So I had thought we were on a decent enough path. I went to the gym with him (he wants RC, and for me to thin down, and he enjoys the gym) and I committed to start each of our date nights that way. I thought for a few days there that, dare I hope it, we were on a good path. I even put down some hard-saved money on his and hers bikes so we could ride together (though he doesn't know that because the date he is to receive his bday present wasn't until today).

He also expressed that he wanted to start a lower fat and healthier carbs diet for himself (which oft means I must cook 2 dinners, because I can't process carbs, so I'm on a high protein plan) and I started finding new and interesting dinners and having them ready for him when he gets home from work, which is very late at night. I've been bending over backwards to Plan A well.

Last night, out of the blue, he tells me he is moving back down to the basement to sleep. He wants "more independence and space," but, ummm, he still comes home and chats me up and watches TV with me or sits near me on the computer... so when he's snoring he wants more space and independence? I don't know how to read this or what to think/feel/do. How big of a step back is this? I felt and still feel pretty crushed. I cried so hard last night at the fear and confusion it caused me that I ended up shaking and dizzy and he had to help me to our bed, that is now only mine He's not really onboard with Dr Harley at all, because he still says he has NEVER had romantic love for me, (even though 4 days before this all started he had told a friend that I was "the love of his life, center of his universe, best thing that ever happened to him") so he feels "pessimistic" about "growing something that has never been there in 11 years." I honestly don't believe it was never there, and rather subscribe to the view that he is in a midlife crisis, but alas that might not even matter who is right or wrong and how much on that detail. He "loves me as a friend" and I am his "best friend." Yada, yada, yada. We're still going to continue dating (we've been going on a date per week since this started, so long as I remind him to call him mom and schedule her to watch the kiddo.)

So I am completely lost. I guess it's the "space and independence" that is throwing me, because I don't see much space and independence, only a change in sleeping arrangements... and I suppose the reason that bugs me the most is that it is the only time any of my needs get met (I need Affection, and SF, which both supposedly fall very low for him) The arm over me, even if he is snoring and I'm there in a glossy insomniac rut, is the little affection I look forward to in all of this. He told me he could go stay with his mom, though he isn't really ready for that, but he would if this is farking with my head too much... but yet he wants to keep dating, etc. I feel completely emotionally drained, and I can't see clearly. Hell, do I still even bother with the dates and/or the bike gift? Help me see straight(er), please

WR, please try to stick to one thread. It's really hard to see where you've been, know your history, if you keep starting new threads.

What have you done in the last month to verify that he is no longer contacting his old friend?

First of all, you deserve a tremendous amount of credit to be proceeding with plan A, in the face of your situation. It is excruciating.

I think most here will say you are dealing with some sort of an affair, best case in withdrawal from you discovered. But very likely it has not ended, or he is becoming involved in something new. And yes, it is may be kind of a life crisis, too.

You are on an horribe ride that is not likely to end quickly or easily.

It doesn't really matter if he is on board with MB or not right now. He is unable to participate in the marriage in his present condition.

It is on your shoulders now.

My advise would be to become an expert detective and try to get to the root of the problem. I am sure the posters on Gen Questions can help you with your methods.

Grilling your husband is pointless. He will lie. He will be defensive.

Do your best Plan A, including limiting love busing and making disrespectful judgments.

He doesn't deserve your kindness, of course, but reading here and implementing the techniques is your best chance to save your marriage, if that is what you want.

And please don't beg him, or tell him he "can't" leave you because you will be forever broken. You might feel like that, but A) you are stronger than that and B) it sounds like a veiled threat.

It makes you look weak and in your husbands whacked out mind, weak is not attractive. Plus it make him pull harder in the other direction.

I really wish you the best.

What timing for your H's birthday. What is your plan today?

Whoops. I'm so used to boards that ask new topic whenever there is new biz. Maybe a mod can tack this on to my other one?

I have been watching out for the "friend." I think at worst he may still be reading her blog, which seems to have little embedded messages to him, but I'm not even sure he is doing that.

His bday was yesterday, actually, but due to paycheck constraints, I was going to give him his gift tonight so that we might enjoy it tomorrow. I was gonna buy a couple of Walmarts basic adult bikes, his and hers, and a couple of helmets (let's face it, his head is screwy enough at the moment, so I gotta protect it LOL). So I should still go on with that? I'm so confused.

As far as the leaving crushing me thing... he has told me now on a few occassions that if it wouldn't nurt me so much, he may have already left. I think he wants me to say it's OK, because then he'd feel less guilt, and off he'd go.

And, believe me, I have been watching out for whorita. I think he is in withdrawl from the EA, and still midlife-crisising.

How are you tracking him?

Does he have email at work?
Do you have access to all phone records?
Is he free to leave his work during the day?
Does he have time before or after work?
How about texts? Do you have access to his phone?

Hello WR - quick opinion for you since I am no expert but this sounds too familiar. While my H was in his A. he was slowly telling me that he wanted to remain close (I believe for the children) yet in a contradictory manner was pulling away so he could have more privacy. Yes all of this was out of the blue . . . no fighting or anything but there had to be more to it. Also the re-writing of marital history . . . mine said he never really wanted to marry me. . . it's truly painful. See if you can log into his computer or cell phone you may find the answer you are looking for. Also, he set up our babysitter so we could go on date nights every week . . . such a contradiction!

Well I don't think you should say it is OK, of course, because you are taking a stand for your marriage.

I don't think "this can't live without him thing" is a bargaining chip in the long run. You might think that playing this card is worth it, but in the long run, I disagree. Maybe other posters can weigh in.

He may feel guilty, but it is NOT going to stop him eventually. It also feeds his ego, which is super sized, right now if he is setting himself up to have two women vying for him.

What the two of you need to work on (and right now there is just you working) is a marriage of two strong committed people.

I tried to PM you. I don't want to fully reveal my techniques, as I don't want him to happen upon them if he ever decides to cruise this place... suffice it to say, I'm 98% sure I am covered.

I guess can see that, but I just don't know how to convey it well... I AM NOT OK with it. And, in truth, it's not "him" so much as that when I ponder it, I know I will NEVER put my heart out on the railroad tracks again and trust someone not to run over it. I am the Queen Of Rejection. My parents, and now my H, whom I always had every indication of happiness with/from. I can't do it again. I just can't. And I am NOT OK with this idea that he made promises to me in front of G-d and all our witnesses and now that's all a load of horse poo and our child just has to suck it up and become yet another child of divorce because he is being a selfish D***.

I don't even know how that stuff works.

Just be comprehensive. Track EVERYTHING. I know you are operating under the impression that this is about the original woman, and it may be, but keep the possibility open that he is unto someone new, or has taken the other thing further underground.

Assume he is having an affair.
Assume it is not about you.
Assume if his lips are moving, he is lying.
Plan A PLan A PLan A
No disrespectful judgements. No Love Busters.

KNOW that you are strong and capable and about to get through this.

Don't know what to say about the bikes or Bday. I where I would like to tell him where he can put his present, but it wouldn't fit.

Of course if you did that, it may fall under love buster!

whorita...that's hilarious.

Have you thought about recommending to him that he get IC? "I worry so much about you not being happy with the life, with the wife, you have chosen, and I wonder if it wouldn't be a great idea for you to explore that with a counselor? Here's a couple of names that I found close by who are taking new appointments. Of course I would not ask that you go for me. I just worry about you, because I want so much for you to be happy."

WR, you can live without him. You lived without him before, right? Didn't you breathe, walk, talk, engage before him? Ya know what, if you don't have the IRL resources right now to be strong, let us fuel your strength.

He does see an IC. His IC, from the sounds of it, sucks though. My H classifies himself in a state of "relationship ambiguity." His IC let him, in his second session, declare himself clear-headed and cured, and H went home and started packing. What he says (to me) is really about what the moment is. Sometimes he feels guilty, sometimes he feels lost, sometimes he wants, sometimes he doesn't. I really think it's midlife crisis at its' finest, just tipped off by having chatted with Whorita, even though he knows Whorita is not relationship material or even sane... And we have an MC, but I vacillate on whether it's working, or whether the counselors are good enough, or whatever.


And FHL, I am sooooo tempted to put give him the bikes and tell him where to put them. Soooooo tempted. But I am actually leaning toward going on with my plan to gift the bikes, because, well it is a very Plan A thing to do, isn't it?

Of course it is not OK with you. Of course it is not OK for him to break his marriage vows or end his marriage. I think we can all agree on that!

But you can't MAKE him stay married to you whether you are OK with it, or not. You can MAKE him have enough character to honor his vows. You just don't have that power. Using guilt as a weapon doesn't work in the long run.

Has anybody held guilt over you in the past? It may have gotten you to do something, but how did it make you feel about the person? Did it strengthen your relationship with them?

Of course choices he makes WILL have natural consequences. And those will be what slap him in the face and make him evaluate his choices. Guilt won't change his heart.

OK, maybe this says it better. I am afraid that you may feel a false sense of power by using guilt, which is not healthy for you and not healthy for your husband.

I know you are afraid, and it may even be exaggerated because of your past.

Feel the fear, but don't act on it.

I don't actually think I feel power because of it. Actually... I feel such a complete lack of power in every regard that it terrifies me, and *that* is exagerated to the max by my past.

I have to sign off for a couple hours... run some errands for work. See y'all later.

WR, have you come to clear understanding of what you want? You seem, to me, to be settling for crumbs. I understand Plan A. I understand Plan A comes from a place of strength. If I may ask, how old are you? I apologize if you've disclosed that before and I missed it. I just think it makes a difference in our (read: yours alone, and mine at younger ages) choices going forward. Youthful self-beatings differ from those we do at more advanced years...crowd, amiright?

A lot of ICs suck, imho. Still no reason to stop trying to improve oneself. Go bike-riding. Believe what your H tells you at his worst, and call him on it. You're not doing either of you any favors by waffling.

Translation: Someone else is giving him the once-over, so the greener grass is looking mighty good.

My D18 had a boyfriend earlier this year, and she went full into a Plan A for him, treated him like royalty. She hadn't had a bf in a couple years, too independent, so she just decided to see what it was like to be in a good old-fashioned love story. Well, said bf up and decides a couple months later that he never really liked her all that much and needed to break up with her, for HER sake (not to lead her on, you know).

Turns out, he had THREE other girls who were giving him the googly eye, and he thought he was gonna have a goldmine of opportunities if he'd just get rid of the girlfriend.

He ended up getting rejected by all 3 of those girls, and 6 months later, has only had one girl agree to even go on a date with him.

Grass is not always greener, but it sure looks like it, once they get the ego strokes.

IIWY, I'd just be point-blank honest with him. What you think he is doing, how it makes you feel, what you are and aren't willing to go through for him, and what you think he's heading for.

Respect yourself. It's the only way HE will.

OK, I take it all back. My 2%... well I found out he set up a whole new email account and a new Facebook account for the express purpose of contact with women who are offering sexy photos or free live webcams. I, of course, found this out after I went and bought his and hers bikes and helmets. Now what?!?! He is due home in 60-90 mins, and there are his and hers bikes and helmets parked in the basement next to his bed. Our child was with me when I bought the bikes, so she'll tell H, even if I did want to return them and forget about it. Now what?!?!? HELP!!!!!!! I would give my left arm to get Dr Harleys help here! I want my H back!

A friend said I should expose in our next MC session.

I could also skrew up the accounts in any way I want, as I have the passwords now.

What should I do if I want to save my M? Kick him out? Let him live in the basement, but amend it that he's only down there, and not visiting with me or the child and having the best of both worlds to make sure he has a reality check? I mean, I can get him a garage clicker and he can enter there at night and sleep down there and be done with it, not allowing him upstairs at all? Send him to his moms? (Who, by the way, told him not to do something stupid like throwing away an M for some dumb dream of whatever)

You don't have to give him the bike. If I were you, I'd just tell him when he gets home that you know what he's doing, and you're giving him one chance and one chance only to give ujp this alter life, or he can pack his bags. Tell him you'll be watching, and if you find out he's still doing this crap, he'll come home to find his bags packed on the driveway.

Do NOT BE WEAK!

Scare the h&ll out of him.

You do NOT have to tell him HOW YOU KNOW. Just keep repeating 'it doesn't matter how I know. I know.'

STAY MAD! Don't yell, just be confident that you WILL NOT accept being his secondhand pasttime.

See what he says. If he denies everything, then say fine - I'm going to bed. And leave him alone.

Then tomorrow morning, make up a list of everyone who needs to know what he's doing, sit down with the phone, and just start calling. Don't stop until you finish the list.

He'll be mad. Good. That means it's working.

Here's what I've learned since coming here 1 1/2 years ago and watching all these people go through discovery. The BS who takes swift, strong, decisive action - who shows they are MAD, FURIOUS at their WS - is the one who gets their spouse back.

The ones who cry, get scared, beg...they almost ALWAYS lose their spouse. Because the WS just gets bolder and bolder about cake eating.

Scare the crap out of him. STAY MAD!

Does that include calling his mom?

And, when you say STAY MAD, ummm I will cry, but it will be the angry cry... can I use "how dare yous" and "how do you live with ripping apart a family for this?" or is that LoveBusting? And can I make demands? Because my gut wants to make demands like that I know everything he is doing if he wants a second chance, and my gut would want to demand that we both jump into the MB books, and if we can get the money togehter that we would do MB weekend.

Shoot, we have a trip together overseas in June, and if he doesn't go then we are stuck with the thousands of dollars for the ticket (though the ticket was a gift contingent upon participation in a program). Do I expose to the people in the program, too?

Do I expose it on Facebook since it started there?

Heck YEAH you call his mom! You call his mom, his dad, his sister, his brother, his uncle, aunt, best friend...everyone who has ANY influence on him. Anyone who he will be ashamed to know what he is doing.

That is what exposure is. It is not to punish him. It is to save the marriage. It is to get his important people to tell him how ashamed they are of him and jolt him back to reality. You don't ask them to do it, you just say to them that you would love their help fixing your marriage if they feel so inclined.

When I say mad, I mean...

What if you had a sister, and this sister's husband was scr&wing around on her? How would you feel? You'd feel like going and punching your BIL in the face, right? How dare you hurt my baby sister?!

THAT is how you need to feel about yourself! How dare he treat you like that?! It doesn't mean you scream at him. It means you remain INDIGNANT.

ETA: Please ask the mods to move your thread over to Infidelity/General Questions II or to Just Found Out. The people who go over there have been through this, and they can help you a ton more than over here, ok?

I'll ask them to move it. I think he has all of the sudden developed some kind of porn addiction. Does that really fit there? And are you sure I shouldn't start in therapy?

Edit- And how do those exposure phone calls go? He'll take the phone, no doubt. Or freak the fark out. What do I say to these people? "Hello H'sMama, I want to thank you so much for babysitting so we can go on our weekly dates through all these struggles, but I think you should know that the struggles are worse than I thought. You see, H has decided to create secret accounts for himself so he can get free webcam porn and flirt with women, and lie to me about it, but he is still the love of my life and if he has the desire to be an upstanding man and do the right thing, well I'd be open to that. So please, pray for our marraige and if you have any help you can offer, we'd appreciate it.

Just read all this.....so sorry.

Remember, keep you child out of earshot of any of this.

Don't threaten anything you won't follow through.

Expose as other suggested.

No begging. No pleading. Be a rock. Read all you can here about exposure and dealing with all of this. Don't stop searching...you may find more.

Asking him questions is useless. He will lie. Don't let him turn this around on you. It is not your fault.

These are his big boy decisions. He will lie, try to minimize and turn things around. Don't even try to engage him in conversations. All the best...

Yeah, that's about it, lol.

Obviously, you don't make the phone calls while he's around you.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding. Is he only looking at porn? Or is he contacting women? There's a big difference, and two different ways to handle it.

A couple days ago I found a map search for a town about an hour away. I asked him who/what was there, and he said NOTHING. I pushed, and he lied that it was a clients home town. I pushed and he just stuck to his guns. I had gone into his Facebook friends and found a woman who lived there. I decided to befriend all of the strange women he befriended on Facebook through the "harmlessly flirty games," and when she accepted my friends request, I confirmed through chatting with her that he had indeed chatted her up, but that nothing happened, and it was rather casual conversation. His assertion was that I was "all into his business" and not letting him live like a normal adult. Then we has a conversation and he agreed it was stupid to lie, but he had done it out of instinct to protect some scrap of privacy because I am soooo into his business. The next day I saw that a few women from these "harmlessly flirty games" were rather scantly clad and seem to be practically hooking on Facebook, so I asked he defriend them. He at first made some big production that he was about to do it on his own, but that my demanding it makes me a controlling person, blah blah... so then he later tells me he has decided to defriend a chunk of his list, as they do seem a little sleazy or otherwise not what he wants to have there on his friends list.

He then apparently right when he did this, launched a secret email account and secret Facebook account for the express purpose of contacting these women. (None live near us, but one seems to be a hooker, and has a photo in her photo pile of her giving a beej and another has free live webcams of herself) (And all this crazy started with his contacting his old college f___buddy, the only person I had previously said he should never contact out of respect for me, though he conveniently forgot that, until he initiated contact with her and then he "stopped" while he kept it up behind my back.) Soooo I think he had an EA or an EA fantasy with Whorita the college f___buddy, and then kept up a fantasy life thereafter? Am I wrong to be mad? The second Facebook account and the second email account seem pretty devious... and LIVE contact. This isn't him renting a porn disc, which I would also be against, but this has a LIVE component. These Facebook Sleazes can contact him and actually DO sit on chat!

Yeah, I'd definitely be telling his family, then.

How did it go?

Remember the women he talks to lie too. Don't believe nothing is going on because SHE said so.

It sounds as if he already tried to turn it around on YOU invading his privacy. Classic.

Exposing this to the light is the best you can do. Oh...and let me guess...his computer is in the basement with him at night.

Nope, computer is not in the basement. Never will be. I keep the laptop near me. (Frick, it's MINE, I sat out in the snow for 4 hours to get the darn thing) and the desktop is in the diningroom.

He came home last night and I looked stearnly at him and asked if there was anything he'd like to declare, anything to spill. He, of course, said there was nothing to tell. I then walked him down to the basement, where he now sleeps, and showed him the his and hers bikes and helmets that are parked down there, and said very plainly that I had bought these because of his desire to go biking with me and that I had been so excited about it.

Then I brought him back upstairs to the diningroom and showed him the computer screen, where his alternate sign-on had been sitting in the Facebook log-in box. He then started with the usual. "Oh that, it's nothing. You're worked up over nothing. Not like I tried to hide it." Except, truly, he had tried to hide it, except that he is too sloppy.

I then called him on it, further. If it wasn't something to be hidden, why was he hiding it? And, as predictable, he wasn't hiding it or lying because omission isn't lying (do we have a rolley-eyes smiley?) So he continued on and on about how there is nothing being hidden, so I rose right back, staying stern, telling him if there was nothing to be hidden then he I should be able to see it all. He said that it was fine, that he'd sign in and I could click around. Then he made me turn around at first while he signed in, because I shouldn't know his password. Ummm yeah, he who has nothing to hide, hides nothing. Whatever! He signed in and I immediately reached over and started clicking around and well wouldn't you know, I happened to find that one of the girls has a pic of herself in her photo gallery giving a beej and another has a video of herself dancing in a tiny tube-top and undies, and invites under that to her webcams, including her live cams. Oh supposedly he'd never noticed that. Oh, sure he's looked at the photos, but they are all soft-core at worst, blah blah (except the beej, since when is that softcore?). He then proceeded to tell me that he had an interest in things sexual and that's why he made this account, so it wouldn't bleed over into his "normal" account. I then told him that an "interest in things sexual" is all well and good, but now when you have to lie about it. I told him if he wanted to buy erotic novels or how-to's that aren't porno (especially porno with live people at the other end to chat with), or some new toys for us to experiment with, then that would be fine, but when his interest in sex makes him lie that there is clearly a problem. I then told him point blank that I don't know what happened to MY H, but MY H always valued truth and honesty, and I didn't know how he could look himself in the mirror, or look his child in the face, given his shameful behavior. I told him, point blank, that lying is unacceptable and that we would be addressing this further in MC. I got the shameful pouts, and the "I don't want to be this kind of man."

And I told him that I was truly angry that I had gone through all this effort, and now I can't even decide what to do with the bikes. He tried to tell me, while pouting, that he agrees he doesn't deserve that gift and that he would help me load them back into the car to return them. I told him it wasn't his decision to make, that I had to consider what *I* wanted, because it's not all about him. I suppose we'll address it in MC, too. I did, however, lock the two bikes together so he can't decide in a selfish moment to take the bike for a ride and make it un-returnable. So now I don't know what to do. I guess, for now, I am in survival mode until our session on 4/8, and I am contemplating adding another session 4/10 because there is clearly alot to be addressed here and now. He does, still, want to go on dates. ** Pesky mothership scrambling a good mans brains.

By the way, I must say I am pretty proud of myself. I didn't cry but a single angry tear. I didn't yell, I was simply stern and to the point, and made alot of *I* statements while conveying matter-of-factly that it pains me deeply to know that when his lips are moving he must be assumed to be lying. I actually feel like I gained back an ounce of my power and self-respect. I am going to save this M. We are going to get him back on track as the good man, the good H, he always was... even if he doesn't realize it yet.

So now what? I had dragged my feet before, but I think this is intensifying and there will be no more foot-dragging. I will be getting the CD's and books and getting through them. I'm gonna fix this.

You sound good and you did GREAT! Expect not to feel so strong at times though....just keep up the ACT!

Good job for not buying into his lame explanations, which are ridiculous!

Of course expect him to go more undercover.

Is he willing to close his facebook accounts and not go on the computer unless you are in the room? I thought not....

Best of luck! Stay the strong woman you are!

Is it wrong to hope our therapist B**** Slaps him?

He's just so in and out... so very alien brain scramble...

It is really hard to keep up the hard as nails act. I mean, now he doesn't even want me sitting next to him on the couch to watch TV. "It's fine if one of us is on the couch and the other in the chair, time together doesn't have to be touchy feely or cuddly." He's sooooo pushing my buttons. He *knows* I am an affectionate person. UGH! Out, OUT DAMN ALIEN!

So, out of the blue he goes in and deletes the account late last nigth, making a production of doing it in front of me. WTH? I asked what was up, and he replied that he had simply lost interest... umm yeah, since I had the password and he couldn't get away with anything, I suppose it would be less interesting... any bets on whether he sets up another one? What should I be doing next? We still have a date tonight for the gym, dinner and a movie this is all such a crazy mindfark. I can't stand this new total ban on affection, either... DRIVES ME NUTS. I feel so empty sometimes, just because I can't even get a hug or sit down on the couch next to him just touching, or sleeping with his arm draped over me in a snoring spoon-like nature... it's so not me to be this ten-foot-poled from him, or anyone else I really care about, for that matter. It creates a definite loneliness, an empty void, a sadness... and I still have to act strong. I keep chanting like my own cheerleader in my head "no more tears."

Yes, this is crazy time. You are doing well. Yes, he will be even more devious next time. You must be even more cunning!

I am very impressed how well you are seeing through his words and handling the situation with strength.

You know this ten foot pole thing has nothing to do with you, right? He feels guilty and uncomfortable. Of course he may not "get" it, since he needs to make it about you, or at least his entitlement, in his mind, to justify what he is doing. But this is not about you.

Tonight, be as upbeat as you can. I would avoid bring up relationship talk because:
a) its a buzz kill
b) he even doesn't know what will come out of his lying lips next
c) what ever does come out can not be trusted
d) he will make you feel bad
e) it will not help

Instead, do a bit of covert detective work. Talk about his job, people you saw at the gym, mutual friends, a bit of gossip you heard, old shared experiences or friends (with one exception).....anything that he may inadvertently give you some clues or a little window on what is going on.

HE is thinking about it all the time. If you pay careful attention and start piecing things together, it may be helpful. I think there is more you do not know.

Getting it on the table sooner rather than later, is better.

If he brings up relationship stuff, there are others here who are better versed in alien speak (I'm thankfully rusty), but listen as calmly as possible without interrupting or disagreeing, then thanking him for the communication, or ask clarifying questions, then let it go. It is fine to say you don't agree or briefly state your position, but at least I found that during this time, it is absolutely useless to get into an argument or try to "change" his mind. He doesn't have one!

Try to have fun. Ohhhhhh...it would be great if Fatal Attraction was at the movies. As a public service, it should be available on the big screen every so often!

You know, I've never even seen Fatal Attraction. Would it be a good one for our date night sometime? We do drive-ins (our laptop in the car, it's actually surprisingly nice)

If anyone has a good Alien Speak translator, I'd love it. After all this crazy, he complained he was sore so I started massaging his shoulders, I'm being very non-chalant. It's what I'd normally do, so since I have not been abducted, I did it. He grabbed my hands, wrapped them around his neck, and explained that it wasn't like a stress ache so much as it was an overdone at the gym ache and it didn't lend itself to massage, but he appreciated it. Then, surprisingly he asked if I needed a massage and gave me one! I'm telling you, living with an alien is rough stuff.

Hi White Russian,

Just stopping by to wish you a Happy Passover. You are one strong woman and have great advice going your way. Keep up the work. I never had your courage.

Thanks. I really do need the encouragement and cyberhugs. We went out on our weekly date, which sadly started with a little tiff in the car on the way there, but we were pretty well able to put it behind us reasonably fast and move onto our evening. We again hit the treadmills at the gym, side by side, but OY we have so little to talk about. When did it get so hard? We used to have great conversation. He wanted to turn on the TV's, but I politely said that that wasn't really spending time together, so we didn't end up watching TV. I finally decided to kinda play alien with the alien... not allow myself not to dream, so I asked Mr Alien what the 5 most important features of our house would be, when we got around to buying one. He didn't play with a whole lotta detail, but he didn't gimme the shtick about not getting to that, so??? It's hard dating an alien, especially when you are married to himsigh. I need to work on conversation starters for us. Maybe I need to read more magazines before we go on dates. We did follow the gym with dinner and a movie, and during previews we talked about seeing more movies that were previewed (3/4 his, and 1/4 mutual interest.) He even held my hand and/or rested his hand on my leg most of the movie. We're home now, but he's again sleeping downstairs

Start reading more. It'll give you more things to talk about. Magazines, newspapers, websites about subjects you're both interested in...

What's got my tail twisted today?

He's giving a double-bind. Both he and our MC have acknowledged great change on my part, however, he's constantly saying how it took him being ready to leave, so he is unsure it will stick and this pessimistic about the whole thing. Ummm, OK, I think this sucks. Instead of looking FOR me to rubberband back to bad ways, how about enjoying and appreciating the good ways, and seeing if we can grow together in the new climate? I mean, his claim that I poisoned the climate before is now kinda, ummm, pot calling the kettle black, in that now he is poisoning the climate by worrying that I'm not authentic in wanting to make the changes I have made and in keeping this up as a lifestyle. How do I overcome that one? I mean, seriously, there are no time machines, and how could I have corrected things that he was upset with if he never told me he was upset with them. This sounds like a statement that confirms his steadfast commitment to letting me spin my wheels endlessly, while he won't even be open to genuinely working with the situation. GRRRRR. And I still have to also take the honesty issues to our MC tomorrow, so of course H is going to be, shall we say less than thrilled? GRRRR. This is all so hard.

What changes have you made that are seen by both mc and husband?

Hon, just remember that his view is his to own. Nothing you can do about how he decides to feel and think.

You just keep taking the high road, doing what is right and what is honest - including talking to MC tomorrow - and let him worry about what he does with it.

If he gets in your face or something, just smile and say 'Really? You choose to blame me for your unhappiness? Hmmm. Ok, well, you do what you have to do, but I can only work on my own 50%.' He'll get it eventually, that he can't manipulate you into making his life easier.

cp is exactly right. No matter how unfair you think he is being, his feelings are his feelings, and it is a waste of energy to try to talk him out of them.

HOWEVER, he is following the script:

1. Engage in secretive inappropriate behavior outside of the marriage.

2. Create distance and diversion by finding flaws in your marriage partner.

3. Create more distance and diversion by using physically and emotionally separating from the marriage partner while continuing secretive and inappropriate behavior outside of the marriage.

Oh oh....marriage partner shows "improvement"....must think of something else to maintain distance and discord.

4. Eureka!!!!! Discount "improvement" and use it as a wedge to create MORE space and discord while continuing secretive and inappropriate behavior outside of the marriage.

In other words....this is not about you. It is all about how impossible it is to do any real work on the marriage when one partner is engaged in secretive and inappropriate behavior, (which I don't think is all exposed)

Your husband isn't going to be "happy" no matter WHAT you do. That won't help his game. So if you make changes, (which you should if they are positive for YOURSELF and the future of your marriage when your husbands pulls his head out of his posterior)
he can complain that they are not enough, or fast enough or maybe won't last. If you didn't make changes, then you are just handing him ammunition. In fact, if anything the more you make positive changes, the "angrier" he may become, because you are making things more difficult for him. Boo hoo.

This is not about you. Just keep making positive changes for you, for your child and for you marriage. THAT is all you can do. Your marriage cannot recover until your husband stops doing whatever it is he is doing. Oh, and you are making THAT more difficult too by invading the poor man's privacy. Double boo hoo.

Here's the question. How do you predict it will go down with the MC. I think you need to be ready for various reactions on both the MC and husbands reactions.

FHL #1-

What changes? H has historically been a very laid back person, like some people are Type A and others are the calmer Type B's, well he's further down the alphabet when he's himself. What I have learned is that as a strong woman of the Type A variety, it's very easy to just "get 'er done," and that feels to him as if I am controlling or rolling over him. It has been a hard change to make, because when someone is sooooooo laid-back, you barely feel them even make a peep, so it hardly feels wrong to get things done and run the show.

You see, I've ALWAYS been the doer... if he wanted a new job, historically I would write his resume, with his informational assistance, and email it while he complained about his present plight. *I* thought I was being a helpful and supportive spouse... his clothes wear out, and he hates shopping and keeps wearing stuff that is frankly embarassing, I always thought the loving thing to do was to take care of it, since he really expressed not caring one way or the other. We were gonna take a vacation, guess who did all the packing, and all the research and reservations? Now, NOW that is being called controlling, yada yada. He claimed I pushed him out of the finances, while I saw it as him JUMPING out, leaving the stress on me.

I had a tendency to DJ and AO because no matter how much I tried to constructively express that I felt all adult responsibilities were being laid on me, I never felt he paid attention to my feelings or responded in any constructive way. We've also had a pattern wherein he does what I interpret as needling me, and I get to feeling like a caged animal being poked, so I lash back. I have found my "I statements," and now I am far better at telling him "my discomfort is at at least a level 5, therefore this isn't the right time to hunker down and deal with this."


FHL, as to the second post... I see alot there. While I do take a load of responsibility for being falling into negative habits in my frenzied and over-burdened nature, I remember for years and years how much he genuinely seemed to prefer I do everything. I think, to a point, he *looks* for me to be controlling or trying to control. I pray you are wrong that there is more to discover, but I won't say I'm more than 80% sure I'm fully informed after the last time I tried to hazzard a guess.

I have NO CLUE what will happen with the MC. I can't even begin to guess. Historically, I feel as if our counselor is harder on me, than on H... like he'll dig into my individual issues resulting in making me feel kinda naked and filleted, but then when it comes to H's deep personal thoughts and issues, he closes him off and tells him to take it back to his own IC so he doesn't create more fray to repair. I can't imagine there's anything left in his scrambled head that would be worse than all of this that I already know. I hope our MC doesn't poo poo his crap behavior away... I fear he might, much like he poo pooed H's behavior when I was pregnant and H said he fantasized about sabotaging my hormone capsules so I would miscarry. To me, that was over the top, and not at all something my H would ever have said, particularly because this is a man who LITERALLY "relocates" bugs rather than killing them... if MC doesn't poo poo it, I fear H could have an AO and get very immature and storm out... I don't know. Pray for us

I will pray for you.

I hope you have a MC will see your H's behavior as a BIG problem, but it may not happen. If it doesn't, KNOW as you do in your heart, it IS the problem. It is not about you!

You deserve so much for credit for taking things so seriously and making changes, despite of that you played the role you played in the marriage as a response to your husband's personality and hands off nature.

I fear he might, much like he poo pooed H's behavior when I was pregnant and H said he fantasized about sabotaging my hormone capsules so I would miscarry.

OK what is up with this? He didn't want to be a father? What is he like as a father now? How has a child changed your marriage?

It sounds as your MC sessions are more of a lets fix Whiterussian rather than lets fix this marriage. I hope that is not the case. I know it is almost impossible, but stay strong. You are doing your best in a difficult situation.

I have been pregnant 7 times, and we have one child. The others were all lost, including a loss in February. When H first told me all this shtuff about never having had romantic love for me and all that, I reacted in desperation... to be honest, I tried to f*** my way through it. Neither of us ever in a million years thought I would get pregnant, because we have struggled so badly with fertility. We have spent 7.5 years of our 9 years of marriage trying to get pregnant. Before the first child, I had 4 miscarriages. Since kiddo, I had one in April 07, and another in Feb 09. In January, when I got pregnant, it was... how can I say this? G-d has a sick sense of humor?

Our first MC session had been 1/9 and the MC had had H promise to stick around for at least a month because I was feeling too frenetic listening to his constant "I'm almost gone" speech. I had thought this discussion was in the vein of agreement to work on things, not a set "day for freedom." Apparently H kinda took it as the latter. Meanwhile, he took up with his own IC the 3rd week of January, and February 2nd while he was at his second IC session he was proclaiming to his IC how clearly he saw things and he was leaving, and had already started stealthy movements bringing stuff to store at his moms until he found a place to stay... and while he was having this discussion, I was feeling a little off, and decided to alay my fears and pee on a stick and lo and behold it was a dark positive, like I have NEVER had before.

So, after having tried for so long, I had to follow my gut and proceed with prenatal care. For me, that means getting hormones to maintain the pregnancy from the minute I figure out I am pregnant, otherwise miscarrying is a given. Though even I knew the timing was bad, I couldn't slap G-d/karma/whatever in the face by just letting it miscarry as if it wasn't something to care for, so I got onto the hormones within a few hours, and called our MC in a panic trying to get a special session to break the news to H. Our MC wasn't in the office, so the next day I was trying to hold it all in while I waited for the MC to call and eventually H caught onto an added vibe of some kind, and guessed it... and promptly began telling me off for getting onto the hormones and packing right in front of me, telling me that it didn't change anything because he had already decided to leave. Our MC did step up and tell him that it DID change things, but H was a real [censored] through it all, constantly talking wishfully about miscarriage and penalizing me for taking the hormones.

He told me he fantasized about freezing them because he thought it might screw up their efficacy, and he could get away with it, and I'd miscarry... then he told me that he had told me this so that he could not lose control and actually DO IT. So I started hiding my hormones so he couldn't sabotage them. I started having bad bleeding on Valentines day and H had to take me to the ER, even the nurse there waited until he went to the bathroom to come see if he had CAUSED the miscarriage through some sort of abuse because she just couldn't get over how he was grinning so happily when they said that it looked as if this pregnancy was in trouble. It was horrific. He kept telling me that if had gotten pregnant at any other time it would have been OK, but that this was awful and I wsa selfish and horrible for taking the hormones.

After the baby was officially pronounced to be gone, he actually got nicer again, but during those couple of weeks he was downright mean to me telling me how some of his coworkers thought I had done it intentionally to trap him, when he damn well knew that just 3 weeks before we conceived we had been talking about more fertility treatments, and then he suddenly put the whole world on it's head. I was about to go back on the pill, but had been waiting to start at the right cycle point so I didn't have the usual reaction when I start at the wrong point (8 weeks of hemoraging... I didn't feel I could physically take that in addition to this sudden turn of events). So, here I sit, not even 2 months after a miscarriage, and I haven't even really gotten to process that at all...

Oh, I am so sorry for your loss. And for your previous losses. Both my SIL's had several miscarriages and each and everyone was the loss for them.

I also just saw how young you were married and really how young you were as a first time mom.

I assume your husband did not act like that during your other pregnancies and it clearly shows how truly out of it he truly has become.

You must be reeling from all of this!

One thing you did not answer is how your husband is as a father to your child.

Also, what about his mom? Was it just OK with her that he began storing stuff at his house? During the worst times in my marriage, my in-laws were totally pro-marriage. They would never have allowed my husband to store stuff at their home. Is anyone in your life on the side of your marriage?

You are only a few years older than my oldest. I so wish I could reach out and give you a hug!

Yes, I was married at 19 and a mom at 23. (And no, I did not marry pregnant, I married by choice because I knew I had found my soulmate whom G-d had made for me. I didn't get pregnant the first time until some months later.) My whole life has been on the accelerated path. It's just part and parcel of me.

My H was nothing like this alien with kiddo. I was on bedrest from 28 weeks, and he cooked and fetched and doted over me/us. My only gripe was that he didn't catch on to the seriousness of my post partum depression, and didn't pick up the slack when I no longer was able to pay bills. I had worked so hard to get us to a point of having GREAT credit, and it all went to pot and it's so hard to recover from... but when I was pregnant, I was a Queen. Back rubs, foot rubs, belly rubs, errands, midnight cravings, you name it. I didn't marry an arsehole, even though I recently woke up next to one. In all seriousness, I don't know if he's in a nervous breakdown or a midlife crisis, or what, but I would have been less surprised to have been hit by a bus while swimming in a lake.

As far as pro-marraige people. Mother in law is actually pretty pro-marriage, reminding H that marraige isn't the Hollywood thing that we see on movies. We have a few friends that have been very pro-marriage, too, but H has adopted the view that anyone who is actually intelligent and truly cares will want him to follow his path to enlightenment and happiness. I dunno how sleezes with Brazilian wax jobs and live webcams are a path to enlightenment, but the path to self-discovery and enlightenment are all he talks about lately.

I think, by and large, he is a good Dad. I wish he would be a better disciplinarian, and get less caught up on himself sometimes wen kiddo is practically cartwheeling for his attention, but I think that in some degrees that is a pretty male thing.

I would have been less surprised to have been hit by a bus while swimming in a lake.


Yes, ten years ago I felt the same way! In fact most here felt the same way.

I hope MC goes well for you today.

Oh clear-headed people lend me your eyes, keyboards and wisdom

MC this morning really, well crap I feel we did nothing, or if we did anything we set me on a course to feel sh1tty. I outted the computer lies issue and the therapist spoke to H about whether H had left clues so he would get caught. (Ummm no) H told MC that he felt MC had shut him down on this issue, MC asked if we should delve in, and we did, with a plastic spoon to all the depth it is capable of

MC tells H that he knows he would sure as hell be feeling awful if he found his wife pursuing endevours like those I found H pursuing, and asks H if this is a new thing. H replies that it has been an on and off thing for years, though he is very proud of himself that he didn't actually cheat on me, ever, not even so much as a kiss. He's very proud of this considering that he has never been physically attracted to me. I'm a great friend to him, he doesn't want to hurt me, yada yada (at this point, I actually bust into laughing tears, oh how I tried not to).

H, with MC seeming to buy it all hook-line-sinker, tells how our relationship began when he was in a vulnerable and rejected phase. Since I showed H so much interest, and pursued the relationship, H went along with it because it felt so good to have someone admire and want him. He just went along with it. That's his story. He had stuffed it all away, ignored it. Until he started to interact with college f___buddy, and that forced him to think about it.

(By the way, college F---buddy is a complete f-up. She never had romantic interest in him, cheats on anyone she is ever supposedly dating, and only gave my H occasional interludes to keep him chasing after her because she thrives on adulation. She skrews anything that walks, and even skrewed H when she was supposedly dating one of his closest friends at the time. She's still just as messed up, or more. Thankfully she is a 5 hour drive, or he'd have gone for a helping by now, I bet. He has an obsession with her... but seriously, THAT twit is what made him think about what he doesn't have with me? She may be thin, but she is ugly and aging poorly from the fast life, and OH YEAH she's a whore and wanted to do him up the poop-chute with a strap on back in the day... the only act she was denied, reportedly.)

I tell H and MC that I think this is a complete crock, and won't accept that it's all my fault because I had the audacity to love him. MC gives me the whole "Don't blame yourself, there is nothing you did or could do about this, you tend to take on too much responsibility." H "doesn't want to break me with all of this," and I kinda AO'd a bit, though I wasn't yelling or anything really awful. I told him if he wanted out so effing bad that he should go grab all his [censored] and leave, because he's doing me no favors lying to me and treating me with disrespect. I do, actually, believe it will break me if he leaves, but per all your advice here I stuck to my story. I told him that if he really wanted to leave, he could go, and it would be his to regret because I have been nothing but good and dedicated to him, and given him a wonderful family that he'd be throwing away. I asked the MC if there was really anything to work on, and we were closing with a "hold that thought," we're still seeing if changing interactions can allow love to grow in that space.

Help. Help me see clearly. Help me find my strong point again. Please. We didn't even touch the issue of the bikes. I'm leaning toward giving him his bike so we can bike ride on Friday, a rare day where we are both off work and kid is in school... I am leaning toward that because that would be Plan A wouldn't it? Help me sort this all out... or at least feel a little strength. You know that wicked little voice of doubt? He's loud today. I never thought for a moment that there was ever the genuine possibility that he never loved me and stowed that the whole time, but now the wicked voice of doubt is skrewing with me...

So when you told husband he could leave, how did he and the mc react?

H just kinda sat there, didn't jump at the offer, and MC jumped in and said "Let's not go there yet. I'm not convinced we should go there yet. Let's come back to this next week," and we all left it at that.

I don't really want him out. I want him IN, as in FIGHTING FOR THIS. Dammit, if any of his crap were true, what would he lose it actually working the MB program with me just to see if it helped? What's he so afraid of? If he really doesn't want to hurt me, what's stopping him from giving it a shot. And furthermore, eff this double-bind he put me in. He keeps saying how I only changed when he was about to leave, ummm well OK, but how could I change before you told me??? I haven't got a time machine, so his question is kinda pissing me off... DAMMIT, I WANT MYYYYYYY H BACK. (And to set college f___buddys hair on fire!)

So what is the official status of your husband's online activity? Was it news to you that it has been on/off for years?

The official status? He's done no more of the nefarious stuff since I called him out on it. He actually went in and deleted the alternate Facebook account (though I think that was because I had the password, so it was no longer fun... plus by quickly deleting it he prevented me from taking screenshots to show to our counselor or whatever)

Was it news that he had watched online porn on and off through the years, no, not really. There had been times early on where he and I would do kinky things having gotten ideas from porn together or playing "follow the porn." We even, for a few months about 3 years into our relationship had a porn channel because we had fun playing along... but then we both *BOTH* got bored with it and stopped it.

After kiddo, we hit a little rough patch, nothing like this though. We read a book together that advocated against porn for men (not as harsh for women), because men are more prone to porn addictions and to substituting images in their heads and thus negatively effecting their romantic relationship. H even agreed with this and even spoke as recently as when this started about feeling poorly about letting other images into his head when we were together and how he had snuck a little porn and felt poorly about it.

*sigh*

Oh, and I won tickets for a comedy club and he still wants me to get friends lined up to go with us so we can go on our date... *sigh* I spoke to him recently and nothing has really changed for him after this mornings session, so is that a good sign?

I'm ditching Passover seder tonight because I just can't fake it... I'm giving myself a few hours of me time (kiddo well nourished and parked in front of Disney flicks) to sit and wallow, and then I'll put my "I'll make it, I'm hot and desirable" face back on for when he gets home.

he is very proud of himself that he didn't actually cheat on me, ever, not even so much as a kiss.

I guess it is POSSIBLE that this online stuff is it, along with the contact with past person. And although I think this is a form of cheating, since it is done in secret, with the opposite sex, maybe he has convinced that this is within boundaries.

How about this for a theory. If your husband feels that he has been passive in your marriage, maybe he is using the online stuff, the other person and the disenchantment in general to gain some perceived power. Of course it would follow that he would have to tear you down and/or engage in hurtful behavior.

Have there been any changes in another area of his life, like work, where a powershift occurred, which may have hurt his confidence or made him feel less in charge?

How is his relationship with his mom and other members of his family? Is she dominant? By the way, you did you tell her about the online stuff?

Do you think he has tried to make you his mommy wife?

Don't believe all of his rewritten history. You know better, so trust that.

About the bikes, yeah why not? It would be very plan A. If you are in Plan A, remember no disrespectful judgements or other lovebusters.

When the MC said you take too much responsibility, he was trying to tell you it is about your husband, not about you.

So he deleted the secret account, but has he made any commitment to you at mc to STOP? Did MC suggest he should stop? Did your husband try to accuse you of invading his privacy in front of MC?

Stay strong. Stay level headed. Plan A....but keep snooping.

I know this is the wrong thing to say, but I think your H would benefit from a dose of 'what the h&ll is she doing?' from you. As in you're bold and beautiful and dressed to the 9s and can't keep up with all the offers for going out that you've been getting lately and...well, it really wouldn't be that bad if he were gone because then you'd have time to look into all those men who've shown interest in you.

From a psychological standpoint, you are dead meat to him. He KNOWS you sit around waiting for him and hoping for time from him and really don't want anything else in the world but him.

That knowledge, unfortunately, is a major subconscious turnoff in people. If you were to start having other things to do, didn't really need him all that much, I can almost guarantee he'd be going, 'wait, what? when did this happen? who are all these people who want to be with her? maybe I'd better rethink this or I'm going to lose her.'

JMO

No commitments... just the statement that he has lost interest.



Soooo anywho... I went back and snuck a look at his ENQ.

#1 Conversation
#2 RC
#3 Honesty (that's rich, huh?)
#4 Family Commitment
#5 PA

So I'm working on gaining more convo starters, since lately we have a hard time finding conversation... and I'm giving him the bike and we're going riding Friday just the 2 of us, and perhaps Sat or Sun morning with kiddo.

Yeah don't think I haven't thought about that. I even showed him the email my ex sent me telling me how I was the best thing in his life and he'd love another chance with me. I also make sure to tell him when men flirt with me during the day. I've been really on top of my game, even if I'm wearing jeans I haven't looked le-frump at all since this started, with the only exception being the day I was in the ER losing the baby. I have gone out a couple times with girl friends and there's a bar I've been to a few times that notoriously finds me getting picked up on, and I have told him. But during one of our recent dates, he did inform me that his IC had asked if a new man in my life would bother him, and he had said after supposedly soul-searching that it would not, because he doesn't have that kind of feeling for me.Some guy on Facebook tonight was flirting with me like crazy, and I was going to tell H how I had to defriend this guy because his only interest is twisting a conversation into perversion.

That same book I referenced before had said that in extreme circumstances a wife should doll all up and arrive at a bar before her H so he can come and see how much she is getting flirted with. The only problem with the bar I mentioned before is that it is small, and I run the risk that it's kinda empty and the only dudes there to flirt with me might not be such choice characters. Don't think I haven't thought of hiring a couple aspiring actors to show up and fawn over me...

Soooo... we're gonna be together sans child tomorrow morning, and Friday most of the day and night, and could be Sat and Sun morning... I'm evaluating something... there's a cheap 2 hour photography class Saturday morning that I am thinking of taking... should I?

(My thoughts are multi-fold... H has shown an interest in photography here and there, doing landscapes and such, so I could perhaps learn some stuff and that would give us something to talk about and do together. And, along catperson's idea, maybe I can talk a man there into taking a few pics of me with my own camera so I have some stories for H about my popularity.)



Ugh, and this just in... H called me from his carpool buddies cell. (H doesn't have a cell) He's gonna be a little late because he and carpool buddy are going to watch Colbert Report... I did hesitate when he told me, and he offered me the chance to speak to carpool buddy, but I felt that was a little uncomfy... but would I be completely out of line to quiz him on what he saw? (Since, now I am watching, too)

WR, this one comment is so very very much fogspeak. It truly is. I haven't seen a single person yet say this who wasn't in some sort of affair, E or P. Or even just having a crush on someone else. I really think you need to double up your investigating.

Oh believe me, "I snoop, therefore I am." I'm going all that I can afford to. You don't think his draw to online porn and crush/EA and subsequent withdrawl are enough to root that in? Thankfully I know he isn't PA, just for lack of time, but ongoing crush or EA are harder to rule out. I think he's still crushing on college f___buddy, even though he has told me time and again that she isn't relationship material and is too messed up, etc.

The funniest thing... during his FIRST IC his counselor said perhaps H has a "neurotic obsession" with f___buddy leading to a "neurotic inhibition" for others (namely, ME)... I can certainly see him as obsessed, but apparently this line has been dropped (probably because H doesn't want to hear it)

I think his IC is right.

And don't forget...
They say WSs nearly always affair DOWN.

Oh yeah, this would SOOOOOO be affairing down. Many in his long-term circle of friends absolutely HATE this biatch with a fervor. Seriously, everyone who I know that has ever met her, with the exception of H, has dislike if not hate for her. Laughably, one old friend of his who really barely knew her knew OF her so well that when he heard what H was up to his eyes reportedly popped out and he exclaimed, "DISGUSTING! What's the interest? She's a walking STD!"

How long after NC does the withdrawl stick?

(I have not officially "exposed," though I have sorta exposed by refusing to keep up images to our friends.) The lovely thing, though, is that H now largely avoids many of his long-term friends because they have advised him to fight for the M... so???

Another totally random thought/question...

A female friend of mine was teasing that with H being so distant, I should probably look into a BOB (Battery Operated Boyfriend, aka vibe)

Anywho, this has never really been my thing, but it got me thinking... one thing H has always LOVED was watching me double click my mouse , etc... so she and I were chatting and thinking that even if I'm not all that into those, maybe I'd be more intriguing if I bought one of those without saying anything, left it in my bed (he's sleeping downstairs, but often in our room for the dresser, whatever) The thinking being putting him back into naughty thoughts about ME. Anyone wanna speak on this? Men folk?

Oh geez people, don't tell me that last question was just toooo much of a blusher?!? We seriously talk about SF and porn and orgasms here all.the.time!

Well, I've been following your story.

Your husband may not be an sa (pa is a form of SA), but I'm betting he's got some intimacy issues. I mean the non-sexual kind.

Your husband has been toying with fantasy for a very long time, and I'm suspecting he uses fantasy to deal with life. (Which, isn't particularly healthy). Not to put it bluntly, but I'm not quite sure your use of sex toys is going to fix his intimacy issues.

I think your husband fixing, healing himself will cause him to be fulfilled with you. I'm trying to say, likely this has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with him.

SA? The abbreviations here still confuse me.

I do believe he has some intimacy issues. Like I said, I'm not even interested in the toys independently because I frankly explored that years ago and found them pretty worthless, though if HE wanted to participate in something that would be another story, I guess I'm just trying to spur something that would make the divide between us a smaller chasm in a quicker space of time. Not only do I miss SF and Affection, but I worry about H going weeks without sex, because doesn't that kinda make him more likely to PA?

And as a side note, he soooo better have appreciated the bike ride today. I'm out.of.shape and my pelvis post kiddo is just too different for the normal bike seats. OUCH!

Still need to know that SA is... the abbreviations here sometimes kill me...

Anywho... so here's my latest report... we went out to dinner and a comedy club last night. (I was supposed to go to the gym with him, but after our morning bike ride, I was just not able, plus I had things I had to do for the sake of the family. (Like clean this hovel so we could have someone visit.)

The comedy club was alot of fun. He put his arm around me under the guise of seeing around someone in front of us. He stayed pretty glued to my side, though the few times I tried to hold hands earlier in the evening when we were mall-walking were met with an odd distance. He's truly Katy Perry Hot & Cold.

Today I had a class in the morning and he and kiddo met up with a female friend (mutual friend, 100% supporter of our M, immaculate trust in her) and I joined them a bit later. Later, he had to leave for work and she and I hung out, and she did mention that she called him out on some fallacies. (Particularly, she knew f___buddy back in the day, and recently saw f__buddys MySpace page with a blog directed RIGHT AT MY H. Friend told him how wholly inappropriate it is that f___buddy talks about H's wife being needlessly jealous because she would "never" blah blah, Friend called a spade a spade and told H point blank that he was fooling NO ONE, f__buddy has always and will always be only a source of problems.) I'm a little cheered that someone stood up and forced him to eat it, because when I tried to say the same things, he dismissed it, but he couldn't dismiss it to 20yrsFriendshipFriend. LMAO!!! ***small victory dance*** He couldn't wiggle there.

Still Plan A'ing right along as well as I can... if someone out there who is recovered can reassure me that absolute perfection isn't a must in Plan A, I'd be very happy, as I am a perfectionist and the stress level of trying a perfect Plan A is killer... no BS can do a PERFECT Plan A, right?

WR, no one can achieve perfection, can they? So no worries. You do what you do, and you learn along the way. Just like the rest of us.

If we were perfect, we would be God.

Weekend are ridiculously slow here, cos everyone is always taking care of stuff, especially on a holiday weekend.

IMO, I am all for making the spouse wonder what you are doing (aka the vibrator), BUT it is a no-no to 'trick' a spouse. That is lying. You don't like being lied to, do you?

Anyway, I believe that our spouses NEED to know that we do not offer unconditional love. They have to deserve our respect and love. So if they are being a schmuck, you don't owe them your unconditional love. They NEED to understand that.

IMO, the #1 need for all of us is honesty. I've been telling OH that you just have to determine to be honest. All the time. Only then can you both move forward - together. If he doesn't accept your honesty? Then he's the wrong guy for you.

So try setting that standard for yourself.

Honesty isn't his forte` at the moment, therefore I snoop

I am being as honest as I can be... I mean, I'm not divulging my snooping methods, or some of my deepest fears, but I'm certainly not hiding anything of consequence, and I hate hiding anything at all. I never really have, until all of this.

What trick are you talking about, Cat?

By trick I mean don't pretend you have a guy waiting in the wings just to get him jealous. Cos that is lying. You get nowhere by lying.

What I mean by honesty is that, every situation, you tell him exactly how you feel and what you think. That's all.

The reason I suggest this is that, moving forward, you stay true to what is happening to YOU, and therefore whatever he 'feels' (i.e., tries to manipulate you int going along with) is HIS to own. You have been honest with him; you have told him what it takes for him to GET to stay married to you. It is up to him to decide his own next moves.

That's what I mean by being honest. You will survive no matter what happens. You tell him what you will stand for. It is hs choice whether he listens to you.

At this point he doesn't want to "GET to stay married to me," so that's a little rough...

Then why do you want him?!

Why?

Where is the YOU in this relationship?

I don't see how my situation is all that different from others whose H's are in some kind of fog or another...

You have to understand, 4-8-12 months of work are well worth it to me. We've been together 11 years, and for all our little issues, we were happy. I'm telling you, something in him cracked. This ISN'T <MY> H. I take the "in sickness and in health" seriously. Many of our longtime friends, including people he has known for years longer than me, concur that something is just plain off. I can't just give up. I can't. I love him, the him I know is still in there somewhere under whatever the heck he's wearing outwardly now... I can't just let him screw up my life, my childs life and HIS OWN LIFE. So, while at the moment there is very little of me here in the EN sense, I'm willing to suffer through this little burp to get back to where we belong.

I know there is something really wrong here, I just can't quite put my finger on it. I can't place a target on the root here... whatever is happening here is either a chameleon condition or an insidious thing that will always direct deeper and deeper into a complicated root system. I don't know if he's still EA-fogged by f___buddy, or if this is rooted in his personal intimacy/fantasy issues coming to the surface, a run of the mill midlife crisis and/or nervous breakdown, a reaction to profound forced changes to his circadian rhythm, or if he's got a genuine porn addiction that has suddenly popped up with a side of lying? Or, perhaps my worst fear, that this is the tip of a late onset bi-polar or schizophrenic break.

Sorry, I misunderstood you. I was thinking that he just doesn't want to be married to you, that it was more to it like the addiction, but if this is only a temporary thing because of the EA, by all means work on it. I just got the sense that it was more than that.

How does one really tell the difference through the fogspeak? I mean, seriously, don't we hear it all the time that so and so wanted out but then the relationship was saved? I don't know that even HE knows what HE wants. (GRRR, Out damn alien!!!) His constant phrase is "relationship ambivalence" and "loves me in other ways but not romantically." (Which, again, 4 days before that little diddy of a news bulletin broke, he told a friend I was "the love of his life, center of his universe, best thing that ever happened to him."

SA=sex addiction
Porn addiction, if your husband has it, is housed under the umbrella of sex addiction.

Also, if your husband has tendencies to use sex/sexual fantasies to self-medicate (or numb himself from feeling), it's really best for you guys to be dealing with a counselor that deals with sex addiction. Normal, general marriage counselors aren't trained for this.

My husband has got intimacy issues, which is somewhat intertwined with his sex addiction.

At our worst, we were completely withdrawn from each other. We'd exchange maybe two sentences a day? We were having SF once ever 6-8 weeks. We also experienced a rapid decline after the birth of our child. Within two years after our child was born, our marriage fell apart completely.

I've also found that though my husband's addiction did not escalate to an EA or PA, his behavior here mimiced that of a Wayward Spouse. That's why I lurk here.

It's also why I said that the recovery of your marriage, is likely mostly in your husband's hands..

And I also wanted to mention that just because your husband isn't watching porn doesn't mean he's issue free. Unfortunately, I just found out what my husband used to store up for fantasy ..and it wasn't porn.

I'm not saying your husband is a SA or even a PA. I'm just relating my story, because *parts* of it are very similar to yours.

"store up for fantasy"? And did you ever get your H to acknowledge SA or intimacy issues...

See, the strange thing, I hesitate to call it SA, because H has had a lower libido since around say 30y/o (or at least, propositions less, though more than once every 6-8 weeks) And if SA was it, wouldn't the years of constant sex while trying to conceive have been a good thing in his eyes?

WR has this been asked already? Has he had a checkup to make sure that the cause for this isn't physical?

Also, I've never gone through infertility treatments but I've read that it can really depersonalize SF and that the effects can be long lasting.

I would love to have him checked out medically, but he refuses, and our MC won't issue that as an order. He and MC are both convinced I focus on attempting to patholigize him, rather than admit legitimacy to the issues. This has been a bone of contention between MC and I.

And, yes, TTC (trying to conceive) can be stressful, but to be honest it really felt like *I* was the stressed one.

Funnily enough, MIL watched kiddo for our date tonight, and I ended up driving her home. The minute we got into the car she asked "So, are the dates helping anything? I ask [your H, my son] and everytime he talks plenty but it seems he really says nothing of substance." I explained that that's how it has been around our place. We talked a little, during which she told me that she was very angry with him for all of this crazy behavior, that she was so surprised when he told her what he told her, that she was sick for weeks in the pit of her stomach and NOT taking his side, but mine. She thinks it's sh1tty and crazy that he says he never loved me, because she remembers clearly being so thankful that he was so happy, because he always spoke about how much he loved me, and we had such a solid foundation of being best friends. It was really amazing to hear from her, and felt so good to hear someone else acknowledge that he was crazy about me. Since she led us there, I politely exposed his computer problem, as if he moves in with her it's good she'd be aware. She is disgusted with him, really upset that he could tank this perfection we always had, perfection he spoke about until the end of 2008.

Hmpf! Just when I thought things were taking an upturn...

Last night we went on a date, and it culminated in SF and him staying upstairs in our bed.

Today, I find he spent 45 minutes on porn sites while I wasn't home and is truly going deeper underground with his methods...

How does this work? I really think there is an issue here with detached intimacy and addiction to the inappropriate. (Whether it be internet porn, Facebook flirting games, or whatever) Is there any progress here in that at least he came back to ME after getting himself all worked up? I don't even know what the hell to think I'm not sure our therapist is equipped for this... I'm not sure H would admit it being an unhealthy addiction. When last we dealt with this in session, the therapist really seemed to let him get away with how this is all a result of disatisfaction with me, but not actually my fault. I'm teetering back and forth on whether our MC is the right one... but we've been in for 4.5 months so if we scrap him what is to say we will get someone better and then there's that whole starting from zero.

And with MIL SOOOOO onboard with me, and I do mean SOOOO onboard with me, should I ask her to withdraw her home as a back-up plan for him? And how?

What next? And do I just keep up the Plan A?

I just wanted to say, I really appreciate all the help and wisdom... or even the just knowing that I'm not alone... I feel so desperately alone sometimes, then I come here... I'm probably posting too much, but it's not like I even got any time to lead up to this... it's not like H pulled away slowly. I'm not used to the loneliness I feel... it's strange the things you get jealous of, like in my imagination it must feel easier to have slow growth of distance so you have time to adjust Sorry

The only progress is sobriety. I've read on other message boards where women have SF with their husbands, and less than an hour later, the husbands are watching porning and mbing..Sex addiction really doesn't have anything to do with sex. Just like alcoholics don't drink because they are thirsty. Addiction is a mechanism to numb yourself from feeling. To escape. Some people do it with drugs, some people do it with gambling, and my husband chose sex as the way to self medicate.

I went to see a "normal" therapist at first during my recovery. She was, basically full of crap. She told me my husband could one day use porn again. (That's like telling a drug addict they can do coke again.) I've read other women who have had the same experience as you. Please find someone who is trained to deal with addiction issues minimally, a CSAT would be best.

Some resources that you might want to look into:
Recoverynation.com
A CSAT therapist for yourself
no-porn.com
Any book on sex addiction by Patrick Carnes (Don't call it love and out of the shadows)
The Book "Boundaries" by Cloud and Townsend
Any 12-step group: COSA and S-ANON are specifically for spouses of sex addicts.
The book "The Porn Trap"

It's probably best for you to simply try to understand the nature of addiction and to set boundaries.
I'm guessing you don't find your husband's behavior appropriate. Addictions escalate. It's a universal, but the wild card is you won't know how it's going to escalate. Your husband's addiction could very well escalate into physical cheating. He's already having an EA.

In my case, I'm made up that I simply won't tolerate addiction. So I told him it was addiction or me 2 days after I discovered his addiction and figured out he was addicted. I only have one boundary: relapse into daily use=divorce.
Other people have other boundaries: such as, if the husband porns, he sleeps in another room at night; if the husband porns the wife takes the credit card and gets a day at the spa. If the husband porns, the wife leaves for 2 days to re-assess the relationship. Here's where the boundary book comes in handy.

Go back to Dr. Harley's words. The Marriage Builder's program does not work when addiction is present. I did a Plan A with my husband. I got tired of it and eventually went into a state of withdrawl. Honestly, I'd begin working on yourself. Figure out how much of his addiction you are going to tolerate..Where's that line for you? Again, for me personally, I chose to work on this with my husband, as he hadn't cheated or done anything illegal. If he were to put my family or health in jeopordy, all bets are off.

Search for posts by KaylaAndy and Loving Anyway. Their husbands are also recovering SA's. They are much more eloquent than I am about this stuff.

If you have the records, what about creating a spreadsheet/chart on the time he spends on it? Such a visual representation - based against the hours in a day - would be a big eye opener, even to dumb therapists who don't see the issue.

You might even draw a correlary chart with the amount of time you SF, and show the disparity - the more time online, the less the SF...

Thanks, both of you, for everything... whether it's advice or just knowing that someone hears me out, it's important.

A chart wouldn't work for 2 reasons, #1 it would tip my hand on my snooping methods (which I consider REALLY important because I'm NOT coming out of this with an STD should he decide to fully PA) and #2 it's not excessive hours, it's the inappropriateness. Like, even H said during other occasions that he didn't feel it was mentally healthy for him or good for our relationship.

It's not hours on end, but it's the living in fantasy sexy flirty land. Either he's watching porn, or he's joining the newest suggestive game on Facebook and befriending all the girls with slutty pics in their profiles and then searching all their albums to see all their bra shots, etc.

He's, well shoot, what the hell? I'm not even sure how to quantify it. He's just not appropriate, and the escalation of being secretive and flirty and inappropriate, it's NOT my H.

I had breakfast with his mom this morning and she and I are equally disgusted with what's going on with him. She and I would both like him to see a psychiatrist. She's so 150% on my side, it's amazing, because she is adamant and certain that the reasons he has told her and told other people who have talked to her are just plain crazy, and she thinks in a few years if he successfully ends this that he will be so sad and regretful.

I just want my H back. This person is just not all that recognizable...

I keep hoping he'll get a different job and return to his usual circadian rhythm and these personality changes will fall away just as oddly as they came.

Ok, now you're starting to talk like he's having an affair.

And that's precisely what it feels like... he is having an affair with the computer. While originally it was girls in London and half a world away, recently its' been a MOBILE hooker (thank G-d I know every dollar in this house!) and now I just saw that some [censored] IN MY CITY that he befriended sent him a message through Facebook "You're so [censored] hot, and your kiddo is gorgeous!" (Kiddo is in the profile shot with him) I vacilate... between wanting to beat the ever loving sh1t out of him and wanting to scoop him up in my arms and put the pieces back together like Humpty Dumpty...

And this incredible lack of physical intimacy and affection, coming like it has from nowhere, it's just killing me. True SA? Or just an addiction to the inappropriate? Midlife crisis? Nervous breakdown? Neurotic inhibition syndrome? Intimacy issues (as in "I won't have closeness with anyone, even conversationally") It's just too muddy. I want my H back. I just want to cry and scream and throw a fit.

White Russian-
Does it matter what sort of addiction it is? "True addiction" or "addiction to the inappropriate" Call it peanut butter if you'd like, but boundaries are still being crossed in major ways.

Sex addiction IS an intimacy issue. I don't know of someone who is OK with non-sexual intimacy and still feels the need to self-medicate. Do you?

You want your h back. I hear you. But you can't make him. You can't pick up the pieces. HE MUST do that.

So, let's work on you. What are your boundaries? Why are you still allowing this behavior in your home? Why are you risking your child being exposed to porn? Or that your child is a part of his fantasy life.

Right now, by not having any boundaries, you are completely accepting this behavior.

Have you done any reading on addiction, sex addiction or intimacy issues?

What good is it doing you to continue to check up on him? You KNOW he's got issues, yes. Reading another message on Facebook won't suddenly make the clear for you. You can't stop him if he decides to cheat.

I understand the lack of intimacy coming from no -where. Our marriage really spiraled down rapidly in the last 6 months before d-day. It was ugly. But here's the thing-as your husband is withdrawning from you, his addiction/compulsion, what ever you want to call it is escalating.

It's likely going to get worse before it gets better. So what are you doing to prepare yourself for that? Checking up on him won't prepare you for further his further escalations, KWIM?

Although...although...wouldn't it be fun to contact that girl on fb and say "Thank you so very much for complimenting my husband and child! It really makes me proud that they are my family! And I agree, he IS hot!"

I did nearly exactly that


So... yesterday morning I got up and after kiddo was at school I had H open his email and let me peek because he promised I could whenever I wanted, and through this I busted him for flirtatious chatter with a girl in town on Facebook. SHe is a stranger, but there was definite flirting. I printed it, right in front of him for my records. He took the copy and put it in his pocket and wouldn't give it to me. It was ugly. We literally ended up brawling. (That's a first)

Anywho, I busted him, to which the typical "You're too in my business! You're making something of nothing and I'm tired of you! You're being a nosy b1tch. You crowd me. F*** you, I don't have to take this sh*t, I'm moving into my moms house this weekend!" So, I very calmly picked up the phone and called his mom. "<MIL>, this is WR calling, just wanted to let you know MrWR is moving in with you this weekend because I am a nosy b1tch by calling him out on flirting with women online." MIL said "Oh! No..noo...noooo he's not moving in here. You're not kicking him out, right? He's still free to live there?" I confirmed he was merely huffing out of his own accord because he didn't want to be called out on being inappropriate with women online. She said "Well, then, he's not coming here. Let me talk to him." I gave him the phone and she told him under no uncertain terms that he is NOT moving in there. HAHAHAHAHA

So our fight continues, which TBH we hadn't fought for real in who knows how long. Finally, miraculously, I seemed to make progress. I laid it straight out that all of OUR long term close friends are worried that he is not acting like himself, etc. At first he tried to deny it, but eventually he relented and was even crying about the mistakes and the denial and how can I ever forgive him for putting me through all of this just because he is clearly in a mental crisis of some sort? I assured him that if he doesn't choose to continue inappropriate behavior and cross boundries that I will always be there, because it's "for better, or for worse... for richer or poorer... in sickness and in health."

OMG I had to tell you, I saw a glimpse of HIM the REAL HIM through this muck pile. My heart lept with joy, it was so hopeful. We walked into our counseling session a half hour later with the mindset of how are we going to help him recover and him help me recover from what he has been like... he admitted I had shown him the light that this was a midlife crisis... then within 15 minutes our therapist basically said that there is no such thing as a midlife crisis as far as diagnoses go, and he wanted to get it straight and make me say that I was devaluing and dismissing all of H's feelings. We walked out talking about custody and division of assets GRRR I fired that therapist.

H initially refused another one, he was now DONE, not even a trial sep but a real deal. Then, moments later he returned to the "I don't know what I want... I suppose you can get more therapists names, but I'm not promising anything."

I need to get him back to that place he was at before our session, and I need people to help me hold him in that chair, so to speak. I got him to agree that we can sit down and talk to his mom. I got kiddo scheduled to sleepover someplace else, so we can all talk completely freely. I also contacted our friends, who have already tried telling him he needs help, but whose messages he twists and edits to meet his desires... they are putting it on paper. We're going intervention style today. His mom and I are going to sit down and present him with copies of these letters that are about what HE HAS SAID to the friends that have made their mouths gape.

Pray for me. Pray for us. Pray hard.

WR-
When I discovered my husband's stuff..oh I got the crocodile tears. Nice big fat ones, rolling down his cheek.

When I snooped the day after d-day, I got that my husband wasn't simply just "being a man" and was doing "what all men do." I called him out on it, and again I got the big crocodile tears.

So, crying doesn't mean squat.

You CANNOT "help" him recovery. Your husband MUST do this on his own. In the best case..he is having a midlife crisis- he must take care of himself. You can't control how your husband feels, and you can't make him do or feel anything.

If your husband, worst case, is an sa, you still can't help him heal. You can't do the recovery work for him. Support him, yes. Do the actual recovery work, no.

Interventions may be good, but the only one who is setting boundaries right now is your MIL. Which, IMVHO, is the wrong person. Your husband is not married to your MIL, no?

Where are your boundaries? Make up a list and ask him to comply. If he won't, well, you've got your answer that whatever is plaguing your husband is more important than you. Why allow that in your relationship. Honestly, I'd do a Plan B if that were the case.

Why do you allow and put up with this behavior?

In my experience, my H really can't crocodile tear. I could be wrong, but I just don't think he can.

I am not sure what you mean by a Plan B letter. I know B is ZERO contact... but I betcha that would just give him all the "vacation" "freedom" and "independence" he keeps lamenting over, and he'd probably find a way into someones pants in no time, and THAT would be unrecoverable for me. I have thought of talking MIL into letting him stay so that when he's out I can still check his computer (and yeah, I mean it, I am NOT coming out of this with some sort of disease).

You really think I should just be giving up? I can't imagine that. The man I love is in there still, and he is sick... and I frankly feel like it's quicksand and I'm the last one holding on to REAL H, and if I let go he could entirely slip away... his mothers even convinced that a few years from now if he successfully ruins this that he would off himself, and I'm not sure she is wrong. You really think B-ing him will get him back IN? Why can't an intervention work with this addiction like with other addictions?

All an intervention does is tell an addict that people don't like his/her behavior. During an intervention, the addict can still make the choice: addiction or recovery. All the people that are apart of the intervention CANNOT MAKE your husband "see the light." HE either sees or he doesn't. YOU can't make him. NO ONE in the intervention can make him.

An addict will not change until the pain of change is actually less than the pain of staying on the path.

Your husband has no consequences for his actions. WHY? If this was a coke addiction, would you have let your husband bring coke into your house? Would you let him snort in your house? Would you say, "Oh, Okay. See you after you get high?"

I've asked you several times why you are tolerating his behavior. You've never said why.

You can't "love" your husband into making better choices. He has to love himself enough in order to do that. Or you need to provide something that will "help" him reach rock bottom faster. (In our case, he was loosing me and the kids.)

Honestly, rather than figure out situations in which you can still check up on him (which, btw-can become an addiction itself..), I'd honestly suggest you figure out why you put up with this behavior and what sort of consequences you can make your husband face for his crossing boundaries. I mean, consequences other than a wife turning into his mom.

It's very hard, to know that your life is now determined, in part by the actions of someone else. Someone that you cannot control. But that's how it goes.

ETA: Have you been doing a real plan A? (I'm not very good at that..I mostly look at the Emotional Needs stuff). Isn't no contact part of PLAN A. Meaning your husband should not have any contact on the internet?

WR,

First of all, Shabbat Shalom...

Plan B isn't for him. It is for YOU. It is supposed to protect and keep what little love you might have left for him for the day when he finally reaches a point where he wants to return. If your Love Bank is so depleted that you no longer have anything left to give to the relationship, then once he does want to return, you won't be able to work at recovery yourself.

When an affair ends and the WS commits to remaining married, they aren't yet ready to begin the hard work of recovery which requires a great deal of introspection and questioning one's own motives and actions. Before any of that can even begin, withdrawal from the affair partner must take place. This can take as long as the affair lasted in some cases and seldom takes less than about three weeks or so.

During this time the WS will be miserable and will make certain that they share the feeling with the BS, since it seems that misery really does love company.

If Plan A has been attempted (forgive me, but I simply don't have time to go back and read your whole thread, though I will try to do so if you would like me to) and has failed to bring the end of the affair then Plan B gives the only real option for a chance at recovery and reconciliation. During Plan B you begin to rebuild your own life and recover from the destruction of the marriage. You also learn to live without him, since he will not be giving anything to you in the way of support or even his mere presence when you are lonely.

A Plan B letter is supposed to be a love letter of sorts telling him that while you still love him, you simply cannot live with a third person in your relationship. It should also tell him what specifically you will require from him if he ever does wish to return to the marriage. This is not something you throw together in a moment of anger and frustration since it must clearly indicate that you do still love him and want only to have a restored relationship. At the same time it has to let him know that he must be willing to do certain things in order to show you by his actions that he has changed, is willing to work at helping you heal and building a new marriage from the ashes of the old one.

The reason Plan B is proposed by Dr Harley is that a real Plan A where the BS is meeting the ENs of the WS as much as possible while getting nothing in return just can't go on forever. Especially while the affair is active the BS is having to deal with continued stress and trauma while fighting for their very life on a daily basis. This can lead to all sorts of problems including depression, PTSD, other mental disorders and even physical manifestations as the result of the continued stress with no respite. So Dr Harley suggests that the BS sever all contact with the WS in order to stop the strain of dealing with the affair until the affair ends and the WS has gone through withdrawal and has gotten their head together enough to see that the marriage they had was a better starting point to a happy and productive life than the fantasy they have been chasing.

Statistically, over 95% of affairs end within two years. Because this is true, Dr Harley suggests that Plan B should last about that long. If at the end of that period the affair is still ongoing or the WS has not sought reconciliation then he says the BS is free to file for divorce if they wish and move on since any affair lasting longer is really an outlier and so might last 100 years or only another day or two and their is very little way to tell which it might be statistically.

If you go into Plan B and quit talking to him might you lose him? No doubt that the odds are higher than if you simply wait it out. The problem is that if you try to just wait out an affair your health will suffer and eventually your love will die utterly and completely so that it will be you who no longer wants the marriage.

To give you an idea of what can happen if you don't separate from him at some point consider that my wife's affair ended rather quickly, she committed to not leaving within weeks, committed to recovery within a couple of months of that date and soon after as things should have been improving for us I was felled by an infection caused by a bacteria that is on everyone's skin, exists in abundance in nature and when I had an infection caused by it I was one of only 7 cases being tracked by the CDC for that strain. All 6 others had been involved in a serious and traumatic injury that had weakened their immune systems to the point of near collapse. This from a guy who had used maybe 5 sick days in 20 years, had never been hospitalized and had only taken pain killers for two days after suffering 2nd degree burns...I was healthy as the proverbial horse until my wife's affair, which ended quickly butleft me worn out, exhausted and open to infection from something almost nobody has any problems with.

Plan B has a side effect as well in that it causes the WS to get any and all of their ENs met from the affair partner. If the AP had been really great at doing the job the WS would have filed for divorce long before the affair was discovered. By the fact that they waffle early on after D-day suggests that they know they are receiving something from the BS and don't want to lose it. Once the AP has to provide all EN fulfillment for the WS, the fantasy begins to crumble pretty rapidly in most cases because it really is only a fantasy that has no basis in reality. Seldom can the AP do a very good job of meeting ENs since both APs are in the mode of being purely selfish and cannot give enough to sustain the relationship very long at the fantasy level especially after beginning to wake to dirty socks beside the hamper instead of in it, dishes on piled in the sink and not put into the dishwasher, and all the rest of what a real relationship in the same house entails.

So if the affair continues and you are about to fall out of love with your WH, then Plan B is your only viable option since continued Plan A will put YOU at risk of falling out of love forever and for good...

Mar

Well, we all sat down and had a talk. He has agreed to see another therapist, one who is far more qualified that the current IC, and is a cognitive behavioralist like H has always been as opposed to the NeoFreudian that H has admitted is at least 30% cukoo in his estimation.

I also took away his favorite weapon, the threat to leave. I put into no uncertain terms that I.AM.DONE being a doormat, and won't tolerate lies and male-cow-manure. I gave him the option last night, and told him that I won't be giving him the option in the future, he MUST either commit to working on this in a healthy way without being a liar or a needlessly unpleasant person, or I will HELP HIM PACK. You should've seen his astonishment that I would help him pack. It needed to be done. I can't be a doormat if I don't lie down and take it, so I'm no longer lying down. He really did just have this threat at the ready whenever he felt he needed it, so I took it away.

I laid it out, that he should have no romantic ideas about what being out can be, because if he leaves he will not be cake-eating. He's given me all this crap about how we'll still be friends, yada yada. I told him I will NOT be a friend, he will leave with a letter that will lay out THE ONLY PATH back through the door, AND it doesn't lock me into opening the door, AND that I will not be making his leaving any easier in ways that would change my life or kiddo's life. (In other words, get the "you take a roomate in the house to offset my rent elsewhere" out of your mind, because it won't happen in a million years.)

OK, after 24 hours, I'm trying not to over-inflate my hope, but OMG I see HIM again. It's weird, but I see HIM again. He's still sleeping downstairs, but he's not being a d*ck anymore, and his general vibe isn't the nasty one it has been for so many weeks. He actually proactively applied for 2 jobs, which would bring him back to a normal work schedule, and though he had a brief pop-off comment early this morning, he realized very quickly that I was sticking to my guns on my willingness to pack him, and was immediately back to well-reasoned. Please, pray this sticks. He just told me, with a very calm and familiar smile that tomorrow morning he'll be calling his new therapist to book. It really does feel DIFFERENT for the first time in 4.5 months he REALLY does look alot like himself in his vibes, energy, mannerisms, expressions. Please, OH G-D, PLEASE. This couldn't have come a moment too soon, either, because I was honestly feeling too weak and beginning to be worried about my own judgements/reactions/integrity.

I am hopeful. You are a great example of why I fight so hard to get people to stand up for themselves. No one wants to give in and do what they should, if they think their SO will always be there to pick up the pieces; i.e., take them for granted. It's just human nature. He won't see you as an equal until YOU do. IMO, that is why you're getting the results you're getting now - you're finally standing up to him.

G-d, I hope so. I'm in such a weird place with all of this... I want so badly to protect myself by not getting too hopeful, but I feel such a swell of amazement at the difference I am already seeing. I need for this to be progress, because I'm just getting too weak to keep up this fight... I hate to admit it, but I am NO Superwoman, and I am really discovering my innate weakness after 4.5 months of hell. It was really empowering to explain to him that when he first did this, it was as if he had swung a 2x4 and smacked me in the head like he was going for a homerun, and that initially I was shocked and sad and bewildered and in the fetal position on the floor, but that I have now recovered my faculties enough to take the effin board away... I just need to keep that imagery, because it for some reason rings powerfully with me...

Hi WR,
I have been away from MB last week. I hope you are right and you are on a better path. I am so sorry you have to endure this trauma.

Good for MIL to take the side of the marriage. I hope she stays strong if he does leave, or he has HELP leaving. Have you talked to her about what would happen if YOU asked him to leave?

I actually encouraged my husband to leave, and he would not. I guessing yours would dig in his heals too, as long as your MIL did not take him in.

One caution. Be careful now that YOU are holding the "leaving" weapon, that you do not dilute it by using it as a threat that you do not follow with action.

Just be strong, confident and as ready as you can be.

Hopefully he will follow through with a therapist that is not a crackpot, and you will begin real recovery.

It is usually not that neat and tidy, though. Stay strong.

WR-
The healing process is going to take years. If your husband is an SA, you are looking at 3-5 years for the marriage to heal.

If your husband is having affairs (even of the EA kind), your marriage is still going to take years to heal from. I think for physical affairs, recovery is still 2-5 year process.

You and your husband have taken your first steps on a very, very long marathon.

Pace yourself.

MIL has said she will not take him in under any circumstances, whether he decides to leave or whether he decides to be such an awful WS that I kick him out, she believes his leaving is the undoing of himself. She said to help and enable would be participating in his self-destruction, and she won't have even a bit of it, as it would be no different than him asking her to help him weave the rope with which he intends to hang himself.

I will not dilute the situation, and YES he does dig his heels in. It's so funny, really, for as much as he kept whacking me with "I just may leave then" that suddenly he won't. He is still in the basement and that is an annoyance, but all of the sudden his arseholish behaviors are disappearing. He even flirts with me a tiny bit. I think I shocked the sense back into him when I told him POINT BLANK that having him under my roof is no great priviledge such that it warrants my subjecting myself to endless bullchit. I told him that he had the choice to leave, and that I was ready to help him pack RIGHT NOW. Suddenly it's, "Oh- wait, I told you I was staying to work on this."

He is booked to see the new counselor on Friday.

It seems to throw him for a loop that I am no longer pathetic and fearful. My IC said I actually glow like a different person than she has seen in all of this, and feels I have sufficient awareness of my own demons that I am ready to work on the relationship issues and cease IC. She's checking among her colleagues who she feels are the highly skilled MCs to see whom we can see. I thought H might be happy about this, because one of his gripes is that we're paying (sliding scale) out of pocket for MC and it's a burden, and with my IC's referal it could be covered under me by insurance. H, though, seemed to take it as "Wait, you're ready for release and I'm still messed up? Nope, you're as messed up as me." I think I calmed him when I assured him it didn't mean that my demons were gone, but that my IC believes I know how to spot them and do battle with them, which is essential if I am to be part of a successful relationship. Poor boy just can't be happy. I pray Friday proves to be incredible...

I flip flop back and forth with whether it's SA or midlife crisis or ??? Either way, I just want to start onward down the actual path home. I'm almost 29, and I want more children, so wasting time forever and a day in lala-crapla land is not appealing.

Right. But likely your husband won't be "fixed" in 3-6 months. I would also not consider this time to be wasted. I personally don't consider time for personal growth and healing wasted time. However long it takes your husband to grow, it takes to grow. You can't rush his dealing with this process because of IF.

And I understand how you feel, as I have IF issues as well.

I personally decided what I could and could not handle, with repsect to bringing another life into this world into an uncertain, unstable marriage. It wasn't an issue of what I wanted, it became an issue of what was best for my kids.

And you won't know what kind of marriage you'll have until you give it time.

Maybe I was a little too flip when I said wasting time... what I mean is... well I see it like a funnel. Until we're in the tunnel path, we're dilly dallying in the top cup and can spill out every which way... I want to get the heck onto THE path because I know it will take time. This last 4.5 months feels like an eternity.

LMAO- While I was at work he was behaving, though he was Googling "manipulation," "emotional manipulation" Seriously?!?! Umm, hey buddy, whatcha think YOU have been doing with threatening to leave and sleeping downstairs??? Oy Vey!

OK, is this a term that came up at counseling? That is so odd a guy would goggle that.

I know. It almost makes me think some woman told him that. Sorry to be a downer, but better safe than sorry.

I dunno if that exact term came up, but that has been a fallback argument for a longtime. You see, in my WH's world, I am only saying he is not acting like himself because that makes the pain less for me. It's not that he is truly and eerily midlife crisisy and oft recognizable only by his fingerprints, and that statement that he IS unrecognizable is bullchit to him. I had hoped to conquer that with reason, and that's why I went intervention style and brought in his mom and letters from close friends who agree. He side-steps all of that and still asserts that it is MY way of trying to make this all easier on me, which maeks zero sense considering that virtually everyone we know says he's got some screws loose. And, unfortunately, our MC just kept saying how he saw nothing wrong with H's thinking, and supposedly his <now former> IC had the same opinion. UGH. Manipulation makes it all sound so bad and nefarious, and if he wants to he can twist that and find me there... I'm so sick of this sh1t, and worry I will be forced to evoke the YOU WILL LEAVE strategy. I will stick to my guns if he crosses any of the lines I have laid out, but I soooo don't want it to go there... I'm just biding time for now until his IC session Friday with the new counselor.

I think the best way to combat that attitude is to keep it simple.

You think I'm manipulating you? I am not. I am telling you what I am willing to live with. If that is not what you are willing to live with, we no longer have a marriage.

That way, it's about you and not him, and it is now he who has a choice to make.

I hope it works itself out, because in truth, aren't we all manipulating at some point or another? I mean, people do have wants and needs. It's not as if I am trying to make something bad happen. GRRR aliens are frustrating little sh1ts!

OK, WR

I think you need to let go of the idea that you can or ANYONE can convince your husband he has a screw loose.

You know it. His friends know it. His family knows it.

But educating him falls into a disrespectful judgment. Actually the crackpot therapist you fired, deservedly so, was right that mid life crisis is not a diagnosis. There is no mid life crisis pill, although a red corvette can help

I know you are trying to help, and are not trying to be manipulative, but I think you are giving him some ammunition. He can use it against you with the crackpot therapists. He can use it against you in his own junky mind, and other woman can use it against you as they tell your husband his wife just doesn't understand him like they do.

cp is right about making it about you.

Oh, and at the early stages of my husband's first affair, he wa completely whacked. Even before I discovered the affair, his mother asked him to get a check up because they thought he might have a brain tumor.

This is classic behavior, and it won't stop until the root cause is exposed. Even then it takes a long long time.

You may have posted this, but do you have a concise list of lines you have laid out?

By the way, did your husband agree that the therapist should be fired?

If there is an A, ongoing, there is zero evidence. He doesn't usually have a cell (a prepaid, but rarely carried, and it's for me to contact him so he doesn't even have the number LOL)) Anything that happens on the computer is completely reviewable by me, through my special methods. Only place left to watch is the phone bill and I haven't seen anything there. If he honestly had something going at work, I doubt he'd be trying so hard to get the heck out of that job and that he'd fight my moving him up there.

I listed out "the list" to him, multiple times. I have thought about putting it in writing, but that seemed perhaps "over the top." I do, however, think I may need to begin constructing my Plan B letter so that if he is ready to go or be sent on his way, that I am ready with the letter. (How many WSs crumble at the letter stage, I wonder?)

No, he did not want to fire the MC as the session ended, but later he conceded that we had both talked about it before and that we both had gripes with him. I griped that sessions seemed to be all about laying me out naked and filleted on the railroad tracks, and H griped that MC seemed to shut him down from expressing to me his thoughts and feelings in favor of him doing that in IC, so I'd be less hurt. (I'm not sure there is awesome value in repeatedly hearing, in and out of session, "I love you, but I'm not in love with you" "I've never been sexually attracted to you, but you know, a mand can do anything... I mean, I'm not saying you are repulsive or anything, but you are NOT attractive to me" or "<EA> woman isn't the source of our problems, she just helped me see the light" etc etc etc... but anywho, NOW I beleive we are both on the same page with regard to having fired the MC, though as we were walking out and he felt the MC was totally on his side, he wasn't quite there yet.

If you are hear long enough, you will be amazed at how people can figure out how to carry on affairs. I know you are not ruling out the possibility. My husband conducted a lot of his first one with a phone card.

But that is not the point. I know you are looking for everything and anything.

It seems reasonable to hope that someone...family, friend or professional...will be able to "reach" your husband, make him see the light, and he will come back.

It is possible, of course, and it is great your husband is seeking help, but the process usually doesn't happen that way. As a previous poster said earlier, most often they have to hit rock bottom.

Yes, you should have a Plan B letter written. It will help clarify your own boundaries and you may need it at a time that you are emotionally charged.

DON'T tell your husband of your plan. It is enough that he knows you will show him the door.

I would write down your list that you have verbally given your husband, maybe have it ready for Friday. Anything verbal can be genuinely misconstrued or your husband can use it to manipulate a situation. "You never said that." "I didn't hear that." "I would never agree to that." Whatever....

What exactly did you tell him?

I told him there were 2 options before him, and that in the future if his behavior doesn't stay appropriate there will be no choice for me other than to pack him. I told him I don't want to have to throw him out, but that I have come to realize that it's not such a great privilege to have his mere presence, and thus I have boiled it down that I want HIM living with us, not this new him that has not been worthy of the privilege of living with us.

He had already agreed at the earlier convo with his mom that he would see this new Psychologist, so that was already set.

I told him that to stay, he MUST be worthy of staying. That means NO rude comments, NO dishonesty, NO treating me like I'm his maid and servant by neglecting his chores to try to push me into nagging him to do them. I told him that I was tired of hearing about his pessimism, and that if he continues to voice it at every moment to try to offend me and distance me that it will indeed distance me, because I will pack him. I told him that to be HERE he must actually BE HERE, and WANT TO BE HERE, and TRY TO BE HERE. I also told him that he can dump the cache and delete the history all he wants, but that I have learned how to recover the lost data and all it does is piss me off. No more porn, no more erotic photography sites, none of that crap that removes our focus from the US that we are trying to fix. I also told him that when I have to squeeze by him to grab something for kiddo, he is to stop acting like my touch is a cootie touch or molestation, because our kid doesn't need to see this immaturity because no one ever died of having their back bumped or arm bumped. He said he was going to be mindful of these conditions, and at that point he wishy washed a little, he told me he would not play the Facebook sexy games and that if he indeed chose to change that stance that he'd man-up and be honest. He has not played the Facebook text-based flirty games since, and has told me that he will tell me if and when he does.

I also told him that if he is romanticizing being out, that I was going to clear a few things up for him. Number one, me being his "best friend," HAHAHA UMMM NO. If you are OUT, you are OUT. I will not be your friend, take your phone calls or spend time with you so you can be entertained and less lonely out there. I said "If you want independence, buddy you will get it." I also told him that he should have no illusions that I will take in a roomie or otherwise add more stress to my child and I by changing our lives to help our budget to be able to afford his independent living situation. I told him that if I am forced to put him out,or he decides to leave, he will leave with a list of basic requirements to be considered for eligibility for return AND that doing and being all of the things on the list should not be construed to be a contract that mandates me to open the door and move him back in. I told him that his little idea about how he can come over after work to kiss his sleeping kid, and come over before work sometimes to be the one to get kid ready for school is a NO GO. That life on the outside will not include me at all, and that child will be available every other weekend and an evening a week for visitation, transfered through an intermediary. I told him that if he needed more money to move out, well then he can man up and get a second job because it's NOT my problem and it's NOT kiddo's problem. The locks will change. Furthermore, I let him know that being out isn't to be an excuse to whore it up, and that I have more people out there feeding me info than he cares to know, and I will catch him and the door will surely never open again, and just to be uber-safe, he'd need a full STD battery to be considered for comeback after a trip out. I told him that though I do love him, I am through taking all the crap.

He decided to stay, and I reitterated, "Don't [censored] with me. If you do, I will have no choice. I love you, but I love myself enough to know I am worthy of being more than a victim."

Wow, you laid down the gauntlet. It sounds like you got his attention.

My guess is he will eventually push you to act, by displaying inappropriate behavior a drip at a time, to make you the bad guy in the end. Be careful of becoming his mommy/wife.

Others on here can advise you better, but I think you may have some legal issues. I know when a friend discovered her husband's affair while he was on a business trip, she packed a few things for him and changed the locks. He went to the police and was escorted into the house, since he had a legal right to his own home.

I don't know if your husband would seek legal council before he left, but a lawyer may caution him to stay until papers were drawn up because leaving the house could be viewed by the court as abandonment.

It may also be sticky to endorse any kind of visitation schedule without a legal agreement, since I think he has equal rights to his child, too.

You may want to consult with a lawyer first before you really Plan B.

If you stated your list to him in an emotionally charged situation, you should calmly discuss them again, and I would suggest writing them out, so there are no misunderstandings.

Of course he could even accidentally slip with a rude comment, the cootie thing, whatever. You need to plan how you would handle each infraction and how long. If he is rude, for instance, I would plan out a response which does not feed the situation, but is not over the top threatening either. How do you see yourself handling the small stuff?

Good job painting a picture of what it would be like if he left. But really, don't give him any more information about Plan B. Just be ready to do it.

What role will you have the session on Friday?

Ha. If I kicked my H out and changed the locks, and he got the police to let him back in, he would come home the next day to find them locked again. And the next day. And the next. And the next.

And I'd be videotaping every move he made, every word he said. I may not have much going for me, but I have a stubborn streak you wouldn't believe. No one bullies me like that.

WR, I loved your post, and I am going to crib it if you don't mind and give it to another poster who would benefit from the example.

So, have you talked to a lawyer, especially regarding custody?

The courts ARE giving fathers equal access these days. I have a friend. Her ex is a raging alcoholic. He gets the same visitation schedule you've propsed, and that's unsupervised.

My husband, if he would have remained a sa, likely would have gotten joint custody. Furthermore, I'd have to pay child support.

Is your name only on the mortage? Are you completely prepared to financially separate from your husband? Do you know, exactly, how to proceed to kick your husband out, lawfully, so it doesn't hurt you in the end?

Have you discussed with a counselor the effects of never acknowleging your child's father with your child?

My point is, that I still think you are reacting emotionally to everything, and laying this at the feet of your husband to fix.
I'll agree he's the "broken" one, but you ARE part of the relationship.

I haven't seen you look at your part, your half. I haven't seen you say, "Today to recover from this I'm going to.."

Instead, I'm seeing you (from what you've posted) begin to display codependant behavior-the unhealthy kind that comes being in a dysfunctional relationship. I'm seeing you set boundaries that legally, you may not be able to keep.

I'm hearing that you are deciding what your husband can/can't feel around you. That he WILL do things, rather than the two of you working together to be a team on household duties. That your husband needs to tip toe around you so he doesn't piss you off.

I'm sorry you feel like your husband must "earn" his way to stay in a marriage with you. Is this because you've been the "better" mate? My husband, yes, has to work to earn my trust. But, I'm in no place to place judgement on his worthy-ness. That's not up to me to decide. That's up to my maker.

So, let's forget about your husband for a minute. What are you doing to help yourself heal from this? What are you doing to take care of yourself-you (and your child) are your responsibility.

Could you do me a favor? Please search for any of Loving Anyway's posts and read them. They are dense, but so worth it.

FHL- Sadly, Friday, I have no role. Frankly, it makes me nervous. I wish I could accompany him With regard to the visitation thing, unless he gets another job, his schedule is such that he really can't do much more than that, anyway. No court in the land will mandate visits starting at 10:30PM, and he works every other weekend, so the best he could hope is that the courts give him his off weekends and the mornings on his on weekends. We can't afford lawyers, so I highly doubt we'll go formal on this stuff. I have thought of having him sign an agreement, though, at one of his nicer moments, just to give me 1/4 ounce of security. He tried to slip a rude comment by on Saturday morning and start a trip down the new-him-jerky-lane, and I think it was a test of my seriousness, and I very calmly said, "I'm sorry, am I to take it that you have changed your mind regarding how you choose to conduct yourself? Because, if you changed your mind, I can still go get boxes if that's what you're heading for?" It ended immediately. The cootie thing has died. Like I said, there have even been little flirts. It's almost weird.

Cat- I'm with you on that. I'm stubborn and I won't put up with too much more. I'm now not as stunned and shocked, so I am standing up and drawing lines in the sand.

InRecoveryNow- There's no mortgage. It's a rental, with both names. I am not fully prepared to seperate, and I don't know that I ever could be, but like everything else in life I will pull up my big girl panties and get through it if that is what is required.

What are you asking about never acknowledging my child's father with my child??? Kiddo knows Daddy. I'd never rip Daddy completely out of Kiddo's life. I don't think I have ever said that.

I hope I am not truly just laying it all at his feet, though I do believe he is the more broken one, I have endevoured not to allow a blame-focus. I can't see how I am laying it all at his feet to fix, as I have been working my [censored] off to better all that is within my changeable realm, but there is a point at which I can't fix it. The only person I can control is me, despite all my wishes otherwise LOL. What have I done to reduce and hopefully eliminate my part in all of this? Well, I have owned up to the reality that I did have issues with AO, and I have been working on my ability to meet his RC and PA needs. We BOTH allowed ourselves to stop dating, and seldom went out together before all of this, and have changed that since. To recover from this, I will continue to work toward being a better RC and thinning down to better meet PA, and I have already virtually eliminated AO's (even H agrees I have) Our former communication pattern was poorly conceived. H was always a laid-back person whom I perceived to dump all responsibilities on me, and H perceived me to be controlling and disliked my AO's. I have now begun to express myself better through "I statements." I have also put myself last in alot of things (wear my shoes out, one haircut a year, etc) and apparently this annoys H, so I have started to balance life better such that we all get some of the wants/needs met, depending upon what the financial resources are like when compared to everyones wants/needs.

I don't believe (or sure hope I am not) determining what he can feel, but I have asked that he not give rampant voice to negativity and that he try to give some airtime to the positives. With regard to household chores, I was merely reminding him that I am aware that by shirking all chores, he may be consciously or unconsciously manipulating me to nag him to help. He actually kind of agreed on that, that he perhaps in his "expecting" me to nag that he was thus engaging in behaviors that bring the nag out.

For me, hmmm... I have been with an IC, and she actually says that she feels I am ready to dismiss because I understand my own baggage and how to process my own demons when the begin to run amok. Her dismissal will free us up to see another Psychologist in her office who she holds as a highly regarded MC, and bill it under our insurance as a relationship based discorder. I also find great support and/or comfort here, and I go out for drinks with the gals on occasion and hope to re-invest myself in my own hobbies soon too.

Off to go read Lovings' stuff

MARRIAGE COACHING QUESTIONS

Umm, so I have been gifted an opportunity to send the bill elsewhere for some marital interventions, up to $600...

We are between MC's at the moment, as I fired our last one this past Friday. Our previous MC was out-of-pocket on a sliding scale, which still resulted in $300/mo in combined therapy costs. The new therapist will likely be going through our insurance, which will save us tremendously.

So... now I'm thinking, I/we could get 3 Marriage Coaching sessions with the Harley's. Three would be it, though, unless maybe thereafter we only got one a month, but I doubt we can do that. So, will 3 sessions with the Harleys really make a difference? Should we go Harleys and then our insurance-paid therapist? Should we jump into both at the same time (which seems like a bad idea because they could conflict)

Anyone try these sessions?

I'm leaning toward taking the 3 sessions of coaching, THEN starting with our new therapist. The upside to this is that it delays me stopping my IC by a few weeks, which might make H happiest if he's not the only one with an IC because I think he kinda feels like if my IC is dismissing me and yet we're putting him in with a new IC, perhaps he's "more messed up." I don't view it that way, but I can see how he could, because we all have our demons...

Thoughts?

YES, a huge difference.

If you know ahead of time that you will only have 3 sessions, you may be able to email Steve a short history of your background first so that you don't have to spend a lot of time giving background info. When you call to set up the appt. you can explain your sitch and see what they say.

We've done both traditional MC, I did IC and we counseled with SH.

We accomplished more with Steve in one session than we did in MONTHS with other MCs. And that is no exaggeration.

I wouldn't hesitate to counsel with Steve if I were you. I don't know your story at all, but our experience with him was phenomenal.

P.S. if you do this, in order to make the most of your session/s with him, I would make sure to be very knowledgeable about the basics here, things like:

~total transparency
~NC letter
~exposure if the A is still ongoing (or suspected)
~all ENs
~Lovebusters

Again, I don't know your sitch so not sure "where" you are in this process...some of this might not apply.

I would throw everything you have into counseling with the Harleys because they don't mess around. They really know how to save marriages, and they won't waste your time with a lot of psychobabble nonsense. They get down to business and give you a PLAN to save your marriage. This is not the kind of thing where you go in and pay someone to listen to you bloviate for an hour. Heck you can do that for free at home.

You will get more out of 1-3 sessions with them than you would with months/years of other counselors. They are worth every penny and won't waste your time.

I hear Steve is often late for appts, but that is because if you need 2 hours with him, he is going to stay with it. He is not one to cut you off in the middle of some good progress to go to the next appt. He is serious about helping you fix your marriage. I have sent my own FAMILY members to him, that is how much confidence I have in him.

And take EXHAUSTIVE NOTES! you will forget alot, so it is important to write everything down.

I had my first talk with Steve on Monday of this week.... man he's good....I felt so connected right off he got a handle on my disaster....If you look at it in terms of what a devorce well cost you it will seem a cheep price to pay.... I'll know alot more in a week or so, but for us if we have a chance Steve H will be the one to find the way....

*sigh*

Well last night H finally got around to opening the email a friend sent for the intervention.

He spent the whole evening crafting a response that basically said "OK, you think I may have a problem, and I am going to a professional. As for my child, I don't want kiddo growing up in a loveless marriage with my wife constantly AO at kid and I." Umm first off I don't AO at my kid, and second of course there is ZERO CREDIT for my improvements. UGH! I DON'T AO ANYMORE! I really have to say I am impressed with MYSELF that I was able to break it, but I WAS! Dammit, he is so committed to finding fault and ending this. And, really and truly I can't believe he is attempting to slander my name as a parent. I am a good mom. No, I am a GREAT Mom. Seriously, I'd love to deck him for that, because it's complete bunk.

So I told him about the option of FREE (to us) sessions with the Harley's and then later a new MC, and of course I got "Well I was never too sold on the MB stuff. Seems like alot of blah blah rah rah." Ummm Yeah. I told him that's like saying "I'm not to sold on giraffe meat, when you have never eaten giraffe."

***tap, tap, tap "Is this thing on?"***

Sorry, I guess I am kinda feeling lonely and needy. I came back here hoping for more words of wisdom or misery loving company or whatever.

I also am eager to see whether my longggg answer to the questions the ?yesterday? were consistent with my desired direction...

I love you all... I'm postively addicted to this place, because without it I feel very alone in all this.

Have you called the Harley's and set up an appointment?

If not, what are you waiting for?

***sigh*** I don't know what I am waiting for??? I guess I am sorta hoping H's new IC will get him on-board Friday. Wouldn't it be best if we were ALL IN? (And my HNHN and FILSIL CDs are coming tomorrow or Friday, so I'll be better prepped after that.)

I'm in a nervous phase again.

Anyone else ever notice that there are REAL UPs and REAL DOWNs? Like I feel sometimes like I'm on the eMotion rollercoaster

WR, posts get lost sometimes; sometimes you just have to remind us.

Your H's email is extremely typical when men are called to task. Protect your image. CYA. NEVER look bad in front of other men. The instant they have to do this CYA, nothing else matters. In fact, they may go overboard and pin everything on others, people they feel they can walk on, so they don't look bad. Remember, men are all about winning. (generally speaking)

fwiw, I am extremely proud of how much you are standing up for yourself. Best way to go, IMO.

I know posts get lost, I just get so antsy LOL. You guys REALLY ARE my main way of walking this path... I'd never be able to do this without you guys.

Interestingly enough, though H totally tried to pick a fight last night about the email he received and how offensive it was, I think I defused the situation pretty darn well. Though he doesn't fully hop on board, I think I managed to get him to put a few cans from his 6 pack into the "they do care, it can't hurt to explore a circadian disorder or dysthymia." I was really careful in how I chose my words and how I maintained my voice, as they say "despite the spewings of the infidel."

And, emmmm... it worked out so well that we ended up SF last night and H is kinda talking about working mentally up to coming back up to our bed for more than just the occasional SF.

(And I kinda think I maintained my head pretty well, because funnily enough, after H had turned down my advances, he invited me down to the basement to "talk." And then when in passing the comments went thataway, I said "great, let's go upstairs." H tried to talk me into going ahead downstairs at his makeshift bed, but ummmm I'm not going to give that place any associations of thrill. Uh-uh. So he came upstairs and, well.... lather, rinse, repeat )

Hopefully tomorrow will be a new day for you, but there will be many ups and downs ahead! Has your husband ever been to IC before the last few months? He seems very willing to go, which for a man seems out of the ordinary.

He never has been to IC, unless you count speech therapy as a child of 5-7. To be honest, I'm not really surprised he's open to IC. You see, before all of this crazy foggy crap, my husband was the kindest, sweetest, gentlest man I'd ever known. He never has feared what people think of his masculinity, and frankly that is probably for the best at 5'8". He gardens (not flowers, but other stuff), and reads for pleasure, and experiments with cooking stuff that is only really good to him LOL. He's unique. He's always been so concerned that sons aren't taught to be manly, but to be humane, and that daughters aren't taught to be weak or afraid of math, mechanics, or things traditionally called masculine. The need to join a gym and lift weights and act like a cad are just so out of character, it's not even explainable with any words I've ever heard

Hmmm........your husband does sound interesting. No wonder you want the husband you know back.

Yep. GAWD, though I hope I'll never have to write a Plan B, I have no doubts I could cite more than enough for a love letter.

When I was pregnant with kiddo, I ended up on bedrest. I had such a hard time with things that I ended up spending my nights on the couch in the living room because it was easier to use the couch back to climb upward for all the midnight potty breaks... and since I wasn't supposed to walk very much at all, it made the most sense. My H was so wonderful, he pulled the cushions off the other couch and put them right in front of my couch and slept there every night. Many nights he'd start the night by laying on his back and grabbing my feet and massaging them until one of us fell asleep. I miss that H

Checking in for my daily dose of sanity...

H had is first appointment with the new psychologist this morning. Part of me can't wait to hear what he felt about it because a friend of ours thinks so highly of this Dr, but the other part of me dreads that he could've been blowing smoke up the docs tailpipe and walk out of there with only increased hubris...

OK, may I please just rant for a moment? Because you guys are the only ones that *get* this.

So many people just default to "divorce his a$$"

And even the ones who don't default there immediately, well they "get tired just watching [us] go through this and think that maybe it is just time to admit when [I'm] beat"

GRRRRR that's not support! I vastly preferred being told I should be nominated for sainthood.

So the new therapist did tell him what I always knew... the OMG soooo horny for you infatuation that he deems "romantic love" is a normal pathology that lasts about a year or so and then has to graduate into mature love... and in all the animal kingdom the proclivity is serial monogomy, but as HUMANS we are superior and must endevor to not succumb to animalesque ways... HAHAHA Oh and H has homework.

Glad to hear it.

H is still talking about "when he moves back upstairs in the near future." Hmmm... still don't get it, but he has a huuuuuge emphasis on how it must come in his own time.... so sooooo hard to wait...

I have to admit, I probably did a little no-no, though. Last night H hugged me goodnight and it was a slightly longerish hug and man, I just neeeeeded that, and when he pulled away, I was bawling. So he hugged me some more and then I begged for some more and then he hugged me some more... dammit, I just NEEEED to feel some affection. It's killer. Despite it all, he ended up downstairs again, but he did come up in the morning and cuddle up with me in our bed for about 7 minutes or so. UGH. I just need to get through this. I sooooo miss him, but I'm seeing more and more of him peeking through again, so I am hopeful, though cautiously optomistic.

WhiteRussian,
Your situation seemed similar to mine. My FWH had joined a gym and became a cad too - led to EA and contacting women online through dating site. My H says it was MLC - he was 45 at the time. Once it was all exposed he was very ashamed. Now he acts like it never happened. Hang in there - it will get better. And don't listen to the nay sayer. Some wanted me to D my H but I couldn't give six months of WW behavior more weight than our 17 years of M. And my H commitment to R made the difference - he really wanted our M to work. I was ready to D him but I'm so glad I didn't.

GG

GG

WR, this may seem a little controversial, but the more you mention downstairs, the more nervous I get. What would you think about installing a hidden camera down there, just for a few weeks, to make sure of why he wants it so bad? He could just be enjoying being alone; he could be doing some things you might need to know to save your marriage.

I don't have the financial resources to install a hidden camera. What I do have, though, is a ventilation system that lets me know EXACTLY what's going on. Sleeping. That's it. Occassionally, in the past, reading, but now he is even bringing his books upstairs. He has a TV down there, but only watches when he is folding laundry and it's all SciFi channel or MythBusters. It's seriously silly because all he does down there is sleep. It's not even like he's spanking the monkey, because quite frankly he has always left me evidence when he does, he truly is just too careless to hide it well , because I do most of the laundry. Seriously, we have a longstanding joke about my being jealous of a certain blanket that he utilized while I was on pelvic rest when I was pregnant. (Hey, I never did say everything about my normal H is charming )

I have searched his gymbag a few times, too, to make sure it's consistent with normal gym stuff. Oh, and I do let him know good and well that I will check on him at my leisure whenever the hell I think of it, and so this morning when he went to the gym on the way to work, I went to make sure he was there.

Maybe you should stop cleaning the basement. Let him deal with his own sheets and whatever. Kind of like, don't help a WS finance her affair; don't make it easy for her. Don't help him 'finance' his choice to live alone down there.

I don't clean it, per se, it's just that he'll pile his crap in the communal linens pile and it ends up washed with all the others. He re-sheets and all that himself. Believe me, what once was my studio is now a PIT

This mornings news brief...

H came home from work last night and we ate together, and sat on the couch together and snuggled up a bit. Out of the blue he says, "I'm not sure if I am ready to sleep upstairs again, but I'd like to stay upstairs with you at least just for tonight." Hmmm. Ok. So we snuggled up and watched a little TV in bed and went to sleep. This morning we woke up, and ended up SF... we have a date planned for tonight and tomorrow night. He responds better to kissing again, though he's not more than a peck initiator of kissing at this point. I have no clue what it all means. And another peculiar thing I have noticed... we both were always "thankers" (you know, after SF ) but he hasn't thanked since all this started... hmmm... well, at least we had a good time this morning... and I'm hoping this is his moving back upstairs... hmmmm....



Editted to add my BIIIIIG Small news.... I am down almost 4 pant sizes since the beginning of the year. WOOOOT! The low carb abject grief diet is really effective LOL. I had to go try on a bridesmaids dress yesterday for a friends wedding in August, and the shop asked me what size I wore, and I told the gal and she pulled that and the 2 sizes below it... I fit into 2 sizes smaller than I thought! WOOT!

UPDATE: So he just announced he is moving back upstairs... I'm not to make too much of it(LOL), but he's moving back upstairs... hmmmm...

WTG, WR! 4 sizes is fantastic!

So we went on our date last night (and have another tonight)

At one point, while driving around to get things all set up, he did try to mention how unfair the assessment a friend made was... I didn't take the bait. I just told him that people cared, even if he didn't like how they showed it, and can we get on with our enjoyable evening.

We picked up fastfood, and did the mock drive-in with the laptop out in the middle of nowhere. It was raining (sometimes pouring) thunder and lightning. It was awesome. We watched some comedies and ended up.... well, we ended up SF again at the "drive-in" . So if you read the morning post, you know that made twice in one day That hasn't happened in I dunno how long LOL

So, is this the beginning of recovery? Is part of recovery almost honeymooney? ***crosses fingers***

His mom and I both think that when he lets his guard down, he does hint at knowing he has screwed up, big time, and maybe even kinda dances near pondering the validity of my midlife-crisis assessment...

Say your prayers for me, people... I think we're rounding the corner toward Sanityville. Sure, there's tons to be done, but I'd swear I have at leas 30% of him back

WR, congrats on dropping 4 sizes!

Your update is all positive, but just be careful of getting your hopes up. More than likely you will experience a two steps forward, one step back sort of thing.

It is a great time to continue to Plan A....but still continue to snoop snoop snoop.

And try not to be tempted to any kind of "I told you sos" regarding what "this" is. I know you want to believe it is a midlife crisis thing, but the diagnosis really doesn't matter as long as you are making good progress and he does not pursue inappropriate communications or relationships.

Have fun on your date tonight!

Your sitch is creeping me out. It in some aspects is so close to my sitch!
My H did the web-looking thing (just curious- riiiight) and did not like the way I LB'd him- so he went to the couch and then downstairs too!
(Says he can't sleep comfortably together while we are both so at odds with each other.)

Really, he knows this upsets and pisses me off! So like a bad banjo player, he will play this note ( he knows it gets my goat) until I go insane! ...or as he hopes, change whatever until he gets his way.....
Maybe the space (of him being out of the room) is good for now- I am having HUGE issues LB-ing lately. Some days it is very easy- others are a nightmare.

He won't "move back" until he sees some positive changes. <Apparently, hethinks the changes must all be mine, methinks!>. I decided to pick my battles and not pressure this. <grumble>

He's such (LB warning) a drama queen! He acts (when/if caught) like everything is a huge misunderstanding-- but he causes 80% of his own relationship problems (both in our M and with the kids)

ooooh well. I really should work more on myself, tho.

I hope this latest news leads to something good for you.

I'm glad to hear some good news for you, WR. Maybe he'll spend the night with you again?

And as Faith said, try not to let your hopes get too high.

Gotta work on the LB's. It's hard, it sucks, but you have to. I have thankfully, even according to H, managed to virtually eliminate mine, and I think that has been an essential component to seeing any movement in a forwardly direction...

Barbie: I have to go see your thread(s). Isn't it lovely how it's YOUR problem that he can't make wise choices? Men...

FHL- I know. It's sad to know it, but I know. I totally still snoop. I sometimes worry I am rather obsessive about it at moments. Today he killed off his Facebook SexGames character and Lollipop, without my asking. If you recall, I had told him I felt those were both hugely inappropriate in the over-flirty nature that they have, and he had promised to let me know if he used it again, though he had said at that moment that he would not, but he wasn't gonna kill off his character either in case he later felt like it. It "couldn't be WR's choice when H killed the character and ceased using it forever." So he emailed me today that he killed it. I called to say that I appreciated his considerate action and he said he just felt it was the right thing to do, that any wife in my situation would want the same, but that for clarity sake I should know that he didn't really WANT to kill it, but did so because he felt it needed to be done to better our situation...

LF- Yep, he was upstairs "on a trial basis" the night before last, and then upstairs last night, though I'm not to "make anything of it" :roflmao:


He's doing the enneagram quiz his IC has asked for, and that I will have to do down the line... he's doing it down in the basement

I am sooooo tempted to put all the bedding supplies from down there away tomorrow while he is at work, so that he can't very easily flop back down there... sure, the pieces would be available, but if he wants the cushions, then let him dig them out of the upstairs closets where they belong. Know what I mean? You think if I cleaned that bed mess up in the spirit of "cleaning the basement" that that would be too hostile an action?

Maybe you could wash the bedding, and "forget" to remake the bed? That's kind of an in-between thing. Passive-aggressive?

I wouldn't clean up for him. Let HIM do that. However, if there is anything your husband is allergic to, or you know of anything that could discreetly cause discomfort, perhaps you can treat his basement bedding with it.

Oh, I know....rub in some poison ivy!

THAT's not passive aggressive, is it? No, I would call it behavior modification!

If I wait for him to clean it up, even a year from now, it will be there even if we're FINE. He's LAZY. And, unfortunately, no allergies.

I want it out of my basement It's supposed to be MY basement. My art studio, and my mojo has been so crushed with all this, I would really love to try to push myself into some of my work and see where it goes, get the healthy release, but down there next to his runaway bed I just can't be inspired at.all. Grrrrrrr...

So we went on a date last night, it was supposed to be a gym date, but with my barely keeping a migraine at bay with aura all day long, we opted not. We brought the supplies for the drive-in, but decided to scout for a new site. We drove around all evening chatting and driving, and seeing places we've never really seen. We had dinner out, too. He wanted to talk relationship, and Dr Harley, though he's not "into it." He wanted me to explain the EN's and LB's and POJA and RH. I'm not adept enough in some of the concepts We seemed pretty well engaged from when we left at 6pm until about 10:15 or so, but then it was just me wanting him to agree to the coaching and participate in the process, and him saying that he doesn't feel like that right now and it has to come from him and he won't give it his "enthusiastic support" ala POJA. GRRRR....

Then, later, after it actually went more awry than I would have liked, it came out that he had thought the coaching was FREE and FREE because it was with some Joe Schmoe like the marital coaching churches often offer where you're just matched with a long-term married couple. How he thought this, I can't even begin to guess, because I had explained that it was $195/hr, but that I had found assistance wherein we can get it for free for 2-3 maybe 4 sessions because someone else will foot the bill. I had explained that it would be with Dr. Harley. I hate not being listened to, and then blindsided by it later.

He did still sleep upstairs, though, and cuddle up a little.

I sure do miss the way we were constant cuddlers before, though. I hope that's not irreparably lost in all of this.

Bumping because sometimes I come back here obsessively looking for wisdom and perspective...

So here's the morning update:

No real changes that appear huge...

I am 3/4 done with HNHN, and ummm have to say I am kinda disappointed... the first chunk is all about his need for sex and a wife being cold to it. Um. Nope. Then onto RC and seems to advocate giving up hobbies not done with the spouse. I can see if my H were wanting to go wild and free with the boys, that would be an issue, but I don't want him to have to quit something if he finds something he likes. And me, I have a few gal pals I scrapbook with on occasion and I don't want to give that up, either. I suppose we could try having H take up some other intricate sit at a table hobby so we can work simultaneously, but I'm not even sure he's gonna have anything interest him in a sit and do way... soooo.... hmmmmm... are we really saying that we should give up all hobbies we love that we don't/can't do with our spouse? Or???? Thoughts???

Can you share how you found coaching assistance, White? We're on a very fixed income...

A religious entity is footing the bill for us, if he'll agree to it.

How cool! Thanks!

Well, that's one area I disagree with MB on. Maybe it's my filter, cos I basically gave up my life to please H. But I look at those old couples in the restaurants who eat but never talk...if each of them had even one hobby they could talk about think how much more interesting their lives would be.

Of course, a better approach would be to find things to do together. Did I ever post that list for you?

What list? Post away, Cat!

I totally get the whole sharing a hobby so we can chat easier, but I just can't say I feel like I want to give up my art just because H won't take up an art hobby.

And, I'm still struggling with the whole RC thing, most of the RCs are his. Gym= Him (Sweating my [censored] off is NOT my idea of a good time, but I grin and bear it, and I think H thinks I like it), Biking= Him (He's much more athletic, so he makes me feel like I'm no fun because I can't get do what he can. I'm asthmatic, he isn't, etc)... and I can't join him for one of his hobbies because I am allergic... and me, well, shoot. I like our dates to the drive-in or a dinner out, but that gets expensive and the conversation doesn't come as easy as it used to so it's awkward

I wish I could get him to shop recreationally. I'd totally love him to come help me pick out some nighties, but alas, it wouldn't fit with his facade of "I don't like you, I'm not attracted to you. I only "do" you when I'm feeling the urge because you happen to be available, but I don't really like it."

I used to keep typing these ideas out; finally got smart and just make a document of them. If you think of any others, let me know and I'll add them to this.

Read a book together
Take turns picking out a movie to watch
Bring out the board games, at least once a week
Start a solitaire club with some neighbors or friends, play solitaire against each other one night a week or month
Start gardening together
Grow herbs/vegetables/fruits
Take walks
Start a sport together; take classes at a community college, such as racquetball or volleyball
Get bikes and start riding bikes together
Sign up for an MS 150 and train for the bike ride all year
Plan some day trips, start taking one every month
Try out one new restaurant every week, take turns choosing and surprising the other with it
Go to bookstore and get a book like “52 great invitations to sex” in which you both have 26 invitations for a special evening to invite the other one, and you set it up, give the other the invitation (included in book) and then put on the evening
Join an online gaming community together (but don’t get addicted!)
Buy a Wii or Guitar Hero and play together
Give each other foot rubs
Take massage class together and practice giving each other massages
Go back to school together
Get a pet, take it to obedience school and learn to train it (if applicable)
Join a neighborhood dinner club or other club
Volunteer together
Join a church or get more involved in your church
Take a cooking class together and take turns cooking for each other
Go to HGTV.com and pick out a project to do for your house together
Take free classes at Home Depot on how to fix something at your house
Start a business together
Organize a block party
Organize a family reunion
Start working with a financial planner or learn about stocks together
Take dancing lessons together; if you like it, start entering in competitions
Go online for your city and look up 'activities' and 'family' and maybe even 'free' if your city is big enough; subscribe to those websites and go there every month to look for upcoming activities you can all do together; you can find plays, music events, art things, sports things, picnics, etc.

Well Ima gonna write off the online gaming as a good idea because Facebook started this LOL...Oh, and starting a business in times of stress? NoThankYouVeryMuchLOL I own my own small biz and I've been neglecting it because of all of this. Biking, you see my issue. Gardening is his hobby and I'm not a dirt fiend, plus the wildlife just wreck it all, and he's not into aesthetics anyway, so it would not be a togetherly thing...and a family reunion? OY! Or HGTV projects? Oy! Board games, video games, movies and dancing if his schedule would just permit it.

I detect a huge sense of not willing to consider options.

Are you kidding? I have totally been a good sport on so much... I just need to get even further out of the box with him.... I wish I could just get him addicted to scrapbooking, too LOL

Um...ok.

Hey, whose side are you on??? *snort*

I go to the gym with him, I go on walks, drives, mock drive-ins, bought us a chess board, go out to dinner, and am trying to build up my muscles to tolerate a bike seat without feeling like I am wearing a couple of doorstops up my vajayjay and bootay LOL

I'm also helping him job search so we can get on a schedule that makes more sense for us. Then we'll take classes... dancing and such...


ETA- and the invites to sex sounds GRAND except he'll be a d**k about it.

Well, this morning started off a little rocky. Childs laundry is getting low and I have been soooooo busy that the sock stash was so small that H thought child had none. So he then tells child, "I'll have to maybe pull socks out of the laundry because Mommy didn't have any clean for you." (Which was wrong, as there were 3 pairs matched already that just weren't ideal for the outfit, and another pair in the clean pile H has strewn about and refused to tidy up) Ummmm OK, this is a pisser. Seriously, I work P/T and run a small biz AND have a very demanding contract assignment right now. H sees childs undies and socks becoming slimmer pickin's, too, so why is it just ASSUMED to be all me?!? No appreciation whatsofarkling ever! UGH. So, without LB's and with only a stern voice I again stood my ground. Seriously, the man thinks chores do themselves. His big contribution? Trash and loading/unloading dishwasher Except the trash is only emptied maybe twice per week even though it needs out 3-4 times a week, and the dishes are only done by him about every 3rd day though that's usually because we RUN OUT of things we need. Grrrrr. Why must I work what amounts to at least 40 hours per week, too, AND still be the one whom all household failures are blamed upon?!?!? Grrrrrrr!

So.... next time relationship talk comes up again, I'm going to let H decide if we take up with the coaching or we start with the MC my IC recommended... he can decide. Then, I'll either use the coaching with him or maybe use it without him...

And I am hopeful that the weather is nice tomorrow, as I have quite the day planned (all family time, but still, good fun ala Plan A). Farmer's Market in the AM, then a tour and playtime at a park we found while driving the other night, then an evening date of some sort... perhaps makeshift drive-in. And Sunday night we have comedy club tickets that I won, again WOOT!

Nobody got nothin to say to me

I'm bored, lonely, and needy again... so I'll post...

Hi WR...I've been off to work, and now my husband is home for the weekend...so will not be around.

I'm not really into the joined at the hip thing, especially when interests vary so much. I'm not one to talk, though, since my own marriage is one big fat mess.

I do think it makes a difference if spouses are enthusiastic and supportive of each other's interests. I am into art, and my husband is fully supportive of it, and actually frames for me. I don't do it WITH him, but it is something we have in common. And I support things he does, even if I don't join in every time.

Perhaps you could parallel RC. Is there something your husband likes to do that he could do at the same time and same place?

We're trying to figure out a sit down activity of a creative type nature that he could do while I'm working my art in my studio.

What about model building? Airplanes, cars, stuff like that? Go to a large hobby store and there's lots of different things...

I highly doubt he'd have any interest in those. He's really not all that toolsy... I am going to try to see if I can get him into something like that with me, but who knows.

On another note... I'm having a sh1t day because I woke up this morning and realized that next week I would've been confirming a gender for the pregnancy I lost. As I said before, I had not really felt like I dealt with the loss at all, what with the timing and all. All of the sudden it hits like a tonne of bricks. It's hard, too, because I remember when I was pregnant with kidlet, and this one actually had the same due date only 6 years later, so I keep walking through the calendar thinking about all the little steps. A few weeks ago should have been the first strong kicks, not just flutters. Next week would have been confirming gender (I had felt it was a boy)... and then if it was like with kidlet, within a couple weeks we'd have then widdled down a name from the list... and around the beginning of July we'd be seeing him move from the outside of my belly and noticing how he reacted to sounds...

Now, it rips me a bit. No, actually rips me apart. I wanted him. I know alot of people don't/won't get it, but he was real to me. And I also feel like a bit of a sh1t for having told myself then that he shouldn't be there... I know it's not really rational, but I struggle with feeling like I killed him... like my not saying "I want you, I love you, hang on tight til I can meet you" weakened it all... H says I need to think of it like a helicopter... he was coming in for a landing and then decided to go back and circle, but might very well be back later. I'm feeling crappy today. A very big part of me is struggling with that whole want and need to identify when I'll next be holding a baby... and the fact that we are in recovery, even at the beginning as we are, I finally feel like I can see the future again. Like for months I couldn't dream because I didn't know how my family would look... but now I know we're gonna make it... and I'm sitting here kinda feeling the absence. The void where the little guy would've been...

*sigh*

Slap me if you absolutely must, but seriously, not too hard. I'm feeling crappy and torn enough, and no amount of non-emotionally based wisdom is really going to make a big difference at this precise moment, as I am already aware of how off this all sounds, but that doesn't stop the feelings. Feelings are what they are, even when they're not logical or "right." *sigh*

Hugs to you, today.

You are doing a great job.

About sharing the time together. What does your husband like to do besides going to the gym.

Could you purchase a piece of equipment or a weight bench so he could work out while you art? (We use art as a verb in our house) Does he like to read? Would that be an option? How about TV? I think being in the same space counts even if you are not interacting all of the time.

(((WhiteRussian))) So sorry you are hurting.

{{{WR}}} I'm so sorry for your loss.

How about going to church to say a prayer or light a candle for him?

Oh, WR, I am so very sorry for your loss. There has to be a reason for this though, as difficult as that is.

You are in my thoughts and hugs...

FHL- We do watch TV together, but I'm aiming for convo time. He wouldn't lift for more than an hour, so though I have been watching out for used equipment, I wonder what use it will be...

Cat- Even if I was a church-goer type, I just don't know that that would help. As a Jew, there is some old belief out there that pauses the candle idea, anyway... I can't remember it fully, but something about it gives me pause. That and the fact that if I did light it for him, it would eventually just go out and that would bug me, too... I want to hold him, kiss him, sing to him and for H and I to share all those little firsts of his. That's what I want. I want him. There's nothing that comforts that, except in some small way I used to be comforted by trying again, and dreaming again... 6 of these losses, you'd think I'd get better at it, but darnit if this one doesn't feel almost worse... the fact that he was due the same day as kidlet was, just adds to it, because I *know* week by week all that I am missing. I remember when kidlet first fluttered... kicked... had hiccups... danced inside me to music on the radio... I remember looking at that ultrasound, being told a gender, and knowing instantly that that dropped our list from 12 names to 6...

I'm very fearful of a protracted holding pattern...

In June we are traveling, including some very significant religious sites... before all of this happened, before the baby was lost, I had dreamed that this was our time, that we'd come back from those holy places and I'd be pregnant. I didn't dream I'd be going back on birth-control, bleeding like a stuck pig through my whole vacation, and pumping myself full of hormones to prevent a baby...

This morning we talked about it and he went into the whole "if it is meant to be, he'll be back again later." I said, well it's not like we're Jim-Bob and Michelle Duggar, so fertile that we can be assured that leaving it up to G-d we will have another within 12 months, so if the "meant to be" argument stands then let's let it be. He said that was an interesting point, though he wasn't entirely sure about that being a great strategy for now. I just want to know we're not going to be on hold forever, because even once we are in a not-trying-&-not-preventing mode, it could be 1-2-3 years or more, like before.

*ack* This sucks.

I want my life back.

More hugs and good thoughts to you, White.

I'm feeling better-ish again. We really have rounded some kind of corner. MY H is more and more present, and the alien less and less in attendance. For the first time since January, I can dream of our future, because I know it's there. Do we have stuff to work on? SURE. But who doesn't? My point is that we ARE on a path. We ARE making progress. It's amazing to consider that I had felt like I was on a rollercoaster in perpetual climb, hearing everything creak and wondering just how long we'd be fighting to go up hill, and now I can truly say I see and feel that we have indeed crested, and are on the path DOWN from the erupting volcano... and my stomach isn't turning like long rollercoasters cause, either. It's comfortable to live here again. I seriously am thankful that people slapped me hard enough to make me stand up and challenge this, rather than continuing to writhe in pain and wallow, because standing up changed EVERYTHING. We're going to make it.

Still chugging right along. We actually talked more, this morning, about meeting eachothers needs. As in, not just HIS...

Moving right along...

I'm so very happy to hear that, WR. Isn't it nice to know the light at the end of the tunnel is not a train?

Hang in there, stay strong and walk tall!

Here's where I take it to Recovery Thread