All I can say is that some people become very self centered when they start to have problems at home. I for the life of me cannot understand how a person can completely toss away all common sense, and forget about their family entirely. I do not know if they just figure everyone will get over it in time or what. I like to think that as alot of people that are victims of affairs, we are also the type of people that seem to understandwhat the consequences of our actions are. Maybe in a situation like this we would alos do what our spouses do, but there is something that keeps the majority of people away from going out and having affairs. Unfortunately in our choices of partners we did not have the insight to know how troubled the person we were getting involved with was going to be. I still love my wife and always will love her with a piece of my heart. I strongly beleive the relationship is over, because at present she is not doing anything to get better or understand her issues. This hurts, but having her back, and do the same thing again to hurt us all when things get tough at home is not something I will put the kids through again. A large amount of the kids pain is over now, they as I must learn how to get on with our lives. If in teh time we start to get on with our lives my wife decides she wants to start to work on our relationship, and I feel that I also want to do so, we may reconcile. Sorry I am in a different place then alot of others, but only because I have said for now that I will not work to make a relationship work that only one person is committed to.

Lost - <p>You are in a better spot than most of us - you have found the strength to go on and focus on yourself and your kids, which is where we all want to be. I am only now starting to realize that I will be ok if he moves out, I have to be for these children who mean more to me than anything, your wife needs to grow up and realize that these 4 children you have are a wonderful gift and if she doesn&#8217;t change her behavior soon she will forever damage them and her relationship with them, it's very sad <img src="graemlins/teary.gif" border="0" alt="[Teary]" /> that she doesn&#8217;t realize what treasures they are. I have been following your thread with Mimi and admire how strong you are....You have give me the hope that I will make it through this and if he is with me in the end - great but if he takes the cowards way out well then its his loss and I have to be strong for myself and the girls.<p>I have 2 weeks until he leaves for the reserves and will be taking that time to figure out what he wants... I have decided to make these next 2 weeks as perfect as possible - make sure that he knows that I love him and want him in my life and when he leave I will figure out what I need to do to be prepared if he comes back with the decision to leave. Have a great weekend and try to find some time for yourself - you deserve it!<p>
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Rdvpmm - I think you also are getting to the point where you are finding the strength to cope with whatever the future will deal you. I think it is great that you have the opportunity to spend this bit of time with your husband and show him that you love him, and are willing to try to work things out. I beleive you will find more strength when he is gone for a while to put your life together again, to decide what you want for yourself and your kids. I hope that the time away for both of you will give you both the ability to figure out what it will take to make things work, as well as to realize what your relationship meant to each of you. I would very strongly suggest over the next while that you do not talk about the future, or the affair. As I am sure you are aware by now, things get seriously off rail very quickly if a person feels they are having pressure applied to them. Have a good day, and let us know what kind of things you do over the next while and if you think you get a reaction.

You are so right about not talking about our relationship or the A - every time we have one of these conversations I feel like me move backwards 10 steps. Its crazy, I never get the answers I want and end up feeling worse about things and he just pulls away from me. I'm just going to act and behave like we have a perfectly normal marriage (yeah right) and his leaving for these 2 weeks in the reserves is just like it was when we were active duty and would go on field problems. He has duty this weekend and this morning before he left I woke him up by initiating sex and then made the completely honest and innocent comment about how sexy I find the uniform - He said to me - "you've never thought that before" I told him - well I may not have told you that but I've always thought it... Its amazing the things that I find that I didn&#8217;t think were important to say before suddenly mean more and maybe I should have been saying them all along - <p>One thing I know for sure - no matter if we end up together or not I have learned to appreciate what I have and make sure that I let the people I love that I do appreciate them and appreciate what they do for me... That was my big mistake, I always thought my H would be there for me and didn&#8217;t appreciate what I had until it was gone....<p>I will keep you updated

Is he putting as much into the relationship as you. If not hopefully he will at some point in the near future.

at this point he tells me that he cant give me what I need from him, that he needs to find what makes him happy before he can make me happy.- He has even admitted that he is being selfish but this is what he needs right now. I have tried to tell him that I dont need him to be happy but I want him in my life and will support him in whatever it takes to make him happy but I will not put up with the OW! He has used the "I love you but I'm not in love with you" line along with the "i'm not sure if I've ever love you" crap.... We've been together 12 years and have 2 children, our M is different from many in the fact we were in the military for 8 years and apart alot but we have never been fighters and have always been best friends. He is 32 and I could almost swear that this is a early mid-life crisis...not that it gives him any reason to do what he has done but it has helped me deal with it in my mind. Right now he comes home when he says he's going to, and to anyone who doesnt know whats going on it looks like we have a wonderful relationship.... he treats me good,we talk, have sex (more than before), were both in IC counseling, he just got on anti'ds, and we are communicating better than ever before - so what is the problem you ask? He tells me that he doesnt know what he wants and that 80% of him wants to work out our marriage and 20% of him just wants out... he wants his freedom back - doesnt want to answer to anyone - want to do what he wants, when he wants....gee he seems to forget that he has 2 children that he will be paying for and still be responsible for... he tells me all these things one minute and the next tells me that if I wanted that I can leave and he will keep the kids - Ok so what happen to all that freedom he just talked about? [img]images/icons/confused.gif" border="0[/img]