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Hope Rising 2020 Announcement

If you're the betrayed spouse, I want to invite you to our 3^rd Annual Hope Rising Conference, (now Virtual!) where speakers will speak into your specific situation of infidelity and help guide you through the recovery process. It's not as hopeless as you think.

"It is possible to get to the point where you don't think about this every day. Where you're not triggered, and you can begin to believe the best again."
– Samantha, Hope Rising 2019 Speaker

We are excited to announce that registration is open for our Third Annual Hope Rising Conference! We understand the pain and turmoil that betrayal brings. This one-day, virtual event for betrayed spouses features infidelity experts and survivors who want to share insights, strategies, resources, and hope with YOU.

Here is a special message from our Co-Keynote Speakers for Hope Rising 2020:

"I benefited most from the encouragement and strength that came from listening to hopeful, compassionate, confident, wise, guiding words from speakers who are on the other side of this journey."
–Hope Rising 2019 Attendee

Affair Recovery contributor and co-author of Harboring Hope, John Mark Haney, PhD, LPC, spoke at Hope Rising 2019 on The Myths of Infidelity & The Threat to Human Identity. His talk was a highlight in itself, and we are thrilled to share a video recap with you today of his informative and inspiring message:

To hear John's talk in its entirety, and to hear from other speakers, purchase Hope Rising 2019 On Demand here.

Join us online Saturday, October 10th, 2020, for Hope Rising 2020. We have a virtual seat saved for you.

"Will I allow what I'm going through to refine me or to define me?"
–Shelley Martinkus, Hope Rising 2019 Keynote Speaker

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Obsessive Liar

Submitted by Alice Hudman (not verified) on Wed, 08/12/2020 - 11:33

My husband said it wasn’t an affair that it was just about SEX. He didn’t care for any of the women. He cheated the first 12 years of our marriage; we’ve been married 51 years.

Has he not cheated after

Submitted by Debbie Wilmoth (not verified) on Wed, 08/12/2020 - 18:10

Has he not cheated after those 12 years? Is he still lying to you about things? We’ve been married 33 years and discovered the affair 3 1/2 years ago and he’s been a perfect husband since then but I still don’t trust him, probably never will. Are you trusting him now?

So so sorry.

Submitted by smallish on Thu, 08/13/2020 - 04:17

I think he has some way to travel yet. Maybe it was just about sex, and he didnt care about the other women, but that still doesn't make it right. I hope you get the right help, for you. And hopefully your husband as well

Horrible

Submitted by 9154mf on Fri, 08/14/2020 - 07:35

I’m so sorry to hear this, may I ask when you found out, was it just recent? Or you found out back then but have since reconciled? Either way kudos to you for being able to move past such deceit. I struggled for about 18 months putting together the facts of a 7 week affair that had just happened, I can’t imagine piecing 12 years of deceit together!
My heart goes out to you.

Obsessive Liar

Submitted by Alice Hudman (not verified) on Wed, 08/12/2020 - 11:34

My husband said it wasn’t an affair that it was just about SEX. He didn’t care for any of the women. He cheated the first 12 years of our marriage; we’ve been married 51 years.

Just sex

Submitted by Tim L Feuerstein (not verified) on Sat, 08/15/2020 - 09:54

I know the feeling 52 years of marriage wish I could take away your pain but as you know it never goes away
God bless

How long does it take

Submitted by Debbie Wilmoth (not verified) on Wed, 08/12/2020 - 18:04

Is was Dec 31 2016 when I discovered my husband’s year long love affair. Daily texts of love, emails of leaving and promising a future with her. Romantic words like I never heard in our 30 years together. When he was caught He dropped her immediately but he was never honest or open with me about the affair. Lies after lies and I would find out the truth myself. He is a model husband now. Much more romantic, more affectionate where he never was with me but I cannot get past all of the loving words he said to her and how horrible and cold he treated me that year. Every single day, several times a day I think about it. I have done hope for healing, we’ve done the couples thing, we’ve had counseling and I’m stuck in this funk.

He told me Dec. 2017. Had to

Submitted by Clarice Grandpre (not verified) on Sat, 08/15/2020 - 14:56

He told me Dec. 2017. Had to, my 62yo spouse was going to be a daddy again with his 27 yo employee. I too get intrusive thoughts almost daily. I want it to stop. I have taken HH. How to make it stop?

Love texts

Submitted by Roberta Piekarski (not verified) on Mon, 08/17/2020 - 07:22

It was June 2019 when I accidently came across love texts from my husband to a 30 year old co worker. A husband of 44 years. Same exact thing. Words of love. How much he missed her. This emotional affair went on for 5-12 years.
I had no idea. But now I understand how the last five years were miserable. How he treated me, no words of love to me because he was giving them to her. He ended it, but the damage has been done.
Since d day he has been trying to be the perfect husband, but he has ruined any trust I had. His words to me dont really mean anything like they did many years ago.
To say those words to another woman and then expect those words to mean the same thing to me is a joke.
I wake up every day with those love words to her in my mind.

Same subject

Submitted by Miguel Zendejas (not verified) on Wed, 08/19/2020 - 22:52

That’s is me,
Need advice

Stopping those thoughts

Submitted by Sharalene (not verified) on Thu, 09/03/2020 - 06:39

My psychologist taught me a thought stopping exercise I used over and over again to help me not to think about the affair several times a day. I realized that I was living my life in the past by thinking about it constantly and it was causing me so much pain. So I learned how to be present minded and stopped those thoughts as soon as I recognized that my mind was slipping back into the past. The exercise involves: gently biting my tongue and closing my eyes then imaging a memory, a very strong memory that brings me security and comfort and for me its me laying my head in my husbands lap while laying on the couch im looking up at him and he is looking down at me and he's smiling at me in such a way that I know and feel %100 sure that he loves me then I imagine letters forming right next to us one letter at a time spelling happiness. I imagine the letters very clearly and I even imagine them lighting up and sparkling then I open my eyes and abruptly change my thought to something else, if I slipped back into the thought a few minutes later I would repeat the exercise again. After a few weeks of consistently practicing this exercise with every affair related thought I started to notice this was helping and eventually after doing it for months I found I was going a day or sometimes days without thinking about the affair and now 2.5 years later I can go up to a month or more and when the thought does come into my head I can say now I no longer feel the pain that i used to feel. I thought the agonizing emotional pain would never go away but it has and I had to do a lot of work with my CBT psychologist to finally get to this point. The affair changed the way I experience the world forever but I went though the difficult steps of changing myself to get my life back and now I can say I really do have my life back. It is possible, it happened for me.

Lying

Submitted by Clarice Grandpre (not verified) on Sat, 08/15/2020 - 14:45

Yesterday I just found out that he has been communicating with her again, covering it up, and then bold-faced lie to me about meeting with her. He is now 64 and she is 29 and their daughter is about to be 2 yrs old. He said she wants him to start restart regular visitation again but also told him that her relationship with the other married man she was having an affair with at the same time as with my husband. He had promised to let me know immediately is she contacts him. So communicating behind my back with her and covering it up, secret get together with her, bold face lying to me when I asked where he went after work. Deja vu. Over 2 ½ yrs of trying to regain trust down the drain. Any suggestions what I should do now?

Has he had a paternity test

Submitted by ARB on Sat, 02/27/2021 - 02:29

Has he had a paternity test confirming that the child is his?. My UH may have fathered a child. His married AP whore convinced him of that, so he never had a paternity test. He went no contact with the AP and never saw the child. 30+ years later he is pining for his child and I am left paying the price. Only now, after the truth came out, he acknowledges that she slept around with others at the same time as him. Too late for a DNA test now since the kid doesn't know his mother was a slut and has spent a lifetime thinking her husband (who apparently had a vasectomy...although that too may be a lie) was the father. Oh what a tangled web. My UH chose me 30+ years ago...and is now having to chose me over the child again...if it is even his child. If we could turn back time, we would have insisted on a DNA test when the child was very young.....because it is too late now.

trust

Submitted by Tera (not verified) on Wed, 09/23/2020 - 07:00

It's been about a month since Dday when I found out about my husband's emotional affair, or so he says that's all it was. We're making good progress, but then I get overwhelming feelings of doubt. Like, how do I know he's not still reaching out to her? How do I know it never got physical? How do I know that he doesn't want to still talk to her even if he's not? I can't take the constant reminders. I need help.

What type of affair was it?

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