I have been in so much pain and no matter what I do my husband will not be open with himself or co-workers. Here is my poem: Life is about doing the right thing. Never throwing someone under the bus, so you would look good. . . Life is about loyalty, caring and respecting the people who you love. Love is about including others. Love is knowing what their needs are. Love is about honoring commitments. Love is cherishing the hard work your loved ones do. Love is noticing what they do. Life is telling the truth. Life is being honest. Life is doing the best you can do.
Well, after 34 years of marriage I am tired of the pain and can not take any more of it.

My husband is the one who did the cheating, it was a one night stand but unfortunately I was a witness to it. This happened 8 weeks ago. We are working on our marriage trying to figure out what went wrong. I guess I was one of those wives who believed we had the "happily ever after" kind of marriage. We would hear about friends divorcing over affairs and would tell ourselves "this would never happen to us". We love each other deeply but I think we just got too comfortable in our every day lives and we just lost our way. My biggest problem now is I seem to be suffering from PTSD, that one image of the two of them together remains in my mind from the moment I wake up to the time I got to sleep. When I have questions about the event he is more than willing to give me answers, he never brushes it away, he is always open about it. I can see the hurt and regret in his eyes and I do forgive him, I believe it was just a drunken mistake on his part. I just wish I hadn't seen them because that's the part I just can't get over. My heart is so broken that I don't know if I will ever be able to put it back together. I am no longer a trusting person no matter what the circumstances are. I just want my life back and I don't know how do achieve that goal. If time heals all wounds, can it also erase these images?

My wife recently revealed that she has had an ongoing affair with a mutual friend of ours for over three and a half years. She won't agree to completely cut off communication with him, so I really don't know what our hope is for recovering and reconciling. At this point, I'm just trying to understand how to heal for myself and what possible options are available to me.

Hi I just recently discovered my spouse cheated on me. i discovered a conversation with her and another man . I did not know how to confront her. So I tried dealing with it myself so I can feel prepared to talk about it with her. The next day I found an ongoing conversation with the person. She was lying about the time she got off work so she can get up with him. I saw the conversation going on , and tried to make plans with her so she wouldn't meet with him. But she continued with the lie. I confronted her that i knew what she was planning and i packed all my things and left. I left my job and everything behind because I don't know what would I do if I saw her. I need help please. i don't know what to do anymore!!!

I have been married to my wife for 32 years. 31 years and 9 months I have suffered in emotional and physical pain due to her betrayals. She will not talk to me about them, yet wants me to forgive and move on. The betrayals began after the first 3 months of our marriage, then the second, 26 yrs later. Three months ago I found out the second one was still going on after she promised on two different occasions
to stop. I caught her texting to him under the covers while in bed next to me at 2 am. This relationship has been going on now over six years. The extreme trauma, the pain and the anger from the first time I had found out, have have now overtaken me. I'm in a panicking mode. My wounds have never healed. They where just laying partially dormant, but always there.
My wife does not want to hear about the pain, she shows me no empathy, even when she has seen me breakdown. She does not want to discuss her affair and in marriage counseling denies it. I am tired of living with this pain. Our five children have grown and moved out to have families and make their way in the world. I just recently found affair recovery. I have signed up for the bootcamp. I need to find a way to heal. I'm 56 years old. I still love my wife, but I can't live the rest of my life hurting. I have contacted a divorce attorney. At the same time I will be inviting her to take the bootcamp with me. I want her to work with me to heal and create something better.
No, time in itself does not heal the wounds of infedility. It is what is done within the time.

I can totally relate to how focusing on my pain has held me back from healing. I just want answers: why, how long, other than the 2 I know about how many others? When caught 1, 2 5, 8th time why did you never stop see her but you now want to focus on us? I an confused and frustrated. I just want to get past this but having trouble without answers and truth.

I am a WW - it's not just men. I thought Time would Heal - not true and that the A should never be talked about in all it's bad details. Again not correct. Coming clean and addressing the issues that I lied to myself (& him) about were so important to admit to myself. Then supporting my BH became more and more possible. Yes you need time but the work cannot be ignored.

I just second everything Rick has said here. My wife was silent. I denied my pain. Only after years, many years, did I allow the pain to surface. Then I challenged myself to express the pain, in all its detail, and challenged my wife to full disclosure, apology, empathy & repair. As Rick suggests, untended wounds get worse, not better, over time. We're in a much better place now.

First of all... Wayne - Thank you for these videos. They are immensely helpful.

I am 15 months out from our initial D-day and had another one to a lesser extent about 6 weeks ago (a discovery of pornography use). In your video you said, "The betrayed spouse first said that she wished she'd realized the affair was not about her. She said had she known this, it would've allowed her to focus on real issues rather than trying to change in order to control her mate's choices. If she didn't cause it, then she had very little leverage to control the outcome."

Maybe I am still struggling with this and maybe not. I'm not sure. I understand that I didn't cause my husband to cheat. However, from the beginning, I have been convicted of my own failings as a wife. I have worked very hard over the last 15 months to change myself; to be the woman and wife God wants me to be. I hope it has not been as a means to control my husband but I'm sure there is an aspect of that in there if I am honest. I struggle with the idea that if I had been a better wife, this would not have happened. Isn't there a possibility that this is true? On the flip side, I have grown and changed a lot in the last year. I have worked hard on this recovery. When I found out that my husband had been lying to me throughout this recovery about pornography use, I did not react in the same way, knowing that I had been honestly doing my best to be the wife I should have been all along. Because of that, I was able to stand up for myself and insist that he really start working on his personal recovery. Prior to this, he was only willing to work on the marriage and would not do any personal work.

In many ways, I feel stronger and somewhat healed (although not completely). With this new discovery, I feel a new fear. I have released myself from the guilt I felt about my behavior during our marriage. With that release, I also feel free to walk away if he continues to lie to me about his recovery. This is not what I want. But I also don't want to stay in a marriage with someone who has been able to lie to me so easily if he is going to continue to lie and fake recovery. My fear is that I will uncover one more lie. There is no doubt now that he understands how important honesty is to me and to the continuation of our marriage. One more lie would mean the end. Is this what you mean when you said that I have very little leverage to control the outcome?