Rodger and Jeffers I could not have thought or said it better. I love the work I am doing in my marriage, and the rewards of what we are building together SOARS and is plentiful. But NOT WORKING we set ourselves up for the A to happen, and that will never happen again<BR>Maine<P>------------------<BR>IN the words of BOB the BUILDER!!" WE can fix it, yes we can!!!"

Rodger, you are so right!!!<P>SAD_N_LONELY you say, "Happy is not a 4-letter word, and marriage should not be "work". ANY good relationship requires work. Yes, people are attracted to each other and passionate early in relationships - but if you don't cultivate those feelings and do the maintenannce work those feelings will whither and die. Do you think the passion you feel for OW would always remain??? You seem like a smart man, I think you know better than that.<P>You say,"This is such a strange place to be, everywhere I turn (so to speak, emotionally, psychologically), I am told I am wrong." That's because YOU ARE WRONG. If life was so horrible why didn't you get out of your marriage THEN go find a nice SINGLE person to be with. The reason you feel guilty, is because you are guilty!<P>You say,"If someone really loved someone, wouldn't you let them go, without the anger and illwill (the I will never be your friend crap if you leave, but oh gee, if you stay I will just love you to pieces, so many of you are such hypocrits)." Let me just say that I am living this statement right now! I love my husband with all my heart and will do whatever I can to save my marriage. Yes, if he stays with me I will "love him to pieces", but he leaves NO I CANNOT be his friend. Why would I want to be friends with someone who has just crushed my world and taken away all the dreams I have for myself and my children. How could I have a friendly relationship knowing he didn't care enough for me to give our marriage one more chance. It would hurt so much to see him carrying on and giving the OW everything that I DESERVE! My friends don't hurt me like that!<P>Maybe you should spend less time on these boards and more time trying to find happiness with your wife. You say you want to be her friend? This is a good place to start!<P>Heck<P><BR>

People simply cannot just change the way they feel about something. Just as a WS can’t ask the BS to stop loving them and let them go with open hearts, a BS cannot expect WS to love them and want to stay for them when they don’t feel that way. You try and make sense of your feelings, force yourself to want it but its to no avail. BS tries to change, you realise that and feel sad for her doing all this for you because you feel that you just can’t do the same for her. You change you’re actions to make her happy but inside you are struggling with urself, almost cheating urself out of ur own happiness and it hurts. Given time and a lot of Plan A perhaps your feelings can change or perhaps you just settle with what you’ve got.

sad_n_lonely said,<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>everywhere I turn (so to speak, emotionally, psychologically), I am told I am wrong. That implies I am no good, unworthy, and somehow fundamentally a bad person.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>No, it doesn't imply that at all, but that statement is evidence of severe depression. <P>

So, you really think that WORK in marriage is a stupid concept? Let's think about this...<P>MARRIAGE IS WORK because many times we have to forgive and/or apologize when we're not wrong in order to keep the peace.<P>MARRIAGE IS WORK because we would love to forego the gym, just let our bodies go, eat every kind of donut in sight every day, and not have to perform gymnastics in bed!<P>MARRIAGE IS WORK because we have to leave the room to FART when we would love to just lie around and let 'em rip whenever and wherever we pleased!!!!!!!! <P>MARRIAGE IS WORK because we don't always get our way and we love getting our own way all the time.<P>MARRIAGE IS WORK because we love to spend money, but we agreed on a budget and therefore, choose to be patient and content.<P>MARRIAGE IS WORK because we didn't realize how much we would have to change in order to get along with another person.<P>MARRIAGE IS WORK because once the kids come along trying to run the household, it's very difficult to keep the little darlings from coming between us.<P>MARRIAGE IS WORK because there are times when we would love to just roll over and sleep rather than have sex. We would love to go to bed all funky and unshaven. We would rather not have to tell our spouses specifically what we prefer in the bedroom. It would be so much easier if they instinctively knew what pleases us without our having to tell them to "please trace the letter S when kissing me right there..." "and there..."<P>MARRIAGE IS WORK because we have to keep working on OURSELVES every day so that we have our whole, entire 100% to contribute to the 200% effort.<P>S&L'sH:<BR>If I didn't WORK on MYSELF in my marriage, I wouldn't have a marriage. The WORK is about ME so that I can be the best spouse I can possibly be. If I honestly give 100% and my spouse still decides that he wants to leave, I pray that he would have the courage to do so instead of staying and not really wanting to be here. At least my conscience would be clear that I gave it my best shot because I gave 100%. <BR>Giving 100% is WORK when some days you don't have 100% to give. That's where God comes in. He makes up for our weaknesses. His strength is made complete in our weakness. It's a good thing we can't do it on our own. We can depend on Him to help us. HE IS FAITHFUL!<BR>

Come on S_N_L - GROW UP!<BR>This is nothing but teenage bull**** how you try to convince your self that you are not guilty and deserve more...Even OW more mature person comparing to you. You may try to be smart but being mature means taking responsibilities...for FAILING to make your marriage passionate (cause passion is major thing for you as we see).<BR>You, immature as you are, will also fail to make your relationship with OW passionate after awhile if you let say marry her one day ...I can bet on it.<BR>Passion is CREATION and there is no store where you can buy it...You are obviously not creative person and you may go from woman to woman searching for passion all your life but you'll still be without it after awhile if you don't CREATE IT!<BR>How old are you anyway? If you resolve all problems like this I wouldn't pay one cent for your professional help, to be honest...<BR>

Come on S_N_L - GROW UP!<BR>This is nothing but teenage bull**** how you try to convince your self that you are not guilty and deserve more...Even OW is more mature person comparing to you. You may try to be smart but being mature means taking responsibilities...for FAILING to make your marriage passionate (cause passion is major thing for you as we see).<BR>You, immature as you are, will also fail to make your relationship with OW passionate after awhile if you let say marry her one day ...I can bet on it.She may feel this and that's why she is not prepared to ruin her marriage. <BR>Passion is CREATION and you can't "go shoping" around for it...It's not out there...it's in you or it's not...You are obviously not creative person and you may go from woman to woman searching for passion all your life but you'll still be without it after awhile if you don't CREATE IT!<BR>How old are you anyway? If you resolve all problems like this I wouldn't pay one cent for your professional help, to be honest...<BR>I would think much harder if everybody were telling me I am wrong. It took just one good friend to tell me that I am wrong to make me think and see things different way…<BR>

Dear Thinker,<P>I am motivatived by logic. My husband is motivated by "what feels right". We began counseling in September 2000, but I was unaware until April 25, 2001 (after she rejected him) that he was in love with, obessed with an employee. <P>I only recently found this site. I cannot tell you how much I wish I had found it sooner. I thought I could "convince" my husband that our marriage was worth saving, that the incredibly cruel and thoughtless things he said and did were undeserved and that he could not possibly really want to throw away our family. Nothing I said could "convince" him.<P>Since September, I have been working on me. Frankly, there was alot I needed to address and change. I have begun the process of making those changes so that no matter what happens, I am a capable, loving and good person. It has taken some time for my husband to believe that the changes are real.<P>My husband has very recently begun to see me, as I really am, again. He tells me that what made him begin to see is understanding of what he might lose. It was only after he moved out, to "find himself", that he was finally able to see and to begin to feel things for me again that had long been missing.<P>My husband has told me that had she been willing, he would have chosen her, realized that it was a mistake and begged me to take him back. I am afraid that by then, it would have been too late for me. I do not understand how some of the people on this site bear so much pain. Because she did not wait for him, she proved that whatever they felt for each other was not really love. I waited and endured (although without full knowledge - I thought I was crazy) the agony of his confusion. I tried and tried to make some sense of what to me appeared absolutely senseless. <P>My husband is a distancer and also believes that marriage should not be work. To his credit, he learned a great deal about himself in counseling. However, he was not able, until now, to even think about working on our marriage. That task, since September, has been mine. It was not until I told him that I would divorce him if he ever hurt me this way again that things began to change.<P>I believe that part of my husband's confusion was his inability to face the pain he caused. My husband said to himself, I am not a bad person, if I was willing to cause this much pain, it must be true love. If I was willing to tear apart my wife and lover of 16 years and disrupt the lives of my 3 children, whom I love more than anything, it must be love, it must be right. If she won't have me, for whatever reason, I am still living a lie to stay in the relationship. I don't feel these things for my wife. We are incompatible, it was never right from the beginning. How can I face the pain in my wife's eyes? The only answer is divorce.<P>We can call it fog or addiction or guilt to sooth our own hearts, but whatever it was, my husband believed it was love. She betrayed him, and it made his pain more intense. She still works at my husband's company (because as much as we would like her out of our lives completely, the law protects these people). I live with the knowledge that he sees and interacts with her every day. I cannot tell you how difficult it is for me to live with that knowledge. <P>You cannot, through logic, talk them out of the emotion. You cannot expect them to even think about meeting any of your needs until they decide that they want the marriage. They are, quite frankly lost. It is up to you to decide how much you will invest before that seemingly unappreciated investment begins to erode your sense of self.<P>Your husband is adept at justification. They all are. It doesn't make us better than they are. I cannot tell you how many times I justified the resentment I felt that my husband did not love me the way I wanted to be loved. That resentment drove him away. <P>Find your bottom line. How much of this can you take? When you can't take any more, draw the line. You must be willing to accept the consequences of your decision and decide for yourself whether you can continue the agony.<P>When I drew the line I meant it. I could not take any more. However, before I drew the line I showed my husband how much I now understood about my role in deterioration of our marriage and started down the path toward change. For us, at least for now, it appears to have been the best decision. But in the end, it was not a decision about us, it was a decision about me. Sometimes, showing your spouse that you are willing to and have changed but will not continue to "take" their "confusion" and abuse can make their decisions "real".<P>As is clear in this forum, no person's bottom line is the same. It can only come when you, Thinker, feel that you have endured as much as you can take.<P>I am happy to report that my husband does now care about the pain he has caused, does now want our marriage to work and is absolutely convinced that I am the "right one for him." I wish for you the same.<P>Good luck and take care.<P>Newwoman

Dear Sad-n-lonely,<P>I wish you and my husband could talk. We know so little about our backgrounds and experience. However, it appears that we humans react in very very similar ways.<P>I denied for a very long time that my husband was "in love" with the young woman who was the object of his desire. I finally decided that whatever we choose to call it, it is a very strong emotion, and, although it caused me great pain, accepted it. He loved her.<P>During the worst of the confusion, I gave my husband's personalities 3 labels, the husband I knew, the teenager and the monster. I decided to communicate only with the husband I knew. When teenager or monster emerged, I distanced.<P>I realize that no one, not your wife, not the people on this site, not your friends, not a counselor can convince you that this emotion your are feeling is not real. It is. I hope that your wife is patient enough for you to come through it and see that your emotions now may change. However, she must be able to come through it whole, and you are making that very difficult.<P>Your teenage selfishness may some day leave you with nothing. If that's ok with you fine. If not, don't push it too far.<P>My husband, after getting through the emotion of the adoration of the OW, and after being given my adoration again, decided that our marriage shouldn't be wasted. He does nothing on the basis of logic. He "felt" it was right. The teenager and monster have disappeared. <P>The fact that you are even posting on this site gives me hope. You are asking for someone to convince you. You cannot be convinced now. However, the information you are being provided may be useful in the future when you begin to question what has happened.<P>Newwoman