mws

Glad you are here, sir. You can learn much to help you, in addition to your studies and counselling.

Like the sage JL I hope you feel able to share the issues you have when you are ready. Despite each of our BS pain being exquisitely unique, many here have walked past where you are now to arrive at different outcomes, MWS.

You may find inspiration and understanding brotherly companionship here.

All blessings anyway. ALL blessings.

bob

My dearest husband,

Thank you so much for your willingness to come to this forum and post your thoughts. Thank you for adding your insights and correcting my errors. I will respond to what you have said.


I did mention that we were in counseling. You are right that I did not mention that I was often stubborn and defensive. It was not an intentional error, though.


I never said that I felt like splitting up. I did say those other things, but that was more because I was discouraged in our relationship and I started thinking about the OM.

It might have been in another post, but I did mention that I once went somewhere that you had asked me not to.

I know that some people have gotten that impression, and I have tried to correct it when I can. I have never intentionally made it sound like it was one phone call.

We were not in counseling on a regular basis over the summer when all of this was happening. We went at most, 2-3 times in the entire 3 months.

The night that you had looked at our phone record, I had thought about writing you an e-mail to talk to you about how I had been feeling. But I was tired and decided that I would do it the next day. I had every intention of letting you know, and absolutely no intention of making plans to see him.
I am doing my best to be honest here with what I have done. I MADE A HUGE MISTAKE. I HAD AN AFFAIR. IT WAS MY CHOICE, AND MINE ALONE. AND THEN WHEN THINGS GOT ROUGH, I MADE THE CHOICE TO RUN TO HIM AND NOT TO YOU. We were not in counseling for an entire year, but rather nine months. And I will admit that there were times that I did not put forth 110% effort. Part of it was a lack of knowing what to do, and part of it was stubborness.
When we first started to work on things a year ago, it was not out of desperation but out of a desire to make things work. Yes, at the beginning of the summer, I think I was more desperate than sincere. But you have told me yourself that you don't doubt my sincerity now.

You told me that you had not finished reading His Needs, Her Needs. Your bookmark was admittedly quite far, but not complete. I hope that you will at least finish reading Surviving an Affair and that we can have a chance to use the Love Busters principles.

My goal in posting things here was to be as accurate and honest as possible. I am serious about making things work, and if I want accurate and honest advice, then I need to be radically honest. Any errors that I made were not intentional. Had I truly wanted to portray myself in some wonderful fashion, then I would have not asked you to read the posts and correct me. But I am serious about wanting things to work. I want those people who have gone through similar experiences to offer their advice, which I know can only be truly effective when they have the whole story.

So thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for offering your side of the story and pointing out my errors. If you find anything else, please continue to post and share your side.

I love you with all my heart, mind, body and soul. I believe in you, and I believe in our marriage, and I will continue to fight for what I believe we can have.

Cinny,

Do me a favor and read your answers to your H's comments carefully. Read them as if you were I who knows little of all that has gone on. I think you will see somethings that are clues as you why your H is not enthusiastic about continuing the marriage.

For one thing he stated 10 months your corrected his "year" statement with 9 months. I think the length is not very important, it was reasonable time. What is missing is you acknowledging what it must have felt like to be in counseling with someone that did not want to give "110%" and that is added to the fact that you had an affair and in were still in contact with OM.

Then envision what he must have felt like to find out you had resumed contact, no matter that you were "going to tell him."

I am guessing but I would guess that his main problem is the issue of sincerity. I suspect he believes you feel as you state NOW, but what he fears, and with good reason, is that you may decide to bring OM back into his life yet again.

I don't think he feels you see things from his perspective at all, and given your answers I would be inclined to agree with him. So do something for me, stop and really imagine what it would feel like to have some one you love: lie to you, cheat on you, tell you they think the best idea is to divorce, and hear that you do NOT ring their chimes.

You see what YOU have known is that OM wanted you, and your H wanted you and apparently did what he could to rebuild the marriage. What he has known is that you have rejected him, you rejected working with him, and you have felt he was NOT the right man for you. Do you see how your views and feelings might have diverged? Until you can truely see things from his point of view you will have a hard time communicating with him, and surely a hard time convincing him to risk all yet again. I suspect he feels you have rejected him at least three times: with your affair, while in counseling, and when you contacted OM again.

Would you not be a bit gun shy if someone you love rejected you in this manner? Oddly, he is not rejecting you now, he is simply trying to protect himself because he feels you will not protect him yourself. Please read the list of needs again, and see which one the need for protection falls under.

I am glad you BOTH are posting here, and I hope that this will lead to some meaningful dialogues in the days to come.

God Bless,

JL

JL, when you are talking about the list of needs, are you talking about His Needs, Her Needs? I am not sure exactly where it falls, though I am not doubting he certainly needs it. And I want to provide that for him.

While I am trying to see things from my H's perspective and trying to understand what he is feeling, I am willing to admit that is hard. But I am also willing to continue to try.


I know he believes that I am sincere now, and I get the feeling that he believes I would be sincere in my follow through as well. Of course, I could be completely wrong because he doesn't tell me. But I am working hard to make sure I have things in place so that I do hold up my end of the bargain. I have written a very firm NC letter (much better than the one I wrote months ago). I have friends that know about the situation and are there for me. During counseling, I only had one person who really knew what was going on ... well, she only knew what I told her, and I didn't tell her when I wasn't putting forth as much effort as I could have. And she lived in Texas so there was no way she could call me on what I wasn't doing. But I have talked to people ... people who are willing to keep me accountable and "kick my butt" when I am not doing my part. I am learning how to keep my emotions in check to avoid LB. I am also working on replacing desires with prayer. I was recently told that my H felt like I was smothering him with e-mails and text messages, trying to tell him about all that I was learning from this board ... so I am taking a break from talking to my H. And when I feel like I want to call him, I am going to take that time and give it to God and pray for my H and pray for me. If I can learn how to effectively do that with this situation, then I can apply that to any time I might feel like contacting the OM.

I don't want to reject my H. I want to love him and support him and be there for him.

I welcome any comments you have as always.

Wow, now that was quite the response. I will do my best to respond to you with honesty.

The only reason that I corrected his statement was because I am trying to make sure that there is an accurate portrayal of everything that has gone on. I want everyone to see "our story" exactly as it happened.

I never claimed to get anything. I don't understand how my H feels. I know that.

I was a liar, but I am doing everything I can to be completely radically honest now. I don't mind you saying that I was a liar, because I clearly was, and I did everything I could to protect my lies. I realize that, and I know it was wrong. And I will be sorry for the rest of my life for that. But that is why I am trying to make things right now.

I know that reconciliation will take a long time. Years, I'm sure. And I know that during that time, my H will scrutinize my every move. That is his right. That is what needs to happen to build trust. I am trying to make it easier for him to do that. I have offered to explain every penny I spend, every phone call I make, every e-mail I send, and how I spend every minute of my time.

I screwed up royally, but I am doing the best that I know how to make it up to my H.

He was the one that told me believed I was being sincere. His exact words were "I am not doubting your sincerity in your efforts." Otherwise, I wouldn't have said this.

You don't have to believe. My H knows that ... and it is only because I don't really have any close friends here. No one even knew that we were in counseling, let alone why we were in counseling.

I never said that I had the right to LB. But quite frankly, that was all I knew how to do. I am learning how to keep my emotions in check and "keep my mouth shut."

Actually, I was referring to calling my H. I was talking about not calling my H because he felt like I was smothering him, so I went felt like calling my husband, that I would take that time and pray. I was not talking about calling the OM. I am not thinking about calling me OM. He is not my soul mate. He is no where near it. My H is.

Cinny,

Well TA is giving you the straight word from his perspective. You don't have to defend yourself, in fact that is part of what I was trying to get you to see. Your response to your H had an air of defensiveness to it. That triggers a BS very quickly, because defensiveness is equated with hiding something which is equated with lying.

I am NOT saying you are lying. What I want you to see is what defensiveness gets for a response and TA kindly just provided you a classical example. He is hot, and you are not even his W. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

What you must come to understand is that when people her ask you questions, when your H asks you questions YOU DO NOT NEED to defend yourself. You are who you are and I am sure you are a fine young lady. What you have done is NOT so fine as you well know.

You are probably wondering when do we get to talk about H and the issues in the marriage before the A? That will come Cinny, some of it may have occured before in counseling, but recall you two were not married long before the A started, so it will be a very sensitive issue.

So let's look at your response to me. You responded
Yes, I am talking about the needs list. You can find it here or in His Needs Her Needs. He needs his needs met and so do you. Right now it falls on you as the one that wants to maintain the marriage, but he will have to step to if he comes out of withdrawing from the marriage. Here is the subtle thing about this. Right now he is hurt, he is emotionally drained, and he has withdrawn from the marriage.

So what would you guess his #1 need might be? Love, attention, honesty? You know what I would guess? It would be respect. Again I am guessing here, but what that 9-10 months of counseling followed by you contacting OM showed him was that you did NOT respect him or the effort he gave to forgive you and save the marriage.

Now if he feels this way, you can see why he would be reluctant to give you what you would not give him right?

What we are after is insight, not a magic incantation or something. With insight comes the ability to REALLY communicate, to really understand both yourself and your H.

You said
Yup it is hard, and you will not feel the same as he does. It is true unless you have been a BS you cannot understand the pain, but it is also true that a WS has a lot of pain, and the BS has a hard time understanding that as well. However, the goal is not to hurt as bad as your H, or for him to hurt like you. The goal is to achieve insight, empathy so that communications and effort to meet needs and rebuild trust can be better focussed and applied. You are getting there, and your H's post helped didn't it? Please thank him, and ask him to come back.

Next you said a few other things I thought I would respond to
He may believe that but what he is struggling with is the classic "once a cheater always a cheater" concept or to put it another way "I don't want to be fooled again." He is not worried about your follow through on the current promises in the here and now, but he is deeply concerned for the future.

What you may not fully realize is that he feels powerless to prevent you from doing this again to him. He is not convinced that any actions he could take would really make the marriage better. You must realize that if YOU did not feel the marriage was good, then the odds are high he did not either. So while you might like to discuss his role in the state of the marriage, what you may not realize is that he has taken to heart what has happened and he feels he has failed. You are dealing with a crisis of confidence right now, and it is his crisis. I know you feel down, but he feels powerless. Now to some extent he, I, any spouse is powerless to prevent an A IF the spouse really decides they want one. It really is up to the person involved to have an internal compass that leads them away from that choice.



Cinny you don't need your butt kicked. What you need is an internal dialogue that keeps you straight. However, it is always good to have good friends to use as a sounding board for many issues. I think you are doing pretty well in these things. The issue is communications with your H, and right now he is closed down. What you will need is insight in how to talk to him when you get the chance. I don't mean this in any manipulative way, but I mean in a way where he can discuss his feelings in safety with you and that requires insight on your part to avoid the LB's and triggers that he may have. Oddly, you could even ask him to talk to you about what triggers his memories and discuss them. Recall that anger is a secondary emotion, so when you talk try to pinpoint the emotion that is driving the anger. It is there.


The first part is very good, and the second part is good as well. However, why do you need to replace desires? I am little befuddled by that. Could you explain?


Did he tell you this? Did a close friend to him tell you this? It is important that you don't make a DJ out of this. I am sure being bombarded with info or you trying to educate him would be a bad thing. However, communicating even about just daily things is important to recovery. I realize you are not in recovery yet, but some contact is good.


Yes, this is good, but here is the deal, with NC from OM you won't feel like contacting him. It will fade, because what you may be starting to realize is that OM represented a fantasy, he was NOT the fantasy. You were using him to escape other things. Gradually you will see this. It takes time.


Excellent idea. But, you will have to do this on your H's time scale. Here is something that is hard for WS's to understand. You can cause great pain but you cannot heal the pain you caused. Your H has to heal himself. You can surely help, you can surely support him in his healing, but he will have to do this himself. It is very frustrating for WS's such as yourself who want to repair the damage done by the A. But, here is where time and patience are your allies. Further, here is where the WS pays a price because you must just stand there and watch the pain of your spouse and there is little you can do, until he heals enough.

This is tough stuff from either end of the issue, but I think you are doing well. I do think that you need to work a bit more on the insight part of this. I mean from the perspective of why you made the choices you did, and from the perspective of where your H is emotionally.

The road to recovery is very narrow, and you two have slipped off into the shoulder once already, so it is going to be hard to get things back on the road. But, it can happen.

I hope something I have said is of help to you.

God Bless,

JL

Just to make sure I was clear in what I said, what I meant was that I was trying to give my H some time to think and some time to breath without bombarding him with everything I am getting from MB. And thus, when I felt like I wanted to call him...my H... or e-mail him, I would take that time to pray for us. I never meant that I was thinking about contacting the OM.

The friend was the one who told me my H said I was smothering him. Right now, if there is anything pertinent that I need to communicate to my H, I am contacting his friend. I want to give him time away to think. He tried to tell me the other night that he was "thinking" and I just jumped right in, instead of allowing him that time to think.

And in answer to your question where I said I am learning to replace my desires with prayer. I first meant I am replacing my desire to constantly contact my H with prayer. The second part of that is that if my H does take me back and we start working on things, I know there will be tough days, and at first, I might feel tempted to not put forth all the effort I have to give because I might feel like it isn't working ... and I might even feel like I want to get my needs met elsewhere (I don't want to do that, but based on my previous experience, I did it anyways). So when I get these desires ... the kinds I know I shouldn't act on, that's when I want to just get on my knees and pray.

Cinny,

Gotcha, on the contact thing. Here is something that most women don't understand especially someone as young as you. Men don't often talk about their feelings, or inner most thoughts. It is just now how we are socialized or programed. So when you ask him something or are talking about something that has to do with emotions you need to realize this.

What do I mean? Well you probably spent a lot of time talking with girl friends about your feelings, their feelings,concerning boys, family, jobs whatever. It is what women do. So when called upon to express their feelings women already have speech patterns and phrasology to express what they feel. Since men don't generally talk about their feelings or emotions, they don't have readily available speech patterns to respond or discuss. The mistake most women make is that they will ask a question, wait about the time it would take another women to respond, and then jump in with another question or some statement. This is bad.

You need to just sit there and wait for your H to respond, don't ask another question, don't clarify unless he asks, and don't get impatient, it may take as much as a minute for him to look inward assess his emotional state and then figure out to express what he feels. It will seem like an hour to you. Give him the time and then really LISTEN to his answer.

You will find that this will seem like really painful going, but you will also find you will learn things you did not expect but need to know. So when he hesitates, don't smother him with more words, give him the time and silence he needs to form his answers.

Just some thoughts for you to consider.

God Bless,

JL

Alyson,

JL is right about a lot in regards to me. I am completely emotionally drained, and have been for quite some time. He is also right in saying that I believe in the sincerity of your efforts NOW. I also believed you were sincere shortly after I found out about the affair, and then again after the incidents earlier this summer. Both times proved to be short lived, and as soon as you felt unloved and like all your needs weren't being met, you ran back to the comfort and love you felt with Casey. Quite honestly, I don't think there is anything you can say or do to make me believe that this time is different. And reading what you said about "if I take you back" - that you know there will be hard times and you might not feel like giving all the effort that you need to, and that you may feel like getting your needs met elsewhere - I am just not going to even put myself back into that situation. Just thinking about it makes me feel that same excruciating, intense frustration that I remember feeling during most of our months of counseling with Lynne. I am glad to see that you are making strides in your understanding of all this - I truly am. Noone deserves to ever endure the pain that I, and many others in this forum, have endured, and I hope that you will never inflict it on anyone else. But you will not have the chance to inflict it on me again. I will always feel love for you, but I will never be in love with you again. I don't say that flippantly, or with any feelings of bitterness or anger. I say it after much time in fervent prayer and study, and after seeking counel with the best, most God-fearing people I know. As I know you do, I feel the loss, both of what we had, and what I dreamed we would have together. But as JL said, we can, and often do, stand in the way of what God's will is for us. And most of the time, we can't go back and fix the times that we did. We just have to ask forgiveness, and move on to do better next time. For a while about a year ago, I doubted God's word that He would never give us more than we were capable of handling. But I have learned more about life and about myelf in the past year than in the 24 preceeding it. So in that sense, putting aside the pain and suffering of all this, the experience of this past year has been the most enlightening of my young life. I do love you, Alyson, and I always wll. But as most of us know well, love is not all you need.

MWS
You are so very articulate for such a young man. You are behaving exactly as I believe I would have at your age and with no children.

Just know that love starts as a choice, and can flourish if mutually nurtured by lovebank deposits.

Also MB can give a person the tools they need to build a solid support structure within their marriage.

My own situation was awful. Now a year or so on, my marriage is probably better than ever , my wife is transparent and trustworthy once more and I am starting to 'unclench' the fist of defense around my heart.

I am not saying you SHOULD work to achieve the blessings that Squid and I have, ust wanted to show you that recovery is possible from a place of deceit and pain.

If you get a moment or two, please check out this toolkit I pulled togther that shows the advise I received at various times after d-day. Those wonderful advisors were talking to every reader, not just to me.
Click Here for toolkit

All blessings to you.

My most wonderful husband ... I am being radically honest and holding nothing back. That was not easy to say and I am sure as equally uneasy to hear. However, the difference between then and now is that I am actually planning ahead of time how to take the correct actions if that ever happened, not to say that it even would.

And Bob is right, love is action first and the feeling follows. You may not feel like you could ever be in love with me again, but if I had the chance to show you love through my actions, or make love bank deposits, that feeling of love would eventually follow.

Have you finished reading "Surviving and Affair" and have you also looked at those things I printed out for you? They were sent to me by Bob from this message board.

**EDIT**
There is also one other major thing that is different now that was never there before. In all of the time we were in counseling, I had doubts that sex would ever be there for us. My doubts made it impossible for me to completely give of myself to the process. But I finally gave myself the freedom to believe that it could happen, and it has. It is more than just an emotional craving or a desire to be close to you. It is a physical desire to be with you because I want you. You always said "It's like the horse and the cart - the horse being sex, and the cart everything else. We just keep filling the cart with more and more stuff, and we don't even have the horse to pull it along." But the horse is there. And it's not going anywhere.

cinny
please don't pester your H. This is HIS timing not yours.

Bob,
I don't want to pester my H. That is why I am not calling him, e-mailing him, or text messaging him.

This is most certainly true! My H is one of the smartest men I know, and whenever he speaks (even more so when he writes), he sounds like someone far older than he is. That is one of the things I love about him.

And JL, I have a question for you. You said I needed to show my H respect? How do I show my H respect? Because I feel right now that for him, the only way he would see respect is if I respect his decision to get a D and completely give up fighting, but I simply can't do that. I believe that God can do great things in our M if we let him and I can't let go of that. So what can I do?

Cinny,
Read this.
You did this to your H.

You can make no demands upon him. No speeding up his recovery to your convenience. No manipulation of his thoughts to your will. No modification of his thought process to your desires.

You willingly hurled away your wedding vows then betrayed his efforts at recovery when they did not meet your convenience. Sorry to be so forthright, but now is not the time for 'Doris Day' expectations and hopes Cinny. Reality bites but its all you both have. Its all any of us have.

You are now at the mercy of HIS caprice, as he was to yours during your affair, except his caprice is righteous, and whether he chooses divorce or further trust in recovery his decision is sponsored by Almighty God.

I pray he will find mercy for you Cinny, but there is not a thing you can do to affect his decision. Best you can do is supplicate to God and pray HE moves your BH in HIS image and will.

From where I sit, your H is behaving nobly and justifiably. He cannot be MADE to support recovery having read what I have read.
He may yet choose this path. Miracles happen.

Alyson, Enough. Time to "stop in your tracks." Here is the ONLY question that you need to answer for yourself AT THIS TIME. All other questions can "wait until later."

Do you want to be "right," or do you want to be married?

If it's the latter, then I am going to strongly suggest that you "stay on the sidelines" for now, "keep your mouth shut and your fingers from typing," unless it involves how we can help YOU, not your husband, and let us talk to your husband.

Alyson, this is often exceedingly hard for a WS who wants to save their marriage to understand, but it is TRUE. Recovery is in the hands of the Betrayed Spouse just as the affair was in the hands of the Wayward Spouse. I can expand, but that's all you really need to know for now.

The positions are CLEAR...you now want to be married, your husband now wants to be divorced. The "shoe" is on the "other foot." BUT, and this should be HUGE "but," you are both Christians, so it is no longer what either of you "wants," it is what God wants. If feelings, fears, desires, hopes, doubts, etc. are in opposition to God's will, then "Christians" are bound to submit their will to God's will no matter what they are feeling.

Now, before I start sounding too harsh or too "Bible thumping" let me hasten to add that I know intricately the feelings that both TA and your husband are feeling and have felt. As a fellow BS, I KNOW the "bottomless pit of despair" and insurmountable pain that your husband feels. But just like the time when you accepted Christ as your Savior, you CANNOT "correct" or "make excuses" or "explain" your sins. ALL you can do is be convicted of them, confess them, and seek God's forgiveness through the saving actions of His Son. There is NO excuse for sin before a Holy God and NOTHING that we can do our own to "earn" forgiveness and to be the "Bride of Christ." We, adulterers all through sin, are "taken by Christ as His bride" and MADE blameless in God's sight by the cleansing of forgiveness. We then, seek to return that gift of love by humbly walking in obedience to God's commands no matter how we might be feeling at any time in our lives because we can do "no less" than Christ did in the Garden of Gethsemene FOR US.

Alyson, neither can you "do" anything to "earn" your husband's forgiveness or the restoration of your marriage OTHER than to walk in submission and humble obedience to God's commands. ANY other posture WILL be seen as manipulative and self-serving. It is WHY I sent you those pamphlets.

I will have more to say directly to your husband later. I want to digest his posts.

To mws1230 I will say this for now. I KNOW how you cannot see a future together with Alyson right now. I have "been there" as the saying goes. What I am going to ask you for now is to NOT rush to divorce.

Yes, "marital unfaithfulness" IS the only grounds for divorce for Christians, so you do have that "right." But unless you don't believe that people can change, as in "behold you are a new creation," unless you don't believe that God is the "Master Potter" who can take a broken and flawed "pot" and make a newer and better vessel to bring Him honor and glory, unless you think that God is NOT capable of doing ALL things, unless you believe that God is a liar and does NOT mean what He has said....don't proceed to divorce yet.

I will have more to say on this later, but if you'd prefer to "take it private," you can email me at mbforeverhers@yahoo.com

One more thing, BOTH of you, but especially you mws1230, neet to get the book Torn Asunder by Dave Carder and read it cover to cover ASAP. SAA is good, but Torn Asunder is written from a Christian perspective and will give both of you a much greater understanding of what "went wrong" and what needs to be done to resurrect a marriage from the ashes of infidelity.

God bless.

Hi Cinny,

All of this advice seems contradictory doesn't it? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Well, that is why so often marriage don't make it. Our instincts often lead us astray. You asked
Interesting question isn't it? Well the answer is really more obvious than you realize. You KEEP on trying to improve yourself, understand yourself, understand what your H is feeling and why. AND you respect his right to make the decisions HE needs to make. You see you must respect his right to stop the marriage as much as you must respect your need to fight for the marriage. It is not an either/or situation.

Do you recall me saying that your H needs to heal himself? Do you see what PB and FH are telling you? It is the same thing. RESPECT your H and his right to make a decision that he feels is best for him. And respect your right to fight for the marriage.

Here is where people are talking to you. You feel that in order for you to fight for this marriage that YOU must change your H's mind, change his feelings, rebuild HIS love for you. You can do none of those things. He must do those things. What you can do is make changes in how you see things, how you react to things, how you seek to get your needs met, how you see your H, how you love your H, and how you RESPECT your H.

Let me offer you an example. During your counseling period, did you understand what it took for your H to show up and try and save a marriage where his love, his partner had found another man that she apparently wanted more than him? Do you know the strength it took? I doubt that you did at that time. But, do you see it now? Do you respect that he tried with all he had to make it work? Do you respect that he is out of gas emotionally right now?

What does he need from you now? I mean even if he continues with his decision to divorce what can you offer him? You need to think about this, this is part of the changing that has to happen. This is part of the issue of respect we are talking about.

I know you are hurting now. Your H knows you are hurting now. I am guessing that he actually feels great pain for losing you, for your pain, your distress. But, he doesn't trust you, why? Because you had an affair? Partly, but what he does not trust is that you have truely changed and that can only come with long term consistent actions, and with you showing insight you have never shown before.

You see trust is nothing more than ones belief that they can predict that actions and responses of someone else. It is based on past behavior but it is sort of a running average. Current actions carrying more weight than past. Hence you affair carries more wait, than your behavior before, your behavior during counseling, more than the A, you calling the OM, more than the counseling period. And now will count, have faith in that. Will it count enough? Who knows.

What all of us in our own words are trying to tell you is RESPECT your H by not trying to change how he feels or thinks. What you need to address is how you feel and how you think, and respect that he will see these changes. He may not decide to risk it no matter what he sees.

But, there is some very good news for you if not him. You will grow, you will know yourself, you will have more confidence in yourself, and you will understand the dynamics of relationships much better for having gone the path of trying to address your issues and respecting your H. Whether this marriage makes it or not, YOUR next relationship whether it be with your H or someone else will be far better than what you had. If your H grows, learns, evaluates and sees relationships in a new manner, HIS future is brighter as well.

You see what your H is going to have to do, is understand that he is NOT taking you back, he is NOT fixing the old marriage, he will be in a new relationship with you built on the growth of both of you. It is your job to show him the kind of woman you are becoming and if the attraction holds he will see this.

He has been burned several times and he is rightfully very concerned about being burned again. What must change, not more or better promises, what must change is you and how you view things.

So let's work on you. Let us talk with your H. Then we will see how things work out.

Does this make sense? I hope so.

God Bless,

JL

Hi, cinny.

I wish I had more time to post to you today.

Please read my tag line below.

Until you can demonstrate an understanding of what it says, and how it explains your behavior, then I would encourage your husband to continue with the divorce proceedings.

God bless,
Gimble