Just a thought in reading your post. Have you followed the Patient Love/Arik story at all? Your situations are similar except betrayer roles are reversed and you are nowhere near as arrogant as Arik. Maybe Patient Loves post will give you some insite into your H feelings. <BR> <BR>You say you haven't filed for divorce because they should be a way to save your marriage. There is a way. But it requires both of you to do some hard work. How about counseling with Steve Harley?<P>You say you feel guilt, shame, remorse and yet you continue the affair?!!? It would seem to me that you are really confused. Hopefully, you and your H won't make any final decisions while you are both so upset. <BR>

Spark<BR>you know I love you I just don't know how to find my way back. You have hurt me so badly as I have hurt you. I am scared of getting burned and buring you. God how I wish I could say "Yes let's try!" but I know I am weak and what the most likely outcome would be if I said I wouldn't have contact. I can't bear the pain and guilt of hurting you anymore. Because I do love you and when I hurt you I hurt myself.<BR>There just doesn't seem to be any way back onto our path, and people today just keep on throwing up more detour signs. <BR>I know no more lifelines, (god did I ever have them?) can I at least use the magic 8 Ball? <BR>

But a decision has to be made by Saturday and it is almost a decision by default. Because I know how weak I am and that we would 99% just be setting ourselves up for another hard hard fall, I can't do that to him.<BR>I am confused T_d, and hey I appreciate you not flaming me this time. <BR>Cat<BR>

You are saying that "PEOPLE TODAY KEEP PUTTING UP DETOURS". Come on now, now it's PEOPLE TODAY's fault that you are afraid to work on YOUR marriage. NO ONE HAS THE POWER OVER YOUR MARRIAGE EXCEPT YOU AND SPARKY! That is not a 1000 shades of grey area.

Again Trying, you are basing your opinion without knowing the story of our life. I think Allen would agree with me on this one But that is for he and I to discuss, which is who my post was to, as I knew he would understand what I was referring to.<P>I am the only one to blame for where we are right at this moment but life isn't defined by a single event. There are a thousand shades of gray and events from our past that have led us to this point and color our decisions. <P>I am not passing the blame, if you read my posts I take blame for where we are now. And I am basing my decisions on what I know to be true about myself at this point in my life. <P>Why do you feel such anger toward me?

Cat: I read your post and I hope I am not the poster that you are referring to. If I am , my deepest apologies for interferring. I too, am a betrayer and thorougly understand what you are going through in regards to feelings and responsibility of actions, but that does not make us bad people. I feel extreme guilt for my behavior, plus all the other problems I am experiencing and I am currently struggling to survive. My intention is not to drag anyone else down with me. No one else needs to feel the depths of doom that I feel. If your spouse is who I think it is, I hear my spouse's voice, when your spouse speaks. My spouse does not communicate much so I depend alot on non-verbal cues and sometimes my paranoia kicks in. So listening to your spouse and others who have been betrayed gives me the other side of the story and helps me work on the recovery of my marriage. I don't know what went on in your relationship with your spouse or OM or why it happened, but I do know that we are human and sometimes we do things that will help us get through whatever stress, problem, concern we are experiencing whether it's negative or positive behavior. That does not make us evil people. It's what we learn from our behaviors. It's lessons I am learning as I am talking to you. My prayers and love to you. And if you allow me to, a hug as well.

ummmmmm....<P>foot in mouth.....help...help...<P>let's see...does Dylan understand correctly??<P><BR>sparky loves cat.<P>cat loves sparky.<P><BR>see sparky's pain.<P>see cat's pain.<P><BR>see all the bullsh!t in between....<P><BR>if OW in our case was not 100% gone, you would see Deut's stuff on front lawn.<P>you would see Dylan getting on with life without Deut...<P>you cannot move forward in your marriage, or have a hope in hell of recovering from this while having sex with someone else. period.<P>it is cruel to expect him to WANT to do anything..including showing you hope of saving your marriage while you are having sex with someone else. period.<P>sparky, ultimatums do not work...no one wins...period.<P>so again......<P>sparky loves cat.<P>cat loves sparky.<P><BR>get rid of OM and see what happens to cat and sparky.<P>is your marriage, love, progeny and self-respect not worth that one sacrifice?<P>Dylan<BR>sacred_rain@yahoo.com

Sobeit, God NO, I was not talking about you!<BR>Heck if anything you have helped Allen and I have a non-threatening conversation topic, someone else to worry about rather then ourselves. for that We are grateful to You!<P>I would welcome a hug from you any day, and maybe someday in a perfect world if I can click my heels three times and find my way home we could all meet. <P>I appreciate you responding and I am glad you passed on the gun permit! <P><BR>It is a another beautiful day here, are your crocuses blooming? Ours are in full bloom and the tulips are about three inches high, when do you think the next ice storm is going to hit? <P>Please, don't even give it a second thought about what I said in a previous post, it was not in any way referenced to you.<P>Looks like another good weekend for a motorcycle ride! <P>(Hugs) back to you Sobeit.<BR>Cat<BR>

Okay just my take but you seem to want to try and make the marriage work but keep giving excuses as why you cannot even try. Like trying said your marriage has nothing to do with anybody else but you and your H. You seem to be GIVING this OM way too much power over you! Take it back and at least give your marriage a try.<P>FWIW I don't agree with the ultimatum thing. I understand your H wants the pain to beover but as you have probably read here the pain does not necessarily end with the decision to divorce. There should be a timeline of course for a decison to be made but 1 week!<P>Again I don't know if either of you are in counseling but it might help even if you do decide to end the marriage. Are either of you on anti-deps? Maybe if you both agreed to counseling and no contact letter to OM? At least give it a try. <BR>

Hey Cat,<P>You both have the power to either make or break this marriage. What he does or doesn't do is out of your control. What is in your control is what you do. Either side can and should give, but one doesn't have to be a condition of the other. You don't have to wait on him to plan A before making a serious committment to end the affair and do your part to restore love. Just as he really doesn't have to wait on you to plan A. The thing is both eventually need to happen. The marriage won't survive otherwise. Someone has to put their taker aside and bring out their giver. I know you'd like it to be him, but as you have no control over what he decides you can and should take the initiative. You can teach him to meet your needs. If I was writing to Allen I'd tell him the same thing. Take the initiative. As a matter of fact this does go out to Allen too. If you need to blame...swallow it equally and then learn from the mistake.<P><BR>As the indigo girls say...<P>Tell all the friends that think they're so together that these are ghosts and mirages all these thoughts of fairer weather...So we sit here in our storm and drink a toast to the slim chance of love's recovery.

Caterpillar,<P>You don't know me from Adam, but I have been following you and your H's posts since you came here. This particular thread almost has me in tears and if you knew me you would be astounded that it has such an affect. I am not the teary type.<P>Let me tell you what I see in your post and what I see in SparkyDogs post. I see two people in great pain. I see you as a person who is afraid she will fail again. You feel that if you don't try you will not hurt anyone anymore, but of course you know that is not true. <P>The pain of this marriage failing will be carried on by your H and You till you die. And it will be felt by your children for the rest of their lives in one form or another.<P>You claim that you are too weak and therefore you cannot make a promise or attempt to try and rebuild. Cat you are not too weak. You are not strong either, but few people are really. What you can do is make a small step. Then another small step and then another. <P>You will faulter on some steps but you can make those steps. I know you can.<P>I suspect you are afraid to give up the OM and try to rebuild with H. You are afraid that you will lose your OM. But let me ask you this. Your H has be devastated by this affair but he has told you he still loves you. Could your OM stand for you to leave him and try to rebuild your marriage? Is he strong enough to lose you and still be there? If the answer is no, then you picked the wrong OM, your H is a better man. If the answer is yes, then test him and try to rebuild with your H.<P>Cat, you know and I know and everyone knows that you may fail sometimes on this commitment to not contact OM again, but we also know that as time goes on it can and will get easier for you to make this promise stick. I am a realist. I've read extensively on this board, the betrayers do occasionally backslide but if their heart is in trying to rebuild, they get back up and keep trying.<P>Your post here I suspect is due to the extreme anguish of having to chose between your H, who you know loves you and wants to preserve the family and the OM who loves you (apparently and will breakup your family). I have written this so that the choice seems more obvious than it is. <P>For you it is a hard choice, but you can chose to try Cat. Just try and restore your family. You are not chosing to guarentee that you, SparkyDog, and the children will live happily ever after. You cannot make that guarentee.<P>There is so much I want to say to you, but the words just fail me. Cat, love is a verb you can love your H and you can regain the feelings you want. It is obvious from this posting you still have feelings for him and it is very obvious that he has them for you. This thing is killing him, hence the Ulitmatum. He is not trying to be mean to you, Cat, he is trying to save your marriage and he cannot handle it any other way right now.<P>Cat, when I first read this post, my first reaction was to say fine, you made the choice to have an affair. I hope you get the opportunity to feel what your H is feeling. I know the odds are high that you will, your OM will leave you at some point or at least have an affair. <P>But I didn't post immediately and I read the other responses and I realized that this is not really a post to tell everyone to buzz off and plead for sympathy, but rather the post of an anguished person faced with a very difficult decision. On the one hand you know the right decision to make. On the other you have no faith that you can trust yourself to make the right decision. Further, you have no faith in your H. Oddly but not unusual you do have faith in the OM. Seems strange from the outside but I'm sure it makes sense to you.<P>I guess my advice to you is to have faith in your maker. I don't know your religion, but if you have one, this is the perfect time to pray to your God and ask for help. You can have faith in him.<P>One last thing and then I promise to shut up. You worry about your H's reactions and feeling but look at the people he is trying to help here. Why is he doing this? Ask him! My bet is that this whole mess has transformed him in ways you cannot imagine yet. But I will make a sizable wager, if you were to hold out your hand and ask for help from him in this mess, you would have the most dedicated helper you will ever find.<P>Cat, things have changed and more will change, they can be good or bad, it depends on your faith.<P>God Bless You and Your Family,<P>JL

Great post, soulloss. You do have a way with words.<P>I am mostly a lurker have maybe posted 3 or 4 times in the 5 mos I have lurked at this site.<P>You two just seem like you have such potential to recover and have a great marriage I was somehow compelled to come out of lurkdom. I am neither betrayed nor betrayer so have no real experience in all this. Just what I read here and the gazillon relationship/marriage books I have read trying to resolve problems in my own marriage. So I guess I will shut up and let those with experience in these matters reply to you.<P>I hope everything works out for you two!

I am just not the type to hush, when you can see 2 people that obviously are looking for answers to CHANGE things, but then give every excuse not to. If you are afraid to try then admit that and then start from their of what/why you are both afraid. But this behavior of "well he isn't kissing up to me like OP is" is just alittle too much of a slap in the face to a betrayed. Have you given any reason or security to your H that he should want to Plan A. Yes, the fact that he is still in this marriage and telling you he wants to try is a symbol. He is coming to a place of comfort and support because he feels it falls on deaf ears from you. He is expected to open up, and then STILL have you run to OM, so that you can talk to OM and not him. I am taking this too personally because it is something that I continue to go through. Expected to not cause an uncomfortable discussion, not give any headaches, not ask questions, not fight for my rights in an unfair situation because the topic was not one that spouse wanted to discuss EVER. Expected to just move on, don't expect any promises of fidelity and no contact because who knows what will happen tomorrow. PUHLEASE! This just really ticks me the $&%& off! Sorry, but i have said enough and tomorrow I will be in a more understanding mood to discuss this with you rationally. I promise to be better tomorrow, so Cat let me apologize now.

After reading the posts you both sound like really neat people who really want a good marriage together. It is really hard because you are risking that the other will hurt you. Well, you are both right. You will hurt each other in the future, but you need to resolve to just get up, dust yourselves off, and keep on trying. <P>You obviously have a lot going together and have the potential for a great marriage. <BR> <BR>Sparky- do plan A because it is the right thing, if you screw up, apologize. <P>Cat- tell the OM that you will never have any contact with him ever again. Do this because it is the right thing. When the temptation to see him comes, talk to Sparky, and apologize for this feeling.<P>Sparky- When Cat tells you that she has been tempted to see the OM again, thank her profusely for telling you about it and not doing it. Find out what it is that she needs at that time and do it. <P>This plan will require both of you to do the opposite of what your emotions are screaming at you to do, but it can be done. <P>May the Lord Bless You and Keep You.<BR>John

Soulloss, thanks for your reply. I hear what you are saying. And I also read your other thread about anger. That is something I fear greatly. His anger at me and my anger at him. The feeling that it will all come tumbling down at a later date and the hurt will be much worse. The feeling that at least now we do know we love each other would we destroy that with one more try? <P>T-d and Beth, thanks for the replies I appreciate your concern and input.<P>Just Learning What the Hell are you doing inside of my head?? <P>These two quotes you read straight from my thoughts:<P>"I see you as a person who is afraid she will fail again. You feel that if you don't try you will not hurt anyone"<BR>Very very true, and I also won't be hurt again. Allen and I have spent the past ten years perfecting our ability to hurt each other. We know exactly what buttons to push and what triggers to pull. He now has so much amunition to use, I am already wounded and as I told him last night "I just can take his pain anymore, I can't deal with it, I can barely deal with my own" <P>*On the one hand you know the right decision to make. On the other you have no faith that you can trust yourself to make the right decision. Further, you have no faith in your H. Oddly but not unusual you do have faith in the OM. *<BR>Why is that? because he hasn't directly hurt me? And also it is a feeling I have done the "right" thing all my life,usually for someone else. When is it time to do something that may be right for me and not do it just because it is "right" or "I should". <P>You post was wonderful and I greatly appreciate you taking the time to post it. I felt like you truely nailed my fears and feelings. Thank you for understanding.<P>Trying, I do understand why you are responding the way you did, and I fully expected it from someone. But I also don't want Allen to always be trying to forgive, or have a heart full of anger for me the rest of our lives. And that is why I asked for a divorce in the first place, because I wasnt' going to do that to him. We agreed on a seperation and now we are at this point. <P>Isittolate, Thanks for the support and reply, I appreciate it. Gosh it all sounds so simple when you read it, but so hard to apply.<P>

Caterpillar,<P>Let me ask you this. If you two know which buttons to push to make each other angry, do you know the buttons to push to make each other happy? Cat, what is not clear to you but is clear to us is that chosing to go with the OM is not doing something for yourself, it is doing something TO yourself. <P>You will never be able to face yourself again without thinking of the cheating and the pain and what you are doing to your family. <P>I strongly suspect that you will never be able to truely forgive yourself. Oh! your OM may bring you some happiness, but he will not be able to bring you peace. You will only get peace if you forgive Sparky.<P>You see to me your issues are not him forgiving you and making it work. Your main issue is: can you forgive your H? If you search your soul and feel that you can forgive him, then your marriage has a very good chance to be happy and successful. You are still see marriage as a combat zone, and you are not forgiving your H. <P>If I was running the world, I would sit you two down and have you face each other. Then I would ask (no DEMAND) that you address all of your grievances. Then I would ask if both of you had it in your hearts and souls to forgive the other for what they have done. <P>I believe that you both do have it in you to do this. Your marriage got to the state it was before the affair by the considerable efforts of both of you. You made a very bad choice and gave yourself and your heart to another man before resolving your marriage issues.<P>Yet, the marriage issues if resolved will make the need for Sparky to hold this over you go away. He is in pain, but the pain is more for losing you than the physical act of the affair. You see he still loves you and whether you go or stay the pain of this will only lesson with time. But the healing of you and your soul will only come from forgiveness.<P>You need to forgive him. Then you will be receptive to his love and forgiveness. Finally, you will be able to forgive yourself.<P>So much more to say, but think about this OK?<P>God Bless You and Your Family,<P>JL

Cat<P>Sorry I am replying late in this post. I think Dylan gives some good advice here. It does seem like you are reaching out for something. It takes honesty and strength to post like that. I will not ever "flame" anyone here because we simply all have been in too much pain. Excuse me, if the OW in my case comes on here, I take that back, I will torch her. But anyone else, you can always expect a sympathetic ear from me.<P>It sounds like you and Sparky are nowhere near thru here. I do agree its hard to want the marriage with OM around. But I guess in all honesty, you need to give him up if and when you;re ready. I haven't spoke to Sparky personally, but if he is watching, I gave my H an ultimatum and it backfired and he ran to OW. So please, Sparky, if you want this to work (and let me see some recovery around here!) try the Plan A. There are people who get results. Both of you obviously love one another. Don't put a time limit on this.<P>Good luck to you both, I will watch you more closely, it amazes me how many h/w post here. I didn't know you too were married. I can't comment too much until I try and read more of your story. Prayers to you both, Dana<P>

Remember this:<P>The FEAR of the anger or pain (or whatever emotion) is worse than the actual emotion itself when and if it happens.<P>Thinking of you both and wishing and hoping for the best outcome for you all.<P>Judy

Cat,<P>Alas, there doesn't seem to be a clear plan for betrayers to heal. We are told many times about "consequences" and "getting what we deserve", but no one, unless they have been a fly on the wall our entire marriage, can know what pain we've experienced before the affair. I understand your frustrations regarding the hurt you feel over your H's past behavior. Because we betrayed our H's sexually, somehow that means that we aren't allowed to be hurt, or mad, or anything else about our marriages before the affair. We're not allowed to be mad or upset about some of the destructive things our spouses may due after disclosure either, "part of the consequences" they say. I thoroughly understand. <P>What I see now are two people who both have been hurt alot and so much want to find a way to make their marriage work. I applaud your H for sticking with things this long, and I applaud you for giving up the OM. Now you can really start to heal. I don't have the answer on how to do that, cause I have a long way to go myself.