tonite has been very bad. i am at a point where i thought<BR>i knew what to do, but i don't. i came home tonite in a bad<BR>mood, mostly because i was tired and sick of work. i was pleasant at the door with H and started to tell him about my day. i mentioned something about this new girl at work and how all the men are drooling over her.(she is okay looking but she brags about her sex life and all the people she has done it with.) i started to get upset,(inside my head and heart) i could not put my finger on why i didn't like her until just then. she looks ALOT like the naked picture woman. so i told H this. i said (which i know now that i shouldn't have) that she looks alot like that B%$#@<BR>that you did. WRONG THING TO SAY i admit. did not go over well. i just felt my emotions coming over me. i said her name and asked H if that was her. he said yes, in a sarcastic sort of voice. i knew it wasn't her, but i still had to ask as I STILL DO NOT KNOW WHAT OW NAME WAS, IS OR WHATEVER. MY H said I will never know. <P>my H and i got into huge fight about getting over things and issues and the A and what I did to him the past four years and what led him to the A and so on. he says he will not get over what i did to him until i get over what he did to me. i said that is ridiculous. you get over things at your own pace, not just because a light bulb goes on and POOF!, its over. yeah....i wish it were that easy. i would be having light bulbs go on daily if not hourly.<BR>he thinks i am dragging it out and keep rehashing the past. i am, but not to torture him. it is because of the torture i still feel inside because of his A. if he still feels torture from the way i treated him, then he has a right to, and i won't try to rush him into fake feelings because that will get us nowhere.<P>i feel horrible tonite. worse than i have felt in a few days. things go wonderful one minute and crappy the next. if he only knew how i wish i could turn these feelings off and forget they ever happened, i would. sometimes i feel so free and other times i feel as if i have lost my whole world. at times like these, i don't know if it is going to work. he keeps bringing up time issues and my attitude about the OW and the A. i believe he is still trying to justify what he did by the way i shut myself out from depression. he says he did not know how to help me. i tried therapists, but they got too expensive and they didn't want to put me on antidepressants too soon. sometimes i wish theywould have, because then this mess might never have happened. <P>i wonder at times like these, if i willmake it. right now i don't know. i still want to, but i don't know if i am that strong. i try to tell my self i am, but i don't believe myself. maybe i am a horrible creature who is uncapable of love. i am now seriously thinking about it.<BR>maybe i am just dragging it out. maybe i am crying for no reason. maybe i sit alone and cry and weep for the way things should have been and could have been, but i was not strong enough. maybe H deserves better. maybe i am just a loser like i have been for the past 7 years. i don't know what to think now. i need help....please help me.....<BR>

i want to be a better person and i really am trying. i think about who i want to be constantly. it is on my mind 24/7. i dream about it.<BR> <BR>i just don't know if i am strong enough. i want to be the woman he wants and desires and runs to. i want to be the shelter and the strong woman and everything. i want to be the wife, mother, lover, student, sister, daughter....everything....i know right now i have to concentrate on wife, lover, and mother, and that is what i am trying to do. i very very rarely speak to my family right now because we have been so busy with us. and that is fine with me. i don't feel bad about that at all.<BR>i don't think it is enough for H though. he wants me to be everything now, and for the most part i have really tried but i can't let the pain go so easily. <P>i haven't cried this much in a long time. i don't know what to do. <P>i don't know if i will ever be good enough for H. if i could gain some selfesteem points, i would take them fast.<BR>right now, i have none. the very few i did have, went out on d-day. now, i have nothing. <P>i don't know what to do...........

Bluegirl,<P>Both of you deserve better. The only way that’s going to happen is if each of you gets better individually first. Then you will be able to work on your marriage together.<P>RE: “maybe i am just a loser like i have been for the past 7 years.”<P>Please don’t be so hard on yourself. You have done the best you could up this point in our marriage. You are not a looser; you are person struggling with what life has thrown your way.<P>If your psychiatrist was reluctant to give you antidepressants, you might want to see your family doctor. They too can do the evaluation for depression and prescribe medication.<P>I do not recall how long it’s been since your D-day. Could you remind me?<P>It takes a long time to get over an affair… at least 2 years is what I’ve heard. If your husband were more willing to take the responsibility for his actions and help you heal the process could be much easier. But I don’t think that is gong to happen any time soon. From his previous post it does appear that he is trying but has so much anger that he just cannot do it right now. You are going to have to take responsibility for your own healing right now.<P>Have you read the MB material and the books.. “Surviving an Affair”, “His Needs/Her Needs” and “Love Busters”? Go through the process of figuring out your needs and his needs. Then start plan A’ing like crazy. Meet your husband’s needs with as few love busters as possible. Be the wife he wants you to be. Right now he is waiting for you to change and you are waiting for him to change. It will never happen that way. One of you has to make the first move. Since you are the one here on MB I’d say you are it. <P>You have the same problem in your marriage that most of us do… no one ever taught us what we were supposed to do to have a good marriage. The MB material will teach you that. <P>The people here on MB, myself included, can help you in getting through this period of your marriage. Even though nolo was a little angry when he posted here, it was obvious that he loves you. He, like you is frustrated because he is hurt and does not know what to do. His pride is hurt too and that is always hard to deal with.<P>Z<P><P>------------------<BR>He loves not who does not show love.<BR>----William Shakespeare

zorweb,<BR>thanks for your kind words...<BR>its been 1 month today since d-day.<BR>maybe that is it, who knows.<BR>i will have to reread plan A more carefully.<BR>take care, bluegirl

bluegirl,<P>Today I am just a little over 3 months from d-day (March 22). At that point I as so non-funcitonal that I could not sleep, could not eat, was throwing up from the emotional pain, at work all I could do was stare at my computer screen all day.<P>I was looking for the two posts that I made dearly one about how i was falling apart. I can only find one of the them right now. Here's one I posted ....<BR> <A HREF="http://www.marriagebuilders.com/forum/Forum30/HTML/000735.html" TARGET=_blank>http://www.marriagebuilders.com/forum/Forum30/HTML/000735.html</A> <P><BR>You need more from you husband right now but it does not look like he is going to give it. I can tell you that the only reason I am at peace today is because SeenTheLight not only has taken total responsibity for his actions but he has also taken responsbility for helping me heal and for working on our marriage. Without that support you will have a harder time.<P>Unfortunately seems that the maritial repair is usually left up to the BS because he WS is so angry... why else would they have had the affair.<P>And do not beat yourself up again for not being intimate with him when he'd come to bed at 3 a.m., or what ever it was. A steady diet of that type on inconsideration would turn anyone one off. Try waking him up in the middle of his sleep every day for sex. You and he both keep saying that you were punishing him by refusing to have sex at those hours. How is that punishing him? I don't get it. <P>So it may be up to you right now. This is going to be a hard road. <P><P>------------------<BR>He loves not who does not show love.<BR>----William Shakespeare

zorweb:<BR>how do you do plan A if OW is out of the picture? i'm not sure i understand. i have read and reread what plan A is, but i don't get it if OW is already gone. how do i get H to love me and give me time, if nothing else is there?<BR>please respond...<P>H slept in chair last night. i was writing and fell asleep on end of bed crying til about 430am. <P>we fought again this morning. he still says he will not get over it until i do because what he did was because of what i did and i put him through it for 4 yrs. (the depression thing.) he said he did not know how to help me those 4 years and that is not his fault. i agree. it is not his fault that i was going through depression, but i did try to get help and was not intentionally making his life bad.<P>H said he knows plenty of people who would have left my sorry [censored]. that i should be thankful he is still here.<BR>no one would have put up with my crap for FOUR LONG YEARS.<BR>"can't you see what you did to me? that's why i had the A."<BR>he said this morning, amongst other things, that he should have left my sorry [censored] because no one deserves to be treated like that and it wasn't his fault that i felt like i did. agreed that it wasn't his fault i was depressed, but we have already gone over this subject. he told me that if he were the one depressed, he wouldn't have made my life miserable. i am getting some mixed signals.<P>one day he wants to give me all the time i need and the next, nothing. one day he is sorry, the next, i don't feel that he is very sorry. i believe now, that if i don't let the whole A thing go, he will leave, soon. <P>oh...but i can't. i have tried and tried and tried....i have cried and told myself to "just let it go" he wants you back. get over it. i have told myself i am weak,which i believe. i have never been a very strong person. but i do have integrity. i never would have slept with someone else. not that anyone would want me anyways, i am an emotional train wreck. today started out so badly, i am afraid of how it is going to end. H left for work already.<BR>i am very glad i don't work today. i should be, but am not.<P>do i forget everything and supress feelings so i can have my marriage and H back? <P>sometimes......i don't know if i will make it.....maybe i'm just not the marrying type. maybe i am doomed to live alone. maybe i am just not good enough for anyone to love like that. maybe i am self absorbed and should just get over it. my H keeps saying "its not all about you!"<P>i thought i realized this and was saving our marriage for us and for our family. H thinks differently. he thinks i am dragging this out to be cruel to him and keep rubbing in his face what he did....but i drove him into the arms of another woman, a friend so deep and caring and wonderful....<P><BR>blah blah blah...this is what i got this morning. i don't think my feelings count anymore. as long as i am still upset and not seeing his point of view, he is unhappy. i don't know how to stop my mood swings....god, i wish i could. i think not eating is a good thing. i am sooo sick.<BR>my eyes are huge and bloodshot, i forgot since yesterday what "me" looks like. now i am just a huge ball of emotional tears....maybe that's just me..........

Plan A has two purposes. The first is to end the affair and all contact in a caring way. The second is to negotiate with your spouse to agree to implement the Marital Recovery Agreement, which contains the Policy Joint Agreement, and the four rules of time, care, honesty and protection. To do the emotional needs questionnaire and all the other MB concepts.<P>From what you are saying you have accomplished the first. He has ended the affair. But you have not accomplished the second half. He has really agreed to rebuild your marriage. I could be wrong on this but that I my take on it. You are not in recovery until he agrees to some ground rules.<P>In Surviving an Affair, Dr. Harley says that most WSs never apologize for their affairs because they feel that they were driven to them by their spouse’s failure to meet one or more of their most important emotional needs (affection, sexual fulfillment, conversation, recreational companionship, financial support, physical attractiveness, honesty and openness, domestic support, family commitment, and admiration). Your husband has told you that you did not meet his need for sexual fulfillment. It is clear to me that he was probably not meeting your needs for affection and conversation. The point here is that the state of your marriage at the time he choose to have an affair is the responsibility of both of you. He however, chose to have an affair so the affair is his responsibility. If you want your marriage to recover, now is not the time to point fingers and lay blame. <P>From what I can recall of your previous posts I am not clear as to whether you withheld all sex from your husband for some protracted period of time or if you were not receptive to his waking you up for sex in the middle of the night constantly. This is actually a very important distinction to delve into for your marital recovery. <P>One of you is going to have to give up their position in this stalemate. It is of course up to you if you feel you can be the one to do this. But from the sounds of it, if you do not then your marriage is surely doomed. I know that your husband had an affair and his transgression is more “wrong” then anything you did. I know that he was also not meeting your needs. You could have chosen to have an affair if unmet needs were the only reason for his affair. You did not and he did. But today he feels justified. At this point it seems that your bringing up the affair is going to cause you more trouble. (In saying this you have to realize that I feel that he actually owes it to you to make things right. What he did was horrible.) But he is not going to budge right now. <P>At this point you may need to come here to MB for your emotional support about the affair. Perhaps over the next few days we can get you enough support to figure out how to handle this situation. Keep a journal and write about your feeling, frustrations, etc. I’ve noticed that some people leave their journal out so that their spouse can read it. This makes sense to me. You should have no secrets from your husband anyway.<P>If you start working on the MB concepts your self you will be healing yourself and learning to be a better wife and a better person. Your may or may not come around. If he does not then you will be stronger and more ready for the separation. You will be able to guild him through your marital recovery if he does come around. Do you want to be right or do you want to be married. That is your choice right now.<P>Is your husband saying some pretty jerky things right now? Sure he is and I’ll bet it goes both ways. You are both right and you are both wrong. <P>One thing that really worries me about your situation is that you say you have been depressed for a very long time. Discovering your husband’s affair seems to have thrown you into a deeper depression. This is expected. I really believe that you need to see your doctor to take get medication for the depression.<P>Hope this helps in some way.<P>Z<BR>