There has been a topic of remorse in the forum today.<BR>My big fear of not seeing remorse or quilt or hearing an apology is this ...<P>If they think they are not at fault or don't feel quilty, does that make any of you feel like their love is so conditional?<BR>Let me explain...<BR>In my case my h says, I'm here or How can I be sorry when it got us where we are? (meaning working on us)<BR>If he really feels that way, then what about next time I don't live up to his standards?<BR>What if I gain weight again, or get sick, or just plain have a bad week and can't cater to his needs?<BR>If he doesn't feel sorry for hurting me, then what's to say it won't happen again?<BR>That is my fear. Like RWC said I can't ask him to say it, it has to come from his heart. I feel for some of you in here who have been doing for months. I've only been at it for 1 month and don't know how much longer I can go w/o my needs being returned. <BR>Anyway I am looking for opinions on this.<BR><P>------------------<BR>Mater<P>

I'm with you mater, it does matter. No pun intended! If they can destroy life as you knew it. Then tell you they want to try again. At least they could feel remorse. I know she feels bad she hurt me, but I don't think she feels bad it happened. Here I'm the one doing back flips and she acts like I'm the one that screwed up. I must admit that I was guilty of neglect, but she caused me to clam up. <BR>Boy if I knew it would come to this, I sure would have put my pride aside long ago! What gets me is I never knew this sweet God fearing women would resort to nucular weapons, I thought we were just fighting with bows and arrows.

Oh by the way mater, you said you didn't know how much longer you can go on like this. My answer would be maybe forever, ya see if you really love your spouse, and they are trying. No matter how frustrated you are, you can't end it. That's called LOVE. Why is that so sad?

RWC --<P>Forever? Yes it is love and we are working at it, here's my situation I was dumped with every responsibility, decision, bill, and worked and had 3 girls(now 8,6,4), so after months of crying to get him to help and listening to him say it was my agenda to have a big family, I clammed turned cold, we had pretty good sex during this but no emotions! So he had an EA with a girl at work. When I discovered this, i also found out while I was crying for help he was having a physical affair. I married him for his goodness, his God fearing personality and he has turned so. But Can I do this forever? FOrgive me for seeming selfish, I know I had a part in this, but don't I deserve to be made to feel needed, loved, special, his only one? I am doing all this for him and you say maybe forever I won't get what I need to heal? I am doing all I can for him. Sorry unloading, if you read my earlier posts I had a bad morning!<BR>Oh I hope it doesn't take forever! My heart I am afraid will dry up from fear and anxiety!<BR><P>------------------<BR>Mater<P>

When someone says that they're not sorry since it got us to work on the marriage, I think you should go deeper. In my opinion, that in and of itself is not a bad statement. It is how I would feel about my husband's affair if he ever ended it and worked on the marriage. And I am the betrayed.<P>The problem is it isn't a complete description. Ultimately, I think the betrayer MUST feel remorse about the self-centered and painful way he chose to behave. That is different from seeing some benefit come out of the ashes and being glad for that benefit.<P>I am an extreme optimist. I could find good in anything, including this affair (if it would ever end). But the betrayer must acknowledge at some point that he willfully hurtful someone he committed to protect and how wrong it was to do that. I think if he can't do that, then it all could easily happen again.<P>In the early stages, I think betrayers have tremendous blocking going on (especially when the affair is active). They cannot see the pain they inflict, and if by chance they catch glimpses, they're convinced that they have to do it to save themselves. So I think we should be open to this kind of attitude for a while. But if it doesn't change, there's a bigger problem.

Mater<P>For heaven's sake, please don't misunderstand me, when I said forever, I meant the love you have will last forever. And because you love, you will always be forgiving, at least you should be. Which means even if they never feel remorse, we will forgive them BECAUSE we love them. I know how you feel I'm only two months further down the road than you are, I really thought by now I would be on my way, but I'm no where near it. But think about this, it helped me. You choose to stay in the marriage because of your love. And love is the only thing that will make life half way normal again. I tried a wake up letter, I tried threats like "if you're not going to fall back in love with me, I won't wait for you forever". Those things just don't work. You got to love them back and that takes time, you must swallow your pride and be humble and yes meanwhile we will still hurt. But the bottom line it can't be forced by you, and they can't fake it. We both got to where we're at today because we didn't invest enough in keeping the marriage alive. It didn't fall apart over night, and it won't be fixed over night. I know every story doesn't have a happy ending, and yes we both want to see remorse, but we should be happy! Do you realize how many people on this web page are sitting by themselves tonight....We are the lucky ones!

This is a really interesting topic. Remorse. I think "distressed" has made a very good point. There has to come a time when both people can appreciate the good things that can come out of such a terrible experience, or else, I'm afraid, true healing doesn't happen. People seem to have different opinions about what true remorse looks like. In my case, I flogged myself endlessly, every day, was suicidal. Still my H didn't think I was sorry enough. Some people would be happy with a very sincere apology. You (meaning the betrayed) need to really think hard about what level of remorse you must have in order to continue your relationship, communicate that with your spouse, then stick with that as best you can. There is almost nothing worse than jumping through all the hoops, being remorseful, doing the work, just to find out that it still wasn't "enough" to earn forgiveness. I say almost, because for you, something worse would be to forgive them and have them cheat again. So there is the dilemma. When do you really know that the pain of their behavior has truly registered enough for them to change?

Thanks RWC.<P>I know how lucky I am to still have him here and to know that somewhere in the mess of things he must love me in return or he wouldn't be here. <BR>True love is all about risks. SO I risk truly loving him, I can't worry about the what ifs. If it should ever happen again, or if I never get what I am searching for, at least I will know for sure in my heart .. This time I did all the right things!<BR>I do so love him !<P>Thanks to everyone's replies on this. I feel better. <P>------------------<BR>Mater<P>

I'm starting to think that maybe I don't really understand what remorse is, or maybe I have a different definition than alot of people. If remorse means do I wish I could take it back and that it had never happened, then my answer is both "yes," and "no." If that also means my husband would have the option to take back how selfish he has been throughout our marriage, and that the verbal and emotional abuse he brought down on me for years had never happened, then sure, I'd love to erase the affair in a heartbeat. (Of course, if my husband had never done these things, I'm sure there'd have been no affair anyway.) But if "remorse" means that even with my husband still treating me like crap for so long I still wished I'd never cheated, then my honest answer is "no." That means that I wish we could have continued to go on the way we were, with him mistreating me, but me not having an affair? No way! I'd NEVER want to go back to that, ever! That was hell, and the affair didn't bring us hell, the hell was already there.<P>I like the way things are now. No, I LOVE the way things are now. My husband listens to me now and that is worth its weight in gold and I would never trade it for anything. If there had been a way to get here without the affair, sure that would have been great, but nobody can tell me that would have been possible. I lived it, I know what I was up against and it wasn't happening. So, oh well, if this had to happen to get us here, then I won't beat myself up about it.

Pod Person, <P>I don't want my husband to sorry for neccessarily the affair, but that he lied to me and hurt me. If that can be understood.<BR>I have a fear though that in his mind, I guess it's different for everyone, but I know my H and I feel like in his mind if that's what it took to knock me over the head to start loving him again then he can't be sorry for that. Maybe I am being the selfish one, but what about if I slip again, what if I make a mistake in the future, what if I don't lose the rest of the weight he wants me to lose, is he going to remember these commitments or think I can knock over the head again and she'll come around.<BR>I am really not angry nor do I pressure my h for anything, but I hate feeling his love is so conditional, that because I wasn't perfect he did what was needed to wake me up. Maybe this is unique to my situation. <BR>The thing is he refuses to see that I closed my heart to him because he was neglecting me and refusing to discuss our problems. So I closed up and he cheated. Now we are on our way and I truly pray we make it. <BR>M

Mater,<P>I guess that's why Dr. Harley says that love is conditional. I guess our human nature doesn't allow us to love unconditionally. If you closed yourself off to your husband because he wasn't fulfilling your needs, then it sounds like your love was conditional too. Well, not the love, but the WAY you loved your husband was just as conditional as the way he was going to love you was. Does that make any sense?<P>I see what you're saying, and all, but not knowing your situation, I doubt your husband cheated because you weren't "perfect," just like you didn't withdraw from him because he wasn't perfect. You both reacted to probably long term unfulfillment and dissatisfaction. How long have you been married? How long before your husband cheated? It probably took quite awhile for your marriage to deteriorate. Well, now that you both know the deal, I seriously doubt either of you will make those kinds of mistakes again, at least not without knowing what consequences to your marriage it will have.<P>If my husband was going to resort to calling me names again, or cursing me, I would really be shocked at this point. He understands full well where all that got us. I am just so sure that he will not do that again now that he knows. Sure, he may slip from time to time, but before, whenever I'd complain about the way he talked to me, he'd say, "there's nothing wrong with how I talk to you!" Bet I won't hear that ever again, especially since the counselor and just about every book we've read also says how spouses should not disrespect each other in that way. <BR>I also do not think your husband went out and cheated JUST BECAUSE you gained weight. That may have been one of the things that he didn't like, or let's say, along with everything else that was bothering him, the fact that you were overweight added to it. But I'd be willing to bet that very few men would cheat on their wives, overweight or not, if the wife treats them like a king. In other words, what I'm trying to say is, I doubt that weight concerns alone are not going to cause a man to cheat. <P>Hey, at least you both know what happened now. I just really don't think any marriage that goes through this and gets to the root of the problem can ever go back to the way things were. Our memories are too strong.<P>I hope you can get past the way you feel your husband is or is not showing remorse. If he's willing to recommit to the marriage and do his part, then I think that speaks volumes in itself. People just get too hung up on when their partner doesn't view the world exactly the same way as they do. Try real hard not to let that get you stuck.<P>Good luck to you. I wish you the best.

My H said that he "regretted" cheating on me with the STD Tramp, and that he didn't cheat again because he "didn't want to."<P>Somehow, that doesn't translate into true remorse for me. Basically, I think he regrets it because he got an STD and passed it on to me, which meant that he finally had to up and admit the "fling" because I had walked out.<P>His behavior toward me from that time until the time he finally admitted it (13+ years) has been abominable. Was it guilt for cheating or guilt for lying that made him so hateful to me? I dunno...probably both. There were also other earlier periods in our marriage when he was just awful toward me, and I now think that he was probably cheating then, as well. The past two years have been particularly awful; and, I remain convinced that something happened between him and Cafe Woman.<P>I guess that I would believe he really felt remorse if I truly knew that he was willing to open up to everything. His extreme defensiveness is one reason that I believe he hasn't been totally honest with me. I also believe that he is trying to protect Cafe Woman from me--even though I told him that if he was protecting some OW from me, he was putting her above me.<P>At the moment, I am pondering a way to get to the truth of the matter, since H doesn't want to discuss it anymore--says I'm "putting him on trial."<P>So, do I believe my H shows true remorse? No, I don't. I think that he still feels like he was "entitled" to do what he did. Sometimes, I wonder if he is just feeling sorry for me, and that is why he's working on the marriage.<P>But, as long as he acts like he really wants to rebuild our marriage (regardless of the reason), I will keep on Plan A-ing.<BR>

Sweetpea,<P>What you said really got me thinking. The way you describe him, your husband sounds very similar to mine, but I never suspected that he has ever cheated. Maybe I should ............ the plot thickens!

Pod,<BR> This is just me looking back at our 29+ years of marriage and trying to pinpoint when and why he changed his behavior toward me. The first time was when I was pregnant with our second child; all of a sudden, nothing I did was right....we were broke because I got pregnant (yeah, I did it all by myself!)...we were broke because I was wasting all his money (oh, wow! I bought myself a .35 Coke everyday...never mind that the washer/dryer were paid for in half the time, I made our son's clothes, as well as my own....and, oh yeah, this was during Jimmy Carter's recession, when we paid 21% interest on a brand new truck for H!). The lovemaking became sex on demand, etc.<P>Anyway, I was so flabbergasted and hurt at his change in behavior, but never thought that he was cheating!! I simply thought I had done something wrong, but I didn't know what it was!!<P>Now, looking back with a little more knowledge than I had at the time, I can see things...like he was working P/T on weekends at the fire department....supposedly having to stay all night. What I didn't know about, at the time, was the "fire department groupies." I was a really naive 23-yr-old!<P>So, yeah, I think that he probably started cheating then.<P>After our daughter was born (and he even ignored her--not my imagination; his <B>mother</B> even noticed it!--until I finally told him off) and was a few months old, things got better, although that was the first year he forgot my birthday. Then a couple of years after that, things got really bad again--to the point that I thought we would end up divorced. Anyway, I got pregnant. Before the pregnancy was confirmed, he made the comment that I would have to get an abortion because we couldn't afford any more kids. Anyway, the day the pregnancy was confirmed, I cried all the way home because I knew there was no way I would ever have an abortion; I was fully prepared for a divorce. Anyway, when I got home and told him, he really threw me for a loop when he said, "Well, it's one more young'n to love, and we'll do the best we can for it." We started finding our way back to each other then, but I think that he had been cheating prior to then, too. As it turned out, I miscarried a couple of weeks later. Over the next 4 years, things were pretty good by spells (but I think there was at least one "fling" in there), although never back to as good as they were before our second pregnancy. After we lost our 3rd child to stillbirth, we became so very close. The plain ol' sex finally returned to lovemaking--better than it ever was; in fact, we often woke up in the night to find ourselves in the act! I still miss that passion! Then, after we had 3 more miscarriages and then lost another daughter to stillbirth, I opened a child care center--with his full approval and support. This would enable me to bring in some income, be with our own children, and maybe help satisfy my yearning to care for babies again. It was the best way I could have found to deal with my grief, but I don't think he ever dealt properly with his. Anyway, about 1-1/2 years later, he had the 1-night stand with the STD Tramp. He had already gotten to being hateful again. We later moved to another town temporarily, and I got a job working 2nd shift. It turned out that H rarely came straight home from work, and he was usually drunk when he got home--not long before I did at 11 pm. Our kids were teenagers by that time, but they did NOT need to be unsupervised. Anyway, H didn't like commuting, I was upset about the kids being unsupervised, and we also had problems with the tenants in our house, so we moved back home. I suspect that there was more than the 1-night stand with the STD Tramp. H was awful.<BR> A couple of years later, I got a job 45-miles away in another city and started commuting. A lot of times, H would call me and tell me that he needed me to pick up some materials that he absolutely had to have the next day. The funny thing is that the materials would often stay in my vehicle for as long as a week before H would get them. So, I figure H was delaying my return to town.<P> But, the last two years have been the worse. H had never lost any desire for me until then, so I suspect that he was at least emotionally, and probably physically, involved with another woman, and the most likely candidate is a casual "friend". I do believe that he broke it off with her after I confronted him about cheating. Her subsequent reaction, along with his behavior, are what pointed my antennae in her direction. I do not believe that anything is going on now; she apparently decided that she wasn't going to stick around for someone who didn't care enough about her to drop his wife for her and got a new BF. I do believe that H has been in withdrawal for the past year. His behavior only changed when, after I had asked him to never go anywhere near her unless I was with him, I caught him blatantly disrespecting my wishes and disappeared on him for two days. That was when he finally admitted the fling that resulted in the STD, but he still denies everything else, and is still very defensive about it all.