My H still says this to me. Still says he doesn't believe he will ever trust me again. But he's here. Right now everything is so fresh, I think it's fair to say it'd be inhumane if your H trusted you again already.

If you work hard at transparency, radical honesty, no LBs, meeting ENs, knowing your EPs, and showing your H through your actions that you can be trusted, he may come back around. Maybe not 100%, but enough to know he wants to spend the rest of his life with you.

I hope you get your time with him Sunday night. I'll be thinking of you.

How do I do the transparency and radical honesty when he doesn't want it? I told him I'd give him all of my logins - even work which would be a huge security no-no - and he said no. I said that I would answer any question and he said he already knew more than he wanted to know. Maybe I start right here, right now. Telling him how I feel. That I'm scared, too.

Are you sure he doesn't know about the A? When my WH walked out a month ago he refused to tell me where he was going but of course my mind went right to the fact that there must be another W and guess what? I was right. I had my WH followed.

My WH still will not admit the A to me. He says it's not what I think. PLEASE!! Do your husband a favor and tell him the truth. Most likely he will want to work on the marriage. I know if my WH came home I would. I told my WH from the beginning of this nightmare that all I wanted was the truth. I know it would hurt but the truth is the reality and your H has a right to know.

Hi Jilted...

I did confess to my H. Our D-Day was this past Sunday. Now I'm in Wait And See mode.

Hey RooGirl

The shift thing is a bummer and caused us great problems in our marriage. My does a mix of days and nights 5 on 5 off.

I think that we're at a point now where we're thinking that we should stop using it as an excuse.

If your H accpets making a go of it, are you physically able to spend at least 15hours of quality time with each other a week? This is the key.

I am now doing a degree with the Open University so that my time is filled with studying when he isn't around and the kids are in bed... although others on here might be keen to point out - that I'm always on here when he's not around. Well, this stops me getting too lonely.

Keep thinking positive thoughts, keep on top of yourself whilst still making a play to get h back in your life. Your chances of getting what you want greatly improve if you ask for it and have courage.

ST

This is true. It's difficult but it is what it is. Our opposite work hours would be something that we would have to work together on.


There are times that it would be difficult. With the rotating schedule, if he's off MTW then that week it would be nearly impossible as I have school those nights. However, that is only until mid-May and then I'll have the summer off. So really, I think we'd only have to deal with that maybe one more time other than this coming MTW.


I so appreciate you coming here and checking on me. I have to get over to your thread soon.

*New question*
My wedding ring. I haven't worn it since maybe September with any kind of regularity. It sits in the box now and I take it out from time to time to look at. Would be nice to have it on my finger again, as a reminder of what my goal is: a new and better M with my H. What are some thoughts on this? I know there are some folks here who have very strong feelings about wedding rings/bands. L4, ST, MS - are you all wearing your rings?

I'm wearing my ring. I read somewhere the other day of someone by getting a new one to mark their "new marriage". I'm hoping to do that some day. It's not time yet.

Hi RooGirl,

In my post to Looking4 I talked to her about the importance of defining the new marriage as seperate from the old tarnished marriage...

The way that Mrs.Flint and I came up with was the new ring that staytogether mentioned. My wife and I can both look at the ring and the date engraved and KNOW that since that date there have been no more lies or deception.

It is SO IMPORTANT to be able to look at your marriage and say from this date forward the marriage has been healthy.

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO LOOK BACK ON YOUR OLD MARRIAGE WITHOUT BRINGING UP ALL THE OLD HURTS...

You and BS have to be able to identify WHEN the new marriage started and the way that worked for us was to replace the old ring that didn't mean what it should anymore with a brand new ring AND date that it started. That makes it a concrete FACT for the BS to begin healing from.

Mrs.Flint wears a simple gold band with PRH for Policy of Radical Honesty and our d-date of 7/3/2006. It means the world to her...and to me.

God bless.

Jim

Roo, been reading your thread. I had suggested that shreds write love letters to her h. I think it would help you since your husband wants limited communication. The other thing is your rings. My opinion put them on. Why? Because right now you are sticking your toe in the water regarding reconciliation. You want to see how he reacts before you go all in. This is pretty much how you conducted your marriage based upon what I can see. Each of you giving as little as required. How did that work for you??

If you want your marriage. THEN FIGHT FOR IT. THAT MEANS THAT YOU DIVE IN HEAD FIRST. NO HALF MEASURES. EITHER YOU WIN OR GO DOWN IN FLAMES. THAT DOESN'T MEAN STALKING HIM THAT DOES MEAN PROFESSING YOUR LOVE. IT MEANS PUTTING YOUR RINGS BACK ON AND LETTING HIM KNOW IT. HOW NICE, YOU BOUGHT HIM CARDS SAYING....THINKING OF YOU. WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN? WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT HIM? IF YOU LOVE HIM....LOVE HIM. DID YOU EVER THINK THAT HE THINKS "THAT YOU'RE JUST NOT THAT INTO HIM". YOU HAD BETTER REALIZE, IF YOU WANT HIM, YOU NEED TO WOO HIM AND WIN HIM. IT ALSO MEANS RADICAL HONESTY. IF HE DOESN'T KNOW THAT HE CAN TRUST YOU. TELL HIM YOU'LL SUBMIT TO A POLYGRAPH EVERY 6 MONTHS TILL HE CAN. AND YOU'LL PAY FOR IT. QUIT THE HALF ASSED ATTEMPTS. HE WILL NOT INVEST UNTIL YOU DO. THIS ISN'T STALKING, BUT SHOW UP AT HIS DOOR WITH SOME WINE, LOOKING FINE, ON A NIGHT HE DOESN'T HAVE TO WORK THE NEXT DAY. FLATTEN YOUR TIRE, SO THAT WHEN YOU LEAVE, YOU CAN'T. YOU DON'T HAVE TO TELL HIM YOU FLATEND IT UNLESS HE ASKS. BE CREATIVE. AND QUIT BEATING YOURSELF UP, IF HE ISN'T DOING IT. YOU DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO EITHER. FOCUS ON TRYING TO SHOW HIM WHAT IS LOVABLE ABOUT YOU. NOT HOW MISERABLE YOU TWO CAN BE TOGETHER. WHY WOULD HE WANT THAT. HE HAD THAT YOUR WHOLE MARRIAGE. THIS IS JUST MY OPINION. BUT IT'S IN CAPITAL LETTERS SO IT MUST BE IMPORTANT.lol

Hey, Roo. I'm proud of you trying as you in spite of the obstacles.

Good luck these next three days. I hope with him off of the shift work that you and your H get some quality time together.

I have to step off for a bit and probably won't post for a while. But I may peek in to see what news you may offer. Keep posting and let the folks here keep helping you. They're the best and they want only the best for you and your M.

I'll keep you in my prayers.

God bless.

Thank you for replying, ST. I do appreciate it. Still gotta get back over to your thread.

Thank you for your comment, Jim. Perhaps for me to focus on my rings is too early, as my H has not yet said that he's even willing to work on this. For all I know, when I see him on Wednesday he'll serve me with D papers.

I'll take what you and your wife have done into careful consideration. Thank you, again.

It worked for s**t pretty much.


I have been wearing my rings since I posted on Saturday.


What the hell that was supposed to mean, when I had them in my hands at Target, was that he hasn't ever been far from my mind. That I wonder what he's doing and how he is and what he's thinking about. I didn't give him any of the cards because I realized that those types of gestures put deposits into MY love bank - not his. I thought that realization was a decent one but perhaps not.

[quotge]DID YOU EVER THINK THAT HE THINKS "THAT YOU'RE JUST NOT THAT INTO HIM".[/quote]

I haven't thought that, no. I have thought, for quite a long time, that HE'S not that into ME.


This is a tough one. I have been working with an IC since the beginning of the year and have come to recognize that I was the "chaser" in our relationship. My H would even tell you that he married me because I "wasn't going anywhere." It's hard to make the leap into "chasing" him again, I fully admit that. I feel like I'm doing all that I can right now, today, in this minute, to show him that I care. It's a beautiful day in Mpls today and though we aren't supposed to see each other until Wednesday, I called to ask him if I could come out and grill dinner. He had plans. "Ok," I said, "hope you have a good time!"


As of now he wants to know nothing. I will bring up the poly. and let him know that I would pay for it, though I am quite sure he'll laugh at me. I don't mean this to be a DJ - just that I know my H. He already has expressed that this site seems "extreme" to him. All I can do is tell him I would be willing.


My H has every tool of the trade (and the know-how) to fix nearly any tire or car problem I could create on my own. If he wants me to leave he'll make it so there's no reason I can't.


It's hard not to beat myself up but I hear what you're saying.

And I have to say, when I first read this I thought I would post "Dear ouchthathurt: Ouch...that hurt..."

Hey Roo!

Are you 'all in' yet??

Mindshare

I am not. After work on Wednesday I went out to meet with my H. We had dinner and that was really nice. Then came the "talking" part. Ugh. He said that he doesn't know what to tell me about how to build up trust for me. He also expressed that he doesn't have ENs like I do: he doesn't need to be told thank you for mowing the lawn, he doesn't need to have affection in his life, etc. It was a sad night for me.

I had an IC appointment Wednesday over lunch and my counselor wants me to think about what I want. She keeps reminding me that I can't make him change who he is. I can't make him show me love and care in a way that I like to be loved and cared for. And if he doesn't know how I can love and care for him, well...what the heck are we doing??!

Your husband may not have ENs but you do. If he can't think outside the box enough to realize that you have needs, then why would you want to go back to that? Apparently he will accept a marriage without emotional intimacy. I couldn't. You seem to be the type of woman who really desires that intimacy. Don't settle for going back to the same emotionless marriage. You have explained your personality well. I did not know that your husband was so emotionally barren. Think twice about reconciliation.

(bolding mine)

Ouch, I am in tears right now. The sentences I bolded are exactly what I am so confused about. And in the same thought I'm so angry with myself for not paying attention to this earlier in our relationship...like 10 or 11 years ago!

I KNOW I made terrible, awful mistakes with the OM. I did. I own that and continue to do so each and every time my H and I talk. What I don't know if I can do is accept the marriage that we had. My H asked me the other day why I came back and I told him what I thought was the truth: that our issues were not deal-breakers, that I should try harder, be better, do more to meet him in the middle. Problem is, he wasn't moving toward me. That's something I have to figure out if I want to have for the rest of my life.

Thank you, ouch. THANK YOU.

You're right, you can't make him do anything...

But a marriage is only half his and if you fix YOUR half, the whole improves by some percentage depending on how bad your half was to begin with.

Additionally, when you begin to meet his ENs, which he DOES have, BTW, it will make deposits into his Love Bank. Right now he might be in a state of Withdrawal and so is not very responsive to your ENs. As he moves through a state of Conflict and into Intimacy, he will be more willing to give and have less of a need to constantly take.

Fall In Love, Stay In Love has a chapter about this very thing. When one person has slipped into Withdrawal, the other might be able to pull them along into Conflict and eventually into Intimacy. This is in fact what takes place during Plan A for those who succeed with it. The WS is normally in Withdrawal regarding the marriage and the BS during Plan A begins making LB$ deposits and identifies their own Love Busters and eliminates them so as to stop a drain on the LB$.

With time the spouse in Withdrawal begins to care again though is still operating from the position of Taker and enters a state of Conflict. Continued efforts can often result in the once withdrawn spouse reaching a state of Intimacy at which point they will be willing to give more consistently.

The problem of course is to sustain giving while getting nothing in return and through the time when you are not getting much in return. At best the one attempting to save the relationship ends up in a low state of Conflict at best and often in a state of Withdrawal themselves and only enough time of the now committed spouse carrying the load can lead to both being fulfilled in the end.

But consider this: Your husband just found out less than two weeks ago! He probably hasn't decided yet what he wants to do and the best you can do right now is to do everything in your power to help him decide. That means YOU do the work to discover his ENs, identify your own Love Busters and pull the marriage toward recovery until he sees through consistent action on your part that a marriage to you can and will be different going forward.

Just so you know, I slept an average of about two hours per night, ate only about once every two and a half days and was a total zombie at work for about two weeks after D-day. And I was the one fighting for the marriage at that point because my wife didn't want to end the affair and had said she wanted a divorce!

Now if you can only commit to rebuilding the marriage based entirely on what you can be assured you will get in return, then just get out now. Recovery can only happen when at least one person is a committed Buyer and not a Renter. The motto must be, "What ever it takes for as long as it takes."

If he decides to file for divorce and never shows any interest in fixing what was wrong with the marriage to begin with, then you will have failed, but at least by doing everything you can to save the marriage you can walk away knowing that you really did the best you could and it wasn't lack of effort that led to the end of the marriage.

It was over a month after my wife committed to NC and returning to the marriage before I laughed again. It had been so long at that point that my wife noticed it, commented on it and told me how good it was to see me laugh at something. My first reply was that I hadn't had much of anything to laugh about for a while...

And THIS took place well over two months after D-day!

Just so you understand, it was not until almost a full year after D-day that I was 100% certain that I didn't want to just walk away from the marriage. And it was my wife taking care of me and giving selflessly during my lengthy illness that led me to conclude that she was fully committed.

And to this day she has not completed the ENQ of LBQ or PHQ or any of the other forms that can easily shed light on ENs and such. to get her to buy anything of MB I have to demonstrate it to her by my actions over time and then exp[lain what and why I have changed myself.

The bottom line is that you are very early in the process that will take about two years if your H ever buys into this stuff. It will take even longer if you see improvement only after demonstrating the concepts for a while and then trying to get him on board one at a time.

In the mean time, you should focus on doing what you need to do and looking at what allowed an affair to be a viable option for you. Until the answer has nothing to do with anything he did or did not do for you you are still not sold out to the marriage.

If a marriage is bad enough that it should end, then it should be ended. If it can be fixed, then it should be fixed. When you own a house and something gets broken, you fix it. When you are a renter, you call the landlord and if he won't fix it you move somewhere else. And affair destroys a marriage completely. It shakes it to its very foundation and leaves only devastation and rubble in its wake. To fix it you must be committed to rebuilding it one step at a time no matter what it takes. Sometimes all that can be done is to rebuild it totally, from the foundation up. There is no amount of paint, siding and new furnishings that can fix a marriage that broken.

It needed repairs before. Now it needs to be rebuilt. You're here. You have control over yourself. You can fix you half. You will only recover and rebuild the marriage into one YOU can be happy with if you put in the effort no matter what he does at first. When your half is fixed, if he doesn't get on board, then you can always get a divorce. Until then begin to act as if you are staying no matter what he does because THAT will be how he decides if he wants to do any work on it himself.

Where's that 2X4 icon when I need him?


Sorry if that came across as anger. That is not the way I felt when typing it. But you are not even yet into recovery. His world just exploded 12 days ago...

Be thankful for now that he hasn't run for the hills.

Mark

What about him telling me, to my face, that he does NOT have ENs? Am I to believe he's lying?


My H has never given of himself emotionally to me. He himself would say that he doesn't have strong emotions, that that's just not "him".


Call it fog, I don't know... I feel I Plan A'd in my marriage for a long time. When he would come home from a job he hated I would inquire about his day. "S**tty," was the extent of the answer that I would get. I hunted for jobs for him closer to home. I attempted to engage him in conversation. He didn't want to talk about it. He didn't want to talk to me.


I truly do understand what you're saying. He told me, many times before I moved out, that he wasn't unhappy in our marriage, that he thought it was good. I wondered then, and continue to wonder now, how one of us could be "not unhappy" while the other (me) was drowning. How can that be? Forgive me, Mark, but if my H could go back in time 2 years he would believe our marriage was good. I was the one who hoped for more.


I have asked him if he's sleeping and he said yes.


My H bought a lot and built a house. I moved in about a year later. On D-Day I looked around at the bare walls (he took down all of the items I had hung up) and said it looked like it was staged for selling. I asked him if he wanted to build a life here, to make it homey and warm and safe. He said that this is just where he lives. That his life is outside of those walls.


I really do feel like I know why I had an A. I wanted to feel loved and needed and important and cherished. In my IC appointment this week I asked my counselor why it is that the other vows we said to each other don't matter: to love and cherish and honor? Why does only the "forsaking all others" matter? I asked my H this and he said it's because cheating killed the love and honor and cherish. I replied back to him that the love and honoring and cherishing were over long before my A began. Again, maybe this will be written off as fog-speak but for now, it's how I feel.


I do not believe I am a renter. I believe I am a buyer.


Thank you, Mark, for your reply. Lots to think about.

It means he's misinformed or so far into Withdrawal that he has no ENs that he is willing to let you meet right now.

He must have given something to you at some point in time. You've been with him for 12 years, 6 of them married.

I'm betting that Conversation is one of your top ENs. I'd put money on it not being one of his top 6.

You hunted for jobs for him? Did you also complain about his job to him? You were trying to "fix" him???

One of the things I see a BS often doing is trying to talk to an actively wayward spouse about the relationship, the affair, the marriage etc. The problem with this strategy is that seldom do they want to talk about those things very much because they are a source of stress. This fuels the desire to get away rather than creating intimacy within the relationship. Why would I want to talk to my wife about something that causes me stress? Do you follow that?

What I am suffesting to you is that he does have ENs but has never considered what they might be. You can't just begin spelling them out until you even have a concept about what ENs really are.

But right now, he isn't very willing to even give you any clues. He is looking for you to show him, not explain to him, but show him by your actions that you are 100% committed to staying with him and that you need him, and not just to get your own ENs met without having to have another guy on the side.

His world blew up 12 days ago!

So what did you do to make it more? I didn't ask what you tried to get HIM to do but what did YOU do about it?

You were probably doing "OK' in meeting his ENs while he wasn't meeting yours very well. My guess is that the same subjects came up several times over the years. You saw a lot of things missing. Your focus became those things that were missing. He was content or at least willing to live with what there was. Not a lack of dreams or desires at all in this case, but it was probably that his goals were way down the road, looking forward to something in the future. Not uncommon in men, BTW.

You see when we have a problem we want to fix it. The problem is to define it in such a way that it is a problem for our spouse. If I want something more from my wife I need to ask for it in a way that she understands what I want, buys into the idea that it is something I should be able to have and then commit to providing it for me.

Example: If I want more sex, I need to tell my wife I want more sex. But if I approach her while she is in the kitchen doing dishes and try to fondle her while she works, it might not go over very well. She might even be offended enough that the likelihood of her fulfilling that request later is out of the question.

So if the next time I approach her, I insist that she "give in" to my demands (which is the real problem, BTW) she might go so far as to push me away. My need hasn't gone away, I've tried to get the message through to her, so what am I to do about it?

What most people do is get mad and try to demand even more. But if That doesn't work for me what happens is I store up resentment because my needs aren't getting met. So now I am still unsatisfied, AND I now have this huge load of resentment to deal with.

What happens at this point with some people is that they give up. And since nothing comes of doing nothing, further resentment builds up. Then one day that cute new girl at work makes it clear that she thinks that I am just all that and a bag of chips...

My wife isn't giving me what I want. So what am I likely to do when this cute young girl throws herself at me?

If I'm a buyer, I run away as fast as I can and vow to find a better way to communicate what I want from my wife or continue to negotiate (ala POJA) until we can arrive at a solution that will make us both happy. But for most women the situation is different at least at first. A woman might never dream of having sex with a guy but will be more than willing to let him chat away for hours with her...

His top EN is probably SF too.

If we let someone meet our ENs that we are not getting met by our spouse, we invite disaster every time. That is because whenever anyone meets one of our ENs they are making deposits into our Love Bank. Once that balance exceeds the romantic threshold, we have fallen in love with that person. What En they met initially does not matter.

But here is the proof that you can restore the love in a marriage. Once your OM reached that point where you felt as though you were in love with him, I'll bet it became easy to meet any EN that he might have, even an EN that you might have trouble meeting for your husband while you were not feeling in love with him, even though he was your husband.

My point is that If you were doing lots of things to meet ENs for your husband and he was in fact in love with you and happy with what you were doing, then you were doing it right. At the same time he was not able to meet your ENs the way you needed them to be met. There are now two possibilities. 1) He simply didn't want to meet your ENs because he is a selfish person or 2) He had no idea what was lacking form your side.
If the problem is #2, then he needs to be educated. If i were #1 then you never would have fallen in love with him at all. You wouldn't have married him if he never did anything right...And this applies mostly to your top ENs.

But I would bet you had not even identified your top ENs for yourself let alone come up with a way to describe to him what was missing. "I'm unhappy" is not a description of what is missing. And neither is "I want more ___." Those are complaints and not a statement of the problem.

And just so you know, we all hope for more. Hoping for more isn't a sin. Going out side of marriage to get it is the problem. And once that decision was made I promise you that you used just such a logic to justify the affair. You did in fact rewrite the history of your marriage. It happens in every affair. The alternative would be to say "I am a bad person" and we know there is no viable reason to do what we know is wrong. So we rewrite history. "I've been unhappy for a long time." And the best one, "I tired to tell you I was was unhappy for years." I heard this stuff myself many times...

Still not a very good reason to have an affair BTW.

RooGirl, my guess is that you were considered by all before this to be a moral and ethical person. That you would be the last one anyone would say would have an affair. In order to actually have one you had to disconnect in some way from those ethical and moral foundations. You just can't do what you believe is wrong. You can't do it.

So what nearly EVERY WS does is find a way to make it not a betrayal. To do this they make the BS the bad guy. The blame gets shifted to the betrayed from the betrayer. This is not an indictment, just an observation from experience.

Call it fog-speak or whatever else you can come up with, it is how a WS justifies having an affair that they themselves believes to be wrong.

The marriage is dissolved unilaterally and the new relationship that isn't missing what was missing in the marriage is pursued.

The problem of course is that the BS knows nothing of the dissolution of the marriage.

As for the vows and which are important...

None outweigh any other. That said, an affair is not loving. It is not honorable. It is not cherishing. It is not forsaking all others...It is NONE of those things.

He did not show you love the way you wanted him to. Does THAT justify an affair?

He did not "cherish" you like you wanted him to. Does THAT justify an affair?

He did not honor you like you thought he should. Does THAT justify an affair?

An affair is not loving. It is not honorable and it is not cherishing the other in the relationship...

Let me ask you this. What would you do if your husband got sick, maybe early onset Alzheimer's or some such. Or maybe he became incapacitated in some way do to an accident, perhaps confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life...

Maybe he could no longer talk at all and couldn't dress or feed himself...

What would you do then? He would be meeting none of your ENs and you would have to do everything for him just for him to survive. What would you do under those circumstances? Would you stay with him and take care of him because YOU made vows for life or would you run off and leave him to die because he was unable to meet ANY of your ENs for you and there was NEVER going to be an improvement in that regard?

A real buyer stays because they made the vow. A renter looks for something else because what they have is lacking...

So he didn't meet your ENs and you had an affair. Now you want more than anything for him to begin meeting your ENs...

Not till the affair has been dealt with I'm afraid. The biggest problem in you relationship right now IS the affair and it's aftermath. Even your attitude toward your husband is still colored by it and his ability to accept your repentance will be based on what you do for him and not the other way around.

I want to be rich, retired and living in a different house, one that doesn't need so much in the way of repairs...

Does that give me the justification to rob a bank? Or to stop paying my payment to the bank for my house?

Same thing, RooGirl. It's exactly the same justification you are spouting. You had the affair because you decided that it was in your own self interest to get your ENs met outside of the marriage. There are no other reason for affairs. That's the only one that ends in an affair...

If your marriage was unrepairable for years, why didn't you file for divorce?

If your husband was never willing or able to meet any of your ENs and so make you happy, why did you marry him?

If the relationship was so awful, why not walk away from it before having an affair?

Until the affair is dealt with, I wouldn't expect much of anything from him. Either live with that or call it a day...

Suppose you backed into my car in a parking lot and put a dent in it. In response I burned your house down. My reason..."You dented my car." And then when you demanded I be held accountable for burning your house down I shouted "When are you going to pay to fix my car?"

It really is what you are asking here. You want your husband to fix his half of the marriage so you can be happy and yet remain in it. You just burned his house down...

Fix your half, RooGirl. It's all you have control over. Fix what is broken in YOU and see if he doesn't follow because you will be someone he wants to be with and make happy...

Mark