Mrs.EWs,

To answer your question to me a page or so ago. Yes, I have seen many people change...perspectives. Most people have core beliefs that don't change, but their perspective on things can really change. What they value can really change. Yes, even the order of their most important EN's change as life changes, as they see things differently.

You can blame your H for how the children turned out, but if I were you I would not go there. Why? Because MOM has a huge influence on children no matter what Dad does. Further, I live in an area where people are very well off, the parents want their children to succeed and have the resources to "make it happen." And still some kids fail, I don't know why. Who knows why?

Oddly, it can be something as simple as undiagnosed dyslexia, or ADD, or simple rate of maturing. Once a kid gets crosswise with the prevailing school expectations, they often drop out. Unfortunately schools are often one size fits all. Your children are young and their lives are not over, but one thing that I see in your posts and definitely in your H's post is a propensity to QUIT. A propensity to NOT LEARN FROM FAILURE. A propensity to not address the issues.

You have not addressed the issues and you have decided to run. Your H has not addressed the issues and has failed financially many times. Your children are modeling the behavior that both of you show.

Mrs.EWS you said you will always take care of your brother. Excellent, I am proud of you. But, you also said your brother meets your EN's. This is bad, very bad. Further, if you cannot help your children, and I gather your brother was also worried about the sort of people your daughter brought home, then what are YOU going to do???

MrsEWS, your complaints are valid. EWS's complaints are valid. But neither of you have been honest enough with yourselves or one another to really address the issues and produce a viable plan. Now maybe it is because EWS won't listen, but I am guessing it is because neither of you have the tools to really discuss things and make plans. The POJA is an interesting tool, and trying it out in a grocery store is a sure way for the two of you to see what needs to be accomplished before either of you can move on.

MrsEWS and EWS sit down and really really read these articles and talk to one another about what they mean to you, what each of you hear the other saying, discuss the misconceptions and learn from them.

You can succeed at this marriage, and financially, but you must discipline yourselfs to act NOT react and to do this there needs to be openness, a plan, and some serious changes in perspective.

So to repeat the answer to your question. Yes, people change perspectives, change value systems, and become very different people. It happens here more often than you think. All that is required to start is the willingness to look at things anew, and a plan.

I hope something I have said is of help to you.

God Bless,

JL

PS: I will say I vote with EWS on how he handled those kids. Your son on the other hand needed to step up, but instead he ran (not a surprising response given his parents) and got bug bites for his effort.

Sounds like a lovely marriage. So what are you doing here? With all due respect, what you describe is not a good marriage and not anything I would ever wish on my worst enemy. You came here because your marriage is bad, not good.

The folks who are posting to you know HOW to make a bad marriage good; you DON'T. Your best thinking got you in this mess and it won't get you out.

But, message heard and I will move onto someone who wants help.

You want a success story. Here's mine.

My H and I have been married 33 years, 34 years next month. When we had been married 28 years I had an 18 month PA with my high school boyfriend. I found MB and, thanks to the people here and my wonderful H we made a very good recovery.

However, three years after my initial A I met up with the OM again (accidentally). I renewed contact with him for two weeks. After that contact I confessed to everyone here but not to my H. My H found out through someone here who knew me.

It was a very, very bad time for us. We came very close to divorcing but we weathered it and went on to a very, very, very successful recovery.

Is that a good enough success story? Are my credentials suitable?

Edited to add: Over 34 years our financial situation has gone from very poor newly marrieds, struggling younger marrieds with young children when I was a SAHM, reasonably comfortable marrieds with teenage children because we both worked, very poor older marrieds when my H was laid off, comfortably off older, older marrieds when we inherited money and bought a business. We've lost money through being ripped off horribly over a car deal, we've lost money through the dishonesty of an employee. We've made money by working hard, we've made money through inheriting it.

In other words, we've lived a normal life.

iam,
I was not being sarcastic, but serious. Again, EWS and I have been married for so long we have gone through so much and still not given up. We are paying top dollar at the expense of everything else in our lives to try to work out our problems. When I began looking for your posts I was hoping each of you had a success story. I found that each of you did, you survived the divorce. Your marriage may not have worked out, but you didn't stop living. That gave me great hope too. I am so sorry I offended you, I did not mean it the way you took it.
What I need to hear may just not be out there. The last post gave me hope, but I would like more info on the repair process. I know it's only been 6 weeks, but I did hope to feel something kindled! What I do feel is safer, so maybe that's good too.

No, I am not divorced. I am happily married and am 8 years past D-Day.

Mrs.EWS,

Here is a thread that is filled with success stories. Some will blow your mind. Read it: Ace's Success stories

There are many success stories here Mrs. EWS, what specifically would you like to see. And yes 6 weeks is not long. Recovery of the marriage is a process and part of that process is changing of perspective on the part of the partners. It can work, it does work, but it takes effort and a willingness to face things and correct behaviors and thinking on the part of each of you.

God Bless,

JL

PS: The repair process will probably entail counseling, but if I were to suggest a starting place I would look to Harley's four rules for a good marriage, and couple that with an understanding and use of Harley's two main policies: The policy of radical honesty, and the policy of joint agreement, POJA. In your situation, these two policies would have spared both of you considerable heart ache.

I will close with the observation that when children start to act out and have problems in their lives, it often causes polarization between the spouses. It is very hard to deal with kids involved in things like drugs, bad behavior,etc. No matter how strong your marriage is, it takes a toll. I think you two are also victims of this. You both want your children to succeed, to prosper and be happy. Start from that and develop plans on how to deal with them. Seek outside guidance for ways to merge you separate approaches. I have been married a long time and have seen many things, and having kids go south on them is what hurts parents the most. It has hurt you two.

Actually, I'm celebrating my 18th anniversary this year.

Just caught her talking with the OM just now. She got angry with me and had her AO's because I caught her. She never gave him up and always kept him on her My Space. She feels she is doing nothing wrong.

Well, I guess you now know why your wife turned down help from folks (Mel, etc.) here that are very experienced in successful marriage recover using Marriage Builders principles.

Guess their knowledge was becoming a little too close for comfort for her since it seems she wanted to continue her deception.

I'm terribly sorry for your recent discovery, EWSII. Please stay here and learn. One spouse using the principles can make a difference.

Jo

Your wife mentioned you both are in marriage counseling. Is it with Steve Harley? If it isn't, it should be.

It's well worth the money and will be the best investment you'll ever make if your marriage recovey is truly your priority.

Please seriously consider it, EWSII.

God Bless,
Jo

I really have no idea what my priority is going to be now with our M. We were in counseling with a counselor recommended off this site. It just wasn't working. Our counseling went like what you have read in this thread. Bashing me for the past. We never got to the point of working on recovery of the M. My W felt as if we were getting no where in the counseling and the counselor wasn't in tune with our M. I agreed with her to stop the counseling. Not because I didn't feel like the counselor wasn't up to the task of helping our M. But as long as my W was going to live in the past and not get past that point then what was the use of spending all the money just so she could bash me. The counselor I think had given up also. He knew my W wasn't opening up to the possible recovery of our M. Now I feel that I am back where I started 2 months ago. With the one exception and that is my renewed faith in God.

After discovering her last night I ran through the gamut of emotions. Strangely I didn't get terribly angry with her or the situation. I suppose because I knew it was still going on. She had kept him on her My Space. But until a couple weeks ago she would never accept me as one of her friends and had her page put on private so I could not see her page. She always made sure to delete any browsing history. She has hidden her phone bills from me. She slept with her phone under her pillow and always kept it with her. Constantly cleared the call records from the phone. Then would blame my oldest daughter was the reason she was hiding the phone. So my daughter couldn't use it and run her bill up. Most of the time my daughter wasn't at the house. I knew exactly what was going on. All the while fooling myself that I could show my wife I was the man she married and the OM was a scumbag. He is.

She told me last night that she was going to get rid of the OM for good. But then she tells me I may be on the way out also. Again I don't believe a word she says about the OM. It will just be more of the same. So priorities? I have none for today. Maybe tomorrow I will have some. No I do have priorities and it is going to be what I have been doing to help recover our M. If my W can start being open and honest with me then maybe we both can set the same priorities like saving our M. Instead of pretending like we are doing something about our M.

EWS,
I'm sorry that you have been dealing with continued contact with OM. That makes it difficult to even start your Recovery process on your M. I'm also sorry that she feels the need to make threats to you as well regarding your M.

I hope that the 2 of you come together and get help. Perhaps if she does make REAL NC, she can move on to working through the current issues with your MC.

Good luck and God Bless!

EWS,

I am thinking you need to consider plan B. Nothing will happen in your marriage if she continues her affair. You know that, we know that, and she is lying to herself and to you.

It is what people in affairs do: they LIE!!!

They hurt those around them and they LIE some more.

You were and are wasting your money on counseling until such time as she ends the affair.

I wish I had some very insightful piece of advice that would turn this around, but until the affair ends, there is little you can do.

So do the best you can for the kids. Be a good man, father, and husband, that is all you can do.

God Bless,

JL

Well Plan B may very well come to fruition. She does have a bag packed. She may leave I don't know. Her friend she is going to stay with is at work and so I won't know until later. Unfortunately today I chose to stay at home instead of going to work. We have been talking all day together about our marriage and the problems we have. I have asked her to stay and she has asked me to help her stay away from the OM. I would like to help her but that would not be in her best interest. She needs to end the relationship on her own terms without me. I can help her by being by her side and supporting her in this decision. And of course I whole heartedly support her in ending the contact with OM.

I can say my W is very confused about me right now and expects an AO from me at any time. She told me last night after I caught her that she was wanting the old me back at that moment. She even went so far as to ask me to slap her. There was no way in he!! that I could do that. I have told her that it will take her a very long time to get to the point that she can not expect AO's from me. Possibly even years. What happened last night should help her confirm that I am not going to have an AO. When she asked me to get angry with her I just couldn't. I didn't even feel the urge to get angry with her over the OM. But I was angry and didn't express it in the way I would have in the past. I told her I was angry with her for breaking up what little we had accomplished over the past two months. Not because she was contacting the OM. Like I said I knew she was still in contact with him. Why wouldn't I think that when she still had him listed as a friend on her My Space. I went and deleted my account right after this happened. I want no part of being in the same room with him so my W can compare notes.

I need to end this post right now. But I would like to thank everyone for their encouragement and support as my W and I try to fix our M.

Until she is rid of the OM, I'd let her pack her bag and go.

EWS is no longer interested in discussing our relationship. He is no longer going to post or reply. If you would like to continue to know my feeling and thoughts I have moved my thread to Emotional Needs - Profile of an Abuser.

As I posted on the other thread....get away from him until and if he ever becomes safe to be around. Right now, he is a danger to you.

Also, as suggested, continue working on you and make sure the OM is NEVER a factor in your life again (if in fact he was an OM...which according to you, he has always conducted himself perfectly and that only you that had an infatuation with him...he continued to tell you to work things out with your husband).

I agree W needs to honor the NC if she wants her marriage to work.

My W is perfectly safe around me. Thanks for your concern Medc. I physically attacked her only once in our marriage and it was in 1992. It only happened because I felt she was a threat to one of our children. Other then the frequent AO's I had, not once since that day have I physically harmed my wife. Nor any other days prior to that one instance.

And he was an OM. He rekindled memories of their past relationship and they had everyday multiple times a day conversations on the phone. Many lasting 30 to 90 minutes. I have the phone records. E-mails of dates they could meet. Plenty of other info to call it out of bounds for a marriage. Even if the marriage is bad. And if he was such a good guy telling her to quit calling him and work it out with your husband. Then why when I asked him to quit contacting her he continues with the contact. If he is such a good guy how hard is it to not answer her calls. So yeah he was an OM.

Medc,

Yes, there was OM. For me to keep telling myself and others it wasn't an EA is wrong. He was my knight in shining armor, or in my mind anyways. The one who was going to save me from EWS. I realize that was how I was feeling and was trying to convince him to come and get me and save me. when he wouldn't do that I started to lose interest.
EWS says he has forgiven me for the EA, however I do not feel this. I have really forgiven him for both his one night stands (2), and his EA over a two year period. I know what I feel in my heart right now, I want to work on this relationship and marriage. I am healthy so far, nothing showed up, but I need my lab results yet. I most likely am going through menopause, which means I have to deal with the loss of being able to bear children. For me that's a major issue.
I do feel safe with EWS as of now. He is under great stress and the most I have seen of it, is that he is having problems sleeping. He even quit smoking and is handling it well. But I can sense he has not forgiven me. I don't know how, but I just feel it.
Our doc said that in A's that 80% of the women forgive their spouse, but less than 20% of the men forgive. He feels like his property has been damaged and his territory has been walked all over.
My number one need has always been $$. I grew up poor and abused, but I dealt with the abuse and had come to accept it and the pain. What I can not accept is the lack of $$, and this weekend I realized just how much I want it.