But she WANTS me to respond, I just don't know how. All I can say is "That must be very hard" or "That's a horrible thing to be dealing with" or things like that...

Again, more bullcrap. You have already established you DID love the OW. So stop spinning the truth.

Question; are these situations you are talking about her having Angry Outbursts about your affair?

On the one side, I can understand - since you need to learn to speak honestly without trying to wriggle around and minimize or blameshift.

On the other - if she is having an Angry Outburst about your affair, there is no response that is going to work.

I know, I did it to my FWW in the first few months after she did something you still need to do; have complete honesty and ownership of HER affair, and how it was HER decision to take every single individual step that lead to it and continued it, that it was HER decision to LIE, CONTINUOUSLY.

There are no responses that will be satisfactory to someone in the middle of an Angry Outburst, and to try to satisfy an AO with response is to risk joining them in the insanity.


Remember, the trigger for her AO's is your dishonesty. Stop being dishonest.

Right here. You LOVED the OW. You equated it to the LOVE an alcoholic feels for his alcohol because of the way it makes him feel.

So, cut the crap and stop making stupid posts about this.

Schlag,


Your post is a prime example of minimizing;


"I told the OW I loved her (the truth), BUT I didn't really love her (minimizing)."

The second half of the statement is NOT needed. Period. At all.


It's like saying "Yes, I stole a candy bar (the truth), BUT I gave it to a beggar (minimizing)."

The fact that you gave it to a beggar has no impact on the FACT that you are a thief.

It's not angry outbursts. well, not usually.

I have complete ownership of the affair. I do not blame anyone else for my actions. I made the choices. I have made that clear to her and continue to do so.

I am working on being honest without qualifying. It's been a long road of lies and it's been a rough month learning to live in radical truth. According to some I'm not there yet. all I can say about that is I'm here and I'm trying.

...except in Amy's mind, LOVING the OW is the horrible offense, not TELLING her that I loved her. that I didn't really love her is ALSO truth. Important truth.

I am posting this for Amy, because I have concluded Schlag is unteachable. Amy, the addiction analogy, along with how the affair made him "feel" is an EXACT description of the love a WS feels for an OP. Just as an alcoholic LOVES his booze [and I do mean LOVE - they love it because of the way they feel] your husband loved the OW. Your husband did love the OW and he is trying to spin it to you because he is a committed liar.

I am not telling you this to hurt you, but so that you will know that your instincts are right. Unfortunately, you can see from this thread that you husband is constitutionally incapable of being honest. I just don't know to put it any other way.


http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5032a_qa.html

You are trying to spin the truth. There is no "radical truth" here.

Not only did you love her you played a vital role in her divorce. Did she wait for you? Did she expect your call in March to finally resume the affair?

LYING to your wife is a worse offense. I don't know if you got the message but you are losing your marriage over LYING. It is the LYING she can't deal with. So what do you do? You continue to LIE. Everyone can see the sky is blue but you insist on telling others it is black. That is not working for you. You continue to dig yourself deeper and deeper into a hole.

I am not addicted nor in love with the OW. I had no withdrawal symptoms when ending the PA. I want nothing to do with her. I want my wife and my family.

If you say that I loved OW like an alcoholic loves booze, fine. I loved OW like an alcoholic loves booze. I don't believe that is love. But I am teachable. I am trying to learn how to speak honestly without equivocating or qualifying. you just don't like what I beleive the truth to be.

I do not continue to lie. I did not love the OW. I used her for sex. She fed my appetite. I am honest about what she was and is.

She called me, and no i didn't play a vital role in their divorce. Her being a wh0re did. I was apparently one of at least four. If she waited for me she was delusional.

Unless she told you this exactly, then you CANNOT POSSIBLY KNOW WHAT ANYTHING IS IN YOUR WIFE'S MIND. That is a disrespectful judgement, sir.

And you keep lying to her to avoid the trouble of hurting her.

Just stop it, dude. STOP.

She made it clear to me that actually loving her was worse. It was not my judgment.

Telling OW that I loved her was hurtful enough. I am prepared to face the consequences for that. Because it's the truth. It's also the truth that I didn't love the OW. Maybe I just don't accept the love bank definition of love like you said in her thread. Like if the OW told me enough times that I was a great guy I magically am in love with her all of a sudden. It's not math. It doesn't work that way.

That is entirely her decision. But she is entitled to the truth. And yes, you did love the OW. Your wife already knows it so denying it just makes it worse.

Actually, it is math. It's just not easily perceivable math.

The sum of Love Bank deposits being equal or greater than the Romantic Love threshold = Romantic Love.

Now, let me see if I can get you to grasp this and quit arguing;

There is a reason behind the wayward statement "I love you BUT I'm not IN LOVE with you."

That reason is that the wayward usually has CARING love for their spouse (though, they are doing something that goes against that).

They usually still care about their betrayed spouse; this lie is told as a way to avoid and or minimize the damage that the wayward KNOWS infidelity will visit upon their betrayed spouse. They don't wish ill on them, and some of them have this screwed up thing in their heads where they can just divorce their spouse to be with their AP and "just be friends" with their betrayed spouse.

They don't want to cut their spouse out of their life because they still have CARING love.


HOWEVER, by allowing the AP to meet their needs, they have "fallen in love" with the affair partner. And this is Romantic Love. Romantic love drives us to do MORE than care for that person. It drives us to want to meet their needs, and to allow them to meet ours.


So, your assertion that you "didn't love" your AP is BUNK.

You did - you were at least in Romantic Love with her, though you never had any Caring Love.

Romantic Love is the goal of the Marriage Builders program.

If this statement is true, why are you HERE? Do EVERYONE a favour and READ this site. If you don't find that you agree with what the basic concepts are in MB, then you have NO hope for recovering your marriage from an affair.

You did love OW. She did do something for you. You most likely DID think about leaving Amy for OW. You most definitely DID put OW above Amy.

The polygraph said that you lied. The posters here say that you are lying. What's it going to take for you to see that you are a liar? You need to acknowledge it, because until you do, your wife isn't safe from you.

I had the same psycho-babble answers for my wife the first time I came home (BTW, it was a false recovery that time).

I'd bought into the new age idea that listening required feedback. Boy was I wrong, and unbeknownst to me, it caused major love bank withdraws as well.

Look at what I highlighted in red and think about it for a few minutes....


I'm going to paint a visual for you;

You've laid 250lbs of weights on your wifes chest and she is crying about how the pressure is killing her, seeking relief,,,,, and your responses to her are......

"I'm Sorry"
"That's a horrible thing to be dealing with"
"That must be very hard"


Do you see?

Do you see what your doing here?

You are patronizing your wife..... And it's extremely disrespectful.

I know all about it, I once was guilty of the same thing.

STOP IT!



If you want to say anything at all....

Acknowledge that you are responsible for her pain....and offer to help her in any way you can....

Are you capable of doing this without patronizing her, and/or adding excuses about your behavior??