Well, I'll be the first to admit that my FWW didn't 'compensate' for what she did. In all honesty, I couldn't think of a single way that she could. It was a debt that she couldn't possibly hope to pay off.

So I followed the only thing I could think of. I 'forgave the debt'...as Jesus said we should.

I can honestly say that the "debt" IS forgiven too. She doesn't "owe" me in anyway for what we've gone through. The debt was cleanly forgiven...and our marriage is better now than ever. We're just over three years into recovery now.

DTR, I can understand your concerns. Right now, you've got to make one choice. Do I want to work on rebuilding a marriage with this man, or not? I've got no doubt that your only honest answer at this point is "I don't know.". We've ALL been there.

But I CAN tell you that nothing will get better until YOU make up your mind on this. If you're undecided, not sure...you're not going to be able to give your full effort for the recovery. And without full effort on BOTH sides, recovery is going to be impossible.

My wife had to come to that realization after her affair. She wanted to "wait and see" as to whether or not she wanted to work on rebuilding our marriage. Our MC at the time told her that wasn't possible. You don't build a new house by "waiting and seeing" and suddenly find that the house is there. You first decide that you WANT to build a new house. Then you do all that hard work that's required to make it...and eventually, you'll look up at this beautiful, brand new house.

Is it fair that you have to do all the real hard work at the beginning? No. Can you do anything about it? Sure...you can quit now and get a divorce. You can half-heartedly try, and find yourself either quitting or in a failed recovery marriage that both of you still hate. Or you can realize that the first part of this work is yours...put your shoulder to the wheel, and bust your bottom for a while. And then look over and suddenly realize that your spouse is right there with you, working too.

Its up to you, friend. Its your choice to make. No one here is going to tell you your wrong for choosing to divorce if that's what you decide. No one will tell you your wrong for choosing to buckle up and start rebuilding. The only thing they'll tell you that you're wrong for is if you half-heartedly try to do either.

Silent:

You have a valid point about this:

My point about "stepping up to the Plate" IS that the WS starts to move in the recovery process. Not after day two, or even day 120. But that before long, they start to move towards recovery. Withdrawal is a process that the WS has to do, before they can really start recovery, And the BS has no reason to exist in limbo waiting for the WS to start working on the M.

PWC is slowly moving, and you are aware of this, (never fast enough, <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> but he IS MOVING) and that gives you HOPE. DTR's WH may not have made ANY moves yet, I do not know.

But DTR seems to have wanted to change the focus of this thread, to "Just Compenstation" Different thrust, but similar to results wanted.

Just Compensatation could be that the *F*WS, acknowledges the hurt that they created, and then they establish boundaries in themselves to NOT let an affair happen again. This may just be the start of compenstation to the BS. But I could never write a check to Flamingo, not offer her a glitterly bauble for compenstation. She would reject that outright, and probably slap me.

LG

You know, I would, too!

I don't need compensation, honestly. I've thought a lot about that recently. I NEED a FWH, down in the muck with me, each of us helping the other to get the heck out of it. I know that the Harley's talk about compensation; maybe they are using the wrong verbiage. Maybe 'compensation' is not the right word.

You are absolutely right, LG, about PWC. He is DOING. It took me going bananas to HEAR him and see that he is working on it, he's trudging forward. He's living in a world of hurt, that I cannot do anything about. I can live by what the Harley's prescribe. That's what *I* can do.

edited to add...

Owl, so wisely, said this



I have made this choice, regardless of what my FWH chooses, I can check this one off of my list. I'm not waiting for PWC to 'get it' right now, I'm just going to work toward recovery.

I probably shouldn't have responded to anything in this thread, and I apologize if I offended anyone, or angered anyone, made things worse, etc.

Being in the midst of withdrawal, and just now looking at trying to rebuild, and being the FWS, I obviously have a different perspective on this. I know that the ball is in my BW's court. I know that I did the worst thing possible to her that anyone ever could. I know that she hurts, that she is suffering, that she can't believe it happened. I got defensive and answered the way I did because that is what I have to believe is true of my wife. I know I can never repay her for what I did, I know I can never take it back, I know that it will be with her and myself for the rest of our lives. It will. All I can hope and ask for from her is that my love, my sorrow, myself, is enough for her. She may decide it isn't. But, I know that I cannot compensate her for this, so if she demanded it of me, it would be over. Maybe not right away, but nothing I can do will make it right, and if she decides that I need to make it right, I cannot, and she will leave.

All I can do is love her, and be the man and the husband that she wants and needs, which I should have done in the first place. I can be the best man she could ever ask for, but that is what I should have been and should be anyway, so it still will not compensate for my failure.

You can do more than that.

You can PROVE to her, over time, with actions and deeds that not only are you the husband she needs, but that she's the wife that YOU need.

You can prove to her by establishing good boundaries, by creating accountability, by committing to total openness and honesty that you'll never hurt her like this again. You can rebuild her trust in you (OVER TIME, WITH WORK). You can prove to her that her accepting you back wasn't a mistake.

"Just" loving her isn't going to be enough. Unless you make that word love into a VERB, an action, and not just a feeling you have.

Yes Owl, Love as a verb is what I meant, but wasn't clear about it. Of course the feeling of love isn't nearly enough, and letting her know that I need her is definately something I need to do more of.

That is really hard to do right now, and luckily I haven't had to ask her for her help, she is giving it freely. I cannot bring myself to ask for comfort during withdrawal, a withdrawal from the OW and the "high" that I got from her.

And I know, it will be a long hard road. I know that I have to establish the boundries, the openness, everything. I know, and it is what I want more than anything.

I did so many things wrong, and feel more and more the fool every day, as the pain and withdrawal subside. I have wasted so much time, so much effort, and hurt my family so bad. This whole time I could have been working on my marriage, and gotten and given way more happiness with my wife that I ever did with the OW, had I just made the right decisions. Needing and being needed, providing and being provided for, those were the drugs of my EA, and there's no reason in the world that my wife can't be the dealer, except that I didn't let her.

I intend to change that.

This has really evolved into a very good thread.

Owl and all others that responded,
I do say I want this to work and I want to work on it but I think you all hit on somehting with the "wait and see" and unsure position instead. you are all right in my needing to really focus on working on our marriage instead of the sadness.
As for the forgivness part....I really struggle. Yes, I'm a Christian woman and feel strongly that my beliefs have been the strength to keep me alive and here fighting. I'm angry at myself that I just can't say "I forgive You" mean it and move on. Maybe one day that will come.

It is not that you are not allowed to feel sadness; you don't need to hide that, but you do need to choose recovery or NOT. If/When you do, you have a lot of work to do, such is, seemingly, the nature of the beast.

I've read over and over again, on my thread and ones like this, that the BS has to lead by example. Sure, you could cross those fingers and wait for you FWH to jump in with GUSTO; I just don't think that will happen, not without him knowing that you are going to be there, not going to flee the scene, any time that something negative happens (and I know now, and expect negativity to creep in). I expect to learn something from it and move on.

Just returning is not enough compensation. When my H returned, I certainly did not feel I had won any prize, just the opposite. However, meeting the offended spouses needs is part of compensating for the affair. Dr. Harley elaborates on what it will take to compensate the offended spouse:

Dr. Harley: So let's talk about just compensation. What could the offending spouse possibly do to compensate for an affair? After all, it's probably the most painful experiences anyone could ever put his or her spouse through.

The first act of compensation to you from your husband should be to end his relationship with the other woman once and for all. He should never see or talk to her again, even if it means leaving his job or moving your family to another state. The reason should be obvious, but in case there's some confusion, he should be reminded that every contact he will ever have with this woman will be like a knife in your heart. He has already caused you to suffer unbearable pain, and any further contact with his ex-lover would keep you suffering. In your case, the affair is probably over, but has your husband taken precautions to never see or talk to his ex-lover again?

And then he should put extraordinary precautions in place to guarantee that another affair will not take it's place. Has he considered the circumstances that led to his affair? Intoxication, business trips that separate you overnight, close friendships with those of the opposite sex, recreational relationships that do not include you, and so forth, should be subject to scrutiny. What was it that made him vulnerable? Whatever it was, he should take extraordinary precautions to avoid it in the future. It's part of just compensation for the suffering he's caused you to bear.

While there's no excuse for an affair, and if your husband takes the extraordinary precautions I've suggested he will never have another affair again, there are "reasons" that people have affairs. And those reasons must also be addressed when considering just compensation.

I've made the point in His Needs, Her Needs: Building an Affair-proof Marriage that spouses usually have affairs because their emotional needs are not being met in the marriage. The way to affair-proof a marriage is for couples to meet each other's most important emotional needs. So whenever one spouse has an affair, the other should try to learn to meet the unmet needs that led to the affair.

That's a tough sell to someone who has just learned about their spouse's unfaithfulness. I'd sooner kill him than meet his needs, is the most common reaction. Besides, we haven't talked about compensation at all. Instead, we've gone and blamed the offended spouse for the affair!

But in most cases, neither spouse is meeting the other's needs prior to the affair. The reason that there were not two affairs is often a lack of opportunity for the offended spouse. And sometimes when there is that opportunity, there actually are two affairs.

The point I'm making is that in most cases both the offending and offended spouses' emotional needs were not being met by each other prior to the affair. One compensation for the affair, therefore, is for the offending spouse to learn to meet the emotional needs of the offended spouse. But if I can also motivate the offended spouse to do something that should have been done all along, meet the offending spouse's emotional needs, the arrangement seems more fair to the offending spouse. There is not only compensation for the affair, but the one of the conditions that may have created the affair (unmet emotional needs) are removed. The marriage is restored and affair-proofed.


Making amends to one's victim is not "suffering;" it is RECOVERY. It is therapeutic, it is the righting of a wrong. It is in the BEST INTEREST of the WS to compensate for the affair. Just compensation helps the BS overcome resentment and that is in the WS's best interest.

Yeah ML, I know what you and Dr.H are getting at, and I agree. My point has just been that learning to meet and then meeting the EN of your spouse, setting up appropriate boundries, letting your spouse meet your EN, ending the A and never having contact, ALL of that, are what should have been happening in the first place. It is what should and does happen in a good, healthy, happy, loving marriage.

Thus my argument is that those are not compensations, they are what needs to be done and WILL be done if the WS and the BS want to work it out, if they both give their all to it. That isn't compensation, that is just a loving relationship.

Granted, being extra cautious and open and honest about anything that might even have a hint of a return to an A might be special and not in a "normal" loving marriage, but otherwise everything I have seen stated as being "just compensation" isn't compensation at all. It's living and loving as it should be.

And in some ways, I don't want my love, my efforts, my meeting of EN, everything, to be viewed as me just trying to make up for what I did. I want it to be because I want to provide for my BS EN, and that I want her to provide for mine, because we love each other and have a much better M than we ever had before. I don't want to feel like I am doing it to work off a debt, and I don't want her to feel like I am only doing it to prove that I am sorry.

I don't know, hard to explain, maybe I am still in some kind of fog, maybe I don't know what I am talking about. It's happened before.

LWTG, that is what Dr Harley means, though, when he speaks of "just compensation;" nothing more. I WANT my H to do those things, but I also want him to feel that he should make it up to me.

I WANTED and NEEDED him to be willing to prove that he was sorry. If he was not willing to do that, I would question whether he even felt bad about what he did, which would be another RED FLAG. If he does not feel bad for what he did, then that only means it can happen again. He SHOULD feel bad for harming me.

ML, Yes I so agree with all of that. It sounds wonderful. I would love to have a marriage where we are meeting our EM's. We are both trying to do that and have done the Em survey and are working to improve. We've discussed the whys and hows-when I bring it up. He has done some reading and reads my posts. With all that said....

How do you ever feel special again??? Maybe I'm just not really getting it. Maybe I'm some odd person that can't get past the fact that my H loved and had SX with someone else. He is the only person I've ever had SX with and at some times I feel that is why this is so difficult for me. I felt what we had were feelings and emotions that we could only have together. Now I see that that is not true. You can have physical relations with anyone and feel that it is great and wonderful. No relationship is really "special" it is just what you make of it in your head. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think it will never feel right for me again. I'm I just really old fashioned and stupid???

Ok, it is just a matter of symantecs then that we are talking about. I am just working under the assumption that if the WS truly returns to a state of loving the BS, if they want to work it out, if they are in the place that they both want to be, that the WS will truly feel sorry and horrible pain and regret over what they have done to the BS. And yeah, the WS will want to try and do everything they can in order to prove that they are sorry, and prove that this is what they want, that they can be who they need to be, but eventually I would think and hope that both the WS and the BS will want all of that effort being expended solely because they both want to expend it on each other, not to endlessly try and make up for something that can never truly be repaid.

To sum up my thoughts -- is there anything that a WS can or should do over and above what a "normal" loving spouse should do? If the answer is "yes", then indeed it is compensation, however, I would then turn around and ask "if what the WS is doing in order to make up for his sins is so great and proves love so much and makes the BS so happy, why shouldn't a faithful spouse do that normally anyway?"

If the answer is "no", that everything a WS should do is what every loving faithful spouse should do, then it is not compensation, it is the WS doing what is right, what they should have been doing all along.

But, like I said, symantecs, and maybe not that important in the grand scheme of things. We agree on what the WS should be doing and needs to do, and even mostly on the why, I am just saying that I don't want it to be forever out of debt instead of just out of love, and that it isn't over and above what I should have been doing anyway.

You are normal! That's why you are having all these feelings. If you believe in the MB system, and in your H, who harmed you in the worst possible way, you can survive this and feel special again. It takes a lot of time, and a lot of effort. There are just too many feelings involved to have an "easy" button to push, and make everything ok.

It will take at least 2 years to reach a stage where triggers are lessened, and all of the emotions you BOTH are going through have a chance to "play out". Don't rush the process. All these feelings HAVE to have a chance to be worked out, and the only way to do so is with a positive plan to make the marriage healthy and whole again.

Try to keep your focus on where you want to be with your marriage in two years, then work on it every day.

Best wishes,
SD

Yes and no. There are some things that any normal committed spouse should be doing anyway and there are others that would come under the heading of EXTRAORDINARY precautions, such as moving to another state, quitting one's job in order to ensure no contact, etc., etc, etc....

Even though some of the items might be just everyday traits of a good marriage, you can see what Dr. Harley considers to be JUST COMPENSATION.


Well, just compensation IS out of love, no? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> I think what you are resisting here is the idea of an OBLIGATION. However, you don't have to do anything, it is ALL voluntary. A sign of sincerity is a willingness to do what it takes to help your spouse heal. THAT is real love. THAT is a demonstration of love.

I'm more pessimistic. I think the sense of "specialness" is gone forever after an affair. Afterall, our spouses proved that we are not that special to them by betraying us. They proved that they are human and make mistakes and are capable of cauing us great pain.

I think I was living in a fantasy, perfect world where my husband would never hurt me, where we were soulmates, and nothing would ever come between us. But that is not the real world, or even a real marriage. We are divorced now.

I think you must hold out for a much better marriage than before, one that can face obstacles and overcome them, one where you and your partner work TOGETHER toward a purposeful life together. It is not enough just to go through the motions, get in a rut and lose direction.

You sound like you want something other than an average marriage and I have a lot of hope for you and your husband.

Haha, yeah, you picked up on that one pretty quick! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Mandatory obligations are the bane of my existance. My thread over in the "In Recovery" forum, right here, will help to explain it, but I was wired from birth and learned through defense mechanisms to only do what I had to do, and I hate it with all my heart now. Doing what I want, indeed, even serving the needs of someone else, because I WANT to instead of HAVE to is what love is to me, and it makes me happier than anything to freely love someone and do what I should be doing for them anyway, but because I want to.

That is what I am working on in my IC sessions, and what I think probably fell apart in my M in the first place. I know that there are obligations in marriage, and I don't have a problem with that intellectually, but my actions haven't followed suit. That's one of the reasons that an EA held such appeal to me, because there are no obligations there.

And I know, performing obligations for someone you love IS voluntary, it really isn't an obligation, it is an act of service, of love.

But, I am hijacking this thread.

LWTG You sound so much like my H. I really do think that you are on the right track in helping your BS. My H would do many of the right things out of obligation during our marriage prior to the A. He is now really trying to focus on me and help me get through this. Not just meeting obligations but giving of himself to make me feel better and loved. The effort is there from him and I think you are making those efforts too.

From the BS's point of view I appreciate all of that but feel that it should have been done all the time. He was way to self focused and selfish. His favorite saying was "I do what I want" Wouldn't that fit for any WS???

As for compensation...If you should have been doing it all along are you really compensating for the A or just growing up and taking responsibility and not really compensating for any of your actions?
DTR

It's a strange dichotomy, and hard to explain sometimes unless the other person has experienced some of it before.

Growing up, as I say in my original story thread in my sig, I learned to only ever do what I had to do, and only ever did it because I had to do it, not to make anyone happy, not out of love, only out of fear of further disappointment, punishment, failure, what have you. Many, or most, of my efforts to please those that I loved backfired, weren't good enough, caused disappointment instead of happiness, and just brought pain. I could never be good enough, so I stopped trying and just became good enough to survive.

I offer that not as an excuse, merely an explanation of what is wired wrong in my head, and what I think went wrong.

Things done out of obligation are, to me, completely worthless, devoid of all meaning. They are done merely to placate, to avoid wrath and disappointment, to avoid further pain that would occur if you didn't do them. They are not done for the happiness of the other person, because I was incapable of bringing that happiness to my mom, so they are done merely because of obligation, fear, and to avoid further . . . badness. Everything is then done for completely selfish reasons, because trying to love and serve bring only pain anyway.

So, I fight against obligations with all my being because to me they are at best completely worthless, and at worst something done out of fear, to avoid personal pain -- they are done for selfish reasons. Obligations, to me, are selfish. I need to change that way of thinking.

For instance, I remember in the first 5 years of marriage or more, that I would sometimes think to myself "ooh, I should stop and get some flowers because my W would love that!" I would pull into the store, get out, sometimes get all the way into the store, but then I would all of a sudden think to myself "well, I would only be doing this because it is what a husband should do to make his wife happy, she wants me to do it, she has told me she wants me to do it, and hence I would only be doing it because she told me to, and it will be completely meaningless because I am only doing it out of obligation. She might even be mad at me for doing it, because she had to tell me to do it"

So I would leave the store and go home. Without the flowers.

My mom would tell us kids, and my dad, that she wanted us to help around the house. So, the next day I would try and clean something up, or empty the dishwasher, whatever. Then she would come back and cry to me when I did it, and say "it is so sad that I had to tell you to do that. You should have done it because you loved me! You should do that without me having to ask!" And then keep crying and say how disappointed she was in me.

So, yeah. Counseling to get through it is what I am trying to do now.