I just want to thank you for leading me to a personal journey that has yielded a lot of truth, some good and some bad but truths that I might never have acknowledged about myself without your specific questions. Each answer I discover helps me to answer the questions I have about my marriage and how to deal with what has happened. I now have one small patch of solid ground to stand on. The rest is still amorphous but I have my little patch now. I know without a doubt, without all the false bravado I presented to the world, that I will be OK no matter what happens to my marriage. I had no idea what these truths had to do with marriage when you asked your questions, now I know. My answers are more clear and solid and realistic than they would have been.

Thank you for all your wisdom and time and all the hard truths you present to me. You are clever and intuitive and besides that you are just plain fun...

Is Dr. Pepper in the house?

It's Sergeant Pepper, b_r, and as I said on another thread, those Californians are still asleep while we've been awake for hours saving the world.

Well I stand corrected...Sgt. Pepper it is.

Asleep at 9:00am on a weekday?

You doing okay sss?

Hi!

I am doing OK, you know the usual up's and down's are to be expected. Still, we seem to be OK for the moment and working hard.

I will take this moment to also thank you and everyone else for all the help. I hated to start a thread just about one person because everyone is so appreciated but Sgt. Pepper has sent me on some unusual detours that have been just excellent adventures that were necessary and not apparently so to me at the time. I had not heard from her in a while and just needed and wanted to thank her.

Are you doing OK? I need to write you back, I found your mail in my junk folder (how DARE my service label you as junk mail!). I will get back and give you an update soon. Thanks for looking that over and responding.

Hey I've got some junk in the trunk does that count? I'm doing okay. Feeling pretty good today.

Sorry for the t/j...back to for Pep.

You are welcome.
You are well worth time spent.
Please remember,when I post to others, I confront myself and my failings all the time.
It is definitely a 2-way street.
That's part of the fun too.

I don't know what Pep asked you but she's one of the greatest. I want to adopt her in real life. She asks "out of left field" questions that leave me sitting her going "Wha???"

Then at the end it all pulls together and I'm left dumbfounded.

Plus she's got a wicked sense of humor.

All the Pep Praise (tm) aside, that was a lovely post SSS. I'm so glad you found these boards. You have such strength, knowledge of self, and clarity of insight into self. You are a real asset. Dunno if you realize that yet or not.

I am expecting that sometime I will be emotionally stable enough, sane enough, and smart enough to do for others what you and everyone else has done for me.

I see one thing very clearly now, marriage is a lifetime work. Nobody is taught how to do it until it falls apart or you are lucky enough to find MB before it hits bottom. I can't imagine I will ever be far away from this website now. I hope to be of help to many others over the years.

Always learning, that is the best way to live IMO. Why stop now? Love your attitude and you my friend. Thanks a million times and that does not cover it.

Thank you turtlehead, that is very kind of you. It is about time someone added the "et" to asset when talking about me!

You have kept me sane on a number of days here. Talk about an asset! You are wonderful.

This will be a (rare) long one for me.

My H had his affair in the mid 90's.
I worked things out without any message board to bounce ideas off of.

Hence, I made mistakes that might have been preventable.
But, guess what? I don't regret my mistakes, I learned powerful lessons from mistakes.

Then, I found an infidelity forum and joined, as Pepperband.
It was way different from this forum.
"Every Woman's Village" later it became "Redbook" (the magazine)
Equally represented were BW & BH , WW & WH, OW & OM.
There was no prevailing "point of view" on that forum.
There were no plans for recovery.
Pretty much, it was a free-for-all.
I learned a LOT about how waywards think, and also a lot about how TOW and TOM think.
I was able to hold my own on that forum - and I learned how to post logically in response to the illogical.
I also learned when to take a step back and cut my losses.

Then, there was an incident on that board. It became more difficult to post because we learned that 2 of the moderators were "seeing" each other romantically. They were in an affair.

We (on that other, earlier forum) were aware of the MB forums. We even read them from time to time.
We had no understanding and even less regard for what we saw as a stupid choice ... which was "Plan A".

However, there was an exodus of members who flocked to MB all at once when we discovered we were being moderated by infidels. We had a name for ourselves ... "Redbook Riff-Raff".

Soooooooooo, when I arrived on MB I was already YEARS into recovery, but had very little knowledge and little respect for Harley's methods. But at least this board was not infidel-run.

I read a lot of posts written by the old-timers who preceded my arrival. I read the site info. I read Harley books.

I also read Passionate Marriage by Schnarch.
All at once I got insight into Plan A. I could embrace plan A. I could think of Plan A in a light other than "give the infidel goodies they don't deserve".

SSS - I recommend you give Schnarch's book a go - when you're feeling ambitious. It's a difficult read, but you will get so much out of it. It appears on the surface to be about sex, but it's really about intimacy. Deep and abiding and spiritual intimacy !!! Tell GM that if he reads that book and doesn't get valuable insight from it, I'll drink goat milk (which I hate).

I had a lightbulb moment about Plan A when I read Schnarch ... and I wrote about it. (below)


I embrace Plan A (when it's done right) as a personal choice to grow bigger rather than smaller as a response to infidelity.

So - I became a fan of Plan Harley after the fact

Sometime after this, I wrote the carrot/stick post because I was tired of reading things like:

"I've been doing plan A. I have been nice to WS."

It just made me NUTZ that Plan A was frequently interpreted as "plan nice"

Carrot/Stick is MY personal interpretation of Harley's plan A ... and it has not been validated or given a stamp of approval in any way by Harley, no matter how many times it gets quoted.

As you can tell - I often start "idea" or "theory" threads.
I get the most out of my time on MB this way.
I get challenged by other people's ideas. Which I like. I get a bigger picture of my own thinking process. I try to apply an underlying value first BEFORE offering advice.

I succeed, I fail, I fall, I get back up.
I try not to take things personally, and I usually succeed at that.

Sometimes I do get an emotional visceral reaction to either a situation or a particular personality, and I try to avoid posting until I've figured myself out first. But, I fail there at times too. But, guess what? I am quick to forgive myself because I only have 25-30 years left to live (if God lets me) and I hate to waste precious time scolding myself.

Again, SSS and GM, I do recommend Passionate Marriage for you both , some where along this journey. You'll hate me at first for recommending, but you'll get a lot out of it despite me or yourselves

Right after my own D-Day, a friend said to me:

"I think you will make it through this and one day you will be counseling others about infidelity."

That pissed me off. But, she knew me too well. She was right. Helping others is the best way to heal ourselves. Especially if we are getting challenged by others along the way.

It's a pretty awesome forum!

Wowie Zowie Pepperband! You should write long posts more often! That one is just crammed full of goodies.

I am going to answer later, maybe not until tomorrow because of a Dress Rehearsal that promises to be about 6 hours long tonight and will wear me down. I HAVE to answer this but you deserve more than just a quickie. Just....thanks. BTW, I don't think I could post on any forum with TOM's and TOW's defending what they do. That took enormous courage and restraint. I can see how much it helped you in the long run but that close to what you were going through it must have been very difficult.

AWESOME post, Pep.

I particularly liked this bit:
Schnarch says: "We develop a contingent identity based on a 'self-in-relationship'. Because our identity depends on the relationship, we may demand that our partner doesn't change so that our identity won't either."

I've FELT that myself. When DH changes I sometimes feel threatened. Now sometimes it's because he's spending a lot more time on a forum, or emailing non-stop with an old pal and those are kind of triggery and red flaggy for me. But other things, too, can make me feel like "Do I know him?" and that makes me feel uncomfortable for a moment.

So far, his changes have all been, IMO, for the better and I have embraced them. But there's usually that momentary hesitation at first. I know I get a lot of my sense of self, identity, and self image from him. It's funny to see that play out in this manner, reacting with hesitation to changes.

Interesting stuff.

P.S. Pep drinks goat's milk!
(was gonna add that to my sig but it's too long as it is... you lucked out)

OK Sgt. Pepper of all awesomeness! I sat down to drink a cup o tea so I thought I would start.


I love this. I have never regretted mistakes, sometimes the outcome of my errors have been regretful but the mistakes have always been there to learn from. I do hope you had some support IRL, I know that even now I could not function very well without this board since I really have no one to talk to that is close to me (vicinity). I can't imagine doing this alone.

I have tried to read some other boards with OW's posting just to see if I could understand why. Can't, not even now, I can't bear it and I don't get it.

I am so happy the Redbook Riff-Raff made it here! How funny.

Plan A was a mystery to me at first. Because of my situation and the late date that I found MB I did not do any plans and often found myself very upset about that because they look like great plans. Your explanation, the carrot and the stick, was very helpful for me to understand the purpose of it all. I had no plan, nothing to really hang on to. For the longest time I would have small lessons from Steve but my main thing was to heal and let GM do the heavy lifting and healing. I have to say that was hard...I will take this to my thread one day when I get back to writing...I am t/jing your thread!


I will get that one. Even though a hard read I will get through it. GM will either have to read it himself or I will read it to him, it sounds like we both need it. I will add it to my Pepperband's must read list with Gift From The Sea.


Guess I won't send you any Feta. Well, can't my goats are boys. :crosseyedcrazy:

There is so much more but I have to go my cup o tea is gone now and I have to work.

I hope you have a wonderful day.

I just wanted to add my thanks to Pepperband. You are appreciated!!!

Ditto!

That is a great post. The more that is revealed about a poster's past, the more I understand where the thoughts are coming from. Now I'm not saying that I 'get' all of yours, cuz sometimes I'm like , but this should help with the grasp. (hopin' anyway)

This part screamed at me. This explains the feeling of failure and doom I felt after D-Day. I never realized that I gaged myself as person as it related to my H or my M. I just never put the two together. I questioned everything. Sad.

Plan A and learning here has made me realize different, it is an awesome forum full of wealth in wise people.

So ... does this mean 10 or more years post R, we will be as insightful as Sgt. Pepperband?? We hopes so!

PS Hi SSS, you sound good .... I'm glad.

It's not just you. Everyone does this.
Schnarch says this is a NORMAL stage in marriage.


We confront our own integrity via marriage conflict.
It's the crucible we all confront in marriage (infidelity or no infidelity).

And, it's a never ending process. We just get better at it the longer we've been married. Confronting ourselves.

Schnarch calls marriage a "people growing" venture.

Hi Vittoria!

I am doing OK right now. How are you? I hope well.

I have to tell you that when I read what you write here I am so impressed. You really are very insightful and you often just hit the nail right on the head. I am always amazed at how you can cut through the crap.

Let me know how you are doing. Gotta go to work now I want to stay and play here .

Heigh-Ho Heigh-Ho