I have always believed in my religion, Roman Catholic, I have no always walked the path, But I knew the path. I was not a practicing catholic meaning I did have Premarital Sex with Zora, I did not go to church weekly, at times I did, but not consistantly. I am commited to that already, I have weekly meetings with my pastor, started receiving confession, and going to mass every week if not more. Its only week 1 but I will.

I can't to speak for Zora as I have not been around the past years. She is roman catholic by baptism. That is all I can say. She has a thread in Divorced / Divorcing where you can post. I need to worry about myself.

I want God in my marriage so I never end up where I am again.

I do need a /slap,

I was agreeing with you and saying I cant do more than I have right now, I did not do things right in the slightest, and I have not had time to prove myself or even know how to prove myself yet. But I did do the things I can do.

I have done NC letter and am working on ways to make it permanent even now... More on this later after follow ups...

I have received confession and started counciling with my parish and have a meeting set with my parents priest whenever I can get home to CT.

I have admitted my wrongdoings and have the desire to change, I am not longer afraid of the truth. The truth is on my side.

Thank you for the /slaps

Now to my update...

I Did try to turn my pity thoughts into positive ways to improve. I catch myself, sometimes right away, sometimes it takes a bit... That does help, it really does work.

So in addition to the List from earlier thread...
)I have a hard time admitting I am wrong
2) I have a hard time expressing my emotions
3) I have a hard time giving in, even when I am wrong.
4) I have very low self esteem because certan things.
5) I have always been too friendly with females and this destroyed my marriage.
6) I am overweight
7) I gave up on my faith until recently. I was always faithful,but never practicing catholic. I changed that already I just need to stick with it.
8) I have a hard time letting go of the past. I draw on it to argue in the present to make people feel guilty. I did this to zora for years and it was wrong.

I have to add restore relationships that provide support and healing. Maybe new #1 Today, after leaving the marital home for the last time, I called my best friend whom has been that since Grade School. I had not talked to him in almost a year. I asked him to come down, that I needed his support. I explained everything to him, left out nothing. He was dissapointed in me for sure, but was supportive. We did not spend a terrible amount of time on the past, but he needed to know the entire store.

Then he helped me set up my house living room. I told him about the advice I was getting here, we talked about just about all of it and how its all good. He even /slaps me when I go off track.

We watched an old star trek film as we are both nerds like that and through the few hours, i actually laughed pretty dam hard twice. I was talking about how little I took from the home, and how I bought this here and that there and a carpet that matched the furniture I did take... He looked at me dead serious and said

"Yup, it really ties the room togather" - and I lost it. Lets see how many of you get this reference...

Later on it was a star trek quote about how he let me ramble until my own illogic ovwewhelmed me earlier. Again I laughed (not quite as hard as the first time)

Bottom line, i need to have friend like him back in my life on a REGULAR basis. He is going to help me, I asked him to be with me through this. He also agreed to be my sponsor for AA if he is able. We dont know, because I did not look it up yet, if he can can do it based on the requirements which we dont know.

Then 2 friends arrived and dragged the dude (lets call my best friend that from now on) and me over to watch Football.

I learned by watching Zora that having those people around are necessary for recovery. I will not make the mistake someone mentioned in my earlier thread. I will make my support group all males, I wont fall into that trap again. I wont ignore my female friends (can only think of one at the moment), but I will not lean on them when I am in need.

So, so far the afternoon was all things considered from the past few days, relaxing. I feel somewhat refreshed after not having to talk or more importantly think about what I have lossed.

Thank you all, I continue to pray and ask you to pray for us all.

Silverwind

edit : I did send Zora an email..

Subject TV Remote
"
I seem to have forgotten to grab that today. If you can put in mailbox I can pick it up, or Mark offered to come get it.

I hope you had a good race today.

xxxxx
"

And now on to Work. There is still no contact nor any attempts.

My boss, and close friend, offered me the week off. I dont know weather to take it or not. Here is why...

I do not want to see the OW, I am still trying to figure that whole situation out on how to have Total NC and still be able to live. I applied for jobs but those things take time. I also need my insurance right now.

I also think getting back to normalcy (sp) will help, the more time I am not busy, the harder time i have.

I had the thought to change positions. I current am the Tech services manager for a retail chain. I work in the home office 90 percent of the time and travel locally around NE the other 10 percent.

I can take a job working in the stores. Just normal store help. I would be taking a serious pay cut,and dealing with customers which I hate, but I would be able to keep my insurance, look for work while still collecting a paycheck no matter how small, and not be on a computer all day. On the computer I will be here too much, and I need to be here less, I need this but too much also focuses my thoughts too much on the past. In a store I would have limited access to a computer and it would be shared. Being the network setup, I could still assist remotly for any issues they need me for in the home office.

and most importantly, there would be NC with OW.

My boss has a feeling she may not return to work, or quit tomorrow... I can hope for that!


Thoughts?

Take the time off.

Most importantly, NC MEANS NO CONTACT!!!! You sound as if you are OK with being in a position where there is potential contact. NC MEANS NO CONTACT no matter what the consequences are for anything else in your life. You will not be able to move forward without NC. Period.

If a problem can be solved with money then it's really not a problem.

Your rent and living expenses are a temporary issue about which you are placing too great a priority over your spiritual and personal recovery - which money cannot buy.

The time off is a great gift. You get a week with pay. Use it to find a new job and work on that task and fixing you full time next week.

I know NC means NC. What about transfering to a store position until I can find a permanent job in my field? Does that seem like a reasonable solution?

I agree that things are more important, but I have a mortgage to pay, no money in the abnk becausue I just bought the house 1 week ago, and bills to pay as I left 95 percent of the stuff Zors and I had to her.

I can live on nothing, I dont need anything. But I have to pay my bills, faith alone wont pay them. I have no reserve, every dime I had went into buying this house and even borrowing money from my folks.

This statement leads me to believe that he isn't in AA.

My advice would be to get to a meeting and listen about the program.

If he is in AA, that's a different story, but still get to a meeting.

There is a meeting in my town Tuesday night. Unless I go to CT where I must pick up my dogs soon, I will be there. I will look for one near my parents should I be there tuesday.

I think I will be back by then, I will take my bosses offer and use a week of vacation this week, its normally blacked out, but he is going to get it approved.

"my female friends" = yet another spectacularly bad idea


Regarding working in a store: this might work, as long as there is no chance OW will find some reason for doing stuff there, too. You are trying to eliminate all chance for contact.

From what you said it sounded like a good itermediate step between where you are, and working somewhere else entirely, but you'll have to just look at it closely to make sure.

I can do that. I have asked my Boss to talk to the CEO tomorrow, we are a pretty small company 60+ people in the corporate...

He is going to fill him in on where I am and a little about why. I will give the details to him at a later date.

About the female friends comment, I only meant to say I will limit my support to my male friends..

I dont understand why it was bad to say that. Can you please explain?

And that would appear to be one of the fundamental problems.

What you have, first and foremost, is a MARRAIGE problem.

"The two shall be one," to quote Scripture.

You DO need to address your individual problems, but NOT "instead of" the marriage problems. Rather, it should be as part of the "one flesh" issue.



May I suggest that all of this sounds like a "do this and do that" sort of thing. But if I can say this without offending you, it's NOT a "religion" thing either. It is about a personal relationship with God the Father, through Jesus Christ as our "bridegroom," (i.e. our spouse, our husband, an we are His bride).

If I can, may I suggest you think about what being a Christian REALLY means. Consider this, BEING a truly saved believer is about CHANGE, about a changed heart, of becoming more and more "Christ-like" and not about whether or not you go to church, meet with the pastor, go to confession, etc.

There isn't anything wrong with "doing" things, but be careful that you don't start thinking that God "owes you" something in return what you are "doing."

I want to repair my relationship with god. I have to be true to that if nothing else.
I faltered and turned away from god. My first step back was confession to seek forgivness for my many sins. I know god is listening to me pray, I know god has he in his heart. I have him in my heart. I need to keep him there and not forget that he loves me.

I do want to work on my marriage, I think I have made that clear, but I need to find myself and be the man I can be. And that is by staying true to god.

Quick update:

I told my boss / friend I would not back into the office period. He asked if he could let the CEO know what was going on. He did that. I just left a meeting with him at a local coffee shop. We talked for about an hour.

He does not want me to make rash decisions, he was supportive when I told him why I can no longer be present in the office, no matter what. He asked that I work remotly this week or from stores as needed. I agreed, we set another meeting on Friday. He wants time to see if they can figure out way to keep me there. I was very clear, unless there is ZERO chance of contact, I will be giving my notice on Friday. I do not see how he can find a way to satisfy my requirements. But I will give him the time since he is letting me work remotly all week. He talked to me about life in general as well, nothing I have not heard from my parish or people here. But its always good to hear.

I have applied for 4 jobs and talked to a friend, someone from our wedding party who works at a place i used to, and they have an opening.I filled him in on everything I have done over the past years. I am getting him my resume tonight and he was certain he can get me in for an interview this week.

Next..

My boss / friend emailed Zora for me, he will drop off the dogs to my wife and I will not see than again anytime soon. I will not try to get them for weekends or anything, I will say goodby to them over the next 48 hours until I have to give them to him on Wednesday morning. I will miss them dearly.

And lastly...

If talking to the CEO and realizing my dogs are going to missing from my life was not hard enough, I now have one more hard task up front of me today. I have to confess to my parents the truth. They know bits and pieces, jut not how I have failed them, failed my wife, and failed myself, and failed my god. I know they will be dissapointed in me but will help me through this.

I have no fear of the truth anymore.If I am not honest with myself and my loved ones, I have no chance for personal recovery.

Silver.

Ill post again tonight.

Thank you all, please continue to pray for us.

Yes, Lake of Fire is me from a few days ago. I started posting under a false name.I have been reading here for a while, but I never learned. I read what I wanted to. I though it would help me if I told other people my story, even though I was still not yet honest.

I will only post under Silverwind from now on,

The "but" always makes me laugh.

I do want to, but........


Might I suggest if you are trying to find yourself that you take a picture of the person you are trying to find and look at it. You'll discover you have been there all along.
Then take out your drivers license and see if the picture on it matches the guy you are trying to find. Hopefully you'll discover you have been there all along.

After those 2 simple exercises you may realize, "you have been found" and you can proceed doing the work necessary to recover your marriage instead of searching for your lost self.

God already knows who and where you are. hopefully you've just discovered who and where you are.
I would suggest you move your butt and start doing all the action necessary to restore your marriage and repent(actions)of your ways (that means turn around 180 degrees).

Tst,

Well, the guy on my license looks a little thinner and maybe had a bit more sleep, but I see what you are saying.

I know I was asleep in a fog for a long time, but I am awake now. For months I was so sorry about my actions but never had the courage to come clean and start repairing what I had destroyed. I never had the courage to admit to anyone my wrongdoings. I have now told my friends, my work, and my family.

I just got done talking to my mother. It was very hard seeing the hurt in her eyes. She asked many questions and I was totally honest.

She is against me quitting work, but I was persistant and I think she understands why I must. Im sure she will have more to talk to me about, and I still have to tell my father who is out fishing with his two brothers....

I will do the work necessary to recover my marriage. I have done No Contact and will make it stick. I am not pitying myself any longer. Its not productive and unattractive. But as everyone here points out, words are just words. Most of what I have done was wrong and drove her farther away from me. She says she still loves me with her heart but there is too much to overcome. I dont belive that.I believe we can overcome this.

I ordered surviving an arrair, his needs her needs, and love busters. They should arrive tomorrow.

I have also used the scheduling service here on MB to contact the Harleys.

I want to do the work necessary, but I just dont know the right path yet. I think I am starting to get a clue.

Silver

Silverwind, if you'd like a copy of "**edit**", email me at *edit** and I'll send you a copy.

It might help you along the "path."

Thank you

Well, I had the talk with my father. We took a walk and talked about alot of things.

I dont know what to say. He is telling me to look toward the future now, stop looking behind. I think now that I have come clean about my lies and deceit to my family and friends I may be able to start doing that easier. Its hard to look ahead without at least, I dont know if this is the right phrase, but making peace with your past. Not peace, but comming to terms with it.

Surprisingly we did not talk about my A all that much, he is more concerned with my future now, he knows I have been hurting for some time. I suppose everyone has been telling me that for days - look ahead and make a better future. I got alot of things off my chest with him, thins I shoud have said Im sorry for years ago and never did. It helps my uncle from Kentucky and his twin brother from another part of CT are here. My fathers family is such a southern loving family it used to seem silly, today it seems like its the greatest thing in the world.

I still love my wife very much, with all my heart. But maybe it is time for me to look ahead now, make a brighter future and put myself into gods hands. He has great things in store for both of us and he has a plan even if I cant see it right now.

Silverwind

Please let me know when you do send that material, I need to make sure my spam filter does not get it...

Thanks again

Silverwind - When are you going to stop posting on your wife's thread? You keep saying you will not post there, but then each day you continue posting.