Enter Drawing for Harboring Hope for Free

I need stability. I lost my 26 yr old daughter four years ago and swore I would never have to feel such loss and agony ever again. But I have. I found out my husband, who held me and held me up through the loss of my daughter, has been sexting. I also discovered this 8 yrs ago and now realized through watching the Youtube video I forgave too soon. I am back in the PTSD and have no one to hold me this time. I am only talking to a few about this due to my shame, isolation and confusion. Why has my life become so agonizing I always thought I was blessed. I have to again face life from before her death and after and now before the infidelity and after. it is paralyzing.

Heaven help me...

My husband and I are currently trying to overcome his infidelity and sex addiction (mostly porn). I do not believe he has slept with anyone, however his addiction to porn has affected our relationship since we started dating back in 2004. We completed the First Steps Boot-Camp together, are currently on Week 13 of the EMSO course, and we are also enrolled in a program with Cinema Therapy to help couples communicate. I am seeing a counselor, and we are have a couple's therapist also. My husband is actively participating in SAA calls, and he is awaiting a session with a personal therapist. My husband was laid off earlier in the year, so we struggled to pay bills, and ended up borrowing money from friends and family just to pay the bills, because my husband's secondary job, and EI benefits were not enough to cover everything. We were lucky when our counselor took us on for free to help us recover, unfortunately they were not very helpful. We have watched numerous videos from Affair Recovery, and are so grateful for all of the help we have received from your programs, videos, and resource library. I am definitely struggling to work through my flooding and emotional trauma. Thus, I humbly request to be considered, and hopefully granted either your scholarship, or win the free offer, in order to complete your Harboring Hope course, so that I can move towards my own healing. Thank you so much for everything Affair Recovery has done for my marriage so far, and I truly hope I can continue on this path.

D-day was 08/2020. I found out that he had been having an online affair with my best friend for 6 years! Shortly after he and I had started seeing one another in 2013 he created a fake Facebook account. He created a completely different life for himself that he lived for six years. My best friend, his AP, had no idea it was him. He refused to meet her in person. They never spoke on the telephone. She admits that they had an emotional relationship. He admits to having feelings for her. She sent him explicit pictures of her. They would sext. He was attentive, caring, supportive, and encouraging towards her. She admitted to me that she feels guilty for missing him. He said, in the beginning, he created the account because of his own insecurities. He wanted to get inside information about me from the one person who knew me better than anyone else but eventually, it became something more. I am crushed. I thought the relationship we had was great. He never made me feel unimportant. All the things he was towards her, he was towards me but in person. I only found out about it because I happened to pick up his phone one day and saw that he was logged into Facebook but it wasn't his page. I found the evidence. He did not deny it when I asked him. It took me about 7 months before I was in a place to really talk to him about the affair. He apologized and I said I forgave him. I tried. I tried for almost a year to suppress the voice that was raging inside. I kept telling myself that I forgave him. Why am I still feeling this way? It all came crashing in on me on New Year's Eve 2021. All the pain that I had been pushing down. All the rage, bitterness, and brokenness came spewing out of me uncontrollably. I rage out of nowhere. I hysterically sob at any given moment. My body feels like it is shaking all the time. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I am lost even typing this and I am sure it doesn't make a lot of sense because nothing makes a lot of sense to me. How do I trust someone who can be so manipulative? Why do I feel such shame in wanting to work things out with him? What is right? What is wrong? I feel like I am lost in the woods but instead of moving and trying to find a way out, I am standing still. I feel like I haven't even realized how lost am I yet. Who do I talk to? My best friend since middle school and all of our memories are triggers. I can't just cut her out. She is a victim too. I don't know what to do. I am afraid to go out anywhere because I do not have control of my emotions and I am afraid of losing it in front of people. I haven't gone to work. My voicemail box is full because I can't even take phone calls right now. He is doing everything he can to make me feel safe and help me deal with the trauma and says he is committed to working things out with me but how do I trust his motives? Am I just the next challenge? I have a special needs child that is on a ventilator and many other different types of devices and I can barely focus on taking care of him. Most of the time I am on autopilot. How do I trust myself to make the right decision?

All of you at Affair Recovery are a amazing!
Thank you for sharing your stories, insight, advise and for being a virtual friend when I can't stop the tears.
Worst 5 years of my life! The lessons.....rich. The pain.....it goes on and on..... diabolically painful.
Thank you for being there! Wishing the Love of my life would join me on this journey.

It has been 3 years now since I first discovered my husband had an affair. I was willing to go to counseling, and even move for a fresh start and to get distance from his affair partner. Since then I’ve discovered he has had multiple affairs, and feel like I left my friends and job behind for nothing. He keeps saying he wants to make it work but I don’t know that it’s healthy for me to be around him anymore. The lying has created so much emotional trauma in me. I feel a shell of who I once was. I need to heal and am worried I can’t do that with him in my life.

I learned 1 month ago today that my UH had an affair for 4 years. We have been married 21 years and together for 23 years and have one son who is 19 years old. I am swimming in a sea of despair. How do I move forward? How do I stop this pain? How can I ever trust him again? I am morning the loss of what I thought I had, a good marriage. Looking back now I see it was never a good marriage. Has had had emotion affairs since day 1 of dating (I just didn't realize what this was and how bad it hurt me). There have been at least 4, who knows, probably more. There was always porn in secrete, hiding files so I didn't see. The last straw was the actual affair, with "just his friend". Who by the way he hid the fact that they dated at one time. I need so much help....I am so angry, sad, hurt, confused, lost, crushed.....

I had experienced infidelity in my previous marriage. When the final blow was dealt, he had cheated on me with 7 different women in just over 4 years. I know this demon and at one point welcomed him as a friend, but this isn't the story I want to tell...merely insight to give you a starting point to understand how the same demon can lurk in different people and disguise itself in so many different ways.

On with my current story....

My current husband and I celebrated 2 years of marriage in October. We have been together almost 4 years. Our relationship in the beginning was insane physical attraction, hours of conversation, laughter and excitement. Early on there were red flags regarding issues of infidelity, however, each time one would arise he would chose me over all options. This made me believe that somehow I was special in some way. As time went on, personal issues began to surface in my husbands behavior and personality traits. Still, I didn't give up I paid attention and began to see some very deep emotional trauma from his family life and a very long history in dealing with guilt and shame. Now let me say that I didn't have the idea that I could "fix him" ( I learned that lesson from the previous marriage). I simply was open and honest and allowed him to choose his own path. This seemed to help and a year and a half later, we were married. It was the happiest day of my life.

I am only about 3 weeks past my DDay... 2 days before my birthday, and the last date of disclosure...December 6 2021 my old friend infidelity had finally come to visit. As a result of the crippling destruction I wasn't able to function at work, at home, or in any kind of personal interaction. I ended up losing my job on December 13 because I was unable to do my job... by this point I couldn't shower or cook or even simply remember to breathe. My whole world stopped. I am still trying to make sense of it all. I am moving forward in a positive direction because of this site and its information...and I am doing it with my husband.

The information in the blogs have hit home and allowed us to have constructive conversation regarding his affair. He has come to understand and accept responsibility, the importance of transparency, and even learned things that have allowed me as a betrayed to try and understand the thought process of my husband. We have found the information so valuable, that even subjects that may not apply to our situation, have value and can have lessons to be taken that CAN be useful in our recovery. We sincerely thank you for the work you are doing for couples like us.

The difficulty for me is that typically I would walk away from this type of situation because you never forget the pain and destruction infidelity causes. I never wanted to see it again, let alone believe that I could see it, confront it and actually have a man that wanted to work with me to fight it; for a person to want to learn about how to put work in after such loss and suffering to build some thing stronger and better, was a completely foreign concept to me. I had always though that once trust was broken, you might as well throw it away.

In the last week, and over the Christmas holiday my husband has shown me he is willing to put in the necessary work, but the mark of pain that previous encounters with a cheating spouse have left scares the hell out of me. I feel like I need to know I am not alone and how to understand and forgive myself.
The process is working for us and as long as we continue to put in work and use the tools to foster positive dialog it gives me hope....something I never had previously. I'm frightened of it, but love my husband and need to try and work through this issue that has been there like a foreboding cloud.

Thank you again for what you do.

In response to every partial disclosure, I struggled to grasp what was going on, to stay committed, to hope, to forgive and move forward, to show respect, to help my children through situations their young minds should not need to consider. I lived in hope and repeated forgiveness- never knowing how much the deception and his self pity were wearing on me. I’m no longer willing to accept him saying anything is my fault. I’m so worn out from giving and being blamed as harming. I need to see a better way through.

I'm an UW. I have had numerous inappropriate relationships over my 24 year marriage and as of recently, I have had a physical affair with a coworker that lasted 22 months. As I am almost finished with Hope for Healing, I have realized all the mistakes I've made since Discovery. I never shared with my husband, he found messages on my phone. I trickled the truth out over 9 months. I refused marriage counseling in the beginning. I responded to his comments and questions with defensiveness. I thought for a while that I was the victim and he was the problem. Since then I've felt great shame, guilt from what I've done. I've realized the lack of boundaries I have had has been disrespectful to my husband and put me in situations where I developed inappropriate relationships with other men. I've developed an enormous amount of empathy for my husband since I've been going through recovery. I've learned alot about myself; my flaws, my choices and I'm working daily to make improvements. I felt like I was making progress with my husband. Although we were living in separate states due to a relocation for work, we were actively trying to find him a job so he can be with me and the kids again. We were still talking on a daily basis, managing things together and I was being more open about my recovery work with him. Just when he landed a job here and we were planning the move of the rest of his belongings, he shared with me that he met someone on a Christian dating app when he was at his lowest and she has been helping him with his recovery; giving him books to read, giving him advice. She even told him that he needs to move here to give us a try because she knows he is still in love with me and can't be with someone who is still uncertain about a possible future with his wife. He told me he had sex with her, multiple times. He took her on at least one date that I know of, he spent the night in a hotel with her, he has had her in his cousins house, she has met some of his family. He does not see his act as an affair. In fact, his comment to me was that he didn't even consider is cheating since we were separated and he didn't think I'd care since I slept with a man and stayed in multiple hotels to have sex with him for almost 2 years. He then said he wanted to move here and give us a shot but wanted not to keep that from me so we can have a fresh start. I forgave him. I want to be with him; only him. He has since moved in with us again, but about two weeks ago I learned he is still in contact with her. They text message and I'm sure they follow eachother on IG. I do not have access to any of his phone, social media sites. He has access to all of mine. As part of my recovery I have provided him access to all my credit cards, our phone bill, my text messages go to his iPAD and he has access to my email. He protects his phone a lot. He tells me that she is his friend and she helps him. I have expressed my concerns with this. There is no way to fully move forward with recovery when your still in contact with your AP. When I tried to express my feelings earlier during his discovery, he responded with 26 scathing messages about my terrible behavior and all the horrible things I've done. I now feel like I can't say anything to him about it. I'm not allowed to be hurt, sad, scared, because I cheated first. I caused him an enormous amount of pain that allowed him to reach out to another woman to hurt less. This is my fault and I now have to find a way to suppress the feelings so I don't lose focus on my own recovery. I want to take Harboring Hope because I can't share with anyone else. In those that know about my affair I'm the bad one; I'm the one who is the cheater; they don't blame him what he has done because I broke his heart. The thing is, I have a heart too and I don't think people realize that those that are unfaithful are not heartless. There's so much complexity to the unfaithful's decisions/ behaviors. I just feel like when you're the one in the relationship that was unfaithful first, the second one gets a free pass. I need to now know what I can do to recover as the Betrayed Spouse. This is so difficult and I need all the help managing this rough terrain that I can get.

I feel lost in the dark and don’t know what to do next.

After 4.5 years of struggling to find real healing and feeling as if we're stumbling around in the dark, it's become clear that we need expert help.

Found an AR web article on 'Intrusive Thoughts' and wept as I read it. The thoughts expressed and insight resonated with me on such a deep level, brought a new hope and clarity to our struggle. Viewed many AR videos and read many articles, so much insight. AR/HH is faith based, which is important to us, we're in the same Spirit and under the same grace as our guides at AR. God lead me to His servants' ministry, how could I not enroll?

Reasons that compel me to commit fully to Harboring Hope;

§ Complications with history of disconnect and poor communication in marriage, OCD and depression, past unresolved traumas for both, many years between betrayal and confession
§ No confidants or trusted individuals in my life, very alone and isolated
§ Therapists and counselors not specializing in A/R not helpful
§ Too much web based info to process and discern
§ Realize this is a long, hard road and want to be on the right one
§ Mutual desire to heal and make a better marriage but frustrated and saddened by our inability to find peace
§ Easily triggered, DMIV criteria qualified PTSD
§ Realize this is a long, hard road and want to be on the right one
§ Recent discovery caused serious relapse, realized that I'm far from healed
§ Need to be able to heal without reliance on wife's ability to provide emotional safety

Thank you so much for all you do. God bless.

Dealing with mutual betrayal in my marriage

I have been married for almost 18 years. I am embarrassed to admit that I have had an on and off affair for 12 1/2 years. The worst part is that it was the best man in our wedding after his wife filed for divorce because she was cheating on him. The affair consisted of sending letters, texts, and emails that contained sexual fantasies, pictures, as well as normal day to day conversation. I have used various methods to contact my affair partner including using different addresses and creating another email account There were several incidents of engaging in sexual relations too. The last time I had sexual relations with him was last year,early November.

My husband is a wonderful man who has just taken this betrayal very well considering. My husband says that he loves me and can't imagine his life without me, even though I feel that I have put him through hell. My husband has tried to get me to work on our relationship countless times before. I never made any attempts to heal our relationship and make our marriage work. I was more worried about my affair partner, and protecting him.

My husband has had his suspicions over the years but I have never told him the complete truth until just after I was hospitalized this last January and was close to death. It was then that I realized what my husband really meant to me, I honestly do love him with all my heart and I don't know where I would be without him. I took advantage of my husband and I deeply regret what I have done. He had many demons in his past when I met him, and it turns out that I was the biggest demon of all. I have done so much to hurt my husband and this has exacerbated his trust issues. I have also ruined the relationship between my husband and his best friend, which I feel very ashamed for doing.

I have since come clean to my husband. There are things that I can't remember (due to trauma in my brain from a surgery in 2018) but I have been completely honest about everything that have since come clean to my husband. There are things that I can't remember (due to trauma in my brain from a surgery in 2018) but I have been completely honest about everything that I can remember.

Our issue is my affair partner and I had sent a few texts back in 2018 or 2019 and my husband knew about them. He confronted me at the time and I deleted the texts right away so I told him there was nothing to see. I refused to let him access my account so he could get them back. My husband also confronted my affair partner and my affair partner said that it was up to me. I told him not to let my husband know and he subsequently deleted them. My husband would also like to see any other texts or emails but I have deleted anything incriminating as soon (or within 1 days time) as I would send them.

At this point my husband feels that he cannot move on in the healing process and we get frustrated with each other because he cannot see what was deleted and I don't know how to help him.
~ cheating wife trying to change

D-day was 6+ months ago. I saw a message come across his phone that turned my entire life and world upsidedown. But Dday has extended and dragged out for months due to trickle truths. Every time " That was everything, there's nothing more" except none of that was true. There were new bombs along the way. His AP spilled much of the information. He no longer works at his job ( was a coworker). We have 3 kids. He wants to try, but is still lying to my face. Which I do not tolerate well. I'm a mess. This is exhausting. ?

I want take this class to get me on the path of really living. I miss knowing who I am and enjoying my life to the fullest.

I NEED HEALING NOW! I can't keep living like this. This pain is tormenting. I need to do this for myself so I can stop feeling this way. I literally live inside my home and am afraid to leave my front door because of what he did. I can't live this way an longer and need help.

Hi,
I am in such a strange and earth-shattering predicament. My husband of 12 years, college sweetheart, and father of our 4 children has been having a double life with a woman he works with for 5 years now and counting. The woman has known about him being married and even said she was jealous of our marriage. Well she has also said she doesn't care about him being married to me and has no intention of not being with my husband. My husband said he cares about her but mainly he is being driven by the fact that discontinuing his relationship with her will affect his business substantially hence the reason he will not stop seeing her. He said it's hard for them not to be intimate because it has been the nature of their relationship for going on 6 years now but he is in love with me. He said if it wasn't for the fact that he wants to be able to provide for me and the kids plus reach his financial goals...he would have left her alone a long time ago. I am in such a hurtful place because he pretty much has asked me on several occasions if I could just accept her knowing that his heart is truly with me. Of course based on righteousness, self-respect, and my children I said an emphatic "No" but it hurts deeply because I know he has feeling for her and will not just choose me and the kids over money, image, status, etc. I told him we don't need the money, etc but it's not only for us because he is being led by the spirit of mammon. He is not willing to stand for righteousness and it's tough because I didn't marry a Christian man so how can I expect him too? I guess I at least expect him to have a conscience. I'm just so hurt. We've been going through this back and forth for a year now. I filed for legal separation finally but with everything going on I know I still love him and he says he loves me with all of his heart. Of course I don't believe him when he can literally see how his actions destroyed me and continued them but that's what he says. I tried not being intimate with him for a bit...I tried stonewalling...I kicked him out of the house...and now I filed for legal separation and he still will not stop sleeping with her or seeing her. He believes his end justifies the means and she makes it that much harder for him to stop because even when he tried to get rid of her last year...she made it extremely difficult by messing with his business, threatening suicide, and popping up on him wherever he went. I feel like there is no hope. He always says he can't live without me and that I complete him but if that were true than he wouldn't need her. I don't know what to do honestly. I've been listening to the videos and he agreed to do the first steps bootcamp but hasn't started yet. I hate divorce but I feel like it may be necessary in my situation even with my heart still connected to him.

I just want to stop being so angry and vengeful and cruel. It’s been 3 1/2 months since I found out about an eight month affair and it’s been breaking me ever since I would really love to win this course

It's been 428 days since D-day and I'm still heartbroken. We've been together 28 years now, still married, separated, husband living w/AP. In the beginning, I asked him if he would stop his affair and he wouldn't. In my anger, pain, hurt and devastation, I had him leave. He went straight to live with her. He contacts me everyday, comes over, tells me he loves me, is sorry, says he takes responsibility for what he's done. (No intimacy, only hugs) Says it's not my fault, I am beautiful a wonderful person, I did not deserve this. Says he wants to come home, that he misses us, cries about it, that he's trying to fix it, can't imagine life without us, financially supports us, but has done nothing. He carries guilt and shame, I see it. But again does nothing, Just his words and his tears. I have done therapy and biblical counseling, I'm doing a little better. I lost over 60lbs and, couldn't eat, sleep, had major anxiety, probably depression, uncontrolled crying, guilt, shame, unworthy, grief. It's gotten a little better. I'm still praying for restoration everyday. But I'm stuck in a place where I'm trying to let God takeover, trying to find peace, but I can't stop thinking about it. Cyclical thinking, trauma, I guess. When I move a little forward, put boundaries up, he tells me these things I'm longing to hear and then I'm back in this cycle of grief and heartbreak again. I don't know how to move forward. The uncertainty of all of this has got a grip on me and just keeps trying to pull me back down. And because of what he says he feeds me hope with no action. I believe in our marriage and that we can recover. I've worked hard on self improvement and healing in every area. But I don't know what to do. I've read everything, listened to everything, I imagine maybe it's the trauma of it all, the loss of my life I thought I had with him, trust, my core beliefs have been disrupted. Every day I get up and work at it being a good day, being a good person, being thoughtful, kind, forgiving, prayerful and faithful, taking care of my home, myself and my kids. Focusing on God and trying be all that he created me to be. But my heart is still breaking and my logical brain knows I need to move forward, but my heart can't. I don't know what else to do. I do see value in my husband, and feel this is not him, and I love him with all my heart. God changed my heart in such a way, from bitterness to loving him. God brought me to the end of myself and has brought up out of the pit. But the circumstances with no change, depression or the enemy, however you discern, wants to pull me back down. I think if I was bitter and angry sometimes maybe it would have been easier to walk away. But in that I don't want to be that person I was in the beginning, I never want to go back there. I'm so afraid that if I continue this way, all of the bitterness, anger, hate, unforgiveness, feeling unworthy will creep back and harden my heart again. I just need help and I would like to try the harboring hope course. And just maybe there will be something to move me forward. I've prayed about it and feel that this may be my next step to healing. I thank you all for your videos and blogs it's really helped in so many ways. I am grateful. And hopeful for a brighter future. Thank you for your time and consideration.

I think the course could help me. I am stuck and really want to move forward.