Rebuilding Marriage After Infidelity Community Group
A community for those who have been through the heartbreak of infidelity and decided to stay with their partner and try to re-build the relationship.
i was unfaithful to my husband. it has been about 3 months since D day. we both want to make our marriage work and are trying. we haven't told family so we are looking for any advice or tips to help us.we both need support groups. it has been lots of ups and downs but now it seems like more ups n trying to work on and focus on us now. thank you for reading...
I'm packed full of advice and suggestions, but it might help to know what you're looking for, exactly.
Are you two in some sort of recovery program/counseling? Have you done any reading - or would you even want to?
The ups and downs will level out eventually. The roller coaster early on is exhausting and terrifying and painful, but thankfully - not permanent.
I wish you both well in rebuilding!
http://www.lindajmacdonald.com/how_to_help_your_spouse_heal_from_your_affair--ljm2.doc
That is a great resource, especially for you to know if your on the right track or not.
I'd also recommend the Marriage Builder's site, lots of great resources there:
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/index.html
Finally, I have a page on my site for "New Betrayed Spouses" your husband may find helpful:
http://healinginfidelity.blogspot.com/p/help-for-new-betrayed-spouses.html
Hope you find that information helpful.
I thought we were on the right track actually being able to talk about issues then call a timeout when we just wanted to be done w the conversation for the day, but yesterday was such a down day. He says he doesn't know if he could live like this for another year or 2 while going through this, I need some help I don't know what to do! I want to win my family back and am wiling to work hard for it. But when he gets angry or feeling down he says mean things again and even wants to have a revenge affair. Of course I don't want him to but I feel like I have no right to tell him not to because of what ive done to us.
Here's what my own husband said to another guy we both knew who cheated:
"It is the hardest thing in the world to have to look daily into the eyes of the person you love and see the pain there and know that you are the one who has caused it. Being open entirely and listening are key to a recovery. You need to want the marriage and be part of the marriage not just willing to go along with a marriage. Decide to make it work or get out now. Spell out exactly why you had the affair to your wife - not to blame her but to resolve the issues together. It hurts recovering from an affair. For her and for you. A lot. But if you care and love her and want to be best friends and lovers then you have to commit 100% to each other. One good result of my affair - is we have grown together into each others needs and desires. To make us both happier. Work together to be who and what you each need. This is a work in progress. But well worth it."
Replace the wife with husband and I think it fits your situation. Be honest with your husband. Be completely open. Be remorseful. I know it always helped me when my husband would say things like, "I can see your hurting and I am SO sorry for my part in that hurt." Show gratitude for his willingness to work on rebuilding. Let him know that you are choosing HIM above all else. Build him up - which may be hard at first, but keep trying.
I know my husband would offer a lot of "I love you" and "you're so beautiful" and other compliments and words of endearment that just rang hollow. I felt like if he really loved me, how could he do this? Obviously, this is flawed logic, but it was hard for me to wrap my brain around the fact that my husband's affair had NOTHING to do with me. I couldn't understand why he wasn't thinking about ME while he was with HER. From the flip side of things, I'm sure you'll agree - it was never about your husband. Whether there were marital issues or not - it was about you and your needs and your choices, not about him. He will have to come to that understanding in his own time and in his own way.
It's really great that you have been learning to call time outs when things get too heated. That's absolutely a positive direction. Try not to get too discouraged when you guys fall back on bad habits. You're still learning a new way of interacting with each other and it's HARD - especially with such an emotionally charged issue. My husband had to remind me on more than one occasion to table things or to take a time out when my blood ran too hot. On more than one occasion, he'd say, "You want me to talk to you, but then you get mad. Can you understand how this could be so confusing for me?" Did I say more than one occasion? Maybe more than a thousand... heh.
Keeping your calm will help your husband keep his calm. When he does say hateful or mean things, it's best to just offer up a disappointed look and say something like, "That was really unfair. I want to be able to talk to you, but not like this." It takes 2 to fight, so if you don't engage, he can't either. It was also good for my husband to set time boundaries. We'd only talk about a heated topic for 15-20 minutes at a time so that I wouldn't have as much time to get riled up and we could keep coming back to it calm each time.
I never said I wanted to have a revenge affair, but I did say equally horrifying things to my husband during grief and anger. I regret all of them, but that doesn't take the pain and damage away from those words. I'm so sorry that his hurt is so raw and unchecked, but he has been betrayed and hurt - probably worse than in any other way he's ever experienced. He likely has no practice nor has he developed any skills for dealing with something like this.
That's not an excuse - please don't misunderstand me - just an explanation. Bad behavior is bad behavior no matter where it comes from, but I can't help but have feelz for the poor guy, you know?
My own mantra for dealing with my emotional lashing out was, "Is this productive or destructive?" When I could realize I was saying harmful things, I could reel myself back in. I truly wanted to rebuild my marriage, but I was my own worst enemy in doing so. I imagine similar will hold true with your husband.
I can completely agree with what your husband said, I hate my self everyday when I see the hurt in my husbands eyes that's y I can't even look at him when we have talks about it. I have discovered the "reasons" (excuses) I strayed. I never once blamed him and never will because I do know it was my choice to do it no one made me, and I want him to realize that he's not at fault at all it was my issues.
Lately we had been getting better at calling timeouts but when he's angry and I try to call a timeout he throws it is my face that because of my issues not opening up I call timeout and the reason I call it is because I dnt want him to get another a rage the way it was happening right after D day. Those were very scary days now I try to prevent them by calling timeouts.
Our counselor suggested to put time limits on our talks too but he can't do that, and when I try to call a timeout or stop he gets more angry. So I try to keep going. When he says hurtful things at first I didn't say anything but now sometimes I do try to tell him, and he throws it in my face that I dnt like hearing the truth. Which I know I deserve that's y I just stay quiet and listen to him tell me things.
Yes I understand that you are coming from the same place he's at and I'm so sorry you had and still going thru this, I dnt wish this pain on anyone in the world. I just pray to God that there is hope for us. I have faith in us and that our love can be rebuilt and stronger.
That level of anger is intense and after a considerable amount of healing, it is absolutely embarrassing. Like I said before: bad behavior is bad behavior. It's OK to be angry, but it definitely is NOT OK to take that anger out on your partner. And if I had continued to do so, my husband would have had no choice but to leave. Who wants to live in that kind of volatile situation?? I'm sure it wears on you, too.
Definitely try to convince your husband to read this: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3401_angry.html
It's really important to keep marital discussions pleasant. Even the tough ones. It sounds crazy, but IT CAN BE DONE. Right now, when my husband and I discuss money or parenting issues or anything else equally as stressful, I actually look forward to it because I LOVE talking to him and sharing my burdens with him. Before, we each would have avoided and dreaded such discussions because - inevitably - one or both of us would end up exploding (or shutting down).
What I'm getting at? You have right to hope and have faith. Rebuilding is a LOT of work - some of it extremely painful - but IT CAN BE DONE. :)
A common example of the CS seeming to minimize their part in the affair is to call it a mistake. From the CS pov, one can look back at the choices one made, recognize they were wrong and destructive, and say to themselves, "It was a mistake to make the choice to allow an affair to take place." In that context, it was certainly a mistake in retrospect. But for the BS, it is much more than a mistake, which implies that you didn't intend it to happen or you didn't realize at the time it was wrong. It sounds to them that you're putting the whole thing on the level of "Whoops! I thought we were meeting at 7. My mistake." The BS hears, "I'm not at fault, it was just an innocent mistake. Sorry." So even though from your perspective it was a mistake, avoid using that term to describe it.
Another communication technique to learn is to put your thoughts into wording that describes what you were experiencing rather than what he did or didn't do. So, for example, instead of saying, "You were gone so much I was lonely, so I was drawn to the OM," you'd say something like, "I felt lonely. I missed you. And that made me vulnerable to the OM's advances." Focus on "I" statements and avoid "you" statements that come across to him as, "It's your fault I had this affair because you didn't meet my needs of companionship. If you'd been home more, this wouldn't have happened."
There are other techniques you can learn. The Marriage Builder's site mentioned before has more information on that. I found their book on "Surviving an Affair" by Willard Harley to be excellent in giving an overall picture of things like this.
But of course that takes time retraining your brain and may not help immediately unless you can identify a specific problem like, "Yeah, I have been calling it a mistake." Simple to reword that to call it "my bad decision' or something.
If you find this a continuing problem, it may help you to both communicate via a different medium when possible. If he ask you a question to which you don't have a ready answer to because you don't immediately remember on the spot or you need to check something to make sure you're getting it right, etc., arrange to have a question "jar" in advance with him, and ask him if you can put that question in there so you can give it some thought. He may get to the point he'll just put questions in the jar without asking them directly to you first. Then at times when you are going to discuss the A, you can pull out questions you are ready to answer. That gives you time to think more about your answer and dig within yourself to find the best answer you can give.
Another version of this is to have this "jar" be electronic, as in sending emails when he has a question. If you are good at writing, you could even respond via email, but that does have the risk of not communicating body language and he may read more into a statement than you really intended. But at a minimum he could send his questions via email, and you'd have a folder you put them in, and answer them when you are ready and able. Taking the immediate pressure to "come up with an answer on the spot" may lead to less coming across as lying when he sees you stumbling around to give him an answer as if you're trying to hide the real reason and are attempting to come up with a story to not get caught or minimize what you did.
That's just all some general shots in the dark. You'd probably need to give us specific situations to know what dynamic is really happening there, and a marriage counselor may be better able to evaluate it since they'll see it happen live. But hopefully, the above will help.
BTW, I have a few articles on my site dealing with CS issues. A good place to start is the one titled, "Healing Steps for the Unfaithful Spouse."
http://healinginfidelity.blogspot.com/2014/07/healing-steps-for-unfaithful-spouse.html
May you both find your way through this maze.
My husband and I had a rough time "dating" again when trying to rebuild. It was so awkward and strange, at times, like hanging out with a stranger with whom you were angry and being expected to play some romantic part. We took turns planning dates - I'd plan one week, he'd plan the next. (Well... except when he didn't... but that's a whole rabbit trail I won't go down...) Here are some things we tried with varying results (in other words, some of these were total flops!)
* Picnic at the park
* "comic date" - we ordered take out and then got some poster board and markers and made up our own comic story and drew it.
* Wine tasting
* Plays/musicals
* Mini golf
* Volunteering together
* Hiking
* "staycations" - one night at a nearby hotel - usually with a Jacuzzi tub
* Local color (parades, festivals, farmers markets, etc.)
* Pottery painting
* Trips to the library where we'd find a book we could then take home and take turns reading to each other.
* Fondue or other dining experiences where you cook your own food and it's a long drawn out process
While we often incorporated meals into our activities, we tried to not make "dinner out" the exclusive activity. For us, it wasn't enough time together, and we often would just sit quietly, eat, and then go home and go our separate ways. We needed stuff that forced us to interact. We also avoided going to the movies for this reason, because again - we'd sit in the theater, never touching or acknowledging each other, and then go home and go our separate ways.
Trying new things can be a fun way to reconnect - but it can also be VERY stressful during recovery. We'd try something that put one or both of us out of our comfort zone and since we were already with frayed emotions, we'd bicker or even outright fight because it was just TOO much to deal with all at once. If you're going to try a new activity, make sure it has a reasonable time limit or you each have the ability to duck out when/if the experience becomes too unbearable.
Prime example: my friend took her husband to the opera and he was NOT enjoying it, but he felt it was rude to get up and bail mid-performance. This was a 3 hour performance. Ouch. She should have taken her huz to something shorter to see if he'd like it.
The thing we learned was to stay in budget, but don't be stingy. We actually started putting aside money specifically so we could spend time alone together, whether it was money toward a sitter or money for activities. BEST MONEY WE HAVE EVER SPENT. :) Don't over spend, though, because then one or both of you will likely resent that time and feel like it's taking away from your family.
Lastly, don't stress about what it is you're doing, so much as just doing something. You'll probably wind up doing things that neither of you are that thrilled about, but once things heal a bit more, you'll be able to laugh and joke about it after the fact. It's not about finding some magical activity that will make everything better, it's about re-learning to spend time together and enjoying each other's company. Even though it may be very "fake it til you make it" to start, you'll definitely start to get to know each other better and you'll land on things you both enjoy - and more importantly - enjoy each other's company even when the activity isn't that fun.
Concerts in the park, tennis, baseball games, art galleries, wine tasting, cooking classes, fishing, hiking, heck if you both love video games play video games... What ever it is have fun.. Talk, remember what it was like when you first dated!