That's true, feelings do follow actions. When we show love to each other we both feel much better. When we talk and open up we both feel better. When we spen time together we feel better.
I want to tell him but I feel like it will bring us back to square one. Maybe we're actually still there? Maybe that's why I feel like we've stalled? Maybe I was doing something subconciously that let him know something was different? We weren't planning or scheming. I know you don't believe me but we weren't. Just comiserating. But I do know that any contact is dangerous cause even when we're saying "hi how are you" Im thinking "I love you, please come see me, take me away". You get the picture.
I will tell him but not this weekend. He's off of work 2 days during the week. I'll tell him then.
I do not e-mail OM from home. I have no contact with him from home. There really isn't a reason for the keylogger. He does have my passwords and my phone is never locked. OM has my work e-mail address. That's the only other one I have. Swear. Unfortunately that is out of DH control. I thought that if I had this new job I won't have access to that account anymore and could separate myself from some of the familiar routines.
We have a successful NC so far. I am feeling better the longer we are not talking. It does get easier.
I'm a mess...

yes, you are...but it will get better so long as you remain in NC. Any contact and failure to tell your H the absolute complete truth keeps you in the WW category. You are better than that...fix it.

Your OM is a user... no matter how many times you tell yourself he cares about you...he doesn't. People that care about you would not have you risk your family or do things to injure the ones you love. It IS that simple.

Right, so already you've proven this to yourself on a small scale...So you KNOW it works...Sadly, it works both ways...As long as you are in contact with OM you will continue to have feelings for him...Which is incredibly unfair and cruel to your husband...The contact MUST stop...Decide TODAY...You can do this...


Well yes, it will bring him back to square one...You are right, contact has already placed you there...You are not being completely honest with him and that is an intimacy blocker...It can't and won't work...Further, your husband is NOT your PET...You have no right to keep him in this marriage under false pretenses...Would you want that done to you??? He may indeed tell you that he is finished, but that is his RIGHT...You have NO RIGHT to keep secrets from him about his OWN life...Or use your marriage as a CAGE to keep him...He deserves the facts about his life Peasoup...

And I have no doubt that right now you and OM are commiserating...You know what that does? Keeps EVERYBODY MISERABLE...Cut it out...NOW...


See and that is NOT good enough...EVERYDAY that you keep this from your BH you are LYING to him...You are betraying him over and over again...I guarantee you that that is how he will see it...It is the truth...Peasoup, have COMPASSION...Stop this cruelty and tell him TODAY...


Oh heck yes there is a reason for a keylogger...It's called your husband's PEACE OF MIND...I don't care if you haven't been contacting OM from home YET...Further you offer that to him as part of EARNING his trust back...Like I told you before you lay it ALL on the line and you VOLUNTEER for anything and everything that gives him total access to you...COMPLETE TRANSPARENCY...If I were you I would go to him and tell him this and then tell him that as soon as you get to work you will go to your superiors and ask to have your email address CHANGED...and you will ask them how to BLOCK OM's email address...And if after all that OM still manages to contact you via email you tell your husband (AND MEAN IT) that you will forward that email to him UNOPENED and let him handle it...Peasoup, go to him HUMBLY and tell him that you are willing to do all that it takes for as long as it takes to EARN his trust back and to help him heal...And you tell him that you will VOLUNTARILY take a polygraph test at anytime that he desires it...You are at his mercy...

So when you think about breaking NC, you come HERE instead...When you begin to think of OM, you grab an ink pen and begin taking it apart, looking at each tiny little piece (a recovering addict friend of mind learned that little trick in rehab-she tells me that it works)...You do whatever it takes to get those inappropriate thoughts out of your head...

Here's what I KNOW for sure...Your marriage is WAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY more likely to survive than your affair...The stats support that...So get your head in the game girl, this can be done...It all starts with HONESTY today...Whaddaya say?

Mrs. W

"It was at that moment that he realized that we couldn't live that way. That if we were going to work, he couldn't obsess. That I was a free person and that he didn't want me to stay in the marriage if i didn't want to be here and that he didn't want me to stay out of obligation.
WE chose to work on our marriage together.
If we say we forgive then we have to mean it. It seems that it would take a ****** of a lot of energy to think of ways to spy on and humiliate a WS. If it's that bad, just leave. What kind of marriages will we have if it's based on who can lie better? "



Pea,

I want to talk a little about what you posted above. Specifically about the idea of your husband humiliating you, spying on you, and lying to you.

I think the WS does a lot of this, too, during their affairs. Didn't you?

Humiliating: Didn't you humiliate your husband by telling the OM secrets about your husband, marriage, and intimate details about your marital relationship that others should NEVER know? Didn't you humiliate your husband by sharing yourself with another man and doing things with him, comparing your husband's love-making skills with the OM's, and then sharing those comparisons with the OM? Isn't that humiliating to your husband?

Spying: Didn't you check up on where your husband was going to be, without his knowledge, so you could be sure to know that you would be safe to meet up with your OM? Didn't you double-check on your husband, check times with him, etc., without him truly knowing the reasons you were doing this?

Lying: Didn't you lie (by commission or omission) to your husband every single moment of every single day about how you felt about him, about your whereabouts, about your inner thoughts, about your feelings toward the OM? Didn't you lie to your husband about your marriage, your future together? Lie about the state of the relationship between the two of you, your sex life, and the safety of the relationship between the two of you? I could REALLY go on here.....

You get the point, Pea.


You say, your husband said he can't "obsess". Yours, and his expectations in this statement are that he just "needs to get over it". I frequently see the term "obsess" used by WS in the case when they want the BS to stop talking about the affair, or to stop distrusting behaviors. Early on in recovery, the BS often tries to push away the feelings, and during the earlier recovery phases will often try to "just get over it". Truth is, Pea, he probably won't stop the distrusting "obsession" for a very long time. And it's not something he can turn off. It's very important that both of you get real understanding about this.

BS's wake up in the morning thinking about the affair, go to sleep at night thinking about the affair, and are triggered by events throughout the day to think of the affair. Much the same way the WS is triggered to think of the OP - would you say you are "obsessing" about the OM? Probably not. It is not really obsessing, but actually a phase of recovery that WS go through - and true NO CONTACT will help you. You will see yourself and normal thoughts return after a couple of months, and those thoughts will diminish over the 8 to 10 weeks, if you REALLY go NO CONTACT - totally and completely. So the "obsession" term is not a fair assessment. If it lasted longer, even without contact, and wasn't attached to any reinforcement or true events, then I could go with the use of that term.

The amount of betrayal your husband has suffered is quite large, comparable to a death in the family, and you both need to understand exactly how long this will take him to "get over" - around two years, if you both work hard at it. At some point, he will experience a change in how he is feeling. He will come to realize that this is harder to get over than he first anticipated, and he will come to understand that he isn't moving along as quickly into the full recovery and "forgetting what happened" mode as he thought he was going to. So you will need to be REAL careful not to throw around the term "just get over it", because that is a trigger for most BS, and you might be surprised at his response to it when he hits the BS anger phase. And believe me, he WILL hit that phase.

I really hope you are out of your fog when he gets there.

Right now, you two are relatively early in the recovery phase and you are doing some work to hang on to each other, put things into perspective, and agreeing to work on the marriage. Those are good things. There is SO MUCH more to this recovery. You still need to identify what YOU did in the marriage that was making it a not so wonderful place to be. Because while you can easily tell us what your BS did that made you unhappy, you aren't so great at stating

what YOU did before the affair that made the marriage weak.

And that, Pea, is the real issue.

Because in a marriage, you control only ONE thing.

What YOU do.

The rest, well, you do NOT control.

The sooner you figure that out, the sooner you will be on the road to a better marriage.


Schoolbus

Peasoup,

Listen to Mrs W and schoolbus. They are right on the money. You are only two weeks NC by your own admission, Of course your in withdrawal and defensive. Make yourself transparent to your BH. It will allow him peace and help to rebuild trust, something you do not deserve right now by your own admission of having contact and lying to your H about it.


This is not an insult to her. It is something that should be done. It is something that your H should see. It should be sent with your H's full knowledge and the last contact ever made to the OM and his family. You should have remorse for what you have done to her and her children. And you should stay away forever after.

PeaSoup,
Our D-day was May 4, 2002. She called him in March, 2003 and he told me in August. That really, really hurt. The sooner you tell him, the better. If you ever do restore your marriage, you will need to tell him because otherwise you are continuing to live a lie. Your husband may not know it, but you will.
Cherishing

PS,

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

And I'm guessing that you are just as indifferent to the fact that Brenda is actually gleeful that her OM's poor BW died. Where was Brenda's show of respect for this woman, or for that matter for her WH, who is clearly mourning his late wife.

WHile I mostly wouldn't wish being a BS on anyone, sometimes here I end up wishing <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> that for just one day some of the unrepentant WS (and thank God there aren't many on this forum) could feel the terrible pain of betrayal that the BS's feel.

Who

I have to comment...I exposed the affair to WH's place of employment yesterday. This is where the OW is. It was a difficult decision because if WH loses his job, there goes the health insurance. I know he is going to be angry, but my primary goal was the end the A. I am still working on finding the OWH. Even though there is a divorce pending, I feel the need to let him know what is going on because I dont know that he knows a divorce is pending. I work in the legal field so I have access to information that many others do not.

I was afraid of exposing the A. I worry my WH will lose his job, get in trouble, and then I think, he hurt me and my family. And I still love him and want the opportunity to work out my marriage. But I won't get that opportunity unless I step in and expose.

I will no longer be an enabler.