My last post upon returning to MBs may not have been detailed enough for anyone to give perspective, so I figured I would try again!

After 3 years, in and out of recovery, I'm realizing that I will never be the woman that my FWH turned our lives upside down for. I want to meet his needs and make sure he knows that his happiness is a priority, but... I'M TIRED!!!

Tired of trying to be what he went after when he went after this woman (this marks the beginning of my rant)! I can't be the gorgeous, working, perfect housekeeper! Our lives just don't work that way! And I want him to want me every bit as badly as he wanted her. I mean he did broke his neck to be with and protect her, didn't he?

And so fellow MBrs... I return to you so that I may learn how to "deal". This exhausting attempt to make my H happy is resurfacing anger and resentment that I really thought I had moved past. But I can't be this woman. And I'm not sure that who I am is going to be good enough to keep my family together, at least not for him.

HELP.

bump

Are you in counseling?

Dr. Chalmers talks to us a lot about the 15 hours/week we need to be spending together MEETING EACH OTHER'S EMOTIONAL NEEDS. When we dip below the 15 hours, the love bank starts to get depleted, and then you move from Intimacy to Conflict, and eventually Withdrawal.

Have you identified each other's top 5 emotional needs? Do you discuss how well they are being met? Do you have recreational things you do together?

Your happiness is a priority too!

only, why would you want to be HER? He DUMPED HER! You want to be like someone who has sleazy affairs with married men and is DUMPED? My God, why would you compete with a loser?

It's not that I want to be THAT kind of person. You see as much as I hated OW, I could see why my H wanted someone like her. If she wasn't an home wrecker, I probably would hang out with her! (tacky, but true) She was gorgeous, intelligent, was raising a child while working her way through school. Compared to her, I feel like a complete dud.
Please understand... I know who and what she was. But it doesn't change the fact that at one point all my H wanted was to be with her. It took going through ******... a lot of crying, screaming and regretfully... begging and pleading to get him to see what he was doing (before I found MBrs). That makes me wonder if he "settled" for the easiest option. I mean people have all kinds of reasons for committing to something.

The point is... I went into recovery desperate to make him happy. I'm so different from the thin, gorgeous have-it-all-together spring chicken that he married, I guess I've been using her as a model for what he wants. I'm coming to realize that my priorities are clashing with that. I'm a GOOD stay at home mom, a pretty good housekeeper, and I work 10pm to 3am at a local fast food joint to help with the bills. What I beleive he wants is at war with who my family needs me to be. I'm afraid of what will happen when I stop trying to be that person. I guess we're all going to find out because I'm exhausted!

Don't compare yourself with the other person. Work on being who you want to be and we know you don't want to be a home wrecker.

I hear ya! These last few years has definitely taught me that comparing yourself to someone else is a losing battle. And I would never break up somone's home.

Learning to operate from a place that eliminates the need to please somone else is difficult. I guess I'm a little afraid of what other changes it will bring.

By the way... has anyone else ever experienced these pangs from the past after such a long recovery? Do they EVER go away?

Yeah, my H wants me to watch football, and I just am having trouble understanding the game. Of course, OW LOVED football. Ick. That type of comparison happens.
But my H tells me that he treasures me as a loyal, caring, honest, giving, Christian wife & mother, and that is more attractive to him than any aspect of the wretched OW.

Believe me, the OW wasn't all that or she wouldn't have considered a married man. She probably has all kinds of issues that you know nothing about.

I hope that you will be able to realize that you are a good woman, and that is what most men really want.

onlyd,

I can hear your frustration. I am far from being and expert here. But something you said struck me. And it reminded me of something I talked about with Steve Harley

SH said trying to meet H needs out of fear won't work, it will leave your feeling frustrated and exhausted and H may doubt your sincerity. Meet his needs by doing things YOU want to do.

sheesh, if you are going to compare yourself to someone, compare UP, not DOWN. You are reaching DOWN to someone who was DUMPED like yesterdays' garbage. All the "gorgeous" in the world won't make up for a lack a character. All the "thin" in the world won't make up for DUMPED. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

only, while I am not and will never be in marital recovery, I do know how you feel. Even though I know I have many more qualities than the OW, including looks, I still look for the things in her that attracted him and that I'm missing.

You know what I finally came up with? I'm really not missing anything. She just happened to fill a need for him at a time when I could not. And he lacked the character to voice that need for me. Sucks, but a lot of it just came down to poor timing.

I still compare myself to her...and to his current love interest, what I know of her. Shrug..the things that my h couldn't really accept about me? They both have the same issues in slightly different ways.

You've got DEPTH, only. What your husband had with the OW was all fluff. You've obviously got staying power.

As another poster said..don't do things out of fear and desperation. No wonder you're exhausted! You can do these things by doing things you enjoy and WANT to do. Have you read the 5 Love Languages? It's a good addition to His Needs/Her Needs.

One of the biggest problems that I had in my own marriage recovery was asking for MY needs to be met.

It's hard to go around feeling insecure all the time. And even though you know that your husband made a conscious choice to stay with YOU....it's still really hard not to listen to all the stinking-thinking that occurs to you when you're stressed.

One of my most serious needs was for reassurance from my husband. To his credit, he was extremely generous in providing it. Sometimes, I'm sure his attitude was like, "WTH..is she NEVER going to get over this?" But he still stepped up to the plate.

If you haven't completed the Emotional Needs questionaire, or if it's been a long time....maybe that would be a good first step to finding out what the deficits are.

It was REALLY difficult for me to ask for my needs to be met. Not my best thing AT ALL! But I felt better about it by recognizing that I was already doing my best to meet my partner's ENs.

After that, I adopted a Personal Resonsibility Policy for getting my own needs met. In other words, my ENs are MY problem. If I'm not opening my mouth and telling my husband what I need....then I'm not being fair to him. I'm not giving him a chance to fulfill my needs.

Maybe it's the fear of being let down, that makes us uncomfortable with asking? What's gonna happen if we ask for our ENs to be met, and our partner doesn't respond?

You know, initially I was soooooo afraid of my own temper. I was afraid to put myself in a position where I might end up angry with him. But after a while, I realized that there's just NO WAY for me to meet every one of my husband's ENs. So, there's no reason to expect that he should be able to meet every one of mine.

Occasionally, we're going to let one another down. That's just how it is. But once you recognize that, and have a plan for dealing with it...it's not quite so scary. It's not a monster in your closet anymore. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I truly appreciate all your responses. And I know that all of you are right. I'm trying very hard to reach that place in my relationship with God and with myself. The harder I try, the angrier I get that I'm even having to think about these things in the first place. I feel sometimes as though someone has stolen something from me and I'm bending over backwards to make the thief happy so that he won't do it again!

We haven't filled out the ENs Q in a while... maybe that's a good idea.


Do you ever stop getting so angry? I'm fine 99% of the time. Then, out of nowhere, I'm caught in this time warp that leaves me red-eyed and sick to my stomach. I haven't shared this with my H but, meds have been suggested to me for anxiety or depression... which makes me even angrier. I'd rather be numb that to experience that. Will it ever stop?

i think what you want is the persuing passion he went after "her" with for yourself. you dont want to be "her", but you want your husband to want you like he wanted her.

i know the feeling well unfortunately. you want back what should have been yours to begin with.....but its just not there......

DING DING DING!

Yes!

I've never seen a romantic pursuit where somone is willing to lose everything for that person!

I was 8 months pregnant with our third child when I found out that it had benn going on for months! He manufactured an identity for this woman... fake name, age, occupation, everything! When I asked why, he said he was trying to protect HER! I found out her real identity the night before I went into labor, in which we both came close to losing our lives. I needed his protection and undying loyalty. I've always figured that she must be really something to put the people you love through all that. I'm having a really hard time with that.

I don't know your particular story, Onlyd. But I'll tell you what helped me in my situation....

I didn't have a problem initially with forgiveness. I forgave him almost right away. What I had a problem with was MAINTAINING my forgiveness. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

After I had mulled it over for awhile, I realized that forgiveness wasn't at all what I had thought. It's NOT saying, "You hurt me, but that's okay. I'm all better now."

Nope. Not gonna happen. "It wasn't okay, and I'm not all better. In fact there's NOTHING you can do that is going to make this all better for me. There's NO WAY for you to pay me back for the pain you've caused me."

A lightbulb moment. There was nothing he could EVER do that was going to fix this for me.

So, it ends up being a debt that can NEVER be repaid. Like if you loaned a family member money...and they had no hope of paying you back. I had to "write it off" as a loss.

That made it so much easier for me. All I had to do after that was to remind myself, almost DAILY at first, that I had elected forgiveness. I had already written off that debt. It was no longer fair to harbour ill-will over it.

But that wasn't enough still. It didn't seem fair that my husband was debt-free and I wasn't. I had made mistakes in our marriage. Not the infidelity kind, but still.... I had made mistakes.

So what I asked for, and what I insisted on, is complete forgiveness for my previous mistakes as well. Mutual forgiveness. That way, neither of us gets to throw all the old baggage into a current disagreement. Those days are over. This is a new deal....a new contract.

Infidelity breaks the old marriage contract. The vows to love, honor, cherish, cleave only unto each other....BROKEN, and irrevocably so. Reconciliation is a NEW CONTRACT. You can make it anything you want it to be. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />





p.s. We were posting at the same time, so I got to see at least that part of your story. That's ALOT of "writing off" to do. His debt is a large one. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

It will be a challenge for you to put all that away. Do you think you can?

Thank you ladyjane. I've had to ponder forgivness for a long time. I guess I never knew exactly what it looked like. But you're right. There isn't anything that can be done... ever. Elect forgivness. I never looked at it as a choice. Only as something else I had to endure or be burdened with.

Thank you.

Did you find that your anger subsided when you were able to forgive?

Yes, it did. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

My anger was no longer valid. I had made a choice to forgive. I made it freely. I would have been acting unfairly to go back on that.

That's not to say that I didn't get irrationally angry from time to time. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> But it was easier to get it back under control without LBs. Because I took personal responsibility for maintaining my forgiveness.

In the early days....it needed LOTS of maintenance too! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />