How do they look themselves in the mirror 4?

[tpaschal]

Yea, H and I had sex a lot after I found out about the A...Then 6 months later I got the ILYBINILWY speech, then nothing..no hugs, nothing...he would pull his shoulder in if he walked by me..I often wonder if it is the OW who is telling them not to touch us...or if they are afraid they might actually feel something for us and that would defeat their purpose of wanting out...who knows...maybe I go back to school to study getting in to the mind of a MLCer..hmmmmmmmmm

Treese,

I've just recently started posting but have followed several of the threads on this board for a while. So....hello!

Yes, my H has told me many times that "this has nothing to do with OW." "I would have left even if she was never in the picture." "I've been unhappy for years."

Oh, please! She is just a symptom, yes, but he is such a procrastinator, so passive, so conflict avoidant, and stuck so close to home that I really, really doubt he would have ever gone looking for an affair. But when she saw him every day at his office and took advantage of that to throw herself at him, well, yeah, she fit in very neatly to his MLC. From what I saw, he didn't think of himself as being miserably unhappy until she came along tell him how miserably unhappy he was. He even said in letters to her (I saw when he still lived at home) that it was "only through talking with her that he saw the problems in his marriage and how he deserved more." Blech.

Dude, don't ya think that maybe, just maybe, she had her own agenda for makin' ya think that????

Geesh! Where are these guys heads??? No, wait, don't answer that! LOL! I almost bust out laughing when my psychiatrist, who is a very devout Christan husband and father, said that a lot of problems happen cause men can only think with one head at a time, and right now my H is thinking with the wrong one!

My H and I continued to have a great sex life for a couple of months after the bomb, but nothing after he moved out. He has hugged me once or twice since he moved out, but mainly because I asked and he felt....guilty? sorry for me?

I'm not sure why it is that they can't touch us, even casually or accidentally. Cooties? Maybe. Disgust at us? Disgust at themselves?

Honestly? Sometimes I think it's because touching us or having any feelings toward us would mean unfaithfulness to the OW. Isn't that sick?

Or it could just be basic dislike. Right now they think we are the root of all their problems. They don't like us. Do you want someone you don't like (a problematic coworker or neighbor, for instance) touching you?

oh, and, I thought him leaving was hard, and it was but this acting as if is soooo draining...smiling when you want to cry..wow...it takes a lot out of you even in an hours time..

Treese

Yes, this is exactly how I feel right now. Actually, I'm at the point right now where it's almost a relief when he leaves. I can let my guard down again. I hate feeling nervous in my own home when he's here, and I hate feeling nervous around the person that I shared EVERYTHING with for 21 years. <sigh> Actually, I hate ALL of this.