I like many others at some point at beginning of discovery often wanted to hear my hubby say" I will never have anything to do with the OC" even though I always knew one way or another at some point he would want contact with OC. Just maybe for him to say that for a year or two to give our marriage time to heal and get stronge and then have him come to me and say"i can't do this I have to be a part of my child's life" and hopefully i would have been ok with it by then. i know those thoughts go totally against poja but it was how I felt. Has any one else wished their husbands would"lie" for a while? My hubby never did he was honest from the beginning and always told me he would want contact and he would have it one way or the other and I guess now i love him even more for being honest about his feelings and not just lying to " tell me what i wanted to hear". Can anyone else relate?

Whatif,<P>Lemme tell you from experience the hard cold truth is far better than the mushy stuff intended to make us feel better. My husband told me what I wanted to hear for the first 4.5 years of our marriage. Only until d-day did I really know how he felt about me and our marriage. Had he told me the truth from the beginning we wouldn't be in the perdicament we are in today. <P>Even now, after so many years of half truths and incomplete disclosure, he has a hard time coming to the table with everything. He's developed a habit that is so very hard to break. It's something he has to conciously choose to do now. And even then, he sometimes fails miserably. <P>I realize that I enabled this behaviour by reacting in extremes to what he told me. I have now learned to digest what he says and not fly off the handle when it's something I disagree with or upsets me. This too takes a lot of work and I still slip sometimes.<P>My husband and I's marriage is truely a work in progress. But I'd take the truth anyday. I'd rather deal with it now than it come out later and be a more painful blow!<P>With regards to your situation in particular. Imagine if he did tell you what you wanted to hear about the OC and two years into healing your marriage you find out that he wasn't being truthful about his desires. That truth could possibly be a huge setback for your marriage, and perhaps pull you farther away from him than you feel today. How could you not think that your entire two years of rebuilding was based on a lie or half truth? I know I would be devasted.<P>I hope this gives you some comfort, although I fear it doesn't. <P>------------------<BR>Zebra Baby ...<P>Lord, give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

whatif,<BR>Good question although my h made it clear to ow even before I knew about ow or oc that he would never be a part of her childs life. He did lie to me and not tell me about the ow being preg. I found out when she called me when the child was two weeks old. I really dont think I would have stayed with him at the time he told me if I would have known about her being preg. I hated pretty much every thing about him at that time. He had 6 months of proving to me that he was a diffrent man before I learned of the oc. I still have a problem that he had kept this from me actually out right lieing to me since I must have asked a millon times if there was any chance of a preg . <BR> As far as him ever wanting to see oc. I think some men have a real problem when women try to trap them by using a child and mine happens to be one of them. I also think he would feel he is betraying our child if he did have anything to do with the oc. I really dont think he ever will want anything to do with her child, but If he did I would want to know about it as soon as the thought crossed his mind.<BR> with love flowerseed

WhatIf<P>I wanted my H to have contact more than he wanted to. OW had him convinced that 4 visits a year was worth than no contact. Because of unusual circumstances in my family of origin, I don't agree. I stress that that is just my own personal opinion and I am not judging anyone who doesn't agree with me. <P>I am now attached to OC (after 3 four-day visits) and I find myself missing her now that we are on a visitation hiatus. I am glad for the break and that we are finally able to work on our marriage w/o interference from OW, but I miss OC. Just me, I'm weird. I find some comfort in being a step-mother. We hope that as she gets older she will begin to come here for longer and longer visits until she spends the summers with us.<P>Mrs. Job

Sorry to post again so soon. I am a blabbermouth today.<P>What if he were to say "I will want to have contact, but I am willing to wait until you are ready. Until then I will live by the POJA and I will not go behind your back in anything. But I do need you to know that I fully expect to want contact in the future and I don't think that that need will diminish. When the time comes for visitation, we will work something out that means no contact with the OW and I will do everything in my power until then to make you feel safe and loved again."<P>That at least would be honest. However, my guess is that most of our spouses are in too much of a fog at Dday to know what they want.<P>Mrs. Job

The truth and nothing but the truth-always. Because I require the honesty and the respect from my husband. If he's blowing smoke up my skirt, it makes him look like an insincere jerk and makes me look the fool.<P>I need the truth as much as I need air.<P>Catnip =^^=

[QUOTE]Originally posted by catnip:<BR>[B]The truth and nothing but the truth-always. Because I require the honesty and the respect from my husband. If he's blowing smoke up my skirt, it makes him look like an insincere jerk and makes me look the fool.<P>I need the truth as much as I need air.<P> I completely agree, the last part of my posts says how my hubby never lied about his desire to have contact with the OC. I am just saying there have been some posters who say " I told my hubby if he wants contact i am gone, the hubby says they will some day want contact, so the wife asks again and again. In this case if the hubby does finally say what the wife wants to hear, do you think it is better that he says it becaus it is what wife wants and maybe it will give marriage some time? i feel after the hubby makes up his mind it is made up and i know i could have "forced" my hubby to tell me there was never going to be contact but deep down i would have known that someday there would be. i don't know i totally believe in honesty but I feel like sometimes the onlyu way to put Oc issue on back burner is not to deal with it a while and i am not sure how that is done if wife keeps insisting on trying to get the answers she wants. i am not sure if this made sense or not.<BR>

whatif,<P>I always wanted the truth, because it's so critical to rebuilding. Rebuilding on more lies would be building on quicksand, ya know? The original building was torn all to shreds and I've only got so much building material in me, too (some of which was already borrowed from God)! But I think the scene you describe would "work" for some marriages, because for some wives it is easier to imagine contact after some recovery (look at the miraculous change in gemini!) <P>The XOW emailed once after it was clear she couldn't blackmail my H into visiting, said that my H told her when he learned of pregnancy (during affair) that he would have contact with OC irregardless of wife, career, etc. He admitted he had said that, but "contact" to him (occassional) didn't mean to him what it meant to XOW (frequent!), that he was no longer willing to give up his marriage to get it, and that he never wanted to be with XOW even if I divorced him. She's shown her true colors.<P>Did that answer the question?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jenny:<BR><B>whatif,<P>I always wanted the truth, because it's so critical to rebuilding. Rebuilding on more lies would be building on quicksand, ya know? The original building was torn all to shreds and I've only got so much building material in me, too (some of which was already borrowed from God)! But I think the scene you describe would "work" for some marriages, because for some wives it is easier to imagine contact after some recovery (look at the miraculous change in gemini!) <P>The XOW emailed once after it was clear she couldn't blackmail my H into visiting, said that my H told her when he learned of pregnancy (during affair) that he would have contact with OC irregardless of wife, career, etc. He admitted he had said that, but "contact" to him (occassional) didn't mean to him what it meant to XOW (frequent!), that he was no longer willing to give up his marriage to get it, and that he never wanted to be with XOW even if I divorced him. She's shown her true colors.<P>Did that answer the question? </B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR> pretty much, just wondering how others feel<P>

Well my husband said he wanted nothing to do with oc, then ow came around saying things to make him feel guilty, Like at daycare oc says theres my daddy and so on, bunch of crap really, anyway he felt guilty went behind my back saw oc about 2 times a month for about 5 months I knew about it couldn't get him to tell me the truth about it so I let it go because if nothing else I know my husband and I knew he would get bored, that the novelty would wear off, and it did he came clean with me said he really felt nothing for oc and felt it would be better for all involved to just let it alone and let ow deal with her child, as it turns out all she wanted was h to come over and see her and stay after oc went to bed, she even took his keys away one time so he could not leave! anyway a lie always comes out sooner or later

whatif,<BR>[so the wife asks again and again. In this case if the hubby does finally say what the wife wants to hear, do you think it is better that he says it becaus it is what wife wants and maybe it will give marriage some time? i feel after the hubby makes up his mind it is made up and i know i could have "forced" my hubby to tell me there was never going to be contact but deep down i would have known that someday there would be.]<BR> <BR> I'm going to turn this around what if the wife finally says what the h wants to hear and says she will have contact with oc when she knows deep in her heart it will never work. Any ideas on this?<BR> <BR> I'm thinking as far as wifes feelings on this is it right that she lies and says she can do something that she really feels she cannot just to try to fix what h did wrong in the first place. I just dont think so. To me if he really wants to fix the marriage then thats what he needs to work on the marriage, not convinceing her that he could never live without oc in his life and trying to change her feelings. <P>I think when I first learned of this whole ordeal,if my h would have went against anything to do with ow that I felt indiffrent about I would have said screw you I'm done. I was so angery he probly would not have walked away in one piece either. Just a new twist to an old tale.<BR> with love flowerseed<BR>