I was stiffin Jesus???

Iffin' you was taking your offering and buying bread and jam...

Shame Shame...know your name.

committed

It was strawberry jelly, girl!

YES!!

Let him own this, VST.
Make it your boundary and let HIM own figuring out how to make it work.

Don't cheat yourself by accepting anything other than NC (it will be disastrous to your M).

Dont' cheat your WH out of this opportunity to begin to set things right and to learn an important lesson about behaviors and consequences.

DOn't let his comments get to you VST.

His crack about a loveless marriage was just part of his tantrum of not wanting to leave his job.

The first one he tried was he would find a new job, and you would have to move. (Subtle attempt at punishing you. He thought having to move would upset you. You didn't give up.)

Now he's taking jabs with the loveless marriage crap. Its just another jab in his attempts to make you give up.

See, here's the deal -- he doesn't want you to fight for him. He wants you to give up. He wants you to be mad at him. He wants you to file for divorce. Do you know why?
Because then he can point the finger at YOU for being the one to give up. Waywards LOVE being able to say "she kicked me out" or "she divorced me"...it makes them the VICTIM instead of the PREDATOR.

Just stay the course and let the consequences keep piling up.

vst, the thing is that you can't make the OW quit her job. That route is a dead end. The only thing you can control are your own boundaries. Telling the OWH that your H is somehow more entitled to keep his job when he is just as guilty as the OW is not likely to get you very far.

Thanks ya'll. I know and you're keeping me going by REMINDING me of all this. 'cause you know I need to be REMINDED for a while, thru all this crap, don't you? Thank you.

I can see how making him make the choice is the best all around, for him and our M.

Lexxy, thanks the way you put it about him wanting me to give up makes perfect sense. I can actually tell my not giving up on him is making a difference so far.

WS try to villify the BS all the time.

If YOU give up, file for D, etc. then it's as Lexxy says - YOU caused all this. He's the innocent victim.

That's why Plan A is so important right now. In the back of his mind he's looking for excuses about why he "had" to engage in the A.

Every LB you commit will, in his mind, justify how horrible you are, how mistreated and misunderstood he was, and how desperate he was to "escape" the cold cruel marriage.

Every EN you meet makes it hard for him to say to himself "See? She's cold and uncaring. If she cared at all, she'd (fill in the blank)."

Thanks turtlehead.

His favorite saying is "she's not the problem, she's just a symptom of the problem." I HATE when he says that!!

That's a line from the movie

When Harry Met Sally

Harry is attending a baseball game with his buddy and telling his buddy about his wife's infidelity.

The buddy says : "The infidelity is a symptom."

Harry says: "Well, that symptom is {doing} my wife."

Fog Babble 101 - toss it back at the wayward

"If she's a symptom lets get rid of her and solve our problems as a family."

The sinking TITANTIC was a "symptom" of other problems, too, but the sinking ship had to be corrected before the other "problems" could be addressed. There would be no ship to save if the sinking was not stopped first.

The OW most definitely is the biggest problem and until she is removed, the other problems cannot be fixed.

Thanks Pepper, perfect come back and I will be using it!

The sinking TITANTIC was a "symptom" of other problems, too, but the sinking ship had to be corrected before the other "problems" could be addressed. There would be no ship to save if the sinking was not stopped first.




Another great come back, thanks!

His favorite saying is "she's not the problem, she's just a symptom of the problem."

Well, in a way he's right. She's not the problem.

The PROBLEM is that he chose to unzip his pants instead of come and talk to you!

I wouldn't try explaining that to him just yet. Somehow, I doubt he'd be very receptive.

Your WH is spewing the same crap every other WS spews...they all take their cues from the same script, we've heard it all before.

Sure, there were problems in your M...NO M is perfect. We had issues in our M as well..EVERYone does. That's no excuse for having an A.

However, it CAN be the catalyst for building a better M.

VST,

Mel is DEAD ON with this post. Re-read it often.

The thing here is you want to control the situation. Very understandable, considering the circumstances. Your WH threw your life out of control by his affair. Everything you once thought and believed in is now in question. You want to, NEED to control something, because EVERYTHING around you is OUT OF CONTROL.

Funny thing is, the only thing you CAN control is yourself. You can control how you re-act to WH, you can control how YOU want to be treated, you can control how YOU will go forward from here.

You cannot control what WH does or doesn't do. You cannot control which path he chooses to take. You cannot control what OW does or doesn't do (which she is doing some pretty good "wah wah wah is ME!!!!!!!!!!!!" acting right now.... ), nor can you control what goes on in their marriage.

The only thing you can control is you. You can control how you handle this (either crawling in bed and feeling sorry for you or standing up for yourself and your family....which btw, I am impressed with....), you can control how you view yourself, what you contributed to marital problems BEFORE the A and change them, and you can control what you want to do for this moment forward.

And once, you give up trying to control on what the others around you are doing, and FOCUS on you, you will begin to feel empowered. And then you will be on the road of healing for yourself.......

Use this time to learn about yourself. Learn what it is in a marriage that YOU want. Learn what it is about your life and yourself that makes YOU unhappy, and begin to CHANGE that.....

because, when you begin to take the focus off of HIM and put it on you (and your daughter), you will begin to feel your world right itself.....

You are doing well, my friend. I am amazed at the turn around in YOURSELF in such a short time.......and you will see, in time, that YOU were much stronger than YOU ever gave yourself credit for.....

((((((vst)))))))

not2fun

ps....Mel, do you have a copy of Orchids Reverse Babble???? That's one I don't have and I think VST would benefit from it....heck, many newbies on here would.....

not2fun

OMG not2fun, you've got me pegged....I am trying to control this and I know it, it's almost an obsession, well, it is an obsession. I feel like if I make this easier for him (i.e. OW leaving work) then he'll choose to come back to his family. Otherwise, it's a toss up. He is WEAK and I know it but I want him to be STRONG. But I know I can't make him that way. I was just thinking earlier how I need to call the college I'm thinking of attending and get the ball rolling. I feel the need to work on ME. If I sit around here waiting for something to happen next, it will drive me insane! He may choose not to come back, you know the easy route; not having to be a real dad or a husband. Easy street. He's been on easy street all these years with me anyway. I've never voiced my needs to him, I never pointed out that he ignores his family, that he is totally self-absorbed. I've let him get away with it 'cause I've always worried about what he feels and what his reaction will be. Well, I'm done with that people!! I need to worry about ME!

That's what I'm talking about!

And BTW, I've saved a lot of $ on IC fees since I've come here. I haven't been back in a while and don't feel the need. Thanks!