Hi ladies,<P>How are you all? Yes, I am working on chapter one! Guess I am in need of remedial chapter oneing? The way I feel these days I am not sure I will be ever able to go beyond chapter one?<P>Husband and I are doing okay. I wish I could say better than okay. With Siobhan still in the hospital and further out in left field than ever, the stresses for him are pretty huge. She is a big LB here and one I have no control over. <P>He handles her when he talks to her or visits here in such a remarkable way. He is really gifted at it. I have to keep my anger in control on this one because of his ability with her. I am so astounded that this is the first time he has ever been involved in her illness really or in taking any active part in talking and visiting her when she is like this. Keeping the anger down on that is not too hard though, really! <P>She has decided that he is the only one who loves her, and the only one that is there for her. So ironic as being her step father she has had plenty of time in the past when she hated his guts. <P>This though is putting so much pressure on him and even though I really appreciate his involvement with her finally, it scares me. Whenever he has to talk to her or visit her he gets very distant from me. He is good about relating to her but, you can see and feel he just wants to escape this mess. To him OW is escape. <P>He has even told me that everything is great between us and he feels better about me than he has in years. He feels that we are closer than in many years to a successful marriage and at the same time feels that we are closer to the edge of our marriage ending than ever before. He stated the other day that I come with so much baggage. The biggest one is Siobhan. He knows I cannot do anything about it or her. Still it is a deterrent for him regarding staying here with me.<P>It has been almost 14 months since discovery. He went almost 5 months, until just very recently without visually seeing her at work. The other day there was very minor contact and it has caused a bit of a ruckus here for me/us. It did seem to throw him back into withdrawal a bit.<P>He is still holding on to his love for her. He is still holding on to the promise he made her to love her forever. She is still in his heart and therefore coming between us. At least in the way that keeps us from truly connecting.<P>I have told him that he needs to make a choice. That he appears to be keeping her in the wings, if only in his mind, in case this does not work here. That our marriage will never be successful and he truly satisfied in it if he keeps her there. I believe in part this is a choice for him. One he is not willing to make. He does pray he says though not consistently for God to remove that love for her from his heart. (If he truly does not want that though is the prayer in vain?)<P>He is an honorable man. In making this promise to her, if he breaks it or rescinds it, I think that will make all he has done even worse in his mind. If he "gives her up" then it negates what they had and therefore means all this pain to all involved was for nothing. Does this make sense to any of you? Or am I just way out there on this one?<P>I am struggling for closure for all of us and he seems to hold the key to it. I am not sure recovery is "I'm working on it and taking it one day at a time." Nor is it "I'm trying and will stay here until I can't try anymore." Not to mention the "You'll be the first person who knows if I need to or decide to go back to her, or be with another woman." I think all of this is painfully evident that we have not a commitment to the marriage. I have one he does not. That makes me wonder if we are in true recovery or not? Maybe it is just still a heavy Plan A?<P>Doesn't commitment mean that you can count on your spouse being there no matter what? Through thick or thin? All the things our marriage vows encompass? Yet, he does not understand my need for us to renew our vows and says I am already married to you and we/he don't need to say them again.<P>On the brighter side we are going to his bike race this up coming weekend. We will be camping in our new/used camper. It is going to be a hard weekend for me as this is the very same place he took other woman to spend his first night with her in our tent! Now you can see why we have a new/used camper instead. There will be many triggers for me there. Including that it is the same time of year. Still I am looking forward to it and the opportunity to make new memories. I am a pretty emotional person though and fearful of the triggers.<P>We have tons of plans for the whole summer. We are doing fairly well. I am happy we are together. I am just tired of having my heart broken so often. Like all of you I am tired of the pain.<P>Our daughter is doing much better. Now, it seems that most of this is more on the level of normal teenage hood things for her. She is still in pain and doubt about all this but, I think the healing is coming for her. He old youth pastor and wife had her spend the night with them last weekend. She talked to them about all of this. They told her that they would like to meet with her Dad and I. She told them that I would probably be very receptive to it but, she doubted her Dad would do it. I mentioned it to him and he said he doubted he would meet with them. I told him I could understand his not doing it for me but, could not understand his refusal for her. (She is the reason one year ago that he decided to stay here and work on the marriage and give up the OW. If she could be that important to him, ladies why do you think he is refusing to meet with this lovely couple?)<P>We are not going to church very much. My husband is really hard to get there. Once he is there he is glad he goes but, getting him there is a struggle. He does not have what I would call a personal close relationship with the Lord and really never has. Yet, Christianity is very important to him and he seems to understand the big picture of life and eternity or accept it better than I do. He tells me that life here is just a flickering of a candle compared to the big picture, the eternal life.<P>Well, I guess I have rattled on enough here. Any comments, advise or prayers would be greatly appreciated.<P><B>Now, dear ladies how are all of you?</B><P>Big Cyber Hugs,<P>------------------<BR><B>God bless you and all of us. We are all going to make it, all of us! With God on our side we can't lose! What God has joined together let no man put asunder.</B> <P><p>[This message has been edited by A blessed Samantha (edited April 10, 2000).]

Samantha,<P>Sounds like alot continues to happen in your life. I could relate to so many of the things which you are facing. We are all so similar in our experiences with recovery even though the individual circumstances are very different.<P>Triggers are just something you have to slowly deal with. We all have our own set of them. I had the same camping scenario as you, consequently we sold our tent and the motorhome. <BR>I wish there was an easy way through the triggers but it seems that heading straight on through them trusting God to get you to the other side is the only way!<P>You mentioned you h being the key to closure for you. May I suggest that you don't set a goal for yourself that it takes another to meet. Man will always fail us but God alone is faithful. He will bring closure for you of a kind that no one can change. God will shut a door that no one can open and open a door that no one can close.<P>We have all gone over and over and over chapter one and will probably go over it some more. Change begins with us and that is the hardest thing to admit. It is easier for me to blame my h for everything and expect him to make all the changes......God has something completely different in mind.<P>There is a song which I have written in my book in chapter 1:<P>"Change my heart Oh God,<BR>make it ever true.<BR>Change my heart Oh God,<BR>may I be like you.<P>You are the potter<BR>I am the clay.<BR>Mold me and make me,<BR>this is what I pray."<P>Prayer changes us Sam and that is God's will for the women on this forum. He takes care of our h's.<P>Blessings, Taj

<B>Taj</B><P>Thanx for the words of advise and comments. The song too. Very lovely.<P>You are right in looking for closure from another person. I guess what I am trying to say is that I feel that this chapter in our lives cannot close until it closes for him. Does that make better sense? Of course closure for me won't happen except only through God and within me. I do realize that and your comment on trusting God to be on the other side made so much sense to me.<P>I don't really have a hard time admitting that I need to change. I just seem to have a hard time changing. Know what I mean.<P>Yes, you are right too that the reason and ministry of this particular forum is to let God work on our husbands while we and God work on us. I will try not to forget that. I guess communication in human form though is something I am looking for too. The combination of the two on this forum helps me very much.<P>My, the camping thing. Sorry you had to go through that too. It is a pretty yukky thing and that darned tent is still in my basement. A friend on this site a very dear friend suggested that since husband is so reluctant to get rid of it, (actually he nearly refuses to) that we should set it up in the backyard and sleep in it. Have a party of sorts and for me to take it back? I have discussed this with husband and although he thinks I am a little nuts on this one, he has agreed to do that. We are going to wait until much warmer weather though. Tonight they are predicting 2 to 4 inches of snow again.<P>So, Taj thanks for your time and words. They really do help. Your a gem! <P>------------------<BR><B>God bless you and all of us. We are all going to make it, all of us! With God on our side we can't lose! What God has joined together let no man put asunder. <P>Samantha</B>