Just rest assured that affairs [behavior] are not hereditary! Your mother had nothing to do with this. If affairs were hereditary, I would be the serial cheater of the century since my father was a professional serial cheater! His 35 year mistress showed up at his funeral. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Somebody has to take the first step. Who cares who it is? If you don't want to be knon as an adultress and want to spare your children the heartache of living in a split family, I suggest you take the first step. He will come around if you truly are putting in the work. It seems like you are half-heartedly putting in some effort to say, "see, I tried, but it didn't work." You haven't even the slightest clue about true work on a marriage until you are a BS like many of us on the board who are working on saving our marriage while our WSs are still engaged in active affairs. Read the numerous posts of all of us BSs who are trying to save our marriages and you will realize that you haven't even scratched the surface. Why don't you read my thread about how my WW twisted the knife in my heart when I found out that she again called the OM using a prepaid calling card after agreeing to NC 6 weeks ago? I am still plugging away, trying to save my marriage. Can you honestly say that you have that same level of dedication? Look in the mirror and look at your children's faces, and you will see that you have a ****** of a lot more left to give.

What advice would you give the husband were he here and saying: "My wife is having an EA. I want her back." You'd say: Plan A, expose, and insist on NC, get on anti-depressants if you need to.

I'm saying they'd have a better chance if that were going on.

Mebe,

You are right, but he's not the one who is here. We are giving the WS advice. Don't give her any more ammunition to use against her BS than she already has. Instead, we should get her to encourage her BS to come out to this website and find out what we know here.

If kg6blue wants to save her marriage and her soul, she can do it w/o her BH working a Plan A.

Hopefully she'll be able to get her BH to come here and then we can tell him what he can do to help.

But, if he doesn't come then it will be up to kg6blue to carry the load.

~ Marsh

But.......he is not here. She is. So it is up to HER to attract him to the idea of recovery. The onus is on her, as it should be. We have to deal with WHAT IS.


Not necessarily. They have just as much of a chance with HER here as they would him, probably more, since she is the one in the affair. She has the power to take the most important step, which is to end the affair, after all. He doesn't have that power and may not be interested in working on his marriage until she does end it.

Children that grow up in households where there is an affair are more likely to have affairs. That does not absolve the ADULT currently having an affair.... nor does it mean that everyone that grows up with a W parent(s) will have an affair.
Smoking is not hereditary either... but when youngsters see it they are 70% more likely to smoke. Modeled behavior is a terrible thing... from spousal abuse.. to affairs... someone has to break the cycle.

This ww needs to stand up and be counted TODAY... show her H that she is willing to work on her M and begin TODAY the process of repairing that which she has broken. She should expect nothing from her BH at this point... whatever he gives her is a gift since she really deserves to be shown the door. I hope it works out for them...but the change needs to start immediately.

Agreed.

Her marriage has more of a chance b/c SHE'S here.

~ Marsh

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

How in the world a wife tending to her husband's needs becomes emotionally extorted "rape" is an incredible leap.

So, using this logic, if a husband is "emotionally extorted" to meet his wife's needs of communication or domestic support or financial security, then the husband would be one step close to being "raped."

Mebe...all of the needs are equal. All of them.

Exactly, but behavior is NOT hereditary and discussing the bad behavior of parents in this context is an irrelevant diversion. An adult makes a fully informed, conscious decision on how to behave, independent of their parents.

I am glad you are looking at other conditions besides your husband not meeting needs. Certainly, your mother's situation helped you see a easier way to cross that border.

But as these good folks help you move forward and maybe even get your husband on here, I want you to continue to dig. The unmet needs and situation with your parents were factors. But I believe you need to go deeper.

This may even take some time. Given all of this that you have said here, I want you to continue to dig, asking yourself "why did I cross the line? What in me allowed me to overcome boundaries I never wanted to cross, to allow me to be like my mother...which I never wanted?"

I want you to search yourself. Take your time to do so. As you dig and come up with things, ask yourself "is that it? Is there more?"

You see...you have some things you need to do that have nothing to do with your husband. Sure, let's all get into that...and maybe even get him here (which would help). But while doing so, please take this opportunity to get this figured ut so you can set up boundaries in the future where you wont cross lines that you admit that you never wanted to cross!!

kg6blue,

You are getting some good advice, even if some of it seems rather harsh right now. I don't think any one has said this, but you should probably read all of Dr Harley's basic concepts and a few of his articles.

What you are feeling is not uncommon, and neither is what your BH is feeling. His may be compounded by his BPD. I have DD who was diagnosed with BPD when she was 11. Our goal for years was to keep her from doing something stupid to end her life before she turned 18, then 25, then 30. BPD by itself causes people to do some really profoundly stupid things. When you add to that a feeling of total hopelssness & helplessness felt by a BS, I can't begin to imagine what would keep a person's mind from just snapping.

Take a look at this: Dorry's Guide for FWSs

This is one of the things my W has read on this site. I don't know what it meant to her at the time, but I know her attitude changed soon after I sent her the link.

I keep hoping McBecca will weigh in. She was at least as fogged out as anyone I ever saw when she got here. I think she may be able to help shed some light on all of this.

Mark

One other thing for k6 to think about.

The OM (WH) is not getting enough sex at home, so he is trying to get it from you. He doesn't care about you, otherwise he would leave his wife. Afterall, if you don't leave your H, he still wants at least some sex. Any married man looking to have an affair is looking for one thing and one thing only...SEX! You are a piece of meat to this guy. He's still going to keep in contact with you so if one day things get bad again at your place, he still has an opportunity to [censored] you. He couldn't give a [censored] about you. Don't let yourself be used. Aren't you worth more than that?

Jim - Most women would be very offended by that contention. For a women, affairs are generally not about sex - they are about intimacy and the sex becomes a means to continue the affair to continue to meet that need.

In many affairs, the sex is very infrequent or non-existant and you do yourself a diservice if you try and simplify an affair down to this level.

I know you are very hurt by your wife's affair. Maybe for her OM it was all about sex but this is not the case in all affairs.

I know most affairs are about intimacy...to the woman. Problem is that they don't realize it isn't about that for the men. My WW had an EA because OM met her need for conversation. Well it turned into a PA because OM was after sex, and was giving her conversation in return for sex. If she refused sex, he would pull away, so she wound up giving sex to keep him meeting her need for conversation. I'm sorry if that offends the ladies, but it is true.

It is true in YOUR case Jim. It is not ALWAYS or GENERALLY true.

I would debate that. But you have your opinion, and I have mine.

Gentlemen, PLEASE!

The thoughts, motives, attitudes and desires of kg's OM are completely irrelevant. Further discussion about them on her thread will only encourage her to focus more on HIM than her H. Please stop... or if you must continue the debate... take it outside. It has no place on a newbie WW's thread.

kg -- one step at a time, sweetie. Firmly establishing No Contact sould be your #1 priority. Maybe your marriage can be saved, maybe not. But you will not be able to make the choice with any clarity of mind or soul unless you take that first step -- sever all contact and get through withdrawl.

Hang in there. Believe me, I know how hard this is.

--SC

BigK, I agree completely that for women it's the whole communication/intimacy thing but I also agree with Jim that for men it comes down to sex and admiration. I think that's what you're both saying but misunderstanding each other. I also understood kg6 said this was an EA.

kg6, I came here to MB on my own. My H didn't really want to read self help books and he thought the internet was a very crazy place to come for marriage guidance. (Still does).

I can see your mindset. It's the "I'm hurting, why don't I get a look in" mindset. It's so typical of the selfishness of the WS (I don't mean that unkindly, it's just a fact of WS life). You need to put yourself LAST as everyone else has said. You need to bend over backwards and then bend over even further to show you mean by your actions what you are saying.

There is a thread on MB written by Plank and myself called "The Affair World". If I could find it I'd recommend you read it.

For the record, I'm an FWW who is looking forward to a happy and blissful Christmas with my beloved H and family.

I found the Affair World.

The Affair World