How many of you still respect your H? I have a hard time respecting mine after he had an A and oc. Do you have a hard time?

Jordy,

This is a hard one to recover. A couple of years into his affair, I found myself very attracted to a friend at work. We became very good friends. The problem was that I developed much stronger feelings and it appeared to me that he returned my interest. We never once spoke about feelings, we never once did anything in the least bit appropriate. Mr. J knew every time I met my friend and we kept meetings to public places. When I realized that my feelings for him where keeping me from fully participating in my marriage, I withdrew from the friendship with barely an explanation to my friend. (How do I know he might have returned my feelings? When Mr. J and I moved away, my friend gave me a gift of a movie. We both speak a few langagues and it was a foreign film that he had liked and told me about. It is about a married woman and a single man who have a friendship that threatens to become something more. Actually, they tell each other they love each other and make plans to run off. They abort their plans as they do not want to hurt her husband who is also his friend.)

So, I feel a bit like, I did it. I walked away from a potential lover. I chose to work on my marriage rather than step out of it. Why couldn't he (Mr. J)? I had as many unmet needs and I fled from the scene of a possible affair.
I feel more honorable than he was and it is hard to repair a marriage when I am busy telling myself what a good person I was. I imagine it can be pretty tough living with Saint MaryJanes.

Maybe I walked away from this potential disaster is because for me, a possible affair was about feelings and I knew that feelings for another man would wreak my marriage even if they remained unspoken. For Mr. J it started as sex. She offered, he accepted. Then his feelings got involved and they were off to the races. He should have known, given some very basic facts about his own nature, that his emotions were bound to follow where his body led. He felt love, but mostly what he felt was guilt and responsibility toward her. Kinda twisted, huh? I am not sure he can sort out true love and dependence.

I try and look on it as D-day beginning a new marriage for us. It was a chance to wipe the slate clean and start a new, truthful marriage. I respect how far he has come from that day. They were deeply emotionally entangled with all sorts of dependency issues between them.

I miss his old integrity. Back when we were first married we were in counseling for just a couple of weeks and our counselor made us write 20 things we liked about each other. My first item on my list was his integrity. It was more than just honesty in our marriage (which we had at that time). It included that he stuck up for the underdog, that he was willing to take risks for what he believed was right. He replaced his integrity with an OW and made money his god and a German sports car (or two) his temple.

He can recover what he once was. It is easier for someone to go back to what they were than for someone who has never been there to acquire that trait. I believe in him. Now if he would just believe in himself.

MJ

<small>[ September 17, 2002, 09:20 AM: Message edited by: MaryJanes ]</small>

Yes, I have lost much respect for H . It has not come back. Like MJ, I had integrity, honesty, and trust high up on my emotional needs . THe A and OC have destroyed those. My H throughout most of his life was incredibly respectable, almost conservative in his actions and thinking. To do this is unthinkable in the world he typically occupied. What he has done has modified all I have thought of him.

At the beginning, I still considered him a good father, one his kids could respect. Now I know that I do not feel that either. THe sad thing,. is that this huge mistake has ruined him being the role model to his kids I expected from him, he expected from himself, and they deserve. No amount of saying I'm sorry will take that away from all of us.

I hope one day my respect for him will return-but is is extremely tarnished. and my H knows this.

It is very sad for both of us.

JJ,
Yes I to have a hard time even thinking about respecting my H again after what he has done. My dday was 6 months ago, his A lasted about 3 months. The possible OC is not born yet. I thought I had the perfect marriage, boy was I wrong. I pray that my respect for my H comes back as we are working very hard (most of the time) on our marriage.

God Bless

DBH