Rollercoaster Rider Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 I am an Ex-MOW, and I had a question I needed help answering. I have not disclosed my affair to my BH yet, and haven't decided if I am going to. My therapist said it is a personal choice, which I haven't made yet. The question is.. once the affair is discovered and you decide to reconcile, I would think the best course of action would be MC. Anyone that has been successful at reconciliation..how long did you go to MC? Was it a few sessions, or an ongoing process?? I just want to plan ahead for when I tell him, if I tell him. Thank you!
HermioneG Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 I am an Ex-MOW, and I had a question I needed help answering. I have not disclosed my affair to my BH yet, and haven't decided if I am going to. My therapist said it is a personal choice, which I haven't made yet. The question is.. once the affair is discovered and you decide to reconcile, I would think the best course of action would be MC. Anyone that has been successful at reconciliation..how long did you go to MC? Was it a few sessions, or an ongoing process?? I just want to plan ahead for when I tell him, if I tell him. Thank you! In all honesty, I do not feel reconciliation is possible without the spouse knowing the truth. You can be the best spouse ever from this day forward, but it is built on a foundation of quicksand. As for the MC? It was useless for us until much later. He had to deal with his issues in IC before MC was of any use at all to us as a couple. In my experience, MC is not necessarily the path to reconciliation in the beginning. Later on the process, yes. I wish you great luck, and I would greatly encourage you to be straightforward with your spouse. 8
harrybrown Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 I was lied to for at least 3 years. I always want to know the truth, and all the truth. Yes the cheating was bad, and I get that there is temptation. But the lies, and all the effort at deception. She kept twisting the knife in my back. This makes the rest of our marriage a lie, and I do not know what to believe. If your H had an affair, wouldn't you want to know? Would you like him to invite her over the your house for dinner? And you did not know she was the AP? If you never tell him, you have started building the wall to keep him out. My wife still denies, so I do not have her giving me all the full truth. Her AP had another fling besides his wife. He told the other AP. She is the one behind the taunting phone calls to me. She is the one that sent me the picture of my wife in my bed with another man. I hope you tell him before someone else does. When you build the wall, you can make it so tall that there is no relationship left. I would not waste your time on MC until you have given him a written timeline of the affair. Any trickle truth becomes a second d-day. Then see what your H wants to do about MC. If you are not honest with each other, MC is a farce, because you are not 100% in the marriage. 2
road Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 I am an Ex-MOW, and I had a question I needed help answering. I have not disclosed my affair to my BH yet, and haven't decided if I am going to. My therapist said it is a personal choice, which I haven't made yet. The question is.. once the affair is discovered and you decide to reconcile, I would think the best course of action would be MC. Anyone that has been successful at reconciliation..how long did you go to MC? Was it a few sessions, or an ongoing process?? I just want to plan ahead for when I tell him, if I tell him. Thank you! Recovery is a 2 to 5 year process. Before you tell your BH get the book Surviving An Affair by Dr Harley. 2
jnel921 Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 How do you know your BH will choose to stay with you? I have been through this twice in two different Ms. The situations were different for both. One ended in D and the other R. Your BH will have to decide if your betrayal is something he can recover from. Some men's ego and pride are too big and they will walk immediately. Hurting the one you vowed to love, honor and respect is never cool under any circumstance. If you are asking if there is a quick fix to your situation and in the end you will come out smelling like roses....you are seriously misinformed. Having an A was your choice. Keeping it from your BH is a worse choice. You want to recover from this and gain your BH's respect? Be honest and tell him the truth. Give him the respect and opportunity to decide how he wants to handle this and your M. Good luck to you.
road Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 That book will teach how to tell your BH, rebuild the broken trust, importance of meeting needs, honesty, NC, NC letter. Your BH deserves the truth and needs the truth. 2
HermioneG Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 I would recommend a few different books than the previous poster. I feel the previous book will lead to an unbalanced relationship, should you choose to reconcile. Books with better, in my opinion, insights, would be Not Just Friends, by Shirley Glass, and Private Lies, by Frank Pittman. I wish you much luck. 7
Ap22 Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 as a BH, let me give you some advice..... IF....IF your husband decides to reconcile with you, the one and only thing that will make a difference is you. MC and IC may help, but without you leading the charge its worthless. You must be completely transparent, extremely remorseful, ever willing to take the brunt of his anger/pain, prove to him everyday how sorry you are, and be ready for a very rough road for the next few years. Be prepared to see your husband go through significant pain, shock, and watch as a mans life is destroyed as he realizes everything he thought he knew was a lie.....and know you were the cause. If you arent willing to do that....all the MC in the world wont help. Also, your forum name is very appropriate because if he decides to stay, both of your lives will be like being on the worst roller coaster you could imagine. 6
AlwaysGrowing Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 I am also of the mindset, that for a BS or even a WS to start MC out of the gate is premature. For a BS, who is still reeling from their life being torn apart, it is unhealthy IMO, to focus on the relationship/person who caused the pain, before attending to their own wounds first. Again for me, I am not convinced that anyone truly knows their feelings/decisions regarding such a life levelling event for quite some time. And being in a situation where they might be felt ganged up on, confrontational, forced to deal with issues that to them at this time seem trivial compared to their hearts bleeding all over the office floor can lead to deeper feelings of despair. For a WS, who can not give full answers other than...."you made me feel", "you did this", "why can't you do this", is actually counter productive if their goal is to R. Until a WS, knows themselves, the whys of the affair, do they really want to R, they too can get sidetracked and not focus on their own personal issues. For both parties, early MC is MC between two unknowns to each other and even to themselves. So, if neither party really knows how they feel, can not realistically commit beyond the counselling session (because they are still processing), who exactly are each in MC, with? IC, for both.....I highly recommend. Working on communication as well. Coming together to share your IC sessions, any insight garnered....etc. also important. I know others have done MC, only. Not sure how successful both parties eventually felt about it. 5
janedoe67 Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 I believe, first, that the only way to really recover and have an honest marriage is to be honest - that means telling your H. With respect to your therapist, the decision to cheat is not "personal," because it DOES affect the spouse from whom the secret is kept. When you confess, you are confessing what YOU chose to do - not what he did to "make you do it," "cause you to be vulnerable", and not "how unhappy you were." Stick to the pertinent fact - YOU chose to betray him. Own it and be humble. Recovery is a long road with bumps in it, and IF you feel what is TRUE remorse, you will need to be patient and compassionate - even if he doesn't return that patience and compassion for awhile. Your OP makes me a bit skeptical, I admit. It sounds like you want to know what you can expect of him and how you can make sure he gets over it quickly. You have chosen to deal him and your marriage a terrible blow without his knowledge. It's going to be a long road. And for the record, I am a FWW. 10
BetrayedH Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 The better start is for you to get into individual counseling. Meant gently, the reality is that YOU chose to have an affair and so YOU need to figure out why YOU chose to make such a decision. Even if your marriage was awful, the marriage didn't make that choice. And no matter how bad it was, it didn't need a nuke dropped on it. If your husband wants to work on this marriage with you, you're going to have to be willing to clean up the mess from this affair first. Your initiative in confessing alone doubles your chances of reconciling. Follow that up with individual counseling that shows you're willing to own it rather than putting it on the marriage and you'll have taken some very critical steps to rebuilding. Of course, you have to get honest first and then you have to keep being honest about even the most painful parts of the affair. But if you do these things, you have really set yourself up for success. That said, many BSs are willing to multi-task. My wife and I did MC right away and I was willing to work on marital issues. BSs also often recognize that open communication is important and MC is a safe place to have difficult discussions. But we both did IC as well and it's pretty critical that you don't put marital issues down as a reason for your affair. You had other choices and you have to own that. I also recommend avoiding the Harley books, at least at the beginning. They talk a lot about "needs" being met. This really tends to blame the BS for the affair as if somehow he caused it by not meeting your needs. Huge mistake. Avoid reading Surviving An Affair as you will both tend to blameshift your affair onto a marriage when really only one person had a vote on the affair and great pains were taken to hide that choice from the other. Much later on, I think reading His Needs, Her Needs can help strengthen a marriage that's already well into recovery. 8
janedoe67 Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 I really wish a FWS who did things RIGHT would write a book called "Why I Cheated and What I Did About It" that focuses on the WS owning THEIR choice and doing the work. 6
AlwaysGrowing Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 I agree with Jane completely regarding your IC. I do not understand the position of withholding pertinent information and lying to your spouse daily as being part of a healthy relationship. I feel non-disclosure is the same as manipulating your spouse to stay married to you. Is that healthy? How would you feel if the roles were reversed? How do you feel about having to trick your husband to stay married to you? Wouldn't it be better if it was his choice? 3
AlwaysGrowing Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 I really wish a FWS who did things RIGHT would write a book called "Why I Cheated and What I Did About It" that focuses on the WS owning THEIR choice and doing the work. A quick and easy read is How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair by Linda MacDonald 1
janedoe67 Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 A quick and easy read is How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair by Linda MacDonald Thank you!
Betrayed&Stayed Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 MC was an ongoing process for 3 years (intermittently, but mostly On) Don't think what my WS assumed: I'd be mad for a few months and then everything will be back to normal. Don't expect him to "get over it" for at least 2-3 years. That is IF he decides to reconcile. 1
Owl Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 I am an Ex-MOW, and I had a question I needed help answering. I have not disclosed my affair to my BH yet, and haven't decided if I am going to. My therapist said it is a personal choice, which I haven't made yet. The question is.. once the affair is discovered and you decide to reconcile, I would think the best course of action would be MC. Anyone that has been successful at reconciliation..how long did you go to MC? Was it a few sessions, or an ongoing process?? I just want to plan ahead for when I tell him, if I tell him. Thank you! We went for about a year after d-day. Our first MC didn't work well for both of us, so I dropped my IC as an IC, and we began going to him as our MC. It worked out great, as he was awesome at balancing things out so that both of us could feel comfortable and able to talk about things. My thought on MC and 'telling'...if you go to MC, but hide the huge purple elephant in the room (the affair), MC will be ineffective at best. Without the full truth, and all the information on the table, it's a waste of time and money. MC may be where you admit the truth to your H. Without doing so...you're not going to be able to address all the pertinent issues and problems. That's my take. BTW...we're coming up on 10 years post d-day now, and well-recovered. 2
Owl Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 Reading previous posts, I wanted to add that both my wife and I did about a month of IC AND MC at the same time to begin with. MC was pretty useless, both because we weren't ready for it, and because that MC wasn't well suited to us as a couple nor our issues. We opted to change over to using the therapist whom I'd seen for IC as our MC instead, and my wife continued IC for about another month after that as well, until we realized that her IC was creating conflict towards our reconciliation goals. Realize that IC's dont' care about marriage. They don't care about spouses. They're only there to treat the person in front of them. Sometimes they take what they see as the best route for the individual in front of them, even if it's a direct conflict with a route that might improve the marriage as well. So...doing IC and MC at the same time may be counter-productive in some fashion. 2
Author Rollercoaster Rider Posted January 30, 2014 Author Posted January 30, 2014 I appreciate all and any advice. I will reply to all as a group vs. individual..makes it easier. I have been in IC pretty much since a few months after the affair started. Which lasted 3.5 years. My BH and I did MC about 6 months after the affair started, which it was never exposed. Looking back I should have gotten it all out then, but I didn't. MC did work for certain areas. I cannot really say my marriage is terrible. More like me being a selfish bitch thinking that I needed to have my needs met which included someone else. The affair has recently ended, about two months ago which was initiated by me for many reasons. One of the reasons were we already had a D-day..on his side. That happened about 15 months before we finally ended things. I knew, I should have left then but I didn't and I also regret that decision everyday. I have no idea if my husband will want to reconcile. And I know for us to work I have to come clean with everything, it's just hard right now. I am dealing with the loss of the MOM and dealing with the turmoil of telling my BH. This question was really to know what direction I should go, when I tell, if he chooses to reconcile, and to be as successful as we can. I read about positive stories of reconciliation on here, and just needed to know the steps to possibly getting there. And I appreciate the advice.
Author Rollercoaster Rider Posted January 30, 2014 Author Posted January 30, 2014 In all honesty, I do not feel reconciliation is possible without the spouse knowing the truth. You can be the best spouse ever from this day forward, but it is built on a foundation of quicksand. As for the MC? It was useless for us until much later. He had to deal with his issues in IC before MC was of any use at all to us as a couple. In my experience, MC is not necessarily the path to reconciliation in the beginning. Later on the process, yes. I wish you great luck, and I would greatly encourage you to be straightforward with your spouse. I agree..100%... in order to be true reconciliation I have to tell him everything. 1
Author Rollercoaster Rider Posted January 30, 2014 Author Posted January 30, 2014 How do you know your BH will choose to stay with you? I have been through this twice in two different Ms. The situations were different for both. One ended in D and the other R. Your BH will have to decide if your betrayal is something he can recover from. Some men's ego and pride are too big and they will walk immediately. Hurting the one you vowed to love, honor and respect is never cool under any circumstance. If you are asking if there is a quick fix to your situation and in the end you will come out smelling like roses....you are seriously misinformed. Having an A was your choice. Keeping it from your BH is a worse choice. You want to recover from this and gain your BH's respect? Be honest and tell him the truth. Give him the respect and opportunity to decide how he wants to handle this and your M. Good luck to you. I don't know if he would reconcile....and believe me I don't think there is anyway to come out of this smelling like roses. I take full responsibility for my behavior, the lives I have affected and the way I feel right now. By no means am I proud of what I did. I made a huge mistake, I know that, and I feel it everyday. 3
Author Rollercoaster Rider Posted January 30, 2014 Author Posted January 30, 2014 I believe, first, that the only way to really recover and have an honest marriage is to be honest - that means telling your H. With respect to your therapist, the decision to cheat is not "personal," because it DOES affect the spouse from whom the secret is kept. When you confess, you are confessing what YOU chose to do - not what he did to "make you do it," "cause you to be vulnerable", and not "how unhappy you were." Stick to the pertinent fact - YOU chose to betray him. Own it and be humble. Recovery is a long road with bumps in it, and IF you feel what is TRUE remorse, you will need to be patient and compassionate - even if he doesn't return that patience and compassion for awhile. Your OP makes me a bit skeptical, I admit. It sounds like you want to know what you can expect of him and how you can make sure he gets over it quickly. You have chosen to deal him and your marriage a terrible blow without his knowledge. It's going to be a long road. And for the record, I am a FWW. No, I don't want to know what to expect from him, just more if we reconcile what would be the best course of action? I am just trying to prepare myself before I deliver the news so I know what steps to take to try to be successful. I also ask, because I had a friend that was betrayed.. she wanted to reconcile. Neither went to IC, they did 6 sessions of MC right after D-day, and appear like things are good. Maybe that worked for them? I don't know. But, in my opinion it would take a lot more work then that to truly reconcile, that is also where my question comes from.
whatatangledweb Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 We didn't do MC or IC. What worked for he was transparent, he took full blame for his actions, and he answered my questions. We didn't do MC because our marriage was good. He had a bullcrap MLC and wanted to see if he could pick up someone at a bar like he could at college. To be honest the length of his affair 18 months long distance, about did me in. Tell him the truth and let him decide if he needs IC. I don't think he will be open to MC for some time as you went before and you were in the affair. So most likely he will think ..what good will it do? We tried it before and she was cheating ? Different people react differently when they find out about the affair. There is no way to know what he will do until you tell. The best way is to write a timeline out and give it to him if he wants it. 1
AlwaysGrowing Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 (edited) I tend to agree with WTW, If you had your husband in MC during the affair, there really is no motivation for him to use that avenue again. I think most would feel like it was used to manipulate them. Also, be prepared for your husband to be angry at the OM BS as well, as he has now been deceived by all of you. Come to think of it, if the MC is also your IC...that is another betrayal..and even if not...he will feel your IC helped you deceive him as well. When you do disclose..it would help to do so in a place that your husband can let out his emotions..ie: not having the children around Edited January 30, 2014 by AlwaysGrowing 4
underwater2010 Posted January 30, 2014 Posted January 30, 2014 First....my WH's affair was over almost a year before I found out. So just a forewarning that not everything that is dead remains buried. I firmly believe that you should come clean. Much better than being blindsided. Second...we did not do MC. My approach was simply leave if it is so bad and if not PROVE to me that you want me, this marriage and our family to remain intact. He never balked at my demands for transparency and corrections that needed to be made. I took time to really listen to him. I needed to know where he was mentally for it to even be an option. Third...my next best question was, "How would you feel if the shoe was on the other foot". You see as unhappy as the WS is, many times their BS isn't happy either. We know something(s) are not right or perfect. But we also realize that our happiness and well being does not rest in another person. And that marriage WILL have their ups and downs, it is how you handle it that makes all the difference. The biggest lesson from all this is to turn TOWARD your spouse not away. 2
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