I have been reading here for years, and her broken english and story from the beginning scream out to me one word.

TROLL!

Among all the posts, I'd like to thank Aphaeresis and Enlightened_Ex especially. Your unpacking of my questions make me see things more clearly.

I want to clarify that I am not playing games here. Because English is not my native language, I made syntax mistakes here and there. Thanks for those who made comments on my language. I will try to improve.

In answering WH2LE's questions:

1. Yes, I have concerns of physical harm. As I told you, We are now living in a foreign country. We don't have family memebers or close friends around. This makes things very difficult. And I also have worries for my husband, I know cheater like me is more resourceful in personality and in handling crisis. If he knows about the betrayal, I am afraid
1) He can't face the fact and do something extreme either to me or to himself.
2)We have just had a new beginning in a foreign country, he sacrificed a lot for me and have just settled with a job here. If I expose the fact to him, this will be a huge disrupt to his newly-settled life, even destroy him totally. Sometimes, during the past 5 months, I was thinking he'd better got a job here before he wanted to divorce me. I worried he couldn't take it because I know he is a very pure-minded, even innocent person who loves me wholeheartedly.

2.My culture values women although there's a tradition that men are more important than women. But my husband has a typical androcentric mentality. He always claims at home that a woman should follow a man's idea. I suspect he does so as an unconscious way to compensate his challenged status at home. But our legal system has an equal treatment to man and woman in this respect.

As Enlightened_Ex said,

[quote]
A bigger part of the problem is likely the two of you really don't have all the skills to negotiate for what you want and to work together, instead of working for your individual goals.

If you don't learn these skills, it won't matter which man you end up with, you'll not ever be happy.
[\quote]

I have a serious concern for this, far before my betrayal. And obviously, I didn't come to counselling earlier, otherwise there might be a chance to save myself from A. For a long time I feel very lonely in my marriage as if he didn't know my emotional needs at all. Now I see either the way I told him about my emotional needs was wrong or he really had a problem in understanding what I said.

And as Pep said in the most recent post, I believe if one doesn't have a clean conscience, he will receive the punishment from inside. I am not coming here for fun. Every day I spend loads of time here reading your post, crying, feeling bad of myself and preparing myself to do something right. It's not a pleasant experience, to say for the least.

Why do I do so? There are so many people who never try to face themselves and live in a lie and live happily like my OM. There are so many people who beleive it's how the world runs and works and cheating is their golden rule of survival. They don't even repent and they still live without being punished. I come here to get an answer for my life and for myself. I am not doing this for fun.

One last dirty truth about myself, which I feel reluctant to share but I have to say in order to understand my problem better is that among all the obsessions I have for this OM, I have a strong sex obsession with him. In fact, this physical addiction to him seems to be stronger than the emotional one. I masterbated more after he left and I felt it difficult to enjoy sex with my H. Is it normal? Should I go to see a sexologist? I don't know whether there's some hormone disorder of me but somehow when he sold me all his sex disatisfaction thing, I felt I could understand him and took in all his words. This man is very sex-indulgent but now I feel I am as ingulgent as him and somehow I begin to regard it the right way for H and W to have sex. And obviously, this is one of the most challenging obstacles that I feel hesitant to utter to my husband. I really don't know how I should answer him if he asks the detail of this. If I have to expose him all the truth, does it mean that I need to be absolutely honest with him on every detail about this subject?

I hope those who come to read my post, read it not with curiosity or contempt, but with pity and help. Thanks.

When will you be telling your husband the truth, Josephine? That is the only thing that matters.


You are the last person qualified to decide what is best for your husband. To say that your H can't handle the truth is extremely disrespectful..............and dangerous. If you feel he will harm you, that is easily remedied by having a close friend on stand by.

When will you be telling him, Josephine?

Of course sex was fantabulous with this ogre. (where IS that rolleye icon?) THAT's half of the attraction of an affair. It's sneaky exciting sex. What's missing from that equation is the intimacy that comes with honest, loving sex with your husband. The thrill is doing something naughty and hoping not to get caught.

Your honest response to your husband would be that it was a fantasy fueled by the thrill of secrecy. Once you GET THIS, you'll realize what is REALLY was... ugly, disgusting, betrayal of your vows to your husband.

It's easy to think your OM was ALL THAT. You and he didn't have to worry about the daily mundane of married life, paying the bills, dealing with family, building a life together. You weren't building anything with him. It was LIVE FOR THE MOMENT and to hell with anyone else. Your OM puts his pants on the same way as your husband. The difference between your OM and your husband is that one has no morals or character.

Quit playing games. You're a cheater because you cheated. Your OM is a cheater because he cheated. The piper will be paid.

Melody, Josephine was doing quite all right in thinking up "excuses" for not telling her husband "right now, this instant."

Giving her the "benefit of the doubt" of BEING a Wayward Spouse who is barely coming out of her Waywardness, still dealing with Withdrawal and repeated contacts with the slimeball OM, and also hearing her apparent desire to try to understand what she did and why she did it, AND her typical Wayward Spouse "uncertainty" about wanting to remain married for anything other than "what SHE can get" out of remaining married, I felt and feel that a "little bit of time" to try to deal with her thinking MIGHT just be helpful if this marriage is to have any chance of being saved.

Telling her husband, and SOON, is not in question.

And of course she knows exactly what she is and has been doing in choosing adultery. She didn't care if she was betraying her husband or the Other Man's wife and family.

The only issue she NEEDS to answer "right now" is whether or not she wants to be married to her husband. If she does, she had better understand what it means to be repentant and what to "expect" when she unleashes the thunderstorm of confession on her husband. If she doesn't care to be married, there is no point in "delaying" the confession.

What we don't know is whether or not her husband is likely to even consider attempting recovery, and if he is not likely to, referring him to MB will be rather pointless.

But if we make the assumption that he WILL decide he wants to try to remain married and recover his marriage, then she needs to be able to know "enough" about MB and how to be "married" with a focus on "thee" instead of "me" to be of much help, let alone to be the "person" to "recommend" MB to him.

Obviously there is "room" for disagreement, but that is my opinion and I'm sure others will have theirs.

But don't assume I am talking about any "lengthy" delay here. As you said, it doesn't take long if someone recognizes that their behavior has been grossly wrong and wants to make changes in themselves.

I've read Dr. Harley's basic emotional needs. I find my H and I have missed so many points there. I notice the rebuilding AFFECTION part, and realize my husband has failed to render the feeling to me for long. And that seems to be exactly what touches me so deeply with OM.

I tried to communicate with H on the things we have missed but he didn't take it very seriously. And personally I felt very exhausted to take the lead in the efforts.

I have a feeling that he knows what's between OM and me. But he is a little coward to confront me with the reality. (I have tried to imply things to him. ) Is it so that sometimes Hs feel it difficult to face the reality of A of their WWs and they would rather choose to avoid confronting their WWs as a way of rejecting failure?

Meanwhile, I have a clearer picture about myself now. I think I am a problemetic person. I lack the basic skills to resolve marriage problems and resort to complaints and blames as a way to release my inner disatisfaction. It is all because of me who feels not content with my marriage. I try to find happiness in the phantoms with other men, refusing to face up to my reality and solve the problems ahead of me. I think even if I marry this OM, I will not be a happy person as I dreamed. Because there's something wrong with me.

Now I am still in the traumatic feeling of being seperated from OM, although I know intellectually that this is a "fog", but emotionally, this dreamy experience did cause trauma to me. Sometimes I feel I am going to be lunatic. Under the situation, I don't think I have the rationality to expose this to my H and lead this marriage to a constructive direction if my H chooses to forgive me.

I still need time to read more articles on this website and understand the problems with me and my marriage.

NO adulterous spouse - not one single person who is having an affair - communicates openly and honestly with their spouse about their ENs being met by the OP.

You say "I tried" - as if this means you actually did something important.
You did not "try" if you were not open and honest.

Please read the following link. Meremortal has some excellent things to say about setting the stage so that our spouse can meet our ENs.

*LINK*




This quote ^above^ .... just pisses me off

I guess working toward a healthy happy and HONEST marriage is just too tiring - let's all just stop doing things that require a lot of personal effort. I think I'll follow your lead. Posting to you is too exhausting.

Pep

Josephine,

It will be impossible to solve your marital problems or recover sexual feelings toward your husband without the OM being out of your life completely. "Out of sight out of mind" does work eventually. You just need to give it time. Part of the reason you don't know whether you want to save your marriage or not is because you are still infatuated with the OM. That will fade in time as long as there is no contact.

However, the slapping thing - that makes ME wonder if you even should save your marriage, even if he were to want that. That is no small thing. He MUST be willing to get help (behavior management) for that or you should just get divorced. No matter what you've done, he has no right to hit you.

He does need to know the truth, but you need to protect yourself. I strongly urge you to go visit some relatives, then tell your husband from a safe distance. I realize this means leaving the country, but I think you need some support during this time. Tell him also why you cannot tell him face to face. He has to know that his actions have made you afraid.

And in spite of what you did, you do have the right to divorce him because he slapped you. If you let him get away with that without making sure he gets professional help, then he'll just do it again. You need to separate, at least physically, and not return until he's gotten some help.