My ‘Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda’ List

Posted on 15. Feb, 2010 by Linda in Dealing with Infidelity, Save Your Marriage

When you are faced with a spouse involved in an emotional affair there is really no textbook way to navigate through the pain and emotions that exist as you try to save your marriage.

Most advice out there is very good, and as you have come to learn, most affairs follow the same patterns and characteristics. However, because every situation is different it is difficult to know for sure what path to take and what works and what doesn’t. And since it is such an emotional time, your vision may become blurred so that you have difficulty really seeing the whole picture clearly.

It took me over a year to really look back at everything objectively and think about what I did, what worked and what I wish I would have done differently when recovering from an affair. So here is my “woulda, coulda, shoulda” list:

1. Pray. There were nights when I was in such physical and emotional pain that I really didn’t think I could face another day. So I started saying the rosary. I would repeat the same prayer over and over until I would eventually calm down and fall asleep. I would wake up the next day with a renewed strength to get through the day.

2. Don’t isolate yourself from everyone. When I first found out that Doug was unhappy in our marriage I was an emotional wreck. I didn’t want my family, friends and colleagues to see me that way. I was afraid to be

around them for fear they would see the pain in my eyes. So I stopped spending time with my parents, stopped eating in the teacher’s lounge and cut down on the time I spent being with my children. In some ways I didn’t want them to know because I didn’t want to look like a failure. I also didn’t want them to know because I was protecting Doug. I didn’t want them to see him in a bad light. Thinking back, the choice to isolate myself was so stupid. For one, I shouldn’t have tried to protect Doug. At the time he began the affair, we both were not doing a very good job at meeting each other’s needs. I felt just as unloved, ignored and bored as he did. However he made the choice to begin an emotional affair with someone else. He gave up the right for protection. Secondly, by isolated myself from others I was missing out on opportunities to feel better about myself. When you are surrounded by people who love and respect you it is inevitable that you will feel positive about yourself.

3. Don’t expect your spouse to support or reassure you. Doug had always been my go to person. He was my best friend and he was always the one that I depended on to make everything better. When I first began this journey I continued to rely on him. However it just didn’t happen. He wasn’t emotionally able to do that for me. By continuing to ask for support, I was pushing him away and confusing him even more. This is when I should have stepped back and found a trusted friend, counselor or someone to guide me through this.

4. Get angry. Since I truly found out about Doug’s affair in chunks, I really didn’t have the opportunity to get angry. I really just wanted to process the information and move on. I didn’t want to rock the boat. I didn’t want him to see me in a bad light. Looking back I should have really let him have it. I should have told him how I really felt. There were plenty of things I was thinking but I just kept them to myself. Unfortunately, they surfaced many, many months later when we were really making progress in our efforts to save our marriage. When they did, Doug had a hard time handling my delayed anger and therefore wasn’t very receptive to it. So let your spouse have it immediately, then try to let it go.

5. Be you. When I first found out about the emotional affair, I wondered what I should do or how I could change to help save our marriage. Doug would say to me “just be you.” I didn’t understand that. I thought he obviously didn’t love me since he was with someone else, so why would “being me” help the situation? You have to believe that your spouse fell in love with you because of YOU. What your spouse fell out of love with was the relationship and the state that the relationship was in at that time. Try making your spouse feel like he is the most important person to you, like you did when you first met, then there is a good chance he can regain some of those lost feelings and fall back in love with you again. The other person would then become insignificant.

6. Learn all you can about relationship and affairs. I dedicated every free moment I had to searching and reading everything I could about relationships, affairs and how to save my marriage. It gave me some kind of control. I highly recommend that you do the same thing. However, I have to warn you to not let it consume your life. I spent way too much time on the internet, and in the bathroom secretly reading affair books. Take some time for you. Read a trashy novel, search how to do something new, find something else to take your mind off the situation. Additionally, if you begin reading something that makes you feel uncomfortable or hopeless then STOP! Sometimes I would get on forums and feel so defeated and began to second guess my actions.

7. Don’t try to control the situation. I stopped going shopping and spending time away from home for fear that when I left Doug alone he would be on the phone with Tanya. I followed him around every second of the day thinking I could stop him from contacting her. I eventually learned how stupid that was. He was going to contact her no matter what. I believed I could stop the affair. Now I know there was nothing I could have done to change the course of their relationship. It was all in Doug’s hands and he had to make the choice. I also should have believed the books that I read and should have been more confident in knowing that most affairs end after the fantasy involved runs its course and dies out.

8. Demand cell phone, email, Facebook etc. passwords. Most emotional affairs (and sexual affairs) depend a lot on communicating through these channels since getting together in person can sometimes be very difficult. It took me more than four months to finally see our cell phone bill. When I would ask for the password, Doug would become very defensive and turn the situation back on me. He would imply that I didn’t trust him, or I was being crazy, and would say things like: “What kind of wife was I?” He was good at changing the subject and acting very attentive and caring so I would just dismiss it for awhile, and since I didn’t want to rock the boat, I would let it go. If I would have seen the cell phone bills from the very beginning I would have had solid proof that they weren’t “just friends” and that it was much more serious than I ever imagined. I would have totally changed the way I reacted to this situation. I also believe that I could have saved myself a lot of pain.

So there you have it. I’m sure there are other things that I “coulda” or “shoulda” added to the list. Perhaps some of you might have some that you can think of. If so, we would love to hear about them. Take care!

Emotional Affairs Suck!

After an Emotional Affair: Are You Acting the Same?

Easy Ways to Become 'Exciting Roommates'

Tags: emotional affair, Emotional Affairs, Recovering from an affair, save my marriage, save our marriage, Save Your Marriage, stop the affair

12 Responses to “My ‘Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda’ List”

Tammy
15. Feb, 2010
It’s been 5 months since I found out about the affair and he continues to contact her via text & phone, sometimes talking several times a day for hours. He started individual counseling last week and says he wants to work on us but can’t give her up yet. He is attentive and caring to me and if I didn’t know thru cell records he is still involved, I’d never know.
How long did you wait for the affair to end? I feel like I’m being so stupid for letting him get thru it his way but we are so good together, I know we can make it work. Am I giving him permission to prolong the affiar by trying to ignore it, which I don’t do a very good job of, and at what point to you give an ultimatum to end it or leave?
Any insight would be much appreciated.
Reply to this comment
- admin
  16. Feb, 2010
  Your situation sounds very similar to mine. It took a very long time, perhaps five months or more before I really found out what was going on. Before that time there were a lot of half truths, denials and lies. I really didn’t understand the seriousness of their relationship until that time. When I finally did see the phone logs, Doug had told me it was over. That he was not in contact with her. Later I found out differently that they still contacting each other. It took me a long time to finally say, “I am not sharing you with anyone.” You have to make your decision– her or me.
  In my mind I had set a time for how long I would wait before I felt Doug was making an effort to save our marriage. Finally I told him that I was planning a trip to Florida with my friends. When I get back I was going to make my decision to stay in the marriage or leave. At that time I felt Doug really wanted our marriage to work and was confident that he had ended the affair. In your situation, I feel that your husband’s initiative to go to counseling is a huge positive. You have to understand that your husband is confused and by talking to a neutral party will hopefully help him to see everything more realistically. In our situation the only person Doug talked to about how he was feeling was Tanya. I am pretty confident that she was not able to give him unbiased advice or look at the situation with an open mind. My hope for you is that counseling may really help your husband, and during that time I would try to be as patient and understanding as possible. He is making an effort to do what is best for your relationship. Eventually he may want you to be included in his counseling sessions.
  Reply to this comment
Michael
16. Feb, 2010
Tammy,
It depends on what you feel in your heart, and what kind of history you share with your husband. I found out two and a half months ago. The communication between them began about a month before that. He had been looking for her for a while. He had left messages on classmates. Some were before and some during his current, and third, marriage. And to my knowledge it ended about a month ago or so. But as I’ve said before, I’m not quite sure if she didn’t just get better at hiding it. But I am very thankful that my wife did know what she was doing was wrong. She told me about it and was confused on what she wanted to do. She shared a history, and tragedy, with him from her high school days. But, that was eighteen years ago, and we have been together for over thirteen and have two children together.
I never put it as an ultimatum. I grew more and more frustrated at her lack of understanding of the impact it had on me. I finally asked her to make a decision on her own. Continue her love affair and move forward in life without me, or finish it and move toward one that included her family that she was contemplating leaving. I expressed that I would help her with whatever her decision was. At that point I sought only her happiness and piece of mind for me.
I still don’t see willingness in her to understand and work on what happened. I see more of a want to make it disappear like it never happened. To get back to the way it was. But if it wasn’t good enough to keep her from doing this, why would it keep her from doing it again. There is a long road of recovery ahead on both our parts. But at least I feel that we are on the same road now. She just may be a little behind me, or not.
Reply to this comment
Darla
25. Feb, 2010
My husband is ready to divorce me because I communicated with a guy I dated in High School on Facebook. We emailed each other on and off for about 2 weeks. I never had any intention of getting together with this guy. As chance would have it, the day I had intended to tell my husband because I had felt guilty, the guy’s wife hysterically calls him at work making all sorts of accusations. I called the guy twice and we chatted about what each of us had been up to over the last 40 years. That’s it! Yeah, I’m guilty for not telling my husband right away and I lied to him about a phone number on the bill but I never slept with this guy even though my husband thinks I did. I’m not so sure if he’ll ever forgive me or is willing to save our 11 1/2 year marriage.
Reply to this comment
konan
04. Dec, 2010
i cant get 2 and 7 as we moved a year ago and dont make friends easy the only person i know is her best friend so im stuck at home ive asked her to respect my home so i can go to work but she says she cant promise he wont enter my home when im away so they can be together
Reply to this comment
- Doug
  04. Dec, 2010
  Why don’t you go join a gym, or a church or something like that where you can get out and do some things, or just get out and take a walk, anything to make your feel better about yourself. I used to spend a lot of time at the bookstore reading everything I could about affairs, relationships. Just do whatever you can to make you feel better about yourself and to take your mind off the situation. I made the mistake of being afraid to leave Doug alone for fear he would contact Tanya. I know now that I couldn’t control what he did and by constantly trying to babysit him made me look even more insecure. Focus on yourself and stop worrying about what your wife is doing. Linda
  Reply to this comment
konan
04. Dec, 2010
Any advice needed
Reply to this comment
teresita
30. Apr, 2011
Hi Linda,
Your website is a Godsend!. You mentioned about demand passwords and cell phone in comp and facebook… i did this and my husband did the things your Doug did. But he still wont give it me, so what will I do?.
Also tonight is my wedding anniversary and we are dining out together . His agreement to do this is a complete surprised for me. So what will I say on this day?
Reply to this comment
- Bewildered
  11. Aug, 2011
  This very thing happened to me….getting those records would have have saved over a year of insanity. Verizon for instance only goes back a year so don’t wait another minute longer. DEMAND them!!!!
  Reply to this comment
- Bewildered
  11. Aug, 2011
  Have a nice evening tonight and DEMAND them tomorrow.
  Reply to this comment
suziesuffers
01. May, 2011
Reading this list of things that in retrospect might have gone different, seems idealistic of how we might be able to change things as we are processing through the affair pain. But it seems that regardless of what we do, the process is about the same for all of us. Sure, we all demand passwords, emails and get then get the same defensive conversations from our CS and the same loving gestations to distract us from the discussion. We all read as much as we can and become obsessive in trying to find out how to save the marriage while our husbands sit back. We all seem to compare ourselves to the OW. The CS all seem to be in a fog. They seem to all say they love us but aren’t in love with us. They have found someone that makes them happy. We all worry about what they are still hiding and maybe contacting the OW. Being angry upfront…. I appreciate this list more for the “what I went through and wish could have been different, but I’m human”….than something that we might be able to do differently. Grieving and healing take a certain course, and the CS seems to take about the same course as the BS in almost everyone of these stories, so I’m not sure we have the power to change what the could, would and should happen.
Reply to this comment
suziesuffers
01. May, 2011
Teresita, have a wonderful evening. At some level I am sure you are thrilled he made this gesture, at another level, I know I had a hard time acting joyous because I hurt inside, and I also didn’t want him to see me having too good a time as if this was going to let him off the hook. That was some of the problem, he always acted as if one large gesture would “repay” the hurt and it would be all over and everything would be A..OK again….and I didn’t want him to use this as the gesture to get off the hook……but I think most importantly you need to have a good time and show him that you can have fun with him. I know that’s what my husband was looking for when he planned something….could he enjoy being with me…..of course, we might all go to that place….is he enjoying being with me more than the OW…is he comparing how much he enjoyed being with the OW to me. Don’t worry about that!! Just enjoy and remember how this use to feel…….A long time ago when the two of you just had fun, there will be plenty of time to work through the affair stuff…..But all work and no play makes for a very dull marriage….so have a wonderful time. If you are already intimate, then share your love….if not, you may want to tell him how much you appreciate everything he is doing, but you are still not ready for an intimate relationship. …you don’t want him going through the whole evening thinking this is the “forgiveness” gesture so he is “getting something”….and then end the evening in an angry disappointed mood. Let him know before the evening begins…..if things change by the end of the evening, then go with it….. Have a wonderful evening…..and just HAVE FUN tonight…
Reply to this comment

My ‘Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda’ List

Related posts:

12 Responses to “My ‘Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda’ List”

Leave a Reply

Connect with us!

Categories

All of our posts

Blogroll