SusieQ, I can certainly see why you say that -- as in most things on this board, while it may not be the whole truth, there is truth there. I've gotten past the phone thing, I'm hoping Steve will email me the notes he makes which will alleviate my anxiety on that point. But my H really doesn't want me to call -- "get carried away" with the MB stuff. If I were at home, I would absolutely sneak off and call anyway and to hell with honesty. In the overall scheme of things, I don't think that will ultimately register as a dishonest LB with my H. But there is no way I can do that where I am.

I meant PORH -- it was late and I was crying -- I knew that didn't look right.

Women are wives, daughters and mothers. I'm not doing a good job in any of those roles. I need something to feel good about. The isolation, loneliness and pervasive guilt across all those roles are taking their toll on me.

I think I need to table all this until I go home in a few weeks. Thanks for everything. And I mean that with all my heart. Even the 2X4's. Or especially the 2X4's.

SW, Want2Stay had it pegged. From our side of the fence this looks normal. It IS a rollercoaster. You have to be able to recognize that and roll with it. That was the hardest thing for GM to learn. Your H may say some terrible things to you as he works his way through this but he may turn around and be very sweet or at least sweeter the next. He is a mess, as are you but you at least know what his life has been. He will be putting it together for quite some time.

Hang with this. You are doing very well. The work load is on you until he heals somewhat. Remember, you have the workload now but he is not free. He has to learn to live with what has happened to him. When you get to move even ground, and that takes a while, you will both be responsible for the healing. You just have to make it until then by doing everything in your power to heal him even when you want to grab him and shake him. He has to learn to rethink his life and his future because it is all different now because of your A. He also will have to learn to suck it up a lot while you learn and not just bolt or scream when you make mistakes. It is no fun. Recovery is very very hard and you are not anywhere near that part yet. It is worth it if you want to love each other again.

Just a long winded way to add my voice to let you know his behavior right now is normal and you are doing very well.

Saddest,

You may be a walk away W, but you didn't need to be an adulteress. And here is where I sense something I would like you to consider.

I'm sensing you had the affair in hopes that your H would divorce you and YOU would not have to make that decision. I sense that you don't confront your H and haven't confronted your H about many things because you don't have the back bone to do so.

You are clearly an intelligent woman, but are you a woman of principles? You have violated your own principles with the affair. AND you have further violated your principles by allowing your H to treat your children and you in a way that was not respectful. Oddly, or it may seem so to you, this falls on you.

We have strongly suggested that you need to speak with your H and what you just posted about your S19 and 15 and their reluctance can be construed as somewhat normal. Boys and their fathers off clash at this age. However, you intimate that this is much more. If that is so you have a "teachable moment" at hand. Your H is willing to listen to you. Ask him to sit down and work with you on a plan that brings your S15 back into the fold so to speak. Make sure he knows how is son sees him.

I will tell you up front that I am old school. I don't believe that parents should be "friends" with their children. I believe parents should be training and educating their children and they have little say in this. Once they are adults and on their own, then yes, friends it is. Your H may feel similarly but have taken it too far. He needs the feed back to achieve what he wants to achieve. And that perhaps is how you should start the conversation.

"Dear, S15 is not doing well right now. I need to know what your goals for him are. I would like to know how you plan to encourage/motivate him to achieve those goals. I would definitly like to know if my goals for them are consistent with your goals for him. Finally, I think it would be most effective if we reached an understanding/plan for how to rear him from now on. I don't want YOU to be with him like I am with my mother."

Now here is where the policies of radical honesty and joint agreement come into play. YOur H doesn't have to know these policies but one of you do.

You may think you want out of this marriage but your actions suggest you don't. You may think he doesn't love or respect you, but his actions suggest he does. You handed him a get out of jail free card, and he tossed it.

Please think about this.

God Bless
JL

JL, you are a man of great compassion, insight and wisdom, and I have been honored that you have posted on my thread, and have read some of what you have posted elsewhere.

Since you are old school, I am guessing you never threw a full glass of wine in your wife's face in front of other people when she took a position on politics you didn't agree with. I'm guessing you never said to her in front of a large group of people that all of her stories are boring and no one wants to hear what she has to say. I'm guessing you never blew up at her for getting so sick it looked like you might have to miss a golf game. I'm almost certain you didn't get mad at her when your child was born because she hadn't arranged for child care for the others at a time when her legs were still numb. It seems unlikely that you discussed the workings of your wife's body in front of your family in a way sure to cause her embarrassment. I would venture to say you don't have a mental file cabinet where you file away the intimate things your wife has told you about herself under the tab "Weapons".

No backbone? It takes a lot of strength to keep a smile on your face and pretend like all is well when you NEVER have the FAINTEST idea what you are about to do wrong next. It sucks the life out of you -- chronic, unrelenting anxiety, trying to always stay one step ahead, but of course you can't. My principle has been to work harder and harder and harder, to stay ahead of my H's ridicule, contempt and criticism so he wouldn't have a target. I thought if I could just be more perfect, ala Mary Poppins "practically perfect in every way", I could make the M work. I thought/think it is all my fault that I couldn't ever be perfect enough that he would find a way to be nice to me. Maybe you are right -- maybe it does fall on me to make H treat me and my kids with respect. If that's the case, I don't think I'm up to the challenge. I can't make someone else be nice.

I think he should be responsible for his own conduct and I should be responsible for mine. Maybe that isn't the way it works. All I know is that I can't try to be "practically perfect in every way" anymore. I have to be me now -- imperfect me.

Using MB language, the reason my H didn't toss me to the curb over the A is that his LB was full. His only unmet EN according to him is his EN that his wife not have an A.

We did POJA the S15 and agreed H would take him out to do something fun to talk about their relationship. I told S15 that I understood his reactivity to his dad's tone but that (1) his dad is trying to moderate that and we need to work on being less reactive, and (2) he needs to tell dad in a calm way when he feels he is being treated with disrespect and take a breath and talk about it rather than getting mad and leaving.

I have without a doubt the greatest kids on the planet and anyone who argues with me on that is just wrong. My relationships with them are honest and solid, i.e. we fight but we work through it, always. I am a good mother.

I imagine that your husband never brought you your older child, to the HOSPITAL room when you were recovering from the birth of your younger child. I can imagine that your H didn't, well.....you know what? I don't want to get into a pissing contest with you about whose H was worse because in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't mean a whole hill of beans now. YOU did wrong too, and so did I. Thing is, I CHOSE to NOT have an affair. You didn't make that same choice. When you said your vows, did you mean them? I am betting that you did. You have become a FREELOADER/RENTER in your marriage where you most likely used to be a buyer. You are posting to a forum FULL of BS and FWW who had less than perfect marriages pre-A. ONLY the WSs have chosen to have an affair.

Your DH didn't have an affair most likely because of 2 reasons, he either hasn't had the opportunity yet, OR he has stronger boundaries than you did. THAT'S it in a nutshell. It was NOT because you were a perfect wife that did everything right. Right now he is in hysterical bonding mode. He realizes how close he was to losing you and he is is looking at you differently. I DID IT TOO.

If I didn't know better, I would say that there has been contact. It could just be withdrawal. Fog coming in and out for sure on this thread which is to be expected. You still have a long way to go and time is your friend now.

I saw your post where you said you were going away for a while. I didn't make any mention of it then because I didn't see the point. Seriously, as I said before, what do WE have to lose? We will feel badly for you and your family, but we will just move on to helping the next person who posts. There are A LOT of people who need help. There is a lot of betrayal happening everyday. My only hope is that I can help ONE BS today to make their life a little better, even if that means I help them through their WS.

You know that this site is the best chance you have. There is some reason you keep returning. I am calling to that part of you. the decent part that knows that we will help you through this without being "yes men." THAT wouldn't help and you know it. Stop demonizing your DH and trying to justify your adultery. I am here to tell you that there was NO JUSTIFICATION. This is the MB way. You can search through all of the MB articles and posts and you won't find ONE where DrH says that there is EVER a justification for adultery. It would be like the rapist who blames the fact that the victim was wearing provocative clothes. We all know THAT isn't even close to an excuse.

Stop being so darn argumentative counselor. This isn't a courtroom. This is a safe place for you to learn and be guided through the most horrible thing YOU have ever perpetrated on another human being. Something you CAN get passed.

Cotton outta your ears and in your mouth.

Scotland, you are a dear and I so appreciate your input. I'm not trying to justify sh**. I have a great deal of respect for JL but when he tells me I have "allowed my H to treat me and the kids in a way that is not respectful" it flies all over me.

I'm willing to step up the plate and take responsibility for my part. But I am NOT responsible for the way he treats me. I'm not trying to justify anything. But I refuse to take responsibility for his bad behavior.

I get the focus of this forum -- WS' are vile and evil, occasionally close to sub-human, and any effort to dispel that idea is "fog".

Except we're not vile, evil or subhuman. We are people too.

SmilingWoman gets it because she knows what it is like to live in my M. She said I count too. I don't count here, and I don't think that is healthy for me.

You are a dear -- thank you. I wish I could know you in real life. You are quite something.

Sad,

That is most definitely not the focus of this forum! Far from it!

Here is what we call that in Texas:



Who is evil and vile other than those who engage in evil and vile behavior? It doesn't get any more vile than adultery, dear. We are judged by our behavior, not by the lies we tell ourselves. Anyone who denies the truth of the vileness of adultery is in a fog. And a very self serving one at that.

You might be able to sell that bullcrap to yourself, but you won't find any buyers around here. This is a no bullcrap zone.

Stop saying you don't count here, or that WS are sub-human. You know better by now that is not true, and you're tossing those out as lame excuses to not do some hard and painful work.

That work depends a lot on what you want. (After the fog clears - because, yes, it's still there. It takes a looooong time to clear. No insult, just par for the course.) JL's point is not that you're a terrible person deserving of any slight or insult from your BH. JL's point (and correct me if I'm wrong, JL) is that we can condition others, we can change our behavior so that they change theirs, we can create an environment where their reactions to us are better all-around. That's the idea.

Not much more right now, just want to nip the "WS's are hated, evil creatures and people are too harsh and they'll never understand and how will they ever help me anyway so why bother" line of thinking in the bud.

It should fly all over you and stick too!

You can't tell me your H put a gun to your head and made you suck it up and take it all these years. You allowed it by staying in it.


You missed JL's point by getting all defensive !

Show me a person who does not ADMIT they were evil and vile when they commited adultery and I will show you a person who has not even BEGUN recovery. Recovery cannot even begin until a WS is HONEST.

All I see is a whole lotta denial...

Lets look at the dictionary definitions of vile and evil and see if an adulterer fits:


Main Entry: vile
Pronunciation: \ˈvī(-ə)l\
Function: adjective
Inflected Form(s): vil�er \ˈvī-lər\; vil�est \-ləst\
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French vil, from Latin vilis
Date: 14th century
1 a : morally despicable or abhorrent <nothing is so vile as intellectual dishonesty> b : physically repulsive : foul <a vile slum>
2 : of little worth or account : common; also : mean
3 : tending to degrade <vile employments>
4 : disgustingly or utterly bad : obnoxious, contemptible <vile weather> <had a vile temper>
here

Looks like a perfect fit to me!

Now lets look at the definition of evil:

e�vil&#8194; &#8194;/&#712;iv&#601;l/ Show Spelled[ee-vuhl] Show IPA
�adjective
1. morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked: evil deeds; an evil life. 2. harmful; injurious: evil laws.
3. characterized or accompanied by misfortune or suffering; unfortunate; disastrous: to be fallen on evil days.
4. due to actual or imputed bad conduct or character: an evil reputation.
5. marked by anger, irritability, irascibility, etc.: He is known for his evil disposition.

I am going to have to say that your dispute is with the English language, rather than Vibrissa because her definition of waywards is very accurate according to these dictionary definitions.

Shall we dispute these word definitions to Websters Dictionary and ask them to change them up a bit?

SadW, on your tally sheet, how many of the acts that your H committed against you are erased because of your adultery? Who has the bigger balance of crimes against their spouse when your adultery is added to the list. How many times did you lie to your DH? How many thoughts did you have against your DH during your affair?

All of the evils that I have committed against my WH most certainly got erased by his adultery. I didn't WIN. We ALL lost. BUT, I have no tally on my WH. He has committed one HUGE assault on my and our marriage and I am still willing to create a marriage that is fulfilling for BOTH of us, IF my WH takes me up on my offer.

You have that chance. Why aren't you taking that chance? Why are you being so resistant? What are you afraid you will find out about yourself when you look deeper? What are you avoiding?

Saddest,







You are clearly an intelligent woman, but are you a woman of principles? You have violated your own principles with the affair. AND you have further violated your principles by allowing your H to treat your children and you in a way that was not respectful. Oddly, or it may seem so to you, this falls on you
You are absolutely right, I have never done anything like that to my W. My question to you is why you allowed such things to happen? And here is my point about backbone. You are a bright woman, you are very articulate, and you argue here with a passion even if misguided some times. YET...you allowed this to happen. WHY?



Saddest, you are missing something. You ARE responsible for how you respond to people and how they treat you. YOU ARE responsible for your boundaries and protecting them. This isn't about him being nice, or him being terrible. It is about how you respond and enforce your boundaries. You are a smart woman, and you clearly have no trouble protecting yourself when you feel we are on your case. WHY?



You see your son needs to learn some important things about life and people. You have not taught him well by your failure to protect your boundaries, and your H has not taught him well by his behavior toward S15, the other children, and YOU.

You and your H need to decide what sort of MAN you want your son to be and start training that poor boy. Right now neither of you are much of a role model, BUT...you two could be.

Well, we just might have to quibble a bit about that. My three are pretty special and admittedly I am a bit partial toward them.

JL

SadW, I have a question for you that you MAY be willing to answer. Why did you post that first time?

Sad - why do you so desperately want to minimize what you did?

I know a man who was once my supervisor. Generally a good man and had done a lot of good things in his life, before and after a life-changing pivotal event that caused his children to have to grow up without a mommy or daddy in their lives. If he could take that 18 month period out of his life, that took him on a slippery slope of ego, adultery, abuse, and murder - his life before and since could be summed up the same way as you do.

Gee Sad - if you could just take those months and encapsulate them so that they don't infect the rest of your legacy, you'd be just peachy, right?

The problem is that those months are not encapsulated. You made a choice, and then another and then another, not to determine what was the best and wisest choice, but rather, you decided you were entitled to some thrills and comforts because you had endured so much at home...

Same slope my supervisor stepped onto. Where you have the comfort of your own bed, your own clothes, your own blankets and pillows to comfort you, and the possibility of either recovering your marriage or ending it - you have those choices. My former coworker, on the other hand, does not have those choices. None of them.

Think long and hard about excusing your dalliance on that very same slippery slope, just because you didn't slide as far as he did. You murdered your own soul as well as your husband's, and another man and all of the people who love and care about you all.

The body count is still rising as you make comparisons and plea for degrees of evil.

Puleeeeeze stop this. You embarrass and shame yourself! Someday you will cringe to read these words when you finally get the magnitude of your terribly wayward attitude here.

Saddest,

To pivot a bit off one of Scotland's comments, and to repeat something I've said to you earlier,

You want to recover your marriage, you're going to need to put down the clipboard, put down the spreadsheet, get rid of the Table of Wrongs. Drop the pencil. Quit keeping score.

Your H may not be willing to do this right way. Eventually, for you to have a fulfilling marriage, you will need him to do so. But for NOW, you must make the first step.

Yep, unilateral disarmament. That's the humility of which you were advised on your first day here. The viewpoint of "No matter what he's done to me in the past, what I've done is plenty bad enough to warrant my full attention to fixing." Persistently & patiently, even though there's not a guaranteed outcome as far as his reciprocating is concerned. That's the "gratuitous act of trust" which you need to commit, about which I posted to you earlier.

You say you're not a religious person, but you remind me of the story of Christ walking on water. More specifically, you remind me of Peter in that story. You have your shining moments, like when you're planning how you're going to build your "commitment fence", or when you're ordering your cammo undies, and you've got your eye on the FUTURE you want, and you're READY to commit acts of trust; but then you get frightened & distracted by the past, and you start to sink again. In that story, which Peter is stronger? Which one accomplishes more remarkable things?

SW,

Women are wives, daughters and mothers. I'm not doing a good job in any of those roles. I need something to feel good about. The isolation, loneliness and pervasive guilt across all those roles are taking their toll on me.

When I found MB about two years ago this is exactly how my wife felt, she thought she was a failure in every category. The only approval she was getting was from people outside the family and an 85 year old guy who fell for her.

Even my wife who never admits to anything thinks she might have been involved with someone had our relationship gone on the same way for another year.

I'm not sure how you can get your husband to have empathy for you, it takes a moment of illumination for that to happen. He may be in the same place I was, where I used to think a new car or doing work around the house or making money were credits I could use to erase disrespect.

Keep posting I like your insights and let the 2x4's splinter as they may.

God Bless
Gamma

�Adultery is evil and vile so the folks who commit said acts are evil by defintion (sic)�.

The same could be said about Hitler. He was not evil by definition and did alot (sic) of good things. He may have done something evil but that doesn't define him any more than all the very good things he did.

He was a human being who made a bad mistake.�

(MelodyLane to me on the New Rants thread.)

A lauded poster on this site views my adultery as somehow comparable to Hitler�s systematic murder of 6 million people.

A lauded poster states that I am �by definition� evil.

And no one calls her on it. Which means that you all agree, or don�t disagree strongly enough to say anything.

I am eternally and sincerely grateful to those who helped me here.

Every human being is entitled to a baseline level of courtesy. Even WS�s.

Being called �by definition evil� falls way, way below that line.

Being compared to Hitler falls way, way, way below that line.

I am out, although I will be bumping this thread from time to time so that any WS who cares to read it will understand that they are by definition evil here, indeed in some way comparable to Hitler.

Get over yourself.

A person is defined by their actions. Hitler, you, Mother Theresa. Everyone is defined by their actions. An active wayward (which I was ranting about, btw) is evil and vile, because their actions are evil and vile.

You weren't COMPARED to Hitler. You were being held to the same standard he is when determining whether a person is good or not: their actions. Hyperbole. It's a literary tactic to make a point. Apparently that point struck something inside of you.

I find it interesting that you were so offended by my post. It wasn't about you, it was about ACTIVE waywards - yet why did it strike such a nerve with you?

Now will you always be bad - no, when you stop committing horrible acts, when you humble yourself and repent and do works that are good - then you are a good person.

Some of the BEST people on this site were once wayward. And I doubt you will find a single one of them who will defend themselves as good people WHILE they were actively committing some of the worst acts one person can commit against another.

But if throwing a little hissy fit makes you feel better- if blaming your husband makes you feel better - by all means, go ahead. It isn't MY family your arrogance and self-pity is destroying.