Hi everyone - Must be something about these holiday weekends, because mine wasn't so great either.


We dealt with alot of this as well this weekend and I think the stress of that added to the stress of our communication and relationship over the weekend.

My H seems to be holding onto some bitterness about me. He doesn't always verbalize this, but when we have these stressful days, it comes out. I don't know how to deal with it because I want forgiveness from him. If he is still having bitterness about everything I've done, has he really forgiven me?

Also, I've been reading the Five Love Languages book again. H is not. But, I have been bringing up topics of conversation to figure out his love language which we cannot determine! I really think he suppresses everything inside of him. My top 2 love languages happen to be his weakness in providing to me. I don't know how we will move forward with this?

Isn't that a great book,2BN? Lots of insight there. We struggled with identifying my love language, my H's was easy.

I am happy to report that my family & I had very pleasant weekend. We spent part of it at home, then went to my parents' lake home for the rest of it. It was good to get away (even though we worked-cleaned, yard work,etc). My H & I had a great conversation and we did work a bit on getting closer. Our 19th anniversary is coming up and he hinted that he has some things in the works for us. So, even though I've sounded impatient with him lately, he is really making an effort on our M.

Speaking of meds, Owl, another improvement for us in the last week or so has been my H and his anti-d. He has a family history of depression and he has dealt with it for years. In light of everything we've dealt with in the last few months (my EA primarily), he has taken a proactive step in working on himself. One thing he did was switch doctors in an effort to help solve some of his issues. Long story short, the new doctor has switched his anti'd and it seems to have given him a new perspective. I have noticed his outlook to be much more positive and this makes a HUGE difference for him AND all of us living with him. Living with a chronically depressed person can be very draining, and I think after a while we had accepted his demeanor to be a certain way. There have been periods where he has found very little joy in life-very difficult to live with day in and day out. I don't think either of us realized that he could be helped even more. Anyway, this could be a huge step for us in that his general outlook on life could be greatly improved.

Cards - Good to hear you and your H had a good weekend and that he has some things in the works for your 19th anniversary.

Regarding the Five Love Languages....my H and I did read the book years ago together and even had a small group in our home on the book. But still...still really can't pinpoint what his love language is? I'm really getting more out of the book this time around though after all that we have gone through over these last 2 years.

We are leaving next Wed. on a family vacation to NYC. Something to look forward to and hopefully will give us some good family time.

Good morning everyone -

Well, my H and I had a LONG talk last night. Both kids were out of the house and it gave us a chance to really go over the things that were bothering us over the weekend. We talked many details of the A, which my H was willing to talk about and even asked questions. He was open to understand me and I was open to understand how he was feeling. I believe it helped us both to understand each other and know where each other is at this stage. My H really needs to feel that trust in me again and to know that I will be there for him "no matter what". I believe he is starting to feel that trust again, but it will take time for it to be proven.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Win - how did your weekend go with your H away? I hope things are going well with you with NC.

Glad to hear things went well with you and your H, friend. Wife and I had a small talk yesterday as well. She asked to drive me to my doctor's appts, as she knew that they were going to dialate my eyes and she knows I hate to try to drive like that.

While we were out, we talked about the rough time we've been having over the last week or so. We both apologized for our parts in the stress and such, and we talked for a bit about one of the things that has bothered me lately...the fact that the OM has resumed playing EQ, and that I/we seem to bump into him a lot whenever we're in game. Now again, he doesn't know ANY of the names of the chars she plays now, and he MIGHT know a couple of mine, but only if he took the effort to find out if we'd changed names. He'd have to LOOK for that. He's not made any effort to talk to either of us, but it still just really bothers me 'seeing' him in game. And my wife let me know that if it would make me feel better, she's more than willing to transfer our chars to another server. She told me that if I had insisted that we do it back when we were first working on things (read: fog and withdrawl times) she would have taken it as a punishment. But now, she can absolutely understand why this is bothering me so badly, and she's willing to do this gladly if it will help me to feel better about things.

We're going to talk more over the next few days on this...and decide what to do. I've also decided to use a character that I plan on deleting to send him a message and find out for sure whether or not it's him or someone else that may have taken his account. But I think it's very sweet and caring for my wife to be willing to make this change in order to help me get past this stuff.

Side note: Should have new AD medicine this evening. Hoping that will help to deal with some of this as well. Again, we're not doing BAD...nothing like things were...but there is a lot of things that we're still dealing with, not even related to the EA issues.

Hope everyone is doing better today...hang in there friends!

Owl - glad to hear that you and your W are communicating well and that she is will to change servers for you.

Just a question to clarify why you feel you need to send the OM a message to find out if it is him? Are you planning on straight out asking who he is?

2BN-

Well, if it really isn't him, then I wouldn't feel the need to 'get away' to another server. It's possible that he's sold his account to someone else, and just because it's his characters, it may not actually be the OM playing them. Now...if it's one of his friends, or him...then absolutely I'd still rather just move to another server and not be around any of them.

And yeah, I plan on just sending him a message directly via the game. I'll do it from a character that I'll delete after that, so that he wouldn't be able to contact me again after we're done talking. And yes, I do think he'd respond honestly if it was him or not...I'll tell him up front that it's me asking, and why. Bluntly, I'm not going to attack him verbally...there's no point in it, and I've come a decent ways in trying to forgive him for his part in things. And I don't expect him to respond badly to me either. If he does, I simply log off and delete that character, and that's the end of it.

Now...I WILL make it clear that he's in NO WAY welcome back in our lives...mine, or my wife's. He's not wanted, by EITHER of us. And I'll make it clear that the reason I want to know if it IS him on these characters, for the express purpose of quitting/leaving the server if it is...to keep him OUT of our lives, even peripherally. But I'm reasonably convinced I can do that without being attacking or aggresive.

I know this sounds confusing, but think of it in a similar situation to yours...what if your husband had ALSO shared that forum where you met OM? And if HE was on and saw that OM was posting there as well...how would he feel?

I really just want to get him out of our lives completely...and seeing him in game when we're logged in doesn't meet that need. So I'm looking to find a way to remove him from sight. Hopefully this will work.


Sys- What are your thoughts on this? Since you're a gamer, I know you'll understand my post a little better.

I think you've got the right tack. I know I wouldn't want to make a server change unless I felt I had too (ie the OM is still active there). There are too many other friends and such that I wouldn't want to do it unless compelled. But, if I knew it was him, I 'd get the hell out of there and start playing EQ2 on Grobb ).

So I understand your need to talk to him directly to confirm the situation. Frankly, I don't know how you are keeping it together and still playing with the suspiscion that he's out there -I would be a wreck -but you're a lot further down the road.

Now I do see a bit of an aggressive trend in your plan. It does seem like this is a golden opportunity to get in your last licks and have the final word -all understandable and if your W has no problem with it I say go for it. God knows I would do it if I could.

Fortunately, my W isn't playing EQLive anymore at all (I have confirmed this). As I've said, the only thing that worries me sometimes is a lack of trust and the knowledge that you can send tells across Sony's games. But that is a different issue altogether and one that honestly doesn't worry me much anymore.

BTW, since my last post I feel things have gotten better at home -I think the whole visit really put us both out of joint, but now things are looking up. My W is talking a lot about how much she's looking forward to our vacation. 2 Months ago our official stance on the vacation was "we'll see.....".

Owl - I think I better understand what you are saying. I'm not familiar with the game so I didn't realize you can sell your character.

Just a thought here...but why not just change servers without contacting this person to see if it's the OM? Why even bother to find out? Or is it hard to change servers once you've been in this game for so long?

2BN-

Well, it will cost me about $150 per account X 2 accounts to transfer servers. Not to mention we'll be unable to actively do things together with other friends that we've made playing on the server that we've been on for the last two years.

Its a hard change...it will be expensive and a tough choice to leave behind other friends if we do so. Based on that...I don't want to spend the money and lose the friends if it IS avoidable. But as Sys noted...it's been soooo hard to log into game and see the OM on game...while I know that it really doesn't change things (in that he could find a way to contact her, or she could contact him if they REALLY chose to do so), it's like having him in front of my face all the time. And while my wife has repeatedly reassured me that she has NO desire to contact him, she's also repeatedly told me that she really was in love with him in the past...so it stands to reason (at least to me) that having him in front of her all the time would just be begging to have one or the other give in and make contact. Whereas if we're on another server, while he may still be there, he won't be 'right there in our faces'.

Sys-

I really don't want to have any confrontation or discussion with him. The ONLY reason I see to talk at all would be to verify that it's him or not, so that I could avoid moving if possible. At this point, I don't hate his guts anymore...but I really can't stand having him around as a reminder of what we've gone through (or as a possible temptation to put our marriage in jeopardy again).

So there's nothing for us to talk about...he says yeah it's me, I'll tell him thanks, wanted to make sure so that we (my wife and I) could decide on the best way to deal with the fact that he's back in game all the time now. Please keep things up the way they are...don't contact me or my wife ever again, nor will you ever hear from us again. I delete the baby character that I use to talk with him, we move to another server, and hopefully 'out of sight, out of mind' will become a way of life for us.

Glad to hear things are going better for you and your wife, friend. I know that you didn't have a lot of hope when you and I first talked way back when on the LS website...isn't nice to look back at how far things have come? I know that I had NO real expectations of improvements within the first few months in my own situation, so I was very stunned by how well we healed and dealt with things. God has His hand in there, big time!

2B
I had a good weekend. I've been doing well without H around. It's been very peaceful and relaxing. I had IC yesterday and found a lot of clarity. We talked about H and OM and it was very helpful to me. She's very non-judgemental which is what I need to figure out my feelings and our relationship. It was refreshing.

I'm going to be honest and just say what people want to hear. I have had contact with OM but it's ok. Well not to you guys, but it's ok. We talked about music and some stuff, and his girlfriend. It was good for me to do. But I probably won't be talking to him much anymore, I don't think. Maybe occasionally but its ok. I have more clarity and I know the relationship is over. I feel like I've let go which is good.

-win

Is the continued contact 'OK' with his girlfriend? Does she know about the affair? Do her feelings about that matter to you?

just wondering...

Pep<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Win-

Not judging you here, but I AM going to intrude a little reality into your world for a moment.

It's ok for YOU to have contact with your OM. But how do you feel it's going to make Bass feel? See, that's part of the problem...you're acting like YOU are the only thing that matters right now...when it's BOTH of you that need to heal. Doing something like this felt good to you...but it's DEVASTATING to rebuilding your marriage, and it's totally heartless to continue to betray someone who loves you very much.

I'm not going to say a single thing more on the subject. I've given you every possible bit of advice I could think of to help you deal with your situation. But at the end of it all, it amounts to nothing if YOU won't do what you need to do to help yourself, and your marriage.

Call the OM all you like...just be ready to accept the responsibility and consequences of your actions. To be completely honest with you, if my wife had continued her EA, and/or had done the things that you've done in this, I feel that I probably would have cut my own losses and either left her and the kids, or booted her out with nothing and let her deal with her own choices.

At this point, I don't think I've got any advice left to give you, unless at some point you finally make a choice to do something to fix your situation.

Edited to add: Maybe you DO need a judgemental IC...someone who makes you take responsibility for your actions instead of enabling you to continue to do whatever you feel is 'ok'.

Amen Owl,

Regards,

JL

Pep,
I don't think the gf knows about me. The EA was over before he met her. We're just platonic friends or former friends.

Here's the thing. I'm not CALLING OM. I'm not going to seek out or email him. But if I see him online now and then and want to say, "hey hows life", then I will do that. If BASS wants to read my IM's he's more than welcome to do that. I have pretty much ended contact with him. I'm just saying, I ran into him and we had a brief chat. NOTHING emotional or sexual happened.

NO owl I dont need judgement from IC, I need to find out WHAT i was looking for in having the EA and if Bass can meet those needs. AND if he can change. Our problems are not about the A, that is not what has destroyed the marriage, it's merely a symptom of things that have gone wrong. And yes it was wrong and I shouldnt have let it continue when it was an EA.

I guess what I learned yesterday was that I don't know if this marriage can be rebuilt and I don't know if I want to rebuild it. And its OK for me to feel that way. If Bass loved me so much for the last 10 years, he would have listened/cared when I tried repeatedly to tell him that I wasn't happy and that I needed more of him and less of his obessive hobbies, ego and controlling behavior.

This board is only for exploring your feelings if you are sure you want to save your marriage. NOt for exploring what all your feelings are and why you are having them.

-win

....and Win,
Every contact, even though you think it's platonic, sets you back to day 1 in withdrawls. You got your fix, and now it will take many weeks/months for you to mentally break free.

Also, while you are in withdrawls, means you are experiencing romantic "love" with OM, that totally overshadows feelings for your H. As long as that biochemistry is running around in your body, you will not have feelings for your H.

So, in essence, if you are trying to determine whether you can love your H, the sure answer is an automatic No, as long as you are in contact with OM and the months thereafter.

I speak from experience. It's been five months of NC for me, and it took a lot of time for feelings for my H to return.

Your friend,
GS

PS - Have you read this article before? Thought it might be helpful to you:

[color:"blue"]There are three states of what we call romantic love in our society. They are all designed to keep the human race alive and genetically healthy on the planet. They can occur simultaneously, one can lead to another, or they can happen completely independently. With the exception of one (which I'll talk about in a sec) they can be felt for more than one person at a time.

These three states create emotional feelings that are driven by the chemicals that occur in the brain. Those chemicals make us feel something towards the person who triggered them - and those feelings are what we call love.

The first is lust - this is the drive that makes us make babies. Baby This keeps the human race going. I think we all get what this one is. Wink

The second is romantic love - the feeling that is characterized by the need to be with someone or talk to them all the time. It is an obsessive state - when we can't stop thinking about the other person. This is the state that can only be felt for one person at a time.

Romantic love lasts for about 3 years (without intervention). Its purpose is to keep the makers of the babies together during the pregnancy and the early childhood years so that they young are not eaten by marauding tigers.

The third stage is attachment. This is the deep contentment, warm, connected, feelings we have for each other. This stage lasts for 20+ years and is designed to keep parents together through the late childhood and teenage years - (when we wish they had been eaten by tigers... Laughing ) to provide for the offspring until they can take care of themselves.

What happens in an affair is that the romantic drive is triggered and the feelings are so intense that they overwhelm and outweigh the feelings of attachment. This is why people having affairs almost without fail say, "I love you, but I'm not in love with you..." They are comparing the intensity of the chemically driven obsession with the warm and loving attachment they have for their mate.

But attachment is the reason they can't simply walk away from the marriage. Attachment - as its name implies - goes very deep. Lust we can destroy - we all know that ! Romantic passion - ditto. But attachment - that's another thing entirely. Attachment is forever.

That's why old lovers pose the greatest danger to a marriage and why it is so crucial that affair partners permanently end all contact. Attachment will keep open a pathway to lust and romantic love and be a threat to the marriage.

How to get over a lover? End all contact. Let the chemicals clear out of the brain. And then replace them with chemistry triggered by someone else - hopefully a spouse.

The other thing to consider is that an affair is new and exciting. We can't fully recreate that novelty with our mate. But we can do things to trigger the same types of brain chemistry and therefore those feelings - if we're willing to do the work.

Romantic love - the obsessive-can't-think-can't-work feeling is not possible to sustain 24/7 long term. It's too metabolically expensive. We can trigger it in bursts and we can be deeply in love and fulfilled with feelings of attachment. [/color]

Gentle

Thanks for the article. I don't feel like my withdrawal feelings are back to day 1. That was completely devestating. NOw I feel sad, but ok with it. I'm moving on.

Gentlsoul,

Thank you for the article on the types of love - good therapy to reiterate and reinforce. If you are still reading, can you share with us how it feels after 5 months of NC? Is withdrawal totally over? Any thoughts at all of OM? Are you & Beavis still progressing?

Thanks!

GS-

Good article. That's the same kind of thing that I read in 'The Five Love Languages', and it helps to put things into perspective sometimes. Sadly, when someone is IN that 'romantic love' stage, they've almost always got blinders on that prevent them from hearing or seeing ANYTHING that would make them see the reality of their feelings at that time. That's why we call it 'the fog'...and even if the relationship ISN'T an affair, the people involved are still 'foggy'.

Hope things are going well for everyone. Not doing well here...constant issues and problems with our oldest son and his GF...and that's putting HUGE stress on everything else right now, to include my wife and I. Add to that the problems I'm dealing with now from dropping the AD's 'cold turkey' for the last week, and I'm having some issues with my insurance covering my prescription, we're having a really bad time right now. But, all I can do is keep doing my part, and praying about everything.

Win - I didn't get a chance to reply yesterday as I ran out of time. I do understand that you don't feel that your withdrawals are back to day 1 with this contact you had with the OM. I've been there and understand that. But, please understand where everyone is coming from. You are still hanging on to this OM even though you say it's ok to yourself. I said the same thing to myself over and over again when I justified to myself that it was OK to have "some contact" with the OM after D-Day.


You said this yesterday, but Win, how can you know if you can rebuld your M if you are still talking to the OM? The contact with this OM, even though it seems OK, is still contact and still puts thoughts of him in your head. You need to clear yourself of this OM in order to know if your M can be rebuilt or if you want to.


Gentlsoul - I enjoyed the article as well. I'm interested in the answer to Card's question as well. You and Beavis seemed to be doing so well.

Hope everyone else is doing well today.