Ok, are you glad "now" that you married him?

Is one of his top EN's O&H?

I'm glad for the daughter I have with him. I love him, as in I've been around him for so long that we are intertwined. I wish I hadn't married him, because I would have been a completely different person and had a totally different life.

I doubt he even thinks about that; 90% of our conversations are about him, his work, and what's wrong with the world (i.e. what it's doing to him); 9% is about D18; 1% is about how I fit into what they are doing. So he wouldn't even know what to be O&H about.

1.
2.
3.

What are you doing now to not be selfish? Now something else to point out. You say you've always been selfish, and he's always been giving? In (1), not wanting to give while he gave, is selfish, but how was his giving leading to (2)? What change in (2) are you wanting from him before it's too late? And in (3) if 90% of the conversations are about him what are you doing to tell him that you'd like it if the conversations included you? And how is your perspective that conversation is selfishly bent on him when he is supposedly giving? And I'm talking in a giver/taker sense.

I sense strongly that you talk about MB in passing and haven't sat down to really put forth the scary work of finding out about each other and where you both stand in your marriage.

Am I right?

Full Disclosure. How else are you going to become happy together?

Well, it's a bit more complicated than I can answer in one post. Please feel free to read my thread in Emotional Needs for the whole schpiel. But I'll try to answer your questions.

1. What I meant is that he would always buy me stuff, take me out, always take care of me first in SF. But it was never what I asked for, and even if I said I wanted something (like hanging up curtains that have been sitting on the floor in the bathroom for almost 6 years), he would pretend I didn't even speak. A control issue. And if I didn't do what he wanted, he would make life miserable - pouting, shouting, yelling, passive aggressive, etc., so I learned to make sure we did things his way. After awhile, I just stopped talking, and asking for anything, and he never even noticed.

2. The change I would want from him? To ask me about myself - I can count on one hand the number of times he has asked me about me, my thoughts, my work. To listen to me and stop interrupting me when I DO try to talk, like he just did for the umpteenth time. To actually acknowledge that I've asked for help instead of looking me right in the face and walking away and doing something else (he is changing this somewhat, since I had 'the talk' and told him I couldn't handle it any more).

3. He calls me when he leaves work, and talks all the way home (an hour) about his job and how they're screwing him over. Then he gets home and talks more about it, or complains about D18, or complains about the neighborhood, or the Mexicans or the Blacks who are doing him in, or...you get the idea. When I say he is giving, he is a very hard worker, tries to buy me things (though he is $80,000 in debt), and he puts up with me not giving him back rubs when he gives me one (but that's only when he wants SF).

Talking? I have just now (a month ago) told him I'd been thinking about leaving, after 30 years of marriage and never saying a word. I've had too many near misses with wanting to choose suicide over doing the hard work. He knows, but is unwilling to talk about it. He went to therapy with me once for a few sessions until she told him she needed to see him alone and he cussed her out and refuses to speak about it. And there's a good chance that he is developing his mom's paranoid schizophrenic tendencies, so the negativity just gets worse and worse.

We're a long way away from being honest about this stuff.

But I'll keep working on it. And he has made some tiny...awarenesses, if not changes. So I am more hopeful than I have ever been that I can find a reason to stay.

I hope that made more sense.

So now she is putting herself in compromising situations. She's visiting people who were interested in her in the past and staying the night with them.

Stayed the night in the same bed next to someone who just broke up with their girlfriend, tried to kiss her before they fell asleep and later in the evening woke her to being sexually assaulted in her sleep...spooned her, grabbed her breast under her shirt, masturbating and humping her from behind.

She freaked out and left, but seriously...

Then I find her and OM were not talking very well lately and this somehow brought them together again. She called him while she was shaking from the experience and driving home. IE: I think she made him jealous with the information.

Seriously Monc....You should seek counseling to find out why you hate yourself.

That's the only explanation for what you are doing to yourself in this situation.

I agree. Do you get your self-worth from saving people or something? I can't fathom any other reason why you get kicks caring about her.

Now for some 2x4s: Monc, what are you doing staying steeped in all this crap - there is no longer any reason for you to be snooping. Stop reading this stuff, stop asking people about her, stop doing whatever you are doing! Every little tidbit of sluttiness you read makes you feel more and more like a puddle of poo under her feet!

STOP IT!

Monc,

What do you need to find that will make you let her go? Will it take an orgy with dozens of men? Will it take her using drugs and sleeping in the alley with the winos? Will finding out she is pregnant turn you off enough to stop following her every move looking for signs that she is starting to change her mind? Will learning that she has a life threatening STD from her exploits do the trick?

What need are you getting filled by reading all of this crap from her?

I told you recently that I didn't think there was any way to get her to come back before the divorce is final even if you delayed it several months. This is no longer just a flash in the pan "whoops; I let someone get too close." She has her mind set on the destruction of your marriage and nothing less will be sufficient.

This isn't even about what she thinks is wrong with you any more. This is now entirely what is broken inside of her. It isn't something YOU can fix. You can't stop her. You can't save her from herself. You can't catch her before she falls; she has already hurled herself from the mountaintop. If you truly still love her and want to try to build something new with her, just let her go, wait for the THUD when she hits bottom and be ready to clean up the mess when she hits. Right now that is the best you can do because she is already in free-fall.

The only thing you are accomplishing by continued snooping right now, wishing that you'll find some crack in her armor that you can exploit, seeking confirmation that the affair is burning out as you hope (unmet expectations) is that you are slowly torturing yourself into not loving her any more. If that is your goal, then keep reading. If you really think she might ever come back and want to reconcile, then stop killing your love over her antics and just go dark. Plan B letter or not, just ignore all of this or you will end up a basket case.

Mark

So to follow this advice from my letter thread and here, my final steps are the letter, talking to her brothers and going Plan B THIS week. By Sunday I have to go Dark into Plan B.

Your right Mark...I realized it yesterday and lastnight that my love is being vaporized. I realized it again this morning when I dreamed about a cute girl who was amarous and who I was quiet ready to screw like a bunny until my alarm clock went off.

I've never had a dream like that since getting with my wife...

So for the soap opera, my recent reply to my spouses demands for her half of the tax return. This is again a Steve directed thing...keep telling her how our marriage can be great. Let me know your thoughts I'm sending it later tonight or in the morning.

Monc, I don't have a problem with you wanting to give her a second chance, but please stop sucking up to her. It is NOT attractive! In fact, it's ugly to see a man kiss up so much.

To my wife,

When we last talked you said that I promised your father I'd give you your half of the tax return and that it was the honorable thing, whether it was a legal issue didn’t matter. Why is it that you feel entitled to press me to do the honorable thing, like seeing my promises through when you yourself won’t hold to the honorable thing? You said once that adultery was not illegal but it certainly isn’t the honorable thing, is it? Telling me you want a divorce two weeks after I discover your secretly kept adulterous affair is not honorable is it? You also brought up that you know me, that in my heart I know what the honorable thing is and that I always do it. Why is it that you discard my selfless promises for a joyful marriage if you can so readily recognize what other honorable actions are?

Since Jan 23rd I have made many promises to you. Promises I have been acting on that are in keeping with ensuring we can have a happy marriage. Promises that I am pursuing right now that are changing the way I live. Promises you willingly discard. Promises you mistakenly throw into the garbage because of your own actions and selfish desires. I have pursued an honorable, joyful, and happy marriage for us since finding out Jan 23rd that you had slept with OM in our bed twelve nights in August of 2008. Even as your actions permitted me to drop my vows, I chose to keep to the sworn oath I made in front of your family, mine, and to you because I love you deeply enough to realize my faults that contributed to the affair and to correct them. I swore to love, honor, and cherish you all my life and I will keep that vow.

In keeping that vow I have found Marriage Builders and have followed it to be a better husband and person in my life whether you choose to see it or not.
There is a certified way for us to again be happy in this marriage. A way for us to communicate freely, a way for us to act in a loving way, and a way to repair our marriage and make it absolutely joyful!

The act of carrying out a great and joyful marriage is no different than practicing to play a guitar. Sometimes a person picks one up and learns on their own. Others get a teacher. With time comes great music and sometimes it goes out of tune and you have to retune it, other times a string breaks and you have to get a new string, and when the guitar is damaged you find a capable luthier to fix it. The only time one throws the guitar out is when it’s smashed.

You speak of honorable things and of the heart. You know in your own heart that we have taken no steps to retune, repair, or get a teacher for our marriage.
Dr. Harley is our marriage’s luthier and instructor/counselor. And the Marriage Builder methods is the strings and tool to retune our marriage. You’ve talked to him, you know how well he saw things. He can help us and our marriage be happy again. I am not dead and neither are you, this marriage can be repaired to be joyous again!

It can be joyous and amazingly happy. I would get on my knee’s and swear this too you since I never did when I proposed to you in California. That abiding by a year of effort we will be well on our way to happiness. There is no magic bullet and it will take effort from us. Dr. Harley and Marriage Builders are just the tools and guides.

I have heard every insult and complaint you have made about me and I have made none about you, although you deserve it for what you have done to me. From the most minor to the most major. I have remembered them and none of them are below any sense of importance to me.

And nothing is below my ability to sacrifice to ensure we can have a joyous marriage together.

I want to give you a happier marriage and to live a joyful life with you.

I want to create amazing music with in a duet of hearts.

I love, honor, and cherish you my love,
-BS


P.S. Threatening me that “I” will lose you as a friend for not giving you your half of the taxes is shallow I must say when it is your actions that necessitate my withholding of the tax return until our divorce. It is not only my legal council to maintain all funds until the court date, but also that any funds I provide you while you are divorcing me for an adulterous affair will only aid the affair and I will not besmirch our marriage in such a way.
_________________________

Thank you Cat... I actually was thinking of editing...granted I DIDN'T so...

That is something I've been thinking about. The sucking up.

Nice guys finish last so they say.

Her response to the e-mail:

"You're pathetic. You're claiming you have a right to keep thousands of dollars of my money because I cheated on you back in August? Pathetic."

But you knew that was going to be her response when you sent her the email, right?

Lots of time and effort went into getting the email just right and her only comment is that you are controlling and cheating her again...

Waynerds!

Get out now. She does not want the marriage anymore. Clearly. She wants any and all monies that she can get out of you and that is it.

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This is all she wants. From you. This is how much she cares for you: :twobyfour: :twobyfour: :twobyfour: :twobyfour:

So what do you really think, Bubbles?