We had a conversation last night that started with discussing why he wants to go trick-or-treating with us. Why does he want to do family activities together at the same time he is trying to break up the family?<P>He is still intent on getting a divorce. But wants to keep his options open (his words). He told me he assumes that if he changes his mind, it would be 'easy' to convince me to take him back. <P>I blew up at him today at daughter's soccer game. We both ended up lovebusting big time. He actually laughed at me when I told him I would find someone else who can appreciate what he's throwing away. This is the same person who has been telling me I should be more honest with him. I told him I didn't realize laughter was the response he was looking for to honesty. <P>I just can't stand it anymore, guys. I told him I want the divorce over with ASAP. How can he ever love me again when he doesn't even respect me? <P>Truth is, I don't respect myself anymore. <P>Every time we have had a blow-up in the past, I've ended up apologizing to him. Not this time! He is a selfish, self-centered, egotistical, irresponsible jerk!

Animac -- What a coincidence!! W and I had a similar discussion last night. She has been rejecting offers to stop the divorce or put it on hold, preferring to let it take its course and then telling me that she doesn't know what she wants to do. Letting the process take its course means that it could all be over with right after the first of December. <P>I have been asking her why she wants to continue to go to couples therapy when the divorce is imminent and we still have a long way to go. She can't answer that. So I asked her and our counsellor what is the purpose in me attending counselling if I'm the only one interested in working to save the marriage. Neither one would give me an answer, so we had a blow-up last night. I told her she needed to sleep in one of the other bedrooms, she can date and she agreed to cooperate with me to get the house appraised so I can try to qualify to buy her out. In addition, we agreed to meet today or tomorrow to start sorting out the property settlement. And if you were to ask her, she would tell you that she hadn't made up her mind yet.<P>I believe that what she wanted was for me to push the divorce thru so she could believe that it was all my fault and not hers. She doesn't like taking responsibility when anything goes bad and she has put OM "on-hold" until she sorted this out. So I played right into her hands, but that is OK because we will finally have some resolution to this.<P>Parallel universe, huh???

Grrrrr! I am so sorry Ani - what a jerk!I agree, time to pull back and rebuild your self respect. It's so hard to keep that distance though isn't it?<P>Get back your strength girl! Just let him be - don't be provoked but don't apologize anymore either. Do what's good for Ani..<P>Starpony

Hi, Ani - I'm with Starpony. You do what's best for you, now. <P>Lori

Animac,<BR>I am sharing your pain today. See my post about my insensitive H. I can not figure out why things are going the way they are. You sound like such a wonderful person who is trying so hard to save her marriage. Your H sounds like mine - wants to do fa,ily stuff when it is FUN, and skip all theday to day stuff - that's reserved for the OW.<P>I bought a chiminea - it is an outdoor clay fireplace. I burn wood in it. I LOVE breaking the twigs and burning them up and looking at that fire! Helps when I put names on those twigs!!!Take a guess what 2 names come up most frequently!!!! Just one way of letting off steam. What do you do besides coming here?<P>Roll Me Away<P>

Annie,<P>I'm sorry for you that this is happening. Don't let this bring you down for your self-esteem. It's not about you, it's about him.<P>If you're not going to divorce him immediately, then you should go to an immediate separation and completely shut him out of your life. You won't be able to take this kind of emotional abuse from him much longer. You do need to take care of yourself at this point.

Take care of you, Animac.<P>I do that too...the apologies before I realize hey, wait a minute, I just felt insulted!! And yes, to be fair, H also does this.<P>If you're doing all the apologizing, maybe it's time to just stop. <P>Thinking of you with very heartful best wishes. You WILL figure out what's best.

Thanks, guys. Now that I got it out of my system, I'm not so mad anymore. Just so, so sad. <P>When this kind of thing happens, I think divorce really is the right choice. But the only thing we fight about is the divorce. I really think we could learn how to communicate better. The hurt is just so, so deep. And every time the wound starts to scab over, he opens it up again. I'm such a fool.

Hi, Annie,<P>I'm so sorry . I keep hoping for some better news for you.<P>I agree with the others that it's really time to take care of Annie. As K said, this isn't about you, it's about him. He's out of touch with reality, and still wants to have his cake & eat it too. You've gone over the rainbow, cutting him slack & waiting... but I think the laugh in response to your remark is really too much. <P>You do what's right for YOU, Annie... keep your chin up too because you are a fine, fine person who has dealt with an incredibly difficult situation with grace, maturity, and class. We're all here wishing you peace and sending you hugs. Keep us posted on how things are going for you, ok? - Suse

Annie,<BR> You're not a fool.Just someone who tried to save her marriage.I guess I'm starting to believe that when there's no respect anymore,maybe the marriage should be over.How can you continue to really love someone,when they don't respect you? My W has been"dissing" me for the last few years.Maybe that's why is was so easy for her to have an affair,and leave me.I found the only way to gain my self-respect back,was to go into a strict plan B.I even screened my calls so she would have to leave a message,and sometimes I never even called her back.She got the message real fast that I didn't want to talk to her.I wasn't going to let her put me down anymore.Unfortunatly,if you have kids at home,that's not as easy to do.But maybe you can avoid him as much as possible.Don't let him walk on you,Annie,and don't put yourself down.Be better than him,because you are. --Murph

Hi Animac,<P>My W tells me the same thing when I bring up the topic of divorce. She always says she doesn't want a divorce but that would be best for us. When I tell her I'm ready to give up she begs me not to and says "I don't believe you". <P>I think maybe they are testing us in a way. My first X, yes we talk and are friends, says that I should back off and let her think for a while. I truly am ready to give up on this and move forward so what the heck. <P>Don't know if this helps.<P>Wishing us the Best.<P>Medic

You will pass every test if you are honest with yourself. Quite cryptic, I know. <P>Eric32<p>[This message has been edited by Eric32 (edited October 30, 1999).]

Yes, I know its long past time when I need to work on me. I asked my therapist how to stop obsessing over him. She said obsessing is a way of holding onto him. I won't stop obsessing until I'm ready to let go. This wasn't much help. <P>I've read a lot of things about overcoming affairs. One of the points I see over and over is that if you keep punishing your spouse for the affair, you may feel RIGHT, but you won't be happy. That's what I feel like my H is doing to me. Every argument gets back to what I did or didn't do in the marriage prior to his affair. It's so frustrating, because I can't change the past. We can't have a new marriage without letting go of the old, and he just isn't willing or ready to let go. He's not through punishing me -- he may never be through. <P>This whole year has felt like one giant test. I keep failing over and over again. <P>My therapist has said that he can't get in touch with the side of him that wants to hold onto the marriage as long as I'm the one holding on so tight. We are in a cycle where I pull away, and he does or says something to reel me back in, then he pulls away. Maybe its just a power trip. I hate myself for getting sucked into his head games over and over again. <P>Eric -- sorry, I really don't get it.

Animac,<P>Gosh, your last post REALLY touched a common chord with me. I, too, feel like my H is punishing me and won't let go of that. His affair in part, I think is a retaliation affair for brief EA I had 2 years ago. He has NEVER forgotten or forgiven, and I think he dishes it out now as payback. It is pathetic to me that some peopole (your H and mine) have such low capacity to forgive! I do not understand it, because we are all human and all make mistakes - no one is perfect.<P>Other thing - you mentioned the pushing and pulling. Yep, on that too. When I try to push H back into the marriage, he pulls further out. When I back off, he tries to re-engage me. The classic pursuit-distancer relationship. Now, I am doing a Plan AB - basically avoiding him at every possible chance. When we have to see each other or talk, I am nice (except for yesterday - see my post!). Just started this plan this week, so hopefully I will see this is a better thing for me to do. At least my spirits are higher because I am getting a little emotional break if nothing else.<P>This seems like games to me. I just want to pick my toys up and go play elsewhere! That is why I left Plan A and more to Plan B. <P>Could that work better for you????Hugs.....<P>Roll Me Away

hi annie, it is so frustrating to keep going back to the same page over and over. I have to agree with k and suse. For you to truly feel happy and whole, I think you need to make some decisions. Either plan b or ??? <BR>You are getting slivers in your butt because you have been sitting on that fence a very long time. Pretty soon, those slivers start to fester and need to be removed. Or they will cause gross sytemic infection.<BR>Plan b removes the sliver. It allows you to worl on Annie!! <BR>Annie you cannot change him, but you can chnage how you react and deal with this situation. (((hugs))) cl

Annie:<P>Your post is so interesting. I have a few comments that are also analagous to my situation.<P>First, I doubt your husband is trying to punish you for his affair. It's much more likely that he's holding onto the real or imagined things you did (and my bet is apologized for and fixed, as I have) in order to justify his own behavior. In a sense, if he can blame you, he can avoid looking at himself. This is also confirmed by his reaction to your comments about being "a good person" - "I must have had a very good reason". I see the same nonsense in my husband. He said to me "sometimes I wonder how I got myself into this mess but then I think about how unhappy I was and just had to do this". It's a big cop-out. It's much easier psychologically for them to blame us than to look at their own role and decisions.<P>Second point about the same characteristic is it allows them to avoid responsibility FOR WHAT THEY'RE DOING NOW. By focusing so much on the past, it keeps them stuck there. From what I can see, there isn't much effort invested in either case towards resolution. Both are focused on how/why they did what they did, but not at all focused on what they're doing now nor what they're going to do to solve things.<P>I stick with the comment that it's so little about you and so much about him. He's stuck in his own cocoon of justification and pain, combined with a true unwillingess to look at himself. The question is, what, if anything, can you do about it?<P>My primary opinion is not much. The journey towards self-discovery and willingness to see one's own shortcomings must come from within. But for your part, I think you should do everything possible to remove the origins of his justifications. Whatever bad stuff you did or he perceived you to have done in the marriage needs to be completely eliminated ASAP. Secondly, if you haven't done it yet, you need to acknowledge openly the things you did (completely non-defensively) and apologize for them. Even go so far as to say "I don't concur with the course of action you took to have an affair, but I can understand the pain you were in at the time. I'm sorry for my part in that. If I had a better understanding of the pain I was causing I would have behaved differently and this might not have happened. Can you forgive me for my selfishness and thoughless mistakes at that time?"<P>The bottom line is to try to take away the basis for the justification. I think it's very hard to hold onto anger towards someone when THEY are extremely remorseful and have changed their behavior. Anger then becomes an act of will.<P>I will tell you that I have done it and it's even acknowledged by my husband. Still, he refers to the situation as "hopeless" and is stuck in the past. There's nothing more I can do about this. As I said, it's primarily his journey towards maturing. Frankly, I suspect my husband has always been immature, but never had a situation like this before where it was so demonstrated. I also did alot of "taking care of him" (i.e. enabling) during the marriage, so it wasn't apparent just how immature and irresponsible he was. I am losing hope at a very great rate that he will suddenly find maturity, character and courage at this late date. I'm also not sure that I want to live my life in the role of mother and try to develop these traits in him now at age 40.<P>The most annoying item in your post is one I've also recently experienced. Your husbands belief that you are totally his and will take him back at any time. I asked my husband to restate what my position was and he said "you'll do anything to get me back". I think what has happened to both of us is too much Plan A. Now, we've lost credibility. I corrected my husband's statement to "I don't think we're ready for you to come back. I only want you to join me in counseling and actively trying to solve our problems. Then we can think about your coming back." I have to say, he was stunned (doe in the headlights look). I'm not sure if he accepted it, but it wouldn't hurt either of us to do the pullback and add mystery to our behavior. Plan A does NOT mean we're always giving. It does mean we don't lovebust. I'm at the stage now where not lovebusting is about all I can sign up for. Meeting his emotional needs is getting beyond me. But I am focusing on my own life and more actively going out with friends, including one male one.<P>I blame this reaction on us, not them. We have made it seem this way and given them total control of the situation. So I would advise you NOT to get angry at him. He gave you valuable feedback about something that might not be working. Now go fix it. In DB, there is a different philosophy about the open arms return and the faith in working things out. Michele actually advises that we show our own doubt, as that makes it easier on the spouse. It also helps to counter a certain stubborness, to do the opposite of what we say. When we express our own doubts (and let's face it, don't we have them?), it actually makes it easier for them to work with us.<P>One more comment about stuff in common that also applies. I have had two option payouts vest and payout while separated (non-qualified, defined as earned income), with one more coming in July. My house, which I've been solely paying for during separation, has appreciated $200K in market value during separation. According to attorneys, these are my separate assets. I estimate a failed reconcilation attempt will cost me a bundle. I'm not willing to do it. I've decided that my husband will not be coming back to live here until I'm fairly sure it's permanent. To me, that probably means a year of counseling first, along with sustained, demonstrated change. I think we're both at the point where we need to look out for ourselves and kids first, regardless of what it does to the outlook for the marriage, which is already dismal.<P>This is long, but I hope helpful. I learn from your situation so I actively watch it. I think our men are in the same place.<P>Good luck and God bless.

Ani - I am truly sorry and saddened to hear that things are going this way for you. I know from reading all your posts that you have been trying like crazy to find some way to save your marriage when a lot of the time it looks like your H is doing just the opposite. This latest incident convinces me that he's behaving like a real jerk. Unfortunately, we love the people we love and if we love them we love them. Easy to say "let go" but not easy to do at all, no, letting go of true love is probably the hardest thing in the world, maybe impossible in the end.<P>I did also relate to the part about our spouses punishing us for THEIR affairs. I certainly feel that my W does this with her nagging, criticism and distancing. But you know what? During the last few months, I've taken to punishing her back. This is by my drinking. (I do drink responsibly -- only in the evenings, don't drive while I'm drinking if I can help it, don't get drunk, don't go on benders, am always able to get up and go to work the next morning, but probably do drink more than is healthy for me.) And one thing else I'm not proud of but somehow felt right about doing? And this is lying about my drinking. Whenever my W asks me if I've been drinking, I tell her no, I haven't been. And the point of this is, I want to show her how upsetting it is to be lied to about something upsetting that you know your spouse is doing, just like she denies her affair. Not too swift, huh? But I really just want to show her how it feels to be lied to this way. Guess that makes me a jerk too.<P>--Wex

No time now to reply to everyone, but thanks for all your thoughts! I'll respond in full tomorrow!<BR>-Annie

Sorry it took so long for me to get back! The pushme-pullyou stuff is definitely at work. I've been paying more attention recently to Michelle Weiner-Davis' divorcebusting stuff. She makes it clear that when the 'leaver' starts to make a move back towards the marriage, you must remain distant and aloof. If you come back towards the center, they run away again. I feel like we have done this dance over and over again.<P>Distressed -- you are right, there are many similarities. He's not punishing me for the affair per se, but for what he perceives as all the injustices done to him in the 12 years we were together before his affair. Of course, he never once complained until his affair began. <P>I've acknowledged repeatedly the mistakes I feel I made in the past. I've worked hard to change -- but it's hard to really demonstrate change when we don't actually live together. He pays lip service to the idea that "it takes two" and he owns some responsibility for the state of our marriage before his affair, but I don't think he really believes it. <P>It's hard to acknowledge the financial and legal realities when you are talking about matters of the heart. But these kids are counting on me to do what is in their best interests, so I can't be stupid. <P>Yes, he's behaving like a jerk. Funny, but in a way its progress of a sort. He's been the "model" ex-spouse otherwise -- always shows up on time, helps me with anything I need around the house, always polite. We seem to get along so well that neighbors have questioned why we are getting a divorce. Well, now we are finally seeing some of what is going on underneath the surface for him, and its not pretty. <P>Wex, fighting fire with fire just leads to both parties getting burned. But I know you already know this. <P>I'm sorry it took so long to respond. Just to finish the story -- I didn't apologize for our fight, but I did call him on Sunday and told him if he still wanted to he was welcome to come trick-or-treating with us. It just felt too petty and mean-spirited to exclude him. He came over and we had a nice evening. I pointed out to him (nicely) that his constant accusations about the past are exactly what he didn't want me to do to him. I was very nice to him, but also made some references to copying tax forms and splitting up the car insurance and other things we need to do to move the divorce forward.<P>Now for the pushme/pullyou part. He called tonight while I was feeding the kids dinner and asked if he could call later to talk. I think its just about work, but still its highly unusual for him to initiate a conversation. Here we go again!

Annie,<BR> My H told me, back in the summer, that I wouldn't "go any further than 25 feet from the house." This was during a camping weekend when he had been really nasty to me all weekend--so much so that the other couple we were camping with (in different trailers) commented on it. It was so bad that I got totally POd and I made a few "smart-@$$" remarks in kind. My response to that remark was, "Well, I might not be going any further than 25 feet from the house, but that doesn't mean that you won't be." He asked me what I meant by that, and I told him that he knew where the road was. Can you tell that I was <B>mad</B>??<P> Anyway, that remark started me to rethinking my position on Plan A--wondering if I was taking Plan A to the extremes.<P> A couple of months later was when I caught him at the Cafe Woman's restaurant after he had agreed to never go there or anywhere around her unless I was with him. We had an angry confrontation, I wrote him an ultimatum letter, closed up shop, packed my stuff, and disappeared for two days. He finally admitted to one 1-night stand. I probably should have stayed away until he admitted to <B>everything</B>, but I thought maybe he might tell me everything once I got home. He hasn't done that yet, but he <B>is</B> working very hard at changing his behavior toward me. He is being very loving and affectionate and is now treating me with respect. He now knows that I have my limits on what I will tolerate. He now knows that I will not stick around to take every bit of abuse that he wants to dish out.<BR> As for the honesty thing...well, I'm trying to figure out the best way to handle that. Yes, I'm back in Plan A, but it's a whole lot easier when he is Plan A'ing me (even though he doesn't know it ). We will have to talk about it again at some point, but for right now, I'm doing pretty well.<P> Maybe your H needs to know that you do have your limits and that you may not always be there for him unless he straightens his act up. Perhaps some form of Plan B is in order for you. Heck! Maybe you just need to do what I did: Pack up the kids, leave him a note saying that you and the kids will be back in a few days and not to be looking for you. I would probably just flat-out tell him that I'm tired of his waffling and that he needs to either s*** or get off the pot. Then, when you get back, avoid him like the plague. Hire a sitter to stay with the kids for when he comes over to play with the kids or pick them up. Make him come to you instead of just casting out his line and reeling you in.<P>That's just my opinion, of course. I just think you need to shake this man up!