I'm in quite a state of confusion and anxiety right now. After what I thought was succesfully working and recovery from my affair, my husband announce that he wants a divorce and can't ever be happy with me again...that he doesn't love me nor could he ever again.

I'm working on what I need to do to keep myself somewhat sane right now but I love my husband. I know that the marriage we had before we can never have again and thank goodness for that. The last 9 months have been wonderful and the announcement has completely caught me off guard.

I've been coming to this site for quite a while now but have finally registered to ask my own question and get some advice. From the postings that I have read, it appears that in the instances when a relationship has recovered the betrayed spouse is the spouse that really wanted to restore the relationship. Is there any guidance out there for someone who was the unfaithful spouse, especially when there are no children involved (I cannot have children) or am I doomed?

It is his right to make that decision.

It is impossible to determine WHY he's made that decision though, other than your adultery.

Your post makes it sound like the Marriage was poor prior to your affair. Is that true? Or is that wayward spouse affair justification? Did HE think the M was poor? Why did you think it was?

What has your recovery been like? Have you implemented MB concepts and methods into your M?

I think almost all of us BS here can pretty easily sympathise with your H's decision, but most of us, while tempted to take the same course as your H, FIRST desired to find a way to recover our marraiges. It sounds like your H made that same decision and spent months attempting recovery with you.

Why did he stop? You tell us. Its best to be completely honest. Most of us have lived with wayward spouses and can spot thier BS easily.

I'm with Tyk ... my "guess" is that he committed to R, but after the initial shock of everything wore off, he either: (1) found that you were less than fully engaged in the R, or (2) he just couldn't get past the level of pain/betrayal.

Maybe a little of both, you tell us.

The cold hard reality is, you made a unilateral decision that drastically affected his life, now he has made a unilateral decision that will drastically affect your life.

jlr,

You decided to end the M as soon as you decided to get close to another man. His idea of formally ending the M now is his fully entitled right. You have obviously burned him more than he could take and feels that he needs to remove himself from the flames before it gets worse.

So, since he has now decided to file for D, how can you blame him? He tried to get over it, but it didn't work. You may have even been the greatest wife in the world since D-Day. But, you know what, NOTHING you can do can make up for what you did to him. It is up to him to decide how he wants to control his own life now. Sometimes, we BS choose M, other times we choose D. I have decided to stick around and try to recover my M, but it has only been a bit over 3 months for me and I can tell you I'm not fully recovered yet. The scars are still there and still hurt from time to time. I cannot say that I will be fully recovered after 9 months, either.

So, what happened to cause the change in his approach to the M? What has happened that you have not told us yet? Have you been radically honest and transparent to him since D-Day or not?

There's a third possibility. A's have a way of removing the "scale" from a spouse's eyes and allowing them to see the other spouse as they truly are, character-wise.

It's quite possible that now that your H sees something in your character that suggests to him that you're not the one he wants to spend the rest of his life with.

There could be a fourth possibility...that BH has now turned into a WS....

Wow, I thought here that maybe I would get a little support.

I know what I did was completely wrong and I know that if/when my husband divorces me that it is completely on me. I say that it is good that we don't go back to the marriage we had before because look where it got us...and it did get us here.

I have been completely honest with my husband. I tell him things about where I'll be that drive him a little nuts. I call from work if I'm running late. I have applied the concepts of MB and we were seeing a marriage counselor. It had even gotten so much better that we decided that we didn't need to see the marriage counselor any longer and had went through homestudy process for adoption and had our profile in the book waiting for a birthmother to select us.

For two years my husbands job took him to Florida where he stayed and worked 24/7. The second time he left I begged him to stay that the extra money he made was not worth it. We were fine financially. An extra $25,000 was not going to make or break us but he made that decision alone to go. I cried most nights on the phone and in our bed while he was gone. I begged and pleaded for him to come home. I even told him how terrible it was making me feel, that it was like my heart was riped out of me and it was just like my mother choicing her husband over me even though she knew that her husband was sexually abusing both of her daughters. So you see, I have abondament issues. I don't feel safe when people just leave me. I tried talking to my girlfriends but all of them were like I would make him come home and would be so angry. Well I wasn't angry, I was devestated, yet another person who is suppose to love me and protect me left me.

I started taking classes to obtain my MBA to try to distract me and this is where I met the OM. As most sound like they start, I had someone to talk to and that listened to me. When my husband came back from Florida we went to a marriage counselor. It was like a completely different guy. He was one person in the session and then the quiet, withdrawn person to me. The OM would call and email me daily, multiple times and I was vunerable and made the biggest mistake of my life. I became sewer and hated myself for it and thought I didn't deserve my husband, that even though he had hurt me in the worse way possible for me that what I was doing made me less than human...the OM new my insecerity and played on it.

Do I think my entire marriage was terrible. No, I think that both my husband and I made choices that got us to where we are today. I know that mine was a deal breaker for him and I cannot get the old relationship back. I can only show him that I am that person that he married, that the sewage I was not who I really am and it is not something I will be again. I would sooner die that feel that way again.

As for what happened, I work as a CPA. Before this past busy season we had decided that this would be my last. That the hours (75-85 work weeks) were too much for me. I had several weeks of 85+ and my part of the marriage slipped. I was only home to eat and sleep. I failed to provide for him. It was after 2 months of this that he came forth and said it was all too much for him, that he knows he is hurting me. he knows I've been completely honest with him but I haven't been there and now he is emotionally cut off from me.

Hi, I understand your pain. I was a BS and then later a WS. Both have different levels of pain. You brought your pain on yourself, he didn't. No matter how bad your marriage was, he didn't make you end up with OM.

You have to remember what brought us to current day. Our actions.

As a sort of analogy, think about the remorseful drunk driver who killed an innocent person during an accident. Perhaps the drunk driver sobers up and puts all his energy into rallying against others who choose to drink and drive. He changes for the better, he is a better person, but that doesn't mean the family of the victim will ever forgive him or be able to accept him.

After your last post, I think Tyk's observation early in this thread was quite prophetic. You still have quite a bit of wayward BS in you, and probably your BH is tired of being blamed for your poor choices.

Rather than seeking advice from us BH's, you should probably seek out Resonance and let her explain your mindset to you in language you will understand.

PS:
MiM, given what we know now, your 3rd option is a very valid observation and possibility.

I'm sorry if it sounds like I was justifing my actions. Hardly the case. I am physically sick at the thought of the actions I took. I would have never thought in a million years that I would be someone that would hurt the person they loved most in life this way.

My husband has somewhat agreed to give us six months. That does not mean that he is actively doing any to our marriage. It just means that he lives in the same house and shares our bed. He says that enjoys me and has fun with me but the joy is gone.

Jlr, Tyk asked you a very important question:


Unfortunately, not all marriages can be saved. In my unprofessional opinion, it sounds like both of you made your jobs a priority over your marriage... even in recovery. One of the basic rules for recovery is 15 uninterrupted hours each week together. With you working as a CPA, it doesn't sound like that was possible.

Are you ready to tell your husband that you are prepared to place your marriage above all else, above all others? Because it sounds like that's what it's going to take if he has been feeling neglected.

BTW: It does not matter what he did prior to your affair. Your marriage ended at the point that you chose adultery. I'm all for saving marriages and I hope you can convince your husband that you are ready to invest your time in helping him recover.

I do not have wayward spouse in me. I do not blame anyone but myself for the decision I made. I do not tell my husband that he caused this. I know that I caused this. I know that my marriage failing is my fault alone.

How do you seek someone out to ask for help?

jlr,

It is excellent that you are applying the MB principles, but the Time issue of MB is what has obvioulsy been missing. If you have been working 85+ hour weeks for 2 months, his already-leaking Love Bank was not getting filled back up. It got so low, as a matter of fact, that he has decided the pain of staying is not worth the investment.

It is good that you have decided to not do that again next year, but it already may be too late. It's a shame you had not been following POJA all throughout your marriage as it probably would have kept you from your hurt feelings that led to the A. (Actually, that is probably true in all cases on this site. The POJA is a tremendous tool for all of us.) But, it sounds like you have been trying to work on that now and that is a good thing.

I think you just have to keep on showing him what you can be like and how great you are right now if you have truly turned back to the good side. But, the ball is in his court now and he can take it and leave if he wants to. You have to accept that. You don't have to be happy with it, but it is a fact that he has the right to choose the course of his own life now.

You said that you've been reading on here a lot before, so you should have a sense of how we BS feel. You have to remember that he is now trying to learn who you really are. On D-Day, not only did I find out that the wife I thought I knew was dead, I found out that I had been living with the woman who killed her off. Now, I have to decide if the new, seemingly repentent wife is a person I want to spend the rest of my life with.

We've all contemplated D. We have to look at all of our options to take back control of our own lives and find the happiness we desire. Do everything you can to show your H that his happiness is complete with you. Maybe he will come back and maybe he won't, but you'll live happier with yourself if you know you gave it your best shot.

Thank you. I am doing just that, putting the MB concepts to work. We are seeing our marriage counselor again, independently, and I have been reading the books and also doing sessions with Jennifer. Our marriage counselor has also recommend an EMDR treatment for me. I'm anxious to see how these help.

I know that I cannot make my husband stay. I can only be the real person that I am and pray that he sees the reasons that he loved me in the first place and open to loving me again. I know that I have al the work to do...at least at first, until I given enough love units to make it worth while to stay invested in our relationship. Then my husband can have the reason he needs to become invested in the relationship. I guess I was hoping there was some miracle that I was missing that would help speed the process.

I know that my job drained our relationship. I regret the decision we made but we made it together and we both knew that this was the last busy season. That as soon as April 15th came around I would be on the job hunt (which I currently am doing).

Balin - how is working with your wife? How is the decision process working for you?

The MB concepts aren't like a salad-bar, where you get to pick the things you like, and avoid the ones that don't really appeal to you. It's clear from your previous message that the "Time" concept has not been followed.

I notice in your signature that you've listed two D-Days - one in February, and another in September. What's that about? Did you disclose in February, but keep some of the truth of the A to yourself until September? Did your H suspect anything while the A was going on?

I'm no expert, but the BS has some specific steps they can take to end their spouse's affair, and there are steps both a BS and WS can take to avoid future infidelity.

When it comes to deciding to stay M or not, I think it's all on the BS.

Cheating gives the BS a "get out of marriage free" card.

Yes, I understand that the Time was not followed but I thought since it was a decision we arrived at together it was one that we could get thru for a little while. I know that I made the wrong choice here too and should have just said that I was done with my job before this January. My husband was completely behind me and in support of the last busy season. Believe me, I am not ever going to make the mistake again. I also should also clarify, that I did not find the MB website until my husband told me he was so unhappy and didn't think he could be with again. The previous (failed?) recovery was obtained with our marriage counselor. I have just recently purchased the books recommended here and have been reading them.

Two D-Days because I was in a fog for a quite a while. While I hated myself and the OM fed into my misery I didn't break contact until September and I told my. He was livid of course but was able to see that I was done with the selfish behavior and was committed only to him. At this time my H and the OM wife talked for a while, comparing notes. Some of the things did not jive because the OM has lied to his W. This made it difficult for my H to want to be with me. He believed the OMW and I couldn't blame him. Our marriage counselor helped my H see that what the OMW had been saying does not jive with me at all and that it sounded more likely that either the OM had lied to his wife of the wife was lieing to my H to make sure my life was over my H. As far as I know the OM and his wife are still together. I have NC with him or any of the others that were in our MBA program.

My H was shocked and blown away about the affair. He does not ask me any detail of the affair, he says he does not want to know, that it would be too painful and he would never get it out of his head.

Can you tell me what makes you try to recover...at least that is the impression I get from your signature. Thanks.

OK, few things...

First, can you give a little more detail about the A. How long, how involved physically, why the multiple D-days, etc.

Secondly, one of the reasons I have waited to go back to work for some time is because even though I have been committed totally to helping my BH heal from my betrayal for several months, the worse possible time for him even now is when we are apart. He is totally stressed out about me going back to work...not because he doesn't trust me, but because he really has a difficult time when we are apart. So, I can understand this recent revelation from your BH since you were no longer there to help him, no longer there for the MINIMUM 15 hours a week alone time for over 2 months. His lovebank drained and he has literally fallen back out of love with you.

There is a possibility that your BH is now a WS, but a little snooping would put that fear to rest. I wouldn't tell him you are snooping because if he ISN'T cheating, he would probably be really hurt to be accused or even suspected. Just do some checking and then put that possibility to rest.

It sounds to me like you are ALMOST in the right mind set...but I cannot tell if you are saying what you know (after reading here a while) what we all "want to hear from a WS" or because you REALLY REALIZE that you ALONE are responsible for your choice. Now, having said that, I'm gonna go out on a limb, here...I think if your husband would have listened to your pleas for him to come home, you most likely would not have cheated. He made a unilateral decision in your marriage to leave you for long periods of time against your protests and your past issues of abandonment. HOWEVER...I'm sure you approaching him and saying "OK, I have had enough of the married but living apart life, and I'm OUT" would have gotten his attention. What YOU did was essentially take a few punches to the face from him and instead of walking away, you pulled out a gun and shot him right between the eyes.

Here's the OTHER reason I made that point...whether him being gone was a large part of you cheating or not, do you see how using this against him doesn't do a damn bit of good NOW? And even if you are not saying this stuff to his face, the fact that you are writing it HERE tells me it is the "excuse" that you are clinging to as the reason for cheating. Until you really go inside and see the difference between him making a decision that you didn't like about your M without your consent, and you making a decision that crushed his soul without HIS consent is COMPLETELY different...you are still foggy.

The fact is, you have no children, so you could have made the decision to leave him without a whole lot of strings attached. You could have said-You know what-you promised to love and protect me forsaking all others and you are not keeping your promises. I will find someone who will. But, you DIDN'T! And that is the key, here.

And NOW, YOU have the nerve to work 85 hours a week, essentially doing the very thing for which you use as an excuse to cheat, and you are SURPRIZED that he is DONE. Now THAT is foggy, hon! If I were him, that would be the icing on the [censored] and lemon layered cake for me!

Think about the decisions you are making...realize that he may, albeit reluctantly, be giving you a six-month period of time before he files, and it may be the LAST CHANCE YOU GET!! You better get busy deciding what is important in your lives...money/jobs or marriage. That goes for both of you, but I am assuming that he is working in your area now, since you haven't mentioned that he has been gone since your tryst. Basically, HE changed his lifestyle to try to make things work, and YOU chose the lifestyle you were bitching about and left him alone with his thoughts.

BAD CHOICE...TRY AGAIN!!!!!

jlr,

Since you asked, my FWW seems to be extraordinarily committed to rebuilding our M. (I still find it hard to type that phrase as I didn't know it needed rebuilding until 3 months ago. Everything was perfect to me.) Our decision-making process is a lot easier, oddly, than it was before D-Day. Before, I made every decision based on how happy it would make her. I basically was living my life for her. That was a problem in me and I see that now. I need to be living for God and doing things to please her through what He wants me to do.

This has made me a much stronger person than before. I am now basing all of my decisions on what is right for both of us, not just for her. I think by doing this, I am showing my wife that I actually have a backbone and will fight for what I think is right. I need to show her that I am stronger now and will not put up with any sin that enters our house. Once she saw that I carefully consider my options and then choose the solution that best depicts what God wants from us, she is much happier about our choices.

However, that will be tested here soon as a lot of decision are to be made when the school year ends. They are decisions where we both will have to give up something for the sake of making US stronger. It will be interesting, but it is the way we should have been making decisions all through our M. Had we applied this, she would never have even talked to OM outside of work - maybe.