cat

my H left me for someone close to my age with 4 kids.....

that's hard for me to understand

hiker...i still hope that everything you say is true

i can't imagine that someone with children is my H "soul mate"............i can't imagine that all of his feelings about childre....for 42 years has changed and he now wants them

That's fine. In the end it will probably be your choice whether to reconcile or not. Remember, in Pittman's experience, the WS almost always returns to the BS to "feel out" the BS for possible reconciliation.

eav,

Again, a little of Pittman:

Here is a statement that brings some clarity about the general craziness of people. (Pittman)

Yes, it was romantic. Makes it easier to manage when I acknowledge the reality of it.



I'm not sure we would have been divorced. I would most definitely ended up inpatient at some hospital. I was certainly not a healthy individual.

As far as gaining the strength to make a decision...d-day put me in a crucible where I felt like I HAD to make a decision...I couldn't delay it or side-step it. All that I was was reduced to this decision. It felt like life or death. Choosing a marriage like I had been in was death. Choosing the OW was life, but not what I would prefer. She was a life boat, but how many of us want to live our lives in a lifeboat? Choosing a changed marriage was best by far...which is why it was so imporatant to me to know she would change. I think, at this point, I would have chosen death to returning to the same old marriage.


Yes, for months...it took a IC to help me let her go.



I had a helluva time not contacting the OW. It was the hardest thing I've ever avoided doing in my life. I can't really tell you how I kept from doing it...other than to institute a policy of complete transparency...which I immediately did.

My wife initially worked towards repairing the marriage. She was making the changes I asked for and I openly praised her for it. I thought things were going well.

And then it just stopped. She quit. I have suspicions that she may have started her own affair...but all that's after the fact.

As you know we are now separated. It was about the time that I was falling back in love with her and our family. I worked SO HARD to get to that point...only for her to throw it away.

I never had a time table. I wanted everything to pass as soon as it could, but had no expectations. If I could go over again, I'd get into IC a LOT sooner. Much of my problem was OCD and depression related.

I made A LOT of changes in me. I wanted to know what went wrong inside me that let me do such a despicable thing. It took me a while to get there. But I did. But she didn't hold up her end of the bargain. Some would say she had a right to let go...I disagree. I think her time to decide had passed. I feel tricked into five years of attempted recovery.

The changes I made were, and are, permanent. I will never engage in infidelity again...not because I fear hurting my future spouse (if I marry again), but because I will never sacrifice my own integrity like that again. It's not who I want to be.

so Hiker....where is the GOOD news from Pittman to follow what you shared to me above??

you know...the part about the most intense affairs with the most unlikely people ending the fastest or ending with no withdraw or with the WS running back to the BS with his tail between his legs begging to come home........anything like that in your books?? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Low - thanks. Very insightful

eav,

Well, he does make this generalization about romantic affairs:


I wish I had good news for you, but the bottom line is that this may well be one of the worst experiences of your life. That's been true for me, and as Dr. Harley points out, many folks say it is worse than dealing with a death in the family.

There's always hope, but even when it becomes crystal clear that your relationship is over, you can still turn the negative into a positive by improving yourself and making a new life; and it can be a better life than you thought possible. Many folks have done it before you. Time can heal the deepest wounds if you let it, though there will always be scars.

But try to maintain your patience through all this. On those days where the depression is deepest, remind yourself that tomorrow can be better. Eventually all this will pass and you will once again live a normal life.

thank you for finding that quote hiker....i never really expected there to be something like that!

my father committed suicide...and he was the one person other than my H that i was closest to in this world...mourning that loss was nowhere near as bad as this has been....

because i still know that he's out there and i still keep thinking that maybe he will realize that he made a mistake and give our marriage another chance...and because my H was the other rock in my life and he held me up through it

i honestly believe that my H is the great love of my life and i can never see my life as being complete without him in it.....

but hey...he used to say that about me too

My wife used to call me her "dream guy." I have cards and letters that say our marriage has been "the happiest years" of her life.

I wonder what she is telling the OM tonight.

I was his "one and only". So he used to say.

Found corespondence between WH and OW. He told her she would always be his #1.

Yuck!!!!

hiker....what is the book/are the books by Pittman that you have read?

found it in your post on page 1!

One of the reasons I find my own situation so difficult to deal with, is that I realize my wife is not a bad person. In most ways she is a very good person. If I could demonize her I might make this all a lot easier to take. But all she did was make a mistake; she stepped across a boundary and was soon caught up in a kind of emotional turmoil. These very powerful emotions prevent her from seeing the situation objectively. (I, too, am caught up in powerful emotions and it is only due to my effort to study what had been written about similar situations and seek counseling that allows me to understand what is happening and why.)

The change in her is so dramatic that I had no problem accepting Steve Harley's comment that "at times you wouldn't find it hard to accept the idea that your wife is schizophrenic."

I still love my wife, but getting her back is only a preference, not a need. I'll survive without her, and I may even find someone better someday. But it is also possible that I'll spend the rest of my life alone. And that's okay.

My primary goal in life now is to be the best father I can be to my 4 year-old son. I had a good role model -- my own father -- so the task will be much easier.

In the meantime I still have a thread of hope that my wife will see her mistake and seek reconciliation. There are nearly five months of separation left before she can file for divorce. That means I'll either have the best Christmas ever, or perhaps the worst. If we do split up, I'll at least have the satisfaction of knowing I did everything possible to try to save my marriage, and what occurred was beyond my control.

i don't know your story Hiker...how long has this been going on for you?

i can honestly say that my H was also a very good man and a very good husband....i was a workaholic....and then i was deeply depressed following the death of my father...not for months but for several years

what he did was wrong....but i do understand...it was like he had no-one even though he had a wife

and he is very angry at me...still today...

and he found someone who gave him all of the attention that i didn't and met all of the needs that i wasn't....i'm not sure that i was meeting any of his needs now that i know what his top 5 were

so why should he trust that it would be any different now? why should he take the risk on an unknown when he thinks he has found someone he knows can meet his needs because she is?

in addition to being heartbroken and hurt...i'm frustrated and angry that he won't give us a chance to try again

Hiker,

Thank you for starting this thread. Your summary of the books in your first post was excellent.

With all due respect, however, your WW did not make a mistake. A mistake is when you mean to pour milk on your cereal and you pour coffee instead.

Of the authors you profiled, my favorite is Pittman because he may be the lone writer who does not blame the BS for the WS affair. As he puts it, you can make your spouse unhappy, but you cannot make them unfaithful.

Your WW committed the worst possible atrocity she could have to you. As a BS, I know the pain of infidelity well. I have lost both of my parents as well as good friends. None come close to the heartbreak of my soulmate cheating on me for 4.5 years.

eav,

I discovered the affair on March 3rd of this year. It began last July. When I first confronted her with it, she denied it, but eventually she admitted it saying she had made "bad choices" and that she had "issues." She said at that time that she was confused and needed time to think things out. I tried to get her to stop the affair and have us both go to counseling either together or separately, but she refused. She continued to see the OM, tried to hide all evidence of her infidelity, and in many ways she followed the textbook case of a romantic affair. She gave me the classic line, "I love you, but I'm not in love with you." I found the MB website, got His Needs, Her Needs, and managed to convince her to do the Emotional Needs Questionaire. I admitted not doing a good job on meeting her emotional needs, promised to work on those issues, and from that point on she used that as a weapon, saying our marriage was foundering before the affair. I counseled with Steve Harley, but without my wife's participation things were going nowhere. I went into Plan A, became extremely frustrated after two months and considered moving out. I overheard a conversation between her and the OM making all sorts of big plans after I would be gone, and was told by my lawyer that moving out might jeopardize my chances at custody, so I stayed in the house. We sleep in different rooms, but the atmosphere has been chilly.

She has always maintained that the marital problems and the affair are unrelated, but if you have seen my other posts you know that she never mentioned any marital problems until after I discovered the affair. The first time I ever heard the words "separation" or "divorce" from her was when I tried pressuring her to stop the affair.

The OM is married as well and separated from his wife since she discovered his affair. He lives about 3 hours away, so my wife only sees him 2 or 3 times a month. That will probably cause the affair to last longer than normally because they don't see each other often enough or long enough to have the "gloss" wear off.

There is no question it is a fantasy relationship; my wife has dramatically altered her behavior in pursuit of this guy. And naturally enough, everything else in her life takes a back seat to her affair. She has neglected our son as well.

Recently she made it absolutely clear that she wants a divorce and she has no desire for reconciliation. So we are waiting for the remainder of the required six month separation until she can file.

I have Surviving An Affair, and the featured case history is remarkably similar to my own situation, but then, most are.

One thing I would advise you about in your own situation is to take everything your WS says with a grain of salt. Most of it has been concocted to cover the tremendous guilt that can accompany an affair. And the fact is, he may actually believe everything he says, but that doesn't make it true.

Remember, if things were really that bad in your marriage, he should have separated or divorced BEFORE the affair. And if you have demonstrated your willingness to work on the marriage since the affair, what possible excuse is there for him not to work on it as well?

I want to add that you say the OW in your case is meeting his needs, but remember they are in Stage I of their relationship, when both partners go overboard to try to please the other. Wait until a little reality sets in, and they begin to see each other's faults, then the first signs appear that one partner isn't quite happy about something the other partner does or doesn't do. That is the time when you will have a better idea whether she can meet all his needs or not.

Todd,

I really liked Pittman too. But Shirley Glass basically agrees that the BS is never to blame for the affair, though may certainly be responsible for any marital issues leading up to it. She also believes that infidelity can occur in good marriages.

Here is another very interesting observation from Private Lies:


and here:

Here's today's quote from Dr. Shirley Glass' Not Just Friends:


This last statement explains why some affairs seem tied to what is known as a "mid-life crisis."