Rick,

   This week has been tough for one reason. My wife and I have made great strides in recovery with your help (before the class even started) and a counselor. The difficulty for me this week has been recounting the story. My AP (who is as out of the picture as I can possibly get her considering she works for the same company I do... I do not talk to her and avoid her at all possible situations for my own health and my wife.) actually "cheated" during the infidelity with her husband's brother and claimed she was thinking about me. This, along with my wife stepping in, confronting me and saying that she was commited to our relationship no matter what and would not leave me (I think the biggest reason), was the disolution of the affair. In short, the event jump started "reality" for me. I started analyzing where I was and what was real with my wife. We have discussed what happened and worked through it and gained understanding. The difficulty is that I have, for lack of a better term, forgotten details. I have dismissed them because they seem to be lies told by my AP. Is this healthy\normal as the wounds begin to heal? I have not forgotten being unfaithful, but the details are no longer there.

Thank you,

Scott (EMSOnline)

Hello Rick,

My husband and I just completed our first week of the online EMS course. We are about 4 1/2 months post the last disclosure day . . . I was given information in stages.  I should add that I am the hurt spouse and trying to make some sense of what happened. So I have two questions for you. . .

1.  For someone to have an affair and betray their spouse who they say they love does that mean they have a deep hurt in their heart that caused them to need such superficial attention from their AP or is it just sin? An initial thought I had was "what is wrong with him".  I will add that your article on dehumanizing was very insightful giving some explanation as to how someone could hurt another so deeply without much thought.

2. Why the lies? My husband says he was not happy and I have heard other stories where the person who had an affair related they were not happy/felt neglected . . . so why not just leave?  I feel the lies are worse than him actually sleeping with another woman.

Thank you so much!

I thought as the hurt spouse that it would be more difficult for ME to want to be intimate with my husband again. But it is HE who refuses to be intimate with me. There has been no sexual contact since the revelation of the affair because he has not allowed it. Initially he said he couldn't because he was afraid he would "think of her" and that wasn't fair to me. But then I learned the affair was actually still ongoing when I thought it had ended. Now, it has ended a second time (I haven't found proof yet for me to believe otherwise, though of course I have my fears and doubts), but his excuse is still the same. He isn't "ready" and is afraid he will think of her while with me, his wife. I understand that to be a real concern (and unfortunate reality of our situation), but I'm confused. This is something that should be shared in a marriage. Obviously we were lacking in the intimacy department leading up to the affair - emotionally and physically. I want to work on BOTH!! How should I be processing and interpreting his rejection of me in this manner? Does one have to come before the other - emotional intimacy versus physical intimacy? Is he really trying to move forward if he is still keeping himself from me in this manner? It is a piece of himself that I feel he is still reserving exclusively for her. I feel it is unfair for him to continue to compare his connection with her as being stronger if he won't even give me a chance to engage at that level with him. Frustrated, rejected and confused.

We just finished our first week of the EMS course and I am the betrayed spouse.  I started the process of finding out about my husband's multiple affairs and betrayals in January when one of his AP's called me to tell me about their affair, in retaliation for him dumping her for his new AP.  Three weeks ago, I found out about another affair he had 5 years ago with a good friend of mine (well, at least I thought she was a good friend).  Another friend told me and when I confronted my husband about it, he confirmed the truth.

The betrayal with my friend has been particularly hard for me to handle for many reasons and on so many levels.  I knew she had cheated on her husband several times in the past, and even though she lost many friends over her conduct, I always supported her in telling her to quit doing things that weren't good for her or her children.  I just thought it was the right thing to do. She has since reconciled with her husband and they seem to be doing very well.  When I first found out about my husband's other affairs, I confided in her thinking she could help me because she and her husband had come back from a similar experience.  And my husband encouraged me to confide in her, all the while not telling me he had been one of her APs.  Several of our mutual friends knew about their affair, because she liked to brag about it, and they never told me.  I guess I understand why they never told me, because who wants to be the bearer of that news, but it's still hard to handle all the same.  To make things even more complicated, our 13 year old daughters have been best friends for years and get together frequently.  Sometimes I think those "Real Housewives" shows have nothing on my life....

Honestly, I still feel shell-shocked and traumatized over this affair in particular.  So many people I trusted have lied to me.  I just don't know who I can trust anymore. 

I have since told my friend, my husband's AP, that even though I know she has made some positive changes in her life, it is just too painful for me to be around her.  She said she understood.  My question is this:  Even though I'm doing my best to avoid contact, our daughters do a lot of things together and I'm going to run into her.  What is the best way to conduct myself so that I feel safe?  Do I ignore her?  Do I just say hi and that's it?  Right now, if I need to contact her about getting the girls together, I do so by text.  And I have my teenage son drive her to their house so I don't have to see this AP.  My daughter is at that crazy early teen age when friends are so important - I really don't want her to lose an important relationship because of the bad decisions the parents have made.  I just want to do the right thing so my daughter isn't hurt.

Rick,

First, you don't really need to comment on this in your broadcast, but I wanted to share a few things about your reply to my comment last week.

Thank you for last week reading my comment. Your reply helped somewhat, however I won't be going to therapy (EMRD) which basically is desensitization by concentrating on the trauma for brief periods.

There are a few things I would like to comment on your reply as well as give you a fuller explanation.

Last week when you read my comment, you left out that one of wife's affairs was sexual; the Three Year affair was sexual with that coworker who cowardly started flirting with my wife using Facebook.  As an aside my nickname for Facebook is "FAKEBook".  The Fakebook flirtation turned to explicit sexual talk and my wife responded in like kind.  My wife told me the three year affair started purely as lust for sex, it did not start out as emotional entanglement.  She later made it emotional I suppose as justification for continuing it because I recall reading one of the emails my wife sent another guy who her AP was setting up for a three-way, which she agreed to do and starting sexting this other guy, lamenting to the would-be three way partner "why did he make me fall in love with him!"

I also left out my wife, on two separate occassions, one for about two months, and the other lasting right up to my discovery of her three year sexual affair, was "sexting" with a "friend" from the past.  I read all of that disgusting language and saw all the disgusting pictures they exchanged to each other of their sexual anatomy.  During disclosure, my wife at first told me her sexting partner was a former lover, and then later revealed that was a lie. She said she lied about her sexting partner being a former lover so it would not look as bad!  That message trail was in fact the very first thing I saw when I looked through my wife's phone on October 14 2012.  I opened one of her several text trails and staring me in the face was her sexting partner's picture of his ... well, you know.  That was the first image I have of discovering my wife's betrayal. Then I looked at other message trails on her phone and found out about the three-year sexual affair.  One of the first things I read and saw there was my wife commenting, a few hours after they had sex in the office, about how perfect his "anatomy" was.

What has set me off now, bouncing out, and permanently I might add, was my wife decided she wanted to send a picture of herself to her fellow H4H students.  What she did however was REOPEN her Facebook account to retrieve a picture, a picture of her and our boys, taken when she was oh so happy in her affair!  She had promised me she would not ever touch or open a new or old social media account of any kind for the rest of her life. When I confronted her about that, she said that I "knew what she meant" by that promise!  I'm thinking to myself, now, she promised not to ever touch her old Fakebook account, unless she wants to do otherwise. Great.  She promises explicitly not to do something that is a HUGE TRIGGER for me, but says to herself while making that promise, "unless I want to do otherwise".

So that, along with her lying to me for five months after she said she loved walking in the light of full truth and honesty with me, lusting after and having sex with my brother, sexting with a former non-lover "friend", agreeing to have a three-way with her AP and a friend of his, and her three year sexual affair leaves me No Choice.

Run and never look back!

Rick,

This is in response to the post by my husband, Brian1958, regarding your answer to his question from the previous week. I have not been socially active on Facebook since I closed my account earlier this year. This was the first and only time I have logged into the account since I deactivated it. I was only on for for one minute to email a picture and immediately deactivated the account again. What Brian failed to mention was that I told him of my own accord I had logged into Facebook to email the picture. I have learned how important honesty is and I did not want to keep it from him. I realize by logging in, even for a minute, I was breaking my word. I realize I minimized my behaviour. I realize I was insensitive to his feelings by emailing a picture that was taken during my affair. I realize what I saw at the time as a small, innocent act was in fact a huge transgression and violated my husband's trust. I have told him all these things and have asked him to please forgive my mistake. It is a mistake that has taught me a valuable lesson in looking beyond myself and considering his point of view more consciously in my day to day actions.

During the three years I was unfaithful to my husband I did some vile, despicable things I am thoroughly ashamed of. Since the day of discovery I have been doing all I can to change my behaviour with God's help. I immediately cut off all contact with my AP and the two guys I was sexting. I have taken responsibility for my actions and I am daily working diligently to show my husband I am all in. My heart breaks for him and the pain he is suffering because of my past unfeeling selfishness. I know I was wrong for not immediately being honest with him and withholding the truth about what happened with his brother. I was terrified to tell him, but I knew for us to ever have a chance for a real marriage I had to. I knew he deserved the whole truth even if it meant he decided to leave me.

My question to you is this - are there some things that are just too much to get over to even have hope for a happy marriage? I realize how I not only walked away from my husband and marriage over three years ago, but I betrayed, and betrayed vigorously, and in no way showed love for my husband. Of course, I didn't see it that way at the time. Now I am fighting daily to regain what I so casually tossed aside. I can completely understand my husband's reluctance to want to recommit. I just ask him to have patience, to give me a chance to show him I am changing before he makes a desicion. We are seven months out since the original D-Day and almost two since the remainding truth was confessed. I was wrong in my betrayals and I was wrong for breaking my promise about Facebook. I Am trying - I hand my marriage and my life over to God daily and pray for a miracle.

Jennie