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well, in short, yes, the crying. crying is all about ME - I'M so sorry, I feel so bad, I'M a horrible person. he should be spending his time tending to his wife, whom he has left shattered. he could have done this by leaving off on the crying and concentrating on his drive home so that he could attend to her without any needless ME stuff. He was on the phone to me because she asked him to call me and tell me what he had done. Also to see if we could drive to their house and make sure she was OK.
Last edited by parentsneedhelp; 10/08/12 07:36 PM.
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Well, GloveOil, I was way more worried bout him crying and driving then talking and driving! I was trying to get him calmed down enough to DRIVE and not cause a wreck and anyone else harm. I don't think GOs point was that you should have done anything differently but that your sons sadness is manifesting rather selfishly. This is pretty common with waywards. 'Oh woe is me' 'wahhmbulance' etc when they should be clearing up their mess. Just something to keep in mind in case he throws any more pity parties. Shouldnt waywards have sadness for the pain they have caused their families and pain to think that their marriage/family is breaking up even if it is their fault?
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re SIL - DILs sister? she will have to be excluded (plan b'd)from the family forever. what a horrible, horrible person. Yes DIL's sister. She is in a NC right now. No letter has been sent yet. This is actually this first day for them to be back together (after a work stint). Do the young cousins need to be involved in the NC or can they see each other? I say allow them to meet at the park or whatever - it is not their fault. S and DIL are right now planning a move to get out of that town. Maybe they will change houses with us. Now I get a pitty party for me:(
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in regard to the texts - your son should give/show her whatever she wants to see/hear. it is one step towards honesty and openness. "protecting" her is something he should have thought of *before* he did this, not after. he is only trying to protect himself, because he thinks showing her will only give her more reason to leave him. she has every right to leave him. but he can turn this around, especially with your help and support. please remember your DIL is the victim here, regardless of the state of their M pre-A. absolutly he should have thought about protecting her before! What if we have concerns that any more info will make her even less emotionally stable.
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[ absolutly he should have thought about protecting her before! What if we have concerns that any more info will make her even less emotionally stable. PH, please listen to us carefully. Do not make the mistake of withholding any information from your DIL. Please IMPLORE your son to come completely clean now. It is his only hope. If he has to tell her in 3-4 weeks, she will start all over again. And she will feel betrayed all over again because he withheld the truth. This marriage may not survive that. She will know that he was not sincere today and it will destroy any hope for recovery. It is not in ANYONES best interest to withhold any scrap of information. A BS can survive an affair, they can't survive the LIES. She has to be told the entire truth and be given all the information NOW. NO MORE LYING!
"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
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She will be less emotionally stable if he lies to her about anything because this marriage cannot recover otherwise. Honesty is the solution to infidelity, not more lying.
"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
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Okay, MB's (least) favorite contrarian is about to chime in.
You sound like honorable, ethical people who are parents of a son whose choices make for about as heinous and hurtful (her frickin' sister, are you kidding me?) a story as we've had here.
Well, actually, we haven't yet had the story here. Sorry Mom and Dad, but the "oh so protected child" who is your son hasn't yet shown us jack-diddly that he's concerned about healing the damage to his BW and family. When he shows up here, and not hiding (yes: HIDING!) behind your deeply concerned notes and postings, then MAYBE he will have begun to understand the enormity of the task facing him.
Mr and Mrs PNH, you cannot "helicopter parent" away sonny boy's troubles for him. Only he can do anything about it. Until he shows up here to hear what will be said, this thread is an interesting diversion, but not very effective.
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Shouldnt waywards have sadness for the pain they have caused their families and pain to think that their marriage/family is breaking up even if it is their fault? FYI - that ^^^ is excuse making. absolutly he should have thought about protecting her before! What if we have concerns that any more info will make her even less emotionally stable. it is not your place to decide whether she is "emotionally unstable." all BSs feel like dying. unless SHE says directly to YOU: "i need you to take the kids tonight so i can go jump off the golden gate bridge." <--that would be unstable. a BS who wishes she could die, wants to die, etc, is just voicing the level of pain she is feeling. using the words "emotionally unstable" is judgmental and scary and will drive her away, from you and your son. and it doesn't matter what your son says about her. waywards are liars and you can't believe anything they say. even when they are crying and saying how sorry they are. you can only trust what your DIL says directly to you. period. like NG, i'm a little concerned at your involvement, from what you've posted. your job is to tell your son to stop the affair, provide him with accountability, and provide support for the M to your DIL. everything else MUST be done by your son. and he should be the one finding out what he has to do. it's good that you're here to find out how you can be supportive to the M. but don't take it further than what your role is. encourage your son to take the lead if he wants to recover his M after the horrible wound he has cut into it. remind him of his role as husband and father. tell him to get SAA, or even to contact the coaching center here, which is the best help money can buy.
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He was on the phone to me because she asked him to call me and tell me what he had done. Also to see if we could drive to their house and make sure she was OK. I haven't read through the whole thread yet, but I certainly hope we've gotten past the driving while talking on the phone part. And I don't know if it was ever addressed that your son was possibly on a hands-free phone? Neither here nor there. He was upset and calling for support. Remind him at some point in the not-too-future that he needs to save his conversations about significant events like this until he is just talking about it - not talking about it while his attention needs to be somewhere else - like driving. Back to the infidelity issue at hand, which is what I think we need to key into, IMO.
D-Day 2-10-2009
Fully Recovered and Better Than Ever!
Thank you Marriage Builders!
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This was the mistake he was talking about....he had hidden some info from her. Didn't come "clean". Your son keeps talking about "mistakes." However, nothing that has happened here was a mistake. It was CHOICES. Hiding the texts was not a "mistake." It was a CHOICE and it was done to manipulate and hide the truth. All betrayed spouses are deeply offended to hear their spouse say it was a "mistake." Read this about revealing the entire truth to a betrayed spouse: It isn't honesty that causes the pain, it's the affair. Honesty is simply revealing truth to the victim. Those who advocate dishonesty regarding infidelity assume that the truth will cause such irreparable harm, that it's in the best interest of a victimized spouse to go through life with the illusion of fidelity.
It's patronizing to think that a spouse cannot bear to hear the truth. Anyone who assumes that their spouse cannot handle truth is being incredibly disrespectful, manipulative and in the final analysis, dangerous. How little you must think of your spouse when you try to protect him or her from the truth. Your son needs to take a poly to answer whatever question his betrayed wife wants and needs. The truth is the only path to redemption and recovery. I am assuming you want your son to redeem himself and become the respectable man he once used to be.
ME: BW
HIM: FWH
Married 18 yrs
DDay 09/2008 and 12/2008
Recovered
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... absolutly he should have thought about protecting her before! What if we have concerns that any more info will make her even less emotionally stable.
Cultural conventional 'wisdom': "Lots of people can't handle the truth when they're under stress."
Actual wisdom: The truth is the most sound basis for allowing us to take correct decisions & actions to get us out of stress & to where we want to be.
Right now, your DIL doesn't know which way is up. Her entire world has been turned upside down. Things she thought she could rely upon, she has discovered she cannot. She might not have thought this man (your son) perfect, but she counted on his honor in a deep, visceral way. Now, suddenly, that's been shattered.
She couldn't imagine he was capable of this. But now she has to imagine it. And if there's even a sliver of consideration on her part that she might want to try to stay in the marriage -- the thread of hope to which your son is clinging -- then she's faced with not only imagining it, but digesting it and coming to terms with it.
Exactly how big a task is that? Well, to answer that, she needs to know, what "it" is. How big is "it"? Exactly what did he do? When did he do it? What was he thinking when he was doing it? All of these painful questions. With truthful answers to those questions, she possibly may be able to at least draw an outer limit around the extent of these painful things that she has to digest. She possibly can have a fixed set of events and decisions on his part that she'll know she needs to come to terms with. She possibly can have a boundary of sorts for the extent of her emotional pain.
However, without the truth, none of this adjustment is even possible. She'll be left to wonder whether there was more, and to imagine it. Any appearance of evasiveness on his part will only feed her mind-movies further. After all, concealment of the truth, the maintaining of a deception, was a sine qua non without which this inappropriate relationship could not have proceeded. Further concealment of the truth, the further maintaining of any deceptions, is the very last thing in the world that will allow her to feel emotionally-safe with him again. There'll be no limit to her possible pain -- except via just cutting ties and getting the heck out of the marriage.
So, do you see now how your son's instinct to "shield her from" [read: deny her] the truth -- deny her any chance of drawing a circle around the outer limits of her pain -- will lead him in the dead-opposite direction of where he needs to go if he wants to have the slightest chance of saving his marriage & keeping his family together?
The antidote to having been a liar is not to attempt to become a more courteous, considerate & effective liar. The antidote is to stop lying/deceiving/concealing in any way/shape/form. Although being truthful will not guarantee that this marriage can be saved by any means, withholding truth at this stage will just about guarantee that it will fail sooner or later, and probably sooner.
Please consider this carefully insofar as you're acting as his advisors. May God bless. //
Me: FWH, 50
My BW: Trust_Will_Come, 52, tall, beautiful & heart of gold
DD23, DS19
EA-then-PA Oct'08-Jan'09
Broke it off & confessed to BW (after OW's H found out) Jan.7 2009
Married 25 years & counting.
Grateful for forgiveness. Working to be a better husband.
"I wear the chain I forged in life... I made it link by link, and yard by yard" ~Jacob Marley's ghost, A Christmas Carol
"Do it again & you're out on your [bum]." ~My BW, Jan.7 2009
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As a BS I don't care what HAPPENED. I could have dealt with it all if he had dealt me as a grown up and admitted every wrong. What REALLY hurt was the lying, and having to fill in the blanks with my imagination and being treated like a stupid dolt "who couldn't handle it"
See my signature. The truth will set you free. I left my husband not because he had an affair, but because he lied and continued to lie. So I turned investigator and figured the details out on my own.
The A was (or would have been) past but he was determined to make lies our future as well.
Last edited by indiegirl; 10/09/12 08:44 AM.
What would you do if you were not afraid?
"Fear is the little death. Fear is the mind-killer" Frank Herbert.
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Parents ... When your beloved wayward son is under duress because of his actions, he is HIGHLY likly to lie. And convincingly so. Hence: LIARRHEA
All WS suffer from the same ailment: liarrhea
Main Entry: li·ar·rhea
Function: noun
1 : abnormally frequent verbal evacuations of untruths It's what waywards do. The truth stings. So, they try to minimize and sugar-coat the facts. They ALL say they lie to protect their betrayed spouse. Or their affair partner. Or the kids. Or their parents. Or the POTUS. Remember, he is highly UNlikely to confess everything if he thinks you will believe a lie that makes his behavior less abhorrent.
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And speaking about dung coming from the oral cavity of a wayward, although admittedly we're getting this second-hand:
It was just proven our son had a sexting affair with his SIL. His affair was texting/sexting over a 3 -4 week time frame.
Well, I SUPPOSE this could be true, if the parties involved were isolated on different continents, but if they had the opportunity to be in the same zip-code, WH and SOW (sister-other-woman, though I do appreciate the initials) almost certainly got jiggy in person.
But, in almost thirteen hours, NADA from anyone on the far side of the electronic comm link. Could we have been too mean, that quickly?
Eventually, too, we will have to discuss the fact that BW was permitted to drive home in tatters from d-session, ALONE, because sonny-boy chose to finish his twelve-hour shift.
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I also thought that was untrue. Without doubt it began as a slow burning EA, for a start. Only a psychopath wakes up one morning and decides out of the blue to send an obscene text to their previously platonic SIL. And what would be the odds she'd send one back unless they had spent a LONG time cultivating a flirty inappropriate relationship beforehand.
What would you do if you were not afraid?
"Fear is the little death. Fear is the mind-killer" Frank Herbert.
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Okay, MB's (least) favorite contrarian is about to chime in.
You sound like honorable, ethical people who are parents of a son whose choices make for about as heinous and hurtful (her frickin' sister, are you kidding me?) a story as we've had here.
Well, actually, we haven't yet had the story here. Sorry Mom and Dad, but the "oh so protected child" who is your son hasn't yet shown us jack-diddly that he's concerned about healing the damage to his BW and family. When he shows up here, and not hiding (yes: HIDING!) behind your deeply concerned notes and postings, then MAYBE he will have begun to understand the enormity of the task facing him.
Mr and Mrs PNH, you cannot "helicopter parent" away sonny boy's troubles for him. Only he can do anything about it. Until he shows up here to hear what will be said, this thread is an interesting diversion, but not very effective. He doesn't even know I'm "here". I was babysitting their youngest and thought MB would be a good place to get help. Not help for myself but help in the form of what to tell them (how to guide them). I sence I made a mistake there.
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that or loose his job? he has three children and a full time homemaker to support. and 2 vehicalsin the neighboring state that needed to get "home".
Last edited by parentsneedhelp; 10/09/12 01:21 PM. Reason: additonal text
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I also thought that was untrue. Without doubt it began as a slow burning EA, for a start. Only a psychopath wakes up one morning and decides out of the blue to send an obscene text to their previously platonic SIL. And what would be the odds she'd send one back unless they had spent a LONG time cultivating a flirty inappropriate relationship beforehand. Oh they didn't start out obscene...they went from gummy bears to anal sex. Dont ask me i'm confused too.
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[
But, in almost thirteen hours, NADA from anyone on the far side of the electronic comm link. Could we have been too mean, that quickly? [/quote] I dont understand this???
Last edited by parentsneedhelp; 10/09/12 01:41 PM.
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Most folks on here are cynical, including myself, regarding the actions/words of waywards. There is almost no truth in what waywards disclose.
Virtually everyone of them has to be forced into revealing the whole truth of what they have done. Trickle truth is the norm for them, or admitting to one or two levels less than what they actually did.
The chance that your son is lying to you is almost 100%.
If he wants to do the right thing admit everything and schedule a lie detector test.
Provide EP's
Provide Just Compensation.
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