I urge you to first change your name. Even if you have to just use your initials or something. Please do that for me, for your MB friends. Its way to negative. YOU ARE NOT A PSYCHO_B. You are a loving, decent, caring, and very hurt and traumatized HUMAN BEING.

I will write more later. Your story breaks my heart...

Zoey

<<<There should be a reason or reasons in his mind that he found these other people better to be with than you.>>>

That's the one that eats at me, too. He accuses me of having low self-esteem because I feel replaced, but that's not true. I don't have low self-esteem. I really did think I was enough. He's the one who decided I wasn't. He had to have all of them, too, and then fight me to the death over his right to have them. Men don't do this kind of stuff for no reason.

We used to work at the same large corporation. He insists he had to keep me at arm's length because it was Company Policy that spouses could not work together and were not supposed to interact on the job. He insists it could have hurt his career. He insists to this day that this was why he had to ignore me while he was on the job and I was right across the floor from him and all the girls.

With incredible naivity and stupidity, I went along with this. He was climbing the management ladder and I was not. I thought he was working when I didn't see him. I did see plenty of women flirting with him but thought there was nothing I could do about it. I didn't want to be the *****y nagging wife, so I kept quiet.

I did not know until much later that he was also in the habit of going off-site alone with them, getting all involved in their personal lives, and sending mushy personal e-mails. There were almost certainly personal gifts and cards too but I have never been able to get a straight answer on that one. He doesn't remember anything. All I've seen from these girls is one card given to him by his wonderful short-skirted co-manager. It was vulgar, sexual, and personal.

I didn't know because I wasn't supposed to know.

Of course, the idea that these women would not have been able to get close to him if he had been interacting with me instead of them has *nothing* to do with his ignoring me at work. He really thinks he can force me to believe this.

But I am not supposed to be upset about this. This was all normal business behavior. It must be. He insists to this day that it is and gets furious if I dare to say it's not.

Does he want things to be better? Sure. He wants to have the nice home life again that he had before I finally woke up to what was really going on in his equally nice work life. And he's sorry his marriage is so screwed up now because it's damned incovenient.

But he has made it clear to me that he is not sorry for what he did. It was a great good time and as long as he can tell himself that it's just business to tell your short-skirted co-manager "You know it...." when she sends you an email saying "Thanks for the love," he will insist that I am the one with the problem.

PB - He is telling you what he sees as wrong w/ your relationship - your inability to constructively process your anger. Whatever else you learn from this, it is probably a good place to start. Don't give him an excuse with your own lovebusters.

Some men just will never come clean. My FIL is one of them, and it drives my MIL crazy. He has finally calmed down, and doesn't seem to be up to his old ways anymore. Then again, his diabetes makes "performance" rough. He was caught red handed more than once, and would not admit zilch. She told me after I had admitted my A that she admired me for coming clean. She said FIL never would, even though he was caught. My FIL has been very supportive of us, and has done a lot to help my H thru my A. In a way, I think it's his way of showing remorse for what he's done.

I don't know that you'll ever get what you want from your H PB. The question now is what do you want to do with the rest of your life?

It amazes me he see's nothing wrong with his actions. I guess he would not mind you running around town with a variety of men, being lavished with gifts and sexy cards. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="images/icons/rolleyes.gif" />

<<<He is telling you what he sees as wrong w/ your relationship - your inability to constructively process your anger.>>>

So I'll ask the board the same question I've asked my husband: How should I have handled this? How upset should I have gotten? When I ask my H, he says he doesn't know.

Being reasonable sure didn't help. Quietly explaining to him that it hurt me to see him flirting with these women and paying so much attention to them just brought a huge grin to his face. The only thing better than girlfriends at work and a wife at home is girlfriends at work and a *jealous* wife at home.

Telling him in non-angry, but no uncertain terms, that this was very hurtful to me and was damaging our relationship brought nothing but a huge wall of denial and secrecy. I guess he thought he could handle me. Even when he knew beyond any doubt how much his behavior was upsetting me, he never changed a thing. I found out about a year later through some serious snooping. He just thought I would never know.

Now I have to deal with his actions *plus* his rock-solid determination that he will never admit it was wrong, no matter what that does to me. And now he is the one who's angry because I'm just not buying the bullsh*t anymore.

<<<It amazes me he see's nothing wrong with his actions. I guess he would not mind you running around town with a variety of men, being lavished with gifts and sexy cards.>>>

I've asked him about this, too. Tried to paint him a picture of what that would be like for him to watch, the way it has been for me. All I get is a blank look and a shrug. He says he doesn't know how he would feel about it.

I feel for you PB, I really do. The thing YOU have to ask yourself is are you satisfied staying in this M for the rest of your life? If the answer is yes you have to find a way to deal with the past 10 years, on your own it appears. Or, you can strike out with out him, and leave him and the crap he's dished you for so long in the dust.

The future is in YOUR hands.