I had always known there was more he needed to tell me, he needed to come clean with some information that had been slipping out and rearing its ugly head for a few years, in jan 07 I told him he had until march 1 to tell truths, or I would be out, we had been seeing a MC at that pt, he was lying to her for 6mos, I left, 4 days after I moved out he came clean, came clean with more then I ever imagined, it was heart breaking, I convinced myself I was divorcing, how could I live with someone that lied so convincingly, and was such a tough nut to crack and how could I trust him? he forged ahead, swallowed his pride and did the right things, mostly, I knew he was trying and working hard, harder then I thought he ever would, but I was heart broke, I stayed out for more then 6 mos, so I have been back 1 and a half years, it was tough at first, we both felt like I had one foot out the door all the time, and now H didn't feel safe. Had the H not bothered me, just left me alone after I moved out, we would of gotten a divorce, I wouldn't have come back under the circumstances that I was living with, this is the short of the long of it.

A few pages back and then again to you (i think this memory doesn't function to well sometimes ) i said that my leaving was not a threat.

There was one other time in our marriage and it happened to be during the above mentioned "softball widow" days. Although the softball team always won out with his time, me and the kids would still go do whatever was going on but i got tired of doing these things by myself and i kept telling and telling him but he would not "listen" to me then either, so i too left.

At the time my parents were still living so i went to their house with my 3 kids in tow. My H did the same as your H. He "courted" me again and promised to at least cut down on softball (which he did). I did not stay away as long as you i was only gone one month, but i too would not have went back had he not "chased" me so to speak.

I have the same issues with the A that you have. I know my H has not "come clean" really on anything. Like i said what i know i pretty much found out on my own by snooping and talking to other people. He did not deny anything but i know there is plenty he has not told me.

And i have to agree that the part that bothers me the most is the way he can so convincingly lie right to my face still to this day when he says he does not remember because he was drunk. And he was drunk that is what they did together is go to the bar, get drunk, and then go to her house which was right down the road from the bar. He did admit to me that there were times "it" did not work and that made me laugh actually.


So now that i have posted you a novel just to say that we (me and my H) have many "issues" to work on and as long as he keeps taking steps forward (even though they are baby ones at least they are forward ones ) i will stay and "work" on me and our M too.

I guess like you i will still have one foot out the door for a while because if those steps stop or go backwards i will not hesitate to leave. And i am sure that puts a lot on my H but i think it is his turn to lift for a little while.

I actually am using the POJA more these days. I am not sure that my H even realizes that is what is happening but like i posted to V and DF i am finding my "voice" with things that happen in our M.

My H and i are together all the time when we are not at work. We go everywhere together and do everything together. I have always just went along with whatever he wanted to go do (and really we do have a lot in common so even his choice is usually something that i would want to do anyway). However if it wasn't something i wanted to do i would still do it anyway and i am finding more and more that i am not doing that anymore.

I would have not even said anything to him about the "beautiful co-ed" movie pre-A, now i did. So i am getting better at it, it is just not a "habit" yet.

Living with one foot out the door is no way to live either, I believe I have quit living like that, although I think I make the H feel I am living like that, which makes fear for him, not my intention, and I don't believe that I try to do that either, I think he now knows its possible where before he never thought I would go, even the day I did go, he went to work! thinking I would change my mind, or that the moving truck wasen't really coming, not sure what he thought, but really didn't think i'd go.
Not only did he lie to my face and lie on his kids lives, (omg that one still hits me like a punch in the face) and then lie straight to his kids when he told them I was moving out and lied why I was moving out, I feel like HE needs to make the NEW memories in order for me to forget or at least put the old ones away, its also up to me.
Not only were there the A's but he was spiteful to me to when he couldn't get his way, he still is like that in many aspects, the difference now is I call him out on it, and don't hide it from people anymore, I let family, kids, friends whomever see his behavior where before I covered for him, took it myself, shielded everyone from it.
I refuse to be sad, I refuse to be mad, I just tell myself its all in the past, and it is, we/I have a new life now, I even look different and people are surprised that I am a grandma,
I think there are two things you need to do for yourself, and thats get answers for your questions, being careful for what answers and info you really want, sometimes the answers will haunt you and was better left not knowing, other times you have pictured worse and the answer is better then what you had imagined all this time, and number two, please go to MC, if he won't go, go by yourself, thats what I did, I went myself, and know that will change you, make you think, learn to be you again, bring YOU back.

Yea you are right it is no way to live and i really don't like it at all.

And i agree with you on making the new memories as well.

And i also have thought a lot about getting my answers and i do not know for sure that i necessarily want to hear a lot of them but i just feel like it still makes us have this lie between us or something, it is hard to explain.

You know my confidence is shot already due to some of the things he did talk about like when he was still in the A he said she was "beautiful" and then again after the FOW left their place of employment we were talking A talk because i had just then started getting some of the details because our M recovery was put on hold for a while because we had to work on "life" recovery for my H (see signature).

He was talking about how she was in the office (because i asked) and he said, "you know she is one of those women that everyone finds attractive and she liked the attention so all the guys in the office said shyte to her and would grab her and stuff". My goodness he picked such a "winner" .

So unfortunately for me i STILL have EXTREME confidence issues because not only do i hear him telling me how beautiful she was in my head all the time, i also hear him telling me (in the beginning of our relationship) that i was a "plain jane".

He also has never really talked bad about the FOW, not that i want him to call her dirty names or anything like that, but it is like he still has "fond" memories of her and that bothers me a lot too.

So i dunno maybe i will never get over this because we do have so many issues to overcome it seems (or at least i do) and i am not sure if my H will ever even figure out that we have the issues. Who knows.........

this part you don't have to explain, I get this one, it is hard to explain, but the best that I can explain it is the way therapists do, the elephant in the room that you are trying to ignore, everyday he is there, staring at you.


Im no expert on recovery but, this makes me think he is still a WH. No contact with this person? My H only talked like that when he was still involved, and then he talked about how OTHERS thought of her, OTHERS thought she was attractive, and fun. Since the A was over he never spoke like that again, he is repulsed with himself and them, so I'm not sure why your H is doing that.
Still, no one can make you feel what your not willing to make yourself feel, you need to find alternative ways to build your confidence and esteem, obviously you can't count on him, and you shouldn't count on anyone for that matter, but the one person that you'd expect this from your getting shot down by, Your not safe with him.

I feel like he is stinging you along for some reason, almost like a cake eater.

Well things were kind of different for us. I knew something was going on around the end of December 2006 although at that time things were still just an EA (at least i think), then Jan 19 2007 he did not come home until midnight (he had never done this in all the time we had been together). I asked where he had been and he admitted it right away and gave me the it won't happen again but i want to stay her friend blah blah blah (you know the drill).

So from Jan 20 2007 through Feb 1 2007 i plan A'd my but off (even though i had not found MB yet it is what i did naturally i guess), the whole time things were stilling going on between them. I really do not know much about the this timeframe because he does "not remember" most of the details because he was drunk most of the time (and he was drunk most of the time). On Feb 1 2007 he came home late again. I asked again where he had been and he again admitted he had been with her.

I asked him if he wanted to be with her, he said yes, i packed his crap, threw him out on the curb, called the cops so he couldn't drive (he was too drunk to be driving), he called her to come and get him, and then he left.

On February 4 2007 he knocked on the back door and asked me if we could work things out, he realized he made a mistake, he knew he could not be her friend, and he would look for a new job (they were co-workers).

On Feb 19 2007 he ended up in the hospital and was literally "deathly" ill until April 2007 and was not able to return to work until June 2007. During that timeframe i know there was NC because the FOW tormented me during that timeframe (that's a whole other post).

On June 4 2007 he went back to work and she still worked there. Even though he tried to convince me that it wasover between them and he wanted nothing to do with her (and i believe this was true i had snoops at his place of employment and he tried to avoid her. Trouble is she was a single woman who went after my H from the get go and she still wanted him and she would seek him out. He always managed to get away from her with very little interaction but it still bothered me and i had AOs and DJs practically daily because they were still working together

On July 30 2007 he went to his HR department (without my knowledge that he was doing this he told me when he got home) and told them about the A and that she was still basically "harrassing" him, they brought her in to talk and she resigned either the same day or the next day. She called my H on Aug 15 2007 trying to "bribe" him with money (also a whole other post indeeed) to leave me and be with her (he told me about this call).

To my knowledge (and i still snoop on a regular basis) there has been NC since that phone call. So we actually did not start our M recovery until then. We had not talked much about anything up until that time because my H had to get well so I had an H to recover a M with.

So one night we were discussing the timeframe after he went back to work but the A had been over for a while and i asked if she had tried to "pursue" him during that timeframe (because he was telling me no she was not when it was happening) and he told me that she had tried pretty much since the day he went back to work but he did not want to tell me because he did not want me to worry he wanted nothing to do with her. The conversation just kind of continued and that is when he said the thing about her being the kind of woman guys look at.....

NOW when he brings something up about the A and i say something about the kind of person the FOW was, he usually just does not say anything. Meaning he seems to neither agree nor disagree with me about what i say about her. He doesn't say nice things about her but he doesn't "trash talk" her with me either.



You are correct that i do not feel confidence and esteem (safe) with my H. It is hard to explain because i do not feel that way about myself, i am confident and i have self esteem about myself. I do NOT have confidence and esteem when it comes to my H's "perception" of me. And that bothers me because i feel like if he does not think i am the "one" and is always looking for something better to come along then i do not want to keep investing my beauty and time and energy on this M.

I don't know if any of what i wrote made sense at all.... . I do not think he is actively wayward though, i am sure that is not it, i think it is because he is a "freeloader" maybe...

ok, that explains more.

Would you agree that your H is offering very little into the recovary of the M?
It also seems to me that your not sure where to begin cause things seem so borderline.

What is his desire for this M? and yours?

Yes I would agree that he has offered very little into recovering our M.

And it is not that I do not know for sure where to start, it is trying to decide what is the most important change that will make me feel safe in our M so that we can even try to resolve anything else, you know one step at a time.

As far as what his desire for this M is I have no idea. He has never really told me things that bother him or things that I can change. He always says things are “fine” the way they are and that I am a great wife.

As far as what I want out of this M, I want a M where I feel like I am an equal partner in everything we do and where my feelings matter too.

My H is a pretty good man, he is just very self centered and everything seems to have to revolve around him. So to name a couple of exact things, I would like for him to consider me first sometimes. I would also like for him to put more boundaries in place when it comes to other women.

you live my life, the more you write the more I realize that we are living the same life.

He likes things the way they are because he dosen't have to do anything about anything. He can do as he pleases and put himself before you, what a nice life, who would want to change that?

You are the one that is suffering and that must end.
You need a voice, you need to state your needs, this was something I couldn't do, but practice makes perfect.

Are you able to do MC? with or without H?

You hit the nail on the head for sure. Of course he doesn't want anything to change, right now he doesn't have ot DO anything.

And you are correct again in that i need a voice. I have been using my voice more and more about things. It doesn't always go over easy but i keep using it anyway.

I went to a couple of counselors last year after i believe i had a nervous breakdown and neither of them did me much good. They seemed like quacks IMHO.

I have heard you just have to find a good one, but my insurance does not have a lot to choose from.

DF I forgot to comment on the part about us living the same life. For me anyway sometimes it is a WONDERFUL life, other times my H can be so trying that it just drains me. And it is usually just stupid stuff that i feel like i am being petty about.

Just like this past weekend. We went downtown again (we have been living there practically on weekends since the kids are basically grown) and on the way we discussed what we were going to do and most importantly where we were going to park.

He said we should park in the garage, i said the lot was closer to where we were going so we should park there, then he reminded me that we were going to another place first so i agreed with him that we should park in the garage.

So when we get downtown he started to pull into the lot, the lot was full and he was grumbling about it and i said i thought we were parking in the garage anyway. Then he said oh yea i forgot, so although it was not a big deal really, he does those kinds of things all the time and it just tries my patience with him so much.

It is like he is not giving our discussions his undivided attention so that is why he does not "hear" me most of the time.

Well darn i just meant for this to be a little post telling you that i feel for you if your life is like mine.

SC

why do you think the MC's weren't right? what were their beliefs? and the way they handled you and how you handled them?
I was very fortunate to accidentally find our MC, she is wonderful, she dosen't let either one of us get away with anything, although I did enlighten her on a few of my beliefs to, and that might be the ticket for you if you find one you like, not all think the same. My MC wasen't convinced that I needed to know the truth about all the A's, her logic was, you know what H is all about, why do you need to know more, I explained to her the why's and she got it.

I know exactly what your talking about with the memory thing, that has made me rip my hair out, 2 hours later he remembers none of our conversation, ugh! I always hear a voice screaming, "you got to be kidding me" and I realize its me, as he looks at me like I'm a complete nut. I'll tell you the same thing I tell him, there is medical help for that, and he'd better go, course he hasen't yet, the economy is keeping him working to many hours, but we have someone that he can and will make an appt with soon!
try not to let H get away with that either, and also remember that people lie to protect themselves, not to protect you, with holding information is lying by omission, that is also to protect themselves.
Petty things will bother you when you feel that this person isn't doing all they can to respect you and love you.
What deposits does H make in your love bank? what does he do to earn your love?

They were not actually MCs, just counselors in general, I am positive that I had a nervous break down in July 2008 and I could not function and was out of work for about a month with horrible 24 hour a day panic attacks. I got on an anti-depressant but also decided to go to a counselor too.

Both of them I tried were just strange, they did not really want to talk, they wanted me to do things (like diaphragm breathing and things like that) to get over the panic attacks. Neither of them technically even talked to me about the reasons I had the break down to begin with. Just do these THINGS and your panic attacks will get better. Well the things did not help at all, I think the anti-depressant just finally got into my system and the panic attacks stopped after about 6-8 weeks.


Well like I said earlier neither of my counselors even talked about my problems at all, so you were fortunate.


I am not sure it is a memory thing; I think it is kind of like “selective hearing” thing. He listens to the conversation and even has input into the conversation but then doesn’t remember what the conclusion was. But you ask him about something that he likes (like sports) and he can tell you every play he made in high school and the score of the game and who he tackled or got a hit off of. Same thing with our DSs baseball games, he can tell you who had a hit and where they hit the ball, who scored and who walked from games 10 years ago for goodness sakes.

Same with places we have gone. He will say to me do you remember when we went to this specific place and did something. Sometimes I do most of the time I don’t. But yet he can’t remember a conversation we had ten minutes earlier. It drives me batty some times.

I think he does lie by omission especially when it comes to his interaction with the female co-workers at his place of employment. He lets things slip a lot and he knows quite a bit about all of them. I mean I know if my male co-workers are married or single and if they have kids but that is the extent of it I do not even know their spouses names. He told me about one of the women in his office and he knows her boyfriends name and where she lives and that her and her boyfriend ride to work together, but he tells me he does not have “personal” conversations with any of them. I’m thinking well if you don’t have “personal” conversations with them then how do you know so much about them.

Although I have to admit I do not say anything to him because I know how he is and I know it will just start a fight because he will get defensive and say something like, “man am I not even allowed talking to any females”. And I want him to do this on his own, not because I want him to. To me it is an EP that HE NEEDS to have in place because he has proven to me more than once that his need for an “ego boost” is strong.


It is sad to say that this is a tough question, because he does not do very much for me.

Maybe they were just trying to get ya "calmed" and didn't want to bring up stuff at that moment until they thought you could handle it, but some MC's just don't have alot to offer and they just aren't that effective. The first one I went to, on a reccomendation just blamed me for everything, it was horrible, his A's were my fault some how! Instead of having counseling sessions we had throw downs, me and this MC! He would take anything I said and just run with it, we went to him when I was pregnant, then one of my appts, my son was 2wks old and the MC says oh don't bring that baby again, what? he was 2 wks old, didn't say a peep, I just left. Some are just awful, you need one that listens and offers up useful excersise's and one that talks to him that "knows" him and knows hs personality.

keep saying what you need to, don't let him make you stop because he gets defensive, and no you can't talk to other women,you have lost that trust and now it must be earned back! as far as I can tell H has not done anything to help earn it back.

I am sure they were trying to get me "calmed down" because i was visibly shaking all the time, i was also shaking on the inside all the time, it really was a HORRIBLE experience that i do not wish upon anyone.

But i think what i really wanted was just for someone to let me talk about my issues and give me things to try to get through to my H or help me decide if leaving was the best thing to do and neither of them "wanted" to talk about anything, they just wanted me to try these exercises.

And when you say i need one that talks to him and knows him and his personality are you speaking of my FWH? If so that is never going to happen because my FWH will not go to couseling period. I have tried for years to get him to go over his serious issues with his mother.


I think this but he does not. He does not think he should have to have this EP in place because that is just ridiculous, he is only talking to them, he is just a "friendly" person.

He has at least stopped being so "friendly" when we are out in public together. I swear that i used to hate to go anywhere with him because i knew he would "flirt" with some attractive woman sometime during the evening (and he never failed to prove me wrong). That has improved, now i just need for him to understand that his "friendliness" with his co-workers is not any different. But one step at a time i guess.

for me personally, if my H had not gone to counseling that would of been a deal breaker. I moved out when he didn't come clean with EVERYTHING, it didn't matter if it was 20 years ago or 20 days ago, and had to answer questions. I knew that I would run into someone somewhere that would fill me in, and sure enough I have, I would of found out things he didn't want me to know. I only came back because he proved himself. What would happen if you insisted on counseling? Tell him this is not to gang up on him, that this is for the both of you. And I still think he dosen't have boundries in place to know when he is friendly or flirtacious (sp?)

I have been thinking a lot about your last couple of posts. It really bothered me that i could not come up with things that my H did to fill my love banks. And i got to thinking i wonder how he would answer the same question. And I thought his response might be the same as mine.

So between that and reading JKs thread and a couple of other one, i realized that i am not "letting: him fill my love bank. I am so guarded with my heart and untrusting of everything he does and says that i am not letting him do what he is trying to do..

It is like i am treating him as if he is still in the A and it has long since been over and i know it has been over. He became my H again the day he came home and TRULY asked me to forgive him.

The balance between what is A related and what is just plain M related somehow got erased in my mind i guess. Most of the issues i post about are issues that i have had with my H for our entire M, so really they are M issues, not A issues. Except the "friendly vs flirty" issue, because this is a very poor boundary that should have always been in place and was a "help" in the A starting to begin with.

So this week i have really tried to just pay attention to the things my H DOES instead of the things he DOESN'T DO and he DOES a lot to make me feel loved. I can't really give you exact examples but he does little things a lot like bringing me home a candy bar that i like, things like that.

So although it still bothers me that i have never really gotten the full details of the A and probably never will and somehow i feel that makes a "lie" between us. Does that really change who we are today? No our M changed the day he decided to have an A.

Through out the years he has "changed" a lot for me even though he has been selfish a lot as well (now that could be my perception because i am probably "too giving" for my own good). So i am going to concentrate on getting him to put more boundaries in place regarding other women and not "force" anything else right now. But this is a BIG one for me (a deal breaker) and i think would go a long way in helping let my guard down a little.

We had another great weekend!!! I think that my trying to change my perspective on things is helping.

He has come a long way in a short amount of time as far as being "friendly" while we are in public. Now i still have to work on his boundary issues at work with female co-workers and i think it will go a long way in helping me feel more "safe".

Why do you think he will never share this information other than he has never shared it before?

I mean, what are the risks that he is facing to not deal with this? Is it to protect you or your reaction? Is it him?

Understanding the risk - and then managing it effectively is the path.

Intimacy is created when there is trust between two people. It is the sharing of the deepest parts of ourselves. It is hard to get intimacy without trust.