Wulffy, I would be among the last to recommend D, but I'm trying to understand where you both are in that regard.

Is this some kind of "Liar's Poker" (probably on Broken's part) to get the other to say the dreaded word first?

If a third-party could be given the opportunity to initiate and complete the dissolution, would either of you care? If so, who the most?

Net/net, dear friend: If you have no hope for saving the marriage, and he admits to no desire to save the marriage...what's left?

WPG, I don't know if the answers to my questions were too painful to consider (I certainly hope not), or merely(?) too private to reveal, but hope you find the right path for yourself and your children.

WPG, I have just finished reading this entire story, Wow you area very prolific writer it took me three weeks to read this whole thing a little each day as I had time. Thank you for being so open and honest in your postings. I will PM you with some of my story, I do not want to hijack your thread to complain about my life, I found you by doing a google search on Infidelity and was directed to many sites, I began to search thru some and I was reading on another site about a WS who was trying very hard to recover there marriage I read something about you there. the BS was posting here and so I looked up this site to see if I could get any understanding what was going on in there marriage from the BS view point and there again I saw your postings ( oldmittens the BH and ladyrecovery the WW) and there you were and your story touched my heart, in my PM I explain why I have been searching sites like MB.

To be honest I thought well here we go another WS who wants to have her cake and eat it to, but as I read along my opinion changed to the point that I am really hoping you are able to recover your marriage I do feel that you would be a wonderful wife to your BH, you do seem to be very Remorseful from what you have written and how long you have been trying. But here was the turning point for me. When you said that I will not give up until the day he walks down the aisle with someone else . I Believe everything you have posted from that statement froward. Do you still feel that way even thought he says that he will never remarry? I ask because I have been a witness to this IRL

I do not believe that he hates you like you posted back in april, He hates what you did and when he sees or hears your voice he is reminded of it. I dont think if he hated you he would want sf with you or any other kind of interaction, he just is not able to get past the betrayal and worst the T.T. and lies

You also said that you hope that some one reads your story and it helps them with there own life. Well I am that person I have made some changes some decisions I have recently made right after I finished reading your story . So Thank you so very much for having the courage to continue to tell others ,I know that this is not the main reason for your being on MB but I just want you to know you have done much good in my personal life. I wish only the best for you and your family, I too am a christian and have and will pray for you and yours, my god give you the strength to stay faithful to him.

DXG,

Welcome to MB. The PM is disabled on this site and does not work.

You're more than welcome to start your own thread and tell us your story.

well it looks like I wont be sending any PM I get the notice that they have been disabled. well here it is in short. I am a husband who has been married for 25 years to a wonderful and faithful wife but recently I have felt that the passion has left us behind, I have talked to my wife about this many times where i feel no progress has been made and the topic been ignored. but really what I needed to do was look at my self and not her to see what I can do what, do I need to change about me and what I expect and what I can give to her. to help us.

I tend to have low self esteem, even though I am a tall good looking man and can be very charming, it goes back to my child hood my mother rejected me and ran off with another man. so I started a "friendship" with another married woman, I have not been physical with her in any way but came real close and this is where your story comes in: she had made arraignment for us to spend time together last week in a hotel, I know she loves me I can see it in her eyes but I do not love her, what kept me interested was the thought that this beautiful woman would be interested in me and as I could see her attachment growing it gave me a big ego boost ( Very selfish I know) but your story woke me up , I hope before it was too late. I canceled our get together and cut off any relationship with her ,I have told my wife everything and gave her everything see needs to verify what i say as the truth, she is still in the process of verifying everything but so far it all checks out : here is where my wife is at now she told me she wants very much to work things out with me as long as I have been honest and it did not go PA and she seems relived to hear me confess because she did have some red flags. I love her very much and will be the man she needs for the rest of our lives, I will and have accepted full responsibility and i Know nothing she did or did not do was any reason for me to even think about going out side of our marriage, and this on my part has helped her immensely because she did want to take some of the blame

wpg Thank you and please keep fighting,

Bravo to you, DXG! You just narrowly avoided making the biggest mistake of your life. Please send your wife here so we can help her get into this program and restore the love in your marriage.

I was not intending to ever post on this sit, I just wanted WPG to know how she helped me and my family by telling her story so well, I really do hope the the best for You WPG and remember it is not over till its really over. as long as both of you remain faithful there is still hope.

I just read Brookens2009 comments and yes he is in a lot of pain but only because he does love you. even if you dont see it your self your remorse is not totally lost on him. If it was not for the FR I truly think you would be in a much better place with your marriage. I know you have worked on this for a long time but I have seen and heard it takes 2 to 5 years, this is only words but I do believe in this: wait the 5 years or more, your husband does not want to be alone the rest of his life even if he actually says it, no one does, We were created by god with a need for a partner we love and who loves us, when this basic need is unfulfilled we go against nature and deeply harm ourselves. I say never give up.

thanks gloveoil, yes i have had some boundaries issues and PM ing a woman on this site could be viewed as such. thank you for pointing it out to me. I really wanted wpg to know how she has helped me without taking over her thread, but i do see your point.I will work on this.

In order to prevent the sort of conversation you intended to have with WPG. You intended to compliment her IN PRIVATE. That's a "no-no". Keep everything in your life open and on the up & up.


Self esteem is earned by doing estimable things in life. Respect yourself and make certain every decision you make meets possible scrutiny by your wife.

DXG, welcome you to MB, and I'm glad that my story was helpful to you.

You asked me a question I wanted to address:


Call me crazy (many, many folks have!), but I don�t want anyone else. I know that my actions three years ago as an adulterous wife make that statement sound meaningless, however.

After the affair ended and broken and I were first trying to recover � pre-MB and during the time I was lying to him about the affair�s extent � I did the Love Dare. I can�t say the Love Dare jibes perfectly with MB because the LD emphasizes unconditional love, which is contrary to what MB teaches; however, one thing that stuck with me was the advice �don�t follow your heart � lead it.� It makes sense, in light of understanding how our emotions � our �hearts� � are irrational. �Following our hearts� is what popular culture teaches us, and it gets us in all kinds of trouble. Following your heart is what tells us that it�s OK to let someone else fill your LB$. We have to direct our �hearts� by constructing boundaries and resisting the urge to be resentful when needs aren�t met, to instead take steps to thoughtfully and rationally address problems in our relationships. Unfortunately any effect the LD had on broken was essentially negated by my trickle-truth, but for me it remains a valuable lesson learned.

I could easily �follow my heart� now. My heart sometimes cries out in its pain and tells me to walk away, that I could find the affection and admiration that I crave from someone else. But on the heels of that, my heart also loves broken, wants to show love to him, wants to heal the pain I caused him.

Rationally, remaining married � saving our marriage � makes sense. I have spent half my life with broken; he knows me better than anyone. I have seen him meet my needs, and he can absolutely do it in ways that make huge deposits in my LB$. His need-meeting after my adultery was the number one reason I fell so head-over-heels back in love with him again. I will never have the history I have with broken with another man. He is the father of our two beautiful little girls, who absolutely adore him. No other man will ever love them as much as he does. We�ve built a life together, a home together.

I also know that rationally, I don�t want to try to find someone else. I don�t want to try to trust someone else. As evidenced by my adultery, my judgment has proven to be faulty and at times I don�t trust myself, either. There are men out there who would use me just to get close to my daughters. I don�t want a blended family. I don�t want another man raising my girls. I don�t want to raise someone else�s children.
It has been three years since my adulterous relationship ended. I still remember the Sunday that broken confronted me. The girls and I had just gotten home from church. I remember every moment of that day. I knew � yes, too late, but I knew � that I wanted broken and not the OM�but for the next four months I twisted my words and lied and manipulated and did every conniving thing under the sun to try and keep broken. And then, even when he knew the truth, I was no better than any other garden-variety wayward because I had no clue how to earn my �F� until I landed here and the good folks on this board knocked some sense into me.

This was a much longer post than I intended and I�m out of time to get to addressing NG�but in essence what I have left is in spite of everything, I still have hope. Some days I don�t know why, because some days life seems so bleak. I�d be lying if I said I didn�t get angry, if I didn�t feel hurt by his actions. And chances are, broken and I will eventually divorce, but even then I don�t know if that will destroy the last vestiges of hope.

I think if we aren�t going to make it, I would rather be alone. I�d rather take care of myself and not have to worry about anyone else�s ENs. Even if he does eventually marry again, I�d still rather just be alone. I�ll live for my daughters, for my mother, and for myself, I�ll be the best damn mother, daughter, sister, friend, employee, whatever that I can be, and I�ll regret what I did to the life broken and I had � and what we could have had.


I�ll be back. Promise.

Thank you for your well thought out response to my question WPG. I totally agree about not following our hearts. I will look up the Bible verse that says / the heart is trechters and is desperate who can know it./ yes the world teaches to follow our heats but nothing is farther from the truth. we do need to use our trained thinking ability to control our emotions so as to avoid life's most devastating decisions.

almost every principle involved in the whole MB programs can be said to be almost directly associated with bible principles. Our loss in faith in God as a society, allows our hearts to deceive us and lead us to our ultimate ruin. and by learning this at a young age we can only benefit from such training. EX> I dont need to experience a broken arm to know that jumping out of that tree is a dumb thing to do., why, because I have seen it but most importantly I was taught as such.

another false teaching from the world is that experience is the best teacher. How so? If I was to drive recklessly because I felt i was in control and i have the skill to avoid any negative consequences but still crash my car. well experience has taught me but not in the BEST way has it! The best way to learn is before the horrible consequences are experienced I.E, listen and learn from ones who have been victims, or taught by someone wiser that this is something to avoid at all costs Because.....

WPG you have taught ME to avoid a huge pit fall and things with my wife are, going so much better. thank you. I am sure that my wife would have D me if I had not stopped my self and confessed to what i was guilty of.
I will pray for your Recovery and be who you know you can be and keep up Hope

Great post DX
Reflecting on what you said about biblical principles

Being part of the "me" generation of the 60s 70s, the individual was given such free reign in societies viewpoint
Oh yeah the space age and our higher education, as allways to the eager it seemed all things were possible

But we all forgot or didn't listen to Solomon

"All is vanity, there is nothing new under the Sun"

I am glad there is still and instruction book written to us Human beings from above. Yes an instruction book, not a bunch of nice ideas, with arcaic notions.

So when things go wrong, at least we all know, that there was a reason and a way home

I remember something realeasing I heard about the wording of the first of the ten commandments

It does not state" Never fail to put God first and to make no Gods before Him"

He knew we would fail to do that at some time

It's about bouncing back, recovery, restoration.

Bless you WPG and all the former waywards seeking repentance and a way out of the hole they have fell into

DXG, a couple of verses that come to mind about following one's heart:

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? Jeremiah 17:9

and

He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, But he who walks wisely will be delivered. Proverbs 28:26

Am I on ignore?

Yeah Mel those two really spell it out huh?

Desperately , desperatly. How wicked could that become?

Tho one about, and I prolly won't quote it right,.." If you see with a darkened eye, how great is that darkness?"

Wise words

lol BR - no, sorry for not responding! I'm just scatterbrained lately!

The problem is that I can't seem to engage broken in conversation about either D or recovery. I've done some research on D laws, and really it's not all that complicated - biggest issue is the division of property. And really, the only property we have is the house. I've tried to start conversation about selling it or buying him out via a monthly payment, and he shuts the conversation down. I drafted out some separation papers for him to look at (in our state all property issues have to be decided before D) and he may or may not have looked at them, but after giving them to him he has not said one word to me about them.

I can probably pay him some, but it wouldn't be much. Right now I work FT and have a decent salary, but it's not great...I teach PT with 2 colleges for extra money (I had quit the PT work after my A, but when broken moved out last year I started back). I was thinking yesterday, wondering if I could refi the house in my name and either get a lower payment or cash back which I could give broken as a lump sum. I just don't know if I'd qualify - we used both incomes when we bought it, although both of us were making less 10 years ago, so it's worth a look into. I can afford the house payments and expenses on my own although it gets tight at times...we were able to pay off our huge credit card debt last year and that helps tremendously...I'd cut a lot of our services (like satellite TV) down to basics when he moved out, but since he moved back in he's added back what I took away and then some, plus bought a new computer on credit. He also has a car payment and tractor payment that on my salary alone we can't afford.

I don't know...I don't need him to file, I could just go to the courthouse and do it by myself, although technically we are no longer separated (one year of separation required) as we're back under one roof, unless it counts that he told me that he moved back having no intention of resuming the husband-wife relationship, and the law speaks to that intention of resumption. As it stands now, he could file and depending on the date of separation he bases the action on, the court could order me to pay support anyway since he's unemployed and I'm not.

And then this all leads into NG's comments to me on Pep's thread about the long-term plans available to broken as a BS - or, well, any of us. I think we can rule out Plan A, as it was never meant to be long-term. That leaves Plan B, Plan D, and Plan M. We're in none of these...although to be fair, broken has not bought into MB. Oh, we have the books, he posted here for a while and did the ENQ once, we have the HNHN home study course (unopened).

That leaves another, non-MB option: a crippled version of the pre-A marriage. And that is what we have.

OK, NG - what you thinking?

Is plan M "Massive amounts of insanity?"

Your candor in your intermittent visits has me concerned that you have kind of "settled in" to this situation.

On the one hand, I'm glad... what? Why? Because hopefully it will prevent your health from degrading.

On the other, neither of you deserve this purgatory.

It's not about how hard you hit, it's about how hard you can get hit and keep coming back... and that ain't about you or your M. It's about a man getting off his keister and reclaiming a life.

WPG, your post anticipated the general subject that I was planning to broach with you.

Can you bear yet another NG analogy?

A man, with his wife in the car, drove recklessly and had a terrible accident. He recovered fairly quickly, but his wife ended up in a terminal coma, and remained there, on life support, for three years, He could not bring himself to end that support, for all the pain it brought himself and their entire family, because to do so would be to acknowledge that his actions three years earlier had killed his mate. If the machines kept her breathing, and the tubes kept her fed, she was not "gone".

Among the four Plans, kiddo, you're closest to Plan B. NO ONE should (can?) stay in a Plan B'ish life forever. You know that. How long can you deny the existence of forever as already here?

Let me put it to you differently. Reset the roles in your marital history. Imagine BH were the wayward, but even after the affair were dead and past, your situation is EXACTLY what it is today. Would you be so willing to abide?