I think the key here is that you have let him have control of the vehicle through all of this by dropping plan B every time he APPEARED to be coming around. When you get serious, perhaps he might. Of course he thought you would just drop the court dates...you haven't given him any reason to think you'd stick to any of the requirements thus far.

He's still cake-eating.

You are in false recovery zone right now. Believe me, I know how it is - I was there. Before I discovered my H's affair (I had suspicions, but no proof for awhile) I was sucked in several times when my H appeared to be "working on the marriage" but was really just cake-eating. For me, it was a different story once I discovered the A: there was no way I was going to allow cake-eating after that! When the WS knows you know about the A and you still allow them to eat cake you are basically telling them, "I don't respect myself enough to put a stop to it. Therefore, you don't have to respect me either." When they don't respect you, they can't be in love with you.

Is your WH Kiss on the "Surviving an Affair" forum? If so, you aren't anywhere near in recovery. I think you should have this thread moved over there.

ba

beginagain- yes, it is and you are right. We aren't in recovery yet. I believe that I need to be able to "forgive" him in some way in order to work on our marriage. And I have not seen remorse for what he has put me and his family through to forgive him yet.

I hope that other posters can help him. For now, I will let this thread die...

Forgiveness, for me, was (and still is) a process. It isn't a magical thing that just happens. (Maybe from God, because of grace, when repentance is there.) But true repentance must be there in the marriage as well. The WS earns forgiveness from you when they start giving you just compensation for what you've been through - by proving they are willing to do whatever it takes to save the marriage.

I will say this: in my instance my husband knew I was also willing to do whatever it took to make our marriage great - that we would be in it (recovery) together - but it was on him to first prove that he'd done the heavy lifting. I had to know I was no longer dealing with the wayward mindset.

Exactly! Thank you SunnyD for putting my feelings into words

The child support hearing went really well and we were able to do it in such a way that it was agreeable to both of us. My WH even "got" that going through with the hearing was reassurance for me. I feel that he understands it was for the sake and benefit of his children.
He even got his STD test and my results are all negative!!
Feeling very positive now about how things are going. Like I told him "It's a good start!"

Glad you had a good day RQ.

I knew that my family would be an issue while my WH and I attempt to repair our marriage but I didn't think things would be this bad. This is a part of an e-mail from my mother today
He "blames me for the exposure, throwing him out, etc. but that's okay, since I have now seen what he is really like I don't want him in my life at all. I hope you work things out with him if that is what you want but me & Dad are done with him. I know there are families where certain members hate each other and successfully avoid each other. It will not be easy and of course isn't the ideal circumstance but it can be done.And neither you or me should accept any blame for it, this all a fallout from his bad behavior. Plus, like he said, he has always hated me even before this. Wish I had known that before...."

I'm at a lost at how to handle this. Now I feel like I don't only have my own healing to deal with but my mother's as well. And in the meantime, WH has not posted here in like 5 days even though he said he was committed to checking in here every day..

Thoughts?

There's not much you can do about your mother, other than tell her that you understand her feelings and appreciate the support that she voiced with regards to you and WH reconciling.

This may be hard to hear.

If you and H do reconcile and your mother still feels this way, then your H comes first.

Knowing that he feels that way about your mother, if you reconcile you have to be OK with her not really being a part of your family life, and that means your life in general.

So, if you do reconcile and she refuses to come around, you have to tell her,"Ok, see you when you change your mind"

A big tenet of MB is the marriage comes first, before kids, friends and family, jobs, etc.

Still no "heavy lifting" on his part. He has not called the coaching center. He actually said to me last night "I wish we could forget about this and put it behind us"...of course after my look of dismay, he quickly changed it to "I know that we can't".
So sorry this is so difficult for YOU, honey!!
Maybe it would be less painful for both of us if we put it behind us and go our separate ways.

Again, he probably is still reacting to the fact that you haven't forced heavy lifting on his part because you never went into Plan B and never required him to use the IM, etc... He never got the sense that you seriously meant any of what you said.

All WS's wish it could just be forgotten, I'm sure. He has to want to do the work because he wants your marriage to be different. The fact that he is looking at it as if it is penance shows the fog is still there. When he wants your relationship to be truly great, he will want to know how to do that.

Has he read any of the materials?

SunnyD, I agree with you. We have out custody court in 3 weeks so I have set a time limit on how much longer I'll be strung along.
He has asked me how to make things better and I have pointed him here. But no, he has not read any of the materials, he has only posted a few times and like I said, hasn't called the coaching center. It makes me feel that he doesn't think our marriage is worth the effort. I also believe that he doesn't want to do the effort because he doesn't know if I am invested in the marriage. I'm not feeling invested because he is not doing the work. A vicious cycle that only HE can break.
The next time I do Plan B, it will be accompanied with divorce papers. I'm done playing around

I'm re-reading SAA and came across this passage in the chapter "Preparing for marital recovery"

"Instead of focusing their attention on the mistakes of the past, I encourage couples to focus on the present and the future. They should NOT dwell on the affair but focus on rebuilding their marriage"

So now I am confused. How does a BS NOT dwell on the affair? And he doesn't mention "just compensation" in the book either.

Thoughts?

Well, the BS will still have thoughts, memories, and triggers that diminish with time, hopefully. The not dwelling part though is where you choose to not beat your spouse up about it and talk about it, etc... You manage your thoughts the best you can. Of course, it's hard to put it behind you when you haven't even truly started down the road to recovery properly yet. That has to happen before you can "put it behind you" so to speak.

As for the just compensation, it may be that it's mentioned here on the site (in an article) or in a radio segment, or even in another book.

Dr. H isn't saying "lets just forget about this and move on," in other words. You change the behaviors; you put secure measure in place; you commit (and act on) the plan of recovery. THEN you leave it in the past, etc...

If my memory is correct I believe I've heard Dr. H said that in the rewrite of SAA with his daughter Dr. Jennifer Harley Chalmers, they are going to add a section/chapter about just compensation.
For now it is here.keep[/ you suffering. In your case, the affair is probably over, but has your [husband [taken precautions to never see or talk to his ex-lover again?

Having problems with my quoting tonight. The Dr. H quote that I posted above is here in this article.

Just compensation found here in this article.
Can we just forgive and forget? Letter#1

Aaargh! I lost my whole post so here goes again...

Thanks for your input. I had read that article so was confused when I read that in SAA...am I looking for action on his part or am I supposed to be nor "dwelling" on it (jeez I do't like that word!). I did see that my book was from 1998 so that explains it!

I went back and read herpapabears list of EP's and somewhere on there I cam across a post by SusieQ that helped a lot! I hope she doesn't mind me quoting her thread


"We are still working with Steve. We are moving from the "Protection" phase to the "Connection" phase of coaching.

Just to recap: The protection phase included my H
a) working with SH to fully understand why the A happened and take 100% responsibility for it and convey this to me
b) change his belief system re how to protect himself from another A (this included looking at his own top ENs and looking at what ENs OW met and how he let that happen) and
c) complete an EP list that we were both satisfied with.
Oh, and SH has reiterated to both of us that it is 100% OK for me to snoop. My H has 100% changed his attitude/defensiveness about this.

Steve said my H needs to review his EP list with me regularly (weekly) or so for the time being to assure me that he understands it and knows what is on there.

So for anyone in Recovery who is stuck, just wanted to share what Steve reiterated to me in our last session... He basically said his experience is couples get stuck in R when they haven't successfully complete the Protection Phase that I outlined above, that they tend not to do well in the Connection Phase (Meeting ENs/avoiding LBers) as the BS doesn't really feel safe."

This is exactly where kiss and I are at and I hope we can work on our "protection" phase so we can move on to the "connection" phase.

I still haven't heard from the radio program so I think it's time to make that call to the coaching center.

Ask the MODS to send an email to the Harleys.

We've had a few posters not hearing back.

Yes call the coaching center.

Just got an e-mail that my question will be on the radio today. I'll have to wait until I get home to listen though.