bcboy=
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS POST!!! i LOVED the line

"FORGIVENESS IS THE FINAL EVOLUTION OF RECOVERY"

this so makes sense to me.
i need to read this artile about a hundred times!
thanks, SF

S-55,

I liked bcboy's post. I think it works for most folks going through recovery.

Forgiving is something that does unfold, and I have likened it to a blossom in some of my previous posts.


But then again, once that blossom blooms wide open, that experience - it hits you with a force.


At least that is my experience. Maybe the things I went through, maybe these things gave me something different and I lean on those experiences now to lead me to forgiveness differently. Perhaps this is why I find it easier to forgive than I think most people do.


It's interesting, though - my youngest daughter is very forgiving as well. I find her one of the most unique people on Earth in this regard. She forgives and moves forward unlike anyone I know. I have never known her to hold a grudge, to fail to forgive, or to not be able to see a person as failing and broken. Maybe it's genetic?

My older daughter, she forgives - but it is harder for her, and she carries pain first. Sort of like I do.


I need to think about this, and I suppose this sets me on a new course of thought. It seems that with each experience, I find something new to ponder. A reason to sit and stare..........ahhh, yes. Maybe drink a little vino and stare at the ripples in the pool............life is good.


SB

SB-
I think the more pain we have in life - the more we grow inside as people. i think G-d gives us these things as tests or ways to help us along the path of becoming complete human beings.

Your pain has certainly been high up there - which has seemed to lead you to have the skill of learning to forgive people who have not even asked for it- and who have not made a character transformation. This ability in you is G-d like. i dont think many human beings have this ability.

Maybe the extremely painful things that happened to you in your childhood with your brother and father - led you to develop this skill and in so doing - to become the person you were always meant to be - to grow inside so you would be ready and heal that much quicker when you H had affairs.

I know in my own life - through every painful situation - i have grieved and cried - and i have come out of it a different person. But as i age, the growth and centeredness that i experience is that much larger, because i am that much more ready to change myself- to BECOME THE SUNFLOWER I WAS ALWAYS MEAN TO BE. the person who was underneath me all the time - buried under all the junk and pain.

My mother's abuse of me;

being the non-favorite of both parents;

rejection in school as i was too shy and awkward and didnt have the right clothes;

rejection by my one friend- my so called best friend;

marrying my H, only to discover he was an angry, narcisstic, abusive man- just like my mother- who openly flirted wtih other women in front of me;

not knowing that i deserved better;

finding out we couldnt have biological kids - when my one goal in life was to be a good mother and bear children. i so wanted the whole experience of child-bearing and nursing.

finally getting pregnant and having two miscarriages.

ten years of infertility treatment. the indescribable pain of seeing everyone i knew with children.

the joy of adopting my sons. indescribable euphoria.

the pain of adopting a child and having to return her to biological mother who had changed her mind.

the joy of adopting my daughter. again indescribably euphoria.

finding out that my daughter had AIDS. then three weeks later learning that the lab had made a mistake , thank G-d.

living through year after year of verbal abuse by my continually work obsessed, flirtatious H. even though i had a choice of staying or divorcing , i knew at teh time that i would never leave him, as divorce did nto fit into my picture of having a good family for my children.

my FWH almost dying from septic shock. on life support for 2 weeks.

then the biggest pain - the largest betrayal - but also the chance i finally have to grow the most - learning of my H's affairs - so many and for so long. i was ripped in two. pure rejection at the deepest level.

emerging from the ashes of my life to be a so much healthier person - who has finally - at the age of 53- learned to start to love MYSELF.

i dont know why i felt i had to do all this just now. had a quiet moment and wanted to share.

each painful moment taught me more and more and now from the most pain- i must grow the most.

with him or without him - i will emerge into this world and live my life TO THE FULLEST!!!
sf

Happy New year everyone- :happynewyear:

My H and i have been working on the Home Study MB course for the last few weeks and i am having a real problem.

Pls let me know if any of you vets have had the same experience or have any advise-

- i am having a read hard time with the 15 hours a week. i dont enjoy spending time with my H- as we struggle to communicate and conversation does not flow easily.
after watching the Harley dvd - i know it is because i am no longer in love with my H, and my love bank is about MINUS ONE MILLION.

he , on the other hand, wants to spend time with me and calls constantly, and suggests MB work everyday. i force myself to do it because i really DO want our marriage to work and to fall in love again.

then when we start talking and i dont feel understood, or he doesnt use the right word- i get frustrated and walk away.

we are in lesson two - and are reading chapter one of HNHN to each other.

there is some REALLY PAINFUL STUFF in chapter one. especially when Dr. Harley describes an affair relationship and sex as passionate.

i have an easier time imagining the relationship as two sick broken people using each other to feel better. when i imagine passionate- i see two people deeply in love who are expressing their love sexually.

so i ask my H if his sex with them was passionate and he thinks and says - "SOMETIMES".

i leave the room- it is just too painful

i wish the man who lyed to me for so long could just tell a little white lie now. but he says that now he wants to be totally honest with me.

we look up passionate in the dictionary and he says that it was not passionate - just intriguing!!!!

also and upsetting word to me - so sex with me was BORING!!???

he says NO- just that they fed his ego so much and made him feel ok when he felt scared and unsure of himself.

WE FINALLY DECIDED TO SKIP CHAPTER ONE and call the Harleys for a phone appt to help us through this.

we dont seem to be making the progress that we would both like.

now we are on chapter two and that seems better.

WHO DO YOU ALL SUGGEST FOR PHONE COACHING OF THE HARLEYS??

any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

SF

I may be off track here but I believe that you must grip what passion would mean. You said that you felt the sex with you was "boring" for your husband. What made it boring? The same thing that opened the door for an A. The lack of passion. Passion is not about sex, but sex can be a part of it.

What do you see passion is? I see it this way. Passion is the feeling of intimacy that you have when you are doing the marriage right. The feeling of loving the other person for who they are, the joy you feel from meeting their EN and the joy you get from them meeting your EN without the expectations that either one of you is forced into it. You are 2 seperate people with their own views of the world, their own hopes and dreams but in the marriage, that space between you-the relationship-you are together as one person.

or I could be completely wrong.

rusty-

i totally agree with your definition of passionate sex- it is something between two people who love each other and are expressing that love through makikng love.

yet - harley uses the word passion and love to describe the feelings that waywards feel in an affair. i was trying to understand this concept as it applies to my H.

he had many affairs with many women and was not loyal to any of them. so i see his sex with them as a sickness - an addiction- a way to escape from a real relationship with me- that he didnt know how to handle.

our sex was not boring - but it was unsatisfying . his ego was too weak to try to learn how to have satisfying sex with me.

and we had a very sick marriage.

i pursued a marriage with him = and he ran from me. he was work obsessed, a womanizer and flirt and obsessed with his friends. he did everything he could to run away from a real relationship.

now he wants to change and i am trying to get over the affairs. trying to understand them and make sense of them.

as we read the harley books- i know more and more how a marriage should be- and i feel more upset knowing how sick ours has been and how much i have put up with.

i just wanted an intact family ... i didnt want to be divorced so i saw no other option.

now i do.

now i am changing as is my H. doing the MB home program and trying to create a marriage.

but when harley used PASSION and then my H agreed - it hurt me very much.


sf

What do you do with your HURT? There's SO MUCH of it as you grow through this process. It's important to gain EMOTIONAL CONTROL.

Please don't read this as me being insensitive. The HURT can be unbearable, I know..

BUT, you've got to DEAL WITH it and MOVE ON..in order to make it...

See, I believe that the affair passion would be a "fake passion" more or less. Like romantic love when you first meet someone and then mature love you have when you make an effort to meet their EN. While the passion experienced in romantic love is great and all, the passion in a more mature love woill eclipse that. What would make me happy right now? Meeting my WW's EN's and what would make me even happier? Having my WW meet my EN's. When you are being happy meeting their needs and then even happier that your needs are being met, that is what I think leads to true intimacy.

S-55,


I knew I was led back here in spite of my strong desire to leave, because someone needed me. That must be you.


I read your post about the interaction between you and your husband, and your reaction to him - when he strongly desires to work to fix things, and you push him away. You put up the walls.

And you stuggle with this. This is going against what you want to do - yet you do it anyway.

This is so human, isn't it?


I have been reading so deeply into the concept of self-deception and self-betray that I have learned a great deal on how to forgive. I wish I could impart to you what it is that I fully understand in just this one post, but I cannot do that. There is too much to learn, to know. But I can give you a bit of an idea, and maybe some philosophy to think about. It's hard, and it's deep. But you seem like you will grab it - and hang on.


Self-deception is the idea that we all operate with ideas, both positive and negative, about ourselves that are NOT TRUE. For example, maybe we grow up thinking that we are great at art, but we are not really "great", but more or less just slightly below average when it comes down to it. But for whatever reason, our parents or families, and maybe teachers or others, complimented and encouraged us in art, and so we pursued it and gained enough skills in art that we became slightly better than average, and so we consider that we are "great" - the reality being we are slightly better than average because we received some training. Not gifted, not great. Self-deception is the word we use, because we are not aware of our limitations in the area of art.

Maybe the idea is a negative image, when we are self-deceiving negatively. We may say to ourselves, "I am no good when it comes to controlling my money." It may be that there are factors that we blame on ourselves, when in fact there are outside forces in play.

Self-betrayal comes into play when one of two things happen. When we become aware of a self-deception, it becomes impossible to deceive ourselves any longer. Because we are now conscious of the self-deception, we now move into one of two positions - 1)we either are forced to change our behavior or 2) move into purposeful self-betrayal activies, and this is where bad things begin to happen in our lives, like affairs, or what I plan to talk to you about.


So what is self-betrayal? This is when you are aware of a conflict within yourself, and you choose to do the thing that goes against what you know you OUGHT TO DO. You behave counter-intuitively, in spite of the fact of knowing what you should do. Usually, this involves doing the right thing for ANOTHER PERSON.

In the case of your husband's affairs, he knew it was wrong to have the affairs, right? So here's how his thinking went:

MMMM....nice looking lady! I really shouldn't talk to her. It would be wrong, I'm married, and my wife is a good woman. Self-betrayal occurs right NOW. But I'd really like to have some of that action. Besides, my wife isn't so good at __________. This is where he immediately found YOU blameworthy. I'm going to just talk to this lady, see what happens. Just some talking, won't hurt anything. She will probably make the first move anyway, because I'm so cool, nobody can resist me. I just draw women to me. This is where the justifications and movement of blame away from the self begin. The rest? A downhill slide.


So it's easy to see what happened with your H, right?


Let's see YOU............



My husband wants to spend the 15 hours together. I know we should, but it's so hard. An inkling of self-betrayal beginning to work here. Watch for the blaming to come. I wouldn't be having to do this if it weren't for HIS STUPID AFFAIRS! Yep, there's the blaming. Shifting to being HIS FAULT, you now have every reason to be angry with him, right? I really don't want to have to work at being married. I want to be over this, and I shouldn't have to be working at this in the first place. Somehow, he gets to get off without any punishment - and I have to sit here and face the person who perpetrated this CRIME on me, day after day, and figure out how to forgive him! On top of that, he has the nerve to talk about my faults, how boring the sex was with me! I should not have to spend five minutes with him, let alone 15 hours. Justifications for feeling your anger, now piling on. Are we there yet?


In reality, you do have the right to be angry. He DID do a lot against you.

On the other hand, you made an agreement with him to work on the marriage.

If you do not want to work on the marriage, and wish to rescind the agreement, then rescind it. It is a betrayal of his trust for you to dishonestly attempt to recover the marriage when you do not intend to do so.

However, if you intend to recover the marriage, when you sit down with this man to attempt to recover the marriage, then give him your heart with all of your effort. When you see yourself move into the self-betrayal mode, stop yourself and ask yourself about these justifications, and what they are contributing to the recovery.

You can certainly express your anger to him! You can do this within the boundaries of adult conversation, without love-busting. He needs to hear it, he needs to understand it, and I am positive he knows it is there. You two need to work through that part of the marriage, and there will be no recovery unless you do.

But during the time that you are working to recover your love and openness, allow that heart of yours to swing open the door to the possibility that he can change. Otherwise, there is NO recovery possible - what would be the point? If he were not to be able to change, then you fully expect the same thing to happen again, and that is no future. Leave now.


I hope I offered something of value to you to think about.

For more information, please google "The Arbinger Institute" and look at their articles on self-betrayal, and Who We Are.

SB

rusty-
i loved your explanation about intimacy. it is so true- but just difficult for me to grasp or even accept that my FWH was even having sex with OW while married to me- ...

but you are right - i think passion is from a more mature love. it seems like you are on the right path with your W - talking about meeting each other's EN.

i am still having a hard time even caring about my H's EN- and am working on this aspect of myself to try and recreate a relationship with him.

for a change- i want HIM to care about MY ENs.

after i see more of that.....perhaps i will care about meeting some of his ENs.

the more i see him change- the more i am willing to trust.

Sf

SB-
G-d keeps sending you to me to help! your words always hit me straight between the eyes and may not be what i want to hear... but are words that i NEED to hear.

i needed some time to digest your words. i went to the Arbinger web site and read some about self betrayal. the book sounds good. did you read it and can you recommend it?


i see and understand your concept of self betrayal as it applies to my H. the example was so clear.

and the self talk and self betrayal of myself, BUT my self betrayal is based on self preservation- fear of being hurt again by my H.

while i know that he most likely , because dr. harley says no one can be 100% sure of it, cheating again, i am in the midst of reassessing his personality to decide if he is a fulfilling partner for me.

and YES - i DO put up walls. i want him to break them down. i want him to prove his love for me, by exhibiting his perseverence and dedication to me.

these were two characteristics he never owned before.....

but by doing the ENs Questionarre- we have discovered that my number one need is CONVERSATION. ( i guess you can tell from how much i write.)

and he is a terrible conversationalist!

i become so frustrated when trying to talk to him and express my feelings.

he pauses forever after i say something, and then says only a few words.

when he tries to talk to me, he asks me YES or NO quesions!! not encouraging any conversation.

part of me is in self betrayal, and part of me is in re-assesing my life,

does that make sense?? or am i just making up excuses for my behavior??

sf

My WW is still gone and has no urge to try to meet any of my EN or anything else right now. I have just resigned myself to trying to meet hers.

See, you say you would like to have him meet your EN for a change. Here is the rub on that as I see it. You have to want to meet their EN. You have to have a feeling and want to meet their EN even if they are not meeting yours. You cannot meet their EN and expect them to meet yours in return, but that makes it better. I am enjoying meeting my WW EN and showing her that I love her every day even when she doesnt show me back. Do I some days feel like I would like to have my EN looked to? You damn right...but I do not expect it or look to it. I know that one day she will either start meeting my EN or we will each move on. Then she will be stuck with someone who does not care about her EN and will always regret what she let get away.

rusty -
wow - i think you are a much better person than me- to care so much about your WW's EN, when she doesnt care at all about yours.

i dont know how to do that yet... and i'm not sure i want to.

was your WW's A long term? is she living with the OM?

the problem i am having is that i am learning about how abusive my marriage was with my H, and i am looking at him with clear eyes and seeing what an AH he has been.

i never really knew that before because i saw him as wonderful and all of his "people skills" and charisma, as something that made me fall in love with him, because i was so lacking these skills. i was shy when i was younger.

now that i am 53, i see that his whole personality was a sham. he ONLY cared about what others thought about him, and worked his whole life to make other people like him, while disregarding his family and ME - his wife...

which eventually led to his affairs, when i started to ask him to be a H and father, and he didnt know how to be- he ran.

to other broken women who only wanted admiration- just as they gave him.

now i want a REAL MARRIAGE- like the one that the harleys describe. and if i cant have that... i'm not sure what i want. so i am not sure if i want him.

i am not sure of anything with my M- except that i have no pleasant memories of time spent with my H for the last 31 years. there must be some, but my mind seems to have blanked them out.

now i only see how abused i was... and how sick i was to stay with him and accept that abuse. it wasnt much physical- maybe a push her or there- but everyday it was verbal.

NOW - he wants to change into a caring, loving spouse- but it is soooooo long and hard for him to change, and any backslide just makes me want to end it all.

i should be happy that he FINALLY wants to become a HUSBAND and a father and is open to anything.... but i am not.

i am still in shock of how bad my life has been, and how terribly i was hurt.

and i dont know if he is the right partner for me.

SF

My W A was less than 2 months. She works with him and will not quit her job. She left the day they had sex.

Here is my thread if you are interested.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2162572&fpart=1


But anyways, on to what you said about your H. Is he trying? From the way you talk he seems to be. I know in my case, I had no idea what an [censored] I was being until WW left. I would be mean to her because she refused to talk to me about us and get close enough that I was comfortable. I struck out in desperation wanting her to be more affectionate, more sex, etc...It is funny how sometimes you strike out at your loved one wanting to hurt them hoping that will make them change. I didnt even realise what I was doing...all I knew is that I had never acted that way with anyone else.

The way I look at it is like this, if you are willing to change to be who you should be and he is willing to change to be who he should be, then fix the marriage. If, however, one of you is not willing to do what it takes, then you can never fix it so it would then be time to move on.

rusty-

wow - i just read your thread! you've been through a lot!

it doesnt seem that YOU were mean to your spouse at all- it seems exactly the opposite.


she is abusing YOU by telling you about her feelings for the OM, and about her A.

i dont know what brought her to the point of the A. i still can not understand the wayward mind- as many hours as me and my H discuss all the reasons- and he admits that all his reasons - not ONE of them was valid.

i think its great that you are involved with MB and want to save your marriage. it shows great courage that you have posted here and purchased the MB books.

my H and i are working on the MB home study course, and it is great. we have an appt with the harleys for marriage coaching this weekend.

some days it is just too painful for me to read what dr. harley writes about affairs- as you have responded to here.

Dont give up! you are getting great advise - especially from Melody. she is so wise.

thanks for your support of me,
sf

My W was cold and distant because she is afraid of true intimacy and I would have AO and they just steadily increased because of bad choices she would make. In my AO I would be really mean.


I am sure glad you guys are wanting and trying to work it out. If I can help at all or give you any encouragement I will.

rusty-
your wife sound like my H! he also was afraid of intimacy - and still doesnt really know how to have a deep conversation with me.
while i asked him to be intimate and share himself - he felt so insecure - that he was afraid that if he exposed the real him to me- that i wouldnt like or love him. so he covered it up with bravado and his "charming" , flirty personality.

and he pushed me away- further and further and further.

i didnt have AO, until many years during his verbal abuse of me. he hated that i had real values and tried to get him on board by asking him to be a real father and husband. he just wanted admiration 24/7. i really didnt see what there was to admire in a work obsessed, flirty, non- attentive husband and father.

as the years went on- i, who was always gently, quiet and kind, became angry and demanding. the giver (me) became the taker.

i know we both want to change- but it is sooooooo hard for me to trust him and even the slightest reminder of his personality resembling his former self- send me into a tailspin.

i would post my other thread - but i dont know how . can you expain??
thanks for listening and good luck with your W.

sf

Wow, almost exactly alike. I just steadily got worse the farther away she pushed me also.


What do you mean post your other thread? I will try to help.

rusty-
i mean - how did you put in the thread that you originally posted called "hello", so i could just click on it and read it? i have another thread here which i would like to attach .
thanks,
sf

Oh, the link.

Just open the thread page and all you want it to open on, then copy and paste it from the address bar. It will do it itself