we watched "Failure to launch" the other night and nearly peed our pants. Failure to launch is out tonight!

DNA my a**. She looks just like her mother.

Of course I was referring to Rob and not you, Jen. Your genes really had a load to carry.

Hmmm...wonder if he has those pink shorts on under that tux....

Heeeeey, my H is a sweetie. I meant to say RED shorts. lol

Right. "Faded red". My bad.

Well Jen I was reading through the thread on FTL and I noticed where you said he is continually dumped by girls.

Look on the bright side - there is a far worse alternative.

Hi pio,

I hope you don't mind my asking you this here. I have taken a great interest in your story and I admire your insights.

On krazy's thread today you wrote this:

" Whenever we BS's work tooth and nail to try to save the M after Dday, we have no way of looking into the future and seeing just exactly what it is we will be saving.

Although most of cannot see it at the time, most of us would agree in hindsight that the M will never be the same as it was before.

I did ask myself this question very early on - what if I get WW to stay but later decide I am the one who wants out? I struggled quite a bit with it.

I have to say that I have shared your thoughts. Recently in fact. But I have taken the view that my commitment to the recovered M is the same as my commitment to the original M - that it is a commitment.

So since my FWW has kept her part of the bargain and fulfilled her commitment in the recovered M, it would be wrong of me to not keep to my part of the bargain.

My FWW could have left at any time. She stayed because I asked her to. Now I am obligated - like it or hate it - I'm obligated."

Would you mind telling me more about the lines that I highlighted? Are you saying that you still have thoughts of leaving, and if so, do you know why?

I like working through problems that I have faced in my own recovery. I rarely have thoughts of leaving now, but I have had them a lot. I put these down to my many false recoveries; they have left me with a resentment that WH did not want his marriage badly enough to drop OW like a diseased hot potato as soon as I found out about the affair. Is that how you still feel sometimes?

I think I can answer that question but I have to leave the country in a couple of hours and won't be back until tonight. So give me another 27 hours.

I was thinking about how best to respond to this and decided I don’t think I can put together a coherent dialogue so, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll ramble a bit and see where it takes me. I want to try to see if I can dissect this a little.

Let me start off by saying that prior to Dday, the thought of divorce never once crossed my mind in 7 years of marriage. Let me also state that for almost every single day of those 7 years, I was totally in love with gemela – not every single day but certainly the vast majority. For some reason, I think those two statements are significant but maybe I don’t know why.

Learning of the A is certainly devastating and I won’t rehash the grief process. I think my story is documented well enough already. I think my two biggest problems at the moment are inability to completely trust and poor self-esteem.

First look at the basics: everything seems to be going great. I have no reason to believe gemela is having or is about to have an A. Go back 4 years and I felt the same way then. I was wrong. So, in theory anyway, there is nothing to prevent gemela from having another one. I have to believe she thoroughly enjoyed the last one so sometimes I wonder if she might not want to experience that high again. Now the reason I sometimes think that is because of trust issues. I think this is a vicious circle but my logic may be convoluted. So let’s just stop right here and pull this to its own context. Within this perspective, I believe thoughts of divorce are simply a defense mechanism – I’ll leave her before she “leaves” me. [note: leave = checking out of the marriage]

Obviously that is an irrational emotional response based in fear. Allowed to grow, it would likely be a self-fulfilling prophecy. So from a practical point-of-view, while I may occasionally entertain these thoughts (and I do), I generally dismiss them as quickly as they occur because I remind myself that, in this case, the problem is not gemela but rather me. I remind myself that if I don’t believe I am good enough to be gemela’s husband than I can hardly expect her to believe I am either. But here is the catch. As I give myself this adrenaline boost of self-esteem, I immediately distance myself emotionally from gemela. I get this overwhelming sense that I don’t need gemela (and truth be told I do not need her). It is during these brief moments of self-indulgence that my mind begins to wander and the thought of divorce becomes more palpable. I believe it is these thoughts that are more dangerous because I am the one mentally checking out of the marriage. Now although these thoughts seem to last an eternity, in reality they probably are gone in a few milliseconds. Okay let’s hold this thought process for a moment.

I have not been “in love” with gemela since Dday although I have no doubt that I love here. I would give my life for her without hesitation. But I just don’t have that feeling I used to have where my spine would tingle when she walked in a room. I miss that and I wonder if I will ever feel that again. Do I “need” to feel it again or do I just want to feel it again? Jury is out on that one. Most of the time I don’t believe I will feel it again so if the need is there, D may be the only option. (I’m not stating that as fact – I’m stating that it is how I FEEL, at times.)

Now I the two thoughts described in the previous two paragraphs converge at the same point in time, this is where I seriously entertain the idea of walking out the door, going to the airport, getting on the first plane to Thailand and disappearing off the face of the planet.

Okay enough about MEEEEEE!

Let me just shift gears completely. As I said before, prior to Dday, the thought of D never occurred to me. That is because, when I married gemela, I gave her my promise not to. I committed myself to the M till death.

I don’t dwell on divorce very often. After all, it is only running away from the problem. I think the more pervasive thought is “what if”. Knowing what I know now, maybe it would have been better to send her off to pool boy from day one. Maybe she would have been happier. I don’t know. That is not, however, what happened. I gave her the opportunity to return to the M and the family. Essentially I gave her my promise that I would still be her husband. Ultimately she did come back heart and soul because, in part, I gave her that safe place to land. I was true to my word. Just as I did on the wedding day, once again I made her a commitment that I would love and honor her. When I sometimes get the feeling that I want to renege on that offer, I tell myself that this is exactly why I cannot – because it is just a feeling. I recognize that the problem is not gemela – the problem is me. If I choose to ruin a marriage and a family based on my feelings, I’m doing exactly the same thing to gemela that she did to me. I’m only exacting revenge – but I’m the one who would likely be hurt the most (okay maybe not if I go to Thailand).

I can say I exactly share your thought of “….resentment that WH did not want his marriage badly enough….”. For me, it is more fundamental. While I think I may understand some of the dynamics of what led gemela down that path, it was her choice. I still don’t feel protected. Maybe I’ll never feel protected again. Obviously a wedding ring is no defense.

One thing I do know for a fact: if gemela ever does have another A, we won’t pass go, we won’t collect $200. We will be divorced in a heartbeat. I’ll never suffer through this again.

Okay I started out as a ramble and, during the process of writing this, I have been interrupted 4 times so I’m not really sure what I have said. Please pick this apart and find any faults you can. At the moment I need to go catch up on Desperate Housewives I just downloaded off iTunes.

Hi Pio

Forgive my interjection here, as i know you don't welcome them from me, but I would like to offer a comment on your status.

I am in my marriage now in part because of my commitment ( like you) but mostly because overall my own and my family's lives benefit from me so being.

I am not in my marriage primarily because I love Squid, or for any romantic reason. I do love her, but not enough any more for me to suffer a bad daily life if I that is what it required.

She has been utterly unprepared to contribute what is required to recover our marriage to a romantic level, but our kids are thriving, we have a nice life and I get on well with Squid for the most part. A bit like we were before her affair in fact. Except now she has cheated on me.

I think it is BETTER that you are emotionally invested enough to fear another affair than to be like me. But don't walk in that fear. Its very tiring so to do.

Thanks for the insight. I have been reading some of your posts and I can see some parallels - maybe too many. As I was writing that post before, there was a word I was thinking of and trying to find a way to use it. Since I could not find a way without misrepresenting my intent, I left it out.

The word was apathy.

It came about from a conversation gemela and I had a couple of weeks ago when I asked her if she thought there was something strange about a couple (principally driven by the man) who seem to want us to play golf with them practically every day. My feeling (very possbily wrong) was that he was trying to get really close to her and she loving the attention, was allowing it even if subconsciouly. She calmly (and correctly) explained that I was being jealous without cause. I give her credit for how she handled that so please don't judge her harshly by my Cliff's Notes version. I think she doesn't want me to be jealous because she has a need for me to trust her.

The thing was this created a bigger problem. Let's go over the groundrules:

1) I cannot prevent her from having an A
2) if she wants to cheat, she will

So with that in mind, If I am not allowed to be jealous, my only alternatives are a) divorce or b) apathy which might (likely will) lead to divorce.

Pulling myself back from the brink of apathy is a dangerous game. It is actually what I fear most.

I feel like that movie "The Saint" where Elizabeth Shue is working on cold fusion but just can't quite get it. She has those four note cards that, if placed in the right order, will all work out.

It is hard to believe it took her so long because how many permutations are there with only four cards.

If I could just get all these thoughts in the right order.....

Dear pio,

I apologise for asking you to reveal your secret feelings and then not getting back to you! I did not have internet access yesterday.

It took me a long time to get the gist of what you said, and I might still be misunderstanding it. Are you saying that

1. You sometimes want to divorce, although you have no reason to fear that an affair is in process, and

2. You made a comitment to stay in the marriage if gemela did the same, and so now you have no justification for leaving since she's kept her side of the bargain?

I struggled long and hard with this question of commitment after my H stopped seeing OW. After the euphoria wore off (of realising that he still loved and wanted to be with me, and that I had "saved" my marriage and my children would be secure), I suffered some degree of depression. The implications of the commitment I had made seemed unfair on me.

My commitment meant that even though I was feeling very unhappy with my marriage I had to stick with it because H was sticking to his side of the deal. In fact, it was not "win-win" for him either; he was suffering consequences from ending the affair. He not only stopped seeing OW, but to accomplish this he had to admit to his boss that his marriage was in trouble and refuse to travel ever again thus, no doubt, sparking rumours in the office and facing curious glances for weeks and months.

After months of forcing his employers to cope with his strange working arrangements, eventually he had to accept a demotion and pay cut and moved to a much less interesting post.

He was lucky to have a job at all; they needed only to look at his emails and international phone calls, paid for by them, and he could have been sacked on the spot. He has never complained about his humiliation and neither should he. However, he isn't happy in his job but he does it for me and the children and I have at times felt trapped into staying in the marriage because of his commitment.

Worse than that, at times I felt that I had made my real commitment to my son, who was between the ages of 9 and 11 when I suffered my worst "buyer's remorse". I thought at first that I was easily able to commit to staying for his sake; I would gladly die for my children if I need to and I could certainly stay with their father for their security. He had been a rotten father during the affair but he had given up the affair to recommit to them, and was becoming a good father again.

At worse, these feeling turned into resentment at feeling I was trapped by my son, and I resented him a lot. Why had I waited 7 years to have this child number 2? If he had been nearer my daughter's age I could plan to leave soon!

I grew out of that ridiculous way of thinking about my son, thank goodness.

I'm now very contented with the commitment I have made, mainly because I no longer think that I must honour it as long as H is faithful (and nice to live with). I no longer look at my agreement to stay, made about 2 years ago, as binding; I see it as something that I negotiate regularly on the balance of advantages to me and the children. I don't think that, given the length of his affair and the treatment of me and the children during the false recoveries, H is entitled to expect commitment from me. He chose to disregard and trample on my commitment over and over again, so mine is no longer the same commitment I made on my wedding day. I thought that it should be the same, for a while, but now I realise that it can never be.

In short, I cannot trust his commitment so I cannot give my own. I know that H is here with me and seems happy. I know that he does not travel any more. I know that he fought to be allowed to stay and bring up his children and that that privilege matters greatly to him. His reasons for staying with me, however, I can never know again.

He could be here because he felt too old to start again. It could be because OW was too nutty to live with; according to both him and her H (whom I spoke to, several times) she is charming and funny and refreshing, but a bit OCD and with tendencies towards depression. It could be because he did not dare take another man's wife away, and face his wrath and lose his own job in the process. Perhaps he did not fancy step-fatherhood. Certainly by the time he gave me my share of our assets and maintenance for the children, and by the time he or OW gave up one of their jobs so that they could both live in the same country, there would have been no money left to enjoy his new start. It could be that he loves me and that he is just the world's best cake-eater, but how can I ever know?

I've become very self-absorbed in this post, as I usually do. What I am trying to ask is whether we BSs really should feel trapped by the commitment we renewed once recovery started. Why shouldn't we divorce if we continue to be unhappy?

I know it's your thread, but I find Bob's input enlightening and I should like him and any one else to offer thoughts on this!

I get the feeling that Bob is swimming somewhere in these waters too.

I can see the logical flow of your argument but I think we differ in a couple of points. First, I have never expected life to be fair. In fact after reading the Bible, I believe this is one expectation God never offered us. So I don't tend to dwell on any bad hands I get dealt.

I guess where I struggle most is whether I now believe M to be a binding commitment. I certainly did once. Now gemela has shown me that isn't necessarily the case.

I don't believe I am stuck here now because gemela decided to stay in the M. I think the belief in commitment is the same as it has always been. When I first got married, I didn't bail because of a few bad times. I always stayed because of the commitment. That is still the case. The one difference is that now I no longer believe it is binding. That being the case, the question I have to ask myself is, if I'm not really happy, why do I stay?

OTOH, why am I unhappy? Is it A related? Could be but maybe not. Since I'm the only one who can make me happy, I cannot hold gemela liable for that. Will leaving gemela once and for all make me happy? I'm not convinced it would - at least not in the long term.

I guess what I hang on to is that I have to be true to myself - (whatever that means?). Regardless of what choices gemela has made in her life, i take responsibility for my choices very seriously. Am I the "better" person? That would never occur to me - poor self-esteem sees to that.

I also want to mention, as it might be relevant, that I have been very depressed since December 11th. Long story short is that I have torn either a cartilage or a tendon (or both) in my left wrist/hand depending on which doctor you believe. I had to endure five weeks of a GP telling me it was just tendonitis and that I would get better. When I complained loudly, he decided I had arthrtitis and sent me to a rheumotoligist who immediadtely walked me over to an orthopedic surgeon. I was able to get an MRI done on a cancellation and am only now seeing the sports medicine specialist who has decided I need surgery. What all this means is that I have been in nearly constant and sometimes excrutiating pain for just over three months and have almost zero use of my left hand. I'm not sure when he will be able to operate. My left arm has whithered and looks pathetic.

This has been a major blow to my lifestyle. I have played golf a couple of time one-handed and that has gone surprisingly well but our normal routine has been impacted. I am amazed at how much I cannot do. Simple things like unscrewing a garden hose are now impossible. I can't open a ketchup bottle if it is round. Painkillers don't seem to work. I just feel generally useless pretty much most of the time (which most of you probably think is merited). I'll try to write down the technical details this morning at PT because the acronyms confuse me.

I'm hoping to get the use of my hand back before I make any life-altering decisions.

Pio - I'm sure this is having a detrimental impact on your mood as well - well Duh - you say you are depressed.

(((Pio

Pio, I'm really sorry to hear that about your hand and arm. Of course it's going to affect your mood and make you depressed. Why would we think you "merit it". You're one of the good guys, why would anyone wish you harm?

Okay it looks like I am somewhere in the ECU (extensor carpi ulnaris) or, more recently, in the TFCC (triangular fibrocartilage complex). The surgeon seems to discount the ECU saying that whatever pain I have there is rediating from the tear in the TFCC. I'm not so convinced. When he does operate, I hope he looks at both. That might mean two holes. Don't know. Don't care either.

I have 22 degrees of wrist movement backward and 20 forward and a 6 KG grip strength (compared to 50 KG in the other hand). In case you ever wondered, the clutch handle resistance on a Honda Fireblade is right at 6 KG. I was immobilized for 11 weeks which has caused almost all loss of movement in the wrist and fingers. In addition to the original problem(s), I now have pain everywhere. My only thought is I want it to end.

Since I feel totally useless (can't even screw in a lightbulb), my self-esteem is in the cellar. I can tell that how I feel about myself correlates to how I feel about the M. That is why I'm posting this. It is something to be aware of.

Y'know Pio not everything life throws at us is A related, or marriage related.

Anything that happens to me and Rob now is "life" related. When our employee stole $25,000 from us, that had nothing to do with A's or our marriage.

I'm sure they will be able to operate. Geez, they can even put people's hands back on their arms now.

BigK,

Thanks for the shoulder pat but....THAT'S THE SIDE THAT HURTS!!!