Your blog has been so helpful in my despair in trying to unwrap and understand what and why my husband's affair happened. Because of you explanations in your blogs we enrolled on EMSO, and my husband is showing full commitment to the lessons and committing to the truth. Thank you.

The actions of the unfaithful are so impulsive, that it is so hard to rationalize them. My husband says he wasn't thinking, but I guess for the betrayed spouses it is hard to believe that there is no thinking involved. Unfaithful spouses think about ways to hide the affair, compartmentalize, they think about the AP when they are not with them, they think about how they will lie and deceive their spouses, they think about and plan escapades with their AP's. So to me there is a lot thinking and planning involved. So the "no thinking" rational is the best way I can understand it. because if they had (been thinking rational) they probably wouldn't have had the affair in the first place.

One thing I can't get my head around and having difficulties understanding with the "not thinking" part is how the unfaithful spouse can bring over the AP to the home and marital bed...clearly my husband was not thinking of how this action would devastate me. But how did he give himself permission to do this? how do you share something that is so personal (to me, to us) and sacred to the marriage without thinking about the spouse?. Is there anything I can watch that will make me understand this? I am 14 months from 1st Dday and 1 year from 2nd DDay. When it comes to this subject I just can't understand it or get my head around it, I get stuck. Please help.

Can unfaithful spouses feel a sense of being stuck in their affairs? My husband tells me that the reason his affair lasted so long was that he didn’t know how to get out of it--that he knew I'd divorce him if I found out. (My first marriage ended in divorce because of an exit affair.) He says he worked hard at just trying to “manage it” because he DID recognize what he had to lose. That if he just kept his affair partner--who happened to be my friend--happy then he knew she wouldn’t expose the affair and cause me pain. He says during the "no contact" times throughout their affair, he had a sense of relief when she’d reach out because then he didn’t have the constant worry of the secret being exposed. When he finally told me about the affair, he said it was because he could no longer live the life he was living, even though he knew how much the affair would hurt me. Sometimes that explanation makes sense, but other times it feel like a line of bull. Have other unfaithful spouses felt stuck in their affairs?