My husband and I are having a couple problems with the “affairing-down” concept. We are three months out from D-day and we are both working very hard on our recovery. In addition to me doing Harboring Hope, we are in EMSO and seeing a couple’s therapist for EMDR.

I knew about my husband’s emotional relationship with his AP, an old college girlfriend, for a couple years before it became physical. I have always seen that she is not a very good person; selfish, manipulative, two-faced and attention seeking. He is seeing some of these things about her now too and I am so thankful for this. The problem is that there is one area where she is undeniably “better” than me. She was raised showing cattle and I was not. This is my husband’s passion and I have always been involved in it with him but I will never be as well versed or experienced as his AP. While my husband is committed reconciling and never having contact with his AP again, he now says that me having this level of knowledge is required if we are ever going to have the kind of marriage he wants. This makes me feel as if he is changing the rules after the game has already started and that I will never be loved by him unconditionally. While I do enjoy this activity and am always learning more about it, I now have a strong negative emotional reaction to it because I know that he is comparing me to her and that this was “their thing” together. Not doing this activity is not an option as it is a big source of our income and he has been building this business his whole life. How can we get past this issue and start enjoying this activity together again? How do I live up to an impossible standard that my husband now feels is necessary?

Secondly, my husband is having a problem with the “affairing-down” concept because he believes that his AP’s husband is a horrible person and that he was in no way a step-down for his AP. Their friendship first crossed into an emotional affair when she was looking for his “advice” on what to do about her horrible marriage. I believe she was looking to see if he would be available if she did decide to leave her marriage. I could see that she was using this problem to manipulate my husband and get him to see some of our relatively small marital issues as big ones. I repeatedly pointed this out to him but he refused to see it that way, claiming that they needed to talk to each other because she highly valued his opinion and she could actually have an intelligent conversation about cattle with him. She claimed that her husband was an alcoholic, a cheater, emotionally and sexually unattached, a bad father, physically violent and most importantly, he didn’t care enough about her show cattle. The horrible irony is that in some ways during his affair he became the very same kind of person towards me that he was trying to save her from! While we will never know the truth about their marriage my husband just can’t see himself as a step down from her husband. In turn if he wasn’t a step down then maybe she wasn’t either. This leads him to think that maybe they were different than other couples that have affairs and that their relationship really was “real” and not just a fantasy like the course material says. Can you give me your opinion on this issue? Can this one caveat of affairing-down not be met but the affair still just be an affair and subject to the same course of healing? Or does this change our recovery in some way? I am very afraid that even if we can move past the trauma of his affair these issues will continue to wreak havoc on our marriage. Thank you for your time and prayers!

Rick – I’m having trouble letting go. My husband has been having an emotional affair with his boss 4 years ago. We’ve been to counseling, done EMSO and I’ve done the Harboring Hope. He still insists there is nothing wrong with his relationship with her – he’s just being nice and their intimacy is because of their job and the experiences they’ve been through (they are both pastors). He has been distancing himself from me because he says we always argue about it and he’s tired of it. We’ve talked about separating but I’m not convinced it’s love – acting in the best interest of the other. So, if my mate reveals the problem in me, could that problem be I’m too fearful of a separation? I guess I’m not convinced that is what God is asking me to do and I’m so afraid of making a terrible mistake by asking him to leave. When do you know it’s time to let go?

Rick,
We are 3 years past d-day 1 and 6 months past d-day 2. My husband is finally joining me in making the effort necessary to heal our marriage. He harbored feelings that he did not deal with between day 1and 2 and stayed stuck in a pretend normal state. He broke past it when he made a firm, clean break with the AP and apologized to her husband. It was obvious from their conversation that she has been biding her time waiting for my husband to come back and sweep her off her feet- he made it clear that would never happen..... Finally. My question is - how do I get past the fact that I feel I need an apology from her in order to forgive her? I asked her directly for one and she sent the police to my house because I " was threatening her."I have read all your info about forgiveness and I think if I quit hoping for that apology it would help alleviate some resurgence of intrusive thoughts.
Connie

Hi Rick,
My husband and I are two years into recovery. I keep seeing a pattern emerge between us that I think can potentialy keep us stuck forever. I had no prior suspicion before I learned of an affair my husband was havng with a coworker. The first couple of months were something that is even difficult to describe. We seperated briefly and about a month or so past D-day we started counseling. It took three months to get full disclosure and I was not prepared for what I heard. One day he decided he had one last shot to come clean and he laid it on me. So it went from the one affair to close to 12 to 15 sexual encounters with co-workers. (I don't want to go back and count) I also learned that at the very beginning when we started dating he had cheated as well. Those were the only two that I did not go into much detail with because I decided after knowing so much about everything else it was best for me be as detail free from those two encounters as much as possible. He didn't continue cheating throughout our dating relationship but always manintained very poor boundaries with girls. Something I was not really too aware of. He also claims that when he married me he fully believed and wanted to be faithful. He then picked up cheating again during my pregnancy and continued on until I found out roughly two years later. We have been married now for 7 years. Even after full disclosure there were details that would come back to him and more information came out about the encounters. I questioned him incessantly. Every new bit of information or affair felt like I had been ran over by a semi truck. I thought it might never end. My anxiety levels were on a constant high. I never reacted well to the new bits of information but my husband fought through and kept telling me. The problem is now. He has been honest about when he has ran into one of the women or his affair partner, but in order to get the "whole story" I have to question quite a bit. its like I have to poke around in all the dark places to paint the clear picture. He has created safety for me and our son and has changed and completey redefined his boundaries with women co-workers. There has been stumbling blocks with honesty, two times since our recovery and it has been related his alcohol consumption. He lied about it and it wasn't even a big deal. This sets me way back. Over something so little I will go back to thinking he is lying about the rest. We have discussed his fear of my reaction and this is something I am working very very hard on. The other day he came home and told me he saw a girl that he used to work with. she was not someone he was with sexually but he had slapped her butt one time. So anyway she saw him and waved and his first reaction was to wave. He said he realized immediately what he had done and did not feel good about it. So he came home to just let me know what happened. This is were it goes all wrong for me. I cannot sort my feelings out and my pride becomes bigger than you could imagine. I thought he should just turn around from somone like that and before you know it I am questioning him and criticizing him. I am full of so much pride and anger. I try to walk away and not pursue and show him I am safe but I feel very fearful inside so I guess I release it by questioning and criticizing him. I tried to pray and stop myself. I tried to imagine different colored walls like I think I heard you mention one time. Because of the past and always having to pull the complete story out of my husband i believed there could be more to this story. I eventually got myself to stop and run off to bed. I was still so angry about the situation until the next day that I kept pursuing it and my husband finally broke into tears saying that he was in a lot of pain. There was nothing more he could do. He had told me the truth, had shown his remorse and felt ashamed of the situation but he was proud that he had told me. What can I do to stop myself when my insides are screaming like that. Is it okay to need alone time for a day until I can think rationally again and what can I do with all of this pride of mine that keeps bringing me down? Does it mean that since my husband has a hard tme sharing all of the truth up front that he may never be able to? I feel so terrible when we spin out of control like this and just feel like we should have a much better handle on this being that we are two years into recovery. I am particularly disappointed in my reactions and inability to not continue to damage our relationship. I have heard you mention doing a polygraph test at this point in recovery. What types of questions would be beneficial. I apologize for the lengthy question I just wish we could find a way to resolve this. Thanks again for all of your help.