Been reading daily on this site & forum since May. Have read SAA and started HNHN, and read I think most of the articles available here.

I'm lost, I need help/guidance. I will try and keep this post short and come back to answer any questions you have.

Married for 12 years, dated for 4 years. Together since we were 18 & 19. 2 daughters 8 & 9.

Me: 34yrs old, I had 2 Ea's, one in 2004 & one in 2010, both with guys I knew or dated in high school. The one in 2004 I cut all ties with and informed my H what had been going on. The one in 2010 , he found out about after searching my laptop, I denied (it was over at that point)- I came clean about it being an EA this past Spring 2011.

Overall I have been happy with my H and our marriage. We never really fought, seemed like best friends, had a good sex life etc, had fun together etc. My Ea's came at times when I felt he had pulled away from me and were kind of revenge Ea's (not that that makes it right or any better). Bottom line , I knew even during those EA's that my H was/is the one I love and never thought of actually leaving marriage for either of the goons.

The issues I did have with my M stemmed from his use of porn and what I deemed his weak boundaries with women (I view them as weak boundaries, he views it as my insecurities and need to control him).

Him: H is 35 yrs old. Overall great family man, caring husband, my best friend. From early on in our marriage I was concerned with his overuse of porn (magazines, videos, internet etc)- not so much him looking at it- but his hiding it from me and then lying about it. He told me all guys did it and that it didn't diminish his feelings for me nor did it effect our sex life. He said he hid it from me to not hurt me, and then he would like about it because he didn't like me making him feel shameful or guilty. I was always concerned that his addiction to porn would escalate to worst behaviors.

For many years he gaslighted me. Denied things I found. Lied , tried to make me feel like I was an insecure, jealous crazy person that blew things out of proportion.

I would snoop, Find inappropriate texts, emails etc. When I would confront I would do so in anger. He always apologized, swore it didn't mean anything, he would stop etc.

About 4 years ago, when I would confront him about whatever I had found (chatting in porn rooms, membership to adult sites, flirting with women online). He started saying that he was doing it not for the sex but bc he was looking for a connection. Wish I had known about MB then. That he wasn't happy but not sure why, that he felt like he was in an oppressive marriage. That he didn't like the fact I didn't trust him, that my controlling behavior made him unhappy. At the time I felt like he was deflecting his guilt/shame over being caught bc he never brought these issues up unless he was caught doing something and he never expanded upon the initial "I'm just not happy".

So we would go thru a cycle. Things would be fine, then I would sense him pulling away/ loss of interest in me, I would snoop, I would find something, I would blow up, he would promise that nothing happened/ he would quit. And on and on it went.

April 2011- I sensed him pulling away from me majorly (worse than ever)- tried to have conversations about it but he denied anything wrong. Long story short - found out he had met up with an escort for sex. Later on found out he met up with 3 different escorts at different times of our marriage from 2005 to May 2011. He tried to deny again. Went to a MC , that was an awful experience. He finally came completly clean on all the PA's and EA's via a letter he wrote me. He left home and went to stay in a Hotel.

After he left , he was 100% sure there was NO hope for us. Wanted a divorce and blamed me 100% for the affairs. Said that he had never been able to stand up to me, that I had controlled him, that I had damaged him and hurt him beyond repair. That had he not grown to despise me he never would have disconnected and engaged in the affairs. I had lots of AO's during this time.

This is a man that up until March I thought was happy and loved me. I knew he had his issues, heck I have mine- but he had never fully told me how unhappy he was and that he was on the verge of leaving me.

In June his behavior started changing, suddenly he wanted to hang out at the house in the evenings with me and the kids. He was texting me , we seemed to be at least getting along. I asked him several times to come home and let us commit to work on the marriage- he refused. Said he did not feel connected to me and did not feel home was emotionally safe for him.

By July, we had started to date at his request. He would still come to the house in the evenings- he would set up date night for us, we would have a great time. But then once a week I would lose it- I would start with the SD's, AO's and DJ's. I would demand that he return home and start working on recovery. He would refuse - we would pull away and the cycle would start over.

He has claimed thru out all of this that he has a dream and that we will get back together but that the old marriage is dead and the only way for us to be together is to 100% start new. He thinks we need to divorce , date and rebuild that way.

He stopped wearing his ring in May. He has lived away from home since May. Sometimes he says I love you - most days he does not. He is a work a holic- however we see him pretty much every evening for dinner and he hangs out for an hour or two with me & the kids. He spends whatever available time (that I know of) with me or the kids. We talk and text daily. We seem to have gotten to a place where we can laugh and talk and share again.

He makes comments all the time about one day when we remarry. He claims that he wants to prove to me that he can be trusted (yet does not beleive in transparency b/c he thinks everyone is entitled to privacy). Wants to show me that he knows how to respect me etc.

I feel like I have been plan A'ing for a while now. Yes things are getting better - but this divorce is still on. I have told him I am willing to date him up until the divorce but that once the divorce is final I can not guarantee I will feel the same way. To me that is the biggest lovebuster that he can hand me. However he says that me telling him this is a threat, ultimatum and another way of me trying to control him.

I feel stupid. I feel like when I try to implement my boundaries to protect myself I get accused of controlling him /pushing the issue. He tells me to just relax, sit back and watch his actions and words and that things will happen naturally.

But I can't seem to wrap my head around the divorce. I'm also hurt by him not being at home and not engaging in anything physical with me other than a hug or peck on the cheek (says he is practicing celibacy).

I just view us as moving along with no real plan. He says that he has given me the plan- that once I fully give up all control there is a great chance he will come back. I understand I may have control issues to work on- but how do I give up complete control but still enforce my boundaries?

I am expecting 2x4's. I can handle them, but please also share with me your thoughts/ advice.

Thanks

Tell him that if you divorce him, you will not date him.

Your WH has so many issues and no seeming to understand the hard work HE needs to do to have a great marriage. He is trying to get you to buy his world view which it seems you are buying.

Email the radio show (the info how to do it is on the radio show link above) and talk to the Harleys. This sounds like a great topic for them to tackle (porn, prostitutes,divorce, EAs, etc).

I would go plan B and cut off all contact, get a neutral party to communicate about the children, get a lawyer to handle the divorce. A big mean one. Your husband PAYS FOR SEX WITH STRANGERS, and you are controlling? Please.

He is giving you crumbs because YOU ARE ACCEPTING CRUMBS.

He is using the idea that you are controlling to manipulate you.
You are so afraid of being accused of being controlling that you immediately back down from your LOGICAL and CORRECT opinions.
He is making you doubt yourself.

And he is using you to meet his emotional needs while being unwilling to meet yours. He is a cake-eater.

You need to have boundries with him.

Definitely call the radio show!

Thank you for the quick replies.

My mind & gut have been telling me to Plan B him for quite some time. Which is why I think I have the weekly outburts - I have tried (and failed) to initiate a Plan B and when I have he tells me that is once again my way of trying to dictate to him how this should be handled and that I am trying to make things happen on my time frame. That I will never change - that things will always be my way or the highway and he's not going to live like that anymore.

He has told me that nothing is going on or has happened since May when he confessed to me. He is now staying at his moms. He tries to touch base with me thru out the day to let me know where he is, if he will be out of touch for communication (and why ) etc.

He tells me that he is being 100% honest with me- and that while I may not like what I am hearing that at least I am getting the one thing I begged for for years. And that he says is why he won't come home. Says he won't pretend to be connected to me or in love with me when he is not. Says that he does love me but that feeling safe and falling in love with me again will take time and can not be forced.

Refuses counseling at this point. Said that when/if we did commit to eachother again he would agree to counseling at that point.

I did a limited exposure on him in May - ofcourse he claimed that hurt him, that I was being mean and vindictive. That he trusted me when he admitted the truth to me and I turned around and used the truth against me.

I love him. I want to keep my family intact. I am willing to work on our issues together. He says he is too but in his own way and on his own time. He says that everytime things start getting better between us I blow it by issuing demands and ultimatums.

I have tried to explain to him how much the A's hurt and how I am trying to hang on to us - but that I feel myself pulling away to protect myself.

Has told me he doesnt want to hear statistics, or about books or counseling etc. That we are individual snowflakes and that I need to stop listening to other people and reading forums as those people are not us and that we can do this our way.

Half of his family doesn't even know we are getting a divorce (they all live here in town and we see them once or twice a month). He says there is no need for everyone to know our business but that if I feel the need to share drama then go ahead.

I already signed the Divorce papers in July. He went to the cheapest slimeball attorney in town- had him draft up uncontested papers. I threatened to fight it, told him I would get my own attorney for my own protection. He told me I was looking at Divorce as a bad thing, when it doesn't have to be, that marriage was just a paper and divorcing didn't mean we were ending but starting new.

He feels the only way to prove to me that I am the one he really wants to be with is thru the Divorce. That once we are divorced and he still wants to be with me that that will somehow prove to me that I am the one. I've told him I don't feel the same way.

Anyways it was alluded to me that if I contested the divorce things would get ugly - and that would guarantee no hope for us ever recovering.

It was alluded to that the divorce was the one area of control that I still had and he needed to see that I could completely let go.

Like I said in my first post. There are days when I feel we are doing much better and getting closer to a true recovery and then there are days that I feel really stupid and just want to walk away.

A boundary is a sort of control.
A boundary is you controlling your own safety/sanity/security.
You are not controlling others when you enforce a boundary.

A boundary is: you stating what would be intolerable behavior for you.

What do you do when your spouse ignores your boundary and commits a known intolerable behavior?


What you do not do is .....





What 2X4 were you expecting?

I do not want to disappoint ..... so .... ~~~> <~~~ at your request.
(I hope this made you smile, just for a second)

He knows.
He does not care.

Oh really?


I bet you did not say it this way:

Wooow o wie!
This may be the biggest cake eater of all time.
I am sorry this is happening to you,
I am sorry that your girls have a first row seat to this circus.

YOU are the one teaching them (by your example)about how to be an adult woman. You and your H are both teaching them about what a wife should accept as treatment by her husband. They are learning by living this nightmare. Please, for them... help yourself first.

Here it is called "cleaning up your side of the street". You (at the very least, have poor personal boundries).

The vets will be here shortly to help you with the relationship. You have made an excellent first choice posting here.

Sister, you are no where close to a "true recovery".
Your H is a FREELOADER.
You cannot recover a healthy marriage with a FREELOADER.
You can remain happily married to a freeloader if you have no ENs what-so-ever. (that's a joke)

LINK to BUYERS RENTERS FREELOADERS discussion

Boundaries vs manipulation/controll <~~~ link to a discussion.

whoops, cross post. KVB. You girl, need this place very much.

You WS's fog is very thick now. You will find out that there is little you can do to combat fog, it is in your best intrest to read MB, learn, post here and try to ignore the fogbabble.

Do you really think he is going to respect you if you roll over and sign a "form e-z" divorce.
No, it is not a way to please him into a new relationship. At least not with you.

You have a lot of learning to do. I am so sorry you are here.

Tell everyone. As your WH said: "Go ahead." Take him at his word.

"Family, I need to share my situation with you.
My marriage is dying. WH has filed for divorce.
There have been multiple infidelities on WH's side, and 2 EA's on my side.
WH will not work on the marriage with me, as I have requested.
WH is determined to divorce and then, perhaps, date each other.
I want all of you to know that if WH and I divorce, my relationship with him is over.
Completely.
There will be no dating/friendship. We will parent our children with as minimal contact as possible.
I may request one of you to function as an intermediary so I can avoid all direct contact with WH.
The pain is too great to have any sort of contact."

I did tell him multiple times that if he goes thru with the divorce he loses me completely (no friend, no dating etc) - he says that just means that he will have to prove himself even further and work even harder to break thru to me to show me that he wants me.

I asked him why I should be willing to give him a second chance then (regardless of how hard he may fight for me) when he is not willing to fight for me/us now.

I have called him a cake eater. His response? How am I a cake eater? You said you wanted us to to work thru this I am just trying to be here so that we can start taking the baby steps to rebuild.

I have asked him if he was so unhappy all those years why he didn't take the outs when I offered them to him (I threatened leaving several times when I caught him doing something and he begged me to stay), he says because he was in love with me (but yet he also says he fell out of love with me many years ago).

I am a strong willed, opinionated person. He has told me that made him afraid to express his true feelings , that it was just easier to pretend that everything was ok and he was onboard. That protective lying and hiding his true feelings became self survival mode to him. Now I am made to feel that when I express how I feel that I am trying to control him.

Since he has left - there would be weeks when things were going great - I woudl actually be feeling pretty good about us - then he would leave in the evening - telling me he had to go back to work. I would get that old gut feeling- so I would swing by his office. What do you know? His car wasn't there. Or the time I thought he was staying with his mom but he decided that one night to stay in a hotel for that one night - and I saw his car there and waited in the parking lot til he came out. I did this bc just the day before I had seen him drive by the hotel - that night when I asked him if he was staying there he said no- no more secrets. Yet he ended up staying there the next night. When he saw me in the parking lot he got angry. Wanted to know why I was spying - said he needed my crazy behavior to stop. Told him how was I supposed to believe his claims of telling me the truth ? That sometimes I needed to verify trust and sadly in both cases is was not where he said he would be. Claimed he was going to tell me but I didn't give him the opportunity too. That I just assumed the worse, went all stalkerati and confronted him angrily.

He claims that he is the timid turtle (got this great bit from the failed MC we went too) - and that he keeps sticking his head out to see if the coast is clear - if the environment is safe for him and that I swoop in like a rabid raccoon looking to unleash all forms of fury on him.

He says that we are in a dangerous, cyclical dance. That I won't let down my guard until he lets down his. But that since he was the one that was so unhappy over the years (without coming out and ever talking to me about it) - that I need to make the decision to let my guard down first and that as he sees I can be trusted he will start giving me the things I have requested (counseling, transparency , recovery plan etc).

Why did I expect 2x4's? Because honestly even I am fed up with myself and my situation at the moment and feel like giving them to myself sometimes lol.

Guess what? We all love our spouses and want to keep our families intact and are willing to work on issues. All of us here. Yup.

Plan Bing will allow you to get stronger. To have very, very strong boundaries and to be able to say "No." Yes, those waywards know the way back to the marriage. They have their own issues and need to work through them and maybe then they can come back to it. Not a moment before.
You love him and are used to being a spouse of his but you can get stronger and say 'No.'
What a powerful thing.

It does suck for you and the kids that he is not choosing to be a good man, but, you don't have to follow him to h3ll. You can live up on planet Earth and he can find his way back, maybe. You don't have to date him while he travels around that place.

Well said-reading--

I agree wholeheartedly!!!!

Absolutely. This is what needs to be done with exposure in our case.

You need to prepare to do a completely dark Plan B.

The one thing that I see here is that the reason your WH may want a D is so it is a do-over. He figures that he can just end this marriage, and then he will start over with a clean slate so you can't use his past actions against him AND HE DOES NO WORK.

Don't talk to him about your marriage anymore. Plan A him for a week and then go DARK.

TRANSLATION:

He thinks you are weak. Or, does he KNOW you are weak?

OK. May I assist with a 2X4?

Yes, I will, thank you very much.

You need to SHUT UP sometimes.

You think your words and your conversations will change things.
You've said stuff like: "I've told him multiple times" .... which reveals YOUR thinking fallacy, not his!

Has it worked yet?
Have your multiple and redundant teachings/lectures/conversations worked yet?

STOP DOING THIS.

I used to be a strong, confident , independant woman. Even from an early age. He says that is one of the initial draws he had to me.

But then he says I started using my superpowers against him. Says he was initially attracted to me bc he knew I was the kind of person that would call him on his BS , but that I took it overboard by trying to control him. That he lost his identity. Doesn't know who he is or what he likes.

Says that it is important for him to see that I can be a nice person to him (again we very rarely argued but he now claims that is bc he didn't speak his mind). That I can be loving and caring an supportive. Says that he needs to see that I can stop the crazy stalker behavior. That he wants to build trust so strong that transparency won't be needed (told him that won't happen). That when I do think I "discover" something that I can handle it in a calm rational way and not make assumptions.

This is what he has viewed as controlling (and maybe it is, I don't know anymore):

-He was partners in a business, we had mutually put a large sum of money down on building a house. During the process I went back to a job I despised bc the money was better and would help us. Financially things were still tight bc he was not getting a paycheck from his company. Had discussions where I told him I was doing all I could, if he chose to stay with his business he would either A. need to start drawing a check B. seek part time employment C. seek a different full time job (that actually pays a paycheck). Anyways he left the company, fell into a depression and blamed me.
-Many instances where finances, family decisions were left up to me, I would explain options, ask him his opinion, he woudl tell me he didn't know, didn't care one way or another etc. So I would finally make a decision. Then if it didn't work out he would blame me for making a bad decision and later on say I was controlling bc I was the one that made the decision

Anyways I share these instances bc I do accept responsibility for issues I may have brought to the marriage. I am trying to follow the right steps to salvage our marriage and trying to insure I am not doing what he is accusing me of (he says I am trying to sabotage our recovery, manipulate him, control him etc). If I need to plan A a bit longer (with no AO's) then that is what I will do , however if the general consensus is to Plan B then that is what I will do.

Sadly my mind is so messed up these days that I don't know what is my reality and what is false. Sad isn't it?

Part of me says - to just stand back and see what happens. Continue Plan A'ing , if the divorce goes thru it goes thru and when it does just smile sweetly and say see ya later . But like I said for whatever reason I do want to feel like I did whatever was humanly possible to save us (again he says this is my controlling nature).

sigh