Because this is the cruelest thing you can do to your wife.
You have violated your covenant in the most vile way.
You acted deplorable, vile, with extreme selfishness

If you do not start at this very minute changing yourself this will be passed onto your children and your children's children. You have one shot to make this work.

I am concerned you still do not get the gravity of what you have done.

Please see how sick and twisted your actions are in the eyes of others.

Schlag - you have one shot to turn this around. You have one shot to make right what you have done wrong. If you get off this very narrow path, you will see this again in your children and your children's children. They are learning from you every second of the day. Amy will not shelter them from the truth of you. She will not shelter them from these actions. These will be known to those you vowed to protect.

Don't even worry about your marriage. Save yourself first -- have you thought about volunteering at a nursing home? I suggest you throw yourself into volunteer work. What can those nearing the end of their lives teach you? How can you humble yourself?

I think something that would be good for you to understand is the contrast effect that is happening with Amy and the revelation of your sins. It would serve you very well if you could give her everything she needs as quickly as possible, so this can all be behind you. The more you trickle truth this out the more she will grow to hate you.

Your contrast effect is great - Amy will need to grow within herself to work through all of this. This means you will need to really dump love into her as much as possible. I also have many kids, and I can tell you the delusion you have that you were a great father needs to go.

Anyone engaged in adultery is not a good parent, friend, lover, or anything. A good father would not have done this to his family. You need to understand the depth of this reality. For many women FC is a high need.

If she won't let you meet any other need, then the best you can do is FC and FS. FC needs to be spectacular. You need to be father of the year, and you need to understand what it takes to be a father. I would recommend networking with other great father's from your church and find out what works for them. What makes them a great father?

Find out from Amy what she thinks is a great father. Find out what she needs from you as a father. If you divorce, then FC and FS are the only things she will get from you. You need to master them, and make sure they meet her needs.

She has recently found out that after her first pregnancy I developed a sexual attraction to pregnancy. I told her that when she was pregnant and of course she asked me if it was ALL pregnant women or just her. I lied and told her it was just her. I think pregnancy on an already attractive woman makes that woman more attractive.

I also considered hiring a pregnant escort once 5 years ago but never went through with it. I did own two DVDs of pregnant porn from 5 yrs ago to 2 years ago.

I understand that hiring escorts or supporting the porn industry is terrible and destructive to the people that are involved, and it's especially bad when it's a woman who is pregnant. I am ashamed of what I did.

When she found out she said I was sick and disturbed and now she is considering kicking me out and taking my kids away from me because she isn't sure they are safe with me.
_________________________

Sexuality without direction is worth nothing. Why are you/have you been in the habit of wildly directing your sexual thoughts at anything with a skirt that walks by?

It is not a bad thing that you found your wife amazingly attractive as she was pregnant. And it is not odd either to be reminded of that attraction when you see a pregnant woman.

But why not redirect those thoughts and think about how stunning your own wife looked as she was pregnant? And how you loved to touch her changing body? And think to yourself how awesome those days with your own wife were?

In that way, she would be filling your love bank without even being there or knowing that, because of your pleasant thoughts about her. And if she asked you, you could honoustly say, that you are always reminded of her, when you see a pregnant woman.

You can do the same thing with any urges whatsoever.
You have been in a long habit of not being the boss of your own sexual feelings. If you would relax and close your eyes while driving your car on the freeway, that would also be nice for two seconds. But only the mastery of the machine can bring you real and not fleeting satisfaction. Apart from the fact, that you won't crash.

Once you are the master of your urges, you direct your life and than you will be really free.
Not a slave to infatuations and fleeting emotions. But a true master of your own self.

You too, have it in you. But no skill without practice.

God bless, Happyheart

Can someone she trust hold it for her? Maybe with an agreement of time to re-visit this?

I agree she may change her mind and you cant go back from this.

Schlag, I am astonished that you haven't done what she has asked. I'm astonished that you have acted independently by taking the decision to go against her wishes and keep the cast (in a box), and I am horrified at the DJs you are making against her in the passages I underlined.

You are in no position to do any of these things. You are fighting for your marriage, and you need to do what Amy requests. If you feel that there might be room for negotiation, then you should follow Dr H's guidelines for safe negotiation. You could PROPOSE keeping the cast in a box in the garage with a view to seeing how she feels about it, say, one week, and then three etc, but if, with or without negotiation, she says that she wants it gone now, it should be gone YESTERDAY.

I am gobsmacked that you are thinking of overriding her wishes with your wishes on this issue.

Stunned.

About a week after D day, I started tearing our wedding photo album apart.
OW was a guest at our small ceremony and that was, in part, my motive for wrecking the photos.
Mr Pep quietly tucked the album deep in the garage, where I'd have to work hard to locate it.
MUCH MUCH MUCH later, I was able to enjoy the photos. Of course, the OW photo had been destroyed.

I like the previous suggestion of asking your wife if she'd mind if a trusted friend keep the plaster cast, in case your wife wants it later.
If your wife says "NO!" Then, get rid of it.

Schlag, if your wife says that the cast must be destroyed then do as she says.

It doesn't matter if she cannot go back from this. Any woman can live without a cast of their pregnant belly. And Pep, if a BW destroys her wedding photos because of learning about OW, then the fact that they are no longer available when she doesn't feel so strongly can be gotten over. Having your wedding photos or pregnant belly cast isn't important in life. What IS imoportant is the child that was cast in the womb, and the marriage that is now recovered.

Pep, you didn't order your H to destroy the photos, and he did not take it upon himself to countermand your wishes. Schlag has had an express request from Amy and he has chosen, independently, to decide that he knows better than she about what she wants. I think that is a very different matter from stopping her (you) from acting destructively in a fit of rage.

Schlag, your wife has already told you that she wants the photos destroyed. If you ask her again, and she says "destroy them", with the attitude that you want to stop her doing something she will later regret, you will give yourself permission to override her wishes.

DO NOT DO THAT. Do not tell your wife (even silently, by hiding the cast) that you know what is best for her. Do as she asks, and let her know that it has been done. Acting independently when you KNOW her wishes is a lovebuster, and you can ill afford those.

Throw out the kid to with the cast because they both are equal reminders of the affair.

Both will remind her of the time she was pregnant.

I can see demanding NC, NC letter, having to answer all details about the affair, moving far away from the OP for recovery, get rid of the clothes a WW wore for the OM, the new car that the BS bought for the WS that did the OP in, the furniture in the marital home the AP's rutted on, the whole home for that matter, quit job if the AP's worked together, be transparent, dump friends and family that enabled/covered the affair. These things are to be demanded. No need to reach an agreement. Forgot to throw in throwing out all gifts from the OP.

Other then the above I think this cast business needs to have a negoiated agreement.

This cast is about her pregnancy. Has this BW requested all materials be dumped that were part of the pregnancy. If not how can she be selective?

Though if I was the offending spouse as part of trying to make amends I would through it out for that reason alone.

the idea someone had to have someone hold it for you is good.

Does the cast stir something in you? I mean is it just what happened or what she's worried about might be caused by it being around (some kind of sexual thing)?

How offensive, Road. how disrespectful to Amy.

It doesn't matter how she can be selective. It isn't for you or anyone else to challenge her on her logic or consistency. The implication of what you are saying is that since she is being illogical, her WS should ignore what she has asked for.

Have you read an MB book yet, Road? Do you know what Dr Harley says about the lovebuster of independent behaviour?

How cruel to Amy your post is. Shame on you.

If it is a shared possession, it should be POJA'd IMO. It should *not* be an opportunity for a LB. Instead of boxing it, he should have asked her to POJA it.

I understand Amy's pain. She does need to be encouraged that she will need to exercise some discipline herself. Amy's pain (as understandable as it is), is not license to do whatever... She does need to be challenged on that. Maybe Schlag's not the best person though.... Maybe we should be encouraging her on her thread if she still posts.

CV

Schlag, I'm slightly on the fence. I'm a bit of a packrat, and hate throwing out anything. And I'm very sentimental.

But look, the cast is a horrific reminder to Amy of your unrestrained, offensive sexuality, which you've exercised in a depraved manner.

I think you're really in no position to negotiate.

I think your options are: keep the cast, and lose Amy, or meet Amy's conditions, show her you are getting rid of the old marriage and ready to start a new one.

It is disrespectful to second-guess your wife's motivations. It's disrespectful to try to push her to your point of view.

Show her that it is about building a life that will thrill her and be offensive to her in no point, whatsoever.

Just destroying the cast would be a great show of good faith to Amy, you know?

None of this is relevant, and you are doing Amy and Schlag a disservice by trying to psychoanalyse her feelings about the cast and his feelings for wanting to keep it. None of that matters. Neither the supposed illogic of her request nor the irrelevance of Schlag's sexual impulses matter.

We need to remember that Amy is divorcing Schlag. I think that this might have been forgotten, and some of you are responding as if this is a couple in recovery, where POJA should be used. They are not, and it is irrelevant to Amy right now. If Schlag decides that he has justification for sticking to his guns, because Amy is wrong to ask for what she wants here, she will not go back to the marriage. She has already left it; remember that.

Just as, even for a couple in recovery, POJA should not be used to decide that affair mementos must go, neither should it be used as a way of getting Schlag to do nothing. He must, if he wants to save his marriage, drop the independent behaviour and act on Amy's wishes.

She is divorcing him; once again, remember that. If he is happy for that to happen, or if he merely accepts its inevitability, then Schlag can fulfil his own desires and ignore Amy's, but if he is fighting to bring her back as he says he is, then he must do as she asks and he must not disrespectfully judge her by telling her that she does not know what she really wants, or act independently by overriding her express wishes about an affair trigger.

You are not helping him win her back by giving him cod-psychoanalytic reasons for disregarding her wishes.

She is divorcing him, but he wants to win her back. Have you forgotten that, cv? She does not need to exercise anything; she wants rid of this man, but there is a window of opportunity within which he can prove himself as devoted to compensating her for his monstrous behaviour.

Amy has a licence to do whatever she wants. If Schlag doesn't like it he can walk. But he has no licence to override her wishes, because she has already walked and will not be coming back following independent behaviour like this.