Post deleted by Detached_Care

What I see is there is one good reason to stay in a marriage for the sake of the kids:

It's best for the kids.

There are many good reasons to stay in the marriage for the sake of the parents.

But simply staying without improving the marriage makes no sense at all - kids or no kids. And leaving without exhausting your resources for improvement makes no sense either.

I agree with WAT.

Can you honestly see how staying in an unhappy M wouldn't affect your kids?

your kids are going to grow up thinking that this is the norm...mom and dad being distant is the way it should be...

What happens if they become Conflict avoiders? Develop Passive-aggressive behaviors because they had a fear of intimacy...

I'm not trying to bash you by no means...What are the good reason to stay in the M for the parents?

Post deleted by Detached_Care

I would take the challenge if I had the choice, my family my kids are too important not to try and try and try.

There was a good post about living with a PA - Passive Aggressive and I wonder if it applies to narcissist.

If you know your husban has certain traits can you learn to live with them so they don't become trigger's?

Well its awesome you have been to 4 MC how about 5, then number 6.

God I wish I had someone here that would at least attempt, instead I have someone running headon into the fog

Post deleted by Detached_Care

I agree about sex don't give it too him if its taken for granted.

I was only trying to say that I am encourage, proud and cheering you on for even having the energy to be there with him.

You are doing the right thing, don't ever get done for that. You also need to protect yourself if sex is damaging you then don't do it.

I want you to know that I think you are extremely powerful. So what if he is a looser dork that can't see an awesome angle in front of him. He is not only loosing out on his happiness but sharing a life with someone that cares so much to sacrafice for the great good of the family is just tragic. tragic for him not for you.

You take those kids and hug them and teach them and model them in a way that they wont have to suffer this same fate. It will be hard when living this way but you can do it.

How old are you respectful? And how long married?

Staying in a loveless marriage is not going to be good for you or easy. It's going to age you and make a bitter woman out of you, if you are not careful.

Can you do it? I mean can you in fact stay in the marriage berift of intimacy?

You sound incredibly lonely to me, and sad even with all your resignation to accept things as they are.

What will you do for you, so that you are happy? Happiness is something you will strive for, correct?

I agree you can't change him, only yourself with the knowledge that relationships are fluid, so if one changes the other must...or must leave, they cannot stay the same with the same dynamic. It's impossible.

If you two are willing to do this "for the kids," then why aren't you?

Meaning: What is good for the kids are for two ADULTS to learn to love each other again (eventually. Only on TV do problems go away in 30 minutes) and be in a happy relationship.

Have you read SAA? It is a great guide to recovery. The recovery section is good: act as if they are your ideas if he isn't into it because the tenets described there are excellent.

And don't go into recovery dragging your feet and slouching your shoulders. Have fun with it. Find each other again.

Post deleted by Detached_Care

I feel for you and with you. I can apreciate why you don't want to do anything with him. Kind of like how my H feels right now, it's like I don't exist tho.
Be kind and good to yourself.

Weaver,

I don't hear resignation...I hear bitterness from accumulated resentment.

"I don't think I'm a conflict avoider. What I have learned is that there is no point in my offering an opinion or telling him my feelings if he doesn't ask. Even if he asks, it doesn't seem to be a good idea."

Where's the ownership?

No wonder Respectful feels blame--"He's suggested walking this morning. This morning, he said I didn't express an interest, so that's why we didn't go. I get the blame if I initiate, and I get the blame if I don't initiate."

This is bitter roots here; lots of enmeshment, no respect or equality.

Both sides.

No stability here.

No commitment to marriage here that I can see. Otherwise Respectful could stop LBs, be O&H for the marriage, even when she didn't want to for her FWH.

And all her hope in #4 is for HIM to want to create a good marriage.

"He doesn't ask my opinion, so I don't give it. He talks at me. I did try separation, and he ingratiated himself with me until he was back in the house. I don't want another separation. I face divorce or accepting a bad marriage. What is best for the kids?"

This is passive-aggressive stuff...making herself the victim and him responsible for what is only hers alone...her choices, her power...

Why am I posting to you, Weaver, instead of directly to Respectful? I feel like I can't face her. She's like looking into my own eyes three years ago...steeped in powerless victimhood when I was swimming in power.

I actually feel sick to my stomach.

She keeps saying financial...her #1 EN that HE is meeting and she resents him for meeting that...trapping her...by her own EN.

"I am resigned to having a lousy marriage."

Her FWH feels criticized, taken apart...whether this is real or not, his truth...she feels talked at...bet he does, also. Where's the counseling? Where's the two separate ADULT humans in this relationship?

I am so triggered by her statements I want to ask...who do you fantasize about? Who's in your head, where are your thoughts?

Okay...read more and let some time elapse...

Respectful:

How did you choose your name? You said on SC's thread several times that you can't control your WH, nor could she. Did you get the other half of that reality? You control your DJs, emotions, beliefs, thoughts, perspectives and perceptions. All yours, 24/7. He's responsible for his.

WAT and Rin and Viking said...if you're going to stay together for the money, or wait, the KIDS, then do just that...with gusto...work on yourself, get MC and IC...break all the patterns...commit to a GREAT marriage and learn to thrive...with or without your partner.

I don't see where you answered some really important questions:

Your age and your H's age
How many children and how old?
How long together, how long married?
When was DDay? How long was his affair?
Have you had any of your own?

You are here...you must truly desire something...is it the permission to divorce (which you don't need, you already have)? Permission to resent more, reject and be angry more? To know you're not alone and not crazy?

Or do you want a thriving marriage between two whole adult partners, in a union, following the Rules of Marriage, filling each other's love banks and showing your children what real relationships are like, what it takes, and how you can bloom?

What? What do you want from MB?

LA

Post deleted by Detached_Care

Respectful,

So the missing info is because you believe your FWH would come here and identify you...and find out what?

How you truly feel? What you think? What you believe?

Radical Honesty is the policy that changes marriages from cohabitation to intimate partners.

I know you know that.

You've given up trying the change him...have you apologized to him for that? Do you see how damaging that is in life, to define, manipulate, cajole and demand someone else change, instead of ourselves?

Getting set on your own goals, your own priorities, is all within your control. If you set your goal to endure a marriage, you are choosing to betray yourself, your children and your partner.

There is another thread here which mentions The Ron Clark Story...(Matthew Perry)...and I'm going to ask you to set the bar HIGH...for yourself. I know you are capable. Do you know that?

When you have the goal set, make it the top priority for yourself. Takes the steps which will demonstrate to yourself, each day, sometimes, each hour, that goal is your heart's desire, where your thoughts dwell, and make it your treasure.

If you set your goal at a thriving marriage between two committed and actively loving humans, then this would be how you get there:

Get Love Busters and read it. Examine, undertand and own your own stuff. Assumptions kill relationships...all of them...a slow, tortuous death, you might say. Mindreading masquerades as knowledge, power--it isn't. It's poison, just like resentment, and it corrodes you and those in your life.

Assumptions, mindreading--those are Disrespectful Judgments (DJs) and you are caught in that limbo land of trying to decide your future, your children's future on false information. Getting rid of the DJ's clears up where your real responsibility lays and where your freedom is--gets you to clarity and true knowledge. Only you can rid yourself of the DJs which go both ways...towards others and inward at yourself.

You got the essential primary step...you can only control yourself. You cannot cause, control or cure anyone else...and to attempt to do so is disrespectful, a fantasy we indulge in, and often, a great distraction from respecting ourselves.

Did you get that no one can cause, control or cure you, either? A beautiful balance. We can only influence one another, and even that influence is within our control--we allow it, to what degree, or not allow it at all.

All humans are thus designed--pure respect. If you allow your mind to be consumed where it has no power, no control...then who are you being, if not erased? Center yourself in what is yours...can only BE yours...before you look for others to change.

When you got that you can't change someone else, did you also reach the understanding that what they think, believe, feel, perceive and how they see reality is entirely their own? Theirs. Not yours. Yours are your own and they are valid, real...wholly yours. You have choice, Respectful. I see you looking at large choices without seeing your choice every step of the way.

If you cannot make him be faithful...can you see where he cannot make you angry? You can be angry. You can be devastated, sad, ripped up, pained, fear-filled...all yours. Emotions giving you information from your own beliefs...and if you choose to believe he is offended by what is yours, then you will experience a lot of pain. Your choice. That's how we inject the DJ poison...which messes up reality, gives us a lot of feelings coming from false information, and it is a form of self-torture.

What he believes is his...not yours. You choose to believe what you do...you know you are only half the marriage...mind your half. Mind your SELF first, so it becomes half the marriage.

This is true respect...has to be made in your mind and heart, to live respectfully. To choose your actions (not reactions) from a code that says, "This is to my standard of behavior, what I believe" not based on anything that is not yours...not based on his possible response.

You can do this. You can look inside yourself, take an inventory, know real freedom, responsibility and love...and thrive. No 180 to get a reaction...a true ownership of being separate and EQUAL...which you are...because you are human...and asking yourself...where's my payoff in these assumptions...how do I trick myself into thinking I'm benefiting from putting more investment into what HE believes, that I'm the problem, than in KNOWING I cannot be?

People are not problems. We have them. They are from behaviors, not selves.

This makes HIM not the problem, either.

Can that be real for you? What you choose?

I see a lot of projection in your posts...seems to me both you and your FWH are wrestling the same basic issue...that who we are is defined by what we've done, how we've acted and reacted...which holds us prisoner to being who we were.

Can you give yourself the freedom to not be who you were yesterday, doing the best you could with what you knew then, when you know so much more now? If you can do that for yourself, you can do that for FWH. You seem angry that he is justifying his A...and feel pained that he thinks you drove him to do what no human on earth can do--to choose to have an A.

And I see you say " He's treated me so badly for so long that I just want him out of the house." Is this not the same justification now?

This is why I hear a wayward state of mind...lacking that definitive choice NOT to retaliate by having an A...

Notice these ingredients: Entitlement, fueled by resentment and lack of respect.

You say you didn't respect him pre-A...you seem to build resentment, as he did, for all that you didn't say, boundaries you didn't enforce, and standards you didn't hold yourself to--those are yours, not his. That's how we humans create resentment and hold onto it...WhoDat said it's like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.

Is that what Rose had to do? Slap down, build and seal her resentment, which would make it entitlement...putting herself above everyone else's reality, as protection, enforcing her boundary in THAT way, instead of a healthy one?

Wouldn't that choice be the greatest self-betrayal? To deny ourselves true intimacy in knowing others and being known? To love, accept, admire, celebrate humans with compassion, trust and respect...or to choose to close off, maintain, transfer our inherent need to some other distraction?

You mention waste more than once...wasted efforts, time, investment...in trying to change something you could not. I don't believe you can waste effort...it brought you to the realization of what respect truly is--that's very important. Worth getting there...as long you don't judge yourself harshly, believing that getting to what you know now isn't worth everything that has come before.

Why make your decision to leave or stay what you need to decide today...instead of making your decision to see clearly what is and what isn't...no ambivalence in that...seeing your own part, your power...your human limit...so that no matter what happens, you can be a whole, healthy, vibrant Respectful...for any relationship?

Owning our part is not BLAMING ourselves for what others do...they choose their lives. I believe you will feel, see and even taste blame as long as you don't own your own choices...a great signal to stepping over really important information. No BS can cause an A. What we can do is see where our choices...and learn why we choose to react instead of act...perceive one way instead of choosing another...believe what we believe and think what we think...all within our control.

We accept humans, not behaviors. How well do you accept yourself, your choice of behaviors, reactions?

Without the details...the timeline for the A, it is difficult to gauge where you might be in the SAA timeline...is FWH in NC? Has he figured out OW was a fantasy? Is he in withdrawal? Counseling? Are you?

Are you listening and repeating? Are you being open and honest (O&H) because that's in your code, not based on his possible response? Your feelings are valid because you have them. Stating what is yours...thoughts, feelings and beliefs...because they ARE valid, acknowledges to your Self you are valuable, whole and worthy. If you sharing with him depends on him, then you are adding your own self-betrayal to his. Doubles its size and potency.

I advise against it. How well you care for yourself, accept, honor, respect and acknowledge yourself, determines how well you can do that for the marriage, for others, even your children.

Getting safe enough for FWH to share his stuff with you...is also becoming safe enough for you to share your stuff with...every choice you make for yourself goes to others, as well...and vice versa. God designed us with belief systems like two-way streets...can't go one direction without it going the other. For healthy and sick...destructive and constructive...that's why WS's lie to others and to themselves...why we justify to others if we are justifying to ourselves...

You get the picture.

You have small children who depend on you for so much...as they grow, I believe their greatest need is to see how to be an adult human...learn boundaries, enforcements, compassion, respect, love, self-love, responsibility, freedom and what you decide tells them what it is worth...if marriage is your top priority...or if people are replaceable...or redeemable.

LA

Post deleted by Detached_Care

I like all the I's in your post. Focusing on you takes a lot of "I's"...and speaking respectfully takes all "I" statements; "I feel" "I believe".

Darn capital on the keyboard. As MrsWondering said here once, takes a "SHIFT" in focus...the "I's" have it, I believe.

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I'll address your post when you return from vacation...if you'll bump it or post what new thoughts, feelings and beliefs you have then, that would be helpful. I want to leave you with this bottom line...you're so close to it, I wanted to encapsulate it:

Love is a choice.

You make it. Since it's yours, you cannot coerce, manipulate, earn or lose it. It's yours. Your choice to love. Choosing how you love is what I'm asking here.

This vacation...can you give yourself this one week judgment-free? To be open, really see what he says and his and what you say is yours? Acknowledge with listen and repeat about his stuff? Share your own? Find the joy you had in him when you were first dating? Find his essence, not his actions piled up in the way?

Do this for yourself...a treat...a one-week out of time and context...no assumptions. Leave the garbage at home. It'll wait for ya.

LA

Post deleted by Detached_Care

Take your time deciding what to do. I think you need to enjoy your vacation. Do fun things that you want to do, and invite him.

When you get back, I think getting a job would be good. In my marriage with my son's father, I had no power. Before we got married, I was working, and things were fine. Once we married and I quit working to stay home with my boys, it became all one way - HIS way.

Post deleted by Detached_Care

Can't you reply that you would like him and the kids to come with you?

That is what you had in mind isn't it? All of you going?

I'd really like for all of us to go? Would you like to come with me?