Please read this thread. Learn how to protect your BH & your M before you worry about getting your BH to meet your ENs.

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2374198

I have been feeling really lousy the whole day.

I read the RemainNameless's thread. Though some of the details were different, in a way and in some details it was so painstakingly similar to my feelings about my marriage. It was somehow good to read and understand and grasp the ideas in that thread. I could relate to many things she said about herself and her feelings, especially in http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2398187#Post2398187 .

I also found a text in that thread saying:


Well, it most probably was my first post lacking humility that set the tone, but I really feel (I am still allowed to have feelings, right?) having been attacked by most of the respondents and the more inner need to defend there is for me.

I admit that I have been living in a fog these past months and it is only starting to fade away. Still, I do not really have the strength to deal with it with such haste. I have to work out the situation inside me, not submitting to outer force.

You may say it serves me right to feel lousy, go ahead, I know many of you think so. But I don't think this helps the situation very much, instead it makes me want to justify my feelings and thoughts even more.

So I'll just lay low for some days, reading the forum and the site in general, collecting ideas, working out the best plan to heal my marriage. Because that really is what I want now and what I have been wanting most of the time.

Believe me, I have started to change my thinking. I realise I have been acting a [censored] and now have to keep giving and should not expect any receiving for a long time. I just really, really hope that I can manage, now that I have for myself more or less verbalised the circumstances and hidden feelings that got me into this in the first place. I know I should have done this verbalisation a long, long time ago. That would probably have helped me avoid the situation.

(ah.. and a disclaimer: since English is not my mother tongue, I might have chosen some wrong wordings and phrases, which to you mean slightly or completely different things from what I had in mind. Not to justify, just... perhaps this filter is also good to consider.)

Did you watch the video? Did you read the thread on EPs? What are you thoughts about protecting your BH and your M??

Can you answer the question about whether you have gotten rid of all evidence of the A such as pictures, emails or gifts from OM?

me me me me me me me me

and what about me ???

When you figure outs its not all about you then your healing can begin.

Have had no opportunity to watch the video yet. Right now reading EP-thread.

Thoughts about protecting BH and M: he must come first in my decisions and actions from this point forward. I accept that he is entitled to throw me out / leave me, but I really try not to come to this point. That means that I have to think of the ways (order, time/place etc) of communicating this all so that we don't miscommunicate. Plan to organize as much 1:1 time as possible - with the kids at home, it is not that easy, but I must find ways. Get to know his EN-s as much as possible and fulfill them. Possibly, get some counseling, if he agrees. Express as much admiration, praise and assurance as is tolerable (i.e not for silly, superficial-sounding reasons).

And, perhaps most important - express my thoughts, even the not positive ones, as early, openly and as reasonably as possible. Reading this other thread, it struck me that I tend to withhold negative thoughts in order to protect him and his feelings, thus a) subconsciously considering him to be too childish to cope with them and b) letting them grow inside me until the damage is much worse. This has to change.

Evidence: still there, since I have yet to offer him to read the e-mails if he wants to (although this basically means I have to translate them word by word, but I hope I can do it if it comes to that). Won't read them myself. Not many pics of him, by the way, I think... two? Found one, deleted.


The reason this has been mostly about me is that I can only account for myself. I am analyzing this inside of me, thus it is related to me and thus I also express it in that way.

Btw... I sent him to the psychiatrist because of his depression that I, too, noticed and "prediagnosed". He came back - the depression level was quite high (or moderate, don't remember the exact phrase) but it was mostly attributed to lack of sleep.

I hope to put aside my ego soon. It is hard to do it abruptly, though. So I'll just work on it in my own pace. I know I can be reasonable. I hope things will work out.

About him... yes, I now realise that I have mostly presented him by his negative sides or effects to me in order to justify myself. But he actually is in many ways a good man and husband and I have been aware of these traits most of the time. Very home-bound, does not smoke nor drink (not too common around here), helps around the apartment if asked to, loves our kids and is ready to spend time with them, provides for the family, smart and thorough in his field of work... If it only wasn't for these darned emotional needs of mine :P But I think I have got some good ideas as to how to deal with them. This elephant in the living room will be tough to tow away, though, I admit.

When can you show your H all the emails/pics from OM and then destroy them? I can't stress how important this is. THese things will keep you STUCK in withdrawal/fog.

So after looking at tst's list of EPs, what did you see there specifically that you can do to help your H feel safe and to prevent the OM from ever contacting you again??

Im not trying to be rude but the pain your feeling is eclipsed a 1000 times by what you are about to inflict on your husband.

Most of us here are BS and FWW. The waywards that hang around here are well into recovery so they have SEEN the carnage. Ones that arent sincere or contrite dont last long.

you got to remember our point of view. Most of us thought we were living a good life. We knew our marriage was rough but isnt everyones? We had our good days and bad days.

none of us knew the evil that was stalking our families and tearing the things we loved most in our lives away. If we did none of us would have sat on our hands giving our WS "time to think" and "space".

D-day was different for us all. i found out through a Private investigator that my wife was going on a fun overnight jaunt with her ex fiance. meanwhile I was at the hospital caring for my grandmother. Other heard their spouses having sex on a voice activated recorder. Some saw HUNDREDS of pictures or video of their spouses making love to their OP. Thats a hurt that we feel every day and consumes our lives. It takes YEARS of hard work to fix our lives IF we can fight off the wolves and save our spouse.

When a wayward posts stuff on the board we hold them accountable. We have heard the garbage before. We have HEARD the same excuses from WS. The lies throwing us off the track for years.

In the end the road to recovery is a very narrow path. Any small deviation ends up bad. you can't take bits and pieces and make it work. It works as a whole only.

In the end you know what you need to do. Will it hurt your husband? HUGELY. Will he leave you over it? maybe. Its the only way to have a happy marriage though again.

Here is a 3 part Q and A that you will maybe get something out of.

Why cant we just forgive and forget

Right now ive got to write out my plan B letter to my WW. Most likely tommorow at this time she will be moving out of the house. Maybe never to return again. I wish she had the courage to come to me before her EA became a PA. I would have loved the chance to fight it then and do the massive life overhaul im doing now a year ago. These are the cards we are dealt in life though. Hopefully you can "stack the deck" of cards for your marriage and save it before your husband has to see you and your OM on an 8x10 glossy walking out of a hotel room.

Sparkler:

I hope you keep posting. I like your style and I always want to learn something new. I don't think a wayward person is evil otherwise I would not be married to one.

Great upright pious people are perfectly capable of going wayward so there is no point in judging WWs that post here.

I still admire your tenacity and the fact that you confessed the affair and did not go into PA.

Make sure you tell your H he needs to meet your ENs and you continue to meet his needs. Help him through the depression and ask him to post here. Despite the EA he doesn't know he is actually a lucky man and most BHs in this forum would gladly trade places with him.

Are there any WWs in your family? Sometimes infidelity has to do with HOO (home of origin).

Do you feel less than adequate for your H because of the affair? Did you feel that way before?

Sparkler, my two top needs are SF and Admiration. I think those of us who have high admiration needs shy away from allowing ourselves to feel the impact of our negative actions. I urge you to embrace these feelings. Not because I want you to feel lousy, but because it helped me so much to let myself feel the full weight of my decisions. I couldn't sweep them under the rug when I realized how big they were. And this pretty much obliterated any pride or entitlement or defensiveness I felt. We live in a "that's okay" world. "I'm sorry I ran you over with my car -- that;s okay." "I'm sorry I stabbed you in the back at work --- that's okay." When we make hurtful choices it just isn't okay.

My DH went through a deep depression after D-Day. And anger, and anxiety. He took AD's for a time. When you reach out to him, think of someone close to you grieving a terrible loss. They may resist your care, they may be angry, they may not seem to respond at all....but because of the pain they feel and the love you have for them, you keep reaching out gently and persistently.

It's a lot of work. But a marriage CAN survive.

You are describing my wife.

Most men and women that crave admiration also crave sex. Obviously through sex one gets affirmation. Negativity is devastating because folks that require admiration generally require external validation.

Some can have low self esteem despite being highly accomplished.

Admiration causes the person receiving the admiration to get sexually aroused. A good smooth talker OM knows these principles and can apply them to perfection when they recognize a woman with these ENs.

That is why folks with these ENs are always at risk. Nevertheless, once the H knows about this it is not that hard to meet those ENs.

The classical example is an incredibly attractive woman that dates a very homely man. Bystanders may say: "What does she see in him?". While others say: "He must be real smooth".

The question is:

How doe a woman that craves admiration falls in love while reading "words of admiration" in the computer screen? Does anyone know?

From my standpoint if a woman gives me a lot of admiration I am turned off. My 1st thought is that I am being manipulated---------or that something is not quite right. This is also the feeling of many women that do not crave admiration. For women that do not need admiration too many of those words are a turn off.

The world is complicated!

But Sparkler - here's the great paradigm you need to wrap your mind around: we don't WANT you to feel lousy when this is all said and done. We're telling you things to help you learnfrom our own painful experiences. We don't know you, we don't know your H, we have no real-time vested interest in you or your M. But our former waywards have been where you are. And our former betrayeds have been in your H's shoes. We don't like it that you're there. We know that that is a painful, devastating place for both of you. We are trying to help you leave that place.

In order to leave that poison-filled place, you're going to get some That's to help you. It's going to make you feel lousy. And that's good! That's confirmation that you're getting it! A lot of posters come here and don't.

Didn't your mother ever swat your butt because you did something that could have harmed you? It was to make you feel lousy so you would turn away from that course of action, right? She was trying to send home a message so you would stay safe. Same idea.

Keep reading. I'd like to see you keep posting. I have high hopes for you.

Hi all again,

I think it would be right to say that this past few days have seen a great shift of paradigm inside me. I see your point, though it was really, really hard to accept it at first. Now I feel like the house of my self-image has been torn down and I have to start building it up in a totally different way.

I have been doing some extensive reading on MB as well as some other sites. To make things more complicated (or, in some ways, easier), I am at the moment dealing with another addiction from the point of view of a member of the family. In some ways, it seems like all addictions and addictives are similar.

One thing opened my eyes even more today. There were some lines on the web page regarding that other addiction saying that family members usually tend to feel as victims in their future life; that they tend to suppress their feelings, thus becoming dependent on their emotions of the moment. And so on and so on. Just reading it made me understand that my situation might have sth to do with it. Just to clarify: I do not mean it as justification! This is just to identify in order to fight.

I also think that one huge reason why I have been where I was is lack of knowledge and vast self-assuredness. I thought I knew stuff, so I was sure I could avoid rocks... and yet I did not. I just wish I had found the MB site a year ago so I could have started to fortify my own marriage instead of growing subliminal bitterness towards my H and looking for consolation elsewhere.

Still.. everybody has to make their own faults. Had anyone told me nine months ago that I would be where I stand now - I most certainly would not have believed them. I guess it is just my personal necessary fall in order to be able to rise.

But this fall has been really high and bumpy... And I am really, really scared about the future.

Will be facing my H day after tomorrow. What could, what should I do? Perhaps write a letter beforehand? Or book a time for conversation (would give him a hint that I have major issues to discuss - he once said that he did not want such news abruptly but with a pre-warning)?

Really, really scared and nauseated.

An addition, but in a separate post:

I wrote "This is just to identify in order to fight [it]."

It probably needs some explanation. I am
a) very prone to analyzing and scrutinizing everything to the core (which also means that I may get stuck with details and miss the big picture);
b) usually a firm believer in the importance of motives, by which I also mean that it is not much use curing the symptoms if we do not know what actually caused the problem.

So that perhaps explains why my posts have been so me-me-me. Since I am the wayward here, there must have been reasons (as it turns out, not "only" from the H's part but even more inside me) and unless I discover and pinpoint those reasons within me I can never be sure that they don't sneak back.

Of course, you can say that one can NEVER be sure... but at least I can be more wary towards some issues.

Listen, Sparky--did you read how whiny my FIRST post was? it was all about what a good wife i was and how badly i missed OM and how proud of myself i was for not calling him. and that was like, a MONTH ago.

if you feel like whining, if you want to talk about your needs, don't hesitate--the more open you are about how you REALLY feel, the better we can understand where your mind is right now. and yes, if you sound foggy, we'll pounce on you. defend yourself verbally as you see fit. we probably HAVE heard it before--some of us have SAID IT before--so we're better equipped to give you the info you need to help you snap out of it.

just so you know--i'm relatively new here and i'm not the best example of classic MB procedure. Sapphire Returns and lurioosi2 are both way more experienced (and more eloquent as well.) if you read my thread, you're going to encounter a level of whininess that allows you to COMMISERATE. i'm here for help just like you are at this point, so don't listen to me too much just yet.

hang in there, Sparks!

RN is new, but she's a fast-learner, Sparks. Listen to her. You're doing well, btw.

So, an update.

Have been reading a lot of RemainNameless's thread and getting some really helpful hints and ways of thinking there. So many sentences by her that I could have easily have written myself... So I just listened to the discussion and learned.

Otherwise...

Arrived at home a couple of days ago and, remembering the bad and abrupt timing of my first reveal, said that we needed to talk, be prepared for a couple of hours, best if we can find a babysitter and that I have some bad (really bad) issues but also some good, if they can be considered good in light of the bad.

So we talked. I said that after I had told him previously that there was no contact, I started again my correspondence and cut it off almost a month ago. Said I was sorry (must have seemed hollow...) and he had every ight to decide whether there is any more US. Told him that I have had many help for changing my attitude from this site. Said that I have deleted OM's e-mail address and phone number and would he want me to change my phone#, I would do it (later at home, I showed him the EP-list to get his opinion, none given at the moment). Offered him to read the correspondence if he wanted to, otherwise I would delete it. I did not force any details upon him - preferred to let him decide what he wants and when he wants it. That includes also revealing to his family - he is embarrassed to be a cuckold (his wording, literal translation).

It was a long talk, mostly (but not only) by me, which also included going through his ENs. (Should I have left that for another day and discussion? Too late to reconsider now, of course...)

So.. I am glad this first step has been made - it was hard but inevitable (though he commented that he perhaps would not have wanted to know). Thank you ppl for giving some insight!!

Of course, this does not mean victory yet. I have a looooong and tough road ahead in restoring his trust in me again... I hope it will be possible.

I am also fully (at least I strive to keep it that way) oriented to meeting his EN's, which were almost as I had suspected: SF, Honesty/Openness (actually just the honesty part, w/o openness), Domestic Support+Family Commitment. It turned out, however, that we have been interpreting some of the needs and fulfilment thereof differently, or rather - I am so much more intensive that I fail to notice the small things that he does for me, besides I seem to have been focusing on the wrong things (e.g. waiting eagerly for appreciative words and flowers etc, which he by his nature really hates to give). I shall have to quit being so biased :S

So... one question (out of many): how can I permanently turn down my needs, i.e. quit being so needy? I do not mean turning off, just tuning down... Can this adjustment be achieved by thinking 'go away, go away' or does this 'wishful thinking' suffocate such yearnings only for them to burst one day and create a huge mess? I am very much aware that I cannot go fulfilling my need for affection and admiration using other people - not any more...

Plus, I will have to find a way to stuck the kids away for longer periods of time in order a) for him to get some more resting time and b) to spend some time between just the two of us. In the past five years, we have really seldom had time together w/o the kids. And I am quite sure that this is one huge reason.

Actually, I still cannot fully grasp how people find this 15-20 hours of undivided attention per week with little children on board. Let me describe our usual day:
7:30 - I get up, hygienic procedures, prepare breakfast
8:00 - wake up kids, have breakfast
8:15-8:30 - H wakes up, h.proc + coffee
8:45 - leave home (kids to daycare, we to work)
17:30 - me and H meet, go to pick up kids, then home
18:15-19:00 I prepare dinner
19:00-19:30 eat together
19:30-20:45 evening activities incl kids
20:45-21:30 bedtime routine for kids (sometimes they don't fall asleep until 22:00 or even 22:30)
23:00 me and H to bed (me perhaps later, since I need less sleep)

And neither of us is the kind who could manage without their personal time alone (might even say that by default, time alone is more important than time as a couple - I am trying to introduce some changes, though it might be too late for that). So it has usually been (already long, long before the kids - basically since our marriage but it did not bother me then) so that when the kids are finally asleep, we just sit beside our computers (side by side, we can see and comment what the other is doing), he plays a game, I browse some blogs or forums (thus quite successfully fulfilling my need for conversation) and... time to go to bed then. Terrible, isn't it. But this playing is basically his sole means of relaxation, so it would be more terrible to deprive him of it... or not?

So to sum up the previous passages: how would you change your daily schedule if it looked like this?

You don't turn down your needs. You TELL him he is not doing a good job of meeting them and teach him how to do it. If you don't, then you won't fall in love with him. It was the NOT meeting of needs that made your marriage crippled in the first place. That has to be solved.


The fact that your "personal time" alone is more important than your marriage is a problem to be SOLVED, not something to be accommodated. If you don't enjoy your time together, then the solution is to make is so enjoyable that it is more enjoyable than anything you do. Your favorite leisure time should be spent together.

IF you are doing something ALONE that you enjoy more than being with him, then you should STOP doing that altogether just because of the contrast effect.

The place I would start is your evenings. On 2 or 3 of those evenings, hire a babysitter and go out and have a romantic evening of dinner and dancing and/parking. [dont get arrested]

Three evenings of 3-4 hours together is about 10 hours. Then on Saturday, carve out some time for yourselves and go have a nice lunch and go shopping. [4 hours] On Sunday, go for a ride alone and maybe come home and take a nice nap. That should get you close to 20 hours a week.

Additionally, I would launch this with a nice romantic weekend with just the 2 of you.

Thanks, ML!

As I see it, though (and have been made to see by several previous commenters), after what happened, I have no right to tell him that he is not doing a good job meeting my needs. Time for this had been about a year ago (i.e. before the A started - not A then, as far as I thought, just correspondence; if only I had read the MB site before and realised that these were the first steps!!). Now I have blown my opportunities and have much crawling to do before I can ever set my demands (because this is as he sees them, not as opportunities to improve relationship; but this is at this stage understandable).

Actually, I have (at least this past half a year) been trying to tell him about my needs and the first red flag should have been up (for both of us!) about 10 months ago, when I merrily, oh-so-merrily babbled to him about my penpal and how he can fulfill my needs for communication and praise, how he can give me good emotions which I in turn can use profitably in my family life. Today, I asked him about how he felt about it at that time; he said, as could be expected, that he had been content that my needs could be fulfilled without him needing to exert himself. To which I answered that had I known then where this would lead, I would have put some pressure on him to at least try to fulfill these needs himself... Yep, bad wording :S

The thing is that he has always taken my expression of my needs as accusation towards him of failing me (which of course causes him to clam up and not want to think constructively); I cannot be quite sure if the miscommunication is due to my wording or his perceiving or partly both. We talked about it quite a lot and hopefully found the correct words suitable for both - I hope I remember to use them when I next need them.


At the moment, only one answer stares back at me: multiple person computer games over LAN...

Talking is NOT his favourite pastime.

Perhaps reading side-by-side, but again - different books, so it probably doesn't count. Reading out loud is not a very good option.

But I'll keep that topic in mind, thank you for pointing it out!


The problem is (besides finding a babysitter for half of the weeknights, which I find really uncomfortable, but I guess it needs a little adjustment of priorities), that this is totally only MY idea of a pleasant evening, which he will probably attend (not the dancing part, but I'm ok with that), but will regard it as input/contribution, not benefit. If given to choose, he would spend 99 evenings out of 100 at home, alone or at best with me. He really enjoyed this week we were away and he had the whole place for himself.

So it could be another way around: we could take the kids away and be home alone... But depriving them THEIR right to be at home (preferably with their parents) after a long day at day care would be unfair to them.

Dunno. 2-3 evenings per week sounds really impossible. One... probably ok. Or perhaps one evening at home and one going out...

A whole nice romantic weekend means available grandparents, which is usually what we lack (everybody's working). We had one such weekend in May, though, and hopefully we'll get one in July as well.

It probably seems as if I am just countering your propositions... But it is just that to some extent or another, I have already considered them and have had to face the reality (as I see it).

Btw... a romantic weekend just after such a blow, what do you think: would it do more damage than repair?

Well, yes you do. Unless you want to end up in another affair. Or at very best, a crippled marriage. Your marriage was unhappy before the affair, now it is crippled. So you can either stay crippled, or you can repair the damage and come out better than before. An affair does not oblige you to a life of perpetual punishment and misery. In order to recover your marriage, BOTH of your needs should be met and a happy, romantic marriage created. So, I would set him down and say, dear, I want us to have a happy romantic marriage. I was unhappy before my affair [no excuse to have an affair!] and I want us to have a happy marriage NOW. I am sorry I didn't tell you how unhappy I was before, but I am telling you NOW. I don't want to be in a miserable marriage.



It really isn't. I would find a way to make it work. In fact, this program WON'T WORK without it. Dr Harley won't even counsel a couple who refuses to do this. Your marriage is the most important thing in your lives. It determines your quality of life. It ensures your childrens SECURITY. If you insist on treating it as a #5 priority, you will continue to have a bad marriage. The solution to a bad marriage is not to continue the habits that made it bad, but to develop new habits that change the dynamic. You do that by putting your marriage FIRST, not last.

You can see where putting the marriage LAST has led you. Your marriage is on the rocks and it won't get better by magic.

A BAD MARRIAGE is much harder to maintain than a good marriage. A good marriage is maintained with ease after you develop healthy habits. But a bad marriage is PURE HELL as you and your H have learned the hard way.


That is not undivided attention time. UA time needs to spent when you are alone, not distracted by a computer game.


Do you think I recommended this for the purpose of damaging your marriage?

Anyway, the ideas I gave are for if you WANT to recover your marriage. If you don't, then you can ignore my posts.

One more thought before hitting the bed...

Both pairs of our parents are still married to each other (both first marriages in early 20s), meaning 30+ years of marriage for either couple. Yet, neither couple seems to lead a perfect marriage. My parents (esp. my mother) have had really rough times, now there is peace and nice words (verbal PDA, if there is such) and so on, but I think there is sooooo much pain and untold matter hidden beneath this calm surface... I am by far no expert on my parents' private conversations, but I just feel that it would take so many hours and days for them to go through radical honesty conversations that they wouldn't even consider it any more - let the sleeping dogs lie and so on.

His parents live together, but seem to have so different interests and thoughts and inclinations; this has become more and more visible as the kids have moved out (actually, I don't know them from the time they lived together with the kids, but H's sister said so). They express their feelings really seldom (if ever) and I don't recall having heard one of them really praising the other, it is usually some negative or sarcastic remark about what the other wants. I think that they live together out of habit and the fact that it is better to be together than alone, but for a bystander, it is hard to see much warm love and affection.

So... two different marriages, neither of which is a role model marriage for me. Please, please tell me that this is not inevitable that we become/copy eventually our parents, tell me that warm and loving marriage really CAN last for decades... even in the circumstances such as ours.