Brooke, you are really strong. You did well.

Yes, you can only control yourself.

Your H does sound like he is lashing out. He is very hurt but isn't it a little too cruel? has he been cruel before?

His best friend wasn't truly even a friend! How's their relationship now?

Brooke, consider how your H might interpret a response like that. Yes, he's being childish IMO, but OTOH maybe his fishing, trying to find out if you *really* want to restore your relationship with him. If I made a comment like that to my FWW and she responded the way that you did, I'd be left with the impression that she could not care less whether our M failed or not. Consider this - how could you have responded in a way that would have demonstrated to him that you were interested in recovering your M?



See my comment above. He might be trying to hurt you, but he also may be trying to find out how you really feel about recovering your R with him. He might have gotten furious over your response because he interpreted it as you being indifferent.

Brooke:

You doing really well. Your working with weak material (WH), but your doing well.

MiM has a point.

You didn't overreact and freak, and the way you wrote it, it looks like that was all WH was attempting to get from you. A reaction.

So send him a letter.

Main points:

1. I do marriage, I don't do divorce.
2. I would be crushed if you started dating. (again?) It makes recovery difficult.
3. I'm glad you finally confirmed your feelings for OW. That makes recovery for us easier. I will asume that you are no longer in love with your OW. Hopefully you can see that the feelings I may have had for OM will change and diminish over time as well, just like yours.
4. I understand that you considering leaving when you were in "love" with OW, but you stayed. Just like I am now.
5. We can fix this.

And we start with lovebusters. Respect for each other. There is ALOT to say to each other. And we need to say these things to get to recovery.

LG

This should worry you! This just doesn't make sense to me. If you feel this way I think you really need to consider that maybe YOU don't want to be married. Maybe your affair was both a revenge affair and an exit affair, a way to make him hurt the way he hurt you and make him leave you so you didn't have to be the one to make the decision to get divorced.

" Dear H,
I wanted to write you and tell you what I am thinking these days.
At first, I wanted to reconcile. I knew I made a big mistake, and I wanted to make up for it. I found the courage to tell you about it, even though it was difficult for me.
Did I do wrong? Yes
Big mistake? Yes.
Is calling it a big mistake an understatement? Yes, there is no way I can say in words how much I regret what has happened.

I can't say I understand it, and I haven't tried to justify it. I still feel terrible about it.

However, I still need to decide what to do now. I had hoped you would want to work on the marriage. I had hoped we could repair the damage, and make a new life together. Perhaps I was just dreaming.

There were a number of ways you could have reacted. You could have gotten angry, worked through it, and wanted to try. It appears that instead, you have chosen to to punish me, and rub it in my face over and over, as many times as you can. It looks like you are taking out your pain on me.

Perhaps I deserve it, I don't know, but I don't choose to stay in pain and misery.

Since I can't control you, you can continue to do whatever you want. Of course you are free, but so am I.


You have said you want to file for Divorce.
To that I would say, "It's up to you. I married you for life, but if you want a divorce, it's your call. If you want to be in a love relationship with me, however, there is a lot that has to be done. You are going to have to choose. If you don't choose, I will eventually get tired of being treated badly, and I will choose.

I am going to try to treat you with respect until we can solve the problem.

You can get angry when you read this, and you can do whatever you want. You can continue to be angry forever if you want to.

However, if you want to get over this, and work through it, we need to find a way to meet in the middle, and work through it. I want us to discuss it as adults and solve it with mutual respect. I refuse to be treated like badly, especially by the man I love.

I am not trying to be funny. I don't want to get a D, but I can't stop you if that is what you want. I want to be married to a man that I love and respect. I would suppose that you want that same thing in a women. If you feel you can forgive me, and if you want to grow old with me, then lets figure out how we can have the kind of relationship we both want. If you want to keep beating me up over and over, then keep doing it, and I am sure I'll get tired of it, and file eventually, if you don't do it first.

I really hope you think about it before you respond. I think we can still save it at this point, but the time will come when it will be beyond repair for either of us.

If you believe I am wrong, do whatever you feel you have to do.

Love Brooke"

If you feel this might be the right approach, you would have to modify this to fit the way you say things. I am not suggesting you use it word for word, but maybe it's time to give it to him plain. If this is what you have ALREADY communicated, I would suggest you back off, and have little contact with him for a few weeks to a month and let him work thorough it.

SS

Parts of that letter are great and parts of it would not be appropriate for such an early stage of this matter. It isn't time for Brooke to be discussing how she is being treated...or to suggest there will come a time when she will grow weary.

Eventually, I think this letter would be great...and might do well for someone like Cruise now. But for Brooke...I think it is way too soon.

I'm not sure I like the letter.

I think a bit more attention needs to be paid to how it may be interpreted by the BS.

If Brooke truly wants to reconcile, I recommend a simpler letter, in which she in this order:

(1) acknowledges the effect that her choices have had on his feelings,
(2)indicates how she currently feels about him,
(3) offers to do what it takes to reconcile and ensure that this never happens again.

I suggest NOT referring to him having the choice/free-will, etc, to do X, Y and Z, because that could be interpreted by her BS as flippant comments indicating a level of indifference to the pain he's going through.

Brooke,

I'm going to have to agree here with ccbis about your H lashing out. I KNOW first hand, how upsetting it can be to be a FWS and find out that your FBS was having an A of their own. The word hypocrite jumps into my mind.

But ever since your post about how your H lied and got you and xOM in the same room, I began to wonder. It's one thing to be angry, to lash out, to want the other person to hurt as much as you do. After all, you can't help your feelings.

But it's how you act on them that counts. Most likely, he couldn't help his feelings of attractiveness to the OW. But he should have learned from that message - he should not have acted on those feelings - rather looked at the deeper meaning, and gone to the source. Within himself and within the M.

You say he has been working on the M? But has he spent these years working on himself? Because his actions toward you now don't seem to be showing it.

By now, he should know the dynamic of an A. He's had plenty of time to learn. His anger is justified, but at the very least, he should be able to relate.

It really doesn't matter if it had been with his best friend or not. It may hurt more.....but an A is an A. And he's using this 'best friend' part as an excuse to justify his cruel behavior to you.

From what you've said, you've made it very clear, and tried very hard (while miraculously retaining your own composure) to show him that you want the M. And all he seems to be doing is trying to find more ways to beat you down. Almost like he doesn't want you to be a 'weak' person. And that's not healthy.

I would ask you to seriously consider your lack of feeling with regards to him going back to OW. Some people do have exit A's - in fact many people do. I actually think mine was one, because I can pinpoint the day, the place, and the moment where I emotionally checked out of my M.

That didn't mean that I didn't want to recover. But it meant that if the relationship was going to stay the same, I didn't want to be in it anymore. I just didn't have the strength to be the 'bad one'.

But MB gave me the hope for change, and I couldn't have asked for a bigger blessing.

You may have had an exit A. Maybe not the right thing to do, but you may have emotionally checked out a while back. The fact that you came here and began posting shows me that you do have some feeling left. But I don't think there's much in your love bank right now. And your H's actions are only making it worse.

He's going to have to step up to the plate. Yes, we all sympathize with him in a way - he now knows the pain of being betrayed. But he also has had the experience of causing that pain as well. And, yet, even though he's 'worked' for 2 years on all this....he still lacks the forethought to put himself in your shoes.

Continue doing what you are doing. I respect the fact that you have not let him goad you on. Stand up proudly, and continue to do the right thing. He may come around, he may not. But begin working on yourself.

Figure out why you were so resistant to forgiving him for his A. Find out why you ended up making the same choice that he did. Find out what it was within YOU that did not allow you to 'resolve' the M before you went elsewhere. These are all things that will be important to you as an individual.

You're doing very well. Keep up the good work.

L

No he has not been deliberately cruel in the past. He considers what I did to be the ultimate betrayal. He says getting involved with xOM was no different than getting involved with one of his brothers. I am on his ****** list so therefore I get treated like I am the enemy. I don't know how much longer I can keep my composure. I needed to talk to him about some property we own. The HOA sent a letter about something that we are supposedly not in compliance with. I tried his cell and he did not answer. I then called his office and he told his secretary to inform me that if I wanted any of his time to make an appointment. I could tell she hated telling me that. He has never ever done that to me before. I think I will march down to his office and have it out with him. How dare he has his assistant tell me that. He does not have the balls to tell me f2f? He's really good at putting ppl in their place but he pushed me too far today.

It was.



I agree 100%.



He has a right to shut you out of he so choses. Marching down there is trying to control something that he is doing. You have no right to do that. Worry about your own actions and reactions.



I think he told you exactly what he wants..and he did it face to face.

I think you should calm down before you make this even worse than it is.



you slept with his best friend...I think you should count your lucky stars that he hasn't done anything else.

Relax...just control yourself...not him.

mkeverydaycnt,

That's what I kept telling myself. I could only control myself. In the end it took some research but I took steps to fix the problem myself. I faxed him the letter. I did not make a scene in his office or attempt to contact him again.

Brooke, for whatever it's worth, I think you did the right thing.

And I still think that your H is being particularly and unnecessarily cruel. Especially since you "forgave" his affairs.

If he wants a divorce,he is entitled to it and he should just get it. All this aggression is not necessary.

Lie low. You've done your part.

Brooke,

I'm so glad you did NOT march down to his office!!! That would not of helped anything.

Honestly, i wonder what would of happened if instead you happily said ok to the secretary, "tell me what time you can give me an appointment". that would of been my advice. do exactly as he asked. and then be very respectful of him during that appointment, talk only about the HOA issue and nothing else. what impact might that have on him? is it too late to do this? i know you said you faxed him the letter but did you include the information of how you too steps to fix the problem?

Brooke,

I would love to know how you are doing. I've kept you in my prayers all week.

Hi Brooke,

I have also been following your thread closely, but this is my first post. How are things going? Have you made any progress?

I hate to be negative, but seeing how you have do kids and all your families are involved in the drama, how would you feel about getting divorced? You seem somewhat ambivalent, and have admitted you don't love your husband anymore. Perhaps it would be best for you both to go your own ways?

Plus Jason said he loves you, so there's always that possibility...

barf...

To be honest, I threw that out there more to test how strong her commitment to this marriage really is. It doesn't seem like she's that invested in her husband, and he clearly senses it.

When asked if she loved another man, she basically confirmed it. Why would he want to stay? I know all the stuff about the "fog" but honestly, most men would not want to sit around and try and convince their cheating wife to love them again. More power to those of you that did, but I've read your threads and you all seem to have gone through tremendous hardship and pain to get there.

Brooke and her husband have no children. She has humiliated him in front of his family and friends and stripped him of his two best friends (OM and B). They have both cheated on each other and have admitted to having very little love left for each other. Sometimes divorce is the best option, even SH says so.

If Brooke is thinking about Jason at all, she should get divorced. If she's not 100% committed to her marriage, she should get divorced.
If she isn't capable of loving her husband, and ONLY her husband completely with NC w/any other men, then she should get divorced.

It's just my opinion, but there it is.

Brooke, I hope you find a minute to let us know how you are.

It's very hard for me to post this. I have no good news to report. Life altering news more like it. Right around the time the board went down I found out I was pregnant. Because of my due date it's impossible for H to be the father. I told him and he is now very agressively pursuing the divorce. Given the circumstances I feel I have no right to fight the divorce. Devastated does not even begin to describle how H feels. I was a basketcase and did not want to get out of bed but I brought all of this on myself and deserve any and all consequences that come my way.

After I dropped the bomb on him he told me that he had decided to see my counselor. He had not decided to R but he thought we needed to see a profesional to make the transition one way or the other. After I told him of my pregnancy that was off the table. I don't blame him at all. He has put up with a lot more than I would have.

I believe if I were not pregnant or if he were the father we would have had a chance. Now it's just not going to happen.

Brooke,

I don't know what to say....except that sometimes God has an odd way of teaching us lessons.

Sometimes, it is to teach us humility.

You are remorseful for what you did. There is still a chance for your marriage, albeit very small. If he was willing to go to counseling before, he may be willing to go again, once his anger subsides a little. He was right about both of you needing help getting through all this. Like I've said before, divorce will not take the pain away. If he proceeds with the divorce, he will find that out sooner rather than later.

For now, focus on yourself, continue to be honest, and turn it over to God (or whomever your higher power is). It's the best thing you can do for your marriage, your baby, and yourself.

Many hugs...

LIT