BG,

I think what some people are sensing here is your frightened and desperate tone in what you are writing, and they may be mis-interpreting it as dishonesty.

Please bear in mind that all we have to go on are your words, and it may take quite a few words to get an accurate picture.

Have you exposed to the OMW? Or did you or your H not want to do so?

God Bless
Gamma

BG, look at your first post in this thread and look at the information you gave in your thread over in "In Recovery". Do you see the discrepancy? To me it is glaring.

Dishonest or lack of openness is a big lovebuster and extremely painful to a BS. I suggest you contact Dr Harley through his radio show or do personal coaching to get some tips on how to fix this because I was at my wit's end with my H's lack of openness & honesty. He was able to turn things around. I hope that you are as well.

This would drive anyone nuts. I know it has been 3 yrs and that you told so many lies you may have stuff all screwed up but you have to understand how this sounds to your BH.

A poster asked who your H was on MB and you did not answer. It is usually easier to get a better understand of what is going on directly from the source. Who is your BH?

That your words have no weight with your BH makes sense to me but what are these other big issues you mentioned?

Ugh. I apologize for breaking forum etiquette. I have been reading, nut not posting. I'm BG's spouse. Just an FYI, there is *a lot* of fear when BG posts. I asked for help with her parents, and they did not (it was really bad). Additionally, we sought help from BG's sister in law (a professional counselor who offered) who backed out. Was there for me, but not BG. We had confided in what we thought were close friends at the time, and they turned on us afterward.

It has been a rough three years. I'd like to say my hands were clean in all this, but they are far far from it. It is no excuse for anything that's going on. I sure won't make one for her.

However, we did this on our own for three years and made a measure of success. We are at a wall because of the "trickle effect". BG has fibromyalgia and believe it or not, it *does affect* her memory. She has (and has had before the A's) great trouble remembering details of things. Our wedding details, all the little things about the kids, etc... This has gone on since it's onset in the mid-90's. This is part of what's frustrating to me.

That said, she has developed patterns and habits, but she is here because she really does want help.

I hope I haven't muddied the waters, and I apologize again for breaking list etiquette. She is scared because I am close to wits end. I can add more if desired, or go back to lurking and posting elsewhere. MB has given us both some hope and we are awaiting the arrival of two of Dr. Harley's books.

Thanks guys.

CV

Gamma,

Thank you for your judgement of charity. I'm working to overcome my fear of others. I thought I would feel safe on a list (this my first ever) but it's really intimating.

As for the OMW, the day after DDay the 4 of us met. There was a general unveiling of the truth and my H made the boundaries very clear. We ended up having a lot of trouble with both of them. OM tried a couple of times to contact me and OMW started a campaign to seduce my H. Needles to say we have no contact with either of them at this point.

cv, I will take a look at your thread and 'talk' to you there.

Now do like I was told when I broke forum etiquette and posted on my WH's thread...get out!

BG, I'm curious why you started this thread. Your WH took steps to change the dynamic that was going on and you two even had a chuckle about being 'normal' the other day...this thread was created after that.

Is there a more specific question you have at this point?

Raven,

The BIG BIG one is this...we have been maintaining over the last year or so and then my H found MB. We both jumped in and started reading all we could. One thing I had maintained was that I never loved the OM, and I honestly believed that to be true. As I read the MB material I started to understand what love was from a larger perspective and it hit me like a ton of bricks...I had been in love with OM. It was horrible to admit to myself and a complete devastation to my H. He felt like DDay hit him all over again. We were back at day one. Now he has to decide if he can do this. If I could lie to myself for almost 3 years about loving OM what else might I learn about myself as I keep reading?

Sorry, my H and I have reread both threads and the only difference we can find is in one I went into detail about the time line of the OM being at work and we both had to go back through the timeline to get it straight. I'm not trying to be deceptive. If there is something else please tell me so I can rectify it.

The discrepancy/s that I am referring to is the parts of the story you left out the first time around...even after questioning that was designed to figure out what could be making recovery so tough on your BH.

Do you have a problem with openness and honesty in general or just in reference to the A?

SQ,

You didn't say discrepancies, you said I was dishonest with you. I did chose to not answer everything right off because I was unsure what my boundaries where on this forum. My H has asked me to be careful, he's very protective over me, and at that point I was erring on the side of caution. I've told my H how afraid I am and he told me say whatever I need to say. I have no problem being open about any of this now that I have a clear green light from my H.

Sure would like to move forward...

BG,


I want to talk with you about memory, because you say you have issues with it.

First, in your case, a polygraph would be competely useless. I have been present at over 2,500 polygraph examinations. I do have some measure of experience. The fact is that IF your issues with memory are true, and you have difficulty distinguishing what happened from what you "think" happened, the polygraph could give bad results. For example, if you BELIEVE you had sex with one man but did not with another, and you are asked that question, it would come up as not-deceptive.

However, if you BELIEVE you had sex with one man and did not with another, and the actual physical reality is that you had sex with TEN MEN, the polygraph would have no way of knowing that. It tests only what the tested person "knows" inside to be true - it does not, and cannot, illuminate memories of real facts to the test taker.

Don't waste your money.


Next, you say here that you had a dawning that you were truly "in love" with the OM.

My guess is that this is trickle truth, yet again, and that you have supressed this information and practiced self-deception in this area because you knew all along of the effect it would have on CV if he were to believe you were emotionally involved with the OM.

Now, you find yourself in a situation where you must be truthful, or lose the marriage.


So you have this "new" information come to light, when in fact you "knew" it all along. The difference today is that you have a desperate situation in front of you, AND enough time has passed that you feel somewhat more safe with CV - safe enough to reveal this with a calculated risk that he will now accept it and "move past it".


the only other possibility??????
You are rewriting the affair history so YOU can accept your own behavior.


Either situation results in the use of self-deception and self-betrayal


which is why you are panicked right now.


So.
what's my advice?


Sit down, consider that for once in your life you absolutely MUST deliver the story of these affairs without:

lying
embellishing
holding information back
rewriting to make yourself not as terrible-looking
rewriting to protect or upset your husband
not making up anything you do not KNOW positively


And just face the fact that the story, all that you remember of it, MUST be told.



It is either that, or face the future knowing that your own choice not to face your own shame took your marriage down.

Sorry. My job entails lying behavior. I cannot help but be very straightforward with you.

And please do not believe for a moment that I am against you. With all my heart, I want you and CV to succeed.


You will not save your marriage if you do not face this monster with the full armor of truth.


SB

Oh, BTW, it is perfectly normal for CV not to believe you.


It goes with the territory.

Your affairs removed that trust, and your lies subsequent to the affairs did nothing to help.

Make it a practice, starting this moment, not to lie to him about anything. Then, in about two years, you two will be back on track with his being able to believe what you say.

Or, most of it, anyway.

SB

Discrepancies, withholding information or only giving the information that puts yourself in the best light is a form of dishonesty!

Listen, I did not bring the whole topic up to give you hard time but I truly DO suspect that IN GENERAL you have a hard time being open and honest. This is something you are going to have to work on in order to implement many of the MB principles, not just in getting over the A.

Schoolbus is spot on as usual.

There are so many details that I really don�t know what matters and what doesn�t with regards to this list. I have told my H every detail that I remember about both As.
I think your right about the polygraph. During the years surrounding the As I was taking a lot of meds and mixing them with other meds and alcohol. I tortured my family with bouts of severe depression, paranoia, insomnia and auditory hallucinations. So I don�t trust my brain. One of the first things my H did after DDay was to take me off of everything and insisted that I switch doctors. He was right and while I still struggle with depression, I haven�t had a problem with any of the other issues.
I see that my problem is self-deception. Sometimes I wonder if I�m so broken that I can�t be fixed. I�m always praying that God will help me see any areas that I�m not being honest with myself and that He would restore my memory. I can�t see what I�m doing that keeps me in this cycle of constant confusion and self-deception.
On a positive note, last night my H and I had a really nice night together. We met friends out and they were late. It gave us a chance to have some really good conversation. He shared with me things he hadn�t before and we both were able to understand each other a little better. I hope we have many more nights like that.

Have a good night...BG

Self-deception is a very bad habit.


BG, you need to read a very important book, because you lead a life that allows you to make very bad decisions and justify them. You have done this for a long time, and as a result you find it difficult to remember events, tease out what you have done, what lies you have told, and what you even truly feel about things. Your life of moving the truth around has led to more problems than you can deal with.


The book is called, "Leadership and Self-deception: Getting out of the box". This book explains how you make very critical decisions regarding your behavior toward other people, and helps you identify that key moment when you CHOOSE TO LIE TO YOURSELF about those decisions.

I believe you have difficulties with making decisions because you utilize very poor logic. You "confuse" yourself by making lots of excuses for your choices, making them all appear (on the surface at least) as though you thought them through and rationally came to good conclusions.

Instead, what you have done is viewed other people as mere objects in your world, and manipulated the decision-making process around those objects in such a way so the outcome results in exactly what you want

no matter the cost to the "objects" around you.



The reason you do not recall things? You have manipulated the actual truth so much that little of it is left once you are done with it.


Not to mention medication issues!




There was a man once named William James. He had a philosophical standpoint about "the truth". He said, basically, that the truth is "whatever works". He believed that the truth is a malleable entity, that if something works for you, then it is "true".

Most people can see the difficulty with this. Most people understand that the truth is an entity which stands alone, and exists outside our ability to manipulate it for our own purposes.


You must come to understand this.




SB

Thank you for the book suggestion. We ordered it this a.m.

H is a very inteligent man. He actually started working with me on Logic about 2 years ago. I�ve done a bit of reading and he has been coaching me. Learning to apply objective truth to my life is a hard one for me. I had to start with the Bible and methodicaly apply the truth of the scriptures to my thinking...so I basicaly have had to change the way I did everything. The difficult part seems to be in applying what I�m learing to my past. Using objective truth and logic to determine why I did lots of the things I did.

Your posts to me are very helpful and confirm a lot I already am of aware of but I've gotten discouraged and lost sight of some things. Objectifying people is something that I definitely did. H has asked me many times what I thought about how he would feel or how others would be hurt and my answer was honestly that I never considered any of that. I didn't consider others in anything I did. Up until recently, I spent most of my life confused. I was raised in a lifestyle of lying and it wasn't until I got caught in the biggest lie I ever told that I had even an idea that I was an untruthful person.

You said...You have manipulated the actual truth so much that little of it is left once you are done with it...this made so much sense to me when I read it. A light bulb come on over my head! I shared it with my H and I think he felt the same way. He has tried to force me to remember things these last 3 years and many times I've responded with the most reasonable thing I could come up with. The idea that some memories simply may not be there because of how I constantly dissected the truth never really occurred to me.

BG,

I was raised in a lifestyle of lying and it wasn't until I got caught in the biggest lie I ever told that I had even an idea that I was an untruthful person.

So was my W, the idea was that if you didn't get caught it never happened. It took me a bit of reading, perhaps a month or two,to get that Lying is the root of most of the issues here.

Think back about some of your financial and misc. lies they count too.

God Bless
Gamma

Gamma,

The crazy kind of lying I lived in was over the top. The craziest thing about it was that I was taught that it wasn't lying at all. I was raised in a cult. For instance...we didn't go to doctors, it showed lack of faith. Instead I lied at school to my teachers until they forced me to go to the nurse where I got sent home. Once at home I was patted on the back for having enough faith to deny the illness. Admitting that you were hurt or angry or upset showed that you were weak, so we (my brothers and I) learned to lie to ourselves and others and pretend that our lives were great.

This is the kind of stuff I still did to varying degrees up until recently (within the last few years). Lying IS the root of almost ALL my issues.

I heart SchoolBus. She can 'see' things in the written word that most of us can never see. She dissected a letter to me from my cousin who had had an affair with my then husband. Her perceptions were mind blowing. She referred to things as possibilities that she had no way of knowing existed. She explained so much to me! Listen to her closely!