Abso-flippin'-lutely. But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what I believe. What matters is what you do.

This entire post was great, serendipitous.

You can do it ST. I totally believe you can do it. I'm with you all the way and will offer any support I can..

I cried as I read your recent posts. I am so very pleased you posted to me and allowed me to post here to you. If I've helped you even in the tiniest way, then I am thrilled beyond words.

Everyone here sees that you want to do it and that's why you're getting such great support and advice from all these people who care for you whether wayward or betrayed. We just admire you for wanting to put things right, for the work you are doing, for your openness, honesty and willingness to lay yourself bare here in order to heal both yourself and your H.

It really isn't hard for me as a BW to say that I admire you.

Now get to work with that H of yours.

I am here, believeing and praying for you.

YOU CAN DO THIS!!!!!!

so can Mr ST, bad feelings come and go.

Thank you people.

I got up this morning and he is still being so sweet. I have gone through the morning wihtout a cross word or impatient glare and it wasn't hard.

J did the school run and saw my sis there - he told her I'd been up 1/2 the night putting the world to rights (and then just as I was going to bed at 2am, DS woke up for a wee but refused to go for an hour and a half- just kept having tantrums). I just spoke to her on the phone and she asked for my conclusions - I told her about my light bulb moment. She sort of seemed disappointed - I have some thinking to do on this, ie work out how she fits in to the picture -I'm not married to her. Her H needs a rocket up his butt but I don't make lots of point of telling her, just make suggestions on what she can do to improve her lot.

I'll keep posting
Staytogether

Sorry that was a rushed post - Darling darling darling darling son wants to go to toddlers ( do you detect any sarcasm?)

I'm so mean, I do love him really and I'm quite sure his strange behaviour in the night was down to me and I am really a sympathetic mummy. (((((DS)))))

I'd just hoped to sleep at 2am after all my ponderings

Thank you again to my wonderful supporters

ST and mr ST

Ooooohhhh, I know the horrible sleep deprivation of a toddler too. Our DS-3 has just been through a phase of waking at around 4.30-5am each morning, full of the joys of spring, and not at all willing to get in bed with us to get a little more shut-eye.

Little darlings aren't they?

Slightly worried about your sister and her reaction to your news this morning. Why is she unsupportive?

yuk yuk, I'm not a fan of 4.30 starts!!

I think because she is unsupportive because she has seen me very low after one of his aggressive phases. I have shared all my fears about H with her. I tried to explain the demonisation.

She is also a little bit upset because of our holiday in August.

We had a dreadful family holiday last year ( all 16 of us) at probably the lowest point in our relationship when I told my family of the violence ( not the A). He was dreadful on that holiday and couldn't stand being near me, it ruined the whole week for everyone. We have had other holidays with sis and on one such I was ill (in bed) in France and DS was only 8months DD3 and he had to take control and although capable he struggled with so many ohers around (4 couples and 4 children altogether) with the pressure.

So this year we suggested to the friends I mentioned before that they come away for the weekend with us (she was complaining that her H wouldn't take a break) which they did and we had a fantastic time, and now they have asked us to go for a week with them in the summer. My sis was put out that we'd go away with them but not her.

I have just explained to her that J wouldn't have dreamt that they would want to go away with us after our holiday track record. Her comment was "fine, you're rigth, I can't be doing with his strops" I tried to point out again that I had largely caused his strops and that her opinion was based quite a lot on my complaints.

We'll see...

I understand. She's just worried about you, and I can see why. I am close to my sister and would be wary of her being in a R with any history of violence too.

He knows he must NEVER raise his hand to you ever again doesn't he? He is taking steps to help himself? I think I remember you saying he is waiting for an appointment with a specialist. Can your GP rush this through?

When my FWH was feeling low last year, for a few months before the A, he started talking to his mum on the phone in a different room. Previously, he had always had conversations with her whilst I was in the same room. We don't see her too often as she lives about 80 miles away.

Because I knew something wasn't right, my imagination started to run riot with thoughts of what he must be saying to her, how he must be criticising me to her, and how they might be plotting against me. It did affect my relationship with her and I found it increasingly difficult to be as friendly with her as I had been.

If we had holidayed together at that time, I might also have acted negatively because I would have felt so insecure in her company wondering what she may know about my life that I was not privvy to.

It was all madness because in reality he never discussed me with her at all, but your H probably knows that you have discussed him with your sister, and his imagination must also be running riot, so the air needs to be cleared. He needs to know exactly what your sister knows about his life.

Your sister needs to be reassured that you are safe and that you are a big girl now, capable of making the right decisions for yourself and your children. If she sees you growing in strength and happiness, she will stop worrying so much and will be more accepting of your decision to stay with your H.

Take care ST and thank you so much for posting on my FWH's thread. I really appreciate your comments.

He knows he mustn't. He has found a great book about Anger for Men which seems to be shining a light on a lot of things for him. NHS rush???!!!

I have cleared the air with both of them and spend time going through all my thoughts and feelings and trying to enlighten each of them to the other's thoughts andd feelings. I can't abandon my sis at the mo. Mum starts her chemo on the 11th and we both need each other for childcare. Her and her H make selfish demands of each other permanently and her H is bieng made redundant in Oct - He gets a great big pay off for staying til then as well as redundancy pay but it is of course still very unseetling for them.
She has our 2 so that we can spend UA time together and I want to do something for her too. I just need to make sure that it is all POJAd properly with J.

Thank you

Hi st,

I hope you have recovered from my whipping the other day. I'm sorry I could not get back here before, but I was reading and I could see that you are getting really good advice.

I don't think you should let the sense of urgency die down because J is saying no more about wanting to leave (if that is the case). If you treat this as just a wobble, you might well stop thinking about what you must do for J, everyday, all the time. His feelings have not gone away, no matter how settled he seems now to you, and his grief WILL emerge again.

He does not want to extract a pound of flesh from you for your affair, and he does not want to live in misery and conflict. He is trying not to be a slave to his feelings or to ruin your everyday lives, but his feelings are still there, and still as bad.

He wonders every moment whether you did what you did because you cannot stand him, and he cannot imagine how you can give up the high of the affair and be happy now in the very same marriage you escaped from. He wants to be married to you if you want the same, but he thought you wanted that before, and he turned out to be very wrong (at least, that's how we BSs see it. How else can we interpret our spouse's turning away from the marriage to be with someone else?) He spends his time trying to read your mind and interpret your body language and behaviour. Even when you seem to be into him he wonders whether you are faking. He doesn't want to walk out on a potentially good future but he does not know you any more, or whether you want the same things as he does. All he has to go by is your behaviour (not your words), and your behaviour has come across to him as flinching from and rejecting him. This has to stop.

I thought Lil's post about stipulating what Flick has to do to meet her need for affection was most valuable. I think you should ask J to give you a similar list, and if he won't because he thinks it unnatural, you should follow Lil's list and do something very similar.

You must start the morning with hugs in bed and a kiss when you part for the day. You must kiss when you meet again, and be awake when he goes to bed so that you can hug and kiss again. There should be other affectionate acts such as cuddling on the sofa in the evenings. You must do these things every day, willingly, with the intention of making J feel loved. Remember, you have to meet his needs now and repair what you did, urgently. There is no room for excuses about how you feel.

I'm quite good at being bossy, aren't I? Believe me, if I see you not working at this I'll be much worse. And I haven't even started talking about spineless FOM yet...

I know. He's doing a great job

I couldn't stand him before the A started.

It is a totally different marriage to the one I escaped form and has been since about August/September last year



I was turning away form the marriage ( although not to be with someone else


Yes he does - it drives me mad - pushes me away, makes me feel trapped.




I agree, if I jave a plan like this, I find it much easier to undertake the task in hand
usually, although I get wound up if I an't do it in peace and quiet without the kids yep, do this. I think I am slighty better at this htese days than him, He seems tobe asleep before I get there.

I do do this everyday with the intention of making J feel loved but sometimes I struggle with the willingly bit - I do it but I know sometimes it is wooden - how do I stop that?

No excuses about how I feel, unfortunately I am not a very good liar and I do hug and kiss for him and I willingly do it for him but I cannot help it if sometimes my body is fighting against my mind or something - I haven't yet found the emotion override button so that it isn't totally wooden and staged.



I am working at it - I'm not sure that we should mention spineless OM actually. I've just reread my original posts adn I think it was Mrs W commented that any discussion on FOM would fuel my fire. Maybe I do need a list of crap things about him though.

Well,
J is out on the beer tonight, in the town where he works. He'll be back on the train in the morning. I should be doing a workout DVD but I'm not.

Today i have looked back over my original posts just to get an idea of how far along we have moved, I guess to try and keep me going.

My understanding of everything is vastly improved but there are still some things that i just can't seem to get on top of.

JustLearning and LovingAnyway worte some tremendous posts to me and did fantastic work for me in those early days - I don't think I appreciated it quite as much as I should have done back then. So I'd like to say an enormous thank you to them. Actually i might pop over to GQ or EN and post that there, I don't think I've ever seen them in recovery.

Everything feels ssssssoooooooooooo heavy.



I'd better go ring J before he has too many

Well,

I think it's been going quite well again. O&H conversation makes such a difference.

On a different tangent I had a teeny teeny taste of the boot on the other foot today. Very starngely for the first time in years and years I was v nervous about him going out last night, very paranoid about what he was up to.

This morning I tired to wang a billion questions at him about his evening which with quite a hangover he found very difficult to keep on top of....

I found it very easy to read into the pauses

I found it very easy to read in to the stumbles

I found it very easy to read in to the deleted text messages...

But I am as near certain that I can be that he behaved himself.

I guess this is because I know that there is so much J is still lacking from me and that now I understand how these things happen I know it is possible. We have both talked about EPs though and he has said that he just wouldn't be bothered to start anything with anyone else - life is manic enough as it is.

Anyway - it gave me a bit of a taste of the nasty stomach churning feeling, the total tension all across the top of the head, down the arms into the fingers. The desire to just bolt.

How do all you guys do it? How do you live with us? love us?

I am so sorry

OK then, so now I'll tell you what I have been doing. I went to meet J form the train this morning - managed to negotiate with DD so that I could go by myself (cost me £8 and a session at the pottery studio). So that I could go and wrap my arms round him give hima big hug an snog and tell him honestly how much I have missed him. I sent text messages to tell him how cute he looked and how great his new haircut is. I phoned him while he was out (which he likes) to say goodnight and have a quick conversation about today. THis morning I took him for a coffee, and we sat outside in the sunshine in town - and although I had anoverwhelming urge to drag him around the shops I didn't.

Now, I know in the scheme of things I have done nothing. But actually I have done something - and I have put him first several times today instead of the "if ever". I have been acting rather than just saying.

The most amazing thing is that I haven't found it hard, I haven't had to make myself and I have enjoyed it.

Must go, he's back form the shop with my giant choc buttons.

Thank you again everyone

ST this is awesome!,

Not just getting chocolate buttons which is always a good thing and where's my share???

What a great example of pushing yourself (and discovering you enjoy it lol) and meeting J's EN's. I can't remember the quote exactly I read here once, but it was something like do the actions and the feelings will follow, and I guess this is an example of that.

Thanks Lil
I am doing it. I feel I need to put in more effort when I keep reading about L4s trials. She is inspiring.


There are a few left - i'll shove 'em down the line for ya.

( can you believe it ST has choc left 2 days after it was bought?)

I have been undoing demonisation with Sis too, I bumped into her today and she said " you're right you know", "I like him again - he isn't annoying me" "it just goes to show the influence you have on me" "He's really sweet".

It was my niece's Christening yesterday so we spent all day together (all the family)sort of helping out at the party afterwards (1st b'day too).

So, must get off the PC - he''l be home from work soon and I must be ready and waiting to receive him - oh dear, I didn't mean it like that.

Thought I'd bring this right to your door!

We say this all the time. Maybe it's a Canadian thing.

Yes you did.

= ST & Mr. ST