mjw4308,

This is my first post. I found Affair Recovery last month and have read many of the articles and watched many of the videos, which have been very insightful. After reading your message, I decided to finally post. It's surreal that I am actually writing from the perspective of a betrayed spouse.....where was I when that became my reality?? Anyway, I had a long message all ready to post (it took me over an hour to write) and then it just suddenly disappeared. It is getting late here, so instead of trying to rewrite my message tonight, I will keep it short for now.

I can relate to what you said about the marriage being average, with it's ups and downs, strengths and weaknesses. That's marriage, right?? I can also relate to extending forgiveness and grace to my husband after learning he had been unfaithful.

Long story short, we have been married almost 23 years, have two children, we homeschool, I'm in my 40's. My husband had a sexual affair with a person he met in an online chat room. It started at the beginning of 2009 and last for about a year. I found out about it in November, 2013. In his words "it was a long time ago and it didn't mean anything."

He says he is willing to help me heal (he doesn't think he himself has anything to heal from) but his willingness to help me seems "conditional" and only if it's something he's "comfortable" doing. He recently considered doing one of the courses offered here at Affair Recovery.....until he found out he would have to actually talk to other people with the weekly conference calls. It has been 23 months since I found out about the affair and I have not told one single family member (my family or his) and not any friends, either. I feel like I have "protected" him, meanwhile, he has done very little to feel my pain or help me or help "us."

I forgave him immediately, which is what I thought was the right thing to do and also what I wanted to do, though he has showed little to no remorse, as far as I can observe. I feared losing him, which prevented me from proceeding in a healthy way by insisting on getting help. Instead, I have basically waited for him to initiate getting us help, which has yet to happen, though I have broached the conversation many times, nothing ever gets done. I know, dysfunctional to say the least. I think, in the beginning, I so wanted it not to be true, that I just continued on with "business, as usual".....perhaps as a way to cope with the devastation?? I don't know. However, as long as I act fine, put on a smile, laugh and joke around and act like everything is just fine.....then everything "appears" cool with my husband.....as long as he's getting what he wants and I don't "rock the boat" by wanting to work through what obviously needs to be worked through.

He has talked regularly about our future together throughout the past 23 months .....however, as soon as I approach him to talk about the marriage and the affair and suggest we seek the proper help and that he just doesn't "get it", suddenly he's "you're never gonna get over it, the marriage has had problems for a long time, let's just go our separate ways." He defaults to this very quickly, within minutes of the conversations we have about all of this. I don't think he knows what he wants. He says he wants to help me heal, as long as it has nothing to do with the marriage. What?? He wants to help me heal but he doesn't think the marriage can be saved and not sure if he wants to even see if that's even a possibility. Yet, here we are nearly 2 years after D-day. Any help we would get is for me, he says, not the marriage. Really?? How does that work?? So, why have you continued to remain in this marriage until now?? He says I'm the one who needs to heal, not him. His opinion is that he has nothing to heal from. Yet he's the one who had an affair. Am I missing something?? It's all so unhealthy.

I don't usually post things online, so I'm not sure if I'm using proper protocol by responding to your message with my experience or if I should have started a new message. I just wanted to finally post and, for some reason, related to where you are coming from. This is the first time since D-day that I have actually written down that my husband had an affair.....that I am a betrayed spouse. It's surreal. I just wanted you to know you're not alone and it's nice to know that I'm not either. I hope you don't mind that I didn't keep this message short, after all.

Thank you Twister and Kim0202 for your insight and kindness. Your words of encouragement, though not addressed directly to me, are an encouragement to me. Any additional thoughts?? Thank you.

Hello Samuel,

I have read many of the articles and watched many of the videos here at Affair Recovery in the past month or so. The information has been very insightful and helpful to me in understanding infidelity. I am learning so much, as much as I wish I didn't need to. I copy and pasted a message I posted on the general forum here at AR, rather than rewriting the details of our particular situation. I hope that was ok to do, as today I finally decided to post a message and don't know all rules here about posting. Also, the message I copy and pasted got posted twice, sorry for that. Would you mind reading the message below and responding with any advice? I'm just not sure what direction to go at this point. I showed my husband the 3 videos you did about "Why Not Commit to the Marriage." He sat and watched all 3 parts. That was last yesterday evening and then later last night he stated he wants to help me heal but feels he has nothing to heal from, though he is the one who had a year long sexual affair. He says he doesn't know what he wants but he doesn't think our marriage is worth saving, he doesn't have any hope for change in our marriage. He says he wants to help me heal, as long as it has nothing to do with trying to save the marriage. I said what you have said, we don't have to commit to saving the marriage but would he at least commit to getting the right help to try to get healthy. He doesn't think he has anything to recover from, therefor, he doesn't need to commit to getting healthy. When I try to explain to him the things I am learning through Affair Recovery, he says "I'm reading too much", although we've spent the past 23 months trying to deal with this on our own, I finally find the courage, just last month, to cautiously look online for some information to make sense of this whole thing, and he says "I'm reading too much." I decided to make an attempt to begin moving forward in a healthy way, unlike the past almost 2 years, where very little has been done to address this whole mess. We are still living together, have 2 children (ages 13 and 11) and sold our house last year, moved out of state away from my family to live in my husband's Dad's house, who passed away one year ago. I don't recognize my husband or my life. Again, a little more about our situation is explained in the message below.

Any help, advice, guidance you could offer would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much.