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.

mthomas13, a few questions for you:

-What's the status of the divorce for which you filed? Are you divorced, or still legally married?

-How old are your children, and who had custody of them while you were living away from your home?

-Is your husband working (employed) now?

-Who else was living in your & your husband's home, and are they still there?

For future posts, it's easier to read your information if you break things up into paragraphs.

hi, gloveoil

status is still married; never followed through, i wanted and still want to recocile.

children are 20, 16 and 13 now; we had joint custody.

yes my husband is working; after the accident i got him a job with my dad, he hates it.

over the years someone friends and family needed help and lived with us; a friend who needed a place to stay with her children, my sister, his brother, my uncle who was ill, then my sister and her husband after they got married. my oldest son brought home a friend who was abandoned by his parents so we took him in too, he is the only one still with us.

i asked him out on a date tonite he agreed. i am thankful he doesn't always reject me.

Our date went well, we went to dinner, we laughed and had a good time. I feel pressure to keep the conversation going; if i don't it goes silent. I am feeling exhausted putting in 100% effort all of the time and recieving very little in return.

but i keep doing it out of guilt and feel maybe i deserve this as punishment for my EA then PA; but how long will i have to endure this torture? My EA happened because my emtional needs weren't being met and now i feel they will never be met again.

i want this to work.

Hi there,
Mthomas13, all you can do is do what you are doing.....slowly maybe he will see a side of you that is worth forgiving, this is the goal, maybe if what you are doing isn't working then try something else.....pay real close attention to the things he needs out of life and then try to give him those, don't expect anything in return for now..........give yourself a timeline and if things haven't changed for you then you have to just accept he isn't going to meet you half way............
keep trying to have conversations about you two and your future together in a good way,
good luck, I know it's hard, the rejection is the worst...............hang in there, anything worth fighting for is hard and it doesn't happen in a day...

mt,

Your affair did not happen because your emotional needs were not being met. You need to understand that your affair happened

because you chose to have an affair

instead of choosing other solutions to your marital issues.


There is no other "reason" for your affair. My strong suspicion is that your husband sees that you still believe you were justified in your own mind for your affair - because you believe that HE is to blame for your behavior:

"I had an affair because my husband did not meet MY emotional needs."


Do you see how this does not work?

This is a very selfish thing to say, and places the blame for your affair on your betrayed husband. Your mindset is not one of recovery, in the sense that you do not accept full blame for what you have done. You are seeking "reasons" or "justifications" for what you did, and these seem to nicely point to your husband being at fault.

There is no recovery track if you take this path. Your husband senses this in you.


Your marriage at the time of your affair, as you describe it, was not in terrific shape.

Your choice to have an affair - - - did it solve the problems or make them worse?

There were other choices, and you know that now. You actually knew it then, but felt the need to blame your husband, and turned outside the marriage for someone to talk to, someone to comfort you

and someone to agree with you about how terrible your husband was treating you. The OM did this - and it led to the destruction of the marriage.



I am saying this so you can fully understand why your husband does not trust where you are. He can't - because until you own the affair

100%

you will not see movement on his side of the fence towards any real reconciliation.

He has to KNOW that you see your complete and full ownership of the affairs. Your husband holds NO BLAME whatsoever in your behavior - and the concept that he did not fulfill your emotional needs is a complete and total cop out.

Please re-examine the MB material and understand that this is true.

Your husband never would have "enthusiastically agreed" to your affair - and it never would have passed the POJA test. It certainly did NOT meet your HUSBAND'S emotional needs

which is YOUR responsibility.


As to the question you have about "how long will this take"????


It will take him at least two years - that is, at least two years after YOU figure out whose fault this really is, and you go to work and stop griping about having to meet his needs.


Read also: Giver and Taker.

Because you need to be the Giver.......for a long time. If you expect to recover the marriage, that is how it is going to be.


IMHO


SB

Read SB's post.....many times. With humility.

i accept responsibility for what i did and i can't say or express how sorry i really am to him. i chose the wrong path and wish i knew how to stop it; i was weak, i know this.

when i look at my husband i see the pain i caused and it rips my heart out knowing i caused this horrible pain.

i love my husband; i want to be in love with him again.

i know he is reluctant to let me be apart of his life he has told me numerous times he doesn't think he can forgive me and love me again. but i keep trying.

he has asked me not to try so hard but i'm afraid if i don't he will think i don't want to be with him.

i am willing to be the giver for as long as it takes.

my afair made things worse; however i know now and understand what i want in a relationship and with my husband, before the afair i didn't know why i would get so depressed,

i did blame my husband for along time, i don't blame him anymore. i undestand what i did, i wish so badly i could take it back.

i'm not tring to complain or gripe about meeting his needs; i don't know what his needs are, he tells me he doesn't know so i feel in the dark, i clean the house do his laundry he tells me not to do that, a footbal game is on i offer to go with him to watch it he dclines, he has a headache i ofer to rub his head he says no thats ok, i make dinner he says i already ate.

do i keep doing these things? or is this annoyng him?
how do i show him i'm taking 100% responsibility for this?
how do i show him, i have apolgized continuously, i aked him if he wanted all my pass codes to email, phone, computer; he says no. i call him to let him know when i leave work; i don't go any where without asking if he wants to go or i don't go.

when he wants sex i do not reject him, i also initiate quite a bit because i want him to feel wanted.

the other night i asked him why he has been sleping on the couch he told me he didn't know if he could forgive me, he didn't know if he wanted this anymore; i cried and begged him to please not say those things; i told him i loved him, he said he doesn't doubt that but he is diffrent now.

it was late on a work night, i told him i needed to go to bed; he said i'll be up soon. i then recieved a text from him saying get naked cuz i'm going to ......
i did what he told me, with tears rolling down my face.

mthomas13,
I think you are doing all you can, you are doing everything right and you are also being accountable and you seem to be thinking the right way..
It looks like he just might need a little more time to fall back in love with you, look he would be gone if he really wanted......... wouldn't he....
I remember when I was going through the same sort of thing, trying to Plan A my husband, at first it seemed it was just me doing all the right things. Slowly he came around........every once in a while I would back off and I could see that after a few days he would start to come back to me and interact on a more intimate level.....
I think he started to miss the new contact we had, which was good for him....I was meeting all his needs again, the ones he wanted me to meet before his affair...........when I stopped giving it for a couple of days, he eventually started initating himself.......
It is a long slow road especially for you, patience is the key and the big picture in the end should be your focus..............don't worry about the daily bumps.....

MT,

Stop asking him "if" he wants you to go with him: just go with him.

Stop asking him "if" he wants you to give him your passwords - just write them down and give them to him.


Take the emotional needs questionnaire on your own, pretending you are HIM. Then, do what it takes to meet his needs. Instead of waiting to see "if" he wants dinner, call him up and tell him that you have dinner planned, and that's that.

Right now, he is rejecting you - so that you will CHASE HIM. He needs to feel like you want him enough to chase him. The way you went about seeking the other man, he wants to be wanted in that way - enough that you will go out of your way to seek him out, make it all worth his while, that he is desired above all men in your life.

Talking about it doesn't help! Most men don't want to hear it - they just need to see the actions.

From a linguistic standpoint, when you "ask" him if he "wants" you to go along with him, this can be interpreted as YOU rejecting him. Truth. It is often the case that saying to someone, "Do you want me to go with you", or "Would you like me to come along" is really carrying the underlying meaning of:


"I don't really want to come along, but I am asking because I feel a sense of obligation. Please say NO."



When he is going somewhere, you need to be a lot different with your language. Say something like, "I'm really looking forward to watching the game with you. I already have my outfit picked out, and was wondering, what time do we leave?"

There is not a way for him to interpret that as anything but you DESIRING to go, and there isn't a "no" response he can offer. If he doesn't want you to go, he will have to work to respond to it, and it would require an explanation on his part.



My thoughts from my previous post still stand. I truly believe if you conveyed more giving to him - in the way he needs to have it done, you will see progress. But he doesn't trust you with his heart! Why? Because he hasn't heard the right words or seen the action he needs. He still senses entitlement from you.

You need to figure out how to convey to him that you truly understand what you have done. Apologizing is not the way to do that. There is a book out there that speaks to the way to make restitution for things, I can't recall the exact title, but it is something like "the Five Ways to Apologize". It is similar to the Five Languages Of Love....so you might look for that. It is a book that offers many ideas on how to convey your apologies in ways that you may not have considered.


You need to be extremely patient. I am now at five years post d-day. It is only now that I have truly begun to trust that the changes my husband committed to early on in our recovery are REAL for him. He has not varied, and yet it is five years down the line. I was just thinking about this over the last few weeks, as we approached the anniversary of d-day, how he has really put forth so much effort, and yet I often met him with a very closed response. I wondered if that was unfair of me, and I worried that I must have hurt him over the years.


Yet, I know that I also gave him this opportunity to return to the marriage, after he had done something nearly unforgiveable. This doesn't excuse my behavior....


I am torn.


You can see, MT, that this is difficult no matter what side of the recovery fence you are on. Even after five years.


You need to dip yourself in a patience bath, and do it frequently. Otherwise, you won't make it past next Sunday!


SB

thank you, te suppt is greatly needed. i'm not always sre i'm doing enough and should be doing more; i just don't know what else to do.

there is so much pain between us; am i doing the right thing?
sometimes i feel like i'm causing him more distress than good; i don't want to blow this, i've already made so many mistakes.

what do i do about his family; his mother hates me.
the holidays are coming up and his 40th bday; i am not welcome.

do i sacrifice the holidays and spend them alone? so he can take the kids to be with his parents?

my birthday is 12-24; we have always had xmas with his fam on that evening, last year he didn't because i was not welcome and we argued over it,the kids felt torn and he was resentful towards me. i don't want that to happen again.

he is also hiding his friends from me; i know this is bcause he is ashamed of me. how do i fix this?

thank you SB; your perspective is greatly appreciated. I will take your advice and try to be more assertive with him, i just didn't want to be pushy or bossy, but the way you spelled it out, makes sense and i didn't think of it that way.

I will let you know how this works.

in regards to your story, after 5 yrs are you still meeting him with closed responses?

I am a very affectionate person, my husband is not but he tried early on in our marriage and over time he just stopped. i am stuffing my feelings and crying whenever he is not around; i am in therapy i go once a week and he wants me to stop going. i don't think i should.

in regards to our children; i have tried to talk to him but i am met with extreme anger and he feels i am challenging his decisions. our youngest two; 16 and 13 go to bed on a school night way too late in my opinion. the 16 yr old is up until 11:30-12midnight and my youngest the 13yr old not until 10:30-11; this is not ok with me; how do i approach this with out making him angry? i tried telling him this is too late for them they need adequate sleep for school and to be healthy.

SB,
what about the holidays? his family hates me; i am not welcome; i asked and expressed some concerns in an earlier post.

You can not. I would hope that with time he will accept you.
This sounds like living torture.
Please keep reading - great advic! btw-
and posting.

well, your doing all you can at the moment...i'm sure it's hard feeling guilty and trying to me his needs with no expectations that your needs will be met...

first of all you screwed up...that's life, you made some bad decisions...if you're Christian, seek forgiveness from God...He will forgive you, your husband, family and friends may not, but that's their problem, not yours.

you can say you'll stay for as long as it takes, but everybody has a breaking point...at some point you'll find yourself in another EA...so have a plan ready and boundaries set...give your husband some time to reconnect with you own his own...so don't push him, simply try and meet what needs you can for now...you'll know in 8 months to a year if this is going to work out or not...

you could always try the 40 Day Love Dare (DON'T let him know of this)...that could help ease you both into recovery...worth a try...

what is the 40 day love dare? i will try anything.

mthomas,

You said How is that going to happen if you are not living your life and enjoying time with him?

You have more control in this than you think. One thing you can be sure of is that your H loves you, he hates what you did, and he is, I'm sure, not sure he is good enough to make you happy with him.

Given that this last part is true, how is he going to heal if you only "want to be in love with him?" He needs more and that means you cannot go around in sackcloth beating yourself up.

It means you need to be someone he enjoys being around.

Please think about this.

God Bless,

JL

I'm trying to be happy but I'm so afraid of making him mad. I'm walking on eggshells. Trying to not upset him or give him any reason to get angry. Its difficult and complicated. If I do what he wants and don't cause waves or what he calls drama things are ok. I am not happy I won't be for a very long time. I'm trying to go one day at a time. He just now is allowing me to hug him when I ask if I can.

I'm feeling very defeated and very much alone.

He makes plans with friends and I'm not invited; this weekend is a footballgame he is going with his friends and their spouses I asked if I could go he said I prefer you didn't. I wanted to cry but I sucked back the tears and said ok. I've been trying to learn about the game so I could watch games with him and know what's going on.

I don't know what to do. Ill sit here sat night with nothing to do and cry. If I do something without him then he could accuse me of something later so its best I don't do anything.

I need to cry now but that will upset him so ill wait til I go to bed and c cry myself to sleep. I'm considering antidepressants again.

Mthomas13,
all you can do is meet his needs, be loving, do little things for him that he will notice......don't expect anything in return, don't pressure him, slowly things will turn around.........
It's tough I know, but you can do this watch the movie Fireproof on Sat night see how one person can turn things around when it seems like there is no hope......
Keep up with the little hugs, touch him when you walk by or pick lint off his clothing whatever you have to do to make a little connection......Look right at him when you speak............smile at him.........slowly he will want those things in his life and things will turn around.........
Patience is the key and no expectations for now.........