SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

A spouse's actions, demeanor, attitude, etc may create an unhappy marriage BUT that does not mean he/she caused an affair. Yes, you being a bad spouse may make your spouse more inclined to look elsewhere BUT he/she makes the CHOICE to cheat.

He/she ALWAYS had the option to leave and then start up with someone new.

Any therapist that says or implies that the BS shares the blame for an affair is no therapist.

Early on my wife said "Placing blame doesn't help, we are both at fault." She never made the mistake of saying that again after hearing my response

"After The Affair" by Spring has some nuggets in it, but yes, it unfortunately plays badly into blame shifting. Her other book "How Can I Forgive You" is significantly better but is also a further into reconciliation type of book.

Personally I really like "Not Just Friends" by Shirley Glass and "How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair" by Linda MacDonald. "What makes love last" by Gottman is pretty good, but it is my understanding it discourages digging for details of the sex acts. This wasn't particularly pertinent to my conditions.

Hi Theevent,

I am really sorry you are here and you have joined this sad club. I understand your concerns and I am willing to express my opinion as a betrayed spouse myself who reconciliated with my husband after a very long affair.

We went to couple therapy for about 10 months, which for me was already a HUGE EFFORT from my husband since he is the kind of person who would have never seen a therapist and doesn't believe in psychology. He said he felt so useless in helping me and I had proposed it, so he wanted to give it a shot. He wasn't FULLY honest and sincere and that is the problem. He wanted to appear better than he was and he fooled the therapist in a sense. Our therapist was quite young, it was not wasted time, but he should and could have been better. We didn't discuss the affair with him much. He offered individual sessions to my husband and to myself so I assume they might have discussed it between them. In our sessions we focused on us as a couple, how to make new memories, we discussed how to improve our communication, how to say tings openly without hurting each other with our words, we analysed the time between sessions according to the tools he had given us. So I don't think it is wrong not to discuss the affair in depth, you really want to focus on the here and now and the future. We went to him knowing we wanted to try and fix our relationship and that is what we did. Unfortunately I was sensing things weren't completely as they seemed, there was something I could not explain but my guts told me there was more and my husband wasn't completely open and honest, but he didn't dig deep enough, therefore HE WAS WRONG and he did not address certain issues that were really important!! But I guess they are human beings, too and therefore perfection is not to be expected.

My husband and I discussed the affair many times and I asked so many questions and he was always patient and available to give me an answer. He also mentioned he felt neglected, I was focussed too much on work and he felt we were drifting away, but he also aid to me I never really disappointed him, he made a choice and takes full responsibility for it.
I have to say it was not easy at that time to support me as it wasn't easy for me to support him. Had we become depressed at different times it could have happened differently but we ended up in depression at the same time (bad timing!!) For very different reasons we were individually in depression and it is not an easy thing per se to help a depressed and stressed person, let alone if both of us were. So he selfishly thought about a "solution" for himself and stopped being a team mate. The rest is history.

As I said it was not wasted time our couple therapy but it could have been more useful. Reconciliation happened but some issues were dragged for a long time because my husband didn't go to therapy, if he had I am sure things would have been a lot easier and faster to solve.

I hope my reply to you helps. I wish you all the best in your hard journey to happiness.

[This message edited by Fantastic at 12:02 AM, Tuesday, October 8th]

But then theres the blame thing she is doing which is really hard for me.

The more I think about it (and read posts on SI), the more I agree that this affair is 100% her fault.

I have seen this now and I am trying to make a point here.

I STRONGY believe that betrayal is a form of emotional abuse.

Now in a physical abuse, would ANYONE ever shift the blame on the abused person? Would anyone accept one saying "He/she behaved in such a way that all I could do was beat him/her up"? Would any court accept anything like that? Ok, there is self defence but can it be applied to a marriage in trouble especially if the other spouse was never informed there were issues? Often betrayal happens in marriages that seem to work. When the cheater accuses the betrayed spouse of things, most times after the affair it is the first time they hear that!!

[This message edited by Fantastic at 12:16 AM, Tuesday, October 8th]