How does knowing the reasons for an affair help?

[catwalker]

Ange8's thread has touched a nerve with me - especially some of the advice from WWIFN and Countingto10. But I didn't want to hijack her thread so am starting a new one.

Briefly, a couple of years ago my dh had a legitimate reason to be in touch occasionally by email/text with another woman but at some point the texts crossed the line and became sexual (not emotional) in nature. This culminated in sex on one occasion. I only found out about it at the start of the year.

I love my husband very much. We have been together for nearly 18 years and I would never ever ever have thought he would do something like this. He has very high standards, a strong sense of right and wrong and I felt we had a good relationship, notwithstanding the stresses of both working and raising a family.

I have followed the advice on here, especially that from WWIFN - read the Shirley Glass book, had some counselling and talked for hours and hours with my dh. We had a particularly useful and surprisingly long session with a locum at our local surgery and she said that there were always at least 5 reasons why these things happened - never just one. We talked about what these might be. We've also discussed with each other and counsellors what these reasons might be. Basically, they seem to be:

Time of life - getting old
Wanting to recapture the feelings of excitement experienced in youth
Body giving out
Overlooked at work for a much-wanted job (happened 3 years earlier but apparently it prompted feelings of low-esteem which lasted a long time)
Bored at work
Enjoying the flattery and attention at a point where he felt low self-esteem
Wanting to be liked (ie not wanting to hurt the ow's feelings)
Wanting to be admired because his mother gave him low self-esteem
Being a bit of a rescuer (she is clearly in an unhappy marriage)
Had no strong feelings for the ow but was seduced by the fantasy of a make believe relationship and when it hit the cold light of day during the first sexual encounter, he was horrified at what he'd done.

Now, objectively these make sense. However, I can't think of any reasons which would make me jeopardise my marriage and children's happiness. I know he didn't expect to be found out, but I would never have been unfaithful because I know it would cause irreparable damage to my relationship with him - even if he didn't know what I'd done. Also, many of the above reasons could apply to me - some more so. I know nobody was pushing me to have no strings sex on a plate so it's easy to say I wouldn't have taken up the offer. But I honestly, one hundred per cent don't believe I would. So actually knowing the reasons doesn't help me understand why someone who claims to love me with all his heart - and always to have done so - could do this thing, even with the above list of reasons?

And as long as I don't understand I know I am going to keep going back over everything again and again trying to find a way of understanding it. I also feel I can't trust him - not particularly to do the same thing again, but that I can't trust him to love me as much as I want him to.

Most of the time we are getting on really well and have rediscovered our relationship. But the slightest thing can suddenly plunge me into the depths of despair again. The need to keep going back over things is taking its toll on both of us and we are both exhausted. Our last 'discussion' ended with him saying that the fact that I am not being capable of being unfaithful to someone I love doesn't mean that other people aren't.

Sorry, I've rambled. My problem is I know the reasons for my husband's affair, but I don't understand how they were enough to enable him to allow himself to do it? I'd welcome any thoughts from anyone who understands what I'm getting at in a very inarticulate way!

WWIFN - thank you so much for taking the time to write such a helpful post. What you say about the build up makes perfect sense and I can see very well how he could tell himself that nobody was being hurt.

I have wracked and wracked my memory trying to remember what dh was like in the run up to and during the affair. And I just can't remember anything out of the ordinary. We had, as a couple, stopped finding time for 'us' and all our energies went into our children. So in that sense things weren't right in our relationship but there was nothing different that I recall over those few weeks.

What I do recall, and what sticks in my mind is 2, possibly 3 occasions since the affair when he has lost his temper with me unreasonably and out of character(it's usually me who is unreasonable). That makes me feel uncomfortable because I know some posters would take that as a sign that the affair was ongoing. However, he was, at that time, trying to placate the ow who was periodically contacting him in order to try and persuade him to meet up with her again. He was panicking because he could see she was obsessed with him and he didn't want her to do anything stupid. I do remember feeling incredibly close to him in the six months or so before discovery and congratulating myself on how we had reached such a happy state in our marriage and how close we were. Talk about tempting fate! We had started finding time for each other again.

Ironically, immediately before he did meet up with the ow for sex, we had just had, what I felt, was a happy family holiday. I don't recall any odd behaviour from him on that holiday. However, some of our arrangements fell through and we ended up visiting family for the last part of the holiday. He felt a bit superfluous and suggested he came back early so he could get on with work which was piling up. To be honest this didn't strike me as odd. As soon as he got back he got in touch with the ow, but won't admit that was why he came home early. He also won't admit that he got in touch with her with the intention of having sex. He says texting her had become a habit. But I feel he is being disingenuous because at that time her efforts were becoming intense and he knew that she would start putting pressure on him. I believe either he came back with the intention of having sex with her (which he denies vehemently) or that, having not been in contact with her for 2 weeks he was missing the flattery/adulation/whatever and so contacted her because he wanted her to continue to put pressure on him to have sex with her. He wasn't going to do the inviting, but he wanted to put himself back in a situation where he would be invited, if you see what I mean. When I press him on these matters he says he can't remember and I should believe whatever I want to believe.

He does always maintain that whenever he was with the family or just me, he never thought about her. He compartmentalised her so he only thought about her when she got in touch with him. Of course I've asked the questions about whether he was thinking about her when we were in bed together but he denies it. I do recall him becoming more attentive in the bedroom and I can place this as after the affair.

I've tried and tried to timeline things but with busy lives and children the years tend to follow similar patterns and there are no hugely significant events over recent years which help me remember whether any particular memory is from last year or the year before.

DH is getting frustrated with me I think and my need to keep going over and over things. If I'm honest, I get annoyed with him when he seems happy because the message that conveys to me is that things are back to normal. He gets frustrated because he does want to put the past behind us and look to the future. He is very excited at the moment about a career opportunity which has opened up for him, not least because this will enable him to work shorter weeks and therefore allow us to spend more time together.

I really don't know whether to try and block it all from my mind or whether to keep on trying to understand something which I'm not capable of understanding.

Catwalker
I think WWIFN has given you some excellent analysis.
I think it boils down to you and your DH having two different characters: the minimiser (him) and the more volatile character (you). That explains how he went through with the sex with the OW, yet you wouldn't have done the same. It also explains why he can view it as a sort of terrible incident that's now over, and you can't quite let go.
I don't know if you will ever understand your DH anymore than you can at the moment. I don't know if you will ever find out any more answers. I don't think you will. My advice - and probably others will tell you different - is to try not to dwell on it anymore, because I think you've gone as far as you can and I think your relationship with your DH - which has recovered so well in many ways - might be worsened, and that would be sad.

I remember (18 months after discovery) thinking that the well had run dry in terms of any further insights into what had happened. A confidante suggested that I now needed to work on myself, to help me live with the knowledge gained and work out a way to be happy again. Unfortunately, the therapeutic help I sought at that time wasn't useful and had the effect of making me feel worse.

In fact the well hadn't run dry at all - and we are still learning ans sharing new insights into what happened. This - and time - have helped to put me back together again.

Catwalker thanks for sharing more, but I wanted to pick up on one or two points.

When I was suggesting that your H is a minimiser, I posed this question:

"I wonder whether this is holding him back right now - and he still has this tendency to under-estimate the effect of all this?"

In your post you describe his frustration with you, his eagerness to look forward and not back, his happiness and excitement and his response that you will have to "believe what you want to believe."

I think he might be minimising again, you see. I'm not sure that he sees this as it really is; someone he loves in repeated distress and wracked with doubt. Someone it is still possible he could lose if this doesn't lessen.

When I wrote to you today, I wanted this to be a platform for you to use in discussions with your H; not for you to show him my post, but to generate questions and answers.
I can try to get inside his head and suggest what might have been there, but only he can tell you how it was. He might not remember everything, but he can perhaps resolve to go away and think about these things for you - and try to take himself back to a place he perhaps would rather not re-visit.

You will have seen me say often enough that the behaviours that allowed the affair to happen, must be acknowledged and eradicated.

I want you to discuss his minimising tendencies and see if he agrees. If he does, it would be helpful to analyse how they came to be formed.

If he acknowledges this about himself and can see the link between it and how he is behaving now, getting frustrated and impatient, you might gain fresh ground.

He might take steps to eradicate it from his character, which will all help with affair-proofing and you will see a different response to your pain.

I could never imagine a time when we wouldn't talk about all this most nights, but we had a watershed earlier this year during a holiday, when we didn't discuss it once in the fortnight. I don't think I'd have been able to get to this happier point if I'd felt my voice had been denied at any point, or if I'd felt that all our many discussions had been instigated by me alone.

I do think there comes a time when your search for meaning will lessen and you will move into a different phase. You might also need to compromise with your H about the frequency of your discussions, so that both your needs are met.

But overall, my feeling is that he has minimised this and consigned it to the "dreadful mistake" folder, whereas for you, it is in the "this is still ruining my life" category. If he has consigned it, he might feel he can gain no more understanding of it and doesn't need to, whereas it is vastly different for you.

WWIFN - once again you are spot on, particularly with your last paragraph. DH never ever ever initiates a discussion about what happened. If there is any sort of reminder (amazing how often affairs happen on the tv) or we are near a place which stirs up bad thoughts for me, and I refer to this later, he will invariably say he knew what I was thinking and how bad he felt. But he would never refer to it at the time, or even later, unless I brought it up. On occasion we have to drive past the hotel where he went with the ow. He's not normally a great chatter when he's driving but I can hear the increasing panic in his voice the closer we get as he tries to make small talk in a feeble attempt to distract me from what he knows I am thinking about. I'd rather he just acknowledged what I was thinking - even with just a squeeze of my arm if the kids are in the car - than try to ignore everything.

I understand that, a lot of the time he won't want to initiate a discussion because some of the discussions we've had have ended really badly because I have got so angry. Well, he describes it as my anger, I describe it as my frustration.

He is a minimiser in all aspects of his life I think. There are no problems; there is no point in worrying about things etc etc. I've always thought we complemented each other beautifully as he balanced out my tendency to worry and fret, and I perhaps brought a touch of reality to his laissez-faire approach towards life(which he only has at home, not at work!)

I do think he underestimates the effect it had on me. He has learnt not to use words like, "just" or "only", as in, "it only happened once". He has also stopped congratulating himself on not going back for a repeat performance/s when it was still on offer. But he would be appalled if I said I wanted to talk about it more than we do. Immediately post discovery he said he would talk about it every night for the rest of our lives if necessary. Now is a very different story. I feel we are stuck in a cycle where I brood about what happened, reach boiling point, we have at best a long (3 hours or so) discussion or at worst a long argument. Afterwards, I feel fine, then it all builds up again. A few months ago this was happening every couple of weeks, then every week and lately it's been every couple of days. I sometimes think I would like our marriage to break down just to make him understand the full extent of what he's done.

Your last sentence has reminded me of a conversation I had with a man, whose marriage had broken up because she "couldn't get over" a brief affair of his. I tried to describe why infidelity is so devastating, and what she probably needed in order to love & trust him again. He was unsympathetic. I told him it sounded as though he was more sorry about getting caught than cheating - he said "There's no other way to see it, is there?" Aargh.

Before reading WWIFN's posts to this forum, I would have thought there's only so much a betrayed partner can do to gain the resolution she needs. I also felt that those who are willing to compartmentalise their own feelings were more likely to survive in the marriage - though a 'compartmentalised' relationship can't be as full as a truly honest one. I still find it amazing that couples are prepared to examine their relationship in this kind of detail, and to grow as a couple from it. I really hope this works for you and your DH. Thank you for your thread; I'm sure I'm not the only reader learning from it.

I tend to agree with what you say USED to be your point of view, IseeGraceAhead, about there only being so much a betrayed partner can do to gain resolution. That's why I think Catwalker is better moving on, rather than - at risk - OVER-analysing. Going further into the analysis depends on the other partner's willingness to do the same, and quite frankly, I don't think many men are prepared to go there, even if they want to save their marriages. Many men are not that sort of creatures, even if we would like them to be, and even if they would want to appear so.
I think WWIFN's posts are very insightful, but I think they also depend on having a certain kind of partner. I honestly don't think all women are married to men who are prepared to examine their previous motives/actions over and over and over again. Therefore there is a point where, if women want to save their marriages, they have to accept that an end has been reached on the analysis.

WWIFN, you are amazing.

What a lovely thing to say, *Quiddity"!

Grace and London I completely respect your viewpoint and would have said much the same before all this, especially as contrary to what it might seem, my H was formerly the sort of man who would have rathered pull his own teeth than have a "relationship conversation" and even less, go to a counsellor on his own!

But I knew we just couldn't get through this if that behaviour didn't change too - and more importantly, so did he. I also know myself pretty well and realised that I would get very bitter if I was suppressing a need to talk and reach understanding. Ultimately, I just couldn't have bargained it away with "He's just not one of those men..." For me, he had to become that man.

I think Grace has made the point very well on other threads; people consistently under-estimate the damage caused and the deep hurt. I often think of the word "unadulterated" when I speak about the effects. It describes something pure, untouched and uncomplicated, whereas after adultery, nothing in life seems like that again. A long time (and I'm still not there yet) to feel pure, unadulterated joy in anything.

Catwalker I've had a few more thoughts and wonder how you are today?

Have you explained how you feel when he goes into a nervous babble when you pass the hotel, or when something intrudes to remind you? Have you told him what behaviour you would prefer?

I see that you have seen some texts which, gave you some reassurance that your H was resisting further efforts to meet, but I have the feeling that your H will never be able to admit to you the content of other texts, that would show him in a much less favourable light. He can say now that he doesn't remember - but I wonder whether he is minimising here too? It's all part of not really facing up to the horror and owning his own behaviour. Have you ever had a discussion with him about what he was saying in these texts and felt that you were getting a vastly sanitised version?

Also, can you see what I was getting at upthread about how we all have a tendency to project our assumed responses on to our partner, so whereas you could be empathetic as you say, if he had been carried away by the moment, he probably couldn't empathise with that position at all, because in his case, he needed to be persuaded for a long time, to compromise his fidelity?

I took note of what you were saying about your resentment when he's cheerful and happy and recall feeling utter rage when I heard my H laughing at something on TV. I also saw what you said about you almost wish your marriage would break up so that he would realise the true damage caused. And I see that these episodes of feeling worse are coming more regularly, which I entirely understand and is what happened to me, too.

So that forms another question. Does he believe that you will stay in this marriage, regardless of your pain?

I'm wondering whether in the early days, when he simply had to face up to the potential loss, he made empty promises about his willingness to "talk every night" and now that he feels the crisis is over and you are staying with him, he can afford to relax and become a bit more complacent about your feelings?

What do you think it would take now for him to "wake up" and realise that this is not going to go away? That contrary to what he believes, his marriage is perhaps more in peril now than the early days, when the crisis was acute, but when the mature reflections hadn't started?

WWIFN - I have now explained how I feel about him ignoring obvious triggers like driving past the hotel and he acknowledges this.

I do agree with your minimising theory though I do understand why someone would do this. I think in this situation there will naturally be two ways of minimising the severity of what has happened. The first by putting a spin on what you tell the wronged person. This doesn't necessarily not mean telling them the truth, but I am sure it will mean missing out the really painful detail or perhaps assuming retrospectively slightly better motives than were the case at the time (I wasn't getting a sexual thrill from the texting, I just saw it as a bit of a joke for example). I think this sort of minimising is only to be expected and I'm sure we all do it in lesser ways. The second way, which I think is more harmful, is where the wrongdoer won't admit to themselves certain things. I sometimes think my dh is doing this and that, perhaps more importantly than acknowledging it to me, he himself needs to face up to what he did instead of seeing as I think he sometimes does as a 'single mistake, never to be repeated' now consiqned to history. Yes, he has told me the content of some of the texts - but only when I insisted (to be expected I guess) and probably only because the ow's H had already referred to what had been said. He also told me what happened in the hotel. Unfortunately the details I do have he now feels he shouldn't have given me as he describes them as 'intrusive images' in my head which are now causing me huge mental turmoil.

I do understand what you are saying about projecting our own assumed responses onto others. DH really does subscribe to the incremental steps theory and said yesterday he doesn't think he could have done the spur of the moment thing.

Yes, I do believe that he believes I will stay in our marriage. He knows I love him. When we have our worst arguments and I am in such turmoil the only thing left for me to say is to ask how we can possibly stay together. He refuses to believe that I mean that. I don't believe however that he is complacent about my feelings. His own inclination and desire is to put this behind us, stop going over the past and to perhaps see the affair as less than it was for his own sanity. However, he does acknowledge the extent of my pain and turmoil. The problem we have is that he is a non-confrontational person and I get terribly angry about the affair. He is walking on eggshells around me knowing that the wrong word can either plunge me into gloom or make me lose my temper. This is why he won't initiate discussions because he's frightened to say the wrong thing. I keep trying to tell him that if he says something about the affair it may well be the wrong thing; but saying nothing is always guaranteed to be the wrong thing to do.

If I hadn't been going through so much pain I would have been fascinated by the progress of the aftermath of an affair. I've gone through all the things you regularly describe on here - initial shock (with people saying they couldn't believe how calm I was), the pain, the anger, the wall, the depression etc. One thing I hadn't banked on was the impact of the 'mature reflections' you describe. On day 1, DH said to me that it was nothing a meaningless, stupid thing which happened once and was never repeated because he came to his senses. The ow's H said to me that he was 'out of there'; there was no way he could live with his wife after this. I remember thinking that was an incredibly extreme reaction and that surely it must be possible to work through something like this without calling time on a long marriage. All I knew was that I loved my DH, desperately wanted to keep my family together and wasn't going to let it be damaged by a stupid fling with a non-entity. A few months later I found myself saying that, however much I still loved my DH, I felt that there was a big obstacle between us now which I couldn't get past. I can now see how people stay together immediately after an affair because they still love each other but that over time, the 'obstacle' makes it impossible for them to stay together or to get back to each other emotionally.

I haven't had much success with counsellors in the past but DH is putting a great deal of effort into trying to find the right person for me to talk to. He is making huge efforts generally to be a different person so we can have a closer and better relationship. I'm not sure what else he can do.

Every time I read your posts (not just on this thread incidentally) I find myself nodding, catwalker. It's like a meeting of minds. .

Yes I entirely agree with what you say about the two types of minimising. You and I both notice language, don't we? Like your H, mine had a tendency to trivialise and put a more positive spin on recollections. And yes, we can both empathise with that because it is something we all do to a greater or lesser extent.

But you are entirely right I think, that the more sinister minimising is the capacity to self-delude. It might interest you to hear that my H never even regarded his relationship as an affair. He didn't call it anything in his own mind, actually. The lies that the unfaithful party tells himself, before during and most perniciously, after the affair are the hardest to overcome.

It is particularly difficult if this self-delusion was learned in childhood as a survival mechanism. It seems like a positive behaviour with huge benefits to a child, because to acknowledge the more awful truth would be too much to bear at that time, but the difficulty is that it then often gets taken into adulthood, when a better grip on reality is essential if we are to become emotionally mature partners.

I therefore profoundly agree that for your H to cope with this, he could be trivialising and minimising all this to himself, most of all.

You may recall me writing before that my H and I had lots of what we called "battles" during which I couldn't understand why he was unable to see the truth of a situation. At times I felt like I was going quite mad, it seemed so absurd to me that he couldn't acknowledge a reality that I was quite certain, everyone else would. These were the occasions when I felt most angry, actually. I wonder whether this is the same for you?

It would help you I think, if your H were able to acknowledge this behaviour first and foremost and then dig deep to find out when it was formed, and why.

Was there something in his childhood, I wonder, that he could not cognitively acknowledge, despite all the overwhelming evidence?

The bit where you say that you suspect he can't do this "for his own sanity" is telling - and had me nodding vigorously. Is he still going for counselling on his own? Has any of this come out in the sessions so far?

I don't under-estimate how hard this is going to be. We were luckier in that my H's counselling unlocked this fairly early on and he acknowledged it as a behaviour and why he had it. But even that didn't stop a huge amount of self-delusion thereafter, because that behaviour was so ingrained.

It might help you to jot down (either here or elsewhere) the issues about which you feel your H is lying to himself the most.

At the moment, you are locked in a stalemate, where he is adamant about certain things, what they meant, what he was feeling, how this will have been interpreted by the OW, what his motives were. You on the other hand, might be able to see with much greater clarity, a very different picture.

I'm assuming by this stage that getting him to imagine that he was hearing this account from someone else, isn't working anymore? This often worked for me, as did reversing the roles and asking him to reach conclusions had I been sticking to a particular story, that defied credibility. Your H might be locked in a script which says: "Yes, I know that's what it looks like and yes I know I'd have trouble believing it of you/someone else, but I'm telling you the truth."

What that means is he genuinely believes he's telling you the truth, but it really isn't. It goes back to that bastardisation of the Oscar Wilde quote about love and in this case, it's the truth that dare not speak its name.

I recall these battles as exhausting and hugely frustrating. However, after each new bit of understanding that had been reached, in their wake there was then a greater peace, because at last things made sense and my H achieved a much more truthful understanding of his character and his motives.

Hard as this is going to be, I suspect this is what is going to help you, but your H needs to be willing to submit to far greater self-scrutiny than perhaps he has up to now. This might however help you with your belief in his love for you. If he is willing to submit to the really difficult stuff, knowing that it will bring you more understanding, that should be incentive enough. For less altruistic motives however, the incentive could also be that his continuing marriage depends on it.

I also think what you say about the texts and his conclusion that he was wrong to be so honest, because it provided intrusive images, is illuminating. Many people believe this, but it is flawed thinking. It is all part of the above and giving self-permission to minimise and with-hold. He simply cannot be the arbiter of what's good for you - if you want to know, you should be told. It is your decision as an adult, but of course at least some of his motives for thinking as he does are to minimise and not face up to some of the most unpleasant images of himself.

Yes, this phase that we describe "mature reflections" is probably the most critical of all and you're right, there's not much out there in terms of reading matter about this period in recovery. However, do you remember the Ralph and Rachel story in Just Good Friends? I often recall the bit where Shirley Glass said that it took 2 years of therapy for them to emerge with any certainty that they were going to make it. This might help you gain some perspective about the phase you are in.

I do think there comes a point when a betrayed spouse will look at their partner and wonder "Are you who I want to be with?" - and the answer depends on so many factors.

Just out of interest, why is your H looking for your counsellor? Is there anything in this about how this is your problem now and it's all about how you come to terms with it?

Anyway, let me know your thoughts on all this and you have my unswerving commitment to help, if I can.

Oh WWIFN - my DH doesn't refer to what happened as an 'affair' either! It was a stupid mistake which 'only' happened once.

Many of our 'battles' have arisen because of my frustration at DH's refusal to acknowledge things. There are two things I am struggling to deal with. One is how the man I love, who I always believed would do the right thing in any situation, got involved in something so sordid. The other is making sense of what he tells me. I have said to him repeatedly that his story, the way he tells it, doesn't make sense to me. I know that, to a degree, that is because I have never been in that situation. The logical part of my brain can accept the stuff about the incremental lead up to an affair, the disassociation etc etc. but so much of what he claims to have felt and thought doesn't make sense. Yes, I have told the bits of the story back to him and asked him if, in all honesty, they sounded credible? I can't begin to describe the level of frustration I have felt. DH thinks I am ill and yesterday threatened to drive me straight to the doctor for some 'instant medication'. When he is angry and I ask him what right he has to be like that, he says he's not angry, he's frustrated with my 'obsession'. But he sees my behaviour as all about my anger, not frustration.

Let me list some of the issues where I feel dh is lying to himself:

• originally he stated he couldn't remember when sex happened; not even which season or year. The only thing he could 'remember' was that I wasn't around - either away or at work. A lot of calendar trawling and further discussion eventually enabled us to fix on a period when it must have happened, but even now, in argument, he will occasionally say, "if it really was then".
• he can't remember how it started. I had a painful and unproductive conversation with the ow immediately post-discovery. She said my DH had suggested lunch/coffee and told her he had things he needed to tell her. DH says she is making this up.
• DH says that when he saw the ow in public, he never thought of her in 'that way'. There were no exchanges of 'knowing glances' etc
• DH says he never thought of the ow when he was with me
• DH says when he decided to come home early from holiday it was not with the intention of meeting up with the ow
• DH says when he got home and contacted the ow (who had been putting him under "immense pressure" to have sex) it was not with the intention of finally giving in to her demands
• DH said he felt no sexual excitement or desire on his way to the hotel, although when pressed later admitted that he must have done, but the predominant feeling was one of having to see through a course of action to which he had committed.
• He said originally that he never initiated contact, only responded to the ow. When I asked him how she knew he'd come back early from holiday he said, well he must have contacted her on that occasion.

I don't for one minute expect that him providing more convincing responses will make me feel any better about what happened. But I am consumed with frustration at his refusal to acknowledge some things which seem so obvious to me. If he's lying to me then it's pointless because my imagination can provide the truth even if he can't; if he's lying to himself then I am deeply concerned for his mental state; if he genuinely can't remember then I am even more concerned for his mental state! If I press him on these matters he tells me to believe what I want and he'll admit to whatever motives and thinking I like if it makes me feel happier. It makes me feel that if he is still lying to himself about things like this, then perhaps he is still lying to me about his version of events. My one consolation, if I can call it that, is that he told me exactly what happened in the hotel. He could, I suppose, have told me he got there, was unable to perform because he felt so awful and no proper sex occurred. Because he didn't do this but told me things which have pained me, I am able to take some comfort that he is being honest at least to some degree.

DH is looking for a counsellor for me for two reasons. The first is because I told him he had to as it's his fault I'm in this mental mess! The second is that he knows a psychologist who is advising him on what exactly I need.

Have I said, I love him very much?

(shoot me down in flames but) my gut feeling is a suspicion that the list of things in the OP aren't really the reasons for his affair but more a list of mantras, homed in on with the help of your counsellor, that satisfy you somewhat so that you quit asking for his reasons all the time.

that's not to say that the things in the list are made up, or untrue, no doubt they all contain truths. But personally I don't think people always have proper, logical reasons for what they do.

And I am not sure that low self esteem helps someone to appear attractive to women, and to have affairs: My instinctive feeling is that affairs are associated with periods of confidence, not diffidence.

That's an interesting point Talleyrand. My DH suffers from very low self esteem but admitted one of the things he got out of the affair, the OW and the people surrounding her, was the fact that he came across as extremely self confident, was an "alpha male", in control etc, indeed everything that he wasn't or was struggling with in the "real world" if that makes sense. So while self esteem issues are at the root of the affair, the affair in itself is a period of confidence.

Catwalker I know exactly how you feel and indeed, couldn't talk about the affair without melting down and "lashing out" which I always regretted afterwards as it always put us back. My DH took ages/months to fully admit to himself what the affair meant to him, his feelings surrounding and even some of the things that happened. For instance, he always said he had no feelings for the OW, that she was a vile woman but his actions during the affair and when he left didn't bear that out. As I pointed out to him, if she was so bad/vile and he had no attachment to her, then while did he go back to her everytime he had the opportunity to leave. By his a/c they had stand up rows in the front of her house whereby he had packed all his things up and drove off into the night. Now he had the opportunity to go to his mother's or indeed back to me (as I knew nothing about OW at the time) but no, he went back to OW. He had to admit then that she was the bigger draw and he fancied himself in love with her. It is very painful but that was the person he was then.

Things have improved for me but I have made changes to my life, taken up a favourite hobby again and really getting into it (horseriding) so no longer obsessing so much about OW etc. Did have a stab in the heart moment this weekend when I thoughtback to the first time he had sex with OW, the excuse he made to go to her etc. But it was only for 5 mins or so and not an "whole afternoon" event.

If I am honest now, DH is struggling more because he is having to right the wrong, make changes and is still dealing with the aftermath of the period leading up to the affair. My DS2 is struggling with anxiety issues which have been worse by his father leaving in that period and that is very hard for DH to come to terms with. Children are screwed up by what their parents do.

Take care of yourself and see if you can find something that helps with the obsessive thoughts because it is true, what you think about always expands and not necessarily for the good.

Actually I do think more convincing responses would make you feel better catwalker, especially in the long term. There will be pain involved in facing up to the truth, but if it at last "makes sense", you can move on and make some decisions.

I have a feeling that at the moment, because his version of events doesn't make sense, it might be affecting far more than just your relationship. I worry that it's affecting your whole mental health, because in addition to the shock about the deception involved in the affair itself, you are now being asked to believe a wholly illogical account - and that is generating more uncomfortable questions that challenge all your beliefs about human behaviour and more importantly, his behaviour. It's as though the whole whole order has changed and nothing is as it seems.

I don't know if it will help or hinder if I say that I completely understand why his account doesn't make sense to you - and I want to validate your feelings. You are not going mad, catwalker.

You may have seen me say on other threads that in the wake of discovery, lies are told by the unfaithful partner. Certain issues are indisputable, because they are factual; who the affair partner is, when this started, who started it, whether sex has occurred and how frequently, when and where and who knew about it. These things are not open to misinterpretation and so any departure from them are outright lies.

Once those basic facts have been established, there is trickier stuff to navigate; the stuff that is open to interpretation and the lies told by the unfaithful partner to himself.

I have also said that the lies that people tell ironically often show them in a worse light, than the truth might have done.

What your H is wanting you to believe is that a man who had previously never been unfaithful before and was never unfaithful afterwards, remembers so little about such a momentous occasion that he wasn't sure in what season or year, this event occurred. He can't remember exactly where you were to facilitate this meeting and having been persuaded that the date was in August 08 when he came home early from the family holiday, remembers nothing about his thought processes or the decision he says he took on the spur of the moment, to become unfaithful for the first time.

All this is so widely at odds with the image of a man who was horrified by his actions and regretted it bitterly.

As counting has shared in her own story, what often happens is that an unfaithful partner will seek to minimise their own culpability. Far too much blame is placed on the predatory nature of the OW, and too little blame placed on himself.

People also regularly minimise their feelings towards the affair partner, preferring their spouses to think that no or few, feelings were involved.

Now, this is very different to projecting assumed responses on to the errant spouse. I now don't think you're doing that catwalker. What I think you are doing is perfectly logical, recognising how different bits of the story don't fit. When that heppens, all your senses scream out from within, that you are being lied to, but still you are faced with denial and insistence and the inner conflict worsens, because you know you are being lied to, but you love this man and want to keep your family.

All of a sudden, it occurs to you that you're not dealing with infidelity alone, but lying of the kind that is affecting your mental health. If I had to put a name to it, I would call it "aftermath gaslighting".

The "believe what you want to believe" quote and the threat to take you to the Doctors to medicate you, worries me terribly. Is he prepared to put his lies before your mental health?

I realise too from your latest post that I made a few assumptions along the line with your story. I never dreamed he would have denied the planning phase for this assignation, or concrete facts about when and how, or that this awful event was etched in his memory. It didn't surprise me that he was minimising his role in events or his feelings for the OW.

Had I realised that, I would have urged for much more verification of the facts, long ago.

A few questions then, for you:

What bits of your H's story did the OW verify - and how does her account differ from his?

What has been the reaction of the therapists you have seen, when he has told his story?

What do the people you have told in RL think about his version of events?

I'm thinking of you. This has been a difficult post to write. .

WWIFN - it is a difficult post to read. However, this thread is helping me to clarify at least what my problems are. DH and I had a conversation this morning where I explained the two areas mentioned above that I am continuing to struggle with (one that a man who always seems to 'do the right thing' got it so wrong on this occasion; secondly that I can't make sense of his 'version') He is very understanding and sympathetic but he just 'can't remember' some of the things which would have been burnt onto my memory for ever.

Unfortunately the ow was not at all remorseful during the brief and very fraught conversation I had with her. And, at that point my anger hadn't kicked in so I know she wasn't reacting defensively to me. She kept chanting that if I wanted to know anything I had to ask my dh, she owed me nothing - certainly not an explanation or any details and most definitely not an apology. She said she wasn't in the habit of pursuing men for sex, DH had done all the chasing and the week before discovery they had been planning to meet up again. DH says that was wishful thinking on her part and I do acknowledge that there is a glaring flaw in her claim (which would be too much info. to go into here) which makes me think it was wishful thinking or maliciousness on her part, but of course I can never be absolutely sure. Subsequently I was told by her H that sex only happened once. When I first found out DH said that he had been pressurised and pushed into it by the ow and eventually given in to the constant pressure. Even he had to admit eventually how ridiculous that sounded, especially when I pointed out how stubborn he can be at times!

I think the professional help we have had, which has been limited, has not got to the crux of some of the issues the way this thread has. I think until recently I've not appreciated the two aspects to my confusion and it's just come across as, "I don't understand how he could do that to me". As time has gone on I realise that my constantly going back over things is less trying to come to terms with what he did to me, but more trying to make sense of what he has told me.

I have only told 3 friends in RL. One was unhelpful (and kept clear of my for a long time after I'd told her!); another tried to make me appreciate how awful DH must be feeling to have hurt me so much and how, in the life of our marriage it was just a small thing. The third, my sister, believes his behaviour to be completely out of character, that, 'these things happen', and I should put it behind me for the sake of our children.

We only had a couple of joint counselling sessions and, while the counsellor was fairly useless and obviously doing counselling by numbers, she was a good referee and wouldn't let us talk over each other. This helped enormously as it removed some of the frustrations I have when talk about things on our own. She was also good at pulling DH up and making him think again about some of the things he was saying. DH has now got the names of a couple of counselling psychologists in our area and is willing to come with me or for me to go on my own to sessions - whichever I prefer. One is male, one is female. He suggested the male on the grounds that he might be able to provide some perspective into the workings of the male mind. I don't have strong feelings either way.

Talleyrand, I take the point about low self-esteem not being attractive. However, I do think a lot of seemingly confident people are inside a mass of insecurities. At the time of the affair my DH was doing something outside of work (where he was unhappy) which, like Counting to 10's DH, put him in a very alpha male role and it was a big boost to his confidence because he was in a position where people were looking up to him. A truly confident person would perhaps have taken this in their stride, but maybe it turned my DH's head a little and gave him a sense of entitlement because in that part of his life at least he was admired by everyone and could do no wrong.

Thank you catwalker it's a relief to here from you. I agonised about posting what I did.

Is it the case that your H didn't have any solo counselling? Please don't be embarrassed if it's the case that he didn't, I understand.

I want to mull over what you've said and I'll get back to you. Thinking of you always.

Yes he did have someone but it was with someone he knows in a professional capacity. I had some counselling with the same person but never felt comfortable because of the link with DH. We had some counselling together but, as I posted earlier, neither of us felt it was productive or had much faith in the counsellor.

I can't thank you enough for making such an effort to understand and help me.

Regarding the self esteem issue, I have to add that my stbex was suffering from low self esteem previous to his affair but was seen most definitely by the OW as an assured and competent alpha male. She too had/s self esteem issues. Each one was flattering the other, though when they met at the begining he did all the talking (don't ask me how I know this btw I just do) and she confessed to being tongue tied in his company.

Several months on from him leaving and we can finally talk about it together. I've asked him to so that I can move on and not be plagued with doubt about myself. I've told him he owes me a proper explanation in order for me to regain control and self esteem.

He said the affair wasn't planned, which when I said was blatantly untrue he replied not from his end , and that he wished now he hadn't left me in the way he did. He is feeling so very bad now about how he behaved, but is unable to explain why he feels bad. I've not pushed him on these explanations.

Didn't mean to hijack this very interesting thread. Although we won't get back together, I think that for us to move on as a co parents he owes me a frank explanation. He has yet to apologise.

Celticfairy - do you mind me asking if you are separating because of his affair or were there other problems?

We are separating because of his affair. He left to be with her - told me he was 'eloping' with her' though they are not living together. To be honest I told him he had burned his bridges and that he had to go. He lives nearby to help with co parenting (we have an autistic son who is in primary, two dd's doing A and GCSE's this year) and she is over 150 miles away.

I had been ill for about 4 years previously to the affair with very complicated surgeries. He did take excellent care of me though at the end (when they were planning to get together) he was horrible and expected me to be doing more about the house than I was able to. It was a horrible time pre the discovery/him telling me. He did say he was in two minds about leaving the home but also that he was never in love after the birth of the first child. He essentially dehumanised me. I want him to give me that back. All my friends and family were shocked by his behaviour and said that our marriage always seemed solid, though our good friends did acknowlege that it looked fragile at the end (post him having sex with her).

I completely understand your need to understand, celticfairy. You want your history back, I suspect and not the version he has urged you to believe. Another poster referred to this classic post-affair rationalisation as "revisionist bollocks" and I thought it was most apt! I think talking to your H at this point will be a good thing - and will allow you to move on more easily, as long as he now tells the truth and is honest.

catwalker I'm glad this thread is helping you to clarify your thoughts. It makes perfect sense now that your H was seeing someone he knew and had professional history with, but I don't think that was a good choice of counsellor at all. It would have been far better for him to have seen someone neutral, but challenging.

Likewise, can I suggest that you start to find your own person now - and not someone your H has found? I don't think it follows that a male counsellor will be able to help with the way mens' minds work, and makes me wonder whether your H thinks that some of this can be explained away simply because he is a man?

I think your H needs to tell this story to a complete stranger who will have the courage to challenge the holes in his story. If the first counsellor did that a little, it explains why your H got angry. I also think your H needs someone to unpick his delusions one by one - and then help him to eradicate his lying and his minimising.

I think you need someone who will validate your feelings and recognise the danger to your mental health. I sympathised enormously when you described the reactions of your friends and your sister - I had a few bad experiences too and it now occurs to me that unless someone has been through this herself, or has helped someone to deal with the aftermath at very close quarters, there is little understanding or true empathy.

Also, the people we know in RL and who have an investment in a continuing relationship with us, don't always tell us what they think. Like I said earlier, I was angst-ridden about what I would write to you. I wanted to balance the risk of knocking you down further, with the need to tell you the misgivings I had with your H's account.

Which is why I want to help you so much - I know how little understanding there is out there and how helpful it is to talk with people who know the various stages we all go through.

I think your H needs to see a neutral, independent therapist who understands infidelity, subscribes to the Shirley Glass message and who will challenge and unpeel some layers. You need the same, but with someone who will reassure you and validate you. After that, maybe some couples counselling with someone who truly understands infidelity.