I am wondering what the discovery process is like at AR? There is a ministry here where someone meets with both the betrayed and the betrayer to get to know them, learn their history, then they are with the couple for the disclosure. A lie detector test afterwards is optional. We met with them once and my husband claims to not "like" one of the counselor's and won't go through it with them. He came up with lots of reasons, they are money grubbing, didn't like the atmosphere, etc. I think he is just afraid. We did go through an EMS weekend a year ago and he took a lie detector test. Unfortunately, I didn't ask all the questions I should have and the test exposed the fact that he has cheated on me since I became pregnant with our first son. I am having a hard time moving on because I feel he has left a lot out and never volunteers any information. He has no empathy and I am losing my feelings of love and hope.

Hi Rick,
This article came at the perfect time I needed. We attended ems weekend in December 2014. At this time my husband had been caught having a affair with his high school girl friend this was the start of my nightmare.

I waited for his disclosure and after a year and still nothing and the communication was getting worse and I was feeling really lonely and on my own to figure out his secret life that he so kept me in the dark about. I will say through this I Have learned to listen to my gut and if something I feel is not right I asked more questions and I could tell he was holding back something because what he kept telling me did not fit in my puzzle at all and did I know the extent of this darkness that was never told in a loving way or anyway I could understand it . How is this happening to us what is this all about and how come all of a sudden I have no idea who this person is and now my life is something I know nothing about.

How do you go about finding the truth with no honesty from the man you trusted your life wife and your children's life with. It was a complete shock to me and my family and the depth of the deceit was a mystery to us. I started going through my life pictures, old cell phone numbers anything that I felt I could relate with of my life. This is when I found the extent of his affair and the only time he would disclose the truth was when I had evidence of his betrayal. My life seemed to be someone else's not mine and the answers we not being told to me to help me heal it was like doing as you say the puzzle in the dark this was my life. I was so alone and scared with no support from the man I loved how does one person turn into a person that now you know nothing about and why?
I knew what love is and I only knew I loved him with all my heart and this might of been my problem that I did not see his true self and what this man was capable of doing to our family and marriage. I will say when we would talk I got to see the signs of his lies and how it was more important for him to protect his own fears then to ever help me heal to know what this deception was all about and why.
It has now been close to 2 years and through my own perseverance and the love and support from EMS and yes you Rick also I have came to realize this is so much deeper and darker of anything I could of imagined in my life.
I knew I needed more help now and set up therapy for myself and harboring hope also. I have found out why it was so important for him to lie and try to get me to stop looking for answers that he would never admit he had anything to do with a separate life that he was living. The only way I could get anything out of him was to do a polygraph and our first one was a disaster in that he told the man doing the test that he was not honest with me and he would not pass. Could my husband look me in the eyes and tell me himself no he had the polygrapher do it and he told me that my husband was not being honest to me and there were more women. How is this what and who's life is this not mine for sure, nor was it my loving husband that did this he was not capable of doing something so devastating to his family.
After picking myself up off the floor I went home and barely could talk from the shock of this was more than one affair. My husband and I sat down and he told me of 9 others almost like he was pist that he was caught and now it was to much for him to ever explain this to me or even give me some instructions how to put this all together. This truly is not my life it's a nightmare and I would pray for God to wake me up and tell me this was not happening to us.
Having a hard time even trying to think that this was the man I loved and how did I fit in to this puzzle because for me it was not my life and no where was I going to put myself I was to much of a strong person to let this man manipulate me in such a way to dis honor me and walk all over me to get his selfish needs meet that did not include me at all. When your all alone and trying to put the timelines and your life back together now as you found out the life you had was not reality at all now I have a new reality and not one I even wanted or was willing to participate given the chance. How do you even start to visualize how this happened and do you really know this is true or who was I living with what kind of monster is this person that I loved and how was I so blind to what was going on..... I can only say that love is blind and I trusted him with everything I had in my heart and that has been ripped apart by his betrayal.

I have asked him to help me with this new betrayal and of course he cant remember very little about them and now the one affair has changed into many and everything that was told to me almost 2 years is now a lie... How do you even begin on this with no accountability to his actions. He tells me he loves me and that he can't live without me and this is suppose to make me feel good it does not I want to know how this happened and why and who were these people that you so loosely gave yourself to and did you even care enough about me to wear protection of course not. This monster only had one thing on his mind and that was sex and how he could get it nothing was going to get in his way because he was a pro now at hiding his double life and keeping his secrets to himself. Another polygraph to see if this was the truth and we could somehow put this together.
After the test the polygrapher said it would take time to put test together and home we went. I Love will always act in the best interest of a

I still look at my husband and wonder how could he do this much damage and get up each day and look in the mirror and be ok with the devastation he is causing with his actions and the very way he's taking reasonability or lack of in his case. After a hour the test came to my email that the man I loved was still being deceitful, I looked up at God and I said you have to handle this I can not take anymore and I don't want to I only want my life back and what do I need to do. Again my husband disclosed 5 more and said its not what you think it was only kissing like this makes a difference in this puzzle here do you put them and it did not make any sense or fit into my puzzle at all. I called to see if the polgrapher could give me some incite on how the questions were asked and would this apply to kissing. What he told me was that the test is very specific and so are the questions and that being said. The question was Did you have sex with someone you're still concealing from your wife and he said NO. Nest question Did you have sex with someone you're still concealing from your wife and he said NO. Test said DECEPTION INDICATED GREATER THAN .99. I can only say that when you have been through betrayal and the one you love is not helping you and no honesty in his words that this devastation is so big and ugly with darkness all around that the only one that can even understand is God and with this I have turned my life over each day for him to make any sense of it and for me to trust that he knows what parts of my puzzle I need and which ones I don't and no longer look at answers from the person who can still deceive me and not care about my healing and only about his fear of disclosure and personal protection of his affairs. My husband has moved out and left me to try and understand 15 different affairs and what will this puzzle look like and Rick I will ask you if this puzzle has a chance or should it be burned and trust God will take care of these ashes because I can not even begin to know why my life was nothing but a allusion ..... Forever Grateful for your program .....

As a betrayed spouse I feel I am entailed to have as much detail from my husband as I want. If he is concerned about my response to the information then he should have considered that when he decided to have affairs.

Obviously his only concern at the time was ensuring I didn't find out by lying - for the years during his affairs and for at least 11 months after. I cannot tell you how much he has further compounded the hurt and pain for me by slowly over months telling me more pieces of the puzzle by denying things and then a month later admitting to it and then denying it again when he forgot he told me. It has been slow torture and at almost 3 years post discovery I am still finding out information. It is this that may now result in the end of our marriage. As I have hung in this long I think I have proven that the affairs in themselves may not be the cause of our marriage breakdown but the ongoing lies may well be.

Right from the beginning his response to many of my questions was and still is "I can't remember". I understand this is not an uncommon response by betrayers. Is it an excuse? Do they choose not to remember? or do they really forget until something and only remember when asked directly about a specific detail?

It defies logic to me. Surely as a betrayer you would just want to spew out everything. Then you would never have to worry about your spouse learning any more detail and you would never have to remember what you have and haven't told them.

As the unfaithful spouse I am trying to learn, and grow, and empathize, and "understand", and frankly just do things right. I am told by so many people/sponsors/counselors/pastors/friends not to tell this, not to say that, "that's just too much information", or, "that will just be damaging to her".

But my wife is standing on the other side pleading for more information, and oddly enough, she usually seems to do better after she gets answers rather than living in the dark with outstanding questions.

Rick, thank you for the comments.

This column is good in emphasizing that the person in charge of how much is shared must be the betrayed spouse, not the unfaithful spouse. Here are some other pointers about that:

Typically the betrayed spouse needs to ask the same question a number of times before they can absorb the answers enough not to need to ask that question again. If the unfaithful expresses impatience, frustration or contempt about repetition, that will just create more conflict and slow the process down, so the unfaithful needs to be willing to go over the same ground a number of times.

A gift for the unfaithful in the repetition is that he/she will often come to new insights in going over the same ground more than once.

Both the betrayed and the unfaithful need to be careful of asking about or sharing sexual details. Yes, the number of times, the places, how the trysts were managed with work and children and so on – all that is very important to share. But sexual positions, degree of pleasure and so on? – Try to steer clear of those because they will just imprint images and impressions that will be difficult to get over. So if the betrayed asks for those, try to agree on a 24-hour or 36-hour waiting period, after which you share those details only if the betrayed still really wants to have those.

Typically, the betrayed spouse is the one doing most or all the work, which is unfair. A terrible breach has opened up and there are deep wounds. Often the unfaithful spouse just waits for the betrayed spouse to bring the subject up, all the time hoping, "Maybe he/she won't bring it up. Maybe they're over it. Maybe I won't need to talk about this again!" No. In order for real healing to get underway, the betrayer must take initiative in conversation to discuss aspects of the adultery: things he/she thinks the betrayed might find helpful; insights the betrayed spouse has come to about what prompted the adultery; what he/she has learned, etc. The unfaithful spouse must not only take responsibility for the affair, but also responsibility for the post-adultery healing.

Tell your spouse as much info as they want. Do not withold anything ir try to sugar coat it... I’m dealing with what my husband has done and the answers he’s given me do not even qualify as answers..’I am not stupid and it just makes him appear more guilty and as if he’s continuing to lie.... he doesn’t understand the lack of answers will cause me to imagine things probably a million times worse, I will stay angry until I get the truth, while truth and nothing but the truth and there’s no way to move forward without the truth! And please do not expect your hurt spouse to ask once... betrayers are liars... the truth doesn’t change and yes we will ask more than once so we make sure we have everything... if the answer changes, you forgot something then you might as well hit the reset button! And don’t make the disclosure like an interrogation if we feel we have to interrogate you to get answers that’s not helping anything either... just means anytime we want info it’s like pulling teeth and you cannot be forthcoming ownd therefore cannot be trusted

I’m a person who wants to know it all, so I can process what has happened and why. But how can you trust what the betrayer tells you, when they have just lied to you about everything they were doing? My husband won’t share anything. He thinks I should just get over it and move on. His motto is “what you don’t know can’t hurt you”. I probably wouldn’t believe him now if he did open up and tell all. I still don’t trust him, don’t believe him, and am suspicious about everything he does. Not a good way to live. To all the betrayers out there, be honest and answer the questions from the beginning.
And stop telling lies!

I am 8+ months past D-Day. Her affair(s) lasted over 10 years. She literally has compartmentalized most of the meetings and events and there are so many for so long that she cannot remember them all in any king of linear detail. All I really get is the locations, some of the fights they had, the bad things she went through with her LTAP, but not specifically chronological details of where, when, how many times, etc on most of the affair. At some point one must ask themselves "when do I stop expecting full disclosure and just move on for my on self-healing?".

Please change the title of this information. The information for the betrayed is so important to get through the discovery stage and I think that message is lost in the title. Maybe “How to work together through discovery”

"I'd highly recommend finding an expert or safe third party who can help provide stability and support while the unfaithful shares the details of the affair."

I would agree, and my comment however is to be aware of the philosophy of the expert / 3rd party. Some therapists advocate a principle of "least amount of information necessary" and if you ask something that they don't feel is necessary, you'll find yourself feeling ganged up on in a two-against-one encounter. The therapist I hired was present with some questions and responded with a sharp "No!" to questions I asked that she felt weren't necessary. I found it demeaning and awful.

The idea of not wanting to cause further trauma or rumination for the betrayed spouse is admirable and right, however there's many ways to do it, there's the sleep-on-it-rule, for example. My thoughts are that the betrayed spouse is the one and only one person who decides what is necessary to know. If the therapist does not share that philosophy, I guarantee it will make things worse.

When do you know you have all the answers?