Archives for September 2008

Marital Infidelity: His Lying Habit was Confirmed

Should you confront the other person?

Read on…

1. What was your purpose for confronting the OP and what did you say/do?

I just needed “to know” – he kept telling me she and her husband were friends from his pool league. She confirmed his story at first but i found a few discrepancies and with further questions realized that he must have been telling her what to say and how to answer. This was done through email – we live in MD and she lives in PA. It all started when he forwarded a “joke” email to me that originally came from “her”. I know his friends and he has no female friends (he swears men & women cant just be “friends” – go figure). So of course I questioned who she was.

2. What happened? What was the outcome?

I was not mean to her at all. I emailed her just asking how she knew my husband. It took her HOURS to reply. I figured out later that it took so long because she was trying to get a hold of him to see what she should say back to me. Neither are good liars so it was pretty obvious what the true story was. I actually tried to explain (like an idiot) that she wasn’t the first one – and that I’d been through this with him before, so i just wanted to know the truth. I also honestly feel that women should stick together and respect each other. If u get a feeling from someone else’s husband that they are crossing the line or being too flirty – set them straight. IF they are doing these sneaky things with you – its pretty safe to assume u aren’t the only one!! So don’t even play into their game. Tell them to go home to their wife. We had just had a baby also – and my husband is in the Army and had just left for Germany for 2 years when I found all of this out. It was hard – and the outcome…. when I tried to explain to her that i just wanted to know the truth and i had a family to think about…. she told me to NEVER EMAIL HER AGAIN. Still to this day I wish she’d talk to me – but I know she wont and I don’t blame her. Apparently he lied to her about lots of things and had her believing she was “special”…. so …. there wasn’tIn much of an outcome. The whole thing just stinks.

3. If you were to do it again, would you do it differently? What did you learn?

I would do it differently – I’d pack his crap up and drop it off on her and her husbands porch. She could then deal with his cheating, overbearing, selfish, lying, self-centered self. Then she’d realize why I just wanted TO KNOW……

Coach’s comments:

It seems as if this relationship was ready to self-destruct. There appeared to be little holding them together. The “offended” woman was keenly aware of his inappropriate behaviors and picked up on them rather quickly.

Perhaps contacting the other person validated what she thought… that her husband could not be trusted and had a propensity for flirting and covering the truth.

Healing From Infidelity and Affairs

Healing from infidelity and affairs is a process. Sometimes that process can be accelerated. Here are some comments from those who have used my materials and are on the road to healing:

>>>>>It (Break Free From the Affair) calmed my irrational thinking and I realized it was not about me.

>>>>>I learned that the affair was not my fault- a difficult thing to come to terms with. I like how it was worded that the problems in the marriage may be partly my fault- but absolutely no part of the affair is my fault. I love the chat room- lots of helpful people there. I liked the listings for the different types of affairs. I also like the things to do and not to do to try to get things back on track. Being positive is hard but eventually fake smiling and laughing will turn back into real smiling and laughing.

>>>>>It made me see options I had not seen before. My situation is quite complex, a 32-year old affair while my spouse was working in different city about 120 miles away. I was totally unaware of the situation as the meetings occurred during lunch in his apartment.

>>>>>It really helped me believe that “I” would get through this in a healthy way no matter the out come. I do want to heal our relationship but I have learned that we have to now begin from a new point and use tools we are not familiar with because the tools we’ve been using are obviously not working for us.

>>>>>Gave me something to focus on mentally, made me realize I’m not alone, helped me to identify the dynamics of our relationship and the dynamics of the affair.

Infidelity and the Other Person: Setting Boundaries

Should you confront the other person?

1. What was your purpose for confronting the OP and what did you say/do?

I wanted to hear from her that this affair happened. I couldn’t believe my husband would ever do this. I called her and asked her about it, and she lied and said nothing ever happened. (She was married too.) She told me she wanted to help me.

2. What happened? What was the outcome?

She called my husband later that night and blamed him for everything. Said he was living with a crazy person. I think this was the first step in healing our marriage. He realized that she did not care about him to even admit the affair.

3. If you were to do it again, would you do it differently? What did you learn?

Three months (and a lot of counseling) later, I did call her back. At the time, I knew my husband had kept every e-mail and chat from their time together. It was all pretty graphic. I called her to say that I was sorry she was in a bad marriage but that didn’t give her the right to ruin mine. I told her that my husband kept every contact with her and that she would be wise to stop contact with him. A little threat, yes. But I felt better after that and never called her back.

Coach’s Comments:

1. It appears that husband and wife are fairly well aligned in this case. The husband was willing to divulge information to his wife, which gave the wife considerable power in confronting the other person.

2. The husband seemingly wanted out of that affair. His response to the other person’s phone call to him sealed the deal. He was outa there.

3. Divulging the fact that her husband had evidence was a clear and powerful way of cementing their alignment. As well, it set a clear boundary: stay away!

Interested in 7 kinds of affairs?