TE,

Would Mrs. Dog be willing to join Mr. Dog in a call to Steve Harley? Let the expert explain it to both of them. No one here ever said that Mr Dog doesn't have his own issues to work on.

Can you talk her into just 1 phone call? I think Dog was going to call at some point so why not let Mrs Dog tell her side of the story? Steve Harley won't beat up on her, he has seen this kinda thing 100s if not 1,000s of times.

??????

I have spoken with SH just last Wednesday. A very patient man who listens and knows his "stuff"

TE -- I can totally relate to what you're saying. My H had a friend like that during his A. It was his brother. His brother was very supportive of him during that time. However, he did not enable him. He refused to hear the OP's name, he refused to have the OW in his house when my H wanted to visit, he refused to do anything that would make it "easy" for my H to continue down the path of self-destruction.

If I may, I'd like to ask you -- if Mrs. Dog was involved in drugs, how would you support her?

You say that you don't want her to be w/an abuser. I can so understand that & I agree (not that I'm saying you're an abuser, Dog). But what exactly do you think this new "relationship" is? She has just substituted one form of abuse for another. Self-abuse. She is damaging her self worth. She is trampling all over her values, her morals. Meanwhile, she is trampling all over, stomping over another person's heart. Perhaps she feels justified. Perhaps she feels "he deserves it". I don't know. I don't know if she's doing it deliberately or not, but it's damaging to all sides, you included. She has given up her moral fibers & values she held dear, for what? For "freedom"? For "liberation"? For "love"? She can do all of that w/o having an A.

As a friend, yes, you can be there for her. However, when you see she is on a train track headed for a wreck, do you pull her out from the wreck or do you hold her hand & walk her down the dangerous road, stepping out of the way just in time before she gets smashed? Of course you would pull her out of the way. I don't know if you've tried anything to pull her out of the way of the train wreck, so I won't go any further than that, but I think you do need to analyze what kind of support exactly are you giving her? What, in your actions, has constituted pulling her from the train wreck or holding her hand leading her there?

I was an emotional abuser to my H of 15 years. He lived w/12 years of emotional abuse by me. He had it. He said enough was enough & he walked. What he failed to tell me was that there was an OW waiting in the wings when he did leave. SHe WAS the catalyst that led him to leave. What happened? He felt "free". He felt "alive" for the first time in years. But what did it do to his self-worth? All his morals, his values, everything that he held dear at one time, all went out the window & when he looked at himself in the mirror, he realized he had become someone who he hated. He became what he had despised before his A. So he changed himself. He decided to own up to his mistakes, come back home & try again. When he had seen that I was serious in changing my behaviors, he was skeptical but he decided to give it a try, w/the thinking that he would give it 6 months. If things didn't change, he was out of here. Well, when he saw the changes were permanent & got a glimpse of what our M would look like when we were done the work, 6 months turned into a year, a year into 2 years & now we're at 3 years & things couldn't be better. Dog recognizes the things he should have done, the things he should have said, etc., etc., etc. I know she has her doubts. I know she's skeptical. My H was too. But if she decides to own up to her mistakes, same as Dog is trying to do, this M is salvagable, w/both of them working together instead of against each other.

Here is a point to consider during all this. I didn't mention it because of the current circumstances, but I will anyway.

When the OM came over and all three of us talked, here is something I picked up on.

At one point during the conversation, he said something to the effect (paraphrasing here) that, "I don't know how you live with 5 cats. One, maybe two is more than enough".

Later on, towards the end of the conversation, he mentioned that the cats were like my wife's children, to which she responded with, "I will give them up if I have to".

Throughout the past five years we have had those cats, my wife showed nothing but love and compassion towards them. She stated that if anything were to happen to them, she would be very sad and that she just, "can't imagine life without the kitties".

I'm not saying this to make my wife out to be a bad person, just to illustrate her state of mind at the moment.

Your idea of "friendship" is not really friendship at all. You can't abandon her because you are not a friend, but a fake friend. Staying with her while she destroys her marriage and participates in an adulterous affair is not "friendship," it is called ENABLING. You are simply "supporting" your friend in BEING BAD so you will be liked, te.

That ain't friendship, dear.

That is just an indicator that you place being liked over the well being of your friend. If you were truly her friend, you would take a STAND against her self destructive behavior and then REFUSE to stand around with your thumb up your [censored] while she self destructs. You would do everything in your power to STOP her affair, and when she didn't listen, remove yourself until she came to her senses.

Let me assure you that staying there is not "support," it is not an act of "friendship," because a REAL FRIEND will not "support" a friend in self destruction. You have confused ENABLING with "friendship." You are the "friend" who hands the gun to the suicidal so she will be LIKED.

Be a REAL friend, te.

p.s. hopefully you also realize now that she is NOT "friend" material. Why would you choose a friend who lied to and cheated on her own husband? If she will betray him, the man she vowed to love, honor and cherish, she will much more easily betray you.

I don't know about you, but when I choose my friends, I try to choose folks who would value honesty and loyalty. You can see she values neither.

This doesn't mean she can't BECOME friend material some day, but she most certainly is not TODAY.

Hi TE,

I honestly don't think they are going to talk you into doing the right thing. You will need to keep Mrs. DF in the apartment so you have a place to live, or you'll need to move out or find a new roommate. I've watched passively on this thread for quite some time and I am just chiming in now.

I am just wondering what brought you here?
How many threads of people trying to work on thier marriage did you have to read to find DF's?
Aside from a few suggestions that were not very nice, I've seen nothing but encouragement from the peeps here on MB.

I hope you think OM is great too, because you might be seeing alot of him soon.

Giant kudos to you for this!



No one is asking you to do something you are not ABLE to do. You CAN choose not to support her decision to leave DF.



You can BE a REAL friend to her by NOT helping her do something WRONG.

Respecting (putting weight behind) your belief that adultery IS WRONG by not participating in the demise of a marriage is NOT hostile.

I would think that if Mrs. Dog respected YOU and YOUR belief's she wouldn't ask YOU to betray yourself by enabling her.

The fact is, Mrs. Dog only cares about Mrs. Dog. She doesn't care about her husband. She doesn't care about you. She only cares about her needs.

Don't be the kind of "friend" she WANTS you to be. Be the kind of friend she NEEDS you to be.

Be a REAL friend.

Do the right thing, TE, you won't regret it.

~ Marsh

Hi TE; henceforth known as the ROOMMATE. Stay here and learn with us. The end result will be that you will know much more about marital relationships than anyone else in your age group. I fail to see how this can harm you.

the_enemy,

I'm glad you decided to stick around. I know you have been thrown in the middle of a freaking war zone, but you will be a better person from all the experience you will get while you are here. Just think how great it would feel if you were partially responsible for saving your best friend's marriage. How good would that feel? I know that my advice that I have given here has partly saved at least several marriages. I couldn't feel better about myself for being a part of something so special. Now if only I could close the deal on saving my own marriage. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> Well, if you read my update, at least things are looking good.

I am not ashamed to say that I was never the perfect husband. I, like many others, copied the example that my parents showed me. My father had quite the temper, but my mother was a very devout Catholic who never complained. Well, my W obviously didn't take my temper quite as well. I didn't even realize all the things I was doing to hurt our marriage because I was so focused on what my wife was doing wrong. Well, you can only fix what is wrong with you. Hopefully, your spouse will follow your example.

You can't even begin to comprehend how much love it takes to fight for your M when your spouse is unfaithful (even if it is just emotionally unfaithful). That is how we know that Mr. Dogfood is going to make the permanent changes to make his M work. Most people would just give up on their spouse and move on. I hope your eyes are opened to the type of commitment it takes to do what Mr. Dogfood is doing. He obviously loves Mrs. Dogfood more than anyone has ever loved her before and probably more than anyone else could. I sure hope that you can help the two of them work this out. Even if you can't you can take the lessons you have learned here and put them in practice when you get married one day. I'm praying for you and Mr. and Mrs. Dogfood. Good bless you and have a wonderful day.

P.S. Oh, and don't think you have to abandon Mrs. Dogfood to do the right thing. What is necessary in this situation is tough love. It is holding the people we love accountable for their actions. It is pointing it out when they are making poor choices or hurting others. It is protecting them from people who don't have their best interests at heart (OM). Do you know who my OM was? He was a mutual acquaintance that my WW knew from work. He would come over to our house, drink my beer and eat my food, and then tell my WW he loved her when I was not around. Do you think a person who would go after a married woman cares about her? No, he just realized she was having some problems in her marriage, so he thought he could get a piece of *ss. Be careful, if you push her into not seeing the OM watch how quickly she may just abandon you. My WW stopped talking to all of her long time friends and family because they didn't approve of what she was doing. It was just her and OM. Waywards are quick to stab you in the back if you don't just go along and enable their behavior.

Actually, TE is not a roommate, not yet anyways.

Hey DF, hang in there. There is always a firestorm. Mine happened when I exposed my WW's affair to her family, friends, work, and OM's family. She swore that it was over at that point. She even called up an attorney to get info on how to file. She told some of her friends that it was over. I naturally was afraid it was as well. Well, that was almost 3 months ago. WW is no longer in contact w/ OM, and she doesn't even bring up the D word anymore. It always gets worse before it gets better. If you can get through this, then I like your chances. Heck, it could actually be a good thing that her STB roommate stumbled in here. I would take her up on her offer to speak with you. I'm sure she'll see that Dogfood is all bark and no bite. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

the_enemy,

I want you to read my WW's journal entry during the A when I foolishly agreed to move out because I was afraid she would D me if I didn't (and mind you, I still paid the mortgage and bills). It shows the thoughts of a WW in the fog.


Can you imagine how utterly devastated I was when I read this? I'm sure this is how DF feels. But even though I had my heart ripped out and trampled all over, I continued to try and save my M and I forgave my WW. THAT is love.

Needless to say, my WW doesn't feel the same way anymore. This was written in September. I finally got her to end it with Phil in November. She is beginning to admit that she made a mistake and that Phil just used her. We are going through the long, painful process of recovery. The difference is the pain of recovery last only months while divorce lasts a lifetime. This is just a snapshot into the mind of a WS. It's not a pretty place. Please, the_enemy, help Mrs. Dogfood save her M. She'll thank you in the long run.

Wow, Jim. That journal entry is quite insightful! Funny (not really) thing is - I read nearly the same thing in one of my WW's journal entries.

Continues to show that WWs follow the same patterns of thought and behavior.

Yes they do follow the same patterns of thought and behaviour, which is why I REALLY wanted to get my point across as a once very foggy WW who is now a completely unfoggy FWW.

Marriages can be and ARE saved by MB and by the very wonderful people who post here.

Post deleted by the_enemy

TE, you're not a bad person. You are a friend caught in the crossfire. It's very hard for friends caught in the crossfire, a lot of mine were. They made it very clear to me what they thought of my A. They thought I was stupid and I sucked. They all adored my H and knew what sort of marriage I really had. (One of my friends said to me "I've seen your eyes light up when your H comes into the room, don't tell ME you've never loved him.")

I've often said this on MB. As a group, my friends intended to tell my H about my A at one of our friends 40th birthday party. In the end, they decided not to because they thought it wasn't the right place, which it wasn't. I know it was only a matter of time before they decided to do the right thing.

As it happened my H found out before they told him.

If you are 19 now, you will make an awesome adult.

the_enemy,

you have taken the steps towards doing the right thing by coming back here. I commend you for thinking about what the others have posted here since your first post. Everything seems to resonate with you now. Maybe you've grown also in such a short time?

You are not a bad person!

I hope you will stick around, TE. This is a great place to learn about relationships, and it may help you in the future. You sound like a good woman.

TE,

I'm glad to see that you took everyone's posts to heart & really thought about them. Everything you said that you talked to her about IS being a friend. You are NOT a bad person. I have always believed that you've had the best of intentions. I just think you were going about them the wrong way & enabling her as a result.

I wanted to concentrate on one aspect of your post:

Let me ask you this -- Do you take a stand against adultery? I don't believe anyone here is requesting that she be made to stay in this M at all costs. The thing everyone here is concerned w/the most at this point in time is getting MrsDog out of her self-destructive mode & out of this A. This is what is damaging her the most. In the meantime, it is damaging Dog as well. She says that she is cautious about "overnight transformations". Understandable. But another thing you might want to bring up to her is, 'How can she work on anything, her M, herself, if there is a third party there disrupting that?'

You're not sure of the right thing for her to do is. Let me ask you again -- Do you take a stance against adultery? If your answer is yes, then THAT would be the right thing for her to do at this point.