The past is behind, learn from it. The future is ahead, prepare for it. The present is here, live it.
- Thomas S. Monson

Sounds good, don't it? This is what I am trying to do. While I know that it will take some time to be able to let our defenses down and there will be triggers and what not, we should not allow ourselves to keep picking at the scab. And I am saying this to myself as well as to you

Sounds GREAT. I am a longgggg work in progress...

BrainHurts. I am looking for an article I think I once read on this site for a friend of mine. Her husband was telling her last night that they shouldn't need to 'work on their marriage' because if they were meant to be together it should 'just come natural' or something along that lines. I thought I read an article here that addressed that topic specifically. YOU are the go to girl for that so if you read this and can help me out I would much appreciate it (or anyone else for that matter who could direct me to it!). Thanks!

AWESOME quote, RQ! One we would all do well to remember.

Congrats, Unwritten, on the passed poly. It's natural that your brain didn't want to quite let go and trust yet, but hopefully - it will bring you peace and allow you to forge ahead.

Maybe these will help?
How To Thrive and Survive after the first year of Marriage
What's Wrong with Unconditional Love Part 1
What's Wrong with Unconditional love Part 2

In Addition to the articles here's an excellent radio clip.
Radio clip on why it's important to meet your spouses needs

I like this, too:


I Promise You, p. 44

Thanks for the suggestions fellow MBers. I will forward along these links, there are some links within the links I think will be helpful too.

I like this one;

I just noticed how MB posters resemble Raafiki;

"I know what I have to do, but... going back means I'll have to face my past. I've been running from it for so long..."

Deception... is a cooperative act. We must allow ourselves to be deceived.


That natural reaction is expected and the way this program works to recover from infidelity is to close any gaps in which deception could happen; transparency, radical honesty, and being too damned busy having a great marriage for further deception to happen.


Yet... there is a touch of deception involved; a little pinch of self deception - fake it till we make it.

At that point we are retraining that reaction to deception. We draw our spouse closer, and rebuild certain trust through verification, while learning to accept a single truth - no person should ever be trusted to NOT have an affair.


The two largest hurdles I had to pass were; 1) tossing away the foolish trust that infidelity could NEVER occur (I knew I could fall into it and protected myself), and 2) that no matter how many hippy-dippy quotes about forgiveness I read, I could not simply choose to give forgiveness to my wife, she had to earn it through transparency, radical honesty, and just compensation.


Letting go of those two major roadblocks, and allowing them to develop through working the program from my side is what has allowed our recovery to progress.



The third and final weight was this; accepting that who I am is fundamentally and forever changed. I know it, I see it, I feel it.

You will see it in the most seasoned posters.


Being either the perpetrator or the victim of infidelity is similar to developing diabetes, or going through a life-changing injury - if you do not manage your life, you will suffer the effects of that mismanagement (as evidenced by your marital state of mind reflecting your Love Bank balance). Now that you are educating yourself in recognizing factors that cause "flare-ups" or symptoms of suffering a "flare-up" it is your responsibility to follow your "care plan" for management of your life.

Maintain UA time.

Communicate what needs you need met and how.

Communicate what Love Busters are occurring.

Find out what needs your spouse needs met, and how.

Find out what Love Busters you are falling into.


When any of those things fall short, you will feel it - just like a diabetic can sense a high or low CBG.

EXCELLENT post, HHH!!!

All very good points to remember and you said them perfectly.

Agree Sunny D. I read it 3 times, just to make sure I got everything.

Hi unwritten, just checking in on you. How are things going?

~RQ

Thanks for chking in RQ! After being gone for several days on a mini family vacation I have been catching up on some threads. Saw that Kiss posted a couple times, and sounds like you two are doing good!

Oh we are doing ok'ish. There have been not so long ago convo's between myself and H where we discussed the fact that UA time in that amount is just undoable. I shudder to admit that! As we said that we thankfully still committed to DOING it for a few weeks and it is clearly, very very clearly the number one impact on our recovery. Time together = good feelings about each other and our recovery. No time together = bad feelings about each other and our recovery. OK maybe not bad but at the very least we both feel 'off' and disengaged.

So we now recognize the need for UA time. But it is so hard to get some weeks. For instance this vacation, great family time, something we planned for months. But little to no UA time. We come back feeling disengaged from each other, for sure. We have another 9 day vacation coming up in August and I am already dreading the fact that we will have little to no private time, no SF time, etc. Not sure how to work around that.

And H has been crabby. He has some health issues and when he is in pain, I know it, because he is crabby. Understandable but certainly not conducive to bonding between the two of us.

Just have to keep plugging along I guess. Work on some makeup UA time this week/weekend if possible. I guess we are so new into recovery that when there is a dip in things I have a little bit of a panic attack of 'here we go again' KWIM?

And I still obsess about how to wreak havoc on the lives of the OW's, I must admit. Often. Guess my brain just wants someone to loathe at the end of all this. I am just hoping that as recovery works I can walk away from them but so far, not happening.

Kiss and I notice when we don't get enough UA time as well. You start to feel like you are drifting apart and that is dangerous waters indeed. Do your best to make "appointments" with each other. Why is your time so limited? Is is because of work?

my feelins towards the OW as well. I have even been tempted to write her a letter just to get it all off of my chest. But that is a door I don't want to open. What I think I will do, though, is write that letter and then burn it. See if that helps. Perhaps you can do the same.

Keep plugging along and I'm glad that you got to go on a vacation. I could soooo use on of those right now! lol

~RQ

Very dangerous waters. H just started a new job a couple months ago. I always worry about new jobs because they equate to new potential women (his PA and most of his EA's were with work women). When things are good I don't really think about it, when things are 'detached' I definitely think about it, start to wonder what he does for the 10 hrs he leaves the house every day. Frankly, no matter what EP's are put into place he still has to WORK and he will always work with women, that is a good chunk of time I will never have a handle on. Clearly he is at a very vulnerable spot, I mean he has always been I guess but right now I feel like we are more vulnerable than ever. Even though he says after going through all this in the last couple of years he would not even consider it, words are cheap right. I won't say I also am not vulnerable, sometimes I think more so then him. The beauty of my life is that I am a SAHM so I have very, very little interaction with other men and with EP's in place/no male friends, etc. that is even more limited. The EP's/boundaries protect me right now.

IDK why our time is so limited, limited by LIFE I guess. H is gone working for 11-12 hrs/day including commute. He comes home, we eat dinner, put kids to bed, and by then its getting pretty late and we are tired. And we usually have some kind of logistical thing to talk about...finances, planning for an upcoming trip, what to do about some kid issue, etc. We have put logistical things to the side so much they are piling up as monkeys on our back. We do a lot of family stuff on weekends, we are an adventurous family I would say so we do spend a lot of family time together but we are usually not home so can't really steal away time for ourselves. Life is just...busy. I am sure everyone can say that. We do have to do a better job of scheduling things together, that's for sure.

Have you ever confronted your OW RQ? I wrote a letter to OW1 and still dream of doing other things to haunt her, expose her, etc. This was a ONS that she had a decade ago, I think she thought nothing of it after the fact and would prefer to just move on. I think my letter scared her a little. That makes me happy. That makes me want to scare her a little more. At least make her feel like she has to keep looking over her shoulder for awhile. I know obsessing about it is totally counterintuitive to my own recovery, but sometimes it DOES seem worth it (only on the very vindictive days, and I do have them).

OW2 I never confronted and I WANT to. I want to at the very least send her a letter too letting her know that I know about their secret affair. She sent H naked photos of herself too, and I want her to know that I have them. I don't, but it would be fun to know she thinks I do...

I just hate those women. I really want to see some kharma come their way, really, really bad.

OK I promise that will be the last your hear about them.

Last night H said he is not feeling the affection from me lately. I think I have been being pretty affectionate and nurturing, despite being vacation busy. He said he feels like I am just going through the motions without the sentiment, and frankly he is right some of the time. Of course a lot of my feelings for him have changed during all of this and sometimes I do have to just do the action, whether the feeling is there or not. I don't really know how to work around that.

I did confront the OW but it was in the beginning prior to her laying his hands on my H (if that is true, I don't know). She just told me that I was crazy and to leave her alone and denied anything. Since she slept with kiss went on dates with him and stole his time from his family...no. I want to, though, and it is eating me up.

yesterday i was at the hair salon, and i read an article by a woman whose WH left her for the OW. she put up an ad on a sex-wanted type dating website for the OW, and included her own phone #. she forwarded the calls to OWs phone, and also she contacted the men and told them to come visit her (OW) and gave out her (OW) address.

while wanting to punish the OW is a natural feeling, it is dangerous to want to haunt them in that way. the woman in the article ended up being arrested for a variety of cyber and personal crimes, and her punishment was having to apologize to the OW! you wouldn't want to have to do that, right?

unwritten, do you think you have these feelings because you're not feeling right yet with your H? and you can't take it out on him, so they are the next in line?

maybe i shouldn't talk, because i DID confront my Hs OW and was extremely nasty when i did it - no pulled punches from letty-on-fire. she ran like a filly on derby day, never to be heard from again. but i didn't follow it up with anything else. having her gone was what i needed to be able to move on. i didn't need to ruin her life; she was doing a good job at that all on her own. these women are, after all, stupid, and the karma bus will get them in the end thanks to their own selves and stupid choices in life.

i worry that you are actually very angry with your H and feel you have no way to vent that anger. what do you think? you are right that it hinders your recovery. what are you *really* worried about?

I am new to this but was just reading everyones replies. I, too want to go and run over the OW and then put it in reverse and back over her, HA HA! I wouldnt spit on her if she were on fire. She new I was pregnant and had to other small children when she got with my H. Of course my husband is to blame also but he is getting punished by seeing how bad he has hurt me. She just picks up and goes on, like nothing happened. MAKES ME SICK!
Of course she knows I couldnt come after her when I was pregnant. Now I could , but it has been too long(6months) and it would only let her now that it still bothers me.

Sorry for the t/j Kuwait.

Also coop can you please start your own thread and tell us your story?
Did you expose?