You are not in a recovery, your marriage is still at it's stake, if you don't do anything right now you will lose him for ever.

I agree if the OW is not out of the picture, then recovery will be difficult.....
You need to stay firm with what is acceptable for you and your marriage.
Good job on making the respect levels between you better......little by little things will change for you guys.........
My therapist always says trust UNTIL............that's where you start, don't feel weak, you and your history are more powerful than you think

Well then things were going alright. H going to NY bothers me alot but I was just gonna deal with it until last night. He calls at 6pm to tell me they got to NY and they were going to go to get something ot eat (H and 2 other guys from work). H said he'd call me either that night or in the morning depending on how things went. 10pm rolls around and I try sending H a text asking how things are going. Try calling and H phone is turned off. Well H calls me finally around 11pm. Automatically goes into excuses. They got lost (ok that i could believe) and conveniently all 3 of their cell phones die (that is just to much of a coincidence to buy).

Then he starts getting an attitude with me because i'm upset and don't believe his story. I just don't know what to think anymore. Then I see a charge on the card for almost $5 at a drug store up in NY. And when I look at his call log he called some number at 1am and they only talked for 2 mintues. I don't know if i'm overreacting or what.

Hi there,
Look you can't control what he is doing, only yourself. This will drive you crazy, just keep checking and if you have solid proof of something going on, then you can talk to him, just show him a woman improved that's all you can do from where you are at right now......
It's tough but you can do it.....right now you have to just work on a better you so he can see the good in that, ...........

I know the only thing I can control is me but it's hard to just deal with all this. I mean maybe if he seemed actually remorsefully for what he's putting my through and what he did than okay but when I still feel like his job is still what comes first to him it drives me insane and I'm having a real hard time dealing with it. I really just want to go to the OWH and tell him everything.

@Fighting -

If your WS is in contact with OW then by all means expose to OWH.

The other stuff about remorse about what he did and him putting his job first is your Taker.

It is good that you bring these things here instead of venting to WS.

If I could make a suggestion. Read up on Plan A, what it is and what it is not. Read up on Giver/Taker. Read up on the states of a marriage.

When dealing with your WS what you are expecting is his Giver, but all your getting is his Taker. Using your giver is the only way to pull him from withdrawal to conflict and then finally intimacy. If you use your taker only, he will stay in withdrawal.

The old timers might correct me, but I think that the only time you will use your Taker is during conflict when your are POJAing. By using POJA it should satisfy both your Takers and get you right back into intimacy. If you use your Taker during conflict to create LB, then it will lead to withdrawal.

IMHO (correct me if I'm wrong), the easiest way to deal with the issues you spoke about is to start out in intimacy. Then POJA the issues.

Ok but if we were using POJA H wouldn't be in NY right now because I am not ok with it at all. I tried to come up with a solution (my friend would watch the kids and I would accompy him to NY) but that was met with exucses from H "it's my job not a vacation, we don't have the money, etc"

You keep talking about withdrawal but H has no feelings for the OW and as far as I know there hasn't been any contact. H clearly stated that OW was purely for the sex and nothing more. they didn't hang out or anything like that outside of work except a few rare occations when it was at a co-workers party or during a work outting. The deal between them was purely sexual. Which of course leads me to the concern that my H is capable of one night stands since he don't need an emotionaly connection to OW to have sex with her.

I try to use POJA but that don't work since H always has an excuse to not adjust just like the NY thing. Which always leaves me alone crying. I just don't know what to do?

@Fighting -

So this trip wasn't POJAed. Your post has a lot of things that I see:

You feel that H is not being honest and open. Your EN. He gives you excuses to not POJA. This is IB. This is a big LB for you. IB is a sure sign of withdrawal. You can't POJA when H is in withdrawal. The only way to get what you want is if your H is in intimacy. Got to get to Intimacy.

So your in Plan A and your H is LBing you. Your Taker is expecting compensation. Accept that you are not going to get compensation while he is in withdrawal. The IB is a sign to you that he is not in the marriage. This is hurtful to you and makes your Taker want the pain to stop.

You need to read this link: Three states of Marriage. Read through the links. Especially the last one.

I'm going to give an example of how My Taker gets me into trouble.

My XGF was in withdrawal. I'm trying to meet her intimate needs. Things seem to be going pretty smoothly. Then one day we're talking on the phone and I said something that made her angry. She said she had to go and hung up the phone.

My feelings were hurt. As far as I knew I had done nothing wrong. My Taker then started texting. Saying things Like how come your mad? What did I do? Well if thats the way your going to be then fine. (Love Busters)

What I should have texted was. I'm sorry I upset you. When possible can we talk about it?

Guess where we are now?

I didn't prepare myself for the conflict. conflict is good. I have to go through conflict to get to intimacy.

Somehow you have to get into conflict and then intimacy in order to get to where you want to be. Put your Taker in charge of this plan. Instead of lettting it whine about this or that or what your H is doing. Give your Taker a plan to get your H back from withdrawal.

I have been married to my husband going on 18 years; our marriage was decent; but other people besides our 3 children were always living with us so private time didn't happen. About 5 years ago my husband had auto accident where the other man died. It was devastating; our relationship took a turn for the worst; things happened and were said that shut me completely down. A man was hired months after my husbands accident at my work and he started paying attention to me and my feelings for him grew fast, before that happened i had no clue what an emotional affair was. Over months it became physical with hugs and kisses. My husband found out and asked me to end it. I wrote several letters to this man ending it, but he continued and I couldn't fight the feelings I was having. This dragged out over 3 years, I became more and more resentful towards my husband every time he tried to do the things i wanted. At the time I was angry and didn't want those things from him, I rejected him quite often; we fought non stop because of this. It became unbearable to be in the same house with him; I cried constantly not knowing who to turn to for guidance. My relationship with my husband had become hateful. I moved out last year in July; I knew if i didn't get away I wouldn't survive. I left our home and rented an apartment, the relationship with the co-worker ended before I moved out because I had quit my job. I filled for a divorce, my husband and I couldn't even speak to one another without yelling; it seemed impossible. I started seeing another man who I went to high school with, I simply enjoyed his company at first, then feelings for him started, he was saying and doing all the right things but they made me angry. He wasn't the person I wanted those things to come from. I became extremely depressed after attempting to reconcile with my husband in October of last year; I told him everything because he said he needed to know. My husband asked me to apologize to his parents; I went to each of them seperately.I was met with open arms by his father and told by his mother when I left I divorced the family and I was not welcome at Christmas. His mother told me I chose to leave the family and I can't just come back when I want to. I was devasted; My husband shut down and things got worse. I ended up loosing my apartment taking FMLA from work, sedated most days and therapy for 3 months. I went back to work this year in March. I've been staying with family and friends; I've slept in my car and most weeks live out of a bag. I have been putting forth an extreme amount of effort to make things work between my husband and I, with very little effort on his part. He states he doesn't think he can forgive me. The last month I have been staying at the house with him and the children, I thought things were going well, until he told me last night he doesn't think he can do this. I have been doing everything he asks, I haven't caused any waves, no arguements. He puts forth so little effort, but when he does I have hope. Last week he read your basic concepts with me; so i thought that was a start. I am at a loss. I learned so much about myself and my needs through this ordeal of my selfishness and my betrayal of a man who used to love me, he just didn't know how to show me. I am 38 years old and I don't want to waste anymore time that I could have with him. I know in my heart we could work this out if he would give it a chance. Please help me.

mthomas what does any of that have to do with my situation. Please if you need help that is fine but dont do it on anothers thread start your own. It's rude to piggy back on somone elses thread. I'm sorry this is happening to you but you'll get more help if you start your own thread so ppl can find you.

i'm new to this im sorry

its ok just wanted to let you know so if you post your own you'll get more traffic than if you try to post on someone elses.

IB? I read the link and I understand the concept but it's hard to follow. I have tried to follow it but after so long I snap and can't take it anymore. I get fustrated with the lack of care or remorse from H and I do start to get angry. No this trip to NY wasn't at all agreed on. All I got was the same thing I always get from H "it's for work, I don't have a choice, I being made to go, etc.." H refuses to even intertain the ideas I toss out to resolve the issue. I understood it was for work but i thought since I have always wanted to go to NY and we could of made it a mini vactaion. Its for the MMA expo and I enjoy the MMA/UFC so I could of went with him and just got a friend to watch the kids for the weekend. But he wouldn't even intertain the idea it was just shot down. How do I deal with that just take it? I'm just tired of being the only one who has to sacrafice when he was the one who had the A.

Of course it's hard. And of course it's not fair.

If you want fair go get a divorce. The court will fairly divide your assets and debts. It will fairly divvy up the custody of your children. Is this what you want?

MB is very specific that the BS is going to be on the unfair side of the stick. Those links specifically stated that the Giver gets the short-end.

You know Plan A is not for an indefinite period of time. Do you have a time frame for starting Plan B? I know that you've cherry picked your exposure of WS affair. Don't cherry pick the Plan A/Plan B. It will end up hurting you in the long run.

You need to read up on some posts of Plan Aers. The ones that I liked the best were by Neak and princessmeggy. Read up.

Also, have you identified the top ENs that your H has? Are you fulfilling them?

This qoute:

Your Taker is talking here. The short answer is: YES!

In order for your marriage to recover you have to get to the point where his Giver is available.

You sound like you're almost at the breaking point. Are you spending a lot of time trying to recover the marriage? As long as the affair is over, you have time to work on recovery. Work on stopping the LBs and start meeting H ENs to fill his $LB.

This is a long long road. People have been hurt all around. Not just you, but also your H. Go read some of the posts in the recovery forum to see that recovery is not all that easy.

I wish there was a silver bullet or an `easy button`, but there isn't.

F4F I'm going to give you a quiz....

1.) Does your WH still see the OW? At work? Store? etc?
yes or no

2.) Does your WH understand how you feel and feel remorse on what he has done to you?
yes or no

3.) Is your husband open and honest with you? (if you have a gut feeling that he is not this answer is automatically a NO)
yes or no

If they are ALL no then you will lose him, do you understand? I really hope you do.

You need to expose this affair much farther, or you guys needs to move, or he needs to find another job. If nothing changes then I'm sorry, I can not help you.

SR 1. no not that i know of. 2. H does know how i feel i tell him but no i don't feel any remorse from H for his A and I've told him that too. 3. yes and no. i feel he is not completely honest with me and only tells me enough but not everything.

I have contacted the OWH. But I don't get the feeling he cares very much at all. I've told him I wanted to talk to him in person to provide the proof if needed but he at first was like "i don't need proof i just want to get this settled" i got the feeling that either he just didn't care like he already knew or that it was the OW trying to cover her tracks. So i told him i wanted to do this in person but it's not easy to schedule a time to meet up. I really don't want to bring my children to this but i had to quit my job because we couldn't afford the daycare anymore so it's not like i can just drop them off at the center anymore. Then i tried to get up with him and just do this today since H is gone but never got a reply back from OWH so I don't know.

C_K

I know it's hard but it's a never ending. I do feel I am almost to the breaking point. I have been meeting H # 1 EN (sex) even though at times all i can think of is H and OW together which makes meeting that EN very hard for me but I still do. Which I think is affecting my love for him though. We have been going the a great MC which has given us a plan to assist us with rekindling our love (date night once a week, 3 days a week spend 15 mins talking after kids go to bed) but we have had 1 date night since we've started and it's been almost 2 months now. There is always and excuse and we are supposed to talk H is too busy watcihng tv or he is too tired that we have done the talk maybe 3 times.

I mean i know i'mnot perfect and we didn't have a proper recovery from my A yrs ago but even then I basically let H use me as a door mat for 2 yrs because i felt guily for my A. So i don't see how I'm supposed to let him use me again as a door mat when it was him that messed up this time.

Like the MC had use working together at home, H was helping with the kids and he was at least helping with the dishes but i got sick real bad and was out for roughly 3 wks. I wasn't up to met his EN for sex and I didn't have the strenght to do the dishes so the house just became a mess cuz H got mad that I wasn't helping but I was sick all I wanted was to lay in bed but I was still forced to watch the kids (DD was sick as well). H didn't seem to care that I was sick, H said he understood but his actions showed the complete opposite.

Just like with this NY thing. And the issue that happend last night / early this morning. He won't just say sorry for upsetting me he keeps trying to make me feel like i'm the one that is in the wrong for even getting upset. I was already on edge with him even going but I'm just expected to deal with this and his lack of respect of care for my feelings.

I'm real close to the end and I don't want to be but I just can't take much more of this from him. it's like a broken record with him. We keep going over the same things over and over again with no change from him.

***edit***

Well here is a new start for everyone. H got orders..... Japan now if that isn't moving far far away I don't know what is. But we really have to work on us before this move otherwise this could be very bad.