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#1316448 03/01/05 07:04 PM
Joined: Mar 2004
Posts: 1,701
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OK, I hope this helps some,

I needed my WH to talk about his affairs because I needed to understand why they happened (so they could be prevented in the future). Plus I needed to hear from my husband that he regretted what he did, that the OW weren't worth it, that he acknowledged both his responsiblity AND the OWs' responsibility. I needed to know that he wasn't still keeping the OW up on a pedastal in any way.

Also, I was very much afraid and hurt. I felt the least he could do was accompany me through recovery! Great for him that he could so easily move on and just forget about it... meanwhile I was still suffering in the mess he and the Ow created. It turns out my WH did not love me enough to help me recover. Basically his attitude was get over it ASAP OR ELSE he would dump me! He just expected me to stifle my concerns and suffer in silence. I honestly tried my best to forgive and forget minus any assurances, accountability, changes from him. I also worked on the marriage and improving myself. But he just kept having affairs. In the end I lost him anyway, in spite of, or rather BECAUSE, I trusted his insistence on doing recovery his way.

#1316449 03/02/05 08:10 AM
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 5,906
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this post is full of such wisdom...

the advice in it is like the best of the best both in WS and BS...

It clearly displays so much of the treacherous waters of recovery that I often think that recovery is much much harder and scarier than an active/actively ending affair...

I'm gonna ramble on some of this....but it's mostly self serving just to keep this post alive on page one....

Lets not forget that most annoying current of human nature that runs thru all of us...

fallingup speaks of the FWS trying hard to move away from the actions that defined her as a WS...
and poor OAK feels stranded that the person in front of him is still like a stranger..

one that could engage in such hurtful behavior and now suddenly says ....OK I'LL JUST QUIT BEING THAT HURTFUL PERSON....

There's some silly quote out there about to truly understand any other living thing we must gently crawl in to them and feel the beating of their heart....

FALLINGUP my advice to you would be stop formulating your response to OAK for what he is asking and just take some to listen to what he is saying......


no more I don't understand responses...
just listen and have OAK keep talking about what he is saying he needs or wants....
just listen...

He's actually offering you a gift...you yourself say of the you and those actions back then...

In order for me to bring things up about my A's, I would have to consciously remind myself to think about it, because I just DON'T on my own. It's not part of my daily mental topic list.... and it's not a part of my head that I like to visit.

In OAK's musing is also a gift of lay that burden down fallingup...share it with OAK the good the bad and the ugly.....and you will feel the weight lifted.....
for it is not his to pick..but yours and his to leave behind....

quit worrying about your view of it being counterlove...he asks out of love....not out of blame ....

OAK my advice to you is to not confuse the fear of FALLINGUP's being associated/identified as that person today....as you seek to understand who and where she was while a WS....

that you should be very very ready to hear the good the bad and the ugly...
and see your wife as she is today no matter who she was back then...

So, even now 8 months past D-Day, I feel that she hides her real thoughts and feelings from me frequently. Again, when I ask a direct question, it is not uncommon for her to change her answer several times in very short order.

I'm not sure that this is not somewhat a normal occurance...between people....but so much of normal becomes skewed or microscopic when dealing with affairs....

human nature even with our spouse can lead us to say what we first think our spouse wants to hear...
we are all guilty of this....
and then after refection or testing of the waters we can then open up and change our answers not because the first response wasn't true..it was most likely safer......

in a perfect world we would all say it perfectly the first time asked anything....but I don't think that happens all the time...

I also would think that WS are scared scared scared that their BS who is willing to recover will have an epiphany if told something they don't like and hit the road....

it sounds like a scary place to be sometimes...

ARK

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