I know exactly what the ENs I was "outsourcing": C, AD, and AF. .... without O&H, how successful is one at meeting C, AD, and AF, anyway??? I do believe we could create a plan to keep those 3 needs met within our M. He has to want to do this, though. I am doing my part by not allowing those needs to be filled by others - no intimate conversations other than those I have w/my parents or my girlfriends, no allowing other males to meet my needs of AD and AF. My "buckets" labeled AF and AD, though, are empty ..... I often find myself not feeling the tingles of romantic love.

The dynamics of the current marital relationship are easily too confusing to plot, WPG. You married Mr. WPG satisfied, I would think, that he was able to satisfy you needs for C, AD, AF, and cared enough to do so. That changed somehow, with the resultant A being your unfortunate method of sourcing those ENs. So, when (chronologically) or why (causally) did his ability/willingness to supply those needs, or your interpretation of his abilty/willingness to do so, change? Eventually that ability/willingness of his (or your understanding of it) will have to revert to a stable positive state, so identifying the "break" will be vital.

You hit the target with the sentence I underlined. That would require a HUGE admission from him that he owns half the state of the marriage that ruptured, and has the power to correct it if he chooses. At once, that is the most difficult, but most important obstacle/achievement that a BS can conquer.

I do NOT think Mr. WPG is anywhere near that, given his relatively immature approach to your post-A union ("going to live with step-mommy"?). I would urge you to operate on the principle that as much as you would WANT to be married (in fact), you don't NEED to be married (in form). "In fact" in this last sentence implies that both partners want nothing more than to, and will do anything necessary to, supply their spouse with EN buckets to overflowing. "In form", well......that would be something less.

I'm not sure this helped, because I infer that you were heading toward these ideas anyway.

I can agree with this. I've been trying to demonstrate my willingness to do so. I don't always do it well (read: release my expectations) but I continue to try.

I think there comes a point though that no matter how much I regard my marriage/my "goal" as more important and worthy than anything, if it's a goal that involves 2 people, the other party must value it as well.


What happened along the way? I don't think there was one defining moment. It happened gradually over a span of years. I developed that "martyr" attitude. I wasn't looking to get out of the M, I just wasn't happy, and couldn't figure out how to make things better. I wanted counseling, he refused. I'd read marriage and relationship books and articles. I thought there must be something wrong with me. I mean, on the outside I had it all, but I still wasn't "happy." I didn't know anything about EN's, and if I had I could have figured it out. We sort of went on autopilot. Began to drift apart and lived pretty independent lives. I LB'ed him, he LB'ed me. (reading "Love & Respect" here also helped me figure out that we were on a long-term "crazy cycle" - he did something unloving, I'd respond with disrespect, which prompted him to be unloving, and more disrespect from me...on and on) What I perceieved as unloving actions were refusals to meet my needs - walking away when I tried to talk, rejecting me for SF, jerking his hand away if I tried to hold it, etc. And my nagging and bitterness and disrespect were LB'ing b/c instead of fulfilling his need for AD, I was tearing him down. We still filled some of each others' needs, but after a while there was very little romantic love in our M.



He initially said that he "got" it - that he realized he had not been filling my ENs. Maybe he still does realize that, I honestly believed he'd taken ownership of his 50% of the problems in our M as I've owned mine. But if so, then he also knows what my needs are, and knows how I like them to be filled, and he continues to make a conscious decision not to fulfill them.

And as I owned my 50% of M problems (pre-A), I also own 50% of recovery. I can't do it alone. And you are right, I may WANT to be M, but I don't NEED to be M.

HHH posted this question on Eluna's thread so wanted to address it from my POV, w/o t/j-ing Eluna:



Trust is eroded on both sides in our current M. Before anyone points out the obvious, I realize why trust in me is eroded, as I was the offending spouse. But so many months after H swore he chose our M, he chose to stay with me, to love me, to forgive me, and yet he chose otherwise...I do completely understand why, and that it's always his choice to do so as the BS.

Pre-A I was not RH about my feelings. I *thought* I was, but vaguely saying I wasn't happy wasn't concrete, and he would simply tell me that it was not his responsibility to "make" me happy. "Happiness" was an unknown and unquantified variable. That, and I expressed myself poorly using LB's.

There were many times during R I felt as though RH about my feelings led to an AO or DJ from him. Even telling him that I loved him could prompt an AO or DJ from him (ex - "Hard to believe when you told POSOM the same thing"). I started to fear his response, or worse, his indifference. If declarations of love caused that kind of anger, how much more would saying I feel lonely because we aren't spending enough time having C, for example. I tried saying things like "I'd like it if you'd put your arm around me," and he would not respond verbally or otherwise.

In a nutshell, I don't feel "safe" anymore. I don't feel like my feelings are treated with kindness and respect. I feel devalued, desired only for sexual purposes.

Those are my feelings, and I work not to be led by them, but they exist and somehow I have to deal with them.

The immediate dynamic is one I created due to my decision to have an A. Marital issues were present long before I nuked my M with the A-bomb.

I'm reeling from something that happened yesterday, so I know that's coloring my feelings now. My g'ma was taken to the ER yesterday. When I found out, I texted H and told him she was being admitted. I never received a response from him. Yes, I realize I could have simply kept him informed and if I needed something from him, I could have flat-out told him, but I was not thinking logically. She ended up being OK, but the day drained me and I didn't have much energy to deal with "us" later. My interpretation of his response (or lack thereof) is a DJ based on my feelings, but I was left feeling very alone yesterday.

I just don't want that anymore.

Eh. That's probably not a very good answer, but you got me thinking about it, anyway!

WPG, this struggle, your personal recovery, is transformative ... and you are emerging as a new and spectacular woman.

Some encouragement to keep this going.

This is not some " destination" where you arrive, put down your luggage and relax.

You are making changes of a lifetime.

God bless.

I know I'm a little weird, sometimes I can seem outright harsh... but I have a lot of hope for you, WPG. As well as RFA, and Eluna.

I can repeat the processes that I have gone through to lead me to where I am today; accepting that "recovered" is a word I won't ever use (instead, it will always be recovering), that grief is not something you go around, over, or under - you go through it, and that a sense of loss can and will last a lifetime (though it will lose emphasis with time), that forgiveness is earned and not given (my belief, others disagree, but I have had not a single feeling to rescind this offering, whereas if I had left it as a "choice" and done so before I had actually felt forgiveness, it would have been a serious error), that keeping my side of the street clean is my responsibility.

How do I keep my side of the street clean? Meet my wife's ENs, and make my ENs safe and pleasant for her to meet; this avoids the faulty definition of sacrifice within marriage.

Nobody deserves this on either side. I can look at my WH and also provide him with just compensation for my failings pre-A. He also deserves to know he is still loved and respected even though his choices are poor. I could let his choices destroy me or I can choose to not...it is my choice.

Sometimes we BS's feel as if our pain is the only option of choice and we are also entitled to special treatment. Granted WS must give us Just Compensation but that doesn't mean we are entitled to just emotion. Both parties are coming in raw and that means both have to then care, protect & foster a new relationship.

Trust is eroded on both sides in our current M. Before anyone points out the obvious, I realize why trust in me is eroded...

There is nothing unique about your situation here, WPG. Every BS has that awful moment when the realization fully hits that the partner has demonstrated untrustworthiness beyond description. And then?

Well in some cases the BS understands that there is a value to trying to repair the breach. If, in those cases, the WS is still not too far "checked out", and values the state of the marriage pre-A, the SAA repair manual can be employed, and the hard work can be started.

Wouldn't it be unimaginable trying to initiate the process without both parties seeing a glorious result as the prize? If your pre-A marriage was as flawed as you've related (to both parties) is it rational to fight to return to that status (your possibility) or, accounting for the A-caused damage, something less (his possibility)?

There must be a prize to make the work worthwhile.

I feel devalued, desired only for sexual purposes.

This can't be it.

Thanks Pep & HHH for the encouragement! I've finally started to feel like I can personally recover, even if our M does not. For me, that's huge. And I do see it as a lifetime journey. In class this week - I teach new instructors - one of the lessons contained this quote: "When you're through changing, you're through." Simple, but I GET it.

Tough, definitely, if recovering the M is the goal, then both BS and WS have to care, protect and foster a new M. The WS, who wants to earn that F, needs to do most of the heavy lifting at first, but a commitment to build intimacy, to re-invest and re-engage in the relationship, has to be made by both. HurtCobra's (on the SAA board) call on the radio the other day was very enlightening for me. Like his BW, my H never fully re-engaged in the M after he found out I'd been lying to him. At this point, I believe if he recommited to the M we would need help to re-engage, re-create intimacy, and build a safe and supportive environment for both of us.


No - I don't want to return to our pre-A M, and definitely don't want anything worse. My goal is not to monstrify either of us in the pre-A M - we did some things very, very well. We slacked on meeting the intimate EN's of C, AF, and AD. And (I see in hindsight) O&H - neither of us was being fully O&H. SF was great, although not as often as I'd have liked. And after the kids were born, our RC time together dropped. I don't think either of us had issues with FS, DS, FC, or AS.

Maybe I am too hung up on our initial R, when he pulled out all the stops, swept me off my feet, and WOW - he was the H I'd always known he could be, THIS was the man behind the wall. The spark that had been missing so long was back in full force!

That's what I want. That is what I see as the prize. But then again, I don't know if he was being completely O&H with me then - I believe he was about many things, but was he happy then, trying to meet my needs? Was he happy and satisfied with how I was meeting his?



And I should clarify, this is how I feel now, as opposed to our pre-A M. Pre-A, SF was infrequent and lacking for me; now, I'm physically satisfied but the emotional intimacy is lacking. It's come up over and over - I am stuck between trying to meet the only intimate EN H allows me to meet, thereby trying to make some big deposits in his LB$, and trying to protect myself from feeling used (and having withdrawals made from my LB$).

ITL,

You GET IT. You, ma'am, are going to be just fine no matter what your WH chooses to do. You will be fantastic.

This is a realization that some BS's just... can't... get.

Even if we were to decide to ditch the (F)WS, in a future relationship, we would still need to provide safety and protection to the new partner, we would still require their safety and protection.

Betrayal is horrible, but it's no reason to be a damned tyrant in the marriage.

Ugh... that would just make me miserable, and I don't need any help with that!

This has to be a tough place to be WPG. As a guy I understand his desire to take back a very important area to guys, and also his coldness about making it a more warmer experience. To guys its where the reality sets in, the place he was supposed to shine in, and a lot of that has to do with his self-image.

You are doing so much in repairing the damage, and I just want to give you a high five, because you are owning up and dealing with the compensation part so well.

Praying he will be able to see how much his beautiful bride shot herself in the foot, and help the marraige heal by working the MB program. He has got to get over this one way or another to make his marraige move forward, and I doubt he is natuarally cruel. I would prefer to think from what you say he is hurt and scared.

He certainly has a W who is willing to do anything, to move forward, and from what I can tell, you have the conviction and guts to do it too.

Remember WPG, you have to give it time, those wounds cannot be forgotten, but as HHH says the problems will lesson in thier effect in time. Praying for you guys.

WPG, the task of plotting your combined "emotional locii" in relation to each other's was difficult enough when simply "Pre-A" and "Post-A".

It is evident you now have the added compexity of an "initial R", phase, during which, using your words: he pulled out all the stops, swept me off my feet, and WOW - he was the H I'd always known he could be.

Does he know that?
Do you know if you were "the W he'd always known you could be"?
How long did this last?
Outside of SF, what other ENs - his, yours- were so completely filled?
What caused this period to end?

Does he know that? I don't know, NG - I hope he does, I believe does...I think he knows how much it affected me, how happy I was. The kicker is, I don't know that he believes that it was genuine, for reasons to be explained in the answer to your last question.

Do you know if you were "the W he'd always known you could be"? Not really. At the time, we hadn't found MB and didn't know what all the EN's were. I was trying, but what I was lacking was honesty about certain critical facts. I *thought* he was pleased with me during that time, other than the obvious of him having to deal with the fact that I'd had an A, and his doubts.

How long did this last? Approximately 4 months, from DDay # 1/NC (end of August '09) to the end of December '09.

Outside of SF, what other ENs - his, yours- were so completely filled? AF, AD, C, RC. lol for AS, I even cut my hair (he always liked my hair short). He was meeting O&H, but I was not... Even DS and FS, we worked more as a team, we'd cook together, do laundry together, do the banking together. Probably the only thing there was less of was FC, the "normal" stuff still got done, but we would send the kids to be w/the grandparents on the weekends to focus on ourselves. And SF was...holy cow!!!

What caused this period to end? I did. There was a DDay #2. I'd been trickle-truthing him. In the beginning I admitted to only an EA. H never let it go, though, and kept snooping, kept digging, and it was tormenting him. He finally confronted me one night in January '10 and I finally admitted to the PA. Even then I still tried to lie. He was crushed by the fact I'd sat through 4 months, and he'd poured his heart out to me, we'd sat in counseling, we'd done all this "stuff" and I had been lying about that the whole time. As JC put it, when I finally found MB and coached w/her, he'd spent all his "rocket fuel" on that initial R and was just empty.

Still plugging along, doing what I can. As you said, CP, I just can't believe - maybe refuse to believe? - that he's naturally cruel. He's just not that kind of man. I still believe he's hurt and he's afraid.

Don't know if I got everything - I'll think some more on it. Right now I've got to get back to the office for a manager's meeting where we have so far spent an hour and a half talking about nothing...

(I re-read your thread from beginning of September through mid-October. I hope my radical card below has not been "played" since then, because then I'm out of suggestions.)

When my wife and I were struggling through the stages of recovery (without MB, dammit!) she said to me something like "I'll never lie to you again, about anything." I responded with "I THOUGHT I had that assurance from you before. There's nothing you can do now to give me more than I thought I already had." (God, I really can be an emotional thug, can't I?)

And....your BH undoubtably feels he went through thrice what I went through once. Compounding that is the factor (that you have alluded to) that OM being someone from your past puts the entirety of your history with BH (in his mind) into question.

What CAN you give him today that you have not yet given him? I can only think of two things. One of them is his freedom, which is obviously not to be recommended here, at least not yet.

The other one you discounted the first month, and to my re-reading, never re-addressed, for, to my way of thinking, very specious reasons.

You should voluntarily reveal, and apologize for, the affair to OM's BW, and in BH's presence.

1 - There cannot be a more blatant demonstration that the WPG of today is more committed to a higher standard of behavior than the WPG of two years ago.

2 - It will show BH how little OM means to you, that you will basically do what you must to try to heal your own marriage, even as it tremendously re-orients your former lover's cushy life. (You said in September full exposure was not a big deal to your BH, as per his words. Now is the time to hope he was wrong.)

Anyway, that's what I have to offer.....

NG, the issue of exposure came up when H started his short stint posting here. He investigated and found out the OMW had been pregnant and had just delivered her baby (think that was in Oct '10). At that time, he was advised to wait on exposure, since she'd just given birth. He stopped posting here and did not bring it up again. He never pushed exposing to OMW, even after finding MB (in fact was advised against it by our first MC and his aunt, a therapist, although our pastor was in favor of it).

I knew it was something that bothered H, that OMW was unaware and so after I'd taken the poly and that hadn't seemed to help matters, I started asking about what else I could do in my thread. I was advised to try to talk to H about it (exposure) and it be something we did together. I drafted a letter to OMW and sent it to him and asked what he thought about it. He would not respond or participate in a dialog about exposure. I knew he believed it was important that I own up to things and face the consequences of my actions, but he wouldn't tell me how he felt I should do so.

In the end, I found OMW's email address (work email - I was afraid personal email would be intercepted my POSOM) and sent her an email confession and apology. I bcc'ed H on the email. I never received a response from OMW, so I have no idea if she's received it. Anyway, I posted about it on my thread from about December of last year. I did ask since then if I should try re-exposing to her and have been advised to let it alone. It still bothers me that POSOM was as guilty as I was in this whole thing and quite possibly has never suffered a negative consequence, and I'm losing my M.

Maybe I didn't do it "right" or good enough. I don't know anymore.

I hope my radical card below has not been "played" since then - NG

I never received a response from OMW, so I have no idea if she's received it - WPG

(gently) From my viewpoint, WPG, at this stage in your situation, having "no idea" is not enough. In all frankness, it is probably immaterial if she knows about the A or not. The audience to which you'll be playing will be BH. Which answer do you think makes a better statement to him of your commitment to the new you - "Well, I sent her an e-mail that I don't know if she got," or "I went to her house, rang the doorbell, introduced myself, told her that I boinked her husband, and apologized" ?

...he believed it was important that I own up to things and face the consequences of my actions, but he wouldn't tell me how he felt I should do so

...because he was looking for you to go above and beyond! WPG, I hadn't known this little tidbit until just now, but it supports the thought that you take the radical approach to this.

You OM is not going without consequence. If he hasn't come clean his soul will destroy him.

Stop thinking about him and his no consequences. There are always consequences from sin. He isn't being punished how you want him to be punished. You want him to lose his marriage.

WPG that is you trying to control how he is punished. You have to relinquish that out of your heart. It isn't for you to control and you certainly shouldn't be thinking how he should be punished.

Your marriage may very well die. You are going to live. If you divorce do you believe you can go on and have a fulfilling life?

I am longing for my husband just like you. I have to realize my wayward is very sick today. I have to know in the bottom of my heart I am going to survive this. I am going to go on and live my life without him.

My girlfriend posted her family vacation to Hampton, VA. My heart longed to have my husband next to my side with our four babies having a wonderful family vacation just like her.

I have to realize and pray because I want to be a wife so bad that GOD will lead me to where I need to be next. I can no longer pine away for my WH. I have to let him go and know I cannot control him, this divorce, or anything else that comes out of this situation.

I have to let go of my addict, and heal. Your BS may divorce you. You know it will be his loss. Yes you were the WW, and yes he has the right to divorce you. Him divorcing you is his problem. He owns it 100% and he will have to heal himself from you. He can never grow to the next level as long as he harbors these negative emotions towards you.

I, just like your WH, have to let my anger, pain, and resentment go for my WH. It is hard and it is tough because I don't want to let go of it because I don't want to make his behavior okay.

As long as I stay in Plan B and heal he will never know I have let his behavior go. It is mine and mine only. Unless he comes back to reconcile he will never know my state of mind.

WPG - let go of the things in your life that may be hindering your personal growth. You have to keep moving forward with or without your current marriage.

Surely that breaks NC?

I dunno WPG, I just don't think your marriage will be saved by dramatic gestures. Broken has to decide on his own that you are worth the risk of another chance. I mean, personally, I think you are, but that is entirely his choice. And I think the only thing that will work on him is time.

I have to say, too, that the idea that a OW should contact the BS for purely selfish reasons - to make a point to her husband - strikes me as offensive. I wonder how other BSs on this site would feel about that.

I agree, kerala, and I had a similar feeling. I wonder, too, if it would reflect negatively on WPG if she were to contact the BW, especially after so long. Would it say something along the lines of "See? I don't care who I inflict pain on if it helps me! See?" to her BH...?

I think it's just consistency and time, IMHO. Hold fast to those "ups" on the recovery coaster, and temper those expectations, that's my $.02.

I can see that if she went to the BW, and made that statement personaly, how it would show how seriuos her determination was, and how fearless she was also, to her BH.

But doesn't he know that about her allready? Wont he see that in time? Is he still in a state of shock that blocks him from realising that? WPG has said he was a very sensitive man, its possible, he is still reeling.

The way he is reclaiming her in sex without any emotional investment tells me he is still angry, and that allways comes from fear. Its not sex, or making love, or intimacy. Its not the man she married.

I would venture a guess that BH is someone who thinks, is sensitive, or someone as gifted as WPG would not have been attracted to him. My vote is for time still, and praying for forgiveness, or at least grace to be able to start over again.

After exposure and NC is established, as long as there has been NC and it can be verified, it would be cruel to contact the BW. I am assuming she knows about what her WH did of course, because that would be even more cruel, to let him get away with it.

It would just scare her, to see that this is still causing problems, after so much time. She would not see why WPG came and brought it up again. She could tell her of course, but still..