Violette,
You are welcome here.
If it is okay with you, though, I am going to post to your thread after this response (so that we can talk about your story and keep all of your information together). I am glad that you are still lurking here and still hoping to find *something* here: hope, change, help??? I hope you choose not to disappear because I am certain that you will find a lot of useful information here.
I can tell you from personal experience that it is NOT EASY at all to listen to what these people have to say about you. You feel overwhelmed. BUT they are trying to force some sense into you. You and I are both that addict or �falling down drunk��and they are determined to get through to us.
My husband does not know how to love. He avoids any conversation that deals with emotions. If he gets angry at someone or they screw up, he will just shut down and ignore them. Never apologizes or admits he is wrong.
He also tells me how I should feel. When I told him I was depressed and suicidal. He told me to stop being negative and that everyone has problems. Whenever I try to share how I feel, he tells me that my feelings are silly, crazy, stupid, negative or wrong.
He also believes I will never cheat so does not feel a need to protect our marriage. He has no problem with me coming home at one in the morning. When I told him that I was over the OM house, he just asked how he was doing. No questions about why I was there or what were we doing. As long as I take care of the house and kids and am available when he needs me, he does not care where I am or what I do. I am just his wife and can be easily replaced with any other woman.
All of this sounds very familiar to me. But what I am going to try to do is work on myself with the hope that this will encourage my DH to get on board at some point. I don�t really have the answers for it. Yes, keep following along; perhaps we will both learn a thing or two.
I have a hard time buying that we can't get our emotional needs met outside the marriage. I know it is not the ideal way to get them met but my husband is not willing or capable to meet my needs so I go else where. I never heard of EA until recently. I discussed them with my therapist and determined that I have had EA throughout the 20 years of marriage. I have always had a special male friend. I never felt it was wrong and my husband always knew about them. And until recently, they were always married. I just have a hard time thinking of it as any different than having a female friend. They were not sexual. Not even flirty. And never close to being physical. And it is not like I think about them all the time. Anymore than I would daydream about a female friend.
I don�t know enough to advise you and I am not far enough along on my own recovery but I do have some thoughts about what you�ve written. I never heard of EA before until I started this research after developing feelings for my husband�s friend. And I thought flirting was a normal part of socializing.
But I believe in what MB says about EA because�I was feeling all of these things, I didn�t know what was �happening to me�, and I started reading this MB information�and it explained what I was going through step by step. You would think I would have written the words myself! How could MB know this stuff?!? How could MB know what I was going through?!? MB knows because it is the truth, it is not so shocking after all, my situation is not so different from so many other people going through the same thing. Neither is yours.
And what I hear from MB is that this EA is going to turn PA. They are not saying �maybe� or �possibly� or �it could�; they are saying �it will�. MB listed every other step I went through�why would MB be wrong about that last step? I don�t think they are. �especially since I know that I have changed how I dress to impress this man, think about him all the time, have considered us being together intimately. Maybe you have done the same with this guy who you consider to be the type of husband you would want.
I don�t want to take
the chance to find out whether it will happen or not. I want out.
I have never had any other special male friends. I cannot keep male friends. They always want to sleep with me or vice versa. That�s the truth. I let down my guard around this one man because he was my DH�s friend and presumably no threat to me or my marriage. Wrong. He hasn�t taken only because he is waiting for me to give. I�m trying to get the he77 out of there.
You already have enough on your plate. You have to address the physical affairs, the depression, your DH�s emotions (or lack thereof). You don�t need the EA on top of it. Do you?
I don�t know if you have looked at the link
Anatomy of Adultery. (I don�t yet know how to create a link.) Someone posted it on my thread. But it is from a study of churchgoing people who admitted to unfaithfulness. Notice how the EA gradually grows closer to PA. I found myself in there. Do you find yourself there?
You say you have a tough time making it through life alone. Well you don�t need your EA partner to make it through. You have us.
I am not to give advice, I know. And if I have said something out of place, vets, I know you will let me know. Just hang in there, Violette. Try as much as possible not to be obstinate; really think about what they are saying. We can go through at the same time�and be better people for it.
