I think you misinterpreted. I would be appalled, too, if that is what I was feeling or meant. I am not comparing DWG and the OW at all. I don't think about OW at all. This obstacle is what DWG is obsessing about. She is obsessed with the idea that I had feelings for the OW at one time, which are feelings that she feels that I never had for her. This thought is driving her crazy. I cannot express to her the depth of my love and respect for her and my gratefulness of having this chance to stay with her and become a real husband and decent human being without her simply writing it off as untruthful or insincere, because she cannot trust anything about me and may never. I don't expect her to. It is my job to simply take of her. The fact that she has stayed with me deposited overwhelming love units, and I am committed to doing whatever it takes forever to take care of her, no matter how wounded she is or difficult it seems to me at times. My own EN's are simply unimportant to me, which is a complete inversion of what I was for so long.

Believe me, Mrs. Vanilla. i am not focused on myself or my feelings or sorrow. I was for some time, but that has been over for a long while. It is her feelings that are my only concern. I have faith and confidence that by meeting her EN's and learning how to take care of DWG will, in time, allow her to heal. Please don't be concerned about being "nice". You can write your thoughts to me without concern about that.

My problem is not feeling sorry for myself or resentment or anger at her not thinking of my needs. My confusion is how to help her with this thought that is driving her crazy and which is stopping her healing possibility in its tracks. It is HER obsessive thought that I do not have, or never had, the "in love" feeling for her that people have when they fall in love, whereas she believes that I did have these feelings for the OW at the time. She makes these comparisons in her thoughts, not me. I had some of those types of feelings for OW at the time, because of the way that secretive, forbidden relationships affect people. When those feelings happened, I became terrified. But I was a coward. I could not face the mess that I had created and just continued to pretend that this situation could just go on, that I would not have to face the music, face what I had become, face the horrors of what I had done. I procrastinated and avoided and made myself believe that this scuzzy, awful woman was a legitimate option in my life, and she played me perfectly in that. I was a true rat, trapped, ruined, afraid to face the music, so I kept putting it off one more day, becoming almost consciously more careless. I put my own deluded self above DWG, knowing full well that when it all came crashing down, DWG would be devastated beyond description and would make my decision for me by throwing me out and divorcing me. But she didn't, and when she didn't, I was flabbergasted, realized that she did actually love me all those years, and realized the full horror of what I had done. I don't know if this description helps you. At this point, my cowardice and emotional illness are mine to fix, and my actions over my adult life are mine to deal with, fix, and try to live with until the day I die. The last thing I expect is for DWG to be trying to meet my EN's.

You know from your readings of DWG on this forum what an absolutely remarkable and wonderful human being DWG is. I love her, and I only want the opportunity to be with her and help her, and for me to grow in the process. I cannot expect her to try to meet my EN's. And yet in this program, our coaches are saying that she must try. They say that my feelings of being in love with her depend on this, and I trust them. But she is stuck with the idea that I must first have those feelings of being "in love" with her, before she can move on. She is stuck, because I had some of those "in love" feelings with that horrible woman but believes that I never had those with her. I did, though, but they were muffled and destroyed by a combination of my own selfishness, the interference of my dad, and by DWG's own reactions to those things, which put her unwillingly in the position of either caving in to a jerk or standing her ground and putting me in my place. She did the latter, because she is a strong, proud, and accomplished woman, and my resentments of her treatment toward me those many years ago drained my love bank, and that feeling of being in love with her was short-lived. In my immature, petulant, and entitled way, I decided that I would get one of my main EN's elsewhere, outside the marriage. Once I started doing that, I no longer felt the need to face my own problems and actually fix the marriage. It made it impossible. I withdrew from her further and further. It is a very sad tale, indeed. I must live with it. DWG cannot really live with it right now and may never, but the catch-22 is that she wants us to have restored love and does not want to live without me, but she is insisting that the love be restored as a condition for trying to restore it. I don't know how to deal with that. Does that make more sense?

Mrs. Vanilla, I hope you will calm back down from your reaction to what you thought I was saying, reconsider a bit, and offer me some help on that. I am way past the 2X4 stage.