I think that.........I can't ask for what I want. Thats what the problem is, I can't ask cause I know he can't give it.

I know this makes no sense-but its my reality.

MB

Please tell me if I am crazy.

I read an e mail from a friend (who turned to be one of WH's OW) where she ended the e mail saying "good luck with your new love".

We are in the middle of a disagreement on the inference I got from that.

So I am putting the question to all of you, what do you infer from that statement?

Dear Teaser:

I'm spending the evening with CGIR, so a short post.

What I learned is that the truth makes sense.

If a story does not make sense, it is not the truth. It is either a lie, or you are missing important information.

When CGIR told me he put 110 miles on his car doing household errands and looking for a McDonald's restaurant in the town where I now work (which is less than 5 miles from our house), it didn't make sense.

That's because it was a lie; he was headed to OW's home to have sex with her.

Later, when he told me he never arrived and that he turned around because he knew having sex with her would end our relationship, it didn't make sense.

Finally, when he told me he turned around because he was afraid OW would turn him down (the last time they were together, she told him to stop), that made sense.

It made sense because it is the truth.

The truth ALWAYS makes sense.

You need more information to make that e-mail make sense.

BrokenVase

Hey BV

I told him that if someone wishes you luck with your new love,then I have to infer that he had told her he had a new love, he says he did not.

Teaser,
I think part of the problem for me was in finding out about my husband's affair was that he was doing this because he wanted to, I guess I could never get my head wrapped around the part that he kept saying that he wasn't in love with me and this is why he could even have an affair......different places, he out of love because of the marriage breakdown, me still in love and hopeful for sorting out the marital problems......for me his way of thinking just wasn't a reality........trying to accept what they do and how things progressed to the place that they did is hard to understand.......try to make sense of it all is a no win siutation......
It is what it is and that is a burden for us, we have a choice what we do with that, I see it as we have 3 choices, 1 remove what is making us feel that burden(husband) 2 do nothing and just live with things......3 deciding that we want to move forward, forget the past and only focus on the now and the future....and understand this choice is one we are chosing for us.........all the figuring out and looking at the facts and details won't change anything.....
You have control over your future and you need to decide how you want to live that future, stay where you are, let it destroy you or take control and move to a healthier place for you....
I know it's a tough place to be and being strong with in you is the key, what happens in the marriage time will only tell. Don't make any decisions until you are emotionally equipped to do so.......

Hey Jessi

I understand everything that you have said.

Heres the thing, I think that the issue for me is that I am almost positive that FORGETTING the past is not an option.

I have just found out that WH has been cheating for 30 years!!!! this is a new D day for me, here I thought that he had only been stepping out for the last ten or 15 years. For me this is huge-hell, this is a time when I thought that we were happy, you don't get to screw with my reality and then I say, ok forget it (even after a few years) we will move on. That is out of the question.

The absolute only hope for this marriage to remain intact is if I can find a way of understanding what has happened and find some way to be able to live with it.
WH once told me that he wants us to get back to the marriage we originally had-I don't know if it is contrary to MB principles for me to say this, but I do not believe that it is possible for us to be the way we were when we first got married. He is not the man I thought he was the day I married him, cause I damn sure I did not think I was marrying someone who was capable of doing all the things he has ultimately done.
Further, as a result of what he has done to me, I too am forced to change in order to deal with all this. So, from my vantage point, we are now 2 different people.

The real question then becomes, whether, knowing who he really is and what he is capable of, he is now someone I can move forward with.

For damn sure, I know he has not been meeting my needs. Has not done so for quite some time, unfortunately, I did not take the easy way out like he did and go outside to address my needs.

Had a talk with WH, interesting conversation.
Problem with his relationship with me is that there was too much static, when asked where did the static come from his reply was he felt that he was jockeying with me for the position of who wears the pants in the family.

Now, I need for MB seniors to tell me whether there is any real hope.

As he was talking (his attempt at open and honest) I felt dead inside, I barely asked any questions. I don't care any more.
Here is a man whose manhood is so fragile, I can't strengthen that nor am I willing to try at this point, thats his problem that somehow I got punished for.

This secret life that I have just discovered is leaving me too sore.
He tells me he will not move out, I will have to put him out-will start working on that with respect to the timing.

Please tell me if I am abdicating any responsibility in all this.
He needs help and I am afraid that the fact that I am a victim of his spineless, pathetic personality, leaves me out of the equation.

teaser,

I posted at length to your WH on his thread. He basically ignored me. I figured that's because he has heard what I had to say

because

you have said exactly what I have said - in your own words - over and over and over

anyway.


His basic desire is that his point of view should be validated. Here is what he wants:

1. He wants you to sweep the problems under the rug.
2. He wants you to forgive and mainly FORGET.
3. He wants you to stop asking these probing questions, because the answers require him to tell you things that "might hurt you". Translation: the answers require him to admit stuff that embarrasses and shames him, and reveals the depths of the crap he has been doing for YEARS and doesn't want you to know about.
4. He wants to be able to continue to gaslight you, which has worked for so very long (FOR HIM), and this whole d-day thing really has messed up his lifestyle, thank you very much.
5. He wants you to settle down, for things to go back to "normal", so he can go back to his usual stuff. You are interfering with this, by the way. So CALM DOWN, and get to it quickly, please.
6. He stopped posting because he realized that he has no argument for the truth. And the truth is quite annoying to him, because somehow


it has gotten you to wake up

realize all of his garbage and gaslighting

and he stands to lose everything


and he can no longer carry on as he has been.


Not only that, he doesn't see a way out - and his wall of lies isn't doing it for him either, and as as long as you stay here, he doesn't stand a chance unless he caves in.


The issue you now face?

How long before you go to Plan B.

Because he is stuck stuck stuck in his firm belief that the lies will be his only defense. He has no intent to change at this point. CGIR is moving in the right direction. gwill, on the other hand, doesn't see the point. He still has a wayward mindset, and I personally don't see any cracks forming.

So, how long before the Plan B?


SB

BTW,

Do you have any confirmation that he is NO CONTACT with other women? Because he still smells to me. The lying has gone on for too long....

and that other love comment

smells a LOT.

teaser,

after reading your comments on BV's thread,

you need to go to PB now. your love is on the downward trend right now, and you are risking this marriage. you speak of indifference

and that is the opposite of love.

Do something to get to plan B now.

SB

I have no proof that he is no longer in contact with other women.
Unfortunately, with technology the way it is today, there is no way of keeping absolute tabs, he works, he has a computer there that I have no control over, and frankly, at this point, I am no longer interested.

Plan B? I think that would have been great if I were interested in saving the M, I am not.

I am right now only interested in putting an end to this farce of a life that I have been living. I have said this before, I do not operate a revolving door, once he is gone, he stays gone. This is the reason I have taken so long to make a decision, because I wanted it to be that any decision would be a well thought out one, not one based on anger.

Right now I am just dead inside, oh, make no mistake, I am hurting but the pain is despair at a life lost.

Teaser,

I read what you wrote on BV's thread about wanting a revenge affair. If you are in any way really considering it, please dont do it. I cant begin to imagine the pain you are in, my story is similar but only on a two year scale. I cant begin to image dealing with the lose of thirty of years.

I actually had a revenge affair, for many of the reasons you listed. It doesnt help. It will only make you feel worse. If you died tomorrow you would still have your dignity, your integrity, and you will still have lived a life or courage and conviction. Nothing your H has done to you can take that from you. If you do to him what he did to you then you will have lost those things, just like I did. It wont take away your pain, or give you back the lost years. Let go of the M if you feel that is what is right for you, but hold on to your principals, you will feel better if you do. There is nothing to be gained by having a revenge affair except more pain and shame, and so much to be lost.

The only thing I have left is to be able to use my story as an example of what NOT to do, and hope that I can help others to avoid making my mistakes.

Hi Rising

Thanks for sharing.
I don't know that I would actually Do it. But I certainly understand why other people have done it. This kind of betrayal leaves feeling like nothing.

To the outside world I give the appearance of being a reasonably attractive, strong educated woman. On the inside, I feel like a nothing. I am angry at myself for loving and trusting a POS who apparently was never deserving of anything from me. I am angry at myself for not having seen all this a long time ago.
I am angry for not picking a better father for my DD-so I feel that I have failed her there. I can't make up for that other than by continuing to be the best parent I can possibly be. Because all along, WH was sabotaging the parent child relationship, this is not something that I just now realize, I called him out on it back then too. And now to find out all the other crappy things about him makes me feel like I have to go into some deep deep IC. I am not even sure that the help I need can be accessed here where I live. Which leaves me where? I don't know.

Everything is feeling so utterly hopeless right now, all I can do is just plain give up.

It does make you feel like nothing, less than nothing. You feel small smaller smallest until everything you thought you knew or thought you were just diappears under a wall of pain and anger.

Get whatever help you can where you live, and post here where people who understand your pain can help you. My H did the trickle truth, and was a horriible gaslighter. I had some not quite healed self esteem issues, but mostly I was at one point a happy strong and confident woman. He picked at the issues until I just a mess. He blamed everything on the way my body looked, told me it was the things that having children had done to me that made me not as attractive as the OW's, and told me all this while I was pregnant with my DD. At one point I was seriously considering cutting off body parts. I was pretty sure I would bleed to death, but at least the offending parts would be gone.

I've been to that place where you feel like there is nothing left, you have lost all hope. It gets better with time, maybe it will be with your H someday, or maybe it will just be a personal healing, but it will get better. Do something good for yourself, and practice good self-care. Take a walk, take a drive, anything. Just make sure that it is something you enjoy, and will help to soothe you.

I understand your desire to walk out on the M, I think that you should think about what schoolbus said about plan B. Thirty years is a big investment, and if you protect whats left of your love for your H, your feelings on saving the M may change once the intial pain and anger have faded a bit.

The problem right now is that I am not feeling any love at all for him, and I am afraid that this is not temporary.

You see, maybe if I had known all along about the affairs, or even suspected, I may be approaching things differently.
But on D Day I discovered 5 As, which seemed to have dated back to 2002 one of which was with a friend, and went on for 5 years. So now, while I am trying to wrap my mind around that, I find out that his first A was when we were 4-5 years into the marriage, a time when I thought that we were at our happiest. Hell, we were trying very hard to conceive then eventually adopted.

This has all thrown me into a tailspin. Thirty years was a big investment for ME, but what I am realizing now is that I am the only one that truly invested 30 years. WH invested 4-5 years then started having his needs met outside.
He was not meeting my needs, but for some of those needs, I made excuses for him, only to find out that the last laugh was on me because while I was making excuses for him and sabotaging myself in the process, he was thoroughly enjoying himself on the outside, then coming home to a comfortable place. This is what I call having one's cake and eating it too.

I don't think that even at this point my WH really wants to be with me, I think he does not want to be the one to make the decision to leave so that he can always say, I was willing to stay for the long haul she is the one that insisted that I leave.

I DONT'T THINK THAT HE IS BEING HONEST.

At first I thought that I would wait him out and let him make the decision but you know something? I am the only one punishing from this.

So I think that in the final analysis, I will do him this one last favor and make the decision that he apparently does not have the backbone to make.

Teaser,

First of all - . As someone who was in a long term M (36 years) I can truly undertand where you are. My situation was very similar to yours.

I am now D'd. My XWH was also a gaslighter, trickle truth teller, not totally committed etc. After 9 months of it, I went into Plan B but not before I blew and did a big huge FU. That was not one of my finest moments and I do regret that I lost control.

I did not want a D, but it got to the point where I realized that I was never going to know the true extent of what my XWH did, and honestly, I felt like an outsider in my own M. There were three of us at the time, and I was the odd man out. I hated knowing that OW had more info on me and my life than I did. Looking back, I'm not sure that I would have had the strength to recover. I just don't think I have it in me. The depth of the betrayal was just too deep for me to overcome. I know it would have been long and painful recovery, and XWH would have been a project with many overruns.

Should you decide to end this M, that will be painful too. You may not feel anything right now, but you will go through ups and downs like you wouldn't believe so be prepared for that. The destruction will be all around you. Family, personal, financial, emotional, physical, you name it, it will be there and you'll have to deal with all of it.

Only you can decide whether or not you can do this. Think long and hard before making a decision. There have been many days where I wish that I would have tried harder, but then I remember that I did try - he really didn't.

You have to remember that your WH has developed a certain lifestyle over the last 30 years, and it has obviously been one that has worked quite well for him, but now you are asking that he change it overnight. It isn't going to be easy, even if he really wants to. It's not to say that you should put up with his cr@p any longer though.

I agree with the others in that Plan B is in order for you. This man is draining the life right out of you and you need to save yourself right now. Your job has to be suffering. I remember days when I couldn't get out of bed. Fortunately at the time I owned my own business, but it still suffered.

Your life has had no truth in in for 30 years . In Plan B, it will have truth because only YOU control you. Your life will be what you want it to be. If your WH decides to get his head out of the horse's sphincter, you can make a decision then. Set the bar high.

I am sorry that you age going through this....

CL

Thanks for your response.

I am so sorry for all that you went through and for how it ended.

I told WH Friday evening of my decision. He apparently did not take me serious.
I told DD this morning, then I gave to phone to him.
He just told me that he was not able to have a conversation with her because she was crying so much.
He says that even though I said it, he had not believed it; he could not finish the conversation, he is in the bathroom right now.

Just making the decision has been painful; but I somehow think that WH has no clue as to the extent of the damage he has done to me, his behavior continues to be singular and I cannot and will not put up with it, I have got to maintain some level of self respect otherwise, the abuse he has inflicted on me over the years continue.

He is incapable of making me feel loved and cherished and I can only believe that the reason for that is that he just does not care enough.

I explained to him that when I look back at his interaction with OW and saw how happy he was, so relaxed, it hurts me to see how uncomfortable he is with me, the person that stuck by him trough thick and thin. And trust me, there has been lots of it.

But CL, I am not one who will ignore advice when it is given so I am promising you now that I will think long and hard about the recommendation of all of you.

I will let you know my decision.

Here is a question for those of you out there.

Why is it that when a BS a female, contacts the OW's H, he every shortly thereafter don't want any more contact with BS? is this a gender issue?
I ask because from reading other posts, I very rarely see where the a male BS who contacts the OM's wife posts that the OM's w longer wants to hear from him.

What is the psychology behind this? pride?

Not true. The OMGF does not want to hear from me at all. Though, she was mainly angry at me waiting so long after discovery to tell her.

HHH

OK, first of all I can see why she would have been angry at you for waiting so long to expose, but let me ask you this, is she still with OM?