by set up i mean that he is leaving all the responsibility on you. so if it doesn't work it wasn't his fault?

he is not in any shape or form showing any true desire to reconcile if you ask me.

He doesn't feel safe from my AO.

He said it was that simple. Doesn't want to discuss why I had them, just that I did and it scares and hurts him.

He wans you to make him feel safe and THEN he will work on reconciliation? Are you kidding me? That is insane.

He wants me to control myself AO. Yes. Once he believes I won't rage at him for what he has done and trigger off into screaming fits, THEN he will feel safe to do as asked.

Officially agree, that is.

He says he knows I am devastated, but he doesn't want to talk about the past at all, he wants to see me calm and stable, without AO and then he will feel it is right to do what he has been asked to do. Though he says he is not actually doing anything that is cheating, lying, etc.

I may be splitting hairs, but I honestly feel really troubled by him holding back. I mean I agree AO should not be inflicted on him, and indeed is it true I reached the point of screaming fits at him many times when he openly flaunted the behavior in my face. Mostly after the baby showed up and he was treating me badly and hanging out with his co worker. I really believed he should have been there for ME, to reassure me, spend time with me, to show me he was sorry he hurt me.

Venting again, sorry. I guess I keep trying to justify past AO.

He's not returning with "hat in hand," Atlanta. Don't trust him. He needs to agree to your conditions before he starts finding fault in you.

IF he agrees to your conditions, your AOs will be addressed when you enter into a program of recovery.

Atlanta, and I would agree with him. You are beyond the place where you can control your emotions because there has been too much abuse. I have seen women who have experienced LESS than you who have post traumatic stress disorder. Since the conditions that led to his affair have not changed and since you will be subjected to his affair child, I would agree this is not a good idea for him OR YOU.

He is not in a position to negotiate the conditions of his return, so I would decline his offer. Just tell your IM to tell him that you are not interested in his offer.

Don't justify your past AO, but understand that all the emotions you feel are reasonable, and have not been considered even as of yet.

I would say no, he's not serious because he's setting the stage for the definition of you being calm and strong is to pretend/forget his affair. Essentially he's saying if you are willing to let bygones be bygones even if they haven't been resolved, then he'll think about providing just compensation of EP's, etc. He's simply keeping his options open, deciding which woman can do the best job of servicing him.

Anyway, if you feel that you really can't handle him anymore, it's okay to withdraw the conditions for reconciliation. It's okay to say that the time has passed and you're not interested anymore. I feel right along with you that he'll be giving you the "sit down, shut up, and put out" message and if you want to be drug through h*ll, just try to tolerate and live with that.

This is one of the problems here. In order to move forward you must have the full truth about the past. It is essential to your recovery. His refusal to give you that is a deal breaker. Also, his continued contact with his OW-XW is a deal breaker. And he is still friends with her on faceboook!!

Just politely decline his offer. Tell your IM to send your regrets. Thanks, but no thanks.

Atlanta, I would add that you are a walking example of why Dr Harley is ADAMANT that women only stay in Plan A for 3 weeks. Any longer and they suffer severe emotional and physical damage. He has hurt you terribly. And continues to see his OW to this day!!

I have been trying to work on the AO with him anyway. I tried the whole time I was having them. When I try to address to him why I was having them, he shuts me down and blames me for us not being able to heal or him to heal with I keep dragging him back into the past.

I am in pain now. It is not past for me. I don't know what to do with it. It feels wrong to go silent and and swallow it all.

By talking to him about it, am I talking to the wrong person. He advises a psychiatrist.

Yikes! If you talk to a psychiatrist, do it as part of your present and future.
If he suggested this, my thought is for you to let it and him go. He's not willing to help you heal, he wants to pass that onto you and some psychiatrist.

If you do a real Plan B, you will be able to heal and become happy. As long as you keep yourself entangled with him, you will not be able to move forward. How many different ways can he tell you that he isn't interested in your feelings and well-being before you shut him out?

Well, duh!!!!!

I mean he has balls!This is absolutely outrageous! I almost fell of my chair reading this.

Basically, it is all your fault, and you are preventing recovery.

So, you had an AO about all the abuse you endured. BIG FREAKIN" DEAL!!!! Let's put the horse before the cart here, the abuse came first, the AO was a consequence. Action-reaction.

And it is your fault?

And you wanting the truth, the WHOLE truth, is dragging him back?

Send your regrets, he's nuts

Would you be able to heal if he did these things:

1. gave you the full truth about his multiple affair? Passed a polygraph?

2. eliminated all contact for life with his XW?

3. eliminated all social networking and most especially, opposite sex friendships

Will he do all of this? And if he did, could you control your AOs?

1. I look back at his ex wife and that affair and I am afraid to ask much of anything. It's like there is something so terrible there that I am not sure I can stay calm talking about it.
I want to know EVERYTHING about the co-worker.

2. I would like it if he never talked to that woman again. As far as I can tell they really hate each other. I don't think he wants anything to do with her and would never talk to her again if it were not for the kids.

I would heal way faster if he never encountered his former co worker again for sure. I am extremely averse to her, the issues with her are actually pushed me beyond limits into most of the AO, the constant gas lighting, denials, what he did to me over her as I was breaking to pieces under his nose while he was doing it.

I have a massive amount of anger and hurt and just ENERGY about her.

3. Yes, it would help immensely.

Pineneedle I agree.

I would tell your IM to tell him that you will only consider anything he has to say AFTER he comes crawling back on his hands and knees. THEN after he told you what you want to know and passed a polygraph will you consider a life with him.

Even now he is abusing you. I am sorry you had to experience it again. I hope in any possible future meetings you bring a VAR

Atlanta,

Your situation is a lot like mine was. My serial cheating, POS exwh said and did the same things as your WH is saying now. I am sitting here almost shaking and mad as he11 for you reading your latest posts. I could NEVER recover in that environment, and unfortunately tried to for 4 miserable, emotionally and physically damaging years.

The physical and emotional damage came from not being able to talk and heal in a loving environment with a remorseful H. Instead, I hurt myself further by continuing to accept the same crumbs your WH is holding out for you, listening to his blame shifting. It was a horrible, horrible cycle.

I did not start healing until the day he moved out at the end of 2010. I went through all the grieving stages, another year of personal therapy, and have come out a lot happier on the other side.


Your WH lacks the empathy necessary for you to help you heal from the amount of damage he has caused. Given what I've read in your thread, I seriously doubt he ever will.

I implore you to cut your losses now, and not go through more years of he11 with him, further damaging yourself.

You will start the healing process when you do these things:

- Forget about what your WH is doing and thinking, and start to focus on you and what you want. Put your energy into something worthwhile. You. Right now, your WH and his idea of reconciliation is not worthwhile. I think you can agree with that.

- Feel good about knowing that you will never have to put up with his BS again, his hurtful words and actions or non-actions, because you won't accept anything less than your full list of conditions. A partial list will never do. I tried that and I was miserable. A partial list get you NOWHERE.

Once you start healing and hanging around people who are kind and considerate of your feelings, you will shudder at what you once put up with.

My BIGGEST regret was allowing myself to stay in that destructive environment for as long as I did. I can tell you with all certainty that you will continue to be abused by this man, and never ever heal, if you accept anything less than what you KNOW in your heart that you need from him.

As long as your WH isn't completely on board with just compensation, you will stay perpetually angry about that. And when you try to keep your AOs in check, you turn your anger inwards, and it causes depression, which makes you weak. All you will do is become weaker and weaker.

It might hurt to completely walk away now, but not much worse than what you are currently experiencing. You can only go up from here if you stick to your conditions for reconciliation.

The only way to get rid of the anger, is to get rid of what is making you angry, and right now that is your WH. He is a weed in your garden. Pluck him, and anybody like him, out.

He insists that since he stopped doing the cheating, etc, then I have no current reason to be upset. Therefore why am I? Because sensibly he cannot change the past. Only now. So don't talk about the past, focus on now. Be calm now, move forward, stop dragging up the past and being upset about something no one can change.

I am tired of the implied threat of end of relationship ( which then makes me think he feels he has OW options) if I don't shut up.

So ok, back to NC. I truely don't want to talk to him when I hear these things. I don't think it is right to grind him down and demean or demoralize him, but I feel like I just don't matter enough for him stop trying to force me to agree it's a dead horse I am beating even deader.

Most of the reason I even bring it up is he keeps witholding on the basis of how traumatized he is about me getting upset and AO. It's making me feel like I am a non person. Hey it's terrible Atlanta went into a big upset when she found about her husbands lovechild, even more terrible is the lady is refusing to make him feel all safe and happy so he will stay married to her.

I am dumb.

Just compensation. All I want is to stop being made the problem and him holding out on things on that basis.

And this is where the healing would have to start. You are entitled to know everything about his affairs with his XW and the OW. He would need to pass a polygraph additionally. This is not his private information, but information about your life to which you are entitled.

Will he agree to this?

[quotee]2. I would like it if he never talked to that woman again. As far as I can tell they really hate each other. I don't think he wants anything to do with her and would never talk to her again if it were not for the kids.[/quote]

Yes, and they "really hated" each other before when they got divorced. You can see how much that helped you. He would have to agree to never talk to her EVER. Kids or not. And unfriend her on facebook.

Will he agree to this?


He would have to ensure he never encountered skankhoe again.

Will he agree to this?

These are just very basic steps towards recovery, but are knock out factors if he won't agree.

Atlanta, stop screwing with this. He has said right here he won't meet your conditions. Sit there and shut up is not a path to recovery.

The perpetrator does not get to set the conditions for reconciliation.