I'm kinda in the same situation. I was trying to talk to H a few nights ago. I am coming up on some hard firsts. He said he has/wants IT behind him and doesn't seem to want to talk about it.
So um what am I supposed to do? I'm really hurting here and have no clue as to what I'm going to do yet.
He can't even get out a I'm sorry it still hurts you. ??????

We talk less & less about it now, but about 5 months ago he answered EVERY question I had. Since he did that, I don't feel the need to keep rehashing stuff. I do get angry still at times, and I always tell him, but usually we just give each other space on those days. IMO, there is a point when it is necessary to stop dredging up old crap.

But, but, if the cheater has never answered all those questions, that is a problem. We the betrayed cannot "put it behind us" if they haven't done that. Even if you ARE talking about it, you can't let it be the focus every single day. It's not healthy.

For us, I made it clear that if he wouldn't answer all my questions, then we'd never make it. He did speak to the counselor about that issue before our conversation, and she helped him see how necessary it was. For me, the unknown was WAY worse than the known.

Somehow these guys need to be made to understand this. Whether through an ultimadum or just through some calm explanation, it has to be gotten through their thick skulls.

I will say, when we "scheduled" the talk, I also told him I would write down my questions, and would keep it calm with no attacking. It was an agreement we came to when setting up the "rules" for the talk. No hysterics, no yelling etc. Yes, there were tears, but no hate words or over the top anger.

There was a letter posted here back then that I printed out and gave to him. It explained SO WELL why I had the need to know everything. I'll try to find it and repost it here. It might take awhile, I'll have to go back through old posts.

Here's the letter:
I would recommend printing this out and giving it to those spouses who refuse to talk about their affair. It helped us a great deal, it finally helped my H see why I need to know everything.


"I know you are feeling the pain of guilt and confusion. I understand that you wish all this never happened and that you wish it would just go away. I can even believe that you truly love me and that your indiscretion hurts you emotionally much the same way it hurts me. I understand your apprehension to me discovering little by little, everything that led up to your indiscretion, everything that happened that night, and everything that happened afterwards. I understand. No one wants to have a mistake or misjudgment thrown in his or her face repeatedly. No one wants to be forced to "look" at the thing that caused all their pain over and over again. I can actually see, that through your eyes, you are viewing this whole thing as something that just needs to go away, something that is over, that he/she doesn't mean anything to you, so why is it such a big issue? I can understand you wondering why I torture myself with this continuously, and thinking, doesn't he/she know by now that I love him/her? I can see how you can feel this way and how frustrating it must be. But for the remainder of this letter I'm going to ask you to view my reality through my eyes.

"You were there. There is no detail left out from your point of view. Like a puzzle, you have all the pieces and you are able to reconstruct them and be able to understand the whole picture, the whole message, or the whole meaning. You know exactly what that picture is and what it means to you and if it can effect your life and whether or not it continues to stir your feelings. You have the pieces, the tools, and the knowledge. You can move through your life with 100% of the picture you compiled. If you have any doubts, then at least you're carrying all the information in your mind and you can use it to derive conclusions or answers to your doubts or question. You carry all the "STUFF" to figure out OUR reality. There isn't really any information, or pieces to the puzzle that you don't have.

"Now let's enter my reality. Let's both agree that this affects our lives equally. The outcome no matter what it is well affect us both. Our future and our present circumstances are every bit as important to me as it is to you. So, why then is it okay for me to be left in the dark? Do I not deserve to know as much about the night that nearly destroyed our relationship as you do? Just like you, I am also able to discern the meaning of certain particulars and innuendoes of that night and just like you, I deserve to be given the opportunity to understand what nearly brought our relationship down. To assume that I can move forward and accept everything at face value is unrealistic and unless we stop thinking unrealistically I doubt our lives well ever "feel" complete. You have given me a puzzle. It is a 1000 piece puzzle and 400 random pieces are missing. You expect me to assemble the puzzle without the benefit of looking at the picture on the box. You expect me to be able to discern what I am looking at and to appreciate it in the same context as you. You want me to be as comfortable with what I see in the picture as you are. When I ask if there was a tree in such and such area of the picture you tell me don't worry about it, it's not important. When I ask whether there were any animals in my puzzle you say don't worry about it, it's not important. When I ask if there was a lake in that big empty spot in my puzzle you say, what's the difference, it's not important. Then later when I'm expected to "understand" the picture in my puzzle you fail to understand my disorientation and confusion. You expect me to feel the same way about the picture as you do but deny me the same view as you. When I express this problem you feel compelled to admonish me for not understanding it, for not seeing it the way you see it. You wonder why I can't just accept whatever you chose to describe to me about the picture and then be able to feel the same way you feel about it.

"So, you want me to be okay with everything. You think you deserve to know and I deserve to wonder. You may honestly feel that the whole picture, everything that happened is insignificant because in your heart you know it was a mistake and wish it never happened. But how can I know that? Faith? Because you told me so? Would you have faith if the tables were turned? Don't you understand that I want to believe you completely? But how can I? I can never know what is truly in your mind and heart. I can only observe you actions, and what information I have acquired and slowly, over time rebuild my faith in your feelings. I truly wish it were easier.

"So, there it is, as best as I can put it. That is why I ask questions. That is where my need to know is derived from. And that is why it is unfair for you to think that we can effectively move forward and unfair for you to accuse me of dwelling on the past. My need to know stems from my desire to hold our world together. It doesn't come from jealousy, it doesn't come from spitefulness, and it doesn't come from a desire to make you suffer. It comes from the fact that I love you. Why else would I put myself through this? Wouldn't it be easier for me to walk away? Wouldn't it be easier to consider our relationship a bad mistake in my life and to move on to better horizons? Of course it would, but I can't and the reason I can't is because I love you and that reason in itself makes all the difference in the world."

(end of Joseph's Letter)

The point being when I need love and reassurance he says he has put it all behind him. I don't need to rehash anything. I just need some support going threw all these 1st anniversaries.

Beautifully explained letter. I'm still glad my partner hammered out the majority of the questions early on in the rebuilding. I know for one full day he asked questions and I answered everything as fully as possible. He continued to ask questions for about a month but then it's been over for the most part. Of course occationally questions pop up... but not details per say about the affair... just more general things. Did I love him? What was I thinking when such and such happened? etc... Little details or thoughts more than details of the affair.

Maybe it would help your partners if you guys took one day to really hash out all the questions and answers. Take notes, lol, if you've got a poor memory like myself.

Shewolf...wouldn't you need love and reassurance even if he hadn't had an A? Perhaps that is what you need to address with him.

As far as that goes, he needs your love and reassurance too. I know my husband does, since he's dealing with his own guilt over the whole thing.

Shewolf, it doesn't sound like he so much doesn't want to answer your questions, it sounds like he's being inconsiderate. I'm with lovingagain in that maybe it would help if you asked for some reassurance of his love more than the questions answered per say.

loving when I first started reading this post, that letter came to mind... thanks for re-posting it. It says a lot, that letter penetrated my H's skull in the very beginning... Good luck Morgan & Lin.

Thats just it. I have no questions to ask. In his mind its over and done.In mine it still hurts. I just need to get past these firsts.
Inconsiderite is just be the word I was looking for Pixie.
Question are the least of my concern.

Shewolf...has he always been that way? Closed off to your feelings or inconsiderite? Not that it's an excuse, but some guys are just clueless when it comes to being comforting or supportive.

He used to be in tune to my feelings. But not so much anymore. Its ok Loving I am having a bad day. I will get past it.

Ah, well ... At some point I think the rules about moving forward have to become negotiated.

In the beginning, the wayward has to lay down his/her defenses and just do what is asked of them to the best of their ability, but that can't go on, and on and on and on and on until healing takes place. Just because some of these question cannot be answered, by the Bet, the cheat, or the Other. There will be life-long, unaswered questions held by all three no matter how much therapy, prayer, dialogue, or self-examination goes on.

When it becomes a loop and the same questions and answers come and go, come and go -- that field has been thouroughly plowed and there's no more there. The dialogue has to change, NOT end, but it does have to change. I think many of us cheats do try in the beginning to get to the answers, and learn thru repetition that getting the story out, reexamining it, finding a way to face it is helpful.

But there's a point when it seems to become an endless inquisition with the same questions and the same answers and some kind of implied demand that those answers must be different even though you've answewed them the same way over and over again the same way. Especially since you cannot go back in time and do anything about your behavior. You want to move forward to where you can change your behavior, prove you've changed it.

It's a little like being handed a watch you've broken and being told to take it apart. You do. Maybe the first time you hide some of the parts you broke, maybe the second time, by the third time you start showing all the things, or most of the things you broke until you're pretty sure you've shown all the parts you can identify. Then you are told to take the watch apart again. And again. And again. And AGAIN. And you want to say, "Yes. It's broken, I broke it, there I've taken it apart and showed you where I think all the broken parts are." You are told, "Take it apart and show me again.", and you just want to say, "I want to fix it. I want to start fixing it, but you won't let me -- you just want me to keep putting it together and taking it apart over and over. Why?"

Sorry, I'm thinking off the top of my head here, so I'm sure I may be rambling. But that's what IT FEELS LIKE to us. I'm not saying it's right to feel that way -- maybe I'm just saying that's where the resistance, and the sulleness comes from with us at that juncture. Maybe there's a statute of limitations of the Q & A and after a certain point, there's other ways to deal with things?

Morgan, I have a lot of ideas on this issue and reading this thread was informative. First, he does NOT get to set the rules, this is unfair, these need to be negotiated.

Second, a lot depends on the nature of the affair. For instance, if someone has a ONS with a hooker, all the details of the adultery might be covered in one conversation but the details of the whys might take a few months. On the other hand, if you are dealing with LTA with double ow like me, there is no way one conversation, 10 conversations, or even 100 conversations is going to cover it.

You have to look at your situation and decide when you know what you need to know. The cheater has deal with the situation that they created.

Yorick has a very valid point though, sometimes the betrayed gets stuck in a loop, I know I have been there, and still find myself there sometimes. Here is where the cheater, if they are paying attention can help {*note to Yorick, listen up and why don't you get my h's address and send him this reply*}.

The cheater can help the betrayed by saying this; You seemed to be stuck and upset about ____. I have told you ___and ___ and ___ about that. I'm sorry but I can't change what has happened but I can try and clear up and more questions or details about ___, but to me that has all been covered several times. I regret doing ____. If I had the chance to go back again I would do a million things differently and we would not be here today talking about ___ once again. Please try and let this go. I love you. I am sorry and I am trying my best to help us and you.

The key here being that the cheater helps guide the betrayed out of the loop by repetition of confession, expressing regret, wishing for an alternate decision in the past, taking responsibility for the mess, and openly expresses love for the betrayed and the union with the betrayed.

Yorick,
You said it yourself..the first time you hide some pieces, the next time you're asked, you STILL hide pieces, but not as many as the first time.
Hiding ( i.e. LYING) about what happened. In our minds, when do the lies stop? When you get a different answer everytime you ask the question, when are we supposed to believe we FINALLY have the true answers when it changes so often? Thus the repetition. I know it feels like an inquisition. However, its the lies that feed the questions and desire to know. The " i don't knows" are equally frustrating. If you don't know why you did something, why wouldn't you repeat it?

I still don't have my questions answered and as time goes on, the less he feels like he needs to answer them.

The wound is still festering while he thinks its healing ( due to his refusal to come clean and face the ugly truth of his actions). He doesn't want me to really know what a rat he was then.

What happened to 'confession is good for the soul'?

Thank you all for your input. The problem is, he never told me anything. I mean, anything I didn't find out on my own. In my detective work I read emails, texts, IM's, I contacted her pretending to be him, I called her father -- lots of ways to gather info. So I know alot. And lots I wish I didn't know.

Like I wish he had told me the truth so I wouldnt have had to crack his SIM card and read all the dirty things they said to each other. But he kept lying - for months - so I kept digging.

He has never, not once ever, told me something about any of it that I didn't already know.

And his version of the story is very different than OW - so who knows whats really true?

She says he only came back to me because she got tired of him and that SHE broke it off. He says he never wanted to end the marriage - he just got caught up in the worship and adoration and rush of the affair. The truth of that part doesn't actually matter - but I would FEEL better if I felt like he would EVER just come to me and admit - confess - get it off his chest. The very act of him doing that would mean so much to me. Even though the information always hurts. It doesnt hurt as much as trying to move forward with someone who still keps secrets and lies to you.