I discovered my WH A about a month and half ago. He still says he doesn't know where he is in all this. The OW does not live in our state anymore, so there is no chance of them being together.
I have tried to be loving and thoughtful. I have apoligized and admitted I was not 100% meeting H EN. We are in MC just one visit so far.
When I am having a hard time with something and I want to talk he tells me that, that is what we are going to MC for and we should just talk about it then. (his way of trying to shut me up) He shows no real guilt about what he has done. He doesn't even act like he gives a crap.
I want to know why I have to be the one to "save our marriage" I am the BS but yet I have to be the strong one and try and make my WH come around. HUH??!!
And while I'm suppose to be doing that I feel like S***, because of his actions. I don't know why it is fair that I have to now live in a marriage that I feel like I am #2. Because when it counted he chose to be with another woman.
So my question is: I know I was not holding up my end of the bargain by not meeting all EN, but is that equal to an A?
Meaning is he as hurt by me not meeting his needs as I am hurt by his A?
Because everything I read is pretty much saying Yeah the A was wrong but now you have to step back and take a look at yourself and see what was going wrong in your M to begin with. Well I find that extremely difficult when I am so angry and hurt by the fact my H had an A I can't even think about having to now try and be 100% for his EN.
I hope this doesn't sound like a bunch of mumbo jumbo. But I am at a point I just can't understand how you go on.

Dear Karrie,
It's definately painful to be a b/s. I am just starting to get a grip on my emotions, and now am able to detach my feelings from what has gone on in the past two months. I now realize that when I loose control of my emotions and feelings, I give my power away.
Being a B/S is unfair. And for quite awhile it will be just you that is doing most of the work because at this moment your husband is still probably in a fog, and is unable to give you what you need. He could also be going through withdrawels, which means he could be moody, angry, deppressed etc.
What it boils down to, probably at this moment, you are the only one that is focused on making the marriage better. Is it fair, not a chance, but we as b/s's, have to take the hand that is dealt to us, and bring our concerns to the marriage builders forum, where there are fellow b/s's that have hands on experience on what to do and not to do.
I am so greatful to have a place where I can get advice. Especially since most family and friends tell you to kick w/s to the curb after discovery.

Karrie,

I can imagine how tough it is. And it is not fair.

However, your H does feel hurt. He will never know the amount of hurt you're feeling but he knows that what he did was wrong and since he loves you he will have to live with the disgust of his choice for the rest of his life.

You are at MB to do one thing - get your M back on track. I have read that love is not about what your S can do for you but it is about you giving. When you love someone, do you expect them to do things for you and your love is conditional on them doing these things? Or is love about how you want to give yourself to this person and just keep on giving. That to me is love and I can't wait to have that feeling of just wanting to give all I have to someone because I love them.

The concepts here are to give. The purpose is when one gives the other gives. This can only build up to something wonderful.

Unfortunately this requires two people - and only two people. So you both have to be on board to do this. It doesn't work for one person nor three people.

So yes it is difficult at first but the rewards far outweigh the initial start up.

Hang in there. It's okay to be hurt - you have every right! Just remember to love and to give and your H will do the same.

Karrie - No, not meeting EN's is NOT "equal to an Affair," not even close. You were BOTH not getting all of your Emotional Needs met, you YOU didn't choose adultery as "right," when if fact it is WRONG...period.

No, he is NOT hurt "as much as you." I'm sorry, but here's the reality that all of us Betrayed Spouses must face, that the Unfaithful Spouse never has to face....

At the point of the affair, YOU were loved by no one, while the Unfaithful Spouse was loved by two people. There can be NO "similarity" in "loved" and "unloved." It's a FACT. all you can do is to choose to restore love.

LOVE is first a choice. It then follows in ACTION, we ACT in loving ways long before the feelings of 'in love' ever grow and blossom.

You, like most of us, may not have had the 'best marriage' you could have had. You may have fallen short of meeting your spouse's Emotional Needs, in part or in total. But make NO mistake about it....that is NO excuse for adultery.

He made a choice, and the choice FOR adultery is 100% the responsibility of the Unfaithful Spouse. So while you can "own up to" an "atmosphere in your marriage" that may have been conducive to you spouse seeking to get his needs met outside of the marriage, ACTING on his thoughts was his choice, and his choice ALONE.

There is no "excusing" the affair. There is only repentance and forgiveness.

God bless.

Hi Karrie,

I'm sick of it too!
ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!!

Honestly, probably not. At least not the same way we, as BS's are hurt. I know it sucks to read that and there are some FWS's that may disagree and I hope they say so here, because I for one would love to hear what they were thinking back then.

My WH did the exact same thing when we were in MC and refused any R talk outside the MC's office. Drove me nutz and he knew it. I think they do this for a couple of reasons. First, if they actually say something honest and revealing and it's hurtful to you, the MC can help to maintain a respectful level of discussion. (Which finally happened at our last MC session where I *finally* got honest in the session and told WH that I thought he was full of S#*! and he had to be kidding me to think I was going to keep believing him-the MC let me rant, some, but when I started getting hostile he calmed me down) The second reason I think they do it, is it's still pretty fresh to them too and while some of us want to talk over every little detail of the A, they are still trying to figure it all out.

As for your MC, Karrie, do your very best to hang in there. Eventually, your WH will start to talk, stop pushing him and let the MC do that for you.

I've only just started to get some of my self-confidence back. WH's A knocked me to my knees and it's been hard to just stand up again. You don't have to be the one to save your marriage, Karrie, you do have a choice. The fact is, you are here, you are in MC and you do still care for your H and your marriage, so you are doing what you can and right now, that's A LOT! If you walked away tomorrow you could still say that you tried, but you have to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and say that too.

{{{{{{{{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}}}}

Hey.....I'm sick of it too.....just thought I'd let you know that you're not the only one sick of this crappy hand we've been dealt.

-Caren

P.S. CambridgeMan....I love your Mother Teresa quote, that's GREAT!!

Me, too!

Thank you all for the advice

-KDS I do realize I give my power away when I lose control of my emotions. When I think I have control and seem to somehow loose my self again. I do know that control is key and I'm working on it. I do agree this ite has been a great friend when I am down.

-CAM I know you say to give and you will recieve, but I feel that I am giving but I get aggreviated beacuse nothing ever seems to sink in. Am I trying to early? Do I need to wait until the fog has lifted? Should I back off or just not be pushy? I find it very difficult to give at this time, I can't help but to want for him to come to me.

-Forever I believe 100% what you are saying however when I confront my H with this he says he is as hurt as I because he was not happy before the A. This is why he does not know where he is in all this. He does say he loves me but is not sure of anything else. Do you think my H really understands the damage he has done? Does he really think he is as hurt as I or is he just saying this to relieve his guilt? When he says those things I don't know whether to believe him or not.

-Stop I do hope to hear from some FWS's maybe they can give me some insight. I do not think our M will actually move forward at any kind of pace if we only talk about the M in MC. There are so many things that I go through on a daily basis that I want to talk about. I feel like the time inbetween MC is decades. I do feel that some of our talk are beneficial and some don't always go as smooth. As long as we are communicating do you think we could do more harm than good? Thank you for acknowledging it is alot just to keep pushing on. I appreciate the advice and understanding. Sometimes I loose sight that i do still have a choice in all this. Sometimes I think it would be easier just to walk away. I know you say that if things don't work out at least I know I tried. God, i wish that was as easy said as done, and truely believed.
Thank you so much for everyones advice.

Karrie,
Big hug, glad you are here, but sorry you need to be here.
I am a recent BS and FWS. I can empathize because I feel your frustration. I scream in my head "YOU had the A and now I have this huge mess to clean up and you just sit there like a zombie!!" I have been reading this morning about conflict avoidance. My WH is a big conflict avoider while I am the polar opposite. If a problem comes up, I want to lay it out on the kitchen table, get out the kinves and saws, dissect it, analyze it, write up the report for review-and can we please get it done before dinner, I don't want to put my life on hold for this issue.

My WH is the typical "if I stick my head up my butt, this will all just go away". So I know today, that this is a big problem and I may have learned it too late. He has been out of the house for 5 days. So I can completely understand your feeling of being the only one doing the work. I was like a desperate puppy in his lap , "let me meet your needs, please oh please". I needed to be very proactive in feeling like I was doing everything possible to prevent a "relapse". We crashed and burned and my realization might be too little, too late.

I do not think I can really compare the pain of being a WS to that of being a BS. They really are very different. Being a BS has shaken my core, I don't trust my gut, I feel so sick knowing that I was lied to, I don't know if I will ever fully trust him, I am so extremely frustrated and insulted. As a WS, I felt completely ashamed, shocked by who I had become, It really broke me down to a very primal level-I had to rebuild from scratch.

I believe that I am a truely repentant FWS-I do not think I am capable of being that person again. Pardon my bluntness, but NO ONE, not my husband, not another man, NO ONE will ever tempt me into becoming an adulteress ****** again. I am not that person anymore and will my Higher Power's help, I will never be that person again.

As a BS, I can't say that. I may be that person again. I am powerless over people, places and things. I can do my very best to create an atmosphere that is not conducive to an affair, but in the end, I do not get to make the decision. That is what is painful, the powerlessness of being a BS. Sure, I could spend the rest of my life alone and never worry about it again. But I resent the fact that my WH has the unilateral power to turn me into a BS. I don't want to live in Jerry Springersville. I did not chose this path.

Actually, not all communication is created equal IMO.

When I would try to talk about things in between the counciling sessions and WH would try to back off, I pushed too. What happened was I was getting responses that I wasn't prepared to a)deal with; b)adequately respond back to and c)got me more angry with him.

I've recently hit a point where I don't do that anymore. Why put myself through the misery? But, we all do it and have the scars to show for it. Maybe it's part of the whole process, who knows.

When folks would ask me, 'what are you doing for yourself?' I would think, I'm breathing aren't I? Isn't that enough!?
At one point it was, now it isn't. You'll reach that point too.

Oh, I think if you sit around and wait for your WH to come to you, it might not happen. Try to remember, you still have the upper hand believe it or not. You are still married to this man and no matter what he will have to deal with that at some point.

I am jumping in here. But in this thread I feel like someone layed out my life. Karrie, I know exactly what you are feeling. Sometimes it feels like you are back on your knees, confused, worried, feeling like you are two seconds away from a nervous breakdown. I know this may sound redundant but, "The sun will come out tomorrow." I know it's hard to believe that, TRUST me, I know that all too well. But if there is ONE positive thing to feel about this whole disgusting mess, is that it will only make you stronger inside. Keep your head up, you are NOT to blame for what your WH did. There is never an excuse or valid reason for having an A.
There are two quotes that I want to say are too true here.
My WH is the typical "if I stick my head up my butt, this will all just go away", "'what are you doing for yourself?' I would think, I'm breathing aren't I? Isn't that enough!?" and "YOU had the A and now I have this huge mess to clean up and you just sit there like a zombie!!" These three quotes seem to say it ALL.

I just realized I cant count!!!! There are THREE quotes, not two. DUH!

Wow!! Jean36 you really put it into perspective where both parties stand. You are so on target with how the BS feels. I think feeling vunerable to this happening again is a big part of feeling hopeless with my M. When everything you thought you new to be true is taken away it really is a shock. You have brought such clarity to this situation.
As far as the WS I do not fully understand how someone could have an A if they really in truely loved their S. I can not even relate to that in anyway. It is not even in my vocab. I guess I have difficulty with knowing that my husband truely loves me because I do not understand how he was capable of doing this. I would really appreciate any thoughts, you have really opened a door for me to see into. THANK YOU
-Stop I guess I think if I don't communicate about our R more than just in counseling I feel as if we will never get anywhere. Isn't part of healing trying to get back to the relationship of just even coexsisting with one anthor? My problem is that when i start talking with him again and things seem to be going OK something comes up and i want to addr ss it. I don't want to have to wait several days to talk about it in MC. I feel like I don't know how to function in our R, I feel as thou I'm walking on egg shells. Is this just normal? Will it just take time? I feel that i need a script of what to do and say at every moment for I am afraid I will mess something up. At times I am just full of rage and I want to tell him all over again what he did and how bad it hurts, because that is how it feels to me, like I relive it everyday. I wish this was easier, Do I need to just have faith that things need to run it's course and have faith in the MC?
Is it out of my hands how fast we heal?

HRT
Thanks for the encouraging words and the smile about "the sun will come out tomorrow" I am still looking for the sun <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
It's good to hear positive things from people who have been there. Thanks and Good Luck

It's there, it's just hiding. Stubborn thing! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
It's all pretty fresh to me too, but I figure, if I'm having a good day, someone else isn't and I should send a smile or encouragement because one day I won't be having a good day and I'll need someone to return the favor.

Karrie,
I am glad that you got something out of my words. I am still processing so much, it is helpful for me to get it out. I cannot explain why a WS does what they do. I am a FWS and I do not know why I did it. I still have a tendency to try to make sense of it and that ends up sounding like I am trying to justify it. I know, I KNOW, that there were at least 1001 things I could have done to try to get my EN's met within my marraige. I made that absolute worst choice I could have. I should have dug another pond in the yard (that helped for several months), I should have tried to meet my DH's needs so maybe there would be something in his love bank to give me. I made the absolute worst decision and I was completely aware of what I was doing, it was not something I slipped into. A little history, mine was a long distance EA over the phone when I looked up my "first love". I knew, without a shadow of a doubt what would happen when I saw his name on the caller ID and I picked it up anyway.

Why did I do it? It was the most selfish thing I could have done. I thought I deserved a little happiness too. I told myself that my DH didn't care enough about me to see the white flag I had been waving for years. I just gave up, I was weak and spineless and I turned into a disgusting creature. It was the worst decision that I could have made. I just need to keep saying that, I need to remind myself of that often. I took the easy way out, I was a coward.

But, even knowing all that about myself as a FWS does not ease the pain of the powerlessness of being a BS. I am a control freak, I am a conflict confronter (usually), I don't like mind games, I don't like having to work around the alien brain that has invaded my WH. I keep coming here because I do believe that these principles would have helped when I was the WW. If my DH would have said to me, "this is unacceptable, stop acting like a dog in heat, this is not who you want to be", I believe I would have stopped.

This is terrible frustrating. I hate it because I know what WH is feeling and I can't seem to keep him from self destruction. It is so hard watching someone I love do this to himself. I know the pain he will have when he does "wake up" and he looks in the mirror with unbearable self loathing.

I am in a "detaching with love" phas now. I have left a door open but he knows that I must protect myself emotionally from this roller coaster. But please, don't take my advice on anything regarding rebuilding a marriage, I really stink at it. But I am learning, and hoping it is not too late. Stick around, like I said, as a FWS I do believe these principle will work.

Karrie - Do you think my H really understands the damage he has done?

No, he is still in denial and has not accepted full responsibility for HIS CHOICE to have an affair. He is still trying to shift the "blame" to you. As a result, he also has not fully repented and is "telling you" that "it could happen again" if he gets to feeling neglected again.

Wimp. That' what you are married to right now. What you WANT and NEED is a "real man." One that is willing to accept full responsibility for HIS choices and who is willing to learn from them to NEVER again make the same "bad choices."

Does he really think he is as hurt as I or is he just saying this to relieve his guilt?

Karrie, you know the answer to this question as well as I do. NONE of us can "feel" someone else's pain. We may have suffered a pain from a similar cause, but our "feeling" is uniquely our own. We CAN empathsize with what someone else is feeling when they are enduring a similar sort of thing that we experienced, but there are no guarantees the pain is the "same." At the very least, a BS's pain might be same as another BS's pain, and a WS's pain might be the same as another WS's pain, but there is no way to "measure the pain or to determine it's 'sameness'." A WS CANNOT understand the depth and magnitude of the feelings that THEIR betrayal causes in the Faithful Spouse. The closest one can come to telling a WS WHAT that pain is like is that it (marital unfaithfulness) is the ONE reason that Christ gives for a "valid divorce." It's THAT painful and THAT difficult to recover from.

Do you think my H really understands the damage he has done? Does he really think he is as hurt as I or is he just saying this to relieve his guilt? When he says those things I don't know whether to believe him or not.

Pardon me while I go off in a corner somewhere and PUKE.

This is an EXCUSE. There are NO excuses to "justify" the CHOICE to betray God, your Marriage Vows, and your Spouse. The wedding vows are lifetime and they are "for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer.

Believe him. That is what he thinks right now even though it's just more "denial smoke." He is WRONG, but it tells you there is much work yet to be done. He does not UNDERSTAND, nor is he willing to take RESPONSIBILITY.

Repent, means taking personal responsibility for OUR sin, not someone elses, and turning 180 degrees from it, never to go back to choose disobedience to God again. "Am I my brother's keeper?" Blame shifting began early and continues unabated today, ESPECIALLY in America where the prevailing "notion" is that "it's always someone else's fault" for the evil WE choose to do. Personal responsibility is being bred out of us by our namby pamby society....and we are buying it hook, line, and sinker...because it CATERS to giving in to our selfish desires and adopting an attitude of "there's no such thing as 'Right and Wrong,' how dare someone else try to tell me what I'm doing, or did, is WRONG!"

YOU are right. Stay the course. Recovery is a long process. Don't give up yet when there is yet much learning for both of you to do.

God bless.

Yes, sucks seriously stagnant swamp water too. But, as much as you'd like to turn back the calendar, you can't. Your M has changed and you have to change in order to survive. So far, for me, that's been the really hard part since I didn't WANT to in the first place - dammit.

Yep again. I screwed up everything at first and managed to make it a whole lot worse than better. It's gonna happen, nobody is perfect. Just take responsibility for your own actions, learn from your mistakes and act accordingly. That's all you can do.

Next MC session maybe you should bring up the fact that you'd like to keep talking outside of the office and see how that goes. Hopefully your therapist can give you guys some ways of doing that. In the meantime, just keep breathing.