He hasn't said a thing any WS hasn't said. Just be calm. The exposure will bring great pressure to the affair. They all say exposure is the end. Don't listen to what your alien husband says - only what he does.

Get your doctor to give you some AD's and something to help you sleep. You can get through this.

Stand firm, you did the right thing. Your H was in the wrong and he's doing his best to avoid facing his own failures.

InPain,

I hope you read ChaCha's post and all the others, it's all true.

ChaCha said
In fact, my husband treated me like an inconvenient and ugly piece of furniture. Of course, I was "in the way" of his conscience. He wanted to feel good but he couldn't feel good about what he was doing because of me. Believe me when I say EXPOSURE is best to stop and drop the Affair dead.

They all kick and scream over it but one day he will be grateful you fought for him. But your best plan is PLAN A all the Way. Pull yourself together. There's a great thread called "Need Advice: is saving this M just a fantasy?" posted by LilSis with successful plan A stuff in it. Read that. Read B0bPure*'s post called "**** Bob's Newly Betrayed Spouse MB Toolkit **** "

And as ChaCha said, Look For Posts by Ark^^!

The first post I ever read here was one by SPIDER SLAYER on one of Ark^^'s old threads. I knew after reading that, that I had come to the right place.

I've posted the links below the rest of what ChaCha said, it's worth repeating.

ChaCha said:

Bob's Newly Betrayed Spouse MB Toolkit

plan a tips and musings...get grounded here

LilSis's thread: is saving this M just a fantasy?

InPain:
Yours is one of the theads I've been following for the past month or so before I finally got up the courage to register and ask for help and advice from all the pros here. I truly hope to get to the point someday when I can offer help and advice to people like you and I, but I'm not even close. Believe me, I've screwed up much worse than you have. I've actually been sort of envious of you (I know that sounds really weird) because your WH is actually still at home and you can have regular contact with him. My WH left five months ago. You've been doing great...but I know exactly the pain you feel and how very hard it is.

All I can say is hang in there. I know it may be hard to ask for help from your family and friends (especially those times when you are up at 3 a.m., feeling desperately alone and defeated), but rest assured that you have friends and supporters here, 24/7. Keep using them, just as you have been. You can count on these people to keep you afloat. You are not alone.

10Swords was right; read my thread...the post from Resilient is excellent. That story really gave me a lot of insight.

There's nothing else I can say, but I wish I could help. Just please know that you are not alone, and my heart goes out to you.

LilSis

IP,
Don't give up. He is following the script.

You said your counselor said you are getting good advice here, right?

So, you must be.

You have really caused some cracks in the bright and shining affair fantasy. Good for you.

Start gettting your ducks in a row for plan B. Make sure you have done the best Plan A possible.

You and the little one need to go on and have the best possible holiday season. Do everything you usually do. Invite WS, but if he declines, go on and do it anyway.

I really think you need to make a phone call to the boss today. Ask them what they plan to do about this.

Hang in there.

Thank you ALL SO MUCH:

I appreciate your kind words and encouragement. Boy, do I need it. Unfortunately, I will need to make this short. My almost 2 year old son doesn't want me at the computer right now. He's making it a little difficult to type. I will come back later and respond to all of you when he falls asleep.

I thought of some more things this morning.

It was very hard to talk to him without "begging". I just REALLY want him to work on the marriage - more than anything. I just kept telling myself "don't sound desparate, don't beg", but I don't know if I succeeded or not.

I said why don't you want to try and work on our marriage for our son? He said he didn't want to stay together just for our son. I agreed, but I told him that's not what I asked him. I asked why don't you want to TRY for our son. He said he's done trying. He never got over what I did 7 years ago and he feels that he has tried for 7 years and he's done trying.

He said he's afraid to open his heart up to me again.

I asked him to do MC with me and he said no. We are going to IC though, so that's better than nothing.

He also said that I called the OW's parents to get rid of her so he would come back by default. I said no, I called them bec. I wanted to work on our marriage. I wanted to get rid of her so you (H) could focus on our marriage and that there's 2 in a marriage and not 3.

He also said that he's only been here as long as he has because of our son. What doesn't make sense to me is why stay here just for our son, but not TRY for our son. He's been here for months just for our son and doing nothing. That doesn't make any sense to me.

He said that the OW was actually thinking about leaving town. That would be SO wonderful, but I'm not getting my hopes up. When I told him why I called her parents, he said, "well, she might be leaving and I'm leaving here, so there you go". He was so cold.

Also, he did say that he was thinking about trying to work on the marriage, but then I called the OW's parents. He said he didn't tell me that bec. he didn't want to give me false hope. He said he even thought about trying after I called her parents, but then after he thought about it some more he decided not to. I couldn't believe he said that. That was part of the script for sure. But, he just doesn't get it.

I dont' know what I'm going to do if he leaves. I really feel that it's going to be "out of sight, out of mind". I'm so terrified.

I still don't know if what I did was right.

Like I said, I want to spend more time on here when my son falls asleep and respond to some of your posts. I appreciate all of you. Please keep checking in on me and giving me advice.

I sure hope I'm doing the right thing.

It's so hard because I really want to e-mail him today and "talk" to him, but I don't want to sound like I'm begging. I wish he would read "Surviving an Affair" or at least the first couple of chapters.

I don't know, I was thinking of writing something like this:

H:

I love you; I love you so much. I am not giving up on us. Please give us one more chance. I know you first said that you wanted to work on the marriage, but you wanted to remain friends with her. Not only was this hurtful to hear, but it's impossible. You are asking to do the impossible. You can't work on your marriage while having the person that you had an affair with in your life. That's like saying you want to go to the moon, but you don't want to ride a spaceship. But, you still expect to go to the moon. That is an impossible thing. This is such a dumb example, but it's all I could think of. I'm just trying to make you understand that you can't see her because it's impossible, not because I want to make you miserable.

Please open your heart to me one more time. Please don't be afraid of getting hurt again. I would NEVER hurt you like I did 7 years ago. I would never even come close to hurting you like that again, I promise. I have learned a lot about relationships and I just hope you understand that I don't want the marriage that we had either. I want to make it better. I want to make it the best marriage it could ever be. I think that's possible. I'm not saying it's going to be easy, it's not. It's going to be a lot of hard work for both of us. That's something we are both guilty of, I don't think we worked on our marriage on a daily basis. We can do this. We've invested so much time into ourselves. Please don't throw in the towel on us. Please try for ______________(DS) and for us. We've meant too much to each other not to give it everything that WE have. We can be great together - we've already proved that once. We can be even better with some work.


I don't know. What do you think of that? Help!? I feel like I need to reach out in some way to him today.

So much for being short. My son is having a fit!

Thank you and I'll check back later.

In P - please read the end of my post from yesterday. I listed a few things that my FWW has said to me in the past and now how she feels.

Your sitch is no different than others here and there is a path out of this.


M2L

IP,

Quit trying to reason w/ him.

He's full of crap when he tells you that it was your exposing to the OW mother that convinced him to give up on your M....all of what he's telling you in hog wash!

Stop listening to him.

It's NOT your fault that he's having an A.

No marriage is ever perfect.

If he was soooooo unhappy w/ you, he should have D you, instead he chose to have an A.

Well, you have choices too.

You can sit there and worry about what may happen tomorrow or you can make TODAY count!

Get the Christmas tree yourself.

Try to put it in the stand yourself.

I bet you CAN do it!

If you have trouble, call a neighbor, a friend, or a family member to give you a hand.

You've got to begin to show yourself that no matter what the future holds you will be OK.

You will make it.

~ Marsh

Hi in pain-

I was kind of like your husband. My husband cheated on me, then years later I cheated on him. I don't reccommend that!! But I know where he's coming from.

You are doing all the right things- don't stop and don't give up. It took 4 years for me to see that my husband is sincerely a different man now and our marriage is worth recovering.

I wanted to comment on your proposed letter to your husband where you state:


It will sound better and more sincere if you can identify what caused your own affair to happen in the first place and if you can specifically list what you have changed about yourself to prevent any future affairs. Simply saying "I changed" and "I promise" are vague and he might not think you are being genuine. If you can list specifics he might respond better (although it might not be obvious to you- these things take a lot of time).

Hang in there!!

IP,

I have a couple of points for you.

First, don't send him that email. That comes across as begging. That is not part of plan A. He knows you are trying to save the marriage. He knows all of what you put on the email. You will just push him away more.

Secondly, I think this affair is in death throws right now. Your exposure to OW's parents seems to have struck a chord. Otherwise, you WH wouldn't complain about it so much. The OW might move now because of the pressure you put on the affair. He feels like he is losing her, and he is taking it out on you. I'm sure he is moving out to show her, "see, it's over between me and IP, we can still be "friends," please don't leave." He wants to keep both. Right now you are a "sure thing" and he is losing the OW. Don't be such a "sure thing" (like sending the email) and he might be afraid to lose you as well. Just act like you are moving on with your life with or without him.

THE MORE THE WS THROWS A FIT AND MAKES THREATS, THE MORE EFFECTIVE EXPOSURE WAS AT ENDING THE AFFAIR. THE LOUDER THE WS GETS, THE CLOSER TO THE END OF THE AFFAIR!

You are winning the war, IP. Keep the faith.

I second Jim's post - don't send the email.

IP... you have to stop beating yourself up and worrying about what the future holds. Today is the tomorrow that you worried about yesterday. Let the future take care of itself by making good decisions as to how to lead YOUR life today.
In reality, your H has no justification for having his A. But he does have a reason for not wanting to stay married to you. As you have found out, an A causes a lot of damage and for some people that NEVER goes away. If he is unable to open his heart to you again, it will be best for you two to go your seperate ways. I do not condone your H's affair... but I understand it in a way (that is if he is being honest and is afraid to be close to you). There are some people that cannot survive an A in a healthy fashion.... they would be better off moving on. If your H is one of those people, you need to let him go.... but he needs to be honest with you.
I would sit him down and ask him some questions...
do you really feel that after what happened 7 years ago that you cannot be close to me?
are you really ready to let go of the marriage as a result of that... or is it a matter of you not having the skill set to move beyond that?

*** have you EVER blamed you ex for what you did 7 years ago? If you got physical with this person... you had sex... it may not have been intercourse... but it was sex.

It's time for you to take control of what you can fix. Stop focusing so much on him and realize that while you want to work on your M and save your family... that you will be okay if it ends. You need open and honest answers from your H and should act accordingly based on those answers. If he truly wants out because he cannot love and trust in you because of what happened 7 years ago... I say that you two let each other go.

You need to find yourself in all of this... your inner strength... the part of you that will survive no matter what tomorrow brings. I hope that you both find the strength to save your marriage... but if not... then the strength to save yourselves.

Good call, M2L. I'll tell you what I tell my WW, "I'm always right." Wait, maybe that is why I am posting here?

Based on you saying you got physical with a male friend 7 years ago, I am confused by this statement. You also have waited a long time before exposing this here and seem to downplay its significance. What did you do with this "friend?" Do you EVER have any communication with this "friend?" Have you been 100% honest with your husband about your actions?

There are a lot of questions to be answered about your past acts that will make giving you advice as to how to proceed that much easier.

She said she broke off all contact with the OM and told her WH, but her WH is now using it as justification for his own affair.

IP, this is likely just another excuse to justify his A, and likely has nothing to do with your current situation, so I wouldn't dwell on it.

This advice is dead on.

Do NOT send that email. It really does sound pathetic and begging, even though I know you don't mean it that way. Do Not Send It!

Yes, he is screaming because what you did WORKED.

And they ALL say stuff like, "I was going to work on the marriage but I won't now that you've exposed the affair blah blah blah." It's meant to threaten and bully you. Don't let it.

He is punishing you by ignoring you at Christmas. Don't fall for this, either. He WANTS you to be upset and frantic so he knows he's still running the show and can do what he wants. If you can stay calm and collected (at least in front of him,) it will totally blow what's left of his mind.

Don't give up. Stop letting him frighten you. He's counting on it.
Mulan

Do I get my "MB pro" card in the mail now?

I like your previous advice about not sending the email too Jim but I have a different opinion about this:



I do think it is relevant. She has the opportunity to learn a lot about marriage, forgiveness, and trust if she thinks about her own past in the context of her husband's present affair.

IP,
I agree that he is using this to jusity his affair. You did everything right in coming clean and never having contact again.

It as been 7 years- you two had been building a good marriage. You had gone through a lot with the pregnancies, etc.

If this was a revenge affair, it would probably have happened much earlier.

Had this even come up in your counseling sessions?

I think he is just digging and digging trying to put the blame of the affair on you.

DO NOT accept that.

First, another NO WAY!! on that note. For crying out loud that's not going to do anything but convince him he's in the right, while you bend over.

Begging is not attractive ever.

Second, if this was due to what you did back then, he sure waited too long to act on it. I'm not buying. He's justifying and you're allowing it.

He loved you enough to continue in the marriage for YEARS and even have a child with you, after that episode. All tells me it may have contributed to the poor state of your marriage but did not give him a valid reason to enter into the Affair.

Turn the tables like this: I know that you forgave me and stayed with me and we continued our marriage after that horrible mistake I made, and I'm willing to do the same for you now.

IP STOP PLAYING THE VICTIM! It's not necessary and it will hurt your cause. You have years of good behavior after what you did. Count on that, because it Does Count!

PLAN A! PLAN A! PLAN A!

That means quit begging, adopt a cheerful demeanor, be a beautiful good wife, be a Lighthouse! Somewhere around here is a list of good concrete examples of behaviors that will help, like "Don't wallow in your pain, Exercise, Pamper yourself, Get out and have fun..." something like that. Does anyone have that list?


I cannot agree more!