If you think for yourself and stop wondering what your spouse is surmising, then you will be better emotionally. If you wonder what your spouse is doing or thinking, ASK THEM.

A true friend is someone that you will share everything with. You trust them with your stories, your insecurities.

Lies, deception, dishonesty, secrets, hiding, what else is there nasty? They happen in marriages that have been put on the back, far back burner. Or the ws is just a real born to cheat person.

Honesty is an important thing. And I do not believe that it helps the bs to label every little issue. If you have a spouse you deem dishonest with you and you know they lie to you and have caught the deceptions on occasion, that is enough in my mind to get outside help or to say goodbye.

These days cheating can give you the sentence that will end your life. STD's, no theoretical matter.

Good discussion, I personally think a lie by omission is a pretty obvious lie, and treat it as such.

Another facet to the honesty issue (and I am fully on board with that as my primary need), is you as recipient. You have no right whatsoever to expect truthfullness if you use it against the truthteller. No love busting, no coercion/manipulation/guilting etc. You cannot use the truthfullness in any way for personal gain at the truthtellers expense, if so, you forfeit your "right" to truthfullness.

If you tell the truth about something rotten that you did the best thing would be then to....

...expect the appropriate consequences. And take it like a wo/man.

For what it's worth, I believe my love for my DH is and always has been real, this in spite of being in an EMA since November.

My DH has a drinking problem. Always has. Probably always will. You would never know it if you worked with him, or saw him on the street or met him casually for dinner. But if you were with him, his family and his friends you would see it.

I have seen it and been extremely hurt over it for the last 9 years. I think that because of the drinking, I have never felt love from him. All I've ever felt is insecure. All of the important things between us happened when he was drunk. The first time he told me loved me, the first time he asked me to marry him, etc. And yet I loved him unconditionally, believing, stupidly, that giving him all of my love would somehow come back to me...It did. Finally. The day I told him I had met someone else. I finally felt his love. Imagine. That it took this to finally get him to see how much he was damaging our relationship by drinking.

I want to stay married to him. I love him with all my heart. I believe he loves me. But not enough to quit drinking.

I told him two weeks ago if he wanted me to stop seeing the OM, then he would have to quit drinking. Completely. I also asked him to leave me for a while. You see, I am very much in love with the OM. There is no chance of us having a relationship, but that does not stop me from loving him. I still love my husband and he is working very hard at trying to win me back. I just don't know what I want right now. The OM will keep "playing" as long as I want to, but it's too painful for me to keep being pulled back into a relationship that he himself wants no responsibility, expectations, or commitment from. These are things that I did not know before I met him in person and slept with him. Had he been honest with me up front, things definitely would have been dfferent. I do believe, they happened for a reason, my DH and I just need to figure out why and move on from there.

I am not justifying or excusing my actions. Maybe I deserve to be in this much pain for what I've done. But it's not much different than the pain of being constantly rejected for 9 years.

So yes, now I think honesty is very important. The two most important people in my life right now, have lied to me...one who is in denial about his drinking problem, and the other who is really just out to use women to his benefit no matter how much he hurts them.

I also need to say that up until my A, honesty and integrity were very important to me. So I am having a very hard time forgiving myself for doing this. I may not be able to for a long time.

<img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" />

Dear Cindy....

Marriage to an alcoholic is hard! I've been married to one for almost 13 years.

You didn't cause his drinking. You can't control his drinking. And you can't cure it.

It's honestly, not about you - and never has been. His love for you has nothing to do with his addiction, and ultimatums like the one you gave him will not work - otherwise all of us wives would have found OM and made the same threats long ago!

Just as his addiction is about his own pain, anguish, emotional and spiritual dysfunction, so is your relationship with your OM.

Why not give Al-Anon a try? I think you would find Experience, Strength, Hope in the members of an Al-Anon meeting, and through the 12steps you'll find yourself, learn to value yourself, and learn how to be happy, even if your alcoholic husband is still drinking.

(((hugs)))

Since we've wandered everywhere (it seems!) with this topic, I'll re-post the first post for the benefit of new visitors to the thread:

If someone's love, respect, friendship, admiration, or compassion for us depends on that person NOT knowing something or some things about us, how "real" is that sentiment this person has for us?, and is THAT the kind of love respect, friendship, admiration, or compassion that we want? fake love? false respect?, undeserved compassion? misplaced admiration? false friendship?

REAL love, respect, admiration, friendship and compassion come from those who care enough about us that they will give us these things BECAUSE they know our shortcomings. Because they love us for what we really are; for doing the best we can; for admitting our mistakes and shortcoming, not for a false image we have projected.

If we allow our relationships to be based on these false premises, then we are forever bound by the lie, we are forever subject to losing them, as they are based on falsehood.

Just HOW REAL is love based on a false image?

How real is YOUR love for someone who pretends to be what he/she is not?

SC-

First, thanks for your help on my thread... yes, it is me again.

Second, excellent thoughts you put down here. It pointedly puts in front of everyone the concept that we feel lost when we realize that we have been living only one side of life for awhile. If I love my W, but she has been living a lie for the past 5 years and continuing affairs behind my back... what have I really been experiencing??? I feel that sometimes, I look back on my recent past and wonder what was really going on... I had a wonderful family day at DisneyWorld... but my W looked at it as a fun day that was spiced up by secret calls to her lover. So, what did I really experience... it was not a family day!! It is sad to watch your history evaporate on you like that.

I want my future to be REAL... good or bad.

Conan

Conan:

I'm sorry your sitch is still unimproved. Is your DV imminent?

Start a new thread and tell us how you're doing!? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

-2long

Conan,
The important thing, my friend, is to MAKE your future real yourself. Your happiness and your future depend only on you; if you "give these away" to someone else to take care of them for you, invariably you will be disappointed.
Best of luck, and please let us know what's going on with you!

MOMENTARY HIJACK OF THREAD

My old friends. My situation does not warrant its own thread... just a momentary abuse of SC's thread... LOL.

I think we have the divorce mediated out, but I hope the lawyers don't mess it up. We are going to share time with the kids 50/50. We will live close by one another (if her house purchase continues on track) and the kids will continue at the same school. This has been so long and tiring, but I keep telling myself to carry on and it will all be over some day. We seem to have remained friendly, which is great for the kids. Perhaps because of all the stress or because of my own ineptitude I am close to losing my job and need to find a new one. That is just an additional pain in the butt to overcome. Perhaps my biggest fear right now is telling the kids about it all. I spoke with a counselor today and she thinks that given my 8 year old is asking questions that we need to be straight with her. God, I know her tears are going to be the hardest thing I ever been through in my life. Just thinking about it makes me cry and it hasn't even happened yet.

I just want to move forward with my life with honesty/truth... even if that life is more alone. This old body/mind can't take the lies and manipulation any more. So many facets of my life seem like I have wasted the past 5+ years of my life. The good news is that I have wonderful kids, a great family, a few good friends and an opportunity to do with my life as I choose going forward. To me, the glass is half full, but I have to get over how the other half got spilled. I think I need to go to some counseling to help myself through this... and that is something I just realized while writing this note. So... thank you guys, you helped me again and you didn't even know it... LOL.

This will end my hijack... (sorry SC)
Conan.

Hey Conan; my threads are your threads!

This is an important and difficult time for you, I know; I was there not so long ago. Very good idea to get counseling, and to keep learning and growing. When we've "delegated" part of what we are to our spouse (as so many of us do), it's hard to "find yourself" again. At least it was very hard for me!
Kepp coming by, Conan. There's much here for you still!

Space,
I can't seem to find "Radical Forgiveness" in any of the bookstores around here. Do I need to order it online?
KK

I can't seem to find "Radical Forgiveness" in any of the bookstores around here. Do I need to order it online?
You could order it online or give the name & title to the bookstore & the can get it for you.

The easiest is online. Here's a link to it at Amazon:
Radical Forgiveness-Amazon

Spacecase:
I think you do a lot of good and that you should keep it up.

I hope you understand that the comment I made about you not being ignorant was intended to make you smile as much as anything.

SS