Archives for May 2009

Confronting the Other Woman: Are You Ready?

May 14, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Are you ready?

This case study reveals how important it is to be ready for any response you might receive from the ow (other woman.)

When you confront the other woman, are you ready to hear from her about the “perfection” of her relationship with your husband. will that haunt you or can you reframe her description as the spouse below was able to do?

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

To get her to accept the fact that my husband chose to save the marriage. She lives in another country so I confronted her by email. I said that she must respect his wishes if she truly has or had feelings for him. And if she was such a very important person in his life, he would have chose her over me. Its time for her to back off and stop calling to reconnect with him. And the fact that he lied to her as well and made promises that he could not keep. And both of them lived in a fantasy that never would have had a good outcome. I said that you cannot build a new and healthy relationship on a broken marriage and a family had has been destroyed by infidelity. The foundation is full of lies and deceit and would eventually destroy the new relationship that started out of the affair. I also said that I do not know her and I do not know if she has her own motives for the affair. And that I was not willing to hand him over to her on a silver plate. Maybe she is using him? But I also said that if he did chose her I would have let him go. The fact that he did not showed me that the love he, claimed he had for her, was after all not deep enough to leave his marriage.

2. What happened? What was the outcome?

She kept on calling and sending emails. But eventually saw that he was not going to respond. She did email me and said that I can be very glad that she lives in another country because she knows that it will not work. And that my husband told her that she made him feel like he never in 20 yrs marriage felt with me. And that she was his true companion and a love like theirs will never be forgotten by either one of them. She said that if love like that happens to two people there are no boundaries because it happens once in a lifetime.

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

Would do it again. I expressed my feelings and hoped to get her to see it from my view point. It did not matter much if she did, she is going to believe what she wants anyway. But just maybe I said something that did. It was easy with emails cause I do not think that I would have been able to see her in person. Maybe later when my confidence has been restored I will be able to. I learned that people will believe whatever they want to to make them feel better. I think its easier for the ow to think my husband was madly in love with her and wanted to marry her. So she does not have to deal with the deceit and the lies. Sort of check of of reality, the fantasy is much better to believe. And makes her feel good about herself and me the enemy cause I separated them. But then again she might not be a person with value of morality.

Filed Under: Confronting the Other Person Tagged With: , ,

Rebuild Your Life Whether You Can Rebuild Your Marriage or Not

May 12, 2009 by 1 Comment

by Infidelity Coach, Jeryl Swantack

Last blog I talked about the importance of having and holding onto our dreams, in spite of seemingly impossible obstacles and delays. I continued Dr. Bob’s discussion of our amazing new heroine and cultural icon on the world scene, Susan Boyle. I talked about how she never gave up her dream of becoming a singing star in spite of years of living in quiet anonymity while caring for her mother. She never let go of the picture in her mind of becoming a star through and with her magnificent voice. She sang daily in front of her mirror, likely using a hairbrush or something similar for a “microphone,” imagining herself to be singing to the entire world!! Now that is a powerful dream and a powerful image, energizing and giving life to that dream!

If you haven’t read books or seen films like The Secret or What the Bleep Do We Know or The Moses Code, I strongly suggest that you get to your nearest library or video store and get your hands on any one of these films to give you a taste of the power contained in our thoughts and dreams. There is great power for great shift and change in our lives in releasing our dreams to the world. Now IS the time to realize that, to make that real in your own life.

Where possible, use your creative power to rebuild your marriage. Dr. Bob provides precious and invaluable insights and suggestions about how to do this in his books, Break Free from the Affair and Marriage Makeover, both available on this site. If you have not yet done so, I encourage you to get and read these books so that you don’t stay stuck in old patterns of thinking about affairs and marriage.

Learn what you need to know to decide whether your marriage can be saved and rebuilt. Not all can, nor should be, no matter how much we might think we want to save them. Dr. Bob created, and I joined him on this site, because we want you, all of you, to live lives of purpose, of deep meaning and fulfillment.

We don’t want to see you trapped in relationships that keep you locked into patterns of relating that keep you from experiencing your dreams and all the fullness and richness of life.

I just read and listened to some fascinating information about another hot news item these days, one that often arouses fear rather than the tears of hope and joy elicited by the story of Susan Boyle. I am talking about the swine flu virus that has surfaced again and is causing the fear level of the general population worldwide to elevate.

The information I just came across reminds us that the best defense against fear or dis-ease of any kind, is A LIFE WELL LIVED! Your immune system is strongest when you are living well, meaning pursuing goals and dreams of health, wealth and abundance! Live the life of your dreams, and refuse to settle for less, and boost your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual immune systems!

En-joy life, in spite of its current circumstances, knowing that they are temporary and that they will change. See yourself as resilient and capable of adapting to your challenges, always moving in the direction of your goals and a life lived with great purpose. Each of us has a unique contribution to make on this planet. Constant movement in the direction of making that contribution will keep us strong and vital and able to weather the inevitable storms and squalls of life.

Fear makes us more vulnerable to the lower vibrating forms of life (including viruses). Living with purpose and meaning empowers us, on all levels, to take on challenges that serve to grow us and expand our lives. And THAT makes us very attractive, attracting into our lives more of that which we desire, whether it is love and deep connection, or money, health and prosperity.

Dr. Bob and I have lived and do live all that we teach. We would be honored to assist you through coaching to rebuild your life, and get moving again in the direction of your own personal dreams, so that you too might live a rich and fulfilling life, eager to see what is next around the corner in this magnificent adventure called life! Break free from the affair and live the life you most want to live!

Filed Under: Infidelity Help Tagged With: , , , ,

Infidelity and Its Impact

May 9, 2009 by 1 Comment

Infidelity impacts your world. Your world, your relationships, how you view yourself will NEVER be the same. But, hey, that’s not all bad. We are always growing, always evolving and often infidelity accelerates that process.

Read what others say about the impact of infidelity on their lives”

1. List 3 or 4 meanings that your partner’s affair has for you. That is to say, what impact is the infidelity having upon YOU?

Even though I know the affair is not my fault, I think about ways I could make myself better. I continue to try and push away the negative and think about what positive has come out of this. Weird thing to say but I can breathe easier knowing that some positive things have come of this. My life is completely different, my husband has decided after 45 days of me finding out and not seeing or speaking to me about anything that he wants a divorce. Needless to say I was absolutely crushed, my family is destroyed or feels that way, we have two children of our own and my nephew who we are guardians for. Our son is 7 and our daughter is 18 mos old. All of a sudden, the dream I thought we both were striving to achieve was on pause while he was put on active duty to support the war. Instead I find that he had an affair with a married woman who has four children, he didn’t even cheat right, he told her he was divorced that his wife, whom he still loved left him. I am torn inside in a way that I have never felt before. Our friends and family were surprised but I wasn’t and that is the part that hurts. Through this I have found faith to help me through the rough days and family and friends support is always good. I spend my time trying to stay busy

Trust has been broken and it will never be the same. I know that at some point he will earn my trust back but it will never be the same level. This whole experience has taught me to think about my needs, think of the ways that the relationship has been unfulfilling for me and asking for what I want. It helped me find out about boundaries and how to figure out which boundaries I needed to set up. I just defend my space more I guess. If I find out that he is having another affair, it would be easier for me to accept the truth and walk away, rebuild my life because I spent enough time on myself and figured out what I want and who and what my sources of support are. I am interested in learning more about identifying and breaking the barriers that keep us from making an authentic and lasting connection. I think at the bottom of all barriers there is FEAR. How do we get over the fear to reach out and connect? My husband says I always have bad timing for these conversations. I feel very much like I am an invisible wife when we are together. We are just polite to each other. “Moving on” for him is to bury the past. I think it’s easier for the offender to bury the past. I have to say, there was more passion and more sex between us when the affair was going on because we really talked all the time about our feelings. Once he stopped the relationship, he avoids talking about his feelings and if I want to have this kind of intimacy with him, the door is “shut”. Sex is very blah because I feel invisible. It’s almost as if every move he makes to get close to me ( a hug, a kiss ) is very tentative, not really coming from a place of intimacy but it is more like a surface stroke.

Filed Under: Extramarital Affair Types, Infidelity Impact Tagged With: , ,
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