Sorry..I was using the x as ex, AKA.. former. Got it. Yes, i do beleive he feels it is a game of sorts but now it is coming down to the wire and reality is staring him in the face.

There is no doubt that I would let him in my home too early as he has put himself in the position of the one to be wooed!!
Imagination that. I really do need advice. My ultimate goal is to pull some of this relationship back together.

I have told him that our marriage as he knows it is dead and gone. He would like the the book to be closed and I can't deliver. The old book has to have closure....He is afraid of recriminations. How do I tell him or make him understand the issues have to be dealt with eventually??

I thought the thrashings may come as I have been far too lenient
thus far.

Dag

sss

I thank you for your fortitude with my situation but I will let you off the hook. I am really okay. I appreciate your input and support and realize that you have your own boat to row. Don't get me wrong I want to hear your advice but I feel in this community they have left me to your hands and we are both flailing about. I hope GM kisses the ground you walk on. Tough women are hard to find.

After viewing this it looks as if I am dirsegarding and I am not...I just don't want you to feel responsible for me all by yourself.

Dag

He needs to know that what he is doing to you is far far from a game and that his reality is going to reflect that.


I think we need more info here about what happened in your marriage. It sounds like my situation, there really is nothing to pull together because essentially I was never married because he certainly was not. For me it is like pulling something together from the ashes of my life and looking for a way to let him in. I would not even try that if GM was not remorseful and so far proving to be committed himself to make this work. For now I am still trying to make some sense of myself and what I actually do want to do. I do not have adequate advice here but others certainly will.

Figure out your bottom line and stick with it. I would not let him back until I had that all figured out. It must be the line you will not cross or will not let him cross. I figured that out then built boundaries from there. He must be willing to work within those boundaries and then the two of you can create a list for him. He needs EP's like GM has. They are very long and contain lists for almost every situation that a person would encounter in life. Has your WH had other addictions? That will need to be dealt with as well, the whole personality of addiction makes this harder for both of you.


The only way I know how to let him know is to just say it and stick with it. Of course there are going to be consequences. I think they all do this. GM still says that he just wants to move into the future and not look back. He has no idea how I wish I could do that but I have to resolve some things to get through it. It scares me that it is so easy for him to let it all go into the dustbin of his brain when everyday I have to live with what he has done. I really think they all do this.

I don't feel on the hook, just a little shaky and worried I will say something stupid that goes against the MB principles not meaning to do that. I will tell you this, from what I have seen here and experienced myself this program works but you both must be willing to work it. You are going to have to start it off yourself and see if he will come along. Once he is committed he will have much of the work to do just to heal you but you must start it. Once you get to the point where you feel somewhat confident and are healing you can both work together. That is why I seem to lack confidence, this can work if you get the right help and I am still floundering around myself.


You will get other help. Sometimes it takes a while. It is not that they do not care, there are so many of us floundering around and so many WS's that are needing big time help it just takes a while sometimes. You do not seem OK, how in the world could you be OK? Our situations are similar and it makes sense that we would be able to work through some of this together. You have known about this for some time and been reading here and started some of it so it seems a good match.


Well thank you! Makes me smile in the morning and that is a great thing! He does seem to be doing a lot of ground kissing lately and I seem to be enjoying it a little more than I should. We tough women have to stick together.


I don't but I do not want to give you bad, inexperienced advice. This is too important. I am happy to do what I can, I have had so much support here that passing some of it along feels wonderful. Take care of yourself and set that bottom line and make some kind of a plan and post it here. Just start it and we can help you with it. It helped me to start some short term goals after I set my bottom line. I need to go back and look at some of my thread and some of my notes from Steve and pass them on to you.

Dag, YOU asked to be left in SSS's hands.(You asked to communicate privately with her by email, remember?)

Here is what I am looking at.
See if my position makes sense to you.

You are in a marriage situation that I would not stay and attempt to repair if I were personally in your shoes. THAT makes it more difficult to find ways to help you. My personality and life experiences would make staying with a man such as your husband impossible. That goes for SSS's GM too. I'd only make the remainder of his life a living hell, which puts me in a living hell along with him & I refuse to live my life that way, as a warden.

Having said that, I would help you if I knew where to start. I attempt to help others save their marriage even when I would not stay in that marriage.

Where I usually start is determining what the BS wants and why do they want it.

So, let me ask you:

What do you want?
Why do you want to stay in your marriage?
How long are you willing to tolerate more abuse? (months? Years?)
No bullcrap, just the bare naked truth, ugly or pretty.

If you are really wanting the forum to help you, you've got to put forth intimate and painful truths about yourself !

I think this is difficult for you. I think you might be a shy and very private person.

Pep and Dag,


This is a good point. It is where I am trying to struggle right now and I know if we get through this point it will only happen over and over. It is very HARD but I am slowly figuring out why I am still here (or why I let him stay here) and why that might or might not be a good idea for my future. In other words, what I want for me and what I need for me are two different things. Letting go of the want for the need is hard but I refuse to let go of the need for the want at this late date.


This is the truth. You may end up on some interesting journeys that you have no idea how they relate but they do. Take them, work on them and then you will have that grand "Ah Ha!" moment. They are very important for you.

((((hugs)))) to both of you.

EGG ZAK LEE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yikes, SSS, this jumped out at me. So, so true.

Dag, I also am working to recover a long-term marriage. My husband's adultery was not so longstanding, but he carried on his A through many false recoveries.

I don't have any advice for you, just hugs.

Pepperband

I have a memory of a wonderful relationship. It sustains me.
Thirty years together is a long time and I know he wasn't on the same ride as me for the last eighteen years. Nevertheless we were joined at the hip. His need for admiration and sexual lust from other women amazes me even now. Like sss I was the only one who was married.

I don't want to stay in this marriage it is so dead its pitiful, but both of us can't seem to let the other go. i know this sounds like cake eating and it is to a degree but don't forget we run three businesses together and rely on each other for their part. There has always been a common thread throughout our lives. At this point I am an armoured tank and watch all through a fine glass so the abuse is only what i feel I can take. I do know that I can shake him but have been disinclined to do so until I need to and at that point I am afraid there is no turning back. It is hard to fly straight when one wing has been torn off. I am reeling but still standing. Maybe I just want to bring him to his knees !!! I don't know. I don't know..


Dag

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

Pardon my ignorance but I just googled this and ...could be. I have read quite a bit about narcissism and other personality disorders looking for what I thought was reason.

dag

?Maybe I missed where you said what you want

It's OK if you just to vent, yanno? I have not problemo with that.

Pepperband

Okay ya got me...

What I want is for none of this to ever have happened. What I want is the husband I thought I knew. What I want it to build a new relationship with the person I feel is my other half. I want to finish what we started. I want him to become the him I know he should be and could be. Don't we all want the same things ??

Dag

Have you noticed how far you've drifted from your thread title?

Searching for reality.

Keep posting.

You'll bump into your reality sooner or later.

I haven't drifted. That is my reality. How do I find it?

dag

Pepperband

I don't know your story although I tried to look for it. You are very insightful...I am a very shy and private person. I wondered if things like this could be analyzed via written word without posture. My situation took place in a very public arena. For me that was the most devasting part.

We own a building and also built the building we have businesses in. I have a clientel that puts me in a capacity of social interaction. To keep going to work as they kept returning as my (our) clientel was withering. I have lost some as they are embarrased for me. Not a good business plan. All the bravodo I had at first drained me and I had to stay home too often and heal my wounds. But as expected I had to go back out there with the mask firmly in place and the confidence I had was a mere act.

That seems to be my life. There is no hidden agenda. I am not hiding from myself. I am just trying to duck the pain.

WH at this moment is in a false sense of having me right where he wants me and I am enjoying the attention as he feels he has all of his tops spinning and his ducks lined up. I suppose one may call this going "back" to plan A. I am relying on my own instincts. I deserve to have my investment returned as any other long term investment. He broke my heart and I want him to fix it. Whether or not I will myself embrace the relationship, (as I said before)is a decision I would prefer to make myself. It has to be a decision based on equal power. None up None down.
My objective has always been to level out the playing field.

I have slept alone for many many months......WH has slept alone maybe five times and that is in our building as he tries(oh so desperatley )to come out of the long tunnel and see the light,

I have read a lot here in the past few days and I am oh so very greatful I posted.

dag

That one is off the table.



This one is out of your locus of control.



This takes bilateral effort, long term.




You got me on this one, because I have no idea what this means.



Outward focus is your current hangup.

By that I mean - your list of "wants" is a list outside your ability to implement.

ETA: Which renders you in a helpless position to set goals that are achievable.

Hi Slick, I think that questioning reality is a perfectly normal reaction to what we have been through. THere were times when I wondered if that hunting trip really was a hunting trip with a pit stop for SF along the way and so many other questions.

At some point I realized that it didn't make a different and had to let it go becasue in my case I had an unwilling Wh who was going to live by his rules and nothing I felt mattered in the long run. Unacceptable for me, but I had to come to terms with present day reality not past reality...

Like you said...

I have come to understand that the only control I have is over my own actions. It also means my reactions are reacted to. Aloneness is lonely and I don't want to be there. I have been searching for answers and find more questions. The past is the past but like healed broken bones the pain still twitches.
Thank you all for your responses. It's been a bad day for me. I wish I had your insights. I'll keep reading and learning.

dag

I have to get off the hook.. He is stalling with his lawyer and
my lawyer tells me the only thing to do now is sue hm into court. This is something I have tried very hard to avoid. As, if there is .. was something to rebuild there would be no acrimony.

He asked me today if we should go for counselling, and I replied that there is only one counselor i would entertain (Harleys) and that Slizobelle would have to go. Is he just avoiding the separation agreement? I really have no firm ground to relate considering our history. He is maybe just a very keen player. I know I am a grown adult woman but I have been with him since i was 24 yrs old. I have to grow up.
dag