This is what I need to remember. He is doing the best he can for us.


For us, not only this last time, but 3 times! He cannot and will never understand why? And why repeatedly?


This is true in our case. My H had no idea what was going on (during the A's) yet he was trying to help me and figure out why I was acting like I was. He was doing everything he could possibly think of, yet I kept pushing him away.

My H hasn't blown up like this in a good while and it just brought me back to the way I felt when we were dealing with everything on D-Day. Not as bad of course, but a reminder of how it was. I'll move on past this and learn that we shouldn't be watching such shows together.

Well, he may not understand, but YOU need to. In my opinion, it's absolutely CRITICAL that YOU figure out why you've done this three times, and make the changes you need to make to ensure that it doesn't happen a fourth time.

Just hang in there...remember, things WILL get easier with time.

Hope everyone else is doing good today.

I mentioned this to my H last night and mentioned that I feel I need counseling to figure this out. That's when he said it's so black and white and what's there to figure out? To him, there should be nothing to figure out except do what's right. I don't know how to respond to that. I tried to get him to understand that I need to figure it out for myself, but we didn't get beyond it being "black and white".

Maybe its hard for the BS to realize that WS fell out of love with them for whatever reason? That WS's maybe felt hurt, neglected or whatever was going on in your situation before the EA's began? I think it's much easier to have something concrete to be blamed for, like an A. It's much harder to say my H ignored me and my feelings for 5+ years than it is for him to say my W had an A. I"m not saying that A's are right or justified, but its much easier to blame someone whose had one.

I know for me when the A began, I wasn't getting any EN's from my H so it was very hard to think of turning them down from OM when he was freely giving it. When you finally start feeling special to someone and cared for, its nearly impossible to stop it. Or maybe it just doesn't seem that wrong until you are too far gone. For me, I wasn't having a PA, my H knew I was talking to OM, so what was so bad? That I liked it? I didn't realize that I was falling in love until it was too late.

It's not all black and white. And I don't think BS can really understand how it happens unless they've been a WS. Feeling loved and cared for and getting attention is something we all crave, and when someone gives it too us, and we aren't getting it in our M, its very hard to say no.

-win

Win Bin,

You said
My answer: No it is not hard to say no. Many people do.

That it is important that 2BN figure out why she has made the choices she did. What did she tell herself to make it OK to violate her standards, her morals, her boundaries, her knowledge of what is right and wrong. What made her feel entitled to violate herself so? That is the question she needs to address or she will cheat again.

You will do the same for the same reason. You think you KNOW your reason for your decision, but you have only looked deep enough to blame your H. What you have not figured out apparently is that you not only violated your marriage vows, your violated yourself and whatever standards you set for yourself. If you respond that you did NOT violate your standards, then fine. But, you really have no business making vows of marriage with anyone if you feel not getting your needs met justifies violating your marriage vows. The vows have no meaning then, and the honest thing to have done is to have divorced your H BEFORE you went in search of the good time feelings.

2BN is right she needs to understand and she might very well require good counseling to figure that out.

God Bless you both,

JL

Hi Win - The "black and white" my H is referring to is the "choice of having an A" and not necessarily how the A happened. You either make the "right choice" or the "wrong choice". He feels us WS's should know to make the "right choice", but what he fails to understand is once you find yourself getting "hooked" into an A or EA, it's so very hard to turn to make the right choice even though you know the A is wrong. I should have been strong enough to turn away from it he feels. In reality, I should have set up boundaries for myself and my M, that I would never be put in the position of making a choice to pursue an A. This is what I have to do now to make sure it NEVER happens again.

How have you been Win? You haven't posted much these last few days.

I agree with what JL says about the need to find out WHY the WS chose to do what they did. No one does something for 'no reason'...everyone has something that motivates them to make the decisions that they do. In order to make sure that you make the RIGHT decisions in the future, you need to understand why you made the wrong decisions in the past.

Everyone is tempted to 'cross that line' at some point. I had a female friend that I was talking to during my wife's EA trying to get some kind of perspective on what was going on in my wife's mind. In retrospect, I could have put both her and I in a bad situation, as we were doing exactly the wrong thing...talking about problems in our relationships. And when I realized that what I was doing could lead to something like that...I ENDED our discussions and talks. Now...I never got 'special' feelings for her. But I recognized the RISK, and walked away before I put myself into jeopardy. And all of this was BEFORE I realized what was actually going on between my wife and OM. And THAT is what seems 'black and white' to the BS...because if we were able to avoid that kind of temptation, it's hard to understand why our spouses couldn't.

In my case, your comments about boundaries hits dead on the money, 2BN. THAT is where my wife failed. She didn't understand those boundaries, and wouldn't listen to me when I tried to explain to her why she needed to have them. And because she didn't have boundaries, it allowed things to go too far and got us into the situation we were in.

NOW she understands.

This all make sense to anyone besides me? LOL

I'm not saying that 2b doesn't need counseling to find out why she has done this repeatedly. I think she does. I think all WS need counseling to find out why the A happens.

Yes, 2b I'll say it can be hard to make the right choice. But if I hadn't made the wrong choice, my H never would have wanted to change. Unless I had decided to move out before the A because of the neglect, and that IS what I should have done.

I think the reason some people have A's is vaired and complex. And as WS we need to find out how and why they have happened, it's true.

2B I haven't been doing great the last few days. I don't really know what to post about it except that I feel miserable and I don't really know what anyone can say to make it better. It's a really hard time of year for me, too many memories. Sometimes I just want to crawl out of my skin, try to find some peace. I don't see how I'll have any for a long time. And I'm just tired. Tired of myself and my problems and my emotions. I have visited OM's web page a few times, haven't emailed him though. Still working on it. I know you all say it gets better, so I'm just waiting.

-win

My H keeps far away from conversing with women about personal problems within their M. He had a secretary that was going through a D and my H would never engage in "any" conversation with her regarding her D and what was going on. He KNOWS the boundaries that have in place to prevent anything from happening. NOW he is even more cautious as a result of my more recent A's.

With this most recent OM, I did not recognize that it could be a problem. I felt he was helping me with my M and letting go of the first OM. I never saw the danger of it as we talked everyday all day long. Near the beginning, the OM warned me if we got too personal that we could get attached, but I didn't believe him. In my mind, I thought NEVER in a million years would I get attached to him! He tried to keep all the focus on "my problem" to avoid anything. But...it didn't work too well for either of us obviously.

The thing about boundaries is we all know what is right and wrong, but we have to know where those boundaries have to be in place for each of us.

Win - I understand how you feel. Withdrawal is tough! It WILL get better. It's easy to say focus on something other than the OM, but you must try as hard as that is. Try to do something fun and just for you to get your mind off the OM.

When is your H going away? Or is he not?

Yes, my H is going away for 10 days. Frankly I need some space from him anyway. He doesn't have to worry about me contacting OM because OM won't talk to me. I'm not going to contact OM because I don't want to. I want to move on so I can figure out what I want to do. I'd like to be happy again.

I have IC while he is gone so I think that will help. I have some things planned with family and friends.

Win - It's good that you have IC and things planned while your H is away. That will definately help. Hopefully your H will be communicating with you while he is gone and letting you know how is trip is going and you letting him know how you are doing. Space is good sometimes, but you both still need to communicate especially right now.

Yes, boundaries. Something I had never before thought about as I was never even close to the situation I found myself in. I was naive and also unaware of how quickly I could become involved, which is what I was alluding to yesterday. Now I will be AWARE of the fact that there must be boundaries, although I have to say I haven't fully defined them for myself. I expect an alarm to sound off in my head if/when I approach a danger zone and start to have "a feeling". If I think back, it's hard to even know at what point I crossed the emotional boundary-I wish I knew that. It was my responsibility to know myself well enough and recognize when I was vulnerable. I guess that's where us WS's fail.

Win, I feel for you. I am sorry you are so miserable right now, but IT WILL GET BETTER. Really, IT WILL. Expect it to take time, I know you know that. Keep posting even if you feel horrible and think no one cares. We do.

JL, excellent thoughts. We have hurt ourselves by compromising what we know to be wrong. For us to have done that, the issues have to be addressed or the pattern continues along with the degradation of ourselves.

2B, I'm not sure what all happened between you & H (I missed the post), but sounds like an argument that made you feel pretty awful. I hope that the two of you can really get to the bottom of the problems. I'm sure your H has a lot of inner struggles with the fact that he has had to deal with this more than once. I'm sure he wonders how you both somehow failed to fix the problems after the first time. But, what is important is that you BOTH are still there. If you are both willing to work at it, you will prevail.

Cards - I think the boundaries that have to be in place must prevent "any feeling" from ever happening. We should NOT ALLOW ourselves to engage in continued personal conversations one on one with the opposite sex. For me this means - NO EMAILING the opposite sex period! (unless they are related of course!). And NO IMing the opposite sex. I have no problem in "real life" with my boundaries. It's the online "secrets" that got me in trouble.

The issue that occurred with my H and I resulted from my H and I watching a Dr. Phil show yesterday on an A. It was on the story of Michele and Brad Hall (who do post on the Child/Pregnancy forum). It brought many triggers for my H which lead to the "black and white" conversation. I was emotional about this today, but we are doing better now and spoke on the phone today briefly.

2BN-

You're right on the money about not emailing or IMing other men at all. That's not QUITE the boundary my wife has set, but it's similar. She does occasionally still email or IM with male friends, but she's MUCH more careful about what they talk about, and she's far more aware of how things are said and could be taken. So I'm comfortable with her boundaries at this point too. And bluntly, she knows that I can and will see at least her side of any conversation on the computer, so she's comfortable with talking with these guys knowing that she's not doing so in secret.

Cards-

I think that you would want to set a boundary up that would happen BEFORE that warning bell goes off in your mind. Because it's possible that it might be 'too late'...or at least, far later than you might prefer. It helps to THINK about what the limits should be...and if you have trouble with that, then think about what limits you would expect HIM to hold to if he had a conversation with a woman.

Win-

Sorry to hear that you're still having a tough time of it. Again, part of the healing process is to simply let scabs build up over the wounds...time and distance are the only things that will help you to recover from the withdrawl. But it DOES get easier.

Precisely how my W's EA began -she found the OM to be a sympathetic ear, a shoulder to cry on over her unhappiness with me. We still haven't discussed this aspect of bounderies. I'm not sure that she feels like being lectured on how to behave in the future just yet. Do any of you think that discussion is more urgent than I do?

quote by Cardsonly

I wanted to bring this up Cards. When my H and I first went to MC, the MC told me I was naive. I didn't believe it nor could I hear her say that at the time. (deep in that fog and withdrawal!) My H and I actually argued about the MC's words - my H saying the MC was right of course. I now admit that I was naive to know what could have happened when I communicated with these men.

I couldn't hear it at first...see my post above. But it is critical for your W to know her boundaries to prevent it from occurring again. Some type of discusstion should take place.

Personally Sys, I'd wait until you've gotten a little further down the recovery path to have that discussion. The ONLY reason that I'd consider it right now is if you have a concern that it might happen again in the near future...if she's in the habit of talking with other guys (other than OM) online, and you've got the fear that she could repeat her behavior while trying to recover from this EA.

My wife didn't like to hear it either. Partially because while she was still in the fog and withdrawl, she absolutely refused to take any responsibility for what happened. But, after we'd been in MC for a few months, she was able to talk about that more, and while she still didn't like hearing it from me, she was at least able to get it from our MC.

Think about the timing of talking to her about this. If there's not much risk of a new A/EA starting up right now, then I'd wait until she's starting to be able to talk and accept some ownership of what happened. If you've got a worry now, then I'd deal with that worry now.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I figured. There's really no risk I can see. Might as well wait. I do have this desire to lay it all out for her as to why this thing happened and what it really was, etc. -not a good idea at all, but there's a part of me that wants to educate her in hopes that it will bolster her resolve and give her more insiight into the situation.