Hi. Me again. Just wondering the best place to go and get support as a FWW that wants to save marriage with BS. I've seen some threads that seem to alude that there are posts are there for the FWS but I'm not sure where to start to look. Also, are there signs that BS is coming out of the State of Withdrawal and will allow love units to be deposited?

There are some wonderful exWW here. You might want to call them out on your thread title.

But how are things going with hubby now?

I have no clue how things are going...poorly I suppose. We had gone on vacation and I thought, wow, things are not normal but he is having fun and enjoying time with me. Now I think it was just pretend.

Since we've been back he is even more distant. If I try to talk or kiss him the look I get is like your so stupid for thinking I could ever be close with you again. I just wish there was some magic pill that would fix everything or allow me to go back and make the right choice instead of having caused the end of our marriage.

It doesn't really matter how sorry I am...

It does really matter how sorry you are.

Because if you weren't sorry at all, then you and your BH would be nowhere on the road to recovery.

I don't know what steps you have begun to take, but there are very concrete things you can do to help your husband move ahead in recovering from the devastation of your affair.

First, sit down with him and explain to him how much you really are sorry. One of the things I so wish my FWH would do just ONCE is to initiate the discussion about the affair, and start talking about his remorse and regret. I would suggest that you limit your talk to about 15 minutes - do not make this a marathon for him. Be very sincere, and if he wants you to stop, tell him that you must tell him because he deserves this apology and deserves to hear what you have to say - even though it is hard for you to say and hard for him to hear. That someday it will be very important for him to have heard, and very valuable for him.

Take those 15 minutes as seriously as possible.
Ask him for NOTHING. Do NOT ask him to understand, because he CANNOT.
Do not ask him to forgive you.
Just tell him that you are sorry for your actions.
Sorry that you did not give him the information ahead of time that he would have needed to fix things BEFORE you went to the other man.
Sorry that you talked to the OM about things you never should have said to anyone but your husband.
Sorry that you went outside your marriage for comfort and support, when you know that the best man in the world is your husband.
Sorry that you have changed the dynamic of the marriage into one of distrust and pain.

Then, tell him that you have found information that you believe can help this marriage recover.

That you are learning about steps YOU can take to change yourself, to understand what you have done wrong, and what you can do to ensure that this will NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN.

So that one day, he will again love you and feel safe with you again.

And that you will do everything in your power, every day, to bring your marriage to a BETTER place than it was on the day that YOU YOURSELF made the choice to have an affair. Because you now recognize that your affair is 100% your fault, and that the state of the marriage before the affair needed work - and that work CAN AND WILL be done together. And the marriage can be better.

That your marriage can survive the affair.


Then, hug him. Tell him you would like to start by having him filling out the Emotional Needs Questionnaire, so that you can gain a fuller understanding of his needs so that you can do a better job of meeting them. Ask him if he would be interested in looking at yours AFTER he is finished with doing his.

If he isn't interested, fill one out for him anyway, and go about filling his emotional needs. Make sure you spend the time every day to tell him what you admire about him, and why you are grateful for him in your life.

Tell him you love him in ways that go beyond words. Meet his emotional needs.

Know that this process will take him about two years, and NEVER say to him, "Just get over it". Because he CAN'T just turn off the pain.

Answer all of his questions fully, truthfully, and honestly. If you have hidden anything from him, or held back any information from him, know that it will come out. It is better that you tell him now, than to hold it back and trickle it out over time. It is torture to him to do that - so do not do that. Just tell him what he wants to know. OFFER to tell him the whole story, and ask him what details he wants to know. If you need to, take a weekend to do this (send the kids to grandma!), and focus on making sure you have given him sufficient time to ask and to answer any and all questions. Do this honestly, lovingly, and with care. Have him write down his questions for you, and have him sit on the questions for a week or so, then go through them again and eliminate those that he feels are not really important, and add others. He can do this several times, until he has a good set of questions that he thinks really cover what he wants to know.

Never tell him that he isn't allowed to talk about it anymore.

Never tell him that he isn't allowed to ask a certain question, or that something is "private". Nothing is private, because what happened between you and the OM must be aired - it removes the secrecy and the fantasy you had.

Do not defend the OM to your husband. The OM is, and was, scum. The OM interfered in your marriage, and should have had the moral compass to avoid the relationship with you. IF HE WAS A GOOD MAN, HE NEVER WOULD HAVE HAD A RELATIONSHIP WITH YOU. No matter what you think you shared with the OM, he had poor morals, and was not who you thought he was. He was a liar, a cheater, and did not do right by you - and that is for starters. You will realize this someday, if you take a good look and analyze what happened carefully and objectively.

Take the initiative to call a marriage coach. You need to understand why you let your defenses drop, and why you thought it was okay to do what you did. Why did the boundaries and rules go away? Have you thought much about this? Your husband needs to know that you are either in counseling about this, or at least reading on the topic to understand your own behavior.

Buy and read - either alone or with your husband - one or more of the following books:

After the Affair (this is good for the wayward!)
Surviving An Affair
Relationship Rescue
Not Just Friends
His Needs, Her Needs
LoveBusters


I hope that you have also read this website and the information offered by the Harleys. The links to the right -------->
are very useful if you read them and apply the concepts in your marriage. Your husband doesn't even need to be on board. You CAN do this one-sided.

And one more thing:

You only control one person in this relationship: YOU.

Start working on the changes in that person, and I will guarantee that the marriage will also change.

Change for the better.
Show him the changes.
He will get on board the recovery train, and you can help him.

Schoolbus

I'm new here so I don't know if this is against the rules or not. I am a BS. This program gave me the strength to save my marriage. If you search my user name you will find out why I am a BS. It is not the normal story.

The program is Catholic but it is NOT a religious program. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

retrouvaille.org

I hope you can repair your marriage!

WOW Schoolbus...fantastic post, as usual!!!

She left NOTHING out, jlr...everything you need is in her post! Just be sure you are doing all of this with a humble heart. Let us know how things go after you have done all of these suggestions. Hopefully his heart will soften a little and you can begin to re-build your M together. I wish you the best of luck, and you did a GREAT THING by coming here and asking for help!! Maybe your BH can come here, too. If not now, maybe in time...

Thank you. If it feels this way for me I can't imagine how it feels for my husband. I hadn't read your post yet but this morning I asked him to just listen to for a little while and then I would stop talking. I would probably need a hug but understood if he didn't want to give me one. And then I tried to explain what I was thinking (or not really thinking) and feeling and why I was not the person I normally am...I wasn't making an excuse, just trying to let him know how badly I felt and that I wasn't worthy of him. I know what I did caused this and take complete responsibility but at the time I wasn't in my right state of mind...

He seems to have listen well. Today has been somewhat normal. He asked to go for a walk with our dog. We didn't talk but we were together and he seemed deep in thought. He appears to be processing it and hopefully it helps. I hadn't heard the two years to recover before here. It makes sense, we were on the right path before and I was thoughtless and set things back. that had to reinforce to him that I would a stranger for the rest of my life.

I appreciate what you have shared with me.

I'm hoping that my husband will eventually be open to coming here. Right now anything I say that is for relationship improvement is seen as manipulative so I just need to trust and have faith in what our MC is doing to help him and therefore us. And I need to trust her in recommending that I see another IC to help with the past trauma that rears it head in our relationship and brings us down.