WARNING DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE A "NEWBIE" IN RECOVERY!!!

This is my response to a post on Other Topics from Shinethrough (Jerry). I just wonder what the rest of you in recovery think?

Still_Crazy,

If the situation is really as you describe it, then I think you have misdiagnosed the problem.

If the situation is really as you describe it, the problem is not that you can never get over it. The problem is that he has not done what he needs to do to help you trust him.

So there you have it. He's not doing everything he needs to do for your marriage to recover. Now it's up to you to decide whether or not you can live with that. It sounds like you really don't want to, but of course, practical considerations (e.g., finances) can play a large part in that decision. Only you can make that decision.

But whatever you decide, don't make the mistake of owning stuff that's really his to own. There are indeed BS's who cannot get over the betrayal, not matter what the FWS does to help recover the marriage. However, your FWS does not yet fit that description.

Best to you.

Hi Still crazy,,

I think one of the side effects (for lack of a better word) in recovery is sometimes as we recover we also address alot of issues in ourselves and what we want to change.

And sometimes imvho we have grown stronger because of we had to endure that we no longer want to accept "just ok", or "status quo", we don't want to settle, we want full recovery for ourselves, for our SO's and for our marriages.

I know I do not ever want to go back to the marriage I had before the A, not that is was bad, it wasn't, but I wasn't getting my needs meet either and in hind sight I had stopped growing as a person and had really lost myself in the life I had made, you know wife, mother, grandmother but not F-26.

I think sometimes if our partners do not do the work that they should on themselves that we are left feeling almost let down, almost "sigh" here we go again right back to the same old rut that started the whole mess to begin with. KWIM?

anyway just my thoughts, best wishes F-26

Oh my goodness F26, it is as if you read my mind. This is EXACTLY my thoughts.

I don't know what to do about it, but it is how i feel darn it!!!

Is he friendly? or flirting?

Is it his personality?

Is it what attracted you to him?

Well still crazy don't they say great minds think alike? LOL

I don't know the answer either, I love my husband very much and he has done a lot of work both on hisself and our marriage, and he has also changed. Most days I am very happy and full of hope.

But then it's the other days,, oh well I guess that is the nature of the beast. Don't get me wrong I do not reget working so hard for the recovery of my marriage, I would do it again, perhaps alittle differently, but I'd still do it..

F-26

Well I will give you an example and let you decide for yourself (because I believe it is flirting but he says it is just being friendly).

A couple of weeks ago we both worked the concession stand at our DS football game. An attractive woman came up to purchase something at the window. I took her order, got her stuff, told her what she owed me, took her money, gave her her change, and then told her thank you. As she was putting her change in her purse, out of the blue my H said “you better count that she might keep some for herself” and then he laughed.

IMO there was no need for him to have said anything at all to the woman as she was not being friendly at all (in others words other than saying what she wanted she did not speak another word while standing there).

Now I will admit that occasionally he jokes this way with men as well, but he ALWAYS does with females and even more so with attractive females.

And this is not what attracted me to him. He has always been this way and I have always not liked it and have always told him that I do not like it.

I was very glad i worked to recover my M as well right after D-day, but the more time passes the more i think i am not so sure it was the right decision for me.

I dunno maybe like you said it is just the nature of the beast and we all have to get through it in our own way.

SC, what does he do exactly that causes you distress?

Why did he "let it happen" in the first place? He did NOT. It just did. So he needs to take ACTION to prevent it from happening again. What is the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. also sounds like "being friendly" is a LB.


This is exactly why he needs boundaries. He can't believe he did it. If he does not change himself, he is very likely to have another affair.


Openness and Honesty. Tell him he needs to make amends for HIS AFFAIR. Just compensation. I don't think you can have a full recovery without it.

SC:

This line:


I would have been slapped by Flamingo if I said anything like that.

Impinging your HONESTY to get a smile out of an attractive woman. That's pathetic and disgusting. Demeaning as well.

Can he be friendly? Yes.
Can he flirt? Maybe. But not when your H is looking to use the flirting to guage his ability to "close the deal" like your WH was doing. Because that WAS EXACTLY what he was doing here.
Can he have said something amusing that didn't demean YOU? Certainly. But he didn't.

And THAT is WHY your recovery is stalled, and you are settling for less than you should.

Your WH still doesn't "GET IT" Flamingo and I have worked the food booth at DS's football game as well. Yes, I like looking at the pretty ladies, and not the ugly ones. I can make a cute comment. But I would NEVER make a comment that would demean my wife in the hope that the person on the other side of the counter would possibly smile. And SC? There WAS a time I could have done that. And that's the difference. You deserve, and SHOULD EXPECT the same.

LG

I do not think he was being anything but friendly. I sincerely believe it was YOU thinking, OMG, this is an attractive woman (was she attractive to him???). I think he made a joke that most people would laugh off...and yet others here are fueling your angst as though he asked her for her phone number then and there.

His ALWAYS acting differently with what YOU consider an attractive woman is an issue that should be discussed. If in fact you married a man that acts this way with men and women alike (and I am SURE you are more sensitive to his behavior with women) it will not be an easy thing to change.

If this is really true, your wife needs psychological help.

If not, you are just adding fuel to a pretty innocuous situation by suggesting that his behavior was so egregious that it would warrant a physical response. It wasn't.

Ok, Medc.

Flamingo would not have literally "slapped" me.

However, I would have crossed a line with her with a comment like that. That would be a boundary for her.

And it WASN'T an innocuous sitch as you state. It seems to be prevelant in SC's relationship.

Disrespecting her, both in private and in public. Mr SC continues to do this. And SC's recovery is stalled. Gee, do you think why?

LG

LG I did not take it as demeaning me. I took it as you stated above "a cute comment". It is the part of "in hope of making the person on the other side of the counter smile" that bothers me.

Maybe it is just me, but to me this is flirting. I would never say "any cute comments" to members of the opposite sex whether my H was standing there or not.

MEDC You are correct that he does act that way with both men and women. Although he does not always comment to men. He ALWAYS comments to women everywhere we go regardless of where it is (the grocery store, the ball games, at the bar if we go out, EVERYWHERE we go he makes a comment to women.

And it is a different tone between women who are older or younger or not as attractive. He seems to light up if he can make "a cute comment" to an attractive women.

Who knows maybe i am just seeing something that is not there.

there is nothing wrong with trying to make someone smile.

I do not see that as flirting at all. He was being friendly and funny.

IMHO, I think you need to lighten up a bit. (I only say that in regards to stuff like this....I DO think that IF his behaviors are truly different with women than men, this needs to be discussed).

I do not think the incident described was disrespectful.

SC

It has been shown on TV countless times where men see a less than attractive women struggling and hardly notices her or offers to assist her.

Then the very attractive women in the same situation has a dozen men falling all over themselves to offer assistance to her.

It is human nature. Even if the woman is out of a mans league he will still offer to aid her. Is it the momentary positive feed back from an attractive woman the reward for their effort? Yes, who doesn't like to get attention from an attractive women.

It does not mean that the man does it to get any thing more then a moments notice. Not that a single guy would refuse to give her his number if she asked or take the her offer to get hers. Or a married man wants to have an affair with her.

Where does your WH fit in? It could be "did it to get a moments notice from an attractive woman.

Though being that your H is a WH, he should realize that his actions are being scrutinized for any signs that he may be back sliding. So he should be making it a point not to cause any thing that may raise a Red Flag.

SC, he needs to save his joke's for the guys. Affairs cause some permanent changes. He should realize this.

WH, has to face up that his intentions maybe now innocent, but his past will now make him guilty regardless.

Well MEDC like i said before maybe i just see things differently. I also am a friendly person and do not believe i have ever met a "stranger". I will talk to anyone. But I do not try to make other men smile. And i would not make "a cute comment" to a member of the opposite sex AT ALL.

I don't know maybe you are right and i need to lighten up because he has always been this way, but i am not exaggerating when i say that it is truly different with men than women and older or not as attractive women versus attractive women.

Hi again SC,,

I would not have taken that comment as flirting, specially since you where right there. And I don't think he meant it as rude, just a funny comment.

If my hubby said something like that (and he does) I would have said something like "watch it buddy, you got to go home with me"

Just my 2 cents, F-26

Road even if this is the case, should it not bother me that he is trying to get "a moments notice" from another woman?

I personally have no desire to get "a moments notice" from anyone but my H.

Actually that is what i did, but it still bothered me. This same night he was right beside me the whole night. He made a total of four "cute comments" (as LG put it) this same particular evening. One was to a coach that he knows (male) and the other three were to attractive women. None were made to any older or not as attractive women.

This happens in real life as well. Once our group at work went out for lunch. One of the women who drove accidentally left her lights on and her car wouldn't start after lunch. Another woman who was also driving had jumper cables, but none of us who were there (6 women and 1 man) knew how to use them. The man tried to flag someone down in the parking lot but was ignored. So he went inside the restaurant to find help leaving the 6 women alone. We saw 2 guys approaching so we pushed the youngest of our group forward, a very cute summer student, and she simply batted her eyes and held up the jumper cables. Within moments, not just these 2 guys, but 4 other guys were scrambling over each other trying to help.

FWIW, I didn't think the comment was flirty but I did think it was disrespectful as it implied dishonesty. I would have resented it on those terms.

What???? It didn't IMPLY dishonesty...it was a joke.

:RollieEyes:

Affairs change the dynamics of a marriage forever, MEDC. SC's FWH knows that these comments bother her and he should therefore stop them.

Last weekend, my DH worked a weekend for the first time since his A 17 months ago. He was asked to train new hires. He did not accept this OT offer without calling me first. He would have told me after the fact before the A. He met his OW working OT.

The new hire met him in the field and was required to ride with DH for the day. Again he immediately called me. You see, they had sent a woman. Pre A neither of us would have even considered that either of these things needed my consent. He also told me he will not train females again if he has to ride alone with them.

God's Blessings,

Say

I agree that he should stop them as they are bothering his wife. I agree 100%.

My only point here is to NOT make this out to be something it wasn't. Also, as it has always been a part of his personality, it will likely be difficult to stop. In fact, if SC continues pressing this...he may just stop in front of her.

And he should but he also needs to understand that he needs to stop it all together. It is the sort of joking, opening line that can lead to an A. It is my DH's "nature" to hug all female friends, ruffle their hair, call them Babe. He has spent the last 17 months breaking those habits out of consideration for his BW who now has much thinner skin than she used to and... as an EP to prevent something that he never felt could happen from happening again.

God's Blessings,

Say

Tabby

The situations I refered to were real life situations film with hidden cameras on news type shows.

MEDC not sure what you meant by this. Would you mind explaining? I know what you meant about the making out to be something it was not (i do not believe he said anything that would make me think dishonesty i know he was joking).

What i am questioning is the statement about if i continue pressing this he may just stop in front of me? I do not understand.

Do you mean that if i continue to push this issue it become a big deal to him?

I mean that if you continue to push him, he may just stop doing it IN FRONT OF YOU. You want to create a situation where his mindset and behaviors change at all times...not just when you are there.

Duh? Once you said it, it made perfect sense LOL!!!

How would you create that situation without "pushing" the issue when he disrespectfully does it in front of you with no regard for your feelings? This is a man who committed adultry and a woman who is trying to survive that. I don't understand your reasoning, Medc.

God's Blessings,

Say

SC:

This line says it all:


This happens ALL THE TIME. Right?

You are disrespected by comments like that. I can be quite charming, because that is my nature. And moreso with attractive women. It might be your WH's as well. Look what happened. We both had affairs. The one thing difference now? I don't throw out quips that are sexually suggestive (Flirting) or demeaning to my spouse (The cashier MAY have ripped you off...) since Dday.

Contrary to MEDC, it isn't just a "joke". Mr SC is looking for something ELSE. And this particular comment, puts SC down. Am I making a mountain out of a molehill? Perhaps. But Mr SC KNOWS exactly what he is doing.

When he practices these things in front of you, you can imagine WHAT he is saying when Mrs SC isn't around. "It's his nature, and he'll never change?" He has no reason to. He just continues to do what he wants to do no matter the effect it has on Mrs SC.

One of the Harley rules in to "protect your spouse". Insinuating that your spouse may be ripping some off? That's not protection. Openly flirting with attractive women? That's not protection, if your spouse has a concern about that. Yes, be charming. But there can and should be limits. I can certainly be charming without belittling my spouse.

SC: You don't even have to tell me what the other two comments made that night were. But they didn't cross your lines, nor belittle you, I suspect.

LG

Talk and reach an agreement...don't nag, accuse (since it is open to debate that what he did was in fact disrespectful). POJA the issue.

I do wonder what he says when i am not around because i feel like the things he says when i am around are "flirting" more than being "friendly". He however does not agree and when i say anything about then i am just over reacting according to him.

Yeah..and perhaps he is bisexual too...since he does this with men as well.

:RollieEyes:

Sure it was a joke. But the joke was that she might have kept some of the change for herself - hence the implication that she might be a thief. I don't think that's very funny. It might be if the woman was a good friend who was familiar with your sense of humour (i.e. a running joke), but not a complete stranger. Some people do take things quite literally.

It doesn't surprise me at all. I also have a friend who fixes her car by driving it to Canadian Tire, buying the part, walking out to the parking lot, lifting the hood and then standing there looking at it. I don't believe she's ever had to wait longer than 5 minutes before another customer (male) came along and did it for her. And this is with the service garage right there.

I TRY not to nag about it, but it has happened so many times that it just really, really bothers me.

Ok here is another story from pre-A. There was a woman whose son played on my DS baseball team (during the summer). She would "flirt" so bad with my husband and he would just joke back with her. When i said that it bothered me he said she was "just being friendly".

Here are some of the things she said and did. She would talk about how hot it was outside and that she would have to go home and squeeze out her bra and underwear from the sweat. She would bend over in front of him, one game she came up behind him and poured cold water down his back and then said "there don't that feel much better". Another time she mentioned something about a porn star.

Every single game she would say or do aomething and whenever i said that it bothered me and asked him not to comment back to her i would get the same response she was "just being friendly". So okay my H was not the one to "start" the "flirting" in this instance but he certainly did not do anything about the situation.

Medc:

It isn't worth the debate with you, because your right and I'm wrong.

SC brings it up to her husband, and he minimizes it and says it all her problem.

That's enough for me to know that IT IS A PROBLEM. He knows it, and has decided to to nothing about it.

Mr SC can say anything he wants to a man. Discussions between men without women around are differnet. More foul language, coarseness, fart jokes, etc. (maybe not for MEDC, you have stated previously you are the same with everybody) A quip or cute remark to another man are just that. Remarks. But remarks, by a known adulterer to other women is a line that he shouldn't be crossing.

You can POJA this all week. Mr SC is the one who needs to change. Mrs SC can "live with it" that's her choice. Mrs SC has decided that she DOESN"T want to live with it anymore. And SHE can have a better marriage if Mr SC realizes the error of his ways and correct them. He may not truly UNDERSTAND what effect his words have on Mrs SC.

LG

If it was a JOKE...there is NO implication. Just because another person MAY take something seriously does not change the motivation of the person from joking to IMPLICATING.

Perhaps, but she is not upset when he does this with men so it's not an issue. :RollieEyes: :RollieEyes:

This sounds like the worst of fog-babble - it's only bad if somebody meant it to be bad? Is that what you are saying? So when the WS has an affair but their motivation was just joking, then it's ok, regardless of how another person interprets it? Try explaining that to your children. :RollieEyes: Somebody add this line to the just for laughs thread.

Let him know how you feel. I agree he should stop as I have said several times before. I said only that the ONE situation you described was a joke and I am NOT about to judge your husbands intent based on a joke that is at worst, stupid.

I DO think you need to discuss this with him. If this bothers you so much, you need to make a decision as to how you are going to handle this moving forward. Personally, I don't think any FWS is due ANY consideration when it comes that are upsetting to the BS. Tell him how you feel...if he is unwilling to POJA the issue, then make a decision as to how you are going to respond. You have limited options here as you cannot force him to do something.

If this is the hill you are willing to die on, I say stand and fight. If not, it will continue as it is his nature.

Tabby, I am trying to Not talk down to you here...but you really need to learn the proper uses of words. If a person is joking they are not implicating. It is NOT possible for a JOKE to be an implication. Does SC really think her husband was implying that she would truly take money??? NO. Did the woman at the window think that either??? I sincerely doubt it.

I liken this to leaving Wal-Mart with my son. At times they will check your receipt. I will joke with the guy to check the kid...he's hiding a bike under his shirt. I am NOT implying my son is a criminal...I am joking.

My DH and I had the conversation many times pre A, that he could not tell me what should or should not hurt my feelings or make me feel upset. He can say,"Gee, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I'm sorry." He cannot say, "That was a joke. I can't help it if you don't have a sense of humor. That is just the way I am. Get over it." Dr Harley calls that a DJ. My Dh now regularly seeks to protect me. That is why our M is fully recovered, I feel safe and I seldom even trigger.

This must be a boundary for SC not an issue to be POJAed. If it is not, her FWH may be W again or her M may be killed by her resentment.

Again, I do not understand your reasoning, Medc.

God's Blessings,

Say

The "comment" itself did not bother me at all as i knew he was joking and i did not really think that he thought i kept some of the woman's change (although i agree with Tabby that who knows what she was thinking as she was a complete stranger i am pretty sure she was from the opposing team as i have never seen her at any other events), but that is totally beside the point.

It bothered me that the comment was made to an "attractive women".

And i have talked to him about it over and over and over. He knows my feelings but i always get the same old "i am just being friendly, you are overreacting".

It has always bothered me and i have always said something about it and he has always been that way.

But since the A, it REALLY REALLY bothers me. And as LG pointed out earlier i wonder what he says when i am not around?????

SC,

Die on that hill! You still feel "so done" because your FWH has not changed and is not willing to and you are subconsciously waiting for the next A. Set the bar high enough for your own personal R as well as MR.

God's Blessings,

Say

Say that is about where i am right now and have been for quite a while now. I just feel like he has made no changes and does not feel the need to make any.

MEDC I agree that as a FWS he should not do it just because it bothers me whether he agrees with it or not.

Then you have your answer. Obviously, this runs much deeper than a joke for you.

Are you going to ask him to leave?

You know medc i have pondered with this question for a long time and i must say i can not answer it as of yet.

You know i love my H no matter how much of an [censored] he can be or else i would have never even tried to recover my M. And with a few exceptions (not including the A it was WAY WAY WAY more than an exception) he is a pretty good man.

However the A has changed what i am willing to tolerate i guess. So i am just kind of on hold for right now which is probably not a good thing because eventually i need to move FORWARD!!

Being you want it spelled out.

It should bother you.

He should not do it.

LG i wanted to thank you for posting this comment to me.

I have always belived that my H was more "flirty" than "friendly" and also moreso with attractive women. With this comment you at least made me feel like i was not ACTUALLY crazy (user name you know ) and that some men are this way.

You say that you do not throw out quips that are sexually suggestive or demeaning to Flamingo, but are you still as "charming" (this is your word not mine ) as you were pre-A?

wow, what a thread!

What I see here are two things, maybe more, but the obvious to me are, and I have to say I have not read every post, I see that you might be just picking at everything the man does because you have just reached your limit, just like I couldn't stand hearing my H eat, or drink or even breath, that repeticious in and out, I wanted it to stop, all of it. I didn't like him and I liked me less for not doing anything about what he had done, not making him "pay" he got to keep everything.
What I learned, and trust me, we are not out of the woods yet, is I stood back, looked at everything, learned as much as I could about his personality, my personality, our childhoods and what drives both of us to be who we are today.
You have to decide what it is you want out of this relationship, if you don't know he won't know.
What does marriage look like to you? What does it look like to him? Think of a couple that you know that has a good relationship. What is it that you need, and you have to put it in words.

Firstly, a lot of the best humour around revolves around implication and double meanings. Have you ever heard of Monty Python?

Secondly, I'll give you the point that this particular comment wasn't exactly implication. He stated flat out that she may have pocketed the change. Reading words in a post does not give you the advantage of tone and inflection, which can completely change the meaning of a sentence. Since she was upset that it seemed flirty, chances are it was said in a light, jovial tone. However, the same words in an angry tone could have been a flat out accusation and not a joke at all. The point is, the words were made to a complete stranger who may or may not have been familiar with his various tones. The person to whom the statement was directed to is absolutely critical in determining whether or not it is a joke - and in this case it was a stranger.

Look at sexual harassment in the work place, for example. I'm talking about the rules in your country - I had to take training when I worked there (and I worked for your Federal gov't) mostly so we knew how to recognize it and what to do. Basically, anything that is interpreted by anyone as sexually offensive is harassment in the workplace. It doesn't matter if it was meant as a joke. It doesn't even matter if it was said *to* you or if you simply overheard it. If something is said that you don't like, you can file a sexual harassment complaint that must be addressed. Similarily, if you say something that someone else finds offensive, they can file a complaint against you. It doesn't matter what you say. It doesn't matter how stupid it is. And it matters least of all what your intent or motivation was. All that matters is that it made somebody uncomfortable.

Now all of this has strayed - she wasn't even offended that her husband told the stranger she might be pocketing her change. She was there, heard the tone and inflection and knows her H well enough to know the intent. She was upset that this happened with an attractive woman. One could say she has issues of insecurity (probably well-deserved, but issues nonetheless). But it can also be said that it's pretty darn clear, even without tone or inflection, that she doesn't want him engaging in unnecessary conversation with attractive women and he protect her by stopping this. This is really the matter at hand.

DF i would agree with you if this had not been an issue pre-A.

Now i will agree that i have self esteem issues when it comes to my H but they too have been since the beginning of our relationship. I do not remeber if it was before we were married or shortly after but anyway there were two things he said to me ALL OF THOSE YEARS AGO (words can live with you forever) that i believe lead me to have the self esteem issues with my H.

He told me i was a "Plain Jane" and when i got upset about he said there is nothing wrong with being a "Plain Jane". The second thing was "if i hadn't married you i probably would have married a knock out" and when i got upset about that he said he did not mean it the way it sounded. Me personally i can not think of any other meaning.

This (friendly versus flirty) has been an issue i have had throughout my M and have always told my H i did not like it and he has always said he is just being friendly and i am overreacting.

I just feel that since the A and since he has ALWAYS known that it bothers me, he should not do it for that reason alone (that it bothers me) and he is not willing to do that.

I guess i just come here to write out my thoughts to get other perspectives to see if i am looking at things "wrong".

And what would i want in a M, a man who loves, honors, and respects me at ALL TIMES. To me being "flirty" with other women (attractive or not) is NOT any of those things, but he sees it differently and i do not know how to change it. I CAN NOT make him do something he does not want to do. I just have to decide if i want to continue to live with it or not!!!

IF you are not prepared to do something about this, what do you really think is going to change. You have talked to your husband about this for years....and it hasn't changed. He KNOWS there is no penalty for his continuing to act in a way that he considers merely friendly.

I suggest that you either act on his refusal to change or accept his behavior. Just venting about this...or seeking out others to tell you that you aren't crazy is not acting. You are looking for like minded opinions...and trust me, your husband can find just as many, if not more people, that agree with him.

So, it is time to DO something besides just talk about this. If not, you are signing on for a continuation of the same old, same old.

I know that you are right about this MEDC. My problem is trying to decide "what i want to do about it".

Without the A i am sure that i would have lived with it for the rest of our time together. With the A i am not sure i want to.

What i really want is for him to "protect" me but it is obviously NOT going to happen.

So i am just going to sign off now and not bother with venting about it anymore because it does nothing to help the situation.

ARGH!!!

Hey SC I disagree with you I think venting is very good.

It allows you to use us as a sounding board, you can get various views on the subject and I don't think you should stop posting unless it is hurting more then is helping.

(((SC))) F-26

Thanks F-26. I do not think it is hurting, but i do not know if it is helping (i know that sounds silly ).

I just really hate this stupid infidelity crap, to me anyway, it seems to make you question everything in your life. Which is not always a bad thing just a new thing i guess.

SC,
I so know what your going through, trust me. I am glad you didn't take offense to my post, I didn't mean to imply that any of us are "picky" I just know how I was, the H could do nothing right.
Just like the rest of us there is a lot of hurtful history. The signs are/were there, ya know?
Ok what about this? Take him out of the equation, think what would make YOU happy? Your happiness does not depend on him, right? your responsible for your happiness, what would make you happy right now? Can you make a list, not matter how stupid the things might be or sound to someone else.
I know you think of these questions all the time.

Venting is good but will stop helping. If it bothers you, why let it continue. Put your foot down and tell him it is a LB. Plain and simple.

I have told him over and over and over again and he disagrees with me on the issue. And as we all know you can not MAKE someone do something. We can only change ourselves. So i either have to deal with it or get out. I was hoping that maybe talking about it here i could figure out a way to deal with it.

DF i definitely did not take offense to your post or any others on here. I know what i want i do not know how to acheive it. So that is why i still post here looking for help in trying to figure it all out.

I mean is divorcing going to make it all better, i doubt it because i love my H and i will miss him and there will be things that bother me about any one else who may come into my life as none of us are perfect myself included.

I guess i am just trying to understand HIS point of view to maybe help me change mine.

Don't argue the "issue". Discuss the principle.


Ask H if he wants to make you happy. Ask him if he wants to avoid making you unhappy.
Just ask him that and stick to that topic.

Come back and let us know his response.

Remember: discuss the principle first

Unless he agrees to the principle, I don't see the point of further argueing.

Still Crazy, I may be a bit late to the discussion, but I think, based upon your description of the incident at the snack stand, that you have every right to be annoyed at your husband's flirtatiousness. Because that's what it seems like to me: flirting.

Quite simply, being overly friendly is something a FWS can't do anymore, ever. Your H had no reason to speak to the woman - she hadn't spoken to him, or looked at him. You were tending to her. He was just looking to get cute and draw attention to himself. It was the fact that he wasn't waiting on the woman that jumped out at me.....I would feel different had he been the one to wait on her, rather than you.

I ask those who think that he was just being friendly....what if their situations were reversed? What if this was a FWW being "cute" with a man and the husband objected? I think that most posters would understand in that case, and not be so quick to put it down to simply being friendly. A little dose of reserve never hurt any FWS, IMHO.

FWIW, I am not the jealous type. My husband is a very friendly type as well. I am more reserved, a product of my WASPy upbringing. I am not generally bothered by my H's friendliness, except to issue the occasional eyeroll. But if he were the FWS? I don't think I would feel the same way at all.

SC, if it bothers you, it bothers you. As long as you can discuss it rationally with your husband, and not in an accusatory manner, I think that he owes it to you to cool it. And if he only cools it while he is around you, well, that's better than not at all. You really can't control his behavior in all cases, but you certainly can make him more sensitized toward not hurting you.

Just my .02

There's no arguing this issue. If you consider it a LB, then it is, whether he agrees with it or not. The point of a healthy marriage is POJA - you find his behavior inappropriate and it makes you extremely uncomfortable - especially considering he had an A. Period.

You have to put up boundaries. You have to decide - I will/won't accept this sort of behavior out of my spouse. I was REALLLLLLLLY bad at that until I found out about my FWH's EA. Since then I've gotten EXTREMELY clear about what I will and won't tolerate. It felt a little foreign at first to be so outspoken, but I've really grown to like it - a lot. You don't have to do it in a LB, but you do have to do it.

It's like Dr. Phil says - "you teach people how to treat you." Do you want to teach him it's ok to treat you bad and ignore your feelings?

Ok Pep i guess i can give this a try, but i can not see how it is any different. He KNOWS that it makes me unhappy. He does not agree with my feelings on the matter.

I have told him how much it bothers me, but he still says that i am overreacting and that he is just being "friendly". I do not know how to make him understand how much it bothers me when he thinks it shouldn't bother me at all.

And i guess i also do not have consequences for him crossing the boundary other than leaving.

This is not about your feelings.


Have you ever discussed with H what the underlying principles of your marriage might be?

Ask him .... "In your opinion, what is one of the underlying principles of our marriage?"

Medc - having just read through this thread two things seemed to jump out at me regarding SC's situation.

1. You are talking "logic" and SC is talking "emotions."

2. SC is in recovery, her marriage is not yet at the "recovered" stage, and everything is "magnified."

And one other thought that goes along with both points 1 and 2, it has a lot to do with TRUST not yet being "earned" or restored.

It's "natural" for a BS in recovery to be "triggered," or react more emotionally to things.

Could it be as "Simple" as the natural proclivity of men to be a "knight in shining armor" to some "damsel in distress?"

Poor men. Taught to try to be helpful and "fun." But the comment about the "count the change" was offensive to his wife's honesty, and shouldn't have been uttered for that reason alone.

Getting through recovery can be long and have its "difficult and awkward moments."

I am a very social person. I talk to whoever is in my way, men, women chilren, I talk to them all the same, truthfully, I wouldn't know if I was flirting or not, I wouldn't know if someone was flirting back. If my H asked me to stop talking to men or "flirting" I seriously wouldn't know what I could or couldn't do. I would say the same thing, that I am just friendly.
Has H not earned his trust with you? Is there still alot of questions that are unanswered for you?

FH the line below is how his A started. He was being a "knight in shining armor" to some "damsel in distress". This is the reason it bothers me REALLY bad now as opposed to just bothering me pre-A.


Maybe i am wrong here but it seems most of the men see nothing wrong with his "friendliness" and most of the women do. So i wonder if our differences (men and women) have something to do with the fact that my H too does not see anything wrong with his actions.

DF i am a social person myself and will talk to anyone (male or female) in the grocery store line, at a game, pretty much anywhere i go. Heck my kids always tell me that i talk to everyone. Me and my girlfiends can get down right vulgar sometimes bantering back and forth. However i do not say "cute quips" to men.

It is not unanswered questions or even a matter of trust. It is his "weak boundaries" with members of the opposite sex that bother me. It was partly because of these "weak boundaries" that he had an A.

SC - I don't think it's necessarily just a "guy" thing since a lot of women also have something of a "florence nightengale" thing in them that prompts them to be friendly and helpful, often more "empathic" than men. That was a big part of my wife's affair, because she has a huge "florence nightengale" personality. Obviously, the "problems" start when the talking begins to get too personal and there is a "response" from the other person.

But having said that, everyone's "situation" is different as to how an affair started and it DOES have a lot to do with personal Standards. Similar to Boundaries, there are "lines" within what what someone will allow themselves to do that should never be crossed. The reason, imho, is that once those "lines" start to be crossed it's like thinking you are strong swimmer and you don't have to worry about the potential effects of a rip current. Many swimmers have drowned as a result. The get "swept" further and further from shore and "try as they might," the current "has them" and they tire...and before long they "give out" and "give up" to the "inevitability" of their situation and are swallowed up.



And you correct to be concerned about this "weak" area. There is nothing wrong, in fact there is a lot right, with warning someone you love about the dangers of rip currents and that it might be "best" for all to forgo the "swim" today.

I don't know if you've ever had such a similar conversation with your husband, but rip currents never end. They just "go away" for a while, waiting for another "just right day." So if you keep going to the beach to swim, sooner or later you WILL run into "tempting waters" that conceal a nasty rip current underneath. Sometimes those currents are not that strong and sometimes they are very strong.

PRUDENCE. CAUTION. NOT going to a beach that has a proclivity for rip currents is a good idea. As the Lord has said, sometimes it's just a matter of "take up your cross daily and follow me."

But this much I CAN tell you, as someone who has "been on the Betrayed Spouse side of the recovery equation," once infideltiy has struck, and recovery is chosen and begun, there will FOREVER be some things that both spouses, but especially the WS, can NEVER do again, never see again. Place they can't go, things they can read, movies they can't watch, etc.

That IS one of the lifelong consequences of adultery, IF someone loves their spouse and is serious about wanting to RECOVER from the past infidelity.

Therefore, your husband needs to BOTH understand these "new realities" concerning change. Change is not always "easy," and sometimes they need repeated and repeated CONSCIOUS effort to implement, until they become a "new habit" and as "natural" as the proclivity to "flirt" or whatever with others, simply because "allowing themselves" to do a given activity THAT IS A SOURCE OF HURT AND PAIN for their spouse NEEDS TO GO.

That is one of the things that, hopefully, all former Wayward Spouses will "get to." A "new Standard" for themselves that they will NEVER again allow themselves to be the source of pain and hurt to their spouse.

If you find it hard to have this sort of "relationship/recovery" talk with your husband, feel free to print out this post and use IT as a "talking point" for discussion for the two of you.

God bless.

My H does not believe he has "weak boundaries" when it comes to women. He believes that he is just a "friendly" person and that i overreact.

He also says that "he knows himself and he would never do that to me again so i should have nothing to worry about."

However he also said after D-day that "he could not believe he did that because it was not at all like him."

To me these two statements contradict themselves.

I can't tell if you understand how important this point is.

It isn't about the specific issue. It could be about any issue.

It is about the principles. The principles give one the motivation to pursue and achieve the POJA with enthusiastic agreement.

Him being OK with the fact that it makes you unhappy is where I would focus.

doingf

"truthfully, I wouldn't know if I was flirting or not, I wouldn't know if someone was flirting back. If my H asked me to stop talking to men or "flirting" I seriously wouldn't know what I could or couldn't do"


Truthfully, if your WH pointed out what you were saying was causing him to trigger, is there no way that you then could try to not say those things?

Truthfully, if your WH pointed out that you chating and being very friendly with other men was making him uncomfortable, is there no way that you can still chat up the women and not the men?

It may very well be that you do not need or will never need stronger boundries. If a WH does and is now working to maintain them. Why can't his BW do the same as him, for him, when this would make him feel secure?

The Road, Oh I totally understand, and trust me when I say that your preaching to the choir.
What your saying would take some serious thinking on the H's part for sure when speaking to women, he would have to alter his "friendly" way of saying things somehow.
I am just saying that I don't know how I would alter my social being to make my H comfortable if the tables were turned, how would I talk to men?
I just don't know where THAT paticular boundry is.
Would I only speak when spoken to?
Would I just take the chance that they think I was stuck up by not being friendliar?
First off and foremost I would certainly not care what anyone else other then what my H thought of me, but I just don't know how I would handle that with the men that knew me when I was "friendliar"
This H either doesnt' have a clue where the boundry is on his social ways, is it because he really dosen't know?
Just with his respone of "I am just being friendly" when it was clearly pointed out that this bothers his W makes me wonder if H isn't still on the WW side.

DF i am not even talking about women or men that we know. I do not have a problem with him joking around with the women of the couples that we hang around with. I feel this is a little different, we both know the people and we both joke around with the spouses, not anything of a sexual nature, just silly things.

However while in public places, although i speak to people (sometimes i start the conversation sometimes they start the conversation), i do not make a "cute joke" to a complete stranger. My H while in public places will also talk to people, however he almost seems to go out of his way to make a "cute joke" with mostly females.

I do not really think he is still wayward mainly because i still snoop alot and things really are going pretty good. He has ALWAYS been this way and this is something that we have never been able to POJA. He thinks it is just "friendliness" i think it is "flirtiness", pre-A i guess i just dealt with it because every time we would talk about it, i got the same thing.

Since the A, i can not deal with it because to me what are "weak boundaries" with other women helped lead to the A.

df

"how would I talk to men...I just don't know where THAT particular boundary is...Would I only speak when spoken to?
Would I just take the chance that they think I was stuck up by not being friendlier?"

Supposedly today women hit on men just as much as the men hit on them. I don't know first hand. I'm not single, and I'll admit to being at least thirty years past eighteen. Though in my day mostly it was the guy's that did the asking.

We knew that women/girls practiced selectivity in who would get to enjoy there presence. Even though on the surface we only thought in terms of she liked me or liked some one else more.

And, we ignored that in the back of our minds and maybe also back in the girls minds that as in the rest of the animal kingdom as from when we watched nature shows on TV. The female always mated with the one they wanted to for what they perceived as superior genes.

Any way, us guy's would not want to get shot down when we approached a girl. Though to say we did not take it personally, is maybe a poor choice of words, but I can't find any better.

We, us guy's, realized that not ever girl was going to be willing to go out with us. So if a girl acted with distance we did not take it as her automatically as them being unfriendly or stuck up, she just wanted a better deal then we were offering.

Women have to be the gate keepers for their eggs.

Wayward dosen't mean that he is having an A, it means that he could still think like a WH.
I just don't see where a line in the sand can be drawn on this one, or how a spouse would even begin to know how to not be so friendly. The only boundry I see that you have explained is that he needs to refrain from any "out of the way" comments, and where can that line be drawn? I see your side I do, I just don't see how it could work.

The Road, I am not a teen either, I am talking also in generalizations, I am trying to point out where to draw the line in the sand.
No one has really answered that, and I don't think a line can be drawn, my friendliness may be someone else's flirtations and vice versa, I just don't see how it can be done.

Of course it was not like him, but he has weak boundaries or he would not have had an A. So he knew before that he would do it once? I mean if he was not able to stop himself once, there is no way he can stop himself the second time. Tell him that his "friendly" reminds you of his A. When he does it, let your emotions surface and let him suffer the wrath. Surely he will start to figure it out after you have TOLD him and your ACTIONS back up what you have told him.

DF

I'd rather have to nail jell o to a wall. Circles, here we go.

The start of this thread a spouse saw behavior that made her feel uncomfortable and wanted her spouse to stop.

He claim he was not aware. Just as you, DF claim to be clueless.
I'll let your claim to be clueless stand. That you couldn't tell if your behavior could be considered to be flirtatious.

The million dollar question for you DF, is if these flirtatious behaviors were pointed out to you by your spouse, then would you not know what behaviors to avoid, and then not do them?



To me when one claims no knowledge then you give them the benefit of the doubt.

When you point out the behaviors that need to changed to some one, and they do not change they can no longer claim to be clueless. Can they?

Those not willing to change once shown how, are selfish, and have a road named after them "ONE WAY". Are they not?

EXACTLY!! I hate to say that about my own H but this sums my thoughts up pretty well. Thanks Road!

SC:

Pep stated the most important part:

"Get back to the principles."

Early in your Marriage, your *wonderful* husband told you:

Your a *Plain Jane* and if he "hadn't married you, he would have a bombshell"

How disrespectful is that? Put you in your place didn't he?

Then he goes out and flirts and puts smiles on other womens faces. And in the process demeans you in front of them!

And BTW, he then goes and has an A.

So, really, you asking him about his flirting and how it hurts you was all in your head.

It's the principle.

HE told you you weren't good enough. (Plain Jane)
He flirts with other attractive woman even though you tall him it hurts you.

The principle is to not intentionally "hurt your spouse"

HE can be charming. He can talk to folks. Men women and children. But HE CAN'T FLIRT. HE CAN'T Demean YOU.

He has been doing it for YEARS.
He has been asked to stop.

So, go back to the principle. Do not intentionally hurt me.

LG

Well my goodness. I did not know i was as "thick headed" as i feel right now. I guess Road said it best earlier when he said something about spelling it out for me .

I think i FINALLY get what you all have been trying to say to me.

Don't talk about "friendly versus flirty", talk about "not hurting each other"?

SC - this is "typical" Wayward Spouse talk.

"Just TRUST me, I know that I won't do that again."


The "problem" is NOT the THEY "know" they won't ever do that again, the problem is that YOU DON'T know that because none of us can read minds and you DO KNOW that he already DID choose such actions and IS CAPABLE of doing so even if the "back then" never thought he would engage in adultery.

The "problem" is that TRUST is destroyed and trust takes a VERY long time to rebuild, and then it's only possible to rebuild EARNED TRUST, not the sort of "blind trust" that your husband is referring to here in his "just trust me" attitude.

And you are RIGHT ON TARGET that THE issues is NOT doing things that will hurt our spouse, no matter what we think. Again, it is NOT "our thoughts," but the thoughts of our spouse (who we don't want to hurt) that is important.

DO you "overreact?" Maybe, but more likely you don't. More likely it's a NORMAL reaction to his "Insensitivity" to the conditions HE has 'set up' in your mind and emotions as a CONSEQEUNCE of his previous choices that he may have even thought at the time "wouldn't hurt you."

It is TIME for him to "get real" with the consequences of his previous action on his life WITH you today.

Period.

And feel free to tell him I said so if you want to bring the topic up as a subject of discussion about what "someone on MB said".

DF

care to tackle my last two questions?

if my H told me that he felt I was being flirtatious in such a manner as this, personally, I would not know what I could or couldn't do. Like I said before, I am social, I will talk to anyone in my way, I don't care who it is, men women or children and I talk to them all the same. To me this IS nailing Jello to the wall, she said he spoke to an "attractive" women without warrant.
This is not cut and dry. Of course if you want to save your M and your asked to not do something, then by all means you don't do it. My question is and has been, what is H being asked to stop doing? Does H know exactly what it is he needs to stop?

I'll try and tackle this.

The "friendly towards opposite sex" spouse is filling a need. This is filling an EMOTIONAL NEED , unless the friendliness is for business purposes ,like a sales position where it literally PAYS to be friendly or a person who is trying to get better tips.

So, the original poster has a husband who is getting at least some of his emotional needs met by flirting with women who are not his wife.

The underlying principle needing to be addressed is that spouses both become aware that their most important emotional needs are NOT TO BE MET by opposite sex persons. Friendly conversation with an attractive woman most likely meets her H's EN for ADMIRATION. His meeting that need outside the marriage puts him AT RISK for going back to that well for another sip, then another sip after that .... a risky behavior is one that meets emotional needs outside the marriage.

Do you understand?

from Basic Concepts

It is incumbent on all of us to know when we are allowing another person (a non spouse) to fill one of our important ENs.

And, if we notice that our spouse is getting ENs met elsewhere, we make an effort to meet those needs.

This protects our marriage.

The "friendly towards opposite sex" spouse is filling a need. This is filling an EMOTIONAL NEED , unless the friendliness is for business purposes ,like a sales position where it literally PAYS to be friendly or a person who is trying to get better tips.

So let me get this straight if I may, in order to get some friendliness from someone I would have to tip them with money?

I can't be friendly with someone because I am nice? What need does it serve me to be friendly?

noooooooooooooooooooooo

You missed the point - but in a very funny way

Let me preface this by saying I'm new here, though I've been lurking for awhile. I haven't been cheated on (as far as I know!) and I've never cheated, but I have come from the school that once a spouse cheats, the marriage is over-but reading the stories on this board is causing me to contemplate another way.

With all that out of the way, I would have to say that in Still_Crazy's place...well suppose you, doingfine, were the FWS, and were trying to recover my trust. The only line drawn in the sand that I would be comfortable with is you simply not talking to men we didn't already know unless absolutely necessary. Only speak when spoken to by men, and then only briefly. With women and children, proceed as usual.

Yes, this would require a major change in your habits-you'd have to watch and regulate your natural friendliness and this would no doubt be difficult for you for quite awhile. You may even decide you can't or won't do this and tell me so. I'd then have a choice to make-either live with your decision and somehow figure out how to trust you again in spite of it-or initiate plan D.

And I think this may be what it comes down to for SC. Her husband is unwilling or unable to change his chatty habits despite years of his wife telling him how much it bothered her. So, I think discussion time is over and it's crunch time now-is she going to live with this or leave? I think these are the only options left to her.

DF

"The "friendly towards opposite sex" spouse is filling a need. This is filling an EMOTIONAL NEED"

Yes and the way you describe it, it is an affair. Emotional needs are not to be filled by an OP.

The original poster told her WH to tone it down. And, he should.
There is being friendly and " being friendly ".

If one can not tell the difference then one needs IC. The way I speak to people depends on age, sex, relationship, and a whole laundry list of more guide lines to follow.

If one wants to or does not see why they need to filter what they say and how they act depending on the situation needs major IC.

I know,,,and I am glad you saw my humor LOL

Now this is the answer that I was looking for, this is the ONLY way it would have to be. This is what I was getting at, you can't split hairs with this one. There is no way to set up a boundry with this, H would have to refrain completely from talking to any women he dosen't know.
my point was how this could get completely lost in translation, how does H know what he can and can't do?

The bottom line is then he shouldn't be talking to any women he dosen't know, period. attractiveness, friendliness, toning it down can all be a wide range of what each individual thinks.
All that I am asking and what I have been asking from the begining is, if this is a boundry that a S wants set then there has to be a guideline that can followed with some reason. How would one S know when, who and how he can speak to someone? My H and I discussed this very thread when we were at breakfast this morning, the waitress asked if he wanted more coffee, he is a polite person, he smiled at her, said no thanks and thanked her for asking, I realize its not the same situation, this women spoke first, but could I misconstrue his politeness as flirting? he smiled, he thanked her twice, would I be justified in telling him I don't want him to smile at the waitress's anymore and one thank you is enough, and believe me when I say I am in no way, making light of a situation, of this posters situation nor making fun in any shape way or form, I am learning to.

DF for me anyway your scenario is NOT what my H would have done and I would not have considered you H's (nor mine if it were my H's) comments "flirty" and is something i would say myself because as i stated before i too am a friendly person.

My H however would have not only said what your H said but would have added some “joke” of some sort. And depending on how attractive the waitress was what the “joke” would be. If she was attractive it would be some sort of a “joke” to get a response from her.

So I agree with Pep and the others who say he is trying to get his need for “admiration” met by these other women.

Even though I “think” I meet his need for “admiration” all the time. I do this by telling him how “sexy” I think he looks, how good I think he is at his job, what a good father he is, what a good husband he is, all of these sorts of things. And I “try” to do this on a daily basis.

He has never completed the ENs questionnaire, but he did read it and told me that I do “great” at meeting his ENs. Some how or other I find this hard to believe or else he would not be seeking the attention of other women. At least that is what I feel he does.

If he won't take the EN questionnaire , perhaps he will go over

LOVE BUSTERS with you link


Selfish Demands
Disrespectful Judgments
Angry Outbursts
Annoying Habits
Independent Behavior
Dishonesty

What if this isn't about you? What if this is about him? What I'm trying to say is what if there is some hole in himself that he is trying to fix with this? What if there is some deep hurt that he tries to make better by being friendly with other women? Your meeting his EN's won't fix anything.

You are assuming it's you. But what if your husband is speaking the truth..that you do meet his needs? What if there's a part of him that's broken that only HE can fix?

IRN this is TOTALLY possible and i agree that he could be speaking HIS truth. But where does that leave me?

It bothers me when he is "over friendly" with other women, he feels he is NOT "over friendly". How do we meet somewhere in the middle so that we are both happy with things.

THIS:


.... is a CLEAR example of a love buster.

The entire MB program hinges on both persons working on NOT being a source of unhappiness for our spouse.

Negotiating is the right approach.

If you both buy into the MB's approach you discuss meeting each other most important EN's and you eliminate LB's. You also recognize that it is a process to change bad habits into good one's that support these goals.

The MB's approach can be used if you are in agreement on the principles or goals of marriage. The MB goals of marriage are to create a lifestyle that is good for both of you, to avoid being the source of each others unhappiness, and become each others greatest source of happiness. Can you both agree to these goals?

His quote that he is ok with and knowingly knows it causes you unhappiness strikes a chord with me that he isn't in agreement on the goals of the marriage. Right now, he expects you to sacrifice in order for him to be happy and you and your taker are insuring you don't sacrifice for his happiness. Though, I'm sure it is very possible for him to be happy and for you to be happy at the same time. It comes down to understanding each other and the implicit expectations, principles and goals, that you are both playing by. I'm also sure he can take some time and really think through and understand what he is really getting out of these instances and why it is important to him. Then you can negotiate so it becomes good for both.

Work with him on agreeing to the goals of marriage. Making sure you are expressing your points of view and not criticizing the other or making the other feel like they are wrong. Respect the others point of view and negotiate through to common goals. It will give you a foundation to build from and work on changing the bad habits as you will then both recognize that it isn't in harmony with your agreed upon goals.

In my personal case, my husband didn't believe his behavior was damaging to us. But, his thoughts/behaviors stemmed from low self esteem and self medication. I tried to get him to see my point of view. Many times, in many ways. Truth was, he couldn't, until he healed himself. When my husband was able to understand he did have worth, he was able to recognize some of his behavior as LBs, actually, without me saying anything.

All I'm asking is if there may be some underlying issue your husband hasn't dealt with yet. And until that gets fixed, negotiating may not work.

Where does that leave you? Boundaries. You can have boundaries to protect yourself. To keep yourself safe. Until he gets it. Or to keep you safe if he never does get it. What would happen, if you insisted that he treat you in a manner that will make you feel safe in the relationship (through your behavior)-rather than made this a point of negotiation?

I want to thank you all for all of your replies.

I have decided though that i no longer want to recover my marriage. I just am tired of wondering all the time if or when it will happen again.

I know that my life will not be any easier and probably more difficult but i am just tired, too tired to even try to fight for it anymore.

SC

SC ((hugs)) honey are you really sure this is what you want???

If it is then I wish you all the best!

That is your choice, SC. IF that IS what you want, then have at it.

But we, or at least most of us who are in the "Betrayed Spouse" side of the equation understand the "I'm too tired to keep on trying to recover from what HE/SHE brought into our marriage," AND for those of us who HAVE made it through to "Recovered" would simply like to say that "tiredness" is normal but is NOT the "end of the journey."

Please consider that the Recovery process IS long and it DOES have times when it seems as though "no progress" is being made.

But "giving up" over this perceived problem of his "flirtiness" is a "Temptation" to end the marriage over something that does NOT have to be a permanent situation.

Recovery IS a lot of work, emotionally and mentally. And it IS what the BS "signed on for" when they CHOSE to recover their marriage, in much the same way as they CHOSE to marry in the first place "for better or for worse...."

Take a break. Give yourself some time, say a week or two, to NOT deal with "recovery issues" and just "exist." Then come back and evaluate TODAY's decision to see if it is still how you feel or if you might just be reacting emotionally to a perceived problem that COULD be changed.

God bless.

Thanks F-26

FH this has been going on for 25 years and maybe it "could be" changed but he does not see things the way i do, so i do see it as a "permanent situation" which i am no longer willing to deal with.

I think it is always good to see a person willing to walk away from poor/lack of care.

Marriage is about a committment to care. It is not simply about committment. Each person needs to be committed to care for the other. Being committed to not being the source of the other persons unhappiness. To care.

To just be committed without care is to be reinforcing behaviors that insure more of the same thoughtless behaviors where one gains at the others expense.

Negotiation isn't about win/lose. It is about win/win. It demonstrates care. Each marriage has unspoken rules/principles that we play by. As long as you except win/lose in your marriage it is what you will get. Why would the other person ever change? They have it made and they definitely don't demonstrate care.

Keep going step by step and believe in yourself and focus on the principles. All else feeds from this and when there are gaps the path is clear.

Still,

I am sorry to see where you are right now, but perhaps for you it is where you need to be, your reality vs. what you want things to be.

Is your FWH in sales? Seems like this need for attention is a characteristic in that profession.

Also, if I remember correctly, you have another complication with your finances. Have you spoken to anyone yet?

I spoke to our attorney about this and the debts are divided by who is responsible. If both parties are on the debt, then both are still responsible.

Let us know how you are doing and what your plans are.

Best,

BA

BA good to hear from you again. Hope things are going better for you.

My H is NOT in sales.

Our debts are both of ours and are being paid through the courts at a 50/50 split.

This is kind of what i am waiting for, we voluntarily surrended our home and are waiting until the foreclosure goes through to move.

My plan is to go our separate ways at that time.

Well it's done. I talked to my H last night and told him that i think we should go our separate ways after our DS graduates and he just said okay.

OKAY? That's it?? Wow,, how are you doing??
When does your DS graduate?

I am a TOTAL mess (thanks for asking). Our DS graduates at the end of May 2009.

he says "okay," I am hoping that it means he thinks he has 6 or 7 months to prove himself to you.

I'm joining this thread late, but if you are the WS, then yes, you have given up your right to be friendly to the opposite sex if it bothers your spouse. It has been proven by the A that the line of friendliness gets blurred and crossed. Friendliness is no longer an option.

Please excuse me for my odd post. This is my first post and it's in response to the question posted earlier about drawing the line in the sand as to what is acceptable and what is not. The line actually becomes quite clear and firm.

Again, I apologize for my odd post. I see that this post has already stated exactly what I meant. I totally agree.

SC,

I have just finished reading ALL the post, and I am so sorry! You are a strong, beautiful woman. I wish you all the best.

My goodness i guess my H just thought i was upset or something because he just continues to talk like i did not tell him that we are going to go our separate ways.

I am not sure how to deal with it, i do not want to keep telling him everyday but maybe that is what i need to do to get through to him, i dunno

I have a suggestion.
"deal with it" legally
do not discuss - act
do not tell him the same thing over and over and over - that just makes you look silly

Go see an attorney.
Let your attorney "discuss" the separation via legal filings.

In the meantime, be pleasant. Why not? Being ugly just makes you feel bad.

When H brings up anything about the marriage - stop him by doing this:
hold your hand up in the air as if you were stopping traffic and say "STOP"
then say "That topic is being handled by my attorney... Now, would you like more coffee?" (nice as you please)

If your H says "I want to work on the marriage - give him the Harley phone number ... and don't do anything else.

If H is serious - he'll do the heavy lifting.

It seems you both are playing a game of "chicken" .... let H know you are serious by your actions - no more words - he clearly does not believe one thing you say - so don't waste your breath

Pep i know this is very good advice. I however do not plan on doing anything "legally" regarding the marriage. If he wants to once we have gone our separate ways then he can.

I just no longer want to be with him. I can not take his "ignoring" my feelings any more.

I can say that i have not mentioned it again, but i have hinted to the fact that i am serious. Like he has asked me if i would marry him again and i just did not respond even though he was looking right at me and i was looking right at him (so he knew i heard what he said), i basically just changed the subject and did not give him an answer.

I did the same thing with another question he asked which was "are we alright" (meaning the marriage). I just did not answer him.

I am still pleasant to him, we still are doing things together (including going on vacation next month). I just am so angry every day about things that he does that i feel are "ignoring" my feelings. So my plan has not changed except for the fact that i wish it were sooner because i am tired of being ANGRY all the time. That has never been my personality but it seems to be NOW and i do not like it one bit!!!!!

Still_Crazy - no one here can tell you what to do. You have ignored advice given to you to help you with your situation and your perceptions, and you have ignored them or refused to DO them.

This "latest" is just "more of the same" sort of NOT dealing with or confronting problems. You seem to think that it is "easier" to just do what you want to do and then shift the blame, or responsibility, for REAL action onto your husband.

Of course, you CAN do that, but the end result will always be the same, you will NOT recover your marriage and BUILD (means it takes work on the part of both of you to accomplish what you are trying to build) the sort of marriage that you both would like have.

You, on the other hand, continue to "wish" that your husband would simply "know" or "read your mind."

It doesn't work that way. Earlier in the thread, I think it was Pepperband who gave you some very good advice, you were advised to TALK specifically about this issue that you have a problem with, and you NEVER had that conversation. NOW you have spun this problem up to a point at which YOU think there is "no hope" and as a result YOU have chosen to leave, thinking along the same lines of "thought pattern" that most Wayward Spouses use to "justify" their decision to abandon the marriage and seek "happiness" elsewhere.



The BIG announcement. Now he has to read your mind again. You WANT him to simply "accept" whatever you want, and now that he has done just what you want him to do, "he just said okay," you are MAD that he simply DID accept what you said with no "further discussion".



Of course YOU don't plan on doing anything. You JUST TOLD HIM in the preceding quotation that the "marriage is over" and you want a DIVORCE. That IS what "go our separate ways" MEANS.

You are playing games and trolling for sympathy and support from the other members of MB, but you will not be getting such sympathy and support from me anyway.

You are using "brinksmanship" and "ultimatums" to "enable you to do whatever you want to do," which you CAN do, but that is NOT how someone works on recovering their marriage and WORKING towards rebuilding a "good marriage" that you BOTH want to have.




IF this is true, then stop playing games with him and with us. FILE for divorce.

He is NOT "ignoring" your feelings, he is "being his normal self that he has always been" and you KNOW it because you have admitted it previously.

"I cannot take his "ignoring" my feelings any more." Oh give me a break! That IS the very reasoning that MANY Wayward Spouses use to "justify" their doing something that is very destructive to the marriage.

So don't "blame him" for the divorce, it is what YOU want ("I just no longer want to be with him").




Oh ya, keep HINTING. DON'T say it and don't discuss it. Too uncomfortable for you. Just REQUIRE him to be a "mind reader."




He asks you an "open ended" question to try to engage you in discussion and you "ignore him." Rather than engage in disscusssion, you revert to the "silent treatment" and expect him to KNOW what is really in your mind and/or bothering you.




Whoopee do! You are "still pleasant to him," all the time keeping to yourself what you are planning on doing and still refusing to actually DO the hard work of discussion and working through perceived and/or real problems.

No wonder you are "ANGRY all the time."

People who can't read minds DO make us angry because they simply "should know."


Enjoy the divorced life and all that it brings with it. It should be interesting in the future to see how "family" gatherings go and who gets the "visits" from the kids and grandkids, all because you WON'T do the "unpleasant thing" of actually working through issues because you are "just too tired" of "trying" anymore. Seems to me that you have been "barely trying" and just "wishing" it were different.

Like most "wishes," they seldom are achieved without effort.

Good luck in the future!

You know what FH, pretty much not one word in your post is correct. I have told my H EVERYTHING that bothers me, he KNOWS my feelings on all the matters that i have posted about.

What good is just saying them over and over going to do. His "feelings" are different than mine how is just talking about my feeling supposed to change his. He does not beleive ANY of the things he does is WRONG, he ALWAYS tells me that it is MY PERCEPTION and that "I NEED TO CHANGE MY PERCEPTION HE DOES NOT NEED TO CHANGE HIS ACTIONS.

Also if you were to ask my H who is taking "blame" for the divorce he would tell you that "I AM" which i have also told my kids that it is MY FAULT.

And quite frankly i do not WANT simpathy from ANYONE and expecially not you. I have never found any of your posts to be helpful to me, you just claim to be this righeous person, yet if anyone does not agree with you then they are "unchristian like". So as far as i am concerned you need not bother to post to me EVER again.

And i really do not care what you think as the only feelings i care about our my childrens.

And just because i do not choose to do anything "legally" does not mean anything. It means just that. I am choosing not to file for divorce or legal separation.

Oh my goodness you just do not know how upset this post makes me. This is such a huge DJ. How do you know ANYTHING about my life other than the few typed words i put out here.

And i did not even ask for yours or anyone else's help for that matter help. Although i like hearing what others have tried that has worked to see if it would work for me.

You still have ABSOLOUTELY no idea what i have said to my H and what i have not. Please do not EVER post to me again.

SC

"marry him again and i just did not respond even though he was looking right at me and i was looking right at him (so he knew i heard what he said), i basically just changed the subject and did not give him an answer.
I did the same thing with another question he asked which was "are we alright" (meaning the marriage). I just did not answer him."

Yes you are still crazy. Still playing your crazy games.

Just as foggy as any WS. Justifying why you do not have to answer him.

A direct question deserves an answer. What is the point of being polite. Being passive agressive.

Ok Road, then you tell me what you would have done.

As Pep stated earlier what is the point in saying it over and over. He KNOWS my feelings, nothing has changed since the last time i TOLD him my feelings. He still believes it is my PERCEPTION and that he should not HAVE TO CHANGE.

We actually discussed things again this weekend and i appologized to him for having those "perceptions" but i told him they were there and i did not know how to change them. His response was to "just let them go", not "what can i do to help change those perceptions", just "let them go".

To me that is saying ONCE AGAIN that he does not care about my feelings. As long as he is happy everyone should be happy.

Whether any of you think it or not i have tried to change these perceptions for 25 years, they just got worse instead of better because my H does not see any thing WRONG with his actions.

So i feel we are at an empass.

I don't. All I, or any of us on MB, have to "go on" IS what you decide to post and/or "dole out" to us. IF you are truly "upset" over what you perceive as some misunderstanding, then why don't you POST what is "really going on in your life" that you are basing your ultimatums upon?



THAT is very clear. You are going to do whatever you want to do regardless of what anyone says, and you are simply wasting the time of folks who would TRY to help you save your marriage and "fix" the problems that you perceive in your marriage.

People HAVE told you what "worked" in their marriages, but you HAVE NOT applied any of those things TO your marriage. You just "like the sound of words" and DON'T like actually taking ACTION that might make you feel "uncomfortable." You prefer complaining about the "problems" and running away from the problems rather than taking the "hard and risky" approach of actually confronting the issues and attempting to work through by applying SOLUTIONS.

People, like me, have been the "Betrayed Spouse" and HAVE worked through recovery, even through the times when they, AND ME, have "felt like throwing in the towel."

But YOU don't want the "voices of experience," you just want sympathy. Fine, we DO sympathize with you, because we have "been there." But we also don't "buy into" enabling you use excuses for cratering your marriage because you haven't found your husband to "be all that you want him to be" without actually WORKING to achieve that goal.



You are correct, NONE of us has any idea of what you may have said to your husband. All we have is what you decide to share by way of posting.

As for posting to you in the future, why should I waste my time on someone who obviously DOES NOT want any help?

MEDC had it right a long time ago in your thread...you make mountains out of molehills and don't address the problems. You make, at best, simple little statements to your husband, but you DON'T take the time and effort to actually work through your perceived problems.

And you telling me to "not post to you" is just the latest example of how you react to things "you perceive that you don't like."

But to your original question, "What if the BS can never "get over it", in your case the answer is for you "to go get a Divorce." It's YOUR choice even though your husband ended his affair almost 2 years ago and has been "Trying" but not to your "satisfaction." So leave rather than work through the recovery process and its "ups and downs."

SC, have you ever heard the phrase; "If at first you don't succeed, try, try, again?"

NO ONE works through recovery to achieve a recovered marriage without trying again and again. The TWO of you are on "different wavelengths" and until the differences are understood, you will always be that way.

It is NOT that your husband "does not care about your feelings."

It is that he does not understand them.

That is TYPICAL of former Wayward Spouses and most often comes out in the form of "Why don't you just get over it?"

It takes a lot of work to get to the "lightbulb moment" when they finally DO "get it" themselves and what the depth of harm is that they have done to their Betrayed Spouse.

And it is NOT always easy emotionally TO have those discussions, especially over and over again UNTIL it finally DOES "sink in" and they begin to "see" their actions through YOUR eyes.


You said: We actually discussed things again this weekend and i appologized to him for having those "perceptions" but i told him they were there and i did not know how to change them.

If YOU don't know the "how to," HOW do you expect him to know it?

THAT "how to" is precisely what folks have been trying to get across to you so that you CAN KNOW what needs to be done to achieve the goal you desire.

But, of course, we can't possibly know what we are talking about.

We have NOT learned those "lessons" through experience and the "school" of having "been there, done that."

People WILL continue to try to help you, but only if you actually want HELP and not just sympathy.

So tell me FH what you would do if your WS has told you over and over again that they do not think they are doing anything wrong and that YOU just need to deal with it.

There is NO CHANGING my H's mind on these issues. He feels he does nothing WRONG and i feel that his friendliness and his IB are WRONG for our M. How do you discuss that? How do you enthusiastically agree on something that you both see SO DIFFERENTLY? (These issues have been 25 years long and still he does not agree that he should not be talking to other women the way he does or hanging out with people who have had affairs on their wives)

And this is something (friendliness and his IB) that i will not put up with anymore. I have told him and told him and told him more different ways than i can count. It always get the same response (as it has been for 25 years), you are crazy, i am just a friendly person. Or we do not know that he is having an affair.

I can tell you that i have been through a lot in the last two years and none of has been good.

1. My dpeartment was done away with (i was the only person who got to keep my job out of 25 positions talk about feeling guilty) (Dec 2006)

2. D-Day and all that follows (Jan 2007)

3. My H having to have part of his lung removed (Feb 2007)

4. Filed bankruptcy because of my H being out of work so long after his surgery. (Aug 2007)

5 My H's company was bought out and we did not know if he was keeping his job (Jan 2008)

6. H kept his job but did not want to stay at his company because so many people knew about the (because he allowed OW to annouce that they were "an item") so he took a job making $3 per hour less than he was making (May 2008)

7. H got hit in the face with a foul ball at our DSs baseball game and crushed his cheekbone (surgery with 3 plates in his cheek to correct fractures) (June 2008)

8. Had reorged in our bankruptcy to keep our house but because of H taking the pay cut could not afford the reorg payment so we changed the reorg to surrender our home (July 2008)

9. H HATES new job and wishes he would have stayed at other company and is looking for other employment daily (May 2008-present)

In case I forget and post to you in the future - please remind me of this.
I realize you were writing "to" FH, but this is clearly your position here on MB, and I intend to respect your position and never post any advice to you ever again.

I bid you adieu and wish you the very best.

Pep

Sorry FH but i guess i do not want this type of help. I believe my feelings of how my H is "flirty vs freindly" are my feelings and i am entitled to have them. My H believes that they are ridiculous and that i am not entitled to have them.

I do not see how discussing it in a different way (even though i have brought it up several different ways already) is doing anything different than i am currently doing.

I do not beleive that repeating my words for the hundreth time is going to make him change his thought on the matter. Maybe , just maybe if it was an issue that started during the A i could, but this has been a marriage long issue that i have discussed with him for 25 years and we still see things differntly.

Sorry if i offended any of you.

If you do not ever want to post to me again than that is your prerogative.

I can still come here and read and post if i want and who knows maybe someone will be able to help me with a "light bulb" moment.


All i know is that on this particular issue there is no changing my H's thoughts and there is no changing my thoughts.

All the advice i have been given so far is to try to approach things in a different way.

That WILL NOT work in my situation, i have tried for 25 years to approach things in a different way and we still both have the same feelings.

He should not HAVE TO CHANGE. But, he can choose to change if it is good for him and good for you. Sounds like you are forcing him so it is only considering you.


You apologized? It sounds like he may have a point and you also agree with this point.


Is his "just let them go" in response to the items you actually agree with. If you agree and apologized for what you agree with then is let that part go a reasonable solution for that part that you both agree. Then keep negotiating on the part that you don't agree with.

Keep negotiating. When you run into snags, go back to the principles/goals of marriage to guide the negotiation. Have you both agreed to the principles/goals of marriage?

What i apologized for was for the fact that i can not change my "perceptions" because i do not feel that my "perceptions" are wrong, just as he feels his "thoughts" are not wrong.

So we do not agree on any of the issues i have discussed in this thread. He does not by into the MB principles or MC or any of the above. His philosophy is that we just need to figure things out on our own. Actually more like i just need to change my mind and get over it and see things his way.

He is that way in a lot of our discussions, if we do not have the same thoughts on something i will just say that i disagree with his thoughts, he will always push me and push me until i finally just tell him i agree with him because he will not stop until i do.

By what he has said to me his marriage goals are for our M to be like it was pre-A. My marriage goals are for our M to be better than it was pre-A.

He claims he still does not know "why" he had the A and he has lied to me about the A since the begining. I have found out things through other sources and he then tells me but he has never given me the whole story and has no intention of ever doing so, he says he does not want to hurt me anymore than he already has. I am sure that this does not help my "perceptions" either.

Like i always tell him if i do not know what is wrong how can i do my part to help to make it right.

I also told him the day that i said i think we should go our separate ways that the reason was i did not think it was fair to either one of us to continue in a marriage we we are both unhappy. I also told him that i would take all the blame for the marriage failing to everyone including our children.

Your last few comments sound just like WS fog babble. Are you really the BS?

And therein lies the problem, SC.

YOU don't know how to address this problem and you don't think anyone else does either. You think "giving up" is the answer.

I believe my feelings of how my H is "flirty vs freindly" are my feelings and i am entitled to have them.

And you ARE entitled to your feelings. People "feel" what they feel. "Feelings" are not necessarily "right or wrong," they just "are." They are responses, normally, to ACTIONS or INACTIONS that impact your perception of the world and of relationships.


My H believes that they are ridiculous and that i am not entitled to have them.

And your husband is equally entitled to HIS "feelings" based upon HIS perceptions as he "sees things from his perspective," just as you are entitled to your "feelings."

Let me ask you a question, have you ever been to Joint Marital Counseling since you've been in recovery?

If you have, why did you stop?

If you have not, why wouldn't you consider it now where there Counselor is an "independent third party" who will hold BOTH of you accountable for changes that would benefit the Marriage?

Because my H does not believe in counseling. He thinks we should just be able to get through this ourselves.


And i guess i will just quit posting since you all think i am crazy too i guess maybe i am.

Thank you all for your responses. I will not bother any of you anymore.

Yes i am really the BS. And i do not beleive in the fog so say what you will.

I am leaving this place for good even though i have said it before and been back this time i really am.

I guess maybe i am the crazy one. I am sorry i bothered all of you with my woes.

SC, playing the "martyr syndrome" will not help your anger. It may try gain sympathy, but no one around here is dumb enough to think that "all the problems" are "one-sided." And your children are not likely to believe it either.

Your husband is "dumb as a rock" if he thinks "returning to pre-Affair" type of marriage is even possible.

Now, would he "hear" that truth from you? Or would it make more sense coming from someone outside of the marriage who has the experience to KNOW that it IS true?

The affair ENDED the marriage. Recovery is about forming a NEW marriage.

The affair ENDED "bliind trust." Earned Trust can be attained, but it is EARNED through changes in behaviors that "say;" "I can't be trusted" TO behaviors that say "I CAN be trusted." But trust is no longer given "just because."

Recovery is all about CHANGES that need to be made by BOTH spouses.

It would seem that you have been in some "semi-recovery" state of "change by osmosis," and that does not work. Change requires willingness and commitment. It is a CHOICE, just like having an affair was a choice. Just like the BS choosing to stay and attempt recovery was a choice.

Just like actually WORKING on recovery is a choice. It does not happen by "accident" or by simply "wishing" it were so.

Got it. DON'T go see a Doctor if you are sick or injured, just "do it yourself."

Stick around long enough and we can even help you get through this attitude of his to where he literally "begs" for counseling.




If you want to. That will be your CHOICE.




Do your really think that you are the first person to have "recovery problems?"

IF we think we might be able to help some "get past" the problems they are running into, we try to post to them.

If not, we don't post.

But you are NOT REQUIRED to accept any advice or help you don't want to.

Good luck, and should you want to explore ideas for helping with this problem or other problems, just post again.

FH i am only posting to respond to your post. I have tried to get my H to go to an IC for the same 25 years i have been trying to get him to see that his friendliness with other women "hurts" me.

He had VERY bad issues that he never discussed with anyone except for me with his FOO. He refuses to talk to anyone. He says he does not want to discuss his persoanl issues with anyone much less a stranger.

I really am not trying to be difficult with any one. I am just trying to tell you all that i have tried MANY MANY MANY things in the 25 years i have been with my H and so far none of them have worked.

I do not want sympathy from him or my kids or any of you. I just was trying to not make my H feel any more guilty than he already does. That is why i said i would take the blame for not being able to "get over it". So call me whatever you wish.

PS he also does not go to the doctor if he is sick. Heck the only reason he had part of his lung removed was because i MADE him go to the ER after he had a 103 degree temperature for 6 days.

Two things, one, these don't look like effective goals. Goals are usually much more specific if they are to be effective. And two, its clear you both aren't in agreement on where you are going.

If you can't agree on the goals of marriage then it makes alot of sense to go a different direction.

Okay, and YOU were right and HE was wrong. There WAS a serious problem regardless of what he "thought."

And that incident is the basis of "how to" that you can use to help your situation.

"Perception" of help that might be needed is not always the "true" condition. It wasn't in the "ER" and "Lung" case and it's NOT true in the "one flesh" case of a marriage. And it is certainly NOT true in the "recovery from an Affair" cancer that has nearly destroyed the "one flesh marriage." Parts of the marriage are still functioning, but the untreated cancer is still growing and sooner or later it WILL kill the marriage if it is NOT treated.

The "patient" (the marriage) IS in serious trouble even though the "symptoms" may not yet seem "debilating." But for the same reason you take children for shots or to get treated, you also take the "marriage" to someone who CAN provide needed help and treatment to both prevent problems from "infecting" the marriage and to treat problems that exist so that "health" can be restored.

And arguments of "I have tried but he refuses" are "unacceptable excuses," IF, and I do mean IF, YOU really would like to return your marriage to a state of health and continued improvement.

Therefore, it needs to be approached from a "position of strength," not of surrender. NO battle was ever won by surrendering, except for the surrendering of one's life to God. But since we are not talking about God here, THAT one exception does not apply right now.

And retreating from the marriage IS a form of surrender to the "problems" instead of aggressively fighting the cancer, going through the tough times of treatment, to arrive at a restored and healthy body.

This is not about being right or being wrong to me. It is a matter of a difference of opinions. I do not feel that i am "right or wrong" nor do i feel that he is "right or wrong", we both just see things differently.

My problem is that whether either of us is "right or wrong" the fact that it "hurts" me should be enough for him to want to not do that something. Just as it does me. I do not purposely want to "hurt" my H and if i can do something different so that i do not "hurt" his feelings then i try to do that.

And i expect that in return, whether that is "right or wrong" either.

And i agree that I am surrendering, i have never tried to state anything else.

So it sounds like to me that what you are saying is that we need to see a counselor regardless of whether he wants to or not.

Would this not be a LB, would this not be doing the same thing you all are telling me is "crazy"? Trying to get him to see things from my point of view. And how can i "make" him go to a counselor?

Ok, I see the lack of committment to a strategy as 'crazy'.

I read this:


And then this???


Then this recommendation:


But you say no to it which, to me, contradicts your strategy and the game of "chicken" is right on as your not sure of this strategy.

Then to this(the real problem you are trying to solve):


To maybe this strategy since I can't fully follow the other strategy:


Either commit fully to this strategy #1:


Or this strategy #2:

Instead of focusing on the specific issue(s) for now, focus on gaining agreement on the goals/principles of marriage.

The MB goals of marriage are to create a lifestyle that is good for both of you, to avoid being the source of each others unhappiness, and become each others greatest source of happiness.

If you can't come to an agreement, you can both agree to go another direction and this answers his question of:


Most importantly, choose a path and be committed to it.

Hinting does not express committment it expresses doubt and he tested you on this:


I read this to be another one of your strategies to get H to change. By placing all the blame on you he has no responsibility and maybe, maybe he will feel guilty and then change.


But, he calls your bluff every single time.

Hi, I’m a first time poster here and wanted to say how much I enjoy and have learned from the MB website. I have an observation here and if I’m way off, sorry and hope to continue learning from here.
From what the BW is posting, it seems as if her WH’s top EN is not Admiration, but Physical Attractiveness. He has what sounds like a compulsion (he knows it gets him in trouble, but doesn't want or is unable to stop) to troll for attractive young women. Then he makes a statement to his wife that he would have married a beautiful woman if he hadn’t married her. What an odd thing to say and you could take it a couple of different ways. Did he mean that normally he was attracted to beautiful women but BW was so incredible that he married her despite PA issues? I would hope so because then it seems like their marriage is just having problems, not fundamentally flawed.
I would try and figure out what the story is with this EN. Can the BW take care of it with going to the gym, wearing nicer clothes and doing more with make up? Or can his EN only be met by a young hottie? Then there is nothing that the BW can do to meet it. It's sad because chances are he will never be able to attract what he’s looking for and he’s throwing away something good. But it's foolish for the BW to hit her head against a brick wall when there is no physical way she can meet his top EN. She can find someone who appreciates her for what she is.
The issue is not that WH prizes PA so highly. It’s that he didn’t address this issue before marriage. It’s like marrying a man and knowing beforehand he loves his profession which doesn’t pay very much, while knowing that Financial Security is your number one EN. He will constantly be made to feel badly about what he is and feel that you will bail the minute Mr. Gotbucks crooks his finger. Couldn't this be some of what the BW is feeling?

Well i guess i just did not explain myself well enough.

My plan is whenever we have to move out of our house due to the bankrutpcy (our attorney said approx 6 months after the motion was filed and it officially was filed this month November so i am guessing we will have to be out in May 2009), I will get my own place and he will get his own place.

I have no intention of EVER making it "legal" as i have no desire to even date again much less get married again.

If my H wishes to make it "legal" he may certainly do so at any time, even prior to us moving out of our house if he wishes (obviously we all can do that).

I have told my H that this is my desire. That i no longer want to live with him. That is when he just said "okay".

Since then he has asked all of the question that i posted before and that i did not respond to. I figure why should i give him false hope as the way our marriage is currently i do not wish to remain here. And i have told him this as well with his usual response.

The reason i still post and still ask questions is because i really do not want to leave my marriage. I am just not willing to have my feelings ignored any longer, as i said whether they are right or wrong you should not intentionally "hurt" someone you love and he is well aware that him talking to other women the way he does "hurts" my feelings.

However he sees things differently and thinks that his actions SHOULD NOT "hurt" my feelings and that i just "overreact" so he WILL NOT change his actions. And yes he has said that to me many times.

I do not know if this post made anything clearer or not but i will leave it at that.

Well i would say from my perspective this is a good observation.




Lets suffice it to say that i am 5 foot 8 inches tall, i weigh 125 pounds (and have since high school other than while i was pregnant), i am a professional so i "dress up" every day, and i wear make up every day (sometimes not on the weekends).

I probably am a "plain jane" but who wants to be told that especially by your spouse. And once again this is not a sympathy thing, i do not feel i am ugly by any means, but i am not "beautiful" either.


I also wanted to comment that i do believe your statement about


I feel that he obviously was attracted to me for some reason and continues to do so otherwise why would he have stayed me for 25 years.

However then you take this statement


And this is exactly how i feel. Because of his continued behavior with "attractive" women it is like i am waiting for the shoe to drop AGAIN all of the time.

And no matter how many times i have told him or how many differents ways i have told him (some AO, some calm rational discussions) it "hurts" me when he does this, we see differently on this and he does not feel he should have to change his actions and i feel he should.

FWIW to me it is NOT a game of "chicken".

In the 25 years me and my H have been together, he has had a problem with saying he wants to leave or wants a divorce during most arguments we have. After the A i told him that if he continued to say that i was going to believe him and go ahead and leave, so he quit saying it (and i am thankful and have told him i am thankful).

On the other hand, i have said those words a total of 3 times in that 25 years and i enforced MY boundaries the first 2 times and i ended up leaving the home. Once pre-A and once after D-day. It was not a game of "chicken" then and it is not a game of "chicken" now.

SC,

The problem you are trying to solve is very reasonable. You want your H to care for you and to not hurt you. That is as reasonable as it gets.

You know the solution to this issue is the POJA. You also believe that your H does not believe in it.

I sense that he is a savy negotiator. He feels that he can get a better deal by having a win/lose negotiation than a win/win negotiation. He believes this because he can either out negotiate you or he can keep going as he knows that you have been willing to sacrifice and he has years of experience that have supported this. He does this by wearing you down.

If you are able to save your marriage it will be because you have been able to convince him that a marriage should be based on common goals that are good for both and the POJA is the habit that insures these goals are met. This is the challenge.

If he cannot agree or agrees but is not actively working on acting in ways that support the goals you know that you will continue to be hurt by him.

Like you, I also felt that my feelings were not important to my W. The starting point to progress was the agreement to the goals. Our intentions weren't to hurt the other they were to care, but, our bad habits prevented us from caring. I focused on the principles as they were without all the baggage and negative feelings. I knew if she didn't agree with the goals that I was not going to be happy. I didn't want to force her either as I knew it would be empty. I wanted, and needed, to know her true desires and her true motivations. It was through these discussions that I understood her true motivations and better understood how I was effecting her as well.

If I knew if she couldn't agree with these goals that I would begin to understand her true motivations and that I would have to walk away from the marriage as I could not agree and I wouldn't sacrifice any more.

I do know you stated a couple of reasons for not wanting to make it legal. At the same time, going down this path and not making it legal I'm not sure it really will help you solve your problem. In fact, it may open you up to more hurt.

I'm sure I've told you nothing you don't know. I also hear your pain and it makes one want to reach out to you.

I hope you are doing well today.

SC, I see this as something of a "Poster Child" sort of reasoning for for people who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, rather than be a potential source of further "consternation without answers" to you, I will bow out of this thread and only return when, and if, you decide you do want to hear anything founded upon biblical principles.

So let me simply leave you with one thought to chew on:

"This is not about being right or being wrong to me. It is a matter of a difference of opinions. I do not feel that i am "right or wrong" nor do i feel that he is "right or wrong", we both just see things differently."

As long as you continue to "believe" that absolute morals (i.e. right and wrong behaviors) do NOT exist and that all things are 'relative' to what each each individual WANTS, you will forever be kidding yourself that there CAN be "two captains" of one ship, each trying to steer the ship in the direction they WANT to go, even when those directions are quite different.

AT BEST, the ship will flounder and "get no where." At worst, it will eventually wind up on the reef, have holes torn in the hull, and eventually sink.

Think about it.

I do not understand where you got that i do not believe it absolute morals do not exist out of my post, but as i have said before posting or not posting on this thread is anyone's perogative.

I feel that with the posts others were posting to me they were trying to say that i felt i am "right" and he is "wrong" over the "friendly vs flirty" issue and that was the only thing i was discussing with my H. And that is not what it is at all.

I have discussed with him the issue that i feel it is "not right" to intentionally "hurt" your spouse and that is what he does when he "jokes around" with attractive women.

I have asked him "how would it make him feel if i "joked around" with attractive men EVERY time we were in a public place. His response is that it would not bother him, because of course if he said it would bother him then how could he justify doing it himself.

I have discussed with him that it is "poor boundaries" and where it could and DID lead. This has been (as i have said many times) a 25 year struggle for me.

Since D-day i have a couple more issues that i struggle with. IMHO he has another "poor boundary" which is the fact that he hangs out with (at work only and not on a regular basis) a guy that "I" am certain is cheating on his wife. This is another one of those things that we disagree on.

My H thinks first of all that we do not know "for sure" that this guy has/is cheating on his wife, and secondly that even if he is/was what does that have to do with us.

I have discussed this issue with him in many different ways as well to no avail, we just DO NOT agree.

The third issue is kind of pre-A and post D-day together issue. My H asked me to allow my ex-nephew-in-law to move in with us after he divorced my niece just until he got on his feet. This ex-nephew-in-law was a HUGE alcoholic and my H and the ex-nephew-in-law kind of became drinking buddies (my H drank prior to him moving in it just got worse afterwards). For three years i BEGGED my H practically every day to make my ex-nephew-in-law move out of our home. The ex-nephew-in-law FINALLY moved out about 2 days after D-day.

Well for one thing i feel that the ex-nephew-in-law living in our home was a big reason why my H and i "grew apart" enough to allow the A to happen to begin with (huge trigger) and secondly the ex-nephew-in-law nows lives 2 blocks away from where FOW lived during the A.

My H will ask me if i care if ex-nephew-in-law comes over to the house to watch the game with him or whatever and i tell H every time "you know my feelings about him being here (which are i would prefer he NOT be around) they have not changed" and yet he calls him anyway and goes and picks him up and expects me to go with him to pick him up. These days are just HORRIBLE for me, as i have to deal with the ex-nephew-in-law being around and driving right by where most of the A actually took place.

I have rambled enough but these are my reasons for wanting to leave the marriage as i feel that he "disrespects" my feelings on a continual basis and i am no longer willing to put up with it. Call it "entitlement" call it "selfish" call it whatever you will this is how i feel.

"Where" I "got the idea" was from your statement: "This is not about being right or being wrong to me. It is a matter of a difference of opinions. I do not feel that i am "right or wrong" nor do i feel that he is "right or wrong", we both just see things differently."

As I said previously, this is nothing more than an "acceptance" that all things are "relative" and no "absolute" CAN be drawn with respect to "right and wrong behavior."

If ANY "opinion" automatically confers "rightness" and eliminates "wrongness," then it makes no sense at all to want your husband to "not do" something because it "disrespects" your feelings. That very "disrespect" IS a judgment that his "disrespectful behavior is "wrong" IN YOUR OPINION. BUT, if there IS NO "right or wrong, just differences in opinion," then you are "not right" in seeking to get him to change his opinion and begin behaviors that "respect you."

You are trying to elevate "feelings" to the level of "authority" to confer "rightness or wrongness" regarding any behavior.

While we all HAVE feelings and we DO react to how we are treated, you CANNOT "blame" him for not having the same opinion you do and cannot "blame" him for any separation or divorce on the basis of your "feelings" being hurt, because by your definition there IS NO "right or wrong" to the behavior.

What you ARE doing is assigning your "feelings" as all the reason you need to separate from your marriage vows, all of the vows, whether you want to call that a "separation," "going our separate ways," or a "divorce." Again, without any "Right or Wrong," you CAN divorce for any reason or "feeling" you want to use as the reason, but you WHOLLY OWN the action because is based solely on your FEELINGS and not what IS or IS NOT right according to any other opinion or standard.



"I feel that with the posts others were posting to me they were trying to say that i felt i am "right" and he is "wrong" over the "friendly vs flirty" issue and that was the only thing i was discussing with my H. And that is not what it is at all.

I have discussed with him the issue that i feel it is "not right" to intentionally "hurt" your spouse and that is what he does when he "jokes around" with attractive women.

I have asked him "how would it make him feel if i "joked around" with attractive men EVERY time we were in a public place. His response is that it would not bother him, because of course if he said it would bother him then how could he justify doing it himself. (Underlined portion = disrespectful judgment that assigns motive that includes a "rationalization" for his doing what he "knows" is "wrong" behavior) "


SC, you DID present the "flirting" thing as a "wrong" behavior that resulted in your "feeling hurt" by that behavior. It is NOT the feeling itself that defines whether or not a given behavior by someone else is "right" or "wrong," the feelings are simply a consequence OF the behavior that IS the "causitive agent" of the resulting feeling.

Therefore the behavior in question IS either "right or wrong" on its own merit, but not because of how you might feel in response to the behavior.

"NOT wanting to hurt our spouse" is a reason for CHOOSING behaviors to either engage in or not engage in. It is a "motivating factor" for how we choose to behave, but the behavior itself IS either "right" or "wrong" regardless of how anyone might "feel about it" or "feel in response to it."


There must be some reason why you resist the idea of "right" and wrong" as absolutes. To reduce everything to one of "relativism" removes all responsibility to act in ANY way other than whatever the individual "wants to do." The reason is simple, it removes all STANDARDS by which any given behavior can be JUDGED. People don't like judgmentalism, and I understand that. But being "judgmental" is NOT what having a STANDARD that judges behavior is all about. It is NOT the "individual" who decides to be "judgmental" according to whatever "standards" they want to use for themselves AND impose on others, even IF their own standards are what would be considered "wrong" by some independent, absolute, set of standards that apply equally to ALL people.

The most common "reason" for wanting "relative" rather than "absolute" standards by which to judge behavior is because the SOURCE of the 'absolute standard' MUST be, by definition, OUTSIDE of any individual person AND applicable to ALL because the SOURCE IS the standard by which ALL people are judged.

THAT leads straight to GOD, and a whole lot of people don't like to even admit the existence of God, much less to submit THEIR own lives and behaviors to ANYONE other than themselves.


And the same thing applies to your ex-nephew-in-law. You DO NOT (according to MY standards) have an "enabler" which is what your E-N-I-L WAS to your husband's affair (as drinking buddies who wouldn't DARE to say that a given behavior was wrong) associated in any way with a "recovering marriage."

You also do not keep company with unreformed drunkards. Period.

And that IS a "right" and "wrong" sort of thing, not merely an "opinion."

"I" believe that all of "his" behaviors mentioned in the previous post are "wrong" by MY standards. They are things that i do not do and tell our children not to do.

My H believes there is "nothing wrong" with the things he does or that his behaviors are "right".

That knowledge still does not change my situation however. I still love my H and would still prefer to be married to him even if i think he is wrong.

Of course they don't change your situation, not as long as all things remain "relative."

That's the point.

KNOWLEDGE, even OF "right and wrong," doesn't do anything for anyone. It takes ACTION. It takes APPLICATION of that knowledge for the knowledge to have any benefit. And it takes application by EACH person, according to the same set of "standards," regardless of how they might feel it "makes them feel."

FH i think we are saying the same thing but maybe not.

I think my H's action are wrong. I have told him i think they are wrong.

My H does not think they are wrong.

Because of that we always disagree about these issues when they occur and it causes both of us to be unhappy.

Because we can not agree on these issues being wrong "i" am choosing to longer stay with my H.

Sounds like your H (and maybe you) don't believe in POJA.

"H, I know you and I don't agree on this issue, but I believe that it's important that we talk about it and reach a compromise that we are both happy with. Your happiness is just as important to me as my own. If either of us is left unhappy, then our marriage suffers. So can we talk about it?"

I have tried this as well.

He absolutely positively does not see that his actions, behavior, what ever you want to call it is wrong in any way therefore he thinks there is nothing to POJA because he is right and i am wrong when it comes to the friendly vs flirty.

We have compromised on both of the other issues by only letting the ENIL come over once a month and i do not go with my H to pick him up (even though my H asks me to go every time because he still thinks that it should not bother me).

On the issue with the guy at working who i think is cheating on his wife this is another one of those things that he is right and i am wrong and he thinks there is should not have to be a compromise because we do not know for sure and even so what does that have to do with us.

So my H compromised on this one and we no longer do anything with him (and who i believe is his OW) socially.

He expects you to sacrifice and you do and have.


If you truly POJA'd and had enthusiastic agreement, your H is right. You obviously did not have enthusiastic agreement and you still hold it against him. Again, you sacrifice and this time even blame your H after you said you had enthusiastic agreement.


This isn't POJA either and if it was you are still holding it against your H.

Ever wonder if your H fights you so hard because he knows you expect him to sacrifice as well?

You emotions and feelings are running the show.

I would have to admit that you are correct in the fact that i do still "hold it against him" like you said otherwise i would not let it bother me.

And i guess i do not know how to take the "emotion" out of it especially since the A.

As i said before the "freindly vs flirty" has ALWAYS been an issue to me and the other things are probably more because of the A than anything else.

I think that they all are EPs that I would like in order to feel more secure in the M. His response is that he "knows himself and it will not happen again".

Or maybe i am tired of sacrificing and am using the A as an excuse, i don't know.

All i really know is that i am miserable all the time now (which i bring on myself) and it in turn makes my H miserable and it is not good for either of us.

SC, and as I've been saying, THAT is the problem with relative morality, each person is "free" to decide for theirself what IS and what IS NOT a "good moral action" for them to take, regardless of what anyone else might think.

Beyond that, what sort of "love" is it that places one's own want's and desires above their spouse's? EVEN IF he doesn't see anything wrong with his flirting (and there might NOT be anything "technically wrong" with it), it is STILL detrimental to the health of the marriage because YOU see it as wrong and have hurt feelings as a result such activity.

What is apparently NOT "in play" in your marriage is a feeling of "sacrifice" of anything if it's "Not what I want." This can be looked at as the "essentials" of the MARRIAGE unit, not the "essentials" of the individual members of that marriage unit. But then, it also seems obvious that the "marriage unit" is not recognized either, or if it is recognized in some way, it is NOT given the respect of "absolute standards of behavior" either. It is, at best, a "live in arrangement of roommates" in a "single room" that is merely "occupied" and does not have a "life of its own."

Good luck, SC, but unless there is some willingness to seek help from a qualified marriage counselor, AND the commitment to implement CHANGES for the benefit of the marriage, I don't see a lot of hope for your marriage surviving the "self-oriented" stuff you've been dealing with.

Yes i do sacrifice a lot of the time and like i stated in my last post maybe that is the problem. I have read on here many times about the renter, free loader, and buyer theories. I do not really understand them but i think that we both fall into either renter or freeloader.

I feel i sacrifice most of the time just to "keep the peace" so to speak even though i do not agree with his decision on things.

As far as the sacrifices on the things mentioned earlier they actually were both sacrifices on MY part my H very rarely does any sacrificing.

I truly would not like the ENIL to be at our house at all. My H has simply just started only calling him and inviting him about once a month. He asks me every time before he calls if i "care" and it is always the same response, which is "i really do not want him here" and my H ususally has an excuse of well it will only boe for one night so he can watch the game with me" and then i tell him "well you know that i will NOT be around the two of you" and he says "okay" and then asks me if i will go with him to pick the ENIL up from his apartment. I did a couple of times but as i posted earlier for one thing i do not want him there and for another thing we have to drive right by where my H's A took place to get him.

On the issue with the guy that i am sure is cheating on his wife is also one of what i think is "selfishness". I would not have liked the idea even pre-A but it just so happened that the incidents happened after D-day.

My H met this guy through his work (not at the same company but worked on the same projects), then we happened to meet him again at one of DS baseball games (his son played as well). Well this guy is either lucky of has connections or something because after we met him at the baseball game he used to call my H and offer him two free tickets to things like movie premiers, outdoor concerts, a couple of sporting events, things like that.

Most of the time we would take him up on his offer and use these nights as our "date" nights and we would spend quality time together. Some times we would meet the guy at the event sometimes we would not.

Every time we met him though he had a different woman with him, a supposed co-worker. I always found this odd and mentioned it to my H but since it was a different person every time, the guy would not go home but straight from work to the event claiming his wife did not want to come, he brought his children a couple of times with a female co-worker i just kind of let it go.

However there was one time that we decided to have dinner and drinks with him prior to a movie premier one night (he invited us a lot but as i said we chose to use this as "our" time most of the time). When we arrived at the restaurant we were introduced to yet another female co-worker of his (one that i have not met before). Well let me tell you within about 5 minutes my H and I both (and that night he did admit it) were very uncomfortable and felt that they were definitely WAY more than co-workers.

After that night i told my H that i really was "positive" due to things i overheard them say (she said you never hold my hand when she saw my H holding my hand, then he said i will hold whatever you want, then she said yea but not in public) that they were more than friends and/or coworkers and that i was now 'uncomfortable being around the guy and would be uncomfortable with my H hanging out with a guy that thinks "nothing" about cheating on his wife. My H's response is "well we don't know for sure and he gives us free tickets". Because i do feel certain and i think it is morally wrong to do what he is doing i refuse to accept the tickets and my H gets upset at me because i won't accept them. He just says well it is free and we don't know and even if we do it has nothing to do with us.

So he still runs into him and the guy still offers stuff and my H calls me and asks me if i want to go and i always tell him that i do not and when he asks why i tell him that he know why and then he tells me that i am still being ridiculous and makes up some excuse to tell the guy why we are not going to take the tickets.

On the issue of the "friendly vs flirty" it is really to the point that i do not like to go any in public with my H because he ALWAYS EVERY TIME WE ARE IN PUBLIC TOGETHER has to "joke" with an "attractive woman". I go anyway just because i feel it is part of what we need to do as a married couple but i usually end up being upset by the time we get home depending on the number of or type of "joking around" he has done while we were out. And this has always happened and i have always told him (well actually i quite after a while because what is the point in saying the same thing over and over for years on end) the reason i am upset. He chooses to believe that it is my issue and that he is just friendly and it should not bother me therefore he will not change his actions.

So if these are my emotions running the show then i guess that is what it is. I do not know how to do it any differently.

SC,

I hope you understand or hear what I am saying in regards to this.

For most of your entire last post, I hear a much calmer, logical person communicating their point of view. This is much different than most of your other posts. Many of your other posts carry an edge, a battling, tone. You have this with us here on MB. I can only imagine what it is like when you and your H communicate.

I know from my experience that when I was calm and logical I was rational. When I was emotional everything was heightened and logic was very far away and my emotions became part of the problem. So, for me to become part of the solution I needed to control my emotions since I knew how they escalated everything and made it worse. Not ignore my emotions, but control them so I could express myself constructively.

In your post, the only time I sensed a change in tone is when it came to the "friendly vs flirty" paragraph. But, overall you really expressed yourself well in regards to your emotional reactions to the issues.

Also, to reinforce you and me, I have communicated before that your points of view on this are very reasonable. Its not your emotions on the points....it is the way you go about it....and you emotional reactions and how these reactions effect you and your H.

Here are a couple of other points to think about. SC, I am a BS, as well, and I also agree with you on your issues as being very reasonable so please keep this in mind in my following comments.

I guess, I am asking your Taker to recognize I am trying to help in any way I can and that there are always many points of view to things and it is our Taker that our emotional reactions tend to respond from. The Taker keeps us "whole" but it tends to do so in destructive ways.


This is where the application of the POJA by you is so important. By ensuring enthusiastic agreement your Taker is taken into consideration. With enthusiastic agreement you don't sacrifice or hold anything against anyone as your Taker's point of view is considered and is enthusiastic with the outcome of the agreement. It is win/win negotiating not win/lose and hope you aren't the one losing. With enthusiastic agreement you walk away from each agreement without resentment. It insures care for each other.


I hear you. I did the same thing. It is a lousy long term strategy. Lousy. I can sit here now and think through this and actually say I understand what I was trying to do but who was I kidding in the end. By doing this it caused me to feel this and this and this and.....and all of it was not good except for bringing short term "peace".

A committment by both to the goals of marriage, marriage is a relationship of extraordinary care, to create a lifestyle that is fulfilling to both of you, to avoid being the source of each others happiness, to become each other's greatest source of happiness followed by the application of the POJA can get you there.

If you yourself believe in these goals, you will recognize how important it is for you to control your emotional reactions and how important it is for you to not sacrifice.


Do you see how you are being disrespectful to your H here? If you believe in the POJA you wouldn't say your H not sacrificing is a negative. You would appreciate his point of view better if you did.

Also, can you maybe see his point of view here as well. Maybe he sees that you do expect him to sacrifice. He, like you, is battling to express and get his needs met. But, maybe he sees that the only way for him to make you happy is for him to sacrifice his needs being met and that makes him unhappy. Isn't there a way for both of you to be happy. The POJA.


He asks you every time. I sense he is being considerate to you. He wants to care. But, he is getting your approval. Maybe it is just me, but, there is nothing worse than to wanting to be considerate but then having someone control you that you need to get there approval.

Why can't it joint agreement that is good for both? He has a need that he is trying to get met. He knows it effects you so he asks for approval. You disrespect his consideration by saying your H always has an excuse.

Isn't this just really poor negotiation by you and your H. You aren't pusuing the POJA are you? Isn't the result of the POJA care and if you don't reach the POJA NEITHER OF YOU sense care from the other? He feels controlled and you feel unheard and at risk.


Same kind of thing here. Can you think of some ideas where you could turn this into something positive for the both of you?(and I'm not implying by using or accepting these tickets) H is communicating a need(RC) and undivided attention time with you.




On this, you can tell that this is very very sensitive and rightfully so. So, you have to be in a much better state before you can even try to negotiate here.

You are right to not go out with H until you can reach the POJA. In the past you have sacrificed so his need can be met but by his need being met it means you sacrifice and become unhappy. Why does he get to be happy at your expense?

If you do get to the point where your emotions are in control and you think you can give this an effort to negotiate, you need tell him that you want him to happy and enjoy his time out and that you want to happy and enjoy yourself as well. You recognize that he does it as some need of his is being met, but, it is at your expense and isn't there a way for you both to be happy when you go out?

My thought is to go after the goals of marriage first and see if he can agree to those. The goals are pretty reasonable for most. Some may say that they are "ideal" but isn't that what one works towards and isn't the working towards and the recognition and care that comes when you aren't meeting the goals part of what is all about.

Last, I do believe you have a very good point regarding EP. The health issues that arose kindof caused you to skip over this important step. I can understand why you feel at risk and why you feel you can never "get over it".

Dr. Harley says that people have A's because EP haven't been followed and because EN's aren't being met. He places a much bigger emphasis on a lack of EP's than on EN's not being met. He says we can control if we have an A or not. We can make that decision and put in place those EP. He also states that we can't control if we divorce or not. That we can't insure how one will treat us.

StillCrazy, I really feel for you. I am a “plain Jane” myself and thank God I have a husband who is fine with that. Frankly, your situation sounds like hell on earth.
Your WS seems to be love busting with Dishonesty (I’m not flirting, this guy I like to pal around with is not a serial cheater, these tickets were free) and Independent Behavior.
You are evidently too smart and too honest for him to be able to get away with the dishonesty, so he has to try and get you to doubt the reality that you see. So he calls you crazy. For pity’s sake, change your screen name from StillCrazy to SeeU2ClearlyNow. LOL!
Don’t argue with him about the reality you see.
You: “You were disrespectful to me and our M when you flirted with that busty 20 year old blonde at the supermarket. Please stop flirting with other women while you are married to me.”
WS: “I was just being friendly.”
You: “You were disrespectful to me and our M when you flirted with that busty 20 year old blonde at the supermarket. Please stop flirting with other women while you are married to me.”
WS: “You are crazy.”
You: “You were disrespectful to me and our M when you flirted with that busty 20 year old blonde at the supermarket. Please stop flirting with other women while you are married to me.”
When he cannot get you to back down and accept his version of what happened, you will get off the endless loop you are on now—the one where he tells you what has happened and you are forced to try and reconcile what you believe happened and his lies. That will make you crazy. But you are not crazy now.
Have you considered using the phone marriage counseling with the Harleys? That might help you to get some of this sorted out.

No offense taken I know you all are only trying to help. I am sorry if I come across as argumentative, that is not my intention. However I truly have tried to discuss these issues in a calm, rational manner with my H more times than I can even remember much less count. After a while I guess you just get PO’d about it.


Let’s face it this is a website that discusses infidelity, when I come here and post I am usually already upset about something so I post all of the bad stuff. Heck I also make my H sound like an ogre and if that were the case why would I even want to stay with him. I sometimes get “angry” the first time something happens and have AO’s regarding whatever it may be, but then later we usually always discuss things calmly and rationally.


I am not sure that I have much “taker” in me; I am much more of a “giver”. If I were more of a “taker” we would have probably been split up a LONG time ago.



On these particular issues our thoughts are so different that I am not sure that we can come up with a solution that will make both of us happy with out making one of feel like we are “sacrificing”


I agree with you that it is considerate for him to ask me first and I have told him that. However if you know the response before you ask the question and the response is ALWAYS the same and yet you do it anyway isn’t that disrespectful?


I did not have a problem with the ENIL at first. But you do not know the ENIL. Besides the fact that he is a teetotal alcoholic (it is nothing for him to drink a 12 pack per day on the weekends when he is usually at our house he drinks a 24 pack beginning at 9:00 am or so), he has broken more of our things than I can count due to being so drunk he either falls over or knocks stuff over (on a daily basis when he lived with us now it is just when he comes around), he does not have a job and did not have one for most of the three years he lived with us. My H will have him “do things” around our house that he or my DS could do and then buy him beer and cigarettes for doing them. The ENIL makes himself at home while he is at our house including just getting into our fridge and eating the last of anything he finds in there. He has let our dog loose numerous times. He tries to tell us how to raise our children (this coming from a 51 year old man who doesn’t have a job, doesn’t own anything that me and my H has not given to him and living in an apartment with his 25 year old son who I am pretty sure is a drug dealer). I could go on and on about the ENIL but I think you get the idea.

I have suggested to my H many times to invite some of his other buddies over to watch the game with him but he insists on it being the ENIL because he “feels sorry for him”.

This is EXACTLY what happens but we both refuse to budge on our rationale on these particular issues.



I have also told him many times there are other things we can do that are inexpensive, like wait until the movie comes to the dollar theater and see it then, we enjoy disc golfing and it only costs us $3.00 to go. My H just always insists that it is “ridiculous” of me to not want to accept “free” tickets because we do not know for sure and he is not “us”. So he gets angry with me when I will not accept the invitation.


You are correct that this is a VERY sensitive issue for me. I have tried for 25 years to calmly and rationally get him to see that this issue bothers me A LOT, I have gotten to the point now where I usually go but end up being miserable the whole time.


Once again you are EXACTLY correct on this too and because it did not take place right away and things “got better” according to my H there is no need for EPs because he knows himself and knows it will not happen again.

NWS my H does not believe in counseling, never has never will according to him.

As if i have not discussed the ENIL enough i just thought i would add that a lot of this was happening while we were struggling "financially" ourselves (hence filing bankruptcy).

Do you communicate like this with your H? It is very good. I felt understood and I feel like I hear your intentions. It feels like you are open to ideas and other points of view.

Do you understand your H's intentions? What do you think they are?


That is understandable. After awhile it gets very overwhelming as you see all these problems and you can discuss them and get nowhere time after time. Its clearly not due to lack of effort and it gets frustrating to say the least.

But, if there is to be a way, the only way I know if by keeping your emotional reactions in control. Some need to vent. Vent here all you can but with your H, keep your emotions in control. And, I know, it is hard to do.


Perspective is everything. I see this as a MBing site.


You have a TAKER. You just aren't as in touch with it. When you keep your emotions in control and THINK about what is occurring your logic insures your TAKER is consider. Your willingness to sacrifice is a constraint. When you sacrifice your TAKER builds resentment and takes it out on your H.


It can be done. My W and I have been here. But, you can't start here. You need to be on the same page. Your goals need to be the same. You need to believe in the POJA and practice the POJA. Start small with little things. Get some results. Gain some understandings. Control your emotions and think from his side and your side.


This is one point of view and it makes sense. I can't even point out anything that I don't agree with. I do see another point of view. Another point of view is that the two of you still haven't found a good solution. Maybe H isn't enthusiastic about it. Maybe he feels you are asking him to sacrifice his needs so you can have some of your needs met. Maybe you revisit it over and over again but you keep dealing with it in the same way. Maybe neither of you really try to understand and come up with good solutions for both. You both see your point of view and stick to it.

I do find it interesting that he asks you. He has concern. But, no agreed to solution. So the problem lingers. And any new problems just get added to the list of problems as it is seemingly impossible to solve any problems, is this right?


So he asks you but then insists on his way? If he insists why wouldn't he just do it without asking you? Is this the problem or is it something else?


Here again he asks you, insists, and in the end then turns down the tickets.


I wonder if you make him feel exactly the same way he makes you feel.

If your H could have 1 problem fixed in your marriage what would it be?


What do you think is the best way to get these EP's in place? You smart enough to know that unless he puts them in place it will happen again.

Yes i communicate like that with everyone. I have always been one of the types of people who TRY to look at all sides of an issue and be open to suggestions on doing things differntly or easier or whatever.


I am not sure what intentions you are talking about so i will have to pass on this question for now.



I will TRY to work on this as well because i do know that i do sometimes just get so upset that i do let my emotions over rule everything.


Well i must say you got me there


This one is a BIG problem of mine.


Well i would have to agree with you on this one as well only i am not sure which one it is

Maybe you revisit it over and over again but you keep dealing with it in the same way. Maybe neither of you really try to understand and come up with good solutions for both. You both see your point of view and stick to it.


Pretty much hit the nail again.


I do not know why he asks. My response has never changed but he always asks, i always say i don't want him here. My H picks him up anyway and they watch the game together and i either hang out in out bedroom reading or downstairs watching TV or i leave and go "wish shopping" because i do not like being around the ENIL.


Once again i can not answer this either. He has actually accepted some of the tickets and either gave them to other people or went with our DS.



I wonder this all the time that is part of the reason i told him i thought it was best if we went our separate ways because it was not "fair" to either of us.


Ah i misread this question and i am sorry to say that i can not answer it either. He always tells me he is happy with every thing about me and that i do nothing wrong so i have nothing to go on.

But I would have to say if "i" had to choose one, it would be the one that bothers me the most and the has bothered me the longest and that is my perception of his "flirtiness".


This hence is another reason i am choosing to part ways. I think my H will NEVER agree to EPs, never, ever, ever.

This is the way i see my whole M.

My H is a friendly person and jokes around with women every available opportunity. A lot of these women (not all but a lot) take his joking as flirting and they flirt back with me sitting there and he jokes right back with them also with me sitting there.

Despite my AOs, negotiating, rational discussions, telling him it hurts my feelings, all the above he continues with this behavior because he feels he is just friendly. We have a good relationship anyway because I try very hard to squelch my jealous feelings though I still mention them from time to time usually when the women flirt back (because in my mind if he had not been so friendly to begin with she could not have taken him as flirty and may not or maybe she still may have flirted back) and that was usually how I would state my feelings.

Fast forward to when ENIL moved in. As I stated early at first I had no problem with ENIL moving in to help him get on his feet. However when it became obvious that he was “using” us rather than attempting to get on his feet and not only that I felt it was interfering with our M because I really could not stand to be around the ENIL because he is such a drunkard and my H was drinking more as well with him (and my H agreed with me on this) I starting asking H to have him move out.

Well my H just kept putting off and putting off making my ENIL move out of our home and it built up resentment with me (during the time the ENIL was living with us we had a house fire, we could not live in our house for 4 months while it was being repaired, our insurance company paid for us to stay in a long term stay hotel, the ENIL went with us all 5 of us, him and our dog crammed into a hotel room for 4 months). So now not only are we not spending nearly as much time together as we had in the previous 20 years of being together (because he is with ENIL and I will not be around ENIL and H knows this is my boundary so to speak) I got to the point that I did not want to fill his SF desires because of the resentment I had built up because of the ENIL situation.

Then you add a female co-worker that enjoyed men anyway and is a drinker (I am not), my H is not getting “as much” as he would like, we aren’t spending much time together, he is drinking more, he is turning 50, he lost his mother and had BIG unresolved issues with her, his friendliness with the OW (he told me that she said she thought he was a “player” and wanted her too because of the way he talked to her) and BAM, affair!!!

It was short lived but very hard because he left me twice telling me he wanted to be with her during the three weeks between D-day and him coming home. He was home for ten days when he started to get sick. He ended up in the hospital with pneumonia, ran a 103 degree fever for 4 weeks then it dropped to 100 degrees for another week and then a week after that they went in a removed a lobe of his lung.

During this whole time that he is sick and in and out of the hospital the FOW was contacting me via my H’s work cell phone on a regular basis trying to get info about what is wrong with my H. But I had to be a caregiver to my H, I could not focus on my recovery at that time because he was so sick. Because of being a caregiver and not asking all the hard questions and looking for the reasons everything happened we did not do any “work” on the M before he went back to work where the FOW still was working.

This hit me like a ton of bricks and it was like D-day all over because we did not have a “plan” on how either of us was going to handle when he went back to work. My H on the other hand was “warm and fuzzy” all of about our relationship because I had just been his caregiver for the last 4 months and he felt all was forgotten and we didn’t have to talk about it and life would just be hunky dory.

So since then it has kind of been a battle trying to get anything about the A or ENs or anything out of my H. He has always told me that I am fine I do not need to change anything. He even said this during the A that it was not me at all it was him. Since being on MB I have tried to get him to look at the questionnaires and things, we started with the ENs one. He started filling it out and said “none of these are it” you are great at meeting my needs.

Obviously I know this can not be true or else I would be perfect and we all know there is no such being. However I do not know what to work on as he says I do everything “just fine”. So this fact plus his “friendly” behavior just leaves me feeling like it WILL happen again it is just WHEN. And I do not want to live my life that way any longer.

I believe you are right.

He has independant behavior. He isn't working on it. Doesn't see it as a problem. Sees it as your issues. His happiness comes at your expense.

If marriage is a relationship of extraordinary care this sure isn't it.

At the same time, I believe you have more power than you realize. A man has an A, has health issues and his W cares for him during this time. Wow!

He may not know now, but, he will definitely know for sure at some point in the future how awesome of a person you are!

Also, in regards to your H being happy.

You say this:


He says this:


But here is a bunch of data saying otherwise.


But, that is him. What about you? Maybe there are things about you that are constraining your life from being what you want it to be.

So what do you do? What do you want to do?

You have a plan to leave.

But, there are 3 things you say that make me very sad for you. It makes me feel that you see no hope and it makes me feel you are settling for whatever comes your way. You have given up the idea of a romantic relationship with either this H or any other potential H in the future and I sense that this is what you really want.

It is this:


and this:


and then this:

Unfortunately this is sad but I think true as well.



Well all of these things IMHO happened to both of us. The first one was MY department at work, and right after that is when I had D-day. It was a really hard time in my life as I had no one really to talk to about it as I had no more co-workers that I had had for the last 10 years.

The bankruptcy is also something that affects us both. Same with the surgeries and stuff, even though my H was the one who was physically hurt, I had to deal with it as well.

The only issues I have are with my H. I mean I have everyday life things but who doesn’t have that. I have some pretty good kids who are almost grown. I have a large family that is also my friends, I have my health, my ONLY bad thing is my M. And the sad part of that is I really do not want it to end. I love my H more than life itself but I think I really just can not get past his betrayal.

It made me take off the rose colored glasses I had had on for so long and now I do not like what I see in front of me. And I feel it has changed me as well and for the worse. I used to be a pretty happy go lucky person that was very rarely angry. Now it is the other way around, I am very rarely a happy go lucky person.


It is what I want more than anything but I feel I will not ever have it.

You can recover from the betrayal if your marriage and life become better. If not better, I don't know how one could ever get over it.

It is his lack of care that prevents your recovery. It is your sacrifice that prevents your recovery. He may not have always been a freeloader but he has become one now. He sounds lazy in his relationship and your sacrifice does nothing but reinforce the status quo. He fights to keep the status quo. It could very well take you leaving the marriage. He has alot to lose.

You said you enjoy reading. The book buyers, renters, and freeloaders would be great for you.


If you commit to a marriage of extraordinary care and the goals of marriage(lifestyle, LB's, EN's) you will get this with this H or the next. If you act on these you will get this with this H or the next.

You can't control your H. But, I would give him signposts showing him the direction he needs to go to properly care for you. Put pressure on the current lousy agreement you have between the two of you. Try to renegotiate it to the goals of marriage.

I'd start by asking him how he would feel talking about what the goals of marriage are.

I would ask him about marriage being about extraordinary care. I'd ask him about the goals of marriage. I'd ask him for his thoughts on these. I'd respect and understand his point of view. Don't try to tell him your view is correct and his is wrong, but, explain your point of view. I'd then let him know how much you have thought about it and how much you agree with them. I'd let him know you are committed to these goals and working through the problems you will encounter trying to meet them.

His responses will be very interesting as you have spent much more time on this than he has and your thoughts will be very thoughtful. He's got along way to go to catch up and may never get there but he will find out your serious.

And this is where i have been for the last two years.

My Hs thoughts are this (and while i can "agree" with alot of what he says i think that since he had an A it changes things somewhat, it MAKES the NEED for EPs even more necessary IMHO):

because we had a good relationship for quite a long time (and we did other than his "friendliness"), he says we let "life" get in the way and forgot about each other and that is how the affair happened. He loves me and always has (which i also believe) and as long as we don't let "life" get in the way again and continue to meet each other's needs then why do we need to change anything.



He pretty much has always been a freeloader and does not take my feelings into consideration. However we agree on most things so even though i may sacrifice in some cases (things i do not agree with him on), i feel i do not sacrifice all the time.

Even in the issues that we have discussed here, i sacrifice somewhat but i still enforce my "boundaries" about them. But i do understand what you are saying about keeping the "status quo".



I really do need to get this book and others. I have not read much since D-day. As you can tell by all of the things i have went through in the last couple of years my life is pretty "stressed" most of the time right now.

We are all taking a vacation (me, H, YDD, DS, and a friend of each of theirs who are like our kids) the week between Christmas and New Year and i plan on doing a lot of relaxing and reading while we are gone.



I think that i have been committed to this type of marriage since i got married, it is my H that has not at least on the extraordinary care part. I am sure that i have LBs now and then (like telling him when his "friendliness" bothers me his demeanor just instantly changes because he gets upset that i mentioned it yet again) and i KNOW i have AOs as well. But i have always naturally followed EPs and think of my H before i do most anything.


I will try to work on this, hopefully reading some of the suggested books i have heard about here on MB and being in a relaxing surrounding for a whole week can get a jump start on this.



I will let you know how things progress.

Thank you for taking the time to read and respond to my posts, it is at least giving me a "glimmer" of hope of things getting better. I will at least try to have an open mind that my H may actually be able to "get it".

There is nothing more miserable than this. Nothing. I hope your H can put down any defensiveness he may have and just simply understand how painful this is.


When I read this all I can think of is how important it really is to have empathy and understanding for each other. It is hard enough at times to really understand someone else. And when you go through really painful and emotional times it becomes even harder, but, it is truly by having respect for the other person and understanding from each side that you can actually recover from this.

There is so much you and your H don't know. So much you both need to learn about marriage and about each other.

I want to tell you a little more about my experience.

My W and I had been working really hard to recover our marriage and life after her A. I had a repentant, remorseful wife who put in place EP's and was working hard. We went to the MB Weekend(best $1500 we have ever spent) and then starting coaching with Dr. Harley every week or every other week.

We were working hard. Both of us.

We made some progress at first and then it stalled. We worked harder and talked to Dr. Harley some more.

After 6-7 months I wanted to quit. We both weren't happy. We were miserable. We were trying hard. We both wanted a great marriage. We understood the MB program and it made sense to both of us. We were coaching with Dr. Harley. But, we weren't happy and it felt like it was getting worse. How deflating. How hopeless.

I mean if two people really want something and your getting help maybe it just CAN'T work out. It is easier to walk away when you have worked so hard. At the same time, a larger investment has been made, by both sides, so both sides are more disappointed than anything else.

But, underneath we were really making progress. We were gaining understanding of each other. Real understanding. We made a concerted effort to not fight(not make each other unhappy) and worked on the POJA. On the smallest of things. Then on issues with the kids and then on and on.....

We then actually solved a problem. My god, do you know how good solving one problem made us feel. Do you know that by solving a simple problem using the POJA that I felt my W cared for me and I for her. And the snowball slowly starts rolling in the other direction.

This stuff is hard and the path is narrow.

When you look back you see how frustrated Dr. Harley(he is a great person, very caring) must have been. He kept us in the game as he knew both of our TRUE MOTIVATIONS was to make this work. He had to see that if the H would simply respect and see the W's point of view and the W simply respect and see the H's point of view and have empathy for each other that this would resolve itself.

Ever since the A, I have viewed this as the most important negotiation I will have in my life and I am having this negotiation with my W.

I approached the negotiation by viewing it as a funnel. Yes, a funnel. At the bottom and narrowest part of the funnel were specific issues. At the top of the funnel was the big picture or the goals. Anything within the funnel were solutions that I would be enthusiastic about. And if I was able to get things right at the top the properties of the funnel would funnel to the bottom. Anything to the outside of the funnel were solutions that I wasn't enthusiastic with. The funnel itself were my boundaries.

Every time we were outside of the funnel I knew that we had to work our way back up the funnel. We were outside of the funnel because I was only seeing my funnel of opportunities, not hers too. I needed to understand hers and see the funnel that was created when we merged our's together. Then we could more effectively work our way down.

It is a little hokey but I was able to picture it and understand and use it to help guide me. It is why I have tried to push you up the funnel. If you can't have a common funnel at the top no way are you going to meet at the bottom. And if you can't agree at the top of the funnel then things become much clearer on which direction to take.

Agreeing that marriage is a relationship of extraordinary care is a first step but a big first step as long as one discusses what care really means. And that is tied to the goals. And these fundamentals tie to you effectively learning to solve problems. And when you effectively solve problems it is amazing how much one can feel cared for.

I want to thank you as well. When I write to you it makes me want to understand my W more. It makes me become more empathetic and I become a better partner.

Well i am by no means complaining and am almost scared to even post this. But things have been going really well the last couple of weeks.

He has went over to the ENIL house a couple of times but only to drop something off to him, not to bring him to our house, he did not ask me to go with him, he went there and straight back.

We have been out in public together quite a bit here lately and there has only been one time that i can think of the he "flirted" with any women, he seems to FINALLY be trying to do this and i am so thankful. It may only be when he is in front of me i do not know for sure one way or another but it could be he is practicing therefore he is also not doing it when he is not around me (i am not sure that made sense but i know what i am trying to say ).

Maybe, just maybe, he is thinking about my feelings a liitle more.

If he is truly trying and motivated that is great.

This is where Dr. Harley would talk about habits and to recognize that so much of what we do it habit. Changing ones habits is hard and takes time and repetition. But, it is possible to change habits that remove LB units into ones that deposit in one's LB but that it is important to recognize it takes time AND practice.

During the MBW, Dr. Harley had us all cross our hands over our chests. He then asked who crossed their hands over their chest with there left arm over there right and who had their right over there left. He then asked if it felt comfortable and if we do this the same way every time. And, of course, we all said yes. He stated, you do this the same way every time and you don't even think about it. You just do it. It is a habit. So, we can have thoughtless habits that destroy our love for each other.

He then asked us to switch which arm was over the other. So, if your habit was to have your right arm over your left to now place your left arm over your right. He asked how does that now feel and it "feels" uncomfortable. You can then keep practicing this new way over and over and in time it would become comfortable and a new habit would be created. Thus, we can create new habits that build our love for each other. And once we have created these habits, we don't even have to think about it.

Your H is capable of creating new habits to replace his old habits if he is motivated and practices. Since it is a habit, he may slip up, but if he is trying and practices he CAN learn a new habit that builds the marriage instead of destroying it.

It sounds as though you and your wife struggled with things as well.

Not that i want to know to put a "timeline" up for me and my H (IMHO there is no timeline as long as you are both willing to do the work and make the necessay changes which is where we were lacking), but i am curious as to how long it took you and your wife to get to the point where you "solved" a problem.

I certainly hope so. I at the moment at least have hope that he CAN and IS.

I would say it took us 7-8 months to actually solve a real problem after we both started working hard.

I do think it could have happened much sooner. Maybe half the time.

But, it is completely dependent on the commitment you both give. And sometimes that is the biggest process. There is the commitment to talk the talk and then there is the commitment to walk the walk.

We started addressing EN's and LB's and quickly saw LB's as our biggest issue. This worked well for awhile as we communicated alot of information that we would have normally have ignored. So, we gained knowledge of each other and the patterns in our lives.

But, that didn't solve problems as it led to feeling attacked/blamed and escalated into arguments.

We started to walk the walk when decided that arguing was a waste of time and proceeded to aggressively implement the POJA. It was the combination of the knowledge we gained by working on EN's and LB's and actually applying this via the POJA that we actually solved problems.

The POJA was big. We thought we were doing it early on, but, we really weren't. We didn't appreciate the words enthusiastic agreement enough. We would stop negotiating when we had reluctant agreement. It was the real application of the POJA that made the difference. I wish we would have understood this 3-4 months earlier than we did.

I swear this recovery thing is one step forward and two steps back sometimes.

Just had a bad evening!!!

It most definitely is. I was in a bad spot myself yesterday - was really wallowing around in self-pity and self-blame.

Yes that was me too and it just carried into today a little bit (not as much as last night). I hate it when i do that but sometimes you do.

What happened? Same problems or something new?

Basically the same problem. I just felt that once again he picked someone elses feelings over mine and our children. Which he has done so many times. It just really bothers me when he does it.

I know this may sound silly but we have always budgeted for a certain amount of money to spend on our kids each year for Christmas. Our kids are old enough to know what that dollar amount is and they stick to it when they gives us their gift ideas.

Well because we are going on this trip after Christmas my H felt that i should "charge" the kids so to speak what the price tag price on things were, rather than what i really paid for it (sale price). So i told him okay and i did not have a problem with it since they are going on the trip as well.

But then last night he went to the ENIL to have the ENILs son do some work on our car before driving it for our vacation. He asked the ENILs son what he would charge to do the work and he gave my H a price. So when the work was complete my H paid him and them gave him a $20.00 tip.

Like i said i know it seems silly to get upset about that, but i felt that he was being a scrooge with our kids but giving this extra money that i was not allowed to spend on our kids to the ENILs son. He also bought the ENIL a twelve pack of beer while he was there waiting on the work to be completed.

So i controlled my emotions and did not really get angry or say anything to him, but i have just felt sad today thinking that is it always going to be such a struggle for the little things. Like i said just feeling a little sorry for myself.

And wondering once again if i just perceive things differently because i do not care for the ENIL and it effects my emotions when it comes to things that involve him.

Oh well tomorrow is another day!!!

Does this mean that you saved $20 exactly and that $20 was the tip amount?

What do you mean by saying "not allowed"?

I am just using these dollar amounts to show my point.

Me and my H went shopping to buy the kids presents. I needed to spend $100 each on them. When we went to the store (H did not say anything until we got to the store). When i found things they would like i said oh YDD would like this and it is on sale plus i have a coupon for an extra 15% off so it would only be $20.00 after the sale price and the discount.

My H said, yes but the regular price is $40.00 so it is $40.00 off of her $100.00. Then i said no it only COSTS $20.00. Then he said yes, but we need extra money for vacation and since they are going with us just make it $40.00. So I agreed to do that so we could have some extra on vacation and they could spend it there.

Then the very next day is when he went to the ENILs son to get the car fixed and paid him over the amount agreed upon to repair the car. When i asked him why he gave him extra because i thought we needed the extra for vacation (hence the reason he would not let me spend it on the kids), he just said oh it was a tip for Christmas.

And what i mean by not allowed is that he did not want me to spend it.

It seems to me that my H is ALWAYS more concerned about getting the approval of others and making others happy before me and the kids.

He will say that he does not want us to do something or spend money or whatever and then turn around and do the same thing or spend the money or whatever for people like the ENIL and the guy that is cheating on his wife, and his co-workers in his office (who have only been his co-workers since May 2008).

It seems everyone else comes first and then me and the kids. For me it is the opposite, him and the kids come first and then everyone else.

I think this goes back to the "extraordinary care" that he seems to not be able to give to our marriage. He really never has given our marriage "extraordinary care" and though it has always bothered to some extent. It really bothers me since the A.

I know this may not be the correct waaay to think, but i feel since he had an affair i am "entitled" to that "extraordinary care" he however, i do not think, knows how to do that.

It seems that his happiness comes before ANYTHING in his life and he is not willing to change if it will mean he has to give up behaviors that he thinks he should not have to.

SC;
Wow, what a post- longtime lurker- new poster here.
You are getting good advice. For what it is worth, here is my "2 cents":

1. Read "The Dance of Anger". This book has been published for over 2 decades (maybe three) and it shows you how pent up anger (at your H and other family/non family members) makes you ill.
I am serious, I had HUGE "letting go" issues- it took a few years and I read that book many times--but it finally sank in.

It has helped with the PTSD and the anxiety. Also letting go-- not for his sake- but mine and my kids.

2. I think you are at this stage early, but on this board I have read about "betrayed spouse buyers remorse". That means that there is a backlash in the BS spouses feelings about the recovery/marriage between years 3-5.

At first the BS puts 100% into recovery- then suddenly it slaps them in the face "What did I really sign myself up for?". There is often a huge ammount of regret/remorse/anger and pent up frustration that seems to surface at this time. Understand it for what it is.

This is a normal part of recovery (for some people). In fact- there is a number quoted on one of these posts --backed with documentation- that says MOST betrayed spouses "throw in the towel" in this 3-5 year mark-- Surpizing the he)) out of the WS!

I totally believe it- it happened to me (the "forget this cr*p" feeling-- BUT I had an idea it may be coming-- so I try to ride out those negative feelings-- as part of MY personal recovery.

To lighten things up:

3. As far as the good looking women and flirting- I know what you mean. Back in my day I was attractive- I always had a man somewhere- between 12 and 200 who was willing to speak with me. I had many a nasty girlfriend stare bullets at me- just because her boyfriend made some comment to me!- and I quit a coffee house job because I did not like the way some men tried to monopolize my time (and the owner told me to "just be nice" to them- yuck!) I was young and clueless and shy at the time.

As I get older, this happens less, ah so is life! My sister was a "Jane", I saw first hand how she and I got different treatment.

Now, My H does not, and never has, given a rats a$$ about men fliritng with me. Sometimes I wonder about that. Maybe it is because I am truely clueless, and when someone sends me a drink (yah, it has happened) I wake up and look around for the first time like "who the heck?!?!?".

BUT if it bothered him- I would take steps to correct it.


Maybe you should check out IC. Find where your fears are coming from. No, it is not obvious as you may think.-- Sometimes you must look inside, find out what your instincts and habits are, and change the root thinking behind them.

You are getting good advice here-- keep reading.

SC,

You know, the time frame between now and when you plan on leaving gives you an opportunity to better understand yourself, your H, and your marriage. It is a real opportunity for personal understanding and growth. As I've said before, you will be a great partner for this H or the next based on the work you do.


Maybe not entitled as demanding something is probably not the best way to get what you want and need but you not settling, not sacrificing, may be a better way to look at it. And that is wonderful.

You better understand what you want. Keep thinking through this and become better(not critical of the other person, more focussed on you and why it is important to you and how you can best achieve this) at communicating this.

You better understand the problems. Again, keep thinking through this and better understand why things happen, understand the pattern, the bottleneck(don't judge, don't blame, thats for a time when you make the decision to leave, seek to understand). Be sure to ask questions to insure you aren't jumping to conclusions.

The extraordinary care goes both ways. He has a need for admiration and he gets this need met elsewhere and it is hard for you to admire him after all that has happened.

Try to take it step by step instead of focusing on everything he does poorly. Find something that is important enough to you that you would admire him more than you do today if he changed. If it is the flirting, then work on it with him. Recognize that he has a big part in this as do you. Recognize it is a habit and it takes constant practice. You could practice admiration for his efforts and successes and he could practice changing his habit. Practice it every week. When he fails, and he will, you can be more understanding instead of critical and he can be more thoughtful and caring.

Then, document your activities and the results. Place it on a calendar or some other means. It gives you a way to go back and actually see if progress has been made or if it is staying the same or getting worse. This is the data. It is concrete and not at the day to day whims of your emotions. It gives you strength when you have to make a tough decision.

But, maybe you don't even have the agreement at the big picture level yet. The agreement to care. The agreement to put these types of goals in place and to put this type of effort in. If you can't agree to these goals, verbally, that is a big sign for you on what you will get in return, no matter what the excuse. It is much easier to verbally sign up to these goals than it is to actually take action on them and practice them as this takes recognition that in order to meet these goals I will need to take action and change.

Last, you have more power than you recognize.

I think my problem is that i "do not know how" to communicate it as a "big picture".

My H does not think ANY of his behaviors are "wrong" or "hurtful" or "whatever".

He always tells me that he thinks he is a good husband and that he treats me well. During the A he told me that the OW said to tell me that "i have a great husband".

So i do not know how to get him to see that "extrordinary care" is needed for a good marriage when he thinks that he already does provide "extraordinary care" and that i take things out of context.

I am sure that you all think that it is probably not as bad as i make it out to be here in words but i promise you that it is.

I just do not think i can stay in this marriage after his betrayal. Not that any of us deserve to be betrayed but i have always basically kissed my H's [censored] our whole marriage and gave in to all of his whims and always tried to do what he wanted and be the best wife possible.

Even the fact of us "growing apart" (which was part of the reason the A happened) was his doing not mine. He knew that i would not be around him and the ENIL and yet he chose to continue to let him live with us for three years.

I really am not trying to dismiss your advice because it did work for you and through your own words your relationship was similar to ours. So i am sure it could work for ours as well, I just do not know how to communicate it.

SC,

I don't think I have ever said I have any magic advice for you. I have ideas. Ideas that maybe could be used to develop a plan...an approach.

You sounded hopeless with both your options, whether you stayed or whether you left, so I wanted to offer you ideas. I felt and heard that you were reaching out.

You have more power than you recognize to get what you want out of life.

I know you did not say that you had any "magic advice" for me but so far you are the only one who has even tried to truly listen to me and give me advice and it seems that i always have a reason why it will not work for me. I almost sound like a WS instead of a BS.

I do feel hopeless in both of my options. I just really wish that i could figure it all out and makes us both happier and have a better marriage.

You have said in most of your posts that i have more power than i realize. I wish that i felt that way. I do not have much confidence in myself that i can do much of anything.

I really do appreciate you listening to me and TRYING to give me advice. It means a lot just for someone to listen to me.

Why is that?


Don't doubt yourself. Trust yourself. You will surprise yourself.

I think it is because i have already given up trying to get my H to show "extraordinary care" to me because he has proven over time that he does not think of "extraordinary care" in the same terms that i do.

Where my H is concerned i always doubt myself and probably always will. I would like to change that but i do not know how.

So i have decided that i really do not want to remain with my husband. I am making plans to be in my own place on June 1, 2009. I just do not want this anymore.

Again thank you for all of your help. I know that this sounds shelfish but I will be signing off now as i do not think i want to try to make things better anymore. They always just seem to get better for him and not for me.

SC

Sounds reasonable to me. I'm glad you have a plan. You'll gain your strength back.

Be prepared for him to come a calling.

I do not plan on letting this happen. Once i am gone, i am gone.

It is interesting you say this.

I have been reading the Plan A or kick'em to the curb thread and you read about how many could never do Plan A.

For me, Plan A is intuitive as I see it as something for me, not the wayward. Put my best foot forward, explain who I am and what I am about as a H, father, and person and what I view as right and wrong and also my own failings and that I will improve myself. And I won't mess around on any of this. I am serious as all hell about all of it. It is really for me to be at peace with things. I've done what I could and done it in a reasonable way.

If the WS takes advantage of me when I am putting my best foot forward after his or her A, I goto Plan D and Plan D means I'm done. I could never do a Plan B and then reconcile after putting my best foot forward and then being taken advantage of as I would mentally move on. I could never see someone pulling me back after this.

It will not be a Plan B or a Plan D, it is just i am DONE. He will have to do the Plan D if that is what he wants. I am just DONE, i have no intention of filing for a divorce i also have no intention of us ever being together again.

Well Monday will be the 2 year anniversay of D-Day and i feel worse now than i did then.

I really do think that some BSs just can not get over the A.

SC,


Please consider you are near a break through in your life. You are very close.


This is a wayward state of mind, also. Has no self-care, honor or awareness in it. It's reactive. It's you reacting to your pain instead of your goal.

Just like your FWH did.

This is what it is like, the beginning of the fog and I believe you sense that...where resentment is fueled into entitlement and lack of respect.

And SC, that's not who you really are. No way.

I believe you want your pain to be done. You want you to enforce an important boundary you have refused to do before.

You want to take extraordinary care of yourself.


When you truly surrender to your really bad goal of getting someone else to do/think/act in the way you want, you will break through. To knowing your own power and limits.

I support you in leaving your FWH. I think this may be the only way you get your own attention, focus on what is within your control and what is not, and heal all the way through.

Where you finally learn down deep that you cannot continue to perpetrate this crime against yourself any longer:
His actions cannot make you doubt yourself. Only yours can. So the pain, the conflict inside, continues, erodes, worsens, deepens and the powerlessness grows. Until you stop, it won't. That's how much you are trying to get your own attention.

If you want to really free yourself, then please do this...change your language. I'm choosing to leave my marriage in June. I have formulated my plan to the details. I have informed my FWH and will have the documents completed to file for divorce the week before I move out. I choose to not do marital recovery. My plan is to limit contact with FWH to family emergencies only. I've written down my preferred visitation schedule, financial breakout, prospective place to live, transporation, preferred family holidays schedule.

Then do not see or speak or communicate with FWH. Get an intermediary. Otherwise, your pattern will continue. Your focus will be on what he doing/not doing. Instead of you.

For you to really heal.

You'll know when the healing begins because instead of saying "but so far you are the only one who has even tried to truly listen to me and give me advice", you'll say this: I feel heard and understood by you, TJD. I listen to the advice you give me."

And this: will become "I choose not to continue in my marriage after his betrayal. I choose to believe I did not deserve his betrayal--I earned greater respect and treatment by debasing myself, creating and maintaining resentment, to get him to not betray me, and he did, anyway. This was my picture of being the best wife possible. To have no boundaries, no boundary enforcements save one...do anything to me but that. Not that."

You took a big step here:
You choose to dismiss and then experience it as if the other person were the only one who listens to you. That's where you shove away your power, your confidence that you truly are responsible for what is yours. There's the power-shift (can be heard like blame-shifting).

And I believe you'll heal enough to not believe this anymore:
If you do this any other way...like you now plan...or stay...or leave and come back and leave again...you won't heal and on the third anniversary of DDay, you'll hurt worse than right now.

You deserve to do extraordinary care to your battered self, change your choices, your experience, and heal all the way through. I remember how difficult it was to do...and if you hold yourself to doing, it progressively gets easier...and when you stop, becomes harder again to take up. Like most habits.

If MB helps you, feeds you, nourishes you in some way, why deprive yourself? If it harms you, stop. These are boundary enforcement, choices you make around yourself. Not anyone else.

You are not alone. You can do this.

LA

LA thank you for the lovely post.

I am done trying anything in my marriage. I still have no desire to divorce my H and i have no desire to be with him.

I am leaving my home on June 1, 2009 and getting me a place to live by myself and that is the whole story.

My children will all be of legal age by then so there will be no need for me to talk to him at all. No need to make plans for visitation, etc. The kids can work it out amongst themselves.

Once i leave i am GONE for good. I have no desire to have another relationship therefore i will not go through the legalities of a divorce, my h can do all of that.

I understood what you planned, SC. You're really clear in your writing.

Your children are going to be devastated, no matter the age. Will any of them come to live with you or not? When will you see them? Will they live with their father? What will they say when asked, "Are your parents getting a divorce?"

Their truth will be, "No, they're just acting like it."

How was what your WH did any different, really?

Resentment has a shape, a temperature, volume and size...you can taste, smell, touch and hear it...you just can't see it. Your continued massive self-betrayal will continue because you will then be bent on making him do the right thing...

when you're not even close. I'm not sure right now, even, in your pain and fear, you even know what the right thing is...what's frightening is that you don't want to...

Your pain is what you're choosing your life from...so everyone in it will experience great pain, as well...that's how it works...and yours will continue.

I'm so sorry...when you don't hold yourself to honesty, consideration, respect or acceptance...then you aren't holding yourself to extraordinary self-care...just bent, as you were pre-A, on making him do it, instead.

If you hurt your family and marriage as much as your WH, will you then be even? Is that what you require to heal yourself?

In June, will you look yourself in the eye and know for certain that you did everything possible to heal the marriage, your part, and personally recover for the last year and a half? Will you be able to bear it when your beautiful grown children do this to their mates and spouses? "I just can't get them to stop hurting me" and have their affairs...and be betrayed. Will you help them focus on the other person? Manuever better, demand harder, give unselfishly for years, help them create and build resentment of their own to love, hold onto knowing it won't leave them like people can and do?

Resentment won't let you down...it's instant and tasty...feels righteous and force-filled and powerful. It is the deceiver which whispers your life into ruin.

I know. I was in a wayward state of mind, cheating with resentment, most of my life. It's a tough addiction to kick.

And will you be able to look yourself in the eye and state without hesitation, "I did everything possible to heal myself and I choose not to now." Because it's okay if you choose to not heal...you are that powerful...and it is a choice.

And it has nothing to do with your FWH.

LA

My children are well aware of the whole situation. My ODD no longer lives at home, my YDD will be leaving home soon, my son will be the only one left at home and he will have to make that decision when the time comes. All of their grandparents are gone (my parents and my husbands parents) so there will not be a lot of decision making that has to go on regarding the kids.

And maybe the devastation to my children is not different but letting my H know up front of my intentions i think is a WHOLE LOT DIFFERENT than sneaking behind his back which is what he done to me.

And i have stated more than once in this thread that i am the one who is now being selfish. And i am going to continue to do so. My H has shown me time and time again that EVERYONE comes before me. I am going to put ME first for a change, i have never done that in my life.

And i am not worried about looking myself in the eye and asking if i did everything possible to save my marriage becasue i did not have to do anything, it was my H's choice to destry our marriage. Yes i took him back and i have regretted it from the first day.

That was something i had always told him would be an ender for me and it is.

And i know that i will still have the pain, but at least i will not have to walk around on eggshells every day and worry that my H is out screwing around on me again.

This is my choice and my decision and i have made it right or wrong.

I'm glad to hear you are being O&H with your FWH about your plans, your decisions. That's really healthy, and you're right, it isn't deceptive.

My experience was different in my A because I did tell BH about it and did not do it behind his back. That's a horror all it's own, I think, though I wouldn't comprehend it myself had I not done it to another human being.

I'm looking out for your goal, your self...and I'm so sorry to hear you believe what you're doing now is selfish, not what you've done before now.

I thoroughly support you putting yourself as your priority...in marriage, when we put it first, we are part of the top tier, both halves equally come within the marriage. Doesn't seem to be what you did, though, before...looking out for your half of the marriage, yourself in that tier. Seems you put yourself underneath a lot of others.

I don't believe any BS can recover from an A FOR their spouse. It's a solo gig you do for yourself. Just like consideration and honesty...you hold those around yourself, hold to doing them.

Which means you don't say done with and not do "done." You will still be married in June. You will be married and not acting like it for as long as someone else doesn't do what you require of them. That makes you a slave to someone else, yet again. Seems like the same thing to me. So I predict, same pain.

You say this will be the first time in your life tending to yourself before others...which confirms what I understood that this is a breakthrough for you...to know your power, your limits...where you end and others begin.

I pray you'll come to understand you were already worthy, whole and complete...that no matter the distance in your marriage, it could not cause FWH to have an A...and to examine that distance sometime in the future, when you consider the two in one union...and how you wiped out your half because you did not honor yourself as part of honoring the marriage.

You made yourself last place, last considered...and then felt last place. All the while, you were and are irreplaceable.

My hope is you will see this, because when you do, all the way through to your core, you'll understand that your FWH is irreplaceable, too.

LA

LA i think i see marriage differently than most on this board and most i talk to IRL.

I feel that sacrifice is a part of marriage, i feel that when you marry someone you should put their happiness before you own. And when you become a mother the same thing, i go with out things (actually i shop at thrift stores and clearance racks for myself) so that my children and my H can have things (not that material things really matter anyway).

I live by the golden rule ALWAYS. So i have always thought of my H and my kids first and it really did not bother me to sacrifice in my marriage (i know i had some resentment but not a lot until the ENIL who by the way got more for Christmas from my H than i did) because i have always felt that is what you should do and i still feel that way that is why i feel i am being selfish becasue i am not taking my kids or my H into account with this decision, it is strictly because i am tired of being second best.

I feel by being O&H with my H i have given him the opportunity to make amends (to actually consider me once in a while). He however has not done that and quite frankly has probably gotten worse since the affair because i just should get over it already.

He did not tell me his feelings prior to the affair to give me a chance to make amends or whatever he felt was "wrong" with the mrriage, he just snuck around and lied to my face more times that i can count.

And i do not believe that i will have the same pain as i do living under the same roof because i will not be worrying what he is doing (or should i say who), i may still care what he is doing but i will not be around to wonder about it if he is late coming home or decides at the last minute to change his plans.

All of these things i would have thought NOTHING about prior to the affair, now i wonder about his every move, if he is talking to someone at work again (and he slips now and again and tells me conversations he has had with his female co-workers).

I do not talk to my male co-workers except maybe how their kids are doing or tell them what my kids or hubby is doing, never have never will. My hubby on the other hand is just IMHO a big flirt who loves the attention of "attractive women".

Heck right before Christmas i had a break down and was crying horribly and he asked me what was wrong and i told him that i did not want to go on our vacation because we were going to be around scantily dressed women and i would feel inadequate.

We he asked me why i told him because of the way i view his opinion on my "beauty" and his opinion on the FOWs "beauty". Perfect oppprtunity to for him to say something that would make me feel better (like "you are way more beautiful than the FOW), but all he said is "well you should not feel that way" and then the conversation was changed to a different topic by him.

The list could go on and on and on about the things that he has said and done to me to show me that i am "second best" to him.

And i already do feel that my h is irreplacible that is why i said i am not interested in having another relationship in my life EVER. I just WILL NO LONGER live with my marriage the way it is and my h seems to think i am the one with the problem not him.

Thanks for your time!!!!

It is clear that you are both the problem.

I just hope that for your emotional sanity that June 1st comes fast.

I do not recall anywhere on this thread saying that i was not the problem. As far as my H, i do not know if he has any problems with our marriage or not as he has not told me if he does.

The reason i even started this thread is because i truly believe that some BS can not get over the betrayal of an affair.

I have loved my H with all of my heart since the day i met him. I have done everything possible to be a good wife to him, not because i felt i NEEDED to for MY validation but because i WANTED to because i love him so much.

I do not NEED for him to make me feel like i am the most important thing in his life, i WANT him to. I do not NEED him to validate my beauty (i KNOW i am a beautiful person), i WANT him to.

I still love my husband with all of my heart but when i look back at our 25 years together all i can see is how WONDERFUL i thought it all was, what a good marriage i thought we had and how much we enjoyed each other's company, and raising our children and all the things we have done with them.

And i also feel that my H is truly sorry for what happened and that he did not mean for it to happen and that he loves me and i forgave my husband.

However, I do not think i can forgive the betrayal to our marriage.

I sometimes think i use MB more to get things off of my chest than anything else.

Although i do like to hear others perspective on things to give me a different "set of eyes" so to speak so maybe they can make me see something that i am not seeing.

So this is just going to be a rant about my H crossing that "friendly vs flirty" boundary that we have so many issues with yet again but i have to give some background first so this is going to be a bit long.

We will be moving out of our house sometime in the near future our original move date (we thought) would be around June but that is not going to be the case now and we really do not have a date that we have to be out of our house. All we know for sure is that we will have 6 months after we hear from our mortgage company. Since we have not heard from them we know we have at least 6 months still.

So even though i have my date of June 1 to leave on my own (and he is aware of this date), my h has asked me to at least look at places to live together because what he wants is for us to stay together so i told him i would be willing to do this.

We both discussed and agreed that all we were going to do was look at places to get and idea of where we may want to live and what price ranges are out there and what places looked like. Right now we have been looking at apartments.

So weekend before last he wanted to go look at a couple of places, i was sick (and still am for that matter, this is day number 15 with a low grade fever) so i told him that i only wanted to look at one because i was just really weak and did not have the strength to walk around alot. So we went to look and both places were close together both of them were also close to where he used to work with the FOW and just the location itself was a trigger to me but i looked at the first one anyway because i told him that i would.

So not only am i triggering like he!! i feel like crap and i do not want to go look at the second place but he insisted since they were so close together. So i told him to go in and get the information on it (which is all we did at the first place, we just asked the GUY for a floor plan and the prices and if they had a waiting list etc we did not look at the apartment because i did not feel well) and we could check it out at home.

So i am waiting in the car for what seemed like forever when he finally came out of the office. He comes up to the car and asks me if i wnat to go look at one of the apartments, i tell him no becasue i do not feel good and i would really just like to go back home. He then tells me that he was asked if he wanted to look at one and he said yes and the LADY is coming out now and we have to follow her to go look.

So i am kind of aggravated that that he did this to begin with because we had already discussed the fact that i did not feel good and to just get some info but he says well she is already coming outside i will hurry. So i say okay just please hurry up because i want to go home.

Well the woman walks out and gets in her car (and of course she is an attractive women with long blonde hair his favorite) and we follow her to the apartment. My h goes in and looks at it and then comes out, follows her to her car and is talking for a minute and comes back to our vehicle. He says "well it is kind of small i did not really like it that well" and i just said "oh okay well we can look some more later, we have plenty of time and we really do not know where we want to move anyway. I am really tired can we just go home now."

Then he tells me that they have his drivers license and he has to go back to the office and get them. So we do this and he is in there forever again. He finally comes out, we go home, we both decide that neither place is really what we want and all is forgotten until yesterday.

He comes home form work yesterday and informs me that "Carrie called" and wanted to know if we still want to look at the other apartment on Wednesday, i ask "who is Carrie and what appointment are you talking about and what apartment are you talking about". Then he says "you know that place that we went to last weekend over by my old job".

I am like well i did not know we had an appointment and i thought we were only looking and how did she get your phone number. He said well i filled out some stuff while i was in there i thought i told you.

OMG i was LIVID. As a matter of fact i still am very mad about the whole thing. What in the he!! is he doing, we are no where near ready to move anywhere so it is WAY TOO EARLY to be giving out our information to anyone and why did he give her his cell phone number instead of the house number for her to call at home. I am soooo mad right now.

I have come to the conclusion that most waywards (not all but MOST) are by nature selfish people and they will never "get" the damage they have done because they are wrapped up in their selfishness.

SC,

I hope you are doing ok.

I understand the pain you are in. I get it and it is real.

I'm sorry you continue to go through this. Take care of yourself.

SC--

I feel like we're on the same boat -- and it's taking on water.

I do think it's possible for some betrayals, and more importantly how the betrayal is handled after it is discovered, to be beyond recovery.

Reading your posts I hear the same fear I have about settling for a less than "good" (much less great) marriage because things are "OK" and our spouses aren't in active affairs.

I really don't want to find myself giving up and just going through the motions of married life because I was stubbornly committed to my marriage vows or to spare my kids, my wife and myself the drama of divorce. But I know that's a possibility.

I just don't think my wife is capable of changing enough to make me feel as if I'm doing anything but "settling".

It seems to me you're worried about the same thing.

I told our counselor much the same as you, that I felt my role as a husband was to be willing to sacrifice my happiness in favor of my wife's happiness and for her to be willing to do the same for me. He labeled that co-dependency, a concept I have yet to fully wrap my simple mind around.

It's clear to me that my wife will never put my happiness before hers for my benefit. When she does "sacrifice" for me it's most always to make herself feel better about something I did for her. She is, at her core, self-centered. Her affairs were an expression of that self-centeredness. She's not likely to change.

In the first post on this thread, you said,

That rang true for me.

I don't know how things could have gone down differently to change my perception that my wife has gotten away "scott free" from her affairs. When I ask her what has changed that should make me feel any more secure that she won't have another affair she says it's because her "view" of our marriage has changed and her "opinion" of our future has improved.

As you said, "that just is not enough". She changes her mind at the drop of a hat. I'm sure she had a "'til death us do part" view of our marriage when she said "I do" and promised to "foresake all others".

But she changed her mind (at least three times) and had affairs.

I hope you're not as far gone as I am in all this that you catch yourself hoping your spouse would slip up on some serious way that you could justify throwing in the towel.

I do -- to my discredit.

I love my wife, I work hard and sacrifice to meet her emotional needs. I know what they are and I make them a priority.

She doesn't feel the same way about mine (as far as I can tell).

I guess I'm just validating your need for a sounding board, SC.

Just putting it down in words is therapeutic and knowing I'm not the only one dealing with this after so many years is sadly comforting.

Thanks for your honesty and willingness to share.

Blessings

Artor,

My goodness your post does indeed hit home.

I think for me i do not so much expect my H to sacrifice for me all the time, just for the specific things that bother me and i try to let him know what those are in a way that is not putting the "blame" on him.

The way i see it, it is really not a sacrifice (but maybe i too am co-dependent and can not grasp that), if it is something that bothers your spouse enough that it effects your marriage then it becomes BOTH of your problem, not just the spouse having the issue. And you BOTH need to find a common ground.

With my H however he does see things this way. He feels that changing his habits (because he has always been that way is what he says), is a sacrifice. And that in turn makes me feel that "i" am not worth sacrifice to him. So how can i ever feel safe?

So yes it makes me feel like i am "settling".

I think you may be right about the handling of the betrayal rather than the betrayal itself.


This is exactly what I worry about.


Well as I said in my other post maybe this is the case for me too.


Same is true for my H.


My H says it is because he “knows himself and he knows it will not happen again”.


Well my H only had 1 affair, I can not imagine having to deal with 3, but I understand what you are saying. My H will say that “he can not believe he did it to begin with, it was not like him”. So how can you “know yourself” but yet have actions that are “not like you”, they kind of are contradicting statements I think.


I can’t say that I am like this. I would be devastated if it happened again, I could not take it. I am willing to throw in the towel without the hurt that goes with “something serious”.


Ditto, ditto, ditto (my H of course, not your wife )


I agree, for me it helps to write it out and make it thoughts rather than just this jumble in my head, even though sometimes I have so many thoughts that it comes out that way anyhow.

And I too find it “sadly” comforting to know that others feel the way I feel about their recovery.

I haven't been here in quite a while, but y'all are really hitting home with what I'm struggling with right now.
I think a truly remorseful spouse who cheated would do these things willingly and effusively.
You can't make someone else do something if they don't want to.

People on here refer to not setting the bar too low, etc in recovery. I find myself precisely there. There really have been no consequences. She seems content to give lip service while sweeping, always sweeping.

I dread the remainder of our life together being like this, but I am unable to convey what I need to her without her getting upset, defensive and "Oh poor me"...

My beard has gone almost completely white in the last year and a half...
I hope this doesn't kill me before my boy is grown.

Really challenge your H here. Don't be abusive towards him, but, be a tiger on this issue. Stick up for yourself.

He made a choice to have an A. A choice. It didn't just happen to him. He made a choice.

There was a reason this happened. There was a reason he made this choice. There is a reason why he allowed this to happen.

You know his response makes no sense. Don't let him walk all over you. Stick to your guns.

Will you be okay financially if you leave June 1? Is there anything you are dependant on him for?

SC

I am sorry you are struggling so much. I truly do understand how you feel as I am feeling the same way off and on myself.

You wrote


This is bad. Very bad. I know because I have done the same thing. I still do it and it breeds resentment. Lots of it.

Now, let me be clear. MR SC is neglectful. Hands down, blatantly neglectful. You have reason to be upset. However, your sacrificing is settling up an impossible dynamic and your relationship *will* fail

Have you read Harley's "buyers, renters and freeloaders"? If not, RUN and get it. Its eye opening

TTH it seems there are more of us that are struggling with recovery than we know. There has been a lot of similar posts in the Recovery section lately.

But maybe we can all take something away from all of this discussion to help us in some way even if it is just a better understanding of our spouses. I know that is my hope.

My H gets defensive with stuff as well, and it is hard to find that fine line between letting your feelings be known without trying to "blame" the other person. But i have to admit that i sometimes get defensive as well, this is something i have been working on for myself.

Well just keep plugging along i think that is all we can do for now. And post anytime you want. It does help me to write things down. It at least gets it out of my head for a little while.

TJD I have pushed this issue hard with my H. To me this is really the "why" part of the A.

He does admit that it was his choice to do it, but his "reasons" are always the same thing, he does not know why it happened, it was not like him, and he can not believe he did it is all he will ever say.

And i will be able to afford to live on my own. I will not be able to have a lot of extras, but that is okay.

And I am not dependent upon him for anything. Heck he does very little for me so i have always been the one that he depends upon.

JK i have heard this time and time again and even what i have been reading on your thread.

To me though and i am sure that i am strange on this particular issue, i do not see the things i do as sacrifices because I do not feel i give up "myself" in the things i sacrifice. To me it is more not being the cause of my spouses unhappiness.

If i can watch a baseball game instead of a movie and it gives us more time together then i do that. My H would just go to a different TV to watch the baseball game instead of sitting and watching the movie with me. These are the things that i am talking about when i say i sacrifice to make him happy.

I would never make a sacrifice for my H that is something i strongly believe in. Like the ENIL issue, i do not want him at our house, my H brings him over anyway, but then my H suffers because i will not be around him while the ENIL is there.

Why is an overated question. Answer is never satisfing.

Once you have found out as much of what happened as you need to know then leave it alone.

Sorry Road but i disagree with this. To me the "why" is very important. That is how you change to help ensure it does not happen again.

You've told him you will leave on June 1.

Then you go look for apartments with him probably to show him in good faith that you would love for it to work out between you two but he just walks all over you almost like he doesn't believe you will leave.

He made a choice to have an A and agrees with this and then gives excuses. As long as you receive excuses and he demonstrates a lack of understanding of what he has done you will never feel safe, as you already know.

I don't see the value in looking for apartments with him. You can point to your lack of feeling safe due to his lack of understanding how he did something that was so painful to you. So, it can clearly happen again and thus why you are leaving June 1.

Well yes this pretty much sums it up!!!

What does he depend on you for?

I have always been the one who carries the health insurance, i also have our life insurance through my work, i set up all of his doctors appointments, i do all of the running for the kids appointments, i do all the electronic stuff because he is technologically challenged, i do all the carpentry fix it projects as well, we pay others to fix the cars.

That is all i can think of right now.

SC,

I barely read on the recovery board anymore, but I was wondering what was up with you and mvg. WHOA! is all I can say.

When you move, are you going to go dark? Trust me when I say that you will gain insights into who you are and how you handle things and this may force change in you, for the better, which is not a bad thing.

Also, you WILL, eventually, want to be with someone. NEVER SAY NEVER. Never ever ever ever ever say never. Just because you can CHOOSE not to be with anyone ever again, doesn't mean the desire won't exist. Just sayin'...

I know exactly what you are living in, and it is a slow torture. Saying "I'm sorry" does not erase the offense. Actually, I agree that an apology is not necessary to recover, but the ACTIONS, jumping in with both feet, THAT is the stuff recovery is made of.

It's so very difficult to do all that you need to, as a BS, in order to recover, when you still do not feel safe. Sure, the Z left his phone out for me to see, begrudgingly gave me access to his email, MySpace, etc. What the F... does that matter when the man wouldn't even touch me? He would not confide in me, when he was sad/happy/hurt/angry/whatever. He barely looked at me. I would have loved to hear what he thought, because THEN I could set about changing and giving him what he needed. Anyway, blah blah blah, that's in the past.

I've learned a great deal about myself, and some things that I now see, that I don't like so much, I am slowly changing.

You can only do so much.

I hope June 1st comes quickly for you.

I had hoped to see some turnaround by now.

Hey SL great to hear from you. I read “The Killer B’s” threads all of the time but like you do not really post as I am at a different place than all of you (I guess I kind of am but I LIVE with my spouse )


That is my intent; I have no desire to even speak to him again after I leave. I am not sure if he will leave me alone is the issue I wonder about, we will see.


This may be true, I do not feel that I will at this time in my life, but I suppose if a time does come where I feel I need the attention of a male and my H has not already taken the necessary steps then I will start D proceedings. Until that time (if it happens, not saying it won’t but I feel pretty certain I do not want to give it a try again), if we divorce it will have to be him to do it I am sure that he will though, he will not be able to handle being alone.


You are so correct with this. His words basically mean nothing to me they lost their meaning when he lied to my face so easily during his affair. And his ACTIONS speak pretty loud to me that his “feelings” are still more important to him than “our” marriage.


Yes for you it was EXTREMELY difficult because you not only had the “emotional cold shoulder” but the “physical cold shoulder” as well. My goodness I do not know how you tried as long as you did.

My H is not that way at all; he is very affectionate to me because I have told him that I like that. He does a lot of things that I have asked him to do for me but (why does that “but” always seem to follow I should be thankful for what he does do somehow I am not), they are mostly “words” as well. He does follow up with some ACTIONS on things, he just is a very self centered person I think and if he has to change anything about himself that makes him “feel good” (ego boosts) then I am over-reacting or it is my issue not his.

By reading MB even without him saying so I can tell my Hs #1 EN is the need to be admired, probably even to the extreme. I try to show him admiration a lot but I think it is almost an obsession with him and my admiration is just not enough. I dunno…….


I too have learned a great deal about myself thus the feeling that I have to leave. I just have finally decided that I do not want to go through the rest of my life feeling like I am my spouses “second best”. I do not think I am “second best”, I think I am number 1. I just feel like I am HIS “second best” and it is no fun at all.

Well you take care of yourself and that DS of yours. Is Arizona still is the future?

I just had to post my Hs response about me getting upset about the aprtment lady.

He said "What do you think i am after a 25 year old?" I said yes that is what i thought. Then he said "no i am after you".

Is this just a way to try to divert attention from his actions? Or maybe i am over reacting? I dunno i just know that it bothered me alot.

SC,

I don't see you as overreacting. You are constantly feeling the effect of having problems that remain unresolved. Though your H says he is after you his one, lack of acknowledging these as a problem to your marriage, and two, his lack of effort in solving them with you continues to haunt you and is directly opposite of what his words to you are.

What I took away from your description of the events the other day is that your H walked all over you by disregarding your feelings in looking for apartments while you were sick and also that it was an apartment that was close to his old workplace. You both had an agreement beforehand, but, once he got started he just keep going and didn't take you into consideration. That is what "really" bothered you and he then topped it off when he spent time with the blonde lady.

On one hand, he sounded excited to be looking for apartments and that is good, but, on the other he continues to disregard your feelings. He is out of touch and when you have tried to explain it is either in denial or is just plain insensitive.

I would use this opportunity to reinforce your point of view. While he states he "is after you" you need to tell him if that is the case his efforts aren't hitting the mark due to his dismissing of your feeling regarding his lack of EP's, you don't feel safe, and lack of concern when you communicate that he flirts with other women, it further reinforces that you aren't safe and it hurts you as you feel unimportant.

When you explain yourself regarding the lack of EP's, I think it is very logical. He knows he made a choice to have an A and he probably rightly recognizes it is not him but the reality is is that it was and is until he has some understanding of his weaknesses and why it did happen. And from your point of view until he gains this understanding and it is logical you are the one at risk of being very hurt by his lack of understanding.

Then, the flirting, from your point of view is more of the same. A potential weakness that could have been a contributing factor to his A and he says there is nothing wrong with it and it is an issue with you. Yes, you are likely sensitive, but, you are not dumb. What if a women reacted positively to his flirting? Doesn't it create a potential opportunity for him? Since he doesn't know how the A happened and it isn't him isn't this reason for concern from your point of view. Even if a woman doesn't react positively this hurts you. And isn't marriage about extraordinary care? And if he hurts you is he showing you care and that he is after you? At a minimum wouldn't he be concerned that it hurts you?

This is where you guide him and show him how his words don't match his actions and why you believe what you do about him and why you think it is in your best interest to leave because things just will never change as he says that this is simply your issue.

He will either start to get it and understand how his actions make you change and how his words confuse you or he will lose you.

If you talk to him about this, be calm. Steely calm. Even when he says things to upset you. When he does it, take a huge deep breath. Let him see you are doing everything to keep your calm. That this is important. It is why you went with him to look at apartments because you want the two of you to work. You also know you just can't let these issues remain unresolved.

If his words of "I am after you" are REAL, these issues need to be resolved. You need to be "heard" just like he used to "hear" you(maybe a long time ago, but he heard you at some point).

TJD you always seem to give me much food for thought and i thank you for that.

I can say that i think he "heard" me this time, i am not sure that he has ever "heard" me before, even pre-A when it comes to his "friendliness".

He kept trying to "convince" me that i was only feeling this way "now" because of the effects of the A. I think i finally convinced him that i have ALWAYS felt that way. Even though he was trying really hard.

Whenever i have these discussions with my H i usually remain calm because i try to never have them when i am angry about the situation. I ususally try to calm down and have a rational discussion about it.

He usually ends up becoming defensive and then the conversation goes nowhere so i just drop it because there is no point in "arguing" my side. I want him to see that it is not about my anger. This is a fine line to walk sometimes though. Sometimes i would just like to shake him and say "listen you shouldn't treat me like that, i don't treat you like that"

I have pretty much given up hope of him changing but i still WISH for it.

I think almost all BS's deal with this problem. A defensive spouse.

Your goal is simply to get him to hear you. If he really hears you and gets you then if he truly is a good person he will change because good people don't want to hurt others. That is why they get defensive.

So, you seem to be comfortable in not wanting to fight or be right but you would really like him to hear you and not be defensive. So, when you talk stay away from two things. One, try to stay away from saying "you" as it personalizes it. I know it is really careful but it helps with a really defensive spouse and if you come to the point of leaving you will have no regrets.

If you communicate like this, when you had an A you chose to stray and you know there is a reason why you chose this. It causes him to be defensive and all he hears and focuses on are the implied blame, even if it is right because if he is a good person he is likely sensitive about this as well. He doesn't hear the message.

Instead think about saying, when we talk about the A and recognize it as a choice that was made but we don't understand how it happened or what the weaknesses are that allowed for it to happen I then feel exposed and at risk of it happening again because we don't understand.

The other is to not have any selfish demands. It comes across as nagging and again that is all he will hear. Make a statement and express how it makes you feel and relate that feeling back to care and relate care to why you married him in the first place - he would care for you more than anyone else.

Then let him choose to care for you or not care for you.


I know. But, it isn't June 1 yet.

I usually try to use "i" or "me" statements. Like when YOU do this it makes ME feel like this. And i follow it up by saying i am not trying to blame you or make you feel bad i am just telling you how your actions effect MY feelings.

And i have pretty much given up hope on trying to get the "reasons" the affair happened out of him even though i think it would go a long way to making me feel more safe.

He just does not really like to talk about it at all even in the beginning. And now sometimes i think it is so far past the affair that i am just "bugging" him about it and we should not even be talking about it anymore. i dunno.......

So i am still just plugging along hoping that he sees the light before it is too late for me.

I don't know if I discussed this with you. The only good answers are about what happened. They are difficult to speak for the WS and the BS to hear.

"Why" most of the time can't be put into words and those that do never provide a good answer.

Does a BS want to hear because I could.

OP threw themselves at me. I was a horn dog.

I was drunk.

I thought I could get away with it.

Ego boost.

Thought you won't care.

It was only for some strange.

OP and I never did it when we dated as teenagers and decided to see what we missed.

OP was young,

hot,

hard body,

blonde if your not,

brunette if your blonde,

"Why" is over rated.

Get the Who, What, When, Where, and How, forget the Why.

I do not think "why" is over rated and yes i would like to hear that is was because she gave me something that you did not. That way i can try to give him whatever that something is. Otherwise how will i ever know if i am not giving him whatever that is and that he might try to find it somewhere else AGAIN.

And the "how" to me is the same thing as the "why".

No matter how many times you ask why you will never get an acceptable answer because there are no acceptable answers to why one would knowingly devastate their spouse.

The best you can get is a list used as justification:

I was selfish.
My needs weren't being met.
I was feeling trapped.
It was a mid-life crisis.
I wanted to know what I had missed.
I wasn't feeling attracted to you.
I hadn't felt "in love with you" for a long time.
You never___.
You always___.
You didn't___.
You can't___.
You don't___.
You won't___.

Answers differ at different times.

No matter what the answer you get it is unacceptable because there simply are no answers that will make adultery acceptable. No matter how you word it, it is unacceptable. No matter what justifications are given it is not justifiable.

Frank Grunzburg suggests that to prevent it from happening again you don't have to know "why" as much as "how."

There may be psychological reasons, physiological reasons and social reasons why a person smokes knowing that it is bad for them. None of those make it not bad for them. Knowing any or all of those things does not make one stop smoking. You don't have to know WHY you smoke in order to stop smoking. You can change the behavior without ever understanding why.

If a WS knows HOW they cheated they can avoid doing it again. If they know WHAT they did when they cheated they can prevent the same thing from taking place in the future. The why really can't be explained in any way beyond "I hurt you because I didn't care about you and wanted to be selfish. I put myself ahead of you and the marriage."

That's as deep an answer as you can get because that's as deep as the affair really was. No matter how wide, it was seldom over an inch deep.

If you want to be told why in a way that you will understand you will never know the answer. Infidelity is not understandable. It can be described but will never make sense to the BS. It is based on a lie that says going outside of marriage to have needs met is right. Nothing can ever make the lie true.

You can't make him faithful. You didn't make him unfaithful and can't ensure that he never cheats again. THAT has to come from HIM and not you. Living your life by taking responsibility for the actions of others will make you forever disappointed in yourself because you can't make anyone do or not do anything...

You can't make someone stop smoking.
You can't make someone tell the truth.
You can't make someone do what is right.

Least of all remain faithful...



Mark

Well if i go by what you say then i guess i will live my life disappointed because to me the WHY is the most important thing, there had to be reason why he chose that particular time in his life to have an A. Or maybe he has had more than one and i do not know about it.

And how is "how" and "why" any different. To me they are the same thing.

How did this happen?

Why did this happen?

Either way it gets to the root of the problem. The problem is we have never got to that root.

Crazy,

I have to agree with Mark here. And I have to say it was incredibly liberating to look my husband in the eye this weekend and say,

"YOU are the problem. YOU are the reason I am unsafe."

It boils down to a problem of the soul, a problem of character, and the BS is not responsible for that in any way, shape or form. All of my herculean efforts fell flat because I was not the problem. He was.

Chrys,

First off i want to say how sorry i am for what you are going through at the moment.

And i have decided that i must not be very good at communicating my thoughts, maybe that is why me and my H have issues with this.

I do not now nor did i ever feel "i" was the one responsible for my H's affair, it was TOTALLY him, TOTALLY his choice, TOTALLY his s c r e w up, not mine in any way shape or form!!!!

However he must have felt that "something" was not right in our marriage for this to happen. And that is what i want to know because i do not want to be the cause of his unhappiness.

And maybe it is something that i can do to change me that helps him, maybe not. Maybe it is just something that i lack and will never be able to give to him and if that is the case then why would i want to stick around and keep trying and just being miserable.

No the problem is you don't want to accept that there is no "why" to an A other than the WS being a selfish [censored] and not caring about the BS. You are making it way more complicated than it is because you can't understand how someone betrays another in such a horrible way because YOU would never think of doing that to someone. If you can't accept this then perhaps it will come to Plan D for you because you will drive yourself and even your H crazy be constantly questioning "why?"

Well in your opinion that is the case. However not in my opinion.

Why or how?

Whichever word it is or how it is sliced, I as a BS would not be able to proceed effectively in recovery without a spouse that has self reflected and gained an understanding of the slippery slope that occurred and led to an A.

The understanding of the boundaries that were crossed or the lack of boundaries. The understanding of the the dangers of the slippery slope once one goes down that path.

Agree!!!!!

Did you get a chance to look at my comments to your last post. Am i using the "i" statement wrong?

I used to say this word for word except I would say it before I said anything as a means to set the tone. It never worked for me.


When you say how it make ME feel that is very good.

I found that when I said the word YOU it brought on defensiveness. My W would feel judged, blamed, attacked when I did this. And when I kept at it I could overpower her with my rightness. I would win this one battle but was losing the war.

When I made it benign and removed much of the personalization I made progress. I did this so I could be understood. I removed the YOU's. I added a lot of we's.

"When this happens I feel this."

"When we do this I feel this."

Well "we" will try that and see if it helps to get him to "hear" me.

Again thanks for all of your help with my sitch!!!!

Crazy,

I worked hard and long to "fix" what was wrong with me. I did a halfway decent job of it, but it wasn't enough.......because it didn't begin to touch the problem with him.

I have hopes now that he is facing that problem of "him" and THEN maybe we can work together to build something that works.

Well that is where i am now. I have looked into myself and found where i was lacking and am working on changing that more for myself than anyone else.

My H has not looked at himself at all, it is always MY PROBLEM, not OURS!!!

(((Crazy)))

SC--


Not at all -- I think it depends on the listener. I am in the same struggle.


Like you, I have done the whole soul searching, "How can I improve myself as a spouse", "What did I do/not do that contributed to the marital environment prior to the affair", etc.

I have improved myself--I am a better spouse.

But I think where folks like us a "stuck" is the fear that if our spouses who had affairs either can't or won't fully explore and articulate the WHY (and HOW) of thier affair(s) then they won't see the next one coming until it's too late.

I speculate that part of the reason we want to know "WHY" is we really do want to hear something that we should have or could have done that would have prevented the affair. That way we feel we have some measure of control over whether or not it happens again. If it was out of our control, then we have to TRUST this person who intentionally and deliberately betrayed us for their own pleasure. Can't wrap my head around that.

Is it uncomfortable for them to discuss or think about? Probably.

How does that discomfort compare to the betrayal they inflicted on their families? They're getting off easy.

As I've posted before, I am still stuck on "WHY" and I have read all the responses to your post here and do see the wisdom of learning to let go of that search at some point.

But I don't think that release happens until the wayward spouse shows some effort or committment to answering the question.

The husband of one of my wife's friends recently collapsed at work and is in a coma and will probably never recover. There were times where they thought he was responding to stimulus but now the doctors have pretty much put him on death watch. They still don't know exactly what happened. If it was me and I did make a recovery, you can bet I'd have them running every test they have (and invent some new ones) to tell me why my body failed and I ended up in a coma. Not knowing the conditions and reasons for my collapse would leave me in fear that it could happen at any moment in the future.

Same thing for infidelity -- now knowing "Why" my wife decided to intentionally betray our marriage and deliberately inflict such pain on me is mind blowing.

Those that dismiss the question of "Why" have found a way around this fear that I haven't found yet.

Maybe they had a wayward spouse that was fully committed to recovery and didn't bargain, compromise and whine about the effort.

Perhaps they had a wayward spouse that actually took the lead and proactively did things instead of sitting back and being told what they needed to do.

It could be that their wayward spouse didn't blame-shift a portion of the responsibility for the affair to them and accepted it all as their own.

Maybe their spouse's affair was "easy" to explain -- they were drunk or depressed or ???????

Could be I just can't deal with the fact that the answer is "I was selfish". Selfish is something she can be any day of the week.

Artor i will get to your post in a minute.

I just was thinking last night (and what i am about to say i know is OBVIOUS ) that infidelity really just SUCKS all the way around.

When i met my H he was in the Navy, when he got out of the Navy most of his old friends had went their own way and i had been out of high school for a while and was attending college but i too had very few friends at the time we got together.

So we became each others best friend and for the most part we still are. So for 20 years i LOVED my life (things changed when the ENIL moved in with us). Sure we had are issues everyone does and i have always hated his "friendliness" but i did not let it bother me as much and my H for the most part was a good H.

However since the infidelity even though our life is pretty much the same as it was for those 20 years that i LOVED my life, now it just does seem the same. What i thought was a "normal" "good" marriage is just not enough. I question everything now and it drives me CRAZY!!!! Why is that?

I am sure that my H thinks well this is how it was for the first 20 years and we were happy why should i change anything. I dunno maybe he is right, maybe you just have to put it aside and go on with life. But d a m n that is really hard to do!!!!!

Thanks, sometimes by some of the posts I receive it just feels that way I guess so I wonder if my H “hears” what some on MB “hear”.


This is so true. Because they do not understand their weakness and appear to not want to try to understand them it we will always be wondering not if but when it will happen again.


I speculate this is true as well, maybe we have control issues I dunno…… But I truly agree that without the “why” we will have to FULLY trust someone who has shown that they can not be trusted.


I am sure it is uncomfortable for them but as you stated is it easy for us, heck no. And I am sure that part of that is because they were just selfish and are afraid to admit that to the person they vowed to love, honor, and cherish.



Totally agree with you on this too. And I am happy for those who either got or do not need the “why”. I am not one of them though, it is something I feel I need to recover. I may never get the “real” why but I can not go forward with recovery without him even trying to figure it out.


True and I believe that being selfish is PART of the reason it happened, but I know there has to be more to it than that otherwise like you said is he going to be selfish a

Artor and SC,

I too looked for a reason "why" it happened. I thought that if I answered WHY I could answer these...

What can I do to prevent it from happening again?

What could I have done that would have prevented it from ever happening?

OK. I was not perfect. I could have, should have and might have done some things better or differently or more consistently etc...

I can fix those things...

But maybe because this was not her first affair I also realize that those things did not make her have an affair. Whatever caused the affair was inside of her and not me.

What that means to me is that the reason for the affair was not really within my control. It wasn't MY fault at all.

If I had met her ENs perfectly she would not have had the affair. (Maybe) This assumes that I will always be able to meet her ENs perfectly, will never have a slip up, a lax period or have circumstances prevent me from doing it. It makes her faithfulness MY job. It means the affair really was MY fault.

(Side note: When I experienced my infection I was unable to meet much in the way of her ENs at all. I laid around and she took care of me. I didn't work for a while, made little money when I did, was in pain much of the time and pretty much left everything up to her for a couple of months. During that time we got CLOSER and she did not have an affair. But she spent a weekend with me the year before, going out, having fun together, buying things she wanted and acting like we were teenagers dating all over again and the NEXT WEEKEND began calling OM whenever I was not around her and sending him pictures, poems and short stories starring him and her. WHY?)

If I had been a better husband she would not have had the affair. (Maybe)

If I had made more money she would not have had the affair. (Maybe)

If I had FORCED her to spend more wisely instead of spoiling her by letting her spend money with impunity for all those years I might have been able to retire early and she would not have been alone in the vicinity of OM and the affair would not have happened. (Maybe)

But I listened to her in the early days of our marriage and took a job making a LOT of money and being away from home a lot and letting her spend as she felt at the time.

And she had an affair. (more than one really)

But things changed, she changed, I changed, my job changed and I made less but never traveled overnight for business any more. Our kids were grown, we were spending more time together than even before we married and were looking forward to retirement together. We were both active in the church and were held up as the couple to emulate in order to have a successful marriage (But it wasn't enough) and she had another affair.

So today her 2 biggest complaints are: 1) I don't make enough money and 2) I'm not around when she needs me.

The fact is she only needs me when there is something that she can't handle that MUST be taken care of and she has no patience to wait till I get home (I can't trouble-shoot the dryer via phone while waiting on customers with my boss bringing me stuff to do simply because I am on the phone)

And I did not spend the money I made when I worked 75+ hours per week because I was working all the time. I did not spend the 67K I inherited from my mother when she died and I did not use every credit card I could get to buy stuff that sits around till it is not working from lack of use and care. She is the one who has bought 4 cars without any input from me over the past 35 years. I call to make sure we can afford it before I spend an extra five bucks on lunch.

What I found when I really looked at things was that I withdrew when she began to withdraw and her IB was destroying my love for her. My Love Bank was empty, in the red, depleted and CLOSED.

She had the affair and not me.

If not getting ENs met caused affairs I should have had them. If what a spouse does or does not do causes one to have an affair, I should have been sneaking around with some floozy that I met through my job (where I have met some real doozies when it comes to floozies).
If having an empty Love Bank were all that mattered, I should have had at least one LTA.

So WHY didn't I?

Because I didn't, that's WHY.

And SHE DID.

And that is WHY.

She had the idea that going outside of the marriage to get anything in the way of needs was right. That is WHY.

She thought she could have an affair and it wouldn't matter in the big scheme of life. That is WHY.

SHE decided to have an affair. That's WHY.

And I can't control what she decides to do.

If only I had...

What?

When?

How?

Would it have prevented the affair?

Maybe...

But then her being faithful is MY responsibility and not hers.

And MY faithfulness is HER job and not mine.

And yet I did not have an affair when my ENs went unmet and she did have one when hers were being met pretty well according to her both then and now.

So she had an affair because she DID, COULD, DECIDED TO and THOUGHT IT WAS RIGHT. That is WHY.

And NONE of those things are under MY control.

Will she have another affair?

I have no idea.

I know she won't have another recovery, at least not with me.

As long as she knows how to not have another affair, we don't have to worry about another recovery.

Whether or not she understands WHY she had the last one really doesn't matter to me, because I know I had no control over why she did. If it was MY job to keep her faithful it was also HER job to keep me faithful. She failed miserably to do what it took for me to remain loyal to her and yet I DID NOT have an affair and she did. So my faithfulness has to be inside of ME and that means hers must be inside of HER.

And that means I can't do anything to make her faithful in the future. I can do things to make the marriage better and more enjoyable for both of us. I can meet her ENs and avoid Love Busters, but I can't make her not have an affair. SHE has to do that on her own.

And what is different today than back then is that we now have tools to work with that we did not have. We have a common language to express when we are not having our ENs met and we can communicate with each other and describe Intimacy, Conflict and Withdrawal in ways that they mean the same thing to both of us and so the excuses are gone if not the reasons.

Mark

Mark,

You are saying alot of good things. They all make sense.

My but is this.

There are reasons for an A. And, there are no excuses.

Because of this Dr. Harley recommends just compensation. That just compensation includes establishing EP's to eliminate the conditions that allowed the A to happen, to spend 15 hours of undivided attention together, meeting of EN's to be the source of one's happiness, eliminating LB's to not be the source of one's unhappiness, and use the POJA with enthusiastic agreement to insure a lifestyle that both enjoy.

SC is/has been struggling to get even started on just compensation. There are no EP's in place. Her H hasn't spent time on understanding the conditions that caused the A in the first place. Much less any of the other things related to just compensation and recovery.

And thus, SC is struggling and rightly so.

So, if she is to get just compensation and start recovery EP's are a great place to start. And, these EP's could very well be related to her second biggest complaint with her H, that he flirts and it hurts her. This flirting could very well have created one of the conditions that made his A possible.

If this is a good place to start, and it was probably the hardest thing for me to accomplish, how do you get a reluctant spouse to engage in a program of recovery like Dr. Harley has put together?

TJD you are correct with this post. Right on exactly.

While i agree with Mark that "i" did not, could not, change my H having an affair or even prevent him from having another one. He needs to understand that his actions need to change for me to feel safe in our marriage again.

I understand this completely. And that is where I would try to focus my attention because no matter whether you, SC, understand the affair in depth or not one tiny bit, it is still going to have to be HIM that prevents anther affair.

He has not done what he needs to do to make you feel safe. I get that... BTDT. I lived like that for a long time and was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Eventually it must be YOU to make the decision if you are staying under these conditions or pulling the plug on the relationship.

What could you do that would leverage him in any way into changing his perspective? (Yeah, I'm talking about manipulation here, of the worst kind, the kind that causes him to see that he could come out of this having actually lost something of value...That would be YOU, SC.)

He won't do what HE needs to do. That is a WHY question to answer. Is it that he doesn't think he needs to do anything? Does he think the affair WAS your fault? Does he think having an affair is no big deal and not worth worrying about? Does he think that hurting you was perfectly alright? Is he just a vicious person who takes joy from hurting others?

Now we get to the 64 thousand dollar question...

Are you willing to leave him UNLESS he does something specific?

Are you willing to walk away from the marriage because you don't feel safe in it?

Is what YOU need important enough to do without HIM if you can't get it from him?

Rather than end up eaten alive by resentment, despair, frustration and unmet ENs of your own and therefore much more vulnerable to the same thing that befell your marriage because of his choices...

You can't fix him.

You can only define what you will and will not accept from him. If he will not provide it, the ball is back in your court. What are you willing to do with it?

The bottom line is that he had an affair because he decided to do it because he was not thinking of you at all when he made that decision. He still does not consider you important enough to take into account when making his decisions and you will never feel safe until he begins to do that. If he doesn't are you willing for things to stay as they are forever?

If not, focus on what you can do that might be able to get through to him.

The problem, of course, is that you can't make him care.

You can communicate what you need in various ways; you can let him know that you do have a limit beyond which you will not travel for him and you can try to find a way to get through, but only you can decide what you are willing to tolerate going forward and THAT is what you need to find a way to communicate to him. When you say "...or else..." you have to have an "or else" in your pocket.

Still has nothing to do with why I'm afraid...

Agreed!!!


I have already made that decision however i am still praying for a miracle.


I believe he thinks he doesn't need to do anything, but i am not him and can not say for sure.


Yes


Yes


Yes


He is aware that i am moving out on June 1, 2009.


Leave


No i am not going to live that way forever. And the reason i am here is to get suggestions on how to get through to him because i am "thought" out. I have tried many different approaches throughout our 25 years.


The "or else" is in the pocket already and the one and only other time in our marriage that i gave him an "or else" i followed through with it so i am sure he is aware that it is not just a threat.

SC,

Thought of you when I read this one.



Eleven people were hanging on a rope, under a helicopter. 10 men and 1 woman.
The rope was not strong enough to carry them all, so they decided that 1
had to leave, because otherwise they were all going to fall.
They weren't able to choose that person, until the woman gave a very
touching speech.
She said that she would voluntarily let go of the rope, because, as a
woman, she was used to giving up everything for her husband and kids or
for men in general, and was used to always making sacrifices with little
in return.
As soon as she finished her speech,
all the men started clapping.......

SEND THIS MAIL TO AN INTELLIGENT WOMAN, SO THAT SHE HAS SOMETHING TO SMILE ABOUT TODAY

TJ

Hi TJD!



end TJ

E.

Hey eeyoree,

Good to hear from you. It sounds like you are doing an excellent job applying MB's to improve yourself and it sounds like it is working wonders.

I hope you and your H are doing well.

That was too funny !!!

Thanks i needed that!!!

TJs welcome anytime

Hi SC,

I've read this thread sporadically but have little to offer in addition to what's been said to both you and Artor. (BTW, after my first post 2 years ago, I almost left MB after 6 hours, 30 views, and zero replies....until Artor responded, twice, and I'll be eternally grateful.)

Mark's post above is close to what I've experienced to progress to where we are today (details in my sig line).

Back on D-Day #4, when I was done, ready for plan D and determined to make it on my own, alone, in my 50's ~ and, I might add, in menopause ~ I saw myself starting over. And I was OK with it. My attitude and actions SHOWED that I was done.

That got my WH thinking.

He changed.

We have made a full 360 turn (-> bad M ... <- A=plan D ... -> great M) in the last couple years.

I'm sharing this only to tell you that I still have thoughts like you and Artor. Last weekend was especially brutal. But I still choose to look forward to what we both want (fulfilling M) in spite of the setbacks when FWH reverts back to something stupid from when our M was turning 180. (He still hides health issues and when I discover them, it triggers me back to when I found his heart meds in his truck ~ while looking for a throw-away phone during D-Day #1.)

A few other factors I can't divulge publicly are also involved but it comes down to my choice. I couldn't continue on this rocky recovery road without my confidence that I could and would do fine on my own. And my FWH knows it, still chooses to change with me and we're moving along.

Does your H know you're OK without him now or are you hoping he'll realize it June 1st when you're gone?

In closing, I, too believe in marriage miracles (often feel like we're living one every day).....but could your decision to "let him Plan D" be putting the ball in the wrong court, and possibly bouncing the makings of a miracle away from you?

IOW, how would your dynamics change if YOU instigated Plan D to get your freedom, instead of waiting for HIM to prolong your pain?

In creating other thoughts to try to help you get un-stuck, I realize that this may be off and I might be in left field. If I am, at least my intentions are honorable.

Wishing you the Best,

Ace

Ace,

I suppose that what you say about the Plan D could be possible except for the fact the i have never really mentioned it one way or another.

I simply told him that i currently did not feel safe in our M, these are the things that make make me feel unsafe, if i do not feel like you are at least trying to make me feel safe then on June 1 i am getting my own place, and once i do that you will not get a chance to try to make me feel safe again.

So although i did not exactly say i was filing for divorce, i also did not exactly say i wasn't KWIM?

I still have not given up hope for my miracle although i am not holding my breath either. More to follow.......

SC

Well like i said to Ace i am still hoping for a miracle although i am not holding my breath either.

For some reason i feel like we may have made a break through. When i mentioned to TJD that a couple of weeks ago i think my H may have actually "heard" me for the first time in 25 years regarding his "friendliness".

Maybe it was because he was the one that brought up the conversation i dunno but it just seemed like he "heard" me that day (after trying to convince me that i only felt that way about his "friendliness" because of the A) and he has been ACTING differently since that day.

We had such a wonderful weekend (actually the last two weekends have been wonderful), we were out both weekends just doing lots of different things (actually most of my favorite things) and he was very attentive to me and asked what i wanted to do and did what i wanted to do and he was not overly "friendly" with ANYONE both weekends.

So i am quietly excited about this new progress, we will see.....

Anything can happen..........

I'm quietly excited for you, too, SC...and I sort of hope you don't read this for a long time because you're out with your husband/family making those memories you've been longing for all these years!

Yes, anything CAN happen, but I'm praying that these recent events are the beginnings of that miracle we'll continue to pray for! Focus on the big picture, keep a lid on the LB's, meet his ENs with all you have within you, (and vent here instead of on him if you have a setback).
May your progress continue!

All the best,

Ace

Many folks call this stuff a roller coaster. If the A is not ended and NC is not in place I tend to agree. You just follow wherever the roller coaster takes you. It controls you unless you decide to get off of it.

If the A is ended and NC is in place I tend to think that a roller coaster isn't the right analogy. I tend to think more in terms that things tend to snowball. Things tend to snowball in the good direction and they tend to snowball in a bad direction. Many times something simple, little, can start the snowball in either direction and then things double upon themselves very quickly.

So, as a marriage the two people need to spend time understanding what causes things to snowball.

What causes it to go in a good direction?

What causes it to go in a bad direction?

How does it build upon itself?

In which direction does it snowball the fastest?

Is there a way we can keep it from snowballing in the bad direction?

How hard is it to stop the snowball when it goes in the bad direction?

Why is that?

Can we stop the snowball from going in the wrong direction before the snowball gets too big?

Marriage partners can and do have an effect on these things.

I would tend to agree with you on this.

I am hoping that the snow goes away at my house for a while !

Ok, here's for 80's and sunshine at the SC residence

So things have been going great and i have been feeling good about things and he has been feeling good about things and then today something happened that kind of bothers me. Maybe i am making something out of nothing but it just took me back to A time.

I tried all morning to reach my H via his cell phone (just to say I love you) and it kept going straight to voice mail. When i finally reached him (at around 10:30 am) he said that he had just left the office and had just turned his phone on (which is not his normal he usually has it on all the time and when i call him and he is in the office he just tells me to call him back later), but yet he was at a gas station using the bathroom while i was talking to him. (he works outside at different locations so this is normal for him).

However why would he turn his phone off while he is in the office and why would he go to a gas station to use the bathroom if he just left the office. I would think it would have been easier to take care of that before you leave the office.

Amazing how things that we (as BS) wouldn't have batted an eyelash at before an A can hurl us into a tailspin, isn't it? I have been through similar scenarios several times myself since D-day.

Only advice I can give is to confront him and give the same arguments that you just voiced in your reply. Most likely, he will stick to his story, but try to do your homework before addressing the issue. Google "signs of lying" Do you know him well? Can you discern when he is lying? Do you have a "gut" feeling about the situation? Be sure to confront him in person if at all possible.

It is understandable (and wise) to immediately question something that is atypical for him, given what you have been through. Again...been there, done that, bought the T-shirt. Trying to find the balance between being understanding and denial is a difficult task to undertake-I wish you well and pray for wisdom for you.

lmm thanks for your words of wisdom. But now i feel really bad about the whole thing because it was a DJ. But like you said it is a hard thing to try to find the balance between being understanding and denial. I DO however feel i know him well enough to know if he is lying, i knew all during the A.

I do not know if i have stated this in my thread but i have posted it on other threads, my H is EXTREMELY technologically challenged. He is not good with phones, the remote (besides how to change the channels :RollieEyes: ), the TV, the DVD player, the computer, i mean none of them.

So he dropped his phone yesterday morning and it came apart, he put it back together and went on about his business. As he was getting ready to leave the office, one of the guys he works with noticed it was not together all the way. He had actually put the battery in wrong and that is why is did not close all the way and why it was not working.

But because it triggered me back to the A, i let it snow all day yesterday (thanks TJD). But then Mr SC melted it all away when i got home instead of making it bigger so that was wonderful . He was the one that brought it up and eveything, he said me not answering my phone today was a trigger for you wasn't it and i told him yes. Then he said some really mushy stuff that makes me think that he has FINALLY "heard" me.

And i told him so also, i thanked him for being so understanding about the whole situation and we had a lovely evening.