Cheering thought.

Yeah,.....I know.....also let's not forgot Dr. H's theory of WH's are more likely to return to their AP's then WW......

FWIW, I do agree with Mr. W's post.......

Not

Yeah...well...

Plus add into the mix that many/most men aren't big talkers and like to go into their 'nothing' box...R may be harder in some respects when you consider the dynamics overall. I know for me, I feel like I have to pull teeth with H at times or remind him of this or that or whatever. During those dips I do start to wonder why do I bother.

Mr. W's assessment is spot on when looking at our R.
Thanks for asking for that post black raven.

Patience??? or a glass of wine???

The wine just won!

Have a good night!

That aspect of it all I am mostly ok with. I do believe that Flick and PQ had a very bad relationship the last few weeks. I do believe Flick found her bi-polar too much to deal with. In fact he said to me once that he used to sit on the couch listening to her and thinking "it's ok, she'll stop soon and then we can get back to the good stuff"
at the good stuff comment BTW

Also she has a partner now, and actually has been with him within a few weeks of our recovery. I assume she is still with him, I cant tell since I have either been blocked by her, or she no longer has a social networking page.

But OOW... that still concerns me.

I dont disagree with Mr W's POV. I just dont like it.

ST, psst, I could never hate you! I'm hopin' I'm still in your good books!

This has been nagging at me. As I reread it again, I have a different take on it, or I simply read it wrong the first time.

Using my situation, I wonder if what I feel is necessary repentance, is related to the issues in my M, pre A, during A throug up to d-day.
For years I sacrificed, (didn't think of it that way at the time) my well being and felt like I was giving up my own self respect.
It's obvious to me now, that during his A, my H's behaviours towards me were more hurtful.

Enter resentment.

While I thought that I had rid myself of all the feelings that go along with resentment, maybe I haven't.
Maybe there are still some of those deep roots, although cut off, they are still there, waiting to dry up.

btw, it's not an easy process to throw out the garbage that we carry around, but it is possible.
Some of it was thrown out pre d-day, just cuz I simply didn't care anymore.
The rest had to go after d-day cuz I had more important things to tend to than my own harbouring of that garbage.

So whether it's resentment or the need for repentance, the solution is the same.
As we rebuild a new M using all of the MB tools, these things will fix themselves, just like the roots and suckers fade away with time.

Focus on the present changes, and stay clear of dwelling on past mistakes, since they keep us stuck there.

This is what I've gotten from you all, not just in this thread but others as well ....... thank you!

I guess what I'm getting at is that he may have done the introspection, and doesn't feel like what he did requires repentence.

From the BS side of things, this whole A business often appears as a single point in time decision wherein the WS chooses to personally assualt the BS. And I don't know, maybe that really is what it is. I know some BS choose to condense it down to that.

The FWS often looks at this whole A business as a series of decisions, in which many of the decisions were "right" based on what they thought, or knew, or thought they knew at the time, and while the end result of that series of decisions produced great pain for the BS, when they put themselves back into that time and place, they would not have done something different. I don't know if this is right either. When Harley tells me the reason my WW had an A is because she "failed to protect her weaknesses", I don't know, it sure sounds a lot like the above.

So, I don't know what a FWS, who wants to recover, is supposed to do when they get to this point. They don't feel the level of repent that the BS wants to see because they don't think all of the choices they made are wrong. But, they darn sure can't tell the BS they feel that way. So, they walk around feeling bad about what happened, but not really repentent. Circumstance is the guilty party.

I suppose if I were so inclined, I could shoot holes in either of these views of the whole A business. But I think effectively implementing the MB tools require the BS to accept the second view, and perhaps with that, the BS has to accept that the FWS may never really be that repentent.

I would like to weigh in a second here. I think repentance is a gift from God only. God's spirit nudges mankind and then we have the ability/responsibility to respond in repentance. God can and does use people, MB, children, or any other venue He wants to be that nudge, but ultimately repentance is the work of the Holy Spirit.
As I have read the things written on this particular post I really identify with what is taking place and have heard my wife say some of the same things about me. Shortly after Dday we went through an exhaustive list of every detail that took place (that I could remember). She had me write out a timeline. I literally spent days writing it and tried to make sure I gave every detail she wanted. It was horrible for her and for me.
Still 7 months after Dday she still feels like I am withholding something. I cant for the life of me figure out what that could possibly be. She also has asked me why so many times that I cant even remember. At the end of the day the responsibility is mine and mine alone. It doesnt matter whether she was or wasnt meeting my EN's it is still 100% my fault.
Even though I have repeatedly expressed to her that she bears no fault in the A she still wants to know "WHY" in greater detail than I am able to give. I have no answer. I have really spent a lot of time trying to come up with the why of the whole A and have come up short every time. My only answer is unsatisfying to me as well. There is a great amount of shame for me personally as with my W. I even remember a few months before the affair when things were really getting bad and I was talking with a buddy of mine who was warning me about the potential of an affair. I told him I didnt care how bad our marriage got I would never do that.
Up until the affair I never had another woman in the car with me, I was never alone with another woman, never talked with other women about my marriage, etc. I had all the right rules in place to prevent an affair. This has actually caused more questions for my W. She knows I had all the right boundaries in place and I violated everyone of them.
I am not hiding anything, but honesty the only reason for the A I can come up with is ultimately I wanted it otherwise I wouldnt of thrown everything away. That answer doesnt satisfy my W either.
I also think I would fit with Flick in that I am deeply ashamed of my affair. At certain points I manage to deal with that feeling but most of the time I dont know what to do with something that I have brought upon myself so I would rather bury it, but luckily I have some squared away men in my life who wont let me just bury it.
I am not sure if your H or any of the other WS here are hiding something, but if they are anything like me it isnt hiding something but just quite simply having no other answer for what is/was going on inside of them or that they just dont have a place for it and since they dont understand or have the answer they pack it away.

Not sure if this made sense but I hear a lot of the same questions my wife asks in this thread.

BL, first you said that repentance is a gift from God. Then you said we respond in repentance. That doesn't make sense. Either it's a gift God gives us, or it's something we do (as you said, our response).

Repentance is not a gift from the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit convicts us.

Repentance is OUR RESPONSE to that conviction.

We CHOOSE to repent. It is a verb. Something we DO. Not just something we say and definitely not something given to us.

Some feel the conviction, yet do not respond with repentance. Instead they respond with a hardened heart, a prideful heart.

SMB, there are passages that speak of God giving us repentance and God nudging us to repent. I have always read those not as contradictory statements in the Scriptures but that Repentance is both a gift to us and our response to God.

Saw the thread was active and got to thinking...is it repentance we want, or are we really discussing our resentment?

ANyway, I went and looked at the articles and found this one which speaks volumes to me
Dr Harley on Resentment

I thought we were talking about repentance. I think resentment shows up when there is no repentence.

I think you're right there. But actually do we need to be resentful about lack of repentance? Is there a way of keeping boundaries tight which means that lack of repentance stops us from being resentful?

Good question ST. Because I do believe that a BS can continue to have a degree of resentment, even if to all intents and purposes, the FWS is remorseful.

I don't like feeling resentment -it makes me angry and not very easy to live with which then may add to the wrongdoer being even badder and we start looking for the badder bits instead of looking for hte gooder bits.

ITA.

resentment fuels itself really.

I havent been here that long, but has anyone discussed repentance of the resentment? I mean yes the WS has a lot to repent of, but at the end of the day bitterness, resentment, control, etc all need to be repented of as well. Regardless of what the WS does there must be healing for the BS and a time for them to go before God and lay all that on him...right?

I've not abandoned this thread, I've just avoided thinking about this stuff.
It's good to see others pondering.

Nice to see you BL!

As a WS, all I could really do was repent of what I did. I couldn't repent FOR DH, not could I pressure him to repent. In fact, the idea of thinking of him needing to repent didn't occur to me. I was just blown away that he chose to forgive me....because I certainly didn't deserve it. If I had focused on how I thought HE should progress, then I would have risked resentment myself, and I had no right to resent after I had just obliterated our M.

Hmm, I am assuming that BL's comment was directed at the BS's.s Standing by for correction if wrong

I actually read the comment just after it was written but felt it was worthy of pondering. I guess to an extent I have some sense of entitlement to my resentment. After all DH did X number of horrible things to me, before, during and after D-day, the A, the FR and early recovery.

Last night for various reasons I got a chance to look thru my personal thread from the time my elder DD ran away. We had been in recovery about 5 months at that stage.
My DH is an entirely different person from then. He is loving and sweet, considerate and very anti infidelity.

There is a well known adage on MB by Gimble about affairs resulting from resentment and entitlement. So how is clinging to MY resentment making me any different to Flick clinging to his resentment to justify the A? (at the time of the A, not now)

I dont know that I particularly need to repent of it to GOD, as I personally feel that it is something covered by my daily talk and examination of the day with Him. However I am wondering if perhaps I owe my DH an apology for continuing to resent him for things he hasnt done in nearly 2 years.