How do you handle his DJ's. You validate that he feels that way, and respectfully ask for his patience and forbearance as you seek to prove you are not as he currently views you, or at least will not be that person at the other side of the process.

I.E. you could say to him, "I know I must seem to be ___________, but I ask that you give me time to prove to you at the end of our marriage building journey that I've become a better wife.

Or something similar. DJ's or any LB is about fear and control. He probably has lots of fear and there is very little he can control. So as you are successful in the program, chances are, his DJs will go away. As you demonstrate EP's as well as the other protections of Marriage Building, there will be less for him to fear and less he'll want to control.

If he feels safe and satisfied, the need to DJ or LB in any fashion is minimized.

Stop rationalizing this. Who says you can't be honest? Foggy you, that's who.

Just take the plunge. (Not advising here when or how or whatever - soooo glad you're counseling w/ Steve tomorrow - just speaking about how you proceed with recovery, your M, and life in general after this.) I think I've posted this to you before ( ): commit to being honest. It's that simple. Not easy, but it is simple.

Once you make that commitment, the key will be, I think, radical - not brutal - honesty.

Do not think you know better than your BH re: what he needs to know, what he can handle, keeping things back so as to "not hurt him." You tell the truth humbly, in its entirety, and be willing to do so. That will go a long way towards getting your R off on the right foot.

In other (familiar) words: "the whole truth and nothing but the truth."

By withholding the truth from your DH you are committing a DJ against him, assuming he can't handle it.

This isn't a court of law-- where short, concise answers are best. This is real life, where only the truth will do.

SadW, I am SO SO SO GLAD that you are going to be counseling with Steve. I bet you'll like him.

When you and your BH spend these 3 hours a day of UA together, what are you doing? You should be engaging in activities that encompass these four ENS, SF, Conversation, affection and recreational companionship. These are IMPORTANT ENs that need to be met solely by your spouse to get the best result.

Stick with MB. You have come so far. You will be surprised at your current thinking the further out you get. Take care and be sure to update us on what Steve has to tell you.

SW,

I just want to restate the warning that bringing the truth to light in bits and pieces will result in failed recovery. Anything that comes out after the fact will reset your husband's D-day - Recovery timer back to zero. New information that comes out later will destroy his trust all over again until he sees no way for it to be recovered. This will be especially bad if it looks like recovery is progressing and new information appears when things seem to be improving.

Lying is a Love Buster. It is always something that depletes the Love Bank and whenever a lie is discovered after substantial progress is made everything has to begin again from scratch and a BS will only start over a time or two and then the emotional toll will become too high to continue with an empty Love Bank...

Mark

There will be no bits and pieces. Even as foggy as I am I can see how cruel that would be.

Finally had a conversation about the A today-had to manipulate him a little to open up but that's ok.

He doesn't want details, at least not at this point- visuals are eating him up. Told him the detail door is open whenever he wants to walk through it.

Here is my question- he is, at least today, mot disturbed about my post DD1 cover up lies. I told him that from what I had read here that my behavior was, while inexcusable, not atypical. I explained the addiction analogy. He doesn't buy it - none of it. I'm not sure what else I can say that will help him with this. Will ask Steve tomorrow of course but any thoughts from BH's on this would be wonderful.

Mark1952, you a post on this subject recently on someone's thread that talked about this issue and right/left brain functions. I've looked back through your recent posts and I can't find it - I can't remember whether it was a WS or BS or if it was even on this forum. Would you mind posting the link for me? I want to print it out and give it to my H.

Scotland, we do lots of fun stuff together - the talk today was on a mountain hike which made the sentences short! The most important thing I learned is that his biggest fear is that I'm going to bail on the M. I suspect when he is convinced I am not I'm going to see what he's feeling - I just need to stay ahead of the curve and make sure we have the systems firmly in place so that it is a controlled burn rather than a conflagration-I have been burned enough over the years. Time for a new approach.

SW,

I have a bit of it in my Managing Memories thread linked in my sig line. I also in recent days posted some about it on FM's thread here.

It so happens that today, Pep posted something about the brain on a new thread in SAA. It's still front page active, so look for it as well.

If your husband asks questions be sure to answer them, no matter what level of detail he needs or wants. It is the lies that do the most damage because the BH can no longer trust himself to tell the truth from a lie and so will doubt his own ability to know when he is being lied to.

In cases of being lied to, often for a long time in various ways, even before the affair began, a BS will often have Openness and Honesty as a top or even the top Emotional Need. This is not typical for most and will subside eventually, but at least in the beginning, honesty is about all that matters and any signs that honesty is being withheld or that the truth is being twisted or manipulated will cause the BS's Love Bank to go so far into the red that it can take months to dig out from even a single instance of lying.

Too many times WSs have come here, confessed, yet withheld bits of information that when they came out, in some cases over a year into what seemed to be a decent recovery process at the time, caused the whole thing crash and burn as a result.

I just can't emphasize enough the importance of not holding back any information that he seeks. I warn everybody I post to that has been wayward; yet so many self-destruct by holding back or trying to hide the truth, usually in some misguided effort to spare the feelings of the BS. Please don't do that. If your husband decides to leave you over this, let it be for the truth and not because you lied to him...

You do need to be careful however that you don't use the justifications you told yourself as reasons for the affair. These were probably related mainly to what was missing in your relationship with your husband and things he either did or did not do the way you would have liked. No matter how screwed up the marriage, leaving it might have been justifiable but cheating was not. There is no just reason for cheating. None...

So get the real truth into your mind as to how an affair is a selfish choice so that it can shape your answers to his questions one of which is likely to eventually be "Why?" There is no good answer to this question beyond making that selfish choice. Rest assured that telling him that he had any part whatsoever in that choice will not resolve the conflict and will probably cause a longer time to recover if it doesn't bring it to a halt.

Dr Harley talks of the path to recovery being quite narrow. This is so true as to bare repeating to yourself time and again. Any deviation from the road will typically lead to ruin and wreckage where the marriage once stood.

[/lecture]

Mark

If it helps, SW, my DH didn't really buy the addiction angle either. To him it reeked of an "I couldn't help it" copout. So we just didn't look at it that way. I just focused on the fact that it was in fact a choice, and my roller coaster feelings were part of the consequences. It actually made it easier for me because I was - at least at that time - vulnerable to "getting stuck in the psychobabble" in lieu of doing the hard stuff. I already had a psych doc reminding me how "common" hypersexual affairs were while manic, and I was resisting that too. I basically resisted anything that might have given me some kind of "out." It kept me from gazing at my navel too much

SW,

Since our society seems to have made addicts victims and labeled addiction as a sickness, which as we all know is not something you can do anything about, the idea of an affair being an addiction is considered by many to be a cop-out of the first degree.

The same can be said for what Dr Harley calls the fog of an affair. Many don't buy the idea that people can act insane because of temporary changes in brain chemistry as the result of an affair. Yet around here we see evidence of it all over the place and people who have ended affairs, worked to recover their marriages and look back on the things they said or did during that time can scarcely believe they were capable of doing some of those things.

My wife and I were discussing an affair that came to our attention recently and she described believing how everything she was doing was right somehow. She looks back now and can't even imagine ever thinking like that but she knows that she did.

But for those who have bought into the idea that addiction is somehow equal to an illness which is either hereditary or contracted as a disease from some infectious agent the whole things smacks of absolution for what they see clearly as a crime.

At the other extreme are those hopeless romantics that believe that "love" is mystical or a magical thing that happens only when the stars are aligned just right and "the one" is encountered in the journey called life. These people are often willing to let a spouse off the hook entirely but seldom will they ever recover their marriage and usually end up having an affair of their own unless they get divorced pretty quickly.

These are the same folks who put their spouse on a pedestal and expect perfection in the relationship by virtue of being married to the right person. Of course it is this very attitude that leads to neglect of the spouse that can so often lend itself to a relationship that is devoid of having ENs met and results in a vulnerability to an affair.

Mark

Saddest,

I've decided to post in two parts because I don't want to mix the issues I see. You said something that really has me questioning your intelligence. You said To quote Dr. Phil "How's that workin fer ya?"

Seriously, how has your life strategy really worked for you? It sure hasn't helped your marriage. I doubt it helps in child rearing. I know it hasn't helped in your other relationships such as with your Mother, you have allowed her to continue to control your life, just by your response to her.

In short, really don't think you are all that safe and happy, unless you feel "ignorance" really is bliss.

I know you are still fogged up. I know it has been only a short time. I also understand your H's reluctance to buy the addiction thing. What is meant is that withdrawal is very much like a drug addict. What is NOT meant is that you could not help yourself. YOU MOST CERTAINLY COULD HAVE MADE BETTER CHOICES. YOU SIMPLY REFUSED TO DO SO.

Please think about how effective your life strategy of lying and hiding has really been.

God Bless,

JL

Saddest,

I notice something that I thought I should mention. I notice your itinerary for your talk to Steve H. I noticed this statement in another post by you.

What am I noticing???? Your attempt to control your meeting with SteveH and your attempt to control how your H recovers so as to minimize the damage to...YOU.

I also think you miss something in your assessment of your H. He KNOWS you have bailed on the marriage and that hurts. What he wonders/fears is if you are "continue" to bail on the marriage. Your continued attempts as "selective honesty" are going to hurt your marriage more than you can realize. I doubt you married a stupid man. I doubt that he really is as naive about you and your behavior as you appear to think he is.

You need to really address this honesty thing, big time. You also need to quit orchestrating your life as if it were a court room. Nothing wrong with being prepared, plenty wrong with trying to control other people. You can to that in a court room...sometimes. However, it never really works in real life IF the person you are dealing with is on the ball.

You need to think about these things.

God Bless,

JL

I love a bit of JL!

I agree with JL.

SW--leave your lawyering hat in your office.

SW,

The most important thing I learned is that his biggest fear is that I'm going to bail on the M.

What was his relationship with his mother like?

I hate to admit it, but I have a great deal of maternal abandonment issues, and I suspect many other men do too.

God Bless
Gamma

I'm sorry, but I think this is a distraction from the issue at hand, which is rebuilding the marriage.

[quote=Just Learning Your attempt to control your meeting with SteveH and your attempt to control how your H recovers so as to minimize the damage to...YOU.[/quote]

I'm seriously confused. On the one hand, I am responsible for allowing my H to treat me the way he has in the past, but on the other hand, my wanting to ensure that he doesn't treat me that way in the future is also wrong because I am trying to control his recovery. That makes me want to cry and throw up and run away.

Is SteveH going to beat me up? I read on other threads that that isn't his M.O, and I wasn't ready for that, but I can get ready.

I am being honest with H. I can't be honest with my mother. The two of them are mixed up in my brain. I'm trying to un mix them but so much of interaction is reflexive rather than considered.

H has SERIOUS abandonment issues with his mother which makes what I did all the crueler.

The quote thing has me beat.

Sick and hopeless.

Mark1952, that is exactly what I was looking for -- thanks.

SadW;

Leave it to J/L to hit the nail on the head:



Did anyone else notice that the FIRST line of her discussion with Steve harley was to be: 1: Policy on Notes?

What is up with that? This here lawyer type we keep posting too, isn't going to allow someone else to take notes about the case that they are working on? I mean, when SHE met with clients, SHE never took any notes? If not, then I know why she isn't a practising lawyer anymore......

I could see her 45 minutes with Steve ending up a back and forth about WHAT he might write down. And then, at the 44th minute, "lets get with the issue"

SadW: I remember clearly on my D-day, standing at my desk, my betrwyed Wife calling me, and I made a pledge to myself: "I WILL BE HONEST WITH HER WITH EVERYTHING FROM THIS POINT ON."

The lies worked well for me for many years. And threw my M into the dumper. Your operating the same way. And continue to do so.

You just posted that you manipulated your BH into discussing the affair. But ONLY, I am sure, that which YOU wished to discuss.

Breaking 40 years of bad behaviors and habits are tough. Going from the shelter of your lies to the brilliace of the sunshine of truth is very difficult. But it is the ONLY way to save yourself. This isn't about the marriage. This is about YOU. You need to get on the right side of truth, AND do it soon.

No one likes pain. But you have certainly spread around enough for many families. You don't want to recognize that, becasue then that means even more pain for YOU. Believe, the pain is less in the light. Truth DOES minimize your pain.

Along with everyone else's.

Make the call the Steve. He has done this before. Many TIMES. He has a plan. He has a process, that he can and WILL, follow, with you. Don't distract him because of your concern about NOTES, or RECORDINGS, or phone phobias. Your ONLY concern is to recieve HELP. And HOW TO SAVE YOUR MARRAIGE.

Don't worry about NOTES. Your concenr here is, and only, that someone will take what you say, and REMEMBER THEM. So you can not deny them later. Tell the truth. Then you never have to deny anything.

LG

A few years ago, we were involved in a lawsuit which required the production of medical records, including the records of the MC we saw in 2002-3. Of course, I reviewed those records with our attorney. My H never read them. The contents of those records, which included notes from IC sessions with my H and me, were extremely damaging to me and in turn our M. I wish I had never seen them, but I did. I wish I could forget them, but I can't. I wish I had filed for D then, but I didn't. I wish I could trust the MC process again, but I'm not sure that is possible.

I was deposed and the language in those notes was used to discredit, humiliate and wound me. These were mental health professionals -- it never occurred to me to not be open with them, nor did it occur to me to be concerned about the accuracy of what they were righting down or their interpretation.

The notes caused me enormous, unnecessary pain. At home, we sought out a MC who doesn't take notes. My pdoc doesn't take notes. I review whatever my Mdocs write in the charts before I leave the office. You can scoff all you like because you have never been questioned under oath line by line about your medical records. It hurts.

What I said to my H was "what can I tell you or do that will help you?" I don't know how to be more open than that.

Despair is rearing its ugly head.

SadW:

I HAVE been deposed in the past. Not about my medical records, and if you were in a lawsuit, that allowed the production of your medical records, than it was RELEVENT to the case at hand.

Sorry, I'm not buying it.

It is just a dodge to avoid what REALLY needs to happen. Which is a discussion with someone who has done this kind of counsuling before, and KNOWS how to address it.

Your husband COULD force the production of SH's notes in a D case.

But it all goes back to J/L's point. Your worried about the potential PAIN to you.

"IF I reveal the truth to SH, and he writes it down, it could come back to hurt ME."

The hurt is already there. His notes JUST MAY indicate a pattern of discovery in you, and a pattern of becoming a better person. Wouldn't that be nice?

And when you refer to this as manipulation: "What can I tell you or do that will help you?" you are seriously afraid of addressing ANYTHING.

That line should be the MB banner line to repairing a M scared by infidelity. You finally asked you BH what YOU could do. And then you two TALKED. And he learned something. And you gave something up. And it didn't HURT YOU.

Try that line again tonight.

And then listen.

LG