Ok, SSG. I too am a Christian albeit a relatively new one (6 years). Here is where I think you should start if you have not already.

1. Have you confessed and repented in front of your church family?
2.Get a trusted female (preferably someone farther in their walk than you)to be your accountability partner. Don't wait until you move next year, do it NOW.
3.Take part in a weekly bible study or women's prayer group.

Embrace God's forgiveness and work on forgiving yourself. I will find a thread on the Recovery board about forgiveness written by Foreverhers. It is powerful.

I don't want any of this to sound like I am some saint. I still mess up. I still do things that I regret and wish I didnt do. When I do mess up I tell who ever I offended that I am sorry and ask them to forgive me. I really wish I could be perfect and not do some of the things that I do. All I can do is try to learn from my mistakes.

Here it is. This for you will be more about personal forgiveness than your H forgiving you. Remember this is about your personal growth and recovery. Forgive? Trust? Really? Has anything been learned in the past year?

No one is asking you to be perfect. The only perfect one I Jesus Christ. We humans fail on a daily basis. The point is to point yourself in the right direction and keep working at it.

A couple other things to ponder...have you identified what problems you brought to your marriage? Have you worked on changing those things in you? Have you apologize to your H specifically for those things?
Have you figured out what weaknesses led you to have an A?

You don't need to answer right now. Just think it over.

I have done all those things FF. They womans bible study group doesnt get real personal, but its something. Our church is not a very good one and the support there is not real great. They all do know about the A. The other family attended church there too.

Have you looked for another church? Do you have a female accountability partner? I know this is hard, SSG but my H did what I asked him to do only on the surface. That created many false recoveries. I am looking for something deeper from you, KWIM?

You SSG, I could be wrong but I suspect that you have not really done the HARD work yet. The deep soul searching and looking under every rock to find the answers. It is not easy. Just as your walk as a believer is not easy.

Why do you say that? I am doing what I only know to do. I do want to do what needs to be done and if there is something you dont belive I am doing please feel free to let me know. Its not an easy thing to do, thats for sure. But like being a christian and walking that way, it takes work and its work I am willing to do.

To answer some other the other stuff you asked..I believe I have identified the problems I brought into the marriage. I have been working on them and my husband and I have talked about them. I use to yell at the kids alot. Didnt know how to totally deal with two teens with totally different problems and a little one at home too. It was something that really bothered my husband and I didnt know about it until a few months back. I have worked on it and now I know some battles are just not worth fighting about. "Pick your battles" as some of my friends say. I dont yell at the kids like that anymore. Sure we have our moments, but we get along alot better now. I want to be here for them as I always have been and enjoy them while they are still here.( have a senior this year!)
You wanted to know about weaknesses. Them leading to the A. I have alot. Never knew it before, but do now. Just recently I was faced with another. Seems like my faults are standing there stairing me in the face sometimes. I think reconizing those weakness is just the first step and I know I still need some work on them.
Wish it were easy to find another church. The only other real option for me would be attend another church besides the Christ of Christ. Thats not an option. I do have support there. There are some really good Christian ladies there that will be here for me if I need them. I do have a friend that even though she is 10 years younger, she has been in my situation and has grown to be a wonderful Christian lady. She always encourages me to pray and seek Christ in all I do.

I think what FF is asking you is have you really looked deep within and owned your affair - this is different than taking responsibility or blame for your affair.

And it takes time, and alot of pain to look at these things. For example - I went from I was neglected in the marriage, to H needed to change, to H contributed to the neglect in the marriage but my affair was my choice and not his fault...there I took responsibility - but it went further.

What were my contributions to this failure in the marriage - could my neglect have been prevented if I had changed? If I had learned to communicate better - could the neglect have been possibly my own fault? Also - I had felt this before - so why did I stray this time - it wasn't just neglect - that is scape goat - what was it in ME that allowed me to comprise MY morals.

turned out it was my poor coping skills and I had a history of turning to self destructive behaviors when things were too much for me to handle - but I had never noticed this before - thought they were the ups and downs of my past life.

And then the changing - the painful changing, learning new habits, new coping skills - NEW communication (that was the hardest as I am a talker and never thought I had communication problems) all of this done without ever asking my husband to change...but in the beginning I asked ALOT of changes out of him - this took me months, and STILL is taking my time - I am a constant work of progress with alot of failures and successes on this new journey.

I think FF is eluding to the fact that you still may need to embark on this journey of OWNING your affair. And in doing this - this may be the key to your husband coming home. When he finally feels he is no longer a failure (as he does feel like one - trust me).

I could be off base here - but have you look long and hard at yourself. Hve you asked Jesus to show you the truth about yourself, even though you may not want to see it, and then asked Him to change you and help you?

Dorry, Thanks for coming into this conversation. I really would like to respond, but am leaving to go to services soon. I will get back to you. I really want to talk with you all about this. I will be back on tonight after the little one is down for the night.

Great! Ask her if she would be willing to be your accountability partner and vice versa. You see we all need someone to keep us REAL. The path to an A is filled with lies. Lies to ourselves, to our spouses, to our children, to the OP etc.. Mostly lies to ourselves. I cannot begin to tell you how I justified my actions back then. I now have good friends (2 of them)that are willing to ask the hard questions and hold me accountable when I am not seeing things clearly.

Yes! Dorry got what I was saying. Keep on posting SSG

My friend is really good and she does tell me when I am wrong about something. She tries to give me the best advice she can and if she doesnt know what to really say, she just tells me to pray about it. She will be leaving soon for Iraq so my main support here will be gone. I know I will be ok. I am more worried about her leaving her baby that is three months old and her first. Dad is in Iraq too. Prayers for her. Prayers for them.
You have talked about me owning my affair. It is a painful thing to realize that YOU and no one else is responsible for your affair. Unfortantaly I did try to place blame on the wrong people. I didnt take full responsible and I did handle some things wrong. I know there are many problems of mine that contributed to the affair. Things in my marriage that I should have changed and if I tried to change I should have kept up with trying because my marriage was well worth it. I know communication was a big problem too.
I am working on making changes. I see the things I need to work on and I really want to because I know deep in my heart I am a good person and I know I can be even better. It is really hard to realize your faults and believe you could ever be that person that inflicted so much pain on the one person in your life you would want to be with forever ( not to mention the MANY others hurt by all this). Guess I have denied myself in believing I was that person. Can only go up now. Right?
Thanks for responding to this post you all. I think I am getting some out of it.

SSG,

May I ask you something. What is your H's position on things right now? Are you two talking at all? If so what is the tenor of these conversations?

I see great progress in you, and I am wondering if your H has seen this progress. If not, what is your plan for this?

You mentioned that he used to post here. If you don't mind could you refresh my memory as to what his logon name was? If you are not comfortable with this don't worry, but it might help to have a better feel of things.

Must go.

God Bless,

JL

SSG, once you own the A and dig to find out the why you did it you can begin to heal. The A does not define who you are. Your actions now define the person you are becoming. I can see much growth in you since your early posts. I just want to make sure you don't gloss over your own responsibility. It is very hard to look yourself in the mirror once you face truths. Your character can change and that change will come through your walk with Jesus Christ. I am sorry if I am appearing harsh with you. It is only because I want to help you. Warm fuzzies don't help us FWS. Facing ourselves straight on does.

I am glad Dorry is jumping here. I am hoping some other FWW's will as well.

JL, I will leave it to SSG to decide to ID her H or not. I don't know who her FOMW is and don't care to know. I don't want to feel conflicted.

SSG, I will gladly walk through this process with you, OK?

Hi SSG -

FF asked me to pop in and see if there was anything that I could help you with... I'm definitely not an expert, but I can offer up a BS perspective and some of the conflicts that I dealt with.

One of the larger ones that comes to mind was the fact that Mrs. RIF and I were both raised in our hometown church and when I found out about the fist A, I just didn't know how to deal with it. Part of my own struggle in working through all of this was how could my W, that claimed to be a Christian, have done all of these things...

For me, it has been a very long, hard, painful, road in rebuilding our M. Mrs. RIF's consistent walk with the Lord and changed behaviors have been the best thing that has helped me. Now her biggest issue is learning to forgive herself.

Semper Fi,
RIF

FF is right, once you really begin to understand what in you caused you to have the affair, it's when you really begin to change and heal. You no longer live under the cloud that you are a bad person but that you did something bad and it's not who you are, and you learn how to protect yourself and better yourself so it will never happen again.

I do ask the same questions JL is asking you - how have you shown your husband these changes - do you guys talk?

The biggest thing is consitancy - be prepared that as you change, people around you wont see the changes, or believe them, that being your husband too - and it's the hardest part, to live under the stigma of your past behaviors when you know Jesus is making miraculous changes within you - but this is when you have to perservere and dig down for that strength to keep the hard changes up....and as you keep them coming and are consistant with it - other people start to see those changes too and believe them and realize you aren't who you were.

And it's a constant struggle as we are only human, and we fail..but you can't beat yourself up for those failures along the way - pray to Jesus about that failure and ask Him to show you another way and learn and grow.

You WILL come out a much healthier, balanced person with Jesus in your world.

I can see you are already on that path...and it's not an easy one. facing ugly truths about yourself is the hardest thing I have ever had to do...it destroys you - but this is where with God's help you can become who HE wanted you to be <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Hi all,

As you know I am a fww...I really had the cruds with my spirituality, my mentality etc... you name it...went through it...That part of my life is improving...


I have made all of the necessary changes in my life and am working on my m... I am in IC every week... I am working on my spiritual life again as that reserve was very well drained during the A.

I am just lost feeling somedays...I was not entitled or justified to have an A. Please I do not excuse myself...I am choosing to love my h...I am thankful to my h for forgiveness...I am thankful for Christ for his mercy big time and forgiveness...I don't feel consumed by the guilt or condemnation anymore...that is the freedom that christ offers...my h doesn't expect me to grovel, he doesn't want me to continue in condemnation...not healthy.

Here goes the issues...the m on some (most) days is still the pre A marriage. I never know when h will be happy, good mood etc...he can be critical of me,disrespectful etc...

There was a pivotol moment that occured the other evening for me...

My h was critiquing me again and using the tone of voice thing that is common in my m and I started feeling all the "old" feelings rush back in and invade my heart again...the old I can never get his approval feelings...well I went into a quiet place of the house and just prayed right away about it... I made a decision right there that I wasn't going to buy into the "old" hurts anymore...that is what aided me into making bad decisions before...
Well, you know God protected my heart that evening and I felt such grace and love and I realized that yes, I have done wrong but just as the years before the A ...I learned to cope...and I can learn to cope again...

Now it is up to Christ and my h to make the necessary changes...Oh yes...I have alot of work still ahead...I am not off of the hook...but when does my h decide to work on the m alongside with me...

You see for him...he told me that he wished I hadn't fessed up about the A...he said I could have taken it to the grave...I started questioning why I did come clean...my IC confirmed that yes I did the right thing...living with the lie would not have benefitted the m especially since my A was not a brief thing...well my h really doesn't seem to have any trouble with the A at all...he is not like any of the bs on this forum at all...maybe h is just that forgiving or just wants to not dwell...communication is not great for us...I have to guess alot...he doesn't like r talk at all.

I do not have unrealistic expectations for m...I just long for him to at least throw me a bone...he says it is not in his personality to offer a hug or a kiss randomly...or to compliment etc...

I have done these things in the hope that I will reap these things back...I guess I need more patience...he is not w/holding b/c of the A...these are his traits and has been for years. He says that he just doesn't have these needs so he doesn't dole it out.
There really isn't much communication...what do I do???

I feel so empty somedays...I read every posts especially from bs to glean something from.

I really am learning all about my weaknesses and how to protect myself and my heart and how to love my h more than I love myself...it is all about choices to love.

My mindset has been changing daily and somedays my only prayer is just thanking God for renewing my mind.
I cannot beleive that for even a second I thought it acceptable to be involved with OM. But, sin always starts in the mind.

I am not fogged out ok...but when will it be appropriate for me to discuss marital issues w/h again? He hates r talk...always has...do you think he didn't want to know about A b/c then he has to actually put effort into m? Is that crazy sounding??

He has told me that he has been unhappy for years...not necessarily w/me...other issues that I have no control over...so I finally decided the other evening that I cannot be responsible for HIS happiness...anyone else have these issues?

I am sorry to be lengthy...I really don't post often and I hope I didn't pinch anyone else's thread. Maybe my concerns are another fww concerns.
Thanks for your time!