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Thanks,Charlie..

IF there's anything I've learned, it's that one person cannot change another person! And therein lies the problem....I believe I may be approaching the point where I need to make a decision about this relationship. It is his choice to try and meet needs that I've expressed. IF he has no interest or any sincere attempts to do so, then I guess that is my answer about how he feels about me.

This is what I TRULY believe is going on....AFter 17 yrs of marriage, man is divorced after xw has affairs. HE is hurt and angry, plus xw steals money from the businesses they built together. He is financially and emotionally devastated. He decides to redirect his anger and finds a Higher Power in which to trust. He immerses himself into the businesses and his children. For 7 or 8 years all he does is work, kids, and sometimes golf....no women. He meets me and likes me. Finds himself dealing with all kinds of feelings and emotions that have been buried for years. HE is afraid to love and trust. We date and become close. Within the context of this relationship we help each other from our wounded pasts, all the while building a worthwhile friendship/relationship based on loyalty and honesty.

But...work gets in the way of progressing the relationship. OFten there is no time for us....which of course translates to me that I am not important enough for him to carve time out. He is in the restaurant business and hours are long. He still is recovering financially and I know he MUST work. But how do I discern when "work" is an excuse? Work was his only "friend" following his divorce. Work would not lie or steal or cheat on him. Work met his needs. It must be scary to think of trusting something else now, when work met his needs for so long....

He will say that he is committed to me, not interested in anyone else, and wants to be with me. But yet......I have no indication that "work" is improving or that he is willing to make any type of changes in order to not lose the relationship...other than to continue to profess how important I am to him, but that he can't do anything about his work commitments.

This cannot be a rare scenario, can it? But what now? Do I continue investing in the relationship, "proving" my trustworthiness, or do I tell him that I can't sit around waiting for him to have time for me? I waited and hoped for too long in my marriage, and it only served to cause me great pain....




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don't bypass the advice mel gave

it does appear that he likes the status quo. if you don't, you have got to shake it up and be honest

i'd make it clear to him that you are not happy with the friends with benefits thing and tell him in no uncertain terms that unless he makes more time for the relationship, things can't proceed

i forget, have yall done those questionairs here?


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Personally I feel you over-analyzing the whole thing and he might feel some pressure both from your analysis and critique of the relationship and your expectations for what you want it to be at this point. I feel that you have unmatched expectations.

If you like and trusty this guy, why not lighten up for a bit and see what happens. Is it possibility in any fashion that you're being detected or interpreting as being just a bit needy and that's causing him to back off a bit?

I suggest that you reduce your expectations slightly and enjoy what you have. If he doesn't respond and continues to work more and more, then you can conclude that his interest has waned from any number of issues, not just commitment.

I do wish you good luck.


Me: 48 XW: 44 DD: 15
Lived Together: 7 Married: 18 Total: 25 years
W announced divorce 11-3-2006, I moved out 11-7-2006, served papers 11-8-2006. Divorce final 12-19-2006. Life gets better every day.
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I would only say look at the actions of the person.

I could care less if my GF never said she loved me. It is all in how she treats me. Does she act like she loves me? Does she make compromises and sacrifice? Do I do the same?

Only look at the actions in the relationship. Classify them accordingly and decipher his love based on that.

One thing I would broach is if he is open to marriage in the future, assuming this is your desire. There is no sense proceeding if he has no interest in marriage and you require it long term.


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"have been dating this man for about 14 months. I have been divorced about 2 years from an "unavailable" man"

"After divorcing I dated a man for about 6 months who I later beleived to have a narcissistic personality disorder."

"I was married 20 yrs to the mentally ill man and read many books to learn about why I stayed in the marriage that long. I learned much about myself and searched for answers as to why I chose "unavailable" men. AFter the 6 month relationship, I began dating my current BF."

Since you realize you seem to get involved with men who share this same trait, and since you haven't given yourself much time between relationships, why not spend some time NOT in a relationship?

You were married 20 years, and in the 2 years since your divorce you've been in two relationships, one for 6 months, and the current one for 14 months? That only leaves 4 months spending time alone recovering and re-evaluating after the end of a 20 year marriage plus another relationship. How soon after the divorce did you start dating? I've read that for every 5 years of marriage, it typically takes 1 year for recovery before you're ready to invest in another relationship. The longer you've been in a marriage or relationship, the more restraint is called for to avoid getting into an unsound 'rebound' relationship.

"AFter 17 yrs of marriage, man is divorced after xw has affairs. HE is hurt and angry, plus xw steals money from the businesses they built together. He is financially and emotionally devastated. He decides to redirect his anger and finds a Higher Power in which to trust. He immerses himself into the businesses and his children. For 7 or 8 years all he does is work, kids, and sometimes golf....no women. He meets me and likes me. Finds himself dealing with all kinds of feelings and emotions that have been buried for years. HE is afraid to love and trust. We date and become close. Within the context of this relationship we help each other from our wounded pasts, all the while building a worthwhile friendship/relationship based on loyalty and honesty."

I can probably relate much easier to his POV (even though I'm a woman) in this situation. He has spent at least 1 year per every 5 years he was married alone and not dating. He is probably ready for committment again but may worry if YOU are since you were so recently divorced and have only spent a few months since your divorce NOT in a relationship. Maybe he's worried that he is just a rebound for you, from both your marriage and the man you dated just before him?

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"I have 3 teenagers and it will be 4 years before all my kids are off to college."

How are your children doing in the aftermath of the divorce and their family breaking up? How did they react to your dating so soon after divorcing their father?

And how is your XH doing? How has your divorcing him affected him?

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"I didn't use him as a free counsellor. I recognized my own issues and dealt with them on my own"

When?

In the 4 months since divorcing your XH that you were between relationships?

How long did you know the man you dated for 6 months before you started dating him? When did you meet him?

How long have you known the man you are dating now?


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cardsonly, did you see my question? Did you tell this bf about your affair in your marriage? Did your marriage end because of your affair?


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

Exposure 101


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After reading some of the posts in her previous threads here, it looks like her marriage ended because she couldn't get over her infatuation with the married OM she had an internet affair with.

She rarely even mentioned her BH in her first thread here, compared to her going on and on about her withdrawal feelings for the OM and how she was holding onto mementos from their affair behind her BH's back.

The relatively few references to her BH sounded very different than her description of him now, the sort of negative re-writing of history she posted when she posted about divorcing him...

Her first thread

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2103098&fpart=1

said things like this about her BH:

"My H is trying his hardest to help and understand, too. I think he is trying to downplay it in his mind, though. I'm glad for that if it causes him less pain, but it makes me need more outlets (like this). We have gone through the "emotional needs" survey and he is trying hard to work on himself."

"In my last phone call with my OM I told him I needed to talk to him because there is no one else to talk to. That must be how you're feeling, too, right now. I have the advantage that my H knows about the EA & has been willing to talk about it. He doesn't know the depth of it, but at least he has given me space when I've been really down."

"As I told my H & OM, I didn't even realize my needs weren't being met until OM was meeting them! I had pushed them aside for such a long time while raising kids, working, and running the household!"

"He's not as handsome as my H, and has more character flaws than I want to deal with. BUT, that didn't matter. You see, I FELT myself getting caught up in it but I couldn't stop it. I was addicted! It was a drug to me, a chemical reaction in my body when he contacted me and "fed" me the attention, etc. It was as if he controlled me, he signed on at will when I was at home or work. True, I had to be signed on to IM in order to receive his IM's, and I WILLINGLY was."

"I would say my H is very proud of himself as a father, but has felt inadequate as a H at times. Haven't we all felt that? I have felt that about myself. We've spent our energies raising fine children for the last 14 years! He is working hard on himself right now, but I sense he's not sure which things to work on first. We have a couple good books, and I will look for the one you recommended. We have done the EN worksheets, but now we need to act on them. We have taken small steps"

Apparently her BH didn't become too crazy to live with until she decided to divorce him...

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubb...in=135742&Number=1706439#Post1706439

hmmm... so when DID she MEET that guy she was dating for 6 months 'after' her divorce?




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So to bring us up to date:

You divorced your husband after your online affair with a married man, supposedly because you realized (um AFTER your husband had forgiven you and WAS putting in efforts for recovery) that your husband was crazy and not doing enough to meet your needs.

This is your description of the sort of efforts your BH was putting in to try to meet your EN's and to work on recovery (an example of what you deemed 'not enough':

"I apologized to my H again today for the pain & hurt I caused him. He is so forgiving, but almost too forgiving. He doesn't seem to want to go over it again. He keeps telling me to not worry about it, as he feels he has put me through a lot, too (not A's, other stresses & hardships). I am thankful that he is still trusting me."

"Sorry everyone, didn't mean to compare bad M's! Obviously something isn't right if there are A's, but I couldn't help but wonder if those people that are falling back in love, were actually "in love" not long before the A's. My H & I have been "drifting" through marriage since having kids. Too much revolving around them, "us" getting lost and disconnected from each other. It's been years since we've been really happy together. No horrible fighting or anything, just not working to make each other happy. OWL, like you said, I can see that since this has happened the talks that we've had have helped us to start that re-connecting. Just talking about our feelings as much as we've done lately is about 1000% improvement to what it was!"

"My H drew me a bath last night (just for me alone) with candles and music. I asked him to stay and talk with me. We talked about a lot of things-his stresses, too. Maybe that's why I'm feeling so overwhelmed. I so appreciate his forgiveness and his efforts. But now I see all the underlying issues that we have never addressed. I guess one step at a time."


Then you ended a 6 month relationship with another man (was he married too) because he supposedly had the same mental health issues your husband had?

Then you started another relationship with a man who owns restaurants, and are complaining that he doesn't spend enough time meeting your needs?

I certainly understand the importance of having your most important EN's met, but have you done an honest evaluation of your EN's to determine whether or not they ARE meetable by any one meremortal male? And you did realize when you started dating a man who owns more than one restaurant that the amount of time he could spend with you would be limited, right?

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wow yall are good (mel and meremortal)

i sure hope the OP's current BF doesn't get hurt again... too bad we can't warn him somehow


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Thanks for the "help"...

Obviously I came to MB in the first place in order to SAVE my marriage. I had no clue what had happened to me at that time...how or WHY I would become infatuated with chatting with a man 2000 miles away that I was never to meet. I never met him or talked to him again. That small little connection to the outside "emotional" world is what woke me up to what was really happening. It was an emotional connection that I had no idea I was starving for. I was clueless as to how I got to the state I was in.

What transpired after I stopped posting here, was months of counselling for both my xh and myself...together and individually. My xh was diagnosed as bi-p and anxiety disorders. It came out in counselling that he had been sexually abused as a pre-teen. If you can add all of that together or have any experience in these matters, you will know that a person dealing with all of that is totally "unavailable" for a marriage or much of anything or anyone else. He was able to function through life and his job if I raised the kids, took care of the finances, worked, and basically run everything. And, no, I wasn't the cause for his mental health issues. He has a family history of a variety of mental health disorders. It also came out that he was depressed in high school before I had ever even met him, and began taking anti-d's 2 years into our marriage.

So, my life and marriage gradually fell appart while I was not even realizing it. I knew things didn't seem right for several years, but when you're living and just trying to survive working and raising 3 small kids, sometimes you really don't know HOW wrong it all is. Plus, I made my bed and I would lie in it. I would observe other families and wonder if they lived like us. Life with my xh was a rollercoaster.....I can't even begin to describe it...... And, no, not re-writing history. I was numb to life and the reality I was living. I was becoming numb to my kids, and increasingly unhealthy as my emotional state suffered under all of it. I was finding no joy in life at all. I wasn't expecting it for myself, but I finally realized that my ability to mother to my kids was being compromised. I had kept it all together, and kept our life going.

I described all of this in my posts, and talked about the years of my trying to get us help, trying to seek more professional help for my xh.....and always being told to stay out of it. I did everything I could for my marriage and my xh, yet no one on this site could seem to see the severity of the issues.....but I understand, the focus here was on saving marriage not diagnosing mental health problems. The issues in my marriage were beyond anyone's help here, and not once did anyone suggest to me that he needed REAL help. There were/are serious mental health issues with my xh, and I was emotionally, mentally, and physically abandoned by him (my xh withheld SF for the last years of our marriage).

And as I said, following my posts here, I looked for more answers with couples and individual counselling. Issues of co-dependency and enabling played into it. My xh was ultimately the one who wanted to leave the marriage. He told me he never loved me, and he only wanted to stay married because I "took care" of everything (his words). He suggested separating but told me he didn't know when he'd have time to work on the marriage. He was the one that decided on divorce. Irrespective of our family and marriage needs, he decided to enroll in a schooling program requiring lots of financial resources and time......instead of trying to help himself and us.

My kids are thriving and happy, now that we are no longer co-dependents to his bi-p moods on a daily basis. Unless you have lived it, you have no idea......He loves them and I wish him the best and hope he can find happiness someday. But my chit-chatting with someone for 3 months had next to nothing to do with our marriage. And actually, that little event woke me up to the severity of the problems. Had we continued on in the dysfunctional relationship we were in, the cycle would have continued and my kids would have suffered greatly. My xh brought sexual abuse and a history of mental disorders into our marriage unbeknownst to me. This marriage was not saveable, and I had 3 phd's tell me they are amazed I kept it together for as long as I did.

I am trying to move on with my life and pick up the pieces. I have continued counselling and have read everything under the sun about relationships and mental health, and finally am beginning to feel like a person. And to whoever asked, the man I am currently dating is a man whose children attend the same parochial school as mine. We attend church together and we became friends when he coached my daughters' soccer team.

Yes, I agree that taking time for myself to heal is important. The relationship I am in has progressed at a snail's pace due to our work and family constraints. Usually we see each other only once a week, and never when we each have our respective kids.

I appreciate the genuine suggestions and only very recently began reading here again. But now I realize yet again just how judgmental and short-sighted so many people can be.




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"Obviously I came to MB in the first place in order to SAVE my marriage."

Actually, that is not at all the impression I got from reading your original thread. In your posts you went on and on about your feelings for the OM, you admitted you were secretly holding onto momentos from the affair, said how upset you were that the OM had chosen his wife over you. You barely mentioned your BH compared to how much you talked about the OM, and the online affair with him, how much you wanted to call or e-mail him.

What you did say about your husband was that he WAS forgiving and working on recovery BUT that you expected him to listen to more details of the affair, and you talking about your feelings for the OM, than he was comfortable with. The sort of (um adultery-enabling) 'support' and 'understanding' that you got from some of the posters was actually keeping you STUCK in obsession over the OM. You weren't kicking the addiction to the OM because you were staying so focused on the OM and how good he made you feel. The worst stage of withdrawal was being needlessly prolonged, preventing recovery. Your BH was 'neglecting' to help you to continue to obsess over the OM and he didn't want to listen to you describe how much you still craved the OM...



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"I had no clue what had happened to me at that time...how or WHY I would become infatuated with chatting with a man 2000 miles away that I was never to meet. I never met him or talked to him again. That small little connection to the outside "emotional" world is what woke me up to what was really happening. It was an emotional connection that I had no idea I was starving for. I was clueless as to how I got to the state I was in."

You did't sound clueless to me when you posted this:

"my H & I are most definitely NOT spending enough time together, but we do know that this is a problem. We are spending most of our time running kids to & from school, soccer, and other activities. We both recognize that we have failed in the area of prioritizing our M. Way back when I was in the Twins Club we were told to make sure you go on dates with your H. We didn't, as we had no one capable enough to watch our 3 babies. I will take both of your advice on this and make sure that we START by doing things together on a regular basis. We are almost to the point of leaving the kids home alone for small blocks of time - and we are so looking forward to that!"

or this:

"My focus HAS been my H and M and how to repair and restore it. We are taking it slowly. I am still putting a "face" on the "why's" of what I did. I am looking at the bigger picture of what my life was, and how my EA resulted from not just my H not meeting my EN's, but how I allowed myself to get lost in life and all its demands. I recognize that it is my responsibility to see when giving and giving and giving is detrimental to myself. I, no one else, am ultimately responsible for the care of myself. I took a mental "vacation" from my normal life during the span of the EA. Not just from my H, but from my kids, friends, church, everything. I pulled myself out of the ratrace and lived in a fantasy, somehow still managing to get through the day to day life. This experience has given me pause to re-evaluate not only my M, but also my whole life. It's quite unsettling, but I think ultimately it could be beneficial for me and my whole family."








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"What transpired after I stopped posting here, was months of counselling for both my xh and myself...together and individually. My xh was diagnosed as bi-p and anxiety disorders. It came out in counselling that he had been sexually abused as a pre-teen. If you can add all of that together or have any experience in these matters, you will know that a person dealing with all of that is totally "unavailable" for a marriage or much of anything or anyone else. He was able to function through life and his job if I raised the kids, took care of the finances, worked, and basically run everything. And, no, I wasn't the cause for his mental health issues. He has a family history of a variety of mental health disorders. It also came out that he was depressed in high school before I had ever even met him, and began taking anti-d's 2 years into our marriage."

Sounds like a great excuse to have an affair with a married man and destroy a marriage and family, doesn't it?

And YES I do have experience in these matters - I was married to a man with the same sort of problems for 25 years. (But in my case he was the one who destroyed our marriage and family because of his adultery.)

I have a daughter who (some of the) counselors say is bi-polar, and there is no doubt that she has anxiety issues. She had to take anti-D's for a while too and was even hospitalized in the adult psychiatric ward a couple of times for a few months. I pray that whomever marries her will not cheat on her and dump her because of her problems but will love her enough to stand by her as she heals. (BTW, her problems started because of her WF's adultery and divorce.)


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WHy else would I come to "Marriage Builders" if I didn't want to save my marriage? I was emotionally attached to someone I never met. I was scared and confused. I don't disagree with you regarding the withdrawl, etc. I was in such emotional pain and came to realize that the site and posting was counter-productive, which is why I had to move on to some professional help. My xh did have an immediate reaction to want to address the problems, but it was short-lived and he was truly unable to work on our relationship until he faced his own problems and demons on an individual. He has still not sought help for the childhood abuse. And, BTW, he filed for and was deemed disabled by the SSA after one application. I am not "making up" the severity of his problems.

What I did was not right, and I am not justifying it any way. My plea at that time was to find answers as to how and why I succumbed to such a thing. Now I know. This site was the first step in unveiling the iceberg.

I totally, TOTALLY agree with the principals this site endorses....meeting each others' needs is paramount to a successful relationship. If one person is "unavailable" for whatever reason, needs will not be met. And a person can slip into an emotional "coma" and become numb, believing they are fine without having needs met. But it will eventually surface and cause damage. For me, I knew I wasn't happy or satisfied in my marriage, but did not realize how damaging it was to really not have any needs met. Perhaps that is why I am analyzing about my current dating situation...I am learning that it is MY responsibility to have my needs met. Whether it is in the context of a marriage or a relationship, or simply on my own.

My story is probably much more about co-dependency than anything else and may have little value on this site, except as a warning to not ignore and stuff their needs.

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"So, my life and marriage gradually fell appart while I was not even realizing it. I knew things didn't seem right for several years, but when you're living and just trying to survive working and raising 3 small kids, sometimes you really don't know HOW wrong it all is. Plus, I made my bed and I would lie in it. I would observe other families and wonder if they lived like us. Life with my xh was a rollercoaster.....I can't even begin to describe it...... And, no, not re-writing history. I was numb to life and the reality I was living. I was becoming numb to my kids, and increasingly unhealthy as my emotional state suffered under all of it. I was finding no joy in life at all. I wasn't expecting it for myself, but I finally realized that my ability to mother to my kids was being compromised. I had kept it all together, and kept our life going."

Not rewriting history?
Than why does it sound so different from what you wrote before?

"As far as getting back to my M, it will be a lot of work for us. My H & I have been disconnected for a long time. We hadn't been at odds with each other, we had just drifted apart with the whole raising the kids & life thing. We will have to find our way back to each other. The attention, the compliments, the being desired by another man is what totally reeled me in."

"Today, my H & I did errands together which was nice. My kids, (11, 11, & 13) are finally able to stay at home alone for awhile. We need to take advantage of that to do things together.
Winbin, like you,my OM & me KNEW we would NEVER leave our families to be together. We acknowledged that to each other on several occasions."

"Mary, I have to admit that I liked the flirting involved with my EA. Being desired by someone else is a wonderful feeling. He constantly told me he was "turned on" just by talking to me. who wouldn't melt? I would have to say my H & my relationship was a similar companionship-type relationship like yours. We were way past "desiring" each other. So that is another area we will have to work on. I have discovered so much about my needs in the last few weeks. I think so many of my needs were not being met, but I didn't realize it. Then when someone did meet them, then STOPPED meeting them - WOW withdrawal in a big way!"

"From what I've read on this site & from the posts of these experienced helpers, it sounds like the road to recovery starts with being honest with your H. I don't know if that's possible for you or not. I have to say that I know what I've done is wrong, but I have not felt tremendous guilt (yet). Maybe because I am too wrapped up in withdrawal and concentrating on trying to have NC. Maybe because my H does know about the EA. He doesn't know that I continued contact after he discovered. He doesn't know exactly when it started, and he certainly doesn't know the depth of my feelings for OM. He has been wonderfully supportive, and has taken some responsibility for the bad shape of our M."

"I would say my H is very proud of himself as a father, but has felt inadequate as a H at times. Haven't we all felt that? I have felt that about myself. We've spent our energies raising fine children for the last 14 years! He is working hard on himself right now, but I sense he's not sure which things to work on first. We have a couple good books, and I will look for the one you recommended. We have done the EN worksheets, but now we need to act on them. We have taken small steps."

"It gives me hope to hear that others doubted their love but later had the feelings coming back. I do love my H & I have gained some respect for him by the way he has been handling this whole situation. He has tried hard to be supportive of me and has tried to hear about my feelings. I guess that's a beginning and I should realize the importance of that. So much time has passed when we were disconnected, maybe that's why it's hard for me to imagine us closing the gap. I am trying though."

"my H & I are most definitely NOT spending enough time together, but we do know that this is a problem. We are spending most of our time running kids to & from school, soccer, and other activities. We both recognize that we have failed in the area of prioritizing our M. Way back when I was in the Twins Club we were told to make sure you go on dates with your H. We didn't, as we had no one capable enough to watch our 3 babies. I will take both of your advice on this and make sure that we START by doing things together on a regular basis. We are almost to the point of leaving the kids home alone for small blocks of time - and we are so looking forward to that!"

All that didn't exaclty sound as if you ALONE were shouldering all the parenting responsibilities minus your BH doing his share.

"WE are spending most of OUR time running kids to & from school, soccer, and other activities."

And it certainly didn't sound as if the "ability to mother [your] kids was being compromised"; it was more like the relationship between you and your husband was being compromised by so much focus on parenting instead.



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Mere...

I am sorry for your pain. Truly. But my xh was NOT interested in saving our marriage. That's the bottom line. I tried for the previous 10-12 YEARS to get him to doctors to address the problems, but he denied all the problems, always telling me things would get better if he had the "right" job. I did not even KNOW about the sexual abuse until we were in a joint counselling session and the dr was asking some basic family history questions.

If both parties don't want to fix it, it won't be fixed. For 2 years I told him that we need to address our marriage and he never had time "right now". He told me to tell my feelings to someone else.

I did NOT want my children to view our marriage as being what it is supposed to be. Truly, my daughters would never want to be married based on what they observed. We were ALL suffering in the dysfunction, and no amount of me "helping" someone to heal and recover would change that if he was not WILLING to be a part of the solution. "Standing by" someone and allowing the chaos to continue is not "helping" them in any way.

Meremortal, most truly bi-polar people are UNABLE to have healthy interpersonal relationships...and I have read that over 90% of marriages with a bi-polar partner fail. Of course you will say that I used that statistic to justify my behavior. On the contrary....my xh continually would attempt to diagnose his disorders over the years and it wasn't until AFTER we had divorced that he obtained a professional psychiatric diagnosis. None of this matters, and I am not interested in debating what ultimately transpired with our marriage, but I know that our marriage was unsalvageable and by dissolving it I was saved, my kids have a better chance at having healthy relationships, and my xh finally had the impetus to at least acknowledge he has some issues.

Everyone on this site is, or has experienced pain, but the end result is that we all must find a way to heal and move forward. None of us has lived each others' pain, and meremortal, just as you point out my being "supported" in my EA by posting about it....don't you think that BH's and BW's keep "stuck" in their recovery by continually being angry and projecting on to everyone else? By posting and writing for years on end? By criticizing and judging everyone else? Just a thought.

Whether your marriage remains intact or not, every person must face themselves and recognize their role in the relationship. If I had continued to "stand by" a person that had no desire to repair our marriage or find solutions to his problems, my entire family of 5 would still be suffering. Sometimes it's necessary to let go.














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I have a question, something that just doesn't add up about your explanations and choices IMHO:

Why do you think it's not possible for your BH to get the help he needs while still being married to you, that HIS problems and issues can only be addressed effectively if you're divorced...

but you apparently believe your issues and those with your current boyfriend don't warrant you spending some time ALONE, not in a relationship with a man? Since your divorce you've only spent 4 months that you were not involved with another man?
How is that giving yourself enough time to work through your own issues, and to recover from the break up of a 20 year long marriage, before starting another relationship?!?

Also, THE common denominator in all your postings seems to be that since you've had a taste of the chemical high from adultery, your expectations are that you will not even temporarily settle for less than that high from a man/relationship. The cure to your addiction is not to demand the next fix ASAP or else. You will need to go through withdrawals and re-establish more realistic expectations. An addict's craving is NOT the same as a valid EN. Has it never occurred to you that NO mere mortal male can fill your EN's if what you expect is the illicit excitement and high of adultery?
No long-term relationship can really compete with that in the same way sobriety can't compete with the addict's love affair with a crack pipe.

If you don't give up your unealistic expectations then you may be on the way to becoming a serial adulterer, somebody who can't feel 'satisifed' unless you are constantly surfing the thrill of 'new love'.

Until you work this out with yourself perhaps it would be best for you to not get involved with anyone.

THE major complaint you had about your BH when you first came here is that he didn't want to listen to you go on and on about how good the OM made you FEEEEEEEEL, about how much the affair meant to you, about how addicted you were to the OM. That was NOT a valid complaint about your BH failing to meet an EN he was responsible for! It is NOT the responsibility of those who love an addict to provide them with just as strong and instant of a high as the addiction did - or else they supposedly are failing the addict in some way! YOU have to go through the withdrawals form YOUR addiction, nobody can do that for you. It was not POSSIBLE for your BH to do such a good job at meeting your EN's that your craving for the OM would have simply vanished (while you secretly kept your affair souvenirs, continued to hang out online where the OM could find you, and chatted with 'supporters' who 'understood' your cravings)!!!

You would have gotten over the OM a lot quicker and easier if you had told your BH the whole truth (NO NOT about how strong your feeeeeelings were for the OM) the truth about how you were holding onto suvenirs from the affair, how you kept copies of the e-mails you told BH you had deleted, how you still hoped OM would show up at the gaming site you still went to, how you were plotting to call OM when his wife was at work, how you had some contact with the OM after you todl your husband it was over.

There's a reason AA meetings don't involve a lot of talk about the joys of drinking... Your withdrawal was stalled by your obsessing over the OM, your continued dishonesty with your BH, your cruel desire to make your BH listen to you gush about how the OM made you feel, and your failure to destroy all links to the OM. My mother used to have a drinking problem, she didn't get over it by describing to us how great it felt to be drunk.

Hey, I'm not saying your BH is perfect or that I doubt your BH may have some serious issues. But that in no way excuses adultery.

BTW, you claim your BH divorced you.
Was it because he found out about your continued dishonesty?
Or did he become discouraged because your expectations of him were impossible?
Or did you make him listen to you talk about the OM until he finally had enough?




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"If both parties don't want to fix it, it won't be fixed. For 2 years I told him that we need to address our marriage and he never had time "right now". He told me to tell my feelings to someone else."

It was inappropriate and harmful to your BH and your marriage to expect him to want to listen to your feelings about the OM.



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