Are you sure you aren't my long lost twin? Awww honey I had no idea you were still dealing with this. I am sorry. I am around if you want to talk, ok?

For a too long I felt like a failure because ex wanted to D me. Intellectually I knew better but emotionally was another story.

The explanations I would use to tell other people what was going on almost sounded trite. Though devastating to me I sometimes felt I should have moved on sooner, felt less at fault because the seeming commonness of out marital break up.

In talking with my IC I'd hear him say all the things we say to one another here but only part of me listened & believed. Especially the part about me being better off without ex as my husband, that I deserved better & that I now had an opportunity to live a fuller life with a partner who truly will care for me.

It was all true but when you feel less than the words don't seem to apply to you.

{{{2much}}}

The MB program takes a lot of hard work. As you said, it is not easy to recover from an A. Somewhere in this whole process I forgot to remember to ask myself what I really wanted. I to want a full, happy, fulfilling marriage. But there is nothing that says it has to be with gemela. The question is whether she even has it within her to be a good wife and mother. That's where my doubt lies. It is ironic how completely reversed our roles have become.

Are you speaking to your parenting roles? If so, I can atest to the same, however I wonder how much of this is that WS was SAHparent...lost identity, felt taken for granted, suffocated, robotic, undervalued etc???

Definitely not an excuse for A's but I have to wonder since I was not the SAH and have been able to work from home for past 1.5 yr while in school...I can easily see how folks loose their ID, long for adult interaction, attention at times feel like it's ground hog day...I have embraced the opportunity and look at it differently than most as I was always jealous of WS for being able to be there for all firsts etc. Just a fleeting thought...

You are right, Pio. Sometimes we are so caught up in winning our spouses back we forget to ask the question of whether they are or ever have been capable of being the spouse we need.

FF,

Maybe I am your lost twin...but it looks like there are a few other twinners out there too !

Yeah, it's been a rough road since the Holiday's...I let way too many walls down and tried to take each day without really sticking to any plan...DANGEROUS territory.

I have been painfully honest with myself lately and not to mention PMS which only magnifies everything...kinda like how you can be blubbering drunk and life is tragic but when you wake up the next day the sunrises, you realize it ain't all that bad and you keep on keeping on...next thing you know you look back and wonder what all the hoopla was all about.

I appreciate your shoulder to cry on...

I asked myself some of those questions. I was the BS and a SAHM. These last two points really do bring up some of the things with which I struggled.

2much,

Not parenting. I am referring to irony of one spouse wanting out of the M (i.e. having the A) while the other wants to save it followed by the wayward wanting the M while the betrayed desperately wants out.

I told her last night that she had decided she was unhappy in her M so she had an A. I still can't see that she is happy so what is different between then and now that won't have her jumping into bed with the next OM that strikes her fancy. She replied that she doesn't want to go through this again. I agreed but I told her that I can't think of many good reasons why I am willing to even run the risk. I reminded her that I was not always happy in my M but it never would have occurred to me to cheat. She has now shown me that marriages are disposable. If it isn't working out, learn your lesson and move on. She says we should try for the DDs. That I agree is a good motivation but I don't want to keep a M together just for the kids. I simply explained that I am very unhappy and I can't think of one single thing she does that makes me happy. I am in serious EN deficit and I have no clue why. If she started meeting my EN's, maybe that would help. I just don't know what they are. I can say for certain that scrapbooking is not on the list.

Pio,

Sorry, assumed incorrectly about the role reversal.

Maybe you two should go away alone for a bit if possible...surely you must have some idea of what your ENs are...I know you were discussing how you got by on next to nothing...maybe that is the problem...you went to long on empty...

I need to run but I'll post back on this matter

Okay changing the subject slightly but I just got a surprise that has hurt. Depending on what version of the story you choose to believe, OM had a girlfriend overseas. Well apparently at least one of them was real and through a strange set of coincidences, she found some of the emails I have stored away on the WWW just as insurance that WW can't delete them. Well she sent me an email. The good news is that she and pool boy are no longer together. The bad news is that she is devestated that pool boy cheated on her as well.

This has made me feel really bad. I know a lot of people have been hurt by gemela's A. Gemela and pool boy I have no sympathy for as they are hardly innocent victims. Family I can empathize with but the pain is not immediately theirs as it is for me. I have tried to protect DDs as best as possible so I always felt that I was the only one directly hurt by all this. But now there is another and she says it is now causing problems in her current relationship. Trust issues I guess. I told her how sorry I was for all this. I recommended she read HNHN and I told her she was not at fault - it was pool boy's choice and that her current BF is not the same as pool boy. Even so, I feel so sorry for her. It is ruining my morning so far.

2much,

FF has touched on the kernel. At some point you begin to ask yourself if this WS is the type of person I really want to devote the rest of my life to. In my case, is WW or can she be the type of person I would want as a wife? Well she already has one strike against her by default. Not many men want to have an adulterous, lying wife. Go figure. So what does she bring to the table? I have to admit also that my belief about who she is or can become depends greatly on how I feel about her at the time. I have seen some behaviors lately that raise my neck hairs. I even suspected that maybe she was in contact with OM again. She swears that is not the case. OTOH, why would she admit it if it were true? Is it worth spending the rest of my life sleeping with one eye open? At the moment, it is definitely not. Unless I can find some EN's and then start getting those EN's met, I can't see this working out. She says that she wants more time and she reminds me that the "experts" say that it takes 3-5 years. Assuming that this could all work out, do I want to be miserable for that much longer?

I don't know. I'm just psychologically at a place where I can walk away from this M so easily. I don't really feel all that depressed - just completely detached.

Pio, G can not make you happy. Your happiness must be rooted within yourself.

It is my opinion that much of what dissatisfies us springs from issues we, personally, brought to the table. Granted, we are all affected by the decisions of others. Perhaps you both need to do some IC work on your own personal issues before the marriage can be healed.

I liken it to the fact that a mechanic can not repair a machine if all parts are broken. The parts must be repaired individually before the machine can be repaired as a whole.

Cinders,

I do agree with you and understand that gemela cannot make me happy. I guess the question I am asking is whether she is on the path to my happiness or an obstacle preventing it. I totally accept that I am the only one who can make me happy.

I totally get what you are saying. Pio what you seem to be having is that "gut" feeling something isn't right in your world. Always brings on some sort of depression like symptons in me until I confirm my instincts were correct. Nothing like your spouse gaslighting you! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

Pio, Being blunt here, but if Gemela works on SF, Recreational Companionship, Physical Attractiveness, Domestic Support and admiration - she may just start hitting the mark - you are a man after all.

Even if she only did a good job on the first 2 you might start feeling differently.

BK,

I know those things but can't seem to get any desire back. I was totally klueless before and apparently I am again.

Yes but does Gemela know them and is SHE doing her best (and then some) to meet them exactly how you like them met?

BK,

Gemela prefers to be an ostrich.

Pio...this is one only you can answer. One that I have been asking myself as well. The whole sleeping with one-eye open etc...

Short story...

My parents have been married 45 yr...totally dysfunctional household...my father rarely home, drinker, gambler but good provider...for a decade he actually lived in a different state and came home on w/e's. Not sure if there was any infidelity but there were plenty of fireworks, fights and nights that he rolled in just before dawn. We had drills where my mother would wake us all, pack our stuff and leave only to return back home...they remained M and never really separated except the geographic due to employment issues. I often wondered how my mother did it and how my father put up with the psychosis of my mom. I understand my mother much better now. She says she lived many years with a "heavy heart".

At the 35 yr mark my mother gave my father an ultimatum, made him sign some agreement. He quit drinking, gambling and became best friends with my mom. The spend almost all their free time together and don't know what they would do without each other.

I look at this and wonder...could I endure? Could my WH change? Am I being to impatient?

Ironically my mom is encouraging plan D.

Pio, what will make you happy? Do you need a new environment? I know my expectation is that if things changed and WH agreed to boundaries I would expect him to be doing some major butt kissing for a LONG time...going out of his way to spend time doing things I like or new things. I would want him to try and get to know me, ask me what hurts me so he could try to change, be attentive to me, drop what he is doing to help me...all the things he naturally did for OWs without having to think. That's what hurts me the most...during our entire M there were things that WH never did (buy flowers, fancy dinners etc) I used to use the excuse that he just was ignorant but when he started doing these things for/with OWs I couldn't lie to myself anymore. Those are the splinters that lead to festering and amputation...

What's eating you Gilbert Grape?

Pio,

Does G KNOW you have emotional needs? Previous to finding MB I didn’t know I had any…

Are you two reading the same page? When you were working through the pain and agony of infidelity you found several paths to follow. You listened to me (sort of), found MB, did a Plan A and so on. But now that you “saved” the marriage then do you have any way of saving your relationship?

Maybe you have done this already but why not go through the MB process and involve G in it.