To annoy you of course.

It's funny you talk about my neagtivity towards MB..yet that is a view that many, many here do not share. They think I bring honesty and an accurate take on things.

If you don't like me being here, ask the mods to ban me.

NO!!!!

we can't ban you!
i'd have no one to internet flirt with medc
i would miss you terribly.

take it back!

mlhb

MEDC,

I have no interest in seeing you banned. I think your experiences and how you have handled them are useful for people to see and learn from. The anger you mentioned is very evident in your posts. I wish I could offer you something to remove that anger, it will harm you. It harms your message sometimes (in my opinion).

What bothers me, is that you bring anger into a situation where there is already plenty of anger or reason to be angry. It doesn't help in my opinion.

You say you don't agree with MB but you don't offer alternatives for those that want guidance or support. You see where I am coming from?

As you well know, what TTH, RB and others are going through is very hard, very discouraging, very challenging and anger is part of all of that. THey don't need more anger, they need guidance for awhile until they get on their emotional feet, then most if not all are intelligent enough to make what feels to them the correct decision (married, not married, work on it, walk).

If you read Harley's articles one of the things he wanted to do was have people avoid the kneejerk decision when confronted with a failing marriage. He never claimed all marriage should or would be saved. Just that more would be if people learned and had a bit of patience with themselves. The patience part is hard to do, when angry.

Hence my comments to you. So NO I don't want you banned or censored. I want to see you even more effective than you have been to date.

God Bless,

JL

JL, I appreciate your interperatation of this. It makes sense to me. I just want to clarify one thing. My FWW does believe it. It makes sense to her. It just doesn't make complete sense to me at this point.

The thing about "being stuck" does not refer to my disinterest in taking a leap of faith and following through with the program as I truly do want to recover my marriage in spite of the overwhelming distaste I currently have for FWW.

The being stuck, more refers to SH's contention that I must believe this to proceed. I disagree with him on this point, and feel that it is not a pre-condition for moving to the next logical step in following the MB program for reconciliation. I believe that as we work through this we will BOTH come to a deeper understanding of what happened and why.

I think it is unrealistic frankly, to expect any BS to wholly embrace that which must be fully vetted, within 3 weeks of (yet another) D-day in order to get to the next step.

I'm here. I'm trying (too hard?). And am prepared for the WS in this situation to attempt to find a deeper understanding of her heinous behavior and begin to work diligently to re-establish herself that I might regain respect, trust and love for her. Hopefully deep passinate love.

So again, it is not my conviction in agreeing that "failure to protect weaknesses" that holds FWW back in this process.

As SH has said, I am the patient, she is the Dr. and must do the triage. I just know that at some point in the future I am going to have to come to some better understanding of the "why" to fully recover. just one grain of asphalt not scrubbed out with the wire brush of "recovery" could remain and ultimately lead to emotional infection.

I want it all out.

(Anyone relate to the road rash analogy?...)

... For what it's worth, sometimes the anger shared by oters who are venting in a sense gives them credibility and a sense of reality.

We all receive the message in our own way independant of the vehicle it arrives in.

JMHO

VERY WELL SAID TTH....

The very first time I EVER saw one of Krazy's posts, I thought "What a complete A$$!!!!". I even felt sorry for his WW....but in time I came I came to see that he was posting his TRUE AND RAW feelings that COME with having been betrayed. It is not fun nor is it something I would have wished for, but now I UNDERSTAND it (I was not anywhere near the anger point then BUT now??? I GET IT....). And yes, it is good to see that those VERY REAL AND RAW anger feelings are not unusual....and that I am not the only going through them.

I do, however, see where people kind of freak when they see them and wonder if this person is like this all the time, I had the same reaction, but I have learned from myself this is not entirely true......still looking for answers though, on how to deal or what to do with those feelings when they surface, besides put them on hold???? or excercise (already doing that)???

sorry for the T/J there......kind of got on my own tangent....lol

TTH...I will say these threads you have going are SO EXTREMELY HELPFUL for many of us BS out here....keep it up....sorry you have to though..

not2fun

TTH,

I guess my original point was if this makes sense to her and she begins to pursue the why and how of her boundaries and protecting them, she will eventually come to understand something fundamental enough to offer you some confidence that she "gets it".

I cannot argue against your feelings on this as I sort of agree with you. My question is SH asking you to "believe" what you know now, or in the process of examining things so that you will know more as your W begins to recover her moral balance?

I don't know. Just a question that perhaps you can ask SH.

God Bless,

JL

I am not sure what anger you are referencing that I spoke of.

In addition, I am certain that you and I see "effectiveness" in an entirely different way on these boards. I judge that based on your postings and those that you have referenced as success stories. I am certain you reach some people JL...as do I. Thanks for the tips, but I am quite comfortable with my postings and don't carry around the anger that you seem to see.

It's funny...so many here are talking about anger and I find that my lack of anger for my F-WH (as Lousy Golfer has deemed him) is one of my road blocks.

I agree that it is good sometimes to feel the emotion behind the post. That way we know it is REAL.

I don't care for the posts (none on this thread) that make snide or sarcastic comments to people as a way to "shock" them into reality, but that is just my own level of sensitivity. I may be able to handle it as d-day fades farther into the past.

But, as with EVERYTHING in life, you take what you need, leave some for others, and pass it around (something my H teaches our boys at the dinner table, but it fits here too).

TTH,

The first thing that has to happen is for you to pray fervernly that God will step in and remove the huge stone in the middle of yur chest, and replace it with the soft compliant heart that He initially gave you when you were born.

Start there, and everything else will begin to fall in place sequentially. (WOW, a fifty cent word)

All blessings,
Jerry

Jerry,

HOW do you do that? I am in tears all because I LONG for that heart again. Is it really possible to find it? Maybe I'm praying the wrong way.

Sometimes it seems as easy as to just hope for PEACE WITHIN.

HTM

htm,

It wasn't or isn't easy. But It's also simple!

Read my sig line that I've had for 3 years. It's about coming to a true realization, that I didn't have the power to heal myself, but God did.

Once I acknowledged that, It's as if He said "It's about time!"

There are many things in life that are beyond are capacity, but NOTHING is beyond God's capacity. I put all my hope and strength into thinking that I could solve and heal this.

I WAS WRONG. Right from the start!

Ask HIM with earnest. Do you think for a moment HE will not come to your rescue, but, as always, IF YOU WILL ALLOW HIM!!!

All blessings,
Jerry

Well, I don't know if failing to protect weaknesses is "simple", but I understand your point. I felt similar when I did MC with SH.


Are you sure he's saying you must believe it to proceed? Perhaps its more suspend your disbelief. KWIM. I honestly think what he is trying to do is keep you from putting up a barrier to intimacy.

I hope I am not crossing a line by posting here I just felt that I would like to have a say about our counseling sessions with SH.
I don't at all believe that "failure to protect against my weaknesses" Is a cop-out. It is not an excuse or justification to the action of infidelity. It was a choice to let down that guard and let someone else in to meet some of my EN's. I wasn't waiting around looking for an affair or for someone to "boff". In fact sex was not even a consideration when I starting getting close to someone else.
As a FWW I can say that it happened very gradually. It's like (at least for me) If you haven't eaten for several hours and you drink you start to feel good. It doesn't take much and soon you are intoxicated. You choose to drink, you even choose to get drunk, but then all of the sudden you start making choices you wouldn't normally make sober. It is not a justification for your actions, but rather an explanation of why you were able to do what you did without much rational thought. If you then get into a car and kill someone, yes you are responsible for your actions, but sober you would not have chosen to endanger someone else's life would you? Sober you would have made a very different choice.
I think this is where SH is going with all of this. There is never going to be an acceptable REASON for any of it, not the lies, or the hurt, or the actions, none of it.
I don't believe you have to "buy" into anything, but it helps me going forward to know how to protect against my weaknesses. If I know what they are it makes it a lot easier. If I always have my guard up and know what made me vulnerable before wouldn't it stand to reason that I would recognize if it was happening again? SH always uses the analogy of the frog in the water. The water heats up so gradually that you might not notice, but if you are carrying around a thermometer you know when it's time to jump out without relying on your feeling it get hot! Yes, it may feel like it's a little late, but we only have now to work with not two years ago when I should have opened up and told you how very upset I was.
I believe someone mentioned on here that they had a hard time with the whole "under the influence" thought until SH said that they were under the influence of their own selfishness, and then it made a little sense. It is very true. I was selfish and awful and hurtful, but I am better then that. We CAN save our marriage. I truly believe that. With much time and effort we can move forward and learn from all the mistakes that were made and protect against those. If I have you by my side we can fight anything coming at us. ILTTF!

I think you make a lot of good points...the place where I get stuck is that it requires rational thought to deceive those closest to you. Lies/deception/planning to get together all take malice of forethought.

I am not going to make it a habit to answer on TTH's thread, but I will make this argument If you love someone isn't it definitely irrational to try to deceive them or do things to hurt them? Doesn't mean it isn't a conscience choice, but I think I definitely wasn't thinking clearly, If i had been thinking rationally I wouldn't have done done what I did...
I am going to start my own post today about it I would welcome your input for me there.
Thanks

Peace out

Aren't the lies/deception/planning the completely rational way to achieve the irrational objective of having an affair?

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not so sure that the fact that a person rationally worked toward an objective prooves one way or another that they were in their "right" mind when they decided on that objective.

I have not read this whole thread but i would have to agree that "and his contention is that my FWW committed adultery because "she failed to protect her weaknesses"." is a crock of [censored].

I think that WSs know EXACTLY what they are doing or else it would not be kept a secret.

I know when i told my kids about their dad's A and that it was also MY FAULT that he thought the M was supposedly so bad that he had to find someone else (even though he says that is not true that our M has ALWAYS been fine, it was his emotional problems that caused the affair). I did not want to place ALL the blame on my FWH.

The kids said they did not care whose fault it was, he KNEW the consequences of his ACTIONS.

TTH, it's ok to believe that your spouse is flawed b/c the bright line we're all talking about here is fidelity vs. infidelity. The underlying causes are best understood on a case-by-case approach. There's that famous opening line from Anna Karenina..."All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Adultery while utterly common is still wholly personal to you. I assume you consider it an affront to your dignity, your beliefs, and the marriage that you chose to enter into.

That said, with knowledge regarding what she's capable of I imagine you find yourself in that difficult position where you still feel love for her. The one thing though that you now know, which you didn't before is her capacity for deceit. That information is important b/c you can set your boundaries accordingly. Your forgiveness and tolerance may remain conditional, but if you can't accept that your spouse is an inherently flawed individual and perhaps very different from how you perceived her, then it's going to be very difficult for you to work on your marriage

You know, most people who find themselves in these situations want an assurance that it will never happen again. Hope repeatedly shattered is abusive--it becomes a living death. Yet, an assurance of fidelity is only as strong as its weakest link. All the fww's that you see here who would never cheat again have reached that point for one reason. They recognized that the cheating destroyed their own integrity as a woman, a wife, and perhaps also as a mother. As much as their husbands and counselors tried to offer assistance (for change), they came to that point via their own fortitude.

TTH--your wife is still young--in your mind you can keep her bound to the whipping post, that's none of my business--but IMO for her to be able to reach the point where her promise of fidelity becomes bankable--it requires a personal journey. Whether you promote or frustrate that potential (that exists in the process) is within your control.

By the time you get to the "malice aforethought" stage, your boundaries have already been moved, many of them almost imperceptibly...You are then at the rationalization/justification phase aka "the fog phase"...

For instance in my own case, Mr. W KNEW immediately when OM (an ex-boyfriend) contacted me-I called and told him-BEFORE I emailed OM back...Mr. W KNEW we were emailing...He KNEW we were talking on the phone-It was going on with Mr. W present several times...At the time, I didn't think I was doing anything wrong and neither did Mr. W...By the time things crossed the line conversationally it was TOO LATE...I never hid "contact"...It was all out in the open...What I did eventually hide were the conversations that shifted to "remember whens" and "what ifs"-actually I even shared some of that with Mr. W...I believed I could handle it-After all, I was one of those that said "I would NEVER cheat"...Plus OM was 750 miles away...

Mrs. W