just needed to vent to someone. Dday anniversary came and went and the nice thing was i was doing good. my mom even called to check on me. she realized what day it was.

have been doing somewhat good for weeks. honestly i just seem happy to everyone else but as soon as i drive home for work or come home i still cry. sometimes its a song on the radio or just a thought. a thought about how much he has changed and how he doesn't respect me at all and that hurts.

the main thing that hurts is to this day he still thinks he did nothing wrong. of course h knows the affair itself was wrong but the deep conversations and constant contact when i made it clear i felt uncomfortable, h still thinks there was nothing wrong with that.

i also got hurt last week when he basically told a friend he was afraid i would talk to him and cause an agruement and he didn't want that. which i find very odd since the last time we argued was two months ago. it's like all of a sudden i became the bad guy in all of this and all i do is argue. granted i we did argue but let me give you a example of what he considers arguing. we were having a conversation, no yelling or rasied voices at all and we had varying view points of the topic. i was explaining to him my side of the topic and since it did not agree with his, he said i was starting an arguement. i had to explain to him that i was trying to explain my feelings.

another example: he metioned a previous arguement we had a year or two ago. how i overreacted to something. he kept telling me how the overreaction made him not want to be with me. i of course had to remind him why i got upset with him. i had calmly asked him three times to look for something he had put away. he was way too busy playing video games to get up and look for it. i even went as far as to say just tell me where and i'll go look for it. that's when i got the well i don't know but i know it's not here. he had the nerve to tell me he didn't remember doing that. so basically he remembered my overreaction and that was it.

it's like he remembers the aspect that serves his purpose and forgets everything else involved.

i just don't understand who this man is anymore and it scares me that someone i loved so much could just turn so cold and indifferent towards me, towards our life together.

i just needed to vent so thanks for listening.

still hoping for the love of my life to appear, but that hope is diminishing with each passing day. at least i still have the good memories.

UTB -

Where is a link so I can read about your story. My WH is still so lost, but I am NOT giving up. He is with G-d now and he is the one who can make this miracle happen.

Talk to G-d and listen for his will, not yours.

Mine has completely turned our life around, but I think that's just part of who they are.

I'm sorry you are having a rough day. I know them well and it hurts horrible. Maybe just knowing that you aren't alone can help a little?

SG

Is he back home now? Is he in contact at all with the other woman?

still in plan b and i have no contact with him at all. i have no clue if he really did provide nc with her, he said he did but i think he's lying because he still felt attachment to her, he never said that but i feel it and see it. it's the gut feelign just like when it all began.

i would love to put a link to my story but the OW and her friends visit this site quite often, i had to change my name to keep it private. she was a best friend now she is just the wh0re everyone warned me she was.

UTB,

Sorry you are here. Don't feel alone though because I have exactly the same situation. After 9 months of really trying to save my M (and throughout all of that time I basically thought we were in recovery), my WH has suddenly turned very hostile.

Every conversation turned into an argument as far as he was concerned. I worked with Jennifer and went to Plan B. If you read my thread "Can this marriage be saved" you'll see where I am at today. Same place as you.

I also have really bad days because I just don't understand it all either. My WH never really showed much remorse other than an "I'm sorry" and an "I did you wrong" comment. He also said that he wanted the M, but didn't really work all that hard at keeping it.

So, post and we'll get thru this together. Others have made it and I know that we will too. It's just a dark cave out to the other side.

Can you tell us a little more of the history?

UTB,

I'm not clear on where you are now...what I got from your post is that you're in Plan B, no contact with WH, and that these thoughts you are having are kicking your own butt.

Sounds like you're still focused on him, wrestling his side...desiring for him to change, to perceive and believe differently.

Sounds like before Plan B you were learning how to share and be shared with...struggling with listen and repeat, and how not to take his stuff as your stuff...and to share your stuff.

From the example you gave about the long ago argument, where he shared his memory of it, you crossed your own boundary...you wanted him to remember why you AO'd, why it was warranted and that his feelings didn't count.

Which is what you experienced in the paragraph above that recollection.

I see you signalling yourself...as if you're saying, Hey, UTB...you didn't hold yourself to listening to his sharing and acknowledging his feelings as valid. You discounted, corrected, tried to change them through justification.

Just what you were hearing from him...all his justifications, which hurt so much. And you are swirling from the bad guy/good guy symbols in your marriage. Great signal...there are no bad/good humans in your marriage...just two humans.

Seems to me your biggest desire is to hear and understand yourself, your significance, your half of your own marriage right now. Plan B can give you that room for your own personal recovery...or you can take it away by having WH in your thoughts, beliefs, perception, and therefore your feelings, by dwelling on him still.

I hope you get your signals and hear them as information you really want yourself to hear and consider; not as condemnation or false righteousness, which will continue your focus where you had and cannot have control.

The choice in how you do this makes Plan B dark to the target and stunningly bright to yourself, I believe.

LA

LA,

I am currently in Plan B mainly for me.

the first conversation happened two months ago and the other one happened before he left home. in both situations i did tell him i was sorry i made him feel that way before ever expressing my side. i am also very careful to own my feelings by telling him "i feel" instead of "you make me feel". since the affair he has problems seeing where i am coming from and he automatically goes on the defensive.

maybe i am trying to justify things, i am not sure anymore. i just never felt heard with him. i also think i tried very hard to get him to talk to me. he admitted having problems telling me things because he did not want to hurt me but i have tried numerous times to tell him that keepign it from me hurts me worse. i will admit it is hard to listen to him tell me something i do wrong but i am always more then willing to change and make him happy.

anyways back to plan b, i was doing a so-so job of plan a and then it got better. we would go out and hug everytime, there was only one kiss which he initated not me. he did something that i felt would hurt our relationship more then help and i had to go to plan b from there. he did it because it was going to make him happy and i did plan b because i couldn't hurt anymore. the constant contact but not being able to have him hold me, kiss him, hold his hand just drove me nuts. i actually got more depressed to the point i was thinking of creative ways to end my life, so i had to get out and away from him.

for the most part i have been better and then i have bad days where i think of him non stop. i now go out with friends and don't talk about the mess of a marriage i currently have. i smile a lot more then i have in the last year and i am doing work on myself.

i am hoping we can reconcile and have a better more communicative marriage but it takes both of us to want it.

UTB,

Thank you for responding. Good to know that this was your thoughts bringing the past into the present, not you in the present sabotaging your Plan B.

Or was it?

I don't advise people to go to Plan B for themselves...only for their marriage. Learning how to take action for your marriage, not for yourself or against your partner is a big change.

I'm getting confused with the way you share your stuff...I hear you saying that you realize "I" statements are essential for reality...for ownership. That you chose to act (verbalize) with ownership.

And I hear you saying you know that "you make me feel" is fantasy...not real. And you corrected that in yourself...in your words and deeds, your thoughts and beliefs.

Then I hear these phrases "I was sorry I made him feel that way", "since the A he has problems seeing where I am coming from and he automatically goes on the defensive", "I had to go to Plan B from there because I couldn't hurt anymore", "I had to get away from him."

All these are about him making you feel, aren't they? If you know you cannot make him feel or him make you, where's the ownership?

There is power, relief and self-love in ownership...separate from any response he may or may not give.

Sounds like you are enmeshed deeply in his stuff...like you realized you didn't know where you ended and he began...and you're working through that now, in no contact with him.

You could have done all of this without Plan B. Plan B is for when his A doesn't end, contact continues, after you've exposed, Plan A'd, and grown a lot...not because he did one thing and you booked...and then decided you booked because he was a threat to you killing yourself.

That continues enmeshment...doesn't break it.

My opinion.

Only you can know if you justify or understand reality. Two halves to not feeling heard...it's a great signal and I'm glad you know your perception...you didn't feel heard.

Two halves...both end and begin with you. If not being heard means you state and he doesn't change, that has nothing to do with being heard. That has everything to do with control.

If you don't feel heard because he doesn't listen and repeat...confirm or clarify what he heard...that can happen with anyone you speak to, can't it? A boss, coworker, friend, family member? Do you not feel heard by anyone or just him?

If you don't feel heard, are you hearing yourself? When you really hear and know your stuff...where your feelings are coming from, what beliefs they are resulting from, that you are choosing to believe...then you feel very heard...and will only share once...not repeatedly. The more you tell someone something, again and again, the bigger the signal is that you're not hearing yourself, not acting from your own power and limits...you're wanting them to do or not do something. That's not about being heard/understood/acknowledged. That's about changing others' choices and behaviors...and NOT changing your own.

Understandable behavior because we learned it as children. Not reasonable to continue as adults with other adults, though, is it?

DJs were what kicked me into this reactive cycle over and over again. I'm not dunning you for doing this...using "I" statements as sneaky disguised "you" statements...I did that. A lot. Kept having the same life experience and believing it was from DH not changing...not me.

JustLearning pointed out my DJs and after the first feeling of condemnation and rebuke, I got that help. JL's my hero here. He pointed them out so I could free myself from re-experiencing life in the same way. My choice.

Since you're in Plan B right now, you cannot work on your communication half with FWH. Is his A continuing? Did he recommit to the marriage, to working on recovery, going to counseling, doing communication exercises (and reconnection ones), and then choose to continue his A, instead?

Did you commit to all those things, as well? Plan A is for ending the A...and Plan B when it continues.

If he ended the A, has been in NC for a long time, and you went to Plan B because of something he did that didn't involve the A or contact...then you are manipulating your FWH...means you are still trying to control your life from the outside in...which erases and annihilates yourself...and would reasonably result in your feeling your very life was on the line if you didn't.

You doing it to you, not him doing it. Not his actions. You not knowing you are separate and equal whole human beings choosing daily to be in a human marriage.

I believe we are programmed to throw our power away, onto to our partners, because that's where we choose to have our focus...to negate and betray ourselves...and signal ourselves we are doing this to ourselves through our partners...because we choose to believe they complete us, define us, make us who we are.

Which wipes out our half of the partnership.

Our choice of what we believe determines our life experience. If your focus is all over him, not on you, your choices, only his...then you are the one currently attacking your marriage...even in your head.

Your feelings result from your thoughts and beliefs...which is why it's not healthy or real to react to your feelings...only to act from your beliefs. Trace and identify them using your signals, your feelings, not react to them. Helps to clear up living in fantasy (living backwards from your feelings, not your beliefs) and thrive in reality.

What are the resources you're using, put there for YOU, to save your marriage? All of Harley's books and articles, the posts here on MB, counseling (you can do IC with an MC), are you reading John Bradshaw books? How about Cloud and Townsend's "Boundaries in Marriage"? What acts of love for your own self-care are you doing?

Not talking about the mess of a marriage you have is another sign you aren't understanding ownership. Learning to be O&H about your HALF of it...sharing what you're learning, what's hitting those lights inside of you, what you're seeing to do for amends and change your beliefs is healthy comfort and solace in this time...not running from it by not talking about it. That was the old you, right?

You can practice listen and repeat with your friends and relatives. You can learn your presence is significant, whole and complete, and feel heard by listening to yourself. You can re-read your journal, your posts, and really listen to what you are believing and not believing, and see your choices. You can eliminate your LB's because what you do to others, you do to yourself.

Then you can really choose recovery. In your Plan B, in the letter you gave WH as a way back to recovery, what were your specifications? Your stated boundaries?

LA

LA you have made some great comments, but a lot does not apply to my situation and maybe i should have been more clear about my situation and i aplogize for that.

unfortunately no he has not commited to the marriage. he has not stated he wanted to work on things, that is why the plan b. he does not want to work om aything he believes we should never talk about the affair and just move on. everytime i try to talk about it i am bringing up the past and holding us back (his words) i am also trying to be argumentative with him if i try to ask questions.

i could understand if he wanted to work on things but he has made no effort to do so. he never even apologized until a couple weeks ago. so no plan b was not a means of control it was a way to protect myself from being hurt by him.

i have no way of proving nc because he changed his passwords and even opened a new email account when he moved out. he never wanted to be transparent he felt it invaded his privacy.

there was no letter just an email. in it i told him i wanted to fight for our marriage that i believed we could mae it better but that it couldn't happen just because i wanted it, we both had to want it to work.

i have shared with my friends and family but i am sick of talking about it. i have changed my bad habits and made some significant changes and would love to show my h those changes, but he isn't interested right now.

i think we tried to fix things too fast. i was very angry with him for what happened. i saw the affair happeneing and tired to stop it bt i was too late. he didn't want to stop and felt he was not in an affair. i felt pushed away and went into withdrawl from our life. once the affair came to light and he came back to us, i really didn't want him back. i did but i didn't. it disgusted me to be around him, to have sex with him, to even have him hold me. i felt like all he could think about was her and all i could think about was them together. the anger just kept building and building until i finally exploded. i kind of went crazy and he couldnt handle it so he left mentally and then two months later left physically

now i am a lot more calmer and have delt with my anger and i am still trying to process through it. i never put the blame soley on him. i know we are both to blame for the affair.

the plan b letter was somewhat specific, it a little more complicated then that. i have another letter i am working on on a daily basis that i will give to him if he decides to work on the marriage. he does know i want to fight and that i want to work on things.