Telling the story of my H's face to face apology to OWH <~~~ LINK

I was thinking about this today.

"Why don't more BS's require their wandering spouse to make a face-to-face apology?"

I cannot answer that question.
So, I asked myself a different question.

"Why did I require a face-to-face apology?"

I started to think about the apologies I have made in my life.
When did I begin?
It's difficult to remember the very first apology I made.
But, it was not difficult at all to remember the first memorable apology.

I was in the second grade.
I stole some change that was left in a mail box.
Back in the day, the post office would leave a note saying there was postage due on some piece of mail.
And, the person would place the correct amount due, in the mail box.
I found this "free money" when walking home from school.
My friends and I shared the "booty". We split it 3 ways.
We got ratted out.
My Mother drove me to the house, and made me knock on the door, face my "victim" and hand her the entire amount that was taken (even though I stole a third).
I was genuinely mortified to have to FACE the woman I stole from.
It made a huge impression on me.

As an adult, one of my friend's children stole a very unusual Christmas tree ornament.
I was not 100% sure that the child had taken it.
However, I asked my friend to check her child's room.
And, there it was.
My friend made her child come face to face with me, her victim.
That too made a huge impression on me.
The agony of a face to face apology, is a good lesson.


After we had kids, we discovered our son stole some small trinket from a hobby shop.
Guess what we did?
Yep.
Made our boy go to the owner himself, and hand over the stolen trinket, and apologize.


I imagine, the majority of us were forced, by out parents, to make an apology.
I also imagine, the majority of us have forced our kids to make an apology.

What did we learn?
Why isn't this experience extrapolated into the infidelity experience more often?

I KNOW we cannot "force" an apology from a wayward spouse.
But, we sure as heck can REQUIRE an apology, if the wayward sincerely wants to enjoy our wonderful company ever again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Back to my second-grade life of crime.
It was the last day of school, before Easter week !
I knew, I just KNEW, I was going to get nothing for Easter.
I still had high hopes there was an actual Easter Bunny, but I was not at all certain if the Easter Bunny kept a "good & bad" list, similar to Santa.

I did get the usual bounty of Easter goodies.
I was convinced it had something to do with my apology.

Pep,

I did not require an apology (face to face would have been harder as H's affair was long distanced and would have meant traveling and such.... But a moot point anyway....). My reasoning at the time was because *I* wanted no such thing from OW. Considering I caught them together and she was not remorseful then ( and even said to me..."you want mess with me, come on, let's go".... ), NOR did she end contact. I knew that my pain meant NOTHING to her. Any apology she would have offered would be to ease her own conscous and would have only brought me MORE pain.

I knew that any attempt to apologize by H to OWH's would have only caused her H more pain.......I asked her H about this 3 months later and he said I was right.....

To clarify, at the time, in the very beginning of recovery, I was much more interested in NO CONTACT happening......

It is not cookie cutter or clear cut.

Thanks for both insights.

Children ... when they are adult and then again ... maybe.

-rh-

I required one for the kids.....

In my situation, I did require my husband to apologize to my mother and my sister. They were extremely hurt and upset at what he did to me. My sister told me "I HATE HIM" for what he did to me.

My H initially suggested that we "never see them again" and I suggested otherwise. Like you, I had no interest in remaining married to a coward. Cowards are disgusting. Nor was I willing to sacrifice my own family who had stuck by me through thick and thin for a weasel.

To his great credit, he faced my mother and sister like a MAN and made his apologies. My mother and him are GREAT FRIENDS and they email each other back and forth corny jokes all week long. They crack each other up immensely.

I have the greatest respect for my H for facing the consequences like a MAN and doing what it took to recover our marriage.


I will state it again as I did on another thread, show me a WS who has not made amends to his victims and i will show you someone who is not recovered.

I had my H apologize to my older son and our DD. xOM's wife (he was single during my A) made him meet face to face with my H to apologize. I don't think he did anything more than mumble though.

Melodylane: he has no one to make amends to. no one knows. but me. the "I am sorry" that he said to me once, well it just doesn't cut it.

he has tried in many different ways to touch me, make it up to me...but talk about it, admit it, deal with it...no.

he just wants to move forward like it never happened, like it was some blip on a screen. i think sometimes that he would even like to believe it really wasn't that bad.

when no one knows, no one can hold you accountable. he even said to me the other day. well, you're the only one that knows, you're the only one that could tell, or help me.

not good, not good at all......for me.

I apologized to my children when I explained why their father was not acting normally, i.e. losing his mind. I apologized to my MIL, who was very gracious and forgiving. As my H says, she is my biggest supporter. Neither apology was at my H's urging; it just seemed like the right thing to do, so I did it.

Forgiving myself was ultimately much more difficult than apologizing to others.

pk

PK: are you the WS? if so, did you feel the need to come clean, to apologize?
Would you have felt that if you knew that your secret was safe?

Interesting questions.

I came clean years after the A was over. I could have brazened it out, but my H had been told something and after thinking it over, and talking with my best friend, I just decided not to deny it. My rationale was that if any more came out, I had nothing further to fear. So, my H got everything in one long, excruciating weekend. If there's such a thing as trickle truth, he got a tsunami.

And he was flattened.

As for a secret being safe....I believe that my experience shows that no secret is ever completely safe. Things come out, generally when you least expect them to. So, if we're going to have an exercise in magical thinking ("What if your secret was safe?"), I'd prefer to wonder, "What if I had never been unfaithful?".

pk

penaltykill"

thank you for being so honest.

my WH "trickle" kills me to death...apology to OSH? never would happen....my WH really is a wonderful man....i love him with all my heart and soul...

he really never meant to hurt me,.....but he did...and now that is all i can see......

searching all the phone records....everything...calling him all the time ....after 25 years....it is to much..


should he apologize to me....should he apologize to our children.....should he apologize to her husband.....

me? yes.....after 28 years...i deserve that...our children...no i want them to believe thier father is invincible.....her husband...he is on his own..

Wouldn't a repentant WS apologize of his own accord, not having to be requested or required to? I mean if they were truly repentant how could they stand not to? (I really object to the word "recovered" for a repentant WS, as it sounds like it was something out of their control, like some disease, cancer or alcoholism).

I'm not talking about kids, but of adults. I think that if my husband cheated and he didn't make amends to all his victims, including the other wronged spouse, that yes, I would have a hard time believing that he had come to any kind of repentance.

Can you imagine hurting someone and then just blowing them off? No, it would eat you alive, you would have to apologize. A repentant person could not live with it without making amends, either, as PK said.

So, I guess my question is, do you think by requiring it, you help them to get to that place, Pep? Is that what you are saying? Like you do with kids? Kind of like if I require it and they agree to it, it will lead them to the place of truly feeling sorry for what they have done, and wanting to make it up to the person?

Hi hunny!

I don't think my H was very repentant just after he was busted. But apologizing to my family seemed to help bring that about - to a degree - when he saw the hurt and concern on their faces. Facing the consequences helped him see the effect of his behavior on others. It was very therapeutic.

So melodylane:

what hope is there for the rest of us? is there true recovery without repentance and applolgies to the other family, the wife, the children?

how do i undo the undo-able: how do i forsake a promise i committed to keep.

before MB i said i would tell no-one and i did not...did not tell my best friend, not my daughter who graduated from colledge then started planning her wedding......no one....ever except for you all on MB.

Well, that is ridiculous and helps NO ONE. The only thing worse than making a bad promise is KEEPING a bad promise. Keeping an affair secret keeps him SICK and unrecovered. What is the point of keeping it secret?

Distance prevented H from making a face-to-face apology to OWH but I very much agree there is value in doing so. I never required H to apologize and was honestly surprised he had the presence of mind to think he should offer one. I didn't think OWH would give a rat's butt what H had to say (can't say I blame him) and was mainly interested to see if H would grow a pair and face the man. If OWH wanted to scream at him and tell him the 100 ways he was a lowlife, it was THE LEAST that H could do.

H apologized to our families and children. If H had continued to be a cowardly POS, skankho could have him.