Welcome to the
Marriage Builders® Discussion Forum

This is a community where people come in search of marriage related support, answers, or encouragement. Also, information about the Marriage Builders principles can be found in the books available for sale in the Marriage Builders® Bookstore.
If you would like to join our guidance forum, please read the Announcement Forum for instructions, rules, & guidelines.
The members of this community are peers and not professionals. Professional coaching is available by clicking on the link titled Coaching Center at the top of this page.
We trust that you will find the Marriage Builders® Discussion Forum to be a helpful resource for you. We look forward to your participation.
Once you have reviewed all the FAQ, tech support and announcement information, if you still have problems that are not addressed, please e-mail the administrators at mbrestored@gmail.com
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Page 1 of 3 1 2 3
Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 28
H
Member
OP Offline
Member
H
Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 28
Hi.
This is my first time posting to this forum. I feel pretty depressed and disgusting at the moment and I have hit my rock bottom. I introduced my BH to this site but I don't know how much he has looked at it.

He is very very angry with me and hurt so deeply ...as am I. My affair was with a coworker and relatively short(about 3 months). After I came clean when he confronted me, I didn't let go right away and slept with him one more time. That was at the beginning of june.

BH confronted me while very drunk waking me up wanting to see my phone records while he has several of his friends in the room. I had a complete mental breakdown that ended with me needing a 1 week inpatient stay to gather myself once again. I was terrified and had the first panic attack of my life.

BH without being prompted by any website called OM on his own while I was still at the hospital, he also told many mutual friends and his family. This mortified me and made me very embarrassed and angry at first but I am glad he did it now. It guaranteed no contact between OM and I. He threw me out when I was released from the hospital and I am at my father's house trying to recover.It has only been a few weeks that I have been staying with my parents. I missed OM a little at first,but I more was consumed by guilt for lying to him as well and wanted to apologize. The guilt amazingly like the website said it would has faded in about three weeks. I care not about apologizing to OM and what attracted me to him makes no sense to me anymore.


My focus has been on my BH. This is all still very new for both of us and I want to help him see that I will do whatever it takes to put my best work into us. I want to show him I am for real. I am willing to have him carry my phone, change my number, give him all my passwords, etc. But I also want to know what I should be doing to meet his EN.

He travels out of town a lot for his job and I will be a full time student in the fall. We are living in two seperate states. So it is going to be difficult to have a lot of time together. I want to be home with him so much but I know he isnt ready to have me there. I am taking antidepressants and going to a therapist on my own to work on my self esteem issues already made worse by this horrible thing I have done. I am in group therapy as well. I am struggling with not knowing if he will take me back or not. I love him desperately and totally and the fact that I have done this to him tears me apart.

He has opened a Plenty of Fish account and has gone on lunch dates and whatnot. I don't think he is up to anything but I do feel like it indicates he isn't willing or ready to work it out with me.

My biggest hesitation is that he has frequently been drinking himself into oblivion and will say horrible things to me when he is drunk. His behavior the night he wanted to see my phone records also disturbed me. He did not hit me but physically restrained me. I know that I am in no position to bargain with him. And he is perfectly rational when he is not drinking. Should I just put my issues with it aside now and focus on his needs?

What should I make my next step with him?

Last edited by HouseElf; 07/21/12 04:16 PM.
Joined: Jan 2012
Posts: 3,066
E
Member
Offline
Member
E
Joined: Jan 2012
Posts: 3,066
Welcome houseelf, you are in the right place to learn how to recover your marriage. We have quite a few former wayward wives
(Fww) who can help you out.

Good for you for taking the first step in coming Herr
~RQ

Joined: Jan 2012
Posts: 3,066
E
Member
Offline
Member
E
Joined: Jan 2012
Posts: 3,066
Ps his alcoholism is a huge issue that will need to be.addressed!!

Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 28
H
Member
OP Offline
Member
H
Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 28
Thanks for the welcome! I was a little afraid to post knowing that there are so many here that are on the other really horrible end of what selfish people like me do.

BH pretty much is destroyed over this. He has lots of AOs with me. I'm wanting to be patient but his words still wound me and yes most of the time it is when he is drunk.

I want to address the drinking but I feel that it would be the wrong time to do it when we are so fragile. Is this foolish?

Joined: Jan 2012
Posts: 3,066
E
Member
Offline
Member
E
Joined: Jan 2012
Posts: 3,066
There are many here that have been betrayed, but please don't be scared off. We want to help you and if some of the advice seems harsh, it is for your own good wink

Has he had a drinking problem for a long time? Have you looked into Al-anon for yourself? I would definitely hesitate to restore the marriage unless he was willing to quit the drinking. And he has no right to verbally assault you regardless. That is a huge Lovebuster and needs to stop.

Does he know you are posting here? Do you speak or see each other on a regular basis?

Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 92,985
Likes: 1
M
Member
Offline
Member
M
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 92,985
Likes: 1
Hi houseelf, welcome to Marriage Builders.

Are you married? If so, how long married?

Do you still work with the OM?

Is your husband an alcoholic?


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

Exposure 101


Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 28
H
Member
OP Offline
Member
H
Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 28
6 years, no kids.

I resigned from my job. And OM took another job. I am willing to change my number if BH gives me the word. There should be no risk of OM and I being in contact again.

BH drinks and can get blackout hideous drunk sometimes and has used other substances including opiate painkillers, cocaine, and heroin sporadically. He also gambles several times a week.

I am not a drinker or drug user myself except for a glass of wine with a fancy dinner here and there. HOWEVER I swallowed my feelings about it for years. I lied to him and told him I was fine with a lot of things I was not ok with at all. I lied about nearly everything I was feeling so he still found me
to be perfectly permissive. I got very good at being dishonest.

I was very emotionally spent when I had the affair but I am not ok with how I handled myself at all especially after I've looked back at what I did. I was intoxicated on the admiration affection and validation I was getting and behaved like a 14 year old. I lied to both of them equally. OM thought I had left BH. There is no excuse for telling the lies I did or carrying on like I did for months.

Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 28
H
Member
OP Offline
Member
H
Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 28
He doesn't know I am posting here yet but I am not going to hide it from him either. If he checks my email or browser history he will know.

We talk on the phone or text or both daily. I saw him last week for a day and that was the first time since I moved in with my parents.

Last edited by HouseElf; 07/21/12 08:37 PM.
Joined: Jun 2011
Posts: 11,650
I
Member
Offline
Member
I
Joined: Jun 2011
Posts: 11,650
Originally Posted by HouseElf
6 years, no kids.

I resigned from my job. And OM took another job. I am willing to change my number if BH gives me the word. There should be no risk of OM and I being in contact again.

Change your number anyway. The addiction to OM that disgusts you so can always be retriggered if he contacts you. Do it for yourself and demonstrate it to your H.

Originally Posted by HouseElf
BH drinks and can get blackout hideous drunk sometimes and has used other substances including opiate painkillers, cocaine, and heroin sporadically. He also gambles several times a week.


You can't recover with an active alcoholic or gambler. The addictions will always come first. You'll have to insist on treatment.

Originally Posted by HouseElf
I lied to him and told him I was fine with a lot of things I was not ok with at all. I lied about nearly everything I was feeling so he still found me
to be perfectly permissive. I got very good at being dishonest.


Sacrifice is like cancer to a marriage. You must stop enabling him today.

Originally Posted by HouseElf
There is no excuse for telling the lies I did or carrying on like I did for months.


No there isn't.


What would you do if you were not afraid?

"Fear is the little death. Fear is the mind-killer" Frank Herbert.

Joined: Jun 2011
Posts: 11,650
I
Member
Offline
Member
I
Joined: Jun 2011
Posts: 11,650
Welcome to Marriagebuilders!


What would you do if you were not afraid?

"Fear is the little death. Fear is the mind-killer" Frank Herbert.

Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 28
H
Member
OP Offline
Member
H
Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 28
I think I will proactively change my number! It is pretty exciting to be able to do something without being asked or having it demanded of me.

Do you think it better from me to withdraw from BH and focus on AlAnon instead? I do feel I need to compensate him somehow for the huge amount of hurt I have caused him.

Joined: Jun 2011
Posts: 11,650
I
Member
Offline
Member
I
Joined: Jun 2011
Posts: 11,650
Originally Posted by HouseElf
Do you think it better from me to withdraw from BH and focus on AlAnon instead? I do feel I need to compensate him somehow for the huge amount of hurt I have caused him.


Yes. You will not compensate him by enabling him. Tough love is required for addictions.

Think about it. YOU have just gone through withdrawal for an addiction that made you do and say crazy things. What freed you? Tough love and exposure.

If your H had patted you on the back, said 'there there' 'Ill always be here for you', you'd never have freed yourself.

Oh and good call on the number. Remeber to block him on FB, change email and have a plan in place to throw away any letters or notes unread, and to just walk in the opposite direction should you ever see him.


What would you do if you were not afraid?

"Fear is the little death. Fear is the mind-killer" Frank Herbert.

Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 28
H
Member
OP Offline
Member
H
Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 28
I don't have facebook or any other social site that I belong to. OM doesn't have my personal email. We only communicated at work and on the phone. I have always been a face to face kind of person when it came to socializing and I am very low key by nature. I thought I was immune to ever having an affair.

Now that I live nearly 3 hours from OM I doubt I will bump into him at the gas station. OM does know where I go to school though.

Now with BH, I can't do anything with this until I start AlAnon? I know I am a classic enabler. He would always brag about landing the perfect woman to his friends. I know part of my perfection was providing zero resistance to his habits as I discovered them. Ugh. I am not comfortable with confronting him about his polysubstance use at all right on the heels of betraying him horribly.

I do not blame his drug use for me having the affair. I ate my emotions like it was my only job. I didn't express my needs to him at all.


Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 92,985
Likes: 1
M
Member
Offline
Member
M
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 92,985
Likes: 1
t/j

indiegirl, I am watching HGTV tonight which features 2 Texans moving to Great Britian. It is really funny to watch them snicker about the funny terms the realtor uses. They are laughing about the term 'conservatry." rotflmao

what is that??

They are quite horrified at the small houses!!


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

Exposure 101


Joined: Jun 2011
Posts: 11,650
I
Member
Offline
Member
I
Joined: Jun 2011
Posts: 11,650
A conservatory is a glass room leading out in to the garden.

Best way to enjoy a garden and catch some rays in this rainy windy island is under glass!

And yeah, our houses are dinky!


What would you do if you were not afraid?

"Fear is the little death. Fear is the mind-killer" Frank Herbert.

Joined: Nov 2009
Posts: 6,870
C
Member
Offline
Member
C
Joined: Nov 2009
Posts: 6,870
Hey House elf
Welcome to MB
Lotsa good advice here for everyone.

I can understand that mistake, being an enabler, thinking I will "love",them out of the selfish drug use, hoping to be the answer to thier sorrows...

Blah, Belch, Bullcrap..

I left my wife when she wouldn't stop drinking, and it would have been the best thing I ever did for her if I..
1. Insisted on AA and stuck with it.
2. Had the support of a place like this and stayed in the Alanon meetings
3. Did not get involved with another woman after three months of being alone. Didn't plan it that way, but I allowed it to happen anyways..All the songs on the radio and poor me..uh Boo-Hoo

In my case I stayed with that woman, until she had enough waiting also, because I was just using her too, because.."hurt people hurt people" She was smart enough to dump me eventually.

Then I went back, broken hearted to someone who did not go to AA, and in the long run it just went around and cycled again.

My big warning is to get professional help, from Dr H.,(Who also counselled and ran drug clinics in the past), and get it and stick to it like your life depended on it, it really does.

Good luck and God Bless with this struggle.

BTW My wife succumbed to the lies of drugs and alcohol was her favorite..eventually she got to heroin, and crack, by then it was all over as it took her life. Not in an overdose, with the complications and bone cancer.

She was smarter than all of the people who warned her too


Me 56 Former BS
Widowed 5-17-09 --married 25 years.
4 children
DS-35 previous marriage--18-22 DGrandSons 6 and 4
Me former BS
DD-29 with DGDs 5 and 1yr
DSs 26 and 23
Teilhard de Chardin..“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” ...Sounds about right to me.
Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 28
H
Member
OP Offline
Member
H
Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 28
constantprocess thank you for sharing your experience with me. It makes me feel more human already to know somebody at least knows how hopeless and confusing it felt to watch him move from one addiction to the next.

I do love him very much still and want to work it out with him. It seems to me if I am drawing some comfort from just talking to another person who has been there, I might do pretty well with AlAnon too.

I am going to start there.

Joined: Nov 2009
Posts: 6,870
C
Member
Offline
Member
C
Joined: Nov 2009
Posts: 6,870
Please do HouseElf

The only reason I am here was because I saw the Wisdom in Dr Hs words when I did a search on Google about "what to do about addiction is marriages" About two years ago after my wifes death.

I knew there had to be some answers out here. "What happened to me?" "How did I lose her?" "What happened?"

No matter what I sacrificed I could not help someone who didnt want to be helped, all of it was just throwing good after bad, and it comes down to your own self-worth. Yes, as much as it seems so unfair, its up to you to take care of you first.

Alanon, or as it was called in the past, "Children and family of Alcoholics", is a great help in the practical understanding and the pitfalls of loving an alcoholic.

I want to warn you about sympathy, and not to have much for the alcoholic. Empathy sure but not sympathy. Let me explain it as I understand it.

Sympathy means you take part of the problem emotionally, and thier problems become your problems. The pain, the worry, and all the issues too. The problems become yours

Empathy is an understanding without emotional involvement. You still understand he difficulty, and its depth, but you remain on the outside looking in.

Sound cold? well its not, because many of the issues cannot be fixed or understood, and the best you can do is not acknowledge them as real in the first place. "No you don't need a drink, or some drug, you need to pull your head out of yur azz!"

That was my stand the first time I left years ago, and it brought her to sobriety after 7 months, but she would not go to AA. I had to be away for two years with no hope of reconciliation for her to get 1/2 way serious too.

See if you were to follow Dr Hs advice, you would do better than I did, because it was way back in the late 80s when I did this and I did it alone, not knowing anything about his help or if the program even existed then.

Dr H will not even counsel a marriage if drugs or alcohol are present..because the old adage.."They are in love with the bottle" is still true today with now other drugs in the world also

In my case I went back to a crippled marriage without going through with the whole treatment that we both needed. Yes both, although I was not a user or drinker. I was desperately in love and needy and weak, thinking and believing I was strong enough, and I wasn't.

Dr H and his reality check for a marriage are real and full of truth. But you need to separate your heart from him and be objective, even if it seems cold, its not.

His sobriety is between him and God first, reality, the cold hard facts, the truth. You are second, if you want to help him.

Yeah it seems backward I know.

Seek all the help you can get from professionals, and the people on the forum. Its not all up to you, you don't keep the world spinning.

Please don't make the mistake of accepting a crippled marriage as your only choice

Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 28
H
Member
OP Offline
Member
H
Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 28
Today I told him how his use of drugs and alcohol and going to casinos and disappearing hours and hours at a time made me feel in the relationship. I told him how much it hurt me to be abandondoned in our home for days at a time so he could spend it with his male friends in a city 2 hours away from us. I knew that he was around people who felt that he was doing nothing wrong. I told him how unsafe it made me feel to think about bringing kids into our messy lives.

I told him about my plans to do AlAnon and that we cannot work on us until he gets treatment. I told him it is his choice to decide if he wants to make the changes I need. I told him again that I am very sorry for what I did and there is no justification for it.

Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 57
L
Member
Offline
Member
L
Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 57
HouseElf. I am a BH new to the forum. I am am trying to work things out with my WS. As the victim in my case I can say GREAT that you are here and trying to make things work. Please do not be discouraged. Your BH is probably doing the same things I have done. Go through anger, depression, sadness, remorse etc (sometimes over and over changing the mood and emotion back and forth). It is not easy for him and the alcohol is not helping. I HAVE to tell you I am VERY jealous that you turned around and want your marriage to work ( I pray and wish my WS would do the same things you are).

Walk a mile in his shoes and try understand what he is going through BUT he should stop the drinking and "fish" dating. Please don't loose hope. You are at the start of a long and difficult road BUT you are on the road and know where you want to be. Good luck on the journey. Do not loose hope.

Page 1 of 3 1 2 3

Link Copied to Clipboard
Forum Search
Who's Online Now
0 members (), 1,071 guests, and 57 robots.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Newest Members
Mike69, petercgeelan, Zorya, Reyna98, Nofoguy
71,829 Registered Users
Building Marriages That Last A Lifetime
Copyright © 1995-2019, Marriage Builders®. All Rights Reserved.
Site Navigation
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5