BT - are you still in contact with your OM?

Also - in past posts you have claimed you do want this to work, then why are so resistant in trying it in a manner TD has suggested and hearing what the Harley's have to say. Then decide if it will help you or not.

Your personal councellor sound fine, but at the same time...she sounds like she is focusing on your reactions to TD's behavior instead of your actual behavior.

If you really want this marraige to work and for TD to change..then you need to stop focusing on him and let him change in his manner, and you need to start focusing on YOU and change in your manner.

And you need a plan in place for approaching these changes TOGETHER within this marriage.

Why are so against trying it ANY other way but your way?

This leads me back to question #1 up top...

[color:"red"] BT - are you still in contact with your OM?
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another way to put this ... HOW LONG AGO was the last contact with OM?

I have had no physical or verbal contact with OM since early August, when he called my home. I have seen him a couple times around town with no communication between us. Why is it I simply come on here to clarify why our counselor suggested I file for divorce, I even said I did not come on here to bash my H, nor to debate his bahvior or my own, and I have to justify what I have posted? I simply wanted to give the thread the reasons our counselor has for suggesting divorce.
The 1st week after discovery I did feel that my H must love me to even try to take me back, and for that week or so, he was kind to me. I still think he must love me, but I don't think we are going to be able to salvage this marriage. What the counselor also saw was for several months me trying hard to reach out to my H, to show him affection, to do the things he said he needed, and my H consistently and daily telling me, her, and many other people that I was doing "nothing" to try to save the marriage, that I wasn't trying, that I wasn't doing anything to give him any sign I wanted to recover. I was giving him everything I had at the time, and he rejected it all by telling me I was doing "nothing." I had been emotionally closed off to him for a while before the affair, and obviously it got worse during the affair, but I let my defenses down afterward, trying to re-establish a connection with my H that hadn't been there in a very long time. What I got in return was rejection of almost all of my efforts. I even initiated SF, which was a huge step for me due to the porn and emotional issues, and my H immediately afterward accused me of faking and of being too passive. I know I wasn't a sex maniac that time, but it was a start, and a big leap on my part.
I went to the MB weekend with him, and something happened to anger him, and on the first night he left the hotel room, refused to tell me where he was, and refused to have dinner with me. I ate dinner in the hotel restaurant by myself. I still attended all the lectures with him and tried that weekend the best I could.
One night a couple months ago, I went jogging. I had crossed paths with OM the previous time I jogged, with him passing me in his vehicle, so I changed my route and left at a different time as to do my best to avoid that happening again. I even took my 7 year old son with me on his bike to reassure my H that no funny business was up. As luck would have it, OM was walking down one of the streets I turned on with his wife. I didn't even look his way, and my son and I continued on towards home. I stopped at a friends to chat for a few minutes, and my son went on home. I came in the house and went in the kitchen to get something to drink, and my son tells H that we saw OM. I hand't even had a chance to tell him, which I would have after the kids went to be. I hadn't told him the 1st time I saw him out of just wanting to avoid the subject, and OM's wife told my H, and he told me he wanted to know if it happened again, so I knew I needed to tell him. Anyway, when my son mentioned it, my H asked if it was true. I said that yes, it was, that we had ran past OM and his wife, but there was zero interaction or even eye contact. H flew into a rage, calling me a slut, ******, and all kinds of other names right in front of all 3 of our kids. I left the room to go into another, and he followed me, cursing me out the whole time, and then picking up a chair and throwing it down on the ground, breaking one of the legs. He then left the house. I went upstairs to get the kids to bed so they wouldn't be in the middle of it all ( I guess looking back on it I should have left) and was telling our daughter a story when H returned. He stepped in to DD room and watched me tell her a story for a little while, and I was thinking that would calm him down and soften his heart a bit, but he then called me a stupid ****** right in front of her and left the room.
Again, I am only posting this because I have not posted any of it before. No matter how bad I felt or how bad the marriage was, My H did not deserve my having an affair. I know that and take full responsibility for the choice to enter into the affair. I tried hard for several months to reach out to my H. I told him how sorry I was, how badly I felt for hurting him, how no matter how I felt about the way I have been treated in this marriage, I should have filed for divorce, not had an affair. But now I feel even more emotionally closed off to him than I did before my affair. Opening up, trying to reach out, when I was closed off before for very good reasons, and then having to deal with months of rejected efforts, I guess self-protection kicks in and now the wall is back up and bigger than ever. I know my having the affair hurt my H, devestated him, and I expected anger, but I do not deserve the things that have happened. My considering filing for divorce has everything to do with the state of our marriage pre-affair and all the hurt I carry, like it or not, because of that, and the things that have happened and continue to happen post-affair. Our children have seen and heard way too much, and that can't continue to happen. I am emotionally raw, physically worn to the bone, and feel like it is getting to the point that there is no other option. I hope that clarifies where I am coming from. I also want to say that I don't want to give the imoression that my H has done nothing to show caring towards me these past few months. He absolutely has. I don't think I'll be posting for a while. It just causes more stress between me and my H.

It would seem to me that you cross paths too often with OM, even if there is no conversation or communication between the two of you..

Running into him puts him back in your thoughts. I know. Been there, done that.

Changing this situation and these run-ins can help tremendously.

Susan

You don't have to justify what you posted. You aren't going to get the approval of everyone on this board, but why should you want to? They're a bunch of strangers who aren't living your life-you are. You're the one who knows how scary your H's behavior is and how much you trust him to change it. You're the one who is responsible for your children's safety and environment. You have the advice of a counselor who knows you both and whom you trust. That's what's important-not the maunderings of people you couldn't pick out of a police lineup if your life depended on it (and I include myself in that category).

My XH was abusive-that's how he became my XH. He followed the same pattern your H seems to be following-at first he was verbally abusive, then he began breaking things and throwing things, not at me, but sorta in my direction. Once he threw a drink on me when he thought I wasn't paying enough attention to him. I kept thinking the same thing, "But he never hits me"-until the day he did. He picked a fight, beat me up, followed me into another room, and picked me up and threw me against a wall.

When I threw him out of the house and filed for divorce, we wound up meeting a lot of the same single people around town. I kept hearing about how sorry he was and how much he was working on himself and how he was learning to control his anger. What he was doing was saying nothing but praise about me in public, but yelling at me and berating me any time we had contact. I decided I was not going to argue my side with people who had no business in my life anyway. I divorced the bum and have never regretted it. In fact, all his attempts to show me a better side of himself and make me feel warm and friendly toward him were what confirmed I had done the right thing in divorcing him-he persistently hit the wrong note, the way people who live in denial do.

I don't know if divorce will be right for you. How could I? I don't know you or your H or your circumstances. I do know that it is frequently the only solution for dealing with an abusive spouse. I wouldn't let anyone else's bias against IC keep you from listening to your counselor if you are convinced she is competent and well versed in your situation.

ONe more thing that has been suggested is that I only came on here to refute what my H had been posting. This is incorrect. I was drawn into posting again by a thread from a W dealing with possible porn addiction by her H, a subject I am excruciatingly familiar with. I responded to her posts several times in an effort to try to help her with my experience. It was then my H started posting on the main forum again, and then again in the private forum, at which time Pepperband used his post from the private forum as an example of why IC, which is not what I was in, by the way, can be bad for marriages. That is when I responded, on her thread, to give the counselor's reasons for suggestig D as the most viable option. I specifically stated I was not there to bash my H or debate our behavior, only to fill in the blanks on the counselor's decision. I posted on my H's thread only when someone who has never met either one of us stated he knew something about our sitaution for a fact, which is a pretty bold statement to make. It is unfair to say I began posting again in response to my H's threads. I began posting again to try to help someone who I thought might be in the same painful situation I had been in.

If your husband is abusive as you say...and you do fear your safety then I wont convince you to stay...I wont. Abuse is something very real, I wont convince you he is not - as els said - only you know the truth.

I just read both yours and TD threads and there is so much inconsistancy it's hard to believe what is fact and what is fiction.

I do hope you both get help together perhaps and put an end - you are both on such different pages.

Your husband writes his hurt as well, and talks about your pushing, and your hitting and your hurtful words...even though he is bigger and stronger and can hurt you more - you are still being abusive towards him...

Does your IC know this and help you with this?

There is one thing I know for sure - you are in an abusive relationship - abusive from both sides from what i gather - but boards are misleading - only you and TD know the truth of your situation...

Well, it turned out to be true, right? You didn't actually see what happened? You cannot say with certainty how it happened?

I'm not saying this to be argumentative. I only brought it up on TD's thread myself because at that point people were talking about him as though he is a wife-beater, and one poster specifically made the point that he had smashed the vase "in your presence" as though he had done that right in front of your face.

I'm not out to bash you, either, BT. I pray for you - and for TD - every night. I firmly believe that the remorse you showed here on the board right after D-Day was genuine, and I have always been hopeful that the two of you would be able to recover. I am still hopeful, although I understand fully that you are about at your breaking point.

You spoke very eloquently above about how your efforts were rejected. I get that. I honestly believe T_D gets it, too. He didn't always, but he did after that last MC session. In fact, I was skeptical, and he convinced me that you'd been trying as hard as you were able.

Make of this what you will... I have never met either of you, true. But I believe, with all my heart, that it is possible for you and TD to rebuild your marriage, and to make it better than before. I know T_D's AOs have got to go - that he cannot afford another one.

One thing that I think would be helpful, since you and TD are both Christians - I think that you should both pray together that God will reveal His will to you both. And that God show His mercy to you both, since you both have been hurting for so long.

All the best,
Cuthbert Calculus

amen

I too believe your marriage could become a wonderful source of joy for both of you!

Did you try to follow the Harley recommendation to spend 15 hours of undivided time together as a couple? Did you do the followup course after attending the MB weekend? Doing these things would be helpful to both of you. I don't think you have earned your way to a DV unless you gave at least that much effort.

I would have you start with the Love Busters course first, as that sounds like where you both need the most work.

If you did the lessons then you would know that it is important to spend your recreational time together as well as find things you can enjoy doing together. That way you would have been running together (or not alone) so that you wouldn't have happened upon the OM (and his W) without your H with you.

I still believe you can have a better marriage than you did pre-A.


Neither one of you or any of us are perfect people. We all have areas wherein we could make improvements. If you don't work on those weaknesses it is likely that you will carry them into any future relationship...should you DV.