ARRRGGGGGG. SCREAM.

Stef,

Thanks for your response. I do know full well that my STBXW's affair is not my fault. I am just sick and tired of the industry which perpetuates the myth. To my knowledge, Pittman is the only writer who pins full responsibility and accountability on the WS. Many even take the side of the WS: no wonder the WS had an affair, that kind of delusional thinking.

Pio gets mad when I post Pittman quotes and being that this is his thread, I will respect his emotional response. hehehe.

I guess I am simply saturated with our pop culture and its chuckling about cheating.

I wonder if there is an island for sale somewhere. I will start a new civilization in which cheating is actually looked down on.

Todd

Are you screaming at me or in general??? I'm a little confused.

I don't know anything about this Pittman dude, but I totally agree with him in putting all blame on the WS for the A. WS's always have a choice...to cheat or not to cheat.

If you create an anti-cheating island...I wanna come too!

Okay, you can tug on my cape. But put down the kryptonite first.

Todd,

I do not disagree with Pittman and you full well know that. I simply believe there is a time and place for everything. I have said it before but will say it again: Harley is the ER doctor trying the save the M - Pittman is the doctor doing the autopsy to see why the M died. They are both working on the same thing. Harley isn't too worried about why it died because two more critical cases just busted into the ER and he is busy. Two sides of the same coin. I don't believe Harley blames the BS - he is just giving the BS a road map for getting through the mess.

I do not think that many WS's will easily return to the M if the BS continues to tell them it was all their (WS) fault. I have never seen where Harley blames the BS for the A.

Stef,

No, I am not screaming at you. Sorry. I was screaming at the idea that MB perpetuates(now I will get hammered), specifically, that the BS is jointly repsonsible for the conditions which led to the affair. That's a cop out.

Well, the BS who responded in the thread ranged from DD's 6 years ago to a few months ago. I agree that what you describe should be the context, but I see regular posts which belie it.

No problem...I just wanted to clarify so I knew what I was getting into.


Todd, then we'll get hammered together because I totally, 100% agree with you.

I, personally, had no doing in my WH's affair.

The problems in our M, I am 50% responsible for. The way he ackowleged our problems...I am 0% responsible for.

I was in the same M as WH was, had the same problems and issues and I didn't go cheat on him. It is a poor, selfish, hurtful, choice that HE made. I chose to handle things differently.

Pio, I did not say that you disagree with Pittman; only that you get mad when I post his quotes.

If it is true that Plan A is only effective in 15% of cases, I am not so sure that Pittman's "welcome to reality" approach would fare worse. There are a good number of WS who are remorseful, or at least act remorseful, on or about DD.

Hi Todd,

Is it just reading the other thread that has you riled up or has you STBXW done something more?

I'll tell you what I think about ex & you'll be able to tell who I blame.

As you may remember I don't know for certain ex had an EA or a PA though I suspect he had at least an EA. He made the choice to not share with me his unhappiness. He made the choice to look elsewhere for what he wanted. He choose to not make the effort to try to make our marriage work.

No, I don't blame myself for ex choosing what he perceived to be the greener pasture.

We were both to blame for not making the marriage the best it could be.

I've got a question that will probably seem WAY off topic but please bear with me.

I have a "friend" who has been insisting I have an anger problem. She is a NMNK (never married no kids) woman who tells me I blame ex for the break up of the marriage & says I've not taken any responsibility. She further states I have tunnel vision & can't see things from another person's perspective. She tells me I need professional help with anger.

The reason I bring this up here is this person is honestly the only person in my life to see me this way. I want to know if anyone here has seen me in this way. I've asked my friends in RL & no one sees me as she does & I really can't figure out where she's coming from

Thanks.

Hi Nams,

You must be a mind reader. STBXW called over the weekend. I may have posted this already but how would I know? Anyway, she had just gotten off the phone with her best friend which BF was livid at me for abandoning STBXW. So BF - I mean STBXW - lectured me that you don't abandon your spouse when the marriage is not all rosy, that you stay and work things out with your spouse. I asked her if she believed that, why did she run across the street and hop in bed with OM instead of working out the problems. She said that was different. Okay, so that call didn't end so well.

Today, she had the nerve to call and ask me to come over and hook up her gas clothes dryer. I told her to call OM. That call did not end well either.

So, to answer your question, now that I think about it, I suppose that was bubbling - boiling - beneath the surface and the combination of blame shifting WS and BS who supported the blameshifting got to me. Thank you for helping me see that.

Hi Nams,

Your friend reminds me of STBXW's two best friends, both of whom are alcoholics, muliple divorcees, abandoned their kids and generally hate marriage. Yet, they dispense sage marriage advice endlessly.

Since your friend has never been married nor has any children, she is ill equipped to give marital advice. You do not sound abnormally angry to me. If you didn't have some anger, you wouldn't be human. My advice would be to ignore her.

The gift of infidelity just keeps on giving doesn't it Todd?

I think this may be, in part, what my "friend" means when she calls me angry. If triggers come up & I express anger I've now become an angry person who needs professional help. Because she is a NMNK woman she simply can't understand the long lasting effects of infidelity & the break up of a long marriage.

Todd,

I still don't think Harley blames the BS. Sorry. I still think you are missing Harley's concept. Again - sorry.

I'll put it in simpler terms: If I had read Pittman's book instead of Harley's book after Dday, I'd be divorced right now - plain and simple.

Nams, you are very wise. I have known my best friend since the seventh grade. We are like brothers and he is supportive but doesn't have a clue what I have gone through. I take his advice and feedback with a grain of salt. I think that explains why forums such as MB.com are so popular.

Pio,

Mercury must be in retrograde.

I don't think I said that Harley blames the BS. Maybe I did, but I don't remember. Heck, I sometimes can't remember what I posted 10 minutes ago. Harley says that both the BS and WS are responsible for conditions in the marriage which made the A possible. What I believe that made the A possible is the dismantling of boundaries by the WS. Our pop culture is supportive of that attitude.

As to whether your marriage would not have been successful if you followed Pittman, I am not convinced. Given that Plan A has a 15% success rate, Pittman's philosophy may easily beat that. Heck, chance may beat that.

I'm glad to know what NMNK means. At first I thought it was going to be one of those "anti-fur" lobbies.

nams,

I'm curious about something. Do you think it is possible that your NMNK friend is or has been at one time an OW? Just wondering. If so, that would certainly slant her perspective.

Luna,

I need to respond to your post about the hamsters and my looking out for them. I am the founding member and current president of HAMSTER which is an acronym for Hamsters Against Malicious and Sadistic Treatment of Rodents. In that regard, our union also represents mice, guinea pigs and rats.

We support euthanization of terminally ill rodents and those rodents in severe pain. While CO2 is an approved method, we wanted to clarify only if the CO2 is delivered from a tank source as opposed to a homemade apparatus. Otherwise, hamsterane treatment cannot be assured.

I also need to add that we are fully supportive of REPTILE which is against the human ownership of Squamata and more specifically Iguania, Iguanidae, Scleroglossa, Anguimorpha, Helodermatidae, Anguidae, Gekkota, Gekkonidae, Scincomorpha, Teiidae, Scincidae and Serpentes. The live feeding of insects to such "pets" is the primary cause of insect death in the world. Shameful.

BTW, below is our tag line.

HAMSTER
Rodents are people too!

You know Pio, I wondered the same thing. I am skeered.