I'm not sure that I'll be able to post as often in the new position...we'll have to see how that works out.

With the way things are going at this point, it's probably a good timing thing for me to be leaving this forum anyway. I've got a few friends that I'll miss, but overall I think it would likely make a lot of others happier to see me gone.

Well, I hope you can drop by every once in awhile to let us know how you are doing.

I don't think I'll be posting as much anymore as it just gets frustrating. This is one of the reasons why Cards and ItWon'tRainAlways and I have taken our conversations off of this board for the most part.

You had a good post on that thread....it was right on! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Owl, I posted to you on Mimi's thread, hope you noticed it.
You are SUCH A GOOD counselor; you don't like me to use the word WISE but you do have very good judgment and give very good advice. I agree with 2BNormal and hope you keep posting.

I was on this very thread that Cardsonly started when you gave your first post. 1282 posts ago.

I am so happy for you and your wife, that your marriage is healed and you are happy and content and have rekindled the love you have always had for one another.
(Sometimes in life we get side-tracked but PRAISE GOD that we can get back on the right road again and PRAISE GOD for forgiving spouses.)

I have a book called: "God Allows U-Turns." And HE DOES.~smile~

Below is Owl's very first post:

Owl
Member


Reged: 01/20/05
Posts: 1282

Re: HELP! WITHDRAWING FROM PAINFUL ONLINE AFFAIR
#1268293 - 03/08/05 12:29 AM
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Well, I just got done reading this thread, and wanted to post what I hope is a "bit of hope" to all of you ladies dealing with this.

I'm the BS in my situation...my wife had an online emotional affair that I discovered about 10 months ago.

It started out with online gaming. We'd been married 17 years, and she was feeling a lot like you were Cards. She felt as though I didn't love her (not true, but it was a matter of not properly meeting each other's EN's). She was home all the time alone during the day, and she met someone in game that she began to spend a lot of time with.

They would make arrangements to play together a lot, and finally began conversations via IM's, end eventually got to the point where they were calling each other fairly regularly.

They had been to the point where they were convinced that they were in love with each other for about two months when I finally got the proof of the affair in a chat log conversation that I managed to capture on her computer. Needless to say, reading that log hurt me more than anything you can possibly imagine.

When I confronted her about it, the two of them IMMEDIATELY made plans for her to go live with him...although they had never once met face to face! (she had ONE digital picture of him...he had a few of her)Long story short, she moved out of the house for about a week before she was supposed to fly away, but ended up staying. It took another month and a half before the NC FINALLY stuck. It was always something...every week, they'd both agree to NC...and every week, one of them would break it.

I know that they've not had contact now for 8 months. But here's the hope I promised you... You see, once my wife made it through the withdrawl, and completely ended contact with the OM, our marriage HAS gotten much better. We didn't know about this site then, but I've used it and others to help me get a handle on what we've gone through. Marriage counseling is a MUST, IMO, if you're going to recover from this.

She's glad she stayed home...glad she didn't leave, glad that our love was strong enough to survive this test. And I honestly think that you'll end up feeling the same way, Cards. Just hang in there, don't give up on your husband. It sounds as though he loves you dearly. And realize that right now, you're hard pressed to seperate your feelings to KNOW what you're feeling for him.

Please, get to counseling ASAP. Find someone who understands infidelity,and can help the both of you find out what EN's you had that weren't being met. And find ways to fix them.

A great book that helped my wife and I a lot..."20 (Surprisingly Simple) Rules and Tools For a Great Marriage by Dr Steve Stephens". Take a look at that. My wife and I were astounded at how many of those things we started doing on our own after we began re-building our marriage. And at how doing a lot of those might have prevented the affair in the first place.

Hang in there...dont give up, don't break down and contact the OM. He's not what you need in your life. You've already got a man willing to meet all your needs. All you've got to do is to get back to the point where you'll let him.

Hi everyone,
I was just popping in to see how everyone is doing. I'm doing ok. It's sure not easy. Pretty much been the worst year of my life, I'm hoping things will get better. My dad is also dying of cirrhosis, and my brother had extremely preemie twins born, was touch and go. Just trying to make it day to day.

Dating is interesting. Though I have great trust issues still, trying to work through. Very slowly.

Anways, take care all.

Owl I think you should stay =)

--win

Win - It's been a VERY long time since we heard from you!

I'm sorry the year didn't get much better for you. Are you and your H not together anymore? How are your kids?

Fill us in....

My H and I are getting divorced, yes. He's had a gf for about 6 mo. but they recently split up. He was about to introduce her to the kids, when things went bad i guess. We are trying to finalize things at the moment. He is fighting me on the child support.

My kids seem to be doing well. We try to be amicable for them and do everything for the good of them. We don't talk negative in front of them. I still feel bad for the kids but am trying to do what I can to give them 2 loving parents. But its hard.

--win

I'm sorry for how hard all of this has been. It sounds like you are doing the best you can to protect your kids from the pain.

Keep in touch....

Thanks, hope you are all doing well. I'm still in therapy so that is helping. I find I have a lot of trust issues, and I'm terrified to get serious with anyone. Though, it's of course, still too soon. Maybe in a few years. I have been seeing someone, but its not too serious. He's nice, its fun.

take care
win

Win-

Glad to hear that you're dealing things. It's going to take time for either of you to recover personally from what all you both went through is my guess.

I won't be posting here much, if at all anymore. I was asked by someone to come back to help someone with a specific issue that is very much like what I went through, but honestly feel like there's little use (or desire) for my posts on this forum any longer.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Owl -
Your posts are VERY helpful on this forum! Your way of responding...."especially" to us FWWs is very helpful and much needed on this forum!

Your posts have personally affected my recovery in a very positive way...I hope you'll stick around! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

p.s.
Owl - Read again the posts that Cards, IWRA and I posted on this thread on 2/10 and you will see HOW you have helped tremendously!

Cardsonly it might help us get some clarity and understanding if you could explain some of your former postings for us, how they canbe reconciled with what you've posted more recently.

Cardsonly you posted this in March of 2005:

"I did crazy things while in the "fog" to immerse myself into the A, anything to make if feel more real (having his "scent", seeing his weather 2000 miles away, buying a webcam, etc)."

You seemed to get it that those activities led to you feeling more immeresed in the affair.

But then you posted many times in your thead that you were holding onto things that reminded you of the OM, including an eyeglass case that you had stored a sample of his cologne in so it smelled like him. You said throughout the day you'd get a reminder of him because of that scent.

Yet you blamed your BH for not making you feel better, not replacing the good feelings the OM gave you, not listening to you talk about how good it felt for you to have OM's attention, and how awful it was for you to go without those feelings.

You never gave your BH a fighting chance as long as you continued to romanticize and embrace memories of the OM.

You MAJORLY exaggerated and dwelled on the intensity, feelings, and meaning of the OM/affair. You wanted your BH to realize the IMPORTANCE of the OM to you. It is not a recovery step to validate the adultery in any way, to pretend that it was real love, anything more than a cheap thrill.

I do understand why some WS's do this. They desperately want to avoid repsonsibility for what they've done. It helps if they pretend that SURELY this OP, this affair, was something really intense, and real, and important... because the alternative is facing the fact that they did something very cruel and destructive for NOTHING.

It was nothing special.
He was just some creep who cheated on his wife.
And then he chose his wife instead of you.

You wanted to pretend to your husband that this OM was better to you than he was, that your BH was failing to measure up to this OM, not making you feel as good as this OM made you feel.

That's not recovery.

Excellent post MM...AGREE!!!

Mrs. W

uhhhh...haven't followed cardsonly, but maybe an answer to your question is "over two years that have passed since the last post on this thread???"

Check out her thread in the dating forum.

OWL, I totally agree with this advice you gave in this thread (to a different poster I think - not to cardsonly but it applies to her too since she posted so much about the OM, the feelings he gave her, how she kept reminders of him, and how she wanted her BH to meet 'her EN' of wanting to tell her BH more than he wanted to listen to about the OM:

"I'm sorry if my 2x4 seemed a bit harsh, and I do hope you realize it's not a personal attack on you. I simply wanted you to understand something that I've tried to make clear to you for a while now... THE LONGER YOU CARE AT ALL ABOUT THE OM IN ANY FASHION OR FORM, THE MORE LIKELY YOU ARE TO DO PERMENANT DAMAGE TO YOUR MARRIAGE. It doesn't matter if it's positive or negative...you have got to let him go COMPLETELY.

If you don't, at some point it's entirely possible that your H will simply 'give up'. NO ONE can fight forever...we all get tired and weary at some point."

IMHO cardsonly destroyed her marriage with her obsession over the OM.

She is now trying desperately to replace that chemical high she got from the OM with rebound relationships.

When she finally goes through withdrawal and/or bottoms out (the way addictions eventually end) she will be able to restore her marriage to her BH (if he's still waiting in something like a Plan B) or to start a healthy relationship with a man in her future.

She says it's been two years since her divorce but she has been dating all that time so she has not put in 2 years towards the advised 1 year of recovery for every 5 years of marriage before starting a new relationship. She was so obsessing over the OM during the last part of her marriage, and has been dating new men ever since, that she hasn't really given her BH a chance.

We have no idea whether her BH is still open to reconciliation, waiting for his WW to get off her roller coaster and defog.

And this can't possibly be good for her teen children - their WM destroyed their family and has since gotten involved with two new OM in such a short time!

(posted by owl):

"If your H had posted here...we would have ALL had to rely on him telling the truth of your situation. You've already indicated he probably wouldn't have.

So we would have provided advice based on whatever lie he told in the first place.

All we can provide advice on is what's in front of us. Had he come here and not stated that you were open to reconciliation...I would have had no input one way or another on whether or not your marriage was recoverable or not."

So in other words you would have given whatever assistance he asked for to continue his adultery? You would have simply assumed he was telling the truth without questioning it?


"Let me ask you this...if a BS came to this site telling us that they were divorced from their WS...would you recommend to them that they try to reconcile with their WS as the first course of action? If they said nothing about wanting to reconcile with that WS?"

If it was a long-term marriage with children, the XS wasn't already married to somebody else, and they hadn't had a chance to try MB principles before the divorce - YES.

However, a BS getting a divorce because their XS cheated on them is not equivalent with a WS getting a divorce because their BS can't possibly satisfy their craving for the chemical high of adultery ASAP so they don't have to go through withdrawal symptoms.

A BS has moral and legal grounds for divorce, a WS who just wants their next fix from their addiction may have legal grounds for divorce (selfishness IS a good enough excuse in 'no-fault' states) but not moral grounds.

In this old thread, cardsonly (her posting name is a private joke between her and OM#1) praised her BH for all the effort he was putting in for recovery, and for being a very involved parent (she actually blamed her affair on them BOTH being too involved in parenting that they neglected the marriage relationship).

But then in her new thread she villifies her BXH, claiming she shouldered all the parenting responsibilities alone, that he refused to meet her EN's, and that he is severely mentally ill...

(Also she claims she had to get out of the marriage because staying with her husband was so damaging for her...because of his mental health issues...but she left him for OM#2 who she says has the SAME mental health issues... I'm wondering how that justification can be reconciled then.)

So far OM#3 hasn't been diagnosed with severe mental illness...