If you take this issue of "what do we celebrate" and work it like a math problem ... reducing to the lowest common denominator .... what happends?

That is .... take any problem, and see if the principles you intend to use can also be applied to other problems too.

For instance, how do you celebrate ~other~ important but imperfect milestones?

If I want to celebrate Christmas, but I don't have a history of happy family Christmas celebrations ... what would you advise me to do?

Ignore Christmas?
Get sad?
Get angry?
Start something different?
Change religions?
Move the celebration to a different calendar date?
Find a new family who has a history of happy Christmas?

What is your advice for me FL?

THIS is not your business.

FL

I can easily understand how your H feels and the depth of hurt and betrayal. I think I ahted my wife for a while.
It does hit us blokes right where we live and we do wonder if its worth it or should we just call it quits.

But we usually don’t because despite the A we still usually love our wives, maybe we don’t like them right now and find it very hard to forgive totally, but we love anyway.
In life sometimes we make choices and sometimes life makes the choices for us.

I cant help but think that if circumstances had not interfered, my wife would have been lamenting with you just on this matter. I found it hard to forgive, but eventually found it easier to love anyway no matter what. Will I ever forget or have full trust again?
I really doubt it. I won’t close my mind to it, but I wonder if I ever can or will.

Do I love her less? I don’t think so, just a bit different.

What would I do if I had a wish?
Well funny enough if I can’t have what I have got right now then I wont wish the affair never happened. We had a child recently which if not for the drama around the A we probably would not have conceived nor would my wife have gotten around to getting help over the death of one of our children some years ago, that was like a cancer just growing away in the back of her mind.…………...funny isn’t it?

I know this may not be of great help now but when he is ready he will move on in his attitude. It sounds to me that it is the big trust issue which is eating away at him. Besides living your commitment now to him, showing him and discussing with him how you have changed FOREVER, you will need to wait until he catches up to you on this.

I think he’ll get there, I think you’ll get there too. One day you will give him the ring and he will smile and take it,……just not now.

i had a HORRIBLE history of xmas pep. so i guess i can relate to that one. and as an adult, i didn't do so good with xmas. i was sad every xmas. and i didn't even know why. just out of habit. because xmas was not a happy time for my mom. it was a time for her to focus even more on how much she hated her life.

what did i do to change that habit?

well, first i recognized what was going on inside me and then i changed my focus....

(lol, ok, i'm laughing cuz i initially started this reply with the intent of showing you how your question was not going to apply or work in this case. and just as i typed what i typed up there, i knew you had me.)

so to conclude my answer, i changed my focus. my daughter was already around when this occured, i am not sure about my son, i forget exactly when i manged to learn to like xmas.

i changed my focus outside of myself and towards others. i found happiness in xmas by giving love. i remember having an xmas cookie decorating party for my D and some of your friends, we did it a few years in a row, it was lots of fun. being that they were so little, it was a major mess, but it was fun.

and i finally got the msg of "It's a Wonderful Life". "I don't care what happens to me, bring me back Clearance, Bring me back to my wife and kids. I want to live."

i don't know pep, can that really work here too? cuz after all xmas is not at all the same as an anniversary. xmas, itself, was not the problem. the problem was not understanding how to celebrate xmas.

but in this case, since our anniversary celebrates our marriage, and our marriage is something that doesnt looks too good right about now...

oh, i don't know, i can't decide if you have gotten me or not!!!

awww, thanks A2, damn i cry too easily today!!!!

i knew about the newest member of the family. i did not know you had lost a child. we did too <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

i am so very happy for you and AW. you guys have been thru so much.

i really do look forward to the day he will be happy to have a ring on his finger again. just not now...

thanks for sharing.

hmmmmm.... jenius at work <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" />


hmmmmm.... jenius at work #2


hmmmm .... jenius at work #3


oh ? you mean you have experience changing your attitude ???

hmmmmmm .... jenius at work #4


NO WAY ..... and this actually worked ??? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />


WTF ??? You mean the answer was right in front of you the entire time ???

jenius at work #5


I love decorating Christmas cookies with my kids .... even now they are 16 and 19 .... it's still a friggin mess <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />


Capra-corn jenius at work #6


[censored] at work #1


jenius at work #7



....

hmmmmmm

jenius 7
[censored] 1

I think you got yourself ! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" />

FL,

I'm going to come at this whole "forgiveness" thing from a little different angle and try to get to the reason you haven't or won't forgive yourself? That's right, yourself. While you choose not to forgive yourself for all the things you have done, you act differently, and as this post shows you give power of those things of your life. This in turn negatively affects your relationships and quite honestly henders others from going through their own process and ultimately forgiving you.

So here is what I suggest. First off, figure out what it is that you need to forgive yourself for. Second, ensure that you've shared everything with your hubby, no secret affair still lingering out there. So if you've already confessed those things to him you've taken a step. Now take some time in prayer and confess all these things which haven't forgiven yourself for in front of God, this is assuming you have some faith even if it's just a little. Once you've confessed to Him pray this:

"My creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen."

Then forgive yourself. God's forgiven you. Your husband will on his terms in his time. But what you will have done is taken all the power away from your past and it can no longer control you. From this day forth, then live a life where you don't do those things PERIOD. Your husband will see a change in you as you begin gaining confidence and self-esteem, those are definately loveable characteristics and with that becomes more of a desire for him to be close to you.

Like Pep said in the beginning of this post, Who can you control? You correctly answered only yourself, so now let's explore ways for you to evercise your control working positively towards a brighter future.

Hugs, Thoughts, & Prayers

FL,

As you know, I am also a member of the serial-adultery club...my exH had 13 total that I can prove, and probably more than that. At the time, I had no clue he was cheating because I was naive and I didn't look for it--it didn't occur to me to cheat, so it didn't dawn on me to be suspicious. Anyway, there were two instances that I consider MAJOR PA's: one when my DD was born two months premature (I think he couldn't deal with the idea that his child was not perfect and the extra duties of caring for a preemie), and then the one in 1999 when he moved out to another state for 6 months to play patty-cake with his affair partner. In between those major ones, he had email affairs, periodic ONS, and lots of cybersex type A's.

The reason I'm telling you all this is that I can somewhat identify with where your DH is coming from. I went through my whole marriage faithful and truehearted, and no it wasn't perfect--in fact, there were LOTS of issues!--but I thought I had a life partner who loved me. I had this unrealistic, pie-in-the-sky image of MY marriage. When I began to deal with his MAJOR A in 1999, it was like the scales fell off my eyes and I began to see the other ones, and it felt to me as if everything I THOUGHT I had was an illusion. Now, it may or may not have been "all fake" but it sure felt like I had been an idiot all those years, believing stuff that wasn't there and giving my whole self to someone who so repeatedly used me!

I'm telling you now that part of your DH's grief does not so much have to do with YOU...it has to do with HIM losing the illusion he thought he had all this time. Now, he has to sort of rebuild like memories and impressions and history and everything...AND he can't tell if any of his perceptions are real or just dreams because he was so fooled before!!!

I'm trying to discourage ya, but I did mourn for the loss of my illusion for quite a while. I thought we had something special and "it would never happen to us"--and not only did it *happen* to us, it happened over and over all through our marriage and I was just too naive to see it! So I suspect he is sort of reviewing and re-evaluating the whole marriage (from engagement to present) trying to get his bearings and figure out what really was REAL and what was just fake.

One thing that can be very helpful--or at least was for me--was going through the memories and saying, "Nope, this really happened. We really were happy. He/she really did love me. That's wasn't just my imagination." I gradually got some confidence back in my ability to determine reality from fantasy. Maybe you could make him a "memory book" from the time you were newlyweds (after the engagement affair was over) to the present...PHOTOS of times you two were actually happy and actually in love and when you were actually faithful to him.

Finally and in conclusion, one thing it may take him a while to "get" is that getting over an ego-blow like this is really a conscious decision. The past is the past and can never be changed, no matter how much you think about it and analyze it. But the present CAN be changed, and in the present, right now, you ARE making the effort to work on the parts of you that lead to the A's and you ARE making the effort to behave lovingly with him. See...he is so busy dwelling in the past and in the A's that he's missing what is going on now. The trick is that in order to really get out of the past, he has to decide to let go of it--and I don't mean "let it go" in that detachment kind of way...I mean he has to decide that he would rather embrace the present than embrace the past. I suspect he is embracing the past right now because it's familar and it gives him the excuse to not face himself and his current choices and behavior. He can roll around in the pity and not have to work on himself. Making the decision to let go of the past is a big risk because it means you can't "blame" the other person anymore, you have to actually risk that you might get hurt again, etc.

So hang in there, lady. I know it's hard and hurts your heart tremendously, but it's really hard on him too. Don't let him treat you poorly or disrespectfully, but don't completely loose hope either. I think he's just still grappling with his illusion.



FNCJ

FN,

I know this was meant for FL, but it was encouraging to me as well. I want so much to understand my WW's feelings and emotions. I want to be there for her and to help her and she just won't let me in at all. I really wish she would take some interest in this site, the people here and the principals of MB. I jsut don't know how to entice her to do so.

Thank you for sharing this with all of us even if it is a general version <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

R.

CJ, thanks for you post. i must admit, i had to read it quickly as the mtg went 2 long hours, and i now have some followup details in my head that i need to get done before they get pushed out by all of this stuff again. in other words, i am sufficiently distracted right now and i just don't want to get upset again. besides, it feels good that the mtg went well, the supervisor is happy with the progess and some of the pressure is off of me, for now.

i do want to comment on:

i don't think that is really an accurate reflection of what he is doing. i really should not complain, it's not like he is mean to me, it's just the distance thing, he is very distant and emotionally gone, at the worst he gets cold, mostly it's just the absense of emotion. it is very hard for me to deal with it especially because of who i am and my past. feelings of neglect/abandonment, they are really hard for me to deal with. i'm pretty thick skinned when it comes to many things, but not that. i know this is probably stupid to say, i'ld rather be yelled at sometimes then to just have nothing.

ok, that's it from me for today. thanks CJ.

LH, i see you have posted to me too. i really don't have it in me to read it closely right now, but i will tommorow and respond then. thanks.

FL,

I'm going to take an educated guess here: you're a Feeler personality type, and more than anything you crave that emotional closeness and openness. Me too! And just so you know, I think we all have our Achiles heel: mine is being ignored. I can handle honesty, hurt, yelling, even being hit! but if you ignore me (or I perceive I'm being ignored) it hurts me to the bone. If I may be so bold, I also suspect this is part of the reason you had the A's you did...that desire to CONNECT to someone.

One thing I found PARTICULARLY useful when I was feeling unconnected and miserable was to either treat myself with acts that were extremely loving to myself -OR- to volunteer. It's easy to feel all horrible and abandoned and unloved when you sit at home or work alone, but if you go help people who have no home or food, or who have been raped--suddenly you feel a lot more fortunate, and the GIVING is good for ya. OTOH, sometimes I noticed that I had given and given and given and given to others until I was depleted, and it is right and honorable to love yourself. Hey, even the bible tells us to "love others as you love yourself" and that implies that you DO love yourself! So, I'd do something wonderful and replenishing for ME...like journaling or getting a movie I could cry to or take myself out to a park...something to replenish my soul.

((((((((((FL)))))))))))




FNCJ

BTW, not to threadjack, but if you'd like to start another thread, Seekingchange, I'll do my best to answer any questions you may have.



FNCJ

How are you today?

hi FF, yes i am doing better today. thanks.

please know, every word here has been read and is much appreciated. i don't think i will be responding directly to any of it though. i have found an internal equilbrium again, talking with my H more about some of the stuff here helped and just forcing myself to accept reality so i can move forward helped.

i think as time goes on, my eyes open more and the horror of what i have been like, for basically my whole life, deepens. i also think that when i hit new stages like that, i really do have to work hard on getting comfortable with that new perpective, work on my behaviour patterns and then forgive myself again so i can move forward.

i thank you all for helping me this week and wish you all a relaxing holiday weekend (for those of you celebrating labor day!!).