This is my first post on this website, and I have a feeling it will be far from the last. I hope to share my story and my current situation and get some support, guidance, strength, and encouragement from those who have been where I'm at and have found their way back to successful marriages.
I am 35 years old and have been married for 9 years to an extraordinary man. Although overall I would say our relationship has been great, I have struggled for years with a low sex drive. My husband has difficulties with communicating - it takes a lot for him to be able to bring up any issues/concerns he is having with our marriage. However, the concern he did bring up when he found the strength/opportunity to do so was our sex life and his frustration with my lack of desire. While we used to both enjoy sex tremendously at the beginning of our relationship during that "infatuation" stage, at some point sex became less interesting and fun for me. That gradually progressed to it actually becoming physically painful for me to the point where I absolutely dreaded having intercourse. It snowballed from there. I saw a therapist, a medical doctor, and my gynecologist about this difficulty about 4 years ago but found no relief. In fact, the therapy left me feeling even worse to the point where I dreaded going, as it depressed me so.
At any rate, my husband somehow found the strength at certain points in our relationship to keep bringing this to my attention. I would "do good" at working on it for a while, but it never lasted. I know now after reading several books that because I didn't share the same sexual desire as him that I truly did no understand the importance of this issue to him. To me, while I knew our marriage wasn't perfect, I still felt that all-in-all everything was okay.
Around the end of October of this year into the first part of November I started seeing some changes in my husband. He was much more distant, spent longer hours working than normal, and sometimes didn't come home at all and didn't call. He had stayed out all night on occasion in the past, sometimes without calling, but it was rare. This was becoming a bit more frequent.
Our 9th anniversary was on November 8th of this year. We had a quick dinner and then an argument about sex followed by making love probably because we both felt obligated because it was our anniversary. I noticed that the sex was a bit different than normal in how he performed and remember thinking about it at the time and then dismissing it.
My birthday followed on November 11th. He spent the day working and finally called me around 7pm to say that he was going to go to dinner if I wanted to join him. We had a heated discussion, which ended in him going straight home and me following and then an argument at home about the insignificance he had given to my 35th birthday. I asked him how he expected me to work on our sex life if he was never around.
On the night of November 14th, I woke up at around 1:30 in the morning to find him not home yet. He had mentioned that it was going to be a late night for him and a few places that he needed to go. I have an admittedly horrible habit of being a "detective" and following his moves to find out if he is telling me the truth or not. There is definitely a lack of trust in him on my part, which I will get into later.
So I went out driving around for 3 hours in the middle of the night looking in all of those places for him - to no avail. He finally called me at around 6 in the morning. When asked where he had been, he told me somewhere that I had checked and knew he hadn't been, so I told him I knew he wasn't there. Long story short, we met each other at home, and he told me he loved me as a person, a friend, a wife, and a business partner but that he didn't think he was "in love" with me anymore and that he felt like he was forcing me to be someone I'm not. As we discussed this further, I asked him if he had ever been unfaithful since we'd been married. He told me that he had slept with someone twice about a year ago and that that was it. I was obviously devasted but was willing to forgive as the feelings of guilt swept over me for having neglected his sexual needs for so long. We decided we would come up with a plan to work through this. And he told me that he had been at a bar the night before and had had too much to drink and had slept in his car.
When he left that house that day, my detective mind said that something didn't add up about the night before. So I called him and asked him about it again. Another long story short, he admitted that he had been with someone else that night. Even worse, he said he had been sleeping with her for a couple of weeks and that he cared about her. Wow - all of a sudden I just went numb. We decided we'd talk more later. I got off the phone and proceeded to have an emotional breakdown of crying and screaming uncontrollably and asking God to help me through this.
So that was November 15th, and he hasn't slept in our home since that night, except for one night when he had some friends over for poker and I'm presuming probably drank too much and didn't go out. Other than that, nothing. He told me that he was taking time to himself to sort through things. As hard as it was for me and at probably the most vulnerable and difficult time I've ever faced in my life, I got Michele's "The Divorce Remedy" book and forced myself to let the detective side of me go and gave him his space. I did not follow him to see where he was staying. I went back to the gym and started eating better. I worked on focusing on my work. I at one point asked him where he was staying at night, and he told me that he didn't want to tell me. Thinking that, knowing me, he was worried that if he told me I would track him down there, I let it go.
We have a real estate investment business together and both do that full-time, just the two of us. Wow, was that difficult. So we have had nearly daily contact since November 15th, mostly for business items and sometimes for personal. I am a big communicator, and he is not, as I mentioned. I did not and still have not told a single person about what has happened. I just don't want anyone to know because if/when we do work things out, I don't want them to look at us and be thinking what happened. I'm embarrassed, ashamed, a whole host of emotions. We have common friends and have very loving families (no kids ourselves), and it would devastate them to know this has happened. For these reasons, I just could not and cannot and don't want to talk to anyone about this.
Because of my need to talk, this has been torture for me. To that end, I'm hoping this message board will help me. I always see those TV shows that talk about how they can search someone's computer and find files that have been deleted, etc., and I even worry that someone may be able to find these posts I'm posting on the message board from me - that's the level of the state of fear I am in. How sad...
At any rate, I have up to this point only been reading books and talking to my husband about this situation. Most of our conversations about this consist of me talking most if not all of the time, and he won't even look at me and says nothing. It's so painful I can hardly bear it.
Ever since this happened and even before reading Michele's book, I felt an extreme sense of guilt for the part that I played in contributing to the reason he was unfaithful, and I immediately knew this was my wake-up call to save our marriage. Both of our parents have been married for nearly 40 years, and I strongly believe in the sanctity of marriage, even though I took mine for granted. As hard as it is to admit, I realize that I was wrong to, as I read in a book, tell him I didn't want to be with him sexually yet ask him to be faithful to me. I made some huge mistakes, both in ignoring my own sexual issues and also in not taking his pleas for him, as "subtle" as they were to me at the time, more seriously. I feel horrible about these things and truly want to make them better.
To that end, I've told him from the very first day I found out about all of this that I wanted to give us another chance and that I would do whatever it takes to give him what he needs and to make myself happy as well. I kept asking him to please give me and our marriage another chance. I told him that I did not want to live with the regret of not feeling like I did everything in my power to be a good wife and that at this point I knew I hadn't done that. I begged and pleaded and prodded - all of the things I'm not supposed to do.
Around Thanksgiving, we were having an emotional conversation on the phone, and I told him that if he could just tell me that he would give us another chance when he was ready, I could at least hold on to that. He told me that he had decided that his plan was to give us another chance but that he didn't know how, when, where, etc. I can't tell you how wonderful that was for me. It was my first glimmer of hope.
As the days and weeks went on, he still didn't come home and still said he was just needing some space to sort through things and wasn't ready to start working on us. Again, although I wasn't perfect, I did my best to be patient, keep my distance, and not question him on his every move. I was persistent in asking for reassurances that he was still planning on giving us another chance, and he has always told me that that is still his decision.
During some of our conversations, I would ask him if he was still seeing the other person. That was one of the two things that he would always look me in the eye and tell me "no." He said he wasn't seeing her anymore and wasn't staying with her and that he just talked to her on occasion. She works at a store that we frequently do business at, which has made it even more difficult for me. I have only met her once and purposely don't want to remember her or anything about her - it's too painful to have the visuals. The other thing that he would always look me in the eye on when I asked him the question was whether he was still planning on giving us another chance. He would always look me in the eye and say "yes." Throughout these past almost two months now, those were the two things that he would always respond very believably to.
As a quick sidenote, before we were married or even engaged, I went over to his house one night and walked in on him making out with his female roommate. They had all of their clothes on - I hopefully caught it just in time. Supposedly that was the only time it had happened. There was alchohol involved, which is no excuse. He was probably only 22, which is still no excuse, but just to paint a picture of the situation. I was ocmpletely devasted and realize that still to this day I have not been able to fully trust him since that. That is a lot of where the "detective" in me was born.
Because of that incident, I swore when this happened this time that in order to move on to a healthy marriage I simply had to trust him and let that hurt go in order to be happy myself as well. That is why I say that for me to just let him not come home and not follow him to see where he's at and not ask many questions was one of the hardest things I've ever done.
So a few weeks ago on the weekend before Christmas, we had agreed, after many discussions, that we would just drive down for the day to my parents' house for Christmas Day. He initially wanted me to go down separately and he would just come down for Christmas Day, but I just couldn't bring myself to do that. My Mom is truly my best friend, and I feared that being around my Mom and Dad by myself would be a disaster in that I would break down, and I just don't want them to know what is going on. I asked him if we could at least drive down on Christmas Eve and come home on Christmas night - still no. As I asked more questions, it finally came to light that he didn't want to spend the night with me in the same bed there. So we finally agreed that we would both just drive down together for the day on Christmas Day.
The weekend before, I talked to him on Friday evening and then didn't hear from him all weekend, which was unusual. I left him a few phone messages which went unreturned. I knew he was going to Christmas Eve church services with his family on Sunday, and I embarrassingly drove the parking lot at all of the evening church services looking for his car - nothing. Feeling desperate and going out of my mind and not even knowing for sure if we are going to my parents' house the next morning, I left him a phone message late in the evening of Christmas Eve telling him that I was worried that I hadn't heard from him and didn't know what was going on the next day and wasn't going to be able to sleep and to please call me when he got the message, no matter what time it was (again, an act of desperation that I know I shouldn't have done).
Well, I couldn't sleep and got up and decided that I would check on the computer to see if I could find her address. Up to this point, I knew where she worked (because an presumeably very immature co-worker called me on my cell phone and asked me if I knew my husband was cheating on me - when I asked my husband about this is when I found out where she worked). However, I didn't ask and he didn't say who exactly it was. I had a feeling but really didn't want to know. Again, I needed to keep this as impersonal as I could in order to deal with it better.
Well, that night I got on the computer to see if I could find the address of who I thought this person might be. I found an address and my detective self drove to the house. I was 75% sure that I wouldn't see his car there. You can imagine the air that was taken out of my sails when I did see his car there. Again, I just went numb. I drove back home in such pain and misery I can't even describe. So from November 15th through that night, I presumed he had been staying with her. He has told me that he also has not told anyone about this, so I knew that that meant he couldn't have been staying with a friend or family member. I didn't know where he was staying but, again, had mustered up everything I had to trust him and to trust that he was, as he told me, taking time to himself to sort through things.
Well, I had a sleepless night that night full of so many emotions, and he finally called a little after 6am on Christmas morning and very defensively told me that he thought the plan was that we were driving down to my parents' house and leaving between 6am and 7am and that he was on his way to the house. I told him I had just been concerned because I hadn't heard from him all weekend and that we had never really confirmed our plans.
So he showed up, and I told him we needed to talk and told him that I had driven there and seen his car. I told him how devastated I was that he had betrayed my trust this whole time and that I now knew why he couldn't even look at me when we talked - he felt guilty. But when I asked him about it, he said he didn't feel guilty and that he didn't know why he didn't. We talked for a few hours, and he agreed (in response to my endless pleas) that we would start doing small things to work on us.
We still drove down to my parents' house that day for Christmas. Back in our early days, sometimes I would perform oral sex on him when we would go on road trips - something I know he really enjoys and that I had not done forever. Well, somehow I mustered up the courage to ask him if it was okay if I did this. I fully expected him to say no, but he said very quickly "do you WANT to?" I told him that I did, and he said I could. I was blown away and so excited, thinking this was going to be a breakthrough.
As part of bettering myself during this hurtful time, I have been reading several books on creating a better sex life as well. I realize now that having a healthy sex life is a critical part of a marriage, and I am determined to figure out what is going on with me and what I need to do to have that. My husband has expressed concern that he doesn't want me to just do this for him, that he wants me to want to do it, and that is was I so desperately want as well.
So when we had our sexual encounter that day, I was very outspoken about what I wanted, and it was phenominal! I have thought back on it often and am so excited, as I now realize that part of my problems are that our sex life was getting so monotonous and predictable that I was bored and wasn't feeling aroused. When I "let myself go" a bit, it helped so much. I was on cloud 9 the rest of the drive to my parents' house.
When we drove home that night, I asked him if he would stay at home that night. He said he would think about it. When we got home, he said he needed to leave for a while. I asked him if he was coming back, and he said "probably." As you might guess, he did not. As you also might guess, I was devasted, and the detective came out, and I drove to see if he was there, and he was. Again, I went numb. I was so devasted, frustrated, angry, sad, etc. To top it all off (and maybe add a bit of humor to this story), my cell phone fell out of my lap when I was checking his car at her house, and I didn't realize it and ran over it when I left...
The next day, I tracked him down in the morning and told him that my cell phone had got on the fritz and that I needed to go over some things with him and could he come to the office. He did, and we talked about things, and he said he had gone to our office for a while and then had gone over to her house. I asked him why, and he said he wanted to talk to her. We talked for a while and agreed that we have lunch together at the office that day and would talk more then.
As hurt as I was, I decided to go out on a limb again, and I went home and got on some lingerie, got candles and some CD's that we used to listen to, etc., and brought it all back up to the office. I didn't want him to think that our encounter the day before was something I had just done for him. I am honestly having more sexual feelings and urges now as I continue to read the books and learn about myself and things I can do to help myself, and I wanted him to know that.
Trembling, I waited for him to show up with lunch. When he arrived, I told him I had all of the fixings for lunch up in my office (we have a home office in a single family house by ourselves). He came to my office and opened the door, let out a big sigh, and sat down in one of the chairs. I have a bed in my office for those late nights and was on it waiting for him. I quickly got up and sat beside him in his chair. He had a few beers, and I have to say that the talk we had the day was the best one we've had since this whole thing happened. He actually TALKED as well, which he hardly ever does. In our discussion, it came out that when he and I had our encounter the day before, he had felt like he was cheating on her and how messed up he thought that was. He said that was part of the reason why he had gone over to her house that night. I felt horrible - both for myself and for her. I guess it was at that point that I began to realize the extent of his feelings for her, and I was hurt and at the same time so furious that he had been telling me this whole time that we were going to give this another shot and was at the same time building a stronger relationship with her. I didn't understand and still don't. He told me during our conversation that he needed to get that part of his heart back from he before he could resume anything with me and that he hoped I respected him for that, which I did and do. It was so hard to hear that and at the same time helped me to understand how much he cares about her. I knew at that point that the battle was going to be harder than I ever anticipated. I felt and feel horrible because I know that he has to break both his heart and her heart to work on things with us. As angry as I am at him for making this choice, I don't want anyone to hurt.
So after a long, productive conversation, he asked me to blow out the candles and to save everything there for later that week, that he would call me to have lunch and I would know what that meant. He was very cordial about it, and I was glad that he at least gave me hope that it would someday happen. We had never made love at the office, and I knew it was something that he had always wanted to do, and I wanted and still want to do that for him/with him.
Feeling devasted and angry and scared and hurt to understand the extent of their relationship and confused because he was still insisting he was going to give me another chance, I kept moving forward and worked on being patient. The next night, I got some beers, since that had seemed to relax him into being able to talk to me the day before, and I talked with him again. We had another relatively good conversation, and he told me that it had meant so much to him that I had "set the mood" the day before and that it had been harder for him to say no than it would have been to say yes. That made me feel good and hopeful. Again, he insisted that he was still going to give us another chance.
I spoke with him again a bit later that night and asked him if he would please come home, that I would be okay if he wanted/needed to see her during the daytime to sort through things but that I wanted him to sleep at home. We had a heated discussion (I'm sure because I was chasing him), and it ended on a horrible note. I told him that I hated to end conversations that way and asked him to please call me back a bit later. He said he would.
I didn't really expect him to call me back, but he did about a half hour later. He said that he was sorry that he had gotten upset earlier (he has not apologized very much for anything during this whole ordeal, so that was a big deal to me). He said that he wanted me to know that he was going to do his very best to sort through things in a timely fashion. I asked him if that meant that he was going to talk with her so that we could have another chance, and he said yes. I thanked him and asked him to do it as soon as he could, as the pain was killing me. He said that he would, and I got off the phone on cloud 9 again. I felt like we were getting close to starting to work on us, although I knew we had a lot of work to do once we got to that point.
Well, that was December 26th, and we're now at January 7th. Ever since I found out on Christmas Eve that he had lied to me and was in fact continuing his relationship with her, I have been an even worse emotional wreck. I ask him constantly for reassurance, cry all the time, feel so insecure, and so very scared of losing him, etc. I had given him my cope of Michele's Divorce Remedy book, as he said he would read the portion on infidelity. He does not like to read, so it made me feel good that he had agreed to take the book. This was maybe a week or two after I found out about what was going on, so back in November. I asked him a few times whether he had read it, and he said he started to and then fell asleep, etc. I haven't brought it up again.
He has been telling me daily since December 26th that he is going to talk with her and resolve things with her and come back home to start working on us but has yet to do so. I keep pressuring and pleading and begging and chasing - nothing happens. He keeps telling me that he's going to do it and then doesn't. I keep begging, he keeps promising, nothing. And he's still staying with her at night.
I had asked him a few days before New Year's if he would work towards resolving things with her before New Year's so that we could start the New Year together. He said that he would work towards that. On the night before New Year's Eve, for some reason he slept at our office instead of at her house. I got to the office that morning and found him there and was so excited, thinking he had finally talked to her and didn't feel like coming home and had slept there instead. (He has slept at the office maybe 3 or 4 times since this ordeal started - I don't know why.) However, when he woke up, I was devasted to learn that that was not the case and that he had not spoken with her yet. I asked him if he would talk with her that day, and he said he'd see. He said he'd like to spend New Year's Eve with me but that he needed to resolve things with her before he could do that. I told him that that is what I wanted as well.
Well, as you might guess, he did not talk to her that day. However, he did go to our house (he stops by once to twice a week when I'm not home to pick up clothes) and left a note on my bed. I had asked him the last time he had stopped by the house to leave a note for me just to say hi, that that would make me happy. However, I had left my request in the form of a message on his cell phone, and he said he didn't get the message before he went to the house. At any rate, on New Year's Eve when he stopped by, he did leave me a note. It said that he wanted to wish me a happy New Year's Eve and New Year and that he was writing the note in tears. He said that he didn't know if he would be reading the note with me or not (at least he was thinking that he MIGHT be home that night). He said he was truly sorry for what he had put me through and was putting me through now and that all he could ask was for me to be patient. I broke down in tears and sobbed. I called him immediately to thank him for the note, and I think he got a little choked up as well. I've read that note about 200 times since then.
Well, I don't know for sure and didn't ask but am presuming that he spent New Year's Eve with her. He didn't call me at all on New Year's Day either. My detective self found his truck parked over by her house but this time several blocks away. I tortured myself all day long driving back over there to see if his truck was still there. It was horrible.
I talked with him again on January 2nd, and he was upbeat. I asked him if he had spoken with her yet, and he said he hadn't, that the timing hadn't been good and that he would tell me more about it later. He said he would make it a priority to talk with her this week. We met for lunch that day, and he told me that it had been her birthday on New Year's Day - great. I was devasted, as I knew he probably spent the whole day with her, and I had had a horrible birthday. But I understood him not wanting to talk with her on her birthday of course. I asked him if he would talk to her that night. He's said he'd play it by ear.
So, as you might guess, it's now January 7th, and still nothing. Last night, he called me around 5 o'clock and said he was leaving work and was going out with some friends to watch the football game. He told me where he was going. I asked him if he was going to talk with her and if he might come home. He said he'd like to talk with her and get things resolved. I told him that I would like that, too, and that I hoped to see him later that night.
Unfortunately, my detective self came out again, and I went to where he said he was going and didn't see his car there. I drove to her house and didn't see his car there either. A few hours later, I drove around again and found his car parked several blocks from her house again.
So, once again, I am numb. I stayed up most of the night last night tossing and turning and trying to figure this out. We have had a trip planned for February for months now (before this all happened). I asked him probably about a month ago if he still wanted to take the trip, and he said he did, that he was confident that things would be okay by then. We also got an opportunity about a month ago to invest in a great real estate investment in the area. I asked him about it, and he said he wanted to do it. I told him that I didn't want to do it if he was unsure of our future, as it involves some close friends, and I didn't want to go through the pain of having to get out of it if things didn't work. He said no, that he was committed and wanted to do it.
So I'm thinking to myself, okay, he wants to be involved in future plans (when he could have easily said he didn't think it was the best thing to do right now), he has NEVER wavered in promising me that he is going to give us another chance no matter what (I even in a desperate moment asked him to promise me on his parents, since I know how much they mean to him, and he did), and he has told me since almost two weeks ago that he is going to talk with her and that it's just hard, can't find the right time, etc.
So I talked with him again this morning, and he again assured me that everything was fine and that we are still on plan to work through things and that he is going to talk to her. I asked him why he had lied to me about where he was going, and he said he guessed that he just didn't want to hurt me, which I appreciate and tried to explain to him that I would rather him be honest with me than to lie to me.
I was in crisis mode once again and begged him to please tell her today for us and for our relationship. He said he would. I asked him to promise, and he did and then stormed out angry (due to my chasing, I'm sure). I followed him (how embarrassing) and asked him again, and he said he would tell me that he was going to do it but that he wouldn't promise me because he didn't know if he was going to go over there or even see her today - that he didn't know if he "wanted" to... He stormed out, and I am, once again, devasted, confused, frustrated, etc.
So I went home and just kept clinging to the fact that he still told me that he is going to talk to her and we're going to have another chance after he's able to talk with her. That is truly the only thing I think that is keeping me from losing my mind right now. So in order to avoid complete meltdown, I just kept thinking about that thought and went back home to attempt to get some sleep. I slept for a couple of hours and then woke up and called him (I know, mistake) and asked him if we could go to dinner tonight after he is done working. He said we could and that he would call me later. I had to call him about a work issue a little while later and asked him, again, if everything is fine, and he says it is.
I then decided I wanted/needed to revisit Michele's Divorce Remedy book. I had forgotten some things in it and just hoped it would give me some more things to work on. So I went to the book store and bought a second copy of it. Boy, was that the best thing I could have done today or what? I sat there and re-read the chapter about infidelity and just thought, wow, am I messing up or what? Ever since Christmas Eve when I found out he was continuing the relationship with her, I have been chasing, pushing, pressuring, crying, etc., etc. I am so upset and hurt and desperate. I am now reminded that if I keep doing that, it is going to continue to get the same negative results I'm getting. Although I feel extremely blessed that he is still hopefully telling me the truth about being willing to give us another chance and that he is going to talk to her "soon," I pray that if I just distance myself now it will be what is needed to make that happen.
So I came up to our office and logged on to this website and decided I would reach out to you all and see if you can help and offer some advice and encouragement. Michele's book doesn't address the specific situation of when a spouse refuses to end the relationship with the other person but says they are going to recommit to the marriage, so I was hoping you could give me some thoughts and advice on your interpretation of the best course of action for me to take from here. I desperately want my marriage back on track and feel so close and am getting so impatient and now am reminded that I absolutely have to back off, no matter how hard it is. Do you think that will do the trick? Any thoughts would be so much appreciated. Thank you in advance.
First off...you really need to condense your post. Too long to read...Second, welcome aboard, sorry you're here, but there are alot of nice people that can guide you.
May I suggest you completely back off from your H. Do not bring up the OW or talk about your R with him. This tends to push him away - it's not helping your situation at all.
Next, get yourself together - no more begging, crying... if you need to drop some weight, do so, make yourself into a sexy woman - not slut - sexy. Change your attitude of accusing him and be nice and loving.
Do not follow him and do not call him - you need to work on the premise that what he does doesn't bother you.
He will end the affair when he's ready...there is nothing you can do to stop it...it will die it's own death.
Keep all conversations with him positive...it sounds like you may talk his ear off too much...short and simple. He will come back to you when he's ready...
Thanks so much for that kick in the butt! Sorry for the long post - since it was my first one, I needed to tell the whole story up until now. Shorter from here on out, I promise!
I will work towards backing off of him, accepting that I won't be perfect. This is definitely the hardest thing I've ever had to do, and I know I need to do it to save my marriage.
Do you think that it's safe to believe his continued promise that he will come back to me when he's ready? I'm so afraid that if I back off of him that he won't think that I care and that he'll think that I'm all right with him just continuing to stay with her. I feel so insecure and lonely.
As far as taking care of me, I know I need to do that. As I mentioned, I did go back to the gym and am eating better and feel great as far as that goes. The two things that he has told me so far that he wants me to work on are obviously the sex drive issue and also that he wants me to be more outgoing. When we first met, I would let my hair down sometimes when we would go out, and now I rarely if ever do so. I want to work on what Michele talks about as far as figuring out what she has that I don't and work on those traits so that he'll notice. However, does anyone have any suggestions on how I can do this? I don't know how to work on the sex drive until he officially comes back to me, as he told me he feels like he's cheating on her if he's with me. Should I maybe buy some new clothes to freshen up my look a little bit? I did wear just the top of a piece of lingerie the other night to surprise him at his office. I showed him and said that I knew he couldn't do anything about it and that I wasn't asking him to but that I just wanted him to know that I was still thinking about it. He didn't seem too thrilled with that... I'm not sure how to show my interest in sex to him in a "safe" way. I certainly don't want him to do anything that he doesn't want to do, yet I want him to see that I'm working on it.
How about the other item of being more outgoing? He has been fine with going out with me to dinner engagements with business colleagues and whatnot, at which point I've made it a point to have a drink or two and let go a bit. Should I continue to do that so that he can see that I'm working on it?
Finally for now, I was thinking of asking him for a "compromise" whereby if he could give me a date that he chooses that he would commit to making sure he resolves things with her that I would not talk to him about it and would give him his space to do what he needs to do. That way, I have the reassurance and security of knowing an end date to this that I can look forward to, which will help me, and he will be left alone by me so that he can sort through this. What do you think?
The whole process of DB'ing is to change all the things you did wrong up and during the affair.
If he wants you to be outgoing more, than do so...sexier, then buy more frilly clothes...change your lingerie into sexy bras and bikinis...wear teddy's under your work clothes.
If he likes your hair long and down...do it...add some of the highlights into the hair...change your look. Wear nail polish, makeup, perfume...change.
Do not set a time frame...he'll only be pressured and you'll be depressed if he doesn't meet the deadline.
NEVER...tell him you are changing...he must see this himself w/o you telling him...it will take a while for him to believe it.
As far as sex...rent 9 1/2 weeks...read books on how to be more sexual...subscribe to Cosmpolitan magazine...
Thanks so much for the advice. I really appreciate it. I guess one of the hard things for me is that I know he already thinks I'm sexy and that he is attracted to me physically - that is not the problem. He told me the other day that any man would be lucky to have me - that made me feel so special. It's not the sexy "look" I guess is what I'm trying to say but rather the actual sex act - or lack of it I should say. So how do I show him that I am working on being more interested in sex itself in a "safe" way?
I will work on being more outgoing. It makes me feel good just to be with him, so I will work on scheduling more engagements for the two of us with others and, without telling him I'm doing it, will work on letting go and being more outgoing on those outings.
Has anyone has their spouse tell them that they were coming back while they were staying with the OP? I'd really love any feedback from someone who has been through this. I want so desperately to believe him when he says he is going to come home... Please help.
But I can't do that. He is not staying at home - he's staying with her! And he told me that he felt guilty when we made love because he felt like he was cheating on her, so I don't want to try to seduce him (well, I actually do want to but respect his position and don't want to hurt him or for him to do anything that he doesn't want to do) but I don't know how to show him that I'm working on my sexual desire issue....
He doesn't live at homw but you do see him quite a bit due to yuor business issues. Take advantage of those times and drive him crazy. Change your look a bit, wear new clothes, make him take notice of what he's missing out on. He doesn't need to stay at the house for this to happen.
Thanks for that thought - that makes sense. I guess my only concern is that I don't want him to think I'm attempting to seduce him since he's said he feels like he would be cheating on her. Or do I want him still to think that I'm seducing him??? I don't want to do the wrong thing...
