Learning to be friends after the A

[sugar-rae]

HI, I've been on the LS forum before several months back but moved into a new home over the summer and my internet was turned off for a while so I haven't been able to post.

I've missed it! And everyone who gave me advice before (Mopar Fan!!!)

 

Anyway, I think I'm getting thru the whole affair thing but I just don't know how to begin to be friends with my H.

The A has been over 4 yrs now, and let me tell you, it's taken every one of those days to deal with it AND stay with my H.

He's had to deal with getting over his lying about everything (during th A & afterward when he came home). He still had the propensity to even tell small fibs these passed yrs, and not because he was still having feelings or anything for ex-OW, just lying because he was embarrassed about some of the stuff, ya know?

Well, I hate liars. I mean, I REALLY hate liars. That's one of the obstacles with getting back into a relationship w/ H because of his lying.

 

I mean, how do you know when they've stopped lying? Do you just make a conscious choice yourself to say, "hey, he's telling the truth. i believe him."

His fibs have been just details about the A, which I don't care about those details now, but how do I know he's telling the truth about ANYTHING?

Is this the after affects of an A?

I have always believed that you trust someone again when they've proved their ability to be trusted.

Does all this sound crazy?

[Scott S]

I mean, how do you know when they've stopped lying? Do you just make a conscious choice yourself to say, "hey, he's telling the truth. i believe him."

His fibs have been just details about the A, which I don't care about those details now, but how do I know he's telling the truth about ANYTHING?

Is this the after affects of an A?

I have always believed that you trust someone again when they've proved their ability to be trusted.

Does all this sound crazy?

 

No, not crazy at all. Trust takes some time to be earned, & a very short time to "unearn."

 

Regaining trust is a slow process. As time goes by & the wounds heal, the trust comes more easily.

 

But, you have to allow youself to heal & to trust again, which you would do on your own terms, of course. You could choose to never trust him again if you wish, but it would be detrimental to your relationship.

 

_____________________________________

What if people stopped throwing rice at weddings, and threw potaotes instead?

[michelangelo]

It isn't a matter merely of time passinng so you just gotta trust him. It is a matter of verifying that what he says is true.

 

Once he consistently passes this verification process for whatever amount of time you are comfortable with, then you dole out longer and longer stretches of rope on the leash.

 

Yeah, rope on the leash.

 

There may never be a time when this dog gets offleash.

 

Or there might be.

 

It's really up to him to prove to you he is trustworthy.

[Scott S]

It isn't a matter merely of time passinng so you just gotta trust him. It is a matter of verifying that what he says is true.

 

That is correct.

 

I didn't mean to imply that time alone would make it all go away. Only that as time goes by, one hopefully heals, can forgive, & make a good decision about the relationship & whether to trust again.

[sugar-rae]

Thank you, Scott S & Michelangelo,

Your words mean so much. I assume you are both male and this makes me really perk up and listen.

Not that a woman's view wouldn't make me listen, I just haven't had alot of trust in many males since my H's A.

Thank you for shooting it straight to me!

[michelangelo]

All guy.

 

You're welcome.

[GuySimple]

Well Sugar…I’m going through the exact same thing. The affair was 7-years ago, about a month or so but I moved out, long enough to cause an incredible amount of hurt and loss of trust and respect. Things have never been the same. The old feelings of miss-trust and hurt come back on a regular basis.

 

Now the difference between you and I is that I was the one who had the affair on my wife. The stupidest thing I ever did. I no way was it worth it, and the damage I caused may never be repaired.

 

I can say that it is good that you have been dealing with it and trying to heal. My wife didn’t. She accepted me back, we made significant improvements in our relationship except one big one…she never dealt with the anger and resentment she actually had/has for me. Now, it is starting to come out which has been very complicated.

 

My guess is that if both you and your husband went through the healing process together he knows how much he hurt you and, if he loves you, won’t do it again.

 

There is a perception out there that there is only one hurting person in an affair and that people who love and respect one another would never do that. I don’t believe that. Sometimes stuff happens, momentary loss of judgement that spirals into something that is just simply is out control.

 

Before you give him the keys to the car have a discussion about trust. How you felt, how he felt. He may be just as scared as you. As for the lies, if he is ashamed of what he did he may not want anyone to know the real truth.

[sugar-rae]

GuySimple,

You should have a discussion w/ my H. He's never talked with someone that has gone thru what he has, the whys and wherefores... about the A.

I mean, I've gotten on here with wives who have gone thru what I have, and talked and given opinions and thoughts, but he's never talked with someone (MM) like himself.

 

I understand what you are saying, btw. I really appreciated your opinion. Thank you!

[michelangelo]

Sure, someone caught cheating and having to deal with the fallout from their crappy behavior is in pain. But their pain is self-inflicted.

 

So your wife takes years to even get to the point where she can attempt to begin to process her overwhelming anger, shame, hurt feelings.

 

What are you doing to try to make it easier on her to deal with it?

[GuySimple]

Sounds wonderfully simple. I would be naive and arrogant to think that I can have any significant impact on getting my wife to come to terms with what happened 7-years ago. I can tell her I love her, and behave like it. I can create a safe environment. I can be as supportive as possible. But in no way can make it easier for her to deal with.

 

Regarding self-inflicted pain. Does any sane person wake-up one day and say I think I will inflict pain on myself. Like every reaction there must have been a catalyst. Far too often in affairs or stuff like that people spend 99% on the affair and all the guilt, shame, trust etc., issues that it causes and about 1% on the why. Why did the H or W feel they needed to F%&K around in the first place. What did the other person give them that their spouse didn’t. Cus guess what, you don’t deal with the why and spend all your efforts on the result you’ll have all the issues you had before the affair plus a big heap of trust, guilt and shame to go along with it.

 

Having an affair is a dumb, selfish thing to do. There is no doubt about it. There is a much better way of dealing with things. But, far too often the affair lets one of the offending partners off the hook in dealing with problems in the marriage. Both issues need to be dealt with.

 

An affair is a reaction, not the reason.

[sugar-rae]

Sure, someone caught cheating and having to deal with the fallout from their crappy behavior is in pain. But their pain is self-inflicted.

 

So your wife takes years to even get to the point where she can attempt to begin to process her overwhelming anger, shame, hurt feelings.

 

What are you doing to try to make it easier on her to deal with it?

 

Speaking for myself as a BW, it does take years if you've really truly committed your heart to your spouse. It's like you cannot believe the person you've known (my case-12 yrs at the time) could even think about having feelings, physical or emotional, for someone else, especially if you, the BS, have always only looked at your spouse.

 

I'v thought guys are cute, and I've been asked to cheat with OM but I could never do it. zthe temptation wasn't even there. I loved my H too much. Something in me always said, No, you can't do that to him. I couldn't stand the look on his face if I did and told him.

 

Since his A 4 yrs ago, I thought about throwing in the towel, or getting revenge, as in having an A, but I still love him too much.

 

I believe you can love someone with all your heart and being but not trust them. My H has to EARN my trust with good deeds and honesty.

 

Did I veer off topic?

[sugar-rae]

 

Far too often in affairs or stuff like that people spend 99% on the affair and all the guilt, shame, trust etc., issues that it causes and about 1% on the why. Why did the H or W feel they needed to F%&K around in the first place. What did the other person give them that their spouse didn’t. Cus guess what, you don’t deal with the why...

 

 

That's exactly what I feel. Right there!

Isn't that what the BS asks day after day? Why did this happen? Why, why, why?

 

Why do you think your A happened, in your own opinion, GuySimple? Trouble already in your relationship? noncommunication w/ your W?

 

My H says it was because I was a bit**. But he failed to see that he was just as impossible to live with at the time because he wouldn't communicate to me about anything. I on the other hand was an open book.

Regardless of his not talking to me like he should, I didn't think, hmm, ok, I'll just find someone who WILL talk to me.

[GuySimple]

How did it happen? Well at the time we were going through probably a rough point in our marriage. Our communication was poor. We spent more time working against each other than helping. Basically I think things were at a low point. Add to that the wonderful realities that come with a marriage, work stress, family, finances, kids etc., etc., and it is a heavy load to carry if you are not working together.

 

The lethal injection so to speak was when I was on a business trip. A night in a crowed bar with lots of co-workers ended up with just me and a fairly attractive lady. I found out that she was recently separated so I asked her why and just let her talk. Then I made the very stupid mistake of telling her that I was having issues myself. She became the person that I wanted my wife to be. Supportive, kind, caring. What I didn’t realize that it was easy because she the OW wasn’t part of the stressful period of my life. So it was really easy to connect.

 

To all those people who nobly say they would never do it, I say until you are in the perfect situation you will never no. I never in my wildest dreams would have thought that I would have been the one to have an A. It’s like the perfect storm. For some people that storm may be a hurricane for others it might be a gentle rain.

 

Prevention is a far better way to keep an affair from happening than some of what I have seen people talk about in the threads. If you each work on your relationship these things don’t seem to happen. It is when one or both stop working on the relationship and it is let go too long that causes problems.

 

 

Once I realized what I was doing I wised up and asked my wife to take me back. She was so happy to have the family back together that she didn’t spend the time that you did going over her feelings. Instead she didn’t deal with them. Until now, and it is just like it happened yesterday. All of the grieving that I thought she did 7-years ago she is now doing. The difficult thing for me is that I had moved on with our life thinking that everything was fine, that she dealt with it.

[RecordProducer]

I mean, how do you know when they've stopped lying?

 

When you divorce them, you know they are not lying anymore.

 

 

Do you just make a conscious choice yourself to say, "hey, he's telling the truth. i believe him."

Now we're going to practice auto-suggestion to trust cheaters? How about woodoo? Believing is a factual state of mind. You either believe someone or you don't. If you feel like you can't trust him, nothing in this world will help you trust him.

 

Why do women stay with cheaters and liars? I understand if you have a bunch of kids and you would live in the street without him or any other reason than love, one of those people call "I had to" because of this or that... But if it's love then I wonder why does love have to hurt so much? Why is this cheating and lying person so special that you accept to suffer for years after feeling rejected, betrayed, humiliated, and lied to?

[michelangelo]

Guy slim, merely a victim, eh?

 

Opportunity and a drag at home? sure that makes you unable to choose not to cheat.

 

yeah, it's not your fault.

 

So now years later when your wife is finally starting to deal with it, it's just so inconvenient. I mean, you're so past t.

 

BTW. what makes you think people who haven't cheated haven't been presented with the opportunity to cheat?

 

News flash!

 

They just don't cheat even when presented with opportunity to do so.

[sugar-rae]

When you divorce them, you know they are not lying anymore.

 

 

 

Now we're going to practice auto-suggestion to trust cheaters? How about woodoo? Believing is a factual state of mind. You either believe someone or you don't. If you feel like you can't trust him, nothing in this world will help you trust him.

 

Why do women stay with cheaters and liars? I understand if you have a bunch of kids and you would live in the street without him or any other reason than love, one of those people call "I had to" because of this or that... But if it's love then I wonder why does love have to hurt so much? Why is this cheating and lying person so special that you accept to suffer for years after feeling rejected, betrayed, humiliated, and lied to?

 

RP,

Didn't you say you were soon to marry?

 

Maybe you should learn from these stories and NOT marry. Statistics prove most marriages end in divorce.

Who says your spouse won't cheat? IMO

[sugar-rae]

 

what makes you think people who haven't cheated haven't been presented with the opportunity to cheat?

 

News flash!

 

They just don't cheat even when presented with opportunity to do so.

 

I have to agree with these 2 statements. My H & I had been married 5 yrs when I went back to work after my 2nd child was born. I used to, on friday, hang out for a couple hrs after work with a girl-friend to unwind. She had a friend who started coming by the hangout we would vacate and he was a really nice looking, funny guy (few yrs younger than myself-looked like Ryan Phillippe, the actor) and he would tease me about going out w/him, everytime w'd see him there.

 

I thought the guy was cute, but that was as far as it went and I told him I was married with kids. I COULD have cheated with him, but my marriage, my love for my H was more important, and now, even after my H cheated on me, I don't regret staying faithful to him all those yrs ago.

 

Let me tell you, I had PLENTY of temptation, but I wasn't interested.

Is that what you mean, Michelangelo?

[GuySimple]

Of course not everyone who is put in a position will have an affair. That wasn’t the question asked. And, the fact remains a lot of people have affairs at some point in their relationship and they don’t necessarily have to sexual.

 

It’s great that you have never been tempted. Keeping in mind that it takes two tempted people to have an affair. Maybe you have never been so angry, frustrated or had a since of hopelessness in your marriage. Kudo’s to you if that’s the case. Affairs don’t happen with happily married couples though. I expect that most people don’t think today is the day that I’m am going to start banging my wife’s friend. It just happens. It happens when there is a sense that nothing is right about your marriage and you don’t know what to do. When you are lonely and need of an emotional bond. Couple that with someone who comes along at just that moment and gives you all of that. It is great if you are able to push them away but many, many don’t. At that point it becomes a selfish self-preservation thing where the feelings of the spouse don’t mean as much. They may in fact be the enemy.

 

A marriage is a partnership. I don’t believe that when one partner does something wrong, like have an affair automatically gives the other licence to behave in a manor that is also damaging to the relationship while at the same time playing the victim. When I look at some of the other threads here that talk about private detectives, key loggers, monitoring phones etc., etc., I wonder how that makes that partner any better.

 

There are a lot of marriages that should end after the affair and don’t. The partners have not moved on, not resolved anything, the problems that were there before and since are still there.

 

I’m sorry but SH%T happens in relationships. It would be great if it didn’t but it does. Some hurts more than others and some is completely one sided. Some may damage the relationship beyond repair.

 

But I guess what I don’t understand is why the same people who feel that an affair is so bad and such a horrible disrespectful thing can easily justify the deceit that comes with some of the devices mentioned in these threads.

[Trimmer]

Affairs don’t happen with happily married couples though. I expect that most people don’t think today is the day that I’m am going to start banging my wife’s friend. It just happens. It happens when there is a sense that nothing is right about your marriage and you don’t know what to do.

 

"It just happens." Nope. The opportunity to start something "just happens". From that point on, one's behavior is governed by choices one makes.

 

People who say an affair "just happens" are able to fool themselves - lie to themselves. It starts with an opportunity that "just happens" but then everything that follows is a choice: flirting, having drinks, sharing a meal, sharing secrets.... And as long as you can, you lie to yourself that nothing is going on - maybe you think "just friends", that you can handle it, that you can control it. And then once you realize you've gone over the line, you lie to yourself that it "just happened" so you can avoid the truth that you made those choices all along the way. And you are so used to lying to yourself that it becomes natural to lie to your spouse. And when you are finally exposed, you squirm around and complete the full circle of lying: "no reason... I don't know why... It just happened."

 

I agree with much of what you say in this posting, GS, and I believe you are correct in suggesting that problems in a marriage are a likely precondition to an affair. However, I disagree with this concept at the root of it all - this misconception that an affair 'just happens".

 

Opportunities just happen. An affair is a choice.

[RecordProducer]

RP,

Didn't you say you were soon to marry?

 

Maybe you should learn from these stories and NOT marry. Statistics prove most marriages end in divorce.

Who says your spouse won't cheat? IMO

 

And why shouldn't I marry? Because my future husband might cheat on me? If he does, I will divorce him. I was married once and my ex didn't cheat on me. I don't see why you backfire on me with these ridiculous questions when you know you suffer, can't forgive him, don't trust him, and all in all things are not the same as before.

Divorce is what many people choose when they are cheated on. My point was, if you want to stay married to a cheater and liar you will suffer a lot.

 

By the way, other people also didn't give you advice on how to start trusting a cheater, but you only attacked me! Why is that?

[sugar-rae]

 

Maybe you have never been so angry, frustrated or had a since of hopelessness in your marriage.

 

I have been in that situation, when my H cheated on me, but I didn't cheat back.

 

When you are lonely and need of an emotional bond. Couple that with someone who comes along at just that moment and gives you all of that.

 

As for that, the soon-to-be betrayed spouse may be trying to get the wanting-to-cheat spouse to talk to them but they wont.

 

I don’t believe that when one partner does something wrong, like have an affair automatically gives the other licence to behave in a manor that is also damaging to the relationship while at the same time playing the victim.

 

I believe it gives the person cheated on the right to know why, and to deal with their grief of being betrayed and that's where the cheater, if they want forgiveness should sit and take it.

 

When I look at some of the other threads here that talk about private detectives, key loggers, monitoring phones etc., etc., I wonder how that makes that partner any better.

 

 

I didn't do any of that stuff. The most I did was get online and go to a website to read the signs of a cheater.

 

 

 

 

I’m sorry but SH%T happens in relationships. It would be great if it didn’t but it does.

 

 

ALL of it could be prevented by taking your vows seriously instead of copping out at any problem in the marriage.

 

 

 

But I guess what I don’t understand is why the same people who feel that an affair is so bad and such a horrible disrespectful thing can easily justify the deceit that comes with some of the devices mentioned in these threads.

 

If I have to sink to hiring a PI, I'd dump my H. I got more things to spend my $$ on. lol:laugh:

[mopar crazy]

I am so sorry I haven't replied to your thread. I had NO idea it was you and you changed your screen name. If I would of just read your thread I would of figured it out, duh to me.

 

I am so very sorry you are still going through the trust issues. I know how hard it is to trust again. I still find it hard to trust my H myself. Even when I go out to see H at work and he talks to some woman I don't know I get jealous and worried he is thinking about her in a sexual way. I know my H finds OW attractive, and that is normal, I find some men attractive, but I would never have an A. I'm M, not dead. It's just when your spouse has an A it's hard to regain that trust. They both need to earn our trust and I think they are both trying, we just need to try to learn to trust, and hopefully one day we will trust them again. I trusted my H 100% b4 his A and look where that got me, him screwing around. It's so hard to get that trust back once they screwed it up.

 

You have gotten some great advice, I need to use some of it myself. I haven't read all replies b/c I wanted to reply back right away after I read a few of them.

[CHAZ87]

But were any of your spouses, who had the A. In love with the OW/OM? And was your M rocky before it happened. See this is my porblem now. Any advice would be great, or read some of my other posts.

[sugar-rae]

I am so sorry I haven't replied to your thread. I had NO idea it was you and you changed your screen name. If I would of just read your thread I would of figured it out, duh to me.

 

I am so very sorry you are still going through the trust issues. I know how hard it is to trust again.

 

You have gotten some great advice, I need to use some of it myself. I haven't read all replies b/c I wanted to reply back right away after I read a few of them.

 

That's ok, Jo!

It is hard sometimes, but like you said they are trying.

 

You're right, I have got some useful advice here.

 

Thanks for your input, GF, I always like hearing from you!~

[sugar-rae]

By the way, other people also didn't give you advice on how to start trusting a cheater, but you only attacked me! Why is that?

 

Oh, I don't know, RP, you just always seem to be ...what's the word I'm looking for..."snippy" in your comments, and not just to me. I can well imagine you sitting in your chair with a latte in one hand, a smirk on your face, just dreaming up quirky remarks.

You have a condencending air to your written words.

IMO

 

Does that answer your question?

As we say here in the South, okey dokey.