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Joined: Oct 2011
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Thank you JL24. I will hang in there. I am doing all I can to love and honor my husband. He has shown me true love. He says that he forgives me. Our pastor said last Sunday. Forgiveness isn't restoration. Forgiveness is necessary but not the same as restoration.

I am committed to restoring my marriage. I would love to say loser things about the OM. From outside appearance he appears just great, but on the inside i guess it's a different deal altogether.

I know this foggy thing will pass for me. I want to protect my BH and my DS from this ever happening again. That is why I am here. To learn from others who have experienced this from both sides. Thanks again.


Me: BW/WW 45
Him:WH/BH 42
DS: 13
"You are more than than the choices that you've made. You are more than the sum of your past mistakes. You are more than the problems you create. You've been remade."
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Neak, I just recommended that she come and read on the site. I have no idea if she has or not. I don't think so but will be watchful. I am sure she probaby did not want to take my advice. How would I know? Just by reading her posts and seeing similarities.


Me: BW/WW 45
Him:WH/BH 42
DS: 13
"You are more than than the choices that you've made. You are more than the sum of your past mistakes. You are more than the problems you create. You've been remade."
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IMO, chances are better than even that you would recognize her if she came here.

Maybe she won't. I know I would never have taken advice from the OW. My dear advisers here had a big rotflmao when she did try and give me marital counsel.

Still, it does happen every once in a while. If you already have a plan in place, then you'll be ready to take action on the small chance this scenario ever comes to pass.


A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner.
~ English proverb



Neak's Story
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Originally Posted by Pepperband
Originally Posted by foreversunshine
I still have feelings somehow for the OM. I don't know why.

Fantasy relationships are usually composed of about 5% reality and 95% daydreaming. You are holding onto the daydreaming fanciful notion of who/what OM represented .... because the real OM was never a part of your life.
This is OK if you are a young teenage girl, in love with Justin Bieber.
OM is your equivalent of Bieber.

This means, your residual "feelings" for OM are immature and fantasy based.

Best of luck.
I bumped a thread of mine for you.
To The Unfaithful Lurkers - A Gift.
There is a lot of basic information on that thread that may help you dump your fantasy and become a happy woman in the real world.

Pepperband that was awesome! Yesterday I was so overwhelmed with all the posts that I didn't get a chance to read it. I am fortunate that I have a husband that is willing to recover our marriage.

All of you vets here: You help change lives. I am on the right road. All of you have helped me to work on putting the OM in the correct perspective. Thank you so much.


Me: BW/WW 45
Him:WH/BH 42
DS: 13
"You are more than than the choices that you've made. You are more than the sum of your past mistakes. You are more than the problems you create. You've been remade."
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Quote
All of you vets here: You help change lives. I am on the right road. All of you have helped me to work on putting the OM in the correct perspective. Thank you so much.
If you're like many other waywards, you're going to have moments where you see him for the scumbag that he is, and then boom! you're missing him terribly.

Don't get all crazy and think that the two of you MUST be soulmates if you're having doubts. It's all a part of withdrawal and some foggy thinking.

Make sure you post here when these thoughts rear their ugly heads. We'll help you get rid of those. wink


D-Day 2-10-2009
Fully Recovered and Better Than Ever!
Thank you Marriage Builders!

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You are probably right but today I am feeling optomistic. But I do realize that I am not out of the woods yet. I will be ready for that (I hope) when it happens. I am better today than I was yesterday.

You had asked yesterday if our kids were still in the same sports association. They aren't. Luckily we are on opposite parts of town. Our kids will go to separate high schools too.

I will come back for counseling when needed. Promise.


Me: BW/WW 45
Him:WH/BH 42
DS: 13
"You are more than than the choices that you've made. You are more than the sum of your past mistakes. You are more than the problems you create. You've been remade."
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Originally Posted by foreversunshine
You are probably right but today I am feeling optomistic. But I do realize that I am not out of the woods yet. I will be ready for that (I hope) when it happens. I am better today than I was yesterday.

You had asked yesterday if our kids were still in the same sports association. They aren't. Luckily we are on opposite parts of town. Our kids will go to separate high schools too.

I will come back for counseling when needed. Promise.


Just going to a kids sporting event will probably trigger you for quite a while. Make a plan now on how you will handle that.

I suggest you always have someone safe with you who can help keep you sane.

You will need to put extraordinary precautions in place to avoid relapse and triggers.


BH: 46
FWW: 44
3 DD: 20,17,11
Married 24 years
PA/EA: 5/08
DDay: 6/08
NC: 8/08
Previous EA 1998 confessed 8/08
In Recovery
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My H will be right there with me. We have gone to several football and baseball games and did great. It's crazy but the whole supportive dad thing has always been a huge need for me. Now he is doing that faithfully and is amazed at the relationship that he has grown with our son over the last year. It is beautiful to see.

If it ever happens that we run across OM & his w I know my H will be right there with me.

I truly wish he had done the exposure of the A a long time ago. We have wasted so much time with me being addicted to someone who was not mine. I am a huge advocate of exposure. I would still be stuck there if not for his stepping up to save me from myself.


Me: BW/WW 45
Him:WH/BH 42
DS: 13
"You are more than than the choices that you've made. You are more than the sum of your past mistakes. You are more than the problems you create. You've been remade."
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If you do ever run across OM and his BW at an event, you and your BH need to leave immediately.

If there is even a small chance of this happening, I recommend beginning the process of moving. The risk just isn't worth it, even if your family has to make sacrifices to relocate.


A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner.
~ English proverb



Neak's Story
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FS,

Something for you to consider. AS you learn to use the tools here, you need goals. One goal I think is important and often not discussed as much as others (rebuilding the marriage is surely one that is discussed) is the goal of rebuilding yourself to become the woman you want to be, a woman your H will love and respect, a woman that your son will be proud of when he reaches manhood.

If you become that person, you will find that OM will have no place in your mind or heart. You will have learned what is of value and what is not. You will have learned about boundaries and how to protect them. You will have learned how to lead your life in grace.

So begin to consider not only what your H needs, what your son needs, and even what you need but also consider what type of person/woman YOU want to be.

Think about it carefully.

God Bless,

JL

Last edited by Just Learning; 10/11/11 06:51 PM.
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FS,

I have had two affairs during my very long marriage, and my H has had several affairs.

H: let's see, he's had at least 2 that I can think of right now, at least one EA, left me once for another woman (which didn't work out for him), and recently had a PA....that's the short version but I might be missing details

Me: I had a ONS and an EA

We have been married since 1975



You are asking about this issue of being "in love" with the OM.

Okey dokey.

I would challenge this idea. I thought I was in love with another man. I went round and round with myself about this. I would have sworn to you at the time that I was "in love" with OM and with my H - in love with two men at the same time. I was a total mess. I had this EA going on, and just like you, I was very good at blaming my husband.

My husband, meanwhile, was going to college and working part time.

I was working full time, and overtime, with the OM. Oh, not to mention, I was working lots harder on trying to figure out how to spend time with the OM

and NOT how to spend time with my husband.

Why? Because my husband and I were not working together to meet one another's needs. What I should have been doing was working with my husband to spend more time with him, talking with him, doing cool stuff with him. Instead, we were both spending time working too much, and in his spare time he spent time with his brother or friends playing music. And I spent time griping at him, instead of making our home a place he WANTED to be.

That made for an environment that set the stage for one of us, or both of us, to look for our needs to be met. We were not meeting one another's needs.

I CHOSE an affair. My husband did not "make me have an affair". I could just as easily talked with him, looked at our marriage and realized what was happening, or looked for answers in any number of marriage resources that were available. I didn't CHOOSE that.

I blamed my husband. That made it EASY for me to look at this nice-looking guy at work, and accept my fantasy as "okay", because, after all....my husband wasn't "there for me".

And I said that magic little phrase, too:

I loved my husband, but I wasn't "in love" with him.

You know that phrase, don't you???


I found myself talking with the OM, finding ways to spend time with him. I worked extra...and worked extra hard to make time for him. I was someone ELSE for him. I agreed with things that he liked, listened to music he liked, talked about things he liked, went places he liked....just to be near him and get a fill of this fantasy.

It was a fantasy of starting over.

It would be a new life. Without any of the stains of arguments, problems, whatever I perceived had been "wrong" with things in the past..........


Starting over. A perfect love.



What a fantasy - and here it was - coming true.


Or, was it?


There was this pesky little business.
His wife. My husband. My daughter. His children.

Sheesh.

Every time that reality deal - it kept slapping me in the face. I hated that. Because it was that reality deal that kept slapping me and it was THE REALITY DEAL that made me so very sad, so stressed, so anxious. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't look my husband in the face.

I cried a lot.
I was emotionally on a roller coaster.
I felt like I couldn't talk to anyone - and I was constantly telling all of these feelings to the OM, whose mind really was only on one thing...SF...oh, that was the goal for him.


And I had a reality check. I realized I was in love. Yes I was.


I was not in love with this other man, though.


I was in love with the idea of a fantasy life. Of starting over, of being able to have some kind of perfect life, perfect love, something I had made up in my head.

It didn't exist - anywhere!


I was risking what I had with my husband - REAL LOVE - for vapor. For NOTHING. What I was making up in my head - what was sex for the OM, and a fantasy for me - and was NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING!!!!!! I was risking everything for it?????


Oh, God. I was risking everything for it. For nothing.


I ended the EA immediately. It was over.



I have never crossed those boundaries again. That fantasy thing - you have it. You love this strange idea.


The thing is...you already HAVE this love. Go sit down, face your husband. Take his hands in your hands.

Say nothing. Put your face about 10 inches from his. Look in his eyes. Just look in his eyes for about 15 seconds. Think about the first time you made love with him.

You will see exactly what I mean.

Schoolbus

Schoolbus


Lucky to be where I am, in a safe place to get marriage-related support.
Recovered.
Happy.
Most recent D-day Fall 2005
Our new marriage began that day. Not easily, but it did happen.
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Originally Posted by Just Learning
FS,

Something for you to consider. AS you learn to use the tools here, you need goals. One goal I think is important and often not discussed as much as others (rebuilding the marriage is surely one that is discussed) is the goal of rebuilding yourself to become the woman you want to be, a woman your H will love and respect, a woman that your son will be proud of when he reaches manhood.

If you become that person, you will find that OM will have no place in your mind or heart. You will have learned what is of value and what is not. You will have learned about boundaries and how to protect them. You will have learned how to lead your life in grace.

So begin to consider not only what your H needs, what your son needs, and even what you need but also consider what type of person/woman YOU want to be.

Think about it carefully.

God Bless,

JL

JL Thank you. I surely don't like the woman I have been. If people could look inside my soul and see the cheap, cheesy things I have done it would be the most humiliating thing I could imagine. It is shameful and I do want to become a better person. I will focus on that.


Me: BW/WW 45
Him:WH/BH 42
DS: 13
"You are more than than the choices that you've made. You are more than the sum of your past mistakes. You are more than the problems you create. You've been remade."
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Oh Schoolbus: I see my own story reflected in yours. I did apologize to my husband the other night for any blame I placed on him for what I did. I told him that at that point before the A I should have went to him and let him know what I was feeling.

He said he knew how bad & unloved I felt even then but we both didn't do anything about. We should have determined the state of our marriage and decided to work on it or separate. But we didn't and I chose the A.

I wanted that wonderful feeling of being loved. That is not what i wound up with ultimately. I did love the fantasy but I was slapped with the reality of it all. It was definately not what is seemed. I risked my family's happiness and the happiness of another family I hardly knew for selfish satisfaction.

I think hard about it now and realize I could have wound up with absolutely nothing. What if my BH didn't want our M anymore. Where would I be? Alone and sad. Destroying my BH and DS's happiness for nothing. The OM didn't want me, he was in it for the SF. That was plain as day once exposure happened. Honestly I knew even before then.

I am seriously going to look at your story, Glove Oil's story too and all the others who have lived this nightmare before me. Thanks to all those who are sharing their misery, shame and sucess stories here so that others like me can learn to save ourselves and our marriages.


Me: BW/WW 45
Him:WH/BH 42
DS: 13
"You are more than than the choices that you've made. You are more than the sum of your past mistakes. You are more than the problems you create. You've been remade."
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EDIT

Last edited by Fireproof; 10/19/11 09:41 AM. Reason: TOS disruptive
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Cut and paste on several theads.


BW - 70
WH - 65
M - 35 years
D-day - 17 Apr 08
H broke contact 11/1/09
Back in love after the worst thing that every happened to us.
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She is going to bow her head in shame one day that she did all this.


Me BW (37)
WH (37)
DD1 6 yrs DD2 2 yr

A man who abandons his wife and children because of his infidelity is no price. I can do better then that, I deserve better then that.

The difficulties and struggles of today are but the price we must pay for the accomplishments and victories of tomorrow

Men must be honest with themselves before they can be honest with others. A man who is not honest with himself presents a hopeless case
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Maybe. I hope that is the outcome. The wonderful thing about MB is that there is the possibilty for personal and marital recovery.

AM


BW - 70
WH - 65
M - 35 years
D-day - 17 Apr 08
H broke contact 11/1/09
Back in love after the worst thing that every happened to us.
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almostdied,
Do not cut and paste this post to other threads. You have posted this once. You are welcome to participate in discussions on other posters' threads, but may not disrupt them with cut-and-paste-posting.


mbseasons@aol.com
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