post left out nearly all specifics of our situation, so I appreciate the posters who gave me their point of view.

MrSpock.....so much of what you said resonated with me. BH has spoken about feeling emasculated, about struggling within himself in terms of finding balance between his self-respect and his love for me and commitment to our M. Your insight made alot of sense to me and I appreciate your honesty. When you say that it's been a 3 year process, can I ask what you did in terms of IC/MC, etc during this time? Am I wrong to ask BH to continue to hang in there? Even if it's by his fingernails?

This is uncharted territory for both BH and I. I am learning as I go and trying to do better as I know better. I am 100% committed to my BH and our M and I am doing what I can to have him know that, but you're right, it's my actions and consistency (creating a new history of behaviour) that will (hopefully) have him see that I am sincere and that I am committed.

You cannot--and should not attempt to---direct your husband's thoughts, feelings or actions.

YOUR thoughts, feelings, and actions are all you can control.

Focus on your IC. Let him focus on his.

It may be too soon for MC. I refused MC until and unless my WH had made significant progress in IC; he was not a safe partner before then. Your attempts to direct your husband--with your MC conspiring to shift focus to marital issues at 3 months--means you are not yet a safe partner. (Sadly, no matter how good this MC might have been at the right time, she will likely not be safe for your BS at any time, ever. In his shoes, I would not return.)

I would suggest that any MC who's discussing your BH and his motivations with you, as if he were not there, at 3 months post dday may not be the appropriate MC for moving forward constructively in your marriage.

[This message edited by solus sto at 11:32 AM, February 7th (Sunday)]

Just my experience, but MC did more harm than good in the beginning for us. I think our first MC session was three weeks after dday. Our MC wanted us to work on the marriage, but as a BS after dday, I could have cared less about the future of our marriage or how we needed to communicate better, I needed to know what the heck just happened. Those first few sessions where ugly. If our MC would have pushed me, I would have tossed out the Divorce flag too.

We were much more successful when MC became more of an IC session for WH and I just got to talk about the topic of what I was having issues with and then the MC would work with WH to help him dig. There was no pressure on me and I could watch, listen, and ask questions. Once we had beaten the A horse enough, we stopped going to MC, but still went to IC. I was still in no position/mindset to work on our marriage.

It is 2.5 years later and I am only now considering returning. Be patient with your BS, this crap takes years to process and he is only 3 months into it which for me was still the WTF stage and next comes anger.

A lot of his emotions are part of the cycle, but yeah, he probably is testing you. Your prior actions showed him your marriage wasn't worth fighting for, therefore, it will take him a long time to trust both your actions and words. He needs to know that you are going to fight for him and your marriage regardless of his moods and how long it takes.

I'm a bs

What strikes me is:

1. It's been 3 months. That's absolutely nothing in terms of the time many take to trudge through this path

2. 2 MC sessions and your husband is being told it's time to take a hard look at marital issues? And his understandable feelings of hurting too much to continue are being called flight?

Your husband is in a "fight" he didn't sign up, for battling the pain that his spouse created and he continues hurting from. There is no easy way to describe what he likely feels.

Have you read How to Help your Spouse heal after your affair?

I think you should continue your ic, for you. His path to healing may be very different from yours. And if you guys do both choose to R, the hard work of sorting through his grief and the feelings of the A will likely need to take priority for more than 2 MC sessions. It's why a MC experienced in infidelity who you *both* feel is helpful is so so so important

I firmly believe I had the "flight" response on MY DDay when my FWH confessed. I immediately told him the M was over...there was no emotion whatsoever. I believe this came from my experience from my 1st M...when my 1st H cheated on me. I "fought" for that M...but he kept cheating...it didn't work out.

Have you googled the "fight...flight...or freeze" response? It is quite interesting. This is from our limbic system...or "lizard brain"...and it can't be taught logically. Our responses come from EXPERIENCE...which also means our responses can CHANGE with different experiences .

MrSpock and the others have given some interesting insights into the male psyche...something I don't have!! I can only speak from MY perspective. I PUSHED my FWH away...I would literally RUN away...the pain was just too raw sometimes. My FWH would hold me...come after me...showing ME that HE wasn't going anywhere. My FWH FOUGHT for US...despite my constant pushing away. I NEEDED to see this...to see that HE felt I was worthy enough to fight for. He sure wasn't showing that during his A!!

I also agree with you about not doing anything to take his CHOICES away. Being put in this HELL through no CHOICE of my own...is a special kind of HELL unto itself . Deciding to stay or go is his CHOICE now...but he also needs to be able to make informed decisions. This means YOU need to be vulnerable enough to let him know what YOU WANT going forward.

I have read that it isn't an affair that destroys a marriage...it is what happens afterward that determines this. It takes BOTH of you wanting to move forward for R...but only ONE of you to decide to D. Decide what YOU want...then go forward on that path. Hopefully your BH will make the SAME decision...and that will be that you BOTH decide to R.

If our MC would have pushed me, I would have tossed out the Divorce flag too.

This is what I feel BH has done. I feel that he may have felt backed into a corner and knew that would essentially end the discussion. I have been careful to not require a concrete answer of BH about our future, I have only gone where he's led. It was truly a shock to me that he said he wanted D. I'd hate to not take his statement seriously, though. In all honesty, if you had been put in the position to "toss out the divorce flag", would you have meant it? Or could you see that it was a defense mechanism?

Have you read How to Help your Spouse heal after your affair?

I have read it. I only just finished it prior to our last MC. What made sense to me (and felt natural) was the perseverance. I know I cannot fix this overnight.

I PUSHED my FWH away...I would literally RUN away...the pain was just too raw sometimes. My FWH would hold me...come after me...showing ME that HE wasn't going anywhere. My FWH FOUGHT for US...despite my constant pushing away. I NEEDED to see this...to see that HE felt I was worthy enough to fight for. He sure wasn't showing that during his A!!

Can I assume that there were days, early on where your wants flip flopped? That what I'm seeing in BH (the roller coaster of wants changing almost daily) is what most BSs experience? I am so nervous about pushing him away, seeming desperate. I want to do what you've described. Maybe this is a stupid question, but how do I do that in day to day life and know whether they view it as sincere and not needy or begging or being disrespectful to his feelings?

[This message edited by Melozia at 12:49 PM, February 7th (Sunday)]

Focus more on your own healing and digging into your WHYs. He needs you to figure this out and to find new coping mechanisms that are safe for him and your marriage.

Don't tell him what you are doing, do it, and let him observe from his safe place, wherever he decides that is.

Melozia

MrSpock.....so much of what you said resonated with me. BH has spoken about feeling emasculated, about struggling within himself in terms of finding balance between his self-respect and his love for me and commitment to our M. Your insight made alot of sense to me and I appreciate your honesty. When you say that it's been a 3 year process, can I ask what you did in terms of IC/MC, etc during this time?

First, I'm happy that my post resonated with you and I could help you with the information that I've provided. Hence, we are posting not in just found out or in the general but the wayward forum and in your thread I don't want to post too much about myself and my story. If you think it can help you can read my thread. Especially what my wife has done and went through. I'll just mention here only the few important basics. I also apologize for the long post by I'm trying to summarize here a struggle of three years. So, basically, before the affair I was quite living on an auto pilot. The affair basically forced me not only to look at myself but at many more things. If I'll summarize it, my approach is most probably different than the usual approach to infidelity (or maybe not). Personally, not only I do not believe that all marriages should be reconciled given the fact that the wayward spouse is remorseful but I also do not find that a faithful spouse is morally obligated to the wayward in that case. I believe that each and every case is different and dependent on too many factors. I also believe that reconciliation is a personal issue. It means that even if the wayward spouse is able of change there are faithful partners that won't be able to reconcile. It doesn't make the one better and superior or the other worse or morally corrupt. People are not one and the same and they are differently wired. What is good for the one is not so good for the other. You can't put people in boxes. My emphasis, therefore, was now to ultimately and better know myself! I began to start to challenge my very basic belief system, culture, my upbringing as well as world views and many more in each and every aspect I could think about. In fact, I began to challenge both, the traditional as well as currently popular beliefs, ideas, perceptions and even myths about infidelity. I also began to be more mindful to what makes me function as a man, husband, a human being and many more. I had to reconcile that everything as in regard to my deal breakers, exceptions, the way I see my-self as a man and many more within my head, mind and heart. It's just a small drop of water in an ocean of struggles I went through. Given the depth of this struggle, counseling and MC hasn't done anything. It's just wasn't enough for me! I haven't found the answers that I needed. I also felt the IC and MC had a problem to empathize with my struggles as a man. Therefore, they also couldn't offer me any practical solutions or help me even to understand what I need from my wife. I haven't gone to the IC and MC for all of the three years. At some point I stopped and worked through it alone. However, I still was stuck and unable to understand everything

At some point, being stuck and because of many other reasons (again read my thread), I made a huge and critical mistake. I began to fake everything also because I did not want to hurt my wife because in the first year she was suicidal and I had practically to nurse her back to health in the first year. There were also many other reasons. At this stage I treated her very well on the outside but began to build a wall of resentment and apathy on the inside. I've worked hard on myself to keep us together. I didn't say anything about the affair anymore. Didn't scream, yell, shout, didn't throw anything in her face - nothing. We went out on dates, vacations, we hugged, kissed, we smiled, I bought her gifts, made her feel important, appreciated, loved and so on but it was a lie. It's not what I was feeling. I have built up a wall of apathy and resentment which helped me to deal and suppress my true feelings. I needed to be numb to stay with her. But it was hell. It was terrible. And I was suffering. This was the state that I came to SI. What I learned here, I actually I got here the last pieces to my puzzle was first of all to understand the huge mistake I made by not being truthful with my wife. Yet, one crucial piece of advice was to put my thoughts straight with the deal breakers, what they are, with the exceptions, what it specifically was and meant for me as well as understanding the connections to my type of personality, masculinity and so on. If you want to understand it, you can read again my thread. If I had this priceless piece of advice I could have spared us many problems. At the end, getting the advice here I opened up with my wife and told her the truth everything. Yet, she was not angry. Her reaction was still as humble, as graceful and as compassionate as she always was during this time. And in fact, as I said above, it is only now that our true reconciliation has begun. I'm telling you this to make you understand how difficult this process might be. It requires a lot from all of the parties involved in this process. My wife is not here to tell her side of the story and what she went through so I brought the things she's done (read the thread it was extremely difficult for her). I brought my side to make you understand what struggles a man can go through. I wanted to show you how it can affect the couple. And what an incredible effort it requires as well as many other problems. I think if you can understand this it will give you a more realistic view about what it takes to truly reconcile and adjust your expectations to the process. Of course, your husband is different, yet I don't think it's easy for him. And at least some of the struggles we may share.

Am I wrong to ask BH to continue to hang in there? Even if it's by his fingernails?

No, you're not wrong. However, it's not a question of being wrong or right, good or bad. It's even not what you ask. It's the question of whether it conducive and helpful or not. It's at the end what you do, represent and the message you send. Let your actions talk and "ask" for things rather than your talk be the action that you do. You can of course let your actions talk and express your desire for whatever you want instead of "asking" him for something. By the way, the two most important things my wife did was the external work as to the amends she was willing to make alongside with the incredible internal work she's done. After I told her everything and was willing to look at her work, everything she's done, it was astonishing. It was more than just understand her why. In fact, I relized that as me she has tried to even understand what makes her tick as a woman, wife and a human being. The same thing I was doing and went through. At the end it's the depth of that work amd the virtues she has displayed

[This message edited by MrSpock at 1:20 PM, February 7th (Sunday)]

Without trying to sound like you shouldnt take him seriously,I think it's valuable to recognize the huge rollercoaster of feelings that go on. One dag about 2.5 months in, I woke up feeling empty. By 30 minutes later I was so upset and begging my husband to understand. When he didn't respond, I felt furious. Shortly after that,he said he was leaving (which he says he meant as a get a few hours away), and I was set on divorce. That night I went through the same gamut again. All were valid feelings. And at the time, they were very serious and real.

Firm,certainty, knowing - those don't capture the ever shifting and complex feelings that go on

My BH says that being around me is getting harder and harder, trying is becoming more difficult. Reflecting on what so many of you are saying, I'm wondering if it was absolutely the wrong thing to do to ask him to try anything at this point.

He keeps saying that forgiving me isn't an issue. He knows and believes I am a good person, and that he sees how his actions contributed to what happened (without taking responsibility, of course...that's my job). I've cautioned him about moving too fast, forgiving too quickly, etc. He says he feels like too much damage has been done from prior to the A. We didn't have the perfect marriage, to be sure, but it wasn't as bad as either of us are recalling. Something I've read is typical for both spouse's...over-emphasizing issues and viewing the past through a lense that's skewed.

I am working VERY HARD on myself. I lost my mother 2 years ago and, while struggling with depression all of my life,her death knocked me into a very self-destructive mental and emotional spiral (that BH stood by me through), including frequent thoughts of suicide that have escalated to 2 attempts. There have been some things that BH has done in the past that I honestly believed were unforgivable and most definitely contributed to my feelings of isolation and lack of worth in the marriage. With the help of IC, I am learning to distinguish between what I can/can't do anything about. What I should/shouldn't invest my energy into. What issues from the past are worth/not worth carrying with you to the present/future. I know I'm on the right path.

It's wishful thinking for BH to be on the same path as me. I know he can do it. He's not a quitter. I am willing to fight for us, and I am. It's so discouraging that he's in this mindset. But I know this will all take time. I just hope he is open to that in the end.

Oh gosh Melozia...my feelings would change during the course of a conversation. It was such a confusing time for BOTH of us. I totally understand when people on here talk about the "emotional rollercoaster".

I also know without a doubt that if my FWH shows at any time right now that he is not ALL IN...then I'm OUT. I'm not strong enough yet to be able to help carry us through this. I know this means HE has to do all the hard work...but my FWH has not had an issue with this at all.

I can only speak for myself...but for ME...it is very helpful to know my FWH's feelings. He tells me every day how SORRY he is...and then he goes into specifics. For example...one day after we watched Rogers and Hammersteins "Cinderella"...he apologized for taking away my "happily ever after". This meant SO MUCH to me that he realized he did this. Has something like this helped your BH to heal?