tryingtrying

Well, let's see. Just had another fight, although I'm not sure what brought it on. I guess one big sticking point is that I'd like her to scale back her work from 80% to 60% next year, like she used to work every year until last year, when the affair began. I just want to spend more time with her. But she said that she'll need as much money as possible if I throw her out. And she's not sure if I'll throw her out because she might "slip" and try to contact him. What she actually meant, I realized by the time our conversation was over, was that she had already slipped, and was worried that I might find out that she tried to contact her, and thus throw her out. (Keep in mind, she called him less than two days after promising me that she'd do "anything and everything" to try and restore our marriage, not contacting him being the foremost of these "things".) So I tried to scale back the punishment, 'cuz I really, really don't want to throw her out and risk losing her forever, and I just said that for her punishment, he (the other guy) has to tell his wife about the affair, 'cuz it's not fair that in all of this, I'm suffering, my wife is suffering, but he's not suffering at all (except the reduced contact with my wife, which I now know is not as reduced as I had thought). I'm also hoping that his wife will keep him on a short leash, since I can't control how much he tries to contact my wife, and I'm hoping that maybe the threat of divorce will turn him back to his family and make him want to put an end to his relationship with my wife. Well, my wife's response to this threat was to remind me that if his wife divorces him, she would leave me (not necessarily in order to run to him, she says) because of the guilt of destroying his marriage. Does this make sense? It's as though she's telling me, "I've hurt you, but the guilt of destroying his marriage means I have to hurt you even more." Well, as it turns out, I spend the next half-hour looking at a photo album and realizing what a great past we have had, and how it wouldn't be wise to risk throwing it away because of one phone call she made (plus a few she received). Problem is, I don't know if she's still deceiving me (maybe there's more than just the one phone call), and I definitely won't know if she continues to deceive me, because after this, you can bet she'll cover her tracks even better. So what do I do? If I snoop even more, she'll say that I'm suffocating her, that this is a prison, not a marriage. If I don't, I'll never be able to re-establish trust in her, my own form of "prison." Counseling once a week sucks. We've been through so many ups and downs since our first session 5 days ago that our last session seems irrelevant.

I would say that her wanting to see you is better than never wanting to see you again. So I think there is still hope for you, but I think you must tell her and show her that you are willing to do anything and everything to restore her trust in you and to re-establish the loving relationship you once had. And I mean anything and everything! Give her permission to put you through h*ll in order to prove your sincerity. My wife just cheated on me, and I tried to forgive her and make our recovery easy on her, but I now realize that I must make stringent demands on her time and her freedom in order to be able to sleep at night and live another day. Trust, once broken, is almost impossible to mend, but it can be done, and it's going to take a lot of effort on both your parts, but mostly from you. If at any time she thinks that she is putting in more effort than you, then you've lost her. I hope and pray that not only will you two get through this, but that this occurrence will make you both stronger in the future. I still think that if my wife had not had an affair, then I might have had one, and there would have been absolutely no recovery from that, so in a way, I'm thankful. Not thrilled, but a little bit thankful, nonetheless.

Just wanted to back up my previous entry with an update on what's happened with me. At the time I wrote the previous post, I had not actually given my wife an ultimatum. I was trying to forgive her and in order to show my effort, I told her she could decide how much contact she would have with the other guy (all the while hoping that she would decide on her own that contact with him would be detrimental to our future). Anyways, she continue to look for ways to "just be friends" with him, and finally, two nights ago, I gave her an ultimatum. I'm not exactly sure how it came about, except that we had an argument about something else, and she said "I can't live like this" (referring to my mistrust and sounding like I forgave but also sounding like I haven't forgiven), and I thought, "I can't live like this," so I determined that it was going to have to be "my way or the highway." This was an extremely scary thought for me, because I don't think I can live without her, but not only did I give her an ultimatum, I painted an even more unpleasant picture of what life would be like if she chose "my way." I told her that she would have to break of ALL contact with him, and that I would be VERY snoopy about her activities apart from me, and that she would have to show me that she is putting forth an effort to do anything and everything to preserve our marriage and family. The next day, she said that she wanted a few weeks to think about it, in order to give counseling a chance to help us (we just started last week), but to my surprise, by afternoon, she told me that she had made her decision. She selected "my way" (whew!) and had already told him that he was to cease all contact with her. Anyways, I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just relating my own experience, and letting you know that if healing is to ever be complete, she is going to have to regain your trust 100%, and this is only going to occur if she displays 100% devotion and 100% submission.

I agree with the previous opinions, but perhaps for different reasons. I have heard that affairs are like alcoholism. You don't dangle alcohol in front of someone claiming to try to overcome alcoholism, but that is what you would be doing if you allow your wife to continue to see the other guy. Also, an ultimatum would be a good test of her sincerity regarding her willingness to make things right. Lastly, this is her punishment, and a mild one at that, for breaking your trust, cheating on you, and deceiving you. Had she remained purely friends with this cousin, the punishment would not be necessary, and their friendship could continue. Good luck.

Greetings everyone. I just need to talk. I'm not even sure if I'm looking for advice, but in my efforts to preserve my wife's reputation, I have told no one about her affair, except the counselor who we will begin seeing tomorrow. Basically, her affair began last spring with a man who also has children at our children's school. They began talking at school when she was on the school yard selling scrip, fund-raising gift certificates. Apparently, the deception began around late April-early May, when they went out to lunch together (she always told me she didn't want to go out to lunch with me because taking a 10-minute lunch allowed her to come home earlier). Whoa. I'd better back up. First off, my wife and I have been married 12 years and we have 5 children. I love her very much, and to this point, she still says she doesn't know why she had the affair, that he doesn't meet any need in her that I wasn't meeting, that she still loves me, that this is totally unlike her. Well, on with the sob story... About 3 weeks ago, I came home from church camp, where I was a counselor and two of my kids were campers. My wife was home with 3 kids, but one had preschool every other day, and the other two were sent to science camp (now I know why she was so anxious to sign them up). Immediately, she calls me into the office and closes the door and says "I have to tell you something. On Tuesday, he asked me out for a movie, so I said yes and made sure it was a matinee so things wouldn't look bad. After the movie, we had dinner, but they kept refilling his wine glass, and since we took separate cars, I had to drive him home, but he didn't want his wife to see him drunk, so I let him sleep over at our house (in our bed!) and then took him back to get his car in the morning, but one of the kids saw him, and I didn't want to you to find out from them." At this point, she admitted that she had feelings for him, but that they had only hugged, never even kissed. A few days later, I downloaded software that records keystrokes, and I discovered and e-mail account they used strictly for communicating with each other. As I read them in the middle of the night, I finally discovered that they had actually had sex back in July. It turns out that they had "done it" about 8 to 10 times since late June, unprotected. The worst thing is the deception. That and the fact that she was so willing to jeapordize our marriage and our family. It also kills me that their "opportunities" occurred while I was doing ministry. The first time was while I was leading the Vacation Bible School at our church, the next few times while I was out of town for 9 days doing ministry with a church group to Native Americans in Arizona (I took 3 kids, but the other two were in Science Camp!), and the last few times while I was at camp. There have been other lunch hour rendezvous, like the time he took her to his former school, or to a museum, or to his work. They also went for walks together in the neighborhood ("just walking"), and met at places like the supermarket or the local Target store. We have been trying to work through this, and my biggest problem is sleeping at night. I am an insomniac, but it got much worse after I found out. For the two weeks after I found out, I got a total of about 30 hours of sleep. Now, sometimes I sleep, sometimes I don't. It usually depends on how much reassurance I feel when I go to bed. As I mentioned earlier, we begin counseling tomorrow, and we've been reading a couple of books, but for the most part, she feels they don't apply to her because she doesn't hold anything against me (i.e. lack of affection, inattentiveness, etc...). The latest blow-up occurred this morning, when she told me that she would be doing "quick drop-off" with him, where they open doors for the kindergarteners to expedite the drop-off process. ("10 minutes, supervised, out in the open") Apparently, she detected my discomfort with this, because about 15 minutes ago, she called to say that after she got to work this morning, she called him up, he met her at her work, and she told him that it was over. To back up, I need to explain that about a week ago, God gave me the peace to forgive her, even though I realized that forgiving her did not necessarily mean trusting her. Still, I told her it was up to her to limit her contact with him (in the hopes that she would), and I guess that's why I grew upset when I discovered that she was doing quick drop-off with him this morning. Anyways, thanks for listening. I just had to vent.