Jaded,

You have been given a lot of great advice here today and I know that a lot of it stings.... it is supposed to. You're talking to a wonderful bunch of people who have been around this affair stuff for a lot of years and what they say (both the formerly betrayed and the formerly wayward) was learned along the way (and often the hard way). You will benefit from their knowledge and experience if you choose to stick around and listen and reflect. I hope you do.

I'm not going to try to convince you that you MUST tell your husband in order for your marriage to recover. You see, I don't think you are ready to give up OM and the goodies he is bringing to your table. I can tell you until I am blue in the face that your marriage WILL NOT BE RECOVERABLE until the affair ends... just like everyone else here has been saying ... but if you still want OM in your life, there he will be. And your husband will go on wondering why you are so distant and irritable, and wondering what he has done to make you dislike him so. Poor guy hasn't got a clue.

He is at a distinct disadvantage here in so many ways. And, sadly, it is a disadvantage that you have put upon him, with no chance of his own to regain his footing (hell, he doesn't even know why his new marriage is so sucky right now....) and like most unaware BSs, he believes, "this too shall pass." He thinks it is a blip on the radar. Just a phase the two of you are going through. He believes in you and your love for him and his for you. He has not even considered that you could be doing the next door neighbor. His friend. It is inconceivable to a BS who trusts their mate.

But think about this unfairness for a moment. No matter what was happening (or not happening) in your marriage, it was the same for him as you. Yet (as far as we know) your husband has remained faithful. You are the one that chose to respond to the goodies OM brought. You chose to disregard your vows and your previous character and your moral convictions for just a taste of some forbidden fruit that at this point in time looked so inviting. No matter you've resisted male attention before. You didn't this time. And if you recover your marriage, you will need to apply self-guidelines regarding male friends in the future.

But I'm way ahead of myself. There will be no early winners in this situation, Jaded. That is sad but certain. You have willingly made choices that have led you to this point and you will have to willingly make different ones, much harder ones, if you want to make things right again with your husband.

If you want to give your marriage the chance it deserves, then you have to make some very difficult choices TODAY. Being honest is the first one. And accepting the fallout for the bad decisions you've made in the last few weeks is another. You have to choose to put yourself in that very uncomfortable place where recovery begins and you don't know what your future holds. It is taking responsibility. And until you can do that, no one here will be able to pierce the "fog" that now envelopes you. It is painful for a WS to emerge from the fog to the horror of what they have done. I often felt my FWS experienced an agony equal to mine when he arrived at this unmistakeable truth: He was not the man he thought he was.

Not to change the subject, but I am outta here for a week!!! Going on vacation with my husband and family and looking forward to the new memories we'll create, expressing the deepening love and commitment that we've worked hard to regrasp and tend with care. You can, too. In time. Start with honesty, honesty with yourself.

I truly hope you are still around when I come back.

~ Snow

PS I can't call OM by a name as though he was just a good guy who stumbled into bed with you, unaware of his choices. He is, to me, the "Other Man" who is helping you to destroy your marriage. I hope soon you, too, will see him in this light. Regards.

Jaded,

Did you read the links I have posted to you yesterday? If not, I want to urge you to read ALL 3 links and start putting the advice in the links (and the advice you've received from all the posters on here) into practice. Some of the things you'll need to do and the steps you'll need to take will be extremely hard and difficult, but it will be part of taking responsibility for your own wrong choices and actions… It's the only way if you want you, your H and your M to recover and if you want to regain your own integrity and self-respect... This is to say IF you really want to recover your marriage and truly want to do the right, decent & honorable thing... But I think deep in your heart you WANT to...otherwise you would not reach out for help and start posting on this MARRIAGE BUILDING website... Am I correct?

Prayers to you...
Suzet

You know what Mel...I generally would not respond to a personal attack but now I will..and continue to thread jack..What I said was..

"I encourage you to look past some of the bitterness that some folks are exhibiting. I understand their bitterness but with time it may fade for them. For some it may not."

There was a time I would respond to someonme like Jaded with extreme bitterness. Why? Cause I was bitter and this woman's post would be a huge trigger for me. What I did was learn to accept everyone's situation as different than my own. To get rid of the bitterness I had to change the way I reacted to things even triggers. I called it like I saw it...and you went off on me. Great...while you do not know me from a bag of [censored] and vice versa it doesn't mean that I don't respect what you have to say. I guess that I was looking for that same respect. I dismissed nothing you said or even what Bryan said. All I know is that when someone speaks to me in the manner that some people were responding to Jaded I do not and would not listen...regardless of "how right you are"....Everyone on this board looks for guidance from a bunch of strangers. Looks for "normalcy". At least that's what I did. I called it like I see it and you call it condemnation? You call it coddling? When I agreed with what you're saying, with what everyone is saying? I don't get it.

Let's agree that we disagree on our communication style. Bottom line is you're right about the MB principles, you got me pegged all wrong...

Send, the problem I have with your comments is that instead of disagreeing with Bryan's points, you dismissed him out of hand as "bitter." You have no way of knowing if he is "bitter." [you seem to know something that no one else knows] You clearly tried to discredit Bryan - "look past some of the bitterness" - to this poster even though his comments were right on. I find that very offensive.

There was nothing "bitter" about his post or anyone else's post on this thread, nor would you have any way of knowing if he is "bitter." I think what you call "bitterness" is a straighforwardness that she needed to hear.

So, I will say again, I don't mind if you disagree with me, or anyone else, but please do so by addressing the points instead of dismissing the person for some imagined "bitterness."

P.S. Send, you were never "attacked." You were disagreed with; there is a huge difference. If anyone was "attacked" it was Bryan who was dismissed as "bitter."

Telling me I am disingenuous (synonymous with devious, deceitful, untruthful, hypocritical, etc.) about anything is an attack on my character. I like you call it like I see it. Regardless of the “context”. Neither one of us should feel as if we need to defend anything but most of all our characters. Mel…no hard feelings at all here. Like I said. I respect and I have learned from you.

Have a great day...

Send, I said the practice of dismissing someone without ever addressing a single point they make is "disingenuous. " And it is really is. It is a cheap old debate tactic that has been around for years. I was attacking what you DID, not you as a person.


I do not think you are a disingenuous person and I apologize if you felt that way. I also have enormous respect for you and hope we can move without hard feelings. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Melody, in my opinion Send me on my way never “attack” anyone and he never "dismissed" anyone.... If you view his using of the word “bitterness” as an attack and dismissing behavior, then you must also view your OWN words of yesterday (look at my previous post to you) as an attack and dismissal towards the posters who has choose to use a different posting style than you...

I agree with this…

Let me quote what another poster (knewbetter) had once also said about this exact same thing:

“Truth MUST and SHOULD be spoken but there are many different ways to express it. Some are healing and others are not but the best way is for truth to be spoken in love. It is the best way to assure that the truth can be *heard*.

In my view, it's just not good enough to be hurtful and then say "Well but it's True!", and rubbing someone's nose in "Truth" definitly doesn't build good relationships whether they be marital or between board members. Truth spoken in love is healing and helpful, the other way only sows discord.”

Blessings,
Suzet

Suzet, instead of addressing the points that this so-called "bitter" person made, he threw doubt on his credibility by insinuating the person is too biased, or jaundiced to have any credibility. Thusly, any remarks that this uncredible person makes are to be dismissed as biased. Like he told the poster: "look past the bitterness," ie: ignore them. And she DID exactly that to any posts that said things she didn't want to hear.

I don't think he knew he was doing it, but this is a very old, cheap debate tactic to discredit the PERSON instead of addressing their remarks.

And I see this done fairly often here when someone dares say something that is unpleasant to a WS.

I did not dismiss any person on this thread, I dismissed the approach of a few and explained exactly my points of contention. There is a huge difference between dismissing a person and challenging one's stance. Now, if I had said that she should look past the remarks of all WS' because they are too biased, or "bitter" then you would have a case. But I did not. And you do not have a case.


And I certainly agree with this, there is a time and place for the truth, and this thread certainly emphasizes that point. Unfortunately, the problem comes in when folks avoid the truth all together in favor of empty sounding nice words so as not to stir anything up. And dismissing someone as "bitter" certainly does nothing to keep the peace.

One of my favorite verses from the Bible:

1 John 3:18 My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.

In other words, nice sounding words are never a substitute for the truth, when it is warranted.

Jaded...

the basic modum of operation you are attempting is that you want to convince yourself and some of us that the laws of the universe somehow don't apply to you....

that somehow your actions can be in total of opposites of what you profess to beleive.....
and so regardless of your actions it is your beliefs that define you....
or so that is want to believe harder than anything else in your life.....

it doesn't work that way...
not for me
not for you
not for any of us..........

It is and always has been the ACTIONS of humans that define us.....

I do respect my husband, which is why this is so hard for me.

you can not say in word and expect people to believe that your respect him when your actions cut to the core of disrespectful behaviors and actions.....

you also can not say you value

vows
covenants
honor
cherish
love
honesty

when your ACTIONS are all in direct dichotomy of those things....

there is nothing loving about any of your actions...
and to even tell that to the OM must leave you with a little hole inside....

within your affair you bring great devalueing and disrespect to

the Other Man
your husband
and yourself......

this is not a game of emotions...emotions are deceptive..

marriage is work
and marriage and love are action words......and the better the marriage...the harder the two work at rocking eachothers worlds...

no good marriage exists on it's own it is the exact creation of what the two make of it...

you are making a sham of yours....

this is who you are
this is who you have become...

but like all of us you can change....
we all can....

that's the really good news..

again
why are you here at marriage builders?


ARK

OK...first well said ark...well said..

Melody..you and I are fine...I believe that we took each other out of context...'nuff said'

Jaded...give us an update on what you're doing.

Good enough, my friend. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Melody, thanks for explaining your point of view. I understand what you are saying although I don’t agree with all of it... However, enough have been said. It’s sometimes okay and best to just agree to disagree on some topics isn't it? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Have a nice day! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

NS: I feel in a good mood today because we've heard there is some progress with my H's court case (regarding his victimization and unfair dismissal 18 months ago). <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

And Jaded, please update us...

Blessings,
Suzet

Yes Jaded! Would love to hear how you are doing - if you have thought about what alot of us have said?

So, I went on vacation this last weekend with my H, and we had a great time. It was good to spend some time together doing fun things and made me remember why I love him so much. I think the timing of the trip was about a week off because it's been a week since the A, but that's ok. It sucks because I feel like I'm getting my life back together and he's leaving again on Sunday for a month. As for OM, my H and I went to the beach with him last night and he brought a girl. She was actually the girl that OM ditched at a bar when we first started all of this crap. I wasn't bothered by the fact that he was bringing girls around because what did I expect out of this anyway? I was, however, bothered by the assumption that he's sleeping with this woman, and he might have been sleeping with her when he was fooling around with me. That made me feel cheap as hell. Like I said before, I thought this thing with OM was based off of two people strongly attracted to each other rather than just wanting to "rub uglies." Sex was never a need for me and I was attracted on an emotional level. I can have all the sex I want with my H...it wasn't about that. I think that maybe he was feeding me a crock of [censored] just to get me in bed. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. All I know is that it's over with him. I made up my mind on vacation when I realized how in love I am with my H. I'm not ready to lose him at all, and I'm ashamed of how I've been acting the past few weeks. I've been very selfish. VERY. I haven't considered how this would hurt my H in the end if it ever got out. All I was thinking of was how I was feeling and trying to control that as best I could. I guess I'm angry - angry with myself mostly to let it get this far, angry with OM for using me, our friendship, and helping me compromisie my marriage, and angry that I just HAD to do it and couldn't weigh out the consequenses.
I guess all I can do at this point is to do damage control. I'll have some time away from my H to REALLY miss him and I'll be pretty busy most of the time. I'm going to stay away from OM...go NC, mainly because I know nothing but more trouble will come of me continuing to see him. It'll be hard because he's my f&^%ing neighbor, but it's something I have to do. Your advice helped me clear the fog. I was so stupid. At least it didn't last too long, but I can't take it back from happening. Life is made up of decisions, and those decisions have consequenses. That is something I will have to face eventually....

NC is easier when your H is involved. Please make the decision to tell your H. It takes away ALOT of temptation...right now you are sticking to it, but the temptation to breach NC is hard.

Please tell your H what you have done so you guys have a chance to start an HONEST marriage, and he can be involved in NC with you!

You said you were angry with the OM for using you. You have been using your H. How do you think he is going to feel if he ever finds out. The worst for me was not knowing.

My FWH and I went to MC last night. She asked us both what we loved about each other. While on vacation what did you find that you loved about your H? If your H were asked the same what do you think he would say?

What if one night your OM neighbor and your H are drinking and IM decided to tell him. YOU need to be the one to tell him. You did the right thing by ending it...now the next step is coming clean.

Don't let your H find out any other way but by you.

Jaded,

I'm sooooo glad to hear this! I've been worried about you for the last 2 weeks! I was so afraid that you'll just get deeper into that nasty hole like I did.

One thing that helped me to get past the A is to write a list of all the reasons why you do love you H and another list of all the reasons why you left the OM. In your time of weakness or when triggers hit, pull these lists out as a good, manual reminder. I'm hoping that since your A was short-lived that you won't have to go through the pain/withdrawal that I have w/ a 1.5 yr A.

Way to go! And, if you ever feel down, just come here and post any time!!

One other thing - statistics have shown that there are more D's that result from couples with 1 or both spouses who travel frequently for work. M's are hard enough without limiting the quality time spent with the one you love. Note: My H was traveling 90% while I was working 80 hrs a week when we lived in Minnesota, so I do understand. I do suggest that you discuss this w/ your H to see if there are other alternatives where he can travel less or none at all. Otherwise, how can you expect to spend the 15-20 hours of "quality time" with your S as Harley suggests? It's almost impossible for either one of you to truly meet the other's EN's when neither is around to do so. Just a thought.

Again, way to go!!!

Whisper has some good things to say, but please - while taking her advice - tell you husband...I am the WS just like whisper is. You don't want your H to uncover the truth - you want to be the one to tell him the truth - it will suck - but it will prove to him you want to be honest now and make a REAL go at your marriage.