SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

WH has been recommended this book by the IC he has seen once so far. (As he works away a lot, there's a month or so between the first and second session.)

WH has read some of it and suggested we discuss the bits he found interesting/useful so far, which seem to revolve around avoiding things becoming an argument. After reading the synopsis of this book it seems to me that it concentrates on strategies for a couple to use in order to deal with stress, work, children, etc. Well, we have never ever before had big disagreements on anything, until his A was coming to light. The problems we are having now are solely caused by his A, other inappropriate behavior, and 20 years of lies and TT. I actually feel offended that he isn't reading something to assist with that, and is instead looking at how we should communicate better.

Is it worth me discussing/reading this book with him, bearing all that in mind, or will it just piss me off?!? Thanks for any opinions.

[This message edited by Hickoryapple at 7:17 AM, March 17th (Sunday)]

One strength of the book is that the authors describe the behaviors of couples that last. If I had read it soon after d-day, I would have stressed less about R, because we pretty much did the lasting stuff.

If you don't do the lasting stuff now, the book tells you what to change.

I think it's a worthwhile read. IIIRC, it's actually a pretty easy read, too, so I don't think it will take much time for you to figure out if it's useful to you.

If he likes John Gottmann's take on things, I would read "What Makes Love Last" instead because it actually discusses infidelity and how to heal from it. I read it with my ex, and after he realized how much work it was going to be to heal our relationship, he realized it wasn't worth it for him and we finally got on the road to separation instead of half-assed false reconciliation.

I looked at that book on amazon Hawke, and it looks very good, and appropriate to our situation. I can't get it on kindle here, so I'm going into the city later this week to pick up a copy.

Such a shame your ex CBA putting the work in, just from reading about it - there must have been a lot he needed to work on! Although you're better off without him if he CBA! WS has only read pretty gentle things so far, so I wonder if it will put him off too. I hope he's at least as honest about it as your ex, in that case, and doesn't waste any more of my life.

The book isn't super-severe on WS, but it does make it clear that healing from infidelity requires full disclosure and a lot of work on the WS' part to rebuild trust.

There are quizzes you take throughout the book, and the results demonstrated to him that it was going to take a lot of consistent effort over a long period of time to regain my trust and that I wasn't entirely sure I should bother.

I was glad to get to that point, though, so that we could separate, and I could get on with my life. We managed to do things pretty civilly and, with a few bumps in the road, manage to co-parent OK.