ohhhhhhhh I liked Gladiator. LOL

BigK,

Did you ever spend any time in a Turkish prison?

Piojitos:

Your postings sound so familair to me. My H and I are struggling with our unresolved issues. I had an A over two years ago, and in response he had an A last summer. Our life is just a huge mess.

I dont think he will ever forgive me for doing what I did. Believe me I am not saying what I did was right, but I did have reasons at the time...I just felt like I was at the end of the rope and had no where to go. Prior to having my A, I talked with my H about what I was feeling, and told him I had feelings for this other guy. He did nothing. He made me feel completely alone.

After my A we did go to therapy, Im not sure how much it helped. We havent been since.

Our problem is we do have a lot invested in our relationship, as we run a business together. We have no children. So giving up would mean giving everything up.

The issues we have now all stem from the fact that neither of us seems willing to forgive and forget and move on. Any insight on how to do this? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> [color:"brown"] [/color]

WW,

Possibly I do. I can give my insight into my needs. I don't think it is worth giving up. I'll post back tomorrow.

Okay just to try to get more info, if I were your H, I would have a problem with this statement. First, there is never any reason to have an A. The way you say this, it makes me believe that you still feel today that you were entitled to your A at the time. It is that sense of entitlement that will kill recovery. If you are still hanging onto any sense of entitlement, your H will know it. You can't hide it. I might even have a revenge A myself. Fortunately I am not very attractive so other women aren't interested in me. Most of the women here are covered anyway so I would feel like I were on Let's Make A Deal ... "I'll take what is behind curtain number 2, Monty".

At some point the WS needs to take control of the recovery. What have you done?

As a BS, it is hard to accept that your WS chose someone else over you - no matter who it is. What have you done to make your H know that HE is the one for you? How have you tried to help him heal?

You see? I firmly believe that my WW could go a long way toward healing me with very little effort. The fact that she hasn't makes me doubt. OTOH, maybe she is doing her best. I don't know. As Strother Martin said in Cool Hand Luke, "what we have here is a failure to communicate."

Im not sure what I have done to help heal him. I ended the A as soon as my H confronted me. I didnt move back home, Im still here. I have come up with a plan to get us out of the mess we have made, and work towards it.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/sho...rue#Post3073930

This is what I last posted on here when it got rocky last summer.

Well I read all 11 of your posts. My suggestion is to go back and post to your last thread on this forum and give an update. I have read both your advice and your complaints. What I see is inconsistent. I'll bump the thread for you.

He liked ONLY Spartacus. OOPS!! Probably the wrong one, huh?

ANYWAY!!! Back to MY unresolved issues with infidelity!

The OW is living right outside of my backyard! Almost 5 years of NC and she is now close enough for me to stone her as she retrieves her mail.

My H has been extra attentive to me since our discovery. He realizes how much crap has seeped back in. Yes, I started this thread before I knew she was living so close. This, however, has upped it to a new level.

I despise her and want her gone from our lives. Though I do not ever want to see her, I search for her in our neighborhood. I picture her idling her car as she waits for my children to cross the street on their way to school.

My H swears that seeing her will not bring back any deep feelings for her. She is not someone he wants to be with and is ashamed that he had any kind of relationship with her. He believes his "crush" on her was fueled by his stay in rehab and his recovery afterwards. He still had that "addictive" persona and replaced his drugs with her.

I can't be sure. I am on guard. I feel betrayed all over again. I wish I knew her thinking. Why would she move there? Why would she want to intrude after all these years? Is she pursuing him? Or does she just want to haunt me?

I guess it is time to put up the "For Sale" sign.

Well that was my first thought.

Remember that you cannot control what OW does. Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction is coming to mind right now.

Please don't internally blame WH for this. If you need to be angry, focus it where it belongs. Yes you could say if he hadn't had the A, you wouldn't be in this position so yes you could say he is the root cause.

But don't. It serves no purpose.

tatertot,

I'm assuming you chose that name because you are crusty on the outside but mush inside.

What about moving? Could you look at that as a positive thing? Maybe it would be good to get away from that place with or without OW. Why not look at this as a chance to get a new start?

I recommend moving.

I wasn't thinking of the adjectives "crusty" and "mushy" but yes, that's a close analogy. I've also added a little seasoning.

We've lived in this home for 15 years. It is 1 block from an elementary school in a cul de sac full of the kids' friends. My H works 4 blocks away. I drive 6 blocks to work. We have a brand new roof and just planted some cherry trees.

A nasty, gnarly person now lives within "seeing" distance.

Yes, it is time to move.

I very much sympathise TT.

In our case we had done a major renovation and turned our house into the house we always wanted including building a new home office.

But we still moved.

NC is just that important.

(I should add that we were "lucky". OM sold up and moved as his wife was crazy about staying here where the affair happened - so as we were only renting where we moved to, when he moved, we were able to come back home)

Hello TT, bigK and PJ, i read this thread yesterday and it triggered something, so i thought i should bump it. One of the things that was addressed was the issue of resentment (is that a strong word?). I found in many recovery threads this is not dicsussed. For some, the BS is left with a bitter taste in the mouth after the A and long after recovery.....I have had it since 2004. I do not love my husband the way i used to love him. I cannot walk into the sunset and pretend nothing happened, or that we are better off than we were before all this happened. I have heard people say that the A was a wake up call and now their marriages are better off than they were before the A. For me (and i guess for a few BS), its not true. Things that never irritated you now just tick you off. They are not the "ideal" spouse any more, and after a while, yeah, you can see life without them.
Anyway, dont mean to sound so bitter, its just that for me life has never been the same. What makes it worse is that a few months ago, i found a love letter from someone he met when he was out of the country for 6 weeks. He swore nothing happened, went all out to establish NC, but then that just made a little of me die. Things are ok. We are an ok couple, we have counselling etc....but some things are just not the same. PJ, i feel you....and its hard to meet your spouse's needs with all these feelings.

me: BS 33
FWH 34
DD1 5yrs, DD2, 3
Married: 7 years
DDay1: Aug 2004 (EA)
NC: Sept 2004
DD2 Feb 2007, NC immediate

Gee I’ve never been called PJ before. Almost didn’t recognize myself. For me, I never tell myself I don’t love WW like I did before. I love her as I always did or I would not be going through this. I accept that I am not IN LOVE with WW. I also accept that that is a feeling and may come again some day or not. So I don’t worry about it. (too much).

I don’t really read recovery threads because I don’t consider myself as yet having achieved that. They might depress me too. Heaven help that!

I also get irritated over little things. Oddly enough, it is fleeting. The anger flashes and it is gone. I also put up with a lot less. I’ve learned that “no” is a perfectly good word and doesn’t require a caveat.

Yes my WW was perfect. Not any more. She is still above average.



That, in a nutshell, is absolutely the very worst part for me. I just hate it.



For me it isn’t really that difficult. I do things for my WW because I love her. I don’t do things so I will get a certain response from her. So I’m never really too disappointed. I don’t try to dwell on things like a forgotten “thank you”. I’m sure I forget them too. But it is very difficult for me to get MY needs met. I’m sure WW’s needs are doing just fine. Mine are not. That is apparently why I’m currently not in love with her and why I struggle so much. WW is not meeting my needs – whatever they are (and, at this point, I’m still not sure what they are).



Actually this line of thinking is the one that pisses me off the most. I simply hate this. Am I a better father and husband than before? I hope so. But it just makes me feel that it fuels the entitlement. Why would a WS ever be sorry for an A that had such positive results? If things get bad again, have another affair – it worked the first time! In all honesty this is one of the things that I still struggle with on an almost daily basis.

BigK has a big advantage – he is in love with his WW. I am not in love with my WW. He says reading this and doing that will make a BS love a WS again. Sometimes I want to change his screen name to “Pollyanna”.

[Oh don't get your knickers in a twist BigK. You know darn well it's true.]

My WW said and did a lot of very hurtful things. Now she dismisses it all as fantasy and fog. It may not have been real to her but it was and is very real to me. Am I simply holding a grudge? Maybe…but I don’t really think so. I think I have read in Harley’s books somewhere that, at some point, the WS has to make this up to the BS. I do believe that is reasonable and fair. I don’t think my WW has even come close to attempting it.

Does she need to get on her knees and beg forgiveness each and every day? Certainly not. Okay I can see I’m going to start rambling here so I’ll stop. Obviously I don’t know the answer. Neither does WW. Difference is I don’t think she is even bothering to ask the question.

Hi Piojitos,

I don't think anyone has to get on their knees and beg forgiveness to anyone on here. My beliefs are that we should repent to God for what we've done, and so should others. We're not God, we're people, and people make mistakes. I'll be the first to tell you that your WS did wrong in what she did, and she was wrong to not repent the day it happened and end it right there. Should she get on her knees and beg to you? I don't think so. Not everyone sees it how I see it, nor how you see it. We're all people, all different. If after all this time, you don't see her as a person that can make mistakes, lots of mistakes, then why bother with it?

I'm with my WS because I love her and I know she's made mistakes. She's made mistakes that have made me sick with greif and at depths that I never knew existed. She's taken some of the things I've held dear, and dashed them to peices. She's associated things I've cherished for most of my life, with worthless fleeting moments no one cares about afterwards. And after all that, I know she's more confused at times than I've ever seen her. I've seen her snap out of it, and she has at times said she's regretted it.

This is the hardest stuff to deal with that anyone could deal with. None of us are God though, so they don't need to beg to us for forgiveness. Forgiveness should be from your heart, to the one you love, because you forgive her regardless.

I'm here with my WS to be a rock, hard as nails, someone she can depend on. I can make mistakes too, but I'll still try my darndest to show her what's right. I'm not perfect, so it won't be easy. I could fail too. I could fall apart and end the M. I could get lovesick for better times and want to go find someone else to have better times with. All of us could. It's hard Piojitos, it's hard to be a rock someone can depend on. You've done it for 2 years now if I understand correctly, good for you. But realize she isn't perfect. We all have to be strong for our WS's to see that strength, that love for God and doing things right, so they can do the same.

If you ever want to see how tough it is for them, mention God, mention loving God, and watch what happens. They both love and hate it when God is mentioned. On the one hand, they want help, and on the other, they don't want to know how wrong it was. They're confused as he((. Be a rock, tell them the truth. Help them figure it out. That's what matters.

God bless,
CS

Cliffsurvivor,

When you have been at this for more than two weeks, then I'll be interested in hearing what you have to say. You just don't have a friggin clue what we are talking about.

Yet you insist...


Okay I'll save myself some time. You are now on my ignore filter.

OK I'll bite.

I'm not gonna get my knickers in a twist.

But I will say this.

My wife didn't WANT our pre-affair marriage. But she does love the post affair one. BUT the pain the affair caused and the ongoing aftermath pretty much guarantee she will not stray again. It affects every area of your life.

There is also no silver bullet or magis spell. It's work pure and simple. If both are doing the work it's easier.

Pio I agree this is the question in your case.

Harley does say to leave the affair talk alone after all the facts are on the table and concentrate on marriage building.

But making amends for the affair should fit in there somewhere.