Rick, I have a number of questions, so I'll start with an old one and add a few to the list that I just don't understand. History - My wife and I have been together 20 years, married ten. Three and a half years ago she told me that she had been unfaithful during our living together period with two people, both of which were brief encounters. More information keeps coming out, and eventually she admits that she had an affair six months after we were married and has not done it since. Needless to say, I was devastated. I kept thinking that there was more, but all she continued to say was that it was seven years ago, and she really didn't remember very much other than the approximate time period, the person, and a smidgen of information. I wanted more but there wasn't any. I asked all kinds of questions, from details to high-level, but she insisted she could not remember hardly any of it. I resorted to creating fake Facebook accounts and other tactics and got in touch with two of these people and found out information that was shocking. The more I looked the more I found. It was horrifying. I spent months collecting information and putting the pieces together. Turns out that my wife had inappropriate relationships from the moment we met until six months after we were married. I had so many triggers, even our wedding pictures. I took them down, hoping one day I would be able to look at them again. Realizing the impact on me, and the potential loss of a cherished memory, the wedding, she suddenly told me that she had a dream and wasn't sure if it happened before we were married or after. She swore that it wouldn't make a difference, and insisted both were equally wrong. I knew she didn't feel that way, and pressed her to tell the truth. People remember if they were with someone before or after their wedding. Our therapist agreed, but this went on for three plus years. I couldn't move on until she accepted responsibility. I was consumed with proving it to her. Eventually, I found the proof. She had convinced herself, deluded herself, that it may not have happened. In time, I believed her. Ironically, I'm the only one. I didn't expect her to remember the color of her nail polish, but some high-level things had to be part of her memory, right? Even finding out incidents that occurred that, because of the unusual location, think mile high club, while she may not have included it on her list initially, when confronted, you'd expect that person to say, "Yup, I did that." Not my wife. She has me convinced her memory issues are real. As such, I am very concerned that her ability to delude herself of practically anything that serves her purpose or protects her ego cannot be fixed by a course like this and there is a much larger problem that needs to be addressed. I have read countless articles on memory loss, suppression, repression, motivated forgetting, and so much more. I am worried that a larger problem exists here that won't be addressed by an EMS 911 course. Anyone who can delude themselves into really believing things did or did not happen has a larger issue here, right? Please help me. More questions to come.....

Rick, Me again.... sorry =( I was forced to piece together an eleven year period of infidelity that had hot and cold periods, different people, and spanned eleven years including our dating, living together, engagement, and within the first year of marriage. My entire history, every vacation, holiday, minor and major event has bookends of betrayal. She didn't wan't to admit the magnitude of the betrayal so I had to endure an incredibly painful, arduous, and long process to prove it to her. Every new element was questioned and met with denial. I am obsessive by nature, but this made things so much worse and we couldn't move towards healing since she would not admit and be accountable for what she had done. She's finally ready now. I love her dearly and have forgiven her for what she had done, although I'm still devastated and at times, I get angry and have to recommit to forgiveness. Many times, I find myself more upset with what I perceive as a betrayal in the recovery process than the infidelity. I could go on and on about my hurt in this area but I'll focus on my question know. I don't know everything. I'll never know. The more digging I do, the more I find and I know enough to understand what happened, and now she is at a point where she sees it too and that's all I ever wanted. It's the WHY that confuses me in chapter two of our workbooks. Should it be about her reasoning at the time, and what was going on inside her head (thinking)? Should it include all the defense mechanisms like rationalization, justification, and all the other details on how she made these decisions as she remembers them? Should it be about her childhood, coming from a divorced father and the impact it had on her behavior and personality? Should it be on her lack of investment, selfishness, or any higher true reason for her actions? I could go on and on.... What EXACTLY should be included in the why? All the above? Please help us to understand. We have finally come to accept what has happened, without the need to get everything. If we understand the WHY, we hope to identify the behaviors and source of the problems and work on a plan to change our cognitive thinking/behaviors. Help us understand the why... Best wishes, Jeff

Rick, First and foremost, I loved your website, articles, philosophy, and now, the EMS 911 course. Everything makes sense, unlike our therapy, which had zero structure and provided little value, possibly due to choosing a therapist that just wasn't right for us, but that's another story. This chapter had a lot of good information, as always, but I was constantly at odds with it. First, you reference the three idiot lights - guilt, fear, and shame. Pointing out these emotions as warning signs, indicators that we/I/her is not on the right path is super insight. It's meaning is to get us to stop in our tracks and think differently. I get it. These feelings will never serve us, and can only do us harm. And knowledge/awareness is power. However, having read numerous articles and books on cognitive thinking, I am worried that the knowing is only part of the equation and the mind has to be re-trained to process information differently. There doesn't seem to be any information about how to properly change cognitive behavior. Knowledge is step one, certainly, but doing something with that knowledge is equally important. Without this, it's a sandwich without meat. You next go on to discuss "What is Marriage?" Funny, clever, and in some cases, I agree with the content. However, I have major problems and am having difficulty accepting what you are saying here. The Second Law of Thermodynamics - you never get more out of something than you put in, and can really not get as much as you put it. As a philosophy major, many moons ago, Aristotle wrote that "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." As a marriage, I am me, she is her, and now we have this new element, us. If I were to give to someone. Hence, I "put it" thought, time, and of course, a service, product, or something like quality time. Giving feels good. Hence, I get something. That person will likely feel good and the cycle will assume they will give something back. Hence, for my one generosity, I now have more than I put it, my own good feelings, and something new from the person I gave something to. I got a lot of satisfaction from my marriage, pride, identity, and things from both my wife as well as myself. You go on to only focus about needs, in this section and others. I believe much in life is a matter of perception. Often times, we focus on what we perceive we need but don't have. If we have the proper mindset, we realize that we are negating all the needs that are being met that we take for granted and/or the needs we perceive are not being me are truly being met if we look at it in the proper way. In "All People Are Scum", you talk about people wanting what they don't have. Again, perception. Any mature human being would understand that what they don't have lacks in other areas, even if we don't see that initially. Nothing is perfect. And yes, we are responsible for our own needs, and no spouse can ever fill every need. I just don't think this is what marriage is at all. Certainly not how I ever viewed it. Since I don't subscribe to any one religion, the idea that God created marriage to make us miserable is a clever spin, but I understand that the idea of marriage is not about getting your needs met but rather about making us better people through humility, growth, acceptance, compassion, understanding, patience, and selflessness. I still believe in love, romance, and my soul-mate, just not in the Notebook kind of way. In short (but truly long... =), I suppose I felt like this entire chapter was filled with common sense, which is always appreciated, not enough information about changing cognitive behavior (eg. what to do with warning signs), and a viewpoint about marriage that makes sense but really should focus on changing one's perception to a truth that serves the greater good. (story below) Thanks for your ear, Jeff The Truth That Serves Us Long ago before we were married, my wife and I made a deal that we would raise our future children Jewish. I had a bar mitzvah, but was not a believer and did not feel comfortable with religion. My wife, loved being Jewish. It was a sense of pride, history, identity, tradition, and values, among a great many other things. Well, this is one of those black and white areas. I agreed to her request, knowing that in marriage and all relationships, sometimes you have to go the path of your partner. Then we had kids. Strangely, as we fed them, they grew and grew. Suddenly, they were little people, and not some fictional characters discussed in theory long ago. I suddenly became aware that my belief system was not going to be shared with our children. My wife and I had a deal, remember. I felt like a hypocrite, a phony, pretending to support something I didn't believe in at all. This can't be fair. I was angry at the situation. My wife knew how I felt, and told me I could certainly share my beliefs with the children at the right time. Now, it would be confusing. Translation: you can tell them what you want AFTER their indoctrination process is complete. I could have gotten angry and blamed her. I could have broken our deal and told the kids what I believed, regardless of my wife's feelings about me doing so. Instead of confronting her, I gave the matter some deep thought. You see, compromise (or black and white) issues don't have to be a win-lose situation. Everything is a matter of how you process and what you choose to believe. THERE ARE TRUTHS EXCEPT IN MATH!. The rest, are truths that we choose to accept that can hurt us or help us. I finally came to a truth that served me, my children, and my wife. My wife loves being Jewish. She loves God. She feels a connection to people, all living things, and it is something that fills her life with joy. If my children had a great teacher like their mother, unlike my religious upbringing, and she was able to give all these wonderful things to them that would enrich their lives, I had to ask myself, "What's wrong with that?" So there you have it. A truth that I decided, without requiring her to assist in my problem, that is not perceived as a negative, not a (bad word) compromise, and I don't live with it, but I am happy to support my wife in this area. I guess what I'm trying to say is this: When it comes to needs being met, differences of opinion, arguments over the ridiculous, whatever, no matter how difficult the problem, perception is always the answer and finding a truth that serves us (not me) is always available if we look at the situation the RIGHT way. Jeff out...

I am 18 mo. from d-day, 7 mo from husband's commitment to marriage. He fell in love with a good friend of mine and the affair lasted 5 years. He is repentant but now wants to do recovery in his way and not be controlled which means allowing the AP to keep her job ( he is her boss). I am weary of doing most of the work and now in releasing phase. Can you talk more about the releasing phase to allow the partner to do his own recovery without nagging and while still living together? And how does one reattach after detaching?