GM was in love with his "sex worker" for a long time. It's a fact. It is a new and shocking fact to you, but not to most of us who have been at the pointy end of adultery.

In 1994 H (who was deeply in love with OW at the time but I was clueless) and I went to see Forrest Gump for the first time. WHAT a great movie. As usual, when we are really into amovie, we lock arms and I lean into his shoulder.

I assume you are familiar with this movie. There comes a line that Forrest describes just how connected he feels to Jenny. In his simple way he says:

"Jenny and me, we was like peas and carrots."

My H let out a huge sigh, and I just KNEW he was reflecting on how HE and I were just like peas and carrots too.

A year later ... OW's H reads a letter my H wrote to his W.
In that letter, H writes:

"You and I are just like peas and carrots. We belong together."

I am writing this so you recognize that our husbands love the OW. Your H is not different (in that respect).

That is so hard to read and it wasn't even directed at me. sigh...

(sss) Hope you are enjoying the gardening and RC time with GM.

One huge difference between our situations is this.
My H never "hated" me.
Never.
He acted hateful sometimes, but he never said to anyone, even to OW, "I hate my wife."

This is the more troubling part of GM's confession. To me anyway.

My dear Pepperband,

I so appreciate you sharing all of this with me. It does help but I hate hate hate that you are dredging it up. Are you OK? It must still hurt and I do not want to think you are hurting just to help me. Please. Your story made me cry for both of us and all the others as well who have to know this about their husbands.

OK, so how do you ever reconcile that information enough to get past it? Is it just MB and time? If so I can do that I think.

Yes, he hated me. He created a woman to hate, he knows that. The first thing he said after the discovery was that he thought I was a totally different person than I really am. I am the same woman he fell in love with but he buried me. He created that in his mind. I think he needed a bad guy to play off of. Someone to make him feel better than, someone to sneak around on, someone to feel like he was a great covert action kinda guy. So I was chosen because I was the one person who would not jump every time he even thought he needed something. I blew his version of himself. He hated the woman he created. For what it is worth, I hated him off and on as well. He WAS the man he was, not a creation of mine so I think my hatred may be harder to forgive. He certainly nuked my love bank. Overkill, blew the savings far and near and ended up giving what he collected to someone else.

I am thinking of naming my scarecrow after the OW. Dirtbag D________. I can use her for target practice. I don't hunt but I am a darned good shot and I could take her face off in an hour. Nahhhh, she is not good enough for that.

Cup O Tea break over. Out to put up fence ewwwwwwww. Great RC though, we will have fun.

Thank you Pepperband. I am weepy all over again for you. Such a sweet thing to give away to someone else. How do they live with themselves?

sss-
i agree with you - our husbands said they hated us - bc it made them feel justified in their behaviors- and it gave them a scapegoat to blame for all the things they really HATED ABOUT THEMSELVES.
YES- we were not meeting each other's ENs- but we were the ONLY ONES WHO SAW THROUGH ALL THE BRAVADO-

SSS-
i hate that my finger slips and i send and then i cant edit!!!


anyway- WE saw them as they really were - and no one else did. so they hated us - they hated us for seeing the REAL them - they couldnt trick us into worhipping them because we saw the real them and loved them anyway.

so - they hated the mirror they saw in our eyes - of the narcissitc man who treated his wife so lousy - and they didnt want to face who they really were -so they bundled up all their brokenness and self hatred and put it on our shoulders!!!

my H never said ( as far as he says) that he hated me - but he told all his OW - that his wife hated him- like feel bad for me - the poor, hated man - who needs to get away from the big mean wife.

its alot to accept- the fact that they lied and cheated and them blamed us.

but your H is still here - doing whatever it takes -s o he CHOOSES YOU- you were the real deal all along.

he just didnt have the inner strength to make a real marriage so he ran to the easy relationships- but he kept his love for you buried- and now it is out in the open and he wants YOU.

feel grateful that he does and try to live in the NOW.

sf

I am fine goat-girl.
This historical stuff no longer troubles me at all.

Hello, sss.

The reality for you is your marital history is blown away. I think you are trying to find something....ANYTHING...to hold on to as "real". Some time, some memory. But from our conversation at the MBW, I know that does not exist. And in your heart, you know it, too. Just what you told me about the birth of your children is enough to tell me that.

I wish it weren't so. I wish you COULD find one thing...one memory...to claim as real.

So the question is...

Are you willing and can you go forward in this marriage knowing that EVERYTHING you have shared to this point was a lie fabricated for the sole purpose of his own self-gratification? I honestly cannot imagine living with that. But this is YOUR life and your decision.

If your answer is yes, then you have to accept that every question you have will have a horrid answer. He is committed to O&H at this point (at least at this moment he is). You don't really want anything less, do you? It is in your best interest that he NEVER fudge on the rule of radical honesty.

So if you don't want the horrid truth that you know is there, don't ask. Only you can decide what you need to hear him say. But you've got to go into this knowing that the answer will not be what you want to hear and may even be worse than you imagined.



GM needs to have a "filter" on, like Dr. H mentioned at the weekend so as not to hurt you more than necessary. I don't think he had that "filter" on yesterday. I think this will not be an easy thing for GM for two reasons. One, he has a life-long habit of selfishness and self-centeredness that will take much time to change. Two, if he really gets this at all, once he starts talking, he probably just starts purging all this horrendous stuff to get it out. That could be a good thing in his own recovery, but I don't think YOU are the best candidate for that purging. If he has a compelling need to confess all, he needs to find a male friend that will listen.

The next question is...

Are you willing and can you handle being hurt over and over again?

Because, sss, recovering your marriage is going to take you being hurt again and again. You're going to be hurt by the truth you seek. You're going to be hurt as you patiently wait on him to unlearn bad habits and learn good ones (like Dr. H talked about at the MBW).

GM can do all the right things from this moment forward, and you will still have TREMENDOUS pain ahead as you try to reconcile that the man you are now trying to form a loving relationship with is the same man that did everything he could to destroy you for 30+ years.

I just want you to think about this realistically. You've got to know that you will have many more days like yesterday.

Sadsosad, you are a really well-centered person. Not many people could be twisting in agony like you and still keep their sense of humor and kindness.

But you know what leapt out at me? (and you've posted this sentiment before): "GM is only like that with me."

That is exactly what one of my girlfriends said when she was telling me about her husband beating her last baby out of her belly. (Yeah, ok, it wasn't GM!) Apparently there was some magical connection shared only by the two of them that made him beat her (and their unborn child) half to death. And he was violent with no one else! Isn't that amazing! (Well, of course he slammed stuff into walls. And there was the time he grabbed their daughter out of the tub by her arm and left marks. And . . . )

Do you believe that? Are there certain people in your life that you do terrible things to and not others?

Or do you not do terrible things in the first place?

You are not going to change who and what he is. You can only protect yourself within the marriage and accept that he is going to do what he wants to do and that the things he wants to do are terrible, degraded things. What he said about his hooker--letting him do whatever he wanted--made my blood run cold. But you're a smart lady and when you are finally uncomfortable enough, you'll make a change.

Hi SSS,

I've posted to you H too. I'll go away now because it's hard coming back and reading here, but wanted to offer my support again. I really have been married to your twin since 1983. It's possible to come out of this alive. The goal is not merely survival, but growth. Growing together is a bonus. Best of luck.

lilybelle100@yahoo.com

Alrighty then,

another installment of This Is Where I Stand.

Mostly to Nanowriter and Pepperband....not because I am angry or do not appreciate your warnings

I know I sound exactly like all the others but here goes.

My decision is to stay for now. As I said before, I know what the potential is and I have my heart encased in steel right now. I can move forward. It is going to take GM a long long time to even break even with my love bank so I have the time. Nano, I understand totally what you are saying. I really do. I was raised by a mother that hated me (she hated all females) and did not have a problem telling me that until the day she died (under my care of course, go figure) and a father who beat the ever lovin' tar out of us for some reason, any reason several times a week. No details, they are horrific. I understand all about this kind of abusive relationship. As stupid as this sounds I am going to say it anyway. I do not think GM falls into this category. It has to do with knowing him for so long, knowing his FOO, how he was raised and seeing the problems he grew up among. I understand exactly why and how come he did this. There are questions of course but I have a pretty good finger on where it all came from. The GM I see now is not that GM. I do not think he acted his way into the locked psych ward. I see him working the program and reading and posting and paying attention. I am trying to separate all this out from the fact that it really feels good to have him doing this for me. He is retired so he is almost constantly with me and he has told several people who I also know well about this so that I have a way to check up added to the GPS on his car, phone and my asking for photos of where he is. I have all the passwords, he has asked me to do all of these things or he has done them himself, willingly and only twice during all of this has he seemed sad about the changes. He quit all the boards he was on. He is not going to meetings of organizations he belongs to unless I can go with him. We have a meeting set up next week for the Post Nup. I had stopped caring so he prodded me and finally set it up for me. He wants me to do this, it is retroactive and 100% he is asking me to set up. I could probably go on but there it is. What am I to worry about? The future when I am not looking so hard at him and what he is up to? Well, this will never stop and he knows it. He expects me to scrutinize whatever whenever. I will not be his mommy but I have to protect myself and I will be doing that. This is not something I want to repeat. He is getting enclosed by boundaries to keep me safe. He has willingly written some of them himself knowing how he came to do the things he did. He has committed to being by my side almost constantly until the day one of us eats the big dirt sandwich.

I see all of this as a place to start. Where am I wrong? I am really asking because I need to know. He is a chronic liar and a serial adulterer. The lying and cheating has stopped and I intend to see that it remains that way and I do not see that as something hard to do. The hard part is living with what he has done. If he can show me 1/10th of the love he gave me before we were married then I can be a happy woman for the rest of my life....IF I can get over what has happened. So, let me have it. I need and am asking for honesty.

Dr. H said this past weekend that ANY behavior can be changed by working the principles of the MB program. So IF you buy into the MB program, then you recognize that if someone is committed to it, they can change anything about themselves. Dr. H used the example of verbally abusive people and even child molesters. He has experience dealing with both and has had success in changing their behaviors.

GM's past is probably about as bad as it gets around here. But if he is committed to working this program, even HE can become a faithful, caring man.

There is HUGE risk here for sss, and she is aware of what she's risking. Having spent several hours talking face-to-face with sss, I realize that she is a very strong woman who knows exactly what she's doing.

But IF they follow the program, it is possible.

According to Dr. H...

under certain circumstances, no one can be trusted.

under certain circumstances, everyone can be trusted.

Dr. H is helping sss and GM create the circumstances (lifestyle) that will make it possible for GM to be trusted within the parameters that they agree to.

IF he becomes unwilling to live under those parameters, he certainly should not be trusted.

SMB

I thought you would be doing your anniversary thing! I will write later, we are doing a lesson.

Happy anniversary!

sss

Due to the length and depth of GM's wayward behavior, we are all concerned and don't want to see you suffer anymore than you already have. Honestly, when I read your story my initial reaction was WTF?? x 100,000 Run and run fast!!! But you are the one living this and we get skeptical at times for good reason.

I never would have thought my M would have survived either if I hadn't lived it myself. Despite all the rotten things my H has done to me, I saw the pain and remorse in his face. If you see that in GM's face, I will take your word for it. Even though he brought it on himself, it was heartwrenching for me to see that my H HATED himself not just for his A but for all the times he took me for granted and was less than the man he should have been. As twisted as it may sound, seeing him that way was good for ME. I don't want to see a never ending pity party but at the same time seeing him so desperate to fix what he broke kind of reassured me that the light bulb went on and he understands the gravity of what he has done to me and us.

I've seen many posters say their WS is now a FWS because the A is over yet they still exhibit wayward behavior that makes me worry for them. I know I would never have given my H that F if I hadn't seen with my own eyes a man that was completely broken. We were both broken. Yet we managed to pick each other up even when it would have been easier just to lay down and die to get some relief. We have helped each other heal. I hope I'm not projecting too much of what I HOPE will happen for you and GM because of my own experience but oddly enough I do see hope for you two despite how bad GM's history is.

I'll stand in the corner now to avoid any flying debris.

Gosh, A man needs to rest a moment or two in between......

Thank you black_raven

He is broken, totally broken, sadly broken. He is not the man that was in his OW's bed when I called for him to come home for his confrontation. That was 6 months ago and the change is good.

We just had another long talk and kind of made a time line of our life together. It really all makes sense in an odd and very awful way. He is struggling and trying and working. We shall see. I will respond more directly to your nice post when I can. Thanks.

Well get to it man! She is waiting and she should never be kept waiting. Sheesh, MEN!

Happy anniversary. You are both lucky to have each other and you each know it! How wonderful is that?

me getting to it ------>

Dance Cowboy, dance!

Nicely done.

For tst and SMB