Thank you Verve and lil,

ST

Dear st, it's hard to convey clearly in print what we are trying to say. I hope you haven't misunderstood me to say that I resent you for being here. I do envy you your H, who is kind and forgiving, willing to do the hard work of recovery with you, and on board with MB, but I envy you in the nicest possible way! In pointing out the good things I see in your situation, I was trying to show you where there is much room for optimism. I particularly wanted to do this because you sounded down last night. I'm glad that you were okay really.

Your lack of email MB friends could have been putdown to your newness, but now look what's happened; you have 3 friends now (that I have counted) already!

Hi SC

I was hoping that was the case but didn't want to assume. Thank you so much for being there.

What are you still doing up?

st, I forgot to answer your question:

I'll be going for a 4-mile run (2 laps of the park) on Saturday morning, then buying appliances for my new kitchen, soon to be fitted. I think I'll have a built-in coffee-maker; a totally unnecessary expensive treat.

Please tell your H that to hang in there about money. It's hard to have very little money when the kids are little and there is only one salary, but is is lovely to have young, kissable babies, and to be young yourselves. We have a lot more money now because we both work, but I miss having little ones around the place. Coffee machines and new kitchens do not compensate for not being needed by the kids any more!

My daughter is home from university, and it's really nice to have her here. We might all go out to eat on Saturday night. Sunday will be a mixture of lazing around and doing housework. My house needs a good cleaning!

What do you mean? Writing to you!

Ok then, so recovery is good.

But why, the last few days have I felt so hemmed in and trapped??? We had a lovely day out yesterday - trying to get some ooufits for H's cousin's wedding, Went on a boat trip around the docks.

But I feel distant. DH left me in bed this morning to try and find myself, I've just got up. (10.00). I need to do lunch and then I'll try to do a few things for me.

I feel like my imagination is being squashed or something - I can't let my mind run riot.

During the A, my mind did of course run all over the palce with fantasy all the time. Have any of you FWWs experienced this as part of withdrawl? This isn't wanting OM.

A touchy ST

Maybe it's my taker kicking in????

Hey, ST. What "isn't wanting OM"?

This funny place my head is in isn't wanting OM

Ok, so poor H isn't doing anything wrong. No LBs, so why can't I get myself close to him?

Or maybe it is because I am triggered at the mo. The Easter Hols are here - A started 2 years ago at Easter and I am just reminded of it. I am also playing some music at the mo that I have played with OM and that I know he has just been playing recently.

I guess it's another hit of withdrawl - not bad but making me indifferent. Even typing that makes me feel closer to J (H). I want to ride this and get it to make me stronger. I am curious about OM but I can resist temptation.

OK so tonight I will sit down with H and discuss a business idea I have that will bring a fairly casual wage but whenwe want it. I will also discuss his plans for the garden and get them drawn out/ Look at some garden furniture and get those together plans back on track.

My sis has offered to have the kids on wed morning, so we'll try and do something then.

I need to put my energy into J!! I have to say though that it is bloody hard at the mo - all I can think about is me and how i want to fill my time with me. I guess that is 3 years of doing it. Another habit I need to break.

I've messed up big time today. J discovered both demeanours on his way home from work, I've LBd hugely but accidently.

DDnearly6 who is more grown up than the average 8 year old told me early this morning that sh'd watered the veg. I thanked her and thought nothing more of it. J has just come home form work to discover the hose pipe on at the back of the house.

Then tonight I was having a trum prac in my room - I do it when H is out 'cos he doesn't like it (never has). The kids were watching tv as they usually do at that time (this is why I choose to do it then). I finished in time to do a few jobs and watch Monkey Life with them. DD3 fell asleep during it so I carried him to bed (wake him for a wee later) and DS insisted she didn't need one before bed.

When J came home he went in the bathroom to get a towel for his shower and found water everywhere. bath overflowing walls soaked with condenstaion - blind dripping wet. Stepped into the hall and the water was coming up through our new floor boards.

So the hot water had been running for prob 1 1/2 - 2 hours.

I am in big trouble and really quite deservedly so. But it just seems crap that when I was really going to make the efort tonight I mess it up.

He's angry, I'm upset.

Led on to a discussion about me being distant this weekend.

Before we discovered watergate I had told him that sis was going to have kids on wed. He said "Why?" I reacted slightly badly and said "well why can't you think of something we can do together?" which annoyed him. He just doesn't want to do anything just with me. I'd be happy for him to come to band - would tach him an instrument. I would be happy to go to vball but he doesn't want me there.

We did the gardening together yesterday (with kids too), but he used that against me tonight. When we started looking for things we could do together he suggested that that was something we could share together ( Iwasn't too keen seems a bit too goal orientated to be fun) and I agreed and thought actually yep, there is also an opportnity for admiration on both parts, the showers after etc. Tonight he yells "that veg patch was s'posed to be yours originally, I said I didn't want anything to do with it adn then you still have me out there doing it with you"

I have also just worked out why I haven't been able to get physically close to him too. He inadvertantly did something the other night while we were that triggered a memory of something that happened to me when I was a teenager. In nearly 20 years, no one has put their hand over my mouth and so it wasn't a trigger that either of us were aware of. I've just realised and told him. That may also be why I've been struggling with the other things posted above - just put me on a down.

Oh well. At least I've worked out where I am.

Really struggling with the person I have become. This is new for me - I don't have anyone to blame for me being s41t, just me - no violent H to blame anymore.

I need to sort myself out and learn to love myself.

I am also addicted to MBs. I have replaced OM with this I think, need to look at my own life for a bit.

And I say that but I'm still looking for reassurance, I still want someone to post back and tell me where I'm going on or reassure me.

We all are sweety, we all are


honestly if it works, don't knock it. MB stopped me doing many inapropiate things

I must ask, could you not hear the hot tap running?

Anyway, kids do stuff, you probably should have looked at the hose after the garden comment, but I am unsure how you would have known about the hot water unless one of the kids made a comment.

Hi st,

I've been reading you latest posts and I have held back from responding. I am a bit worried that I am having a disproportionate input to your thread. As I said earlier, I don’t have the experience to give me confidence in giving advice.

I also think I have an air of the “bitter BW” hanging around me. If so, that is my own fault and the result of my comments on various threads, but I don’t think that you will be particularly receptive to advice from someone you might feel suspicious of.

So, if I may offer the hand of friendship, I will say that I am indeed the bitter BW (but dealing with the bitterness, slowly) but I am not bitter at you, or any FWW here! I am not even bitter at my H’s OW, despite her serious attempts to break up my marriage and make my H leave his children. It is my H that I feel badly hurt by, and his behaviour that I find hard to come to terms with, but I am learning to let these feelings go.

Back to you: I see a lot of up-and-down feelings in your posts, which is to be expected. I would like you to see what is good about your situation (and there is much that is good, as I tried to say about a week ago), and to build on that as much as possible.

Watergate was a disaster in terms of creating romantic feelings in your H, but it was largely an accident and is unlikely to happen again (or anything like it). I suppose though, that there is much expense and disruption to come in solving the water damage from the bathroom, so H’s anger will rumble on with these after-effects, which is unfortunate. It should be possible for him to relax his anger and hold his tongue, but for one thing; your practicing the trumpet while that was going on. I wonder whether this triggered memories for him of the affair. Triggers are really hard to deal with, and turn most BSs into beasts for a while. Does he know that you were practicing at that time? Might he see it as an example of how you put your feelings first, as you did during the affair? Once again: no bashing is intended by that suggestion. I just think that my perspective as BS might help you gain empathy for your H.

When you get the books, or enrol in the online course, you might enjoy tackling your marriage like an academic assignment. Doing so might be a way of helping you break away from reading here. I was instantly hooked by the books and read them with every chance I got, and reduced my time here for a few days. If you do that, and follow them up with the exercises, I’m sure that will benefit the marriage.

I think you will feel better when you start feeling romantic love for your H again, and that will take time, work on the Harley programme and sustained treatment for H’s depression. Tackle each thing systematically and I think you will both feel genuine improvement.

If any of you others on Recovery are reading this, please help us! Don’t abandon poor st to my naive interpretations and folk wisdom!

Hi SugarCane
Thank you for your reply
I think that there is absolutely no hint of a bitter BW. I think your respnses are objective and telling me exactly what I need to here - I think I'm just too selfish to act on what you say. Although I don't act on it, I am a lot gentler with H and try a lot more to think of him first - particualrly when related to the music and family time.


I think you are a truly lovely lady and I feel very honoured that you have offered me the hand of friendship and of course I accpet. I hope your H appreciates how lucky he is and is trying to prove himself worthy of you now.


I am impatient and i think the problems we have now are due to my impatience and I worry if we are not actively looking to work on our M every second we have together then we have zero chance. Although H definielty wants an M with me he is being driven crazy by me keep pushing for us to so it properly and NOW!! We had a really crap morning together - he wants me to hold his hand or touch him and it's just benn making me cringe. I wanted to start the morning just being chatty and friendly and lead up to hand holding. He wanted to start with handholding and then let the conversation fall into place - Both of us putting our own needs first but with the intention of leading up to meeting the other's.


Yep, this was a trigger, big time. I told him that I was playing (O&H) and I knew it would be. He ranted and then I pointed out that I could have been loading the dish/w and not of noticed. ( the house was spotless on his return from work, I make sure of that before I get trum out). Yes it was an example of how I put my feelings first and he said that. I have tried to get my prac in with the minimal disruption to everyone and have discussed when and how with kids and J.


I'd love to do this but J is reluctant, it would only frustrate me to try to do it by myself, as I am at the moment.


I hope so. J keeps saying we should just have it anyway - we shouldn't need to work at it, he loves me in his way and that should be enough.


Thanks again SC it's very valuable to sound it out against someone, particuarly someone who is on the other side. And I really hope my selfish rantings don't trigger you.
(((sugarcane)))

ST

Nope, I didn't, i guess by the time I walked by to take the kids to bed the water in the bath was so high not to make a noise.


I quizzed dd about it in the morning - but she said she only watered the seedlings indoors. But then she did go on to say "oh, I found the nozzle for the hose lying around so I put it on"

But yes, after her comment I should have checked.

So with us all being addicted to MB does this not count as an LB for all of your spouses. ( I'm allowed tonight he's at work)

Bed now though!

st, I picked out this paragraph because it deals with the problems of meeting each other's needs in the way they need to be met. I think that meeting needs that we don't ourselves share can be hard for most of us, but the wonderful thing about the Harley programme is that it takes you through the steps needed to do so, one by one. If you could possibly get a couple of phone sessions (for both of you; your H must hear properly how this works) I think it would make the world of difference. I have read so often where people here are told what to do during coaching and find it unnatural and artificial, but do it anyway, since they are paying for the advice! They usually report results that surprise them.


If your H would read Dr Harley's writings, he would see why this isn't so. Good marriages do not come naturally, but evolve through the daily practise of spending enjoyable time together, meeting needs and having them met, cherishing and protecting the other spouse and the marriage. "Cherishing" means more than "loving with all one's heart"; it means actively loving, protecting and taking care of your spouse. You are right to want your H to see this.

Perhaps your H needs you to take the lead in recovery, as a kind of compensation for the affair, and demonstration that you are sorry for what you did. I'm sure that a one-sided effort would be hard to maintain when H is negative, but his attitude might improve when he gets medical help. I think that perhaps you should accept the uneven input, but try hard to get him to read just one of the books. HNHN and SAA are both very good at explaining how changes in behaviour create changed feelings, which is the essence of behaviouralism, I suppose.

I can't agree that he is lucky to have a wife who is as angry as I have been at him, but thank you for suggesting that he is! I think he works hard to make me happy again. In fact, he's whisking me off (with the kids) for a trip out of London until Sunday, so I won't be back here until at least then. That should give others a chance to help with your dilemmas! Have a lovely Easter, st.

Thanks for saying so sugarcane - this may be all he needs.



I'm hoping that Jis going to get chance to lurk form work tonight. I think it will help greatly for him to see that you have highlighted this.
I agree and I have accepted the uneven output I think I'm just hoping that he'll follow my lead a little more easily.

But, we had a good chat on the phone last night, absolutely no relationship talk - just work talk. Which was good for both of us and we did have some relationship talk this morning which meant very smoothly with no LB and I was quite naturally affectionate and a bit kissy (before and after our talk).

Things were good in few mins we had tonight aswell, this time between him waking and going to work on a night [censored] can be really stressy but it was smooth flowing.

Have a great weekend!

We're off up to his parents, prob won't be back til Tues.

ST

Oh its DEFINATLY a LB. Its why I dont normally spend long chunks of time on MB, just grab a few minutes here and there.

Like you, I just take what time I have, and deal with not having it as much as I want. I do find if Flick is away for a couple of days, by the time he gets back I am actually kind of sick of MB...

Are you back yet, st? Did your long weekend go well? Ours was good, with very good weather.

I have noticed that you post to other people, so you must be doing this anyway, but I should like to recommend reading other threads as much as you can, particularly since this one is a bit slow. I'm sure that much of the time this will be depressing reading, because the BSs here express their feelings so well, but there is such a lot of helpful advice to be had here.

Have you looked at black_raven's thread in GQII on "forgiving your WS"? The contributions are all good, but I particularly liked Mark's yesterday, which summarised an article on levels of forgiveness. I could see immediately that a full, satisfying recovery depends on level 4 being reached, where the WS shows unconditional remorse and understanding, and that lack of this is why my own marital recovery has been patchy.

Do you think you show remorse to your H? You have written that he is not destroyed or torn apart by the affair (or words to that effect) and that he wants you both to just be normal, but then he gets very angry with you.

I suspect that he is doing this partly because of his depression, but also because of the affair. We BSs do that, and we know we're doing it, but we go on.

We can accept that there were things that were unsatisfactory in the marriage, but the betrayal and the risk of breaking up the whole family seems like such an unjustified reaction to this unhappiness, especially since we were in the same marriage and did not do those things. Perhaps we too were not blissfully happy, but we valued what we had and worked to protect it. I know I lost respect for my H when I saw how...flipping childish!!! it was for him to blow up our whole lives because he felt bored and horny. WHAT THE BLAZES WAS HE THINKING??!! How did he think that his actions would improve our marriage? There must be a short-term effect of euphoria that improves things for the WS, but long term, how is this supposed to lead to happiness in our old age? Etc.

We BSs often feel that we have put up with such a lot, staying with the damaged marriage when the WS had the fun of the affair, that we're not prepare to put up with the rubbish that we did before. E.g: So you don't like it when I cram things into cupboards and they fall out on your head? Well, if my home isn't nice enough for you, then eff off to your OW, then! You don't like it when I fold your sock like this and not like that? Well, guess what...

It is wrong and irrational of us, and not likely to make for a happy marriage, but it is part of resentment. Well, from what Dr Harley writes, and what I have seen here and in my own marriage, resentment fades most successfully when the WS puts a lot of hard work into recovery, along with the BS.

You might be facing this kind of resentment with your H, and if so, there is probably a lot more to come. I'm just hoping that my perspective will help you understand him and have patience. Recovery is really hard.

Have you ordered the books yet? When is the medical appointment?

ST,

The book LoveBusters is not one that is mentioned in the recommended reading, but it is a very good one.

While the articles outline what the lovebusters are, the book goes into so much more detail and gives real life examples.

It opened my eyes, and H's, as to what is and what is not LBing.