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SB,

Relax today. I hope it didnt blow up too bad. Try to make it thru the day if you can. There is nothing that says you cant end each class early today, the students would love you for it.

(((((SB)))))

Hi Shiny,

I was elated when you wrote you were coming to this forum, I hoped things would be great for you. I am sorry that things are the way they are. I am taking the day off tomorrow, so I will be up late tonight to chat if you wish.

I am sorry that things blew up on ya. Write me, we can comisserate.

I am sorry to not have been around for a while, thanks for trying to contact me. I know that Floyd, Will, Dark, and so many others would take great care of you. My sitch has taken a dramatic change for the worse. My wife has had not one but two affairs. I found out by doing what I promised Will I wouldn't - I spied on her. I'm damn glad I did.

I think you are correct about how these techniques work for some and not for others, although your H cannot put the blame on you by saying that your going grey hurt the R. I think I have done fairly well with dbing, and I felt pretty good about things too, but all the while my wife was seeing someone else.

I'll update my sitch when I can and fill everyone in. I don't know what blew up for you, but I hope you are ok.

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{sb}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

Thanks everyone (Oh Sad!! )

I hope you're ready for a long one. Make some popcorn and sit back folks. Lot's of lessons on what NOT to do here, I think:

I’m just so sad, tired, empty, hollow right now, I don’t know how I will finish this entry. And God Bless you, every one, if you follow it to the end.

After dinner last night, I was interrupted in my journalling by H asking if he could check his work e-mail “while I watched”. I asked if he’d read my letter and he said no. I asked him to do so. He didn’t want to, but eventually did. (Controlling, yep. I just wanted him to see that I didn’t want to “watch him” on line).

It did not go well. He started by thanking me for the letter, acknowledging that I got the “fear driven” angle right. He then proceded to deny that he has any kind of problem with not standing up to issues.

Then onto my suggestion that he needs a therapist.
He was extremely defensive, said he didn’t need help. I told him what I had seen the night before really scared me. He turned it around and said, why didn’t I need a therapist too, then? (I’d had a similar episode on our trip in ’98). I said at first (without really thinking) that I’d go for it. But then realized, and said that much of my anxiety-torment has been dealt with via personal growth, reading, meditation, looking inward, meds etc. that this really isn’t something I need professional help for. At that time, yes, I needed it desperately, and said so.

He feels my suggestion was more controlling on my part. (Note to self: wait for bb feedback before giving letters to H )

H very defensively said that he’d gone through personal growth, too. Which struck me as a denial of all of his recent CRAZINESS.

So my concern for him, got twisted into quiet sarcasm (I didn’t hear it until he pointed it out): “Was getting on the chat-line, instead of expressing your dissatisfactions to me personal growth? Having not one, but two affairs, was that personal growth? Was lying to me, planning to run away, was that evidence of your personal growth?”

Yup, direct attack, only quiet this time . H called me on the sarcasm, which I denied at first (like I said, didn’t hear it). Then I, stopped, reran my comments and apologized (he was growing angry, loud, tearful and frankly, starting to scare me). He stormed out of the room. Came back and somehow we ended up with him yelling again that I “just don’t get it” and that those comments were just my “sarcasm repackaged”.

We argued about who “turns things around” in our arguments. It goes both ways. He never even addressed the rest of the letter, my wanting him to have freedom, to take responsibility, to not rely on me to “check up on him”. Within a minute he walked out again.

I soaked in the tub (was already poured). When I got out, I invited him to hop in. A peace offering.

I got back in here and somehow, I’m not even sure HOW? H ended up in here demanding to look on the bb.

Earlier he’d asked me if I was flirting on here. And I said no. But then waffled: Just what does he mean by flirting?

He asked for my definition, and I blurted out something like “Coming on to someone”. But that's not really it.
Would he take the light banter on the bb to be flirting?

What is your definition, people? And is it the most horrible sin in the world?

I was getting scared, I KNOW how jealous he is, how judgmental, how disapproving of flirtation in general (when we all know he was flirting his ass off, admitted as much, on the chat line ). I know how angry he still is about the “kisses” incident. In fact he threw that back in my face earlier…asking if kissing those friends was MY personal growth! (Point of fact...THEY kissed ME!)

Somehow we actually got into a physical scuffle when he demanded to see the bb and ”check “ on my flirting. I moved to take the rolling chair in front of the computer (to block his access) and he pushed and pulled on it, trying to dislodge me. He was yelling at me to “Get the F*ck out of here!!”. I grasped onto the edge of the desk to keep the chair in place, my water glass wobbled and some spilled.

I told him that if he really wanted to do this, against my will, I would sign on for him. I did so, showed him my home page with the 1 sent private message (the initial, generic welcome) and 0 sent private messages.

He then insisted that I get out of the chair, that he’d find the site himself and search it. I gave him the chair, saying tearfully “Go for it, but know that this just might mean the end of us”.

Of course I didn’t mean that he’d find anything on the bb that was that bad, but just that he was acting so crazed, angry, aggressive, accusatory, controlling, yelling, and deliberately going against my stated wish that he desist.
(Hmmm...sort of like when I found his e-mail from C on Monday )

He lumbered his way onto the site. I pulled up the other chair. He demanded that I leave (more than once), but I told him he would have to remove me physically. He then yelled at me to “Just shut the F up then”, and so I hauled out the duct tape and just watched.

By now I felt calmer…what’s the worst thing he could find on here folks? Would I have been thinking of inviting him aboard if there were anything that bad???

I told him that I hoped he felt like sh*t after reading what is on here.

He searched my handle. He searched for “Photos”.

Oh yes, he was so suspicious of my request for digital photos from pals D and ML that he was convinced I had or intended to post a photo of me here. He thought I was looking at everyone’s photos, commenting on their looks, private e-mailing people, and, of course flirting.

Floyd, do you know how much trouble my jotting down your e-mail addy caused me? If I recall correctly, probably around the New Year, you were thinking of creating a photo gallery of Dbers. I said I didn’t have any, wouldn’t know how to post ‘em anyway. You offered to post for me? Is that how I got your addy? It was on a slip of paper H found recently.

Please Floyd, in case H is still perusing the bb (he later said he wouldn’t) and for when and if I ever invite him aboard, will you tell him the extent of our “relationship?”

He searched through some of your thread.

Yours is the only bb photo that I’ve seen. My comment on that post was “You’re family is beautiful, and you’re kinda hot too F! ”

When that came up, H glared at me, fumed, fumbled with the printer to print out this damning “evidence”.

I begged him to read the posts around that one (to see coop’s and others replies) to get a better idea of the context. He wouldn’t do it. Said he’d go back to them later.

He kept searching. He searched “Flirt” and came up with my Valentine’s hello to Mitch. In Mitch’s previous post he’d said his C recommended “harmless flirting”. So in addition to saying “Will you be my Valentine” (which, please confirm, I asked of all the ladies too!!!!). I mentioned that I was wearing a red ribbed sweater and dangly red earrings, red nail polish (which had been in my thread earlier, when H commented on it). And I included an e-hug.

Is this a dire sin, folks? Mitch? Will, Sage, MAL, Chilly Everyone: Have I ever crossed the line here? Have I come on to anyone? Has anyone come on to me?

Have any of you seen a picture of me? Have I said I was going to post one? Have I ever given my real name or e-mail addy? Have I ever e-mailed any of you???

It was like the twilight zone. Watching random posts of mine come up. Wondering what he’d read there, out of context, out of order.

H was furious this entire time. Certain he’d caught me in a lie. Did he? I’m just so confused. I wouldn’t say that I flirt here, but maybe I do? Is it anything that is harmful to my M, though?? HELP!

He kept saying he did NOI approve, and that while he wasn’t going to ask me to get off the bb (!!!), I was NOT to flirt!! Is this not being controlling, people?

It felt ludicrous given all the things that he has done. And everything I’ve been doing to try to save our M.

I guess the duct tape fell off somewhere...

H said that if my sarcasm persisted (as far as I know, this was my first “relapse”) he was out the door. I said something back to the effect of “so if I catch you in another lie, should you be out the door?”…and it just got uglier and uglier. BTW, I didn’t raise my voice at all. H on the other hand was red-faced with fury.

Somehow, in between looking at random posts, something changed. Maybe he was getting tired of scanning all the countless “harmless” posts before finding anything “incriminating”. BTW, he did not approve of our discussion of thongs.

I was quietly sobbing, wondering how my world had gotten so f*cked up. I said something about always having shaken my head at the people on Jerry Springer, but now I AM them.

H paused and said “because of me”. I said “yeah”.

He shut down the computer, said he wouldn’t look at the bb again until I invited him on. People, the likelihood of that seems dimmer and dimmer. I’m sure it would infuriate him to see the personal details I’ve written…but isn’t that the purpose of this bb? Not just to get the great advice and support, but also to journal, vent and be honest anonymously? To maybe get an e-hug or wink when you’re feeling down?

Somehow I spoke of how horrendous this past 7 months have been for me. How terribly he treated me during much of this time. I won’t bore you with the details. Let’s just say H’s mood changed from anger to remorse. He said he couldn’t think about what he’d done to me “in big chunks” or it would overwhelm him.

Numb, shocked, horrified, we talked a bit more in the back room. H said he reacted so strongly because his chat line stuff started out as “just friendly talk”. He bristled when I referred to you people as my friends. He said I didn’t know anything about any of you! (Obviously he hasn’t been reading threads! ).

That there were likely predators on here just waiting to snap up, flirt with, try to get involved with a desperate dber.

If so, I haven’t seen any, have any of you? (seriously, have you?)

He ended up hugging me (I wasn’t enthusiastic) and saying “I love you”. It took a pause for me to respond. I’m not sure I really wanted to. He went into the living room to watch T.V.

I couldn’t sleep. I lied in bed staring at one of my posters…mind whirling a thousand miles an hour. Wondering more than ever if this M is salvageable. IS this the man for me? He’s showing some really scary behaviours and yet sees no reason to get help.

When I got home from school, I ate lunch while H printed out a response to my letter.

I've just read it, some good stuff there, (basically, everything you folks have been saying is right on the mark) but this post is surely long enough!

Shiny

SB,
I will think of more of a response later when my "medicine" fog is gone.

At no time have I ever thought that you were flirting with anyone here. I think many of us are friendly to each other, and we are pretty upbeat to cheer each other up.

I also don't know if anyone who is trying to p-up people here. As for the names, I made a lof them myself.

JW = Doc, or Smoothie, or Greek God. None having to do with flirting.

Mycrift = Sweetie. Because he reminded me of someone's kind and gentle Dad.

Floyd = cutie. Because of his silly grin.

All in fun and being friendly. But that's all. They were all in response to what was happening in a sitch (or mine) at the time.

I don't know how I would survive if not for the silly things we do or say that makes us laugh or smile.

I hope your H will go back and look at a lot of the posts where we act silly. This is very painful and hard for all of us. The goofy things really help us to smile when many times we only feel like crying.

Sending you some hugs....

{{{{{{SB}}}}}}}

I'll come back and post more when I can think clearly, okay?

wow!!

honestly I'd say the most important part of all last nights event is

Quote:

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Let’s just say H’s mood changed from anger to remorse. He said he couldn’t think about what he’d done to me “in big chunks” or it would overwhelm him.

---

Quote:

---

He ended up hugging me (I wasn’t enthusiastic) and saying “I love you”.

---

LL

SB -
when my H initially read my thread, he was worried about the same things. I think he quickly saw how innocent it was. His nose was a little out of joint at first, because he thought people made light of the pain the WAS's were in. I printed off some pertinent part of my thread to show him how understanding and empathetic people were of their Ses.

H then mellowed out and has promised to stay off the board and give me my privacy (although he did snoop once since). He understands what a big support it has been, and frankly was a little jealous that he didn't have a similar support group.

I think you overreacted, SB. He was projecting onto you what HE did (kinda like my H checking my cell phone numbers last week - AS IF!!). And he loves you and feels pretty worthless and is at that point where he wouldn't blame you if you had an affair, and is fearful of losing you. Don't be afraid of the truth. There is nothing on your thread but a woman struggling to save her marriage and sharing a little black humor with those of us in the same boat.

Ellie

Thanks MAL (rest up honey!) LL and Ellie. Your responses are making me cry for some reason. Confirmation of what I know in my heart? That this place is for SAVING marriages, not messing them up?

Ellie, thank you so much for your words of wisdom, I feel badly that I don't keep up with your sitch regularly. I didn't even know you'd changed to kml until a few days ago!

Shiny

One thing I learned from my infidelity is that it caused me to assume that because I behaved that way, other people did too. I accused my H in jealous "rages" before he left that he was cheating on me with a couple of people. (The fact that he ended up doing so with one of them doesn't help anything but at the time, nothing was going on.) This led me to be suspicious of his behaviour like your H is doing to you now.

Afterwards, when your H saw how it made you feel, I think he regretted doing what he did. He told you he loved you and he said he wouldn't come here again unless you invited him to do so.

I think that his visiting this place in general would only be a good thing because he would see what exactly we do here. I think he would be surprised that we don't just pump each other up here, we provide a lot of constructive criticism and we work very hard to help ourselves and other people to dig deeply into their R's and M's to find the problems and work on them. We don't place the blame on anyone, we don't think your H is a horrible person, we focus on solutions.

That was one reason I thought it would be good for my H to come here, I knew you guys would give him as much support as you've given me and he needs it just as much as I do.

You asked everyone to be your Valentine and you've supported and encouraged people here and made them feel better about themselves and in return, they made you feel better about yourself. Sure it could be construed as "flirting" but why was all of this happening here on the BB? So you could feel better about yourself and work harder to get your H back!!! Every single person here is working towards the same goal and that's comforting. I think it should be extremely comforting to your H that you participated here even if you flirted because it's a safe environment to do so. Floyd was working to get his W back as hard as you were working to get your H back. Our S's should be flattered to know that we're that devoted - I know mine was. To him it was a proof of my love and devotion to him when he saw all of this.

Now, just one little constructive criticism to you here since that's what we do. Why were you so defensive about him reading the BB? I know in earlier posts you've mentioned that he might come here and you've shared posts with him... so why the "scuffle"?

I wouldn't mind at all if your H read this post, SB.

Oh SB, what a horrible night! I'm so sorry this is happening. I definitely agree with a lot of what Calystra had to say. I was wondering myself why you were worried about him seeing the bb. To be honest, I leave this up all the time in the hopes that my H would ask about it or even read some people's threads to know that there is support out there. You have nothing to hide. Not on your thread or on anyone else's. You're sweet, insightful, helpful and a great pick-me-up to a lot of people. That comes across so clearly to those of us on the bb's and we've never even met you!

It sounds like a whole lot of projection was going on last night. He was being paranoid about the bb's and your e-mail because that is where he failed in your marriage. You were being defensive and extremely territorial and acting as if you had something to hide. Surely you noticed that when you brought out the duct tape, things calmed down dramatically. As for a convo about thongs, My H probably wouldn't be too thrilled about that either if he didn't know the context of the messages and the R with the people involved. There is no way that you can find that out in one evening of looking around here. It can takes days/weeks to pick up some of the crazy subtelties around here!

You did learn a good lesson, though. Always read the bb's before you hand over a letter like you did. The tone was so angry. I'm sure that made him immediately defensive and you became the tool that he used to vent his anger.

I do agree that his behavior seemed a little scary. I don't like the idea of things becoming physical in any way . That's not cool. Please tell me that things don't escalate that far on a regular basis!

Where to go from here? I'm clueless. Hopefully you can have a nice quiet reconciliation and some apologies today. Then get back on the db'ing road. Maybe a session with a phone counselor would help you both.

I'm going to church soon (Ash Wednesday) and I'll say a special prayer for you today. I hope tonight will be much better! I don't know what grades you teach, but in my former life, I was Junior High and they are brutal when they know you're having a bad day! Hopefully they took some pity on their poor teach and were nice to you.

Chin up, do something nice for yourself after work and post soon to let us know how you are.

Erin

Thanks so much Cal and Erinr,

I just printed out all of your posts (and a couple regarding my infamously bad letter from yesterday) and read them to H whiled he was chopping garlic.

Yes, things are better around here today. H asked how I felt this morning, (Crappy...the absolute truth). Gave me his letter, in which he apologizes for last night, explaining his actions in much the same way you people intuited...reassuring me of his love and desire to work things out.

I was still very down and quiet until I Journalled and got on here. Your posts are very comforting. I don't know what I'd do without this place.

The temptation to go visit my Mom or Sis today and tell them all was very strong. Knowing that you guys were waiting here for me was a big part of me not going there.

Erinr, thanks for your post too.

Please don't think my H is physically violent. In fact that's a real sore spot with him. One time, early in our M, he grabbed me by the shoulders during an argument. It threw me right back into childhood mode where physical abuse (it hurts to use those words, I love my Mom so much!) was a reality.

I mentioned my fear to him (he says I threatened to call 911, but I have no recollection of that).

Last night was a little scary, he was forceful in wanting me out of this chair, but he didn't touch ME at all. I've never felt afraid of him in that way.

H went out and bought the groceries and is in the midst of prepping a nice stir-fry for dinner. Brought home a bottle of my favourite Blush (cheap but good) and....a small boquet of spring flowers!

That really cheered me up and shows that he listened when I told him some of what he can do to help me through this.

Also, in his letter, he agreed that he's had a problem with avoidance and will consider private counselling.

All in all, just more downs and ups on the Piecing roller coaster!

Shiny

P.S. I'd still like to hear opinions on the flirting stuff...notice how MAL says I don't flirt, but Cal says some of my stuff might be construed as flirting.

Is it any wonder I was confused when H asked if I was flirting here?

You guys are the best!!

Shiny