H&C--
How are you?

Intexas

Hello Everyone. It's been awhile since I last posted. I had a beautiful, and most importantly, healthy baby boy. Despite all the stress I have been through this last year, my baby is healthy. Thank the Lord!!!

To pick up where I left off, WH is still working with OW. He is still denying that nothing more than kissing occurred with OW. I have no real proof, but my gut tells me he is lying.

We have had huge, horrible fights over this OW. I can't seem to control my anger (maybe it's post-partum depression??? I can't seem to control myself). He tells me that he will not leave his job, and if I don't like it, I can leave.

I am so frustrated, so depressed, so hurt. I cry every day. It's been seven months now since we got back together, but the passage of time has not made it better. I am still as angry, as hurt, as depressed as I was back then.

The obsessive thoughts are getting the best of me. He told me that he told OW that he loved her, but he said it was the kind of "I love you" that he would say to his mother, so not a romantic I love you. That is so painful to me. Because of that, I have not been able to say I love you to him. I just can't.

In one of our horrible arguments, I kept saying over and over to him, "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you." I think I am losing it.

I hate him because I feel he has not suffered the intense pain that I have suffered, and it's just not fair. He seemed to have taken our two separations in 2006 just fine. For example, WH just told me that he was the highest billing associate in his law firm for the last year whereas I couldn't even function last year and had to go on short-term disability for a month. For all of 2006, I couldn't concentrate and my work suffered -- he, on the other hand, excelled.

I guess I'm just having a pity party for myself. It was around this time last year that I first found out about his affair, and we separated. Then, this Superbowl weekend is a trigger for me because of what happened last Superbowl. We weren't even separated for a week when he decided he wanted to throw a Superbowl party at our house. And he invited OW. Ugh!

Every day I feel like leaving WH, but I don't because I am so afraid of being alone with two kids. I do love him, but I hate him also for what he has done. I think I would be more able to get over this if he was more understanding, but whenever I try to bring up the affair to try and process it, he gets very angry and defensive, and I end up feeling like the bad guy. I am so tired of trying to be understood. I want him to be sincerely remorseful. I want him to initiate conversations about the affair and OW. I want him to tell me when he has seen her, has talked to her, etc. I want openness and honesty, and I feel I don't get that. He just doesn't understand how much this has just totally devastated me.

I can honestly say that not a minute goes by in any given day that I don't think about this affair. And I have shed so many tears that my tears could fill a bathtub. While I don't cry every day, it's pretty darn close. Friday, I was just vacuuming, and a thought of he and OW entered my mind, and I literally fell down sobbing.

I don't want to live my life this way, so pathetic so weak.

When does it get better? I need support right now because otherwise, I feel like just quitting.

"When my WH and I separated the first time, one of the worst things for me was thinking that I would not have the opportunity to have another child which I desperately wanted. So, in a way, the reconciliation with my WH was good because I got what I wanted: I got pregnant. Now, if something were to happen to this baby, I would be devastated"

I feel bad about this. It seems to me you wanted another baby even if your husband did not want one. If your marriage was so rocky, why have another child?

So, you went ahead and got pregnant without planning it with the husband. Women often do this. Then, it seems you tried to use the pregnancy to keep your H away from the OW. This is manipulative on your part. Now, you are trying to keep the marriage together because you are afraid to live alone with two kids, at least ONE child you created without your husband being on board with it.

You brought some of this on yourself and as much pain as you are in, your use of manipulative tactics and having the baby YOU wanted even in a rocky marriage where your husband did not want another child, is not good.

If I were you I would start to figure out how to live independently without becoming pregnant and manipulating men to take care of you and your children. It is better for your health and the children's health if you dont use the kids to manipulate men to stay with you. You can learn to be independent and support yourself. That way, you can break off with a man who does not love you and be with a man who does love you someday!

Read Starfishes post,. It tells how you can be happy within yourself without trying to make people love you or having children without planning the pregmancies with the father!

Who says: If you want another child, just have one, and dont tell the father that you are doing this"

That is sneaky. your husband will have to pay for the child even if he does not live with you. You created a life YOU wanted without even consulting the other parent! You knew the marriage was rocky. But YOU wanted another baby. It was all for YOU. What were you thinking!

**************edit***************

" don't hold out much hope for him coming back. He has told me countless times that we should neve have gotten married; that we are totally incompatible; that all I do is complain and nag, and he just wants to go out and have fun, etc."

Did you believe hin when he said this? Many times, us women who are Christians, hope we can get together with an unbeliever man and "change him". But it ends up there is basic incompatabiltiy and we cannot change other people into what we want them to be.

1. He wanted fun, freedom, a loving companion.
2. You wanted a Christian family man who wanted to raise children.

This sounds like a basic incompatability from the start.

"I was so hurt when I read this. Despite what my WH has done and continues to do, my family has been nothing but supportive of him. Then his brother accuses me of being manipulative when what I did was inform my WH via email, because I didn't want to get emotional, of my pregnancy complications."

Yes, I believe you were trying to manipulate your husband. But yet, I dont believe in affairs. He should have just divorced you first or tried to work out the marriage with you and not had sex with that other woman.

***************edit*********************

You have your husband at home now! You have a chance to try and save the marriage. Here is what I would do:

1. Make your home life a wonderful haven for you, him, and the children.

2. No nagging or complaining or negative talks.

3. No demanding things from him

4. No more laying any "surprise pregnancies" on him.

5. Be trustworthy by using good birth control with sex or get at tubal ligation.

6. Realize you married an un-christian man so you will always be unequally yolked. Accept this fact or move on. Accept that you will not be able to manipulate this man or "change him" into what you want him to be.

7. Find your own passion in life within the marriage. become a person a man would love to be with.

8. Have fun in your marriage and at home.

9. Get counseling on how to be less dependent on your H for your happiness.

10. Have wild, protected sex with him every other day.

If you work on yourself, you can make a better marriage. I know you can do it. You are not the victim here, you are a survivor and you can make your marriage great by changing yourself and your point of view. Figure out the things YOU did wrong in the marriage and correct those. YOU are accountable just as he is for a good or bad marriage. YOU can change yourself therefore changing your marriage!

Stellakat, my Lord...lighten up for God's sake....hey, he was there too when HE got her pregnant...You play, you pay...He sounds like a smart man. He knows the consequences of having sex. This is not all her fault.
HNC, I am sorry you are going thru this....I cannot even imagine how hurt and devastated you are.

I agree Hoping, her husband knows what to do about birth control. After all, he used condoms carefully with the other woman. Why did he not do this with his wife? Because she told him she was on the pill perhaps? And he trusted her?

If she did trick her husband into another pregnancy he may have a hard time ever truly trusting her again and this could be something causing the marriage to fail.This issue should be faced by them both. She should apologise for skipping birth control or lying to him.

I am saying that no one has made the OP in any way accountable for the demise of the marriage. And if both are not accountable, then the marriage wont be healed. After all, her husband is not here to tell his story. What if his story is this:

Hi, I am H&C husband. Let me tell my side of the story here. I married, H&Courage for many reasons. She was beautiful, fun to be with, had good values, was a smart attorney, i respected and loved her. I was not a Christian but I thought that since she was, and she accepted me for being a non-Christian that our marriage would work.

I was happy when the first child came along but then, my wife started expecting things from me. She expected me to be a total family man and never go out to see my friends. She would not go anywhere or have any fun after the baby was born. She became unhappy, depressed, and nagged me constantly because she did not like the way I was.

I behgan to get tired of the nagging and avoided going home at times since it seemed like a minefield. She begged me to go to her church but I was not a believer so I did not go. Soon, she was not having sex with me anymore. I worked harder and more hours to avoid the stressful home life.

We broke up and got back together a few times, I was an idiot and began talking to other women and had an affair. She was sometimes living in my rental home.

One time we got back together(she was nice for a few days) and she said she was on the pill and I never had reason not to believe her so i did not use a condom with her. And whoops, she became pregnant. It was the worst time this could have happened, our marriage being unstable and my affair. I knew she wanted another baby above anything. She wanted that baby and did not care about me, my needs, or our marriage.

In fact, never during our marriage did my wife ever ask what my needs were or try and change and quit nagging me or demanding that I change into what she thought a family man should act like. Where did my fun wife go?

Now she is pregnant and holds that over my head. All I hear about is the guilt she is laying on me about the baby, baby the baby. i want to avoid her even more. I did not want another baby given our rocky marriage but she went ahead and lied to make it happen so now it is reality.

She uses the pregnancy to manipulate me, playing the poor victim, telling others how difficult the pregnancy is, accusing me of leaving her when she was pregnant, etc. Really i was leaving her because she is negative, yells, nagges, forces me to go to church, demands things of me, and refuses to go have any fun with me.

Now, I expect her to use the child after it is born, to also manipulate me into giving up all my friends, my fun in life, and my very life.

I guess if a "family man' has to cut all fun out of his life, come home and veg with the depressed wife, and get no sex, and live with a woman he cannot trust, and hear her nagging day after day for the rest of his life,.....well, then i am not cut out to be a "family man".

I want a fun wonderful life with a woman I love. Not a woman I cannot trust who nags, is dependent on me, does not have her own life and interests, wont go out with me or my friends, etc. I am a creep to have that affair but i dont know how to get along with my wife since we are so very different.

Maybe she needs to marry a pastor! Or a man of her church! Then they would sit home with her and never go out and do what she wants. Also they will be the same religion as her and they can have the same moral values. They can have 10 more kids too. I am just not that man and I dont know how we are going to make it work if she bears no responsibility for changing our marriage and only blames me.

As long as she wants to play the victim, nothing will change for us. I need her to start telling me and showing me she loves "ME", and not just our lifestyle or what she thinks she can change ME into.

I need her to find out who i really am and what my needs really are and to try and fill my needs. Then maybe our love and passion will return. She has never tried to find out what I need and want in life. Why not! I need this now!


"The Husband..."

I woke up this morning eager to see what kind of support I would get from this board. And then I read the posts. I couldn't get past the first one without crying. Then I spent the whole entire day feeling like a loser. Only now have I been able respond.

If I was more emotionally stable, I would see this for what it is -- constructive criticism. But, you see, I'm not. I am depressed, and this has sent me over the edge. I feel like leaving and never coming back. I was so incapacitated, I couldn't even bring myself to go to my son's basketball game and to a Superbowl party I was looking forward to.

Instead, I spent the day all alone wallowing in tears, beating myself up, believing that I am a pathetic loser who doesn't deserve to have a husband, a child and a newborn.

For the record, I did NOT manipulate my husband into getting pregnant. Yes, I did so much want a baby, but I wasn't trying to trap him. I told my husband that I was not on the pill, and we didn't use any birth control. He knew. At the time, we had just reconciled and we were working on our marriage. We both wanted to have a child, just not right then. But it happened; it was an accident, but once it did, we were both so very happy that we were pregnant. He now wants another child.

Stellakat, I have postpartum depression, and you don't kick someone who is already down. Your advice might have been more palatable to me if it had been more compassionate. Instead, I felt like I was being beat up unnecessarily. I don't need this from a stranger; I get enough of it from my husband. Good thing I'm not suicidal, otherwise I don't know what where I would be.

Having said that, you're right that I should not rely on any one for my happiness. Right now, though, I'm just trying to get through this depression.

H&C--
I hope you are still online right now. I am so sorry for the posts you had to read.

I just realized you updated your thread and then read that [email]CR@P[/email] from Stellakat. I am never that vocal about things like that on a message board, but good lord what was that all about? I didn't see anything constructive in those posts. Please igonore those posts and take some support from others who care.

I hope I can help you in some way. I actually had logged off and went to bed, and for some reson heard a noise in the big house (I manage a large charity organization ad am on call all night) and then just decided to check MB one more time.

I am thankful I did.

To encourage you I would tell you YOU WILL BE OKAY. It seems so far fetched, but you'll make it. I want to write so much more to you, but I want to post this in hopes you're still online.

I'll also give you my e-mail if you;d like.
MAny hugs to you and that precious baby.

Intexas

HopeNCourage,

I must say I was pretty disheartened when I saw SK's posts to you yesterday. SK seemed so out of line, and I thought it was a shame that SK not only responded, but responded MULTIPLE TIMES and was universally UNSupportive in all responses. The lone voice of reason was Hoping68....but I don't expect you got much comfort from that one small beacon in the morass of venemous bile. There was no "constructive criticism" there...you were not being oversensitive.

I commend you for managing to pick yourself up and come back here, and I hope that you will get some more supportive responses now. I'm so sorry for what you're going through...you have not had the chance to heal, and you definitely need and deserve that.

I am sorry S but are you totally delusional????

How dare you make up such a story???? Her husband is not here period.
What the H**ll do you know about his side???
Where does all this anger comes from?
You have problems.



HopeNcourage

Please come back. I am here for one year and I can assure you that MB is full of great and wise people. Don't let one ***@**%** alone leave you without this support. Just ignore it.
Gratz on your healthy little one.

intexas, fiatflux, S&Y:

Thank you for your support. I really appreciate it. I'm still trying to process the comments by Stellakat. There are nuggets of truth in there, and I am going to focus on those.

I think my problem is believing my husband, at this point, is capable of understanding my pain. So I go to him with hopes that he will comfort me; instead, I get anger, defensiveness, hatred and blame which makes me more depressed.

I've talked about this with my therapist, and she says, why do you try to seek solace from the very person who caused you the pain? He's not going to give you what you want. Just forget it. Come talk to me, your friends or find some other support (like this message board).

So I'm going to try that. While it hurts me so much to know that my DH works with the OW and sees her every day, I am not going to bring OW up anymore and I am not going to snoop. If he wants to be with her, I can't stop it. He makes his own choices. What I'm going to do is live my own life and work on myself to get stronger. I am going to beat this depression by myself (without his support) and then at that point I will be emotionally stable to work on this marriage -- or leave.

I'm tired of being the responsible one in this marriage; the one who insists we go to counseling and makes the appointments; the one who initiates the talks; the one takes care of the newborn 99% of the time. I give myself so much to this relationship, to my four-year-old, to my baby. All my energy is focused on them, that I don't have any energy to help myself. Well, enough is enough. I am going to insist that DH takes care of the kids a few nights a week, so I can go out and have fun.

I resented DH because he would just take off to go out with his buddies and leave me with the kids. Well I'm going to take the time for myself now and work on strengthening me. I am tired of being the victim here and letting things happen to me.

What do you think? Is that a good strategy?

HNC, to be quite honest, I think StellaKat is way out of line and I am sorry you had to read that crap. I cannot even imagine how overwhelmed you are having a new baby, dealling w/ a WH, postpartum depression and then you reach out for support and some "holier than thou" a**hole kicks you in the teeth. Please know that we are here for you and you will get thru this. I know it does not seem like it but you will. The one thing that got me thru the day was to take it 1 minute at a time and then I worked my way up to one hour at a time and then one day at a time. When I found myself really really hurting, I would close my eyes and pray and pray and pray over and over and over again for God to give me strength. I would say it over and over again until a little bit of my pain would be gone. Please take care of yourself and focus on you and your newborn. We are here for you.
SHAME ON YOU STELLAKAT! SHAME SHAME SHAME ON YOU !

HNC,if you really need to talk to someone, I will be more than happy to listen...lemme know and I will give u my private email/phone number to call...I hurt for you. I truly hurt for you. And you are right, you cannot control one thing your WH does. That is something that I had to come to grips w/, the hard way, and once I did, it made my life so much easier. It honestly did. Now I do have an advantage, my WH is overseas so I don't have to see him everyday but the OW is there too so I have no idea what he is doing. But I know that I cannot do anything about it. I started to focus on my and my life and it really helped. I am glad that you are in IC...I hope that helps. What about AD's? Are you taking anything? I am taking Effexor and it is a God-send. It really has made a difference in my mood, motivation, outlook, and it has made me smile and laugh again. I have strength, now, that I never thought I would have and I owe all of it to this site, IC, and AD's. I hope you find peace while you are sleeping (as much as a mom w/ a newborn can get). Please know that we are all here for you and will do what we can to help you thru this.

Hoping68, thank you for your kind words and encouragement. Realizing that my husband makes his own choices, and I can't control what he does has made me more calm. I've been going crazy thinking of ways to snoop and catch him lying. I'm tired of that, and I hate how it makes me feel. I was NEVER like that before the affair. I trusted him to be faithful, so I never had a problem with him hanging out with other women.

Well, my trust in him is gone, but I have decided I'm not going to police him. If he chooses to be unfaithful again or is disrespectful of my feelings, I can't stop him. But he will reap the consequences. I leave it in God's hands to do as He will. I truly believe that what comes around, goes around.

It would be nice to talk about this with you, so I appreciate your offer of talking with me privately. How do we go about doing that without publishing your phone number to everyone?

h&C--

I am also more than willing to give you my e-mail addy.

Have you read love must be tough by James Dobson? I don't rememebr if I recommended it before, but it's really good and I think it could help you.


What concerns me is that he is still working with her . As long as that happens, you'll never feel safe. He needs to make you fell safe. You deserve to be safe. I know once infidelity touches a marriage, that safety is forever gone (or at leasts looks different), but you at least deserve to have the OW out of the pic.

I think admist plan A (If that is what you-re doing) He needs to see you have some boundaries. If he is still sleeping with her, for instance, you have to protect yourself against std's etc.

My e-mail is sgeske@hotmail.com I don't mind posting it as it is not one I use reguarly and is anonymous anyway. Once you get it, let me know and I will delete it, though.

Hey HNC, my email is...Email me directly and I will be more than happy to give u my number if you wanna talk via phone. I hope you are getting some rest.
My trust in my WH is still gone so I understand what you mean. And the fact that you have given up control and given it all to God, bravo to you. I have done that and it is very hard but once you really let go, it makes all the difference in the world.
And I made the decision, also, to not police my WH. I had access to his emails for awhile but I hated looking at them b/c I felt like I was living and breathing by those emails and I could no longer live like that. Even if I found something, there was nothing I could do about it. There is still nothing I can do about it whether he was 7 miles away or 7000 miles away. I knew, in my heart, that I had to let go and give all of this to God and let Him take over. I could not longer do it on my own. I also told my WH that I have given it up to God and I am going to let Him do what is needed to be done and if He thought that we are supposed to be together, then we will be together..if not, then we won't. It took me awhile for a lot of this wonderful advice to sink in and make an impact but once it did, it really has helped me in so many ways. There are some wonderful and VERY patient people here that will help you. Believer, Mimi, Orchid, intexas, JMWC, fiatflux are all wonderful and will give you NOTHING but supportive advice. And they are soooooo patient. I think I asked the same daggone question 500 times and they happily answered 500 times before it really registered w/ me. So they are patient, they have been thru it, they have felt the pain that you are feeling, they have done the things that you have done, and they know exactly the kind of pain that has engulfed you. And you are not alone. I hope you post today to let us know how you are feeling. Take care and email me if you wish.