HearBroken -

You are right. I know some day I will be grateful for this, so that I can finally grow up and find my own strength. I always feared my H would leave me, either for another woman or die or something, and I thought that it would kill me. And it didn't! It has been hell, but I am stronger than I ever thought I was or could be. And all my friends tell me that they knew how strong I was all this time, and they cannot believe that I felt so desperate about H.

My only problem with knowing him right now is that I don't know him. Everything I have tried has backfired. I think I need to wait about 6 more weeks or so doing Plan A for him to get to the point where he will put down his defenses and let me in at all. Right now, getting through to him on any level is not an option for me. But I do agree that I know him better than anyone, at least the non-fog person.

I now believe the saying that we create what we fear the most. And I have lived a lot of my life in fear of losing things, because my mom got very sick when I was young, and I never knew my dad and I was an only child. The step-dad that I came to know as my father deserted us when she got sick, because he couldn't cope. So I have been on my own for a long time, and shortly after that met my H. He was my whole world - mother, father, best friend, H, lover, etc. That is a lot of pressure for one person.

I needed to have this happen in my life, and I have known that I needed to grow up for a long time. I just had no inclination to do it when H was there taking care of me. So now I have the inclination - thank you God. I know that I am where I am supposed to be, where He wants me to be, and I am in a trial. For this trial I have turned to Him, not drugs or alcohol or another person as I did last time, and I trust Him to get me through this.

I use this site to help me with my feelings that are not working for me in this situation. Anger, fear, helplessness. They are normal human emotions, but they are self-defeating. So keep coming at me with the hope, with the positive stuff, because that is what I need to focus on while I am also doing what I need to do to complete my trial and learn what I need to learn - about myself and my life and my faith.

Thank you all! Love, Amy

Amy-Maree,


From your last post, you sound very strong and positive, you're on the right track. Keep it up, it's going to get better

I like the flying by instrument idea. That is exactly the way it is. At first it is difficult to trust that you are doing the right thing. But it does get easier.

It took my H three months to want to talk to me. But like HB said, it helps if you can develop a life of your own.

Amy Maree -
Can you post the flying by the instrument panel thing under a new topic under general questions? I have already used it in one of my responses, but it is such a good analogy, I would like everyone to get a chance to read it.

One of the biggest problems on this board is people having great difficulty (me included) sticking to the program. I think you can help a lot of people.

Thanks Amy Maree. I am so proud of you. Here you are a brand new member and already helping us out.

Believer -

I truly have had a couple of good days. However, I do have my days when nobody would be impressed with my behavior. His total unaccountability makes me so angry. We used to be so in tune with each other about our ethics and morals. And for him to be hurting me so much every day just because he is unable to face what he has done, makes me feel so much less respect and caring for him.

And for him to continuously protect the OW the way he should be protecting me, just burns me up! So, I need to use the instrument panel, pray several times a day, read all books I can, and get all the positive posts I can. I am holing onto anything I can right now so that I don't fly off into the abyss.

Thanks for your positive input. You make me feel so much better. I prayed for you last night, along with other members on here. Take care.

Amy

Mine is the same. He continues to protect the OW, while both of them are disrespecting or marriage. But that is the way they are. Yes, it is irritating to me, but I guess I have gotten used to it.

So hang in there, things will get better and thanks for the prayers.

I just read about someone else's WS opening up to them and telling them that they never loved them. And the BS was so hurt, like I was, and LBed, like I did. And a wise member told this BS to appreciate that the WS opened up, even if it was not what the BS wanted to hear. And that after LBing, the BS should at least send an apology to the WS, and thank them for being honest. Better late than never. So, I just did that to my WH. I literally copied and pasted the suggested response.

"I really appreciate that you were able to open up to me and share your feelings. I sincerely regret the way I handled it. I hope you will accept my apologies for it." I also added that I would see him at our first couple's counseling appointmnet on Tuesday at 11 am.

And I did not make any excuses for my LBing and poor behavior. He should be able to figure that out on his own, and my reaction is normal, albeit not something I am proud of or want to repeat in the future.

Stay postitive! Pray! Don't listen to anything they say! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

Amy

What I said in my last post at the end is not sitting well with me, and I wanted to restate it.

Listen to them, just don't believe that what they are feeling is truly how they feel. It is what they are feeling right now, and they are very confused.

To be honest with each other, you cannot just ignore and discount what someone is saying because you don't want to hear it. But don't necessarily take it to heart and let it cut so deep, knowing that they are in a fog.

There, I feel better about that. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

My H hasn't exactly said he doesn't love me, but told the OW that he isn't "in love" with me anymore. That was her key to really pour on the pressure. I feel like he thinks our whole marriage of 19 years has been a waste. He's not seeing all the good times we've had. I keep trying to tell myself that it's just because he's in the fog of the A right now, that he doesn't see clearly, but it still hurts. I understand.

I am beginning to doubt myself. Maybe my WH is telling me the truth. Maybe he has never loved me. Maybe he is not in a fog. We did get married young, I was his first girlfriend. Maybe we are not meant to be together.

Maybe he is not in love with her. Maybe they are just friends. Maybe I am blowing this whole thing out of proportion to make it into what I want it to be. Him in the fog, not that he doesn't really love me anymore - actually that he never did.

I don't know what to believe anymore. We have our first counseling appointment tomorrow together. I am nervous. I want to go, but I also know I am going to hear things I don't want to hear, probably none of the things I do want to hear, and most of the session will be just background information anyway. So I probably won't leave with anything useful.

I am just despairing. Just posting my babble. My insecurities. Does anyone have any thoughts?

Amy

So I am very nervous about our first MT appointment today. It is this morning at 11. I have been reading this site today, trying to prepare myself, maybe find some info on others in their appointments. I did read a response from TooMuchCoffeeMan to someone else, and in his response TMCM said that MT is useless and a waste of money and time until there is NC.

My WH does not think he ever loved me at this point. He is "finding" himself. He has moved out, and has an apartment. I think his PA with HW (that is what I call her - she is single and a home wrecker - and was my best friend) is over, but I know he communicates with her several times each day, and still sees her once a week at Scouts, as her son is WH Patrol Leader. He considers her his best friend, second only to me, and he has no intention of giving up contact with her, coming back to me, or moving our boys to a different Scout Troop.

So I don't know why he hasn't asked for a D. I don't know why he wants to go to MT. He says it is so we can be in the same room together again without fighting, so we can be friends and help raise our boys together. They are 12 and 11. A critical age for him to leave us, I think. It is hard enough to deal with puberty, testing boundaries, then have your dad take off. He doesn't see any of that, though. When they go to his apartment, it is like a field trip, they aren't used to me being there. But when we all sit down to dinner here at home, and we all look at his empty spot and get sad, he just doesn't get that. He doesn't hear any of that when he is with them. Oh well. At least my boys have me, and I don't bash him. I just love him.

Anyway, I am just working through my feelings here, typing through them. I am afraid of what he is going to say that I don't want to hear. I am afraid of my reactions. Everyone in my life says that he does love me, we have been through too much, that you cannot fake what they have all seen. And that is how I feel, too. But he is convinced that our marriage was a mistake, he did it for all the wrong reasons, and he doesn't know what his new insight will mean. He says he intends to take the full 6 months to figure it out. I think he is taking the full 6 months to sit on the fence, have his cake and eat it too. He is trying to figure out how to keep us both in his life, even though we (me and the HW) don't even like each other anymore! Crazy man.

I don't want him to destroy what is left of us, just because he is in the fog. I want to shake him, to slap him, to blow the fog out of his head! But, alas, I cannot do that. I want to do everything I can to move it along faster, though. Or soon MT won't be an option, because I will have to go to Plan B to save what love and respect I have left for this man. His total lack of accountability is driving me mad.

So, the things I am going to address today, if we have time after just giving our history, is:
1) I printed off a Dear Libby or Abby or something from this site with an analogy of why I ask so many questions, why I need to know stuff. It was about him having all the pieces to the puzzle, because he lived it, and I need to fill in the pieces so I can see the picture in the puzzle, too. Good analogy.
2) I guess it kind of goes along with #1, in that he needs to admit the EA, which he has not. He thinks that was all just "honest communication between friends " (btw, I have ordered Not Just Friends by Glass, should be here by end of week) and that he only did wrong when things became physical. He thinks it is OK, as long as he is just being honest, to tell another woman he is in love with her.

I guess I just have so much hurt that he has ignored and shunned inside of me. And it has been in there for awhile, and now I finally might have a way of releasing some of it. And I think I am afraid of what that means. I am afraid of how deep it is, and what it is going to look like. I have pushed it down, because he refused to deal with it, and it was driving me crazy to think about it all, all the time. And now I have to let some of it to the surface, and I do not trust myself. This is the most pain I have ever known, the most betrayal, the most everything (all negative), and I am afraid of it. Does anyone know what I mean?

I welcome your thoughts and appreciate your time. However I get through this, I will continue to come back to this site to help all those who are so frightened and unsure and lost. Because this site has been a live-saver for me. I now have a plan. And an explanation when people say, "After everything he has done, and then everything he has said to you, why do you want him back?" And I can tell them because I don't think that he is truly himself. And if I was that lost, I hope and pray that he would try and protect me from myself, too, and bring me back home to my family and myself. It is just that simple.

Lots of love to you all! Amy

Hey what happened to flying by instrument panel?

My H is back this AM trying to reconcile, and I don't feel like working on marriage at all.

I told you I have good days and bad days, and this day I am so nervous and emotional! All of my repressed crap is trying to break through the surface. I hope and pray I don't LB! I have so many questions, so many thoughts to share with him.

What is your WH doing to try and get back with you? Are they just empty words, or is he willing to DO some things? I will say a quick prayer for you today. I will pray that God shines his light of love and truth in your WH heart, and chase away all his shadow (lies) and doubt.

Believer, you are truly a believer, and if/when he comes back, he will know he is the luckiest man on the planet. His addiction is strong. I hope he has not destroyed his chance with you forever. Maybe you had to get to the end of yourself before he can find himself. We never know how He works in our lives - all I know is it never looks the way I think it will!

God Bless, I will be using my instrument panel today, and I will let the MT guide the session and not take over, like I have been known to do - on occassion - from time to time - Hmmmmmmm. . .

Love, Amy

Please let us know what happens. I will be praying for you.

OK, so it went no better than I thought it would. But at least he showed up. Basically, he is going to MT so that we can have a more civil D and be nice to each other at kid functions. He feels no love for me, and in hindsight of the A realizes that he never has. And silly me for thinking things couldn't get worse - I just didn't use my imagination as well as him. He even told the MT that he's also read that when we D, he can't support me at all except financially, because to do otherwise would give me false hope, and that upsets him. Also what upsets him is that he knows I cannot afford to keep the house, so he'll have to take it and the kids, and make me move somewhere else that I can afford. Of course, last week he told me he would support us financially and any other way so we could be stable. I have dedicated my life to our kids, and have no profession. I had a good job, but it was taking up a lot of my time, and he told me I should quit it so I could be happy. This was when he was already having his EA.

So, the MT basically told us that we are on different pages. He is looking for D, I am looking for him to "wake up." That is what she called it in front of him. She told me I have to trust the structure. She will be communicating with both of our IC (by chance, our IC happen to be in the same building), and we will all be on the same page and she will orchestrate topics of conversation and such. I guess if nothing else, by the time a D comes, maybe I'll be ready for it. He's not getting my house, though! No way. I have sold my hot tub, I am selling my van, but I will not give up my house.

I don't really know what to think. I have some hope. I have a friend who left her H, and he got her to go to one counseling session, and she did not go back. She said she had made up her mind, and nobody was going to change it. So, she said to have hope because obviously he isn't 100% decided yet.

I did get some good info. First, that the HW (OW) thought she loved him back. Both of them kept denying that. And that they have decided to just be friends for now. I said, "For NOW?" And he said you never know what the future will bring. He claims they only talk a few times a week, mostly for Scout stuff. Because she has asked not to be involved. She wants him to try and work it out with me. I don't trust his words. They do not match up with his other words and his actions.

And I thougt I was doing a good job of not LBing, and he basically told me today that I wasn't. He sees guilt trips in everything I write to him. And there probably are. The MT said that my analogy is that I am drowning, and I can't find a life-preserver. And when he was complaining about what I write to him, she said it is dangerous to save a drowning person, and since he used to be a lifeguard, he understood that and has a bit more compassion for me (maybe). The MT said that for the next week, we can only email business, no other communication. He gladly agreed. We also each have an assignment to write about "what worked in our marriage and what didn't", so if we want to work on M, we know what to keep and what to throw out. WH said it couldn't work, too much damage, and after being in such a high-maintenance marriage for so many years, he is too drained to do it any more. He said our personalities don't allow our M to be any other way than it was.

I said that I didn't want what we had, I want better. He said we couldn't change, that I am head-strong and he is easy-going. In my book After the Affair, it says that you can see people's personality traits differently - two sides of the same coin. Head-strong can be decisive, and easy-going can also be seen as chicken-sh#!.

But I digress. I am all over the place with this 1-hour counseling appointment. WH has agreed to meet indefinately with her, every Wednesday at 10 am, and let all the counselors talk to one another. He also went into the appointment calling his affair his "catalyst to finally figuring out his feelings all these years." When it was my turn, I said, "Now this is where we see it differently, because I call it an AFFAIR, not a catalyst." I mean, how can one have an epiphany like that, 6 weeks after coming clean about betraying your S, getting on Anti-D's, moving into an apartment, working 2 jobs, going to school, being involved in Scouts, trying to squeeze time in with your kids, and I think he is still in love with HW. He claims he doesn't think he loves anyone, but I don't think you can turn your feelings off like that. I know I can't. Look at me, pining after someone who doesn't love or respect me! I said that to WH, and he kept insisting today they were just friends, because that is what they agreed to. If he won't be honest about his feelings for her, I don't see any future for us.

What does anyone think of all of this? Do I have a snowball's chance? I cannot decide. And I hate having myself so vulnerable to him. But I have to be if I want to be here for him. I promised him I always would be. He promised me the same, but he is lost. Very confused. I hope he finds his way. I want to help, but don't think I can. The MT kept telling me today to let his IC ask all the questions I was asking. She said he would receive them better from him.

I'm just babbling now. Take care, all. Maybe my yoga tonight will help me.

Love, Amy

Amy maree
Your H is in a deep fog. That is what you need to remember. He is infatuated and living his little fantasy with OW. He will come out of it.

In the meantime, we will help you through this. My H is over more since I've been in Plan B than ever. Now I am the one who has changed. I feel like I couldn't care less about working on our marriage. Hope that feeling passes.

So hang in there, and don't give up.

Thank you Believer. I know he is deep in the fog. He just seems to be moving very quickly away from me and his family. And he is being so deceptive about his feelings, her feelings, and what happened between them. I just despair this can ever work out between us.

And I also worry about losing him to himself. He had a breakdown on 12/31/03, and I had to take him to the emergency room. He had accute depression and was talking suicide. It was the morning after he came home from his mom's house and told me he was leaving me. He stayed the night here at home, and then the next morning I woke him up to go sledding with his boys, and he wouldn't get up. I got him to talk to his mom on the phone, and she told me to take him to the hospital. She has had accute depression, her mother was hospitalized for it several times, and WH aunt had it so bad untreated that she regressed to her childhood and never came back! I didn't know any of that until that day.

I don't know if his meds are strong enough, the right kind, or what. The MT today took notes about that and might contact his doctor. He has an appointment with her in about a week. I think we have a good chance with all these therapists talking and working together now, all of us on the same page. But I know I will be OK when this is all done. I have not betrayed anyone, or myself. He is killing himself slowly with the guilt and shame. I worry he will get so far gone, no one can help him. HW is no good. She lies, has no boundaries, and if he goes to her, she will break him. I know she will. He is not wired to survive that type of relationship.

Anyway, I worry for me and him and our kids. As everyone here does for the people in their lives. Maybe I have been hanging out here too much lately. I need to clean my house, do business stuff, balance accounts, etc. There is so much pain here. Infidelity is horrible. It should be classified like drugs and alcoholism. Every time he talks to her and sees her we go back to square one. And he doesn't even get that. Oh well. Thanks for reading. Maybe I'll try and stay away a couple of days and get some stuff done and get positive again.

Instrument panel. Instrument panel. Instrument panel. It feels like I'm going down, but I might be flying right. :-)

Love, Amy

OK, I am back. It felt good to be away for awhile. I did lurk around. I have been reading over at the Recovery board. Interesting. I feel like I am closer to that than some of those people over there. Maybe some people jump the gun. I am sure it is very easy to do. You all will probably have to lasso me back when I wander too far too fast.

Well, me and WH are still in NC except for business purposes (finances, kids, me selling stuff to pay for his apartment). I think it is for the best. I was not doing well in Plan A, because I am not capable of hearing the stuff he is saying to me right now. So I am taking this time to emotionally detach myself from him - trying to, at least - so that when it is time for him to want to open up to me, I can listen without angry outbursts, disrespectful judgements, and without interrupting him. I have a lot of work to do to get there.

Believer - how are you doing? I read some of your posts today. I hear he is back, after being with OW 3 days ago. What the heck is going on? I am interested to know what to expect in 3-5 months from now when my WH comes hanging around again. Hmmmmmm, interesting.

Love, Amy

amymaree-

I am doing fine. H has been back and forth. But I have kept in Plan B 3 days now and I am getting better and better. I realize that I need to fly by the instrument panel now.

The MB program has helped me through all of this. I am now to the point that I realize that my life will be fine, with or without him. I still hope that our marriage will work out, but I am not willing to settle for what we had before.

My H says he wants to get back together, but he never follows through. I know that I cannot spend the rest of my life with someone like this. I do not want to be chaining him to the marriage. If he wants to be with OW, that is OK with me.

I have started realizing that I deserve more than this. The MB program has made me strong. I will not only survive this, I will thrive.