Point well taken, and after discussing with my wife, I am not going to take them. I don't really feel I am depressed per se anyway, just at times I get down and allow it to spiral down. Of which like I have always told my kids you choose your attitude. Can't remember where I had heard it before, but it was on a tape we use to listen to, "Your attitude determines your altitude". So I know I have to choose to have a better attitude.


you know we really were a mismatch, restated we really are a mismatch. That is why I was having to throw my morals out. She had such a grip on me, still does to some degree or at least it seems that way.

So true, I was allowing myself, or I should say choosing to throw away everything I ever knew and become everything I thought the OW wanted. Guess that turned out to be wrong too.


yes, and I can remember the exact moment.


Yes, I do see that. I did exactly that. I had to focus on everything bad about my wife. Didn't realize at the time it was to justify, but I have since. Now to change that perspective back. It's happening, but everytime there is a setback ah the justifications come right back.


again exactly. The sarcasim though really is an issue. But I did go to the point of saying I never shoudl have married her it was all wrong from the beginning.


Yes, I did do this.


You are right. Sadly I have to admit I must still be stuck here because I continue to think of her in a positive light. Well mostly. My wife has pointed out how the OW used me, but it is difficult to accept that. Because then I have to admit not only was the A stupid, but I was Stupid and could not see it for what it was. Stupid is as stupid does. Hum where have I heard that before.

Here is something I said about my wife she is controlling. How can I say that, and then let this OW have so much controll over me. When will I get fed up with that. I say that, because we would establish NC and then she would contact me and I could not stay away. Why was I not strong enough to choose differently? Because in my mind she was perfect, but now I see what you are saying I had to see her that way to justify my wrong choices. Although I recognized I did have to see my wife in a bad way for justifying, I had not looked at it that I had to see her as perfect to further justify.

I had not looked at it from this viewpoint. I was only looking at it from the justified perspective.



We actually did discuss the impact, but really were not in touch with reallity at all. Somehow thought they would be ok with it, might take a while but they would get over it. WRONG WRONG AND WRONG. Once they knew, they were not ok with it. You said it well, when you stated I nuked our family. That is exactly what I did.


yes I do remember, thanks for helping me to go there. We use to have all of those sneek around times keeping it from our parents then though. Course now being a parent, we probably were not as sneaky as we thought we were. But I remember makes me laugh a bit.


use to joke about that, why buy the outfit really.


Actually the roles are reversed on this one. Well accept the sick part. If she is sick and I try to help we will both be sick. Well I would take care of her but now in the real bad times get the picture.


Yes, she is standing with me in the worst of times. Oh and I wrecked hers.



thanks for the dose of reality. Especially the OW gone part. And thanks for bringing the memories to me.

I do need to put my taker in a box and give. This is where my insticts are lagging. I think of things well after the moment has passed. Didn't use to be that way.

Finally SB thanks for taking of your valuable time to post to us. I do have another qauestion, and welcome any further insight you could provide.

In our EN we both have conversation. We are on such different levels with this though. Meaning I can only listen intently for so long as she complains about work. I don't like to talk about work at all. I have always wanted to leave work at work. So I gave her an I would love it if she would spend 10-20 miutes a day updating herself on the news, be it weather, sports, financial etc. That was about 3 weeks ago, she has yet to do any of that. So conversation for me with her is still difficult at best. The other part of disconect with our conversation is she wants to give every detail of her day. I just want to hear about her day in general. Don't know how to get through this barrier. And to me this seems to be the largest area of struggle, how are we going to really connect if we don't find things to talk about. All things just seem to flow from our ability to connect thus the concern.

Not,

Your question on conversation just happens to be just up my alley.

I don't know if you have read anything about me at all. My expertise? Human communications.

Lucky you.........


Hah!

I have a thread on body language and memory somewhere here, that I will hunt down and bump up for you and your wife. I post to her off and on. Somehow the two of you touch me, and I just feel like you two will make it through this. There is love underneath all of this craziness, and that is really what the foundation needs. The rest - you will learn. You will make it back.

Read the part in the thread on body language about the rules of talking about your affair. One of the problems my H and I had was that we would wear out, well, *I* would wear HIM out with marathon talks. We really didn't get much done and I would end up a mess. I didn't listen well, and he didn't talk well, and we just failed to get ahead in how we connected.

So I made up these rules for how I was going to talk to him. Limited amount of time, taking turns, etc. We stuck to them religiously to begin with. It was hard for me! But it ended up making it so much easier on the both of us. Read the thread, and try some of the ideas in it that seem to make sense for your situation. Maybe not everything will work for you, but some of the things might help in getting your conversations better on track.

About the issue of getting together on topics? My H basically had two things to talk about - architecture and rock music. Now, these two topics are quite fascinating I'm sure. But limited to these two topics night after night, and not being an architect, builder, contractor, drafter, musician, rock-music lover, or in any related field whatsoever, well...........you can imagine that I had basically

nothing to offer

but a worn-out ear!

And my H could go on for hours, as apparently he must spend all of his time at work researching these two fields and not actually working.

How do men do that, by the way????

I digress.

So I asked him one night before we went out if we could try one evening not talking about those things. He was shocked. I told him that it was hard for me, because I felt that I was good at listening, but not so much good at filling his need for back-and-forth interaction, and in return, felt left out of good conversation.

He asked me what else there was to talk about! :crosseyedcrazy:


That approach obviously did not work.


So your resident "expert" failed. The conversation that night, unchanged.



New approach.

We had one of our talk sessions. I went first. I expressed to him that I had a need for interactive conversation on a variety of topics. Some of the topics included philosophies of the origin of the universe; mentation and theory of thought, language, and cognition; western vs. eastern approaches to philosophy and the relationship to science and research; waveform theory and the high incidence of waveforms in the world around us; the multitude of simple beauty in forms of everyday life and its possible relationship to art and architecture and extensions of that thought into folk craftsmanship.........and so on.

See, I took his "what else is there to talk about" question and gave him a list of very specific things I wanted to talk about. He was happy to learn that I had similar thoughts and ideas that he had in some areas, and quite diverse and different ideas in others, and this gave him pause.

He said, gee - I guess you have some ideas that we haven't talked about, and now I'm curious. What's this waveform thing you're talking about???

And I said, "MY 20 MINUTES ARE NOT UP YET."

We laughed.


Because we used the rules, we were able to get past the usual inability we had before and get right down to business. We listen and allow for possible new ideas from the other person. When we used the rules at first, it was strange and akward. One of the hardest things to learn was that the other person was "new", and that we had to be quiet and listen all the way through.


As for her going on and on about the work thing, use the rules to talk about the problem. Because it is really something that bothers you, the rules for talking about problems work for just this type of thing. You only talk about the one issue, you only discuss the problem for a defined amount of time, and then you are done and must spend time thinking about it AND NOT TALKING ABOUT IT. Read the thread, and if you have questions, let me know.

I think if you talk to her in the way I suggest in that thread, you will definitely find that this problem, and most others, can be worked through with a lot less stress.

SB

Thanks, Jean.

I learned a lot about self-betrayal in a book on self-deception called

Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box.

The basic concept in that book can be applied in nearly every walk of life, and all relationships.

A life-changing book, by the Arbinger Institute. A philosophy book, but written for folks like me who don't "get" philosophy. I "got" this, because it is written sort of like a story. If you read Who Moved My Cheese, it's kinda sorta in a way kinda written like a story like that sorta kinda but not exactly.

Sort of.

SB

Not,

I also wanted to say that I am glad that what I posted to you helped you in some way.

Your question about your wife being sarcastic is important.

Yes, it is something that the two of you will need to address.

What you need to remember is that the marriage was vulnerable to an affair for many reasons. One is that there were weaknesses between the two of you that were not addressed appropriately.

If the sarcasm bothers you, then the two of you need to work together to help her reduce it. There is a solution the two of you can find to make this happen. As you live together, many things will come up that bother one or the other of you, and as a team your reaction needs to be to look at these things not as though the other person is the enemy, but as someone you love and you need to work on a solution to a problem with - together.

You talked about attitude. Life is about 10% what happens to you, and 90% the attitude you face it with.

And by the way, your changes since you first started posting and now????

Wow. You are showing that your mind is working in the right direction. That you want and need change, and that you want and need your marriage.

Good things. I see your focus moving toward your wife. Stay strong, because it is very hard for a BS to trust and accept that change early on in recovery. She will need your TLC.

SB

Before getting into a response, I need to let you all know something here. I was not going to post it, but someone from MB suggested I post this here so you all would be able to have info as you advise. So here goes.

Last week Tuesday I believe, my wife and I were not doing well, and I was having one of my pitty parties. I could not get OW out of my head. Or I should say I didn't do anything to stop the thoughts. Well, I ended up googling her name hoping I might find a picture. Well, I didn't find a picture, did go into one site but not her. I have yet to share with my wife.

I am going home for lunch today, and am going to share as my MB friend has suggested I do. My orgingal thought was well, I didn't break contact, yea it was stupid, but I didn't get the fix I was looking for. So no need to tell my wife. You no kinda like no harm no foul. But then everything I am learning here was telling me I have to tell her. So it has been a real struggle to come clean with this. I asked my MB friend, even though I was confident of what his answer would be and of course he told me to come clean. But also told me why I need too. So now I get it clearly as to why I need to inform her.

We are planning on going out of town this weekend, and I know she has high expectations of which are usually way higher than I live up to. But that was not my point, I feel this is going to set her back big time, and we seem to be doing so much better in the last week.

Anyways wanted to let you know that, so that you are informed as you advise me. And of course my MB friend told me to.

Now to respond to your posts....

BTW first, I do think I/we are lucky to have you helping us. Your insight to this communication thing has been helpful. First off I had read some of this before, but thought it was geared towards the wife, had not read far enough to see there was more. When I read this the first time, it was just shortly into the time of my wife and I having our first date again. I actually copied and pasted the info to give to her. I had not read all of it, but I had read enough to know she had read it. At dinner she reached across and held my hand. And I liked it.

I can relate to the whole avoiding touch all the time wanting to be touched. What a crazy game I know. But it was so true still is. Just sends the message of care, I am not one so much big on word of I Love You as much as that tender touch communicates it to me. So she could tell me all she wanted I didn't mean anything, because in my mind it was well you don't care enough to hold me to touch me. Because during that time all I could see is how hurt I was. I know that does not sound good, but it is fact that is all I could see or feel.

This is an area that is getting better with our conseling. We started our feedback this week, and I was finally able to communicate some of this.


I had read something about this as well that you had writtent to WMF. I suggested the whole time limit discussion to the A, and actually scheduling it. That has not worked so well, as she struggles applying this. That being said, we really have not talked much about it lately. So that is good. I actually think the last time it was me, and I just needed to get some stuff out. Kinda like you had said in the times of silence I will fill in the gaps. I do take a while to process and respond. I found myself afterwards thinking SB is right, I can talk openly about it, but not when pressured for it, because then I don't speak well.


Well, at least I can see we are not the only ones that face that converastion challenge. I am going to ask her what she would like to talk about outside of work, what interests does she have. Maybe like you, we can find a thread that ties our interests together.


I am more than happy to have the rules in place. The question, is how do I communicate the importance of this to my wife without LB her.

BTW - One of my love it ifs from our first session was that my wife read this your body language thread again. I think she has read it again, but it is something we should probably read daily til WE GET IT.

I know Jennifer is helping her with this, and I know the reading and posting is having an effect. And yes, I am no longer seeing her as the enemy, and for so much of this time that is exactly how I saw her. Even though I knew she was actually saving me from myself as well as trying to save the marriage.


Thanks for the encouragement. I wish I would not have done that stupid stuff last week, and worse probably was not telling her right away. Still learning.

My Dh has this wonderful theory in his head that omitting information is not lying . Only if he using untrue words does it qualify as lying.
He also shared info with me about the A slowly and carefully so to cause me less pain (his words).

Now here is how I see it.

I was not there and do not follow him around everyday. So I have no idea what he did or does. What I do have with me all the time is my brain. And you know what, it has a wild imagination so I imagine ALL possibilities of what he did and continues to do.

So in the absence of actual information from him I am free to imagine and belive all what I want without restrictions.

When he gives me info (painful or otherwise) it allows my mind to establish boundaries and evaluate what is real vs what I think MAY be real.

So IMHO there is no substitute for RADICAL honesty in a relationship. No matter how much pain the info caused me and how much temporary set back it caused in the long run I know it helped ( and continues to help) our relationship everytime he gives me complete disclosure.

Not,

You have turned a corner.

There was a particular phrase in your post that I see so many times from "former" wayward spouses as they move out of the fog and into the light.

You said,

your wife is "saving you from yourself".


That fog? I see you peeking out.



You can have talks without LB's. Here's how.

Use the timer. Set it.

Write down your points - and then, read them out loud to yourself. Listen to how you are talking, and ask yourself, "how did that sound?". Is it loving?

Criticism can come from love or from anger. Everyone knows how it sounds when it comes from anger. Everyone knows how it sounds when it comes from anger, surrounded by BS, and put inside a cupcake. It still hurts.

When it comes from love, however, it no longer sounds like criticism.

Your desire for other ideas to talk about. Here's kind of how my talk went.



Hey, you know this is one of our "talks", right?

yeah, is this bad? did i do something?

Why do you ask? Is there a dent in my MUSTANG???? lol No, of course it isn't bad! I was just thinking about stuff, and something came to my mind. You know that EN questionnaire thing we did?

yeah. do i have to do it again? you know it was really hard the first time. I don't know.....

No, I don't want to do it again. We just did it a little while ago. I was just thinking that since we both ranked the conversation stuff up there sort of high?

yeah, we did, that's right

Well, I was thinking that we needed to talk about what we needed to talk about. Like, I know that I have said before in rather unkind terms that you "always" talk about music and architecture. I need to apologize, because I really don't mean to say it that way. I think that you know more about rock music than anyone else I know, and for sure if I ever get on Millionaire, you are my lifeline for the categories of music and movies. You know I cannot answer those questions!

that's the truth. you also cannot do "name that tune". I'm not sure they let the tone deaf audition for it! lol So, what is the talk about? You want to talk about talking? I mean, I don't know what you want to talk about....I don't know what you are interested in...what to say.

long pause and here is where he gave me the best part

sometimes I talk so much about music and architecture because that is what I KNOW MOST ABOUT. I think you are smarter than I am, and I am afraid to talk about other things with you. I'm afraid that I don't know what to talk about, or that we will talk about something I won't know about at all, or about something I'm not interested in at all. I mean, you know too much stuff.

I sat there a bit. Stunned.


I asked him to tell me more. He said he felt lost, disconnected, at a loss for a topic to connect with me on. Didn't know anymore what I was thinking about. So he stuck to familiar ground.

That was when we decided to go into the "lists" of possible topics. His was brainstormed, mine was prepared (I did it for the "talk"). Believe me, his was very interesting, and you saw my list of possibles above. He hit on the waveform idea, and we had that conversation. Actually, we have talked about that one several times, because since then it has been something we have noticed and has become a sort of thread in our conversations and observations on dates and travels.

The talk was in no way confrontational, not critical, and certainly not a lovebuster at all. Didn't have to be.

We came to each other in love.

And left lots closer, with more to talk about.

SB

SB- you know I thought I had turned a corner too. But I am not at all sure I really have.

First on the whole conversation thing tried that on Wednesday night before we left. After giving feedback on EN number two. I am not even sure how we went into the conversation piece but it is my #3 EN and her #5. Well in a nutshell she said she does not have time to watch the news for the 10 - 15 minutes I asked or the 10 -15 minutes learning about football. That was one of my love it ifs. Well I stressed to her how important I thought conversation was, and if we could not talk then I was not sure how we could ulitmately connect. I asked her what she was interested in and all she said was sewing, but that I don't like all of her sewing stuff spread out all over. That is true, I don't mind her sewing at all, she just has always been good at starting a project but not finishing thus the stuff being every where.

I was not asking about what she was interested in for that type of response anyways, it was to find something we could talk about. I could not stop this conversation fast enough. I apologized for not sticking to the rules, and we have not went back to this topic.

We have an appointment with Jennifer Thursday. I did not want to attempt any feedback seesion while we were gone, since the next feedback will be on meeting the need for conversation.

Now I need to give an update both personal and on our time away.

next post.

So here is a general update on the time away. It was ok. Nothing earth shattering. I know our moving forward continues to be delayed by me. I will explain what has happened to me as best I can, and welcome thoughts on it being normal, or what the h@ll to do.

Well, Thursday on our way out of town it occured to me I had not thought about OW that day. It bothered me that I even had to have the thought of hey I have not thought about it, because that meant then I did. That might not make sense to you all. I seem to be having a more difficult time than most here with fitting the time lines. Today marks 3 months and 9 days of NC. It is better, much better but......

So after that thought on Thursday, and a pretty good day with my wife on Friday, well then I have a dream about OW Friday night. So I struggled all Friday with thoughts, and why am I having a dream about her I have not had any dreams in I don't know how long. Then Sat night another dream.

I am completely at a loss as to why now I am having these dreams. Have not had any sense, but the fall out from them has been bad. I don't know what to do with it.

I know my wife wants to help, but really I don't know how she can with some of this. Last night a great sadness came over me, not just of OW, but of the entire situation. How I got here and have destroyed so many lives. I broke down crying, again not something I have done in a long time. She tried to comfort me, but then I felt resentment building. I started having thoughts of where was all of this love and attention before the A. Why now do you want to have SF all the time, and before the A no. Even as I type this I can sense the anger in me. But yet do I really have a right to any of these feelings. After what I have put her through.

I have not shared any of this with her. Not sure if I am suppsoe to, and then if I do, how do I go about it.

As always any clarity you can give is appreciated. Am I in recovery at all? Why is it taking me so long to get through this. Everytime it seems I get to a point of letting it all go, something brings me back. How do you control what you dream? Just when I thought most of the memories had faded, they came back with a vengence.

Hello my friend,

Of course you are in recovery!

Do you think when an alcholic stops drinking that he never has another thought about drinking? It stays with them for years!

Being a recovering alcoholic/drug addict I am here to tell you that thoughts and dreams of drugs and alcohol didn't stop over night. Every TV commercial, billboard, newspaper, etc. just plastered reminders everywhere. Made not thinking about drinking nearly impossible. It took time. Also, I learned that having these thought was normal, though at times the thoughts nearly drove me crazy.

You may not be able to control a thought entering your mind, but you are responsible as to whether or not you dwell on the thought and allow it to control your actions and emotions.

Your yesterday is past, you do have some serious wreckage to clean up because of your adultery however. Your wife's inability to meet your needs in the past is also yesterdays news. Both of you are NOW working to recover your M which means staying in the here and the now of today and meeting each others top EN's.

Stay in the present!
You cannot afford the luxury of resentments!

tst - thanks for your support here.



ok thats a relief.



that is what I needed to hear, that it is normal. I am fully aware of the driving me crazy part. It truly is madness. And I had not really thought about it taking years for the thoughts to go away. I have seen here many times about quitting the relationship cold turkey. But I don't see much about how the WS deals with the personal recovery. It seems most WS don't admit they struggle with letting go. At least not the ones in "recovery".




Ah yes, this is where I go wrong so much of the time. Ok most of the time I suck at it. I will lose myself in the thoughts at times and it will be a while before I realize what is going on. The bad part is most of he time those memories are fond memories. So the challenge is to not go there. Because I can't for the life of me at least not yet, see OW as a bad person, or anything negative to help me not go there. Maybe in time that will happen, but the way I look at it is this is completely my doings.

Yes she knew I was married, with children but like me, she to was of the mindset it would all work out. The kids would be ok etc. SB post did help as far as seeing that it was a fantasy with OW. I think I finally grasped that. Problem is for me that fantasy land seemed so real.

Just another part of recovery that is so difficult. I remember everything I said to her about how great she was, and how terrible the marriage is. Now here I am what happened to my life? I absolutely could not stand liars, and I became one of them in the worst way. That being said it was h@ll living those lies. Recovery is proving to be h@ll at times too. But at least I am no longer lying, but at times it feels I am living a lie because of everything I had said. Does that make sense?

Sorry, I know I got off track here some, but I was just typing what came to me. Not so sure if I should do that but there it is.

yes, I need to stay in the present, the past torments me. thanks for the reminder.

question, Do I share any of this with my wife? I am really confused on this at it pertains to RH. Yet it seems this is my walk to walk. To go through this personal side of recovery. I don't know.

It might be hard for you to believe this, but your wife "gets it" already. You don't really have to give her much detail about your thoughts, she see's it on your face, she hears it in your voice, she feels it in your actions. She lived the life of the woman being lied to every day, betrayed. She watched you become the puppet of satan's best lies. She knows you're struggling. She is just waiting for YOU to "get it". She is waiting for you to see how hard she has been and still is fighting for you. She wants you to see she is exhausted from the battle for you very soul!

She is waiting for you to see that satan wispered the same lies into your ear that he wispered into every other waywards ear. The lie that "everyone would be better off without you", the lie that "the children would be fine", the lie that "it would all work out", and on and on and on! You only THINK you're different!
She is waiting for your blinders to completely fall off of your eyes, so you can see the devistation you have caused her. Not just from your affair, but from your years of "Indepenent Behavior". She is waiting for you to take the spiritual lead and recognize that satan only need to discourage you enough to think you can't do it, and make you think memories with OW were the real thing. Satan is the father of lies and the author of lies. God is the author and perfector of our faith, but your wife is praying on the sideline waiting for you to hear God calling out the plays and for you to follow through.

She needs you to stop all the madness and turn to God to restore your marriage and your family.
She wants you to embrace the MB program and allow yourself to fall in love again.

Stop believing the lies! Stop listening to the lies! Start callin the lies what they are... Lies!