We are about 1 month past d-day. Although my husband has allegedly cut off contact with the AP (been about 1 week since last contact, so I'm not counting my chickens here...) and is staying for the kids, he is very angry, bitter and resentful. He really enjoys worldly things, and feels no need to look in himself to see what was wrong or what issues he had that made him choose the affair. He says he is still in love with AP and has no fun with me and that he doesn't even like me. Although he says the affair was wrong and it was his fault, he still has justifications and calls me and "other people like me" all judgmental. He asks what's the big deal when I try to find out when he started watching porn and paying for subscriptions. So I started looking at our bank statements, and he gets annoyed and rolls his eyes at me. Initially after lies, he told me maybe a year or two ago. Then i found some evidence from 4 years ago, and he said, okay maybe 4 years ago. Then I looked at my bank statements and saw it was at least 7 years ago (I can't search my statements earlier than that).

I don't feel "safe". Although he has been honest mostly about his affair, and has answered lots of questions, there is still pushback from him when it comes to certain things.

Is it too early to make any decisions at 30 days? You had mentioned wait 60-90 days, but is it okay to not feel safe during this 90 day period? It's hard to be living with someone who groans and complains all day, tells me how f*&#$^ boring his life is here with us, and thinks about leaving us every day. It's hard to hear him tell me about how he still is in love with her, how I'm no fun and uptight. Do I just give him some days without bothering him with questions at all?

At what point do I throw in the towel because he is not working to create safety for us and continues to be angry and bitter, instead of repentant and wanting to work towards true restoration of the marriage?

Focusing away from pleasing my mate?

I'm in week 10 of EMSO.
My spouse has had affairs for 11 of the 16 years that we've been married. The first affair began before we got married and continued for the first 6 years of the marriage. The most recent affair ended Jan 15 after 4 years. D-day was Jan17.

I've been reading articles in the recovery library and I'm confused.

At some point, it appears that I need to focus away from pleasing my mate. If my goal is to be responsible for his happiness, then I will never succeed; he needs to be responsible for his own happiness.

However, I'm confused about my feelings that tell me that I need to be attractive to my mate. I guess my feelings are wrong. I feel like being attractive to him is somehow important to the continuity of the relationship.

Yet, he continues to tell me -- in different ways -- that I will never be up to his standards. I will never be as attractive to him as his multiple APs. My skin isn't dark enough. I'm not as athletic. My body is too soft. My clothes are too frumpy. I don't wear enough makeup.

I have tried to do the whole body makeover. I have exercised to the point of accidentally tearing up my knee and requiring knee surgery twice. I have dieted to the point where I weighed less than I did in college. I wear lots of makeup and tight clothing.

My doctor says that I am no longer allowed to run -- since my knee injury. And this morning, when I was trying to exercise, my husband asked me if it even does any good ? If I should even bother?

I am wondering the same thing.

Nothing seems to make me attractive to my spouse. In counseling he has stated numerous times that he isn't the type to give compliments. They just never did that in his family of origin.

I know that my self esteem and self worth are not dependent on his opinion. However, I am concerned that a long term marriage is not sustainable if he doesn't find me attractive.

What do you think?
How can I reconcile these things: -- that I should not be focused on pleasing my mate
-- and that we will be able to stay married and sexually intimate if I am not attractive to him?

We are in the EMSO class.
How does it differ from Harboring Hope and Hope for Healing?
Are the course materials the same?
Or are the course materials different enough to make it worth the extra time and cost to take another course?
How can I know which course to take?
Thanks

Hi Rick

We are in week 10 of EMSO. I am the unfaithful spouse. Overall, things are going very well. We have just passed the 6 month anniversary of D-day without any major issues (no arguments, no flooding, etc). My wife has a lingering issue which we have difficulty resolving.

She is convinced that I do not find her attractive anymore and that is why I had an affair. I've tried to explain to her that I did not seek out the APs because they were more physically attractive than she was. I feel that my first AP was definitely less attractive than my spouse. That first affair was more of an emotional affair rather than being driven by sex. The second affair, which was the recent affair, involved a younger woman who is very fit and athletic.

Because the second AP is in good shape, my spouse feels that I must have had another affair because I am no longer attracted to her.

This could not be further from the truth. In reality, I found the second AP to be *too thin* and *less* sexually attractive than my wife. I've told my wife this several times directly as well as in our couples therapy. She doesn't believe me and thinks that I am just lying to smooth things over.

I'm not a very touchy-feely person and did not grow up in an particularly affectionate family, but I have been modifying my behaviors to make my wife feel more physically attractive (more unsolicited kisses, compliments, etc).

At the end of the day, she just doesn't believe me when I say that I'm still attracted to her. I was hoping that the tincture of time would help this issue, but it really hasn't. In the other areas of recovering from the affair, we have made great improvements but not here. She still has emotional flooding about this issue and multiple cognitive distortions (she wears a size 0 and thinks that I think she's fat).

Of note, our sex life has been generally very good, both in frequency and in quality. This also puzzles me. If I was really no longer attracted to her, I would have expected our sex life to suffer.

In the absence of a mind-reading machine, how I can convince my wife that I still find her attractive? I know that "trust" is a dangerous word. I don't expect her to just "trust me" on this issue but I don't know how to "replace trust with safety" in this context.

What is a healthy response when you are on the receiving end of your spouse's struggles with the majority of the distortions from the cognitive distortions list (EMSO week 9)? (Not to say that I don't have issues, but I could use help in knowing how to respond when I'm on the receiving end.)

Last week I was diagnosed with PTSD due to the affairs and I'm working through accepting it. We have been married for 15 years and for the first 9 years of our marriage (and during our engagement) my husband had multiple affairs (25), all of which I did not have any knowledge or hint of. He has now been diagnosed (unofficially) of having a sex addiction. One of the affairs (6 years ago) resulted in a pregnancy and abortion, and was with my best and close friend to the family. 1.5 years ago (Jan 2013) was D day for that one, and I was/am devastated. I had not been in contact with her since then (2008), but I thought it was for a different reason, as they manipulated the situation to end the friendship in order to hide what happened and why we no longer were in contact. Basically it blew up in their face and neither one of them had the courage to confess at the time. A year later (in Jan 2014) my husband voluntarily confessed to all of the other affairs that happened in the prior years. He sat me down at a counseling session and emotionally told me about his horrific past. I was floored.....as I never thought he would do something like that, ever!! He told me that he thought it was the right thing to do, that it wasn't fair to me that I didn't know the truth. As it goes, when he learned about the pregnancy ( which occurred in 2008) is when he had a huge scare, which also led to what he calls a 'heart change', and says that he hasn't been with another person since. Over the past 6 years he has continued to change in a positive way. This whole time however (since 2008 to current), I didn't realize just how much, because I had no idea about his secret adulterous life he had led up until 2008. I didn't realize the contrast. We had a very rocky relationship prior but I thought it was due to other issues. Now I/we are aware of what the main problem was and how significantly adultery affects families. It not only affected our relationship but the relationships he has with our 4 boys. We have all suffered due to the affairs currently, and when they were occurring. It's like a bacteria that secretly and slowly but aggressively and relentlessly eats away at everyone that the adulterous person is loved by.

I think the PTSD is due to the realization that this was occurring for such a long time with so many people, without me knowing. I frequently have moments in which I sit and think and realize, and feel panic stricken, that this really happened. I feel immense unexpressable pain and then I literally feel like I need to get up, pack my bags, and leave him. I've even considered leaving without the kids because my depression has been so bad that I have felt withdrawn and completely different than my usual self and sometimes feel I can't handle raising them with the heaviness I feel from this mess. I feel like I can't escape this nightmare. I am in such a stuck, trapped situation/position. The husband I have today is everything I could ask for, yet he was the worst most hurtful deceitful person I've ever known. It is really weird looking at him and thinking that he is the same person that did such horrible things, yet he is the person that I am closer and more intimate with then ever. He and I have gotten so close during this last 1.5 years and I am amazed that a closeness such as this is actually possible. Another reason I think that I may have PTSD is because as I get closer to him, and then rethink, or think about what he did (details, general stuff, etc.) I feel a more immense pain than I did when I first learned (D Day), at which time we weren't as close. It's almost like I'm taking the feelings and relationship I have with him today and pairing it up with what he did years ago as if it was currently happening. As a result of pairing those two things, it feels even more hurtful. It's one thing to look at him and think about what he did long ago with the feelings I had then, than to look at him now, think about how I feel about him NOW, and pair it with what he did back then. It not only feels so much more painful but it makes me more fearful. If he were to do it again, now or in the future, now that we are so much closer, it would be so devastating. More devastating than I could handle....I just know it. I have felt so hopeless that a recurrence would be the end of me. I think an affair is the worst betrayal and pain that one can experience. Death of my closest family member(s) does not compare. I know it would be traumatic, but death is natural even if accidental or sudden. If I were to loose a loved one to death I trust and believe in heaven. 'Adultery betrayal' on the other hand is not natural and it is disgustingly wrong.

Please share with me why you think I may have PTSD. Also, do many people that go through this get PTSD from it? I will be starting cognitive therapy for the PTSD next week and have yet to learn more about it. Why can't I shake this!? Why do some get PTSD and others not?

Thank you Rick