I just spoke with my H (he had the A) and he is canceling counseling appt. #6. Since finding out about the A, we have only been to 2 counseling sessions. He actually got called in to work early today so he is off the hook this time.

He said that he was tired of the emtional roller coast "I" was putting him on by not knowing whether we can stay together or not. All I have told him is that I will stay if I see an EFFORT on his part re counseling and more of an effort on both parts (His Needs Her Needs) to continue. I said it wasn't fair for him to say HE was on an emotional roller coaster. He started the A 6/02 (one month after we had a little girl) and it continued through the end of the year. I found out the last week in February. I told him I have only had two months to deal with everything and my emotions -- not to mention that the last counseling session we went to was 3/27.

I told him I never felt so ALONE. He asked how I could feel so alone. I said I felt like I could not trust anyone any more. That I could not believe he intionally hurt me like he did.

THAT'S WHEN HE SAYS, "I DIDN'T INTIONALLY HURT YOU. THERE WAS NO MALICE ON MY PART. I THOUGHT YOU WOULD NEVER FIND OUT." I said, "And that made it okay?" He said, "I never thought you would find out." I said, "You know 9x out of 10 the spouse usually finds out. You mean to tell me the WHOLE time the A was going on that you were okay just because you were able to put me in the back of your mind because I wasn't going to find out so therefore, you felt no guilt?" He said, "Basically." I said, "Well that's not right. If I were to go out and screw some guy, I would know for a fact that I was intionally hurting you, stabbing you in the back." He said he didn't see it that way.

??????????????????????????????????????????????????Help me out here, PLEASE, I do not understand his thinking that way.

I feel like he feels like he had his one year lapse in judgment and I am suppose to just get over it and move on right away????????

Somebody please respond.....
I will be logging off at 5 and won't be able to get back on until Monday but PLEASE offer some advice!

SoDis,

I think there are several issues here.

On the question of Intent:
I think it was not his intent (or goal) to hurt you. It was his intent to please himself - and hurting you was the unintended (although natural) consequence. I dont' think he got up one day and said "how can I hurt my w?.... let's see... Oh, I know, I'll have an A" - although somebody sometime probably has done something like that, you give no indication that there were any forces at work in your marriage that would lead to that kind of intentional cruelty.

I'm not sure if that was your "real" question - or the real issue.

Although discovering his A hurt you, it was the A itself that really was the source of the pain and injury. If you stole somebody's money, it would hurt them - even if they didn't discover the theft for a long time. In a marriage, an A is the same kind of thing - it takes something out of the marriage - out of the closeness and trust between partners - even if one of them doesn't know about it.

It will be a long road to recovery. Have you been reading Recovering from Infidelity ?

-AD

<small>[ May 09, 2003, 05:17 PM: Message edited by: AD ]</small>

Your husband is blowing smoke in an attempt to not take responsibility for what he did. The truth is that he did not care if he was hurting you. He put your life at risk a potential venereal disease, he did not care that he took time that he should have been with you helping your raise your child. The affair was an ugly selfish act and he’s not man enough to take responsibility for what he did.

When I discovered my H’s affairs, he took responsibility for it. He told me that he knows he did something terrible. He caused the harm and it is therefore, his responsibility to lead our marriage in healing. That is how a man behaves when he does something terrible. That is why I am still with him. If he had behaved in the manner your husband is I have packed his bags.

If I were you I’d tell your husband that he made a conscious choice to do something that put his marriage and his family at risk. That shows that he does not value either. In order for your marriage to go on, he needs to take responsibility for his actions and start working on rebuilding the marriage. Otherwise your marriage is over. Not because you are torturing him, or putting him on a roller coaster but because he destroyed it. Period.

When a man behaves this way, his wife has to be strong.. you have power.. you are his wife and your have his child. Right now, for the sake of your child, you really do need to him the above very clearly. It is not manipulation.. it’s a statement of fact. His actions are killing your love for him.

"I DIDN'T INTIONALLY HURT YOU. THERE WAS NO MALICE ON MY PART. I THOUGHT YOU WOULD NEVER FIND OUT."

I do believe that.. my husband and I had a long and involved and very emotional discussion.. of his intent.

He did not get up one day and go im going to give my wife the greatest pain imaginable. He made some very bad choices... but they were all OK to him , because he believed I would never find out.

He believed he would not suffer any consequences.. how could he if I never knew?

It was unquestionably utter selfishness on his part mixed and tainted with pure ignorance and arrogance. Whats that old saying.. what ya dont know cant hurt you. He took it to the MAX

But the day came when I did find out...and well he knew what would happen, but he believed it would never happen.. and the impact it had on him then for his own stupidy stays with him today.

Its only been two months since your D-day, your both on a ride of your lives. If your husband is showing remorse, guilt and shame for his actions.. then he is on a way big ride too.

Hang in there , someimes you hear things and you try to dissect it every way you can......when all they really are saying is what was said.... he didnt think you would find out.

Stupid yup.. simple yup...worthy of a head shake.. darn right it is....but in my case and it sure sounds like it in yours.. its the truth.

He never went out of his way to hurt you... if he did he would have shoved the affair into your face... he no doubt worked very hard in hiding it from you for a reason.. a very good reason other than it was wrong.. he knew if you knew it would cause you pain.

I do wish you well.

Take care

Dino.

By the way I will add...... he knew what was at risk.. marriage , family , kids.. the works.. but well in his frame of mind and the way he was manipulating his own thoughts he was convinced all that wasnt really on the line.. becasue it was to forever stay a secret.

This is a topic that comes up over and over here on MB. The concepts of an intentional action and intentional hurt have been dicussed here over and over again.

When my children have done something wrong.. say throw eggs at cars, they have tried this excuse too. “Well I didn’t know it was going to hurt anyone.”, “Gee I did not know an egg could brake a car window, or dent a car door.”, “Gee it was dark out and we were hiding behind a wall so we did not think anyone would catch us.”

But the fact is they knew it was wrong and they did it anyway. They many not have known the exact consequences but they knew they had no business doing it. When my kids use this type of excuse, they get a more severe punishment. Why? Because they knew what they were doing and are now trying to weasel out of it.

While your husband may not have thought, “Gee I’m going to hurt my wife” he certainly was not thinking “Gee I’m going to protect and care for her.” What got me as a BS is that if he was not thing about my well being then he had pushed me so far out of his mind that I was no longer important to him.

Either way, if the hurt was intentional or if I was so far out of mind… is a form of intentional harm/neglect.

When a person fails to act to protect, they are causing harm. Certainly every adult knows this. Most people who have affairs badmouth their spouse to the OP. My take on this is that there is malice when this happens.

But it’s probably not worth arguing about with someone who has it stuck in their heads that they are not at fault for causing intentional harm. Not yet. Perhaps some day, when he is out of the fog, it will hit him square between the eyes.

Well my husband is well out of the fog.
He knew what he was doing was wrong. He just didnt think he would get caught.

I consider myself one of the luckier betrayed spouses on this board ( if there is such a thing)
I am nearing the end of my journey. We are communicating on a far different level than we ever have in the past ( 19 yrs), my husband is still dealing with his deeds of the past and his stupid mistakes.

He did not intend to hurt me... but in the end he certainly did.

He suffers more than I can express to you... and I am not the one handing out any punishments.



Dino.

dinotopia

I understand what you mean when you say that you are one of the lucky BS here. I am too. We are two years into recovery. We never went through any of the stuff people here talk about.. the continued contact, the attitudes, etc. We would not be together today if he’d had any further contact or tried to blame me for the affairs.

My husband was the BS in his previous marriage. He says that being the WS was much harder for him because he let himself down. He did something that he’d always looked down on people for doing. Something that he always swore he would not do. He struggled with that for a long time.

He too says that he did not intend to hurt me. That the in the fog he compartmentalized his life… therefore he did not think about the consequences for a long time. But he was able, even then to intellectualize about the hard it would cause. As time went on he started to come out of the fog. He realized what he was doing, that he was destroying his life, but he did not know how to stop the out of control train.

Guess I stopped the train when I found out. I called the OW’en and put an end to it all.

<small>[ June 05, 2003, 03:14 AM: Message edited by: Eleonora ]</small>

I agree wholeheartedly with the other posters. No, I believe that our spouses did not "intentionally hurt us" - but I do believe that they intentionally put themselves first and foremost in their minds.

An affair is an act of selfishness, plain and simple. It is an act in which the WS thinks of no one but him/herself.

Mine too said "I didn't mean to hurt you, I didn't think you'd find out,and I had this affair out of town so therefore- I wasn't trying to rub your face in it" hmmmmmmm

God man huh? That's what they are doing when we get these lines- Hey, I am a good person, I didn't mean to hurt anyone etc..

What it boils down to is exactly as the others have said- not accepting responsibility for the hurt and pain their actions have caused.

A couple of months and he wants off the roller coaster? I guess he feels he's suffered enough? Really, it has nothing to do with his suffering, it has everything to do with you healing.

Is your husband a selfish person? Is he trying to meet your emotional needs? Look at the whole picture, and then look within yourself.

Finally, their is no off button for this roller coaster, I like to use the analogy- "You cut my right leg off and then you are irritated that I can't run anymore". Once an affair is discovered the BS not only goes through emotional hell, something within starts to grow.

Call it the seed of self preservation. I myself can truly say his A changed me. Whether good or bad, it's hard to say. A great majority of marriages do survive infidelity but there are a good deal of marriages that don't.

take care

Thanks for all the input. I like the one about the kids best because, yes, he did know it was wrong and is trying to get out of it.

We did the EN questionnaire and he hasn't looked at it since or even tried.

Mother's Day has come and gone. I got a card. It said, "Love, Dad." I just cried. For someone who had so much to say to the OW by e-mail and expressed his love over and over again by saying how much he missed her voice, touch, that he felt millions of miles away when they were apart, etc. All I got from someone who says they want to rebuild their marriage is "Love, Dad"??????

Yes, I have told him over and over again that he needs to talk to me about the type of future he wants for himself, for us, for the family, etc. He doesn't. When I ask specific questions, his answers are nonresponsive. I was pretty bummed yesterday.

We go to the new counselor this Thursday -- well, we are suppose to. He hasn't gone since 3/27 so we shall see. Oh, I'll be off work Thursday so he'll go because I'll be there to ask him to.

I just feel so lost on where to go from here. I hope the counseling helps. We are SO BROKE (no thanks to H) that even any of the weekend seminars, etc. are not within reach. Even getting a babysitter so we can have time to talk is out of reach. A couple from church has offered to watch the kids for a couple of hours. I will need to take them up on their offer. We are moving this weekend so it won't happen soon.

Thanks for all the input. I like the one about the kids best because, yes, he did know it was wrong and is trying to get out of it.

We did the EN questionnaire and he hasn't looked at it since or even tried.

Mother's Day has come and gone. I got a card. It said, "Love, Dad." I just cried. For someone who had so much to say to the OW by e-mail and expressed his love over and over again by saying how much he missed her voice, touch, that he felt millions of miles away when they were apart, etc. All I got from someone who says they want to rebuild their marriage is "Love, Dad"??????

Yes, I have told him over and over again that he needs to talk to me about the type of future he wants for himself, for us, for the family, etc. He doesn't. When I ask specific questions, his answers are nonresponsive. I was pretty bummed yesterday.

We go to the new counselor this Thursday -- well, we are suppose to. He hasn't gone since 3/27 so we shall see. Oh, I'll be off work Thursday so he'll go because I'll be there to ask him to.

I just feel so lost on where to go from here. I hope the counseling helps. We are SO BROKE (no thanks to H) that even any of the weekend seminars, etc. are not within reach. Even getting a babysitter so we can have time to talk is out of reach. A couple from church has offered to watch the kids for a couple of hours. I will need to take them up on their offer. We are moving this weekend so it won't happen soon.