I think some people have spent their lives being less than honest with themselves, and their spouse. It can be difficult to really get honest with yourself and your spouse because you are used to putting on your 'best face' and that's a hard habit to break. You know - you don't want the important people in your life to think less of you.

FWH and I filled out the EN's and talked about them. Then we filled them out again a few months later and talked about them again. Some needs had changed in the line-up, interestingly enough. I think that was the result of a degree of dishonesty on both of our parts in the early days of healing/re-courting, while we were feeling our way back to each other.

The issue I have is I dont have a problem with meeting his EN AFTER he has proven himself trustworthy and committed to meand me only.Why should I be the one who has to make all the concessions first..such as show him affection, fulfill his sexual needs and his desire for admiration BEFORE he makes an attempt to regain my trust? Sorry, I'm sure some of you may disagree but IMO, that thinking is way flawed.I provided and met ALL of his needs before when he assured me the A was over and he took advantage of my vulnerability and desperation to save my marriage and played both ends against the middle.I refuse to allow that to happen to me again....just seems a bit selfish to me when he says" Once these needs are being met, everything else will fall into place." That is pure BS to me.I did nothing wrong.The Physical A may not be continuing but up until about 3 weeks ago, he was still chatting it up with women online and was deeply involved in internet pornography although he knew how I felt about it.

BTW...I did request this thread to be moved this morning.....

Yep. Sucks, doesn't it? That the BS has to do the re-laying of the marital foundation. Stay here, waw, and you'll see how the heavy lifting works - for you and your M. And you'll be better for it, believe me.

Most BS's here, at one time or another, bitched about the same thing. But it's the best thing you will do. And it has something to do with your biggest, best goal - your M.

Look at it like this: why the heck should it be so painful to give birth? What was God thinking, anyway?? You put great effort into the care, feeding and success of your children, and the whole process requires so much of your emotions. You give birth to them and then they worry you: are they going to choke on their first taste of real food, they worry you at night when they're not home on time, they worry you when they first start driving, they worry you when they leave for college, they worry you when they get married...but wasn't having them one of the best decisions you made in your life, and you wouldn't trade them for anything? Your M deserves the same effort and consideration.

Honestly I'm not desperate enough anymore to be willing to risk what little dignity and respect I have left.Nor do I think I should have to lower my morals and values for this man any longer.Sorry..HE is the one who screwed up and if it takes him kissing my taut behind to win me back, then he should be willing to do the work not expect me to provide him with sex while he decides whether I am worth it or not.

PS...not sure what term YOUR BS stands for but mine meant bull [censored].

Huh. Well, I'm not sure what MB can do for you if you think Plan Square Off With My Husband and Duke It Out is for you.

Good luck.

w+w glad you got your post moved over. The people here really can help.

For reference:
Acronyms and Abbreviations

What has your husband done to help you restore your trust? Has he been open and honest with you? If not you should suggest he take a polygraph. When was his last affair? Who was it with?

Overcoming an affair is hard work and will take 2-5 years of effort on both your parts. I know it can seem overwhelming but there are those here who have recovered their marriages from infidelity. At worst - you can use this place to help you in your own personal recovery.

I'm glad you're still here. Others with more experience will be around to give you their thoughts.

ww, welcome to MB. I think you are going to have a very tough road ahead trying to turn this man around. He is no doubt very much set in his ways and has adopted cheating as a lifestyle. It's just normal for him and he will never change unless and until he has an overpowering reason to change.

I agree that the last thing you need is therapy for "trust issues". You cannot trust somebody who lies and cheats, so you don't trust them. And you shouldn't. There's your therapy.

What you do need is boundaries. Nothing else has a chance of getting through to a WH like this. Here is an old MB post that you might find helpful:

*****
A boundary is not defined as "something I don't like."

A boundary is defined as "something I will defend no matter what."

A very common question is, "How do I enforce a boundary? How do I make my spouse stop lying, how do I make my spouse stop dating OP, how do I make my spouse start taking care of our family instead of someone else's?"

The answer is: You don't.

Trying to "make" people do the things listed above is not enforcing a boundary. It's control, it's manipulation, it's laying down demands, etc. etc. etc.

And none of it works.

The answer to the question, "How Do I Enforce A Boundary?" is virtually always the same:

You remove yourself from the situation. You stop allowing the boundary trespasser to have any access to you at all.

This is what's meant by, "You can't control others. You can only control yourself."

You can't "make" your spouse stop lying to you - but you can remove yourself from their presence and no longer allow them around you until they do.

You can't "make" your spouse stop dating OP - - but you can remove yourself from their presence and no longer allow them around you until they do.

You can't "make" your spouse take care of your family instead of someone else's - but you can remove yourself from their presence and no longer allow them around you until they do.

Get the idea now?

Boundaries are for *you*. They are to protect you from people who would do you harm. They are NOT about "making" others do anything. They are about protecting *YOU*.

Castle walls don't make the invaders stop their cruel and destructive attitudes - but they do protect you from their intrusion.

Boundaries are castle walls.

And as far as anger goes, you will find that good boundaries will make much of it go away. Good boundaries really do make RAGE dissipate, because anger + fear = rage. Good boundaries keep you safe, and when you are safe, fear goes away. You will certainly have some righteous anger left, sure, but the RAGE will fade away because there is no longer the fear hanging around to fuel it.

Duke it out?? Well I would much rather duke it out in order to try and gain some much deserved respect from him than roll over and be a perfectly submissive little mouse.We have been taught all of our lives to be nice..why?? Why do we have to be nice to those who treat us like dirt.Did you not read my original post..these affairs..yes plural, have been going on for YEARS..on and off for 20 to be exact.Then when he isn't physically involved with others he spends many hours per week in internet video sex chats with women.Why should I have to be the one to "bow" down first? Why should he EXPECT that in order to make our marriage work he has to put in some effort as well..which includes regaining my trust.Without trust there is no marriage.

I agree that he MUST regain your trust to save your M. However, I stick with my original statement that you both should work on meeting each others EN. As a former WS, I can say that I really don't think I would have cheated if some of my EN were being met by my H. I am not blaming you for what he did and I don't blame my BS either. It's all on me.

It seems to me the decision you have to make is do you want to find a way to have a happy M with you WH? If you do, then you also have to work on meeting his ENs. AND you have to make sure he is meeting your EN.

I am not great at meeting my BH's EN, but I know that I have to to make my M better. (and I try every day) I have to say, it took me some time to really "get it", but now I do.

What he did was disrespectful and hurtful to you. What I did to my H was disrespectful and hurtful. What turned me around was knowing that he loved me enough to try to meet my ENs so I, at the VERY LEAST, owe him the same.

peterja - the old "I wasn't getting my needs met so that's why I cheated" will not fly around here.

Plenty of BS here have been starved for ENs for months and years, yet did not have an affair.

It's not unmet ENs that cause people to cheat. It's rotten and non-existent BOUNDARIES that allow people to cheat.

Yes, meeting ENs makes for a strong and happy relationship.

But creating healthy Boundaries is how people keep *themselves* from cheating.

Believe me - people can and do cheat in good marriages. My XWH sure did. Their logic is, "Things were good at home so I didn't think it would hurt anything."

I'm not kidding.

I wasn't making an excuse. I was simply pointing out that both the WS and BS ENs need to be met for the M to be saved. I also agree that healthy boundaries are very important.

An A can happen for many reasons-none good. I was simplhy pointing out that it is important for the BS to meet the WS's EN's-It is what helped me get my head on straight.

Your anger is so very justified, Weary. Every BS here knows that, and remembers their own. Not many could say they never dumped it on their wayward partners. I sure can't, and I'd just gotten Dr. Harley's books and had read the warnings against it. Like you, I wanted my WH to suffer at the level he'd ravaged me. Mostly, I just couldn't contain myself, for a while.

But here's what I didn't understand at the time...cold, hard fact: There is NO WAY it is possible for you to "make" him do right or be sorry for what he's done. Right now, he is closed to you--nothing you hurl at him will get through. In fact, your angry words will only serve to convince him he was RIGHT to step out of the marriage because you're "such a shrew." ALL waywards blame their spouses for their bad behavior. It isn't fair, of course, but you reviling him will hand him the best justification he could possibly get! He will never look at himself and judge his behavior as long as you give him such a handy excuse not to.

But more importantly, he isn't in love with you right now. Given the history, he may not have felt any love for you for a long, long time. Truth is, I'll bet, you're not in love with him either. You probably lost those lovin' feelings a long time ago, too.

This is how almost all of us got here. Whether we meant to or not, whether we realized it or not, both partners were doing things over the years to kill each other's love. We'd all stopped treating each other with the care and respect of our courtship and early married days, and let misunderstanding and selfishness give us permission to hurt each other. THAT'S the reason we fell OUT of love and made our marriages vulnerable. No one is innocent of that, unfortunately, although many of us (me included) believed we were the *good* one and the other was the *bad* one. I had plenty of evidence to back up my position. Of course, he had his own. Both feeling superior, we barrelled our train into Armageddon. So stupid, looking back on it now, but we didn't see what we were doing, or how to change it. We tried, but we didn't have the tools to make the love and caring last.

What was going on in our marriages before the affair was insidiously priming the pump for one. Bad dynamic that, by definition, involves TWO. The things we said and did (and didn't say/didn't do) made an affair almost inevitable. We just didn't know it.

I know you don't want to hear it right now, but you contributed 50% to the state of the marriage. Believe me, I am not lobbying for your husband. OR blaming you. No. Just letting you now that every BS here, whether they recovered their marriage or divorced, has had to confront themselves and clean up their own side of the street, in order to experience personal recovery and wrest something good for themselves out of the most painful experience of their lives.

All that said, there's no one here who would blame you for filing for divorce. He's dug himself into quite a hole and hasn't figured out how to stop digging. Maybe he can become an honorable man, and maybe he won't. Entirely up to him. But either way, he owns his bad behavior 100%. Everyone does. Only thing I'd gently ask for YOUR sake is that you not make a decision until the raw emotions have subsided and you can give it your best thinking, considering all the angles.

I am so sorry for your pain.

Right Here Waiting

I guess I should clarify that the Physical A ended FOUR long years ago..yep, ..do I hold a grudge?There really is so much more to the story than I have told here that has added to my anger..I mentioned in earlier posts, that he had retired after 27 years in the military..well, as if I wasn't feeling abandoned enough by the affairs and abandonment issues that stem from my dad being an alcoholic( and please don't think I am trying to justify my b'haviors because I know I have added fuel to the fire thru my actions and words as well)he didn't even have the common courtesy to let me know his retirement date.I overheard him telling someone else and at that time found that his parents would be coming in from out of town to attend the ceremony..oh and there would be a reception of which I was required to pull together.So..I did what I was supposed to do, put my best face and foot forward..spent days preparing food for this reception and he "forgot" to invite anyone.Then if that was not bad enough.He knew of this pending retirement well in advance and never bothered to send out resumes or look for a job( he said it was not necessary, as no one would hire him until he was officially released anyway) so..we got down to his two month terminal leave..ceremony has come and gone and still no effort to look for employment BUT he decides we should move ourselves to another state.Of course, ia m the one who got delegated with the packing up of 10 years worth of stuff..as much as I did not want to move ourselves I did it.Problem is..he hadn't bothered to find us a place to go.THAT was dumped on my doorstep as well.So, lets cover this again..he cheated on me for years, I had to pack up a 4 bedroom household and plan a reception for a retirement that I was actually never invited to attend and now I was expected to find a place for two adults and 3 dogs to go with not one but TWO 26 ft truckloads of furniture to go(and two vehicles)..oh with no job between( I was self employed so I was leaving my business behind)us.He never lifted a finger..after putting my pride aside, I called a family member that no one really likes to ask for help because they have a tendency to generously help but then hold it over your head for a lifetime and arranged us to stay at his home on the river until we could get on our feet.WWH complained that it was too far from town..blah blah blah..BUT it was rent free, nice place and I thought since we would be away from distractions it might force us to focus on each other.This was in July..come Sept 1, the military checks would stop and retirement pay would kick which was significantly less than we were accustomed to but we staill had the same bills to pay..he has still not made an effort to even look for employment and everytime I mentioned it, his response was"Where are you going to work" soooooo, like everyone else who really wants to work and does not care if it is a job and not a [position in this economy, I drove to town everyday pounded the pavement and found a job.Him..still not looking.This continued as I started working and couple days a week I was required to get up at 3:30 am in order to leave the house by 5 for the hour long drive to work.By the time I would get home in the late afternoons..to nothing being done to help..NOTHING.
I am having huge abandonment issues by this time ..the walls are completely up and I have removed him from bed by this time...fast forward two years later..oh in the mean time..the internet porn addiction and video sex chats have escalated..he still is not in my bed( my choice) and I just don't know if I can blindly hand him my heart and trust without his "earning" it back.We are currently separated as I stated before and for some reason my father decided he should live there.So basically I am in a town where the only family member I have has seemingly sided with my husband( I'm sorry but I think that is wrong on so many levels)and my father's stance is .."Oh well, she is mad at me anyway." and has not bothered in almost a month to cal to check on me.Sorry, but yeah I'm just a little bit angry and it P**sses me off when I am expected to make concessions when it doesn't appear he has.Oh let me also add, I spent my inhertance buying us a house and paying for every last bit of remodeling that is being done to it and he has the audacity to be upset because his name is not on the deed.
Bitter much...yep, that would be me.I want to move past it but I don't know if I can.

PS.I should also add, while I know there is no easy fix for all of this and I know marriage is like a job in that you must work at it everyday, I honestly,don't think we have years to fix things.

On the other hand, if your Husband has moved out of the house, what better place for him to be than with your Dad? If he was with a woman that would be bad. If he was with a single friend that would be bad as the friend might be a bad influence. But with your Dad it would be tougher for him to start another relationship as your Dad would be there.

Ok I guess my thinking must be flawed because in my warped(obviously) mind, I feel if anyone should be able to commiserate with MY father..it should be ME not my husband.He has his own family.Why not turn to them.Why isolate me from mine?
I swear I wish I was a Domme so I could beat him legally.

Quick correction: without trust there absolutely IS still a marriage, until the day the signed divorce decree is in your hands.

I've heard that line used WAY too often to excuse bad behavior. It's false, a phoney, a way to justify acting badly because of feelings rather than reality. You are married until the day you've done the work to ensure that you aren't, and not a moment sooner.

If you're interested in saving your marriage -- and even Dr. Harley says that if you wanna leave someone for cheating on you, you'd have his blessing to do so -- there's a very specific, narrow way to do so. That's what many posters have said to you.

It's not "rolling over" or sucking up to him. It's enforcing healthy boundaries in the form of Extraordinary Precautions and learning to state the truth and act according to it without engaging in arguments. It's learning to meet his needs even when you don't want to, and helping him have the knowledge so that he can do the same for you. It's avoiding the behaviors that make one another miserable, and learning how to tell our spouses when they are engaging in such behaviors without starting a fight doing so.

In short, it's the Four Rules:
1. The Rule of Care. Meet your spouse's emotional needs.
2. The Rule of Protection. Avoid being the source of your spouse's unhappiness.
3. The Rule of Time. Spend your most enjoyable time with your spouse (typically at least 15 hours a week, more like 20+ if your marriage is on the rocks).
4. The Rule of Honesty. Be radically honest with your spouse.

Once again, if you don't want to recover your marriage, nobody faults you. Do it, and move on with your life. However, if you want to recover, there are specific steps, and distasteful as you might find them at the time, THEY WORK.