My feelings do guide me. I haven't adjusted to the fact that that isn't a part of MB. I have a hard time ignoring my feelings.

I mean to say "just get past the negative feelings and do UA anyway". That is what I am having a hard time with. Feelings follow action, but I am literally frozen because my feelings won't let me get that far.

I don't like it. I would rather spend my time alone.


Yes, I do have choices. I just suck at making them. I sit on the fence endlessly and get stuck in a paralysis. I am tired of it and need to make a decision.

God, I know that this should be easier - the decision should be simple - stay and try to make it work. WTF is wrong with me that I really don't want to! I've typed and erased a bunch of sentences, but they don't make any sense. Lazy - that is the only answer.

No, this is something I never learned.

How? You stand up. You decide that you will go balls to the wall for a year, to do better, to be better, to do better by your family. You decide that you will work the program. You will stop making excuses. You will grow up and act like the woman who can honor the promises she made.

You listen to Yoda. There is no try. Only do.

How is this possible?

Look at your children. If you truly care for them, you will do it for them.

Are your feelings worth more than your children?

Ok... seriously... what is the truth behind all of this backpedaling and these excuses?

What is really going on?

Athena99,
Isn't this attitude part of why you find yourself in this position?
If you both had tried like everyone is trying to tell you would you not both be in love now.....
Do you want to continue this path for the rest of your life or do you want to enter a life that you don't know exists for you. It is there Athena you have to take it full force and be totally committed to feel it..........Athena it is so great on that other side of life, why not give it a shot, if you find what we are all saying that it can be so much better than your life has been, you can quit then, you owe it to YOURSELF to live this life in love with someone you think about non stop, waiting to be with again...........that is the man you started this journey with........if it wasn't right before because of fear and hurt, change that make it what you both want, you have the power to change things, be brave let it happen for you.............If you dont' you will be lost forever ............the grass isn't greener it's how you take care of your grass........
It would be a shame to have come all this way to have learned so much about yourself to let it go now.................
This is for you Athena, we all want it for you, you just have to catch up......
Go over and kiss your husband like you mean it, tell him you love him more than anything else and love him like you should from now on..............
You will be amazed and grateful for being strong very soon.......

It seems to me that you have nothing left to lose. That should make it a little easier. Don't be afraid of asking for things and changing things in your marriage. What's the worst that could happen?

I think what I would recommend to get past your feelings is to take an evening to really wrap your head around this. Sit down, take a bath, stare in the mirror, whatever, and tell yourself you will (or won't) give it everything you've got. Do you ever go running or cycle or do exercise like that (I'm trying to come up with an analogy that would make sense)? When you're completely exhausted and the finish is still a few miles off, you make a decision. You are either going to stop and give in and give up or you feel that amazing, euphoric rush of endorphins that tells you that you can and you will and you do, even though a few seconds ago you felt totally hopeless.

The mind, and your feelings, are amazing things. Life is all about perception. There isn't going to be a plan that tells you how to make a decision, but you can make one. You just have to sit down and ask yourself it. The one thing that I would keep in mind is that if you don't try your hardest on this, you may regret it. If you try your hardest and it still doesn't work out? You'll be back at leaving, but this time you'll have the peace of mind that you really did try.

This is kind of like jumping off the high dive. You are up there right now. You need to either be all in, or turn around and climb down, never knowing what it's like to have given it everything you've got and jumped. Is there a plan that will tell you how to make that decision? No. It's something you need to find within yourself.

Yeah, I feel like my head is swimming and I need to do something so I can breathe. I want the space to think and wanting that space makes me wonder if I really just want out. Taking some time for myself to think is something I never do. I am always too busy doing something else. But now I feel like doing anything without BH is violating MB and I am stuck feeling guilty about that. I have frequent guilt spirals and pity parties. Following my feelings is the cause of it.



I used to have drive and took pleasure in accomplishing things. I have lost that in the last 7 years as our lives turned upside down with the kids and we didn't know how to deal with it properly.

I need to get my life in order. Right now, doing anything other than leaving seems impossible. Our lives are so difficult and poorly planned that even finding an hour a day to work on myself is impossible. I feel trapped in my life and by association, my marriage. I want to get out of that cage. I need to find the time to plan my escape properly and get over my aversion to having him involved in that plan.

I'm throwing a Bullpoop Flag on this whole "new" turn toward hopelessness. Sorry (?) to be harsh, but OM ends A, she comes here to MB...BH comes here to MB...A back on, and now what to do??? THAT makes sense.

No, A99, not "trapped". Maybe "cornered" here at MB. HHH asked the right question, I think, because something smells.

Not sure I have any good advice in that regard, but...you're still here, and still reading. That's a sign you haven't given up the ghost just yet.

Feelings DO change.

Early after D-Day, when WW and I were deciding what to do (i.e. before I learned about MB and was a total doormat) the song "Wild Horses" by Natasha Bedingfield came on in the car, and WW started weeping. She wanted nothing more than to "be free" like a wild horse running in the meadows.

She certainly experienced freedom. A world where she takes care of herself when she has surgery, foreclosure is imminent, she is shunned by most of her friends and family, she eats dinner alone each night and wallows in the knowledge that she ruined her own life with her betrayal.

Maybe it doesn't work out that way for everyone, but her feelings sure changed in a hurry.

Take a day off together, send the kids to a sitter/relative, stay up a little later or get up earlier and go for a walk?

I don't know how a wayward could be so foggy without there being contact with OM recently. Or at least, hardcore triggers nearby.

Maybe this is out of line. But it seems to me, maybe Athena wants Helo to read this thread and believe she's genuinely "hopeless" to cover up the fact there has been contact with OM.

If she's on the board talking about how there hasn't been contact for 4 months it must be true? Right? Right??!

We have the whole week away from the kids and have been sitting here across the table from each other all day - not talking. We went for a walk at lunch, but all I wanted was to be by myself.

Then you're back to needing to make that leap.

You don't make the leap: you sit there awkwardly forever, not talking, and wanting to be alone.

You make the leap: you wink at him or make a funny face, you laugh, you ask what you want to do for dinner tonight, you play a video game together or paint or have fun in some form.. etc.

I like the second option better, personally.

What Stuck said...x10.

You know, I can certainly see how you think all of this. And that is why I am wondering if there isn't something else I need to be doing. If after 4 months I am still feeling this way, what else do I need to do?

I really hope Helo hasn't read this thread - he promised me he wouldn't anymore. I need a place where I can say things he has not wanted to hear me say. I am gun shy about addressing these issues with him, just as he is with me. I am here so I can get clarity and figure out how to talk with him properly. This discussion today would have driven him crazy, especially if I eventually get turned around and start accepting it.

I assure you - and I know my word doesn't mean much here - I have not seen/talked to/contacted OM in over 4 months. I don't have momentos or trinkets laying around. I have full transparency with BH - he has access to my phone, my email, facebook, twitter. I have been meaning to set up the GPS tracking if I could only get my phone S/W to cooperate. I do still have the same job I did during the A - is that still too much even though he is gone? BH and I agreed on the level of precautions - are they not enough? I can certainly do more, with the exception of moving or changing jobs. I already avoid ALL corporate events and stay away from our head office as I have no idea where OM could be. My managers know of the A and are not pressuring me to attend, so I am very lucky.

Is this level of fog only because we haven't gotten the UA in? Or is it an abnormal level of fog after 4 months NC even without UA? The fog is keeping me from moving forward, I need to clear it. I feel that I have made an enormous change in ending the A and keeping it finished. I am annoyed that I am still foggy - it doesn't please me. It makes my life hard.

Is it because I let my feelings guide me that I am foggier than most? How do I undo that?

I am not being dense or difficult. I am a smart person with very good reasons to do the right thing, but am frustratingly paralyzed and I don't know what to do and how to do it.

This is what I mean by "just get past it". I can't jump into winking at him. It feels WRONG! Yeah, I get the stupidity of that statement. But to wink implies I am feeling something I am not. And if I let myself play along with it, it will go places I do not want to go. I am fine with being friends and playing games, making dinner. I like him as a friend. But I don't see him as my lover or intimate friend anymore.

We do the friend stuff no problem. But I put up the wall for everything else.

That's not "just geting past it." It's consciously and deliberately taking one step in the right direction. There is no magic pill that's going to make you feel like doing it. You just have to tell yourself: "I'm going to do this." Then do it.

You are a grown woman. You are capable of making yourself doing something even when you do not feel like it.

Then play games and make dinner. Winking was just one of the suggestions. Just do something together that you both enjoy.

Intimacy will come later, after you've worked the program. It doesn't happen over night. No one expects you to feel intimate right now.

And maybe this is why I am so stuck. UA includes SF and I feel like a failure before I even start. I guess I am so scared of being intimate with him that I didn't know I could work the plan without it.