I have been reading/doing MB since February 06 and this is my first post – my IC thought this forum would be a good source of support for me…

Here’s a “just the facts” timeline of my story. (Fill in the blanks with your emotions – you know them, you’ve been there):

1) 1989 (second year we were married). EA with coworker; I found out about at least one kiss.

2) December, 2004. Found out H was reading pornographic stories on the internet and had tried to correspond with one of the authors. Initially denied it, but eventually admitted to it, as well as admitting to going to adult book stores to watch videos. Promised to stop.

3) June, 2004. Found H’s secret Yahoo account. Also found he had registered on a web site for gay men looking for sex and had been a member for 2 years. Initially denied it, but eventually admitted to it. Said he wasn’t gay or bisexual; it was just a fantasy, and blamed it all on me for not giving him SF. (I feel like I don’t know who he is at all. We have been together 23 years and married 17 at this point).

4) HIV test for him (negative); marriage counseling for us (we mutually stopped going in August, 2004 as we didn’t feel it was helping).

5) Began to trust my H again. (If only I knew then what I know now….)

6) October, 2004. Found he was once again reading pornographic stories; he tried to use a different computer to hide this from me. Once again, promised to stop.

7) Everything was relatively quiet until 2005; I thought things could be better but that we were basically OK. (Apparently, I was wrong).

8) Sometime in 2005, H started a friendship with/developed an attraction to a different, divorced coworker. I could tell he thought there was something special about her by the way he talked about her at home.

9) November, 2005. H and coworker take a 3 week trip to India (for work) – EA begins.

10) When they come back, cell phone calls begin. (Our cell phone account is under my name, so calls were easy to track online). People at H’s work notice and comment. They’re “just friends,” though.

11) February, 2006. Second trip to India – EA intensifies and becomes a PA with kissing and hand holding. (I don’t know this yet, though). (Was there more? H says no, but I’m still not sure).

12) February, 2006 – July, 2006. EA continues, with excessive cell phone calls; leaving personal messages on each other’s work voice mail; intimate conversations; lunch dates, “helping her” at her apartment, etc. (At this point, though, I only know about the voice mail messages - I got my H’s passcode and start listening. I know it’s an EA at least on her part because she leaves him personal messages over night and on the weekends. He leaves the house to call her back). During this period, H called her his “best friend.” (Hhmm, thought that was me – guess not). Confront H with cell phone calls (I don’t tell him I know about the voice mails yet) – H sticks with the “just friends” story and says I should go to IC to work on my issues trusting him.

13) Friday, July 21, 2006 (my birthday) – DD #1. I intercept a message on his work voice mail and found they planned to get together on Monday, a day my H told me he was going golfing. I was just starting to believe that they WERE just friends. I’m devastated. We find MB and begin the home study course together, read HNHN, SAA, etc. H likes MB and agrees to do everything.

14) August, 2006 – day before we leave for our vacation to Punta Cana. Check his work voice mail and hear two hysterical messages from coworker – apparently, he’s broken up with her, and she’s devastated. How could he do this to her? (Join the club, honey).

15) August 24, 2006, in Punta Cana – DD#2. Here’s where I find out all the details about the EA/PA. I’m devastated beyond belief, but at least I have some of the truth and know I wasn’t crazy.

16) September, 2006 – Come back, start counseling with Jennifer and working on recovery.

17) October, 2006 – November, 2006. Going through the motions, acting “as if.”

18) December, 2006 – MB works – we’re back in love! But I’m still a mess – zero self-esteem, anxious, depressed, can’t concentrate, can’t work, can’t trust. H is doing a great job – everything I ask him to do. Still doesn’t help me, though.

19) January, 2007 – I start IC.

20) February, 2007 – Come home from a photography workshop (something H and IC wanted me to do, to help me get better) to find H has been on the internet, looking at a former coworker’s myspace page. A few weeks ago, we had a conversation about myspace, and we POJA’ed that neither of us would ever look at it. H said, no problem – he had no interest in it. Apparently not.

21) March, 2007 – Back to square one for me in terms of anxiety and depression. I want to get better, but I just can’t do it. I wonder if I CAN get better.

Well, that’s my story, in a nutshell – not nearly as heart-breaking as many others, but, as my IC says, heart-breaking to me. She (IC) told me I have to make a decision soon – to forgive myself and my H and look optimistically at the future or leave. I don’t think I can do either one, though – I don’t think I can ever forgive myself (for my neglect of our marriage) or my H (for his destruction of our marriage). (My screen name is brokenvase, because in August, I compared our marriage to a beautiful vase, that everyone envied and wished they had, and that I was so proud of. But over time, I neglected it, and left it where it could be damaged, and one day, my H did just that – knocked it over and shattered it. And now that vase is gone forever. We can get a new vase, but it will be an ordinary, common vase that I will never love as much as the first one). On the other hand, I love my husband, our house, our cats, the things we do and our life together. I think I would regret it forever if I left, and would always feel I had ruined my life.

So, here I am, between Scylla and Charybdis. Who has been here, too? How did you get out? Do you think I can get out?

Can you help me?

I hope so.
brokenvase

If you are too weak and cannot/willnot make the determination of what constitutes "enough is enough" ... then you have completely and recklessly handed over the reigns of your life & marriage to a chronic adulterous spouse.

That is a valid choice ~only~ if you OWN it for what it is... complete and total surrender to your husband's will.

NOT deciding things is what consitutes your most GLARING fault in how your marriage got into the ditch! Not "neglect", but conflict avoidance.

Your job in this dilemma, is to think about where your limit boundary is ... and then take action (not threaten to take action) when your boundary has been (yet again) breeched.

I take it WH & OW still work together?

Pep

PS .... go take an aspirin, I hit you pretty hard.

You might need another aspirin -

brokenvase, no heterosexual man spends two years registered on a "gay men looking for sex" website. It would seem that at the very least your husband is bisexual - or, he is homosexual and his marriage to you and his cheating with women at work are attempts to deny this.

The rest of it won't matter if you cannot somehow deal with this. Nothing can change a person's sexual orientation - not counseling, not medical treatment, not love, nothing.

I think you will have to prepare yourself for this.
Mulan

BV, you write as if you were the only adult in your marriage and responsible for everything that happens in it. Be careful about that. You may well have contributed to the atmosphere in the marriage, but WH is the one who's chosen to resolve any perceived difficulties by involving himself in inappropriate behavior and relationships. If you've read SAA and HNHN, then you know about meeting each other's emotional needs as best you can, but the old saw about "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink," most assuredly applies here. Put in other words, even if the marriage is at risk, that is NOT an invitation to commit adultery. Your husband is the only person in your marriage who is responsible for what he’s done.

BV, I cringe every time I see a betrayed spouse wanting to take responsibility for all the bad things in a relationship. I suspect you’re one of those BS’s who are in just as much a fog as your WH. BV, come out of that fog and start doing a cold, objective analysis of things that have happened in your marriage. Don’t be so quick to accept full and complete blame because, save for a couple of physically and verbally abusive relationships, I’ve never seen one that was so completely one-sided as you describe.

Here: take a look at this book review (of all things) at Amazon.com. I think it’ll be an eye-opener for you. {Scroll down until you see (or do a search for) the words “To be vulnerable to an event is not to invite it.”}


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Lady, gather yourself, get ready for some hard work, and get on with recovering your marriage, if that’s what you want to do. If you do, your best bet is to get a telephone consultation with Steve Harley. He can talk with you and your WH and give you a good, personalized plan for recovery.

BTW, do you and WH have any children together?

Dear Pepperband:

Thanks for taking the time to respond to me. Here is one of the questions I am struggling with: How do I set a boundary (which I always think of as synonymous with a consequence) that 1) doesn’t punish my H for telling me the truth, 2) lets us work on our marriage and 3) still protects me? When we were in counseling with Jennifer, she asked me what I would do if my H had personal contact with the OW; I said that I would leave him (This was right after DD #2). Jennifer told us that giving my H an ultimatum would only encourage him to lie; if he did have a setback, I should stay calm, say, “thank you for telling me the truth,” and that we should use the principles of MB to try to ensure it didn’t happen again. Believe me, I’ve thought of leaving, but I really do want to work on our marriage – when I said “for better or for worse” I knew what I was saying and am committed to stay and work even if, right now, “for worse” means worse for me. How can we work on our marriage if I leave or tell him to leave – Jennifer also told us that it at this point in our work, it would be a mistake to separate.

But, while staying and working on the marriage take care of conditions 1 and 2, they don’t take care of condition 3. My H is still breaking promises to me and still struggling to tell me the truth. He tells me that I know all the truth that there is to tell, but, based on his past behavior, how can I believe him without stamping “stupid” on my forehead? He tells me he has not looked at internet porn since 10/04, which I am actually inclined to believe since opportunity is very limited – he can’t do it at work (sites are blocked and IT and HR monitor all internet usage); he can’t do it at home (I am far more computer literate; he has a 0% success rate with secrecy on our home PC) and the only other places would be public, which are not conducive to looking at porn… He tells me he never slept with OW 1 or 2; that he has no feelings for OW 2; that he loves me and wants to be with me and through MB and working with Jennifer now knows how to avoid these situations in the future. (An aside - he does still work with OW 2 – he said he would quit his job, but at the time, I figured if he wanted to stay in contact with her, he easily could; since changing jobs would be no deterrent, why punish me and my mother (who lives with us) with loss of financial support; loss of our retirement savings and possibly the loss of our home for the alleviation of no anxiety for me, and maybe, in fact, more anxiety because I was now going to have to wonder about a whole new group of coworkers I knew nothing about?) I have no evidence he is lying to me; in fact, he is doing everything Jennifer had coached him to do in terms of being transparent. BUT, what the past two and a half years have taught me is that any person can do any thing they want and not be caught if they are motivated to do so. The sheer number of ways he could sidestep our safeguards, if he chose to do so, boggles the mind and keeps me awake at night.

So, here is where I feel caught – do I give up, say enough is enough and leave? I still love him and want to work, and in many ways, I see that he is working really, really hard. I think I would always have extreme regret if I did this now. Or do I stay, and risk getting hurt again, hoping it is a small hurt and not a big one? I don’t know how much more disappointment I can handle. Do I give the ultimatum Jennifer said not to give? Do I expect him to be perfect, and never make another mistake? I am certainly not perfect and have certainly promised enough behavioral change and not delivered to be the last one to throw stones. If I don’t give an ultimatum, what consequence do I set? I want to set one, but am really at a loss to find one that meets all 3 conditions….

I hope you will check my thread and write to me again, because I really want to get on level ground again, and start moving forward….

Dear Mulan:

Thank you as well for responding to me. I think I have consumed over the recommended dosage of aspirin over the past few years…You are not telling me anything new – I have asked myself the same question for two years. My H tells me he is not gay or bisexual; it was a just a fantasy. Which, I can actually understand because I have certainly had fantasies that I would NEVER want to act on in reality. But, my fantasies stay inside my head, where his, at the time, were escalating, and involving others (although, my H is not computer literate (as evidenced by the 0% success rate cited above) and at the time GREATLY overestimated the degree of anonymity one has on the internet….)

So, what do I do? I have no evidence since 10/04 that he is still doing anything with pornography….) Do I assume I know what he is thinking and feeling, decide he is gay or bisexual, and leave him? Wouldn’t that be a DJ? Or do I believe him, even though his past behavior tells me I would be foolish to? Thus, the title of my thread, “between Scylla and Charybdis.”

I hope you, too, will have a chance to write back – I am looking for any insight I can get.

Dear Longhorn:

A final thanks to you for posting to me. I did read the Amazon review you linked in your response; while it’s something I believe COGNITIVELY (I am a child of divorce due to an affair; my sister was recently divorced due an affair and then entered into an affair herself with a MOM, which broke up his marriage) and never hesitate to enlighten others about (if only we took our own advice….;-), it’s not something I FEEL, and I have been struggling to FEEL it for myself. In fact, I think I take so much responsibility because I KNOW I can only control my own behavior. In my situation, I know that I could have taken potentially productive action many times, but didn’t. Maybe I could not have prevented the A, but I could have TRIED. I didn’t try, due to laziness, procrastination, selfishness and fear, and as a result, I own the outcome – I am where I am now because I was too lazy, selfish and afraid to try. I can’t look back on my behavior with pride, knowing I did my best; I look back with regret and remorse.

How do you move from KNOWING (on an intellectual level) to FEELING? I can’t seem to do it…

Again, please write back; I feel hopeless sometimes, that I will ever get there.

P.S. No children....

brokenvase