OW God has humbled me by stages through this. Today, I genuinely do not feel 'superior' to my FWW.

Thats good. FWW just told me how happy she was that she got that off her chest and that I assumed some responsibility without judging her.

I think we both want to move forward from the mistakes we've both made now. It will be harder to recover from FWWs mistakes, but we BOTH have to recover from BOTH our mistakes.

We want to wring out the lessons from or the meaning of this affair so we move forward intelligently avoiding that sitch ever again.

I love her so much, and I am amazed she still cares for me despite my emotional abandonment of her.

we have hope and a GOOD chance, we really do.

Hey Suzette!

I was just thinking about you the other day, because I hadn't "seen" you around in quite a while. But then, I haven't bee around much myself, either....just lurking every now and then.
Thanks for your response....I have a feeling you and I are on the same wavelength, think alike in a lot of ways...that's not to say we are always "right"! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" /> It's just nice to feel understood, know what I mean?

How's everything?

Onlywords

During the affair, my H broke my arm when I was threatening to call OW because he had said she kept calling him.

I felt responsible for the broken arm.

When the affair was exposed by OW's H to me, the first words out of my H's mouth were, "I think Sophia is trying to destroy our marriage."

I felt no responsibility, not one iota, for his affair. He could have divorced me, left me, separated, sought marriage counseling...He blamed me for the affair and his abuse. I took the blame for the abuse but never the affair. I wasn't there.

Cherished

Bob,

Yes, you do have a very good chance of making it. And I'm sure you're wife is amazed that you can still love her after her mistakes. That's the love we've all been looking for our entire lives.

God bless you!

Julie

Hi Cherished,

I am so sorry. You are never responsible for abuse. Call 1-800-799-7233. They can direct you to help in your area. It is never your fault. I feel for your pain. I have been through it and am getting counseling free now.

{{{{{{{{{{{{{Cherished}}}}}}}}}}}}}

I don't think an affair is ever justifiable before some sort of communication is made by the WS about his/her concerns about the marriage. I hadn't a clue my WH was discontent about anything in our marriage...I thought we had a storybook life. I do think reality (work, driving towards individual dreams) took some of the time we used to have for each other and caused some stress in the household BUT going behind the back and very obviously hurting your spouse, a person you vowed to love and respect for a lifetime to seek a surreal life with another person is NOT right.

Communication among spouses is key to avoid this and my WH failed to communicate one honest thing. I know there are things that I can do better as a wife and I have communicated these to WH. Has he admitted to any failings??? NO, he tells me I am the same person he married but that he has changed. He says that I have to move on with my life, that he very obviously did when he had the affair. <img border="0" alt="[Teary]" title="" src="graemlins/teary.gif" />

I have a hard time wondering if I have let my WH down in someway, which cause my uncontrollable bursts of emotions every so often, but I know I did NOTHING to warrant an affair in our marriage.

ME: 28 yo faithful wife of 3.5 years
Him: 30 yo
Affair: Last fall over 4 months; ended in Jan
Bomb Dropped: May 04
Separated since: May 04
No kids
No divorce papers filed thank god.

During one of many post D-day conversations centered around the proverbial "why" and "how could you" questions.... H said one of the reasons he felt justified in cheating on me was something I had said to him the 1st year of our marriage! The A occured in the 14th year !!! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" />

Eventually, we both came to the same conclusion, we both have responsibility to treat each other better.

Pep

I am responsible because husband's affair was a revenge affair. However I feel he contributed to my affair by neglecting me. He showed me little affection.

And it most definitely takes TWO to repair a marriage, and TWO to want that in the first place! And it can only be done...TOGETHER.

Originally posted by Genia:
I am responsible because husband's affair was a revenge affair.

Only if you dragged him onto OW's bed and disrobed him and said, "Go for it"...

However I feel he contributed to my affair by neglecting me. He showed me little affection.

Lack of affection contributed to the poor environment of the marriage, not your DECISION to cheat.

If I feel lonely and neglected, and I decide the way to deal with that emotion is to shoot heroin, is my H responsible for my decision to shoot up? No.... I am.

There are healthy ways to deal with life's disappointments, and there are unhealthy destructive ways. We choose.

We gain power over our own lives when we accept responsibility for our choices.

Genia, please consider this question .... next time you are disappointed and feel lost ... how are you going to deal with the situation? Can you see some healthy alternatives available to you?

Pep

I share in the responsibility absolutely. Unlike most people here, I knew about WP's relationship with OM -- and it didn't become an affair for me until WP began to break the vows and promises that she had made to me (sexual exclusivity was not one of them).

Not only did I know about the relationship, but I thought that I "deserved" the pain I was in because I had had outside relationships as well, and had not been perfect in how I handled them.

As I look back on it, my willingness to live with that pain was a real contributor to the downfall of our marriage. Had I been willing to say "I will not live in harm's way" much earlier, a great deal might have been different.

As it was, it took threats to my relationship with my daughter before I was willing to really find a way to protect myself -- and my daughter. By then, well, things had progressed a very long way and I had to choose to protect my relationship with my daughter instead of continuing to work to save my marriage.

If anyone else would like a lesson from this, I would say it is this: Do not minimize your own pain. Do not maximize it, either. Accept it -- and refuse to allow others to harm you. No matter what you have done, not matter whether you "deserve" it or not, don't allow it. If someone is harming you, then confront and expose it. Say no -- this hurts me and I want it to stop. And if they continue, whether it is physical or emotional or sexual, then take steps to remove yourself from harm's way.

That doesn't mean the end of your marriage -- it simply means that we are not required to allow someone else to harm us. We NEVER deserve that.

So do I share responsibility for the affair? Yes. I could have had much better boundaries than I did. However, I wasn't there for any of what OM and WP did -- and WP could have chosen to stop hurting me, either before I started asking or after. She didn't and that choice I do not take responsibility for.

Do I also share responsibility for the downfall of our marriage? Absolutely. That's a 50-50 split.

Yes I feel partly responsible for the failure of the relationship, but not the infidelity.

JustJ hit it right on the nose for me, "no boundaries". Still have trouble with that one, even the meaning gets me confused sometimes. But I'm learning.

Also a huge lack of respect for myself, and he in turn lost respect for me.

I do not feel responsible. Heck no. No way. In fact, if anyone in the marriage should have had an affair, it would have been me if the EN theory were to hold true. I started off with him barely meeting my EN's... He'd put just enough effort into meeting the basics and then hide in the basement playing his instruments or listening to his music all night long. So, yeah, on that principle, I should have been the one to seek an affair. But I didn't. Didn't even cross my mind for a second. And truth is, even with the lack of EN being met, I was still pretty happy because I was happy with myself and where I was. Maybe that wouldn't hold true over the course of several years, but for 4 years I was doing pretty damn good, if I dare say so myself.

That's the short answer anyway. I think spouses who seek affairs don't always do it because their needs aren't being met by the other spouse... To me it seems like they're fundementally insecure and immature enough to believe that the betrayed spouse should be falling all over themselves to make them feel constant warm fuzzies and then when they discovered they married a regular old human being who is just as self-absorbed as they are, they start looking for "fulfilment" elsewhere.

I cheated on my first boyfriend when I was 19 and even though I first started out flirting with another guy just to see if it would make my boyfriend pay more attention to me, it quickly snowballed out of control and I ended up sleeping with the guy. And it sucked. I hated the sex, I hated how I felt afterward, and even though I thought I was perfectly justified in having this ONS because boyfriend wasn't meeting my EN's in any way shape or form, I saw the incredeable mess I'd made for myself by doing this. I became the bad guy. Friends of mine that hated my boyfriend suddenly took his side and refused to talk to me. My bf played the sympathy card for all it was worth and made me feel like the scum of the earth for the next year that we were together. And I stayed and took it because I felt I'd deserved it for betraying him.

But see, the difference here is I did this when I was a kid, when I was entitled to be morally and emotionally immature, got it out of the way and LEARNED MY LESSON. Big time. So, I do know what it's like to try to justify an affair because your needs aren't being met, but I also know it's no way to try to fix the problem. And it just makes things SO much worse.

What's pathetic is that knowing the damage I caused for myself and everyone around me when I was just 19, I look at people decades older than that who are doing this crap to their spouses (myself included) and it just drives me more insane. I know the kind of trainwreck they're heading for at full throttle, and I know how it can stopped, but I can't do a damn thing. I guess I'm just glad I learned my lesson early on and resolved never to make that kind of stupid, immature, wasteful mistake again.

Well, I have been lurking here for months. I must say that this group has helped me more than you could all know. I will post my story here some time soon, it is long...very long...

My situation is a little different. In a nutshell I am reconciling with my EX wife after the divorce she insisted on. I knew of a long emotional affair (4 years) prior to the separation but decided if we were going to reconcile she needed to "come clean". She had a PA with someone about 3 years before our divorce. Our marriage was a mess and had been for years. We ignored our EN's big time. Do I feel responsible for the way that she FELT at that time, Yes? Do I feel responsible for her actions? Absolutely not. Those were her actions and regardless of how she felt they were unacceptable, abhorrent actions. I still can not believe that the woman who constantly questioned my actions (which I understand why she would but I did not have any EA or PA's during my 15 years of marriage); Who berated me over and over for details about what I did or did not do; actually got in her car and drove for an hour to go have sex with some guy she met through work. It sickens me and we are now working on my significant issue:

TRUST

So that's how I feel.... and how I see it.

To blame myself would be co dependent in my eyes....

To me it is like blaming myself for when she was physically abusive...."I made her do it"...

Well...in a nutshell.... that’s crap....

I did not do it...and she had ignored me (physically, emotionally, etc.) for YEARS! Her father could not believe I put up with it....

BOB ,may I start with I am truely happy for this brake through in your recovery !

NOw to answer the question, well much of SARA'S opening statement"""" HE!! NO, NOT AT ALL ,HECK NO !


I could give a hole bunch of well he negleced me thing and I was always there for him, or he thought I pushed him away BLAH BLAH BLAH

BUT M is for better or worse ,,, good times and bad ..... And all that good stuff .

SO there are other ways to fix a problem with out adding the A to the LIST !

HE choice , there where options even D .

I know I am in the minority when I say this but , the hole EN not being met in a M ,,,, well thats tough , if you expect that all the time with out fail then I still belive that makes for ONE SELFISH PERSON !

Do I want my needs met of corse but there are alot of things that happens in life and everyone gets down or depressed ,,, we shouldn't have to worry that our S will run into the arms of another because of it ...
So with that I am done with my 2 cents

After all I am RIGHT and we are M <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" /> LOL

3

Responding to your initial question, Bob:

NO, I do not feel responsible for FWH's A.

I was actually sort of Plan A'ing him at the time because of his depression and Midlife Crisis.

I loved him dearly, told him that daily. Bought little gifts and large ones (very large...talking sports car convertible. Yep! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /> ). Managed our household. Tried to seduce him...gave affection, admiration. Took care of my looks. Was a happy wife with him being in the center of my life. (BTW: I think many maaaaany guys would be thrilled to have a wife like me <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> ).

The only problem that I saw at the time was his depression. He had had that before. So I thought tender loving care plus medication will help him.

Boy, was I wrong. I think it would have been easier to deal with recovery from the A if I could see my fault in "creating the environment" for it.

No, IP pleading "not guilty" to the BS charges.

I do not think the BS should take the responsibility for the WS’s affair. We make our own decisions. It is, perhaps, worth noting that the decisions are not made in a vacuum. I don’t think many WS wake up one morning and just decide to go out and shag the neighbor.

I think moralizing actions presents some problems to a marriage. I mean, affairs are wrong . . . but so is neglect, abuse, lying, indifference, addictions, being a bad or non-participating parent, denial of affection or conversation or financial support or sex. Which of these are good for the marriage? Which is the worst?

If I remember the wedding vows they contain a whole bunch of stuff besides just “forsaking all others” . . . something about promising to love and honor . . . in sickness and in health . . . good times and bad . . . If one partner fails the “love and honor” part and the other fails the “forsaking all others part” . . . which one has the greater grievance? I really don’t know.

<small>[ October 05, 2004, 03:07 PM: Message edited by: Comfortably Numb ]</small>

Many people have already said what I feel on this subject.

I am partly responsible for the problems that we had in our marriage before the A.

BUT, I am NOT, in any way, shape or form responsible for his decision to start a relationship with, sleep with or make future plans with the OW.

In hindsight I can see the problems that helped to create a less than stellar marriage and I will gladly look at myself as his wife and my place in those problems. I take responsibility for not caring for him and protecting our love as I should have.

But the choice to deal with them by betraying our marriage vows by having an A is 100% his choice.

As I think about this, I feel that it would actually be negative to try and take part of that responsibility from him.

As I have looked into my heart and my soul to how I contributed to our problems, I have grown and seen parts of me that I WANT to work on...for me and for us. If he were to claim some responsibility for, say my always turning things around back onto him, what would I learn from that? How would that help ME to see why I do that and how I can change that?

I NEED to and WANT to claim my mistakes and own them. Only then can I change and grow.

If he says, "Well, yeah, you did that but I pushed you there.", what ownership of MY ACTIONS do I have? I have an out.

I must look at my actions and OWN THEM. Only then can i truly change them. He didn't make me not listen. I CHOSE to not listen.

Yeah, there may be reasons I made that choice. But it was still MINE. He is not and can not be responsible for them.

So, I think that taking partial responsibility for HIS choice to deal with our problems by having an A takes away his ability look inside himself as to what allowed him to get to the point of taking that step.

I didn't ask him to have an A. I didn't give that to him as an option. He chose that path.

Why?

Why did your W not choose a different way to deal with your problems? Many people get out of an unsatisfying relationship without having an A. Many divorces happen prematurely without dealing with the issues in the marriage with no A to help it along.

If you take partial responsibility for the manner in which she chose to deal with it, where is her ownership? How can she look deep into her own soul and FULLY claim that mistake and deal with it as a personal choice? How can she fully, deeply, truly forgive herself if she doesn't see that part of herself that allowed HER to choose the A rather than a different way of dealing with the issues?

I don't know if that makes sense or if I said what I'm trying to. It's a long day here at work after a night of trying to get a 9 month old baby to sleep through the night again. I hope it makes sense.

My answer to your question, Bob, is, in a word, No! Will two words clarify my answer? Hell no!

I am remembering some of the fog-talk quoted on another thread. One WW said she had her A because her H bought Coke instead of Pepsi. Another said he had his A because his W didn't attend his collage football game 20 years ago. Now we have an otherwise loving and attentive H not noticing a new hair-do! Someone add this gem to the archives, please

However, this is sort of a chicken or the egg thing to me. My wife started her A a decade ago. During those ten years she was remote, unavailable, critical, judgmental and all-around not nice. She started lots of arguments on a regular basis to keep herself emotionally distant and internally justify her adultery. Penny T says no one can fill the LBank of a person in an A. It's not possible. So, am I responsible for her shutting her deposit window to all my attempts to show her love during all that time? I don't think so.

Further, in those ten years she met none of my EN's. Yet I didn't have an A, and I had definite tangible opportunities and much more motivation than her not noticing my latest haircut! How could anyone hold me even remotely responsible for her choices - especially when mine under the same circumstances were always better choices for her, our family and our M?

OK, for the apologists out there, what missing EN's of hers drove her to her A. Good question. She still hasn't decided what they were. So far, all we have is opportunity, they just clicked, and a certainty she would not get caught.

Oh, and that I tend to lecture when talking to her about things. Ok, guilty as charged. I have taught a lot of engineering and Physics classes. I tend to lecture. So that set the stage for her ten year A. I guess we need to add that to the archives, too.

The start of her A and its long continuance was, we have both agreed, very selfish behavior. Am I responsible for her selfish choices? No. She says I am not. She has owned up to this. And I agree. Am I responsible for her misperceptions and ignoring of my love and care for her? No, not even for that. She should have said something. She has owned up to this responsibility, also.

Some people have a hole of some kind in them that causes self-destructive behaviors. Several authors state that there are certain people, men and women, who would have had their A even if all 10 of their EN's were being met perfectly. I think that is the case in most A's (IMO). Meeting EN's helps recovery. But missing ones are absolutely no excuse for an A. It's always because of something in the person who has the A.

So, what responsibility do I accept? Lots of things including a lack of self respect, lack of appropriate boundaries, conflict avoidance, and continually putting up with some really disrespectful behavior for years even before the A started. I sort of conditioned her to her married singles lifestyle. I let her get away with murder for years, I guess. It became her normal expectation.

Hmm, I think this thread touched a nerve... Bob, next time I am in London we should muse on this over a pint.

T

Bob, no way is my H even marginally responsible for my A.

But what is responsible is my pre-A lack of self knowledge, my selfishness, my lack of understanding how to communicate what was making me unhappy, my conflict avoidance - i.e. if I tell him how I really feel about something he won't love me anymore - and that was about simple things like if I disagreed with him about a movie or a book or a car we should buy. He looked at me in amazement when I said that in MC. Our MC said to him, what if Jenny HAD disagreed with you about something. He said I would have accepted that was her opinion and thought nothing more about it.

I really, really regret that I didn't find MB before the A. There's such a difference between the pre-A me who knew nothing about herself and relationships and the post-A me who has learnt such a lot.

I had a horror that my H was turning into his father, a lovely man, but old when he was 60. He spent the last 20 years of his life sitting outside on the porch with his pipe and a book.

BUT I never TOLD my H that was what frightened me. Hindsight's a wonderful thing but at least now we have the tools to make sure we never get to such a bad place again.

Jen