I think you are right. The affection that may be a positive in some sitch's is a neutral in yours and mine. I'm sick of it.. I'm sick of feeling like crap all time.. I'm sick of his f'ing cell phone.. I'm sick of him and his feelings of entitlement.. I'm sick of carrying his "secret" and his shame around on my shoulders.
It's not even that the affection isn't positive, per say -- it's just that our spouses are OK with loving two people. They are crazy about the OP and sort of attached to us in some way. It's because we view ourselves as disposeable that we get treated as disposeable. The reason it goes on is because we allow it to. So positive things are positive, but it doesn't mean the situation is moving foward. It's just stuck. Positives: you get a hug. Negatives: He's still having an affair.
Here are a couple of things to keep in mind.
1. You can tell his dirty little secret to HIS family if you want to. It may not achieve the result you want, but, come on, Olive, what's he going to do? Move out? We've already seen that he won't do it. Remember you have tremendous power in your hands. You are just afraid to use it. You can tell whomever you want. It's your strategic advantage to be quiet about it now -- but you can talk, whenever you want to to WHOMEVER you want to.
2. Yes, he thinks he's the only one who has the right to have an affair.
3. You don't need to feel like crap all the time. It's going to end one of two ways: he ends it, and, perhaps part of you will always feel like he "did this" to you. He had an affair and left you. Or, as part of your DB efforts it ends when you give him an ultimatum which he refuses to comply with. At least in the second scenario, you had the control. He had an affair, he wouldn't end it, and YOU left him. In addition, as you leave, you get to launch the biggest sh*t-storm in his miserable life -- exposing the affair and losing you.
4. I'm feeling what you feel. We have lost our sense of self. Our desire to give out children an umbroken home, our love for our spouses, even our fear, have led us to become shells of our former selves. The fact that we can take such abuse it sickening. I'm speaking to myself here, too, Olive. I'm just beginning to get mega pissed off.
5. Let's look at this constuctively. Our spouses have gone, we think, temporarily insane. They are on a path of self-destruction and are willing to drag everyone down this path. Our patience and love and GAL is our gift to them, perhaps, to help them snap out of it.
The possibility is always present that they may never snap out of it. Some people stay stuck in a phase of narcissism and sense of entitlement for the rest of our lives.
6. What's left for us to do? Well -- as we know, GAL and grow to be people that we are proud of. People who we've always wanted to be. People that don't really worry about the crazy-making of our spouses and who can focus on the good things in OUR lives.
However, we know, deep down, that the kind of people we want to be are not the kind of people that would allow an affair to go on indefinitely without some serious boundaries and some serious ultimatums.
