Hi Nano and thanks.

Well, he was not diagnosed with a character disorder, you are correct. I do worry about this. A lot in fact. He is being seen and taking meds for depression. Even with that I have seen such a change in him. If he had not previously been so good at deceiving I would not hesitate to believe it is all real.

What we have come to learn through the appointments and his therapist makes perfect sense. I can see it, always have. I know when he is getting that way, I can read him like a book now that I know there was a behavior other than the drugs that followed. Steve requested he draw up several lists of EP's, one dealing with his tells. Part of it was for me to be aware and stop him when it happens. I hope this makes sense. **the weather radio just went off and I have a son on the road coming to visit and it unnerves me when there are storms this time of year and they are not home safe** The EP list covers the risk taking as well as the compulsive behavior.

As far as empathy and conscience goes I can vouch for the empathy. He is very empathetic, just not with me for some reason. I saw it before we married directed at me but after we married it was gone. He has remained a very kind, empathetic person in every way except with me. The conscience.....well yes I think he does have one but he easily puts it away.

Yes I am a nurse. Good memory!

I will be interested in pursuing this possibly later once I can get back on my own feet and think clearly. I really appreciate your help. I would have thought that at this point I would have a better handle on myself. I guess that comes at some point .

Best of luck working through this, sadsosad--be sure and let me know when you are ready for those book titles. And I may be totally off--as a mystery writer I fully admit to having an overactive imagination and fascination with the darker side of human psychology!

I think it is a lot simpler than you think, sss. You have contented yourself for 26 years of existing in a marriage by yourself. The reality of what you have recently learned and were forced to FACE leaves you fearing ever loving again. You feel yourself on the brink of getting what you always thought you wanted from your husband and that scares you. Do you want, can you, will you actually be able to open yourself up to intimacy? I think part of you wants the life you have, minus the betraya, with a real partner and part of you wants to continue to live your own life without the risk of letting someone inside. My fear for you is if you continue to work on recovery and he fails you again, can you survive?

I think you need to take your time before you decide either way. He has had 26 years to do this to you, don't rush your decision now.

BTW, you did not fail. You held up your end. He was the one who failed. I think he would agree with me.

You are on a roller coaster of emotions. Who wouldn't be? 26 years of betrayal and being ignored is more than most could imagine much less survive.

Hi SSS. I have a question for you. What is the reason GM, now, all of a sudden, seems to want to "go straight" and give up the prostitutes, etc.

WHY...NOW??????

1. Does he have cancer and wants you to care for him?
2. Does he have diabetes and has realized his mortality?
3. Is he getting old and does not want to die alone?
4. Is he too old and tired to "cat around" anymore?
5. Did he have a loss of income and cannot afford prostitutes or supporting a mistress?
6. Does he have worsening ED and can't get erections for other women anymore?
7. Is it his pride?
8. Did he have a religious conversion experiance?
9. What is the real reason he wants to attempt to change his life NOW> All of a sudden?.


I want to know why NOW of all times, is he saying he will give up on all the OW and the prostitutes when he has done it your whole marriage!!!???

WHY NOW!!!!????

If I were you I would get to the bottom of it and find out his reasoning. Otherwise your risk is that he will continue the affair behavior and you will lose out again. I feel there is some reason for this to all come out NOW. It would be nice if you knew the reason.

Hi sss-

I just wanted to let you know that I am thinking about you.
I don't have anything to add but I do agree with those who say to not make any decisions right now. You are in a maelstrom and it will take some time before the "noise" and "chaos" settle down enough to see clearly.



I hope your son arrived okay. My OS is traveling back to his college after visiting for the week-end and our mountain passes have been dicey. We had snow here in the western part of Washington A.C. (above California) which is rare any time of year, but very rare for March, so I was concerned. Especially after hearing that the pass going the other direction had been shut down due to an accident.

He just called and let me know that the skies were clear as he got over the pass. My relief was EPIC! Thank goodness I gave him a bluetooth.

So, I completely understand.

((sss))

Thank you for your reply.

You are correct. The big question is if I can be intimate again and if I really want to be intimate with GM. It certainly bought me a lot of years of pain the first time.

I do know this, if it is not possible with GM there will never be another chance that I will take. The thought of that is sad to be sure but not at all scary. I could live that way, I have lived that way all my life, so it would not be impossible.

As I look back I can't honestly say that I own much, if any, of this nasty mess. Searching my heart and mind I can't see much I did wrong. Neither can GM so I guess I did not fail. I hope I am not failing by not seeing my part in this. I just tried too hard for too long to be guilty of much except perhaps changing my way of relating to him as mother rather than wife and being crankier than I ever wanted to be.

The more I think about it, I was not a failure but certainly pretty darned stupid. Every time he walked through the door it was a new start for me, new hope. Every day for 26 years. You would have thought that first anvil that he dropped on me would have stopped that. :RollieEyes: What a maroon! :RollieEyes:

The "NOW" part is easy StellaKat. He got caught. I finally had proof in my grubby little hand and when confronted he got scared. I followed my confrontation by throwing him out of the house. He knew how much he had done over the years (at that time all I knew was he had slept with this woman once a long time ago when he had actually crawled out of her bed when I called), he knew I would drag that all out of him eventually so he knew it was over. He looked at the "sweet thing" he had been loving for 6 years and it shook him when he saw what she really was. In other words, reality bites. His fantasy world crashed in about 2 days time, totally crashed. In his fantasy I was content to be alone 24 hours a day, never wanted sex, and was a meanie. His "love" was a low life alcoholic, druggie, criminal and a prostitute. He realized all at once that he had created that reality for us and I was no different than the woman he married, loving and sweet and alive AND oddly still interested in sex. His ego, thrill seeking and entitlement had destroyed the one thing he wanted. He got mad when I called him on his BS all those many years ago so he made me the "bad guy" and played his lovely little fantasy based on getting it over on me and getting what he wanted because he deserved everything he wanted.

He is still all about himself. That is not good for me but really, there is a LOT to confront there and a LOT LOT LOT of pain now that he sees what he has done. I can wait longer for him to snap out of that. I am seeing it happen but it is a slow process. I have nothing but time and my own grief to work out.

I hear ya sss. Sure I wasn't the perfect wife but the way FWH exaggerated stupid stuff, has/had poor coping skills, and is needier than me gave me pause about whether or not I could stay married to him. If FWH could stray when things weren't really THAT bad then what's going to keep him faithful going forward? I know his choice to have an A was selfish, thoughtless and all the rest but I'd be a fool to ignore this notion. The only promising thing for me is that FWH readily admits he took me for granted for years and has owned up to his selfishness.

FWH is proving himself to be the man I can be proud of. I hope GM can do that for you.

Hi johnstwin!

Thank you for posting this. I am glad your son made it OK, mine did too . There is nothing worse than sending them off like that. Even though both of mine live only 65 miles away, for now anyway, and Kansas is usually pretty safe and flat to drive in I still ask them to call or text me when they arrive home. They do, sweet young men that they are I am NOT a fan of mountain passes so your post made me a little green in the face. YIKES! I do love your state, it is lovely. Traveled over a lot of it and will be going back someday because there is so much to see and we do have friends there now.

Thanks for your support and hug. It means a lot. I am changing my mind so often these days that I do have to wait, probably for quite a while before I can process enough to make any kind of decision. I wish I had known about this place before we had gone through 3 months of this. It might have shortened it a bit but back then I committed myself to a year before I made any kind of decision so....................

black_raven! It seems we have a similar position here, probably there are a lot of us like this.

Trust. Can that ever be built on a history like that? Yes, that is exactly the question...can you ever trust someone who would do what they did when things were good or at least not that bad?

I am glad your FWH is owning up to all of this. GM is too but it is new and slow. I am so happy for you that your FWH is proving himself as a man to be proud of. You have no idea how that made me smile. I am shooting for that and so is GM.

Thanks.

We are in for an interesting day.

A while ago one of the small diamonds in my wedding ring fell out. We took it in eventually and it is now ready to pick up. While we were there GM saw a ring he really liked. Now this man had a wedding ring. I was poor and saved up to buy him the best ring I could afford when we got married. Certainly it was not up to the family standards, the jewlery store we are going to is owned by his family and it is much more than anything I would ever have reason to even enter. He wore it about 2 weeks then took it off. It bothered him. There were tons of reasons it bothered him, half of them made no sense at all. I would guess that in 26 years he wore it for about a month total. After Dday he wanted it to wear. He not only can't find it he can't remember what it looked like. His wedding ring, he can't remember what it looked like and it is gone. Broke my heart. So, standing in the store while he tried one on I felt kinda creepy but he wanted it, he is my husband, he was attempting to make a go of this....I bought it for him.

Today I feel rather pressured. I am not at all in the frame of mind to do some kind of romantic thing such as placing it on his finger with a promise. I think I will tell him to wear it if he wants and we can do the real thing if we get to that point. He is very excited and I do not want to hurt him but... Go figure.

sss-

hi again - your life sound like my life- we both have spouses with multiple As and for long amounts of time - and we are both impatient to see more change in our Hs.

i am starting to accept that change is slow for both of us- and that i can not speed up his change - but only make it slower by my LBing him. this shocks him back into being defensive.

so even though we have every right to demand certain things- by doing that- we are actually chasing the behaviors we want away!

we keep needing to look at ourselves and see where we want to grow. what will we gain from this experience??

will it leave us bitter and angry??

or will we emerge as new people- stronger and wiser and happier?

just as it was easier after d-day to be so angry at the OW - instead of experiencing the pain of the betrayal of our Hs, now it is so much easier for us to look at our H and see what HE needs to change - instead of looking at ourselves and seeing what we need to change.

this is a daily struggle for me- i waffle everyday on whether it is worth it to stay or not.. worth the risks of being hurt again-but each experience we have has been brought to us -- to learn a life lesson.

what lessons have we learned??

sf

Sadsosad, first of all, never go to Vegas! Your marriage shows that you work far too hard for far too little payoff-lol! I don't mean to sound mean; I think you are a very nice person, but you must stay away from jerks because you don't seem to have much defense against them.

Because let me see if I have this timeline right:
Six months (?) of "wonderful man" (premarriage investment to "get" you)
27 years of spouse from hell
Two months of "wonderful man" (when his heinie gets busted)

I don't believe that he's a great guy who got bad advice from his father and became a bad person (but only to you!) for the next 27 years until he miraculously "saw the light" and became a great guy again. I also don't believe that you are the only person he has treated badly. Start talking to people from his past, especially those who for some reason no longer associate with him. I would bet money you will discover that your gut is steering you in the right direction.

SMACK! Well, I needed that I suppose.

I gotta run but I did want to tell you I got this and I get it. Thanks. As much as I hate to read things like that I do have to look at them and realize they are worth every effort to think about.

I can tell you that from his past I have heard things about how he was obnoxious because he had no boundaries but I have never heard anyone say anything really bad about him other than that. He seems to have been well liked by most people he has had contact with. I will not forget what you have said, it is important.

PS

I got killed in Vegas

big surprise

EDIT: I have more to answer you but it will have to wait. You make some interesting points and I want to address them.

If you aren't feeling it, then don't do it. My FWH was ready to renew vows and get new rings for us several months after Dday but I was not feeling it. It would have been phony for me to have played along just so FWH felt better. I told him no, but also explained that one day I hoped we'd do the vow renewal. I want to forgive FWH before that day and overcome the resentment so that it really would be a sign of a new beginning once we've healed ourselves. I didn't want to enter the "new marriage" feeling anger and resentment almost every day. I didn't want to hurt FWH either but he understood.

Be honest with GM. Don't stuff your feelings. Expecting that from you so soon is too much IMO.

Listen to your gut!

sss-
i thought that the world loved my H. that he was charismatic and charming. he was promoted to the top of his dept at work and seemed very popular. he had many friends in our community.

now i know the TRUTH. of course, many people wouldnt tell me , bc i was his wife and why would they tell me that they thought my H was an obnoxious, teasing, flirting egomaniac???

now - my closest friends have told me that all along people have been saying - "whats up with that guy?"

and the people he was friends with in our community - people like him - w/o boundaries.

my H would actually go into people's houses and see some possession they had that he liked and ask them if he could have it!!! and many people gave things to him. this used to make me sick. after d-day, he returned all of those things.

so while you may think your H was well - liked - i am sure that the normal people saw him for who he was and didnt like him, they just couldnt tell you.

it turns out that when my H was forced to leave his job, where he was supposedly so well-liked, i heard from someone who knew someone who worked in his dept, thta the people there cheered that he was forced to leave.

no one would tell him to his face.

sf

We have not left yet, still doing chores!

I am going to take GM's computer and the wireless so I can stay on while we drive the hour and a half to get where we are going. Geeky? Oh well. All of the help here means a great deal to me and I hate having to wait to respond.

I will return and thanks so much! I really appreciate all of the conversation here. As you know well, this is all so complicated on top of emotionally draining, so when I feel up to really dealing I don't want to stop. I know the time is coming when I am going to hermit myself and not want to deal for a week or more.

Back later....

SSS, thank you for your sweet response--that really means a lot to me. Your great attitude is going to help you through this.

Yup, it is entitlement. We ARE entitled to be angry and we feel entitled to LB all over the place. We are but it gets in the way and for me it causes an emotional intoxication. It is unfair to have to hold it back but it is the way it is. To move forward we have to do it without the LB's. All this was explained to me by Steve more than one time because this is very difficult for me. There are days that the only thing I want to say to GM is an LB. There are ways to say what you want to say without the LB's thankfully but I did not really realize that for a while.


Those are the million dollar questions aren't they? I wish I knew. I know what I want it to be but what it is may be different than that.

I waffle every day too. It is the rollercoaster and it is an awful ride. Not for the weak, that is certain.