# Something to Think About



## frozensprouts (Aug 1, 2009)

My husband is away on a course with the military right now, but will be back in a few days. We have had a terrible summer, but I am hoping that this fall will be better ( at least until he goes away for a seven/eight month deployment to Afghanistan) . Ou r summer consisted of him having an emotional affair with a girl who worked under him which ballooned to him telling me he wanted to separate and the next day ( according to him) their relationship became physical. It took me reporting their relationship to his unit padre ( it's a big no-no for a person to have a relationship with someone when they are their boss in the military- they could both have been charged, fined, demoted or even put in prison) because it seemed like the only way to get him to realize what he was doing and making an appointment with a divorce lawyer and letting him know about it.I think those things were a wake-up call to him, and he stopped seeing her and we started marriage counseling. 

I just want everyone who is considering cheating on their spouse, for whatever reason, to think about what their actions will do to their spouse and family. It's terribly painful, and you have no excuse for doing that to someone else. You simply can't be there for all those people the way you should be. My daughter, who takes a lot of pain medication for fibromyalgia, had started a new pain medication, and one of it's potential side effects is psychotic/suicidal behavior. my husband knew about this, but was so "into his affair " that he didn't want me to know where he was or how to get a hold of him even if it was an emergency. I don't drive due to bad vision, and one of my friends volunteered to take us to the hospital anytime, day or night, should there be an emergency. If I had to get a hold of my husband, it would have meant calling the base duty padre and having him look for him ( he's most likely start at that other girls house- if he found him there , it would have had pretty big ramifications, but my husband didn't seem to care).
What is it that would make someone act like that? Why would someone risk everything like that? It wasn't like we were having sex ( so please don't give me that excuse)


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## foolz1 (Sep 5, 2009)

Frozensprouts, I am sorry that you are having to deal with this along with everything else that you are trying to manage.

Please keep us updated.

(((HUGS)))

FZ1


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## lorithehun (Sep 22, 2009)

frozensprouts said:


> My husband is away on a course with the military right now, but will be back in a few days. We have had a terrible summer, but I am hoping that this fall will be better ( at least until he goes away for a seven/eight month deployment to Afghanistan) . Ou r summer consisted of him having an emotional affair with a girl who worked under him which ballooned to him telling me he wanted to separate and the next day ( according to him) their relationship became physical. It took me reporting their relationship to his unit padre ( it's a big no-no for a person to have a relationship with someone when they are their boss in the military- they could both have been charged, fined, demoted or even put in prison) because it seemed like the only way to get him to realize what he was doing and making an appointment with a divorce lawyer and letting him know about it.I think those things were a wake-up call to him, and he stopped seeing her and we started marriage counseling.
> 
> I just want everyone who is considering cheating on their spouse, for whatever reason, to think about what their actions will do to their spouse and family. It's terribly painful, and you have no excuse for doing that to someone else. You simply can't be there for all those people the way you should be. My daughter, who takes a lot of pain medication for fibromyalgia, had started a new pain medication, and one of it's potential side effects is psychotic/suicidal behavior. my husband knew about this, but was so "into his affair " that he didn't want me to know where he was or how to get a hold of him even if it was an emergency. I don't drive due to bad vision, and one of my friends volunteered to take us to the hospital anytime, day or night, should there be an emergency. If I had to get a hold of my husband, it would have meant calling the base duty padre and having him look for him ( he's most likely start at that other girls house- if he found him there , it would have had pretty big ramifications, but my husband didn't seem to care).
> What is it that would make someone act like that? Why would someone risk everything like that? It wasn't like we were having sex ( so please don't give me that excuse)


After my husband had over a year long affair (his band members tell me there were more than one affair, but to this day he denies all but one..) I read everything I could get my hands on to try and figure out why he did it. It was all the more baffling to me because the girl he had the affair with wasn't very pretty.. I knew _some_ of the "whys" but I couldn't understand why he hadn't just opened up to me & worked on things at home... why chose such a drastic, deal-breaking solution to our marital problems? Like you said in another post, it was surreal... and to top it all off I was so pissed at myself for not finding out sooner, for being so blinded by him (because there were quite a few times during that year that things would be temporarily good between he & I... we had some good sex, some loving moments... and all the while he was ****ing her. He even took me to meet her. He was playing at a club and he sat me down at her table, introduced us, and left us alone to chat while he played. That part still makes me so embarrassed.)

I keep getting lost in my own story, sorry... 

One thing I learned through my "research" (late at night, can't sleep, scouring the internet, "research"): 
men aren't wired to be monogamous. Their instinct is to have sex with many women (survival-of-the-species-cavemen stuff). So chances are the reason your man had an affair is mostly because... 
*DRUM ROLL*.......
He Could. 
It was there in front of him (lacking in morals and oozing skankiness, but there, nonetheless) and being offered to him and so he took it. 

There isn't a single answer as to why it happened that is going to satisfy you, because none of them are good enough.
They *aren't* valid excuses for stomping on someone's heart. 

Maybe things weren't as hot in the bedroom as he wanted them to be...
Maybe you paid more attention to the kids than to him...
Maybe you didn't tell him he was sexy 8.5 times a month...
Maybe his mom stopped breastfeeding him too early...

NONE of them are good enough reasons for him to have taken your trust & love, those precious gifts you gave to him when you married him, and treated them so callously. There is no reason in the world that can justify the hurt he caused you. 
He was selfish & cruel. 

I had to accept the fact that I would never be able to make sense of it, compartmentalize it, study it, fix it and put it away. I had to accept that he did a ****ty thing then decide what I was going to do about it. 

It's going to get better, no matter what you decide to do. After a while the hurt & pain won't be so sharp.. Hang in there.


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## Mommybean (Jan 22, 2009)

I don't buy into the caveman must propogate the world mentality. Yes, there are some men who think like this, but honestly, the ones that think like that aren't worth the trouble or the time of trying to help. 
I believe that most men, AND most women who have affairs, do so because they are lacking something inside themselves, and they are either running from it, or trying despertately to find something/someone to fill the void, or to make them feel less screwed up. Cheaters seldom hook up with someone who is on par with their spouse, which is why so many times we hear the "but he/she wasn't even attractive, they had NOTHING, they were a loser,"etc. Often they look for someone more broken than themselves, so that not only do THEY feel better about themselves, but they can then be the "fixer" and thus the hero for that person. With cheaters like this, IF they are willing to do the work on themselves, acknowledge their problems and work with their spouse, there is a good chance the couple can get thru it and come out better on the other side. For the people who cheat simply because they can, or because of the thrill....i've never really seen them change, their behavior is too egocentric to ever care about the spouses feelings.


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## lorithehun (Sep 22, 2009)

Mommybean said:


> Cheaters seldom hook up with someone who is on par with their spouse, which is why so many times we hear the "but he/she wasn't even attractive, they had NOTHING, they were a loser,"etc. Often they look for someone more broken than themselves, so that not only do THEY feel better about themselves, but they can then be the "fixer" and thus the hero for that person.


I am surprised by this.... I never knew this was a common theme, I thought it was so bizarre that the woman he cheated on me with wasn't very attractive....
But my husband stated over and over that "it was just sex!". If it was just sex, then would you say that puts him in the second category ("..the people who cheat simply because they can, or because of the thrill....")? 
I don't know... I don't think my husband cared about fixing her at all.... she was in a marriage, and wanted to stay that way... she didn't need rescuing, she just wasn't sexually satisfied with her husband (or so she told me)

What about Frozen Sprouts husband, then? She says that her husband was the OW's boss.. he was in a position of authority... so that would fit into your "most cheaters" theory, right? So that would be good news for her...


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## Mommybean (Jan 22, 2009)

In frozen sprouts situation, without really knowing all the details, it may just be power tripping. Same thing with "just sex"...its a power trip, its a thrill....many people get addicited to the thrill of affairs. A power trip, well that CAN signify something missing in someone, they have felt out of control in an area of their life and are trying to be the one in control this time, etc. Some people are just addicted to thrill seeking behavior...they cheat because they can, and they get off on the ellicitness of it. 
Trust me, the OW in my H's case, had NOTHING on me, and he even said, a woman like me would have told him to F off. The OW he dealt with made him feel like HE was the OK one, where in our relationship, thru his refusal to acknowledge his issues, HE was the broken one. Make sense??


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## lorithehun (Sep 22, 2009)

I wanted to tell you about something, Frozensprouts... one thing I did after finding out about my husband is print out this book:

Your marriage is not hopeless after an affair -- surviving infidelity and healing your realtionship after an extramarital affair is possible!

I gave it to my husband and insisted he read it. It costs $20 to download it but they also gift them to people who can't afford the cost. The book gives the person who has cheated *specific directions* for how to repair what they've done to the marriage. It helped us a LOT.


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## dobo (Jun 30, 2009)

It was *just* sex is a meaningless statement.


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## frozensprouts (Aug 1, 2009)

my husband's affair was actually initiated by this other woman. He got a message on Fcaebook saying that she had a problem, and asking if he had MSN chat or would he meet her to talk about it. I tried to explain to him that was inappropriate ( meeting outside the workplace), but he didn't see it that way. They started "chatting' on Facebook every night for at least an hour, and this went on for about 3 months. I asked him not to do that anymore, and he said he wouldn't, but he got an email from her asking him to come over to see her because she had a problem. i got really angry that he went, and that's when he told me he wanted to separate, and started staying at her house sleeping on her couch ( i don't believe that's where he was sleeping)- he told me that the next day they started a "romantic relationship". This went on for about three weeks, until I'd had enough and reported his/her actions to his unit padre and made an appointment to see a divorce lawyer. All of a sudden, he stopped seeing her and we started seeing a counselor, and we are working on repairing things.
This is what I don't get- he told me that she was really clingy and controlling, and that she had a lot of issues- so what is it about her that made her so attractive to him?


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## frozensprouts (Aug 1, 2009)

this girl also has a history of doing this type of things with her bosses- perhaps she tries to use it as a way to "get ahead" at work 9 she is really friendly with all the older, higher ranking men, and has movved on to the next guy already)


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## Mommybean (Jan 22, 2009)

What made her clingy and controlling behavior so attractive in the beginning was that SHE needed HIM to fix her...or at least that was the ploy she sucked him in with. She may have had an agenda, but he went in to it for a totally different reason than to help her move up in her job. He got sucked in because he was in a position not only of authority over her in the military, but because she gave him the feeling that she needed him to fix her life. 





frozensprouts said:


> my husband's affair was actually initiated by this other woman. He got a message on Fcaebook saying that she had a problem, and asking if he had MSN chat or would he meet her to talk about it. I tried to explain to him that was inappropriate ( meeting outside the workplace), but he didn't see it that way. They started "chatting' on Facebook every night for at least an hour, and this went on for about 3 months. I asked him not to do that anymore, and he said he wouldn't, but he got an email from her asking him to come over to see her because she had a problem. i got really angry that he went, and that's when he told me he wanted to separate, and started staying at her house sleeping on her couch ( i don't believe that's where he was sleeping)- he told me that the next day they started a "romantic relationship". This went on for about three weeks, until I'd had enough and reported his/her actions to his unit padre and made an appointment to see a divorce lawyer. All of a sudden, he stopped seeing her and we started seeing a counselor, and we are working on repairing things.
> This is what I don't get- he told me that she was really clingy and controlling, and that she had a lot of issues- so what is it about her that made her so attractive to him?


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## lorithehun (Sep 22, 2009)

Mommybean said:


> In frozen sprouts situation, without really knowing all the details, it may just be power tripping. Same thing with "just sex"...its a power trip, its a thrill....many people get addicited to the thrill of affairs. A power trip, well that CAN signify something missing in someone, they have felt out of control in an area of their life and are trying to be the one in control this time, etc. Some people are just addicted to thrill seeking behavior...they cheat because they can, and they get off on the ellicitness of it.
> Trust me, the OW in my H's case, had NOTHING on me, and he even said, a woman like me would have told him to F off. The OW he dealt with made him feel like HE was the OK one, where in our relationship, thru his refusal to acknowledge his issues, HE was the broken one. Make sense??


Yeah, what you said makes sense. I don't think my husband fits into any of those categories, though.. I believe my husband had sex with that woman because he wanted to have sex. I don't think he wanted the thrill of the sneaking or anything like that, he just wanted to have sex. Well, you said it could signify that something was missing, but what it was that he was missing was simply sex. 3 or 4 times a month wasn't enough for him. I bleieve that if I had given him sex whenever he wanted it then he wouldn't have cheated.

I just read that 40% of all married men have extramarital affairs. 

I don't catch much anger in your tone when you write about this sort of thing... can I ask how long it's been since your husband cheated?


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## lorithehun (Sep 22, 2009)

dobo said:


> It was *just* sex is a meaningless statement.


My husband used that statement to imply that he had no emotional attachment to or love for the woman. She was just a sexual object. His affair was just sex, nothing else.


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## chuckf75 (Sep 6, 2009)

I cheated on my ex-wife and I can tell you it was all about sex. I never had intentions of leaving her and even had an AWESOME girl ask me to do so but I did not consider it. So I disagree and will say that for some men it CAN be all about sex. I also think this makes it easier for a marriage to heal.


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## Mommybean (Jan 22, 2009)

You don't catch anger in my tone because it serves no purpose in our relationship now, other than to keep dragging us into the past. His A was the beginning of this year. We chose to stay together, he chose to do the work on himself to make sure he does not do the same things over and over again. What good comes of holding on to anger when you have made a conscious decision to reconcile? 
For men who say its all about sex, that alone is a thrill..whether they realize it or not. For me, I could NOT stay with someone who felt that, because to me, the probability of them being a serial cheater would be too great. If it was only a booty call once, then there is likely to be another and another.


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## COFLgirl (Oct 9, 2008)

lorithehun said:


> My husband used that statement to imply that he had no emotional attachment to or love for the woman. She was just a sexual object. His affair was just sex, nothing else.


I would be very wary of this kind of statement from your husband. To me, it implies two things.

1. your husband is lying/minimizing the scope of the affair to you.

2. the real issues surrounding why your husband had an affair in the first place have not been discussed.

Yes, the common perception is that men cheat just to have more sex and in certain instances this is true...if you have a sex addict on your hands. 

Otherwise, your husband cheated for some specific reason, such as ego stroking, unmet emotional needs, or a disconnect in your relationship. It was most likely not just a booty call and do not believe your husband at least initially when he says it was just sex...until you find out the underlying reasons as to why he went outside your marriage.

I don't know the specifics of your situation...was this a ONS? Or did he know his OW?

Let me try to explain what I mean by my situation. My husband had a brief affair with a colleague. In some ways, I could say it was 'just sex' because he only crossed 'that' line one time. But there was more to it than that because he had crossed other boundaries besides the one-time physical thing. 

Sure, I could have wrote it off as 'just sex' and minimized the affair, but I needed the whole scope of the affair relationship so I could understand the impact on my marriage and why my husband did what he did.

Don't fall into the trap of 'oh, it was just sex' without knowing all the details about the affair first. I'm not talking sexual, graphic details...I'm talking about how much they talked, how it started, etc. Otherwise, you run the risk of repeat behavior because the underlying problems will never be addressed/solved.

Even if it was truly just a ONS...a bar pick-up or something...that still needs to be addressed. Why would your husband dishonor the promises he made to you just for a quick booty-call?


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## COFLgirl (Oct 9, 2008)

Okay, lori, I just looked back at the thread...you said that it was a year-long affair. 

There is/was definitely more to your husband's affair than 'just sex.'

Sorry to be harsh...I just don't want you to minimize what he did...for your sake and for the future of your marriage!


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## lorithehun (Sep 22, 2009)

Mommybean said:


> You don't catch anger in my tone because it serves no purpose in our relationship now, other than to keep dragging us into the past. His A was the beginning of this year. We chose to stay together, he chose to do the work on himself to make sure he does not do the same things over and over again. What good comes of holding on to anger when you have made a conscious decision to reconcile?
> For men who say its all about sex, that alone is a thrill..whether they realize it or not. For me, I could NOT stay with someone who felt that, because to me, the probability of them being a serial cheater would be too great. If it was only a booty call once, then there is likely to be another and another.


Please don't misunderstand me, I envy your lack of anger. Also anger might not be the right word.. it's anger on the surface but underneath a myriad of different emotions, none of them pleasant. 

I agree wholeheartedly that negative feelings keep a relationship from moving forward.. I wish I had better control of mine. I wish that when I decided to stay with him I could have opened up a box, stuffed all the ugly emotions I felt towards him & his affair inside of it & sealed it up tightly. Moving forward would have been much easier then. It makes me wonder if there is something wrong with me when I hear someone like you talk about the way you've been able to deal with the anger & hurt.

I really hope you're wrong about this: "If it was only a booty call once, then there is likely to be another and another"


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## lorithehun (Sep 22, 2009)

COFLgirl said:


> I would be very wary of this kind of statement from your husband. To me, it implies two things.
> 
> 1. your husband is lying/minimizing the scope of the affair to you.
> 
> ...


My husband had an affair that lasted more than a year. During that year I left him for 3 months because of other problems: mainly differing opinions regarding how children should be treated. He resented my children from my first marriage and behaved like a sibling towards them, bickering with them and putting them down at every opportunity, vying for my attention.. It was shocking to me because he treated them so well before we got married... he became a different person, he just regressed to this childlike behavior.. 

In addition to saying the affair was only about sex, he also said he didn't think I would care all that much. During that time I was angry with him and it was obvious. Nothing we did during that time was constructive and things were plummeting quickly towards divorce. 

I didn't deal well with the problems..I should have done something definitive... I should have demanded that he treat my children kindly or we had to divorce, or insisted that we seek help. Instead I stood in front of my children and policed his every action with them. 

SO... my husband was having NONE of his needs met in our marriage. This other woman... well, I'm sure she stroked his ego, so there's a need she met... just the fact that she liked him enough to sleep with him filled some void in his life, I guess. 

I'm kind of thinking out loud here.. trying to get it straight in my own head.. but yeah, you're right, he was getting needs other than sex met by her. I think sex was the primary reason, he claimed early on in counseling that he thought he might be a sex addict... later he recanted and said he just had a very high sex drive. However during counseling we focused on the other issues, sex was rarely discussed. So maybe not only is he minimizing the affair by saying it was just for sex, maybe I am, too. 

We never really resolved anything.. he still, to this day, thinks I overreacted regarding his behavior towards the kids. He did change, though.


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## lorithehun (Sep 22, 2009)

COFLgirl said:


> Okay, lori, I just looked back at the thread...you said that it was a year-long affair.
> 
> There is/was definitely more to your husband's affair than 'just sex.'
> 
> Sorry to be harsh...I just don't want you to minimize what he did...for your sake and for the future of your marriage!


Please, don't apologize! I've had more lightbulb moments here in the weeks since discovering this board than I did during the whole year I spent in therapy, I think.. and your post was one of those moments. 
I started posting and reading here because my marriage has fizzled to the point where we are more like roommates and I'm not going to let it stay that way... it's either I fix it or I leave. It's not a *bad* marriage right now.. he treats the kids kindly and we don't argue or fight much. It's just a "blah" marriage and I'm not going to accept that any more. 
I'm going to learn to love & understand him... and help *him* to love & understand *me*.

Sorry, Frozensprouts, if I am taking over your thread, I didn't mean to do that.. I think I respond to your posts the most because I hear myself and the way I felt after the affair when I read about your situation.


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## Gomez (Jun 5, 2009)

lorithehun, In your post earlier you said you wanted to just shove all the negative feelings in a box and shut it tight. I just had to respond to that comment by saying when we do that with our feelings it gives them even more power, the only way to get rid of anger and hurt is to face it head on. 

My wife cheated late last year, I didn't realize how far it went till early this year, and it made me very hurt and angry. Everything in my past and my instincts told me to just clam up, walk away and end it, but when I thought about it I knew I would just be repeating old destructive cycles that would only lead to more negative emotions. So instead I tried forgiveness, understanding that my wife made a mistake out of being desperately unhappy. I started doing everything I could to make her happy, and she saw and admired my efforts and started trying to make me more happy too. 

By accepting her and all her flaws and loving her anyway I gave her the kind of validation that allowed her to feel better about herself. I think most people assume that if someone really knew all the thing we have done in our lives that they would think we are bad and unworthy of happiness, because most people dont forgive themselves. We are all flawed, we all fail, and we can all change if we try to make better choices in the future. 

I really let my wife have it for a while, I let her see all the pain and doubt and hurt I was going through by telling her about it at night when we had time together, and when I had said all I had to say, and I had listened to her I felt like we were in a new relationship. We knew each other better, accepted and loved each other more, and were more determined to make our relationship work than on the day we said our vows. There is still hurt and some anger, but I accept it, and they are just tiny parts of a great relationship. 

When there is real change, in both partners and the relationship as a whole, there is no fear of ending up in the same bad place again. Dont put it in a box, let it out, let him know, dont accept easy awnsers, and you will find a better you, and a better him.


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## Mommybean (Jan 22, 2009)

Bottling up your emotions is NEVER the way to go, and that is by no means what I did. We had it out, believe me, but after that, I focused on supporting my H as he was trying to heal the things inside of HIM that caused him to try to throw our lives away. I totally agree with Gomez when he says this: 
" By accepting her and all her flaws and loving her anyway I gave her the kind of validation that allowed her to feel better about herself. I think most people assume that if someone really knew all the thing we have done in our lives that they would think we are bad and unworthy of happiness, because most people dont forgive themselves. We are all flawed, we all fail, and we can all change if we try to make better choices in the future." 

My H had very low self esteem, and my support of him, and even protection of him to an extent, made him realize that the love I had for him, was something that he had never had in his life, and it gave him strength when he needed it most. He is a different man today, and those feelings of "what is he doing when he's not with me"....I don't have them anymore. I know how much he values what we have now, and I also know (and its a hard thing to come to terms with) that when he entered into our relationship initially, he had the one foot out the door mentality. That still hurts sometimes, but honestly, I love where we are in our relationship today. We went thru hel! to get here, but I don't regret sticking it out.


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## lorithehun (Sep 22, 2009)

Gomez said:


> lorithehun, In your post earlier you said you wanted to just shove all the negative feelings in a box and shut it tight. I just had to respond to that comment by saying when we do that with our feelings it gives them even more power, the only way to get rid of anger and hurt is to face it head on.
> 
> My wife cheated late last year, I didn't realize how far it went till early this year, and it made me very hurt and angry. Everything in my past and my instincts told me to just clam up, walk away and end it, but when I thought about it I knew I would just be repeating old destructive cycles that would only lead to more negative emotions. So instead I tried forgiveness, understanding that my wife made a mistake out of being desperately unhappy. I started doing everything I could to make her happy, and she saw and admired my efforts and started trying to make me more happy too.
> 
> ...


I shouldn't have said "I wish I could have stuffed all my feelings in a box"....what I meant was that I wish I could have done something, anything, to make those hateful feelings go away. I understand that if you push your feelings aside (or seal them in a box ) or ignore them, then you will make a bad situation worse. Makes for a walking, talking, ticking time bomb..

I admire the way you were able to understand your wife.. to forgive her... You said "so instead I tried forgiveness". I did too... I *tried*... I also tried understanding... but they didn't work. My feelings of betrayal & hurt overwhelmed me and snuffed out any compassion I tried to feel. I didn't *choose* the ugly emotions... they chose me and I couldn't control them. I'll never be able to speak so lovingly and understandingly of what my husband did as I hear you speak about your wife. Like I said, there may be something wrong with me.. today I treat my husband with kindness, I love him & respect him for the way he lives his life now. But I don't think I will ever understand why he did what he did. I will always see the potential to hurt me when I look at him.

You dealt with your wife's infidelity in a wonderfully loving way and I admire that. She is lucky to have you!


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## lorithehun (Sep 22, 2009)

Mommybean said:


> Bottling up your emotions is NEVER the way to go, and that is by no means what I did. We had it out, believe me, but after that, I focused on supporting my H as he was trying to heal the things inside of HIM that caused him to try to throw our lives away. I totally agree with Gomez when he says this:
> " By accepting her and all her flaws and loving her anyway I gave her the kind of validation that allowed her to feel better about herself. I think most people assume that if someone really knew all the thing we have done in our lives that they would think we are bad and unworthy of happiness, because most people dont forgive themselves. We are all flawed, we all fail, and we can all change if we try to make better choices in the future."
> 
> My H had very low self esteem, and my support of him, and even protection of him to an extent, made him realize that the love I had for him, was something that he had never had in his life, and it gave him strength when he needed it most. He is a different man today, and those feelings of "what is he doing when he's not with me"....I don't have them anymore. I know how much he values what we have now, and I also know (and its a hard thing to come to terms with) that when he entered into our relationship initially, he had the one foot out the door mentality. That still hurts sometimes, but honestly, I love where we are in our relationship today. We went thru hel! to get here, but I don't regret sticking it out.


 I used a poor choice of words. I didn't mean to imply that you bottled up your emotions.. I meant that whatever you did to exorcise yourself of those feelings (anger/pain), that I wish I could have done the same thing. You & Gomez have a depth of understanding and loving that may be lacking in me. 

It sounds like you worked very hard to get your relationship with your H where it is today. I am glad you have such a great marriage now.. good to know that it pays off in the end.


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