LS,

I retired from nearly 28 years in the Army. It is definitely not true that everyone is having sex with everyone else. I do agree that long separations put additional stresses on the marriage. If you are interested in how some of those played out in our marriage, take a look at my thread. I caught my H in a 7 month long A. He confessed to a drunken ONS. For lots of reasons (partly because he confessed), the ONS is hardly a blip in our relationship.

Your A and your H sharing conversations with female co-workers about sex and sharing texts you send him for a laugh shows how weak both your boundries are in your M.

What is your vision for your M? To end? To limp along for now? To fill the gap until you find a better man? To be in passionate love with your H? If your answer to the last question is yes, then MB offers a practical approach to obtaining this vision. It is a narrow path though and it takes courage and dedication to work the program.

AM

You are very unhappy because you are making poor choices.


The OM (who is using you for sex) is the same character who used you for sex when you were a child.



OK. Rude question. There is no way around this. Sorry.
Here it is.

ARE YOU DUMB? Or, are you mentally challenged?
If you are of at least NORMAL intelligence you have the ability to make better choices.

If he accepts you "damage and all" then why don't you tell him of your adultery?
Are you afraid of him?



Then change something about yourself.

May I suggest ... you tell OM to:

"Go to hell".

As "step one".

You can make BETTER choices. While you are the product of a terrible, tragic upbringing - you don't have to be the VICTIM of it. You can live a life of integrity and courage, you can discover your VALUE and SELF-WORTH if you CHOSE to act with values and demonstrate your worth.

You do this by making GOOD choices. You become empowered through your integrity and honesty.

You dig deep and find the courage you don't even know you have, but that I can assure you is there - and you DO THE RIGHT THING.

You are only a victim if you allow yourself to be. You only make bad choices because you allow yourself to.

Stop allowing this - and you will change - become better and healthier and stronger.

You will probably need some counseling and therapy to walk this path - but have the courage to walk it because you are WORTHY of becoming a good person.

No one can walk so long in darkness that they cannot be brought back into the light.

But it all comes down to choice.


The way you describe him indicates that he is cruel. He is cold and distant. He shows no desire to meet your needs or demonstrate care and protection.

He seems like he is engaging in at MINIMUM an Emotional Affair and he doesn't seem to have a problem with that.

The way you describe him - he doesn't sound like a pleasant man to be married to.


This explains why you accept poor treatment from him and expect poor behavior from yourself.

You think that you are 'damaged' goods and only worth the abuse he gives you and no better than the cheating, nasty men who abused you as a child.

You aren't 'damaged' goods.

You are the beautiful, divine daughter of a loving God who weeps for the horrors committed against you and the horrors you have committed.

Within you is the spark of the Divine Parent who knows, and loves you.

You are worth more than an distant husband, you are worth more than a lousy OM, you are worth more than this debasing affair. If you ONLY CHOSE to be worth more than all of this.

The first step is to have the courage to do what is right.



Then STOP.

YOU are in control of your life.

Not your OM.

Not your husband.

NOT your mother.

NOT the men who abused and hurt you as a child.

YOU ARE IN CONTROL.

So TAKE control.

And tell your husband what you are doing.

The path to a better life and a better you begins with an act of integrity and courage.

Take the strength within you to ACT.

Your right, until she confesses I have nothing.

Good luck.

Re-asking.

I'm 33, my BH is 42 and we have 3 kids ages 1, 4 and 6.

THANK you so much for this. It really made me cry.

LI, you can't assert that choices made by your parents when you were a child adversely impacted your life, without acknowledging that choices you make now may similarly impact your kids.

This is the sort of thing I had in mind when I made my post on Pepperband's "Lurkers" thread yesterday. About how people who get into affairs have times where they just set aside their responsibilities & decency, to the point that for hours on end, they completely block out of their minds their children, not to mention their spouses.

But you're not going to be 33 forever. Someday you'll wake up like me & find that you're 43, and someday 53, and 63, and when that rolls around, you're still going to have to be living with how you treated this man (your husband) and these children. And they'll be living with how you treated them.

Do you want to be remembered for having the courage to admit your wrongs & asking forgiveness & striving to become better, and for building a marriage that can be a great example for your kids -- one that'll put them on a different path than the one you walked on as a kid? Or do you want to be remembered for quitting on the man who thought you were worth his ring & for forcing your kids to dig out of that rubble?