:crosseyedcrazy:
I sent the definition to help you get your head wrapped around the idea that you did abuse Lil' and you need to step outside of all the rationalizing that prevents you from accepting this.

I'm curious. Have you made face to face amends to your wife and children for all the lies and deceit and yes, abuse?

Have you gone back to all family and friends and exonerated your wife from any of the blame for YOUR A?

This is called cleaning up the wreckage of YOUR past. It is a step in the recovery process that shouldn't be overlooked.

Well guess what!? I did abuse her, I finally get it, and do you know what made me finally understand? I thought back in time to a time early in our relationship, a time when the boot was on the other foot and I realised that I felt abused by her actions and therefore I must have done the same to her, in fact I probably did more as my A was much later in our relationship and also lasted for longer.

Not according to my dictionary. I stand by what I said.

The WS dictionary? You can stand by it all you want, but it doesn't make it true.

Flick,

Lil did not abuse you. She broke up with you and started a new relationship. She was single and had every right to. You, however, didn't respect her boundaries, showed up unannounced, entered her flat, and saw something that was none of your business. Witnessing that, I am sure, caused you great pain. But THAT was not abuse.

on a scale of 0-10
Her abuse toward you = .01 /Both single and broken up.
Your abuse from adultery = 10 /married and YOU CHEATED.


This is just another example of you refusing to acknowledge the pain you have caused to the woman you vowed to forsake all others for. It is you, yet again, rationalizing and minimizing what you've done.

It's semantics anyway.

Guilt, shame - I think WS's feel both. My wife did. She knew what she was guilty of and was ashamed with herself for what she did.

Hi Flick - my work is seriously cutting into my online time and I've also enrolled in a Masters degree part time. fun fun fun.

I've been away for work a lot and you post so infrequently it seems. LOL.

We are on the Central Coast just North of Sydney. Our water situation seems to have eased somewhat.

If you use MSN and want to chat, drop me a line and I'll give you my ID. (

Guilt and Shame
It's important not to confuse guilt with shame. Guilt is felt even if nobody else knows about the transgression. In the movie City Slickers, Billy Crystal's character turned down the idea of a fail-safe sexual affair. "It doesn't matter if nobody else would know. I'd know, and I wouldn't like myself." Shame is a reaction to external consequences that occurs when caught doing something "bad." When President Clinton apologized to the American public after many denials of infidelity, he discussed feeling shame but didn't mention feeling guilt. It appears that he regretted his actions after the fact because of their consequences.

Guilt
Guilt works as a deterrent for extramarital involvement only when you perceive it before you act. After noticing the first tugs of attraction, anticipatory guilt helps to frame the consequences of your impulses, pulls you back from the edge, and keeps you from acting on your desires. After a wrongful act, wallowing in self-recrimination can serve as a way to avoid changing your inappropriate behavior. Allow yourself to feel guilty for five minutes only. Then it's time to take responsibility for reparation.

We have learned something interesting about who is likely to feel guilty and who is not. People who purposely set out to be unfaithful are usually guilt-free beforehand and afterward. Those who fall accidentally or unintentionally are more inclined to feel guilty. Because the new crisis of infidelity is about people getting swept away by "friendship affairs," we can expect genuine remorse from these unintentional betrayers.

Shame
Shame doesn't deter infidelity in the first place, and a shamed response to being caught doesn't guarantee abstinence in the future. In fact, shame can generate a cycle that makes recurrence even more likely. For Donald, this shame cycle was powerful enough to become a compulsive pattern of Internet affairs. After his wife, Daphne, exposed his e-lovers, he felt ashamed. He told her, "I feel terrible. I know I've been bad. I'll try to do better." Although his feelings were genuine, they were all about him and how bad he felt. He wasn't able to empathize with his wife's pain because he was too self-absorbed. To escape from his misery, Donald turned once again to distract himself—in an Internet chatroom.

Donald and Daphne believed that his self-flagellation was a sign of rehabilitation. They didn't realize that shame frequently perpetuates the undesirable behavior. Shame is centered on the self. To heal the wound in his marriage, Donald had to stop the self-pity, take responsibility for what he had done, and enter more into Daphne's world.

Strange that you are saying one thing to me and Lil says another. Which one of you is talking BS?

STOP POSTING MATERIAL FROM HER THREAD ON MY THREAD. We do not read each others threads and it is not your place to run around spreading parts of our posts.

Thanks for having no faith in what I say.

The following is a passage from NOT "Just Friends" by Shirley P. Glass about the difference between guilt and shame and why it's important:

Flick,

I spend time posting to waywards in an effort to help them be accountable for their words, and actions. And in hopes of helping their M
I read and post to betrayed spouses in an effort to help them see the Bullsh!t that their wayward or FWW is attempting to feed them.

It's as if you want an apology from me for YOUR behavior. And that's the same attitude I still see in you toward Lil'

I see the point you are trying to make, and I agree with what you are saying. The problem is that I speak ENGLISH and you speak AMERICAN and we use the language in different ways.

Give me a break. How come I understood it and agree with it? Yes, Americans might say "confectioner's sugar" and we might say "icing sugar" etc etc but the example from Shirley Glass was not in that realm of American/English misunderstandings.

Whew, glad that one is over..............