Right BK, that's is what I was thinking...Here's what really baffles me though, and I very sincerely would like to understand...When you had the Dday in the fall of 2005 SC, why didn't you just come clean with it ALL??? Why would you wait another YEAR to tell your husband about the ONS? Why didn't you rip the bandaid off all at once?

Does your husband still question whether or not something else is going to surface? I would imagine that he does...How is your husband doing with all of this SC?

Mrs. W

Dear Smartcookie, I know you didn’t imply or believe it was an excuse for anything…and I’m SO sorry if I gave you the impression in my post to you yesterday that I thought that way about you. It was not the case at all. I was only giving my POV about it the topic in GENERAL and because I KNOW there are many people out there who will use their own pain which originates from an unfortunate childhood and/or traumatic/painful experiences from their past as an excuse, rationalization or justification for destructive human behavior towards themselves and others.

Smartcookie, I also believe ANY person (now matter how big a crime or sin they’ve committed) are worthy of compassion (and other things like forgiveness etc.) IF they are willing to change, repent and take full responsibility for their actions. But if a person is NOT willing to do those things, it’s a totally different story… Not even God forgive a person if they don’t repent and seek His forgiveness... Let me tell you this, if my father and his brother had never repented and seeked my forgiveness about the sexual abuse they’ve committed against me, then I don’t know if I could have EVER eventually forgave them and develop compassion for them… I doubt I would… I tried that for YEARS and could never reach that point…untill I confronted them a few years ago and told them EXACTLY what their actions did to me…and after they've shown regret and seeked my forgiveness.

I don’t know Smartcookie…maybe you are a much better and forgiving person than me…and maybe I’m wrong…I don’t know…but I think if I was in YOUR shoes…and if my brother and mother have NEVER repented and at least apologized to me…I don’t know if I would have ever been able to feel compassion for them. I can somewhat understand (in a twisted way) that what your mother said to you was out of pain, but I can’t comprehend that a person can do something like SEXUAL ABUSE TO AN INNOCENT CHILD out of pain…I don’t believe that for one minute…just as I can’t believe a person can commit CRIMES like rape etc. to another human being out of pain.

Although I understand (through personal experience) how people can get involved in actions like infidelity, substance abuse etc. unintentionally and not make a conscious decisions from the start to cheat/get addicted to a person or substances (think about the frog in the water analogy and thread “15 steps of unfaithfulness” where it is explained how people can get involved into adultery one tiny step at a time where the conscience is gradually seared), this is not the case with CRIMES like sexual child abuse, rape, murder etc. AT ALL. Those crimes are committed with a CLEAR intent from the start and can NEVER happen unintentionally IMO. MEDC gave some examples of cases where people sometimes commit crimes like abuse or murder because of exceptional personal curcumstances, so I just want to mention that I'm not talking about such exceptions and circumstances, but cases where people commit crimes towards pure innocent victims.

And although I believe that some people might be in pain before they cheat and that some of their actions might therefore originate from pain (on some level this was the case with me too due to my unresolved childhood issues at the time), I don’t believe this is always the case. Here I can agree with Melody and MEDC that sometimes people just cheat because they are plainly immoral, selfish, without integrity and have NO consideration for what their choices and actions will do to others (or even themselves). Long ago I’ve posted the following and I still believe it to be true:


Hopes this post explain my POV a little better!

Take care Smartcookie.

Changing a mindset held for years is a process, and I believe sc is in the process of changing hers.

On having empathy for the WS/OP:

Why would one want to empathise with a WS/OP? How could that possibly be productive or helpful? I don't want to understand what makes someone make stupid, hurtful, shortsighted choices.

I want to understand what makes people who are succesful in their lives, succesful.

"Seek to understand that which you would become"

If you were going to build a boat, you would study what makes things float, not what makes things sink.

That's the reason I have never been to boards like gloryb. I can't see any good coming from learning to understand those people.

SC, I once had compassion and empathy for a coworker who was stalking me in Reno, and it almost got me killed. Any person who was thinking correctly would have called the cops and put a stop to it immediately. Not me. I felt sorry for him. It was stupid and childish thinking on my part.

Do you see the correlation, sc? Do you see that you cannot identify with people making stupid choices? You have to call it like it is.

And the kindest, smartest thing that anyone could ever do for someone making bad choices is to be brutely honest with them. It will eventually start to weaken their fogged out, wrong thinking. Even if they leave, you better believe that they will be taking some of the truth they have read from the people posting to them, with them.

Isn't that what you would want for them? Isn't that the kindest, most compassionate thing to do?

Hiya Suzet <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />


Great explanation. Over and over on here, I see people who confuse reason with excuse. Those are two English words with multiple definitions. Because someone has a reason (real, imagined real or made up as a lie), doesn't mean they have an excuse or are excused from responsibility. Yet pointing out a reason can often result in near hate mail around here depending on who does it, or at least confusion.

"The dog ate my homework," is a reason, not an excuse. It may be a lie, self delusion or real, it is still a reason but never an excuse for not turning in homework.


I want to quibble with you on that just a bit, sorry.

Suzet, people DO make tiny decisions along the path of addiction or an affair. Yet this is also where so many people who think in black and white terms get it wrong. Those addicted persons may not have INTENDED to go where they ended up, yet the black/white crowd thinks they did.

If you fully develop Harley's simple concept, you got it; Affairs are a failure to protect one's weaknesses.

Everyone is at a party and someone offers a hit. The guy with the great eyes uses them your way. There are cookies on the fridge and they are meant to be eaten, right? Those are three examples of tiny steps, just like you said, but they ARE decisions, choices and a failure to protect weaknesses, unmet needs or yearnings for something like peer approval, attention or to fill up an empty stomach.

What they may or may not be is; "He/she did it on purpose," meaning they did it to hurt me. Critters don't care if they hurt people and often set out to do just that, but most people aren't critters.

In other words, they may or may not have done it on purpose depending on the level of critterness in the person. My wife didn't INTEND to harm me when she allowed the OM to hold her hand. I didn't INTEND for them to have an affair when I said I thought it was great she liked my relative. Like they say, the road to ****** is often paved with good intentions. Neither of them intended to harm me; well, she didn't, the jury is still out on him. Yet I was harmed and the family almost destroyed. While there were reasons she did what she did, there are no excuses. What she did was fail to protect her weaknesses, what he did was exploit those weaknesses because of his own.

See what I mean? And I am not picking on YOU, I am picking on the misunderstandings that abound on this forum. And we all do it.

Larry

Weaver:

Question:


Did you mean "brutely" honest, or possibly "bluntly" honest?

Larry

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Well, there is one person here this a.m., giving advice no less, that in her case brutal may have been more effective than blunt. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

Busy day ahead. Don't want anyone to think I ran away. Just time for some very simple, cursory answers.

The easier stuff first...

MF,
Thank you so much for that post. I understand. And I'm sorry.

Suzet,
I have never discussed any of this with my mother or brother. And I may never. My brother was a child at the time, too. Althogh I'm quite sure he knew it was wrong, you can't hold him to the same standards as an adult who molests a child. My mother was just plain ignorant.

Weaver,
If everybody decided they were going to avoid/not have compassion for people making bad choices, nobody would ever reach out to help them. Then where would this world be? I know of a 13 year old girl who raises money all year long so she can put together care packages for the women in the local correctional facility at Christmas. Obviously, the women aren't in there b/c of their good deeds. But... you should see some of them break down, bawling like babies, when she walks in there with the gifts. Is her yearly act of kindness going to turn their lives around? No. But they are so very touched that someone CARES... it may be the first time in a long time ANYONE has managed to crack some of these womens' hard shells. So maybe it's a start. I really do hear what your saying about letting people get away with bad behavior, and how it's not really compassionate at all. But you can't expect people to "snap-to" immediately either. As you say, it's a process.


Alph,
Sorry about the passive/aggressivness. I'm feeling a little under attack here, and I resent innuendo in the form of questions. Anyway, I wasn't talking about BS's interaction with THEIR OWN WS at all. I wasn't trying to control anyone's posting style. I have no interest in defending OP's. I was talking about a strategy for posters to address WW who come HERE to this board. That's all. I was thinking specifically of W's who are here w/o their B's. Ws & Bs who post here together are a whole 'nother ball game. And BS's who post here alone are free to rail against OP as much as they want w/o a care as to how WS reacts.

As for your points about how hard it is for a BS to stand there and listen to their WS crapola when the BS is hurting like he!!... I can't even imagine how painful, difficult, excruciating that must be. And I believe I have expressed that sentiment to a few BSs on here and encouraged them to hang in there. Brilliant! IMO. Sure, there comes a time when every WS->FWS must face the truth. But to expect a WS to be able to do it the first few times she posts here isn't logical, IMO.

Exposure -- yup, I have problems w/ it. More specifically, the way I often see it carried out here. But it's not applicable to my situation. No personal experience with it (my H was actually angry with ME for telling someone about the A). Not gonna go down that road anymore.

BK,
No more surprises. All cards are on the table. (But if you're so convinced that I'm fogbound... I suspect you won't believe me anyway, so why ask the question?)

Mrs. W,
It's complicated and I hesitate to give a half-baked answer but that's all I have time for right now. If you recall the circumstances of D-day #1, several things had happened so fast, I was sort of in a state of shock.

Over the course of about 4 weeks: After a brief but intense 6-week afair, OM dumped me... so I crashed hard from that. Felt like I was losing my mind. Decided to tell Mr. C I wanted to split up (you'll remember we had lots of other probs in our marriage). Was SHOCKED by his response -- that he wanted to work it out, was sorry for his part, wanted to go to MC. We started MC. He confessed to his porn problem. I found MB. You all urged me to tell him about the A, and finally convinced me, but I accidentally left the computer on when I took the kids out trick-or-treating. He came home from work, saw the posts, and when I got home he (very lovingly) confronted me. My head was spinning. I hadn't even had time to prepare for the moment. I could barely think... much less think rationally that it would be better to get it all out right then and there.

The ONS was pretty deeply buried under several layers of denial (necessary, in my experience, in order to keep a nasty secret that long) so it took a long time for my IC to even drag it out of me. Once he did, though, I told my husband that same night.

Does Mr. C suspect there are more surprises? I can't speak for him but I've told him that's all there is to tell, which is the truth. And he says he beleives me. He's handling it the same way he handled D-day #1.


As for the topic of me posting on this web site -- I could maybe see all the hullabaloo if I spread my views all over the board on lots of different threads. I don't. I keep my "mouth shut" on LOTS of threads that I read/skim. In the last several weeks I have:

--posted to a WS who was trying to end a LTA, but was hesitant to tell her allegedly abusive husband. Just in case she was still secretly entertaining notions of leaving her H for OM -- I told her the story of a woman I knew who was "rescued" from an abusive marriage by a man who then began beating her himself... and eventually murdered her. (Oh dear, does that mean I'm guilty myself of OP bashing? lol)

--posted to a BS whose wanna-be-wayward wife told him she never loved him. I think he should face the POSSIBILITY that she's telling the truth about that (even though she's in the fog) since HIS OWN account of their marriage history seems to suggest it may very well be true. I know lots of WS do the ILYBINILWY speech and say they've felt that way for a long time. And I know it's a bunch of fluff most of the time. There are lots of BSs here who are stunned to hear that speech b/c they have love letters, or a recent passionate night, or several recent accounts of a close connection with their WS to contradict what the WS is saying. Such is not the case with HG. His wife left a long term BF for him... tried to break it off with him... got pregnant and stayed with him.... but has been distant the entire 10 years since. All this according to HG himself. And you'll notice I backed way off that thread ever since he -- very diplomatically but clearly -- stated that he thinks his situation fits the mold around here. Even though I know (from personal experience) that it's possible for someone to marry a person they don't love and stay with them for a long time, I'm not interested in forcing that on him if he doesn't want to hear it.

--posted to BB, a WW who seems to me to be in a great deal of turmoil over the state of her marriage and her feelings for her BIL. I encouraged her to start doing some soul searching, and stuck-up for her against posters who, IMO, were suggesting that her husband was perfect and she was the ONLY ONE with problems. At some point, she'll need to tell her husband about her infatuation with BIL of course, but after asking a question and realizing that she was dead set against telling right now... I decided to try to learn more about her and perhaps befriend her before pushing that any further.

So there you go. <shrug>

ETA: I almost forgot!

MEDC
Didn't you mean (in my best Homer Simpson voice) "cookie-doh!" <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />?

I'm gonna go ahead and throw my opinion in here for fun, one more time. I truly don't expect it to change anything...this is as much an opinion vent as anything else. Feel free to respond or not as anyone feels compelled. Again...just putting an opinion out.

I tend to agree with the basic premise that SC started this thread with. Its the same concept I've brought up a bunch of times in the past.

If a WS posts here AT ALL...that's a good start. But most of the time, they're AFRAID to post at all. When a WS FIRSTS posts here, they should be encouraged to post again...so that they can learn what they need to and begin working to fix things in their marriage and their lives. And in themselves. They're not ready to get hit with both barrels the moment they hit the enter button the first time here...that needs to come after they've built up the confidence that they can learn what they need to from the posters and material on this site. They have to WANT to learn this stuff enough to stay and endure the reality of what they're going to face.

You know how we tell most new posters that they need to be a "safe harbor for their WS" in plan A? That we encourage them to allow their WS to talk to them, REGARDLESS of what's said and how much it hurts? We don't tell them to be doormats and accept all the blame, but we DO tell them that they need to allow their WS to express what their going through...so that the WS can learn to trust that they CAN be open and honest with their BS.

Its the same concept here. A NEW WS posting to this site has to build up the trust in the people and materials here that it CAN help them deal with what they've done, and what they and their BS and their family is going through. We've got to be a 'safe harbor'...at least at first. They've got to trust that we know what we're talking about, and that we're not just a bunch of angry ex-BS's with a chip on our shoulders wanting to lash out at ANY WS who shows up.

Thats why I tend to be less confrontational with someone who just shows up. Even a WS...they need to learn that they can tell the TRUTH about what they've done to us here, and that while they're likely to hear some painful responses, they can also trust that we care enough to really try to help them. They're not going to believe that if we call them names...no matter how accurate and true those names are.

Its once they've established themselves as posters here, once WE have established some credit with them as people who know what we're talking about...and they still exhibit that WS behavior...THEN the 2x4's come out as needed. Like dealing with kids...you correct once, if they remain persistent in their mistakes, the correction becomes a bit tougher each time until they learn from their mistakes.

I place a lot of value in ML's and other's bluntness and honesty and calling it like it is. I think its got a TON of value in opening the eyes of someone who's not let anything else open those eyes yet. But I DO think that it needs to wait long enough for the posters to get the 'bait' thrown out there by less harsh posters like myself and some others.

The person may well be a cad. That may be quite true. But if you want to help them become a better person, you don't shout "CAD!!!" at them the moment you see them. You help them to see that they can act differently. You get them to trust you that you know how to help them. You show them what to do...and when they revert back to 'cadly behavior' once you've started down that path, you scream "CAD!!!" at them when they do so, and it clearly shows them their mistake.

Last comment...Mel made a comment earlier about her and I being a great "tag team"...and I completely agree with that. I've seen that on several threads over the last couple of months, where she and I have worked with someone. Her method has a lot of success when applied at the right time and place, and I salute that. I just think that sometimes we need to work on when we post...sometimes you need need a scalpel, and sometimes you need a broadsword.

OK...there's my opinion. Have at.

I guess I am not surprised that you consider it "helpful" to confuse a newcomer, make him feel bad about exposure, and nitpick and scold posters using Marriage Builders principles. Unfortunately, your idea of "help" on this board always seems to be targeted towards keeping the FOGGY fogged out and the newcomer BS's mired in confusion when you give "advice" contradictory to MB.

HG did try to tell you that his WW was REWRITING HISTORY. Jennifer Chalmers had also told him this was fogspeak. You encouraged him to listen and act upon her FOGBABBLE and ignore veteran posters who were trying to help him understand what was really happening, which is why I stepped in. You were, once again, defending the WAYWARD MINDSET.

You then further muddied the waters with this fogged out screed against exposure to the WW's mother:

smartcookie: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/sho...art=23&vc=1

As you have expressed previously, you are not even an advocate of exposure, even though it is often the most effective weapon against an affair. More water carrying for the wayward lifestyle.

And now we have this thread, which has a similar goal, protect the WAYWARD. Which is nothing more than a self serving, thinly veiled attempt to coerce others into not using accurate language to describe a CAD. [short for scumbag <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />] Of course, you tried to disguise this request with a convoluted, unworkable analogy about "abuse victims," and when that fell flat on its face, pulled out another ill worked rationale about addicts. Another flop..

As I said earlier, you come here to defend the WAYWARD MINDSET and nitpick and criticize contributing board members for teaching tried and true Marriage Builders principles. This is your pattern, SC. All you did was confuse an already very confused, devastated betrayed spouse and undermine the ability of the rest of us to help this man save his marriage.

My suggestion would be to get yourself fixed before you try and fix anyone else. It seems that since you are not recovered, you want to make damn sure that no one else is either. Stop coming to Marriage Builders and undermining their principles. Broken people come here to learn about MARRIAGE BUILDERS, not the fogged out worldview of a unrecovered FOGHORN who knows nothing about recovery and even less about Marriage Builders. You only know how to be a WAYWARD, they already know how to do that. As they say in AA, take the cotton out of your ears and put it in your mouth.

Owl. Now you know very well that no one has done that and no one is advocating any such thing. The discussion here is about using accurate language to describe an OP that was being romanticized by a WW. He is a CAD and this was pointed out by other posters, as it well should have been.

When someone has romantic notions about filthy, sleazy behavior, it does not help to enable that fantasy and use weasel words. That is ENABLING. One does not have to "build trust" [aka conflict avoiding] to use accurate language. It is a cold splash of reality to the fantasy bound to hear something/someone called its proper name. This is a GOOD THING. Some here think this is BAD only because the WS might object, which just amazes me.

Just because it might make the WS MAD and uncomfortable does not mean its a bad thing. In fact, if they are HAPPY with their wayward lifestyle, then you are doing something WRONG. You are probably enabling. And bastardizing the English language to appease a fogged out WS is exactly THAT.

When a fogged out WS sees that their bullcrap has a short shelf life here, they will be forced to knock it off or leave. The ones who really want help knock it off. The ones who don't, RUN, because they can't continue their fantasy in a room full of people who see right through them. As they say in AA, you can't bullsh*t a bullsh*tter.


But, you don't control "WE", Owl. What might seem a good posting style to you, is not to others, and vice versa. We all have our own posting styles and express them in the way we see fit. We can't control people, places and things. And it always comes right back to that. WE can only control OURSELVES.

I agree, ML. Which is why my post is caveated as my opinion, with no expectation that you or anyone else will actually change how you do things. You and I have had this battle already...at this point, I'm simply posting my point of view.

sc, my post was addressing your position that having empathy for someone whose head is messed up is a good thing, and how I can't understand why it would be.

I guess I need to work on making my points a little better.

OWL, then help me understand why you continually attempt to dictate your posting style to others here. Your "view" is an attempt to control others into posting in a way that SUITS YOU as if you set the standard. WHY do you believe this and why you CONTINUE to try to control others? This is a very passive aggressive behavior and I am frankly, astonished, that you continue to do it even though you can see it not only does not work, but have even been scolded by the mods for it! WHY OWL?

Now Mel you know that Owl is entitled to his very WRONG opinion! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Mrs. W

sc, thanx for your answer.

with prayers,

Mel, you just made my day. Hah, screed is now my word de jure. I hope to use it maybe a dozen times. Technical report on a satellite navigation system error due at noon. I have inserted it twice already. And it actually works, too.

Brought to you by the letter S.

MrsW

Which of Owl's many opinions do you consider wrong?

Larry

I still don't understand. Do you mean brutal or blunt in context or what? I am trying to understand where you are coming from. I am fairly certain I understand the rest of your post.

Larry

“Exposure -- yup, I have problems w/ it. More specifically, the way I often see it carried out here. “

Hmmm, exposure kills affairs. It’s like draino on a clog. Light on a cockroach. Sunlight burning off a low lying fog.

Works maybe three sigma of the time.

So why would exposure be bad? Well, I suppose, technical application issues aside, a person who did not want the affair to end, the fog to burn off, the bugs to hide or the drain to work would be against it.

A little First Order (predicate) Logic:

Exposure ends A’s
WS do not want A to end.
sc is against exposure
----------------------
sc is a WS.


Why experienced BS around here tend to not trust you is a pretty simple logic, even for me.

With prayers,

PS: OK, the above isn’t formal, but I’m lazy and the proper symbols aren’t available on this site anyway.

Well geez, then don't read my exposure thread. Cuz I did a da** well wide-spread exposure.

Was it gnarly? Yep.

Did FWH and probably OW HATE it? Yep.

Did it kill the affair? You better believe it did.

What people fail to remember is that exposure is mortifying for the BS too. It is beyond humiliating and degrading to announce to the world that your spouse, the person you love the most in the world, the same person who does not at that time, obviously have the same feelings for you, is cheating on you. Wanna talk about feeling small? Feeling like a nobody? Feeling like a big, idiotic loser?

Oh, and what about the second time around? See, I also had to announce that I actually had found out about the A last May ~ and that, stupid me, I still wanted to save my marriage, even though my H continued on in the A for another year after I found out.

I was in bed for 2 days after exposure, I did not want to face anyone or anything. I was beyond humiliated and depressed. I lost 7 lbs in 10 days. Exposure is NOT fun for the BS, it's awful. I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. I was so beyond humiliated.

But I knew it was THE only way to kill this da** thing once and for all. I even did it in FRONT of FWH. He sat here and watched me do a good part of my exposure. He did not like it, he hated it. But he said "Fine, do whatever you have to do". I believe that deep down, even HE knew it was the only thing that was truly going to kill this fantasy (and I may pay for saying that, FWH reads here. But I know his heart, and I believe some day he will be able to really see that it was absolutely necessary).

Also ~ one more thing: exposing sin and darkness is even supported in the bible. I don't have time right now to look up the exact verse, but it's in Ephesians. I think Mel knows which verse, maybe she can help me out.