I suppose I am very resentful.I hate the fact that feel like I wasted 6 years of my life with someone who didn't seem to care until I was gone. Sure we had good times, but a lot of the time I felt like i was walking on eggshells. I tried to talk to him and find out what was bothering him. I changed the way I did things. I asked the same of him, and he got pissed of saying he didn't and wouldn't change for anyone. Maybe I just used the OM to get out of my current situation because I'm too much of a coward otherwise. I can't count how many times my husband threatened to kick me out, for rediculous reasons...His own insecurities were what drove me away. I tried to get in, I tried to break down those walls. But it doesn't matter what I say here, I'm not looking to justify what I did. I'm here to clarify why I did it. I will never go back to someone like him. Regardless of what happens between me and the OM. I'm not looking for pity, or approval. I don't like being the OW. I know what I need to do, I just need to get the courage to do it.

quote]And what would you say is the right way to act when your world has been destroyed?[/quote] I'm only saying she could stop thinking about herself for a bit to see that using her children to get back is not a good way to go about things. She says she only wants the best for her children...Then why would someone like me be worried for their saftey? If she's flying off the handle, acting without thinking, then maybe she should go see a counsler.



Well of course we had sex. As for my husband, he could care less what I wanted in bed. as long as he got what he wanted...great...Oh we talked about how things could be better, about how he had to try and satisfy me as well...He did for a bit, then gave up. Didn't want to try...I tried asking him about why he didn't want to try, and he ignored me. So why bother? Why bother with someone who doesn't want to put in any effort? All he wanted was for me to be by his side, every second of every day, not visit my family, not have any friends, obay his every command, want what he wanted and nothing else...All I wanted was for him to give a damn.

NG,

You have made some very accurate observations about yourself here. Again, this is not a "got 'ya" criticism but a statemant of fact:

The word COWARDLY stands out. All WSs are cowardly. They engage in bahavior they know is wrong and hurtful, but keep it hidden. They insist that it is "OK" in their case (using the rationalization process I also discussed), but yet lie and manipulate and deceive. To escape their own life's issues, they do terrible damage to the lives of others--including innocent children and the OP's spouse whom THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW!

[I wonder why affairees, who universally insist that their R is so "special", HIDE it, rather than trumpet it to the world! Hmmm....]

No one is saying that your marriage or your husband is where it should have been. The best course of action for ALL involved is for you to END THE A PERMANENTLY and RENEW YOUR MARRIAGE. If you truly can't or won't stay in your M, then the second best course of action is to END YOUR A PERMANENTLY and get a divorce to be on your own.

Don't ruin the lives of your OM's family by selfishly grabbing onto him and dragging him through this with so you can temporarily feel better about yourself.

I understand... You are resentful and perhaps legitimately so. But having an A to 1) get back at your H or 2) show him how pissed off you are or 3) as a fantasy escape from is ailing you is WRONG!

Morally/ethically wrong for you, your OM, and your H

Wrong because it devastates innocent people who have nothing to do with your problems

Wrong because it is a highly ineffective solution (short-term feel good fix at best).


From "Private Lies" by Dr. Frank Pittman:

"Surely the craziest and most destructive form of infidelity is the temporary insanity of falling in love. You do this, not when you meet somebody wonderful (wonderful people don't screw around with married people) but when you are going through a crisis in your own life, can't continue living your life, and aren't quite ready for suicide yet. An affair with someone grossly inappropriate—someone decades younger or older, someone dependent or dominating, someone with problems even bigger than your own—is so crazily stimulating that it's like a drug that can lift you out of your depression and enable you to feel things again. Of course, between moments of ecstasy, you are more depressed, increasingly alone and alienated in your life, and increasingly hooked on the affair partner. Ideal romance partners are damsels or "dumsels" in distress, people without a life but with a lot of problems, people with bad reality testing and little concern with understanding reality better.

Romantic affairs lead to a great many divorces, suicides, homicides, heart attacks, and strokes, but not to very many successful remarriages. No matter how many sacrifices you make to keep the love alive, no matter how many sacrifices your family and children make for this crazy relationship, it will gradually burn itself out when there is nothing more to sacrifice to it. Then you must face not only the wreckage of several lives, but the original depression from which the affair was an insane flight into escape."

November, If you really cared about those children, you would not have been having filthy adulterous sex with their daddy. You are the last person in the world who has a right to comment on their mother's way of dealing with the abuse you and your adultery partner dished out to her and those children.

Thank you keepitreal. I appreciate your willingness to share your opinion. If you are trying to make me feel guilty, you needn't bother. If I did not feel guilty about this, would I be on this site, looking for a solution? But hey, everyone is entitled to their opinion on a situation.

Yes, you need to stop the affair. It will never be right in God's eyes.

Ngirl,

May not be what you're experiencing right now...your BH loves you. He gives more than a damn. He's your very real partner.

A poster on MB named Gimble made this statement I'd like you to consider...

An affair is the embodiment of entitlement, fueled by resentment and lack of respect.

Ponder this for a moment...you can tell in my sigline I've been where you are right now. Until MB, I didn't know I was the one who put me in that wayward mindset, not my BH.

So the statement above rang loudly in my chest.

And then WhoDat took a famous quote and modified it by one word...

Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.

Do you believe that we cannot, as humans, inflict damage on ourselves without damaging others?

So when we choose to resent, to dwell on what we lack, we experience great lack, hardship, discontent and feel deprived. We abandon ourselves in this way by what we choose to dwell on.

Comparing people really doesn't work...God's work is incomparable for a reason. You cannot compare BH to OM...one is real, one is a fantasy...a seemingly clean slate...easy intimacy (best selves first) and with BH, it's total selves, warts and all, at issue, from really knowing one another.

It was really hard for me to break my HABIT of a wayward mindset...to stop choosing to act when I will resent...building it into entitlement (which is fantasy) and until I injected respect back into my marriage, went total NC with OM, and studied how to have a thriving marriage, I could not fall in love with my BH.

And then I did, and have, again and again over these last three years. Recovery is really hard...long...takes guts, ownership, respect and awareness...the guilt is astonishing, the shame has a new depth...all worth it...for you will again, if you choose, have these things back in your marriage and in yourself, once more.

Don't throw anything away for a fantasy. Fight for your marriage. You may have to walk the road of betrayal yourself, see your BH's heart shattered and then lost to another in a fantasy, as well...all with your kids watching...knowing...learning.

You're worth choosing reality and living in it...thriving in it. Please don't continue the cop out...the hiding...the abandoning yourself, really...and then looking at your BH as if he is making you feel...when it's you.

You can do this. You can experience what you didn't even know was possible in your marriage. What you hadn't seen before. It's truly amazing, Ngirl. Please don't miss out.

LA

TOUGH LOVE SOLUTION:

END THE AFFAIR! Send a no-contact letter to the OM and apologize sincerely for the hurt you have caused your H, his W, and his kids. Stick to NC, go through the requisite withdrawal period (don't complain about this--you got yourself into this mess voluntarily), and focus on your own life and your own marriage, not wrecking those of others.

Do what IS RIGHT, not what FEELS RIGHT...happiness ultimately results from noble accomplishment within yourself, not from indulging selfish, destructive, and short-term desires.

How did you find this out? Do you intend to have absolutely NO CONTACT with him during this time?

but are YOU strong enough not to find yourself at his new place at some point ??

We'll find out I suppose. :MrEEk:

You certainly don't sound like you feel so guilty after all.

I would say we'll find out what kind of person you are, what kind of morals you have.

I think I want to try and stay away, but I'm scared I will find it too easy to be there...I'm not scared of being alone anymore, and I don't think it's the sex...It's the attatchment I suppose... My legal seperation will be finalized shortly...Once that is done, I can concentrate on me. It's something I've been neglecting for sometime, but I think I can do it.

I've never been religous, but I do have morals...At least I thought I did...Isn't that being a hypocrit though? Doing something like this and "reforming" yourself? Saying you found your morals again? I suppose you can never really go back to the way things were, there will always be that black hole. Kind of like smoking. Once you finally quit, you feel better. But when you see someone else smoking, it seems like the most disgusting thing, you say you'd never do it again, but it's constantly on your mind....not that you'd smoke again, just that your thinking about when you smoked, how you felt, etc.

I have never been cheated on. My H wants me and me only. I feel safe in that.

However, I am blessed with empathy for people who survive ordeals such as your lover's wife. Does she deserve to have her husband stolen from her by a woman who hates her own marriage and thinks this man can give her a better life, no matter what it does to his children and wife?

Taking him from his wife is NOT reasonable. How could it be? Please do justify it for me. I want to know.

She is vindictive? She is trying to save her husband from the affair fog he is currently in with you.

You should apologize. To her, to her and his children, to your husband.

Are you ever going to be honest with your BH?