I know EXACTLY how you feel. I am going through a similar sitch with my W who is having an A with OM.
Right now I still have contact for her to see her step-D (ie. my D) and we have all that arranged at my house.
The cake eating and two women pursuing him is where I would start. Don't pursue anymore. That is a lot harder than it sounds and I still have major weaknesses over doing it now and again.
You can be loving and caring without the need to caretake for your H. Establish regular times for him to see the children but not with you. Again, difficult and I am guilty of this.
I would look at detaching from him as much as possible as again, you sound just like me. Still too attached and still too afraid to let go. See http://www.livestrong.com/article/14712-developing-detachment/ particularly the part at the end about what Letting Go means. Your H needs to realise that his cake eating and fun with the OW has consequences for him and his family.
One of the boundaries I'd certainly be looking at is with the OW. Especially texting her while at his fathers funeral with you and his kids. That just doesn't seem right to me.
Last edited by P17; 11/09/0901:12 PM.
Me 36, W 34 | D 8 | M 3.5y Sep 2Aug09 | Left 6Sep09 | OM in 10Oct09 | NC 17Nov09 | Gave up caring - Jan 2010
"Have integrity. Do what is right, not what is expedient." "Delay is the antidote for anger"
What you are saying is that your H is keeping you hanging on by making the appropriate noises whilst he decides what to do. Does that sound fair?
When I found out about my H's A it was literally two weeks before we were due to go on our annual family holiday with the kids and about four/ five weeks before we were due to have a break away by ourselves to celebrate our 20th Wedding Anniversary. My H wanted me to let things rattle along as they were with him trying to make up his mind between me and OW until we got back from both those holidays.
Now, for one thing, I was not going to be in a very good condition/ place mentally knowing I was 'on trial' and competing with an illusionary / not set in reality, relationship with OW. Also, it left my H in the grand position where he felt loved and fought over by two women, ( and however tortured he may have appeared to be over that he was loving it). He had gone from feeling he was getting NO attention to be the centre of everyone's attention.....and like a naughty child, any attention - good or bad- was better than none.
I went to see my psychiatrist and took my H with me. My psychiatrist does not do 'couples' work and was uncomfortable and only agreed to see my H at the very end of the session with me. He was quite clear with my H that I was his 'patient/client' and that it was me he was looking out for, but he also told my H that to ask me to stand by and give my H time to 'choose' was just unrealistic and down right cruel. The way he phrased it seemed to make my H see sense and he went home and we talked and a decision was made. He also said that as OW now knew I knew anout the A she would start to make my H feel under more pressure.....and that was so true.
There is no need for your H to reply to OW if she contacts him at times like a funeral. No-one contacts people about 'work' when a close relative has died. He is stupid to say that. He needs to respect you whatever the outcome is.
Finally, I have been on these boards a while and I have seen a lot of people let their partners dictate the rules and cake eat in the hope that by not making any waves their partner will come home eventually. DBing, as I understand it, is not about being a doormat. In nearly all those cases I am describing, the LBS ended up divorcing and nearly always wishing they had stood up for themselves.
It seems to me you are in a good position from what you say your H is saying. I wouldn't, if it were me, give him time to 'cake eat' and leave you in limbo whilst 'he decides'. The furture of your M is a joint decision; you should not be passive in that decision making process. YES, you can change things by yourself by making changes like showing him you do love him.....but you don't have to show him that by agreeing to everything he says. You don't have to wait whilst 'he' decides. You can make boundaries. It's your M too. Don't be a doormat - that is not an attractive thing to be. My doormats get dirty from everyone wiping their feet on them and then they get thrown away and replaced. YOU are more than that. Value yourself.
I am having a hard time getting my head around the issue of insisting he make a choice. I have read and reread the detachment website and a part of me is detached. I get up and go to work and dont think about H and OW hardly at all. I dont call him and text occ. usually about our adult children. I tell myself I am strong and can handle whatever comes. I dont sit at home. BUT, big but--I cant wrap my mind around how telling him he must choose between OW and me is going to help when in his mind he keeps saying he needs time to sort it out AND that is exactly what I would not be giving him. It seems to me he has already MADE the choice, choosing OW via moving out and having free access now. His adult children have confronted him and told him how disappointed and hurt they are, I have told him I know who Ow is, he has said he did not live up to his father's expectations and feels bad/guilty yet he is not giving up OW. I think he will only see me as demanding and trying to control. I feel he needs to see me as I am now-calm and loving and not angry. He has trouble believing people can change and I was emotional, easily angered, depressed, not appreciative, and not meeting his emotional needs. Saffie says "the future of may marriage is a joint decison" but is it really at this point?-he holds all the cards except I can detach completely but I think that feeds right into what he wants. Isnt detachment ultimately saying the truth that we have no real control over anyone or thing besides ourselves, including our marriages in so far as it takes 2 individuals? I do need to set some more boundaies but I have the feeling that now the crisis is over he will not be coming around. Painful as it maybe for me to say aloud, he needed me there for the funeral because he couldnt have her there with him (and he thinks he was being nice to me, in a way he was because I did love his father and mother deeply and it felt good to be part of the family grieving process). He couldnt have his first choice of support as she hasnt left her H til mine "decides", and it would have been totally inappropriate and hurtful to his mother whom he loves incredibly to spring the A after denying it to his parents the week before. He needed me and basically used me as it also helped secure our adult children would support him too if I did. This isnt an A discovered while the H is still at home making up his mind but one in which he had moved out and basically was setting up the steps to live happily ever after with the OW. If I were him and someone pressured me, it would be just one more excuse to bail. He feel very guilty but not guilty enough to want MC, to text me back even once while he texts her 6-12 times a day, or to tell our daughter the truth about his feelings. Why do I still love himadn want our marriage to continue?
Detatchment, IMO, is about not living your life depending on what your H may or may not think; it's on living it for you. It's on being what you want to be. Just not thinking about him for a while is not detaching.
My sitch was different in that my H was still in the marital home, (albeit barely), and my children were younger. However, my respect for myself was still the same as any person's should be. I would not be put in a position where I was being compared and measured up to another person. I owed it to myself to draw a line and say that I would not be played. I guess what I was saying wasn't that he had to choose between us, but rather that I wasn't playing his game and if she was better than me then ok, be with her, but be aware there would be consequences.
Those consequences were not a threat - there would be consequences. He would be ripping two families apart. It would be public.However pleasant we tried to make a plit be it was going to hurt a lot of people emotionally and financially. Reality did start to hit.
Cake eating is something I have rarely seen work on these boards. Butterflymom was the only one I could think of, when I tried to remember cases where it has, and her children were still young and acted as a reason for being in touch all the time.
Go look at Yoyo's threads. Please read her whole story. As you will see from my posts on there I know her well from the boards. You will have to plow through a lot of 'silly' posts as well from the days when we were just trying to lighten each other's days....but you will see what having older children and cake eating will do. She is still on the Surviving the big D forum. From reading her threads you will see there were times when her H, who had left, almost came home. Each time, IMO, the reason it didn't work was because she was too 'nice'. She was afraid to set boundaries. When she did he came running.....as soon as she thought she might have him back and got scared of losing him again she loosened those boundaries.....and he started disrespecting her again.
Ask yourself what on earth should make your H WANT to change at the moment? He has the best of it all - two women he can go to for comfort. A boundary would be to say, I love you very much and love being your W, but please don't ask me to be intimate with you unless that side of our R is exclusive, (to me that is a basic health matter in addition to being one of respect). You could also say to him that although you are aware that OW exists, you would be grateful if he refrained from contact with her whilst in your presence - is that too much to ask?
Act like a fool and he will play you for one. Why shouldn't he?
I know I am sounding hard, but I so don't want you to get treated like a doormat.
You don't have to insist he make a choice, you just need to garner respect from him and not let your H run your life. Live well for yourself. Turn yourself into someone YOU respect and I bet you that your H will find he wants to be with you. If you don't respect yourself why expect him to?
The future of your M HAS to be a joint decision. If EITHER one of you 'holds the power' the R is unlikely to work because one of you will be acting in an unnatural way and walking on eggshells to appease the other. NO long term R can last like that. At the moment your H has the power, as my H seemed to have when I first found out about the A and was fighting for my M.....later on it appeared I had the power. We had recommitted to the M and then I started getting cold feet and wondering if I had done the right thing in staying, and then I was the one with the power....again things were not good. Gradually we have pieced ourselves back into a balanced R; it takes constant work and communication to keep it that way.
You are letting your H dictate the whole tone of the situation at the moment. The way you don't is to live your life by doing what you want to do and not want you think your H wants you to do, or you need to do so you don't drive your H away. Disregard him. Treat him as just as good friend who you would be polite to etc but don't bend over backwards to 'compete' for him. Be charming and pleasant etc....enjoy your family. He will start to see what he is missing and he may well start to feel excluded from the family and miss things.
At the moment OW is exciting and she showers him with attention. That won't last forever. Eventually he will see the real her; what real life with her is like; what he has lost at home. If you keep the channels of communication pleasant and the path to home clear and welcome, the chances are good that he will start to see that.
It has taken a while for your M to get to this state. Generally there are no quick fixes and it will take a while to get it back on track. You don't have to lose your self respect though in the process by letting him use you as he pleases because you are afraid that if you don't you will lose him. It is EXACTLY by acting like that you are more likely to lose him IMO. Respect is a HUGE part of a R.
Saffie me 46 H 46 M in 1986 D20,D18,S16,D13 H's A 01/05 to 07/06 H recommitted to M 07/06 renewed vows 09/06 Going from strength to strength
Thank you all so much. I think I am starting to "get it" a little after rereading your posts and talking to my daughter who also thinks I am being a doormat. I dont know if it is because I am still too emotional and kinda not thinking clearly but when you give me examples like Puppy and Saffie did I get it but when I try to put DB into effect myself--I get stuck on being pleasant and sound happy and busy and doing a 180 which somehow I have interpreted as not being angry or demanding about the A so he will be shocked at my non typical peaceful response. My H hasnt tried to be intimate since about a month ago so I dont need to worry about that anymore but I now see how desperate I was to want that. Now that he doesnt need me for the funeral he has stopped communicating. We will drive 1 1/2 hrs to the DB counselling session in IL on Friday where he only wants to work on helping the adult children deal with his A, their anger at him, and our separation. Any help you can give me on boundaries til I get better at it would be appreciated. Do you think we should discuss R in the car beforehand? He tells me and our adult kids he has "no plan" yet. Would requesting he clarify what that means and how you end up making a decision at some point when you have no specific plans as to how to decide about besides moving out and seeing the OW--would that be setting a boundary or pursuing or controlling. I dont trust my instincts at all anymore and I want to stop being a doormat--I really do. HELP me do that. You all seem so together and knew what to say to your spouses
No, don't discuss the R before you get to the counselor. Keep talk in the car to other subjects. If he brings it up, tell him that you are on the way to see the counselor, that will be the right time to talk about those things.
"He only wants to work on helping the adult children deal with his A and their anger at him, and our separation."
That's what he wants to talk about. I guess you need to say what you want to talk about. Why let him set the agenda? Is that an appropriate agenda to set? How can we manipulate others into accepting my new situation without anger?
I completely agree with Lotus. Avoid discussing the M/R stuff before the session.
I think that being pleasant and not showing anger towards your H and acknowleding that you can see how he felt is good. It takes the heat out of things and shows you respect his opinions. However, you are right to recognise that that does not mean you have to be a doormat because YOU have feelings and opinions as well. You need to learn to put these across in a non-threatening, non-accusing way. Don't let him think you are being pleasant etc because you don't care; my H had given up on me because he thought I no longered cared about him and that was far from the truth - we had just grown apart and I didn't know how to find our way back to one another.....and then just when I thought I had achieved that he admitted the A!!! If I hadn't let him know how much I cared and how sorry I was for not showing it enough in the past we would definately have been history!!!
Have you heard of Retrouvaille, (is my spelling right Lotus?) Lotus can tell you more about this as she has been and I haven't. Although it is a weekend, followed up by other sessions, designed to help get a M back on track, some people have managed to get their partner's to go on the basis that it will teach then better communication skills that they can use with each other when dealing with the M breakdown. Strictly you are not meant to go if one of you is involved with another person, but sometimes a blind eye seems to be turned to this depending on the people running that particular course at the place you go to.
Although not all the couples I have heard of who have gone there have saved their M's, it has often helped and even helped with bringing closure in a dignified way. For some though it has been a true M saver, at a time when they thought all was lost. I have never come across anyone on the boards who said they wished they had never been.
Good luck with your session.
From my understanding of it it does not clash with DB principles and has the same end aim in mind.
Saffie me 46 H 46 M in 1986 D20,D18,S16,D13 H's A 01/05 to 07/06 H recommitted to M 07/06 renewed vows 09/06 Going from strength to strength
Do you think we should discuss R in the car beforehand? He tells me and our adult kids he has "no plan" yet. Would requesting he clarify what that means and how you end up making a decision at some point when you have no specific plans as to how to decide about besides moving out and seeing the OW--would that be setting a boundary or pursuing or controlling. I dont trust my instincts at all anymore and I want to stop being a doormat--I really do. HELP me do that. You all seem so together and knew what to say to your spouses
As others have said, no, don't discuss it ahead of time. As for the above, you're trying to make it all about HIM, and what behavior you want HIM to exhibit, plans you want HIM to make, etc.
Wrong approach.
You can't even come up with -- and communicate -- your OWN plans to him, why would you try to make HIS?
You need to begin focusing MUCH more on yourself, BNA. What YOU want to accomplish in counseling, what YOU want to do regarding the current situation, what boundaries YOU want to lay out and learn to enforce.
And no, I wasn't always this "together," LOL. In fact, I was a "hot mess" as my d20 would say. I did learn to detach, however, and to come up with what I WANTED to say (and do), and I would practice it ahead of time when necessary in order to get my point across.
BNA, if there is ONE THING I would encourage you to try to get down deep into your soul, it would be this:
Rather than operate from a position of "Should I be 'NICE'? What if I do thus-and-such, will be husband be angry? How will he react? How will his reaction make ME feel?"
instead, come at each situation from a position of "What is The RIGHT Thing To Do in this situation? What is the thing that God Himself would have me do, if He were standing right in front of me?"
You need to lose the fear, and be more afraid of "not doing The Right Thing" than you are of antagonizing your cheating husband.
Yes Saffie I have heard of Retrovaille and tried to get my H to go when he first told me in January he was unhappy as I was starting to change my behaviors. Even sent in deposit again couple of weeks before he moved out in September. But he wasnt interested. Puppy, you are helpful as usual with clarifying how I keep turning it to what I want from him. Re: what is the thing God himself would have me do?--I honestly believe God would want me to save my marriage, stay through better or worse, and forgive as He forgives. How that translates into my behavior is what I am struggling with. I dont feel I am doing anything God would not want me to do at this point--I am not lying or pretending. However, what did occur to me is: am I being immoral if I were to be intimate with him again--he is my H, I am still married but I definitely dont want to give even tacit agreement by default to adultery/open marriage. SOme of the posts on the board talk about intimacy as a good thing. Now I am so confused about that to. Your are right about the fear. I am afraid of losing him and I am working hard on the fear but it intrudes at times.
ALso, I do know what I want, I want him to give me as much of a shot at a R with him as he is giving the Ow. In counselling, I want to start to heal, to have some help with proper detachment and to have more advice like you all have been giving me about how to set boundaries, work on myself etc. Still, having a conversation with him in terms of thinking through where we are or where we are going is like trying to talk to a 15 year old boy right now--he is so into what "feels" happy. My H isnt a man who gets angry or antagonized --I can barely count the times in our 30 year marriage. He just denies his feelings--he wants things light and superficial in many ways. He doesnt think things through on any deep level--he is a bright, rational, practical man but not in touch with his feelings and not a writer or very verbal or able to project out consequences very far. Hence, I dont think he really thought about the impact on our kids if the OW had showed up at the funeral (and was truly shocked when I explained how it would hurt them and me) and I dont think he can see that "having no plan" doesnt bring you closer to deciding. I do think I need to stop with trying to figure this process out and where it is going and take care of myself.
Do you think these are steps towards detaching? I no longer am afraid of being alone, coming home to an empty house. I can imagine myself divorced and happy now, even imagine myself as a older lady with lots of gfs. When he leaves the house or I dont hear from him., I am not getting blue.
