Hi everybody,<P>I&#8217;ve been on MB since just after D day, which was mid-june of this year. At that time I was a BS, in shock about what was happening in my life, devastated by the betrayal and needing help. I found some great people here at MB who were prepared to share and prepared to offer me a lot of good advice. In August of this year, I stumbled. I crossed a line and became myself a WS. I&#8217;ve been humbled by this experience but I&#8217;ve learnt so much because of what happened and I want to share this with you. <P>As a BS I was asking myself &#8216;Why?&#8217;. Why did my Wife cheat on me? How could she have done such a despicable thing? We&#8217;ve been married 9 years, we have 2 great boys and a fantastic house. She has everything she wants, what more can I give. I wanted her to appologise. I wanted her to put right all those wrongs. And I confronted her with my pain and expected her to fix it. I found MB &#8211; later than I needed to have, but I found it. I read His Needs Her Needs, Love Busters and everything else I could find on this website. I even posted a few topics hoping to find answers. I PlanA&#8217;d like hell, gave her flowers, jewelry and expensive weekend vacations. I told her I loved her 3 times a day, wrote her emails, sent her SMSs and so on. But I was still asking myself why and I was still in pain at what had happened. I see a lot of people in pain, posting on these boards who are in a similar situation as I was in and who are trying to cope with their situations. Since my own A and after recovering from this, I want to offer you my insights.<P>First, I want to say that WS&#8217;s aren&#8217;t basically bad people. Going AWOL on your marriage isn&#8217;t because the WS is genetically deficient, or morally inept, or a person who is incapable of keeping their committments or a spineless, weak single celled individual. To the BS it does seem like that at the time but it isn&#8217;t so. Just as the WS is confused and in a fog, I know that the BS also suffers from their own fog. And although the BS&#8217;s fog is caused by the emotional pain of the betrayal and the betrayal itself seems to validate the BS&#8217;s position as victim, the BS makes a huge mistake when they judge the WS (or get angry, or get abusive or basically LB).<P>This, I believe, is exactly why Harley doesn&#8217;t focus on past failures in the relationship in his counseling sessions. He doesn&#8217;t try to solve these and he doesn&#8217;t help either party to proportion blame. He also proposes dropping all judgements as a key element of a good PlanA simply because focusing on the rights or wrongs of the situation won&#8217;t save the marriage. And if saving the marriage is what both parties want then as hard as it is for the BS, it is the BS who has to drop their feelings of being a victim and drop all judgements of their WS. I understand this now &#8211; I didn&#8217;t before. <P>Why does the WS say things like &#8216;I still love you&#8217; or fluctuate between the OP and them. Why does the WS act so weird and modify the history of the marriage when they remember it as being good. How could the WS do this to their children, their families, their friends. We all say it&#8217;s due to the WS being in a fog but what creates this? I believe an understanding of the influence the OP has on the mind of the WS and how this influence contributes to the WS&#8217;s fog would help the BS. <P>I&#8217;ve discussed the relationship my Wife was having with her OM and she described that she&#8217;d tell her OM what was happening inside our relationship. He didn&#8217;t put any of his needs on her, he just listened, empathised with her and was there for her when she needed him. She told him about our problems and why she was unhappy. He told her that he admired her, that she was an attractive woman and that he was always there for her. Basically, the OM was being everything I wasn&#8217;t.<P>Interestingly, the same happened with my OW. I told her about the problems I was having in my relationship and why I was unhappy. She just listened to me, empathised with me, she was there when I needed her and she never made any demands of me. She told me what I nice decent man I am, that I&#8217;m attractive and that she&#8217;d always be there for me. Sounds similar doesn&#8217;t it.<P>The point I&#8217;m trying to make is that the OP is able to manipulate the WS by meeting their needs. The OP confuses the hell out of the WS because the WS hasn&#8217;t had their needs met for a long time by their Spouses. Their spouse is not helping them and then somebody comes along and bam. Believe me, it happens. The OP is always on their best behaviour. They don&#8217;t LB &#8211; not until later in the relationship anyway &#8211; and they give the WS what it is they need. Both the OM of my WS and my OW knew that we were married. They both knew that we had children. They both knew that we were vunerable and they both used this information and situation to get what they wanted.<P>The BS, in their pain and confusion can actually push the WS towards the OP by being needy, selfish, judgemental, argumentative and all that. This is why in a good Plan A the BS has to avoid all LB ing. It&#8217;s because the OP only need to sit in their lair and wait. Once they&#8217;ve established a level of dependancy between themselves and the WS they only have to wait for the BS to LB. As long as the BS keeps LB ing, they&#8217;ll always get what they want. And the WS has to break contact with the OP. They have to break their dependancy on the OP and give their BS the opportunity to meet their needs. So it takes both the WS and the BS to recover from an affair. It takes tremendous strength and committment from both to pull back from the brink of divorce.<P>I don&#8217;t have time to continue this now but I will.<P>- Freddy

(((((FREDDY))))) I'm hugging you so hard! Thank you sooo much for sharing this brilliant insight. It helped me tremendously. I just wish I'd heard it, oh, say 5 months ago. It could have saved me SOOO much heartache. It's really great when someone can share their feelings from their hearts. I am so grateful, you just don't know. It all makes much more sense now. Why my H was so resistant to me at the time I was being needy, clinging, all the other things you mentioned, and OW was just "there" for him. Telling him everything he needed to hear, giving all the loving, without all the baggage. I pray for the chance to do things the right way with my H. Thanks and God bless you!<P>MOM

Freddy<P>Geez...in a nutshell, mate...in a nutshell!! As the BS, I have tried to rationalise it all but keep getting clouded and LBing thoughts. It makes a lot of sense, and maybe explains a great deal of why W strayed.<P>Food for thought.<P>Snerty

Freddy, <P>It is good to hear from you. Kinda sad what you have been through. Now where are you?<BR>How are you doing?<P>L.

Freddy,<BR>Thank you for saying the words I need to say/hear.I am not very good at writing what I feel right now and you said so much for me.It is very hard to describe how a WS feels/felt.Especially when you know everytime you say something that is honest and important to your BS,you are going to get hit with huge LBs.<BR>I keep going on.<BR>WTL

O Freddy! You bet!<P>That is why I became an echo of the OW. My H said I didn't listen...I have been listening like crazy...<P>He said I didn't 'let' him make decisions...I have deferred to him on many decisions...oh, I give my opinion...but the final say is his...<P>I have sent him cards...emails...text messages...<P>I went back in my mind to our early days and began doing what I had 'forgotten' to do...<P>Now my only hope is that I will get some return for my efforts (and, I believe, I am seeing the beginnings of that).<P>Take care,<BR>This is great stuff!<P>Cali

Freddie,<P>You nailed it. The OP just has to lend an ear and be ready when the LB'S start. <P>That's what happened with my W and OM.<P>Dino

Freddy, you explained it so clearly! I'm looking forward to reading your additional insights when you have time to post more on the subject.

bump

Freddy,<P>Very interesting post. During the first week after D-day someone pointed out to me something along this line. I am grateful to that person because I believe it helped me get into the right frame of mind to handle recovery.<P>Many BSs do go on to have affairs. It is interesting because it seems to help them come to terms with what happened. Perhaps it helps them even the score too. Believe me, the thought has crossed my mind. But I have no desire to do this. There is a place deep inside of me that still hurts... it's a feeling of being grossly disrespected and being robbed of self esteem. A hard feeling to describe. There are times that I have wondered if an affair would help me repair that place in me. Help me fill it up again.<P>Your affair seems to have done that for you. I hope that you and your wife can repair your marriage and have so much more in the future.<P>Z

bump again. this is good.

Freddy,<P>Thanks for sharing that insight with us. Always remember, if you can make it through the pain, your marriage will be so much better. And pray that we never have to go through another situation like that.<P>Your thread is a printable. lv, aftershock

Very insightful, Freddy! Especially since you've been on both sides of the fence, I tend to weigh your words with utmost seriousness. Thank you for the wake up call!<p>[ October 20, 2001: Message edited by: GeezLouise ]

Bump for those that missed it and the new folks on the boards.<p> jd

Thanks for your insight. I really needed it this early am. My WW sees me LB and says "same old Mark, you'll never chnage." Then she runs to him to tell him how miserable she is and he is there for her. You are also right that WW must give up other man in order to restore. Unfortunately, mine won't.

bump<p>this is great!

I wanted to ask a question. If this is the case - which I know it is. How are you supposed to Plan A when you hav eto discuss real issues like finances and kids, when you know the WS is lying to you. Do you just take it if you can and wait for fog to lift - or do you point it out - and risk the wrath of the controlling WS - even if you don't LB or raise your voice.<p>My problem - WH wants me to be honset with him - where I am, every detail about what I do with thekdis when he's not around, wants to see my credit card statements - However, if I ask any of this from him, he gets defensive and angry and yells - even if I don't, which I know upsets him enough to call OW. Any suggestions on how to bring up these issues and not LB - or do I just have to wait it out? K