Sally,

You and I were posting at the same time, so yours popped in while I was typing.

I liked what I heard.

I liked it in that you are looking at faults - yours and his.

I liked it in that you are also looking at benefits - yours and his.

Means you are thinking and examining who SALLY is. That is important, because this is NOT about HIM. He is who he is and that is out of your control. Only who YOU are is in your control.

Use this board. Use it as a sounding board. Most everything you post will have people respond who aggree and disaggree. There is almost never a unanimous decision (other than adultery is wrong). Questioning yourself invariably leads to the question of "am I lying to myself?"

Use these responses to dissect that. Shore up the definition of Sally. Once that is done, act accordingly.

At this point, my only piece of advice is that your significant other (unlike your children) is NOT a reflection of who you are, or your worth.

Barring that, I would give you two quotes. The first is about lying (and honesty IS a virtue)

"If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything." - Mark Twain

The second is one of my favorites:

"Where sense is wanting, everything is wanting." - Ben Franklin

The lesson there, be sure. If you are sure, you won't second guess later. Make sure your decision makes sense for YOU.

NCW

Urm, please note, I did include women in my human nature honesty query. I didn't discriminate. :-)

I think for now, morals notwithstanding, need for home first, need for anything else regardless of potential for reconciliation. I'll remember to "turn not pale".

Ben Franklin and Mark Twain - two of my faves - and so very different in their regard for love; spiritual and sexual. Interesting juxtaposition! Shall I be an ascetic celibate or a "delight and comfort"?? I'm laughing. It's a nice way to close the week from D-day 2 until tonight.

So any insight on why he is sending me these good-night notes every night? Pity? Manipulation? They're plain and lovely. Now my nose hurts.

G'night everyone, Sally

Sally - your description of his behavior paints him as a typical cheater. Hiding the tabacco use is not typical. Perhaps he has deper issues than a typical garden variety cheater.


This is typical of cheaters. Usually a hallmark of guilt. Plain and simple, he's trying to smooth you over. No more complicated than that. But cheaters don't see it so obviously. They usually have a false sense of assurance that they are successful. Same thing with the lies. They believe they are successfully passing lies that a 6 year old wouldn't believe.

Back to practical matters. Your priority to settle housing prior to exposure is logical - if you stand to gain financially or otherwise by NOT pissing him off right now. But only you can make this call. Once the property split is accomplished, will you still have a desire to reconcile? If not, then exposure is moot, other than to do right for the OW's H. It's easy for me to imagine a property split/exposure poker game where you hold 4 aces - because I'm not in the game. You strike me as an intelligent woman - just act on your smarts and not your emotions or hopes on this score.


Makes sense to me. You SHOULD NOT be penalized for honoring your commitment. This is my logic when I allude to playing hardball or poker with the property settlement. You hold the aces aka exposure.

WAT

Sally

Just a drive by posting to say that WATs exposure advice helped save my marriage and quite possibly my life.

Don't just hear, it HEED it.

All blessings

Oh no...

Called the OWH. When he answered I couldn't speak. I think I actually stuttered before I hung up. I couldn't leave it alone but couldn't follow through. I feel cowardly and more than a little sick to my stomach thinking I'm going to make OWH feel sick too.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat.
Sally

Call him back to follow up the message.

You're not the one making him sick.

Sally

I was sick in a thorn bush on a supermarket carpark after I called OM GF to expose to her.

OMW in your case needs to know. You did the right thing.

Did you feel an itch in your right hand ?

That was the whip passing from WH and OW to you <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

As I sit here hyper-ventilating, i'm really wondering what is wrong with me for wanting to reconcile.

I know I've already said I could be a judgmental pain, I was ashamed to realize I'd been so impossible that he was too scared to tell me certain things about himself.

Now that I know about the A, I'm still very sorry that I didn't do better at presenting a more open and compassionate demeanor to him in the first place, but I also wonder was that really my love-busting behavior? Would he have lied anyway? EIGHT years is a long time to lie about anything.

Maybe I am living in a fantasy? I don't like being this suspicious person. I'm not sure I have a strong enough character for this. Maybe I don't love him enough to see this through? I thought I did right up to the minute AFTER I tried reaching the OWH. Then I just felt sick. I don't know what was expecting...

That's what it seemed like. Last night's note, for all it's moving sweetness, seemed to have an agenda. Something there just was... off. But I have a predisposition to think about how people use words and phrasing in certain ways. I know that every time I talk to him I am as accepting and nice as I can be. He must think that's really weird.

Guess I need to think on this some more.
Sally

bOb, thank you for letting me know I'm not the only one. I'm still walking around with my stomach in my throat. I feel no itch. No relief. No power. Does it really start feeling better? Or does it just start feeling - older?

Sally

Yes, but who's fault is this? Have you always been a suspicious person?

Susan

I am naturally a person who likes to find answers to puzzles. I'm not historically a suspicious sort, nor have I ever been much of a Why-me-er, but I feel like I'm both now. That is what I don't like. I don't like that I am reacting to this by being whiny and suspicious and untrusting.

Sally, the realisation that I now controlled the situation came when Squid ( my FWW) talked REALLY hardball, but did nothing to back them up with actions.

"You've just smashed your last chance for our marriage ! THi is the excuse OM and I have been waiting for to move in together"

While she was in my house, in my bed and in my life. OM was scared to death he might lose his family and home.

I realised I had done exactly the right thing at exactly the right time. I had to take responsibility for the stuation there and then. It rebuilt my broken self-worth.

I have never felt so empowered in all my life.

I pray you achieve the same with AT LEAST my success.

Sally, but it is normal to feel suspicious and untrusting when you are dealing with an untrustworthy person. Only an insane person would afford trust to an untrustworthy person. And folks normally are whiny and upset when they are betrayed. Yours are very normal reactions to the situation and not caused by some sudden character defects.

Hi Sally - can you describe any response from OW's H?

A couple things - do not be over critical of yourself for being "suspicious." Suspicions have their place and you certainly are there.

Also, there is no such thing as privacy in a marriage - or shouldn't be. His accusations of you invading his privacy are right from the WS script. Accept them as such. If he presses you for an explanation, respond that you were not invading his privacy, but rather his secrecy.

Hi all, thanks for the encouraging words. Keep 'em coming. My goal is to sometime soon have a normal, good day.

WAT, I didn't really say anything in my stuttering before hanging up - I so completely freaked.

I'm wandering around not really knowing what to do with myself. I am considering packing the boys in the car and just driving far, far away. It's a nice little fantasy.

What else? Had a quick bite with a friend last night. He made a quasi-pass I think. ewwwww. Hence the quick. That seems to be happening a lot lately. Sure does tell me who my REAL friends are (or aren't).


Sally

Sally

Please heed me.

People will hit on you if they think your R is struggling. I was hit on by 2 work colleagues, a fellow gym user, a barmaid..an old friend... and as a BS its really hard to stay strong. Its one reason I put my wedding ring back on.

Too scary.

Stay strong and faithful. Grace under pressure.

I have zero interest.

Anyone who's known me for longer than five minutes would have, should have, known I was, and (sadly for me) still am, very much in love with super rat WSO. Seeing about sex with me because I'm living alone? As if!

Strange, 37 seems awfully young when life stretches long and lonely ahead and yet, 37 seems verrry old when I consider that I still would like to have a family and I'm nowhere near that stage in a relationship anymore.

That was a whine-free general observance btw.

oh, and uh, aside from being the most naive woman on the planet, I'm also the clumsiest. Imagine a romantic comedy where heroine feels the first stirrings of love and attraction for hero, turns and walks smack into wall. Grace under pressure is part of my Plan A program. :-)

Sally

BTW, Sally, when I suggested you were being naive, it was in the context of being a "fresh" BS. All of us are (were). BSs in general naturally think of their spouses/SOs as if they had not been abducted by aliens. Early on, they don't appreciate how devious and "unearthly" the betrayers can be.

So, please accept my apologies if that remark was taken as a general description, because it wasn't meant that way.

WAT, Hi. I wasn't miffed. I thought - think - you were very right in that macro sense even if it's not what you intended. :-) I am very fresh in this though.

About the only thing I know is that I don't know anything. I'm upstairs crying, downstairs crying, washing clothes crying for hours. My dogs are keening quietly with me.

It's time for me to dry up and pull myself together now. It's a sunny day here. On the worst days the sun will shine. Isn't that something? Maybe things will get a little better.

Sally

Sally - it WILL get better. I'm living proof of that. Most others here are as well.

RE: not knowing anything. You already know a LOT more about the pathology of affairs than 99% of the rest of the species. "Pathology" is an apt term - because the behavior of this species engaged in affairs displays all the hallmarks of a commonly caused disease. Perhaps we should be looking for a pathogen - it's that spooky. My point is that what knowledge you can absorb about human behavior in affairs gives you tremendous power and control in your sitch. It gives you understanding where logic seems to have been thrown out the window. Illogic becomes predictable and you become more settled in the chaos because you understand that chaos is "normal". Make any sense? In time, when you can see your WSO's statements and actions as dark humor, you'll know you're there. WSs are very funny.

I strongly recommend you find a copy of Frank Pittman's book, "Private Lies." A bit more cerebral than most other books on this topic, and very funny - because Frank seems to have also found the humor where none is expected.