Am I doing something wrong?

Now my H is on the plane to his lover again. And I am allowing him. He will be gone 2 nights! He said he has to talk to her and tell her what is going on between me and him. She is a nice person. He cares for her and she does not deserve to be left in the dark either. OH MY GOD. I have not got a clue how I will get through these nights.

He asked me whether he should call me tonight. I said I was not sure. He would if I wanted him too.

I feel so much GUILT. I can kick myself in the leg for also letting this go here. (Of course he is responsible too and he says he feels guilty too). We have not been talking to each other for years. Partly because we have been through so MANY crisises. His father went bankrupt, I got a terrible depression 6 months into our relationship, the new company he worked for sucked ended up in a year long courtcase, finalized 2 weeks ago! His mother turned out to be a gambler and brought my H´s whole family´s economical situation down. He does not speak to him mother anymore, though they wers SO CLOSE. His father went bankrupt again because of that. Then my H starts his own company. That goes bankrupt after 2 years. Now he is trying to build it all back up again.

In between all of this we have had 3 children and moved house 4 times. Funnily enough we are moving again in the midst of this nightmare. This week we have to have everything packed down! And he is f...g off on business trip for two days with his major client THE OW!

I have stuck by my H through all of this and he has stuck by me. But we forgot to talk. All the stress and the failure got bottled up. I did not dare tell him how I REALLY felt in fear of him feeling that I was not being supportive. He did not dare to talk to me about his feelings because he was afraid that I might leave him.

All of these are thoughts we have had in our heads. And we have been SOOOO STUPID in not talking and being open, because deep down I think we have always wanted the same thing. We have been using all our time these past few days to feel sad and sorry about not talking to one another. Being open and honest. Which felt good.

We are 7 years down the road and we haven´t communicated with each other for at least 5 of them.We have not taken care of each others EN. A few months ago I thought I actually did not have feelings for him anymore. I was numb. I felt like everything was all about HIS needs. Need for Sex, Need for admiration. Guess whether I gave any of those things to him. NO! I was so dissappointed because he was not going to go out of his way to fulfill mine. So it was easier to let him be. Give him space to pursue his career and own interests without nagging or being a drag. Turns out he may have felt I really did not care. An I was not sure I did!

But it was out of Love (or fear of conflict) I let him be because I also felt he had been under so much pressure and stress. The worst thing is he has NEVER reacted to any of the things we/he have been through. He just kept on going. Is this the reaction??????

And now there is the OW.

Isn´t Plan A supposed to be about him having no contact with the OW?

Can anyone understand me when I say I CANNOT demand that of him right now. Why? Because we have so many love busters that if I was to tell him to stop, he would have trouble seeing who it is that is standing here. He has no other reason than the kids to not run. He might even stop it for the kids, but if I think I know him - he won´t. -besides he is in love! He cannot be rational!

I love my H and in my heart I feel that I should not punish him by turning my back to him. I have been already doing that for so long (That is where my guilt comes from, not lack of self worth!). He said it felt like I had been punishing him. What he does not realize is that I feeli like he has been punishing me too. I think he really needs to FEEL I love him, support him. Fulfill all those EN I have failed to fulfill in my own state of disappointment.

Is that just going to make him a CAKEman, I do not know!

I found out about the A a week ago. Last weekend we had the most amazing sex ever. And I mean EVER! It felt good and it felt sad. It felt hurtful because I knew there was the OW. BUT He STILL desires me and I desire him. That must be a good sign? I keep telling my self that it HAS to be a good sign.

Is it a good sign?

So why not do the things that are good, loving , caring? Things that deposit love so we may find each other again? Sex is just one of those deposits and I have to start filling his bank/ our bank with it.

It took me the discovery of an A to find my feelings again. They were not lost like I thought, but are stronger than ever. (I may also be deceiving myself I truly cannot tell). I want to fight back. And the only way I can do it is with love. My heart tells me to fight the distrust, disrespect, betrayal all the bad with good, with love.

Maybe I am wrong, but I feel that if I start putting demands now, he will not see me for who I am. The woman he once fell in love with. The woman that has also changed; being stronger and more mature. The woman who is the mother of his children.

Plan A for me is to make him really feel that I love him no matter what. I do Love him. It really hurts that the OW is there, but I have to deal with it. My H is trying to make a choice. Her or me. Right now "she" has made MORE love deposits in his love bank than me. "Our" bank is on minus. SERIOUS minus. I have to try to make up for that. Someone has to and he can´t! I have been the "wife that was not really there" for a long time. Now I need to make the effort.

I don´t know whether it is right or wrong. I just feel it is the very best I can do to get him to STOP the A and fight for us. See that there is smthg worth fighting for. I don´t want to make a mistake, make the wrong move. Because I believe we can make it work. But he has to WANT to. And I have to help him WANT to.

DOES THIS MAKE ANY SENSE?????????

-queen of a broken heart-

Hello Queen. Nice to meet you. I'm sorry you are going thru your sitch. You say in your post Quote:

"Am I doing something wrong?

Now my H is on the plane to his lover again. And I am allowing him. He will be gone 2 nights! He said he has to talk to her and tell her what is going on between me and him. She is a nice person. He cares for her and she does not deserve to be left in the dark either. OH MY GOD. I have not got a clue how I will get through these nights."

IMHO, Queen, if you want your marriage to have a chance you need very strong boundaries for yourself. It is beyond me that you give your blessing to your h's extramarital affair.

QUOTE: (you said)

"I love my H and in my heart I feel that I should not punish him by turning my back to him."

IMHO HE has turned his back on his exclusive committment to you and your children to pursue purely self-centered "needs he perceives" It sounds like your h may being having a MidLifeCrises. Do you know anything about that? There is a web site (I believe it is another link here) www.midlifewivesclub.com. It has a newcomers thread and also gives a lot of info on men going thru a MLC.

It may or may not be your sitch but you might see your h's behaviour in another light with support for you. Take care and all the best!

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> Isn´t Plan A supposed to be about him having no contact with the OW? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Er...No.

Read What Are Plan A and Plan B? AFTER reading all of the Basic Concepts

Hey Queen? This is what I understand about plan A.

"The first stage separates the unfaithful spouse and the lover; the second stage maintains that separation through the period of emotional withdrawal experienced by the unfaithful spouse who is addicted to the lover;"

This to me is saying that a physical separation from your spouse while he goes thru this process is mandatory! And I believe Dr. Harley supports this.

You also say, QUOTE:

"Sex is just one of those deposits and I have to start filling his bank/ our bank with it."

IMHO, the OW is filling up his/your banks with the sex part. In order to follow plan a, b, c, or whatever, your H must be physically apart from his ow FIRST! He is not right now. Until he is, I'm sorry sweetie but your efforts are in vain to save your marriage. He wants his cake and eat it too. And you are so scared of "losing him" (moot point.........he's already "gone") that you are enabling him to do that! An OW is rarely about sex and everything about power .

Put your foot down and set boundaries for you! And please remember that you are "having sex" with all of his previous sex partners, and their partners and those partners as well ( ie sexually transmitted diseases, exposure to HIV, exposure to hepatitis, chlamydia, gonnarhea, syphyllis, veneral warts, herpes just to mention a few).

QUOTE:

"Can anyone understand me when I say I CANNOT demand that of him right now. Why? Because we have so many love busters that if I was to tell him to stop, he would have trouble seeing who it is that is standing here. He has no other reason than the kids to not run."

There are some excellent books on co-dependancy, Queen. You are enabling your h to have his cake and eat it too because you "perceive him" and excuse him as being "weak", "confused", and your h KNOWS this and as a result your H is taking advantage of you and your kids big time.

I stand firmly behind my original advise Queen. It is up to you if you decide to quit focusing on HIM or focus on you. It is your choice. You cannot "fix" him or change him by anything that you do.

God bless and give you the strength to set boundaries to your h's manipulativeness towards you. <<<HUGS!>>>

PS? Any comment by a moderater would be welcome here...Thanks!

DG - That quote is a bit confusing, isn't it? Especially since I have heard Harley say elsewhere that recovery doesn't really even start until the spouse ends contact with the lover. In the text right after that, Harley goes on to say:
"With this background, we're ready to talk about Plan A and plan B. These two plans are used in the first stage of marital recovery to separate the unfaithful spouse from the lover. They are alternative ways to deal with this objective and are both described in my book, "Surviving an Affair" (pages 75-83)." So it seems that No Contact (NC) is not necessary for Plan A - it is Plan A that is designed to bring about NC

I totally agree that NC w/ the OW is necessary as a pre-requisite for recovery. But they are not even at no contact yet. The question, it seems to me, is how to get there. If I understand Harley correctly, Plan A is the place to start, and Plan B and the exposure of the affair is the second step if Plan A does not work within a set time frame, which depends on the situation, but is almost always 6 months or less.

<small>[ March 25, 2003, 07:38 AM: Message edited by: johnh39 ]</small>

I feel every bit of your pain Queen.

Okay - so he's with OW now "explaining things". Well, bad thing is that he is with her but the good thing is that he is "telling her what is going on with you and him". This is good. She will probably do everything in her power to hang on to him and he is clearly torn. He as reignited the flame with you I think - although he may not know it yet.

Hopefully he will call. Stay calm, loving, supportive - difficult I know. Keep the environment "safe" for him to talk to you.

Remember Plan A is for YOU too.

Gotta run.

Hugs to you. Positive energy and good vibes to you across the miles!!!!

Thank you all for your input.

And thank you John for adding the Plan A/ Plan B link again, which I have now read for the fifth time.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> “Sometimes a wayward spouse settles into a routine of having his or her cake and eating it too. In an effort to win the wayward spouse back, the betrayed spouse meets emotional needs that the lover cannot meet, while the lover meets emotional needs that the wayward spouse has not learned to meet.” </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">We have not got that far that my H is having his cake and eating it. He has not proven to me that that is the case yet. He told me he is going to talk with her these two nights. He would promise to call me. (Suprise suprise he has not done that yet....).

I may begin to call him a cakeman after I can see he keeps running back and forward. Since I found out last week and he has not seen her since, I cannot make that assumption yet.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">“…to avoid an indefinite period of suffering while a wayward spouse vacillates between spouse and lover, and to avoid rewarding the selfish behaviour of having needs met by both spouse and lover, if plan A does not work within a reasonable period of time, I recommend plan B.” </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Plan B is about having no contact with WS. That means I pull myself away from him. But I cannot go to Plan B until I have done Plan A. A reasonable period of time is what? Many of you say 6 months. I think that sounds reasonable. So what is Plan A?

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">“Unless plan A leaves the wayward spouse with the impression that returning home is an attractive choice, separation can become permanent. So before implementing plan B, you want to be sure that the last thing your spouse remembers about you is the care and thoughtfulness you offered in plan A. That way, the separation can help create, "absence makes the heart grow fonder."” </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">The above quote does not say that one should not have physical contact. It says "care and thoughtfulness". Care = closeness for my H. Closeness for my H is SF. I think I read it somewhere in the Basic Concepts. That for most men SF and CR are two of the most important EN. Not for all men of course. But the SF is a MAJOR one for my H.

I am therefore also being thoughtful, in opening our relationship for physical contact. I have been denying him passionate sex, affection and admiration for such a long time knowing these were his basic EN. And the reason why I was doing this was because he was not fulfilling my needs for security, conversation and through these two also SF.

Now at least we have found something again we can relate to each other with.

The person having the Affair could have just as well been me. I thought I had died inside, because we were not talking, caring for each other anymore. I was just as unhappy as he has been. The only reason why I was not having an affair was because I chose not to even though I had the possibility AND I never really met anyone that really really interested me.

I am no saint either. The thoughts have been there. So I understand my H. And right now I am kind of happy that we have had some really intense and passionate days behind us. At least I feel like I am not dead inside anymore. I have feelings and some of them are profound love, some are horrible pain. And best of all my H made me feel like a woman again and I made him feel like a man! That has to be something good!!!!

Even though all of this hurts so much I really feel alive which is better than feeling just numb!! I can feel that a change is about to happen in my life, it is already happening....We are moving house this weekend to start with. Changes are really scary, but at the same time they may bring along something better in order to lead a more fulfilling life. I am trying to trust my instincts and believe that the future is going to be so much better with or w/o my H. (hopefully with!)

If he does not choose us. If we do not succeed in changing our way of handling our marriage. The least we can have left is a friendship for the sake of our children. And I can already build on that friendship now by being caring and thoughtful the best way I know how.

I am handling the fact that my H is with the OW right now unbelievably well. Tomorrow I might break down totally again. I guess its not called a rollercoaster ride for nothing.

Does it sound like I am giving up? I think I sound like that but I do not mean to. I plan to fight to get his love back, with love, SF, affection. That is my plan A. When I think I can not handle it anymore, or if he chooses her over me, or if he proves he is a cakeman, THEN I will move to Plan B and begin to take control of my life.

In Plan B he would have to run after me in order to convince me that he really is sorry, and I am the woman he really wants and we would finally begin to work on it.

(and he still has not called me yet...)

Does anyone agree or disagree to what I am saying?

-queen-

P.S
I ordered almost ALL the books (his &her needs, love busters, after the affair & surviving the affair)from Amazon today by UPS Express from the U.S to Europe on my H credit card. That felt good! Look forward to getting them, because I plan to do my homework. If I do not learn anything that I can use for my H and I then I will learn something for ME!!!!