Sarah McLachlan... I love her music, Angel has been my go to song for a lot of my life and my troubles. I have a beautiful live version of the song you posted as an MP3, it's very haunting.

I hope things are getting better for you and I pray for y'all, that you will find peace.

SC:

Not a problem.

What WPG has described her "NSA SF" to be, is like nothing that I would have ever had with my BW. Just show up, do it and leave? No. Not me.

I will tell you that Flamingo was emotionally disconnected from me during that time (as was I from her), and she may be able to give you greater details of how SHE felt. She MAY have felt that way. I do not know. However, I never intentionally treated her that way. Mr WPG is INTENTIONAL about his actions here.

And, YES, I was taking from my wife. In many other ways not just SF, during my affair. Compartmentalization? Yea, I did that. I did that real good.

Flamingo likes me ALOT better now.

LG

Well said, LG. I like the fact that you remain aware of the past but are not dwelling there.

WPG, I am so sorry for you. As a BW, that's saying alot. I know you made your bed and now you need to lie in it, but the sadness in your recent posts is palpable. Maybe things will change, maybe not, but I agree with LG. Not participating in the NSA SF with your husband is OK. He can't treat you like a ONS and be okay with it, and neither should you.

While I hope that your BH comes around, I have to say that I don't know if GO would have stuck around as long as you have waiting for me to begin to work on recovery. You have a strength that is amazing! Since he has moved out, you need to move forward with preparing for a life without hm. Maybe that is just the kick in the pants that he needs to make a decision one way or the other, with or without you. You are a FWW, not a doormat. You have owned your stuff and that is all you can do. I will be praying for you.

Hi WPG,

I am sorry things are getting better for you. I am rooting for you. Just do what you can and take care of your two little girls. You can only change yourself.

I am not religious but the serenity prayer is helpful.

Accept the things I cannot change.
Courage to change the things I can change.
The wisdom to know the difference.
Patience for the things that take time.
Appreciation for the things I do have.

Something like that,I may have butchered it.

Take care!

Even though it hurts there of course is a chance your BH will not give you a second chance. But you are trying, have made changes, are remorseful and learned your lesson. Just continue on with your life and maybe one day your BH will join you. If not, you can only do so much (AS much as it hurts to think about this as WS).

That's the thing. Even knowing that he wants it to be NSA, and knowing that it can never be that for me, I still can't resist him. He texted me last Thurs. night wanting me to meet him on Friday, and I did. And even though the SF was reeeeally good, I still kick myself mentally later. Then Saturday, knowing we had a kid-free night, I texted him with "Do you have a fantasy?" and I get the response, "No, not really." Maybe I was too vague, lol.

I get confused. If it was just to fill a need for him, then why care if I was satisfied or not? Throughout our M, I was always the HD spouse. We have probably had SF more frequently now than during our M (except for HB that took place during that 4 months of trickle truth at the beginning). All during our M, I never had complaints about quality of SF, it was quantity for me. But sometimes I wonder if I wanted it more b/c intimacy was so lacking in other areas. And maybe that is why part of me is still willing to keep going with the SF, because it is intimacy (false intimacy, perhaps, but intimacy nonetheless), or in the hopes that something will spark for him again...but the other part of me says just what you all are saying - he's moved out, I need to move forward, prepare for a life w/o him...and part of life w/o him is knowing that at some point the SF, NSA or not, will have to stop.


My family, my friends, who know the whole story, keep trying to remind me that I wasn't happy in our M. I don't know that they all quite grasp that mistreatment/neglect doesn't justify my A, but as long as I grasp that, as long as I own that, then it doesn't really matter what they think.

And how our M was like before doesn't really matter to me - I don't know if that makes sense. It's just that I know we both contributed to the state of our M. I've forgiven him for his part in that, the hurts and slights, real or imagined. It doesn't do me - or my hopes of reconciliation - any good to dwell on the bad parts. And after learning everything that I've learned over the past year and a half, I believe that working together, we can have a better M, one better than we'd imagined. I know he's capable of fulfilling my EN's, I saw him do it, I lived it. We didn't have that knowledge before, so I can't hold that against him. And under everything, I believe he is a good-hearted man. He just didn't know what marriage was supposed to look like. Truthfully, neither did I, because we are unique individuals, we aren't my parents or anybody else and our M wasn't going to be like anyone else's, either.


But capable does not = willing. I understand that it is his choice. And part of what hurts so badly is looking back at my life...I know I've posted about this before waaay back, but when I was younger and dating, I let guys use me because somewhere in my twisted brain I thought sex = love...that if I let a guy do X, then he'd love me. Obviously wrong thinking that I never really "got over" as, well, duh, I allowed myself to have an A because I wanted "lurve" that I thought I wasn't getting (at least that was one of the many lies/justifications that I made up to tell myself). And now I feel like my H, who I always thought was somehow different, is using me like all the others (now, that is how *I* am feeling, I am not making a DJ and assuming that is how he's feeling). And maybe right now I am just letting H do X (and Y and Z) b/c I am still feeling like if I do, then he'll love me...and maybe that is making me into a doormat...So I have my own issues to work on that are on my part of the street (so it is probably a good thing, and about time, that I am starting IC today).


Funny, Sunday night I was helping the girls finish their valentine cards for school, and out of nowhere DD#1 looks at me and says emphatically, "I don't want a stepdad!" I said, "I know, baby, I don't want you to have one either." She said, "I don't want a stepmom either. I won't call her mommy. I won't call her anything, I will just walk in the house and ignore her." I didn't really know what else to say, other than I told her that wasn't something we needed to be worrying about right now. And my mom said yesterday after school she was getting the girls started on their homework, and DD#2 has to read guided reading books every night. Mom asked her if she wanted to read her book to her, and DD#2 said, "No, I want to read to Pa, because he's more like Daddy, and I miss reading to Daddy."

The girls don't say things like that to H, because - I've asked them if they talk to their daddy about how they feel - they are afraid of making him angry (their words). Typically they don't say much to me about it either, b/c again, their words, they don't want to make me sad. Once my IC gets underway, I may bring up the girls, and see if family counseling for them would be beneficial.

@T_W_C, thank you! I wish I felt strong...I appreciate your comments & support, not only b/c I am grateful for all the support I've gotten from folks on this site, but also because coming from a FBS, it means alot. You know what?


I printed that out and stuck it on my desk where I can see it.

@ L123, might need to add the serenity prayer next to it!

I still haven't seen an attorney, even though people keep telling me to. I have read on other threads about how it was the WS's choice to have an A, so if anyone leaves the home it should be the WS...so I guess I am still having problems feeling like it is "right" for me to stay in the home. Whether I've earned the "F" in front of FWW or not, I'm still feeling as though it is unfair. I started looking at apartments and houses for rent in the same area. Not a lot turned up, there are some nearby apartments that are right across the street from the girls' school, so that is an option if it comes to that. I brought up separating the finances, but then when he seemed to be OK with the idea, I panicked and backed down.

I'm afraid to prepare for life w/o him, or for him to think I am preparing for life w/o him, even though wiser heads have said that is exactly what I need to do.

OK, 'nuff with the soap opera. I gotta get some work done today and I wrote much more than I intended (y'all are used to my wordiness by now, I am sure!)

Do your kids talk to him about moving back? They are your strongest allies. Do you talk to your inlaws and all that to see if he'll move back?

No - I don't think the kids breathe a word to him. They act like nothing's wrong, everything is hunky dory in front of him. When they tell me they miss him or say something similar, I'll ask if they've talked to their dad, and DD#1 will shrug and change the subject. DD#2 said she is "afraid of making him mad." Shortly after he left, DD#2 did tell me she asked him when he was coming home, and he said "Never." She said one time he yelled at her for saying something, but wouldn't really talk about it, and I can't see him yelling at her, so I think she may be exaggerating about something. She's very sensitive (almost overly so) and I can believe that she is scared to say anything else after the "never" response. I mean, his normal response to me wasn't yelling, it would be to ignore.

But yeah, I agree the kids are my strongest allies. My folks have said the same thing. It's sad they aren't comfortable talking to him, though. But truthfully, I don't want to tell him that DD#1/DD#2 said "such and such" because he's accused me before of trying to use the kids to manipulate him. I do my best to encourage the girls to open up on their own, but don't really know what else to do...which is why I'm wondering if they may need some counseling as well to help get them through this.

I do talk to my MIL occasionally, who has really suprised me through all this. Unfortunately H refuses to talk to her, and quite honestly I think she avoids talking to him just like the kids, because she's afraid of his reaction. All she says is that he is very angry, and that he's just "an unforgiving person." I don't talk to the stepmom much, or his sister, and his aunt (the only other family member who knows) refuses to communicate with me.

@WPG -

You are putting on your big girl pant's and talking of ownership of your affair.


Have you taken ownership of this? You talk about you meeting your BS EN for SF and then talk about how he won't let you meet other needs. Here is your chance for some O&H with some Conversation. Let him know that the children miss him reading to them. That they feel they can't talk to him.

Why are you not talking to your children, because you start to feel sad? What can you do about that?

Your children are way smart (they must have some good parents)! They know that for themselves to be happiest they need there Mommy and Daddy to be together in a loving and caring relationship. It is not using the children when they want this and you communicate this to your BS.



Do you see the similarities here in these quotes?

Here is a link to the whole Freeloader, Renter, Buyer post.

You know what, c_k? I read Pep's post in SAA earlier today and thought, wow...I'd read the articles on the website before and maybe it just hadn't clicked with me yet, but I read that post and thought, dang, I can see our whole M laid out here. I was the giver. I played the martyr card. I sacrificed because I thought I was making H happy, but it wasn't making me happy. I thought, if he loved me, he'd know what he needed to do to make me happy. And sure enough, the seed of resentment landed in my heart and it grew. And when my taker came out, at first it was just disrespectful words, words spoken in anger. Then the emotional distance, the gradual drifting towards IB, and then...well, we know what happened then.

My mother made a comment to me recently, that she didn't believe I'd ever learned to love myself. Maybe not:


I don't know that H and I ever POJA'ed anything - it was more like this:


And then looking at the part about conflict avoiders...that's H, totally. He admitted that he'd retreat rather than engage in conflict with me. He'd stonewall and distance himself.


This part really hit home, from star*fish (my emphasis added):


c_k, THIS WAS ME. And it was all these little things, day in day out, that were draining my LB$ and I had no idea what was going on. I convinced myself that H didn't love me b/c if he loved me, he'd want to make me happy, he'd know how to make me happy...instead of realizing that I needed to take responsibility for my own happiness...

AND THEN...

Dang. So I'm trying to be a "buyer" by trying to make permanent changes in myself, but because I'm still reverting over and over back to "sacrifice" mode, I keep falling back into a renter mindset.

Maybe this M is not repairable. But at least I know what went wrong. Where we went wrong. And it began well before I ever had an A. I wish we'd known all this in the beginning. I wish I'd learned it from my parents (who, as I've said, I always thought had a "normal" relationship but OMG my mother is SUCH a renter - giver giver giver all the way - and she'd never see herself as that, and my folks have been married 43 years!).

You're right in that I need to be O&H about what's going on w/the kids. They need him in their lives. They miss him day-to-day. He needs to know that. And I need to not care what his response to my honesty is, I just need to lay it out there. It's ironic I do encourage my girls to be honest w/him, yet they see me being dishonest by not saying these things.

I encourage them to talk to me too. I try not to cry in front of them but sometimes I just start crying over something random. I just keep telling them that it's OK to feel the things they feel, and that they shouldn't worry about making me sad if they tell me things. That's definitely something I can work on, because what I am doing is training them to be exactly like me - hold in your unpleasant feelings because you are afraid of making someone else feel angry/sad/substitute negative emotion here.

thanks, c_k - I think I can skip the therapy session this afternoon, we got it all figured out!

And at that point, we role swap, WPG. That is where you and I are more alike than you and FWW, or I and your BH being alike.

I gave until I was out of gas. When I tried to fight and got nothing, I just shrugged and trucked along until the taker came out again.

I trained her to take and take and take... and when I stopped giving?

Yeah.

Remember, your H can say the same things.... These realizations, though enlightening, can cause you to misplace your energy into dissecting the past more than you ought. Just please be careful, it's easy to start rewriting histories, again!



This is where the energy needs to go....

Buyers have plans! Buyers make LONG TERM investments. Buyers avoid reacting, they never seek short term, temporary solutions, they stay steadily engaged in their long term plans.


Have a great day!

You grasp that nothing justifies your A.....

But do you grasp that these same people had more knowledge about your unhappiness, than your own husband had?

Have you taken the time to share with these people that they knew more about how you felt than your own Husband did?

Have you clarified things with these friends and family and owned your part of the blame in your pre-A marriage?

You gossiped and criticized about your husband to friends and family, Pre-A.... Have you owned and clarifed, to these others, the disrespect you demonstrated toward your H? Have you told them how dishonest you were, even Pre-A?

WPG, this is tough stuff! But becoming a buyer requires correcting all of our relationships. Openness & Honesty comes in the form of ammends to others, IMVHO, it is part of becoming a buyer.

You're right - H could say the same, and sit back and accuse me of taking - because he was providing FS, FC, and DS. We were trying to meet EN's, but since we weren't - neither of us - O&H with each other, we had no clue what each other's top EN's were. I treated H like he had the same needs as I did, and vice versa. So I can definitely see your point here: both giving, both sacrificing, and both frustrated because while we were getting some needs met, they weren't the ones that were at the top of our lists.



I have owned up to my failures pre-A with these folks, more than anything, I don't want people to think H is the "bad guy" for leaving. Which is the same reason I owned up about the A to his mother and sister. And you're right, it is tough!!! I still don't know that my parents quite grasp it, but then, I'm their daughter, and they focus more on my hurt than on my contributions (other than the A, in which they were extremely disappointed {understatement!} in me). What really opened my eyes was even before finding MB was going through a Love & Respect class at church. I clearly saw us as being on what they call "The Crazy Cycle." MB elaborated on and expanded that knowledge exponentially. And the funny thing is, I've gotten pretty good at giving my girlfriends relationship help because when they talk about their M's I can clearly see where LBs are playing a role, where ENs might not be met, etc.

One of the lessons in the Respect Dare dealt with wives gossiping about and criticizing our husbands. It stings even more that I unfairly criticized my H to OM, and H was able to recover some of the words I wrote via email and chat. Post-A, with my little bit of knowledge under my belt, my eyes were opened and I SAW it - I'd get together with girlfriends and the talk would turn to H-bashing. And I realized that I would give anything to have the little problems - socks on the floor, dirty dishes in the sink - be the only things I had to worry about again. I started making the effort to stick up for my H, instead of breaking him down.

I can't say I am perfect, because I do get hurt/angry/upset and I will vent, somewhere (lol even just yelling and screaming while I am by myself in the car) and lately my emotions are all over the map. I don't even know why, pre-A, I couldn't clarify my unhappiness to H. It was a combination of me not knowing how to phrase it, and having no knowledge of what EN's were (so that I just had this general sense of not being happy, but couldn't understand why...unless someone saw H actually rejecting me or pushing me away, on the outside everything looked fine)...not knowing how to communicate in a way that reached him, instead of just generally complaining...thinking if he loved me, he should know how to make me happy, I shouldn't have to tell him. Like I thought he was psychic. And I felt like I wasn't making him happy (which was a DJ on my part).

When he opened up to me those four months I learned so much about him that I never had...and at that point we'd been together for 16 years! And I learned the things that I did that were LBs to him, like he hated how I always wanted to vent about work as soon as I walked in the door, for example. For him, he left work at work, and didn't bring it home. For 16 years I didn't know this! I just thought he didn't want to listen to me talk about anything. It was my negativity that turned him off. And he learned that affectionate touching was important to me - that I wanted to be able to touch him without him pulling away, and that I needed him to touch me. What I wouldn't give to have known all this years ago, to have found MB and learned and applied the principles! They should make this stuff mandatory for people before they get married. And send them to refresher courses every couple of years or so!

Anyhoo...I need to call it a night! I've sort of become an insomniac these days but I got to at least make the attempt to fall asleep!

This is not a Renter. This is a Freeloader. I think that you are operating under a false position. Waywards are the ultimate Freeloaders. So I would say that you were/became a Freeloader. Your FR was a Freeloader tactic.



Don't try. Do! MB is about actions. How will you plan to not cry in front of the children? What are some of the specific things that you can do to not cry? (I'm not saying not to talk about feelings.)

I would agree to this during the A, but Freeloaders don't make sacrifices, and I had that sacrificial mindset throughout the pre-A M. I sacrificed for him trying to make him happy, I expected him to sacrifice for me to make me happy.

I definitely agree that WS's are the ultimate freeloaders - it's exactly the wayward mindset. The lies you tell yourself: the relationship with the OP is "effortless," you believe your feelings "come naturally," in comparision to your M, where the WS is thinking, "OMG, how can I love this person, when I have to work so hard at it?" So when OM entered the scene, I did become a Freeloader.

And I certainly was not operating as a buyer during those 4 months I subjected my H to trickle-truth. I don't know what I was. I knew that our relationship would take work on both our parts, and I wanted to put that kind of work/effort into our relationship, so in that sense wasn't a freeloader...but I was definitely not functioning with a buyers' agreement. Buyers don't try to control their spouses, and by lying to my H I was trying to control his actions, to "make" him stay. I can't sit here and say truthfully that I was trying to improve myself then(rather than expecting the "landlord to fix the apartment") when I continued to lie about the extent of the A. So maybe that does make me a freeloader during that whole time.

If you take the buyer(house)/renter(apartment) analogy further, I wanted to buy the house with H, and I/we started making improvements on the outside - new paint on the walls, new light fixtures, maybe some nice new carpet...but I found this rot in the floorboards. H didn't see it, and I didn't want to have to deal with the mess it would take to clean it up and replace it, so I tried to hide it - I covered it over and thought, if no one sees it, it won't be a problem. After all, I was in a hurry to get our remodeling complete, and live in our beautiful house! Problem was, the rot in the floorboards continued to spread. I tried rearranging the furniture to cover the damage, maybe putting a throw rug over here in one spot hoping that H wouldn't notice. And I was good at covering it up for a while. But what I didn't think about was how bad that rot would smell. And H has a great sense of smell, and started to notice that something was wrong. Finally, on 1/7/10, he pulled up that throw rug I'd put in the house and the stink of the rot I'd left to spread overpowered him.

Once he knew I'd tried to hide the damage, he was crushed. He had spent so much time and effort on remodeling, and now he was going to have to tear it all back out and start over. Tearing the work out was done very quickly, really, it was gone overnight. I kept trying to show H that the rot was gone, but he felt like it was still there. I was distraught over the loss of all the beautiful work we had done in our 4 months of remodeling and wanted to build it back as fast as we could. But H would get his tools and try to start work, and get discouraged. Why do all that work, if more rot was hiding in there somewhere? And we tried and tried to rebuild what I'd ruined but we just couldn't work together as well as we did before. I kept wanting our nice, remodeled house back, and I would try to push H to work on fixing it, but he was still hurting over the loss of all the beautiful work he'd done, and was afraid to start over because he didn't want to work so hard only to tear it down again.

Well...if I feel myself getting weepy I need to get the girls occupied with something (computer, TV) and slip into the bathroom, shut the door, and cry. Try to keep myself busy with things that make me happy (I've got to find those things again...sort of like fixing up the girls' rooms kept me busy and I enjoyed it...I need to get back into running, make my jewelry, etc). Find another outlet for all the pain. Set aside a time after the kids have gone to bed and listen to my sad songs and have a good cry by myself.

I have started doing some things I enjoyed again - I made a couple of neckaces and earrings last night, I've been playing the piano much more lately (still soooo rusty!). Reading some "fluffy" fiction books for a break from the heavy relationship-oriented reads. It's helping, slowly, but it's helping.

WPG, your posts are amazingly helpful. They explain things so well, I may print them for my BH.

I totally get the analogy of the rotting floorboards. Unfortunately, I think I am still covering them up somewhat...not because of a new affair or trickle truth just because things aren't great. His ego is so bruised that if I tell him, I'm afraid...Right now, my house is at least livable. If I tell him what if we have to move?


But of course if I don't tell him, we lose the whole foundation and it can't be rebuilt.

I disagree. It is BOTH of theirs to deal with, but broken has to allow WPG to help.

It is not his to deal with alone.

WPG,

I am so at a loss for anything to say, anything to suggest... how to lend support to the one person who spoke in a way that made me finally see, finally be able to hear my own FWW, because I could not believe a word out of her lying mouth.

Seems all I could offer lately was to echo the chorus, even when the chorus is dead wrong - to the point it had to be stopped and corrected by "The Big Guy."

So, all I can offer is this - from something that FWW loves, and I have something of an affectionate hate for - something from the Twilight Books, from Eclipse;

Bella Swan: Should I come back?
Jacob Black: I need some time, but I'll always be waiting.
Bella Swan: Until my heart stops beating.
Jacob Black: Maybe even then.

I hate these books, I hate the movies. H-A-T-E. Yet, there was something about Jacob that I felt kindred to; I felt like second choice. Doesn't matter. Not at all.

I don't believe that now, but at a time, I did.

How does this work for you?

You keep waiting. You keep trying, until the day a D is FINAL, and maybe even after.


Don't you dare listen to a soul that tells you otherwise until YOU are ready to give in, until YOU have had enough. This is YOUR heart, YOUR love, YOUR life, YOUR husband - it's your choice WPG, your fight. Go down swinging!

ahhh, Twilight...I am with your W on this one, thought the movies were a wee bit cheesy but loved the books...

but dangit, HHH, your posts always make me cry!!!!

I don't want to give in. Even when people tell me I'm a fool to be having SF with him. I just can't resist him. I made him feel like a second choice, but he's not. He's my only choice. He doesn't believe it, but at least I can continue to show him that, and hope that someday he will believe it.

I�m not strong enough to stay away.
Can't run from you
I just run back to you.
Like a moth im drawn into your flame,
Say my name, but it's not the same.
You look in my eyes I�m stripped of my pride.
And my soul surrenders
and you bring my heart to its knees

And it's killin� me when you're away,
i wanna leave and i wanna stay
I�m so confused,So hard to choose.
Between the pleasure and the pain
And I know it's wrong, and I know it's right.
Even if i try to win the fight,
my heart would overrule my mind
And I�m not strong enough to stay away

I'm not strong enough to stay away
What can I do
i would die without you
in your presence my heart knows no shame
im not to blame
cause you bring my heart to its knees

And it's killin� me when you're away,
i wanna leave and i wanna stay
I�m so confused,So hard to choose.
Between the pleasure and the pain
And I know it's wrong, and I know it's right.
Even if i try to win the fight,
my heart would overrule my mind
And I�m not strong enough to stay away

There's nothing I can do
My heart is chained to you
And I can't get free
Look what this love did to me

And it's killin� me when you're away,
i wanna leave and i wanna stay
I�m so confused,So hard to choose.
Between the pleasure and the pain
And I know it's wrong, and I know it's right.
Even if i try to win the fight,
my heart would overrule my mind
And I�m not strong enough to stay away

not strong enough, strong enough
not strong enough, strong enough to stay away
not strong enough, strong enough
and im not strong enough to stay away



------- Fits with your love of Shinedown ------