I am a BW whose husband has a month old son to the woman he had a love affair with.I caught my H over a year ago and begged him to stay for the sake of our kids and he said he would but only for the kids,he told me he hasnt loved me for a long time,i dont care because i love him,i told him he had to cut off all contact with HER and i made him write a letter to her(dont know what he put in the letter!) 2 months later she text him and they spoke and she told him she was pregnant,he told me and i flipped and said he could never contact her again or see his child when born.he agreed to this and said he wants nothing to to with them even though he confessed to me that he does love her but he wants to be with our children more than anything.The child was born last month and i made him have a DNA test,i think it was my final last bit of hope but it only proved that it was his.Child support starts next month and as far as i know there has been no contact between them as he knows what will happen if i find out!!!! Our marriage was a mess before his affair but now its worse ,he wont go to marriage counselling as he says he is only staying for the kids anyway,i know he doesnt find me attractive because he hasnt come near me for a very long time.I know he has chosen to go NC with his son because our children are his priority but how do i know that one day he will want that contact as i couldnt cope with that.Do you think he ever thinks about her and their son i know he says all the right things to me but i am sure he just tells me what i want to hear.I know he wont leave unless i kick him out but i sometimes wonder if he will because after all everyone has a breaking point,before his affair he always used to tell me he wanted to leave after every arguement or he would say do you want me to go? and i would say no, stay.So i do know he was miserable even then.He would never say he loved me or kiss me and never say i looked nice,we never did anything together unless it was with the kids.Is it just a matter of time before he walks and goes with HER and that child?

Tinkerbell66,

I am so sorry you have been dealt this cruel blow to your life!

After reading your post, I have to ask.....Are you really willing to live with this kind of marriage and this kind of treatment from the man who is supposed to love and cherish you?

Would you want to have your children grow up thinking this is the kind of relationship that is normal in a marriage?

You are enduring the cruelest of treatment that would ruin the best of self esteems! And you are waiting for HIM to decide he is finally done with you. Really??

You should expect more from a marriage partner or find someone else if he in unwilling to treat you like a loving wife and partner.

Why are you settling for this? Staying together JUST for the children and with this kind of treatment is a life stealer. You deserve and are worthy of so much more!

You are worth more than this. Remember this every day.

tinkerbell, welcome to MB. Please read all the site information carefully and not just the forums. Dr. Harley has a plan for recovering a marriage from infidelity. Fear is not part of that plan. Go to the top of the page and read the basic concepts. Get the book "Surviving An Affair". You can order at the top of the page under bookstore.

You are giving your WH permission to treat you badly and blame you for his mistakes. Stop! The first step is for you to work on yourself. Let's make you the best *you* ever. Ok?

You can start by eliminating Love Busters and Angry Outburts.


Love Busters
The love you and your spouse have for each other is directly affected by almost all of your behavior. This is a point that I will repeat in most of my remaining concepts and Q&A columns. Until now, I have focused attention on behavior that will meet each other's most important emotional needs. When you behave that way, you are caring for each other. But the resulting Love Bank deposits will not do your marriage much good if other behavior leads to Love Bank withdrawals. So to help you gain control over your behavior so that you can learn to avoid making Love Bank withdrawals, I will introduce you to my next basic concept, Love Busters.

Why would any of us hurt the one we promised to love and cherish?

Lack of empathy is at the core of the problem. I was struck with what we are all up against while watching a Star Trek episode. Spock had volunteered to be possessed by an alien presence so that it could communicate with Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise.

As soon as it entered Spock's body, its first reaction was, "Oh, how lonely you must all feel."

You see, in the alien world, they were all connected to each other through telepathy so that each one could feel what everyone else felt. They were all emotionally bonded to each other. But as soon as the alien possessed Spock's body, it realized that we humans are all cut off from each other emotionally. And it viewed our state as incredibly isolated and lonely.

One of the most important consequences of our emotional isolation is that we cannot feel the way we affect others. And that creates the temptation to hurt others because in doing so we don't feel the pain we cause. If we were connected emotionally to others as the aliens were, we would be far less tempted to do anything thoughtless, gaining at someone else's expense. That's because in so doing, we would be hurting ourselves as well.

And that's what I always seem to be battling when I try to encourage one spouse to avoid doing anything that would hurt the other spouse. I cannot seem to trigger empathy. Each spouse complains about how thoughtless the other spouse is, without much awareness of his or her own thoughtlessness.

Lack of empathy helps makes thoughtlessness possible. Since we don't feel what other's feel, we tend to minimize the negative effects we have on others, and consider our thoughtlessness to be benign. An angry outburst is regarded by some as a creative expression. Disrespect is viewed as helping the other spouse gain proper perspective. And a demand is nothing more than encouraging a spouse to do what he or she should have done all along. None of these is seen as one spouse gaining at the other's expense, because the spouse who is inflicting the pain does not feel the pain. But whenever one spouse is the cause of the other's unhappiness, one thing's for sure -- Love Bank withdrawals are taking place.

I call all the ways that spouses are inconsiderate of each other's feelings Love Busters because that what they do -- they destroy the love that a husband and wife have for each other.

I've found that the most common Love Busters in marriage fall into six categories: Selfish Demands, Disrespectful Judgments, Angry Outbursts, Annoying Habits, Independent Behavior and Dishonesty

The first three of these Love Busters are instinctive, yet thoughtless, ways to try to get what you want from each other. When a request doesn't work, a spouse will often revert to a demand ("I don't care how you feel -- do it or else!"). If that doesn't get the job done, a spouse will try disrespectful judgments ("If you had any sense, and were not so lazy and selfish, you would do it"). And then, when all of that fails, an angry outburst often represents the last ditch effort ("I'll see to it that you regret not having done it").

Of course, demands, disrespect and anger don't really get the job done. You generally don't do things for your spouse because of these Love Busters, you do them out of care and consideration. If your spouse is demanding, disrespectful and angry, you tend to be less caring and considerate, leading you to do less for your spouse. Instead of giving your spouse what he or she needs, demands, disrespect and anger cause you to resist. I want you to have what you need in your marriage, but demands, disrespect and anger will not get it for you. They will prevent you from having what you want if you revert to these destructive instincts.

But when you indulge in these three Love Busters, you do more than fail to get what you need -- you also destroy the love your spouse has for you. All of these instincts, and the habits they help create, cause your spouse to be unhappy, and that causes Love Bank withdrawals.

The fourth Love Buster, Annoying Habits, is behavior that is repeated without much thought that bothers your spouse. Marriage is a partnership of incredibly close quarters, where just about anything you or your spouse does is almost sure to affect the other. If you want to stay in love with each other, your habits, even the innocent ones, should make Love Bank deposits, not withdrawals.

The fifth Love Buster is Independent Behavior, the conduct of one spouse that ignores the feelings and interests of the other spouse. If your decisions are made as if your spouse doesn't even exist, you will find yourself running roughshod over your spouse's feelings and your Love Bank account. Since it's usually scheduled and requires some thought to execute, the simplest way to overcome it is to take it off your schedule. And if you follow the Policy of Joint Agreement, Independent Behavior will never find itself on your schedule in the first place.

Finally, the sixth Love Buster, Dishonesty, causes massive Love Bank withdrawals whenever it's discovered. And spouses usually discover each other's dishonesty because of their emotional closeness to each other. If you or your spouse have a tendency to lie or distort the truth, chase that bad habit out of your marriage before it ruins everything.

If you would like to identify Love Busters that are responsible for Love Bank withdrawals in your relationship, first read a summary of each by clicking their names listed below, and then click this name, the Love Busters Questionnaire , and print two copies of the form, one for you and one for your spouse. After you have completed this form, the priorities you give each Love Buster will show you where to begin in sweeping these rascals out of your lives.


Selfish Demands
Disrespectful Judgments
Angry Outbursts
Annoying Habits
Independent Behavior
Dishonesty

If you have a few extra minutes, The Parable of the Net will help show you how Love Busters destroy marriage.

The sixth Love Buster, Dishonesty, is so important to overcome in marriage that I have given it a basic concept of it's own. After you have had a chance to read it, I think you will agree with me that it deserve special attention

Decided to end the marraige,feel more happier in myself so this is what i needed to do for ME,thankyou for the advice

How are you feeling? It may be a lonely time for you but there's always someone about if you need to rant/chat whatever. Reading your post you deserve to be with someone as strong as yourself to give you the love you deserve, you should not have to settle for what your H is willing to give as you already deserve to have everything. It will be hard but when you meet someone who treats you the way you should you will actually believe the pain was worth it. Hope you and your children are ok x