Hi chickadee! I haven't posted to you before, but your post right here really jumped out at me.

I absolutely felt this way, and I agree 100% with NW -- your WH is scared of messing up, scared of losing you. Scared of not doing it right, making a mistake. Maybe feels overwhelmed by the enormousness of what he's done, worrying about his ability to overcome all of that. Adopting EPs is sometimes a major change, and you worry about remembering all of them and getting it right all of the time.

Those were my feelings, anyway. At the end of the day, it doesn't help much to extrapolate those to your WH - you can always ask him for his thoughts on the matter.

mrs. vanilla!! i do read your posts and get a different perspective, thats why this site works!

he does have lots of lists! and is worried about remembering them all exactly!

the scared thing worries me...

i will ask his thoughts.

thks! happy 4th everyone!

need help... baby moma just emailed H, about DS, not am emergency, she doesnt get it! how do i respond, on his email, or not??

thoughts???

Catch us up please, chickadee: did he send her a NC letter? It sounds as if he did, since you say she doesn't seem to "get it".

Her email addy should have been blocked. Was this done? Did she use a new addy?

If a NC letter was sent, you should ignore the email and block her address. If no letter was sent, then one needs to be sent now, in his "voice". However, you must read and approve it and post it yourself.

yes it was sent in april. thought it was blocked, she emailed at work address. I think its another email address, just shaking to much to look.

DS needs cash, so she emailed,the NC letter stated that if DS needed anything it would go thru me. this was not an emergency. and DS knows the rule and had held true to it. just an oilve branch.

i am just so pissed. she could use the $ that H lent her to give to her S.

better EP's should have been put in place.

Just explained that to him. is all or nothing. i am going to protect myself, bc what H is doing is not working. I have been carrying this fear for months and it comes true. i cannot carry this fear for any longer.

i really want to write her back. i am so flippin mad. ant both of them.

Calm down Dee. She is trying to get to you and it worked. Just block the email address or shut down his and start a new one. Im sure this really bothers him too if he is really trying.

How did you find outabout the email? Did he tell you or did you find it?

If he was the one that told you about it he must be shaking in his shoes right now thinking this will be the last straw and you are done...... DON'T LET HER WIN!!!

shes trying to get him, not me. she wants everything to be ok back to normal, when she could communicated with DS dad. and no one is mad at her- needy and insecure.

oh yeah its bothering him, he is shaking. but i am too- see there is no good solution with this-

she will always be around as long as DS is... thisa isnt about her winning- it about how much do i have to go thru.

we were working on the new phone together and saw it. he blocked it, but she know where he works and live, it will happen again.

should he/me write DS to explain to his needy mother, that he will not communicate with her? also not DS cannot get $ this time bc if she does she will know the email worked. thoughts???

uggh great way to start the week...

so H emailed DSS, explaining that baby momma was not allowed to contact H for any reason and let him know that if he needed $ he needed to contact us directly.

DSS- great guy!- emailed back how sorry he was that his mother did this and no he doesnt need any $. he gets it- " I just don't understand why she would do that. I hope this event didn't set you back too far."

All of the email address are blocked. and the email was ignored.

H knows that if this happens again i will not be very calm to her. She will do it again, unless DSS told her to back off on his own. Any suggestions on how to calmly handle this, I would like to have a plan, beacuse my plan will not be very good.

Unfortunately, any response from you or your H to babymomma will probably just fuel the fire. You will probably need to file an RO/harassment charge to get her to stop.

Sorry you are dealing with this, chicka. *sigh*

no response from us. DSS may speak to her, but otherwise another C&D letter, if it happens again. worked with OW1, so sad my life, he picked the needy ones......

so is life now......

Ok� mind wandering- what else is new

I asked for a guarantee this weekend, just a guarantee that he wouldn�t do this crap to me again. That he would give me the courtesy to tell me when he was unhappy and wanted out, there are no more second chances for getting caught, be a man and say you want out, if you are not happy.

I am still struggling with how to move on, really thing are great he is meeting all my need as I am for him A ++ on this week diagnostic. I am just struggling thinking if this is enough for me, and I don�t know if I am being clouded by the crap and using it as an excuse or not.

I am having a hard time with forgiveness, yes, who wouldn�t. resentment no, annoyed yes � I am a good person and I can usually forgive bc I can see there is potential and reasons for thinking in a hurtful way- so I am not the person that can never forgive, at all.

I am not saying I am any different at all, i actually am lucky that I did not have to break up an emotional relationship and PA. mine was just a lot of shagging (I am from NY- but I think the other word will get blocked) with a tremendous amount of lies, wow the lies, to everyone, the secret second life in full force, it actually was a 3rd or 4th life. So any advice on how to handle this would be helpful. It�s all about me now.

We have really holed up for a long time, and he is feeling he should see his parents again, they do live 3 blocks, but we have the plague right now, the we now exposed, but I have no problem telling them that this is what happened and what we are dealing with and they can accept us or not. They have a track record for cutting people off for not having been the perfect catholic life, i.e., DSS, they pushed him out at 19 and owned (shame theme), it took 4 years of convincing him that this is who we are and if they couldn�t accept it they were missing a wonderful grandson. We sat down with them and told them this is our life they could be a part of it or not. But that�s it.

Now for my 2nd (taker) dilemma, I love my DSS really he is a charm in my life, we were meant to meet regardless, and I will always have the connection to one of the OW because of him. When he married, when he is sick, when there are just the silly things that a 20+ need help with. Not that he would ever put me in a position; it will come up with life. So I feel like I have a no win here, stay and have to deal with the Ex- who became the OW, or leave the person I love�.

Come on some one here has to have cheated with their ex-spouse... help me out on this one.

Sorry for the long post y�all 2 issues-

after writing all that- I realized my mom�s bday is tomorrow, she died 12/08. MS for 37 years then the big C. I was the primary care giver since I was 14. I truly have the best childhood a kid could ask for, really and truly- disability make you think in different ways, if the role model is positive ( MS is a strange disease)

Hey chickadee-

Just dropping in to see how things are going. No magic words as far as wondering if you really wanted what you fought for and won, but just keep looking for those good things and plod ahead, you know? It's kind of hard to do, but what choice do we really have sometimes and, eventually, I've found that you think less and less of those bad things.

Me, I probably think about the last year about three or four times a day now. It's coming up on one year since I first posted here, and I remember those days when it was a struggle just to make it the next hour, much less the next day. We just found out on Sunday that we're having our third child in March...*chuckle* guess the idea of dropping the BC pills to save money really backfired. Go figure. This time last year we about divorced, now we're adding another family member.

So, I think we've both come a long way here, keep on plugging away at it! It sounds like you've got one of those rare former-waywards that really had that lightbulb moment.

As for DSS, at least he's old enough that you don't have to engage his mother. A bit more tedious to avoid seeing her, perhaps, but certainly doable with his help. No reason to associate with people that you don't like and I wouldn't give a damn about what anybody thought about it. Life's too short, if you see her, ignore her. If she persists, tell her to go eff herself and if anyone complains about it, tell them to mind their own business. C'mon, be that New York-Italian-woman stereotype that we all see in the movies!

There's your pep talk from your favorite Southerner. Hope tomorrow goes a little better.

baby yeah!!!!!!!!!

thank you NW. -nice to hear that you also think of it 3/4 day- i thought i was crazy

big talk last night, lets see how he processes it all. the family is coming over on saturday ... dun dun dun... we will sit and explain what is happening.....

for you and your family!!!

Hope the get-together goes well and all this drama gets behind you soon.

Remember you cannot please everyone, ha ha.

alot of posting from both sides going on has got me thinking, thats not good.

my H has been doing everything in the program, working with jennifer seeing our own thearpy solo and together once a week. she also belives in MB and is convinced that we will come out much stronger.


my H is having a hard time juggling his lists and all of the things that he has to do, on when he "fails" at a SIMPLE TASK,he is feeling very down. for example, i asked as one of my need that he call and text. we have been over thing for weeks now and after his part i say i would like if you would call more. there have been times when its hours before i hear from him. (whats the average H & W communication per day?) i just need to hear from him more, bc of his history (and at this stage), i know he gets into his lala world, and i wont do that again, look where that got me.

and when discussed, he said sometime he has nothing to say. he not into emotions but he is learning (engineer!!!) we are working on this.

i think follwing all the rules is great, but i am feeling like i need more, like i need to be the wow, not just this list of things to do and the rules.

just listening to everyone, i have been feeling a bit odd about all of this.

the one thing i am lucky with is that (or not)i am confident on my own,i know i am a good person, i am proud that i have not gone his route, i am independent and could more than survive on my own, that was prob bc he wasnt around. i dont really have big problems with the OW's they are skakho. my problem in that area is with his behavior. and i know there are not may answers to the "why" question. i can accept that with time (hopefully)

my question is about myself. how does he wow me? i feel like we are coming down from the trauma/drama and i am good a fixing that. maybe i am still in aftershock.

thoughts/ suggestions?

chickadee, maybe I'm projecting too much of my own experience, but this again resonates with me.

You guys are sooooo fresh from D-day, and I remember at that time that I, too, had all sorts of lists and rules and new habits to learn, old habits to unlearn... A lot going on with that alone, and then you put it in the context of infidelity - and in the context of the WS trying to earn their F, in particular - and it's quite a bit to work through.

For me, I think things got better - easier? - with time. New habits became more ingrained, and slowly - sloooooowly - the paralysis of fear over messing it all up was replaced by a budding confidence in both my "F" and recovery: that it was okay to mess up, just keep striving for the good things.

I know this is from the WS perspective, and you were asking how your H can wow you; however, I wonder if he's not experiencing some of what I mentioned above, and if he's focusing on that stuff, his "ease" in the relationship is not there, and maybe you're feeling some of that? Does any of that make sense? (Gosh, I have the idea in my head, but for the life of me am having a terrible time articulating it.)

Does it seem unnatural or forced? And because of that, you feel like it's work and not wow?

If that's the case, I would say give it time. Keep encouraging him, discuss openly and honestly and kindly how things are going, (because, you know, a BS doesn't have enough asked of them after infidelity.../sarcasm). Hopefully he'll settle in to things, the ease will return to the relationship, and the wow factor will reappear.

Again, only my thoughts. Don't know if that's what you were looking for, but that's what your post made me think of.

At least from a WW perspective, I totally, totally get this. I actually think this is a good thing - it seems he's taking this seriously, and he hopes for success.


I said almost this exact same thing, and then I realized I just had to dig a little deeper beneath the surface to extricate whatever thoughts/emotions I did have. About anything, really. Self-reflection doesn't always come naturally. Maybe that is the case?

Are you asking, then, "Now what?"

Do you think, sometimes, that y'all are always in "trying" mode and forgetting to smell the roses (for lack of a better phrase)?

For me, it took a while (and still does sometimes) to shift from that betrayed mindset to where I'm not having to worry so damn much about the things that made nearly all of 2010 pretty lousy. I got used to worrying and kind of forgot how to enjoy life sometimes. Make sense?


Mrs V,
Your response made perfect sense to me and several points hit home. Thanks for the post.

Just talked a bit with FWW on this topic... or the topic of conversation in general.

Now, you mention the profession here, so here is an idea; think of what kind of thinking an engineer does.

For the most part, it is fact, figure, and data-driven thinking. As you stated "not 'into' emotions" - read here; http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2528622&page=1.

In this type of thinking emotions are not a fact, figure, or piece of data. It ends up being an "irrelevant" association.

For you, on the other hand, emotions are an extremely relevant piece of data. Yet, since the engineer doesn't "record" emotional data, he doesn't have much to pass on. He "has nothing to say," because he is trying to approach your conversational model, and hasn't developed the proper data collection habits yet.

Now, you may have mentioned his profession as a tongue-in-cheek notion, but your sentiment has echoed in 3 different threads from 3 different women (2 of which are coincidentally about engineers). And I recall another thread in which a woman referred to her husband as "emotionally illiterate."

Now, let's see if the villagers get their torches; it's generally a guy thing, not a thing about professions.

So next, a question; have you ever been describing something to your H, and noticed a moment when, in the middle of describing it, you lost his attention?

mrs. v, north & hhh you are all right. mrs. v that all makes sense to me and i am sure he would appreciate your articulating it for him.

we are working very hard at this, mrsv, thank you and i think thats exactly whats happening with him, then HHH, you put on top of it the inexperience with expressing emotion, then north, my own "now what" and you have pea soup.

wow you all made me feel much better, i think more encouragement with the habits, communication will help. i guess i was hoping that he would plan A me now... (ha).

hhh- read that thread and even sent him one of the jokes, I have to agree i have the same issues. He totally zones out during my convo. I just stop taking and wait. its pretty funny when he realizes what happened. then i say can i finish. or i spew random crazy thing about nothing until he realizes and then he schoked.

we have no plans for the weekend so idle time... going to look for something do do now! maybe smell some 100+degree roses....

thank you all