Hi there....in one of your posts you offered to "talk" to me. I would like to hear what you have to say.

Thanks,
Onlywords

Hi Onlywords,

How nice to "see" you!! i must admit, i might be saying that for selfish reasons too. i am feeling so lonley these days. It is really hard putting relationships back together, isn't it?

you got such excellent responses on the other thread. I don't know if I can add anything. well, i'm sure i could if i wasn't having such a hard morning myself...

for me, the current struggles are due to my carelessness of not cleaning out my sent box and for not removing a bookmark to the OM's yahoo photo albumn. 2days ago, my H ended up on my work computer and pulled up my mailbox and then clicked on the sent box. because he was not actually connected to the work network, he could not read anything other than the list of subjects. so that night he asked me to log on and let him read. i watched as he did. the good news is he discovered no email that contained explicit or graphic language. generally speaking i never didn't write emails like that. he did find various emails in which i was telling the person how bad i was trying to break my addiction to the internet and OM. I had many internet based "pen pals" but those were the people that i did NOT meet in person and with whom the main conncetion was friendship, not sexual. he also found that all he saw, syncs up with what i have told him occured, time wise and all. so that was good. but the bottom line is, he has withdrawn into a bit of a cave. he needs some time to recover and get back to feeling close.

I didn't do anything terrible and i think he would even acknowledge that but the bottom line is he felt, well here is a problem, i'm not sure exactly how he felt, he did not say directly, but i assume he felt insecure, threatened, angry... and so he needed to withdrawal a bit.

his withdrawal impacts me. i feel very lonley. for the past 2 days, i have not had any interaction with him in the morning. normally he sleeps in until after i am gone anyway but at least he says a sleepy good morning to me and puts his arm around me for a few minutes. due to work, he has been gone for dinner and the majority of the evening and he has stayed up way later than i could consider staying up with him so i go to sleep alone too. last night he came to bed earlier but he literally laid down with his back to me and did not even say goodnight.

that is SO hard for me!!!!

and i'm sure many of you can say, i can empathize with how hard that must be. I am not a person that does well with lonliness. there was so much neglect in my childhood and my H was so withdrawn for so much of our marriage, prior to me going nuts on the internet. isolation from my H really gets to me.

but the point is... if i want the marriage to heal, i have to deal with it and i have to give more to him right now. i have to give him more empathy and time. patience is the hardest thing for me to deal with. wanting to move on too quickly will not work, it just won't. RH is not ready to forgive OM, he may never be. but he does want to forgive and rebuild with you.

i too am dealing with extended family issues. H wants nothing to do with ANY of my siblings or my mom. and that ends up including my neice and newphews too. i don't believe it is healthy or should be this way forever but i'm not discussing that now. he needs time to heal. my mom pressures me pretty consistently, tries to say H needs to learn forgiveness and i have to keep saying to her, he needs TIME TO HEAL!!!! "if he is going to work on forgiveness, nothing personal mom, but i rather he work on forgiving me and on our relationship before he worries about others outside of the marriage." and that quites her down for about 5 days, then she starts up again. i actually think she is getting the message now.

so i have rambled a ton.. not sure if any of it helped.

now i will touch on one more thing, rambling has helped me, and now i can remember more of what i was thinking about for you yesterday. and that is, how have you been doing with internally figuring out why this happened? you know you cannot answer because the marriage was in a bad state. that is not why this happened. yes, a bad marriage can leave a person vunderable but that does not explain the choice you made to deal with a bad marraige (i guess i am assuming the marriage had weaknesses).

before you even try to answer my question, do you truely believe what i have said? specifically a bad marriage does not explain a person's choice to deal with a bad marriage. please understand, i'm not saying you have to agree with that stmt. i'm asking if you do or not. and hard as it may be, give me your most sincere honest answer to this, not the one you think you "should" say. OK?

if you would rather take this off the board, i would understand. i realize i am asking you to make yourself quite vunderable by answering that question. and that can be very hard to do on MB if you are not prepared to deal with other posters opinions. i'm sure you know exactly what i mean. i was able to learn to put on a tougher skin, but i know that is not easy for everyone to do. i'm not sure how i managed it. i guess i was just so desperate for help. by filtering out the hurtful posts and concentrating on the helpful ones (and helpful does not mean not challanging, the most helpful ones are the ones that challange your thinking) i have gotten much benefit from here. by the way, determining which posts are helpful and hurtful is your decision alone. don't be afraid to own those decisions and don't even worry about stating them, unless you really need to. but as much as you can, just give your energy to what will help you, not hurt you.

ok, did i write enough yet??? lol

FL,

Thanks for reaching out to me. Do you know how few people do that? Me included. It's scary to do, fear of rejection and all that. I don't care what anybody here says. They are working with a very limited knowledge of me, RH, and our situation, and it only matters to me what RH thinks. But should it? I don't know. There's so much I don't understand, and I am afraid I never will, and I end up feeling really stupid for not "getting it" sometimes, and then I think, well.....if I don't get it within a certain amount of time, is he going to give up and leave? Am I going to give up? None of the mistakes I make are made intentionally to hurt him. And now I realize that the "mistakes" he made in the past I was holding against him, and not trying to come to some understanding, though I did try at times and got nowhere. I finally decided that I'd rather not ask for anything than to be shut down, ignored, or rejected. That is how I felt so often, and maybe it was a warped perspective on my part....I'm still not really sure. But whatever it was, RH and I want to move on together. I have to let go of all the resentment and hurt I was holding inside. that's not so easy. But I think I'm doing ok, because whenever he does something that reminds me of the "old ways", I stop myself from reacting from that hurt place, and remind myself that he has forgiven me, so I will forgive him for making a mistake. I try to think that every day is a new day and he gets to start over. How else can you do it?
Anyway, about your question....I think I do agree with you....that I didn't make the correct choice in dealing with a "bad" marriage, and that is why I had the affair. I understand that you are saying that the bad marriage isn't to blame. It is the way I deal with difficult things that is to blame. I run, I hide, I lash out, I retreat into myself. In this case, I ran away from RH, I hid from the problem, and I told myself I deserved better and convinced myself it was ok to take what I wanted because nobody stands around waiting to give you anything. It wasn't as simple as that sounds, because I did try to push OM away when he first approached me....for two months I wouldn't even let him in the house. I really struggled with the whole idea, but he persisted and I finally gave in. I wanted to give in yet I had trouble doing that at first. I could only stand for two measly months.
I'm afraid to admit to people my weaknesses, my hurts and my feelings. That includes RH. I probably don't have to tell you how that happens in a world like ours. But I don't know how to get above that especially now because my weaknesses, hurts, and feelings are "out there" and come under fire from time to time, especially on this board. At least that is how I see it. I fear that I will NEVER live this down, that no matter what I do or don't do in the interest of our marriage, OM will always be "around" to screw that up, without my help. That's what I was trying to say on the other post....even if I do what I need to do to make RH feel safe, OM is always going to be around like a little rat, doing sneaky little things but eluding the trap.

I guess you and I are a lot alike. I ramble sometimes, too! And I get very lonely around here. And the other night RH was late coming home because he had gone to an office party and when he DID get home, he went right to the TV and computer. It felt like he was purposely avoiding me, and this was BEFORE i waved to OM.
Well, I gotta go fer now!

Take care,
Onlywords

Hi onlywords,

sorry for the delay in responding, i was gone from my desk. i read the other thread too. it is so sad to see two people who love each other have such a hard time at it. i could hear your frustrations. everyone is different, if this place is not good for you then you should not post. if you would like to ever communicate via email, that would be cool. i like this place because i like reading many different perspectives, it helps me, but that is just me. for me, the trick has been to take what is good and helpful and let the other stuff go without comment. i hear you feeling the need to defend yourself. like you said yourself, RH's opinion of you is what is most important, not anyone here.

i can't agree enough with the message of, you and RH have to sit down and talk this stuff thru. what he is ok and not ok with AND what YOU are ok and not ok with. this is NOT about just doing whatever RH says, it is about the two of you loving communicating and coming up with a plan that you are both happy with. if RH bringing up OM upsets you, he needs to understand that. if it would help RH to be told about ANY type of contact, he needs to communicate that to you. and then out of love, he stops bringing up OMs name and you tell RH about ANY type of contact.

the point is you guys sit down and LOVINGLY talk to each other about what helps you each and what hinders you. very simple, not always easy!

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> I have to let go of all the resentment and hurt I was holding inside. that's not so easy. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">i can relate to the holding of resentment in. it really can do a lot of damage but at the same time it is so very hard to let it go. some of it may be so deep, you don't even realize it is working on you.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I'm afraid to admit to people my weaknesses, my hurts and my feelings. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">and boy can i relate to that too!!!

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">the other night RH was late coming home because he had gone to an office party and when he DID get home, he went right to the TV and computer. It felt like he was purposely avoiding me </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">this is a good example. when this happened did you communicate to him how you FELT in response to his actions? and if so, did you do it in a loving way so that he could really hear you and not jump into the defensive mode himself?

lets say he is watching the TV and/or on the computer, and you are feeling neglected/lonley... if you were to go up to him, maybe give his neck or shoulders a rub (i'm envisioning that maybe you will be walking up from behind him if he is at a desk) and say to him, honey, i'm feeling (fill in the blank). the trick is DO NOT say, i think you are avoiding me, instead try, I am feeling ________. and then say, _______ would help that feeling go away. this means you have to figure out what would help, is it turning off the tv so you two can sit down togther and talk about the day, maybe listen to music together or maybe play a game of backgammon (that one helps me when i want to interact but i want it to be light-hearted interaction).

i really feel for you as well as rap, having OM so nearby. i am very lucky that is not the case with me.

you are welcome for reaching out to you <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> this stuff is REALLY REALLY HARD. i know that. but i do truely believe there is reason to hope in a better future because of or in spite of it all. again, if you want to communicate off the boards let me know, but i would have to ask you to post your email address, since mine is my last name and my place of employment. or if we know we are both on at a particular time, it would just mean posting it and then taking it off as soon as the other sees it. love to you. Karen

<small>[ December 10, 2004, 02:40 PM: Message edited by: FinallyLearning-T2M ]</small>

bump

<small>[ December 10, 2004, 04:43 PM: Message edited by: Recovering H ]</small>

thanks RH, tell her she has mail <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

I will but she's mainly a morning person (for the pc). Today was kinda rough. Thanks.

RH, i'm taking off for day now and probably won't sign on much over the weekend. i know this place is hard on her, i don't know why it is i am able to not take things too personally here. some posts can be hard to read, and not cuz they are challanging my thinking but because how they are written only hurt me. i get so much out of the posts that do challange my thinking that i am able to push the others ones away. sometimes i even manage to post how i feel in response to a msg in a healthy way, now that is some good practicing when that happens!!!

i hope you two can just relax this weekend and enjoy each other's company. find something FUN to do together!!!! it does not have to be anything elaborate, play cards, listen to music, read each others fortunes (kidding!!). point is, it does not matter what it is, just that you have some FUN together.

and if she likes flowers, maybe bring her some home!! lol, ok, i am only saying that cuz H is not to a point where he feels comfy bringing me flowers, he has flat out saying that. big sigh, but, he is still with me and we are communicating good, that is worth way more than flowers. and someday, i am sure he will start buying them again.

take care

Hi Onlywords and RH,

hoping you see this. HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY!!!!

I just said a prayer for you guys.

It sounds like you guys are doing better. YOU ARE BOTH GOING TO BE OK!!! love to you, Karen
p.s. things are looking up for us today too, i plan on doing what i wish for you, having a wonderful day with my H.

Thanks FL! We did have a pretty good day. Started the Christmas exchange with relatives already. The kids were happy this evening. Why are Christmas get togethers so tiring? I didn't even do anything and I'm tired. Anyway, I wish this rain would go away for awhile and the cold continue to stay away. Hope you had a great weekend by the time you read this. (Plus, Iville will be probably about 12-20 pages longer than when you left.)

R

hi RH,

glad to hear you and onlywords had a good weekend. H is still on the distance side. there really is nothing i can do about that. i can however watch my own actions as i deal with my emotional mood. i think i am doing that very well. i did loving acts, kept my mood up, enjoyed the kids.

i have not heard from onlywords yet. i assume she got my email. tell her i said hi.