Cruz…I couldn’t have written a more eloquent post…it’s like you were watching WW and I in the 3rd person.

The guilt I have over what I did to my XW is immense and I deserve it. She and I really shouldn’t have ever married, but NO ONE deserves what I did to her and my two kids. My 18yr old daughter and I are estranged, to a certain extent, because of this and that is just more pain on top. No sympathy please…give it to someone who deserves it.

WW and I met in ’91 and knew each other well until Mar 96 when we had our EA/PA. We left our respective BS’s and married in Nov 97. All was well until she went remote for a year (military) in Aug 99. Her first PA was a two month affair in Oct – Dec 99. She came home for a month of leave in Feb 00 and had two more PA after that, each of them of a two week duration. She SWEARS those were the only ones and I am beginning to believe her that those were the ONLY PA’s she had.

She came home in Aug 00 and in Apr 01 went to a six week school where she met a MARRIED guy that she WOULD have like to have a PA with, but he never made a move. That’s her rationalization…she never initiates the PA…that way she can twist it in her mind by saying “He started it!!” I asked her if she knows its WRONG to have sex with MARRIED MEN and she knows it is, but she gets SO selfish and blocks it (compartments it) out of her mind. If we separate…eventually she will be “betrayed” by a REAL loser of a guy and she will then REALLY understand WHAT SHE HAS DONE!!!!!

I have also asked her if she wants a secure COMMITTED relationship with me or a series of sexual flings until she becomes undesirable (older)? She seems sure she wants our marriage, but is scared of/drawn to (don’t know yet) that HORRIBLE behavior!

There is currently a MARRIED SUPERIOR where she works that she did want a PA with and was going to “set the conditions” for with a pre-existing business trip they both had to attend. Luckily, she had a month long school to attend and couldn’t go. D-Day was two weeks into her school, so we had two additional weeks of Hell being separated AND having to go through this nightmare. She promised me, in front of MC that there would be NO non-duty contact between them. I have to believe it…for now. I’ll be asking her about it, from time to time, just to keep things honest.

This is a VERY destructive impulse she has. We received non-judicial punishment for our PA in ’96. If the SUPERIOR mentioned above spurned her, she would REALLY be in trouble! She doesn’t think he would, but it is a REAL possibility. I asked her about that, if her “next guy” was a subordinate, what would she do? Have sex with him too?!?!?! I didn’t get an answer. Having sex with a subordinate while you/he are married is a court-martial offense...especially with the non-judicial punishment for the SAME offense in her past! She is SO committed to getting promoted, but is driven to do things that could wind up with her being court-martialed! How blind can she be!!!! I am REALLY getting cynical on mixing men and women in military units…its toxic because it is IMPOSSIBLE to remove sexual urges from ANYONE and it WILL RUIN good order and discipline! Without that…the mission is lost…

She is at home now (since Friday) and we started MC yesterday. MC thinks that she is “addicted” to the “chase”. I would agree because I asked her if it was the draw of sex with someone new and she said it really wasn’t. She also needs to set up some REAL boundaries in ALL of her dealings with men. She HAS to change or I will be gone…

If there is ONE person out there who can LEARN from my story…PLEASE DON’T DO IT…IT’S NOT WORTH IT!!!! PLEASE DON”T put your life in a tailspin as I did

Don’t pity me---learn from me

IFV

I also asked her if she really loved me...she said she did and I should believe that, even if we divorce. I explained to her that COMMITTED spouses don't do ANYTHING to hurt their spouse. Any more PA's mean that you don't care if you hurt me, so you really didn't love me to begin with. She got really emotional (sad and crying) and disagreed with my premise. It seemed logical to me...am I wrong?

She is REALLY confused, so I am HOPING that MC will help her make the SLOW and STEADY changes necessary to save our marriage!

IFV

An update…it has been an up-and-down week. There are times that I just don’t want to try anymore…I have been “Plan A”ing and getting marginal results. She is somewhat withdrawn.

She has NO interest in physical affection (I’ll say it now…I am NOT ready for sex) other than handholding, hugs (which feel somewhat forced to me, but my perceptions are WAY OFF at the moment) and perfunctory kisses. She said she is not interested in physical affection and DEFINTELY not interested in sex with ANYONE! I guess that’s a good thing…I’d freak out if I was the only one she wasn’t wanting to have “marital relations” with.

I am starving for some REAL physical affection…time together in bed, cuddling and hugging…NO sex! But she cannot give it to me and its driving me crazy! I have done NOTHING WRONG, yet I suffer immeasurably! How !@#$ing fair is this? I can really see where the “revenge A’s” could come to play, but I STILL could not face her and have to tell her that I broke OUR VOWS! Isn’t that weird?

She seems to be wallowing pretty heavy in guilt and shame…as she should. But at what point do the BS’s break out of their “shell” and start making some progress? The “self-flagellation” has to stop at some point. We have known of the A for the last 24 days and we have only been back together (she was on business) for 10 days…perhaps I am expecting too much?

We had our first MC last week and it was just BS telling our MC her “side of the story”. We have another session this Tuesday, so maybe we can score a SMALL victory of some sort…I need to know that the energy I am investing in saving us is NOT being wasted! She isn’t one to talk about REALLY sensitive personal topics (we have been avoiding them since our MC told us not to talk about our issues w/o her…yeah right!!)

The guy instinct tells me to get to WORK and FIX this problem, but it’s just not that easy. I did think about it this weekend and MC is like chemotherapy…it CANNOT be all done at once, it is PAINFUL, and it takes a while. It’s just hard for me to deal with…

I have been a courteous and thoughtful husband, but it doesn’t seem to be getting me anywhere.

BH’s…is this par for the course? I did read in “Not Just Friends” that women tend to suffer more greatly with the guilt/shame than men…is that what happens in real life?

This has been a rambling missive, but thanks for reading and any advice you may have..

I was IFeelViolated, but am now WHnowBS...my old account seem to have gotten corrupted...I think.

THis one seems to be working as I can log in AND post now.

Hey WNB,

Sorry I haven't posted the last several days but sometimes life gets in the way.

I've been on this roller coaster way to long. I've been riding it for years, but the breaks went out last November when she came home drunk and the whole back of her skirt wet - from the inside out.

My mood can change in a matter of seconds from wanting nothing more than to put OUR life back together, to wanting her out of my life for ever. I vacillitate between those two poles a thousand times a day. When I'm not at one extreme or the other I'm just numb.

My WW has always been and still is a very sexually oriented person. She has no problem with having sex anytime. The problem is I now have problems. She has told me that we are reversed... she is the one who has the traditional "male" attitude about sex while I am the one who needs emotional attachment to make it satisfying. She claims "it was just sex" and wonders why I can't get over it.

She claims that she feels guilty about what she did, but I don't really sense that.

Our MC has indicated that she feels WW may have multiple personality disorder which would explain her ability to so easily compartmentalize things, but at this point she hasn't indicated a course of action.

I don't know. I'm rambling right now and can't seem to put together a coherent stream of thought.

Hang in there WNB. Know that you're giving it your best and see where it goes.

Cruz

Cruz and all,

It was a BAD night last night…she had been in the dumps since I had told her I was having difficulties with the lack of non-sexual physical affection. She e-mailed me later that day and said we needed to talk…

She gets home and she is READY to run away again, just like she did in 1996, except she is running FROM me, instead of TO me. I asked to PLEASE just take responsibility for what you did, forgive yourself and LET’S GET HELP!!!! She said that that taking responsibility would hurt too much and she isn’t strong enough to get through this. I told her that I can be strong enough for both of us! I told her that I have forgiveness for her in my heart, I just need to work with her and I CAN FORGIVE HER!!! Didn’t matter…she is hell-bent on leaving and I don’t think I will do much to stop her. She said she had been feeling really bad about everything all weekend and it had nothing to do with my affection needs from yesterday morning…

Her leaving has NOTHING TO DO WITH ME!!! I asked her what part of the marriage was so bad that she couldn’t stay and she said there wasn’t ANYTHING she was unhappy with!! It’s all about HER!! I told her that shame (in Nancy Glass’s book, NJF), is something that will drive you to repeat the same mistakes over and over…she didn’t want to hear that either. She said she will meet me today for our MC appointment, so I am hoping for a small miracle today…it may be IC after today…we’ll see.

I think I bullied WW into telling her sister what REALLY happened…WW told Sis that I had issues with her drinking and she had “dependency issues”. In the midst of it all, I asked her why she didn’t tell her Sis the truth? She got ALL indignant and called her…no answer. Sis called back later and I heard her tell Sis that she had had an affair while over there…I don’t know if she told Sis about all THREE of them…she is running and hiding at EVERY turn! Sis told her to get counseling, but, (according to WW) wasn’t for or against the reconciliation. She is such a coward…her dad doesn’t even know yet, unless her Sis has told him behind WW’s back…I don’t know. WW talked to her Dad last night and he still has no idea…I think

I am beginning to see it…no one in her family will call a spade a spade. I asked WW if she wanted SD, or ANY young girl to live the life of flings with married men and she had the GALL to say…”She’ll be an adult soon, she’ll have to make her own decisions. I told her that she needed to get help, regardless of if we stay together…she just REFUSES to accept that lives are destroyed by her actions! What if one of her “flings” gets guilty and tells his wife and she leaves him?…another ruined family in her wake because she WON’T put up boundaries to protect our marriage. What if the next “fling” is her Commander, her First Sergeant, her boss or her subordinate? I asked that question AGAIN and still got no concrete answer. She is SO driven to vault into the next rank, but her behavior will catch up with her at some point and she’s gonna have to pay the piper.

Her daughter (my SD…the one I took care of while she was remote having unprotected sex!!!) As an aside, we have both tested clean because we have both deployed since then and they check your blood for all kinds of stuff before you leave. Anyway, it will be interesting to see if WW can tell the daughter the REAL truth because I am REALLY feeling the need to do that…

I am still trying to Plan A, but she is having none of it…I fixed her coffee this morning and offered to help carry down her stuff for the day (like I always to), but she wanted nothing from me…Plan B may soon be in the making because it is VERY hard to keep trying when the other party doesn’t want to play.

Again, in closing to ALL of you POTENTIAL WW and WH…DON’T DO IT!!! I am living thru a Hell that could have been prevented, but I just refused to take off my rose colored glasses.

My son will be getting a talking-to about how NOT to life a life…I only hope he REALLY learns from my mistakes…

Thanks for reading…

WNB

Man, I really do feel your pain...At least I had the comfort of knowing that the PA happened five years ago and I didn't have to deal with the "nearness in time" of the PA as you have.

Is your WW REALLY committed to working on your marriage? I really hope so, because its absolute folly for ANYONE to try and fix a marriage they don't want to save. I ask my WW about that all the time because I don't have the energy to spend on a marriage she may not be committed to. My WW can't/won't accept responsibility because of the pain involved. Does your WW actually feel remorse? If my WW wasn't feeling so bad about this, I would have to leave because that would show a callousness that I refuse to have in a wife.

Hang in there...your WW will come around with proper help. Have her A's stopped? My WW has told me her sex drive is NIL right now and I think that also scares her because, like your WW, she is a sexual creature. The ideas of sex are SLOWLY sounding attractive to me, but right now physical affection is my main craving.

D-Day is still relatively new and she hasn't really given herself time to accept responsibility and heal...I hope she stays around long enough so we can do it TOGETHER!

Good luck and we'll keep writing to each other...it really deos help get the anger out.

WNB

WNB,

I've forgotten what a "good night" is. I'm sad all the time. I've been lied to and lied to... I'm at the point where I just feel numb.

I know exactly what you are going through with her wanting to run away. My WW will tell me that "MY" happiness is the most important thing to her, so she's ready to leave anytime so that I can be happy. Where's the logic in that?

It seems to me that she wants to leave, but wants to be able to say that I'm the one who threw her out. That way I guess it's not her fault that our marriage failed - it's mine for making her do what she really wants and leave.

I've got the same problem WNB... my WW "claims" I am the man of her dreams; I give her all she needs - she can't "explain" all of her actions, but she loves me and wants to be with me.

The way I have found out about most of the things I know about her activities is by spying on her. I never really hid this. I would find out about something from a tape recorder in the house, or in her car, or one of several other means I’ve come up with to get the truth and I would confront her with the information – which she would deny, many times going so far as swearing on her love for me that something wasn’t true – then I would ask her if she wanted to listen to the tape, or I would show her a computer log and she would just go ballistic. Even when faced with hard evidence she would only admit to the limit of what the hard evidence was, and would continue to lie about anything inferred by the evidence, but not quite “film at 11”.

A typical example of this was one day when she called me from work and told me that there was a lady in town from the Buffalo office, and she was stuck taking her out to lunch. She called me about an hour later and said she was back from lunch, and the associate from Buffalo had forgotten her purse at the office, so my WW had to pay for her lunch as well as being stuck having to take her out. I just happened to have a recorder in her car that day and as it turns out she actually took “C” out to lunch that day. This is one of the guys I KNOW she had an EA with and suspect a PA. They went to a restaurant near the office so they were only in her car about 5 minutes each way. When she got in the car she called him on her cell phone and asked where he was and told him she was waiting for him. When he got in her car she told him it wasn’t nice to make a lady wait, and he told her he was sorry and asked what he could do to make it up to her. She told him not to worry, she could think of “something” he could do to make it up, and they both laughed. On the way to lunch she complained about how controlling I was, and how she felt like she couldn’t even be herself around me. He talked about how his wife was the same way and if she knew what he was doing right now she would kill him… small talk about how mean their spouses were all the way to the restaurant. When they left the restaurant they got in the car laughing about something, and started talking about how tough work was since business had picked up as they began to drive back. He said he didn’t mind the extra work, but his feet were killing him from all the extra walking… then it got quiet for about 30 or 40 seconds. All I could here was the engine running. Then she says “Better?” in her best sexy, flirty voice, and he just groaned real loud and says “That makes me want to put a red wig on you and call you Vickie.” Then she said “Vickie?, I don’t like that name – what else would you like to call me?” He tried a couple of different names, still groaning and kind of breathing hard, and she finally says “Why don’t you just call me Momma.” And he goes “Oh, Momma!” About this time they are evidently pulling into the parking lot because she told him “OK, I’ve got to get myself together now, brush my hair, fix my make up… we wouldn’t want to go back into work with my hair and my make up all a mess now would we?”

When I confronted her – calmly and non-threateningly as always - I told her I wanted the truth about who she went to lunch with. She said she told the truth. I told her that I knew she didn’t take anyone from Buffalo to lunch, and that she had taken C to lunch. She started screaming at me that I was crazy and jealous and paranoid and that’s why we were having problems because I imagined all these things. I then told her I didn’t imagine anything because I had a reliable source, and I KNEW she took C out to lunch, and that I needed her to admit the truth to me, and tell me why if nothing was going on she felt it necessary to lie to me about it. Now she’s screaming who’s this $&@%^#! Source?!? They’re lying, they’re out to get me! Tell me who it is. I told her that it didn’t matter, I knew the source to be reliable and I knew she was lying to me. She screams “What else has your @#&$&*^ source told you – it’s all lies!!! I told her that was all I had learned and asked her one more time to please tell me the truth. Now she is totally incoherent and out of control, so I knew I wasn’t going to get her to tell the truth without the hard evidence, so I looked at her and said “WW – you are the source. I had a tape recorder in your car and heard everything. She ran from the house screaming, got in her car and was gone for several hours. When she got back I asked were she had been and she said nowhere, and I asked if she was ready to discuss what was going on and she said no, and I asked if she still denied taking C to lunch and she said, “You’ve got the F-ing tape don’t you?” I asked her where she touched him. She said what the ^#@#%! Do you mean? I never touched him. I then recited the conversation from above and she said I didn’t know what I was talking about – I wasn’t there so I couldn’t prove she touched him.

Get the idea?

The thing that has always bothered me is that when we have had these confrontations she never shows any remorse or guilt for what she did just anger, or more accurately FURY at being caught.

This is getting REALLY long, so I’ll stop for now, but like I said – this is a typical example of the dozens of things I have confronted her about, and her reaction.

Cruz

Oh - and by the way... here whole story about having to pay for the lady from Buffalo's lunch was to hide the fact that she paid for his.

Cruz

Man…I am no counselor AND I didn’t stay in a Holiday Inn last night, but you are a BETTER man than me for staying with your WW for all she has done…and I really MEAN that.

So there have been MULTIPLE episodes like the one you described? I am having a hard enough time dealing with PA facts that happened five years ago, much less having to confront one that happened the same day. I asked my WW again if there were more A's and, with FIRM eye contact, she said no, so I THINK I know about them all…not betting the farm on that one.

If you don’t mind me asking, is she making ANY progress? From my layman’s position, it SEEMS as if she may be taking advantage of you. Is she meeting ANY of your EN’s? Again, I can only guess from the info on your post. It doesn’t seem like it from here…

Our WW’s seem to have a REAL problem with what love means…Rule of Care is VERY simple, yet they still say they “love” us, but HURT us SO thoughtlessly! I think they love our stability, but their “wild” side has yet to be put in check.

Don’t get me wrong, we were VERY compatible sexually, but I am beginning to understand it isn’t about sex. They need to feel “desired” by more men than us and the sex is just the culmination of that…VERY shallow, in my opinion.

You have the patience of Job…Keep the faith!

Your friend online

WNB

My gut tells me that things have changed since maybe mid-January of this year. I don't think she has had any inappropriate contact with anyone since then.

Not a better man WNB... it's a tough thing to say, but maybe more desperate would be a better description. I think we both feel a certain amount of "if this marriage fails that totally validates just how wrong I already know I was to be here." Sometimes I think I stay just to punish myself every second of my existence.

I think it was either Robert Fripp or Brian Eno back in the seventies who wrote the line "In order to achieve pain, there must be suffering." I'm there.

Yes there have been multiple episodes. The one I described was kind of middle of the road - an average episode I guess you could call it. The pattern has always been the same - deny, deny, deny then attack me for saying such things and finally get REALLY pissed off when I calmly lay out my evidence. Then she leaves for a couple of hours and comes back trying to act like nothing happened. It's kind of funny - in a really not funny way - that she describes her X as a controlling, jealous, paranoid #^@#$!@^$&@$!@ who would never trust her and never understood her. I know that people like that exist - people who can make a spouse's life a living hell for no valid reason other than their own paranoia and inabilities to trust are out there.

The thing is I never experienced jealousy until I met her. I never experienced miss-trust until I met her.

I was married to my first wife for almost 15 years, and never had any of these emotions. We trusted one another. In the 20 years she and I were together - dating and married - I NEVER told her a single lie, and to this day I know in my heart she never told me a single lie. I'm still very close to my XW's family. Her Mother and Father still Love me, and I still Love them. After all that happened they still trust me enough that two weeks ago they gave me the new code to their security system in case I got to their house before them to pick up my daughters. They live in a 3 million dollar home where the unscrupulous could easily walk away with half a million dollars worth of art and jewelry without having to make two trips out to the car, but they trust me because they know that deep down I'm still the son they took into their family when I asked for the hand of their daughter.
[censored]. I can’t do this at work.

Is she making any progress? Yes. Incremental, but some. Like I said I’m almost certain she hasn’t done anything since mid-January and after almost nine years together that’s a record. And sometimes, when everything is quiet and there are a few moments of peace… I see some hurt in her eyes; not for herself, but for me. She used to tell me that she would never try to change again for anybody, but I’m seeing some change.

You’re right about the problems with what Love means. I don’t think my WW ever actually experienced the real thing. Her Mother married her Father to escape a bad family life then cheated and lied, so that’s what she grew up with. I know that her need to give herself to any man who seems interested comes from her insecurities and lack of a mature understanding of what Love and intimacy are really about, but it still hurts just the same. I don’t know if it’s a “wild side” or the lost little girl in them reaching out for something they never had, so they really don’t even know what it is they are reaching out for.

Our affair was strictly EA until my wife threw me out. The guilt I carried while I was still with her simply would not allow me to do that. I actually tried a few times and it simply didn’t work. It seems that this became a challenge to my soon to be WW, because apparently I was the first man she ever met with a conscious who could not perform due to guilt about cheating on his wife. She said it was sweet. (God – I know, but I was soo deep in the fog nothing rational registered except for the knowledge that I was wrong.). Sex in our marriage is the one area where I must say took me to places doing things that I never even realized were possible to fantasize. Maybe that’s part of what’s kept me holding on as well. When you’ve rode a Saturn rocket to the moon and back, bumper cars just don’t have much appeal anymore. I’m sorry if that was crude, but it’s honest. The one conflict that has been there as far as sex is that that’s all it is to her. To me it’s something special and private and just ours… I’m the emotional one in this relationship – remember?

If you learn anything from this WNB… it’s that you’re not alone out there, and despite the things you and I have done wrong, it doesn’t mean that we can’t strive to redeem ourselves by trying in everything we do to do right. There are no –“do-overs” in life, only second chances to those who fully accept their responsibility for their own lives, and the effect we have on others.

Cruz,

Someone used the same bolt of cloth when we were made…unlike you, I had no problem committing the PA while WW and I were both out of state for schools. The odd thing about it was, the first time…our “consummation”, if you will, my XW called her room looking for me! I can’t remember why she was looking for me, but the guilt held us both back until the next night when the PA finally happened. Your Saturn rocket analogy fits to a “T”…she is a great lover, but has a difficult time keeping it within the marriage. Marital sex is SPECIAL and PRIVATE…I just hope our WW’s can learn that…

Suffice to say, my XW threw me out too…the one thing that is BURNED in my brain until the DAY I DIE is hold my 8 year old son and hearing cry for as I got ready to leave “Daddy!...Please don’t go!!!!” As you can imagine the guilt is immense…to this day. I am welling up as I write this…they didn’t deserve that, but I was in the “fog” wholly and completely self-absorbed.

My XW and I were “growing apart”…she had gained 55 lbs after the kids and showed no compunction to lose it…she would berate me about “leaving her with the kids” while I trained for triathlons, yet she didn’t want to work out and keep herself attractive for me. We had REAL issues to be resolved but my A was NOT the way to handle it. I don’t regret divorcing…I TRULY regret that way that it happened and my own selfishness that allowed me to commit such an unforgivable act.

I moved back in with XW for a week or two and things were dead…I moved out completely and got my own apartment. Once that lease ran out, I moved in with WW and we were married a year later. I also worked a part-time janitorial job for 14 months to pay for our wedding…I was committed! I took care of the SD while she was in Korea committing her PA’s. She gets REALLY upset anytime I mention that to her…the guilt might be a bit overwhelming…she hasn’t said yet.

I used to think “I must save this marriage or I will be a DOUBLE failure”. I have since let that go…this is about making ME happy. WW makes me happy, but I cannot tolerate her behavior if she can’t/won’t stop. She tells me that I deserve a woman that can be as faithful as I deserve. She could be that women, but she just refuses to see that she HAS A CHOICE in the matter! She won’t accept responsibility!

She did e-mail me this morning and apologize for last night…she rode the Depression Train HARD!! I think she got a little better perspective after a nights sleep.

She is meeting me for counseling in one hour…EVER hopeful for the best, but always prepared for the worst.

You sounds like a great guy…try and cut yourself some slack about what happened in the past…we can’t change ANY of it. What we can do is become better people and, for me, SOME woman (WW or otherwise) is going to get a FAITHFUL boyfriend/husband.

I CANNOT AND WILL EVER CHEAT AGAIN OR BE ANY PART OF SUCH THINGS!!!!!!!

The lesson has been learned, but it took nine years to learn it..

WNB,

It was my 8 year old Daughter crying “Daddy – don’t go!” That was the single most painful moment in my life. I told her “Baby, I have to. I did something I shouldn’t have and made your momma very, very sad. I’m sorry I did that, but right now I have to leave.” My 4 year old didn’t understand what was going on, but she was crying too.

Man, this hurts too much to talk about.

You’re right about the bolt of cloth we came from. With me it was work that kept me away from home. I was trying to realize our goal of retirement by age 45 (just a year from now in another life), and I was working 60 ~ 70 hours a week. She worked as well, a good job with a good company, and was in no small way helping to make our dream a reality, but I had the big job… the one that would put us over the top.

We to were growing apart – even if we couldn’t see it at the time. Right up to when all this happened you never could have told me it was possible. Now I know that anything is possible unless you actively defend against it. I had to spend 6 months working on second shift fixing an out of control operation during the second half of 1995. That created enough separation I think to open the door. Not as a justification – just hindsight on how things played out. I had earned a reputation as a “turn-around-man”. Problem departments were given to me to fix, and then some other manager would be handed an area working under a proper business model with all the bugs worked out and I would move on to the next problem. That created a high profile situation for me, but also a high stress, long area work environment which never let me coast and worry about my personal life.

It’s hard for me to say that I don’t regret divorcing because I never believed in it. I’m not happy with my current situation, but my X has moved on and adjusted well… she re-married to a good guy who treats the kids well. I’ve had a beer with him a few times. I actually see my kids now more than I did the last three years of our marriage. When I look at my X, I don’t feel we could ever be together again… too much water under the bridge, but we have a cordial relationship and work together well when it comes to the kids.

I did try to move back for about a week as you did, but quickly found that I had broken something very special, and we both agreed that it could never be what it was before. She didn’t want that, and neither did I. It was a few days after I moved out for the last time that my WW and I finally as you put it “consummated our relationship.

I moved in with a male friend from work… he needed a room mate to make ends meet, and I needed a place to stay. He developed into probably my best friend in the world. His wife had thrown him out a year before (she had the affair), and we turned out to be a perfect fit for room mates. I lived there for about two years, seeing my “girlfriend” and torturing myself for what I had done. During that time she was living at her Dad’s house celebrating her freedom and basically partying it up.

I understand about the making “me” happy, and at some point I hope I can have that again, but right now I’m more concerned about making things right with those I have hurt; possibly to my own detriment, but so be it.

I hope your counseling session goes well. I have mixed feelings about my own, but I wish you only the best. Hopefully she’ll start to see all you have to offer, and what you have learned from the last nine years, and maybe start to see how those lessons could lead to a wonderful life.

I know we can’t change the past, but I’m not very good at cutting myself any slack. I always have had very high expectations of myself, and I will never allow myself to be comfortable with the wrong I did.

Cruz,

We sure have some heart-wrenching stories, don’t we? The worst part about them is that they are our own fault! No one to blame but ourselves…

Our session went OK yesterday…MC seems to be a fan of 12-step processes, which, at some point, would involve making amends with our respective XW/XH. I told her about, once the A's were known, how I wrote letters and wanted to mail them, but WW didn’t want me to. MC asked WW why and she wasn’t really sure…WW wants to feel the need to do it, not just “go through the motions” like she would if she did make amends now.

It also seem that WW has learned some bad habits in an earlier abusive relationship that MAY have translated into a “sense of entitlement” with regard to her pattern of A’s. MC says she really needs to think about this and try to determine where the habitual path went wrong and we’ll go from there. WW has been thinking a lot about it and was writing in her journal leading up to and during MC. This site seems to be turning into my interactive “journal” as I haven’t been writing too much in my paper journal lately.

More importantly…before I forget…thanks for reading and corresponding with me Cruz…it means a lot to me that SOMEONE out there KNOWS and empathizes with my current problem(s). We'll come out of this OK...one way or the other.

WW also said she wants some IC as well. I think that is a good sign, but I do have to be prepared for the POSSIBILITY that she may come out of this with a clear view of how wrong her behavior was and see me as a reminder of that and leave me anyway…only time will tell and there are no guarantees. I’d rather go down swinging than just giving up.

My role in MC SEEMS to be non-existent, other than managing my anger and being a passive supporter of WW while she is “on her discovery” I am feeling fairly irate about it at the moment because any needs that I have SEEM to have been shunted aside to support WW. My perceptions may be wrong, but I will ask WW tonight how she envisions my role in this process because, at this moment, I am clueless. I need to KNOW what the RULES ARE!! Since our fight of Monday night, WW has lost ALL desire for ANY physical contact (it makes her feel “weird”), so I am effectively a “roommate” right now. I bought her flowers yesterday after MC and I got a dispassionate “thank you”. There are moments where she seems like her old self, then others, she seems distant. It’s crap like this that is very hard to live with. Setting aside (for a moment) her and my past transgressions, I was the one wronged here and she SEEMS to be getting off SCOTT-FREE! She doesn’t talk about what goes on inside her head, so I have NO idea what she is feeling aobut her A's and if she is truly SORRY for what she did!

Perhaps I am being shortsighted in expecting remorse/amends before she sees where she has been going wrong and is then ready to make them to me and our XW/XH’s, but this “path” is going to be a painful one if it is really the path towards recovery.

We aren’t supposed to be talking about the A's or trying to fix things, but she will have to tell me tonight what her vision of my role in this recovery process is…more to follow…

Anyway, it’s good to hear that you are getting along well enough with the XW, your kids and even her new H. Do you get to see your kids very often? If so, I would spend as much time as I could with them because the just grow up SO fast. My XW took ours about 800 miles from her, so I have a LOOOONG drive at XMAS and during the summer. My son is 16 now and is 6’3”/200lbs. What a bruiser! Ha Ha

Not having a good relationship (its actually pretty bad…not that I can blame her after what I did) with my XW makes it a bit hard when it comes to trying to reconcile with my 18 yr old daughter, but this is the bed I made and now must lay in it. I can only hope that she comes around when she gets older…

Does your WW look forward to MC and seem to get anything out of it? I hope so, because if WE (the formerly WH’s and current WW’s) can actually make the needed changes, we WILL have good marriages, but the WW’s have to STOP their behavior…I cannot tolerate ANY more of that awful behavior.

To be honest, I will never be comfortable with my betrayal either, but I can also see that, at some point, for my own good, I have to put it in the “Lesson Learned” box and keep that LESSON firmly in my habits. I hope that my son can learn from what I did, but he will ultimately have to make his own decisions and I hope they are better than mine.

Stay strong...it'll pay off in the long run...

WNB

I was glad to find you as well WNB. Not just that our histories are so similar, but our current situations as well. It’s uncanny.

I’m having the same problem in terms of feeling like I’m the one who has do all of the work. My WW sheds responsibility like water off of a ducks back. I swear sometimes she almost convinces me that I’m the one with the problem!

She was the one who wanted to start MC, but now she is the one who looks for excuses not to go. During our initial IC sessions with our MC (we did an initial joint MC, then 2 IC sessions each, then back to MC together) I told our Counselor that as soon as my WW got the first hint that any kind of judgment was being passed on her behavior she would clam up and try to run, and that’s exactly where we currently are. She couldn’t go last Monday because her 13 year old was sick (he was, but he would have been just fine napping in front of the TV for an hour). Now she’s talking about how she isn’t sure if this is the “right” counselor or not. She liked the one we saw a year ago for about three months because she (the MC) was one of those totally secular relativistic types who wouldn’t say Hitler was “WRONG” for what he did to the Jews… his personal cultural norms simply weren’t co-habitable with theirs. The B^#$* was nuts! You know what I mean?

After nearly three months of this woman’s weekly fruit salad sessions I finally couldn’t take it anymore. We chose this person because my WW had a bad experience with counseling at her church in her first marriage. The bad experience was that the Christian counselors at her church told her that her behavior was wrong. Miss “Fruit Salad” was just the best counselor ever because there really is no right or wrong.

The counselor we are seeing now is a Christian lady, but the sessions are not overtly religious… the thing is, she has very gently indicated that my WW may have issues which cause her to behave inappropriately within the marriage. Therefore she is being judgmental – therefore maybe she isn’t the “right” counselor for us.

It’s frustrating.

I have no idea what really goes on inside my WW’s head either WNB. I’m afraid that if I did I would just go insane.

It does take a while for things to change. In my case I have let it go on too long which just encourages her to feel she can get away with it. In your case I think you are in a much better place with regard to your timeline. The BS has to carry the heavy end of the load for a while I think – no matter how wrong that seems or feels, but if you hang in there I think from what you said about your session yesterday you have hope.

I hate to hear your kids are so far away. I don’t know if I could survive that. I see my kids more now than during the last three or four years of my first marriage. We do the alternating weekend thing (God I never thought I would be a weekend Dad), but anytime I want I can call the X and say – hey I’m going to get the girls for a couple of days this week if you don’t have anything planned, and it’s never a problem. When she has things come up and needs some one to pick them up from school for her, or keep them when she goes out of town on business – I’m there, and I’m the one she calls. We have a very flexible arrangement there, and the kids basically will tell you – yeah, we have two houses. Regardless of anything else I have a great relationship with my kids, and they know when ever they need me I’m a phone call away.

I’ve got to wrap up for now and get some work done.

Later,

Cruz

I think WW and I are done…I just got off the phone with her and she is SO convinced that “alone” time will fix her problems.

She JUST won’t visualize a GOOD result, but she sure loves to see the BAD ones!!!! Counselor told me to back off so WW could have some breathing room and I am cool with that, but apparently, the marital chains might interfere with the alone NIGHTLIFE!!!!

I see it as her excuse to !@#k anyone she wants with impunity while she’s gone for a year remote AGAIN!!! Well, SOMEONE is going to KNOW what happened!!!! This is NOT going down NICELY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She KNEW about her behavior the last time she was there (I didn’t at the time we agreed about her taking such an assignment), but she volunteered anyway! She had mentioned how Liz Taylor and Richard Burton married more than once and thought we might wind up like that…Not on my watch!!! If she leaves, that is IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am feeling SOOOOOOOOOO EVIL RIGHT NOW…I just want to BURN the bridges!!!!!

I feel like a second-fiddle SAP RIGHT NOW!!! She NEVER loved me! She STILL insists she loves me what a !@#$ing farce!!!!! YOU DON’T HURT THE ONES YOU LOVE AND SHE’S GOING TO DO IT AGAIN!!!!!!

She’s traveling on business next week and I will make her tell me that she won’t be “on the prowl” while out in CA…I wonder what her answer will be…


!@#$ THIS!!!!!!!!

Hey, just wanted to drop a note from an FBS to give you a bit of support. I don't like anyone to see anyone go through this. I hope the counseling helps.

Dobie

WNB,

Man I wish I could give you some encouragement, but I can’t. I know if my WW was going on assignment for a year there is no way she would remain faithful. Like you’ve said yourself… they seem like “two peas in a pod”.

I KNOW what alone time would mean for my wife, and alone ain’t it.

I spent 5 weeks in Japan on business in early 2003. I was there with two other guys I work with. All three of us are married. We spent every weeknight after work playing cards in Ken’s hotel room, talking about our families and looking forward to going home. On the weekends the three of us would take off together and go sight seeing and shopping for things to take home for our wives and kids. At work we were all given desks and computers to use while we were there which were immediately covered with pictures of our families.

I don’t even want to talk about what was going on at home during that time. Just suffice it to say while the mouse was away the cat sure did play.

Dude, I hate to say this, but you might want to consider having the locks changed while she is gone for a week, and see how she reacts to getting tossed before this year long deal. If it shocks her into reality you can work on it from there, but if she comes back and says that’s fine – I was leaving anyway… well, maybe that’s what needs to happen. I’m not one to set an example for decisive action, but in my current situation if my WW said I’ve accepted a year long assignment away from you I would tell her to pack all her stuff before she goes, because she would not be welcome back.

Just MHO,

Cruz

I can't take this anymore...I just got off the phone with her sister and, even though I had "bullied" WW into telling her what REALLY happened (much to MC' and WW disproving of it) she didn't tell her EVERYTHING (the two other guys and the condom-free sex with 2 of the 3 men). She called her own sister a whore...I still can't bring myself to do that, but tonight, she' gonna get the ultimatum...either LEAVE WITH SD or get serious about working on our M because THAT is what I want!!! YOU CANNOT HAVE BOTH!!!!!

It can and WILL get uglier if she gives me grief about how I see the assets being divided.

Man this sucks...

On Tuesday, she was STILL talking about leaving and D. It's now officially over...I gave her the ultimatum (accepting that the worst could happen) of COMMITTING to MC and stop talking about D or we just need to separate and D. She got an apartment that day...

We are going through a VERY tear-filled separation of our things...I have NEVER hurt so much in my life! We REALLY love each other, but she has some "wire" loose that keeps perpetuating her behavior. She is MY BEST FRIEND AND BUDDY! But, even after a month since D-Day, she still cannot/will not give me the promise of fidelity and I WILL not live through that again. I really think the trauma is forcing her to take a HARD look at her behavior and make some REAL changes...I just don't think that MC would have been able to bring that lesson home...it had to be this way...

For your philanderers out there...there is the "Bridges of Madison County" fantasy and there is the REALITY of what happens when spouses VIOLATE THEIR VOWS!! I am included in this...so no pointy spears please.

I have SO much to offer a woman now...I have LEARNED the LESSON and now bring a healed, although somewhat scarred, person to any future relationships...a relationship that BEGINS on TRUST and BUILDS on that TRUST...not one hatched in DECEIT and LIES...

I cannot ever really forgive myself for what I did to my soon-to-be FWW's XH and my first XW, but I will "drag them out" from time to time to REMIND me of WHERE I WENT WRONG!!!!!!

Learn from me...those of you "lost in the fog"

THERE IS NO GOOD TO COME FROM A'S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rant off...