WP,

My guess you were more open with OM, because deep down you didn't care what he thought. You worry what your H would think of you if you wanted something a bit...different. Yet, if you were to ask, showed/explained how you wanted it and it was successful, it is one more demonstration that he could satisfy you.

WP,

Congratulations on taking the Poly. Although he might not admit it now, I am sure that having a few of your answers substantiated has helped him.

Because it is imperative that you quit second guessing yourself and start being honest with your H. When you need a hug from him, ask for it. When you fear things talk with him about YOUR fears, and seek his help or advice. He does not have to solve your problems but it is best to keep him in the loop.
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You don't trust him much thus you constantly second guess what you should say or not say.

I am not saying blurt out anything that comes to mind, but I am saying if you expect him to communicate with you, do the same with him.

I say trust he will do the best he can, so make sure he has the best information possible...be open and honest. Seek his help, seek his advice, seek his comfort and show him that he is needed.

Don't you see the pattern here? He was closed to you for years. I call this lying by omission. You had an affair, and lied to him by omission and just flat out lied. Worse you lied to yourself. He was open with you during FR and it helped you tremendously, but unfortunately you were still lying to him.

He then closed himself off again, and won't tell you why he does things like the bedroom incident. You meanwhile are trying to do the right thing, which means you are holding back on him. You need his help, you need him in your life, you fear something, you want to help, you want to talk about what you learned, YOU MUST OPEN UP AND BE HONEST. You have not been by the same standard I applied to him.

Have you realized that the history of your marriage is withholding information? Have you realized that a new marriage requires that you SHARE information.

Those with a need for honesty and openness want accurate information about their spouses' thoughts, feelings, habits, likes, dislikes, personal history, daily activities and plans for the future. If their spouse does not provide honest and open communication, trust is undermined and the feelings of security can eventually be destroyed. They cannot trust the signals that are being sent and feel they have no foundation on which to build a solid relationship. Instead of adjusting, they feel off balance; instead of growing together, they feel as if they are growing apart.

I forgot about something; this episode Friday night. Has anything like that occurred prior to the A? Ask him.

I went through exactly that scenario, over and over, for years prior to closing myself off.

Same guilt; dishonesty by omission.

I know that he's hurt, and that he, as the BS, must dictate the pace of recovery.

I'm convinced that what's kept the resentment of S.R.'s husband alive for so many years is that he has found it to be an effective way to control and punish her whenever she doesn't do what he wants. Whenever they have a fight, he brings it up, and it causes her such guilt that it gives him a decided advantage in winning the argument.

By this time, I don't believe that her affair is the problem that she thinks it is. Instead, it is an issue that her husband is using to get the upper hand in his relationship with her. It probably shows up the most whenever she has been reluctant to have sex with him. It throws her off balance whenever he mentions it, and makes her feel guilty, wanting to make it up to him somehow. He may also bring it up whenever she is winning in a power struggle he is having with her.

What she describes to me in her letter is abuse, pure and simple. There is no excuse for the way her husband keeps bringing up her moment of weakness she experienced years ago. He is disrespectful and abusive.

I suggest that she look him right in the eye and say to him, "Listen Buster, do you love me? Do you want me to love you? Do you want to spend the rest of your life with me? If the answers to any of those questions is 'yes' you sure are going about it the wrong way. You are not doing things that I admire, you're doing things that I find disgusting!"

What if he says, "Fine, then lets just get a divorce and end it all."

To that I would say, "It's up to you. I married you for life, but if you want a divorce, it's your call. If you want to be in a love relationship with me, however, you're going to have to treat me much better than you have been treating me. You must never again bring up my affair, and if you are upset with me, you will have to treat me with respect until we can solve the problem. If you are upset with our sexual relationship, I want us to discuss it as adults and solve it with mutual respect. I refuse to be treated like this, especially by the man I love."

My advice to her husband is to never mention her affair again. It's a good example of one of the enemies of good conversation, dwelling on past mistakes. Whenever you keep bringing up your spouses past mistakes, you not only make your conversations incredibly unpleasant, but it cannot possibly lead to a resolution of a conflict you may be discussing. And as soon as his resentment doesn't pay him any dividends -- no longer helps him get his way -- he will find that it hardly ever occurs to him.

Hanging on to an unpleasant thought because it helps us somehow is what psychologists call "secondary gain." It means that even though the thought is unpleasant, it gets you something you need, so your mind keeps it around for its usefulness. There are many unpleasant thoughts that have this characteristic, and I have helped many people let them go by helping them destroy the usefulness of the thought. Making sure that S.K.'s husband never gets what he wants by bringing up her affair will help him overcome his resentment.

I have this fear that 5 years, 10 years, down the road he's going to turn and look at me and say, "You know what? You weren't worth it" and next I'll be hearing from his attorneys.

I could use his love and support today. I'm still just so raw from yesterday.

JL,

This is exactly why/how I was able to enjoy SF with the OM. It drives my DH crazy that he feels I "affaired down". What I have tried to tell him is that it wasn't OM, it was me when I was with OM. I didn't lhave to live up to any expectations that I feel my DH has imposed on me. I was more free because I didn't care as much!

HHH, I can't recall anything like that ever happening before. A much more likely scenario in our M was me being the aggressor for SF and being turned down. I never got a reason for that either - I came to assume that it meant DH was not attracted to me, that he didn't think I was beautiful anymore, I worried for a time after we had the kids that after seeing childbirth he'd never want to go back down there again, lol If DH wanted SF with me, I very rarely turned him down, even if my other intimate EN's weren't met (as I've said, I think that with DH I accepted SF as a substitute for the other EN's of affection, admiration, conversation, and heck, maybe even RC!) and I can see that maybe this last week that he wanted me to be the "old me," my more aggressive self - the only reason I didn't was my own stupid fears.

Wulffpack_girl,

I am sorry I haven't read the entire thread - only parts here and there. What I see is some of the things my H struggled with (still does??? I don't know). He felt that nothing he did was good enough to help me heal... at one point, almost 3 years after the A!, he got so discouraged that he started to withdraw and build a wall around him. THAT got me so upset - I couldn't take it for more than a week. I cried and cried and told him we should consider separation.

My point is - don't give up! My H has tried really hard to prove his dedication and love and I still drop A bombs because of the triggers. I probably shouldn't, but I can't help it. And yet, I NEED to see and feel his attempts at making "us" work. He's been very successful and there are more good days than bad days. But if he stops, there's no future for us, I'm afraid.

Thank you, onefallday for posting.

That's not entirely true. It's very possible -- and quite likely -- that if you don't respond in the way he expects you to when he Love-Busts you with reminders of the affair, that he'll modify his behavior. Typically betrayed spouses bring up the affair for one of two reasons:

1. The betrayal is too fresh, and we have not yet trained ourselves to control our response to triggers, and act out rather than thinking through the consequences of our emotions, or
2. There is some secondary gain to be had by bringing up the affair, like winning an argument, seeing you cry when we feel bad, etc.

But can't either one of you do this at any point in your marriage? I mean, here in Utah, at any given moment if you expedite the divorce you're just two weeks away from being single.

So this fear of yours isn't rational. This can happen to any person at any time in ANY marriage! It's something we all live with. Build Love Bank balances, work diligently to make sure you meet your husband's most important emotional needs, help guide him in meeting yours, avoid Love Busters, spend enough time together alone to deposit plenty of Love Units, be Radically Honest about your feelings at all times, and get on with your lives.

How can he possibly meet your needs if he doesn't know them?

But don't expect him to meet them right away. This is a process, not an event. Offer him the opportunity to meet your needs through your honesty.

WP � I hesitate to speak after JL as anyone would � since I read whatever he says, I found myself back on your thread.

I don�t know who your H is so I haven�t read his thread.

I try REALLY hard not to project my personal situation on my posts to others. REALLY hard. I�m probably crossing that line with this post, but I�m going to say it anyway.

Know reading what I am about to say that if my H asked me to take a polygraph on the details of my relationship with OM, my response would have been an immediate and unequivocal �shall we have one lawyer or two � I�ve been researching collaborative divorce, and I think we can do that.�

Why? Because I recognize that if he were to put me through that as a condition for reconciliation, I would hate him so much there would be zero hope of building a healthy marriage. Given that he already hated me for having an A, I would simply end it there.

I don�t know if DrH has weighed in on the utility of polygraphs in infidelity, but in my opinion they have only one legitimate use: is the affair over?

There is a level of humiliation below which I absolutely refuse to fall. Taking a polygraph is at least 5 degrees below that level. Actually, it doesn�t even have a level it is so far off what I would do. That�s me. I tell you that so you can weigh what I am saying appropriately.

I have to ask you this. Do you REALLY want to be married for the rest of your life to a man who:

1. Will not commit to a marriage recovery program.
2. Will not let your A go and evidently brings it up at whatever time he wants in whatever way he wants with wanton disregard of how that might impact you in that moment.
3. Sends you A bombs in the middle of your work day 10 months out, thereby demonstrating zero understanding of your emotional state and vulnerability.
4. Sort of maybe kind of wants you to take a polygraph where you will be questioned about intimate humiliating details of your life.
5. Won�t commit to accepting the results of that polygraph as dispositive.
6. Doesn�t go with you to the polygraph, thereby reserving the right to question the whole process.
7. Doesn�t go with you to the polygraph to ensure that the exact questions he wants answered are asked and answered in a form and way he finds acceptable,
8. In my opinion, is obsessing to a grotesque and repellant degree on the physical details.
9. Puts you through that ordeal, which is solely for his benefit, without his presence to support you.
10. Reserves the right to question the results of the polygraph, and/or bring up the results and/or any details of the A at any time in the future he thinks he needs to �heal�.

How do you see your future with such a man (and at this point, I�m using that term loosely)? How do you envision your children�s future? What is going to be their �take-away� message about marriage from a father who does that and a mother who puts up with it?

There is a poster to your thread who is who are obsessing about the most intimate (�how wet did she get?") details his wife�s affairs twenty years after the A � is that where you are headed?

Really, what are you fighting for? From where I sit, it�s an illusion of what you wish your H was, but, based upon his passive/aggressive/punishment mode, never will be. He�s choosing that by the way. He doesn't want to get over it.

My M is not recovered. If it doesn�t, it will be because of what JL said, not because I was unwilling to endure X amount of humiliation or do Y amount of making amends. My M may not recover. But for sure I will.

I hate if for YOU that you took that polygraph as I fear you just gave your H another way demean you.

There seems to be this unspoken suggestion in this forum that a WS has to do whatever for however long. That simply isn�t the case, which is why DrH recommends that once the details of the A are disclosed, the subject is closed.

That doesn�t sit well with BS�s who are in the majority here. Many BS�s post vociferously about any limits on discussion of the A as the WS trying to �control the pace and scope of recovery�.

Never mentioning the A after the details are disclosed is the MB program, and DrH includes it for a reason: it matters to the WS, and it matters to the M.

The goal is recover the M, not serve the interests of the BS or the WS.

JL,

This is exactly why/how I was able to enjoy SF with the OM. It drives my DH crazy that he feels I "affaired down". What I have tried to tell him is that it wasn't OM, it was me when I was with OM. I didn't lhave to live up to any expectations that I feel my DH has imposed on me. I was more free because I didn't care as much!

Another thing that has popped up, is this idea of "With OM I felt 'free/not obligated/open' during SF."

What is this saying? It is saying that there is some sort of dysfunction. There is some sort of lack of O&H, and a bevvy of DJ's on the part of one spouse or the other, or both.

This feeling of "not wanting to disappoint" the BS on the part of the WS is directly routed in DJ, and thus the "freedom" experienced with an AP is as false as the fantasy itself. If you can not experience not only the same freedom with your spouse, and in fact more, then one spouse or the other has a DJ to overcome.

Hello Sunnydaze,

Could you tell us what the "expectations that I feel my DH has imposed on me" were that made you more free with the OM than your H?

Question #2 is what exactly was it that you "didn't care as much" about with the OM that you did with your H?

I believe the answer to these questions is also what is "driving your DH crazy" because I don't believe he understands either and for him to accept you NOW he needs to know THAT state of mind no longer exists with you today and not simply because the OM is no longer a part of yor life...

He needs to know WHY that state of mind is NOT coming back.

God bless.

Jim

He did view porn and began making suggestions on how to imporove our sex life...I think I have always felt my DH married me because he didn't think he could do any better. He consistently chose IB over time with me and complained about all my faults.

Know reading what I am about to say that if my H asked me to take a polygraph on the details of my relationship with OM, my response would have been an immediate and unequivocal �shall we have one lawyer or two � I�ve been researching collaborative divorce, and I think we can do that.�

WPG, if you are serious about R do yourself a favor and ignore this fogbabble. crazy

I hate if for YOU that you took that polygraph as I fear you just gave your H another way demean you.

There seems to be this unspoken suggestion in this forum that a WS has to do whatever for however long.

That doesn�t sit well with BS�s who are in the majority here. Many BS�s post vociferously about any limits on discussion of the A as the WS trying to �control the pace and scope of recovery�.

I try REALLY hard not to project my personal situation on my posts to others. REALLY hard.

I�m probably crossing that line with this post,

There seems to be this unspoken suggestion in this forum that a WS has to do whatever for however long.