SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Wow, so much good advice and some speticism.

Ok lets start with the "rich and athletic" I am not rich but i have a good job and i am doing ok. However my parents are reasonably affluent by any standard.

Yes I am athletic and I pride myself on it, do I look like the front cover of mens health not even close and I am no Brad Pitt in the looks department.

My wifes reasons/excuses, yes she now accepts they were stupid/pathetic etc.

Creating a victim; yes this is what I am most ashamed of, In the first weeks after DD I was very verbally abusive after my RA I became very cold towards my wife, I would leave the house and not tell her where i was going, I would cold shoulder her, I would tell her she did not matter, it was only when we took the kids on holiday to Tenerife that I started to thaw out, that said i still thought my RA was justified and acceptable.

I started to look for articles such as "repair your marriage" it was during my searches that i found this place and others stories resonated with me and my attitude started to go from a place of anger to stop punishing someone you profess to love, it took a while as I had held onto the anger for a long while and i suspect I used my anger to mask my pain.

Claire; "you have decisions to make" this came from a comment I made at the airport before boarding which was "I wish this weekend could have lasted forever" and that when the YHADTOM comment was made.

Would i have left my wife for my AP? that is so difficult to answer but believe or not I am not stupid I realise a "holiday romance" is not real life.

BSR, you are very perceptive and are quite correct about my attachment to Claire, now the door is/has closed I am having some doubts about my decision to R but this only seems to happen when I am alone when my wife (and kids) are home with me the doubts seem to go away then again apart from hello I have not spoken to Claire for months I have no idea if she would still want me or if she has moved on to another relationship.

The "best ever" thing, on the outset of our "conversation" i gave as little info as possible but Julie wanted details such as what Claire was wearing and what we did, TBH I minimised as much as possible.

Two things Julie said to me during our convo was, Buzzy you have a big ego but it is so bloody fragile and also you need others to see you as a winner, so very true and it is something i need to work on.

Claire; "you have decisions to make" this came from a comment I made at the airport before boarding which was "I wish this weekend could have lasted forever" and that when the YHADTOM comment was made.

It is a very good thing that you are quitting the club and going absolutely NC. You need to take a hard line on this for the sake of your marriage. In this context, it's pretty clear that Claire was leaving the door open. That does not mean she was looking for true love or permanence, but she thinks that whatever makes her feel good is good, and the painful implications to your wife are not her problem. She may also be getting her jollies from the power that the A gave her over Julie. Julie tried to box Claire out, and Claire ended up on the Ultimate Sex Fantasy Weekend with you instead. That's quite a rush. You may feel a bond with Claire in part because she, like you, wants to be seen as a winner, and she absolutely crushed her rival in Seville. More disturbingly, she continues to crush it in your memory, and you have work to do to counteract that.

I think Julie's odd plan to join the club instead of demanding that you leave it was a way of re-establishing dominance: "I'm here, he's mine, and I'm not afraid of you." Unfortunately, she should be afraid of Claire, more afraid than she knows. Your minimization and fantasizing leave her very vulnerable. Speaking as a WS whose BH was near suicidal after discovering my own minimization, it is very traumatic for a BS to think they have the truth, rebuild on that foundation, and have it kicked out from under them. My BH tried to rebuild his sense of self-worth and blamed himself for weakness when his insecurities periodically resurfaced. When he finally tackled them again at mid-life, D-Day 2 dropped on him like a ton of bricks and showed him that he had been living a lie with a person he thought he could trust. Note that he already knew I had had sex with OM. I disclosed that voluntarily and immediately on D-Day 1. It was the nature of the A, the degree of sexual intensity, the undisclosed emotional component that sliced him to his core. He realized that years of his work and suffering were wasted; he discovered in horror that I had purposely withheld the facts he needed to evaluate if he even wanted to try. Please don't do that to Julie. If she asked you something and you gave her a less than honest answer, you owe it to her to rectify that now.

I know how appealing rugsweeping is. I'm probably in the top ten SI record holders for it, and that definitely is not an award anyone should want to "win." BH and I did just what you and Julie are trying to do. The mind movies on his side, and the ego-kibbling memories on mine, went unresolved and poisoned our healing. That's why I'm here at age 50 for an A that happened when I was 20. Four hours of painful conversation isn't processing; it's more like four years. I'm at year 1 for D-Day 2 -- not just a calendar year, a processing year of practically full time work. We are feeling positive about our progress, but we are nowhere near healed.

I'm really glad to see that you know that the fantasy of an A isn't reality, but just because you and Claire didn't rekindle things does not mean that holding on to those memories is safe. You have to let them go. You have to turn away and invest in your M. The longer you ruminate on the gold-drenched memory of perfection, the more damage you do to the authenticity you need to reclaim with your wife.

I understand that you're using your madhatter status to justify holding on to those memories. I did that too. But Claire was not a wonderful, compassionate solace; she was a self-involved accomplice in the destruction of the love of your life. She's the enemy, and a cheap human being. Please use the resources here to start rewiring your brain to recognize that.

[This message edited by BraveSirRobin at 7:21 AM, November 13th (Wednesday)]

BSR, thank you for your wise words and thank you for telling me your story.

The minimisation was about what we did in bed because we did just about everything some of which Julie knew i wanted but had refused me, i though if i gave her the unvarnished truth then it would be a slap in the face for her.

The holding on to memories thing is something i will just have to work on.

BW here.

i though if i gave her the unvarnished truth then it would be a slap in the face for her.

I can't tell if you ever came clean about this or not. If you continue to minimize or lie to Julie about this, you are trying to rebuild on quicksand (pretty much what BSR did to her BH decades ago). If Julie wants the truth, she gets the truth. Period. Justifying dishonesty by telling yourself it's a "slap in the face" is bullsh*t. You did it, you own it, you accept responsibility for the consequences of it.

You can't build a successful R on a foundation of lies, and minimizing is lying.

You can't build a successful R taking responsibility for yourself, and minimizing is a way of hiding what you did - from yourself, as much as from your W. There's just something powerful about saying, 'I did _____.'

Check out the threads started by old-timers who come back for help - usually, IIRC, because of TT - trickle truth.

If you truly want R, come clean, and stay clean.

And reread gmc94's and BSR's posts.

[This message edited by sisoon at 1:28 PM, November 13th (Wednesday)]

So should i just speak up and tell her or wait to see if she asks the questions again.

You approach her and say, "Hey, when we were talking about ____ before, I wasn't being honest with you. I said ____ when the truth is, _____. I'm sorry for minimizing the truth and lying to you. I want to be honest with you going forward because I believe it is important for the foundation of our relationship and our reconciliation to be honesty."

Then you avoid making excuses for why you lied and answer any questions she has about what you told her.

This is going to be difficult ffs how to you tell your wife you had anal with your AP and the best blowjob ever, how do i avoid upsetting her? How I wish i could wipe away the last two years

You see now how i wanted to avoid looking like i was boasting or flaunting this on SI

how do i avoid upsetting her?

That's something you think about before having an affair. "Avoid[ing] upsetting her" is wayward slang for trickle truth/lying/continued dishonesty.

[This message edited by ibonnie at 3:01 PM, November 13th (Wednesday)]

Yeah well your right but that does not ameliorate the issue now.

buzzy,

I have a hard time reading all these posts. Attitude and all...been there.

My AP really worked me over. She would tell me how big and hard I was (I'm average), the lingerie shows, BJ's that Pornhub would be proud of, HJ in the car, anal (she offered, not really my thing, and I knew she was not comfortable, but didn't care), she even dropped her pants on the stairs and bent over and told me to f**k her, whatever I wanted.

Powerful stuff.

Man, she was really working me. I was to be the sugar daddy so to speak.

One thing though. She always felt hollow to me. Hard to explain. Here's the thing, my wife and I have some really connected sex. She knows me, I know her. It is just that finger passing over my chest that will do it for me. That is real. We please each other.

The AP - yeah she put out a lot. But it wasn't the same.

I've a friend and she left her BH for her AP. Left a lot of wreckage behind as well. And I cna tell you the AP turned out to be no dream for her. Shit happens. What makes the difference is who stays behind to help you clean it up.

Now, throw off the bravado and tell us your real story. What do you REALLY want.

This is going to be difficult ffs how to you tell your wife you had anal with your AP and the best blowjob ever, how do i avoid upsetting her? How I wish i could wipe away the last two years

You see now how i wanted to avoid looking like i was boasting or flaunting this on SI

I'm sorry, dude, but if you think that a great blowjob and some anal impresses anyone here, or even surprises us, guess again. Nobody here is a babe in the woods, and we can all read between the lines of what "best ever" probably includes.

You can't avoid upsetting her. Hearing how great it was is going to be very upsetting. Telling her is going to be very upsetting. That is, unfortunately, the other side of "payback." The bill for your actions has come due on all sides, and the interest will just keep rolling up if you only pay the minimum.

I will add one other thing, and trust me, I'm not looking for you to post the answer here. But in most cases, sex that's classified as "best ever" is also unprotected by condoms. If that's true in your A, Julie needs to know that, too. Some STDs can be both dangerous and asymptomatic, laying dormant for years.

Here's one thing that I learnt over 27 years of marriage, the last 4 in R:

Touch toes when you're in bed. That is better than sex. We connect. We are there. We are together.

If you don't get what I'm saying, then you have your answer.

Just a different thought -

Maybe have her write down her questions and then you answer them - two ways.

she: did you ????

you: yes

She: tell me in detail

you: trying not to sound evasive - everything?

or maybe you write out your answers - one with the basics and the second with as much detail as you can recall.

thought - "Male" perspective is more towards the physical feeling and visual

Female - more oriented towards the emotional/mental stuff

If you read enough here - you will see this pattern

Good luck

Here's one thing that I learnt over 27 years of marriage, the last 4 in R:

Touch toes when you're in bed. That is better than sex. We connect. We are there. We are together.

If you don't get what I'm saying, then you have your answer.

I have been avoiding posting to this thread anymore. But I have to say - YES - the foot touching thing is a big thing at our house. When one of us is away, one always comments " Well goodnight, my toes miss your toes". I haven't heard many other people say that before I thought it was an "us" thing, but that right there is the good stuff.

hikingout,

Glad we are not the only ones!

We just connect over it. Last 4 years that is what I have come to really appreciate.

"that right there is the good stuff" - Can't agree more.

It's not that I'm unsympathetic to how awful this is. Telling my BH the truth I withheld was agonizing. But try to put yourself in her shoes. If you hadn't altered the plan, Julie was going to go up to Claire tomorrow night and apologize to her. You were going to let her go in there with Claire knowing the secret truth and Julie feeling a false security from minimization and lies. Imagine if she had heard from Claire about the anal. About your romantic runs and passionate nights. She might have disclosed it to one-up Julie, or she might have just thought that if Julie said "Buzzy told me everything," that was actually the case. Would that have been kinder, to let her be blindsided and gutted by the AP, instead of being told the truth by the man who says he wants to reconcile with her?

Even with NC, you cannot allow that private intimacy to stand with your AP while your wife sits outside alone.

MrCS, no bravado here, you guys and some self exploration hsve knocked that out of me, if anything i worried abpout damaging the progress we are making. What do i want? Certainty in my M and a quiet mind.

BSR, I have been "interegated" by Julie quite thoroughly in regard to Seville and answered truthfully except in regard to the sex part, yes i minimised.

Hi there Buzzy,

If you're still minimizing, the progress you feel like you're making is just a show. To make real progress, tell her what she wants to know. Come clean that you minimized and ask her if she wants all the details. Better yet, write out a timeline with the gory details and give it to her. Let her read them if she wants. She can process them at a rate that works for her, you don't even need to be there but be willing to answer any and all questions.

It will be hella unpleasant. It will also provide a genuine ground of authenticity from which you can hopefully begin to build a new relationship with her.

Proceed with conviction and valor.