Nxt20and12,

I found myself a couple of months ago at a loss trying to figure out what my BH was thinking and feeling.

Wow that's one perspective I don't hear alot from WWs, they often seem unable to understand what their BHs are feeling or dismiss what is said by their BHs as unimportant.

I think the weight of shame and guilt is heavier on WWs, and that burden prevents them often from helping their BHs with theirs. Removing the blame from themselves becomes more important then getting their BHs recovered.

God Bless
Gamma

Whoa there, Nellie!
Not so fast.
I'd like to flatter myself (and others) to imagine that we actually DID help YOU.
We did not "try", we HELPED !!!!

On a different thread, you wrote:


And, you were referring to this:



And what you have LEARNED is this:



You recognize a WALL, don'cha? You have the *knot* on your forehead to prove it's a wall, don'cha?

NOW WHAT?

You turn away and stop hitting your head.

Get your butt back here and discuss this with Pepperband.

no no no nooooooooo

You need not argue this with the man. But, you need to get your boundaries ready. He's suffering under the delusion that he will continue to treat you poorly after a divorce.

You will/should , once you have entered a legal agreement, disabuse your H (then ex-husband) of this fanciful notion.

Once you are in agreement to divorce, you will not be playing 'happy family".

Unless, you want to allow him to drive you batshytcrazy .

Read about parallel parenting HERE.

You many not need to Plan B him, but once you have separate residences, he is NOT entering you home at whim.
That is the REALITY of DIVORCE, and the sooner he recognizes this, the better.

My advice for right now?

Get an attorney to find out for certain what's what in your state.

WPG, I'm sorry.

WPG,

I have been reading the last few pages of your story and can't stop the tears from flowing. I am so sorry but I also want you to know that this is the beginning of a new start. There is not much left to say that others before me have not already said. You are loved, respected, and I look at you as a role model to all WW like myself. I hope you don't leave because I feel like even though you did not get the ending you expected you have so much to offer to this site. Thank you for helping me!!!

WPG,

I haven't posted on your thread in ages but you, broken & your 2 girls have remained in my thoughts & my prayers. I said it before & will say it now: I would give anything to have a wife such as you. You are remorseful and repentant in the truest sense. Agree with Pep that you need to disabuse your H of the notion that things will be just hunky dory post-D. You deserve way better than that. I will continue to hope and pray for you that God will crack that shell around your H's heart before it is too late.

Take care.

SMM

Wow. This thread is amazing. Haven't managed to read all of it yet but will do. Seems like there are alot of things for us WW to learn in here.

WPG - so sorry for your situation. Hope you are getting the support you need from somewhere.

WPG,

You posted a well-written post on that other thread. I am impressed. You made some astute observations and you asked me some interesting questions. I answered you (yours did not appear to be rhetorical questions) on that thread but, well, things decorrelated. I am putting revised answers here on your original thread. Hopefully I�m not being assertive. Seems the logical place for it - have it removed if you wish.

----------
�Aphelion, your posts made me realize something. I am being selfish. No, not selfish. Jealous. Envious.

I left the forum over a month ago, saying I couldn�t bear to read others� success stories when I didn�t have a success story of my own. I think you and I can agree that this board is heavily weighted with MB successes.

So�should we counsel BV to give up, and fail at her M, as ours have failed? We do share that one thing in common, you and I�despite the well-intentioned folks here on the forum, despite application of MB principles, our marriages have failed. If I understand correctly, outwardly your situation is very similar to mine, in that you, the BH, has no intention of recovering your M, no intention of letting your W fill your ENs (even claiming you don�t have ENs anymore), yet continue to live together as a family and believe you are providing the best-case scenario for the children. So, we could agree that neither of us have a M as Dr. Harley defines M.

I do not recall directly advising BV in anything. I objected to certain advice given � advice that treats the BH as an object.

Does the fact that my M has not, and likely will not, recover - despite my best efforts at following the tenets of MB � cause me to reject the very idea of marriage, or MB, or for that matter, redemption?

You misunderstand my belief in and reliance on MB. I give MB a 9 out of 10; especially regarding its methods for breaking up adultery and its methods of personal recovery.

I am not arguing that BV�s BH ever has to give her another chance. And I am not arguing that a BH should accept a M to an �adulteress.� No one should remain married to an active wayward. And it is absolutely your prerogative � as well as my BH�s, and BV�s BH � to decide that marriage to a �former adulteress� is unacceptable.

Fundamental question � how much time do BH get to take to decide? A good rule of thumb used in general (even around here at times but there are disagreers � two years or as long as the adultery lasted, whichever is longer? I�m curious.

Quotes around adulteress? Like it�s a made up word? Not appropriate usage? What word do you suggest? Word, please, not acronym. I refuse to use an acronym for adulterer or adultery, but I will take under advisement alternative nouns and verbs. (The first, non-MB, councilor W and I went to after the second DD of the VLTA would not let me use the word adultery. She said it is judgmental. I later found out her H divorced her two years previous for her adultery. A spade is a spade after all.)

But then�DO something about it. File for divorce. Begin the paperwork. Enter Plan B. Limbo is a horrible place to be stuck. Yes, there may be a �draconian� legal system in place, �forcing� the BH to remain stuck in a marriage for 6, 12, 18 months before divorce can occur. But the process can still be started with legal intent.

My M is where I want it � using MB, actually. It may not conform to the MB vision of happy-ever-after romantic love, but I am personally happy. There is no reason for me to D since I cannot remarry in the Church. How do they describe it: one can separate bed and board, but the sacrament of matrimony is for life. I have not separated - I stay at arms length. I finally feel safe.

I have the resources to enjoy a full and active life however I choose to conduct it. MB, ironically, taught me via personal recovery I do not require romantic love to be happy. Also, I truly do not understand how any BH can stomach SF with a wife who had sex for years with another man. This is way outside my comfort zone. Matters not if present or former adultery, I don�t think I could function with her any more even if I tried. I intentionally remained a virgin until my wedding night, and I can remain celibate for the rest of my life now. I remember once loving W more than my own life. But I no longer need romantic love to be happy. (Heh, I just undermined my own argument about no one really changes � unless maybe I was always like this.)

If BV is served with legal papers by her BH, if he enters into Plan B *despite* her attempts to show him she is working on changing herself, then I would say perhaps she should throw in the towel and let him be. I can�t even look at my sitch and tell you honestly that I�ve �thrown in the towel� as I continue to hold out olive branches to my own BH, even when Dr. H himself has essentially told me to give up.

Until that time, BV should continue to work on herself. She should continue to identify her weak boundaries and implement EPs. It will help her to avoid being a threat to another woman�s marriage, as well as help her to become a stronger individual and better human being � whatever happens to her marriage.

If adulterers are incapable of being redeemed, are other sinners incapable of redemption? If so, hell is going to be a pretty crowded place, and I guess my religion has taught me wrong all these years.

I pretty much agree with everything you write. Maybe not so much with that stuff about people changing. Present company excepted? Perhaps it depends on how we define changing. Some people indeed achieve a measure of control over their actions and stop doing something they should not be doing or should never have done, or they start doing something they should be doing but have not been doing. Kind of rare IRL, but not so rare as to put rehab clinics or churches out of business. I see very few adults IRL fundamentally change who they are. Short of neurological damage, perhaps the best explanation is adult brains are wired as they are wired. I agree this has interesting theological considerations. Perhaps very few make it though the narrow gate after all.

Here�s a little story. My brother has a friend, who got in serious trouble with the law about 15 years ago when he was a teen (old enough to be charged as an adult). Armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, eluding arrest, drugs. He was one of 4 co-defendants. I happened to be working at the courthouse when his case came through. The other 3 co-defendants all testified against him and accepted pleas. None of them received active prison time. My brother�s friend spent 4 years in prison. During that time, he received his GED, completed rehab, and received vocational training. He has a family now and has really turned his life around.

If no one had believed in this kid, where would he be today?

If no one believes in the efforts of a wayward who is trying to become a former wayward, regardless of the ultimate fate of their marriage, where will they end up?

Maybe some would say �no great loss.� But BV is a human being. She has a daughter. Admittedly, it is difficult to judge character and intentions through a computer monitor, but BV � and her self-improvement efforts and marital recovery efforts - deserve to be treated with respect until she shows us otherwise.

They should be treated with a grain of salt until proven and re-proven otherwise. Perhaps you have noticed my posts tend towards defending BS. Especially when we have first, second or even third person evidence a BS wants to be left alone or otherwise desires to move on. Or they simply do not know what to do next. A BS may be polite to the adulterer, thinking of the welfare of the children in their responses or just taking their own sweet time in choosing anything but they deserve all time the want to take, no matter how long, to decide anything whatsoever about the adulterated M. They should not be treated like experimental subjects. (In particular, they should not be getting an ersatz apology letter from the adulteress that was drafted by an MB committee. How would you feel if you received such? Me, I�d toss it and move myself even further away.

Sometimes advice to the (apparent) penitent adulterer smacks of manipulation. Approaches stalking. Do this and your victim will do that, do those and your victim will feel these. Irks me. Who should ask if the BS would be better off if left alone?

Aphelion, I am truly sorry for the loss of your marriage. I don�t know your whole story, just bits and pieces. You didn�t deserve what your W did to you, nor did my H deserve what I did to him. I honestly have valued what you said on my own thread because I think out of all the other posters here, you�ve come closest to showing me exactly what my BH thinks of me. Not that it is a favorable perception, mind you, but it is honest!

I saw my own early turmoil and confusion in your descriptions of your BH. And it lasted as long as his is lasting. Not until I stepped away from my M could I think clearly. And that took me years to figure out.

I�m pulling for you, BV. Now get back to your EP�s and Mrs. Recon�s questions!

I�m getting off the soapbox and back to my little corner of the universe now.�

And may your BH find peace. And you. Really. Even though I pull for the BHs.

Aphelion, I had the chance to read your original post before it was removed - I wasn't sure why your response to me got removed, as I didn't really find it argumentative towards either me or BV.


You did state that �she should leave him alone,� that it would be the compassionate thing to do.

I think it is the natural tendency of posters to treat the absent spouse as more of an abstract � we can�t possibly know all the little ins and outs of every situation, nor are we privy to things that the spouse who does post doesn�t tell us. It�s the nature of this method of communication. Absent direct contribution from Mr. BV, I would say that he�s being treated as a composite of characteristics of the typical betrayed spouse. We�re all viewing the posts on this board through our own particular filters, which can � and do, sometimes � blind us to particular aspects of a situation.

It happened on my thread � no one, other than broken himself, can completely explain what he thinks and feels.


I honestly don�t have an answer to that question. I�ve heard various time frames as well. I�ve also wondered the answer to the question, how long does the BS have to play the �get out of jail free� card, once marital recovery is underway and appears successful? I look at some of the couples on this board who have been in recovery � successful recovery, by both accounts - for years. Did there ever come a point at which the �get out of jail free� card expired for them? Or can Mr. Wondering file for D in 20 years based on Mrs. Wondering's past infidelity? (My apologies to the Wonderful Wonderings for using them as a hypothetical!)


Just using quotes in repeating your words. I don�t have a problem with the term. In fact I prefer to refer to my infidelity as � well, infidelity. Not an �affair.� The terms �infidelity� and �adultery� � to me � seem to more appropriately convey the gravity of what I did. I read �affair� and see society�s connotations of �love affair,� and it makes me throw up a little in my mouth.


I wonder how your W feels about the arrangement? And you are certainly within your rights not to care one way or the other. I just wonder if she is happy too. I know that personally, my ENs have shifted from when broken & I originally took the ENQ. I find that the combo of A/D medication and other needs not being met has effectively damped my sex drive. That combined with the fact that he told me again - last Friday, to be exact - that sex with me means nothing, it's just sex...let's just say SF is no longer in my top 5 ENs.


Maybe I am naive�I do believe people can change. Maybe you are correct that true, fundamental change doesn�t happen often. But I believe in the capacity people have to change. Maybe some change because of circumstance, maybe some by simply changing their actions. But if feelings follow actions, then doesn�t that become a more fundamental change?

I wrote a letter to broken just this week and here�s part of it:

I used to feel like mentally, I didn�t feel a whole lot different than when I was a teenager. But now�now I know I�ve aged. Not only do I see it in my face and my body, it is a weight of responsibilities and unwanted, unasked-for knowledge on my mind. It�s sort of like the feeling you get when you see friends that you see fairly often � you don�t notice the subtle changes in each other as you grow older�but when you see a friend you haven�t seen in years, you are struck by the changes that have taken place, because in your mind, you still see them as you knew them.

A better substitute for the word �aged� would be �changed.� I know I am different. Some people see it, others don�t. What others see are changes in my actions � they aren�t privy to what has occurred inside me. But I know that I�m not the same woman I was in 2009. Even if some might suggest that I�ve only changed my actions as a result of the consequences of adultery (operant conditioning, perhaps?), my changed actions eventually worked to change my feelings and attitudes�not to mention that the death of my father caused me to change in other ways.

I believe, depending on the circumstances, that some people are worthy of second chances. So does God�but He expects us to make those fundamental changes � �go forth and sin no more.�


I agree that each new WS should be treated with a grain of salt until they�ve proven themselves. By and large, this community is pretty good at sniffing out the bulls**tters from the ones who are earnest. The bulls**tters get run off pretty quickly.

As to the MB-committee drafted apology letter, I can see your point�although at some times, I think we simply don�t know the words to say (hence the greeting card industry!). Seriously, as a new WW on the board � trying to earn my �F� � I often struggled with the right words. I write better than I speak, because I can take the time to think and respond, but I struggled with vocalizing the right things. But one thing broken would be able to tell you is that I wrote him enough to fill volumes � just sometimes I wasn�t telling him what he needed to hear � I was saying what I *thought* he needed to hear.

As to the manipulation, I think it goes back to posters treating the absent spouse as an abstract or composite � maybe a better word would be archetype � and the thing is, we just can�t know for certain how the BH is going to react. Meeting ENs � or attempting to � in my sitch didn�t cause the �expected� effect. It may not in BV�s case, either � but if she never tries, she�ll never know. MB might have a track record, but I think of it sort of like a case that goes to trial before a jury. You never know what that jury is going to do. All the facts in the case may seem to be obvious, but juries � like the individual people who make them up � are unpredictable.


I had hoped that the time broken spent away from home would help him to make decisions about our future. When he moved back home, I assumed it was with the intent to rebuild our marriage. We should have had our April conversation back last fall, but I was in a terrible place emotionally after Dad�s death, and I just avoided everything else painful, just glad to have him home. We don't really have a "plan" now for the future, other than he wants a D and the whole "nesting" thing (don't worry, Pep, I told him we couldn't do that - or more correctly, I said that I couldn't do that). Financially, we can't support two residences right now, so that leaves us under the same roof, so Plan B (as Dr. H recommended) is impossible.


Thank you.

APH,

WPG, did a wonderful job of counter acting your statements. So I will keep mine short.

INDIFFERENCE and RESENTMENT DO NOT = HAPPINESS

These are the only things I feel oozing out of your post no matter whose post you are writing on.

WPG,

It's good to hear your voice again. I've been thinking about trying to get my WW to post so she can learn from someone like you. Don't go away. There are many here that can learn and benefit from your actions and words.

+1. If my wife ever gets to this point that WPG got to in the R process, our M will be divine.

WPG,

��one thing broken would be able to tell you is that I wrote him enough to fill volumes � just sometimes I wasn�t telling him what he needed to hear � I was saying what I *thought* he needed to hear.�

You write well. Better than I. And, I more or less like the way you (appear to) think. Now.

Words are not what he needs.

What are you willing to offer to your BH you have not offered to any other man? Think. It has to come from you.

�These are the only things I feel oozing out of your post no matter whose post you are writing on.�

Sheesh. Another personal attack. (Where are the mods when you need them�)

Fifteen, you have not a clue what is in my ooze.

I will be travelling for a while starting later this week�you will be able to see only what you want to see, again�

WPG �

The things you have been writing recently that I agree with � the answers to my questions and your comments on my answers to your questions � they are all things I already know.

The point has always been can you prove to your BH in whatever way it takes that you finally know them.

Great forum! Does anyone recommend some other good sites? I googled for some but don't know if they as good and want to know what yall think.

Moderator's Note: please refrain from linking to other websites on Dr. Harley's website, even if you edit or delete later. Advertising other sites is a TOS violation and may result in suspension of posting privileges or banning. Thank you for your cooperation."

Aph, I've been thinking...but I feel like anything I have to offer him he views as tainted. Maybe once he saw something unique about me, something of value, but now?

I would give him anything I had it in my power to give. But perhaps the only thing he wants from me is his freedom.



No light, no light
In your bright blue eyes
I never knew daylight could be so violent
A revelation in the light of day
You can't choose what stays and what fades away
And I'd do anything to make you stay
No light, no light
Tell me what you want me to say

Does karma �get� people who have done evil?

I was an OW. I can wholeheartedly attest to the fact that in the three years since my adultery, karma has gotten me.

I know that I will never be able to recover my marriage. broken has told me that he is using me for sex. I work three jobs to try and support our family now since he was laid off last year.

My father died in a tragic accident less than a year ago. I struggled to straighten out his finances as he had brought the entire family nearly to the brink of bankruptcy. I took over responsibility for arranging the care for his mother, my Alzheimer�s-afflicted grandmother.

My grandmother�s heart finally gave out on her, and she died this past Saturday. Her funeral service is tomorrow.

When I am not working, I sleep. I don�t want to do anything, be with anyone. I can fake it for a while with the kids, but fortunately they are more interested in their computer games than playing with Mom these days, and are about to go back to school. I have gotten pretty good at faking it at work, although I have developed severe anxiety and have chest pains throughout the day. FTR, I have been checked out and no heart issues, it�s just stress. I went from being able to run 7 miles to barely able to run 2. I have been dealing with a pretty serious case of adult acne. I�ve been diagnosed with endometriosis.

Once H gets a job and is financially able to leave, we�ll lose our home. We are already planning to sell it.

I asked broken the other day if he wanted to be happy. He said he didn't believe in happiness, that there was only existence.

All in all, I feel very alone in the world.

I had a conversation a couple weeks ago with a lady I work with. She�s a widow, I knew her husband had died about 10 years ago, but I didn�t know he had cheated on her years before that, when their children were small. They stayed together. They tried counseling, together and individually. She told me it took her ten years to fully forgive him. She said they did end up with a better marriage during that time, but that she gave him hell�but that he did everything she asked him to do. One night, near their last Christmas together, they were at dinner, and she asked him if she gave him that tiny piece of her heart that she had been holding back on for ten years, would he hurt her again? He swore he would not�and she finally was able to forgive him.

Three months later he was diagnosed with cancer, and they spent the last months of his life in hospitals. She quit her job to be with him and care for him.

She said she remembered at his funeral overhearing one of her cousins saying that he got what he deserved�she said she was furious at him for saying that. She said that God doesn�t work that way.

She told me that God was not punishing me for my infidelity. That God didn�t take my father away to punish me for what I did.

She told me all of this because she pretty much knew my story�I hadn�t told her, but after my adultery had ended and my marriage fell apart, I confided in two women at work. I know which one of them probably told her about it. It doesn�t really matter�on the one hand I am ashamed to be run-of-the-mill office gossip, but on the other, it is a part of who I am. It is my story.

So is it karma? Is it God? I don't know what it is...going back to the prayer for walls and doors, He has not shown me a door, and for now, I feel only walls. I've decided that for now, it's best I just sit where I'm at instead of continuing to fumble around in the dark, adding more knots to my forehead.

Dear sweet wulf. I'm sorry you have to go through all of this.

Please don't let your H use you just for the sex. You don't have to continue to punish yourself. Yes, everything came crashing down and is broken. Fix the foundation and rebuilt the house of life.

If your BH doesn't want just compensation, you can't force it upon him. Heal for yourself and your kids.