yllan, take the focus off you & your feelings. You can help yourself by helping your wife & attending to her needs & feelings.

I refer you to paragraphs 4 & 5 of my page 7 post on your thread. Or to anything tst, dealan-de, togetheralone, ima, or others have already said, as they say it more succinctly & with more experience to back them up. Don't know how else to drive the point home.

At least tell us you're not really sitting at mum's with your wife's heart on the bottom of your shoe while she sits at home distraught because you were too full of pride to beg her to keep you.

Nope hes sitting here getting me to talk about how not emotinal he is, i know i said i wouldnt post on his thread but im seriousely close to maiming him. He is NOT doing anything! Just sitting here going on and on and on and on and about his freacking lack of emotions.
I ask u this DOES HIM BEGGING ME TO KEEP HIM involve emotions? NO it involves humility and letting go of his stupid pride. Hope he enjoys cuddling up to his pride tonight, hope his pride can keep him warm at night cause i sure wont be anymore.

Again, it's all about him.

Maybe mummy's house is the place for him. Lord knows he has her sympathy already. He sure as he.. isn't getting any from me.

Lack of emotions...pft.

BS.

It's all smoke and mirrors BH. He's trying to make YOU and not recognizing his "lack of emotions" his excuse.

There is no lack of emotions. There is IGNORING.

IGNORING is all the action you'll get from him for awhile. What are the CONSEQUENCES of him IGNORING you?

and Emo - dude, if you're reading this, I've got to tell you when you bury your head in the sand like you are doing, it makes are really good target of your butt!!!!!!!!!!! You are tempting your wife to kick that target to the curb.

Man up and take some responsibility for what you do and don't do.

Geez.

yllan-

There is a reason that you have chosen to disconnect with your emotions. Only you know why you choose to keep your emotions-your true feelings-bottled up. Until you can let yourself experience emotions, you will never be able to "feel" anything. If you never are able to "feel" anything with your heart, you will never be able to have empathy. Without empathy, you will never be able to understand the deep, searing pain you have caused your W. Without this understanding, you will never be able to do anything to repair the damage you have caused.

So it all comes back to this: what are you willing to do?

IMHO, your task is to figure out why you have bottled up your emotional self (except for negative emotions that you seemed to be able to express in your letter to the OW) and then take the very hard task of actually "feeling".

Then, you might be able to save your M.

Thank you, this post gave me the inspiration along with everyone talking about Owning to get off my butt and do something rather than nothing.

What I would say to everyone reading this thread, FOR NOW we are going to have to agree to disagree about the emotional thing as its just going to go round and round. Once im deeper into this process and have had time to work on myself etc.. I will re-address.

This worked as it wasnt emotional advice but practical and right now thats what I need to help my wife. Emotional is good long term but right now I need practical advice and ideas of how to help my wife.

Thanks for putting up with me, im not going anywhere....

Hi and thank you for your post. This is my belief and I think it happened way before the A. I still refer to 5 year old (then baby) who went through so much after his birth. All the operations, almost losing him to meningitis, broken ribs from hospital, 13 month high court case and so on. Im pretty convinced it was during this time that I subconciously shut-up-shop.

Since then ive tried 4 different types of therapy to re-open focusing on that time frame but nothing has worked.

Any advice?? Im asking as I thought maybe if you figured this out, you might be able to advise??

This may sound a bit simplistic, but you should check out a book called "How We Love" by Milan and Kay Yerkovich.

It's not a "marriage recovery after an affair"book. It's more of a "why do we connect or disconnect with each other" book. I think it might help you understand why you don't feel like you can express your emotions.

It's a start.

Thanks JT

It is a start, I will be reading SAA with wife first though as thats important for both of us and not just me. But i'll keep that on the radar.

Thanks again.

we get that you had an awful scare with your son, and that is horrible, but at least you can name it to blame it, you know what caused your emotional detatchment, you've won that battle.
now, practice makes perfect, no one can pick up an instument and play it beautifully, or speak and foriegn language without study, so, get down on your knees, grab your wife's hands, beg her to stay and work this out with you, that you are NOT going to blame the OW anymore, (so what if she said crap on FB and her friends were with her, its the consequences of your actions, move on) and start with begging, tell her you are going to read the literature here and go to MC, ask her what is it she would like you to do for her and to prove she is the one you want to be with and most of all that you are going to work, practice and study on how to get the marriage to work.
And please, stop blaming the OW or anyone else.

Think of "lack of emotions" as walls.

You don't lack emotions. You lack empathy. What you have done to your wife is take the emotions and compassion and empathy you should have shared exclusively with her and given it to another woman - a thief who gladly took what you stole.

Now you want to continue to withhold yourself - staying aloof and trying to intellectualize how to fix this.

Start with your lack of empathy. It's the same lack of empathy that killers lack for their victims.

How do you grow empathy? It's a psycho-social stage of development you skipped over and it needs to be learned. You start by serving and sharing. Listening and reflecting. Literally. Walk. In. Your. Wife's. Place.'

Get outside yourself and serve your wife. Rub her feet at the end of the day instead of thinking how tired you are. Serve her instead. Rub her shoulders, if she'll let you. Her own walls are going up, out of sheer self-preservation. You have been so destructive in your lack of empathy toward your wife. You arent' beyond capability, because you've demonstrated enough empathy to develop relationships. But once you have them "captive" you shut the empathy off.

What do you think? By sitting there, while your wife is crying her guts out, that somehow she'll heal herself and still tolerate your selfishness?

It's time to let that go, because one way or another that ship has sailed. It's gone. You can no longer be selfish and preserve your family.

Stop lying to us that you lack emotions. You lack empathy - and there's a HUMONGOUS DIFFERENCE between those two character defects.

You know, it doesn't always take "emotion" on your part to meet her emotional needs. It seems your wife has a need for domestic support (keeping the house nice). You don't seem to want to do that. It doesn't take emotions to pick up a sponge or do a load of laundry.
If your wife has a high emotional need for respect, you can show that to her by being polite and looking her in the eye when she's talking to you.
No one is asking you to break down and cry here. Just man up. Ask your wife what she NEEDS and GIVE IT TO HER. Very simple. Very unemotional.

Hi

Here is a list of all the things I am ready to OWN and DO OWN about my behaviour before during and after A.

In order to achieve the owned list I sat down and wrote a list of all the hurtful things I can remember that took place at the time of the affiar then crossed out anything that I had doubts about owning.

Once I completed list I discussed it with W and we both agreed on the things I own and removed anything with doubts, so the below list is the comprehensive list of everything I currently own.

As I progress through the MB progress I will be updating the list as I know there is much more to remember and own.
-----------------------------------------------------------
LIST OF THINGS OWNED

* Treated W appallingly before A
* Didint notice W during A
* Dindnt stop to think about W and kids during A
* Made effort to spend time with OW
* Made inappropriate comment on a womans picture on Facebook
* Used up works holiday hours on A
* Used separation/thinking time to get closer to OW
* Used family money on A
* Used W feelings to rescue me from car trouble caused from
spending time with OW
* Kissed OW
* Made effort to take OW out on dates and make plans together
* Risked my carreer for OW
* Had sex with OW first time
* Had sex with OW second time
* When I was late back from second SC with OW took out guilt on W.
* Told OW that I loved her
* Didnt use protection with OW
* Was having SC OW and W.
* Considered OW needs and gave set dare to end M.
* Told W I had stopped loving her when I hadnt.
* Didnt end A myself before D-Day.
* Didnt listen to W needs after D-day.
* Didnt write NC letter to OW immediately (or since)
* Didnt clarify to OW after D-Day that I didnt love her.
* Put work ahead of W needs
* Refused to tell work about A and not trusted my W that it was necessary
* Didnt put a stop to OW friends humiliating my family
* Put own reassurance with OW ahead of W needs
* Considered OW feelings after W suicide attempt in car.
* Allowed W to walk out of hospital without seeking urgent medical treatment after she took overdose in an attempt to commit suicide a second time.
* Fought W coming to my workplace
* Refused to beleive OW character even with proof after D-Day
* Didnt destroy W positive images of A
* Did a full body parts comparison between W and OW to W.
* Called W "Limpet" when she sought affection from me after D-Day
* Dont take W with me mentally when I am at work
* Continued to work with OW despite pain caused to W
* Not avoided contact with OW
* Made no effort to improve M
* Left W to heal on her own
* I have to stop Justifying
* I am easly distracted form working on M
* Dont seek advice/use resources when need help
* Accept my actions have caused huge amout of pain and suffering
* I made OW feel good about herself. Not done that with W.
-------------------------------------------------------------

Feel free to ask/comment on any of the points in the list as some points may make more sense to us than you due to abbreviations.

Not a half-bad list, as it stands.

But let's look to the future. "Owning" is quite necessary, but not sufficient. The point of it isn't to get you to mentally beat yourself to death for your past failures (though I've found that a good self-flogging from time to time is healthy for those of us who've put ourselves & our families in this situation!) Rather, your list is a reminder of things you need to atone for, with honorable present & future conduct, kindness & consideration, if you want to become your wife's proverbial knight-in-shining-armor again. [Or armour, however you spell it over there.]

The next list you make should be of the good things you're going to do for her to learn (or re-learn) & meet her various needs. Start doing those things, making them a habit, and things can turn around. (There's no guarantees that they will, mind you, but focusing on the things you can do for her now will give your marriage a fighting chance over the next several, difficult weeks & months.) Let's see that list, & soon.

Its good, its real good. You can probably expect a period of depression once it all starts to sink in as to what you've done to your wife and your family and YOURSELF!! DUDE

thats a good start Y, you may be getting it after all.
ok, now that the list of things you've done is written, and you see in black and white what you've created, read Gloveoils post about getting on track with what you'll do to fix that list, the things you'll do to make your W feel wanted and worthy again. ask her what she would like you to do, no matter how insignificant it feels to either one of you.

I missed it: did you mention giving your wife an STD?

Yll, all these things could have been said of me when I was in my A and the months following d-day, except of course it is H in my case and OM:

Didint notice W during A
* Dindnt stop to think about W and kids during A
* Made effort to spend time with OW
* Made inappropriate comment on a womans picture on Facebook
* Used up works holiday hours on A
* Used separation/thinking time to get closer to OW
* Used family money on A
* Used W feelings to rescue me from car trouble caused from
spending time with OW
* Kissed OW
* Made effort to take OW out on dates and make plans together
* Risked my carreer for OW
* Had sex with OW first time

My A was 18 months long. A very intense emotional and physical A.

After d-day I was numb and could have been called emotionless but really it was only my H I was numb to. I spent many, many hours on MB asking if it was possible to recover my feelings for my H. I think you are thinking you are emotionless when you are really having a hard time admitting you feel cold towards your W. I don't want to say that is normal after an A, but unfortunately, it does happen.

My work was to see things clearly, accept all the blame and recover my love and feelings for my H. I knew it could be done. I knew I'd loved him for the 28 years we'd been married before my A. (We've been married 35 years now).

When I told someone here I didn't even "see" my H during the A I was asked if I could even imagine how that must have felt for him. It made me think and think hard.

Hey gloveoil, thanks for the post, and in fact all the other great advice and insightful posts you've offered me.

Yes of course the list isnt just for show, as my beautiful wife would say 'its for DOING.' I plan to re-read this list whenever I get a chance until I literally live the list. Plus I still wish to add many things.....

I will definately give the list a go as your advice has been sound so far

No we spoke last night about breaking down some of the points on the list further to clarify them.

I definately do own this and I will update list, thanks for keeping a close eye

Many bad things occur during an affair period and we have to be strong enough to wgole heartidly accept them as our fault and thats never easy but im really trying hard to stop justifying, start empathising, and continue to own.

I believe the only way I was able to actually have the A was because I had already shut down to my W. Hence not being able to see her etc... Im trying to empathise to see if it helps me feel closer to her emotionally.