I will chose to allow myself to believe h is telling the truth about the ea not being a pa.
I will not allow my m to remain "stuck" while I wait for a different story and I will not allow myself to remain "stuck" based upon some fear that if I do believe h is telling the truth I will at some point down the line once comfortable with that belief have it pulled away from me with some new confession.
no sense in keeping myself stuck based on a possibility.
so then I forge ahead accepting that h is telling the truth.
LL
Hi LL,
Just wanted you to know that I totally agree. No more ugh for you!!! Don't allow yourself to get stuck. No point pondering and driving yourself crazy about possibilities. Your H is back, you are piecing and building a new M. The A is over. What does it matter if it was a PA? I can tell you that there will be no end to it. There will always be questions on your mind. And sometimes the more details you know the more tortured you will feel by it and the more you will be reminded by Hs indiscretion (even though its over), speaking from personal experience here. You get these awful mental images that just won't go away!!
So forget it, get unstuck and move on. And so what if sometime in the future H confesses something new about the past A? No big deal. Just cheer him on for having courage to confess even if he didn't do it immediately when he should (again we're just assuming this). So no more ughs for LL. Move on and enjoy your M. (Though I know you are still struggling to deal with the LD/ND as I still am).
As I read your posting over the last weekend, the image that came to mind is that of a criminal court room and you are the jury with your h on the stand and the prosecuter is has brought up your H's alibi is that he did nothing...
"Were you with anyone that can confirm you did nothing?"
"No"
Well there's the OW, but we all know her credibility is worthless to the jury!!!
"Do you have any evidence that can prove you did nothing?"
"No"
After all, how can something exist that will prove that nothing existed?
... and that is my point here LL ... you are looking for evidence to exist that proves your H is telling the truth about a PA that didn't happen. Your H is caught up in a catch 22. If it didn't happen, then how can H produce evidence that he is telling the truth that nothing happened?
He can't, he has to put his fate in the jury's hands. That's why we have a judicial system that works on the premise of "being innocent until proven guilty", because evidence doesn't always exist to prove innocence. (... and remember we're only talking about innocence on the single charge of having a PA.)
So ... how will the jury rule? (... and remeber once the jury reaches a verdict, there's no retrial.
Quote: So ... how will the jury rule? (... and remeber once the jury reaches a verdict, there's no retrial.
aren't cases sometimes brought back to court if new evidence is found? not that I'm actively looking for evidence in either direction but....
what if????
suppose.....
ya think....
case closed...hung jury....defendant is set free on the grounds of lack of evidence.
I will continue to do my best to believe that h is who h is and if he says there was nothin' going on...well then there was nothing going on.
just seems like a waist to me...if you're gonna have an a and risk it all why not go for it..why mess around with emotions and friendship and romance and not the fun stuff? suppose that's part of the problem...to me the physical part of a r is important where it obviosly isn't all that important to h.
Quote: aren't cases sometimes brought back to court if new evidence is found?
I'm no lawyer, but I believe that would be double jeopardy. The prosecutor has only one chance to present his case, which is why sometimes they refuse to try a case until they have more or new evidence.
Quote: just seems like a waist to me...if you're gonna have an a and risk it all why not go for it..why mess around with emotions and friendship and romance and not the fun stuff? suppose that's part of the problem...to me the physical part of a r is important where it obviosly isn't all that important to h.
Wow ... good insight on what H values as important in an R! ... and the dilemma you face. The same values that help you accept your H is telling the truth of not having a PA are the same ones that cause you to struggle of the SSM aspect.
I wish I had some suggestions here, LL, but this one is definately a "pickle". ... but I not giving up on this ... Something caused your H to change his ways when he came home ... there ought to be a way to repeat that behavior.
I just took a scan of your thread, and the way I see your dilemma is this: Things are great on the surface, but you’re afraid that as soon as you get comfortable with that, BANG! You’ll find out it was all a lie. You don’t want to be hurt.
People are telling you that you have a choice: Believe your H and be happy, or don’t believe him and fret. Yup, it’s a simple choice, but it’s not an easy one.
I’d forget about all that statistical stuff. It doesn’t mean a thing. Just numbers. Your H isn’t a number. He’s a person.
You said you’re afraid that if you believe your H, you might be believing a lie. It doesn’t matter, LL. Truth isn’t absolute. It changes all the time. The world was once flat. It was in all of the textbooks. Now it’s round. Look it up. I’m not lying!
Nobody can prove a negative proposition. To take KAW’s analogy, you’ll never be able to prove or disprove the existence of a PA. Even if your H were to confess, history is full of false confessions. Ya just never know.
Your threads are full of positive affirmations about how great your M and your H have become. That’s great, LL, but somehow you gotta start believing.
Once again, I say “somehow.” Like I said, it’s a simple choice in theory, but not an easy one to implement. If you had a magic wand that you could wave…
**poof**
Your feelings would change. You’d trust your H, and all of the emotional baggage would be gone forever.
There’s no magic wand, LL. All there is, is your will to take out the trash.
Hi..LL I am reading that youa re still piondering the pa or ea that your h may or may not have had..and while I am not authority at it..yet you know what I believed for a long long time..my h told me it was only friendship..and I beleived it..BUT and the big BUT is he could not live with it..could not rebuild anything with me..he could not touch me..he could barely to talk to me.He could not put on a false game anymore..and took the chance to confess it..not knowing how I would react, but he needed to do it for himself.
It seems easy to tell you that it does not really matter what kind of A it was, but I would have to say that is wrong to assume that about everyone...now knowing, I can see I would ahve needed to know, before I could really begin the healing for us...and he is willing to tell me anything about it..so use your gut..your faith to help you find the peace you need.
Thanks KAW and Andy for your attempts to comfort me...Andy I sure as hell wish there was some majuc wand or crystal ball to put this question to rest.
Sue,
H has been home over a year...when he first came home there were confessions..confessions of the friendship being more than just an aquantance, of it being wrong, of lies that were told of feelings that were had etc but there was absolute denial of it ever reaching that point...what am I suppose to do with that?
livenlearn,
a good question you raise and one that I ask often thus leading to the dilema.
let me try to answer it as if h IS telling the truth.
let's imagine the friendship was kept secret all along...starts out as a simple innocent friendship but for whatever reasons is not shared, it graduates to more of a close friend but still is not shared then poof they are seen together and the friendship has to be shared and of course I doubt it being just a friendship and ask or rather demand that it end...it doesn't and in demanding that it end they realize or think that they have the potential for something more than mere friendship but don't know what to do with it. H doesn't want to share the thoughts with me and can't continue to lie so leaves to sort out his feelings and with all my pressure comes to believe that he does have romantic feelings for ow eventually she decides she wants to take that chance too and leaves her h (mind you her h knew of their friendship though I don't know if he knew how much time spent together) and shortly after she decides to take that chance poof my h isn't so sure he wants to leave me.
Is it not possible then that they had nothing more than an ea (if that isn't bad enough) an with it's discovery were pushed to think differently of it were tempted to act upon those illusionary feelings but when faced with the honest opportunity to act upon them (my h having already left and her letting her h know she wanted out) the (or at least he) just couldn't do it?
You've all heard me complain about h's low libido, this is not a new problem, he was that way long before he ever met ow so it is possible for h to have a relationship even love someone and not have it be physical.
of course there is also the possibility that he was meeting up with her at her house during the daycare kids nap time and screwing her in her h's bed but somehow I just don't fully believe that.
thing is I don't fully believe either way and know that eventualy I have to make a choice what to believe or this m will never survive.
... but I not giving up on this ... Something caused your H to change his ways when he came home ... there ought to be a way to repeat that behavior. 