That's certainly the conclusion which I am reaching.

I don't actually have the time to waste on the completely-inappropriate-to-MB apologetics thread but I recognize the situation here and it seems like the only faint hope of protecting this thread and creating the kind of safe caring environment in which to discuss something where I might actually learn something new about marriage.

Well, I'm very in favor of ecumenical relationships with our separated Coptic Monophysite brethren..... <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Mrs W., thank you for your post. This is exactly the kind of helpful, interesting, and respectful non-Catholic participation that I naively assumed I would get when I in my very first post in my first thread invited non-Catholics to participate. Please stay around and comment further if these threads interest you.

Dear Mrs W.,

To me this sounds like your strong faith and personal relationship with Christ actually protected you from the worst of the Fog. You didn't create self-justifications by devaluing the whole history of your M. You didn't think you were entitled to the A. The Fog was unable to hide the Sixth Commandment from your mind.

This is rather interesting if you don't mind my exploring further. Do you now see any signs of the Fog in your behavior at that time (beyond the A itself, I mean) ? Did Mr. W feel you had been abducted by an Alien?

Athanasius ~

I'm sorry about the threadjack. FH posted an email that I sent to him many months ago, I am not sure why he did that. I don't really think that is good message board etiquette, but...I still stand by that email, and I actually think it's kind of funny that he posted it here, since I clearly refuted many of his false claims about Catholic beliefs.

You could probably ask him to delete it from this thread and post it on your other thread, if you want.

You still have a good thread going. My H never went to confession during his affair. Unfortunately, what he DID do was walk up to the altar with our 8 year old son on his First Communion, and the three of us received communion together, the day after the PA happened.

I can't even think about or look at pictures of DS's First Communion now. I had to throw away the dress I bought and wore for it too. I think back on that day and I feel like I've been kicked in the stomach.

That fog is pretty darn thick. I cannot even comprehend how he could sit in that front pew with me and our 4 kids, and all the grandparents and aunts and uncles who were there too. The guilt of that would have killed me, personally. In his "normal" state of mind, I think it would have killed him too.

"One aspect of the Fog is the surprising devaluation of the whole M....I figure this is a self-justification. The unarticulated thought behind this effect seems to be: "The M was a mistake from the beginning so I had the right to an A...." Did this happen to you as badly as others report? Did the temporary fog-clearing perhaps help keep the memory of your M from transforming into a completely negative thing in your WH's mind?"

In answer to your question, my husband treated me terribly literally from hours after our wedding on. I almost spent the wedding night in the car -- and we were both virgins.

I believe that the reason is unconditional commitment. A man who marries a woman with an unconditional commitment to marriage can do what he pleases after the wedding. In Harley's parlance, he went from Renter to Freeloader.

With the affair, he told me just two or so months before the first kiss that, had he met her before he married me, he may have married her. That sort of talk is secular "soulmate" stuff. In Catholicism, marriage is a sacrament, and the two shall become one.

I am not pained by this discussion. It helps me. Last summer, I considered leaving the Catholic Church even though we have three children in Catholic schools. Since then, I have come to recognize that there is much that is good in Catholicism but that, as with anything, Satan can twist teachings into what they were not intended to be. Catholicism teaches the permanence of marriage but separation can be a moral choice under certain circumstances.

To be honest, our marriage was negative for both of us right from the beginning. I believe a lot of it had to do with a belief that we both shared, that marriage was permanent. For Tom, it meant he could do what he pleased and he just had to put up with an unhappy wife. I remember during the affair he said, "I would never leave you with four kids." For me, it meant suffering was somehow virtuous.

That's warped Catholicism. At base, Catholicism teaches the fundamental value of every human being from conception to natural death. Affairs have no place in Catholicism because a person who has an affair casts aside the person to whom he promised a vow of love and fidelity. Divorce and remarriage has no place in Catholicism, either, because it means that you can break your commitment to the other person under certain circumstances -- you can toss them aside for cause. Both affairs and divorce have in common the belief that the spouse can be tossed aside.

What Catholicism teaches is that the spouse cannot be tossed aside no matter what. What a person can do, however, is separate, removing himself physically from the person who has made choices which do not value the individual's special place as that person's spouse.

If you have a particular question, let me know.

Cherishing

Oh...my...God....!!!!!

{{{{MarriedForever}}}}

I'm literally trembling with horror....

He received the Body of the Lord ... the day after ... without Confessing?

[Shudder]

Was he possibly unaware of the doctrine that the consecrated Host is the Real Body and Blood of Our Lord? Or that unconfessed mortal sins bar us from Communion? Or that adultery is a mortal sin?

Did the Fog hide those doctrines from him?

I'll say a rosary for his soul.

My husband was in the affair during our oldest daughter's First Confession and First Communion. I remember going to the First Confession with my arm in my cast and thinking that no other mother has an arm broken by the father.

With First Communion, he had not been to confession but he had decided it was OK to go to communion unless the sex was oral sex.

Two years later, a child went through First Confession and First Communion, and those memories were fresh. This year, another child. And yes it hurts to relive it.

There needs to be a certain detachment for me from what he has done. I took responsibility for his actions, and I should not have. I needed to -- and still need to -- recognize that he is a separate human being with free will.

Cherishing

Cherishing, that's just bizarre.

How on earth did he get the notion that the individual believer gets to decide which sins bar us from Communion and which don't ?

This isn't a subtle case where discernment is difficult.

It sounds like there was no need for the Fog to devalue the whole history of the M in his mind at the time of the A because he was quite consciously devaluing it throughout that history, and there was no need for the Fog to magnify his sense of entitlement since that was dominant the whole time anyway.

This isn't painful to talk about? It's sure painful to me to read it.

Ath ~ oh no, he knows the doctrine very well. He was even an EM.

I can only attribute it to The Fog. It was so thick that somehow he was able to push his conscience down and not "think" about any of this. Or at least to delude himself enough to be able to put one foot in front of the other and get to the church and do what he did. I dunno, I don't understand that fog either.

A week after dday, he went to confession and confessed both the A and the fact that he took communion after committing a mortal sin and before confessing.

But think about it, Ath ~ how could he have NOT gone to communion on our son's first communion? Like, if he sat there in the pew, everyone (including me) would have looked at him like "What's wrong with you, why aren't you going to communion? It's not like you have a *mortal sin* on your soul or anything". See?

One lie, one delusion just leads to more...and more...and more.

It's an ugly, ugly cycle.

P.S. Thank you for the offer to say the rosary for him. Maybe you could say it for both of us, and our marriage. We're still in a really bad place.

Thanks, Ath.

Hi Ath...

I'm not sure about this protecting me from the worst of the fog or not-I was a NIGHTMARE WS, no doubt about it...When it came to all things with God though, I just had to "lock it up", compartmentalize it, if you will...Honestly, it was too much for my conscience to bear...At this time I went so far as to order the prescription drug Xanax online-the really strong ones, 2mg, and I abused them to push away all of the shame and guilt...I would take so many that I literally walked through life as a zombie...Much of my memory from that time is blocked out, in fact...I totaled my car while high as a kite, and then pushed Mr. W into going with me to lease a brand new one as soon as we left the plastic surgeon's office after he had stitched up the bridge of my nose...I have NO memory of signing for my new car, NONE at all...I even asked Mr. W how many days after the accident that I had gotten it...He, of course, was INCREDULOUS, as any sane, rational and sober person would be...

I did devalue my husband and marriage so greatly...I told lie after lie to Mr. W and the OM about it all...The only good thing that I do remember saying repeatedly during that time to OM, was this..."I can't imagine a world where there is no Mr. & Mrs. W"...So, yes, somewhere in there I knew that I was still very deeply attached to my husband...

I was entitled on all fronts with the exception of God...I KNEW very much that I could NOT justify my actions to Him...That He saw into my heart and mind and that I would be held accountable for my actions...And yet, I could not make myself stop, or better worded, I didn't want to make myself stop, which is even worse...I can't justify the affair in any way...I can tell you that I was the MOST depressed that I had ever been in my life, that I had begun planning my own suicide before OM contacted me...I would have done ANYTHING to make myself feel better at that time...Honestly, if someone would have offered me heroin I would have taken it, even though I understand that many people get hooked the first time that they do that drug...I was DESPERATE...That does not mean that I had good reason to have an affair-there is no good reason to choose adultery, and I did choose it...I was not unconcious or curled up in a fetal position somewhere...There are other things I could have chosen, no question...

I have answered partially about seeing other signs of foggy behavior-abusing Xanax was certainly a part of that...But there was more...I was the WORST mother in the world at that time...One of the memories that does haunt me til this day is that on the morning that I left to go visit OM for 2 weeks, Mr. W had to work and our DD5 at the time, woke up with horrible diarrhea and she obviously could not go to school...Did I offer to stay? OH NO...I packed up several changes of clothes for her and sent her to work with Mr. W...How cruel!!! How did I do that? I sit and think about that day quite a bit...How I didn't stay and care for my sweet, little, sick 5 year old...How I so callously sent her to work with Mr. W-Poor Mr. W, he KNEW that I was going to spend this time with OM...he had to deal with clients as the pain of my betrayal was ripping him apart...and he had to care for our sick child and help her go to the bathroom and change clothes, over and over-at this time he was completely alone in all of this-suffering silently...I'm not sure how I will ever forgive myself for that and other instances of pure cruelty...

I also cut my family out of my life as much as possible at this time...I couldn't deal with my mom constantly asking me what was wrong...what was going on with Mr. W and I...And I couldn't hide it either...I was a train wreck...

Something else that is bone chilling to me is that after OM broke it off, I so much wanted someone to tell me what I wanted to hear, that I chose to go visit a psychic-something that had ALWAYS been completely against my faith-but I went, nonetheless...And she told me many things, one of them, it turned out was true-that OM had been threatened to stay away from me-I did not know that was true at the time, but as it turns out, it was...She also told me how very evil that Mr. W was... <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> So you see, there is a reason that the Bible tells us to beware of psychics and mediums...I believe that that stuff is REAL, it is just of the dark side...some truth mixed with LIES...That scares me to death...I believe that I opened myself up to all sorts of evil by doing that...*shudder* I also believe that God chose to protect me from it as well, because my conscience did SCREAM at me that I should NOT be doing that, and after a couple of visits I stopped going and threw away the candle and crystal that she had given me...I KNEW BETTER!

As far as what Mr. W thought...Well, I certainly was not myself...My parents and he began to speculate that I might have Bipolar Disorder, as my father does have that illness...I can tell you that a WS does mimic many of the symptoms of that mental disorder-the manic part...Even the eyes have an evilness to them...I'm sure other BS' can attest to this...There is an emptiness that you see when you look into the eyes of an active WS...There is a picture of me from that time where I look so horrible and there does seem to be an evil glint in my eye...It is eerie to look at...

I'm certain that there is more...If/When I think of it I will post and let you know...Mr. W could probably come up with much more...I'm not even sure if those were the type things that you were looking to glean Ath...I hope you did get something from my endless ramble...<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Mrs. W

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> There is a quite a substantial Eastern Catholic Church out there! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> I am Roman Catholic, but I was raised and was married in the Byzantine Catholic church where St. Athanasius was a very big deal! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Oh my... Mrs W,
My DD is going through pictures. She found one she took of WH and I at the Fourt of July Fireworks last year. He wouldn't even hold my hand. That night we got home and he told me he wanted a divorce still denying an affair. There was something about the picture I couldn't place my finger on iy but his eyes...evil looking.
It's true about the eyes being the window to the soul.

Still

WOW!! Mrs. Wondering

so much that you posted made me think of my H during all of this

my H came from a good, strong catholic upbringing

there had never even been a D in his family...even aunts and uncles

his mother ruled the home with her strict beliefs and she was quite a judge

the relationship that my H and i had was not one that she approved of in the beginning because i was not the person she would have choosen for her son....i was too wild, too unsupervised (she thought we were having S-E-X before marraige) and i came from a broken family...with a history of many divorces, and my father had even had an affair

being with me was the one time my H took a stand against his mother

she "forced" religion upon her children...that's how they all felt about it. church was never a choice. even as adults, if they stayed at her home, they had to go. My H and his brother, after they could drive themselves, would dress up for church and then go sit at the park

i was not raised in a family that believed in much

i had been a christian but went through the process of converting to catholic while i was in college. i never felt the need to be with God in a church....i've always felt he was "in me"

after we were married, my h and i agreed that we didn't feel that we needed to go the church to be with God...he is everywhere.... so we decided that we would go to church, when/if WE had the desire to

we went on some holidays when we were visiting our families, but not other times

strangely, the first time my H start browsing the site where he found OW was shortly after his mothers death.....his counselor said that it was as though the death of his mother triggered something in my H that made him feel free to go against all of the things she forced upon him


before the 1st d-day, i knew something was wrong with my H....he just seemed "cold" towards me....like he had hardened his heart against me....like he was "taking care of me" but not wanting to be with me

and then of course the ILYBNILWY speech.....he said it was because of my depression which had gone on for many years...I WAS going to leave because i believed that I was making him so unhappy

then D-DAY

i threw him out, for the weekend. he begged and begged to come home

[color:"blue"]we went to counseling and he talked about what a monster he was, he talked about the guilt and shame that he felt for what he had done.
He said that he couldn't even belive he had done it! and that he would rather go off and live alone somewhere than to hurt me again...that he never wanted to hurt me like that again. [/color]

he told me and the counselor that all he wanted to do was "love me forever" .

[color:"blue"] he said that it was like looking back at some stranger that he didn't know watching what they were doing and being horrified! he never wanted to be "that monster again" [/color]


[color:"green"] he was wonderful.he wrote me beautiful poems about his love for me and his hopes for our future. they were so personal and heartfelt...he searched until he found cards that made me cry....he bought me gifts to show his love....a single red rose every few days, a big gorilla with a heart that says i love you, chicken soup when i was sick....even a mavoda watch (he really tight with money and for years i had always teased him by saying "if you really loved me you'd buy me one!" [/color]

and.....he decided that he "needed" us to start going to church together. When we went, he seemed to have found such peace. he was so serious...in a way he never had been. If i whispered to him he wouldn't answer...he would just give a little smile and put his finger against his lips....he always had his head down like he was praying

we were both trying hard....except that i was having triggers which would cause me to get so angry....i would say such unkind things

neither of us knew how to deal with this and he said that he couldn't live this way forever...that if i couldn't forgive and forget we would never heal....that each time i brought up the A his feelings of guilt and shame would overwhelm him....and would destroy us

we didn't know what to expect when dealing with an A....he thought i had taken him back so that meant i forgave him...why couldn't i just forget.....

we were only in recovery for 8 months. he had started asking me to "forget" the first month

after about 5 months, he decided that he didn't need to go to counseling or to church anymore....that we were doing better..that HE was doing better

i thought we were happy most of the time....we even added a new puppy to our little family

then he called OW and the A resumed (i didn't find out for over a year)

my H started treating me so badly. he was cold, heartless and angry. he shut me out of his life.

when i cried, he left the room in disgust. when i tried to talk to him he coldly told me that i was keeping him awake. he moved into the guest room and began to shut and then even lock the door.

on the rare moments that we would end up smiling together.... he would give a little laugh. look away and then shake his head with a sad look on his face....ending my good feelings about that moment

my mother and sisters thought, and still do think, that he is abusing drugs

i KNOW he isn't

he became like a zombie. Someone who was going through the motions each day in misery. I found SAA and he did agree to do the emotional needs questionaire. As hard as i tried, he wouldn't let me meet any of his needs. he just kept saying that he had "no feelings for me anymore" and that "he was waiting to see if his feelings would come back"....he was "so unhappy"

when i looked in his eyes......he would look away, but not before i could see that there was no soul there anymore

then he became very depressed....curled up on the couch, sleeping excessively, calling off work depressed.

he came out of this when he made his decision to move out to continue the A

since then, he has been like a person with "bi-polar disorder" emotions out of control

(my friends and family swear it is either drugs or bi-polar disorder to this day)

[color:"blue"]-he repeatly said that when he looked in the mirror, he wanted to puke, that he was a monster.

-he constantly alked about his guilt and shame and that it was worse when he was with me.....so he hated coming to the house....

he even said "i can't even look you in the eyes"
[/color]

-crying that he threw everything away, saying how unhappy he still was, saying that he didn't know what he wanted or what he was going to do with the rest of his life (during the first year before OW moved in with him-while he was cake-walking)

-acting pumped up like he was the king of the world....with a little evil looking smile on his face and in his eyes

-smiling as he said things that hurt me and then getting angry when i was hurt

-having fits of rage over nothing and then later swearing that he didn't say the things he had said during the rage

having fits of sadness and talking about reconciliation then later swearing that he hadn't said any of the things he did

(i believe him! he looked so confused when i talked about any of the things he had said)

-leaving messages where he was screaming one moment, crying the next and then screaming again

-threatening suicide if i did anything to stand in the way of what he wanted for him and OW

being so cruel.....telling me he was going to "blow his head off with a shotgun just like my father did)

-then apologies and kindess and little jokes sent by e-mails

-i'm in plan B now but his last attempts at contact were like interacting with a crazy man

many phone calls with screaming rages, ranting, cussing and calling me names, crying then screaming some more

and usually some comment about how he knows it's his fault-that he ruined our marraige-that he was the one who did this to himself

but saying that doesn't seem to make him any less angry at ME!

the last call was in july until i changed my numbers

i've taped them and played then for some friend and family who believe he's now clearly out of his mind

Jennifer Harley says he is still clearly not having rational thinking

me? i don't know what to believe anymore

[color:"blue"] that's why i started my thread about feelings of guilt and shame....wondering how this might play into my situation...could my H be unhappy and wish he could come back but the guilt and shame he feels he would always live with keeps him from doing this?

is THAT is torment now? [/color]

but my greatest fear is that he really IS happy and that's why he isn't interested in ending the A

I'm a practicing Catholic too. H is not, so this may be of limited value to you, Athanasius. However, I'm currently writing a book in which the betrayal of faith is the principle theme, so this discussion is of great interest to me.

It seems to me that a fundamental feature of all WS activity is compartmentalisation. Because it is so difficult to quell the conscience, WSs split off a separate reality in which they are a subtly different person. The 'extra' reality offers a different worldview, a different set of principles, and a different conscience. The reality is congruent within itself, and as long as the WS can keep the two realities distinct from each other, the two consciences are able to co-exist within the same person. The only flesh-and-blood figure involved with the affair reality is, of course, the OP, who is enthusiastically promoting the distorted views and conscience. It's only when the two realities collide - when the WS is asked which version of his/her conscience is the real one - that the WS is forced to try to merge the two, or to justify hypocrisy.

I don't think it's surprising that some WSs are able to participate in sacraments without apparent shame. The person doing the religious participation is, to them, a separate person from the one involved in extra-marital activity. When you go into confession, you wouldn't feel the need to tell the priest that you'd got your ears pierced, would you? That's part of your personal life which is no concern of the priest's. I think that's how WSs 'manage' confession and other sacraments. They separate out the parts of their life which are 'personal', and apply their conscience only to the remaining bits.

I've come to feel that this kind of catastrophic compartmentalisation behaviour (all of us compartmentalise a little; life would be impossible otherwise) is a sign that the person has a weak sense of self. It's relatively easy to hold two conflicting moral positions if neither of them seems quite 'real'; like appreciating the views of two authors who have diametrically opposite opinions. People with a strong self-concept invest in a single reality, with other possibilities incorporated only after rigorous examination. People with weak self-concept find it possible to hold multiple realities, and have difficulty resisting alternative ideas.

I think each of us has some vulnerability in this area. Even the strongest self-concept can be shattered by events, especially if those events have not been anticipated or prepared for. We may be confident that we would never enter an extra-marital liaison - and indeed never would, under normal circumstances - but if we're hit by something catastrophic, such as the suicide of our child - could we be sure that our grasp of 'real' reality would hold? If we found ourselves very lost and at odds with God, would a loving 'friendship' seem a welcome anchor rather than an intrusion?


TA

“There was something about the picture I couldn't place my finger on it but his eyes...evil looking. It's true about the eyes being the window to the soul.”

Interesting.

This is a common observation about evil. And it is often noted that all evil tends to look alike in the end.

Saintly people are noted for their individuality. Their uniqueness. The less evil, the less it is all about you and the more you become the true You.

Evil people, or people immersed in evil, if you prefer, start to look alike. Hollow, empty, easily angry, uniformly gray and generally hungry for temporal things that never satisfy for long. They sound alike, act alike and feelings generally trump reality.

And of special significance, they do not want to be perceived, or to be known, as evil. Continuously justifying themselves is a common denominator. Making their point of view accepted by others, even to cloaking it in religion or scripture, is an early indicator of progressive evil.

I think there is a point of no return. There sure appears to be.

Dark masquerading as light...The MOST evil of evil, indeed...*shiver*

Mrs. W

Alphelion and MrsW
It does send shivers dowm my spine... this is describing my WH to a T. It hurts so bad to see someone you love enveloped in evil.
I just got back from spending time with some friends at a local sports pub...WH was there. After he left I mentioned about the picture and his eyes... they see it too. They also said he doesn't seem very happy.
I keep praying to God that WH will accept him back in his heart and maybe life will come back into his eyes.

Still