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NG, did you know we are not in the minority on this subject?? That is a very promising sign to me! smile


"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

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Originally Posted by MelodyLane
I am convinced that you are under spiritual assault by a man who does not care for you and has used your affair to punish you for years. He is highly manipulative and does not hesitate to use your affair against you for secondary gain.

I have not discussed this w/ him, and feel I should (especially since I am speculating here), but I feel his resentment protects him. As long as he has that, he does not have to risk anything - no risk in resuming the relationship, and reinforcing his sense of self-worth that he does not have to accept something like this happening to him and be any lesser for it. (Not sure if that makes sense or is even accurate. I'm spitballing here.)

Originally Posted by MelodyLane
Dr Harley talks about the use of such manipulation in his article about resentment:

Originally Posted by Dr Bill Harley
I'm convinced that what's kept the resentment of S.R.'s husband alive for so many years is that he has found it to be an effective way to control and punish her whenever she doesn't do what he wants. Whenever they have a fight, he brings it up, and it causes her such guilt that it gives him a decided advantage in winning the argument.

I already do whatever he wants. I went back to medical school because I thought that's what he wanted! The point about the guilt is true, though, as I often am overwhelmed by that and how I use my own guilt to keep me in my place, so to speak.

Originally Posted by Dr. Harley
What she describes to me in her letter is abuse, pure and simple. There is no excuse for the way her husband keeps bringing up her moment of weakness she experienced years ago. He is disrespectful and abusive.

Yet I still feel I deserve it because he hasn't forgiven me and we haven't recovered the marriage. If he's the victim, who am I to tell him otherwise? Twisted thinking, I know.

Originally Posted by Dr. Harley
I suggest that she look him right in the eye and say to him, "Listen Buster, do you love me? Do you want me to love you? Do you want to spend the rest of your life with me? If the answers to any of those questions is 'yes' you sure are going about it the wrong way. You are not doing things that I admire, you're doing things that I find disgusting!"

What if he says, "Fine, then lets just get a divorce and end it all."

This is one of the fundamental issues at play. My DH will say just that, and I am still not ready for that. My stupid, foolish hopes and dreams want more for us, and some tiny bit of me still believes it could happen. Some of my ENs are met, many of the important ones are not, but it is a tolerable situation in light of what I did and what I still hope for us. I'm pretty sure I'm an idiot.

Originally Posted by MelodyLane
I agree that your husband will leave no matter what and if I were you, I would get a divorce. That would the best for you all. Killing your unborn child and sacrificing any semblance of decency, will not compensate your husband. It will hurt your marriage in enormous ways if you agree to sacrifice your principles.

Further evidence of my twisted thinking: I feel like I owe this to him, and that it's a testament of my commitment to him and a marriage that he is happy(ier) with. But that's been my problem now and w/ the affair - sacrificing my principles to keep other people happy.

That is why I am trying to rely on religious guidance. Unfortunately, many interpretations state abortion is a sin, yet the basic premise of those is a very straightforward statement that can be interpreted as simply as my DH states it - that it's okay in black and white terms of that statement.

Originally Posted by MelodyLane
But this cannot be blamed on your husband anymore. You are a GROWN WOMAN who chooses not to stand up for herself. You are no longer a victim, but a volunteer. It is up to you to stop enabling your husband's abuse, my dear friend.

You are entirely right, and I know this. It's that I am still okay with this and have hope for more. We have two young children already, my husband provides well for us and is a great father, and I do not want to lose any of that. I still have hope. Stupid, stupid hope.

Last edited by V_planifolia; 02/16/13 09:45 PM. Reason: Fixed quote

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Originally Posted by NeverGuessed
There comes a point, and I believe you are well past it, when heinous behavior and antisocial actions can no longer be written off as "Well, it's because you had an affair!" (For additional support for this position, you only need read WPG's thread.) He was there and participating in the SF activities of which this pregnancy is the result. He does NOT get free use of the "Do this or else!" card, stretched waaaaay beyond the natural boundaries of a BS managing recovery.

I would disagree slightly with Mel, however. I'd calmly explain that within the constraints of an MB-consistent union, taking an action like terminating this pregnancy would be the most vital of POJA-controlled decisions. And since you cannot enthusiastically agree, the abortion will not be pursued. Put the onus back on him to defend the indefensible.

NG, I followed WPG's thread and felt a similarity to our situations. It is always easier when it is someone else you are advising and not yourself. smile

DH does not embrace MB 100%. He directed me here after D-day, and even purchased a block of phone coaching sessions for us for my birthday after D-day. However, affair-related things have not really been subject to POJA. This constitutes an affair-related thing because of...well, because of how "recovery" has played out, I guess.

It's my fault in a lot of ways. I have not spoken up every time I should have in the past during our recovery. I should not have returned to medical school when I felt that was the wrong decision for the marriage. (Now I feel I am in too deep - one year left and over $100,000 in debt. However, if he told me he wanted me to quit school, wanted the relationship to work, if he told me he would stay in the marriage and all I had to do was leave school, I would drop it in a heartbeat.)

Bottom line, I have to speak with him. I'm scared. But this can't continue. It's not healthy for either of us. I would just prefer this to not having him at all.


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Originally Posted by V_planifolia
Originally Posted by MelodyLane
But this cannot be blamed on your husband anymore. You are a GROWN WOMAN who chooses not to stand up for herself. You are no longer a victim, but a volunteer. It is up to you to stop enabling your husband's abuse, my dear friend.

You are entirely right, and I know this. It's that I am still okay with this and have hope for more. We have two young children already, my husband provides well for us and is a great father, and I do not want to lose any of that. I still have hope. Stupid, stupid hope.

By cooperating with his bad behavior, you make it impossible to EVER have a good marriage. Your behavior achieves the opposite result of what you say you want. Using "hope" as an excuse to allow him to abuse you has only served to embolden him, making your marriage worse. You have trained him to be an abuser and rewarded him for being a punk.

Has the result been a good marriage? No, but you continue to use the same FAILED tactics even though folks here have told you for YEARS it doesn't work.

*YOU* are the reason your marriage is so bad, V_planifolia.

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That is why I am trying to rely on religious guidance. Unfortunately, many interpretations state abortion is a sin, yet the basic premise of those is a very straightforward statement that can be interpreted as simply as my DH states it - that it's okay in black and white terms of that statement.

Interpretations are cute and winsome, but you know that killing is wrong, despite anyone's "interpretation." You don't even need to be religious to know this. People who have no religion know right from wrong. No matter how much mental masturbation you engage in, you know right from wrong.


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Originally Posted by V_planifolia
Bottom line, I have to speak with him. I'm scared. But this can't continue. It's not healthy for either of us. I would just prefer this to not having him at all.

Do you have a female relative, friend, or counselor you can speak to? I am shocked at the lack of judgment reflected in your thinking, V. It is very unusual to see a grown woman who struggles so much with clear thinking. Is it because your husband gaslights you? Do you feel that your thinking is as muddled as it appears to objective observers?


"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

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Originally Posted by MelodyLane
*YOU* are the reason your marriage is so bad, V_planifolia.

I cannot argue w/ this. Especially since I am the one who started all of this in the first place, (although I know that's not what you meant).

Originally Posted by MelodyLane
Interpretations are cute and winsome, but you know that killing is wrong, despite anyone's "interpretation." You don't even need to be religious to know this. People who have no religion know right from wrong. No matter how much mental masturbation you engage in, you know right from wrong.

The black and white religious interpretation is that taking of a life is determined by when the fetus has a soul. Religiously, we are not at that point yet. That is the basis of DH's thinking. However, many scholars (and myself) believe that once conception has happened, it is not our place to alter that. I am looking for religious credence because my personal convictions carry no weight w/ my DH. I am also concerned about the burden of sin I will be carrying around if I were to have an abortion.

I have my answer. I've been avoiding conflict and in the process signing on for more of the same, as you pointed out, ML.


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It's not healthy for either of us. I would just prefer this to not having him at all.

Kiddo, if the "it" were mainlining heroin, would your second sentence be the same? If it were playing "Russian Roulette"?

Your answer would likely be "No" and would be swayed by the immediacy and visibility of the damage being done to yourself by the unhealthy joint behavior.

That his abortion demand/threat/extortion has not angered you beyond words, or elicited a sneer, and a slap across his face, demonstrates that the damage to your "self" is already well advanced.

I have often said to recovering WSs, and occasionally to their FBSs, that a marriage cannot long work with a "senior" and a "junior" partner. For a short period, as reconciliation is being established, it may have to exist as a stopgap. It cannot be the final, steady-state form of the union.

Good night. I'll check back in the AM.

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Oh, (((((V)))))

I am not qualified to advise on dealing with a resentful BH, or how to change our thinking that we deserve abuse and maltreatment because of what we did.

What I do know is in no way would an abortion be "just compensation." JC is not supposed to hurt, for one. And this goes beyond something he is asking YOU to do. This affects a little soul that never asked for this, never did anything to deserve it. This child has nothing he/she needs to compensate FOR.

V, I had an abortion about 20 years ago. You never get over something like that. At least I didn't. And I only have myself to blame for it. I can't imagine if I blamed the father, who incidentally is the man I went on to marry and then betray.

I know all too well about having hope. How you read into every little thing and interpret it as a sign of something more. How hope can hold us in limbo for far too long.

I can't tell you what to do. I can only say if I could go back in time, my abortion would be another thing I would change. I thought at the time it was the right decision. I was so selfish. It took years before I allowed myself to think of it again and I thought I was over it...I wasn't over it. It is something else I asked God's forgiveness for, and something else I have to accept and live with, something else I have to regret and cannot change.

(((((V)))))


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Originally Posted by MelodyLane
Originally Posted by V_planifolia
Bottom line, I have to speak with him. I'm scared. But this can't continue. It's not healthy for either of us. I would just prefer this to not having him at all.

Do you have a female relative, friend, or counselor you can speak to? I am shocked at the lack of judgment reflected in your thinking, V. It is very unusual to see a grown woman who struggles so much with clear thinking. Is it because your husband gaslights you? Do you feel that your thinking is as muddled as it appears to objective observers?

Ha, you are absolutely right. My thoughts feel incredibly muddled, and I am having an extremely difficult time reaching any resolution (as is obvious). I am pretty sure it is because I screwed up and there has been no resolution of that. I am not an equal to my DH.

If I speak w/ my family, they will hold this against my DH, (and that relationship is already fractured enough and one more reason that DH does not want to recover a relationship w/ me). I do not have any female friends I feel close enough to speak w/ this about. It is why I come here to the board - people who have been through infidelity and can understand how this all plays out.

Interestingly, I don't think I come across this way IRL. It's just the fractures in my own marriage that do it to me.


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Originally Posted by V_planifolia
The black and white religious interpretation is that taking of a life is determined by when the fetus has a soul. Religiously, we are not at that point yet. That is the basis of DH's thinking. However, many scholars (and myself) believe that once conception has happened, it is not our place to alter that. I am looking for religious credence because my personal convictions carry no weight w/ my DH. I am also concerned about the burden of sin I will be carrying around if I were to have an abortion.

You don't have to "PROVE" your personal convictions to anyone. You know right from wrong and it is YOU who has to live with your conscience. I know you know right from wrong, friend. You don't need "credence," religious or otherwise to defend your decision not to kill your baby.

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I have my answer. I've been avoiding conflict and in the process signing on for more of the same, as you pointed out, ML.

Exactly. Your conflict avoidance has wrought more conflict and trained your husband to be a bad, disrespectful, manipulative man. Enabling him in that pursuit has all but destroyed your marriage.

Dr Harley gave another board member this advice and it applies to you too:
Originally Posted by Dr Harley
Your married life has been full of sacrifice. Don't do it anymore. One person's dreams can be another's nightmares. When that's the case in marriage, the dream should be abandoned. Whenever a spouse asks you to sacrifice, it's that person's Taker talking. He's not caring for you at that moment. He wants to gain at your expense. We all make mistakes, but whenever your husband makes that one, don't oblige. Then you'll have nothing new to feel resentful about.


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Thank you for weighing in, WPG.

Originally Posted by WPG
I know all too well about having hope. How you read into every little thing and interpret it as a sign of something more. How hope can hold us in limbo for far too long.

I hate my hopeful little self. I need an assertive, hopeful little self. smile?

I am sorry to hear about your past experience w/ abortion. The burden of bad decisions compounded by more bad decisions is not something I would wish on anyone, and I thank you for offering your painfully gained wisdom.

Here's to healing: hug


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Originally Posted by V_planifolia
[

Ha, you are absolutely right. My thoughts feel incredibly muddled, and I am having an extremely difficult time reaching any resolution (as is obvious). I am pretty sure it is because I screwed up and there has been no resolution of that. I am not an equal to my DH.

The martyr act is getting old, dear. Please put away the hairshirt. You have long made amends for your crime.

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I do not have any female friends I feel close enough to speak w/ this about. It is why I come here to the board - people who have been through infidelity and can understand how this all plays out.

What about getting a female counselor? I don't typically recommend counselors, but what you post is so alarming that I think just about any female with basic common sense could help you with some much needed reality checks. Your husband distorts reality and keeps you continually off balance.

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It's just the fractures in my own marriage that do it to me.

When I am confused it is typically because I have lost my grip on reality for some reason. It may be that I am overly emotional about the issue or am lying to myself. In your case, I suspect it is because your husband keeps you continually off balance by manipulating you with guilt. He keeps you in control by threatening divorce.

Once you stop fearing this, he won't have that leverage anymore. You do realize that he would have to support you if you got divorced, right? You would not lose his support.


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Is your husband going to read here and use your posts against you?


"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

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Here is one of his posts:

Originally Posted by MikeX
Mrs. V is NOT my W. I've been following her story a little but haven't read all her posts and don't know the complete story. Just noticed that she mentioned that she had "moved on from the affair" and thought I'd add my 2 cents. Some of you didn't read my prior post in which I mentioned that I'm not asking that anyone be wallowing in anguish. I just think that an affair is significant enough that it should be something you think of very frequently - if not, I don't think you understand the gravity of what you've done. Again, that doesn't mean you should be wallowing in anguish.

I think the problem with some of the posts above is that they assume that BSs are in the marriage to stay in it for good. (Some of the posts also act like an affair is equivalent to "a night out with the guys" compensation - like I was home babysitting while you went out with the guys, so you now owe me.) A lot of us BSs are in constant limbo not because we want to punish the FWS, but because we just don't know what to do. It's not like we planned for this to happen. To simply say that the BS has to commit to the marriage just like before and not ever speak of the affair again is simply too much to ask IMHO. If my FWW asked me today that I had to choose between fully committing to the marriage and leaving it, I would leave. I have no doubt about that. Because my FWW and I have a son together I'm trying to get comfortable with the situation but struggle on a daily basis.

Not sure why Mrs. V's husband wants to leave his career because of the affair all of a sudden. That doesn't seem to make sense for me (and for a lot of others). Could you elaborate, Mrs. V?


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Originally Posted by V_planifolia
If I speak w/ my family, they will hold this against my DH, (and that relationship is already fractured enough and one more reason that DH does not want to recover a relationship w/ me).

I think you should stop hiding his crimes from your family. They need to know what is going on so they can support you and help you with reality testing. Everyone should know the headgames he plays with you. Don't hide this from your family.

Why is his relationship so fractured with your family? let me guess.... They know or he is concerned they will know how badly he gaslights you?


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Originally Posted by NeverGuessed
...immoral, evil, or destructive behavior.

You and I seem to be in the tiny minority in the country on this topic, Tex. I chose NOT to assume everybody is as attuned to what we can see as elemental morality here when MB principles would serve equally well - pragmatism over dogma, so to speak.

If V's opinion of abortion's defining characteristics were as steadfast as yours and mine, she never would have even posted that note.

So, V - if your concept of aborting a child under any/all conditions puts it in the "murder of innocents" realm, there is no further debate.

If your opinion is less rigid, then POJA is your position.

How do you state that murder is moral and not evil?

Call ending a life by whatever less offense word you care to chose someone was still killed.

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V,

First I want to say I understand your confusion, the questioning of yourself at every step. If your marriage stayed the way it is today for the rest of your life, could you be happy that way, because to give in to his demands will gain you exactly that: a lifetime of giving in to demands. Your emotional reaction to his ultimatum is telling you something you need to pay attention to. You dont even need to use a morality debate to answer this question. It seems to me that you believe an abortion would be a mistake and he believes it's inconsequential and something he wants. What unmitigated gall for him to demand that you subject your body to that in order to erase what his sperm did during a time of you meeting one of his ENs with good will on your part!

If you do this second or third or fourth thing against your convictions, how are you going to feel in the future? Yep, just one more "mistake" you made that you can feel bad about yourself for. And who's to say that he won't use the fact that you got an abortion to hurt your self esteem in the future if it so suits him?

His want is superceding your feelings so you are not his top priority. Doing this because he says so will not gain you that position of priority, regardless of whether it's an abortion or whether its wearing your hair the way he wants.







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Originally Posted by LifetimeLearner
And who's to say that he won't use the fact that you got an abortion to hurt your self esteem in the future if it so suits him?

Excellent point. Down the road, he throws up in your face that you are not only an adulteress, but a murderer. He knows that you are against this. He is playing games with you, and this goes so far beyond anything that a repentant wayward should have to do to demonstrate willingness to meet needs and to create an environment that makes the BS feel safe again.

Originally Posted by LifetimeLearner
His want is superceding your feelings so you are not his top priority. Doing this because he says so will not gain you that position of priority, regardless of whether it's an abortion or whether its wearing your hair the way he wants.

And this is so, so much more than just wearing your hair the way he wants, or any other need-meeting activity that a husband and wife could POJA.

V, you have offered me so much support in the past, and I care about you, and I am worried about you. I feel like we are much alike, you and I, in our feelings of self-loathing and shame over what we have done. Shame because we've gone past guilt and rather than feeling bad about what we've done, we feel bad about who we are.

Rationally I know that I am not defined by my past...I am defined by my present, and the actions I take, the thoughts in my head in the here and now. But emotionally, it's another story. Recently broken and I had a very bad evening which ended with him accusing me of being "bitter and negative" (which yes, I find myself quite often, he was telling the truth) and a later text conversation where I told him I knew he hated me, his response was "I don't hate you. I hate what you did." My response was that I was the sum of my actions. So I get it...I get the whole desire to wear the sackcloth and ashes, even though I *know* it is not productive, I *know* it is not a reflection of who I truly am, and I *know* I am no longer an adulteress.

In our thinking, we've got our redemption so tied up in what our victims think of us that we feel like we can't be a personal "success story" even if we aren't a marital "success story". Yes, we are the proximate cause of our marital breakdown, but at what point do we decide we have done all we can, and can do no more?

That's a rhetorical question, BTW, as I have a stupid, little hopeless self too. smile I hate her. The realist part of me knows that no matter how well I meet broken's needs, he's never going to come back and be a full partner in this marriage, like your H, V. You said:

Quote
My stupid, foolish hopes and dreams want more for us, and some tiny bit of me still believes it could happen. Some of my ENs are met, many of the important ones are not, but it is a tolerable situation in light of what I did and what I still hope for us. I'm pretty sure I'm an idiot.

HHH said something to me just a little while back. He said, "Your hope has turned into shackles and blinders." He is correct.

Both of us want what we believe our M could be. Neither of us want to let that hope go. I just can't get over him asking this of you. This is beyond anything that should be asked of a repentant wayward. It's not changing jobs or moving or any other action that would help a BS feel a measure of safety in a M. There are many things I would happily give up even now if broken were to want to return to our M, but I would not, could not, sacrifice my child. What if he said he would stay if you gave your boys up for adoption and never saw them again?


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Great posts, lifetimelearner and WG.

MrsV, sacrifice is a disaster to marriage and you can see this with your own eyes. You are not engaging in "just compensation;" you are engaging in sacrifice. By doing so, you are training your husband to be manipulative, abusive and neglectful. Every time you reward him for manipulating you, it emboldens him.

Rather than recovering your marriage all this time, you and your husband have behaved like renters by trying to correct an imaginary unbalanced score. Your husband has capitalized on your guilt to reap a secondary gain, just as Dr Harley describes in his article.

That will continue until you decide to put a stop to it. Your marriage will never recover this way. Killing your unborn child will not change the game, other than to embolden him. Welcome to your future.


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I discussed some of this w/ DH tonight. Nothing new gained by the conversation. Let me clarify, though, based on some of the previous comments, that much of this is the result of my own thinking - it is my idea that this is some form of JC, they are my foolish hopes that drive me to stay.

He does not make demands of me. He simply states it is my decision, and he will react accordingly. Which means, essentially, leave in this instance. Or in any instance, for that matter, as this situation is largely intolerable for him.

Per our discussion tonight, he thinks instead of readjusting what we are doing to be happier (e.g., meeting ENs, increasing UA, etc.), that we should have just separated on D-day. No matter what I do, what changes I have made, I will always be the girl who did this to him. And he is right. I cannot change the past. I want to offer a better future, but that is impossible for him with me. His life was "a raging success, by any measure" before he met me. Since then, he feels it has been anything but. The current pregnancy only highlights that.

FTR, he states that had he known I would have this much of an issue with terminating an unplanned pregnancy, he would never have been engaging in the activities that led to it in the first place.

There is no marriage. I have to admit that. I guess I just have to decide what I am going to do for me and for the children I already have to whom I have obligations.

Actually, literally, there is no marriage. As part of what I thought was JC at the time, I conceded to a legal divorce several months after D-day. I regret that, and that was a similar situation of he didn't think he could continue w/ the relationship w/o the guaranteed safeguards a legal divorce would grant him. We are still religiously married, and I have never thought differently; however, he thinks the opposite, that we are divorced and not married.

Maybe I will talk to my family. Oh, also FTR, the strain there is not due to my family disliking DH; it is because DH dislikes them intensely for their insufficient abhorrence of my infidelity and one-time support of me leaving him in the wake of my affair.

I guess, after my talk w/ him tonight, what it comes down to is: if I have this child, how will I raise him or her in a single-parent home w/ no income and trying to finish medical school, no father figure, and brothers who live in a separate home; or, do I not have this child and concentrate on finishing stupid school, raising the two boys that I do have w/ DH who is a wonderful father, and hope that the family unit stays intact and some healing begins in the years down the road?

The onus is on me. It has been this whole time. Now I just have to stop screwing it all up.

Thank you for the input, everyone. I really appreciate it.

Last edited by V_planifolia; 02/17/13 09:30 PM. Reason: typo

Me - 30 (FWW)
H - 30 (BH)
DSx2
D-day: 2008
Page 11 of 19 1 2 9 10 11 12 13 18 19

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