I dont normally share lots of my life with people, but I really do want to save my marriage, and need some advice and I have looked every where and this is the closet I have come to finding a legitiment website. I have been married 18 years, H has had almost as many affairs, I know how devistating it is, H says he loves us and never wants to leave, but he doesnt ever want to talk or have fun or do any thing with the family, he has never bought presents or even cards for birthdays , anniversarys, whatever, he always misses the boat, but I am not materialistic, so i have learned to adjust.
However after 15 years of this, I met OM and we began a friendship and after a year became lovers, This lasted, 3 years and we now have a child together. She is a beautiful baby, however, i decided to stay with my husband and he is crazy about baby. Treats her with all the love she could want. The xOM is out of my life but in hers, we have no anger for each other and treat each other with respect, as well I treat his wife with great respect, in time we have learned to share my daughter, and work through most situations with out much difficulty, problem is husband is the only one that refuses to work through this and I dont know how to fix it. He believes OM needs to know child , but is not very ammicable to people when they come to my home to pick her up. This woman and I dont like each other, but we are polite and friendly in front of child, because we all want her to be healthy. My husband doesnt understand why i am not rude, and I think his feelings are hurt. How do I do whats right for baby and still make husband feel loved as well. I am not trying to start an argument, I know being the other woman, is taboo here, and I UNDERSTAND AND RESPECT THAT, BUT WOULD LOVE TO HAVE SOME HELP OR ADVICE. I know this is a very painful subject for you all, and you have helped me see how oms wife probably feels and she has over come alot to be nice to me as well.
ok enough of this, ANY HELP WOULD BE GREAT.

Mom of five,<p>I wanted to tell you that you are not alone here. There are some here that have been in your situation.
I don't have much in the way of advice for you. But I do have an understanding ear and a deep feeling of respect for those trying to do the best thing for the children of these situations.<p>You and your family will be in my prayers.<p>May the Lord guide you,

Thanks, for not lashing out, I sorta expected it, I do know how sensitive this is, But we love our daughter and so we have all chose together to be parents, I just want my husband to be able to do this as well, without all the anger, ITS ok if he hates OM but I want him to learn not to show it, so children do not have uneeded stress. Think I am asking too much?

MOF, I am basically in the same situation as you although the OM in my situation is not married. My D is 11 months old. My H also hates the OM and rightly so. He avoids him at all costs. My H does not want OM in our home and I respect that. When OM picks up or drops off my D I go out to his car. I realize that there will be times when complete avoidance will be impossible. We live in a very small town and we will run into him someday I'm sure. Also when our D starts school there will be functions to attend. I know my H can and will never be able to be "polite" to this man, but I also know he would never show his hate in front of our children. He would walk away instead. I don't know if time will change things but I am leaving that up to my H. Only he knows what he can handle in regards to the OM and I have to respect his feelings in that matter. As for now, my H has a wonderful relationship with our D and that is what is most important to me.

I am thrilled my husband loves our daughter, but I guess I thought he should work through it like I did all his Affairs, we live in a relativley small town and people know, MY H doesnt act ugly in front of children, he just ignores the situation all together and I think in time daughter will see that and it will hurt her. Dealing with the W has not been easy, but OM has been very good at mediating for us. I am learning to deal with it.

Well, my H has never had an A, at least not that I know about, so maybe I don't feel that he owes me anything in that regard. I think as far as my D is concerned that it is important for the OM and myself to maintain a civil relationship and we have. After what I have done to my H I can't ask him to put anyones feelings ahead of his own. This is not an easy situation all the way around so of course not everything is going to go perfectly. As long as there is no visible hostility flying around in front of my D then I can live with it. My H doesn't ignore the situation. He can talk with me about the OM and visits in a perfectly normal manner. When our D is getting ready to go on a visit my H will talk to her and say things like" Are you going bye-bye? You be a good girl and have a good time and daddy will see you when you get home." His only problem is actually having to see or talk to the OM. Other than that it is talked about and dealt with in a very normal manner in our home.

maybe were not doing as bad as I thought, we do all that as well, I do notice he plays with her for a long time as soon as she returns, she doesnt spend the night, just a few hours here and there.
I guess I expect to much , I am going to try and back off and not mention it. I think he wants me to be mean to the other man and I am not. I am not overly friendly, just polite.

Mom of five:<p>I would suggest that you have no contact with the xOM at all. Let your husband mediate the visits between your daughter and them. That would seem to diffuse some of the tension that is inherent in this type of situation.<p>I'd also urge you both to be in marriage counseling. The phone counseling available through MB is terrific---you can call 888-639-1639 for an appointment.

I think it would be great if he took that part over and have asked him to he wont, he will not even go with me, and if they are coming here to get her he leaves, he wants me to do it.

I really think that counseling for this is a 'must.' If your H won't go, go alone. Sometimes all it takes is one spouse to improve themself and the marriage improves which leads to the other spouse being willing to work on things.<p>There is a lot of pain in this situation, on all sides. If you have both been involved in affairs, your marriage needs help. Don't sweep this under the rug and expect it to all go away. It doesn't-I've been there. It's harder to work thru the more time that passes.<p>You may be devoting attention to the child in an attempt to avoid intimacy or conflict with your H. Your child deserves to be in a home with 2 adults that love each other.<p>Don't let money hold you back either. Divorce costs a whole lot more than counseling. Good luck

I totally agree about the counseling. You can even get the Harleys by phone if you'd rather not see one in person. <p>Listen to K, who is successfully raising an OC and good at Harley principles. <p>Ideally you and H should be operating by Policy of Joint Agreement and Policy of Honesty (look up principles at this site!). I understand that if the marriage were ideal, you wouldn't be in this situation. However, it sounds like you, OM, and OM'sW made this decision to all raise this OC together without consulting your H. If my H and XOW did something similar without my consent, I don't think I'd be feeling really cooperative, you know? No matter how "reasonable" the rest of you are being, your loyalty (and your H's) should be with each other.<p>Best wishes on improving your marriage!!!!!!!
J
3+ years recovery and happy [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img]

Hi MoF,
It's like K said, your hubby needs to step up to the plate. It's the right thing, to protect your marriage from OP--not that it is threatened any more, but... I think it might help your H to be able to look OM in the eye and send the message that you and he are a united front and that what all has happened is particularly not a threat to him... basically... He's also the father of the OC and has more influence because he lives with her every day!<p>His hatred for OM cannot outweigh his desire to protect his marriage from OM.

My husbands insurance pays one hundred percent for any counseling for the entire family. My husband wont go, says it is silly and he doesnt need it. My husband and I made the decision to allow OM in DD life. He agreed with me that she needs to know him.
The wife decided to get involved because other man had decided to be a dad and he told her she could join or not, her choice.
However I try and reinforce the fact that she only visits other man, she lives with us. I could say I have put Daughter in front of husbands needs, and I know that is wrong, I have been working on that lately and see some response from him.

Mo5,,, what maggierose said about putting your d 1st before h and you agreed is a definate drawback. i am feeling that fh is doing the same thing. she is having a hard time openning up to me and when she does comes to greet me at the end of my work day she is always carrying grace. it feels to me that she is useing grace like the buffer in case i don't acknowledge her she always has grace to hold onto. i would like to have some time alone with fh where she isn't holding the baby.

POPS
I didnt think of it that way, after all, the baby is so innocent in all this, He always seems thrilled to see her when he comes home, He feels angry that OM and W want to see baby when, they chose not to help at first. He thinks OM should walk away, but he wont, so i think we should just make the best of it.
I have tried the last two days to concentrate on H and he seems to be a little more pleasant. I dont leave baby very often, but have suggested we get a sitter and go out a little more.

pops,
I just read some of your other post about your story, which in some ways is similar to mine, I wish I could get my husband to read, I think I didnt feel as bad as I should, because he had cheated on me so often over the years, I guess I felt, he does it all the time, why so upset, It never seemed to bother him all those years I spent crying.
I never considered an abortion, in fact I thought child was H Because OM is 20 years older and frankly I thought too old to have a child, silly i know.
Husband was seeing someone from internet when I got pregnant and during pregnancy, he was so supportive, course I didnt know someone else was there, last time he saw her, baby was one month old.
H was there when baby was born and has helped so much with her. I never thought he might resent her a little, he doesnt act like it. He is angry about sharing father role. And OM is angry that he is here to share it. He thinks I should divorse and do it yesterday. I dont

mo5,,, i don't hold any resentment towards grace. when i look into her eyes i see all the wonder of a beautiful child. the innocence in her eyes, the sounds of wonder when they squeal and aqueal, and the way they smell. when i hold grace it is in a different way then i held any of my other children. and i don't mean that in a negative way. my heart feels for her also in ways that i will never feel for my own kids. i do however see a lot of hurt when i look at her and the past slips into my thoughts.<p>as i have stated in previous posts i do feel however that fh needs to get cs from her bio dad. if he chooses to exercise his right to viitation then so be it and we will let the chips fall as they may with the relationship between fh and myself. we need to work on one thing at a time. as catnip mentioned in one of her posts i have gotten to the point where i am no longer afraid of the terrible d word. if it is in my future i know i will survive. <p>i am sort of in the same boat as wib's h as i have never had an A. i am truely shocked at the hipocracy your h is showing in the fact that he has had so many A's and even was involved in one during your pregnancy. he must surely see the pain and distruction that an A can cause. maybe he is feeling some quilt in some way and doesn't know how to deal with it. if not i would make a quess that somewhere in his mind he feels that it is a mans deal to be able to fool around as long as there is no emotions involved. i have seen this attitude with many of the younger employees who have worked for me. <p>this is also for wib,,, i am not trying to tell you wib that your husband is not dealing with things. i do want to say that i know exactly how he feels about not wanting to deal with the om.
i never want to deal with him either but that doesn't change how i feel about his responsibility to grace. i am of a different mind set in that i want all contact to go through me and not fh. if he wants visitation then he needs to call me and arrange it. when he comes to pick her up and drop her off it needs to be through me. <p>wib,, i am also like your h in the fact that i have chosen to avoid all violent behavior in my life whenever possible. i have had some very bad experiences with violence in my past and have chosen to stay away from it. i have decided that i need to teach my children a better and more mature way of dealing with adversities. this has been very hard for me with some of the situations i have walked through. in fact shortly after d-day i was face to face with the om and 2 of my kids were in the car. for that reason only i made the choice to walk away instead of getting violent. i hope that they were able to learn a valuable lesson. anyhow wib if what you say is true about your h hating the om then i think you need to address the issue with him if you haven't already. i also hate the om in my life and these feelings are what i was refering to in regards to your h in our previous posts on this subject. this feeling of dislike is part of the problem i am haveing in regaining my feelings towards fh. i just think that maybe your h has some of these feelings bottled up inside. i hope he can work through them as i am sure you hope i can work through mine. i am not trying to attack or insinuate anything just make you aware of something that may be standing between the 2 of you. hopefully i am wrong.<p> pops