L4,

Did OM have a history of doing this to women?

NJ

Loving them then leaving them? Not that I'm aware of. He's had 4 reltionships that I know of -- teenage first girlfriend, a serious girlfriend before and into college, his wife, and me. He married right after college, I believe. He's 8-years younger than me, BTW.

Ask anyone who knows him, and NO one would peg him as a cheater. He's quiet, stays in the background, very smart, kind, wears his Christianity on his sleeve, talks about his family often, doesn't get drunk... Everyone loves him -- co-workers, friends, family. He's very unassuming, which is probably why I felt safe in developing my friendship with him. I felt safe. And I'm an idiot.

Anyway... Moving on.

And I am sure you now know that someone who really cares for you would not become romantically involved while you/he were married to another. I cannot think of a single instance when this type of behavior would be good for anyone. He used you. You used him. Now, it is over.

Sounds like the kind of (ideal) relationship for a husband and wife, que no?

What is next for you, L4? Your H will be suffering for many months to come. It does not sound like you are in the best frame of mind either. Do you have a plan?

Yes. I want this in my marriage.

I don't. I'm just here. Waiting for H to tell me what he wants, what he needs from me. I want to be here for him. Otherwise, I feel pretty lost. He's out of town on business this week. I don't have a job. Not sure what I'm doing. Today hasn't been a good day.

Maybe tomorrow will be different.

As a BS, a plan was invaluable to me. It helped me stay the course, focus on the big picture, and reminded me what I was fighting for.

Read-up on Plan A. I do not see why it wouldn't be just as helpful for a former wayward. Focus on meeting your H's needs and focus on you.

You did what you did. Nothing can change that. Constantly beating yourself up about it serves no purpose. Learn from your mistakes and move forward. You are trying to be there for him - be there for you too.

Dear Looking4,

Thank you for your reply.

I should like to clarify what I tried to say in my last post and my intentions in posting as I did.

You said:
I guess I was out of line feeling hurt about how the FOM treated me. I see now that I'm not allowed feel anything any more for a man who professed his love to me over and over and promised to be there for me as I was flailing in my life. A man who was a good, genuine friend for 5 years before this all happened. He disappeared in a text message and left me for garbage. I know people here feel I deserve that. And I feel the same way. But that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. I was duped and while I am angry at me for being so very very stupid, I feel great sadness for my BH and the BW. I am confused why I still have any feelings for the FOM -- the hate, the hurt and even a tad bit of sympathy. I thought I'd share my feelings here to try to gain some understanding about it. I'm sorry for sounding selfish. I was just hurting and confused. This site has been my lifeline as I'm trying to do the right thing in saving my marriage and I felt compelled to share this remaining struggle I'm having. I can't share these feelings any more with my H and am no longer seeing my therapist. And now I know I can't share them here either. I'll keep all thoughts about the FOM to myself and learn to deal with them another way. I'm sorry for any offense (end quote).

My post to you said nothing about your feelings for FOM. I was not addressing those. I do not think it inappropriate for you to discuss your feelings here; on the contrary, I think someone in your position should do so. I think that on this forum you have received, and will continue to receive, the best possible advice on how to overcome your feelings, especially from others who have similar experience. You yourself acknowledged that your feelings were problematic and that you were seeking help. I, like others here, admire you for coming to MB and seeking to end the affair mess and restore your marriage.

My issue was with how you spoke of OMW. I saw no recognition of her plight in your posts, despite your talking of the apology letter. I think you said originally that your H asked you write a letter to her stating that even if your own marriage broke up you would stay out of hers. You told her that, and also made an apology. I have no issue with the apology and I'm not saying that it was not enough. However, you went on to write here

Quote:
He and his wife are moving on and I really do want that if that's what she wants. (Dang, she has no idea the things he told me. She would so be out the door if she knew, even if they were just lies.)

This made me question the spirit of your apology, and what you meant by the last two sentences. I have read statements like those on the board for other women. When dumped by their OM, these women try to gather up their shredded self-respect by arguing that the wife who finds out and does not leave is so lacking in insight, or is so desperate or self-deluding, that she takes back a husband who does not love her. BW refuses to look at the implications of his affair and recognise that it is the ultimate in not-love. The WH has utterly shamed her, and yet she takes him back on the basis of his argument that the affair was a fling. The OW claim that BW is self-deluding and in outright denial, and they throw scorn at her for that.

Before your reply to me, you had actually said very little about OMW in your situation, but you did say the (quoted section) above when talking about how you had been treated. I wanted to point out that you had participated in the breakdown of her marriage, which will have to be rebuilt now as painfully as yours, if she is to "move on" with her husband. I was not saying that you brought your pain on yourself; you had said that yourself, others had underscored it and no more needed to be said on this. However, you brought up his BW's "moving on". Nothing you wrote here showed that you recognised that she is not moving on and that she is suffering very badly.

When I said things like this

Quote:
She found out in a text message that her H did not love her, was suffering seeing her face first thing every morning, was merely enduring her kisses as he left the house and returned from work, was hating lying next to her in bed and wishing you were there instead, was hating spending weekends with her when he could not escape to work and had longed for their last holiday to be over because he could not stand pretending to be happy for extended periods in her company. For some time now he had wanted to get away from her, her boring parents, the tedious get togethers with friends in which happiness was being faked, the hypocritical wedding anniversary dinner at a restaurant that he had had to pretend to enjoy, his having had to sign cards to her with "love you always, X" when he hadn't meant it... he had hated everything about his unhappy lie of a marriage to her. He had wanted to be far away from everything to do with her, except for their children. He loved his children enough to try and give them stable childhoods, but every day was torture, and she had not known this until that moment. However difficult things had grown to be between them, she had never realised that he must be feeling THAT BAD, and she saw it in that moment she picked up his phone

I was not saying that this is how things really were in her marriage. Your rebuttal of specific details misses my point, which is that, regardless of the reality, this is what she "saw" - or misunderstood - when she read the message. This is what she now believes her marriage to be, and this is what she will think for a long time. When she learns to accept the truth, which is that he was very happy in his marriage, she was wonderful and that he always loved her, she will still be unhappy because she will see that she is married to a man that will take opportunities for excitement outside his marriage if he feels he can get away with it.

My post was about this wife whom you described as "moving on" while you suffered. Your words made you sound like the victim at her expense. I accept now that you did not mean that. Former WSs rightly get support here, and I'm glad that you're here. However, if, when talking about consequences, you look only the way that you have been used, it is right for someone to point out your treatment of others.

One more thing. You wrote

My H has been in contact with both the BW and the FOM. I haven't read her emails, but my H told me in an email that, "FOM has a job, has a wife who is committed to him, had his office fling with you, and seems to be cruising along just fine. That has to be insult to injury [to you], and I'll admit, I get some satisfaction from this fact." That information in an email from my H is how I derived that the FOM is doing fine.

OWH is my situation told his wife something very similar when he knew that it wasn't true. For a while after I contacted him he and I exchanged many emails in which we tried to piece together what had been happening in our lives while his wife and my husband spent time together. We also spoke on the phone. OWH knew that my marriage was struggling because I was unhappy and wanted to leave. I made the decision to stay for my children. I loved my H but that love had been badly affected by what I had found out. My H, who had had the affair because it was fun and exciting - and almost undetectable - was now horrified at what he had done to his happy marriage. He had no clue how to put things right and so, between my misery and his regret, we were floundering. In no way could we as a couple, or my H on his own, have been described as "doing fine" and yet that is what OWH told her.

He did that because he had just found out not only about this 3.5-year affair (which was still continuing at an EA level, making it nearly 4 years) but also another 4-year affair earlier in his by then 24-year marriage. He had found that that his W had had sex with her married driving instructor in the back of a van from roughly 10-14 years of marriage, and that this man would not leave his wife, as his wife (OW) had wanted. The same scenario had happened with my H. Their affair started as something on the side for both of them, but she still wanted out of her marriage (at 20-24 years now) and asked my H to leave with her, which he wouldn't do. Her H was so hurt by his new discoveries that he mixed some truth - that these men used her for excitement- with some lies - that my H was happily moving on. It was much more complicated than our moving on; I had tried to hold things together at home and I had tried to "love" my H back to faithfulness, so he had been having masses of love and good sex, a well-run home and well cared-for children with me, while enjoying the (by then only emotional) affair with her. We could hardly have been described as happy, but her H told her that my H had gone back to his perfect life without a backward glance because he wanted to hurt his wife as she had hurt him, by humiliating her and making her feel cheap.

It's very likely that your H wants to do this to you. I doubt very much that, after emails with the BW, he thinks or knows that OM's life is fine. For the reasons I gave in my previous email, their marriage is not fine. Your H probably knows this but wants to hurt you. Can you try and rise above that, for now?

I wish you the best with your recovery. Just, please, don't make indirect, unwitting or any other kind of comparison between your life now and his BW's.

Sugar.

My guidance was tempered. It wasn't malicious or attacking. I said something that needed to be said about OMW. I can see that it hurt, but we should not avoid giving specific advice because it might hurt, if it's justified.

Imagine this same attitude in other life situations

Your boss says to you: "Your performance is sub-par and your work evaluation will reflect this."

You respond: "Maybe tomorrow will be different."

You say to your child: "You are getting poor grades because you are not doing your work."

Your child responds: "Maybe tomorrow will be different."

You call your bank to complain about errors made on your account: "There are charges on my account that are not mine!"

The bank worker responds: "Maybe tomorrow will be different."

Who is going to make tomorrow different? Are you? What can you do today to make tomorrow different?

PS: Have you spoken to your physician about your depression?

SugarC

I was talking in general. Do you have a guilty conscience? Thin skinned? Both?

Both, TheRoad, and often, but not about that post.

Were you really talking in general? You really were not talking about me? Who else, on this thread were you referring to?

L4

He's 8-years younger than me, BTW.

So if his wife is 3 years younger than him that would give his wife a 11 year advantage on you. Your husband has a 9 year disadvantage to the OM on the other hand, and is smaller. Does that bother H?

IMHO, we men live through comparison, except the ones who have every category maxed out in which case, they make casual remarks about how it dosen't really matter. I suspect OM was in that category.

God Bless
NJ

Yes.
Ain't saying.

I've been so not wanting to do this -- I do not want to become dependent on drugs like this. But I just made an appointment for Thursday morning.

I haven't really thought about who has what advantages where. FOM's BW is actually a few months older than him, same year in school. My H and the FOM are different in appearance and in personality. FOM is nothing like the guys I used to be drawn to. FOM said that my "life experience" was one of the things that attracted him to me -- he said that he liked my confidence, "worldliness", and varied interests. Said the older age thing actually excited him. All lies anyway so it doesn't matter.

2 Qs for you experts:

1.) Our kids are 7 and 5. I've read throughout the forums here and from Dr. H that we need to tell our kids. My H and I know we have to tell the kids something to explain why Daddy needs to leave for periods of time, Mama is crying, and why we keep having grown-up time. H and I are still together so what exactly should we tell children this young about my PA and/or our marriage? I accept that they will eventually know about my betrayal, but what do we disclose now?

2.) My H is asking me to keep some things we're sharing between just the two of us. I have honored these requests but find I really need to talk about a few things, including some things he's asked me to keep private. I don't have my therapist any more. So while this may seem like a silly question considering all that I've already disclosed here, I want to make sure I'm doing everything right for a FWW. Is it violating his trust if I talk to y'all about matters he's asked we keep just between us?

Sorry... One more Q... If my H refuses to do the EN questionaire, how can I learn what his ENs are? I've learned some things about him in the last few weeks that I didn't know before -- which is sad considering we've known each other for over 25 years. Based on these new discoveries, I don't feel right assuming I know his ENs at all. Suggestions on how to go about learning what they really are?

A spouse should not control what is said between a patient and her councelor. He took away your C because of money. I had asked how tight was the money. You never answered. Being you are getting counciling her how can you get help if there are things you need to talk about. You need to stand up and continue your IC. Even if you can only afford every other week or once a month.

L4, Dr H recommends telling children when there is an ONGOING AFFAIR so they can be guided through the holocaust. Your affair is over so I can think of no good reason to tell them. That would certainly be up to you and your H, but all the usual reasons to tell kids do not exist in your case.

Does he know you post here? I would tell him and just see how he feels about it. You are entirely anonymous here after all, and we are on the side on your marriage. He could come here too if he wants.

I believe we can afford it regardless. My H makes a good living. He just doesn't want to sacrifice some of our lifestyle now that I'm unemloyed. He's never been a fan of therapy and sees my joblessness as a reason for me not to be able to go. (I actually think it's more about controlling me, something he does a lot of.) I feel differently, but am having trouble standing up to him about it since I'm no longer contributing to the finances. I'll see if he can agree to me going at least every other week. Thanks.