So BH had appt with Dr. Harley this morning. I had separate appt soon after. Not to long after that, BH and I talked via skype for about 3.5 hours (I am now out of state for my surgery tomorrow).

He has agreed to have another appt with Steve, but at this point he still plans to file for divorce soon. Where we live it takes at least 90 days for it to be final. Said if he sees/knows I've really changed/changing by that time, he might think about us.

But now he doesn't really want to talk to me at all. I'm going to be here at my parents for at least 1-2 weeks after surgery. And after that, I'm not quite sure he wants me back at home- I don't see how we can work through this if we aren't together at all. Steve did tell him that he was going to have to see me at least a little bit for him to even see if I change. At this point he doesn't even think we'd be able to meet each others top EN.

On my end, I'm working on the plan to 'safeguard' my EN.

That's about it. Still working on me. I guess our marriage feels pretty hopeless, considering he doesn't want to really talk to me, and I'm not sure if he'll want to see me after I recover from surgery, and I'm not sure how you work through this when you're not even with the other person.

I told him I was still going to hang on to that .1% chance, and he says, "I think I said 0.01%". So there's that.

You see bad news
I see good news
I see a BH willing to have second session with Steve Harley
On MB the Harley's are held to be miracle workers because time after time the get a reluctant spouse to do that first phone seesion
So when you have Steve working this what I see is a BH that might just decide to hold off on the divorce
So keep doing what you're doing to fix yourself

You are in control of this outcome. He might not feel optimistic about your capabilities, but we are!

I agree with road and indie. Keep it up DoroM!!! For your BH, for your marriage, and for YOU.

The fact that your BH has agreed to a second session is HOPE. Many of us (BS or WS) don't get this invitation. There is hope. Hope that may not give you want you want (a recovered marriage) but it is worth a shot. For your BH and for your own peace of mind that once the fog started to lift you gave it your all. So you can be proud of the efforts you made to recover your marriage and to recover a better YOU.

Keep working...

About a week ago, you posted:

Talked with the BH this morning for a while. He said if/when he even thinks about possibly making it work, he gets angry at himself. Says it just not worth it.

I let it go then, but made a mental note to return to this.

His wrestling with the concept of fulfilling his own expectations of "husbandly outrage" is not unique. I would bet that every BH is forced to reconcile what A) convention says he should do feel/do with B)what he personally might want(ie: be in his best interest), In your case, though, it appears to be complicated by the second part of his position. As with any problem however, a solution is present.

I get the impression that your marriage has taken a back seat to your individual personal goals, employment- and other-wise. Bluntly, it's easier to envision dissolving a marriage if the major change is merely filing separate tax returns. You have no long history of courtship (and even that was marred by conflict), no extended period of living together as a married couple, obviously no children together, and evidently no anchoring factors like home ownership. You yourself arrived here more-or-less considering ending the marriage (None of this is criticism, DoroM, it's just what IS.)

He might not see what the prize is for which he would be expected to invest effort and pain to achieve. It may be that you can see that prize now, DoroM. If so, it might be well to employ your few weeks of rest/isolation to render that in terms so plain as to entice him to share your vision.

Simply put: How do you see you lives together in five years? Ten? This shouldn't be an as-seen-on-TV commercial, but a serious outlook of what you want to do, why you want to do it with him, and (very important) why your vision would be in his best interest.

Here's hoping your surgery goes well, and you can quickly get to work on your (interrupted) recovery!

I knew that him agreeing to 2nd session was good, but it was hard after our long conversation to see anything positive, mainly b/c it was mostly so negative.

Astute impression. And this is all stuff that I've thought about- especially after our long, seemingly hopeless conversation on Tuesday. I know that I'm thinking about all these factors, then I know they're weighing on his mind about 1000x more heavily. After he told me on tuesday he was still going to file for D, part of me was like, "what's the point of even trying." After all, we had so many issues beforehand, and part of me knew it would be much easier to be done with it and work on myself outside of our relationship. It took me hours and hours of thinking/praying/crying/etc to write him an email and tell him that I'd already made the 2 biggest mistakes of my life, and I wasn't going to let the 3rd one be me not doing absolutely everything to at least try to salvage our relationship and have a new marriage.

Yeah, I've been thinking about this. When I look at past selfishness, IB's, not meeting EN's, lack of POJA, etc- that was so prevalent, and then I think about a relationship b/w the two of us where there is a 180 in those cases, I believe life together would be truly amazing. And not in a 'tv commercial sense.' Sometimes it's hard to think of any reason to tell him why he should bother with me, knowing what I've done and who I became- even if I am working on myself.


Okay, I've got to quit- It's getting harder and harder to concentrate and make sense. Surgery went well yesterday afternoon, and I've been in a drug-induced haze since then. Apologies for any typos/lunacy. That's the pain pills talking. Oh, edited to add- found out I will be on crutches for another 6 weeks. So no more work for at least that much time...

except for Plan A!

Haha! Yes, except for plan A. I thought that was a given at this point.

Your BH is posting here and that is good news as well.

Who's her BH? Somehow missed that.

ETA- Never mind, I found him

Didn't know that. Just went and found him.

Doro, the things that are said on his thread are for him, the things said on your thread are for you. If you're like me, the curiosity will drive you to read his thread, and then when you read his words, you'll wish you hadn't. My H posted here briefly and had some pretty harsh words to say about me, and reading what he wrote was painful. The fact that he IS posting here is a very good sign, b/c he can vent, get help and advice.

Yes, curiosity got me. BH hasn't said anything here that he hasn't told me to my face. More painful to read all the people telling him to cut and run (which I had been worried about in the first place).

I'm the one who gave BH OMW info, so he could tell her. As that's how I thought things were supposed to go from reading on here. No, I didn't warn him so he could erase the messages- although I already told BH that I had a thought of telling OM to tell his wife first so she heard it from him as opposed to BH. But I did not, as that would explicitly have broken one of my EP's. I got rid of all of OM contact info, but I know someone from our training group made a contact info sheet with home addresses, so I'm emailing to see if I can get the sheet, so BH can also send a letter to home address, if there is no response on FB.

One thing I wasn't sure about is if I'm supposed to do anything in regards to OMW. (write and apologize, etc?). I feel like the things I've read here, have said leave it up to BS, but I wasn't completely sure about that.

You did the right thing here. It is not better to hear it from the OM because he has the greatest incentive to lie and gloss it over.


It would be best if he could call her. Can you all get the home #?


My feeling is that you will have made amends by making sure she is informed about the affair and has the ability to get details from your husband.

Oh, I should add- I highly doubt OM has told his BW. The day I first posted here, I emailed him to tell him I was seriously contemplating telling BH, and I didn't know what the fall out would be from that. He seemed to be more concerned about BH coming to his doorstep to kick his A**, and told me 'he couldn't say he fully regretted it'. The next day, I sent him a firm NC letter. No clue if he ever emailed back b/c I had my sister change the password on the account so I didn't have access. (was an old school account and for the life of me, I couldn't deactivate it-even calling IT dept at school).

I truly don't think they have a home number, w/both having cell phones. I don't know anyone "my age" that has a home number, actually. I DO know who is mom is on FB. I'm assuming even if he had access to erase his wife's messages, he probably couldn't get to his mom's. Should BH give his phone number to OM's mom for her to pass it to OMW?

So landlines are for old people? That cracks me up, but it is true that my 29 yr old son and his wife do not have a landline and it drives me crazy!

Can you see the OMW's mother's facebook page? It might make sense for your BH to message the OMW's mother if he doesn't hear back from the OMW.

My parents and Prisca's parents are driven nuts by our different attitude to phones.

You young people need to get real phones!!!

Or maybe we should just answer them on demand...