Someone attacked the original poster and I was attempting to difuse the situation accually.

I will not talk about it anymore and I seriuosly hope anyone else who posts will offer support, not critisism.

Praying for the recovery

I would just like to state once and for all that I am not, nor have I ever been an alcoholic, a heavy drinker or an addict of any kind. I'm not sure how THIS runaway freight train started, but I would like to put it to a screeching halt. I am an occasional, social drinker. I am of legal age to do so and it is my right if I so choose.

Thank you SIO, for your words. They are appreciated and I may have more to comment on them at a later date.


I would like to get back to the original reason why I am here...my marriage.

Thanks

hangn,

Are you clear yet about what you want to do with your marriage? Is there any point in people giving you MB advice, or have you decided that the marriage is over? My question is a genuine attempt to understand, not an attack on you.

Do you accept that your friend is hoping for a relationship with you? Even if you disagree that this is an EA, are you prepared to go NC with him and work on your marriage, or is this friendship non-negotiable?

Why did you ask your H to move out? Are you willing to let him move back, today?

What is you goal for your marriage?

Ok I apoligize for my part in what almost became a T/J about Alcoholism.

1. I saw someone critisizing you and wanted to address that
2. I saw the mention of Alanon and 12 steps and took the liberty to expound on my opinion about any and all addictions by using the previouos posters,(who by the way wasn't saying there was alcohol involved but was using AA just like I was), example as another comparison on my part of lifes lessons and human weaknesses common to all.

I feel partly responsible for the alcohol referance and again I apoligize.
So now that that is over we can get back to helping your marriage. I will start with an experiance of mine that I hope helps.

My late wife and I had a lot of battles of our own to fight and we both struggled in our marriage to do what we thought was right in very bleak circumstances. She did have a problem with alcohol and I blame her Mom and Dad for it. They were bad examples and selfish ppl and my wife overcame alcohol twice in her lifetime totally without their help in spite of them.

IN my case most of our time together I was working so much and because my wife did not attend any AA meetings or seek practical counsel for the issues that affected her emotions she lived in a fantasy world where all her problems would go away without submitting to others out of pride.
If you are aware of AA you will understand what a "dry drunk" is. Its someone who isn't activly drinking but still is very troubled in their emotions. They haven't yet processed the issues that cause the pain or fear that originally drove them to drink for escape from their life. Many sensitive and intellegent ppl becaome alcoholics or drug addicts. It is not allways a flaw in their character or selfishness that brings them to drink as much as frustration and overwhelming circumstances that they think they need to handle. Then comes an escape to run away from the fear and pain they are experiencing in their life. The consequences, real or imagined they face are just to great to bear so they drink to cope and function or just because they give up.

Driving these ppl into the ground and making them responsible for our emotions as well will only torture them and force them to behave,(maybe), untill they can see themselves valuable and worthy of thier own care, just as they are,imperfect and human. Then with objective truth and hope they can look at their life and make changes for themselves.
It is extremly hard for someone betrayed by someone who seems to be escaping you to be objective about the betrayal. In cases of adultry many times the Wayward has issues that they aren't dealing with right or maybe the marriage has issues that aren't being dealt with.. the right way.

So they run away. Probably to feel better about themselves and life itself. When they get the emotions satisfied from this they will continue many times beacuse its the only way out of the hell they feel they were in. All about feelings and concepts. Thats where the comparison to addiction sets in.

When my wife had overcome the addiction to alcohol she still had issues she needed to address. She had pride, bitterness, entitlement and unreal expectations that were there before she drank and those were the driving forces that caused her to act out in the first place. That was what I was driving at when I made the comparison in this thread. Just like drinking was a symptom of her inner thought and emotional problems affairs are symptoms of needs that are not met in the marriage, they are an escape from pain, real or imagined.

There is hope, one day you can look back and say to your spouse you made it through the rain. For some it takes more work than for others but that only makes it more sweeter when you get through it.

I still love my late wife and I also made my mistakes and I wish she was still here so we could enjoy useing the MB concepts and build our marriage and heal our relationship. I allways kept my head down and forged ahead and believed we would eventually be happy and able to be together into old age. Forgivness and truth in love is the only way to go IMO. I know that you guys can work this out but its not important what I know. Its what you both learn about your lives and your struggles that will define your own unique lives which are totally separate from anyone elses experiences.
MB concepts work. Total and complete honesty with yourselves first and then with each other after that will build trust. Maybe both of you, with all the challanges you have in life need support from more than one source, Clergy, ICs, MB and whoever you can find. I pray you both can feel like kids again and your marriage is the most valuable priveledge God ever blessed you with.

Again I hope this helped

I onlyn mentioned the story of the young alcoholic as a message to ALL on this thread that some people are not yet ready for recovery until they are ready for recovery, whether it's marriage recovery, or recovery from addiction. And from what I've read on the other thread, hangnthere is quite attached to her friend. Only she can decide if it's an "addiction" and only when she's ready.

As for alanon, I mentioned it because hangnthere said her sister is an addict. Alanon is for families and friends of alcoholics and addicts. It's a 12 step approach to the other side of the of the relationship. Again, it's about readiness. I just throw it out there because the alanon focus is slightly different than the AA focus.

Bubbles, glad to see you edited that awful attack. It made my stomach turn.

Signing off and going back to lurking

I do agree that it seems that you're having an affair on an emotional level with this man, that you seek emotional fullfilment outside of your marriage. However attacks are not necessary and it's great you are willing to work on things and improve. I found out recently that talking to my wife without the kids being around helps a lot. I realize for you it'll be harder to be in a 1 on 1 situation with your husband but I think that would be a good idea. Either way I'm glad you guys seem to improve slowly, easy does it! I'm glad the attacks got removed before too many people (including me) could read them.

I'm glad AA/NA helps you so much, I keep trying to convince my wife to try at least Alanon out but she still won't have any of that.

My post wasn't meant as an attack. I was hoping to show similar situations and the end result. I understand as a mom one feels a need to find fun, excitement, etc...however there are ways to do it with your H/family. Again, I have seen families destroyed and it all started out the same way...the wife/ mother going out with friends, talking on the phone with friends (male friends). It seems to fill a void but in the end it really doesn't. In the example I gave of my friend, she is now lonely and spends her time trying to fit in with a younger crowd..going through man after man.

I hope that HIT can find ways to repair the love in her marriage and work on making her life better with the involvement of her husband and children.

I do have a question, HIT mentioned that before recently she had not drank in over 2 years. May I ask why?

I'm puzzled. I have not read that hangn is willing to work on and improve her marriage. She has convinced her H to move out and is deepening her relationship with OM. His texts are becoming sexually explicit, and she has nopt cut contact with him.

hangn, what do you want to do about your marriage?

Hello All!

Thank you for your replies and support. I will reply to your each individual posts later, when I have more time and energy to. I just wanted to state right now that I am and always have been willing to work on my marriage. I am just not going to let it get in the way of working on myself.

Contact with OM has been cut. I don't really feel it changes much for the situation as it wasn't the cause for the marital issues in the first place. I really wasn't/am not that emotionally attached to OM as much as I am/was addicted to texting him. Not sure what the thrill about that was, but it's done now. I am sad that I have lost my friend, but I guess he wasn't really much of a friend after all.

BTW, yes, I asked my H to move out, but he has only spent one night away from home since then. Just wanted to throw that out there. I guess I was just trying to give myself the illusion of space when I really wanted him near anyway.

Thank you and I will reply again later.

Hangnthere

Will be lookin forward to it

Happy to hear you are wiliing to work on the marriage. I believe Dr. Harley has said that it is never a good idea to live apart while working on the marriage. Even if he is there a lot, I am sure he is paying rent for his place. Wouldn't it be easier both financially and in terms of repairing the marriage to have him move back in?

Hi there, Hnt...nice to see you back.

Takes courage to come here, and as I recall, that's something you had a lot of...and still do.

Your bravery is not because you're a mother or a wife...it's part of the you that you went looking for again. Please know that. You've been the total you, all along.

Would you consider that when you don't feel self, you seek it as a reflection in others? You get lost in the lie that self is no longer there, no longer defined, and that someone else needs to see you to say you exist? I think that's part of why the urge to seek friends after you tell yourself you've been very isolated...especially when you review your whole life.

Begins with being the caretaker of others...and so you get a role before you get a being, sort of. How long you prolong that status, and I think we go in and out of it, depends on your own choices.

Going NC with this not-a-friend was essential. Back when you were fighting Jim's affair, you knew that many hours of Undivided Attention (UA) each week was necessary to bring reality to his fog. And if you think of this OM, think of how he took over your UA time just last night...an intruder in your marriage...and that's how you see clearly.

Would you consider how the last two years have been the toughest for you? What coincides with that? The last two years of your special needs child? Did you sit down with Jim a number of times to comprehend and develop a plan for this new lifestyle...because that's what it is...takes your marriage to a level where you are often in crisis (higher stress) and sometimes out of it (back to routine)...requires a marital plan to hold it above where your instincts will throw it under.

If anything, striving to take more UA time would have been the goal...because extraordinary care would have to be achieved and maintained...which is why you can lose the wholeness of you, that you exist at all times...and don't experience yourself that way.

I agree with others here that Alanon was the way to go for your sister and for yourself these past years. I say that because when you sit very still and hear yourself, you see where your life progressed out of control, became unmanageable...and at times when you were a teen, they were, and then as a very young wife, and throughout as a mother/sister. Often, one will feel that if they admit their lives are out of their control, it means they are failures, unworthy of love, and that all the plates they have spinning in their increasingly long row will fall.

In Alanon you learn you really weren't spinning those plates at all...and that you are loved, anyway.

When you set up a plan for your marriage during high stress, you break down the parts...plan for the days which are more extreme than the others...you ask in advance for what you believe you'll need...and this very planning is part of love deposits, being a team, acknowledges and validates your stuff, and Jim's stuff, in the process...together.

I hear in your posts and your choices that you began in the last two years to put mother ahead of wife, which takes you out of the team, husband and wife. You against the world, which can be heady, btw, because you've had that before and may have experienced yourself, at the top of your control game, most loved, cherished, essential, necessary and valid.

What you didn't see is how it excludes, diminishes, discounts and destroys love, trust, respect within your marriage.

Perfect setup, btw, to have an affair...to find another to mirror you (which is fantasy, more lies) and releases a ton of great drugs in your head, temporarily. And you crash further when you realize it's just more of your same MO.

Think back to Jim's A and what it felt like inside you...the betrayal, the constant comparison thoughts, and how much you had wanted him to tell you where he was at before he made the choices he did. He may well have asked, in his fog, why now? Why does she want me now? Why does she care now?

LA

Walks like a duck, sounds like a duck, it is a duck.

Marriages need to be for two not three. Excessive texting in front of your BH show's that this is an affair.

Are you not aware that the OM is bird dogging you? I say your are and you are eating up OM's attention. As I posted to your BH I now share with you:

OM is divorced.

What do divorced men want to do?

Have a GF for SF.

OM is banging your WW.

Why does WW all of a sudden need to go out alone clubbing?

Get alone time to bang the OM.

WW needs to unwind, but how come she can't unwind with you at a club?

To which I'll add married people should not be out clubbing. They have each other, kids, home, jobs. Clubbing does not mix well with these things.

Awesome post LA

If you love texting. Could you and your H start texting each other all the time? could be a fun way to reconnect with each other?.

IKWYM about texting - there's something fun about it!

I had fun texting her yesterday, but then got home and was told I was not the same or good enough. Withdrawal sucks...I get it...she is mourning.

Wow. If there was time I would do an "I," "me," "my" or "myself" count on one of your posts. Looks like a symptom right there.

Bean, why? I read it as "I had fun texting her yesterday, but came home to find out SHE didn't feel the same, SHE didn't think it was good enough, SHE is still in mourning"

Poor guy prolly is taking the advice to focus on his own thoughts and feelings. Jim, how about telling us what she said and did?

Jim, she's mourning the relief she found from having different feelings...she's mourning the experience of those feelings...not OM.

Great choice to have fun texting her...tell her you'll still do it (moderately) because it meets her EN for Attention, and yours, even if she doesn't feel it yet. She texted to you, too? That's her doing and her feelings will follow...just get delayed through withdrawal (you're correct!)

Celebrate your choices, toots.

LA