saddest, stop the crap RIGHT NOW. You are not here to critique how a group of dedicated posters word their posts, are you? Well, get this:
I don't give a [censored] if you used to be suicidal. It means NOTHING TO ME. I don't know you from Adam! I'm going to give you advice to repair your M that you CAME HERE OF YOUR OWN FREE WILL TO GET.

Also, get wise to this: your situation is NOT special. You had an affair - JOIN THE WAYWARD CLUB!! It isn't delicate, it isn't 'different', it isn't unusual. You messed around with a guy who wasn't your husband and created a huge mess of your own making. End of story.

Do you want to repair the horrible damage you've done? Then put your entitlement mentality away, can the self-serving crap of "I'm an attorney" - we don't care what you are. All we're interested in is helping you get over your waywardness. If that isn't what you want, you're wasting your time here.

It it IS what you want, grow a skin, lost your entitlement mentality, shut up, and READ.

Here is what I am chewing on now and need some input on.

We have a long history of sweeping everything under the rug until there is a crisis and then we are pretty good at sweeping that under the rug too.

I feel strongly that we need to address the A. How do I bring it up directly and non-confrontationally the first time? And when? What exact words do I say that don't threaten his boundaries and make it clear that I want to talk about it when he is but the timetable is up to him? And if he never brings it up -- and history suggests he won't -- then what do I do?

First, cause no more pain.

First, cause no more pain.

First, cause no more pain.

It is my mantra.

And here is the another thing I am chewing on -- what steps do I need to take on a daily basis to demonstrate my sorrow and love and commitment? I have some ideas on this point, but I would dearly love to hear from BS's on what made a difference to them.

My suggestion would be to get the book Surviving an Affair FIRST, read it and familiarize yourself with the program and THEN present the program to him. It is not going to make much sense presented in bits and pieces.

Get SAA, Lovebusters, His Needs, Her Needs and the accompanying workbook. It will walk you through the lessons.

MB is completely different from other marriage programs or traditional counseling in that a) it results in romantic love and b) it is all behaviorally based versus feeling based. This is why MB succeeds where traditional marriage counseling fails. The tactics are completely different.

Here are some articles that touch on those differences: here

Does Marriage Builders Work?

Saddest,
The advice re: giving each other primary attention (as opposed to giving the children primary attention) does seem counter-intuitive to what we're taught in our culture. But it is so important. It is hugely important.

There's a key concept you can read about here called "undivided attention" -- meaning, undivided attention that you & your H give one another.

For couples trying to overcome an affair, Dr. Harley recommends 15 hours per week minimum. This is hard to do if you have kids and if even one of you has a career. But I can't overemphasize just how important it has been to rebuilding my marriage, and not just a so-so-marriage, but one where my wife & I are in-tune with one another. Over the years, we had gotten so involved in our careers and our kids and our church that we had let our 1-on-1 time slip, and the cumulative effect was not good. (No, this wasn't the reason I cheated, but it was a reason that our marital relationship wasn't what it could've been.)

This doesn't mean that you neglect your kids physically or emotionally. However, it means that you & your H set boundaries around your time together. If that means sitting down to talk every evening between 7 and 8:30pm, then you & he make it happen. If it means getting a babysitter every Saturday evening, make it happen.

There are ways to let your children know that you consider this "mom-and-dad" time important and that it does not come at their expense. By spending time together, you & your H will be not only tending the garden of your own relationship, but also modeling what committed, happy couples do. That's a wonderful gift to your kids that will serve them very well even years after thay have left your home.

In choosing a child-centered marriage, you and your H chose to put aside your most important needs in favor of the ignorant and immature needs of your children - the same little people who are looking to you to show them their place in life. How's that worked so far? Doesn't sound like it's worked so well to me. So now everyone suffers. BAD PLAN. You kids took Priority No. 1 in your family and now they're getting screwed for it because you and your H allowed it. BAD PLAN. Little kids are NOT No. 1 in the family and never should be - they will one day resent you for giving them a place they don't deserve and cannot handle.

Your daughter has NO BUSINESS dictating to you how much attention you are giving to your No. 1 Priority, but this is the natural outcome of a child's attitude in a child-centered marriage. How do you deal with that? Tell her that she has no business manipulating you while you deal with your personal marital business.

There are ways to let your children know that you consider this "mom-and-dad" time important and that it does not come at their expense. By spending time together, you & your H will be not only tending the garden of your own relationship, but also modeling what committed, happy couples do. That's a wonderful gift to your kids that will serve them very well even years after thay have left your home.

Brilliant. Thank you.

My daughter almost died when she was 16. It wasn't her fault. She became the center of our lives, and rightly so. That isn't her fault either. It was really scary to everyone.

Now she is alive and healthy, thank God. But patterns got set that need to be broken in an empathetic loving way. I don't know how to do that, so, true to form, I have withdrawn and avoided the whole conflict.

What do I say to her? She knows about the A so her world is already shaken. How do I tell her the right thing is for me to focus on my marriage and my emotional energy which she has pretty much exclusively owned for the past five years is now going somewhere else?

Please give me the words. I don't have them.

Okay. Better. Have you read the articles here? I would suggest you do so, as well as getting the book Surviving an Affair - you can order it on this website. It will be a critical start for both of you

Read every thread you can on this site.

Post and ask questions. You'll get a few whacks on the side of your head occasionally - expect that and it won't come as surprise when it inevitably happens. You, my friend, are a wayward, and we'll be treating you as such for awhile. Not that that's bad, mind you - it's going to help you learn.

I spent five years homeschooling my kids when they were younger. I was appalled by the women in my homeschooling support group who made it clear that their children were No. 1 in the family. Give me a few minutes and I'll tell you some really sad stories about some of those families - pity that those parents handed the keys over to kids who, because they were just KIDS, for crying out loud, had NO CLUE HOW TO NAVIGATE.

Read and listen. Ask questions. Shut up and listen to the answer without formulating your rebuttal response. It might feel a little hot in here right now, but you sound fairly intelligent - I think you'll start understanding what we're saying.

I just realized that I spent this entire day on this website to avoid engaging with my H. That can't be good.

So. You overindulge your DD out of gratitude for her recovery, overdid it, and now are withdrawing as a way to compensate for your overindulgence? Yeah, she's probably a little confused.

You need to be consistent with your DD, sad. Start with something like this: DD, I love you so very much as my daughter and I am so very proud of you! I know that you are intelligent enough to understand that your parents' M is our most important priority, and that the health of us as parents is directly related to the health of our marriage. So I know you, as a smart and respectful child, will allow us our privacy in our marriage."

Then ask her if there's anything special she'd like when you go to the grocery store. Or if she'd like to go to the mall next week. Etc.

I am not suggesting you lie to her or hide the A - it's great that she knows about that. I AM saying that she doesn't have the right - or the maturity - to be a party to your personal relationshiop as husband and wife.

Yes! This is MUCH better! Smiling for your progress. Listen and learn my friend.

You're correct. So get outta here!

In your extra time, read up on the concepts people have mentioned to you. (Hint: Four Rules. Undivided Attention. Extraordinary Precautions.) Apply as best you can. Come back in a couple of days with questions.

A parting thought/question: So far, I don't believe you've said a word about why you want to save your marriage. If you've got good reasons, your husband might even want to hear them.

She is horribly confused. Am I someone she can count on or not? Recently, the answer has been no since I have been so consumed with my own issues, which, if truth be told, was a huge factor in both creating the circumstances that led to the A -- unrelenting fear about her with no relief -- and snapping the A shut.

Am I someone she can count on? I don't know the answer to that. I have made such horrible decisions.

Can I become her rock again? Yes, I think I can. But it's going to take some work on her part too.

My psychiatrist told me that children really want to forgive their parents. I hope he is right.

Down the road a bit I will talk to my daughter about all of this because I think it is critical that she understand the importance of caring for her marriage or partner and how quickly and unexpectedly you can end up in a situation you never would have in a million years expected was remotely possible if you ignore your feelings. She is cut from the exact same cloth as me.

Someone asked why I see I psychiatrist if I'm not depressed or suicidal. The answer is it is prophylactic. If you had breast cancer, you go in 4 times a year for mammograms. Same thing.

My H knows why I want to save this marriage. He is the love of my life. We have been through it all together -- way more than anyone we know.

Here is a little secret though -- we never had much of a sex life before the A. But now? Wow. I let my body tell him how much I love him because my words mean nothing. It is pretty cool.

Hysterical bonding....very common...and not a bad thing.

Do I understand your that your dd is now 21 or 22? She is long past being the center of your universe. Focus on your marriage and she will benefit in the long run.

I asked, and your answer confuses me. You're going for, like, a check-up? A tune-up? I don't understand. Do you mean you are on medication that requires regular check-ups with a psych? Can I ask what your condition is? That may help us.

As for the other question about your daughter - why do you feel she can't count on you? Because you made bad choices? Don't try to be her everything. You can't. You can only be your best flawed human, like the rest of us. More importantly, you need to show her a healthy M, and that isn't a M that orbits around the children. Try orbiting around your H. You'll be amazed at the difference that makes. That's what she needs.

One more thing, then I'm off to bed - it's great that your DD lived. We have a poster here who lost her son when he was 18. There is nothing you're going through that at least one of us hasn't been through. (Sorry for bringing your awful time up, Melody.)

The discussion is rather academic. You don't put them first, anyway. Having an affair is one of the most damaging things you could possibly do to your children. You didn't have your affair for your children, by any stretch of the imagination.

I go to my psychiatrist because I was suicidally depressed and it is of grave importance, at least to me, that I don't become suicidally depressed again. My psychiatrist is a physician that I visit to help me keep tabs on that illness.

I agree with you Markos-- I blew up my life and the life of my H and my children when I made that choice. But in fact, I did put them first, for my whole life. I put everyone besides me first. I was a giver and I put every bit of self esteem and identity in that basket.

I was incredibly, inexcusably selfish in my decision to have an affair. That doesn't make me a selfish person -- I'm just not. It means I did an incredibly selfish thing.

I don't, however, think the issue is academic because it still exists in the question of what do I do going forward?

Saddest,

Reread your post I quoted And then see if you can figure out why you are having trouble with your daughter, and your marriage?

I'll give you a hint, you don't rear children without emotional pain, having almost lost two children both to medical situations (oh! in case you haven't guessed there are some posting to you that have lost children), I can tell you you are doing them no favors by your handling of that situation.

You complain about your H not addressing or wanting to talk about things and you have a mantra of cause no more pain. It is a little late for that. Recovery is PAINFUL for both you and your H. There is no good way to recover and rebuild a marriage without "radical honesty" which is not the same as "brutal honesty" Being honest with one another is going to be painful, you have lied and cheated on him and there is no "good" way to discuss this without BOTH of you enduring some pain.

It seems to me you want to push this aside but blame your H for not wanting to talk. You asked how to do this.

Allow me to offer a few suggestions for you to REALLY consider. One start to figure out WHY you allowed your boundaries to be crossed, what you told yourself that made it OK for you to have an affair. THEN, start to make plans to protect your boundaries and tell your H what you are doing and why. Tell him what you have learned since you had your A and how you plan on using what you learned to make the marriage better and to be a better W.

You only control yourself and YOUR actions, start to do that and tell him what your plan is for yourself. I truly hope that you don't pull the intellectual superiority crap with him that you have tried here. I also hope that you completely lose the suicide threats and thoughts. Your H does not need to hear this stuff because it is all about YOU, and not about him or how you are going to protect him.

You really need to do a lot of reading here, and then just because you understand the words DO NOT make the assumption that you understand the nuances of what you read, that will take a complete clearing of the fog and some time. You are NOT that fast a learner and it requires that your perspective on things really change.

Think about this...carefully.

JL