Know what's annoying as hell? This thought that's apparently shared by many WW:

I wish I hadn't done this, but now I can't go back.

Not believing in us, not believing in themselves, needing to save face, lacking the courage to make amends.

I wish there was something we could do to make them question themselves in this.

GC

Gray -

Just had to comment on this statement -

You are showing her that she CAN comeback and you will get more and more chances as the affair crashes. Go and read about CarolH's 180 if you haven't already.

Then go and read the link on Toomuchcoffee's recent post on legeek's thread, the link that shows the Love Stategies or Principals. Something like that.

If you really, really want your WW back you will have your chance, but you must have confidence! Confidence is a must, and you have to be patient enough to let the affair play out.

I know you are starting to freak because of her apparent lack of any kind of emotional connection to you, and to your upcoming divorce. Well the divorce doesn't mean squat, many, many people get back together after divorce, my sister is one. Also as you know this affair is only what 5 or 6 months old, and Penny Tuppy says affairs peak at 6 months or so, that is when hard cold reality starts to set in and the infatuation begins to diminish.

Chin up friend!

<small>[ September 06, 2004, 10:50 AM: Message edited by: weaver ]</small>

In fact I am just now reminded of a colleague who just recently re-married his first wife. Now this is his FIFTH marriage, jup thats right, first and fifth to the same person. He will stay with this woman forever now I think, as he is just plain ole wore out! LOL

Weaver, thanks - I'll check those threads out. Yep, the affair is about four months old. It's a tough road, and it's too long. And you have all day to wonder and guess what the WS is up to, what she is thinking.

You were a huge help to me at the very beginning, do you remember? I'll always be grateful.

GC

Well guys, get busy on your new life, and assume that partner is not coming back. That is what helped me the most.

I fixed up the house, did the yard, rearranged, painted, did the car, went out with friends, etc.

I was in Plan B for 4 months, and then one day suddenly WH called me at work and said he was moving back in. Unfortunately he still was addicted to OW, so I kept him out.

But these WS's are very strange. They can completely change at the drop of a hat. That is why you need to get on with your life, and hope that they will join you, but if not at least you will have a great life.

Believer,

You are so right. It's hard to do when you feel like so much is missing without your partner in life, but getting on is the only thing we can do. Today I have already weeded the shrub beds, and actually started patching up some peeling paint that was bothering me for months. I think I'm actually going to plant some fall flowers out front. We used to enjoy planting flowers in our yard but I didn't do it this year. Perhaps my WS will take notice of these subtle things I'm beginning to do for me.

Though we still have to negotiate plans for the house(lawyer advised me not to do much work on it, it will only cost me more if I decide to buy out), but you know what? It's only money. I'm the type who likes to work around the yard and on the house, and if that's what I feel like doing, I'm darn well going to do it. Enjoy the rest of the day...

Joe

JoeC -

That's what I did. And I still don't have the place in my name. But I did it for me. It helped raise my self-esteem to work around the place. I went crazy cleaning and painting, rearranging so it looks like WH never lived here.

WH noticed, and was very upset - he said it looked like my life was getting better without him, well DUH, I guess I was supposed to just sit around in misery while he lived with OW.

I've been working on and off around here all weekend, sprucing up the yard for fall. It gives me a lot of satisfaction.

I also got a roommate to help with expenses while all of this is going on. Plus he is great company.

<small>[ November 22, 2004, 04:51 PM: Message edited by: joe c. ]</small>

Gray -

Yes I remember when you first came here, you were a mess for sure, but you cleaned up really fast. Amazingly fast really.

I came here a month before you and I was such a mess too. Still am on some days, but you know what we will get there, all of us.

This forum has given me more than I can ever repay, you and all the rest here that makes me know that there are honest, decent, caring people in my life, even if they are only on the computer. The essense of who we all are still comes through, and we find comfort, friendship and support here. A miracle really.


Joe - I am not Believer but I think she would agree that anything you do to give your WW the impression that you are moving on with your life and not putting your life on hold for her is a step in the right direction. Women want a man who is strong, and doesn't take their crap, but who is still sensitive to their feelings and loving. It's a fine line, but worth it if you can walk it. She has your Plan B letter which was a love letter and said that you want your marriage to work and are open to it still if she will do what you asked right?

Weaver

Weaver,

Thanks for the reply. Yes I did send a plan B love letter. It explains that I am still very much in love with her and very committed to working on our relationship, once

.

<small>[ November 22, 2004, 04:52 PM: Message edited by: joe c. ]</small>

<small>[ November 22, 2004, 04:49 PM: Message edited by: joe c. ]</small>

joe -

I love having a roommate. I have kids going thru college, and am helping them, plus paying for everything here. So I decided to get a roommate. He (yes he, 26 and cute as heck) pays half the rent, which is really a help.

We both work all day, and mainly go our own ways in the evening and weekends, although we have gone fishing together a couple of times.

As far as your wife's relatives, I would be very truthful with them and tell them that you want to save your marriage, but there has to be no contact between your wife and OM.

I still have contact with some of my husband's relatives. I tell them I want to save the marriage. When they ask more questions, I just tell them it is too painful to talk about, and change the subject.

Oh, my WH was furious that I got a roommate, mainly because he wants to move in here with OW.

Hey guys, I feel like I'm losing track of you all. Anybody here?

Still here, treading water, and trying to get the rocks out of my shoes. Oh yeah and it's raining.

Yeah, believer, still hanging around. I wore everybody out with my "graycloud loses it" thread yesterday. Right now I'm just relaxing, celebrating my big victory this weekend, and feeling my life come together at least a little bit. Of course, I'm just on an upswing. I already feel myself getting a little bummed out again.

The border terrier breeder I've been talking to has a two-year-old for me. Her name is Matilda, and she's coming to stay with me next weekend. If that goes well, I'm going to keep her. She was supposed to be a show dog but developed allergies, so she's no good for shows but needs a home. I went and met her today, and I'm crazy about her.

So it's really true - I'm going to have a new bi+ch staying in my house, rent-free. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

GC

Ok yall heres an update. I have seen my wife a few times when she has the kids and now we are supposed to be working on our marriage again.

I tried Plan B-we straight seperated, but when I dont really talk to her she gets the feeling I dont want to talk to her or be around her and I dont want our marriage to work. So I guess you can say Im plan A'ing from a distance.

We are talking about going ahead with the divorce, starting over again fresh and getting remarried(if we get there), you know what I mean this is day 1 of a new beginning so I dont want to shoot myself in the foot about something that may be 2 years down the road

Joey -- I don't understand why you would have to D first & then remarry? My H & I started "dating" again while we were still M'd & now our M is in recovery. I think it's very important to continue to date while you are M'd. Making date nights is something my H & I prioritize & it's working out wonderfully. We have specified Saturday as our day & Sunday as the family day so this gives the kids heads up that Sat is Mom/Dad's alone time & then Sunday they have something to look forward to as far as taking them to the park, playing games, etc.

You two can still date while you are M'd. I don't think a D is necessary. JMHO.

Love in Christ,
Y

Alright….here goes… Here’s my story: This is really hard. I just found out about 6 weeks ago and things are getting a little better each day but I still can’t believe that it happened.

Well, I have been married for 2 years and 9 months. I am 29 and my wife is 7 years younger. We got married 2 Decembers ago when she was 19. We had met just 8 months before that and had fallen very much in love. We decided to go ahead and get married and have a small ceremony for just the family since that’s what we could afford at the time and we didn’t want to wait. We had been talking about getting married since about 2 months into the relationship. It felt right so we went through some very tough pre-marriage counseling with her pastor and got married that December about a week and a half before Christmas. We enjoyed a modest but romantic honeymoon in Savannah afterward. She was living at home with her parents at the time….very nice Christian people who just loved me. I had already moved in with her at her parent’s home a couple months before we got married while we were engaged. I guess her parents already kind of considered us married at that point.

Anyway, we had our fights and disagreements like any young couple does who are still learning to live together. I didn’t think anything of it though, since many I had talked to said that it was normal. Our good times far outnumbered the bad. It was hard living with her parents though since it was really like 2 families trying to exist in one house. Her mom was always giving her unsolicited advice on being a wife. She was attending a 2 year school at the time with the hopes of transferring into her dream four-year school the next fall. Well, she finally got her acceptance letter that February and we began making plans for our move. We were having normal 1st year marriage stuff but nothing that I really worried about. Once we moved into our own apartment, things got better. We still had some bad fights but we were doing ok.

Let me go backwards in my story for a bit and fill in some stuff. My wife had several relationships before she met me that were meaningful to her. Of course, everybody does. Anyways, when she was in 10th grade, she dated this guy for almost a year that she just liked ok. It was a casual relationship that I still don’t know why she stayed with but she eventually broke up with him. The guy would ignore her when she would come over to visit and even get up and leave to go hang out with his friends. Anyways, she would stay at his house because the guy had an uncle who was a little older at the time (22 or 23) that DID pay attention to her, and they would hang out and really became good friends. My future wife was 15 at the time so the uncle never pursued his attractiveness to her further than a friendship. At the time she liked him too, but never knew how much he liked her. And again, the age difference thing kept them from going any further. She has told me though that she liked being around him so much….that she continued the relationship with her boyfriend; just so she would have the opportunity to be around the uncle.

She eventually broke up with the boyfriend and then kinda forgot about the uncle because she had heard that he had gotten married and had a kid. Fast forward to a few months before my wife and I met. She ran into this uncle (let’s go ahead and call him OM) in town and started talking to him and catching up. She learned that he had caught his wife cheating on him and was getting a divorce. They quickly discovered that they still had feelings for each other and my wife was completely swept up in the moment after learning that he too had always had feelings for her. They ended up sleeping together but he told her afterwards that he wasn’t ready to have a relationship with her yet because he was still dealing with his divorce and child custody and all that. So they parted ways and didn’t talk for a while.

Now I come into the story. My future wife and I meet and we are struck with each other. I fell in love her very quickly and she fell for me very soon after that. You know this part of the story already.

Ok, so before we moved away, she ran into OM in Walmart one day. He came on to her and asked her out but she told him that she was married and that he was too late. He couldn’t believe it! He had his nephew (old boyfriend) call the house later that night to confirm that she really was married.

Fast forward again… We’ve been moved for a year and a half, married for 2 years and school is going well for my wife. We have bought a house and I am taking classes at her school, part time working on a masters. So we are both very busy and don’t have a whole lot of time with each other. She ran into OM while we are home for Christmas (again at Walmart) and they talk and catch up. He asked her how married life is and she tells him good…blah blah. Anyways, he asked her for her email address and thinking nothing about it, she gives it to him. She has said that she honestly just thought that he just wanted to keep in touch as friends.

So he emails her back this February or March. A very suggestive email saying he wished he could be with her again (sexually) and how much he thought about when they were together before. It was obviously not meant to be read by me. She was honest eventually, and about a week after she got it, she showed it to me. She said that it had shocked her and that she thought that it was completely out of character for him. I asked her to write him back and tell him that he was completely out of line and that she wouldn’t be friends with him if he was going to be like that. She said that she did. And then, that was it…..to my knowledge at the time. Since D-day (the day the affair was confessed) I have learned that that was not it. They continued to email back and forth for 2 months or so. He is involved in an unfulfilling long term relationship and she was giving him advice and apparently, she was filling the same way. They expressed that they both wished that their feelings could have had a chance and constantly daydreamed what could have been. Anyways, he asked her several times in emails if he could come see her. She was very unsure about that though and told him no.

At this time I knew something wasn’t quite right with us and our relationship but I thought it was something else. I just thought that WW was struggling with her own identify and who she wanted to be…believing in herself and all that. She withdrew from me and I withdrew from her, thinking that she needed space and that I should just be patient and she would come around. I absorbed myself with work and school because I didn’t feel needed by her. Little did I know that I was really making things worse by not trying to be close to her. It made it easier for her to look to be close to someone else. At the time when she really needed to feel love from me to defray her doubts about our marriage, I wasn’t there for her. I was stuck in a do nothing attitude because I thought she wanted space to figure things out. I was lazy with our relationship and stuck in the rut of routine.

About May or June (don’t know exactly…she says she can’t remember and I can’t look up incoming phone call records without legal documents) he called her one day when I was at work and she was not at school. He had gotten our home telephone # from my mother-in-law who he had run into him in town. All she knew was that him and my wife had been friends and didn’t think anything about giving him our telephone # number to call and catch up. She said that they talked for a long time about his relationship and her relationship and how they wished they could have been together. He asked to see her but she again told him she wasn’t sure and that she didn’t feel right about it. Well, he kept calling her like every other day and she eventually started calling him. She agreed to meet him at a mall somewhere in between so that they could just talk and spend the day together. She told me she was going shopping for the day which I believed with no problem. Spending time with OM filled the needs she had that I was unknowingly neglecting. He told her everything she wanted to hear and gave her the chase that she desired. She enjoyed the chase and felt wanted.

This led to her seeing OM three other times. They met secretly at a midway point one day at a hotel and slept together. She said that at first she didn’t really plan to take it that far, but that she just wanted to be held. But one thing led to another and she was swept up in the moment. She came home about 8:30 or so and told me she had been shopping and I believed it without question. Looking back, I can’t believe how naïve I was but it never crossed my mind that she would ever betray me like this. About a week later she was 2 days from having to start summer classes. It was late one evening and she told me that she had been thinking about him and had questions that she had to find closure for (I found out later, via her cell phone bill, that she had just talked to him for 45 minutes). She had to see him before her summer classes started because she would too busy after, and there was also a sense of urgency with the fact that OM had recently been called up for active duty in the Guard and was scheduled to go to Iraq 3 weeks later. I had no idea the depth of their affair or that they had slept together already. I just felt like this was in the way of our marriage and if she needed to see him in order to move on, I was reluctantly all for it. She came up with a plan to drive down to her home town and get a hotel room. Get up, go see her parents and “surprise” them by having lunch with them appearing to have driven 6 hours in one day just to have lunch, and then meet up with OM to talk, and then go home. Classes would start the next day.

I agreed to take her. She said that she wanted me with her, which baffled me at the time, but it gave me hope that this would soon be over. That was the hardest thing that I had ever done to that point. Like I said, I had no clue that she had already had a physical affair with him as well, or that she had talked to him as much as she had. I just thought that she had been unfaithful in an emotional way and she was trying to deal with that and move on. If I had known then, what I know now, I would never had agreed to being an accomplice to her affair. Anyway, the plan went off well. Her parents bought it and enjoyed lunch with us. He called to arrange meeting her after he got off work and she dropped me off at a truck stop to wait while she went to meet him. She was gone for almost 2 hours! That was the loneliest feeling I had ever felt. But remember, I had no idea how far it had gone already so that was just the tip of what was to come. When she got back, she got out and walked around to the passenger side and got in, waiting for me to jump in so we could leave to go home. She never said a word and did not look at me. She had warned me beforehand that she probably wouldn’t want to talk after so I shrugged it off. After about 15 minutes or so, she started talking to me and telling me that she still didn’t know…..if she wanted to be with me or him. She was confused and started listing off the pros in OM’s favor….qualities that he had and that I didn’t. I was hurt and got really defensive….then apologized and eventually asked her to decide when she was ready. I told her that I would wait for her to decide. She assured me that all they did was hug and no kiss, which I later found out was a lie. I told her that I needed her to not see or talk to him anymore but that I wanted her to decide that when she was ready. I wanted and deserved 100% of her heart. I said, “When you’re ready, I long for the day that you come to me and say that you don’t ever want to see him or talk to him again. But don’t tell me that until you are sure and you mean it. “ I asked to tell me if she talked to him or saw him and she agreed that she would.

He screwed up and called her once while I was home so I knew about that. But after taking her to see him, as far as I knew, she never talked to him or saw him. In fact, she came to me about a week after we got back and said that she had decided on me and that her feelings for him were over. Every night I counted down the days in my head till his ship out date to Iraq would be and the nightmare would be over. I wouldn’t have to worry anymore and then I would have a year and a half to work on my marriage and make her love me again.

About a week later I took her for a romantic getaway to a big city for a night and we had a really good time. I was really feeling positive and hopeful that we would be alright. Then, about 10 days later, 15 days or so after seeing him last, she called me one afternoon and said that she was going to study with some friends for her really hard test that she was going to have later that week. She said that she would be at their apartment and that they would be pulling an all nighter. I was surprised because she doesn’t like to spend the night without me much, but I admired her seeming dedication to getting a good grade in her class. So I told her that I would miss her but that I didn’t mind. After D-day I learned that she met OM again, spent the night with him, and had sex with him again. She told me this bit of info after her first confession. This is when I realized that it wasn’t a fling or a short thing but a full blown affair. I asked her why and she said that she wanted see what it would be like to spend the night with him. To be in his arms…to see how it felt. She said that it was like her final test to see if he was really worth throwing away her marriage with me. She said that the result of that night was that she knew afterwards that she did not want him and wanted me. I remember she came home that morning about 7am. I was still waking up in bed and she jumped on me all smiles and hugged and kissed me. After D-day she said that she had felt relief and joy over her decision to be with me.

A few days later she wrote him an email and told him that it was over and that she had screwed up. She said that she told him that she didn’t want to see him anymore. (This is what she says, but I never saw the email). (As you can see, I am having a terrible time trying to trust her again). After that she called him a couple more times to make sure that he got the email and then had no other contact with him. Her cell phone bill confirmed this. We had been starting to do nightly devotions a couple of weeks earlier in an effort to bring faith and spirituality back into our marriage. She had suggested it and I agreed. This apparently started after she came back from seeing OM the last time. About a week after final contact with OM we were reading a passage about keeping the marriage bed holy and clean. God spoke to my wife and told her it was time to reveal the whole affair to me….everything. She had almost convinced herself that it would be better never to tell me but God wouldn’t allow that. Slowly she started telling me bits and pieces….that she had seen him once at a mall that I hadn’t known about….I started to shake….she told me about talking to him on the phone and email…revealing contacts that she had hidden from me….I was trembling and in shock…then she started bawling and saying that she was going to hell over and over again….I reached out to her and said that it wasn’t true and asked her why she felt that way….that is when she told me that she had slept with him. I was mortified and in disbelief. But I told her that I wanted to forgive her but she had to promise me that she would not leave in fear. She has a tendency to take off when we fight or have conflict and I didn’t want her to do that now. I needed to be sure I knew where she was so I that I could try to trust her and wouldn’t think that she was with him. It was hard for her to promise that, but she did.

Two days later the cell phone bill came and that’s when I discovered his # and how much she talked to him. I called her at work and asked her about it. She was defensive and upset. I went and saw her at work and then she revealed about the second time when she spent the night with him. I was very upset that she had lied again by not telling me everything to begin with. She said that it had been hard and that she felt that all I needed to know was that she had cheated and not how many times. I told her that in order for her to regain my trust, I had to know all except for the intimate details. That is the only part that I haven’t asked her about. I figure what good would that be except to create even more vivid images of them together in my mind. But I have questioned her several times about the affair, looked at phone records over and over and I now know how long and how serious the affair really was. She said that she is really sorry and feels terrible and that she will never ever do it again. I want to believe her. But there is a nagging worry that OM will go after her again when he gets back from Iraq a year and a half from now.

About a week later after D-day, we went on our already planned vacation and had a good time kinda reconnecting and spending time together. We have continued our devotions and have worked on loving each other and filling each others needs. I ordered and I’ve read about half of “Surviving an Affair”. I have read a lot of scripture and a Christian book called “Total Forgiveness”. I didn’t sleep much for about 5 or 6 days after D-day so I read A LOT. Each day is getting a little easier. I am committed and my wife seems to be too. We want to fix what is wrong with our marriage and put this behind us. I didn’t know it was possible, but I seem to be falling in love with her again. I hope that she can fall in love with me again. She is trying. She is seeing a counselor about working on her issues of learning to love herself. She and I both know that she will never be able to love me fully until she learns to love herself.

We are going to try marriage counseling whenever she is ready but I’m not pushing it on her. I’m trying to be patient. I talk to God daily and I’m struggling with figuring out if I’ll ever be able to forgive OM for what he did. I believe I can forgive WW because I love her so completely, but how do you forgive someone you feel nothing for and who wronged you so deeply? I know that hating him will only continue to torture myself.

We don’t talk about the affair much unless it just happens to come up from one of the “triggers”. That Brad Paisley song “Whiskey Lullaby” is a killer for me. I had to go out of town last week for work for three days. It was going to take me by the hotel where it happened both times. I went to see it. I don’t know why, but I did. I got off at the exit, pulled into the hotel and circled it. I did it on the way to my conference, and on the way back. I convinced myself it was to face my fear, to face my trigger of that place….but honestly I think it was my sick way of dwelling on the affair…wallowing in self pity…..making my images more real. I don’t know.

Day by day, things are getting better though. We are closer now than we have been since we first started dating. The difference is that now we know each other a lot better. This has been the hardest thing that I’ve ever had to deal with but I am committed to sticking it out and saving our marriage. I do believe that I can forgive her….I do it every day each morning. But I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forget. That old saying to forgive is to forget is not reality. Forgiveness is a choice. A choice we may have to make every day. But the rewards are worth it, I believe. I am still in the grieving stage right now…grieving for my untarnished marriage. I do it in private so as not throw it in the face of my wife. I have no one to talk to about this since talking about it would be betraying her. So I’m hoping that telling my story in this anonymous forum will relieve some of the burden that I carry. This is why I am SCdazed…..Your prayers and thoughts are welcome….

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by StandingTogether:
<strong> Joey -- I don't understand why you would have to D first & then remarry? My H & I started "dating" again while we were still M'd & now our M is in recovery. I think it's very important to continue to date while you are M'd. Making date nights is something my H & I prioritize & it's working out wonderfully. We have specified Saturday as our day & Sunday as the family day so this gives the kids heads up that Sat is Mom/Dad's alone time & then Sunday they have something to look forward to as far as taking them to the park, playing games, etc.

You two can still date while you are M'd. I don't think a D is necessary. JMHO.

Love in Christ,
Y </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">We signed a Louisiana covenant marriage while in the middle of the affair(I had no clue-guess yall never heard that before <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> ), so without 2 witnesses to the adultry we have to be seperated for 2 years for the divorce to be final. I have no clue if she is playing me right now or what. I want to do the right thing(what God wants) and Im dealing with everyone I know saying she lies so much(shes a habitual liar, she confessed to EA after caught, got call a couple weeks ago from OM and he told me it was a PA too). I dont want to get played again and then get stuck in seperation for 2 years, also the court gave me the kids <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />