Where to start... Contemplating divorcing my husband. I'll try to condense the story.

Met/started dating 4 years ago. Got married after 1.5 years of dating. Two months after we got married, I moved across the country for grad school (He refused to move there, b/c of the geographic location/lack of outdoor activities, even though w/his job, he could've easily made it work).

Early in our relationship, I realized something was wrong, and had a breakdown, and basically was crying, asking him "why he didn't think I was awesomer than he did". While he wasn't outright mean (per se), he was always very negative- maybe in a joking/sarcastic way, and rarely ever said anything nice/positive to me. I found the 5 love languages book, made him read it, and thought maybe it would get better. (mind you, this is after dating 5 months).

Fast forward to LDR in grad school. A year into school, we were having issues, and I called him crying, begging him to come visit me, I told him our marriage was in trouble, and to please come. He of course had a biking trip planned with his friend and choose that over me. (never, had I ever asked him before to give up an activity for me. Not once)

A month-ish later, I cheated on him. Two days later, I knew I had to tell him, b/c I didn't want to live in a marriage where there wasn't trust/honesty. So I flew back to where he lived and told him. I knew there was a good chance he'd divorce me. Told him everything, long story short, he forgave me and we really started working on our marriage.

All the issues came up: I saw it as him not loving me enough b/c he wouldn't move with me for school. He had been turning me down for sex basically since we met (after the initial few month honeymoon phase of sex). Came out that he'd been looking at a lot of porn, and apparently wasn't in the mood for me....It was a "classic" case of cheating. Husband doesn't appreciate wife, doesn't want to sleep with her much, never says anything nice, and is negative much of the time.

I graduated from school, moved back home...things are supposed to be great...but weren't really. Had to leave for a month for a work training thing and met this guy. You know where this is headed. We actually liked each other (as opposed to the first incident, which I think was just anger and feeling abandoned). We emailed for a bit after I got home, but we knew we couldn't keep talking.

I knew that if I was going to address whatever issues there are in my marriage, I can't do it with some other guy on the sidelines.

First off, I know that what I did was wrong. Whatever I am writing next, is in no way me trying to justify what I've done, but try to explain the relationship in an attempt to maybe get some advice/clarity. Please keep the mean comments to yourself.

I'm contemplating a divorce, not b/c of this other guy and I have an idea that being with him would be better. I know it doesn't work that way. But he is certainly a catalyst. For the past four years I've felt demeaned, belittled, unappreciated, unspecial, unatractive, unwanted, judged, etc. But it's all been in a very subtle way. My husband isn't a mean guy, he's just never had to work hard for a girl, I guess.

Basically, I feel like crap. And even though I can see my husband is sort of trying to change, I don't really feel it or believe it. I still love him a lot.

But I wonder, even if I can get over feeling like a piece of junk, there is still the issue I cheated on him again. And I do NOT plan to tell him about this 2nd time ever. Either we work it out, or we get divorced.

Part of me wonders if it is just better to get divorced, b/c that is probably/maybe what he would do if he knew. I know that even the worst marriages can be fixed with love/prayer/god, but I'm not even sure I want to try. I'm afraid of having kids (no kids now), and it not working then, I'm afraid of my kids getting their self worth/value degraded like I have. I've told husband all of this. He thinks I'm somewhat nuts about worrying about our future kids, but I see where his negativity comes from (his mom), and if it can be passed on to him, and then to me, it surely can make a kid feel like crap.

I know this post is sort of all over the place...I don't know exactly what I'm asking. I'm certainly not asking to be told what a terrible person I am for having cheated on my husband twice. I've read enough mean posts from people, that the message is heard loud and clear. I certainly never ever thought I'd be in the position, and I know I had my own judgmental thoughts about people that cheat. Pride goeth before a fall, apparently.

I guess I'm wondering if it's worth even trying to save. He says he's committed 100% to making our marriage work. He actually told me that he wasn't surprised I cheated on him b/c he had treated me crappy. He's trying to make up for the hurt I feel, but I'm having a hard time believing what he says. Or trusting it will be any different.

If you've come here to look for sympathy, you won't get any. What you will get is solutions, but first you need to decide if you want to save your marriage. You have to tell your husband the complete truth. Not what you want him to hear. Marriage Builders principles only work if you follow them completely. If you're serious about saving your marriage, the vets will come along to help you once you've given them the information they ask. Whether you choose to take the advice that is given will be up to you, but don't expect to be pampered. You need to face this. There is no excuse for adultery. No marriage is perfect. It takes work.

Hi Doro. I am also not a vet, please be patient as things are quiet on the weekends. They will arrive shortly. Meanwhile, I will post and I am sure the vets will correct me if I am wrong.

Firstly, please do not warn us not to write "mean posts". Sometimes the truth hurts... I and others will not pander to you as you have betrayed your husband's trust and committed adultery. Not once but twice. I am not going to whitewash that. You can interpret that as mean, I say it is the truth.

Now to work...

So you recognised after your first affair that you don't want to live in a a marriage where there wasn't trust / honesty. Honesty is an imporant emotional need for many, so well done on telling your BH.

But now, with a second affair that is not only physical but emotional...

Hmmm, so now you want to live in a marriage where there is no trust / honesty? A change from what you originally stated after the first affair. Marriages need honesty to survive. Please get a copy of His Needs Her Needs and Surviving an Affair pronto. Order them. And meanwhile keep reading as much as you can on this site. Inform yourself so you can make informed decisions.

Doro, what I hear is a lot about YOU. Not your BH.

Who are you to decide if your BH should hear the truth or not? Who are you to decide if you should divorce or not? Does your BH not deserve the truth to decide if he wants to work on the marriage or not?

I hear that you are scared to tell your BH in case he decides to divorce you. That is his right. As is hearing the truth about his life and marriage. Your words are all about YOU deciding if YOU want to work it out, or YOU want to get divorced. There is no WE if your BH does not even know the truth. Your marriage can not survive without the truth.

Doro, your post reeks of entitlement. There is very little in here that is not you justifying why is is ok to betray your husband. As GJM pointed out, you will not get sympathy here. There is no acceptable reason for adultery.

I hope you are strong enough to stick this out and have your thinking challenged.

Any chance you could have stayed where he was for your studies? Dr H knows that overnight stays away from your spouse are a recipe for affairs.

Ummm, didn't you ask him to move across the country for you? Regardless, you are both living independent lives, a recipe for affairs. Both of you are indulging in independent behaviour (IB).


Lets not gloss over this, which you seem to want to do. How long were you back home with your BH? Before you went on training?

And where is this headed? You say you "liked" him, and emailed for a bit but knew you couldnt' keep talking. When did you last talk / email / have any form of contact with him?


Exactly. So when was your last contact with OM?

You placed your education above your marriage, and you are surprised your husband isn't at your feet?

There has been no marriage. You never committed to it.

For catalyst - read 'reason'. He is the reason.

Not your H not being 'nice' enough. If there really were problems in the marriage you would not need 'catalysts' to see them.

Besides which, the hurtful actions in your marriage have all come from you.

First, you are a serial cheat.

Secondly you violated the POJA agreement by moving without him.

POJA dictates that no decisions should be made without the enthusaistic agreement of both spouses. No agreement, then you cant do it.

But you are only worried about yourself.

If your h were on here I would tell him you were not safe to trust, becuse you talk more about how he wont let you violate POJA than you do about regret for the incredible attack you have wrought on him by cheating on him again and again.

Exactly how do you think this FEELS?

Oh and his agreeing he has treated you like cr''p? Has it not occured to you that you simply crushed him with your actions and emotionally blackmailed him into just agreeing with whatever you say? We see it on here all the time. Good people desperate to keep hold of the cheating, unworthy spouse, because they love them and are COMMITTED.

Go NC with OM and commit to your marriage or do your H a favour and leave him alone for good.

Here, let me fix this for you:

"It was a classic case of cheating: wife enters union with a fairy-tale view of what marriage should be; wife assumes husband sees marriage same way; wife never talks to husband or gets his view on things, just expects him to conform to her fantasy; wife is too dense to realize that such emasculation of her husband makes her as sexually-appealing to him as five-day-old Georgia road-kill, so doesn't understand lack of intimacy; wife also too dense to realize that Disney has exclusive rights to all marriages that survive long-term separation; wife's terminal density exacerbates her juvenile sense of entitlement which results in her going heels-up for the first sapola with 5 minutes of conversation and 5 bucks for a drink; wife comes to MB forum looking for support and justification while watching her former fairy-tale life circling the drain; wife finds out MB forum doesn't roll like that; wife forced to face reality for maybe first time in her life."

There. That reads much more like the "classic" case we see from WW's on this board.

To the point:

You were wrong to have an affair.

You were wrong to marry your BH for he is not the man for you.

What to do.

Divorce BH.

Get into IC so you become mentally healthy and learn not to have any more affairs.

Then re enter the dating world.

WRONG.

She is not the WOMAN to be the wife of ANY man.

She married, and then immediately ditched him and expected he would just follow her because of "unconditional love" or some such drivel.

She ignored his feelings in the decisions SHE made that affected them BOTH, and is attempting to villainize him to justify her own selfishness.

And now that she has cheated MULTIPLE times, she feels she is "entitled" to divorce her husband because SHE has made a wreck of their marriage.

No.

Lets put on some big girl panties and own up.

I know this post is sort of all over the place...I don't know exactly what I'm asking.

No, actually you know exactly what it is you want from this site, whether or not you have the courage at the time you wrote your note to address it. Please do us all a favor, examine your feelings toward BH and the "other" possibilities in your life, and ask the question.

I completely agree. Married people cant just up sticks and move when they want and they certaintly cant sleep with whoever thay want!

Shes a little girl who doesnt understand that marriage will require hard work and co-ordination from her,

What she wants is slavish devotion, not marriage.

ANd OM are excellent at dishing that out.

For a bit.

Doro, speaking to you here as a man who had an affair, I can tell you that if you're sincerely interested in saving your marriage, then it can be done.

It can't be done the way you say you've been trying to go about it so far, however.

So if you want to inch closer to seeing things as they are, read on. If you're just, deep-down, looking for some anonymous, internet-forum strangers' validation & blessing to ditch your husband (or to maintain a lifelong deception toward him), then you won't find that here. This is MarriageBuilders, and it's about saving marriages -- even those marriages which people like me & you have driven into ditches.

None of what I'm saying should be read as being harsh. Remember, I've walked in your shoes, a little bit anyway. Have an open mind and maybe hear a few things you might be overlooking:
Food for thought: Why mightn't this be looked at as "I left my husband after 2 months of marriage to go to grad school across the country when I could've easily made it work to go to school close to home so that I could stay with my husband" ?

And, Doro, as long as you keep the secret about Guy#2, you're still keeping him in your back pocket, on the sidelines, as an option somewhere in your mind. You do realize that, right? Be honest with yourself.

But you don't love him even enough to be honest with him about Guy#2? I know... I also felt like crap much of the time when I was in my affair. Trying to feel good about yourself when, deep down, you know you're acting rottenly, is a hard circle to square.

Just typing it doesn't make you humble, Doro. Fessing up and letting your husband know the truth -- giving him significant facts about his own marriage and giving him the bare-minimum courtesy of allowing him to make his own choices based on truth, not on a deception, is the beginning of humility. Don't fool yourself into thinking you're there now. Maybe you were there after Guy#1, or maybe not -- I can't know. But you're not there now.

So, you want him to be all-in, but you're not all-in enough to be honest with him? You want to feel you can believe & trust him, yet you foster a facade (which is to say, a deception) every minute of every day toward him with respect to your own mindsent & recent conduct? Wouldn't you say pride remains at work, just speaking objectively here? Maybe when we're in the latrine, we each think everyone else's stinks more than our own, but then we wouldn't be judging objectively, would we? That's your pride "goeth-ing" before better judgement.

Doro, don't you see, it's your marriage, not some used car. It's like a living thing, not an object -- if nurtured, it will thrive, and if neglected, it will suffer, wither and perhaps die. When you're trying to save a marriage, the way you start is, you act to start saving it.

There's not an easy map forward for you guys. Saving your marriage will take hard work, and it'll take both of you being all-in. If you don't proceed on a basis of Radical Honesty (read about it on this site), then you'll never get where you want to be, and you'll never be able to look back & honestly tell yourself that you gave it your last, best shot.

Something for you to think about.

Couldnt agree more. The marriage will thrive if you feed and nurture it. Right now it is being starved.

The grass is not greener on the other side, it is greener where you water it.

DoroM,

Assignment;

Tell us why your husband shouldn't leave your butt on the curb, TODAY.

The first thing you should do is tell your husband the truth. He needs to know about the affair so he can make the decision if he wants stay married. And he may wisely decide there is nothing here to save and move on. You can't ever recover a marriage based on lies, trickery and fraud. So it may not even be an option for you if your husband decides to end the marriage. You are no prize, dear, and he has right to know the damaged goods he could get stuck with.

The news of your second affair is information about his life that he has right to know. You have no right to withhold it from him. To do so is manipulative and dangerous. He has a right to choose whether he stays in the marriage or not.

And no, you won't get over feeling like crap until you stop acting like crap. Lying is crappy. Cheating is crappy.

Your attitude means you are mentally well on your way to divorce .... and then shopping around for your NEXT X-husband.

You're going to be one of those women who has 3-4 ex-husbands.

Unless .......... You do some studying of the Marriage Builders Basic Concepts.

Summary of Dr Harley's Basic Concepts <~~~ LINK

You know ZERO about how to maintain a healthy marriage.

You can change for the better.
Are you willing?

LINK to thread ... read TrueHeart's letter (first post)

An excerpt:

Define what you mean by "mean comments" ..... and I will consider your request.

I'm curious to see if she comes back.

Thank you for all the replies- I didn't realize they had moved it to a different forum...I was wondering why no one had replied in the other forum.

A little clarification on the back story. We had been dating only a few months when I started looking at grad schools. No, there was no program close to where we lived. He supported me in going to school. Yes, I asked(begged) him to move with me. He has a job where he flies completely free, and could've easily worked closer to where I was in school. He refused.

There is not one thing you guys have said that I haven't already thought myself.

I didn't come here to look for sympathy and/or justification, I knew better than that. I came here to get an objective (and you guys are nothing, if not objective) and at least somewhat respectful opinion that I know is hard to get from people who will only tell you what you want to hear.

I came here sort of as a last ditch effort because I'm not ready to give up on my marriage. I'll try to figure out how to reply to individual posts.

I wasn't 'warning'. I don't expect to be pandered to- and I don't think anything you've said is 'mean'. Sure, the truth hurts, you're right about that. I guess I just wanted it to be at least somewhat respectful. That's all.


No, I really don't. It sounds like an awful way to spend the next 40 years.


You're right. I'm scared. Yes my BH deserves to know the truth- and I know that in my head. I'm petrified- and to be completely honest, I'm more petrified of hurting him again than him choosing to divorce me. Which I know I already have hurt him again, and the longer I don't tell the truth, the more hurt accumulates.

You're not getting it. POJA means never asking someone to do something they don't want to. You put your education ahead of your marriage.

You found out the hard way that being apart plays havoc with marriages - and so does failing to Poja!

But let's cut to the chase. Your marriage is doomed unless you can tell your h the full truth honestly.

Are you willing to do that?

I understand that there is no acceptable reason for adultery. But adultery does not happen in a vacuum. The reason I wrote so much about me, was because there are often precipitating factors/events and I was trying to explain.



No, couldn't stay- no program where we lived. When I said I had never asked him to give up an activity, I meant I had never said, "don't go hang out with your friends tonight, hang out with me!" I begged him to move with me. He refused because "there wasn't anything fun to do where I was going to school". I guess I didn't push it because I knew he wouldn't budge and I didn't want us to end. We ended up getting married before I went to school instead of waiting till after.

Yes, you're completely right about the IB. The reason I couldn't quit school and move back home after the first cheating incident, was b/c I am in military and they are paying for school, if I were to quit school, I would've probably been immediately deployed for 9+months, as opposed to finishing school where we could at least see each other. Now that I'm done with school, I have control about when/where I'm deployed, and it's only for 3 months.

I was back home for about a month and a half. Training was military, so there was not an option of going or staying.

Last contact was a few weeks ago.

DoroM,

Are you and your husband both military? I assume since you just completed a fully-funded graduate program that you have a lengthy commitment to the military. Was/Is your husband prepared to move with you where-ever you are assigned? Is he prepared for multiple deployments?

It appears to me as though you had both signed on for a marriage of independent behavior versus interdependent behavior. A good marriage is the blending of two lives into one interdependent life.

AM

Maybe I'm not getting it. The decision of mine to go to school was made early on in our dating relationship...He hadn't even told me he loved me. So yes, I put my education ahead of my dating relationship. And then he said he supported me going to school. I'm curious- since my going to school was a decision I had made before we were at the point of making decisions together, how does Poja apply? Since he didn't want to move, was I just supposed to say, "yes, dear" and be a good housewife? I'm not saying this sarcastically, but I am genuinely curious how this is supposed to apply to decisions that were made way before marriage was even on the table. You know?

Was it a recipe for disaster? yes. And the whole being apart thing, even for a night. I feel like our our future marriage is a recipe for disaster. Because of his work (pilot), it means that he will be gone from our house for at least half the month. Every month.

To be completely honest, I am not sure I am ready to tell my H the full truth yet. I understand our marriage is doomed if I don't.

It was a really big step for me to even get on here and talk about it (even anonymously)

The decision to go to school was made by you before you were married, but you didn't move to go to school until after you were married ... do I have that right?

Decisions that were made before marriage that are harmful to marriage should be undone once you are married. That has nothing to do with being a "good little housewife," but has to do with what is best for your marriage. Your marriage should have come first, not last.


No one is ever "ready" to tell the truth, but surely you understand that it is not fair to continue to lie to him? His right and need to know supercede your comfort level. This is information about his life that is being wrongly withheld from him. He has a huge problem in his marriage and he needs to know about it.

Yes, we are both. But both reserve/guard. With my current AOC, my deployments would be about 1 every 1.5-2 years for only 3 months at a time. So not that bad. He also has some flexibility with deployment. But, we are both supposed to be gone this fall, we fixed it so we would at least be gone at the same time. But that's still 2-3 months of being completely apart.

I would agree with you about the marriage of IB. I think we probably got married to quickly to have the time to really discuss all the really important stuff.

Yes. Decided to start applying to schools after dating a few months. The application process/interviews and what not are done about a year in advance of when I actually was to start program.

You shouldn't have moved without your husband.
When you were single, you had every right to live where ever you wanted.
That changed the day you got married.
Your husband didn't want to go, so you abandoned him. And you really don't see a problem with that?

I guess when you put it like that, if I was given a choice to go to school or to marry him, I would've chosen going to school. I don't know if that is more of a reflection on me, or our relationship. Maybe both.


Yes, I understand. But I also can't just run out right this instant and tell him. For one- because he'll be gone at work for a few days.

It is a reflection that you place your school above your marriage, but we already knew that. The reason your marriage is such a wreck is because it has been neglected. That is the point the others are trying to make. You can't expect to maintain a marriage if you neglect it.


When does he return?

Married 2.5 years, no kids, both working in careers that involve constant travel/deployment, 2 affairs already... recipe for disaster. Are either of you willing to (or even able to, due to current military requirements) put your marriage ahead of your career?

If her husband showed up on this forum, I would tell him to cut his losses and move on. This marriage has been a disaster from the start.

And two affairs in a short marriage? That would be a deal killer for most people. No one is worth that.

Is it really abandonment when he was in agreement with the plan? Is it any less 'abandonment' on his part that he refused to allow me to follow my dream of further education, just because he wouldn't be able to ski or mtn bike for two years?

I get that we entered the marriage with independent behaviors, but to place full blame on me for wanting to go to school, when the only reason he didn't want to go with me was because of lack of outdoor activities (not b/c it wouldn't work with his job)?

Clearly, we both were saying to each other that other things were more important than our marriage.

It is abandonment when you abandon your spouse for your career. No reason to argue about it. The point is that if you continue to place your little job aspirations above your marriage, you will never have a marriage. A job should complement a marriage, not the other way around.

The key thing is to be honest with your husband about your affair and let him decide if he wants to stay married. If he does, we can help you fix your marriage if you are willing to make it a priority.

You still arent willing to put your M first, or to accept that your h would have been unhappy and resentful living somewhere he didnt want to!

I would say divorce. But have the courtesy to tell him the truth first so he doesnt mourn you too long.

He already knows something is very wrong. It keeps him awake nights. He prob even blames himself, since he doesnt know the truth of what is wrong, that you had an affair.

Oh, and saying he is at work is a total cop out.

When I found out about my h's affair, I carried on going to work. I didn't confront him right away. I was devastated but you would be amazed what the average BS is capable of enduring.

I called him up from my office one day and said I could tell he was keeping something from me, and that I wanted to know what it was. That secrets were a deal breaker with me, but that I could work past anything but lies.

He said just what you said. That he couldnt tell me while at work.

But he didnt tell me the next opportunity either. Or the couple after that.

What you dont realise is that the truth, wherever I was and whatever I was doing, would have been a gift. It would have freed me from those sleepless nights trying to figure it out. It would have meant MAYBE I could trust him to be honest when it really counted.

In the order of things that have bugged me about the A - his telling OW he loved her, sleeping with her and lying about it, I rank the most offensive act towards me as lying.

You have the chance to undo the lying.

But you will continue to make excuses until he finds out on his own (and he WILL) And that will be that.

I don't see the benefit of marriage for either partner in this marriage. I don't see why you married. You put your career first and it appears as though your H puts other activities first.

Did you have a large wedding with a big reception? Did you marry for the party?

AM

Thanks for your input. It was actually a pretty small wedding- 80ish people. It was a casual backyard BBQ.

Well, why did the two of you marry? It does not seem as if you wanted to "be together". What were the reasons you chose to marry each other?

AM

We got married because we loved each other, and our life goals aligned. It wasn't so much 'just a career' for me, more of a calling. I posses a very specific skill set that is desperately needed in 3rd world countries.

Our plan eventually was to be able to move overseas and do volunteer/mission work. So we figured that living apart was an acceptable means to an end. And apparently it didn't work out as planned.

Have you learned about "The love bank" yet?

LINK to Basic Concepts

You fell in love with H because you allowed HIM to fill your intimate emotional needs that made "love bank" deposits.

You moved away, and your love bank stopped receiving deposits.

I've read about similar stuff in the book The Five Love Languages, and glossed over some of the stuff on this website- seems to be somewhat similar idea.

When you committed your second adultery, and you remain dishonest about it, you keep H from coming close to you.
True intimacy requires honesty.

How old are you?

Unfortunately, my love bank wasn't receiving many deposits even before I moved away. I bought the 5 love languages book, early in our dating relationship, b/c I realized something was wrong. He read it (albeit reluctantly). I feel like I was in denial about not feeling loved. I felt needy that my love language was 'words of affection'.

almost 30

You said this:

You fell in love. Right?
He can fill you needs, can't he?

Here's my advice.
This marriage is potentially salvageable.
But, it won't be easy.

Start with honesty.
You cannot get off the stupid spot until you open up and tell H everything.
How you feel unloved.
How you had a second adultery.
Let the chips fall.

You Ok with that?

Click on the MB questionnaires & you can download them.
The EN questionnaire and the love busters questionnaire.
Present them to your H and tell him everything.
Ask him if he is willing to work on the marriage after your second adultery.

Best of luck.

First you said that your BH wouldn't move with you because he didn't want to lose out on his outdoor activities. What did you say to him when he said, "Honey, I can't do outdoor activities there, you go. Bye."?

And then, in another post, you say that you both agreed that living apart for a short time was a means to an end, with the both of you moving to foreign countries. Would he still be able to do those outdoor activities in those countries?

Actually Doro, your marriage reminds me q a lot of my own. Neither of us were willing to be honest about the stuff that truly bugged us (not wanting to be 'needy') which led to us doing a lot of independent behaviour rather than working out our marriage.

Of course all that unspoken resentment eats the lovebank away. Plus IB builds poor boundaries around the opposite sex.

And then - boom, affair.

Independent behaviour in marriage is like trying to work as a team in the two-legged race by going to separate races.



If you had been honest about the true danger to your marriage and the risks of an A taking place, and told him about the progression of an A. Im sure that would have felt risky at the time, but if you had done it you wouldnt be in this mess.

But lets focus on today. Honesty today always prevents regrets tomorrow.



Are you honestly willing to provide him with a true marriage, from this moment on, now that you have seen where the alternative gets you?

A marriage where you have a healthy integrated life, with no nights apart?

No secrets? No keeping resentment to yourself in case you 'seem needy'?

If you can tell him the truth in FULL and he doesnt D you, this site could be your salvation and provide you with the sort of m you have always dreamed of.

I didn�t come to this site for justification or to make me feel better. There are plenty of other forums/internet communtities where I could've gone if all I wanted to hear was, "You'll be better of without him" "he sounds like he treated you awful" sort of thing. I choose Marriage Builders for a specific reason. I know I sound like a train wreck and a terrible person. And I�ll be the first to admit that my heart is very hard right now. But there is at least one sliver in it that thinks that maybe my marriage is worth saving. I haven�t yet been able to decide that, but that�s why I�m here.

I believe that God can do anything, and with enough prayer, hard work, and dedication, even the most vile marriages may be saved- even if maybe the individuals shouldn�t have gotten married in the first place. If God says in the Bible (I know all of you probably don�t read the bible, but for those that do), that divorce is evil- then it must be his plan to stay married. And if it�s his plan to stay married, his plan has got to be better than whatever plan I�ve got cooked up in my head.

Someone stated "What she wants is slavish devotion, not marriage."

That�s not the case at all. I just want to know and feel like my husband thinks I�m special and that he values me. Do you know how incredibly destructive it can be in your head when your boyfriend then husband doesn�t really want to have sex with you? (and no, I�m not fat or unattractive. I�ve actually got a ridiculously nice body and face).

I�m not justifying what I did, but just explaining how truly awful I�ve ended up feeling due to our relationship (and lack of love bank deposits). While outright verbally abusive wasn�t the case, after four years of it, I do feel emotionally battered.

To already be made to feel not all that valuable, and then to come here and read
�She is not the WOMAN to be the wife of ANY man�.
�And two affairs in a short marriage? That would be a deal killer for most people. No one is worth that.�

Really? You�re telling me I�m worthless? That no man should ever want to ever be my husband? Thank you for that helpful advice. Sharing something I recently saw on facebook.

Jacob was a cheater, Peter had a temper,
David had an affair, Noah got drunk, Jonah
ran from God, Paul was a murderer, Martha
was a worrier, Thomas was a doubter, Sarah
was impatient, Elijah was depressed, Moses
wtuttered, Zaccheus was short, Abraham was
old, and Lazaraus was dead�.
God doesn�t call the qualified, He qualifies the Called

I refuse to believe I�m worthless. I am broken and sinful, yes. I�ve got an extremely hard heart right now, but I am here making this little effort because this is all I can do right this moment.

You�re right- I�m not there now. Not even close. But I was there after guy#1. My H would�ve have never ever known if I had not told him. I remember how terrible it was, and I�m scared sh*tless to go through that again. Thank you GloveOil for being firm yet respectful.

I don�t want to be one of those women who have 3-4 ex husbands. That�s my worst nightmare. I never wanted or planned this to happen. I feel like I�ve never really been able to experience how good a marriage Is supposed to be, so part of me doesn�t even know if/why it�s worth salvaging.

But, since I broke my leg a few weeks ago, I�ve got nothing but time to figure it out. (spare me the �karma is a b*tch� comments...even if they may apply in my case).

So, honesty yay or nay?

What did I say to him? I didn't push it b/c I was afraid to. I knew if I said, "you're coming or else!" it would be "or else". So I 'technically' agreed to him staying, even if it was by default of not 'making' him come.

Ahhh, yes- the "what kind of outdoor activities do these other countries have". Something we have discussed for sure. It would be relatively easy to agree on a specific country that had something to offer him in that regard. It's something that's always bothered me, because I have never felt nearly as important as climbing/mtn biking/skiing is to him.

To be completely honest with you- I don't know. I truly don't. Before I posted here I was absolutely 100% dead set against ever telling him about it. Take it to my grave.

I don't know what percentage I'm at right now, but I'm wavering. I'm sorry that I can't tell you what you want to hear or do what is the right thing at this moment.

Thats ok. Its not my marriage.

I do see a glimmer of hope in you and I would hate to see that snuffed out.

You weren't throwing around bible quotes when you were committing adultery so your use of them now seems a little hypocritical. Hiding behind one bible quote unfortunately leaves you at odds with other scripture.

John the Baptist tells us in Matthew 3:8 to produce fruit in keeping with repentance; if we sincerely repent, we will behave differently. Who we are or how important we think we are makes no difference; we have to produce this fruit, as John commands in Luke 3:8. Repentance is a change of attitude and action, not just muttering, "Oh, I screwed up. God forgive me," and not restoring your harmed brother. Repentance should be sincere and accompanied by actions that reflect a change of heart.

No one is worth the high price that comes from staying in an abusive marriage. This is not a marriage at all cost program. In many cases divorce is the definition of success. In your case, there is nothing TO save here, except a marriage that has been bad from the start. It might be in his best interest to move on. I know if your husband was my son, I would advise him to move on.

Keep in the mind that Jesus does condone divorce in the case of adultery. You have already had 2 affairs in your very short marriage. While making it clear you place your little job above your marriage. You feel "called" to your job but apparently don't feel any calling to be what you made vows before GOD to me: a wife. Do you feel any "calling" to fulfil the vows you made before God?

What you have done to your husband is about as abusive as it gets. So no, you are not worth that. No one is worth being abused. After all, the Bible tells us not to associate with evil. And if he has any wisdom, he should strongly reconsider his future with you. This marriage has been a disaster from the start and it might not be in your husband's best interest to stay married to you.

That doesn't mean you can't change in the future. But with what you have presented here, an absolute lack of repentance, I see no signs of change. Who would buy into that?

And I would remind you that you are not the only one here with OPTIONS. Your husband might not choose to settle for you if he knows the truth. All this talk of what you want to do might be for naught because you don't get to choose for him.

Dr Harley on the policy of radical honesty:


To some extent this policy seems like motherhood and apple pie. Who would argue that it's not a good idea to be honest? But in my years of experience as a marriage counselor, I have constantly struggled with the belief of many clients that dishonesty can be a good idea under certain conditions. Moreover, pastors and counselors themselves often advise dishonesty when a spouse has committed a particularly thoughtless act, such as infidelity. And many marital therapists warn against complaining, something that some consider one of the seven deadly sins of marriage. So instead of complaining, spouses often stuff their feelings and try to put a good face on a bad situation.


Granted, dishonesty can be a good short-term solution to marital conflict. It will probably get you off the hook for a few days or months or keep the problem on the back burner. But it's a terrible long-term solution. If you expect to live with each other for the next few years and still be in love, dishonesty can get you into a great deal of trouble

My h didnt plan for me to find out.

He was super careful.

Are you?

I am very aware of what the Bible says in regards to repentance. I was not 'hiding' behind any bible quotes. What I was saying is that God would forgive me if I repent, and that he will always offer grace and forgiveness, and that I'm worth it to him. I may not get grace and forgiveness from my husband, but I can at least get it from God.


Do you honestly think I would be on this forum willing to read some really hurtful things about myself if I wasn't at least "called" a little bit to fulfill my vows?


You see no signs of change? Well it's been about 14.5 hours since I first posted. I apologize if I haven't been able to do a 180 in that amount of time.

Yeah, ridiculously so. And I'm not talking to the OM anymore, so it would be pretty difficult for him- not impossible if he really wanted, but pretty difficult.

He already KNOWS.

You are trying to give yourself excuses and reasons for committing adultery. There is only one. You CHOSE to commit adultery. Temptation was dangled in front of you(due to your WEAK and POOR boundaries around men), and you CHOSE to commit adultery, not once, but TWICE. And now you are here, blaming your BH, and trying to justify why you shouldn't tell your BH about your adultery.

You will need to grow up to be a good wife to this, or any future husband.

You are NOT safe.

So.... nay on the honesty.

Gotcha.

Come back if you feel like having your marriage or your conscience back.

I do mean that sincerely and hope to see that 180 turn around.

Doro, glad to see you are still here. You are advice from some of the best... please listen.

I think you may have missed Indie' point... Despite being super careful, she found out about her WH's affair.

My WH was super careful too. I managed to discover his affair that he was having in another continent.

The thing is, you can never predict if you will be discovered. People who saw you... even the OM. Bricks, a newbie here, was sent photos of his wife anonymously. Do you want to have to keep looking over your shoulder?

Thank you, that means a lot. I appreciate it.

And no one disagrees with that. But that doesn't mean you are marriage material for your husband. Nor does it mean you are entitled to forgiveness from your husband. Forgiveness is not an entitlement for entitled waywards.


Posting on an anonymous forum means crap. That does not impress me. It takes no "calling", no bravery, no nothing, to sit in front of a computer and write anonymous posts to perfect strangers. So far you have told us you are "called" to your little job but fully intend to continue lying to your husband. Did you get a "calling" for that? So I don't know what kind of "call" you are getting that tells you it is ok to lie to your husband, but lets hope you stop answering that "call."

If you feel "called" to do the right thing, it has not been reflected in your attitude or actions thus far. We will see.


Like I said, an absolute lack of repentance. But alot of attitude and alot of entitlement.

With your current sense of entitlement and your decision not to tell your BH the truth... you are an active wayward. By not following the MB program, you are a threat to your BH and marriage. Another affair is just around the corner... unless you implement the MB program.

Step 1... Radical honesty. Tell your BH the truth, and let him decide if he wants to recover the marriage.

No, I understood her point very loud and clear.

So you would rather risk that your BH discover your lies rather than you telling him?

Your choice. Maybe you like playing russian roulette with your BH's life and your marriage.

I also hope you to a turn-around in your thinking.

I'm pretty sure I stated specifically that I was well aware, I may not get forgiveness from my husband.


I suppose it's a good thing I'm not trying to impress you then...It doesn't mean crap to me, because this is the very first time I've even considered telling him and it's the first step of possibly trying to save our marriage. What do you expect, people to come on this forum, and after a few harsh and pointed posts from yours truly, that they just snap their fingers and decide to do the right thing?

I get it, I get that you went through this on the other side of things, but I am still a human being. I make mistakes and I came here looking for some help/guidance/maybe motivation.

What I get is you personally degrading me and all of my life choices. Really makes me want to stick around and work on marriage in front of you folks.

Yes. Both she and I went through the 'other side' of it.

If you read Melody's sig, you will see that she recovered her marriage and did forgive her husband.

But not until he was worthy of it with actions such as honesty.

I too offered the opportunity of forgiveness if I was given honesty. Because I realise that what people were/are is not the same as who they decide to be when they get up tomorrow morning.

Who will you be tomorrow?

Honest or dishonest?

DoroM,

Pride is a deadly sin because it can kill the most important relationships we have. And then we're left with nothing.

Hope you listen to pros here, even the ones who seem harsh. They're really trying to help you, and they know how.

No, I understood her point very loud and clear.

Well, very good. Now how about answering my original question?

What do you want from us here?

You came here and presented us with a story, and told us you are not feeling too good about yourself, or anyway, the situation you created. Sadly, no one here, not me, not IG, not SQ, not even ML (but don't tell HER!), has the ability to grant you absolution and mental comfort.

We CAN however, guide you to a PLAN to do the WORK, to possibly EARN the right to feel good in your own skin. If that is something that sounds attractive to you, let me provide you first lesson:

SHUT UP and LISTEN! (That might be considered two lessons; I'm not sure!)

Step 1 is to prepare the story, every gory detail, and tell your betrayed husband. Really, without that brave action, none of the rest of the program here will make any difference in your outlook.

DoroM, if you've leafed through the Bible or listened to people teach from it, you've probably seen or heard the passage about love from 1st Corinthians, ch.13. I think that passage has lost its power because we hear it so often, and it's become so "Hallmark-ized" to us, but maybe you'll want to take some time and soak it up again for the very first time.

One of the gems in there is that "Love ... rejoices with the truth..."

I'll forever be ashamed of the months when I turned my back on the message of that verse. Over 3 years on, I feel even worse about the affair than on the day I had to look my wife in the eye & tell her about it. And remember, my marriage has been saved & made better than before the affair. So I can't imagine how much worse still it would feel to not have the forgiveness I've got.

My being forthcoming not only gave my wife (albeit belatedly) the respect which she deserved & which I, after all, had promised to give her on the day I placed the wedding ring on her finger; but it also gave me the chance to have the assurance that I've got her forgiveness. If you never confess, then you'll never have a chance to be forgiven, because you'll never be able to ask for forgiveness. That's a heavy chain you're fixing to drag around for many more more decades of life.

No, forgiveness & reconciliation isn't guaranteed. But without full honesty & transparency both ways, the two of you won't have a prayer.

Ummm ... yeah? Deciding to do the right thing isn't that difficult a choice to make.

You're getting help/guidance/maybe motivation. But you insist on arguing with it, instead of following it.

Your choice.

Your life choices are what have degraded you, hon.

I was ridiculously careful, too.
When I confessed to Markos, he already knew.

Every wayward thinks they're ridiculously careful. There's nothing special about you or your abilities. If he doesn't already know, he will.

Apparently it does "mean crap" to you since you are getting so defensive. You aren't going to get very far with that snotty entitled attitude. I only hope you are bright enough to know that it won't help you a bit with your husband. You talk alot about "forgiveness" but this is not the face of remorse.

You might oughta rethink the attitude if you are to have any hope of forgiveness. Seriously.




Would you like a hankie?

p.s. there is nothing anyone can say that is as "degrading" as your own behavior. *YOU* are the one who degraded your own self, dear.

What you get is reality shone onto your horrible life choices.

What you get are people who are willing to help you become a better person, and in return a better wife.

What you get is a chance.

If you want to run away, that's your choice.

A pack of wild horses couldn't drag you away from here if you really wanted to do the work.

Have you ever posted on a different forum about your adultery?

Actually, I meant to type, 'it's Not crap' to me-meaning it's important, and whether you believe it or not, it's quite a big deal for me even to be discussing it. I guess I should've used a double negative. You're quite right that I'm getting defensive.

Nope.

Doro, I found when people posted to me on my thread and I got defensive it was when there was something in the post that I didn't want to do, acknowledge or confront about myself.

Really think about the posts that make you defensive. Question why.

NG is right to ask what do you want from us here? You seem to be contemplating wanting to be a better person. But what are you going to do about achieving this?

No matter how many posts you make here, we'll all say the same thing. You have to tell your BH the truth. That is not gonna change.

Do I want to tell him? Yes and No- No, b/c obviously I'm scared, and Yes, because I want to be honest. I don't think I'm necessarily defensive about what you guys are telling in regards of what I should do if I want to save the marriage. I think I'm defensive to a few people who I feel could go about saying things in a nicer manner.

I know this is the internet, but even being on the internet, it's still not easy for me to share all this stuff (and that may sound stupid to you, but so be it)
I guess I got what I wanted- an answer that deep down, I knew to be the truth and right thing, but I just didn't want to admit it or face it.

I don't know what I'm going to do about it. If I make the right decision, I'll let you guys know.

Thanks for being willing to dialogue with me. Most of you have been great, and although it might seem like I don't appreciate it, I really do.

The truth shall set you free!

You've been reading my sig, GJM!

And it will!

What do you want from us here?

I guess I got what I wanted - an answer that deep down, I knew to be the truth and right thing, but I just didn't want to admit it or face it.

Well, good, now we can get to work!

News Flash - You are NOT fhe first (just the latest) wayward wife to show up here and:
1 - Knew they needed help, but not WHAT help
2 - Initially resisted and resented the specific, unwavering discipline espoused by the posters here
3 - Eventually beagn to understand the principles that make this site work

Now comes the critical decision, DoroM, and it's yours to make:

• Do you recoil from the (admittedly unpleasant) task that you face to repair and recover your marriage?
• Do you step up to the onerous dung-shovelling the initial steps will require, eventually giving your marriage the opportunity to truly flourish?

We here, proponents and supporters of strong marriages, are watching, and hoping you choose the second path.

Well yes....and the bible..

DoroM,

My H lied about his A's (a drunken ONS in 2004 that occurred during re-deployment processing and a deployment EA/PA that lasted several months in 2007/2008 that I discovered) for nearly 6 years. During that time, he could not respect himself, suffered physical stress-related ailments and was generally miserable. He, like you, has a military background and took his oaths and the Army code seriously. Today, he is an honest man. His eyes sparkle again. He has told me that being honest is truly liberating.

You have a long life ahead of you. Be the best person possible. You will not regret it.

AM

I told him tonight, pretty much as soon as he got home from work (had been gone past 3 days). He said it's over. He didn't yell, but seemed more disbelief than anything. Feels like he's a fool b/c he already forgave me once. Said he is leaving.

I feel numb.

Right now he is cleaning the house/mopping the floors b/c the dogs made a mess, and I can't b/c I'm on crutches b/c I broke my leg.

That's why I married him- b/c he's the guy who will get out of a car to help a bum push their shopping cart up the curb. And will help his wife right after she told him she cheated on him for the 2nd time.

Okay, he's going to go through a whirlwind of emotions and actions. Assuming he does NOT physically attack you, for the next few days responses should be heavy on the "I'm sorry,", "I'll never do anything like this again", and "How can I make you feel better right now?"

Watch him for self-injurious behavior (drinking, drug usage), and be prepared to answer any and all questions as truthfully as you can.

The big one, of course, will be simply, "Why?" DO NOT deflect and cause or blame to his behavior. Until you have a much firmer grasp of your own self than you do now, it might be best to say, "I was weak, and needed something. I made an awful mistake in not coming to you. I'm sorry."

No, nothing even close to physically assaulting me.

He hasn't even raised his voice. Been very civil. I didn't have to place any blame, all I've been saying is 'I'm sorry' and "i'll do whatever I have to do to make it work". He told me he's sorry for having hurt me.

He says he doesn't even want to go down that hole, b/c he hit bottom a year and half ago when I told him about the first time I cheated on him. He says he doesn't really care what happened. He said he feels numb and maybe he's in denial. he said he feels like a fool and an idiot for forgiving me the first time.

I really think that it is over. I asked him one favor, and all I asked was for him to pray about it. I told him I knew he would probably divorce me if I told him, but telling him was the only option I had if I ever wanted to have a successful marriage with him (which I do).

I just don't think he has it in him to forgive me again.

DoroM,

MB does not talk about forgiveness. The concept Dr. Harley uses is "just compensation". After your first A, neither of you took the steps to recover the marriage. Instead, you both stuffed it down, didn't make changes and stayed unhappy. In MB, the couple is interdependent, meeting each other's most important emotional needs, and are passionately in love.

If you haven't gotten it already, get and read the book, "Surviving an Affair". It provides a PLAN to recover after an affair and to be passionately in love. Ask your husband to come here, look at Dr. Harley's videos and read the basic concepts. It is not just a question of you saying you are sorry and your H saying he forgives you. Major changes have to occur.

Whatever happens next, you did the right thing by telling him.

AM

You're totally right- we tried to make changes after the first A, and started out really good, and then we just let things slide, so we ended up where we were before the first A.

I did email him a link to this site. I don't even know if he'll look at it. He is pretty adamant about our marriage being over and not wanting to try.

He's already left to go stay with friends. I have to have surgery on my leg next week, so I'll be at my parents house recovering after surgery. (thankfully it was already planned that way).

Question- if I direct him here to this site (I had sent a him a link to the forum), which particular page should I direct him to?

I doubt he'll read anything at all, but if he does, I'd want it to be something good.

I've read a fair amount on the site, but there is just so much info, I figure you guys might have an opinion on which direction?

Doro - it was a marriage in name only really - you were never ever really married. 2 can't become 1 when you don't even live together.

Your 'husband' may feel differently given some time. Who knows - however you aren't really good marriage material right now - you are a serial adulterer and unless you sort out your obvious character flaws history will repeat with any future partner.

Good luck.

Well, we do live together now. And yes, after reading through the POJA, I realize that we were living in conflict the whole time- yes, our marriage was not healthy.

Yes, I made two huge mistakes. After I told him about the first one, we didn't take the correct steps to truly fix our marriage. I cheated again. And I told him about it, b/c I truly do want to be married to him. I'm in IC, trying to work through stuff.

I understand that you have your opinions about my relationship, but it really hurts that I'm here in a place called marriage builders, and you seem to be bent on disparaging the marriage we did have, instead of helping us fix it.

I get it that there are huge issues, but are we the most terrible situation to come through here? Am I hopeless as a person? I feel like you're telling me not to even try- and that breaks my heart. I DO want to try to save it. Because I know it could be wonderful.

Doro, firstly, well done on telling the truth to your BH. I heard your fear before you did it, and right now, your worst fear has happened. Your BH has left and is not wanting to recover the marriage at this point in time.

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear." You have made your first step in becoming a better person.

You can't stop there. Right now your BH is in shock and denial, as you said. He is still trying to pick himself off the floor, hell, he probably doesn't even know right now that he is on the floor. This is your chance to keep showing you will be a better person, you can become a better wife.

As AM suggested, you need to get SAA pronto. You need to follow the plans not only for a better marriage if your BH commits, but so you can learn and grow into the person you want to be.

Now you have told the truth, your marriage has a much better shot than yesterday. He may decide it is over - that is his right - but few betrayed spouses are capable of permanent decisions this early. I would now concentrate on going NC with OM. Write him an NC letter and give it to your H so he can mail it if he wants. He may or may not want it but I would make the gesture

Not sure what you have read on this site Doro. Here is a link to "Four Rules to Recovery After An Affair".

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5065_qa.html

Right now your BH might not be receptive to any of this. That does not matter, as right now you need to get Plan A'ing him with no expectations. You also need to get thinking on your list of EP's. This is vital, not only to show your BH that you are willing to make changes and become transparent, but also so you don't relapse with OM or even begin another affair.

See, right now, you are vulnerable to another affair and your LB$ will be screaming to be topped up. It would be too easy to fall back into topping your LB$ up by another man meeting your EN's. Be aware of this. And get your list of EP's together to stop that from happening.

I'm no vet and haven't had a shot at marriage recovery, but I am working on being a better person in case WH becomes the man I want to recover with. If not, I am becoming a better me for a relationship in the future and once divorced. I am closely watching my boundaries around men because I don't want to have an affair and know I am vulnerable to one. As you are still foggy, you need to be super super careful about this.

Now I'll wait for the vets to arrive with better advice...

Yeah, it sucked for sure. But no matter what happens I'm glad I did it.

I did just order SAA. Wish they had kindle version. Before I told him, I emailed a very firm NC letter to the OM. (before it had been, 'well, we can't talk, let's not email' sort of thing)

I've emailed my parents, my sister and her husband, along with his parents, and his brother and his wife and informed them what I've done. I apologized and said I do still want to be married to him and I want to save our marriage.

I don't know what else to do right now besides pray.

Doro, its great that you are exposing the affair and have sent a NC letter. I suggest you do one in your own handwriting if you have his address, so he will know you are serious. And give your BH a copy of it. Ask him to post it with you, if he refuses, let him know you are doing it yourself by registered mail, and do it. Give him the receipt. This is important regardless of whether your BH is interested right now or not.

Here is a good example to change to suit:

OM,
I want you to know that out of respect and love for my H and children, I have come to realize that I must never see or talk with you again. My relationship with you was a cruel indulgence that H did not deserve. While I cannot completely repay H for the pain I have caused him, I will do my best to become the wife he has been missing. I care a gread deal for miy family and I would not want to do anything to risk their happiness. I will not make any further contact with you and I do not want you to make any contact with me. Please respect my desire to end our relationship.

Sincerely,
DoroM

Also, as part of your EP's, you need to get rid of all contact avenues with OM. Delete his email addy, get rid of phone numbers, anything he gave you, any trigger that will remind you of him and the A. Absolutely everything. Block his email address. Were you in touch on FB? If so, close your FB account down. No avenues whatsoever.

Exposure of the A helps you remain accountable in future. It is a very important step. Is your BH aware that you are exposing? It is likely this will filter back to him.

What about friends? Were there any friends that enabled your affair? Covered for you, lied, knew about the affair? If so, you need to NC them as well.

No. NC letter is for your H to read and mail. It is just compensation for him. Email is usually not considered a good format anyway.

The more Just Compenstion ACTIONS you give him and display, the better he will feel about trusting you.

I would consider ditching the IC. ICs tell you to be 'happy' without doing the work and let you vent.

your money would prob be better spent on Steve Harley who can coach you through what actions you should be dispalying to best reassure your H.

If your H is willing to read here, would he speak with Steve on the phone do you think?

Have you seen the NC letters on this site? It should be worded that way

I had read the other infidelity pages, but not that. Thank you. You're right. Completely unreceptive. Just from reading other posts, Plan A (haven't read article yet about it), is basically loving on them? Or is it more specific? I will work on the EP's tomorrow. My eyes are so sore, and I'm so tired, but I'm afraid I won't be able to sleep.

That's how this affair happened- after the 1st one, we never really made EP's, we did some work/read some books, saw a counselor a little bit. It makes me sick to my stomach to read all this stuff, b/c if we had been here on MB the first time around I'm 100% confident, I would not be here now. Can't change the past though, so I will on future, and yes- no matter what happens, at least I can work on myself as a person.

Oh- I didn't know NC letter was supposed to be hard copy. My letter was pretty much worded the same way. I don't have OM address, and I already got rid of all contact info, deleted phone number, deleted pictures he was in, I'd have to unblock him on Facebook to even get his address- and I'm assuming that's not advisable?

He knew I told my parents. He doesn't know about my sister and his family. He had said he was going to call them at some point anyway. I'm hoping it does get back to him, because I begged him last time to not tell his family. (which of course, now I regret).

Since this all happened when I was away on military training, none of my 'normal' life people were there. The blessing is, that the OM lives far away(multiple states, and it would be a freak accident if we ever saw each other again.

As for the IC, I do have appt tomorrow that I can't cancel or I'll lose $, but I'd be open to switching to Harley. As for my husband? At this point, I don't even know if he's opening to reading on this site, much less talking with Harley.

Hey, I guess I'm a bit confused- Just read about Plan A- which someone said to do. How does that still apply if I'm not talking to OM? Does it apply in the sense of POJA stuff? I guess it seemed more of stuff the BS does when the WS is in an ongoing affair. Unless there were other articles, I didn't see.

Well, what you probably read is Plan A as it pertains to a betrayed spouse dealing with a spouse in an active affair.

However, the general idea for Plan A is this; meet your husbands emotional needs, and avoid Love Busters.

You can read over both of those (ENs and LBs) in the Basic Concepts section.

For instance; you can meet your husband's need for an Attractive Spouse (AS) by making sure to look and smell your best EVERY DAY. My wife, for instance, surprised me one night when I got home by being dressed to the tops, and having me come home to that and a spotless bedroom with candles and incense.

This was after years of her living in sweats and putting more effort to look good to go to Walmart than she ever thought to look good for her own husband.

Just read about Plan A...How does that still apply?

I hope you were able to get some sleep. It's unfortunate that BH felt the need to get some distance between you, as the range of reactions he's going to experience would be best done in your proximity. (Think "ingesting poison and not being able to retch it up")

Anyway, the basis of the MB system rests on three key principles:
1 - Open (and if necessary, Radical) Honesty, which means the couple cannot maintain secrets from each other
2 - Undivided Attention, which is the commitment to a regimen of spending 15 - 20 hours with each other, not distracted by outside activities
3 - Emotional Needs (EN), and their satisfaction.

(You can see in your own situation the price to be paid for failing to satisfy the first two principles.)

Plan A speaks to super-satisfaction of the partner's ENs. (You can find listing of the key ENs on this site. They typically vary greatly by gender, and slightly by the individual person.) The archetypical Plan A is employed by a BS, trying to remind/convince a recalcitrant WS to abandon the wayward life and fully return to the marriage. In a larger sense, though, the concept of Plan A is applicable to all of us, in the way of being, for example, the best DoroM possible.

I would request that you remind yourself of your mindset when you opened this thread. Then, knowing that your marriage was seriously damaged, you were thinking of ending it. Now, maybe seeing the potential to repair your marriage, you are hoping to do so. No one here can predict what your BH might choose to do. (If he does come here, he should open his own thread on SAA, and the two of you should strictly ignore the other's.) But you will be a better person for fighting this fight, and not abjectly bailing.

Doro you have. To steel yoursself for battle - a fight for your marriage. Its not easy to give with no expectations and to endure anger calmly. Try to figure out your h's top ENs. You mentioned he likes outdoor activities so recreational companionship might be a high one

Got it. Thanks. I know for a fact he's not all that enthralled my PJ pants.

Not so much happening in the sleep department...when he left here last night, he went to stay at some friends houses. A couple that encouraged him to work it out with me after the first time. I don't know if they'll be so encouraging the second time. Either way, I'm glad he's with them.
Yes, I was definitely aware our marriage was seriously damaged. I guess when I opened this thread, I was looking at divorce as the only option, b/c I was too much of a coward to tell him the truth. I knew that with God, hard work, honesty, dedication- that the rest of our issues could be fixed. But even if we fixed our issues, I knew we could never truly have a satisfying marriage if I was lying to him for the rest of our lives.

When I first posted, telling him wasn't even a possibility in my head- so I didn't see a whole lot of options. You know? I eventually knew I would have to tell him. I have made some huge mistakes, but lying to him (either divorcing or staying) was a line I wasn't ready to cross. So I knew I would have to tell him. Before I did, I had to be very honest with myself about what I should do after he told me he wanted to end it. Do I just say 'ok' and let it go and not try- not tell him I truly want to be married to him? I questioned DID I truly want to be married to him. After a lot of prayer/reflection, I came to the conclusion that 'Yes', I truly do want to be married to him, and despite my lack of respect for our marriage vows, I wanted to do everything I could to make it work. I know that if we go about marriage the healthy way, it would be truly amazing.
Unfortunately, I have a gut feeling. But I'm clinging on to hope right now. And yes, I think I have a lot of work to do on myself.

I'm trying to prepare myself to fight for our marriage. He hasn't even hit the anger stage. He was very matter of fact- like, "Okay, well we're done".

Yes, I know that recreational companionship is a high one for him. The issue is, I literally can't participate in any outdoor activities (even if he wanted to hang out with me). I'm on crutches for a quite a while longer d/t my broken leg. I feel like I'm fighting w/ one hand b/w my back. Even looking nice and getting out of pj pants is going to be hard, b/c I don't have many clothes that work with the cast. I'll try to get creative.

I have an open question for you guys. So I've mentioned I broke my leg a few weeks ago. I'm scheduled to have surgery in about a week. My surgery is scheduled in another state (where the injury occurred) d/t the doctors who originally took care of the injury, and my parents being able to help take care of me, b/c my mom doesn't work and is home.

I think I could cancel that surgery date, find a surgeon here and have all my info transferred to where I live. Last night when BH left, he asked when I was leaving for my surgery, with the intent that he was going to stay gone at friends place, until I was out of town.

I know that we need to spend time together, but I'm not sure what to do- if I change the surgery to here, that means I'll be here in case he does want to see me, but I'll also effectively be making him find some place else to stay (meaning, he did not seem like he would ever want to stay here, if I was here).

Also means, unless I can find a friend to take time off work(not sure if would even be possible) I might be alone at my house after my surgery, and that might be somewhat physically impossible.

The upside of things, is that if he does decide he wants to see me, I have QUITE the amount of time off from work, b/c I can't do what I do with crutches.

You should change your cell number and get a new email address as OM may very well try to contact you when he gets that NC letter.

Telling your husband that you've changed those things would be helpful as well.

Sorry, no real advice on your living situation with the surgery, but your husband may desire to live in his own home and you elsewhere. You might ask him what he wants to do here and offer to stay somewhere else. He, after all, didn't cheat and should not be the one living out of a suitcase. I imagine that he'd appreciate the gesture.

Personally, I would go to your mother's for the surgery and then try to reconcile later. Staying there would force him to take care of you and that is not fair to him. Let him grieve and think this over.

Doro,

I just made it through your thread and wish to share a few thoughts as a former BH.

For starters, the reason you cheated is simple. You have terrible boundaries when it comes to the opposite sex. There is no such thing as innocent flirting when you�re married. There are strict barriers that must be erected when you�re married and infidelity is something that must be guarded against at all times.

My wife told me the other day, �I will never cheat on you.�

I told her that I didn�t like absolute statements. I told her that I�d rather hear that she would do whatever it took to keep our marriage strong so that she was never tempted to or in a situation where she would be tempted.

I didn�t word it right at first and it came out wrong. It�s become an inside joke between us. The way I worded it at first made it sound like I wouldn�t reciprocate her statement to her because I was barely hanging on with all the temptation around me. I joke with her now about how I had to fend off 3 or 4 women throwing themselves at me while I walked to my after work.

It�s a joke, but it isn�t. Marriage is to be protected and infidelity is to be guarded against at all times in a marriage since we are all susceptible to it under the right circumstances.

Honestly, if your H came to this forum, I would tell him that he was young, had no kids with you, and was only married a very short time. I�d tell him that there are millions other women out there he could have a clean start with and that divorcing you would be little more than a glorified breakup with paperwork since you have no kids.

You see, throwing kids into this makes things 100x worse.

He�s forgiven you once. I was willing to forgive once as well. Twice? That�s one time too many.

I�m happily remarried to a wonderful woman right now. If, however, she betrayed me I would walk away and not look back and vow to give up on dating again until my kids were grown and out of the house since she and I have no kids together.

There is nothing about you that makes you unique or special in terms of a relationship. He can easily find what he has with you with someone else and not deal with the emotional trauma of infidelity and rebuilding trust.

I�m not telling you this to bash on you. I�m telling you this as the honest truth of what I�d say to him if he was here asking for advice. There�s nothing about you that he can�t have with someone else.

There�s no kids. You�re young and he�s young. I�d tell him to bail and count his blessings that he doesn�t have to have a custody fight with you.

So if he doesn�t forgive, then you�ve made your bed. It�s a good lesson to learn for any future husband you may have.

Now, as far as his lack of willingness to move: I can see his mentality. School is a temporary endeavor. You go, do your thing, get your degree, then come back. Odds are he viewed marriage as the lifetime commitment it is and your schooling as a temporary burden to bear with long term payoff. I�m a former pilot and a man and can see his perspective on this.

As far as separation early in marriage goes: I know plenty of couples who dealt with early separations due to military commitments and they came through it just fine without resentment or cheating. The reason you cheated has to do more with your own poor boundaries couples with your unrealistic expectations about marriage.

Moving, even as a pilot, isn�t easy. Pilots, especially, depend a great deal on building seniority within a company, so moving to start over isn�t as easy as it sounds.

But you�re missing the forest for the trees. Your education was and is a temporary burden for your marriage if it was a committed marriage built on solid foundations and based on two people have solid boundaries.

You lack those boundaries. Build them up. Learn from this, regardless of the outcome.

Your H has every right to not forgive a second betrayal, but we�re willing to talk to him if HE desires to save your marriage.

But stop with all the stuff about how you felt neglected, etc. It doesn�t matter. He is the one betrayed and he is the one who must forgive that if he so chooses. He didn�t wish to move. Ok. Doesn�t justify what you did and it merely shows how short term your thinking is.

A good man is hard to find. It sounds to me like he�s a man who would be a good dad if he�s as willing to help others as you say.

And you overlook one big advantage of being a pilot: You�re home half the month fulltime. That�s a lot of quality time you could be spending together to make up for the time he�s out.

Thanks. I did offer to leave now, or leave much earlier than the surgery, but he told me not to. That it was my house too.

Then just leave when the time is scheduled for your surgery.

Trees = Wouldn't move to be with me while I pursued my education which is a temporary situation in the grand scheme.

Forest = I'm married to a good man who would be a good dad to my kids someday so dealing with this temporary situation is worth it for him so I will keep my boundaries up to avoid temptation while we're separated and will only hang out with and make female friends here or find other ways to entertain myself.

Go get the surgery done. Here are the reasons:

A mandatory (as opposed to optional) isolation is not a terrible thing (Absence and the heart...) when some serious soul searching is needed.

Your immediate medical needs would providentially provide an excuse for him to not yield to manly outrage and make hasty decisions that he may regret later. (THIS one is the key thing we'd like to instill in his consciousness if/when he comes here.)

Your enforced convalescence will provide you ample time to correspond by written media. If you have ever written a love-letter from your heart, my friend, this would be a good time.

And, possibly less seriously, being "the best DoroM extant" is likely to require two good legs sooner than later.

You're completely right. Regardless of the outcome, I'm going to have to learn this. I want to be a better person, someone with good character.
I get that you're not bashing. Yeah, it stings and makes me feel even more hopeless, but I understand.
That's the way we saw it- temporary burden, didn't seem that bad when we'd have the rest of our lives together. I don't think that either one of us realized how bad our foundation was. Re: the seniority, it wasn't an issue of that. He would've kept his seniority. This is totally besides the point at this time, but I understood the seniority thing, and that wasn't the issue.
I do have a question, when you say you're willing to help him if HE wants to save our marriage. If he comes here wanting to save it, you aren't going to tell him to drop me b/c it's not worth it? Just curious. I think I did drop the 'neglected' bit, at least I wasn't aware that I brought it up after I said that I told him. I know nothing justifies what I did. You know, after I told him about the first time, I was very angry- very bitter, not that I thought he deserved it, but maybe subconsciously I thought that. And I/we didn't address it sufficiently. This time, it's different- it's more of a deep heartbreak. I can't even believe I'm in this place in my life.

Thanks for being upfront.

The forest part was how I went into it. Even though I ended up being hurt b/c I saw trees. I failed miserably.

If he comes here wanting to save it, you aren't going to tell him to drop me b/c it's not worth it?

You OBVIOUSLY did not get enough sleep!

Has ANYTHING on this site been slanted toward ENDING marriages? We are probably the most pro-marriage group of posters you will ever find.

DoroM,

FYI. Another excellent resource here is the MB radio show. It is on M-F at 1200 Central time. You can also click on the "Listen now" button and the most recent show will play. I mention this because Dr. Harley and his wife Joyce offer advice on the show. Once on the show, Dr. Harley often follows up personally with couples and send MB books. It is a tremendous opportunity to get one-on-one advice from the couple who has a great track record for recovering marriages after infidelity.

Did I read earlier the you were seeing an IC? If so, a waste of time. Most have no clue how to heal a marriage after cheating.

AM

Thanks- I wasn't sure if it would seem like I was abandoning him again, and like I didn't really care about saving our marriage if I left the state to have surgery.

Will work on the love-letter. Would it be bad to include EP's in a letter? I don't know if he'll want to talk to me long enough to talk about that. But I know he'll at least read what I write him.

Haha. Yes, you're right on the sleep thing. I guess I just got worried hearing the 'he should bail bit'. Even though it all makes sense. Just makes me feel quite hopeless.

I'll look into the show. Yes, to the IC. Have an appt this afternoon that I might as well go to. Had another one later this week, that I can cancel. Clearly, it didn't work last time, so I'm going to take your advice on this one.

edited to add- just filled out info to set up appt with Harley. (yikes about the cost!)

In the past few days, I know I came across a thread that had a huge list of EP's in it. I've been searching and searching, but for the life of me can't find it. Anybody know what I'm talking about? I'm working on some right now- some are quite obvious to me, but I know if I had examples, there is going to be stuff that either A) haven't thought of or B) don't realize it's so important b/c I'm dense.

also have appt with Harley tomorrow afternoon. Still meeting with my IC this afternoon, b/c if I don't I'll lose $120, but am planning on canceling the others.

Although it is going to be rough on my psyche to not have her telling me that I'm still a wonderful person, and not challenge me...cough cough.

Oh you're in the right place to be challenged!

Why not use that appointment to say that although the full responsibility for having an A is yours, you are curious as to why she did not guide you and why she encouraged you to buckle to your fears? You're paying you can say what you like. Ask for a refund. She might learn something.

As for what we would tell your BH like any BS I would tell them to leave any permanent decisions for six months as the feelings are too raw (you can't give this advice tho!)

I would tell him its his right to D you but that if he wants to make it work he has to insist on transparency and proof from you U no 'trusting' 'forgiveness' or 'privacy' to encourage a false recovery

...rough on my psyche to not have her telling me that I'm still a wonderful person, and not challenge me...

Tell her she doesn't have a leg to stand on! (Ooooops, that's you!)

Oh no, she has one, and a crutch.

I would tell the I/C about MB, and DrH. Maybe she can help someone some day.

I do want to tell you something about what you said about your BH though. If he really wants to divorce you and not try, we will point him to the info to show him that he and you CAN have a mutually satisfying marriage, BUT if he decides that he still wants to divorce you, we won't stand in his way. It's every BSs right. We'll suggest him not to make a decision right away, but none of us will tell him that he doesn't have the right to divorce you, if he so wishes. Just so you are clear about that.

Now, don't run because of that. You can still learn many things from this site, and become a better person, even if you wind up divorced. Either way, the tools here will show you how to have a better new marriage, either with your BH or with someone else.

You're doing the right things here so far. Keep it up.

Oh, I have TWO crutches. So really, I'm coming out ahead. (unless we're talking about walking speed, then I am very far behind)...
I will most likely tell her about MB, and why I probably won't be coming back.

I understand that you wouldn't stand in his way if that's what he decides he really wants, but I guess I read that one post and had a paralyzing fear that if he came here and wanted to try, someone would say, "oh, just ditch her". I realize, I'm not the greatest catch at the moment...but I know I have potential. I've been running from God for a long time. And have 'cheated' on Him, more times than I can count. So how is it that surprising I would do it in my marriage?

Oh- and I don't plan on running away anytime soon...thanks for the encouragement.

Doro,

Since you might be facing some time away, use that time to do something extraordinary.


Put your money where your mouth is.


Visit a lawyer and have a post-nup drawn up; make sure it very clearly states that if you ever again let someone dip their finger in your honey pot, that you get NOTHING (say, no more than 25% of marital assets, no spousal support) from the marriage.

Put your MONEY where your mouth is.

I would definitely be willing to do that, (am working on my EP list right now, so I'll add something of that nature). Only issue is, it probably won't mean all that much, because I have a huge earning potential on my own. I'm not sure if I offered HIM spousal support, if he'd be offended or not. Even now, when we were talking about paying off our CC bills, I had mentioned trying to get his truck fixed, and he didn't even seem to want me to pay for that. What do you think?

I'd leave it with you not seeking alimony or child support, but you might add a note for him to let you know if there's something else that he'd like to add.


I'd drop the car repair thing for now.

Hey Doro, Of course we would never tell a BS to 'run' from a WS who was making every effort, paying just compensation and getting down to clean up the mess. The whole point of this site is that there is always hope where there is sincerity and action. Hope for you as an individual if nothing else.

I would hazard a guess that that was your guilt talking.

It must have been quite something to hide from all this time. Like a bad debt, it just keeps getting bigger when you hide from it.

Is the truth feeling freer yet?

What you may begin to see, is that no matter what your BHs choice, you heal your own wounds and self despair with Just Compensation actions.

You get your dignity back.

That pretty cool really isnt it?



Do you know what his top ENs are Doro? You will need to start thinking of that to Plan A him.

If he has a FS need, that would do a lot for his lovebank. Most men do not - but some do.

If he doenst I would just make a big deal about leaving with nothing but the clothes on your back.

That makes it more about the principle of the matter: i.e. you dont feel you deserve your share.

I just want to make sure you understood "putting your money where your mouth is."

Putting your words into action was the meaning behind it. Not trying to insult your intelligence.

Yes, the truth felt better the second I told him. I don't think my biggest fear is that he'll choose divorce (although that's my close second biggest), but that if he does, I will fall back into my old self/habits and keep running, and I really don't want that. I don't want to be 60, regretting how I'm handling my life now.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Some of them are really hard to accomplish with a broken leg. And I will probably break the other leg trying to clean...but I'm still gonna try.
He doesn't make much, but can support himself- although not our rent by himself. To be honest, we don't have much. We rent our house, and don't have much saved (just finished school). If I left him all the furniture and a lot of my junk for him to deal with, he'd probably be MORE pissed at me. Other than that, there's not anything for me to take BUT my clothes.

He's going to stay here in the house when I'm gone for surgery, and I'm pretty sure when I come back, he wouldn't accept me helping pay the rent if I stayed somewhere else. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, I'm leaving in a few days, and he'll be here for a few months at least.

I knew you meant action (that meant something as opposed to talking), but you were also talking about $$...

I hadn't thought of that particular EP

Doro, try this: http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2558780&page=1

Dora, the only WS that is not worth it are those who won't take accountability and who won't CHANGE. Those who do the hard work and give their betrayed spouses just compensation are very much worth it. When we see that, we encourage the BS to stick it out unless he really wants to leave. [which is his right]

And I want to applaud you for telling your husband the truth. I know that was tough. THAT does impress folks here.

p.s. it is a blessing from God that you hooked up with Steve Harley. You have no idea how blessed you are to get him. He is about the ONLY counselor who will try to influence your husband to give you another chance. And Steve is VERY persuasive. If Steve is convinced you are sincere [and you sound pretty sincere to us] he will try very hard to convince your husband to give this a try.

BH came home tonight with his bag, and I tried to not let myself get excited/too hopeful, but he was only home to shower/eat, so he wouldn't bother his friends too much. He just left again. Seems like hurts more everytime.

He did seem a 'little' more angry. Which I prefer to no feeling at all. I was in the process of writing him an email when he came home (including a list of EP's that I told him I would be doing regardless if he was interested in reconcillation or not), So I sent him the email, so he could read it while he was here.

I asked if he had any questions, and pretty much all he said was, "you f-ed me up big time", and that I should do all those things for myself, but it wasn't going to mean anything to him/change his mind. I said that was fine.

Asked him if he thought he might be willing to talk with Harley on phone, and he said, 'no, there was no point'.

And then he left... I guess I'm just going to keep praying.

Thanks. I'm so very afraid. I've ruined him forever, it seems. It's hard to have hope. Have appt with Harley tomorrow. Maybe BH will change his mind someday and agree to talk.

Let us know how the appointment goes with Steve. I've read that he's BRILLIANT. I'm certain that he'll let you know how to encourage your BH to get on the phone with him too.

See, we're not all that bad, once you start clearing out the fog and getting to work that is.

DoroM,

Thanks. I'm so very afraid. I've ruined him forever, it seems. It's hard to have hope. Have appt with Harley tomorrow. Maybe BH will change his mind someday and agree to talk.

Even though your confession might not save your marriage, it is the only thing that can, at least now you won't have to keep a horrible secret for years on end.

I do agree that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference so your H being slightly angry is a good sign.

You may want to do some research on OM to track him down, one of your BH conditions for getting back together may be contacting OMW, with the info. you have OM CAN be found.

God Bless
Gamma

So here is the list of EP's I made. I just read somewhere I was supposed to show you guys the list before I gave it to him. Oops. And then I read they were supposed to be written. Although if it were written, he wouldn't be able to read them, my handwriting is so bad.

Along with this, I told him that it was a list I was committed to doing/following not just on the condition of him agreeing to try things out, but regardless of what he decides. (explanations for you guys in parenthesis- not that you need them, you're not dumb)

1)I will never contact the OM. For any reason.
2)If he ever contacts me, I will tell you about it immediately.
3)I will not drink alcohol. Ever.(I don't drink all that often, but when I do- I drink a lot, and I make some very poor decisions.
4)I will not go to a bar situation with my g-friends if you are not with me. (restaurants are okay w/g-friends)
5)I will not be alone with another man, if it is in my power to leave the situation. (in some work situations, if I were to leave the room just b/c everyone else left the room besides one male, I would get sued for negligence- it's a very rare occasion, but I wanted to explain to him)
6)I will not have any male �friends� that I share things with.
7)I will not erase txt messages/phone history. (my phone has never had password on it.
8)I will deactivate my FB/Twitter accounts. (already did it- I've spent a lot of time on both, which could be spent better elsewhere, also- OM is on FB,)
9)I will find a job in ______, or any place you would want to live with me, even if it�s not great for my career or my career experience. (have been working out of state-b/c I couldn't find job where we live. Only working 8 days/month, but pray I can find any job where we live now)
10)I will start attending church regularly, whether I am in ___ or ___.
11)I will join a small group
13)POJA- I will never make a decision w/o your enthusiastic agreement
14)Unless ordered somewhere, we will decide my military deployments together- (w/ my speciality, this should be an easy reality. Should be able to go somewhere in the states for a few months, where he can visit. There is even one place that is not too far from where we live- but don't know about opportunities for that place)
15) I will get out of military as soon as my time is up (9/2014 as of right now, I think).


I left out the banking stuff b/c he has all of the passwords for that, so there is no way for money to be hidden.

Are there any I should add? I sincerely think that these cover all of my big issues. Someday I'll go into how we sort of semi-tried this after the first time, (and you see how well that worked).

Will definitely let you know how it goes. I went to the IC today (b/c was too late to cancel), and I was sitting there thinking, OMG- no WONDER we didn't fix anything last time! I feel like I've learned so much just in the past few days from you guys and reading on this site, that it makes the IC seem laughable. Needless to say, I've cancelled my other appointments with her, and I'm hoping to make some progress with Harley.
haha...sometimes I get my feelings hurt easily- yes, even on the internet. But I'm also like a gawker staring at a car-crash, so I came back for more. The good advice/helpful encouragement FAR outweighed my hurt feelings....

I know I could find her info on Facebook at least. Are you meaning more info than that?

Steve will tell you what to say to get him on the phone. Don't worry...

DoroM,

My H and I attended an MB seminar (what is now the online program) two years ago last weekend. I don't know what the coach said to my husband, but it changed everything for us. I believe that without MB, we certainly would have divorced. We did not counsel with Steve, but as the others have said, he has an amazing reputation.

I don't know what will eventually happen with your marriage. From reading your list of EPs, I do believe that from here on out you will be a better person, a better woman and a better wife.



AM

You asked me what I�d advise your H to do at this point. My advice is usually focused on men dealing with possible custody fights, but I also weigh in when men get cheated on and have no kids.

Yes. My advice in that case is to bail and count your blessings.

However, that�s usually because he has an unrepentant WW and more often than not is dealing with a situation where he married his WW when very young and is simply afraid to be �out there.�

In your case, however, YOU are the one seeking guidance on how to save things and you are willing to acknowledge your mistakes, rebuild, and focus your efforts on your M in addition to erecting boundaries to prevent this in the future.

So I would advise him to be skeptical, continue snooping, and let you prove yourself through your actions.

Keep in mind that the worst time for him will be about 6 months from now, when he�s over the shock and is truly questioning why he should settle for you. And don�t fool yourself. If you don�t change, he�s settling and deserves infinitely better.

I'm wondering why the husband's porn affair is not being discussed? Has this been addressed in the marriage? Is it over? Looks to me like a case of dual infidelity.

Huh? "porn affair?" "Dual infidelity?"

husband's porn affair...Looks to me like a case of dual infidelity.

Might be. But HE'S not here. And DoroM has asked for and needs our help with a specific issue - whether and how she can retain him in their marriage after her second adulterous liaison. That's keeping us (and her) busy enough for the present.

With that in mind, it might be helpful, unless you have contact with DoroM's BH, and can get him to join us on his own MB thread, to stop raising extraneous, distracting issues, okay?

Porn is horrible.

However, Palmela Handerson is not going to get pregnant and introduce an OC to the marriage. Rosie Palm isn't going to give the gift of venereal disease. And, you quite simply cannot go NC for life with you right hand.

Porn has no place inside a marriage, but it is not the same thing as an affair. Sorry. No dice.

I found about the porn issue after the first time. He had told me that in his mind, he was 'protecting us', b/c he was taking care of his 'needs' when he was away at work for days at a time, so he wouldn't be tempted with anyone else.

So then when he would come home to me, he wasn't interested and would turn me down repeatedly. He said he would stop, and I'm almost positive he did (he told me about one time when he had started to watch and then stopped). I also saw the change in him wanting to have sex with me after he stopped.

So I really don't think that's an issue here.

He did tell me he had read this thread last night (i had emailed him the MB link). Don't know how much else(if any) he read, and I doubt he'll start his own thread.

Good radical honesty, doro. I am sure you are not proud of your first post on her but you showed him it any way

You also showed him that you are taking criticism on the chin and working on yourself to create a better m, which is good Plan Aing.....

Like it.

Oh, it's an issue, as evidenced by the fact that you don't like it. He needs to stop watching porn. His excuse is a common one, but porn use is still destructive within a marriage so it doesn't fly. If he wanted to "safeguard" your marriage, ya'll coulda had some *wink wink* fun on skype or something.

I'm sorry- When I said it wasn't an issue, I meant that he wasn't watching it anymore. Since it came out, there was one time in the 1.5 years that he told me he had started to watch and then stopped. I haven't asked him about it in a long time, because of the fact that I could see the difference in our intimacy.

Saw BH briefly today at the house. He said he had read this thread last night, said he was glad I had found this place, etc, so I could work on myself (said I needed to work on myself w/o just thinking about him). He said I needed someone to keep me accountable (which i had thought of last night, but only after I had sent EP list).

I talked with Harley today- was good, talked about boundries, and areas that I'm affected. I'm outgoing/spontaneous etc, and I've been dropping my guard.

I left our house today to go to one of my best friend's house (would've left sooner, but she was out of town and I was watching her dog at my house). Anyway, I'm basically staying here till I can fly back to parents house for my surgery. After I told BH I would leave, he called me and told me I didn't have to if I wanted to stay there b/c he'd be working during the day for the next few days. I said I didn't want to put him out of his house any longer.

I am wondering if I'm being selfish by wanting/making it known to him that I want this to work, knowing the pain (although I'll never understand it), that he's gone/going through. Obviously, I know he has the final say in the matter, and he's not going to do anything he doesn't want to do, but is it selfish for me to want him to face that pain and go through the hard work of fixing our marriage? I'm not sure if that makes sense or not.

Also, have been looking for jobs in our state (as opposed to commuting to work in different state as I was doing), Have emailed pretty much everyone I know (and some I don't), in my field and not much luck so far. Granted I can't work for 5-7 weeks anyways b/c of my leg, so I've got some time...

But I would appreciate some prayer about the job situation.

Doro, marriage isn't a philanthropic calling. We get married because we have things that we want to share & give, but also because we have needs that we want to have met. If that's selfish, so be it.

When selfishness gets us in trouble is when we let our needs take precedence over protecting our spouse, spending time with him/her, caring for him/her, and being honest with him/her. Where it gets us in trouble is where, in order to avoid difficult conversations, we fail to make our top needs known because it's easier/simpler to get them met through activities or people other than our spouse. (Laziness being one form of selfishness.)

On the day 3 years ago when I came clean to my wife about my affair and got on my knees and begged her to please keep me, was I being selfish? Heck yeah! I didn't know at that point what it might take to save & recover our marriage. I didn't know if she'd even be up for that. I didn't know what was going to happen each next day. I had told the OW that it was over, but I hadn't even sewed up no-contact, and hadn't told my wife all that she wanted to know about the affair. She didn't even know then what she would want to know in the weeks & months ahead. We had yet to get to a place where we could discuss each other's emotional needs and what we both needed to try & do in order to make our marriage better than it had been before the affair. I didn't even know what I didn't know, when it came to what it takes to bring a grievously wounded marriage back to life.

All I knew on that first "D-Day" was that, no matter what minor faults or shortcomings my wife may have had (and we all have shortcomings), there was nothing she'd done that deserved how I'd just made her feel when she found out that I'd betrayed her. I knew that, and I knew that if at all possible, I wanted to save our marriage. Those two things were about all I knew.

Sure, it was selfish of me -- but it was the right thing.

Of course, my wife had to decide on her own if it was right for her, too. I couldn't decide for her. And likewise, you can't decide for your husband -- you can't decide for him what's right for him, and you can't expect him to decide quickly (that, indeed, would be a self-defeating selfishness on your part), or to even know what he wants to do himself. All you can do is tell him, and so far as you're able, show him, via actions, that you know you've messed up bad & that you never want to mess up this way again. You bear an extra-high burden of proof from having strayed twice.

So you show him your EPs. You change your phone #s & emails addys, you ditch the Facebook, you share passwords, you keep him posted on your whereabouts, you call to ask how he's doing, you give him space if he wants to be out alone, you be there if he wants you with him, and you let him call the shots for now. If he asks you questions, you answer without any purpose of evasion; and if he wants to rant at you about what you did, you take it meekly, you own it, and you say you're sorry. Yes, there'll be a time when, if you're to rebuild the marriage successfully, back to what you dreamed of on the day you traded rings, to something better than it's ever been before, then he'll have to come around to be willing to dig into what ways he can learn to be better at learning & meeting your needs too; but right now's not the time to press him on that. For him to even want to get to where he's all-in, he needs time & actions from you in order to help give him the chance to believe that you might finally be all-in.

Get "Surviving An Affair." Read it without him since I doubt he'll want to start reading it himself, but leave it lying around and offer it to him if he asks about it. It's a book that my wife & would both tell you may well have saved our marriage, and I don't get a cent for saying so.

Nothing worth having is ever easy. I think the odds are still against your getting a 2nd (actually, 3rd) chance, but the only way you can buck those odds is to fight for your marriage & be all-in.

We just passed our 3rd "anniversary" of that awful day. It has been more than a year since we have even spoken of the affair. We learned from the experience, although neither of us would ever want to repeat it, and we have drawn so much closer to one another these past three years. I'm here to tell you (and your husband, if he's peeking) that it is possible. So don't you quit. Not yet.

Good luck with the job. Hang in there.

Those two things are about all I'm sure about. I guess I'm just extra sensitive to do anything that might hurt him more. Thanks for the perspective.
Ordered the book (2 of them actually), just waiting for it to arrive. I'm still fighting.

I'm glad you are still fighting. You certainly have come a long way in the short time that you have been here. I wish my WW was as committed to fighting for our marriage. It's admirable so keep it up. Like many have said already. You may not get your BH back, but you will come out a better person.

No because you have empowered him with a choice.

Back when I thought it was impossible my H would ever have an affair I always thought that the remote possibility would involve a one-off drunken slip - and his begging me for a chance of forgiveness.

The reality was he had hardened to the point he didnt want me, honesty, to admit liability - or be part of the marriage.

I had no choice. I would have liked one. Even if it had been no.

I agree with Indie. I think by giving him a choice you are helping him with healing. You have wronged him, and you are trying to make amends and show remorse. For me, the lack of choice and remorse made me feel my pain was nothing to my WH.

When the BS does not have any choice, I think it is salt in the wound.

It may be a small consolation to your BH, but you were destined to fail and stray again after your first affair because neither one of you took the steps necessary to fix what led you to stray in the first place.

But you�re here, you�re listening, and you�re willing to do the work.

A marriage works when both partners give fully of themselves into the marriage and it doesn�t feel like they�re giving anything in the process. They WANT to give to the other person.

In other works, it�s work that doesn�t feel like work.

Has your BH given any hint about which way he�s leaning right now?

Well, I think my 'short time' here should really be looked at like Dog Years. For the past 2.5 weeks, I've been able to do NOTHING but sit on the couch (I lie..sometimes I hobble over to the recliner) It has given a lot of time for thought. Normal people have lives and stuff they are busy doing, which might allow them to push hard thoughts out of their head.

I broke my leg about 2.5 weeks ago. Even though at that time, I wasn't communicating w/OM, I was still what you guys call 'quite foggy'. In my mind, there was no chance in He**, I was going to tell BH what happened. I thought the only option was to divorce (and then in my head, I had somehow allowed myself to believe that life would be SO much better if I was divorced) I focused on all the negative things my BH did/does, and not on any of the good ones(quite like that quote someone posted on my thread).

Early in the am, I went to start my car b/c it had snowed. I was running back inside b/c I didn't realize there was a full layer of ice under the snow. I slipped, and as I was falling, I heard my leg crack. As I was laying there in the dark, with my face on the driveway, I was so mad, "God! How on earth could you allow me to break my leg!" It was in my mind literally, not allowing me to run away.

About a week after I did it, I found out I'd need surgery (which would delay recovery another 4-6weeks). My mom knew I was very bummed about surgery and sent me an email that said this:
"God must have a reason for allowing this surgery, so let's just pray that you might not miss what it might be. He surely must be slowing you down /allowing you to be slowed down for a reason. Try not to waste it."

Of course, I was like, "whatever". I had plenty of time to think about things, and I remember telling God (not asking, not really praying, but telling) that I knew he had the power to change my hard heart, b/c he had done it to Pharoah, but I wasn't going to do a thing. I was pretty set on my way to destruction.

I had gotten into a fight w/BH about how I didn't feel like he cared about me/didn't take care of me. The next day, he bought me flowers/etc, and I remember thinking/scoffing, "oh, am I supposed to be bought so easily?" But it did cause a little chip on my heart. I went to see an IC that week, who all but validated my reasons for having affair (I wasn't feeling loved, I wasn't getting this or that, etc). Never once made me accountable for my actions. Never once told me I should tell my BH. Pretty much said, that sometimes divorce is better.

After that meeting, I just didn't feel right. It felt wrong to my core. A few days later was when I came across MB and posted the first time. I knew there was just a sliver of me that wanted to do the right thing. I'm thankful for the people who called me out.

But yeah, in dog years- I've been here for like 6 weeks. So I'm not sure how admirable that is. And it makes me sad to think it took a broken leg and a bunch of strangers on the internet who don't mince their words to wake me up.

But I'm trying, and I'm thankful for your help and encouragement.

To be honest, he hasn't talked to me much about anything. He did say it was unfortunate we were still financially tied together. I'm pretty sure he's still leaning to D.

It's still early and the shock is still there for him. I wouldn't try to guess how he's feeling or which way he's leaning. Keep working on you. I like to believe that things can always change for the better. Hang in there.

I slipped, and as I was falling, I heard my leg crack.
As I was laying there in the dark, with my face on the
driveway, I was so mad, "God! How on earth could you
allow me to break my leg!"

Where is Caravaggio to render this with the proper
chiaroscuro illumination technique?

Please do not take my comment for mockery, or disbelief,
DoroM. On the contrary, my off-repeated opinion is that
far from not having miracles today, what modern culture
has is a marked aversion to giving credence to the many
miracles that do occur.

If it took a snapped leg-bone to bring about the self-
examination that eventually led you here...well, bones
heal.

Doro, you say it was a 'only a little sliver' of you that wanted to do the right thing but that sliver did not give up until it found advice it DID like.

There are tonnes of websites, too, that excuse cheating and blame it all on the marriage and the BS - just like your IC did. You could have tried to ease your mind with one of those. So many do and succeed.

Even after you came here. You didnt have to listen. I have only been on here six months. Do you have any idea how many WWs come on here looking for tea and sympathy, but are told the truth and run off scared.

I was pretty certain after you signed up that first day, that we would never hear from you again.

Because that's what usually happens.

The truth will out, that all. A [censored] of the conscience in the brain is like a grain of sand in an oyster, which irritates and rubs and so is forced to form a pearl.

Dont take this the wrong way, but I think it is awesome you broke your leg!

DM, you asked God to answer a prayer, and he did. I too was praying and praying for help for my marriage. I had done MANY searches for marital help. I never found anything that made sense to me. And then, on October 30, 2009, I typed these words into google, "How to survive your husband's affair." BOOM. Right sat the TOP, Marriage Builders. I read, and read, and then posted a couple of weeks later, and as they say, the rest is history. MB is the answer to the prayers of MANY.

Now, I am a little weary. I want to make sure that you keep at your recovery. Whether your marriage recovers or not, you don't want to stay a wayward, and MB can help you have a better next marriage(either this one if you are able to save it, or a new one if you can't). Stick with it. You're doing very well.

Talked with the BH this morning for a while. He said if/when he even thinks about possibly making it work, he gets angry at himself. Says it just not worth it.

He said there was a 0.1% chance that it work, and that's only leaving it open to God and miracles. I told him I'd take that chance and keep praying.

He did agree to talk with Harley, so I think that will happen today or tomorrow. I read SAA last night, going to leave it here for him, in case he is curious.

I think him agreeing to talk with Dr Harley will increase your chances significantly and I'm rooting for you guys.

Doro --

I was also a WW - and I fully credit MB for restoring me.
Back to realizing that I wanted to live my life with values and integrity.

I think you are fully seeing God's answer.

There isn't a better group of people anywhere. They will tell you when you're not thinking right.

I just hope your BH will take his time. Its wonderful that he is going to talk to Steve Harley. Now is not the time to make any decisions. His emotions are likely all over the board.

Just keep working on your side of the fence.

Doro,

Let Steve Harley do his magic, let him be the reason and logic......
I agree be the best you can be, and be willing to listen and encourage your husband.......

As we have said, it all boils down to your BHs choice.

Talking to Steve, someone neutral who understand how to prevent affairs and how to recover marriages, will help him weigh out the pros and cons of that choice logically.

Recovery is not easy and Steve can explain that. But it is possible.

Steve will also remind him that there's no need to decide today.

He can allow you to make it up to him for just one day, then decide the next if he is going to carry on letting you make amends, for a second day and so on.

Until he can see whether something is being built besides resentment. Which, if you are doing the right things, there will be.

YAY for your BH. That is AWESOME. Doesn't mean he needs to be 100% on board, but even looking at it as a slight possibility is better than nothing. As long as you commit to being the best person you can be with high morals, and you make for the harm you caused your BH, you will do GREAT.

It's a lot of work, but it is well worth it.

DoroM,

Just wanted to comment that your mom appears to be a very wise woman. I think it will do you good to spend some time with her after your surgery.

AM

How do I send a PM to someone? It keeps saying that PM are disabled?

You can't. You have to go through the mods

How does that work? How do I go through the mods?

At the bottom you click their name and they should have an email address you can write to.

So I went to my first AA meeting this morning. While I always knew I did stupid stuff when I drank, I never in a million years would admit that I had an issue- b/c I really don't drink that often. Did a little AA research yesterday and it turns out, it sounded like I fit right in- basically alcohol was a huge contribution to making my life the disaster it is right now, affecting me and the ones I love the most. And I want to quit drinking entirely --> makes me a great candidate for AA member.

When I thought about my list of EP's, I knew the hardest one on there would be the no alcohol. I knew it would be fine for a month, or three, or a year, but then I knew I'd be in some social situation, where I'd want to. And it scared me, that it was such a big deal. So I decided to try it out.

Afterward, I spent quite a few hours talking with BH. He was pretty cold, said some very hurtful things to me, which I couldn't really deny were true. But when I started talking about the alcohol issue and AA, he grabbed my hand and held it for quite a while I was talking.

Both times I cheated on him, alcohol played a huge part in the situations. Not to say it couldn't/wouldn't happen w/o it, but in these particular instances, it was a big factor...so that's why it's such a big deal to me to face this issue head on- b/c last time I didn't(and look what happened). Still don't know where exactly we stand - but his appt with Dr. Harley is on Tuesday morning.

Sounds like no drinking will have a big effect on your BH so it must have made him uncomfortable.

Breaking an EP would be disastrous, so you are right to get help to seal it up

Had he ever asked you to quit?

My H's drinking did not cause his adultery.
But, him stopping was on my non-negotiable list of requirements.

It works if you work it.
Keep going back.
Every day at first.
60 meetings in 60 days.

My H, 16 years sober & enjoying our happily recovered marriage.

After the first time, He asked me to stop for a while, and I did (albeit- somewhat unwillingly, I'm ashamed to admit). And then he told me he didn't want to tell me I couldn't...so I took advantage of that.


Maybe I'll be able to say that in some years. Regardless, if we recover from this or not, it's an issue that needs to be addressed. I'm actually pretty lucky I never ended up in jail, or in a ditch.

Doro,

My wife cheated while we were dating... It was after her 18th birthday party. We were both pretty drunk. At the time, being young and naive, one of her exes was at the party.

I passed out, and he made his move.

At the time, I blamed the drunkenness.


However, when she had her affair 13 years later, she was stone sober.

It can be, however, a red flag. In the same year her AP began working with her she started "checking out" and she was doing the "girls' night" thing. That helped to create separation.

These social situations you speak of are MORE of an issue than the drinking IF these are situations that you are present without your husband.

By all means, eliminate your drinking, but it is MORE important that you eliminate your Independent Behavior, that you no longer participate in any activities without your husband. That habit is creating a contrast effect in your marriage.

Your H might partially he blaming alcohol in his mind, but really you decided to put yourself in dangerous situations and alcohol happened to be involved.

I suggest you limit your AA interactions to FEMALES ONLY.

...it's an issue that needs to be addressed.

Remember, your goal here is to produce the best DoroM possible. Stepping up to this issue, self-identified, and self-initiated, is huge.

(Besides, the physically healthier you will recover better from the surgical procedure.)

I agree, completely- that's why one of the other things on my EP list is to not be in those sorts of situations unless my husband is there(social situations I was referring to, I was assuming he would be with me-weddings, parties, etc). The meeting I went to today wasn't females only, but that thought did cross my mind- thinking that people trying to recover from things together might have a higher propensity to 'connect' so to speak. Today, I just wanted to go to one, and I didn't have a lot of options d/t timing.

As to the independent behaviors, both myself and BH are quite guilty of that previously. I told him today, that I want to heal and recover with him, but not to go back to the same selfish way we were both living, but to actually be together as one.

Very important.



I think this illustrates perfectly the importance of POJA and not doing anything your spouse is not enthusiastic about. POJA leads to better decisions, because two minds make the decision, instead of one weakness.

I bet you, like me wish you had stumbled across POJA earlier.

Yes...how'd you guess? We were both so independent before we met, I guess we thought it'd work out fine to stay that way. (yeah, you can groan or sigh at that statement). You know, for you guys that have been on here a long time, all this stuff must seem so elementary and you're probably groaning to yourselves (or in your posts) that people don't know it. It might seem like common sense, but it's hard to really know/understand something until you've been taught. After I've read all of this stuff on MB, I'm like, "OF COURSE this makes sense!". Makes me feel pretty stupid.

It shouldn't! It should make you feel enlightened. Quick kicking yourself for what you didn't know and start giving yourself a little credit for the efforts you're now making to learn what you need to know.

Doro,

I don't want to "talk down" AA or anything... However, most AA meetings consist of pretty much nothing but Intimate Conversation. I grew up in and around program people, and relationships and marriages were built and broken all over the place. It makes more sense now - considering the love bank model.

Find women's meetings, and a FEMALE sponsor.

Or, you could ask your husband to participate with you. I had a lot of fun as a kid at program events; dances, picnics, campouts, and river floats. Substance recovery might provide some great opportunities for RC and marital recovery if your husband is PoJA to participating with you!

Even if it's just intimate conversation, it's something that will help/encourage me infinitely. I'm going to get back into my church and find a small group after my surgery, but the thought of going into all of my issues with a bunch of people from church is not very comforting to me. (It should be comforting, but it's more scary, b/c sometimes the people who should should be showing the most grace, fail miserably). Unfortunately, where we live now, I don't have any 'good role model' friends. Just friends who drink/party a lot. All my good g-friends, who can keep me accountable, live back where my parents live.

So I'm on a girl-friend finding mission...or I will be, once I have surgery and come back here.

..the thought of going into all of my issues with a bunch of people from church is not very comforting to me...I don't have any 'good role model' friends...So I'm on a girl-friend finding mission.

Well, my friend, the association of these disparate thoughts presents clarity to the issue, doesn't it?

"Comfort" is probably NOT the ideal thing you should be looking for from folks to whom you would be turning to for support in turning around those elements of your life that are damaging to your hopes for marital recovery.

Characteristics that would be of more utility would be "rigor", "discipline", and "commitment". I don't know the makeup of the congregations of the churches open to you, but it does seem appropriate to start there in looking for people exhibiting those elements.

I need to re-read posts and pick them apart before I post, huh? I understand about the rigor/discipline/etc. I didn't mean 'comfortable', in the sense where they don't challenge me, because I've got friends I can be comfortable around. And they're not doing diddly-squat to help re-build my marriage right now. I meant more, 'comfortable' in the 'acceptance' and 'grace' sense. And then they can challenge me.

Por ejemplo: When I told my sister about what I did, she said she still loved me, would always love me- but yes, she was very angry about what I did, but she was very calm, and I knew she wanted to help me and our marriage
When I told my dad, he angrily asked, "did you even know his name?"

Who do you think I'm going to feel more comfortable telling my struggles/issues to? Who would I seek/heed advice from? They both would show the exact same amount of rigor/discipline/commitment, yet one would do it with grace.

Does that make sense?

It makes sense to a degree. I and on the other hand, it is you shrinking from the consequences of your choices and actions - does THAT make sense?

If you looked at your own actions and your own choices being carried out by another person, what would YOU think of them?

What do you think about your own actions?

Now, you don't have to be shackled permanently by your actions, but part of repentance is facing up to the consequences.

How does your father feel about your husband? Did you stop to think that your actions could have cost him his son-in-law? That everyone in your family that loved you both would be split if you divorce due to your decisions?

I can tell you this; we buried my grandmother last week, and even after two years, I could read on her face as we partook in the celebration of my grandmother's life that she KNEW she almost lost a huge, loving, supporting family to be another notch on some d-bag's belt.

That is accountability you can't buy.

to a degree. I'm not sure if that means I'm necessarily shrinking form the consequences. I fully accept the consequences, I wasn't excited to tell my parents and talk to them, and have spent quite a bit of time talking to them (and I'll spend the next 2 weeks living with them after I have surgery). I'm not sure it's avoiding consequences that I'd prefer to talk with my sister at this point in time.

I would think they were a skanky ho. My actions were reprehensible.
I feel like I'm facing my actions and the consequences there-of, maybe not? My dad likes BH. He thinks we both have a lot of growing up to do. I did think about how my family would be split. And I completely understand why they are furious with me for my actions. I accept that, and it hasn't stopped me from talking with them, and accepting what they have to say. I was saying that I'd prefer to talk with someone who treated me with more grace at this moment in my journey- even if I don't deserve it. But that's the definition of grace anyway, isn't it?

Then you behave with grace. While your father's reaction was painful to face, it was the reaction of pain. Pain for you, pain for your husband, his own pain.

You want grace, yet you are not willing to extend it to those you have injured?

Its foggy, sister. You aren't asking for grace, you are asking to be coddled.

Often times your worst critics are your best supporters, because they tell you the truth.

Free forgiveness is worth what's paid for it; nothing.

Ok?

DoroM, I was not implying that you were seeking to be coddled; your self-exposure actions have earned you the award for "courage".

What I was trying to point out was the advisibility of "playing the odds" in your choice of what support structures you'll want in place going forward.

Firstly, you surely understand you're probably not alone in your desire for an enabling environment for you (and eventually, the two of you). It's not likely you'll find a yellow-pages listing for "Reformed Adulterers of America". But most religious institutions either have, or are associated with, something along the lines of a "Marriage Support Ministry". Asking about and investigating those groups might be a way to get started.

You have a great sis and dad.

I truly don't believe I'm asking to be coddled- and the questions/statements I'm making in the past few posts are not meant to be defensive at all. In no way, did I say I was not willing to extend grace to anyone. Was I hurt by what my dad said, heck yeah. Even more so, b/c I'm pretty tight w/ my dad (daddy's little girl, if you will), so it hurt a lot.
I understand- and I don't want to be in an enabling environment. That's not going to get me/us anywhere. Of the people I've been talking to, it's the ones who have the backbone to say, "I HATE what you've done, but I LOVE you/both of you, and I will do whatever I have to do to help you work on yourself and your marriage". I'm not running away from challenging people who would really help us- I want to find more of those people.

Right now though- yesterday, today, tomorrow. I need someone to be loving to me, even if I don't deserve it. I'm very aware of what I've done/the pain I've caused not only my BH, but both of our families. And I know that my pain is nowhere near what BH is feeling. I understand that, even if I may never truly understand the extent of pain that he is undergoing. But that doesn't mean I'm not hurting. And yes, you may say, "well good! you should be!" Which I don't disagree with.

All I meant is that right now- in this instant, I need a few people who can be firm with me, but loving also. Someone who isn't going to throw stones. I feel an endless amount of pain, heartbreak, regret, and devastation about what I've done. I've gone to bed a few nights this past week, the only thing giving me comfort was thinking of 'checking out', b/c when I thought about the pain I caused BH, I couldn't understand/deal with being the root of that pain. I was laying in bed wishing I was working, b/c then I would have access to things that would make it quick, easy, painless- and probably a bit fun.

I just want to hear from the people in my life who will tell me that I don't have to continue to the person I've been, that there is hope, and repentance, and forgiveness from God. I can be a new person, and that our God is a God of 2nd, 3rd, 4th (or in my case) 1,209th chances.

I share all of this with you, not to say, 'poor pititful me, I hurt sooo bad, you should feel sorry for me'. Please, Please, Please don't think that I'm in anyway diminishing my husbands pain- or that I am in fact the cause of it. I'm quite hesitant to talk about how I'm feeling, b/c I don't want it to be construed the wrong way. I just wanted to share the reasons why right now, I wanted to be around people who I knew loved me- and I should point out that I don't believe 'love' is just telling you what you want to hear.

I'm being as genuine as I can be right now. I don't want to shirk my responsibilities and the consequences. I truly don't believe I have. I'm waffling back and forth if I should even post this response, b/c I don't want you guys to get the wrong idea of what I'm trying to say/explain.
I do. And a great mom. Trust me when I say, I know (and feel) loved by all of them (except when my dad is yelling at me-and that's b/c I hate disappointing him), but not a one would let me get away with shirking from the consequences of my actions.

Actually, because of my abysmal choice of vocabulary, you and I were talking at "cross purposes" for a moment, but the gist of the meaning was affirmed. I was using "enabling" not in the infidelity-usual sense of "enabling an affair", but in the more positive sense of "enabling" you and FBH to move forward.

You did make an important point (plea?) however:

I need a few people who can be firm with me, but loving also..who isn't going to throw stones...I just want to hear from the people in my life who will tell me that I don't have to continue to the person I've been, that there is hope, and repentance, and forgiveness from God. I can be a new person, and that our God is a God of 2nd, 3rd, 4th (or in my case) 1,209th chances.

Well, that's who WE are. I know we only exist in a virtual communication medium, but we are here precisely to support folks like you struggling to recover and repair what is damaged. Besides, here on this site we extend around the world, so anytime you're hurting, one of us will answer.

But you also included the following:

I've gone to bed a few nights this past week, the only thing giving me comfort was thinking of 'checking out', b/c when I thought about the pain I caused BH, I couldn't understand/deal with being the root of that pain. I was laying in bed wishing I was working, b/c then I would have access to things that would make it quick, easy, painless- and probably a bit fun.

And that CANNOT happen. I was there. It took a dear friend, and a certifiable miracle to back me off the ledge, but the result today makes looking back at my place then almost surreal. You parents do not need that agony, nor does your sister. You do NOT go there again. There is always hope and the potential for improvement.

In addition, you have talents that will someday soon be of value to subsequent "newbies" here. You owe us that future service.

more of that nonsense, Ma'am.

Yes, and you don't know how grateful I am to have found all you guys. Sometimes it's easier to be completely honest with a bunch of strangers than those who you know the best.

No, I'm not there now. But I was. I work in a medical environment, and I can't even count the number of people I've seen come in after failed attempts. I could seriously write a book on how NOT to kill yourself. It would be oh so embarrassing if I failed. I guess that is where pride comes in handy. So that's why it was a good thing I wasn't at work. Everyday, I deal with Michael Jackson's favorite stuff. So I was left thinking, "How sharp exactly do you think the kitchen knives are?" and "Would the axillary artery or brachial be better?"

So don't worry, I'll be around- whether you liked me or not. And apologies if you're offended by anything I wrote in the above paragraph. Joking around makes me feel better.
Sounds like a deal.

Yeah I do have you lined up to deal with future WWs, Doro!

It does make you wonder exactly how far reaching the consequences of your broken leg are expected to be, hmm?

You are not alone in this. I have thought about this as well. But, in the end, it is again for selfish reasons. Big hugs to you.

Hate to be a pity-party pooper, but thoughts of suicide including planning belong on a suicide hotline, not on this forum.

If you are contemplating it GET HELP.

Also; you aren't "crazy" or "alone," Dr. Harley has noted that many waywards entertain thoughts of suicide. Women especially when they don't end their adultery.

The betrayed also contemplate it... And some betrayed contemplate murder.

So, to reinforce the above; if you are contemplating it, get help.

I'm not contemplating it. I said that I had thought of it- and the only reason I mentioned it, was to try to explain some of the things we were discussing beforehand.

I did read what Dr. Harley said in regards to many people having these thoughts. It's like the white elephant in the room (or internet, as the case may be). I was just stating how I felt in the very recent past- maybe it will help someone in the future to know they're not alone and if they stick it out, it's worth it in the end. (living, that is)

Here's the thing; if you are contemplating, this isn't the place for it. If you seemed serious, it would be best if I notify the moderators and have them contact the authorities to come pick you up.

If you aren't contemplating, and you aren't serious, then you are like several who have come before you who toss it out as a form of emotional blackmail.

"How can you be so MEAN?"

Another ploy WW's will use is accusations of abuse;

"I'll confess, I just hope he doesn't hit me AGAIN!"

Nothing waywards like more than to have all of the attention on them, and to come up smelling like a victim... Or roses.


So, if I'm wearing on you, if I seem a little harsh, it's because you are, right now, following the fogged-out script. You are attempting to get all the focus and pity on you.

No.

I'll be the PITA, let your husband be your soft place to land. His kindness and forgiveness is far more valuable.

I knew I shouldn't have posted that post. I thought I had explained it in a manner that showed in no way was I trying to get the focus or pity- but I had this stinking suspicion that someone would be able to see the worst in a post I was only trying to be completely genuine and honest in. Did you even READ the whole thing? I was NOT tossing it out as emotional blackmail- b/c if I was going to toss it out as emotional blackmail, why the heck would I do it to a bunch of strangers on the internet? I didn't mention how I felt to a single person IRL, least of all my BH. You don't think I know how that would've sounded?

I stated I 'HAD THOUGHT' of it. That would be in the past perfect tense. Meaning, in the past, I had indeed thought. Since it was in the past, it does indeed mean, that I am not (present tense)currently contemplating it. Crazy, how verb tenses can change the meaning of a sentence.

Am I not allowed to share how I'm feeling/have felt in the past? Should I pretend that I don't care I just devastated and ruined my husbands life? Maybe some WW don't care. But I actually do, and it hurts me more than you will know.

The ONLY reason I brought that story up, was b/c I was trying to explain my feelings of pain, in regards to wanting the people who were helping/mentoring me in this time to be loving while they were doing it.

Part of me is tempted to go edit it out of the post, so no one else will come and attack me. But I'm not going to, because I think it's possible that it might help someone else. I have never in my life had a true serious thought like that, I never understood it when all these people would come into the hospital after trying(and failing)- b/c I couldn't understand how life could seem that bad that someone would want to do that. So many healthcare professionals lack empathy and toss only judgment at people that come in like that, and now that I've experienced(past tense) feelings so low, it can do nothing but help me care for people in the future.

You may think what you like about me, but I believe your accusations are baseless in this case.

Yes, well you do it so well...and I wish my husband could be my soft place to land, but we're not exactly there yet.

Your defensiveness speaks volumes.

You can call it an attack if you wish - that is how you feel, attacked.

Sad thing is, I'm not attacking you. I'm doing what we can do here - calling out an action or a statement in a way you don't like. Being truthful. Pointing out your spiral into self-focus.

My wife did it, she was foggy. I was not in a position to hold her accountable to a lot of that. Why? Because I would have sunk into Love Busters to do so. I had my faults, they were called out.

Doro, you cut your husbands heart out, and here we sit arguing about how YOU look, what people think about YOU, about YOUR pain.

You made the choices that lead to this, and your husband was Pearl Harbored by the person he loves and trusted the most.

Why are we talking about your pain while your husband is bleeding on the floor?

I've seen others do what you are doing right now, it it doesn't end well.

I'm not going to pat you on the back and give you a "there, there" when you are still exhibiting foggy thinking. I'm going to tell you that you are foggy. To me, that honesty is more caring than sugar-coating the issue.

Things went from EP's to your pain... Why?

We were discussing choosing mentors/people to help rebuild, and I thought I was explaining my thinking behind some of the things I said. That's the only reason I brought up my pain. Certainly not to get any sympathy. (I do still remember the first day I posted here, I'm not that slow of a learner to think things would be different a week later).

I had an inkling of how that post may be construed, and I should've heeded it. It wasn't my intent at all- and I say that with complete honesty and genuineness. I'm sorry if you don't see that.

Doro,

It's not sympathy you need, it's empathy - the empathy of your husband.

Where he is right now, where he is going to be for a while, is broken. He can't empathize with you being defensive, blame-shifting, and avoiding the unpleasant consequences of your actions.

He may empathize with remorse, but that will take time. Why? Because you have proven through action that you will lie through your teeth, and blame him for your poor decisions.

That is the distance right now; disbelief.

To earn his empathy, focus your pain into Just Compensation. The release from that pain is reconciling yourself and your marriage.

Even that won't be easy. He won't want to trust you, and you will find yourself feeling undeserving.

Don't let those things stop you.

Time, care, and protection. Those are your allies.

It is really common for WWs to consider such things at the depths of their experiences and I don�t think saying so is inappropriate. It�s just a part of the sucky consequences of choosing adultery and then finding out what it does for the soul. Personally I don�t see anything in Doros post that implies she is using it to be given a break from 2x4s, she just says where she was before taking action to change.

Why would we expect her to skip a part of the experience that all WWs go through at rock bottom? Or hide the fact that she experienced that?

To my mind the response is �Keep making changes and your outlook will continue to improve� not �Don�t mention it�

So BH had appt with Dr. Harley this morning. I had separate appt soon after. Not to long after that, BH and I talked via skype for about 3.5 hours (I am now out of state for my surgery tomorrow).

He has agreed to have another appt with Steve, but at this point he still plans to file for divorce soon. Where we live it takes at least 90 days for it to be final. Said if he sees/knows I've really changed/changing by that time, he might think about us.

But now he doesn't really want to talk to me at all. I'm going to be here at my parents for at least 1-2 weeks after surgery. And after that, I'm not quite sure he wants me back at home- I don't see how we can work through this if we aren't together at all. Steve did tell him that he was going to have to see me at least a little bit for him to even see if I change. At this point he doesn't even think we'd be able to meet each others top EN.

On my end, I'm working on the plan to 'safeguard' my EN.

That's about it. Still working on me. I guess our marriage feels pretty hopeless, considering he doesn't want to really talk to me, and I'm not sure if he'll want to see me after I recover from surgery, and I'm not sure how you work through this when you're not even with the other person.

I told him I was still going to hang on to that .1% chance, and he says, "I think I said 0.01%". So there's that.

You see bad news
I see good news
I see a BH willing to have second session with Steve Harley
On MB the Harley's are held to be miracle workers because time after time the get a reluctant spouse to do that first phone seesion
So when you have Steve working this what I see is a BH that might just decide to hold off on the divorce
So keep doing what you're doing to fix yourself

You are in control of this outcome. He might not feel optimistic about your capabilities, but we are!

I agree with road and indie. Keep it up DoroM!!! For your BH, for your marriage, and for YOU.

The fact that your BH has agreed to a second session is HOPE. Many of us (BS or WS) don't get this invitation. There is hope. Hope that may not give you want you want (a recovered marriage) but it is worth a shot. For your BH and for your own peace of mind that once the fog started to lift you gave it your all. So you can be proud of the efforts you made to recover your marriage and to recover a better YOU.

Keep working...

About a week ago, you posted:

Talked with the BH this morning for a while. He said if/when he even thinks about possibly making it work, he gets angry at himself. Says it just not worth it.

I let it go then, but made a mental note to return to this.

His wrestling with the concept of fulfilling his own expectations of "husbandly outrage" is not unique. I would bet that every BH is forced to reconcile what A) convention says he should do feel/do with B)what he personally might want(ie: be in his best interest), In your case, though, it appears to be complicated by the second part of his position. As with any problem however, a solution is present.

I get the impression that your marriage has taken a back seat to your individual personal goals, employment- and other-wise. Bluntly, it's easier to envision dissolving a marriage if the major change is merely filing separate tax returns. You have no long history of courtship (and even that was marred by conflict), no extended period of living together as a married couple, obviously no children together, and evidently no anchoring factors like home ownership. You yourself arrived here more-or-less considering ending the marriage (None of this is criticism, DoroM, it's just what IS.)

He might not see what the prize is for which he would be expected to invest effort and pain to achieve. It may be that you can see that prize now, DoroM. If so, it might be well to employ your few weeks of rest/isolation to render that in terms so plain as to entice him to share your vision.

Simply put: How do you see you lives together in five years? Ten? This shouldn't be an as-seen-on-TV commercial, but a serious outlook of what you want to do, why you want to do it with him, and (very important) why your vision would be in his best interest.

Here's hoping your surgery goes well, and you can quickly get to work on your (interrupted) recovery!

I knew that him agreeing to 2nd session was good, but it was hard after our long conversation to see anything positive, mainly b/c it was mostly so negative.

Astute impression. And this is all stuff that I've thought about- especially after our long, seemingly hopeless conversation on Tuesday. I know that I'm thinking about all these factors, then I know they're weighing on his mind about 1000x more heavily. After he told me on tuesday he was still going to file for D, part of me was like, "what's the point of even trying." After all, we had so many issues beforehand, and part of me knew it would be much easier to be done with it and work on myself outside of our relationship. It took me hours and hours of thinking/praying/crying/etc to write him an email and tell him that I'd already made the 2 biggest mistakes of my life, and I wasn't going to let the 3rd one be me not doing absolutely everything to at least try to salvage our relationship and have a new marriage.

Yeah, I've been thinking about this. When I look at past selfishness, IB's, not meeting EN's, lack of POJA, etc- that was so prevalent, and then I think about a relationship b/w the two of us where there is a 180 in those cases, I believe life together would be truly amazing. And not in a 'tv commercial sense.' Sometimes it's hard to think of any reason to tell him why he should bother with me, knowing what I've done and who I became- even if I am working on myself.


Okay, I've got to quit- It's getting harder and harder to concentrate and make sense. Surgery went well yesterday afternoon, and I've been in a drug-induced haze since then. Apologies for any typos/lunacy. That's the pain pills talking. Oh, edited to add- found out I will be on crutches for another 6 weeks. So no more work for at least that much time...

except for Plan A!

Haha! Yes, except for plan A. I thought that was a given at this point.

Your BH is posting here and that is good news as well.

Who's her BH? Somehow missed that.

ETA- Never mind, I found him

Didn't know that. Just went and found him.

Doro, the things that are said on his thread are for him, the things said on your thread are for you. If you're like me, the curiosity will drive you to read his thread, and then when you read his words, you'll wish you hadn't. My H posted here briefly and had some pretty harsh words to say about me, and reading what he wrote was painful. The fact that he IS posting here is a very good sign, b/c he can vent, get help and advice.

Yes, curiosity got me. BH hasn't said anything here that he hasn't told me to my face. More painful to read all the people telling him to cut and run (which I had been worried about in the first place).

I'm the one who gave BH OMW info, so he could tell her. As that's how I thought things were supposed to go from reading on here. No, I didn't warn him so he could erase the messages- although I already told BH that I had a thought of telling OM to tell his wife first so she heard it from him as opposed to BH. But I did not, as that would explicitly have broken one of my EP's. I got rid of all of OM contact info, but I know someone from our training group made a contact info sheet with home addresses, so I'm emailing to see if I can get the sheet, so BH can also send a letter to home address, if there is no response on FB.

One thing I wasn't sure about is if I'm supposed to do anything in regards to OMW. (write and apologize, etc?). I feel like the things I've read here, have said leave it up to BS, but I wasn't completely sure about that.

You did the right thing here. It is not better to hear it from the OM because he has the greatest incentive to lie and gloss it over.


It would be best if he could call her. Can you all get the home #?


My feeling is that you will have made amends by making sure she is informed about the affair and has the ability to get details from your husband.

Oh, I should add- I highly doubt OM has told his BW. The day I first posted here, I emailed him to tell him I was seriously contemplating telling BH, and I didn't know what the fall out would be from that. He seemed to be more concerned about BH coming to his doorstep to kick his A**, and told me 'he couldn't say he fully regretted it'. The next day, I sent him a firm NC letter. No clue if he ever emailed back b/c I had my sister change the password on the account so I didn't have access. (was an old school account and for the life of me, I couldn't deactivate it-even calling IT dept at school).

I truly don't think they have a home number, w/both having cell phones. I don't know anyone "my age" that has a home number, actually. I DO know who is mom is on FB. I'm assuming even if he had access to erase his wife's messages, he probably couldn't get to his mom's. Should BH give his phone number to OM's mom for her to pass it to OMW?

So landlines are for old people? That cracks me up, but it is true that my 29 yr old son and his wife do not have a landline and it drives me crazy!

Can you see the OMW's mother's facebook page? It might make sense for your BH to message the OMW's mother if he doesn't hear back from the OMW.

My parents and Prisca's parents are driven nuts by our different attitude to phones.

You young people need to get real phones!!!

Or maybe we should just answer them on demand...

Well, let's say that landlines are for parents who are old enough to have adult children....

I don't know OMW's mothers info- I know OM mothers info, I directed BH to it on his FB, if he doesn't hear back. From what I've heard, OM's mother makes satan himself cry, so I don't think she would be the type to cover something up. I also got the home address and emailed that to BH.

More painful to read all the people telling him to cut and run...

...but with many more urging him to approach the issue rationally.

1) How's the leg?
2) How's your "vision" of the future?

Yes, thank you for being the rational. Leg is feeling better. Hoping to not have to take any more pain killers- I think I'm closing my eyes for 10 minutes, and then 2 hours later, I wake up with drool on my face- hard to get anything accomplished in that state. Vision for the future is still in my head, but when I haven't been sleeping, I've been thinking about it a lot.

DoroM, it's a process. No one here is going to try to convince your BH which path he should take, but they are going to lay it all out for him. You already knew that we would do this. It would do HIM a great disservice if people didn't tell him the things they have been.

Even if he decides to "cut and run" you will still need to fix what you did and who you became. Becoming a wayward changes you to the core, and to get out of that, you need to learn and grow. You can't run from this, it is a part of you now. Earn that "F."

I certainly hope you aren't including me in your mental checklist of people who told him to "cut and run."

While such was mentioned in my post, it was not my advice nor analysis - even though I've ran you like Buford Pusser.

If ya think that's what I told him, reread the post.

I don't want to run from this- and it's something that I've become more and more accepting of as time goes on. By accepting, I mean accepting whatever path I end up on (w/BH or not). Regardless of the path I'm on, I'm still going to be a different person on said path. As I told BH today, I feel more peace about whatever he decides. And I believe that to be true (I did concede that there was always a small chance that was just the narcotics talking, but I'm still going to go ahead and assume it's peace from God, considering I have been spending a bit of time praying and it's been at least 16 hours since any pain killers)
Certainly not! I mentally apologized to you for all the things I was thinking about you previously when I was so frustrated.... I had to just google Buford Pusser, btw.

I'd be more of a Joe Don Baker representation than Dwayne Johnson...

Also; fell you on the painkillers. I can't take them... but, I know after some procedures, it's either be a little dopey, or be in unbearable pain. I've only ever once in my life been through unbearable pain, and at that time I appreciated the pain killers.

Half tabs, maybe?

No- think I'm done (gonna sell the rest on ebay...KIDDING!). I've been transitioning to Ibuprofen and Tylenol and it feels okay. Hoping to have a productive day tomorrow (at least as productive as one can be with one leg). Plenty of time to come up with some more EP's (my BH told me today that I needed to add like another 100, and then he said if he decided this was gonna work, he was going to add another 300)

Why not schedule a joint phone conference for you and BH with the Harleys.

Well, last time we talked to Steve, (separately), he had told us to make appts again in 1-2 weeks (separately). So I'm not sure he wants us to have joint conference? Not sure BH wants to have joint conference. I don't know.

Not sure BH wants to have joint conference. I don't know.

Recovery Rule #1, (and 2, 3, 4,.....):
ESPECIALLY AT THE FRONT-END, THE BS SETS THE AGENDA AND THE SCHEDULE!!

Your intuition is good on this Ma'am, in spite (because?) of all the drugs you're consuming.

There is a remarkable piece of good news in your recent posts, which you might not have realized. Heal quickly, we have work for you to do.

So does this mean that you and BH are going to do another session? Have your's and BH's next sessions booked?

Has BH talked much about his MB forum experience?

What did BH think about Steve H?

Yes, we are planning to do more sessions (separately), probably in about a week or so. As far as I know, BH hasn't called to book his yet. BH hasn't really said that much about the MB forum experience to me, I think he thinks it's good to get opinions/advice from people who have been in this situation before.

As far as I know, BH liked Steve H, thinks he truly wants to help you heal and be healthy, whether you choose divorce or reconciliation.

Doro... the one thing I would advise, is that if you are going to do ongoing phone coaching with the Harley's follow their advice.

There are some very experienced members here who give great advice, but it may at times conflict with what the paid coach will tell you.

Not that it isn't MB advice, it's just different MB advice than from what you are getting from Steve.

Make sense?

The best thing to do is take notes from your phone sessions, and if you have questions, bring them here so those experienced members can clarify Steve's advice if you need it.

Yep, makes sense. I know that I'm following all of Steve's advice, and while I don't know everything Steve told BH, I think he is also. I know that Steve told BH to call me occasionally to say hi (I'm out of state for another week and half), and BH has been calling, even though he says he hasn't really wanted to.

At least he's listening to Steve and doing what he told him to do. The journey of a thousand miles begins with but a single step.

That's a GIANT leap for your BH. Good on him.

Now, what have YOU been doing to ensure your side of the fence is all cleared up?

I've been working on stuff Harley told me to work on (Figuring out how to protect my top EN from someone else). I've emailed that to BH and Harley.

I've created more EPs (below). I'm in contact with the pastor of my church at home, regarding women to mentor/etc. Been praying a lot.

The additional EPs (yes, I borrowed some I've read here)
1. I will protect you and your feelings above all else.
2. I will not discuss my personal marriage issues with anyone of the opposite sex.
3. I will be open and honest with you at all times about the past and present.
4. I will provide you with a daily schedule of all appointments and contact information.
5. If I need to make an adjustment to my schedule, I will notify you of the change immediately.
6. I will make your phone calls my highest priority by answering them or returning them immediately.
7. You can have my phone anytime you ask, no questions asked
8. I will commit to at least 15 hours of undivided attention with you to meet each others ENs every week.
9. I will install a internet tracker thingee on my computer, so you have access to everything I do
10. I will get a GPS program on my phone (not sure if I can with 3G, or if I need new iphone) so you can see where I am at all times
11. Anytime I have the thought, �I don�t want my spouse to know about �___�, I will tell you immediately
12. Will talk to a lawyer to have some sort of post-nuptial agreement drawn up, giving you whatever you want if we divorce for reason related to me.
13. Anything else that you want as a boundary.

Question regarding the post-nup. I didn't include it in my original EP list, as I thought it may offend BH b/c he doesn't care about $ that much. He brought it up a few days ago (and said yes, he probably would've been offended if I had put it in originally), and thought maybe it would be a good idea- but he also pointed out that it would give me a bigger reason to lie to him if anything were to happen again. I'm not sure what to say/do about that- b/c obviously, me saying "it's never going to happen again." does not really mean much. thoughts?

If your BH did not ask for a post nup then take it off the table with a big smile and yes dear no more talk about post nup.

I see his point that a post nup could stop you from being honest in BH mind. BH needs to feel that you will be honest, that he needs to regain trust.

Repair post affair can start right away after dday. Though it's completion will take years.

BH did bring it up, just a few days ago- he wasn't necessarily asking, but wasn't sure if it would be a good idea or not. I put in on the list I gave him- it's up to him if it's something that will make him feel more safe or less safe, I guess.

After talking to BH about the post-nup, it seems the type of thing he is thinking of is more along the lines of "me signing away 'fill in the blank'" not only if I were to stray again or choose divorce, but even if he were to decide it wasn't going to work.

His reasoning was that it would make me trust him, just like I am asking him to trust me. Obviously, we are a long way off from this point of instituting something like this- because he would have had to have decided that recovery was something that he wanted to do. Just curious if anyone has come across something like this before.

Doro,

Most of what I've seen or heard about post-nups is to include any future infidelity - not as an additional fail-safe to past infidelity.

It is, more or less, putting your money where your mouth is;

"I will not stray again, and if I do, I take (next to) nothing from the marriage)."

It would state something like you would be entitled to no more than 25% of marital assets should divorce occur to another infidelity.

To reiterate; this is not about any former affairs, this is part of providing protection from future affairs.

Hope that makes more sense.

HHH - MirrorMirrors wife got a post nup written up to say it would leave her with nothing if the marriage ended for any reason. It was her way of saying she was dedicated to making the marriage happy as well as safe.

I think it all boils down to the couple and what the BS needs in order to feel safe and less resentful.

Sounds like Doros BH wants to receive trust before he gives it as a way of verifying.

And for what its worth I too would insist on a 'no matter what ending' post nup. I wouldnt want to be the only one taking risks.

Yeah- I think that's where his thinking is- receiving the trust. Not just focused on punishing me if I strayed again. I'm not quite sure when we would institute such a thing? Mainly b/c he's not even sure he's interested in recovery right now. You know?

(Shhhhh, keep this quiet, but rejoice privately!)

DoroM, I hinted at some good news in one of your previous posts, and you never hazarded a guess at my reference. The good news keeps coming, and it appears you remain...unaware...of the item.

Just keep working on YOU, and follow the guidelines here. You are doing fine.

Hmmm...are you calling me dense? I guess I didn't guess- I thought maybe you were referring to the fact that BH is actually talking to me/Steve and hasn't filed for divorce yet? Something else?

Doro you would have to be a BS to understand, but it is q positive to hear he is trying to work out ways you can help him to overcome resentment. He is not sure he can do it - but the idea seems to keep recurring in his mind and you keep being presented with opportunities -things you can do for him, even if he is not q sure what.

There I have just totally violated the 'shhhhh' order

I didn't even SEE the 'shhhh' order until now- it was little and at the top of the post. I definitely am looking at the positives- I think it's positive that he still talks to me, much less is talking with Harley.

It boils down to....


















... PoJA!


I, personally, wouldn't do a "no matter what" even if NGB offered - that's just me. I've got a percentage of this marriage to carry. My largest request is fidelity.

...the fact that BH is actually talking to me...

Obviously the brain thinks very well on crutches!

Yes, friend, ANY conversation, short of "Flick you!" is important and encouraging. No one need waste words on the way out!

Okay, it's been a week, DoroM. What news can you give us?

General update- I�m still at my parents house out of state. We�ve been talking via skype almost every day. It�s generally pretty painful for us both. Last week, I was able to go to the other side of the state to visit with my best g-friends from college- all of whom were in my wedding. (no, none of them knew about A- b/c I knew they�d kick my a$$ and/or tell on me). They were all devastated by what I�d done, but still love me�for some reason. It was really good to get some perspective on some things from people who know me so well, and can nicely call me out.

Being in the real world (as opposed to the couch at my parents house), gave me some opportunity to �practice� protecting my EN�s and keeping EP�s. When I told Dr. Harley last time we talked that I was stuck at home and wouldn�t be able to �practice� too much, he said, �Good! Then you won�t be able to mess up too much!� (While I suppose I always have the internet and phone at my fingertips, other than that, it would be reallllllly hard to break an EP while I�m here at my parent�s house�.) I was faced with a few situations where I would be home alone w/ my friend�s husbands, so I found somewhere else to be until they got home. It was sort of funny(?)/ironic(?)/teaching moment(?) to me, b/c in one situation, my friends H is one of the biggest jerks I�ve ever met. I actively dislike him - as in dislike him so much, if we were the last ones on the planet, the population would die with us. So in my head, I was thinking, �seriously?! That would never happen, is it necessary to sit at a coffee shop and wait for my friend to get home?� but then the other side of me thought, �well, I guess that�s why they�re labeled, �extraordinary��, turned out to be a moot issue in that instance, b/c my friend was home the entire time. But it was good to have that little discussion with myself. Per Dr. Harley, I�ve been sharing all of these instances with BH, so he knows what I�m doing/thinking.

I�ve been contacting a few lawyers regarding a possible post-nup. (holy crap those people make too much money!) We�ve talked about it a little bit, and it�s not something we�d do until BH makes the decision to try recovery, as it would most likely be a �if we ever divorce, no matter what clause� and we can�t afford a lawyer right now anyway.

Emailed with the pastor of my church at home regarding possible older woman mentor/accountability person. He wants me to talk with this Christian IC, who I made an appt with for later this week. I did express my skepticism regarding IC, but I thought I would at least give her a try.

BH has 2nd appointment with Steve tomorrow, I have mine on Wednesday morning. I get my huge cast off on Wednesday (get a nice little removable boot for the next month), and then I�ll be flying back home Wednesday afternoon. It�s a little awkward situation b/c BH does not really want to be in the same house with me 24/7. I met BH soon after I first moved to our city, so most of our friends were his friends first, and since I�ve been gone pretty much for last 2.5 years, I don�t have many of my friends here. So the options I do have, are not good ones- live in boyfriends, alcohol, partying,people telling me they just want me to be 'happy', etc. I do not really want to put myself in those situations, for obvious reasons. Since I�m not working right now d/t broken leg, we can�t afford a 2nd place� we can barely afford our one place. He has been understanding about this, but it is tough. My parents have told me I better get back home�they think I need to be near him (as do I), so are not really rolling out the red carpet for me past my initial surgery recovery.

We're going to do the 40 Day in the word(I guess churches all over the world are doing rick warrens thing for next 6 weeks). I guess we're sort of doing it "together" but separate, as of right now. Maybe the appropriate terminology is that we are doing it 'during the same time period'.

I may be forgetting something. But that's the gist of it, I think. I ordered HNHN and LB, but I think they had to go cut some trees down in order for the book to be printed. Thinking of saving my 2nd run through of SAA for my plane ride home...nothing says "I don't want to talk to you" like a box of kleenex and SAA.

hi doro. i just wanted to pop in and tell you how great you're doing. your conversation with yourself, analyzing whether or not to go directly to your friends, shows how far you've come since post 1. way to go, girl! keep up the good work. sounds like bh is contemplating, which is fantastic news for you.

"Practicing" your enforcement of EPs is a great start, to what will now have to be your lifestyle.

Now, stop thinking of getting back with FBH with doubt. That is the wrong paradigm, and will most certainly come through to him in your (unattractive) moods and behaviors. You have a job to do. You have to work with him to heal him - that's it! It cannot be about you, or even your joint relationship. Everything you do must be FBH-focused. And your mindset must be one of being enthused with, and committed to, the task at hand.

Hopefully, after his session with Steve, he'll at least be open to sharing with you what he may need (and his "need" will NOT be that you and he remain apart). Without that input, you'll be limited to trial-and-error - harder, but still necessary.

We've talked about this, he looks at the list and only expresses doubt about me being able to keep them, b/c he thinks it seems too hard. I told him, yeah, it is going to be hard at first, b/c it's something I'm not used to, and I'm going to have to dissect every interaction, and make plans, and really think through to make sure I'm making the right decision and following through on my end, but eventually, like all things, if you do them long enough, it turns into a habit and it's second nature- like you said, turns into a lifestyle.
I feel like most of the time, that's all I can think about/want to do- is help him heal, and meet his ENs. I would be a big fat liar if I said the 'me!me!me!' doesn't pop into my head sometimes. I've been more able to identify it when it happens and tell myself I'm full of crap. It also helps to read other FWW old threads, b/c I can see it in their posts, and then I'm like, "oh crap,I'm guilty of xyz".

He filled out the EN's questionnaire, and I've read it- so I know at least relating to that. And I think that's what has me the most frustrated-the thought that I so badly want to help him heal, love him, meet his ENs, but that I may not be let in to do it. It's going to be really hard to meet his ENs if I'm never seeing him. We've been apart for SOO long...we've now been apart for longer than we were together, so I guess that's where the doubt is creeping in, b/c I'm worried about not being able to spend any time together.

This all sounds good Doro. I know fighting on the side of right is not as satisfying as gettin the whole 'what I want' deal in a giftbox. But you are doing all the right things and that is admirable.

I think I took SAA with me on an international trip, 2 weeks after D-Day. Yeah, I made sure no one could see the cover.

You're onto something big, Doro: Time together.

Time apart was how you & he got off the same wavelength in the first place. I'd say it was the main vulnerability that had existed in my marriage before the affair. (TWC & I weren't even all that conscious of it, because we mostly got along well & didn't fight about much back then. But we spent way too much time "together, but apart.") Combined with my getting too lazy & selfish to maintain my boundaries when they got tested, it was a vulnerability almost fatal to our marriage. And the changes we've made in our lives to carve out more time together have been huge in getting us to a better place.

I don't want to give you an overly rosy outlook. Our situations aren't parallel in all respects; my wife & I had had over 16 mostly very good years as a foundation to rebuild upon, and I'd only gotten into this kind of mess once, not multiple times. But I think it's a 'positive' that you're realizing that not only can't you meet your husband's needs very well, or even adequately, if you're not together, but of course he can't meet yours. Which in turn sure can get you thinking "me, me, me...", and you know where that leads. The 'positive' is that at least, being cognizant of how you got there gives you a better chance of not going there again, I think.

It's gotta be hard, not knowing if he wants you around, or whether he'll still want you around in a week, and it's gotta be hard not knowing if he'll still want you around when the 90 days are up. This is where you get to show that you're all-in. Our marriage counselor told me to imagine it like I was hacking through a gnarly forest or jungle to get to my wife, 'til my arms were dead & my hands were blistered & bleeding, without being able to see her -- maybe hear her at times, but anyway, my mission was just keep going to my assigned spot & to trust, without knowing, that she'd be there in the clearing when I got there.

And if he's there, then you'll be able to start moving together. The fact that he he's done an EN questionnaire is pretty impressive. At any rate, it's a ray of hope.

Give him his space if he asks, but make sure he knows you're there for him if ever & whenever he wants you to be.

Hi, Doro, I'm Mirrormirror. I just popped in to explain about the post-nup thing. My wife VOLUNTEERED and did the leg work all by herself, even before I said that I was willing to take her back. It is a very important cornerstone of our "new", marriage, as she will get practically nothing, if we divorce, FOR ANY REASON. What it did for me was to show the TOTALITY of her commitment to, first healing ME, and then to building a better marriage than the one we had. Have you ever mentioned to your husband about you taking a polygraph? Another of my wife's ideas is that she is willing to take a poly ANY TIME I WANT HER TO, 24/7/365, no questions asked. I am PROUD to say that I believe that she is the posterchild of what a FWW can and should be, but none of this would have been possible without the support and guidance of the Harleys. Hey, I'm beginning to think that we OWN the love bank. LOL

Hey, thanks for posting. I volunteered a post-nup, but I didn't originally put it on my EPs b/c I knew it would offend my BH (and he said I was right). It is something that BH and I have talked about-and I've called multiple lawyers to get info. I talked with Dr. Harley this morning, and he was not advising that at this point, said BH and I could revisit it later, but that he hoped it wouldn't come to that. We don't have any assets(more like a whole lot of liabilities), so there is nothing we own, I could walk away with now anyway.

Question for you, relating to your post-nup. Your wife gets practically nothing, but would she forced to pay you anything(support/etc?) after D? Just curious.


As to the polygraph, no- I haven't brought that up yet,but am more than happy to do it. BH has asked very few details relating to A, and did not initially even want to talk to me. He's stated to me, that he 'doesn't want to have to be a private eye' etc, when I bring up internet tracking/phone gps. I installed a internet tracker thing and gave him the info, but it didn't work remotely (we are in two separate states right now), so he said when I get back, we can decide together which one would be best. I am happy that he has any interest in keeping track of what I'm doing- and would be more than thrilled if he cared enough to want me to take a polygraph test (at anytime in the future). He might be receptive to it now, as he has been interacting more with me/talking with Steve.

If you mean a keylogger, eblaster makes a good one that sends reports to an email address and can be monitored from a remote computer given the correct login and password.

If you did install it, you would ask your husband to change the password so that you could not access the program.

Food for thought, glad to hear that you're doing well and working to get this turned around.

Thanks for the suggestion-will check that one out. I had tried desktopshark, but it wasn't working(may have been operator error). I was thinking that it was sort of stupid that I had access to it. We'll get it figured out tomorrow when I get home.

Sooo...speaking of internet tracking programs. It came out tonight in conversation with BH, that the little 'porn issue' is still in fact an issue. Apparently, he's still been watching somewhat regularly in the past year and half since I first found out. I never asked him, never snooped, b/c I trusted him to tell me. He had said he thought about telling me right after I fessed up about A, just to hurt me, but didn't want to do that. And then said he didn't see the point in telling me, b/c there wasn't a future w/us anyway.

In no way am I comparing porn to what I've done. Or saying it's an excuse/reason for what I did.

Just sharing, because now that's another issue we face- it is really hurtful to me, b/c I've never really felt that he found me all that attractive. As he told me a few months ago, when we first met and he was telling his friends about me, he'd say, "She's not the hottest girl I've ever dated, but...."

It must have been my sparkling personality...or my big boobs.

Anyway- as I said before, I'm not comparing or excusing anything. Just wanted to share

On a more positive note...Steve wants to talk to both of us together, and BH said he's game and is going to make appt for Friday or next week. Steve told us both he doesn't recommend living apart, so BH is taking that into serious consideration. Flying back home tomorrow, and I am seriously excited to see BH in the morning. He is not as excited, but I plan on ignoring that....

looking forward to your next post! have a safe flight.

I'd let Steve handle the porn issue. As you suggested, your bringing it up with him is likely to have "well you had an affair" tossed back at you. You need that third party or referee handy.

But I wouldn't spring it on your husband during the joint counseling, either. I'd ask Steve (in private) how to proceed because if your husband feels ganged-up on, then he's more likely to shut down and you'll get nowhere.

Doro, how was the homecoming? Thinking about you guys...update us when you can.

Hey there, thanks for asking. It was pretty good, relatively speaking. We ate meals together and talked, did a devotional together. I've just been trying to meet his EN, which he is allowing to an extent.

He initiated SF a few times, but made it clear that it was only b/c we are still married and he can't go anywhere else right now. He still feels very negative about me, and said, "at best I feel neutral". That definitely hurt A LOT, and all I could say is, 'thank you for not going elsewhere'.

He left yesterday to head out to the wilderness to play with his guy friends until monday. So I'm just hanging out with the dog. HNHN arrived in the mail today, so it looks like my saturday evening activity is planned.

I met with an IC on Thursday (my pastor wanted me to meet with her, and I said I was skeptical, but said I'd give it a try). I was pretty clear that I wasn't there to focus on our M (I kept bringing up MB) or my past so much as changing myself/restoration/redemption kind of stuff. So we'll see how that works out.

Really? That sounded pretty good to me.

My feelings for my WH are highly negative - not neutral at all. Yet this still doesn't rule out recovery. Because no matter what my feelings now I know MB and lovebanks can be rebuilt from any point.

To say he's already at neutral - a good starting point when you have barely started yet sounded pretty good to me.

The way I wrote it is confusing, sorry- the part that hurt was knowing he didn't really want the SF with me, but didn't have any other options.

The neutral part is good (although, it was 'neutral at BEST'), but he still feels very negative in regards to me/us. He told me he wasn't saying any of that to hurt me, but just so I didn't think it was more than it was.

Doro, I think you are doing pretty good. My BH told me last July that I make him "nauseous" and the only things he feels towards me are "hate" and "anger." This was at 18 months out from d-day. No indication that those sentiments have changed. Neutral would be a big improvement for me.

Seriously, you're home, you are talking, you are having SF, and he's agreed to counseling w/Steve. That is huge!!! Lots of positives in your sitch.

BTW, you did the right thing by thanking him as you did. Thank him for his honesty. Do better at this whole thing than I did, OK?

DoroM, from a betrayed man's point of view he's in self preservation mode right now. You let him down in the most horrible way you could and he doesn't even know how to act with you. He's devastated, but he still looks to you for his creature comforts. That shows me just how much he truly does love you. He's just having a very difficult time wrapping his arms around being able to trust you again. Trust takes a long time to build, but can be destroyed in a nanosecond.

This is where you are right now. You brought this on yourself, and of course, you realize it. Someone said to you earlier that you had come a long way since you first landed here, and I agree completely. You are to be applauded for your efforts and remorse, but that doesn't matter in his eyes at the moment. To quote the military folks on the board, it's now time to embrace the suck.
Right now, it's all about him and meeting his EN's, and if you make the efforts to meet those needs properly, then you will see him starting to reciprocate. He's reaching from a dark place in hell, but he is reaching.

And he's reaching for you.

WPG, I'm so sorry- that makes my heart hurt for you. When I think about how hard this is/will be, I think about you and how you are still sticking it out, and I am encouraged.

TigerWes,I've embraced the suck...along with the no expectations. So much so, that I was actually pleasantly (and I use the word 'pleasant' in a relative sense), surprised by the fact I was actually able to start meeting his ENs. I guess I don't really see that as sucky. My biggest fear was that I would get home and wouldn't even be able to see him, much less meet his ENs. Every little thing he allows me to do, I'm really thankful for.

My side plan is to just keep printing out a whole bunch of questionaires for him, till the printer runs out of ink again (when he originally went to print out divorce papers, printer ran out of ink, so it delayed him by quite a bit, and as far as I know he still hasn't- he said, 'maybe that's a sign from God')

Oh- I forgot to add to my update post. OMW finally messaged BH back on facebook-she hadn't seen the message until recently. That is the first she had heard about A.

printer ran out of ink...maybe that's a sign from God

Your job is to take the "maybe" out of his opinion in this matter!

I don't even know where to start. BH got home late last night from his trip, and we laid in bed and talked for like an hour and half, just about our weekends and stuff. This morning, we had breakfast, did some devotionals, SF, sort of hanging out- and I was feeling so encouraged b/c it seemed like he could stand hanging out with me.

Then we started talking. There were a few things I had wanted to tell him about A- I had been waiting for him to bring stuff up, but he hadn't. So I told him-not necessarily big issues, just stuff that I wanted to get out there. I didn't know if I should've brought it up, but at the same time I wanted to be O&H- was really the only last things on my mind that I thought I should tell him.

Then I could barely hold it together. He says he thinks about filing for D every day. That he doesn't even like me. That I'm an awful person, and he doesn't see a future for us. That our marriage was a disaster (this is true) and it would be better to just start fresh with someone else, b/c he's never going to be able to trust me again. And he's just tired and doesn't want to have to deal with this anymore.

Not a whole lot I could say to all that, except that I do see a future for us, and that I love him, and that's all I want to do- is to love him and help him heal. He sees things I'm doing differently r/t Plan A/meeting his EN, and he says he feels like he's being manipulated. That it makes him angry sometimes when I show him affection. He's not sure about our living situation right now (Steve told us he doesn't recommend separating, BH isn't so sure) and that he felt sick to his stomach when he was on his way home last night.

There was so much else said that causes me to lose hope. I know that this is a rollercoaster, but I guess I just had to share what was happening.

When he said he'd never be able to trust me again, he was talking about being with someone else he could trust, and he said even though Steve Harley told him he'd be dealing with trust issues with anyone else, BH doesn't know if he believes him.

I've been telling him about any interactions with guys like at church, etc, and how I've been very careful in the way I interact with them. I'm a naturally outgoing person, so I've caught myself from asking questions, that are completely innocent (like "when did you move here? etc)- but that I don't really need to be involved in any kinds of conversations.

I guess it seems like he thinks it's stupid that I have to 'be aware of those interactions' and why I can't just protect myself from cheating. I said, that was me protecting myself. He doesn't think it's natural, and/or sustainable.

Doro,

Stay positive. My H and I had the same kinds of conversations that you are having now - and we had been married more than 25 years. I not only felt nauseous, but frequently vomited in the early days. I thought about filing for divorce for many, many months.

I don't think it was a good idea to bring up items about the affair. Look at what happened. You were having a pleasent morning then ruined it by talking about painful stuff that he had not even asked about. For a long time, it seemed as though the only conversational topics my H and I could share were about the weather and the dog. And I didn't laugh for a long time.

I think you are experiencing the normal rollercoaster. And you are doing the right things with the EPs. After a while, they will just become habit. And habits are natural and sustainable.

AM

Then we started talking. There were a few things I had wanted to tell him about A- I had been waiting for him to bring stuff up, but he hadn't.

Uhhh, I think Dr. NG wrote you a prescription for "Let BH take the lead", taken daily, right? Now you know why. Oh, well, spilt milk....

He says he thinks about filing for D every day. That he doesn't even like me. That I'm an awful person, and he doesn't see a future for us. That our marriage was a disaster and it would be better to just start fresh with someone else, b/c he's never going to be able to trust me again. And he's just tired and doesn't want to have to deal with this anymore...That it makes him angry sometimes when I show him affection. He's not sure about our living situation right now

Okay, you have established a baseline. It would be unlikely, unless you were the world's worst EN-supplier, for BH to go any lower...and he's STILL HOME...unless he leaves. Work hard to ensure he doesn't get enough of a sulk on to actually leave.

He sees things I'm doing differently r/t Plan A/meeting his EN, and he says he feels like he's being manipulated.

Your goal is to change his impression from "manipulated" to "appreciated". Tell him that, straight out, if you have to.

There was so much else said that causes me to lose hope. I know that this is a rollercoaster, but I guess I just had to share what was happening.

Every day you wake up in the same home is a "chit" on your side of the ledger. Don't waste a one!

I know!!!!!! And I was going back and forth about sharing anything b/c we were having such a nice morning(IMO), but the thing that convinced me, was b/c earlier- I had been waiting for him to ask me questions about everything, so I hadn't told him that OM had a little girl. Then he found that out when I gave him the info to facebook OMW. And I think he thought I was hiding that intentionally. And I didn't want that to happen again. So, I sucked it up, knowing it would probably ruin the day. Now there is nothing else that I feel like I need to tell him(obviously, he has to decide what he wants to know-and I'll answer), so I can take the advice of the good Dr. NG and not bring it up.

The entire day may not have been ruined- he has to go in to work for a bit, but asked if I might want to see a movie later. (I know that doesn't 'count' as UA, but I'll take whatever I can get).

ArmyMama- Is it bad to say that makes me feel better that you said all those same things, even after 25 years of marriage? I know from our short length of time married, no kids, we are in a different(disadvantageous) position than many people here. But I truly believe we could have such a wonderful future together, and I love him so incredibly much that I just have to look at the small positives and cling to them.

Doro,

Nope, it is not bad. That is why I told you about them. And for us, what we finally started to focus on was the vision of what our marriage could be and that when we were old, we would die in each other's arms. That said, we (I) often lost focus. I often pulled back to be cautious and triggered over all kinds of things. Dr. Harley has said when that happens, look for the reason in the present and eliminate that reason.

Guess I don't understand why you brought up OM's child. Why would your husband care, other than to highlight that OM is a POS, which wasn't any new news? NG, is so correct. Let H take the lead, especially about anything affair related. At the same time, whatever he asks, answer it fully and above all else, truthfully.

AM

No, I didn't bring up OM's child. But he found out when he messaged OMW on facebook(from pictures). BH cared, b/c he was so angry that I had hurt an innocent little girl with my actions. I think he felt like I had held that back intentionally, and was being dishonest. Thus I felt like I had to be upfront about some other stuff. I will now leave it up to him.

Doro, first let me say that your husband is deserving of a lot more respect than you give him here. He is well able to take the lead in rebuilding your marriage, he doesn't NEED your permission. If my wife had done what you did , the chances of recovery would be nil. That he is still talking to you and interacting is a very good sign and a sign also that he is not the type of man to let his emotions run away with him. If you had been as circumspect, you wouldn't be here. I dissagree completely that you should, "let him lead', about the amount of info you give him. YOU TELL HIM EVERYTHING , UP FRONT!!!!! My wife had zero secrets, kept NOTHING back, and took a polygraph to prove it. Immediately after D-Day she would call me at any hour and tell me something that happened, that she might have thought was un-important or slipped her mind. She has even ASKED me to have her take a new poly, just to see if there is anything she has forgotten or avoided thinking about. Every time you tell him something about the affair that you have kept from him, EVEN ACCIDENTALLY, he will think you are lying or trickle-truthing him. This is why I firmly believe that , immediately after disclosure, everything should be brought to light, as soon as possible.

Dorom,

Thus I felt like I had to be upfront about some other stuff.

Good, while this might not save your M, it does destroy the last secrets you and OM shared. There should be no confidences between you and OM your BH is not privy to. This also prevents OM from meeting your BH at a bar 5 years from now and telling him an unknown detail.

If you date again you can also honesty say that you told your Ex-H everything and made amends as well as you could.

God Bless
Gamma

Did you speak to Steve about how much information to give now, and if you should let BH lead?

I know that it will be hard to deal with but I do believe that any BS should know the full details about their marriage so they can make an informed choice about their own life. Could it have been the timing?

My issue was more about timing than content of the conversation. Doro and H were having a nice, relaxed morning, enjoying each other's company. Then they talked about the A and spoiled all those positive love bank deposits.

AM

AM, that's kind of what I meant by timing. They were relaxing and enjoying each other's company and then Doro chose that time to talk about the A.

No, I haven't brought that up with Steve yet.

MirrorMirror, I know my H is full capable of leading to rebuild. He doesn't even know if he wants to rebuild, today even after I told him he said something to the effect of 'not really caring to know' etc.

AM, maybe the timing was bad- but I think the timing is never right for those sorts of things. I had been waiting for the right timing, for exactly this reason for a while- but it never seemed to appear.

When he originally asked me how things happened, I told him everything he asked, and then some. What I told him today was not so much of something that happened during affair, but something that didn't. I wanted him to know that although OM told me he had 'fallen in love with me', I did not reciprocate. I don't know if he was wondering about that at all, but it was something I wanted him to know, whether he asked me or not.

I'll talk to Steve and see what he says about the leading- although, at this point, I can't think of anything else to tell him.

oops

" The time has come," the Walrus said, "to talk of many things, of shoes--and ships--and sealing wax, of cabbages and Kings." Thanks to Lewis Carroll. Doro, please take this in the spirit in which it is given. A spirit of concern and hope. Your marriage has been a disaster from start until now, right? You have cheated twice and your husband once in only 4 years ( 3 of marriage). You are both young, and have the resilience and (more importantly) the time to find somebody else, to learn from your past mistakes and to build a bright new future. Your husband doesn't trust you and probably won't for many years to come, even IF he were willing to give you a second chance. You also have to ask yourself how much of your desire to R is based on love of your husband and how much is based on guilt and your tarnished self-image? Most experts say that it takes as long as 5 or 6 years to fully recover from an affair, that means that you will be in recovery for twice as long as your marriage existed previously. If BOTH of you do everything absolutely according to plan, you will still have a marriage that began with deceit and adultery. What kind of marriage is that? I feel that for BOTH of your sakes, you should divorce and consign the past, to the past. Remembering the lessons you have learned, you CAN have the marriage BOTH of you truly want, but with new loves for both of you , and without the baggage of infidelity. I wish you all the luck in the world.

The BS gets to control what he wants to know about the affair. Always.

You/WS may feel better about telling the BS things but telling is not about making the WS feel better.

The reason the BS controls what qyestions get asked is that once something is answered it can't be untold.

What you think is small can be more then your BS can handle.

All this time on MB and you have never heard of this?

What TR mentioned about "what BH can handle", and "what is heard cannot be unheard" is incredibly important to your chances right now, friend.

Let me give you an example, using your story of yesterday:

DoroM: Even though POSOM told me he loved me, I never told him I loved him

BH,if he had asked the question, thinking: (Okay, I guess I can be glad she knew there were some things that her affair did NOT represent.)

BH, having this presented unasked, thinking: (She thinks THAT'S supposed to make me feel better, that she dropped her knickers so easily, for NOTHING?)

DoroM, you know your situation better than we do. You must also know that you have a razor-thin chance to get through this with your marriage intact. Don't give away any points, okay?

MM, did I miss something? Is there a post that mentions the BH in this case having had an affair himself?

Sorry, Doro, I remember that your husband has issues with porn, and not an affair. My bad.

Regarding sharing unasked info- I recently have been reading so much stuff about 'trickle truth' that to be honest, I wasn't sure what to do (share or not). It was sort of like coming up to a yellow light and thinking, "Do I go or stop!?" Well, I went through the light.

NG, the reason I wanted him to know that, is b/c when I had originally told him what happened, I had told him the truth that I did in fact have feelings for this other guy. I just never defined what they were or were not, b/c I thought if I said, "I didn't love him" it would be trying to diminish the seriousness of what I did do.

Anyway- as you said, no use crying over spilt milk.

While I can't say I necessarily appreciate your advice, I do appreciate that you say it with concern. I understand your concern, and I've already thought about all of the stuff you've written. Thank you for taking the time to voice your opinion, but I am going to have to respectfully decline your advice.

Steve Harley has talked to both BH and myself, and he has not given either of us this advice. He actually told BH that he was going to have to heal no matter what, and he would have a better chance of healing healthier with me, than without me. Since I highly doubt he's hurting for business so badly, to just string me along to make some money, I'm going to believe that what he says is true.

The guilt and tarnished self image? Those are not the things that are behind me wanting to save my marriage. If anything, those are things that make me want to run for the hills. Move to a different state where I never have to see the hurt in BH eyes again. Or have to shamefully face his friends and family after what I've done to him and them. My deep love for my H (however badly I've chosen to show him), is what is behind my decision to try to R our marriage. My love and respect for him, was what drove me to be honest and tell him both times what I did to him.

He is an amazing person, and I love him more than I can express. I know we could have a wonderful future together, and I believe that God can turn any terrible situation/person into a new creation for his glory. I do not believe our marriage is beyond redemption. Alas, that is not for me to decide at this point. It's up to BH. While I had always known the 'serenity prayer' before, all my trips to AA recently, have made it hit home. All I can do is ask for courage and strength to change me and my actions. I can not control his reaction to whatever I do. I can not control the reaction of his family and friends. The only thing in my power is my actions, and those I am trying my hardest to bring in line with what God wants for me. And right now, I believe that God wants me to fight for our marriage and show love to my H with all that I am.

Doro, with respect, I don't think you really respect your husband at all. You say that "your love and respect for him ", is what drove you to confess. Did it just magically appear? Where was it before, during , and after TWO affairs? Did you climb out of bed with the OM, snap your fingers, and say, "gee, I just remembered, I love and respect my husband, silly me, I forgot". It doesn't work that way. You have shown a pattern of spousal abuse, disrespect and deceit. A ONS or short affair can possibly be attributed to various marital stresses. TWO affairs in a three year marriage is symptomatic of a deep character flaw that requires professional help, and I hope you get it. BTW, you want to save your marriage for your own reasons, and only marginally for your husband's sake. AS a BS who did reconcile, if your husband were to come here and read this post, I would counsel him to leave you as soon as possible. You are not good wife material.

Maybe I'm being nitpicky here, but it wasn't two affairs. The first was a drunken ONS, and I told my H two days later. The 2nd was a 2 week PA, followed by a 3 week EA(emailing). And a month later, I told my H.

Was I disrespectful and deceitful in those actions? Yes. I wholeheartedly admit that. If I hadn't have decided to tell my H about BOTH times, no one would've ever known. No one blackmailed me and threatened to tell, no one caught me in the middle of it. After it sunk in what I had done, I knew I had to tell my H, b/c I do love him. The first time I came to the conclusion I had to tell him right away on my own. The second time, it took the good people here to steer me in the right way, b/c I was still pretty foggy- I just didn't know it at the time. Not to mention I was scared sh*tless, because I knew he would want to D- but I still knew I must give him that option.

With all due respect, please do not tell me why I want to save my marriage, because you do not know what is going on in my head.

You're in luck, because I'm pretty sure my H does come here and read this thread, so I'm sure he will get your message. I can only pray he disregards it.

Mirror Mirror she is getting professional help, at what point should she disregard Steve Harleys advice?

As for her betrayed husband deciding she is not marriage material, that's his decision and one he is fully entitled to make. No one, including Doro has said otherwise.

x 2.

You didn't get my point, did you? You can't turn love and respect on and off like a water faucet. You don't eff some other guy and then magically love and respect your husband again. That's [censored]. So NOW you think your husband is awesomely wonderful, and can't imagine how it all happened. You are doing everything to be a saintly wife, and you wonder why he doesn't believe you? If somebody hit you in the mouth, apologized, hit you in the mouth again, apologized again, would you believe them if they said it would never happen again? Your husband may be many things, but he probably isn't stupid. My advice to him and to you as well, is divorce, and work on making yourself a better, more honest, less selfish person. Three years of marriage and cheated twice? That's not a marriage that's a disaster. I say this for the good of BOTH of you.

Indie, nobody is more of a proponent of the Harleys's, than yours truly, but his advice must be tailored for each individual case and marriage. For example, in my case, we (my wife and I)have both agreed that the policy of radical honesty is for BOTH of us, and covers everthing, past, present and future. Another example of tailoring to fit, is that we also agreed that we want more than 20 hours of "us", time. See where I'm going with this?

I'll repeat what I stated to Doro's BH;

The total layout of the situation, doing a cut and run is very attractive.

However!

Learning what it takes to actually have a marriage is going to be hard work. It doesn't matter if they remain married to each other, or divorce and eventually move on. Creating the habits set forth by MB principals takes dedication and patience.

Short marriage, both young, no kids... not a lot of ties.


I argue that it is a fantastic show of character to put everything into making it work when it would be so easy to just throw your hands up in the air and quit.

It is in her BH's hands to go forward, and it is in her hands to keep it moving forward.

MM,

The MB program is NOT to be tailored to each couple's "unique" situation. It is a very specific program to be followed as closely as possible. It is applied with flexability. My H and my M is nothing like yours and your wife's. Our decisions are nothing like yours. If you had really read and studied, you would understand that the policy of radical honesty (past, present, and future) is always for both spouses. And if a couple wants to spend 20 hours or more of UA time, then it is a topic to be agreed upon under the policy of joint agreement.

Secondly, regarding your other posts, I do believe that a person can change at any time, if he/she decides to and then follows through. My H did this. It appears to me as though Doro is doing this. I think she is a far better person than she was when she began to post on this forum.

Doro, stay positive. You are doing the right things. And BTW, you did have two affairs. A drunken ONS IS an affair.

AM

MM, have you read this thread in its entirety? Doro was VERY foggy at the beginning of this thread. She has made progress, and it is good for HER to make these changes whether her BH decides that she isn't worth it.

Doro, I cringed when you said what you did about your affairs because it seemed like you were dismissing them, because of their duration. They are exactly as harmful as any other affair that comes to these boards. I am hoping that you were only trying to point it out to MM because of the way his post sounded, and not that you were trying to dismiss what you had done.

Your affairs were and ARE very devastating to your BH. I think a HUGE part of you wants to get started on recovery, because you feel like YOU are ready, and that's why you told your BH. Thing is, your BH is still reeling, and he isn't sure that he wants to start again with you.

Do YOUR work, come here often, get yourself that "F" and maybe, one day, your BH will decide that you ARE worth it. He must love you a lot to even consider recovery with him. My WH had one affair(albeit a long one), and my friends tell me things like, "Once a cheater always a cheater." I am CERTAIN that your BH's friends are telling him to run, and a lot of people here would have run from a WS such as you, but that doesn't mean that you two can't make this work, and I think that's why YOU'RE here and why your BH is still here.

Doro, remember that sometimes, posters like MM will help you because in defending yourself, you may learn something about your thoughts, and some of your fogginess will come through, so we can help you.

No, those are MB plans which apply to everyone. Radical honesty is supposed to apply to both and 20 hours UA time is not enough for recovery from an affair. Those are Dr Hs basic plans in all cases they aren't tailored at all.

Armymama, "Flexibility" or "tailored"....potato, potahto. You are arguing semantics.

I don't think it is a question of semantics. MB is a framework, a structure. The example you gave (PORH) is part of the structure and not something that is tailored. It is a requirement for both spouses for a good marriage. Flexability comes in with the outcomes of POJA. My H and I have very different negotiated agreements from you and your wife. The POJA is not flexible, but the negotiated agreement certainly is. When people have the impression they can "tweak" the MB program for their situation (not spending UA time, not taking extraordinary precautions to prevent an affair), they are risking failure.

AM

Scot, I never said that Doro hasn't improved herself, because as we all know, she couldn't get much worse. What I'm trying to get through to her and her husband, is that regardless of everything that they do or don't do, they can NEVER un-make the affairs. The cheating will always be a part of their history, and will always be present, for the rest of their married lives. The un-spoken, but ever-present. Considering how short a time that they have been together, and how even that time was be-fouled by her cheating, and also considering how much future work it will take to even GET to a place where they can BEGIN to think of the future. Is it worth it? The Law of diminishing returns.

AM, what is the difference between "tweaking " and "tailoring"? Of course you are arguing semantics, or maybe you just want to argue? LOL

MM

NO TWEAKING!!! Just follow the MB principles.

AM

MM, who are WE to say though? The odds may be stacked against them, but it doesn't mean that they don't need to try, if they want to that is. Either way, Doro needs to improve herself. I believe that Doro wanted to show that she is willing to do the hard work, and that she was changing, and she wanted to ensure that she wasn't making any wayward mistakes, ie trickle truth. She made enough mistakes already, and she is trying to make amends, which is more than a lot of waywards, and for that she gets credit, but she knows that she's no where near done.

Quit shouting!! AM. Why are you being mean to me?

Hmmmmm, because I feel as though you are not listening.

Too much t/j here for me. Doro, how are you doing today?

AM

I'm not sure I do, MM. [By the way, I'm not yelling or charged up, so I hope you won't read my comments that way. This is a quiet coversation over a cup o' coffee, as far as I'm concered.]

If you've read this thread front to back, then you've seen it pointed out many times to Doro that her situation -- the multiple affairs, the brief marriage, the alcohol, the long time spent apart at the beginning of the marriage -- all those factors give her & her BH a much tougher than average hill to climb here. I think she's already clear on that, but if not, I'd credit some of your posts for illustrating it even more clearly. She oughtta at least thank you for that. (BTW, the alcohol is a real wildcard. I think I've read Harley say that if a person's a genuine alcoholic, all bets are off & MB steps can't work, or something to that effect. I have no insight on whether or not that's the case here.)

But Doro already knows how to throw in the towel. She's proven that. At least twice. That's not what she's asking for advice on. And isn't that her husband's call to make anyway?

Some BSs aren't ready to make that call just yet, not even a month or two out from d-day. Here was one:

~Sept.13

~Sept.8

~Aug.31

Would you have said your wife was "good wife material" on the day you walked in on her? You didn't seem sure about it 3 or 4 weeks after that. And you weren't wrong not to be sure. And here it is a month after Doro has told her husband about the 2nd affair. No one walked in on her. No one even busted her 2nd-hand, the way my OW's husband's PI busted her & therefore me. Doro may just have more character than your wife had when she started recovery. Certainly more than I had on the morning when I & my wife started ours.

Her H has been sucker-punched, twice, and he's not sure what he wants. He's said earlier that he still loved her, and that he's conflicted, and that he's not sure.

She's listening to Steve Harley & getting that professional advice you suggested. Now, I'll grant you, maybe she's too weak-minded to stick it out for the long haul. Maybe it's taking her longer than it does for some folks to de-fog & realize that he may not be sure what he wants for a while. Maybe just what she needs is some virtual, online Gunny screaming in her ear to "QUIT, honey-cakes, 'cuz you got no CHARACTER!" in order to motivate her. I guess we can't rule that out.

Or maybe based on your experience, you could share with her what you think her husband might be feeling. His doubts. His fears. His anger. That's info that she could use to do right by him.

But until his doubts, fears, anger & a healthy regard for self-preservation draw him to a conclusion that it's time to call it a day on his marriage, as far as I'm concerned, she doesn't even have any right to quit on him again. No more so than your wife had any right to quit on you, back when you weren't sure.

If you want to tell him that he's making a mistake by taking time to sort his thoughts out, he's got an old thread here somewhere, too.

Doro, you know whom you need to be focusing on, right?

I certainly wasn't dismissing either of the instances. When I read what MM wrote, in my head it seemed like he was saying I spent two of the three years we were married having affairs or something like that. Obviously, he didn't say that specifically, but it's sort of how I read it.
I really am trying to do my work. And you are right on- I know many of my BH friends are telling him to run. Others just want him to make the decision that is healthiest for him.

I know...it's hard not to feel attacked, especially b/c he isn't even someone that has been in dialogue with me from the beginning. He sort of just jumped in and let me have it....and since he's giving me advice that directly contradicts what Steve Harley is telling me, I've mind to ignore most of what he says, and pick out what may be applicable.

Yeah...I'm pretty clear on that- I know what I'm facing (to an extent), but I just can't give up.
"Genuine Alcoholic"? Not sure what your definition is of that. Was never a drink every day sort of person- or even every week for that matter. Didn't drink by myself or ever get into legal trouble. It was always very social for me. That being said, when I did drink- I drank A LOT. And when under the influence, I am a very bad decision maker (hence my presence here).

No drinking is on my EP list, and a few days after I made my list I was thinking that 'wow, that might be pretty tough at times', b/c alcohol is just so pervasive in our lives. It seems that many things revolve around it(dinner/parties/weddings/etc). So I thought that maybe I should go to AA to get support for this- and to meet new people. I don't know many people who don't drink. Would I be able to never drink w/o going to AA? Who knows? Maybe. Probably. But I think it wouldn't be as good of an experience for me(the whole sober-life experience), and I maybe wouldn't have ever realized that just b/c I didn't drink by myself every day, doesn't mean that I don't have issues with alcohol.

The first A, I can say almost certainly wouldn't have happened if I wouldn't have been drunk. The 2nd...I don't know-Alcohol started it, but it could've had the potential to start without it. It is just very important that I don't mess this EP up, so I want to do everything I can. While it was a contributing factor, I don't want to get caught up in the thinking, "Welp, I'm sober now...that's all I need to change". Because I realize that it's not the only issue. Just one facet.
Okay, first- thank you for the laughs. Everytime I go through and read "QUIT Honey-cakes..." I laugh out loud. Very much needed. To be honest, I, by myself, AM probably too weak-minded. But I'm praying for the strength to keep going. I don't believe this is something you can do without God. So I'm taking it one day at a time. I understand that it's going to take a while for my BH to figure out what he wants. I sincerely hope that I'm not making it seem like I think he should just up and decide right this instant. Obviously, there is a part of me that wants him to decide this instant- but that's the very impatient, selfish part of me. I don't think it would be the best for either of us if he did that.

Regarding the online gunny 'motivation'. I'm getting enough of that sort of 'motivation' from BH...so I'm just gonna go ahead and politely decline any from MM.
Reading what other BH think/feel and have gone through, helps me a lot to really understand how my BH is feeling. I know I'll never be able to grasp it fully, but it definitely gives me a better pictures.

I'm focusing on making changes in my own life, and loving BH and meeting his ENs. Trying to meet his ENs, without worrying about mine, is definitely a change. As you can probably imagine, in the past, I was generally more concerned about mine. (shocker, I know).

Bingo. As someone who has been quit on, I can tell you that it hurts more than the affair to be abandoned so you have to deal with the fall out alone. When a wayward gets that whole 'I've done something so bad that I must run away and hide' mentality - it is just the most selfish attitude that it is possible to take.

Doro, I don't need to tell you this as you've been very committed but you must hang in there with no thought of reward. You have to clean up your mess.

I can tell you from my own experience that your BHs pain would be sharper if you didn't give your marriage the respect it deserved with selfless hard work at this most critical juncture.

Adultery leaves an odd wound in that the person who inflicted it is best suited to mending it.

Of course, BSs such as myself who must sew their own wounds can do so, and do it well. But it isn't as good and you have the insult added to the injury to recover from also.

You inflicted wounds twice and you made a right hash of healing the first.

But you persevered. You sought for knowledge and did not give up till you found answers. When that happened you responded to that advice and gave your BH the first of many medical attentions using truth.

I don't see anything to suggest that you are unfit to carry on the very necessary work you began that day.

And if you quit, it would be a travesty.

Was sort of ignoring MB yesterday. Doing ok, thank you for asking. Yesterday morning, BH and I had our first joint session with Steve. It went pretty well, I think. Steve told us that the ideal scenario is to discover how to have a mutually enjoyable relationship with your first wife/husband. He asked BH if he had noticed any change in me. BH said yes.

We have another joint session next week. BH is gone for next 3 days visiting his brother.

It is selfish. And of course I've thought of running away d/t my shame- I can't imagine any WS wouldn't think of it, if at least fleetingly. But I've thought about a lot of things in my life that I don't plan on doing.

What's all this talk about quitting??? I'm sticking around, not only because I agree with you that it is the right thing to do, but because I want to! I'm glad you don't think I should just give up.

Well, Doro, of course you don't want to listen to my advice, because it's not what YOU want to hear. YOU want to let bygones be bygones, YOU want your husband to forgive you, YOU want the marriage, to continue, with your husband's agreement. What's in it for him? For better or worse, your marriage, will be defined by your cheating and selfish behavior, right? How would you feel if the shoe was on the other foot? What if he asked you to continue in a marriage where you will have the realization that you are getting sloppy thirds. Pardon my harshness, but that is what you are asking him to do, isn't it? I fully realize that you are doing a lot to make yourself a better person, and I applaud you for your work, but does that entitle you to anything at all? You were unfaithful with two other men, in three years, what will happen in 10, 20 or more? If you truly love your husband as much as you say you do, wouldn't you want the best for him? Wouldn't you want him to have a good , honest , faithful wife? You already know that you aren't that kind of wife.

I know, you think I'm being cruel and brutal, but I'm really not. You need to lose the sense of entitlement you have completely. ALL DECISIONS are your husband's. You have zero say in anything. Before you can rise to the top you have to hit rock bottom. I am fully convinced of that. IF your husband decides to R, THEN you work on rebuilding the marriage together as a team, using DR. Harley's advice. You have no right to try to influence his decision, AT ALL. If my wife had tried to persuade me to reconcile, we would be divorced today. She PROVED that I was and am EVERYTHING to her, and that I was and am in control of her life, future, in short....everything. I CHOSE to give my wife a second chance, and I know that she willingly and happily will prove my choice right. Can you do this for twenty years, when you couldn't for three?

Mirror, how does this help this woman recover her marriage? Yes, it's a short-term marriage. Yes she has cheated twice. But she's here now trying to get it right AND she's counseling with one if the Harleys. Why would you want to discourage her? People can change and do change. My marriage is living proof of that.

Of course I want my BH to forgive me. Who wouldn't? What exactly have I posted here that makes you think I just want bygones to be bygones? I am not trying to sweep anything under a rug. And as for not taking your advice- why would I when it directly contradicts Steve Harley's? How many marriages have you successfully counseled to recovery?

As for wanting what's best for BH, I DO want what's best for him. And I've told him that-even if that means I'm not in the picture. But guess what...that's for HIM to decide. Not me, and certainly not you.

Entitlement? To what exactly? Just because I want my M to be saved, does not mean I feel that I deserve it to be saved. What gives you the idea that I think decisions are not my BHs? Please, do tell, how you know if I've hit rock bottom or not? Just because I don't post all of my feelings on this thread does not mean that they're not there.
Ummm....we ARE talking to Steve Harley and taking his advice. I have not tried persuading him to reconcile, the only thing I asked him was to please take some time before he made his decision. Did I ask if he would talk to Steve? Yes. BH made that decision. BH continues to make the decision to keep talking with Steve. BH makes the decision to spend time with me. BH is making the decision to continue living in the same house with me. BH makes the decision to call me when he's gone. BH makes the decision if he wants to have SF with me. BH is making a conscious effort to pray and discern God's will in all of this.

The only "influencing" I am doing is with the change in my actions. And I very much do have a right do change my actions.

I'm not sure if cruel and brutal are the right terms. A lot of what you write seems quite irrational, and not directly related to anything I've said or done, but seems to come in from left field. You seem to have this belief that people do not have the ability to change and transform their lives. Or is it just your WW who had the ability to change?

Doro, I'm not trying to convince you necessarily. I'm more interested in presenting a dissenting viewpoint to your husband , if he ever reads these posts. It is certainly in your best interest to reconcile, but is it in your husband's? Dr. Harley will try to show HOW your marriage can recover, and his principles work , if the desire to R is there. I feel that your husband may read these posts and be persuaded that R is the best course. I think that he deserves to choose without prejudice. BTW, considering your situation, I would be careful about calling people irrational

Of course you can change, most people do.

Doro,

I was thinking about your comments about alcohol. My H had a drunken ONS in 2004, as he was going through the re-deployment processing from Iraq. At the time, I knew something was wrong, but didn't know what had happened. His other affair occurred in 2007/08, with a co-worker that he met in Kuwait on his second deployment. I think the contribution of alcohol was that the drunken ONS made the second affair "easier". He had less of a boundary to cross. Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe his EA/PA would have occurred in any case. He was on the slippery slope, just had less far to slide.

My H was not alcoholic, did not attend AA. His EPs include never drinking in mixed gender company and never more than one beer if I am not present.


AM

Please try to keep your advice & suggestions helpful and based on Dr Harley's concepts & principles.

Doro, look: You exist. By your very existence, you're going to have some sort of influence on your BH day-to-day. Whether you call him or ignore him, whether you speak on your own or only when spoken to, whether you do things to try to meet his needs or not. The notion that you must not influence him in any way, is an impossible standard to attain, and thus is not practicable advice.

As long as you're not pressing him in any way -- for a decision by a certain deadline, for a list of his ENs, for anything at all -- then I wouldn't worry about unduly influencing him. (Some folks might describe that as "manipulating" rather than "influencing." There is a difference, and maybe that's where the last couple of pages' conversation here on this thread has been getting sidetracked?)

You need to work with the set of cards you're holding, the set you've dealt to yourself: Meet the needs he's helped you identify & allowed you to meet, give him space when he wants space, and be accessible to him for if/when he wants you around. Always be honest, about the past as well as the present. If he asks what you want, tell him. You're allowed to ask what his feelings are. (You're not allowed to be upset if he's not up to telling you at any given time.) Be as transparent in your conduct & associations as you can possibly be. And be patient. You can no longer 100% be the same woman on whose finger he was happy put a ring, but your best bet is to try to be a better, wiser version of that woman, every hour. (That's no guarantee that he'll come to a place where he wants to be all-in on recovery, but it's your only shot.) Hang in there. Praying for you & your H this morning.

No I don't think you want to quit Doro. I just felt like sharing my own experience of why your approach is better than that.

Did Steve H give you any tasks, things you should be working on?

As long as you're not pressing him in any way...then I wouldn't worry about unduly influencing him.

An absolute pearl from GO.....

But I think you know this, and your apparent abdicative statements ("BH made...BH continues to make...BH makes...BH is making...BH makes...BH makes...BH is making...") were in defense of accusations that you would be unduly driving BH's recovery process.

Continue to let BH know what your preferences are; explain the "whys" behind them; assure him of the rewards of your preferences (also known as "Plan A'ing" to the max!); give him the leeway to understand your position; and let him come to your (MB-consistent) position on his own.

MM, Doro, (and others that may be reading),

I think what may be missing here is what I call the "DUH" factor. It's that point where the WS sometimes has a moment of clarity and says "duh.. What am I doing? This is a good spouse I have and I'm destroying them and myself". It's that moment of realization that you're tossing something good away for garbage. True, for some it is like a faucet slowly turned on, but for other WS' it floods like water from a broken dam.

The truth is, she may have loved her H, but simply loved him poorly during that time.

CV

MM,

I respectfully disagree with you here. Every man is different in this respect. If my wife HADN'T constantly begged for reconciliation, I would be divorced now. Her persistence in pushing for reconciliation along with her demonstrated change in person convinced me to stick it out (thankfully!).

I do agree that the BS needs show no sense of entitlement, but I believe that is different from a desire to stick it out and reconcile.

Now I disagree (to a certain extent) that ALL decisions are the BS'... She can decide to work, maintain EP's, healthy boundaries, provide just compensation, etc... but the decision to stay or go is to an certain extent both of theirs. She can decide to work and hope he wants to stay, or she can decide to go and not do the work. Those ARE decisions.

CV

An excellent post, GO. Doro must absolutely NOT!!!! press her husband , in any way. She makes no....I repeat...no demands on him, and that includes no PERCEIVED demands.

I'm not clear if you are posting to Doro or her BH, which is confusing MM - he does have his own thread.

What on earth is a PERCEIVED demand? Advice is supposed to be of practical help - what are you asking her to actually do?

And is the advice at all based on Dr Hs methods or is it a personal philosphy?

CV, My wife , at first did ALL of that. She begged, cried ,pleaded, promised.....and it made no difference to me. On one memorable occasion, she actually got down on her belly and begged forgiveness. All it did was piss me off. One because her words meant nothing, and two because I hate drama. I told her then that I was a free agent and would do what I please, it was up to her to prove , every minute of every day that she was worthy of my even considering giving her an opportunity to R. This is what I mean. I don't think that Doro is fully aware of the ENORMITY of the task before her, and that it will take far longer than her marriage has even existed before, for her husbands wounds to heal.

MM,

I guess that might be a defining difference between us. I never considered myself a free agent. I took vows and they still bound me, even though I had the right to leave any time. That's why it must be words *coupled* with actions.

CV

It is based on my own experience, Indie. Every time I felt any pressure, or PERCIEVED that demands were being made, I instantly became angry and defensive, and our recovery would be stalled. BTW, I don't know who Doro's husband is, or I would post on his thread, and leave this one. I am primarily interested in helping him.

I guess so, CV. Once I was aware of her affair, I felt that nulified any promises or vows I made to her or about her.

She begged, cried ,pleaded, promised.....and it made no difference to me. On one memorable occasion, she actually got down on her belly and begged forgiveness. All it did was piss me off. One because her words meant nothing, and two because I hate drama. I told her then that I was a free agent and would do what I please...

Your level of "rigor" and "indifference" to her pain and humiliation post-discovery, MM, is (was?) remarkable. The two of you, as you move forward together, are very lucky that your high-end demands were attainable by your FWW. Would it shock you to hear my opinion that most women could not "measure up" to the standard you demanded?

Where you overreach in your note is in your projecting your righteous, foreboding outlook onto DoroM's BH, and telling her that she should be doing more, better, because her efforts are inadequate for his needs. I'm not sure we have the evidence in hand for that decision. Obviously, your ability to countenance recovery after two betrayals by your FWW would be nil (as, btw, would be mine), but their dynamic is THEIR dynamic.

DoroM has the burden of playing her game holding no aces or trumps. Telling her she has to sweep the tricks or admit failure is unfair.

ETA: I stand (as usual) with CV - I never considered myself a free agent.

I think this is where the confusion is coming in. It is impossible for Doro to respond to advice tailored to her BH.

She has to work on her side of the fence and she cannot consider quitting. He however does have the right to bail, but as Steve H has advised, he's unlikely to heal any quicker without Doros help.

If she were exhibiting toxic behaviour or an unwillingness to stick to an MB recovery plan it would be different. And we would ALL be recommending he D her if that were the case.

He hasn't posted in a while, but his name is SOS516

Nearly a "mirror image" of what a soon-to-be-wayward tells him/her self. Most waywards mentally 'divorce' their spouse.
"We were married in name only."
"The marriage was all but finished."
"It was all over except for the paperwork."

It is not uncommon for a brand new, freshly betrayed spouse, to feel this way.
What is rather unusual is for a BS in marriage recovery to feel/think/say this sort of thing.

After some level of personal recovery, a BS will often realize they made vows to themselves and to God, not only "to" their wayward.

A BS is never encouraged to toss his/her integrity and beliefs out the window just because this is what their wayward did.

In Sickness and In Health ... For Better For Worse ... In Good Times and Bad ... Until death do us part ...

What does a vow really mean if you cannot honor these simple words that GOD used to join two and turn them into "One" ... yes we have the option to divorce ... but GOD makes it perfectly clear it solves nothing.

A repentant wayward deserves our support ... why is their sin any less forgivable that our own?

As a BW I can reassure you a wayward and the betrayed both have a treacherous, painful, and monumental journey ahead of them neither will come out unscathed and both will hopefully come out healed ...

Only by God's Grace can we all survive together ... A repentant wayward is someone I can walk my journey with ...

I already told you that he does read these posts, as far as I know. As of a few weeks ago, BH said there was a 99.99% chance he was going to D. Don't know if that percentage is changed at all. Rest assured, I highly doubt that some mere posts on this forum will persuade him to give that 0.01% chance a go. You can celebrate if he decides it's not worth it.
It would seem that BH and you are cut from different cloth.

You think a lot of things that aren't true. How does one eat an elephant? One bite at a time. When I ran my first half marathon, if I had focused on the fact I was going to have to run 13 miles (especially with no training), I would've been like, "I can't do that- why even start". But I focused on the first mile. Once I got to mile one, then I made my way through mile two. Pretty soon, it was over, and I looked back and I had run 13.1 miles. I'm choosing to take it one day at a time.
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

But don't think for a second that I'm not aware of the challenge.

AM, I think you're right. I hesitated to say that b/c I did it once, it came easier the second time- but I think that's the case. Ironically, I naively thought that since I had done it once, I was 'aware' that I had that capability, so it would never happen again. I wasn't 'aware' enough to put any boundaries in place to make sure it didn't though. Because I thought I would be strong enough. Laughable, I know. But that's what my twisted mind thought.

A deadline? Ha! He would probably tell me to go 'F' myself, if I said anything of the sort. He did fill out the EN's- b/c Steve asked him to.

Thank you for the prayers.
Yes, while BH is making a lot of the decisions, I am not sitting up in a corner all day by myself, waiting for him to come and find me. I ask him if he wants to go do things with me. Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn't. Steve harley said it's like rehab- if you're working on range of motion on an injured leg(this is all too real for me..ha!), you can't just tell the patient to tell you when to stop- b/c the patient may be able to tolerate too much pain, and it won't be healthy. Or the patient may be a wimp and tell you to stop at the first movement. When I was talking to steve about coming back home after my surgery, he said he doesn't recomend separation. I knew my BH didn't necessarily want me around all that much. And my own fear and pride could've definitely come into play by choosing to stay where I was. So that was me 'pushing', as steve says, and he says it's a learning process, that I should 'push' per se- until BH pushes back- and then I learn how to push/not to push.

I should clarify, as far as I am understanding steve- He wasn't so much talking about pushing BH into recovery, but more along the lines of spending time together, moving home, etc.

I asked BH if he wanted to go do something this weekend. He said, 'no, he didn't think he really wanted to spend that much time with me.' So he flew to visit his brother instead. I didn't get upset and cry. I understand- I get it. I told him I am grateful for every moment we get to spend together, but of course there is the inner greedy me, that wants more time. I don't think I was wrong to ask if wanted to spend time with me- he has the decision to say no(which he did).

Doro,

My H was horrified by his actions in 2004. But, other than not getting roaring drunk again, he did not put any precautions into place. What happened next was he was on extended active duty, we were living in two different cities (sound familar?), he and OW spent time together, worked in the same office, often went to lunch together, outside for smoke breaks. They talked about personal things and a short time later were in "lurve". I think one of the other things that made his EA/PA affair easier was that he had spent three years lying. It became easier and easier to lie because he had his secret drunken ONS. He was also highly addicted to OW and it took a long time for him to commit to recovery.

AM

I'm glad you shared your own experience.

Tasks- well, from our joint session, he had just wanted me to go over again with BH all the ways that I'm protecting myself. Next week, I think he had said he was going to give us directions on how to share our EN/LB questionnaires. And whenever I talk with him next solo, we are supposed to come up with the plan- a 2 phase plan- one dealing with the injury and one dealing with recovery.

Other than that, I am just focusing on meeting EN's, and talking to BH about why there is a future for us.

Sounds positive.

Yes...sounds familiar. I too was very sincerely horrified about what I'd done. And I knew I had to tell BH about it. I think one of my main issues regarding the first time was that I never fully took responsibility. I thought I had. But I still blamed BH for everything he had done wrong in our relationship (What...you think I contributed to our relationship problems?? nah....) I didn't do much of anything to really compensate for my actions. That is probably one of the things I am beating myself up about the most. I HAD a chance to make it up to him, and I threw it away and I trampled all over him again. Who does that? How could I have not reacted in the right way? It tears me up inside and makes me sick that now it might be too late.

It is tearing me apart that when I look at where my life is now, and the hurt I caused BH and everyone else involved is ALL MY FAULT. I don't even have the excuse (not that it IS a real excuse, although WS's like to say it is), that my 'childhood was rough'. Nope, I grew up in a stable, 2 parent household, who loved me a lot and taught me about God. I look back and ask where I went wrong, and all I can see is the multiple occasions (from way before I even met BH), that I choose to do my own thing, and not walk on the path with God.

Childhood experiences have zilch to do with affairs. One of the most important MB tenets is that anyone - you, me, the most upstanding person you know, will have an affair in the right circumstances.

If someone, anyone - allows someone else to meet needs, allows a love bank to grow, stays in contact with that person, and fails to be honest with their spouse about the growing feelings - they will have an affair.

It doesn't matter how moral a person was immediately before the lovebank began, or how perfect their marriage is - or ho good their childhood is.

I nearly allowed a lovebank to build up with a colleague once, simply because I thought I was someone who would 'never cheat' and was unaware of what boundaries were.

I learned fast, and told my H of the attraction before anything happened luckily it didnt even come close to an EA.

However I can vouch for Dr H when he says the person who believes they would 'never cheat' is the most likely to succumb to an affair.

So please dont buy into any fiction that you were in any way pre-disposed to have an affair. It was your actions at the time that caused the problem, not something 'wrong' with you before hand.

But in the interests of openness, what is it in which you 'chose to do you own thing' before meeting BH that you think contributed?

Oh, I don't think I was "pre-disposed", and I know from reading ad naseum on the forums that a bad child hood doesn't have anything to do with having an A or not. I was just pointing out that I don't even have a bad childhood to TRY to blame it on- even if I wanted to. Was contemplating of how I got here, I look at my upbringing, and see just how off course I have become.

Regarding 'choosing to my own thing'- just not following God in general. Choosing to party and sleep around as opposed to following God's plan. There's been multiple times when I was at a fork in the road- and sometimes I choose the right way, and sometimes(more often than not) I choose the wrong way. I guess I liken my appearance on MB as one of those forks. If I had chosen to not tell him, I would've been continuing down the road that would lead to my eventual destruction. Make any sense?

That's the beauty of MB - its not possible to blame it on anything. It was done because it feels good to have more than one person meet needs. Period. Affairs usually see needs met very easily, although superficially. This feels good enough to ignore the bad, and good enough that we would all fall into it in the right circumstances. As the good Dr says,

We are all wired to have an affair. We can all fall in love with someone of the opposite sex if that person meets one of our emotional needs. If you don't think it can happen to you because of your conviction or will-power, you are particularly vulnerable to an affair. And if you think your spouse would never have an affair, you are also vulnerable.



I think there are very few people who get through their entire youth sticking to the right plan, Doro. I wouldnt go raking through your past looking for explanations. The reason you cheated was a lack of EPs - and you wouldnt have needed EPs when you were single, so that's moot. The present is the important thing, any way.

NG, it was not "rigor", or "indifference", or righteousness", at all. Immediately after D-day. I decided then what it would take for our marriage to survive, and the answers I came up with were, 1) that she would have to do ALL the heavy lifting, until I was sure that the affair was dead and buried. 2) that I knew ALL of the truth about the affair, and that means every particular. Who, what, where, when, why, and how. 3) that until I was certain, I was , in no way, bound by any vows or promises made to her or about her. 4) That I was certain about her level of remorse and commitment. That we are together is testament to her success. I cherish her now , more than I ever did, in the past, and I know that she thinks I'm Superman!!!! LMAO

PB, I am not a religious man. I made my vows to my wife and she made hers to me. I am constantly amazed at how many times people will invoke the aid of the Almighty for their own issues, both good and bad.

Pushing? I seriously doubt that DR. Harley told you to "push", your husband

Doro, a couple of things. I don't believe that a WW should discuss the affair with ANYONE, without the compliance and approval of the BS, and there can be no secrecy about anything. Whether it's an MC, IC, Dr. Harley, a Priest or Pastor, family or friends, the BS'S approval and FULL knowledge are paramount. My wife asked my permission to talk to her pastor, and then relayed everything that was said about the affair and our marriage back to me. I also think that you would do a lot of good for your husband if you took a polygraph, or series of polygraphs. I honestly don't think we would be together without it. What a polygraph does , is give the BS a solid foundation of PROVEN FACT, independent of the WW's words, promises, and pleas, on which he can begin to decide about recovery or divorce. The polygraph and post-nup are two of the best tools for R that I can think of, and you might want to investigate them.

Both Doro and her BH are counselling with Steve H (not Dr H) and the polygraph and post nup issues have already been covered in those counselling sessions as well as on this thread.

You know what? You're right- I just went and looked at my notes from that conversation. What Steve said was (and I quote) "not pull- but stretch. To the feel of resistance" in our interactions. My bad- same meaning for the most part.

But you probably don't like that either. See Indie's comment regarding your other post.

MM,
I am not sure what you are trying to accomplish on this thread? It feels as though you are the jury for Dorom..You are not here husband and it really doesn't seem as though you are bringing anything positive to her thread. I am a BS also but honestly..I don't get your post...I feel it's doing nothing to help her or her husband. Just a comment from the outside looking it. Dorom..I really wish you the best..I am a BS and a FWH..I understand what both are going thru and I really hope things work out for you..I am having a really rough night..and just had to post to MM..

Thank you TringSC...I am also having a really rough night, and you posting means a lot. Praying for you right now.

**edit**

**edit**

Gee, MM. You sure wrote alot to say you weren't going to write anymore on this thread.

I believe Doro has been honest. She told her husband what she was doing. I further believe Doro is highly remorseful and is changing and I am not sure why you think your wife can change and other folk's spouses can't.

As far as thinking about it, I have thought about the dynamics of human behavior and adultery nearly every day for close to the last four years. Even if Doro's H ends up not wanting to build a marriage with Doro, she would benefit from personal recovery.

AM

MM,
I really do not get you, I hope no one told you the things you are trying..it seems that your not goig to be happy until her husband decides to leave..you have put it out there, maybe you can drop it and let them continue since they are talking to the Harleys..unless you know something that they don't.ughh..it feels as though you have a personal agenda against Doro....not sure what the point of you trying so hard to convience her husband ..I get what you have said, I am sure he is smart enough also..it's just like having a best friend in your ear telling you what to do..I would suggest letting it go unless you have something posistive to say or you have something constructive to help out with both of them..Anwyays..good day..

Doro, I'll just repeat what I said yesterday:

Protection - be & stay sensitive to what hurts or is likely to hurt him.
Care for him - as best you can.
Honesty - all the time.
Time - be available to him.

Nothing & no one, other than the above -- whether online or IRL -- is worth any of your brain's bandwidth right now.
Carry on.

I agree.

Doro,

I just finished re-reading your thread. You have come a long way since you first posted. You haven't arrived yet, but you are on a steady track. I want to encourage you to keep working and listening to the advice you are getting from the majority here.

CV

DITTO

It appears that the moderators have edited my posts, and that is their perogative to do so. I apologize for my insistant comments. I will post my own thread explaining my position on multiple adulterors.

I'm doing all those things to the best of my ability. Will carry on.
Thank you for the encouragement.

Doro,

You're welcome. You CAN do this (heal and recover)and you are doing it. Time will prove you. Stay steady.