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Is it really healthy to know everything about the A if reconciling?


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If a couple is really wanting to work out their marriage & get to the bottom of the A, do BS really think it's healthy to know every single detail, if A is truly over?

 

My H & I got into this discussion last night & he says he regrets asking me questions about the sex part of the A, that he was in shock & allowed his ego to ask questions that he never really wanted to hear the answers to. I never asked for details on anything bc I didn't care. Once I wanted to work on our marriage i didn't care about the details of the A, just that we decided to work on it.

 

Another couple we know is going through this & BW keeps asking for details, WH tells her, she flips out, yet says she'll stay with him no matter what & will never leave him. I think that's fine but I don't understand her wanting to go through all that when, she's going to stay no matter what. Boggles my mind to why someone would do that to themselves knowing the WS answers won't affect you staying or leaving. I understand if it's a matter of staying & leaving to want to hear the details...I'm only asking those that already knew they were going to stay. What's the point of hearing all of that?

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My H & I got into this discussion last night & he says he regrets asking me questions about the sex part of the A, that he was in shock & allowed his ego to ask questions that he never really wanted to hear the answers to. I never asked for details on anything bc I didn't care. Once I wanted to work on our marriage i didn't care about the details of the A, just that we decided to work on it.

 

Confusing paragraph. Did you both have A's?

 

I'm only asking those that already knew they were going to stay. What's the point of hearing all of that?

 

Just as there's no single path to recovery, there's no one-size-fits-all answer to the question. Each BS is different and their needs post D-Day vary wildly.

 

I'd guess with men and our male egos, it might often be a question of "what did she do with her AP she didn't do with me?"

 

Mr. Lucky

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What's the point of hearing all of that?

 

I think it's a completely individual thing. There are things I wanted to know and things I still do not want to know. I wanted every explicit detail about their sex but not so much about their emotional connection. I could deal with him f*cking her, I couldn't deal with him saying, "I love you." I've been told that for men it is exactly the opposite (they are OK with the EA not the PA) but I'm not a guy so I can't really speak to that.

 

The point, for me, was I needed honesty, flat out, no holds barred, brutal honesty, something I had been denied for months while he was gaslighting me, making me feel like I was at fault, like I was crazy, making me hate myself for being such an insecure snivelling untrusting weakling. I needed to be told that I was right and that I wasn't off my rocker.

 

I also needed him to lay bare in front of me all the uncomfortable facts. I needed to bear witness the full extent of his shame and guilt describing to me what he had done with her because it showed that he wanted to tell me the truth and that he was willing to humiliate himself the way he had humiliated me. Watching the anguish on his face as he described to me the things he did with her was kind of instrumental in his disillusionment with the affair because he could no longer use colloquialisms and euphemisms to romanticize or sugarcoat with words the fact he had come home and kissed his wife and kids without washing his face after putting it in her crotch.

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purplesorrow

I wanted the all the details before making a decision to stay or not. It was really too late for him to be concerned about my health.

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It's not something I could really control post D-day. My head was all over the place. I just felt I needed to know certain things to take the secrecy out of it. Maybe because for the first time I felt like an outsider to her life, and I just wanted to know things. Some things I just assumed, and others I discovered through reading emails, texts, etc.

 

Honestly, I think it helped me long term. It hurt like hell to hear and read some of the details at the time. But I've been able to get past it and not dwell on most of it. There are random times where I'll cringe at the thought of things if I trigger, but it doesn't last long, and they're few and far between. I think I'd be worse if I left a lot of questions unanswered.

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Confusing paragraph. Did you both have A's?

 

 

 

Just as there's no single path to recovery, there's no one-size-fits-all answer to the question. Each BS is different and their needs post D-Day vary wildly.

 

I'd guess with men and our male egos, it might often be a question of "what did she do with her AP she didn't do with me?"

 

Mr. Lucky

 

Yes, we both had A. I came clean with mine first & caught him about a month after my admittance.

 

He wanted to know every single detail, which I had no problem telling him but even know, I don't think it was helpful for our reconciliation. He didn't want a divorce, he says there are so many questions he wished he had never asked me...& you're right, it was a lot of sex questions. I never asked one sex question bc I didn't think that part mattered personally...not if I wanted to work on it.

 

Just curious to others views bc of watching this girl continue to freak out, then tell anyone that will listen, yet saying she's going to stay. She wants my advice bc my H & I went through it but I wasn't desperate like her & she says they don't need therapy. Her H is a jerk that has cheated multiple times, she only knows about this time, he isn't ever going to stop cheating. I've told her I can't help but she won't stop calling. Her H & my H are childhood friends but she's driving me crazy. So I'm figuring if I can understand others POV that are no longer emotional about it maybe I can be a little more empathetic to her.

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RecentChange

Hum, my BS asked a lot of questions, most I answered matter of factly, (where, when, how many times etc), but when he started asking for more explit type details, I told him I would answer, but asked again, if he really wanted to know - and he said he didn't, so it left unsaid, which I think is better.

 

I just - tried to stay as calm and rational as I could during that emotional time. I knew his mind was racing (because yes, I had been on that side of the fence as well) - and sometimes we ask questions we really don't want the answer to.

 

And I gladly answered any questions he had about any possible emotional affair - because there was none.

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I think it's a completely individual thing. There are things I wanted to know and things I still do not want to know. I wanted every explicit detail about their sex but not so much about their emotional connection. I could deal with him f*cking her, I couldn't deal with him saying, "I love you." I've been told that for men it is exactly the opposite (they are OK with the EA not the PA) but I'm not a guy so I can't really speak to that.

 

The point, for me, was I needed honesty, flat out, no holds barred, brutal honesty, something I had been denied for months while he was gaslighting me, making me feel like I was at fault, like I was crazy, making me hate myself for being such an insecure snivelling untrusting weakling. I needed to be told that I was right and that I wasn't off my rocker.

 

I also needed him to lay bare in front of me all the uncomfortable facts. I needed to bear witness the full extent of his shame and guilt describing to me what he had done with her because it showed that he wanted to tell me the truth and that he was willing to humiliate himself the way he had humiliated me. Watching the anguish on his face as he described to me the things he did with her was kind of instrumental in his disillusionment with the affair because he could no longer use colloquialisms and euphemisms to romanticize or sugarcoat with words the fact he had come home and kissed his wife and kids without washing his face after putting it in her crotch.

 

I can completely understand what you're saying but did it make you feel better or worse? Did you ever contemplate divorce?

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Lady Hamilton

I think it depends on why the BS wants to know and what they're going to do with the information. If they want to know so they can gauge how truthful their WS is going to be, they want to know the depth of the affair, or details so that they can either get closure and/or make an informed decision about if they truly want to reconcile or not... Sure. Why not? If that's what helps them, and their WS wants to share the info, then ask away.

 

 

If they don't want to share the info, well... That's their right, but it may impact the whole reconciliation process. How the BS wants to go forward with that, again, is up to them... But they should keep in mind that not every question is one that should be asked or a WS with an eye to recovery may want to answer.

 

 

That all being said, not all motives for asking questions are good ones and if a BS has motives that are not on the up-and-up, they're probably better off not asking questions (and BS's not answering).

 

 

For example, during one of the times my MM and I were NC, he felt he had to prove himself in the R process by answering every question his wife had at the time. And she asked some weeeeeeird questions and did some utterly bizarre things with the information.

 

 

In that case, probably less was more, and he realized fairly quickly that not every question she asked needed an answer.

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I wanted the all the details before making a decision to stay or not. .

 

 

 

IMHO this is kind of the key. Information about the who, what, where, how long, how involved, how serious etc etc is an important part of making an informed decision on whether to punt and call it a day, or whether to try to work through it or not.

 

 

Once armed with as much info as you can get and once the decision is made to try to R or to call it a day, I don't know if details really matter at that point.

 

 

We all know what sex is and we all know what people do when they have sex. I don't know if knowing whether they sucked toes on the left foot or the right foot is really useful information.

 

 

As mentioned before, I think for a lot of guys, if she did something with OM that she refuses with H, That may be a game over moment. But that is something that should probably be part of the discovery process before deciding to stay or go.

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The "where" was an important detail in a way for me, at least a specific "where". If it happened in our home, it would have been near impossible to R.

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We all know what sex is and we all know what people do when they have sex.

 

 

As mentioned before, I think for a lot of guys, if she did something with OM that she refuses with H, That may be a game over moment.

 

 

I think you countered your first statement with the last one.;)

 

This is mostly why BH's want to know details about sex.

 

1) Was he better for you 2) Were you better for him.

 

 

Both are hard questions but I think #2 is the killer.

Edited by dichotomy
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Mrs. John Adams

I gave way too many details...I should have waited for the questions and answered them as they were asked. Instead I poured out my heart...detail after detail. It was a huge mistake. It is those details that still haunt him.

 

He of course was smarter...he waited until i asked. Story of my life. I fv-k up everything.

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Depends on BS. I haven't never read about anyone who would stay no matter what. Most wanna know details to know if it went so far over the line that it's a certain dealbreaker: that's why I'd like to know.

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I can completely understand what you're saying but did it make you feel better or worse? Did you ever contemplate divorce?

 

Better. Because I had answers. I had the truth. I sincerely thought I was losing my damned mind. Once the trickle truth ended and he finally stopped pretending he was protecting me instead of himself, it was huge. And like I said, it broke the spell. Up until that point he would minimize what they were doing by saying "making out" or "fooling around" when what they were doing was f*cking.

 

But I would caution others to only ask until you get what you need, though. I stopped asking when I felt like he was finally done lying.

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Yes, we both had A. I came clean with mine first & caught him about a month after my admittance.

 

He wanted to know every single detail, which I had no problem telling him but even know, I don't think it was helpful for our reconciliation. He didn't want a divorce, he says there are so many questions he wished he had never asked me...& you're right, it was a lot of sex questions. I never asked one sex question bc I didn't think that part mattered personally...not if I wanted to work on it.

 

Just curious to others views bc of watching this girl continue to freak out, then tell anyone that will listen, yet saying she's going to stay. She wants my advice bc my H & I went through it but I wasn't desperate like her & she says they don't need therapy. Her H is a jerk that has cheated multiple times, she only knows about this time, he isn't ever going to stop cheating. I've told her I can't help but she won't stop calling. Her H & my H are childhood friends but she's driving me crazy. So I'm figuring if I can understand others POV that are no longer emotional about it maybe I can be a little more empathetic to her.

 

 

 

 

For the BH whatever sex the WW had was worse then any emotional relationship she had with the OM.

 

 

For the BW the PA does not matter but the EA part of the affair hurts them more.

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I gave way too many details...I should have waited for the questions and answered them as they were asked. Instead I poured out my heart...detail after detail. It was a huge mistake. It is those details that still haunt him.

 

He of course was smarter...he waited until i asked. Story of my life. I fv-k up everything.

 

 

 

 

Yes it is always best for the BS to lead the questioning this way they control how much detail they learn. Once spoken an answer can't be unheard.

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Is it healthy?

 

 

I will say being trickled truthed. Never getting the answers that a BH needs will leave a BH forever seeking those answers.

 

 

Reading forums for decades after D day to see what other WW's and BH's stories to piece together what most likely happen with your WW.

 

 

At best it gives you ideas what happened but those ideas never leave you satisfied because you know that they are not the real truth. Just a likely possibility.

 

 

So years go by and the marriage just stalls. The WW tries her best to keep things rug swept.

 

 

Needing answers keeps the BH from forgetting what happened 10, 20, 30 years ago. The healing never happens.

 

 

I say it is unhealthier for the BH to not get the answers then if he did get the answers.

 

 

He may learn of things that he could never accept and thus wants to end the marriage upon learning of those things.

 

 

Would it not be better then to end the marriage 30 years ago freeing both to start fresh without baggage. Then to be haunted by what if's for the next 30 years.

 

 

The WW/WH do not have the right to deny whatever the BH/BW wants to know.

 

 

Hiding the truth from the BH is just a false justification to spare the WW from their own pain from having to admit and tell what they did with the OM.

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If a couple is really wanting to work out their marriage & get to the bottom of the A, do BS really think it's healthy to know every single detail, if A is truly over?

 

My H & I got into this discussion last night & he says he regrets asking me questions about the sex part of the A, that he was in shock & allowed his ego to ask questions that he never really wanted to hear the answers to. I never asked for details on anything bc I didn't care. Once I wanted to work on our marriage i didn't care about the details of the A, just that we decided to work on it.

 

Another couple we know is going through this & BW keeps asking for details, WH tells her, she flips out, yet says she'll stay with him no matter what & will never leave him. I think that's fine but I don't understand her wanting to go through all that when, she's going to stay no matter what. Boggles my mind to why someone would do that to themselves knowing the WS answers won't affect you staying or leaving. I understand if it's a matter of staying & leaving to want to hear the details...I'm only asking those that already knew they were going to stay. What's the point of hearing all of that?

 

Does your WH/BH post here?

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The details are the truth. Can you handle the truth? The details hurt, but, you now know what happened as shocking as it may be.

 

Not giving details may spare feelings, but the truth of what happened is still the truth and not divulging the details does not change anything. If I don't know it didn't happen, it didn't happen, I don't think so.

 

In reality, the details enforced that it was all worse than I ever imagined. To the point that I quit asking questions.

 

Having said all this, if I did not know the details, I probably would have healed much faster......because I would have never imagined that it was that bad.

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LivingWaterPlease
I could deal with him f*cking her, I couldn't deal with him saying, "I love you." I've been told that for men it is exactly the opposite (they are OK with the EA not the PA) but I'm not a guy so I can't really speak to that.

 

I'm a woman, look very much like one, love being one, "like" only men and want to stay that way.

 

But, I'll side with the men on this one.

 

Coming back to edit that, come to think of it, I couldn't deal with either and didn't.

Edited by LivingWaterPlease
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LivingWaterPlease
For the BH whatever sex the WW had was worse then any emotional relationship she had with the OM.

 

 

For the BW the PA does not matter but the EA part of the affair hurts them more.

 

I don't care much for generalizations such as this one.

 

As a woman the PA mattered far more to me than the EA, though both were very painful.

 

I honestly believe that there are a lot of women, like me, who don't think and behave like the stereotypical woman of the past.

 

I once listened to a program on Focus on the Family about marital intimacy and I was about ready to toss the radio out the window before it was over as someone on there addressed male sexuality vs female sexuality. They were way off base as to what I found to be true about myself.

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My husband answered any question I asked...however we were lucky to start MC right away. Our counselor encouraged him to answer all my questions but part of the bargain was that I would only ask questions that I really wanted answered.

 

One question I never asked was if she ever laid in my spot...head on his chest with his arm around me. I think it would have emotionally damaged me and it just wasn't worth the pain to ask the question. A year later I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it and I am glad that my place isn't tainted.

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I'm a woman, look very much like one, love being one, "like" only men and want to stay that way.

 

But, I'll side with the men on this one.

 

Coming back to edit that, come to think of it, I couldn't deal with either and didn't.

 

Neither was pleasant. I picked my poison. and the consequences.

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Does your WH/BH post here?

 

No, my H isn't a forum kind of a guy. He thinks it's more of a "woman" thing. That's just him, he was raised by all men bc his mom left when he was a baby.

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