Reading is good. Also try writing out your goals for 1) your life, 2) your marriage 3) your family 4) your everyday issues ---job, finances, communication, chores, child rearing...everything.

Posting help to others like you'be been doing is good. Are you involved volunteering at your children's school? That might be good....even though school is almost out.

Do your friends all know about your wanderings? Having a good friend who you can vent your frustrations to in person might help alleviate the 'blues' you experienced in your last post. There's nothing wrong with getting IC for yourself if you can swing it.

Glad you got the book. I tried to erase the surveys but I apologise if there are still pencil marks. Our first MC trained with Gottman in person. Great insights but not nearly as effective on dealing with affairs for us, at least. (Plus, as I mentioned on my Trials thread, he was NOT an All-American athlete, so H didn't respect him much and lied all summer.....while we paid $125 an hr. for the privilege of H lying. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

Will you be seeing your H soon? When will you confess? If you're not quite ready, there is a project for you to work on until he gets home.

Ace

Yeah sometime this weekend I'll start driving up to visit him. He still hasn't found a job, though, so I'm not going to tell him anything yet. I might try to talk to him about the ex-bf mini-confession he got upset about before, though. Or maybe not. I don't know. He might not want to talk about it.

Aph:

Please don't avoid doing WHAT YOU SHOULD DO.

Do you want this M to get better?

Because you are slowly letting the air out of it.

So is H, but you know where the leaks are coming from.

When you approach this from a position of honesty and transparency, the rest gets alot easier.

Your H may not ever come around. But he cannot walk around a wall he doesn't know exists.

He bumps into it, but he doesn't know what the wall consists of, how high, how wide, how deep.

And that's what you have built. And you hide behind it. You seem to your self, easy to see. But your H really can not get there.

In six months your M may be over.

It might be over in a Year.

It could also be a M that you never, ever expected.

The first two? Possible if you don't tell him.

The third? Never possible unless you tell him.

And if it does end? Telling him didn't cause it. Your actions did.

But, if you continue to operate from a position of honesty and transparency, going forwaqrd, the rest of your life will be much better.

And maybe through all this you will get divorced. Because you DECIDE that all the travel and other issues your H has that you WANT to be divorced.

But you get there by knowing that you gave the M everything, and it just wasn't working, and without the influence of others who might have a different idea about thier intentions with you.

LG.

Aph, LG is right... the time to talk to your H is right now. My H just started grad school when I confessed my A. He was still able to go to class, study, etc. even with everything crumbling around him. Please don't use this as an excuse... it's more one for you than him, anyway (and I say this with love.)

KM

The sooner you tell him, the better chances you'll have at recovery.

When/if you drive to see him this weekend, can you leave the kids with someone near home to give you uninterupted time together? Can you stay longer if need be?

Make the opportunity happen. It may take effort and creativity.

Have the letters LG suggested you write with you but speak from your heart.

You can do this, Aph. Try not to anticipate in advance what he will think or say. Do you have a laptop to take with you so you can post if you need to?

We're here for you.

Ace

Thanks, guys but the trip is being postponed for financial reasons <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

I'm not avoiding telling him, it's just that he has adamantly refused to talk about any relationship issues and insists he will be "mad at me" until he gets a job. So even if I told him now, he would refuse to talk about it and would start acting in ways that would sabatage his efforts to find a job. And he would resent me for bringing this up now when he needs to concentrate on the job search. And I would seriously worry about the potential for suicide.

He's got Good Provider Syndrome to the 10th power. Believe me, this is NOT the time to tell him. Fortunately, he did talk to a recruiter today about a permanent position so maybe it won't be too much longer.

BTW, I just read The Gaslight Effect so I'm in a much better mood now. (That's because I now know what to do when he does most of the things that make me mad.)