H is having affair after all

[25yearsmlc]

Dear EVD,

So sorry you are here, even though you are in the right place on these boards. Holly06 helped me more than she knows, btw, so listen carefully to what she says. (Plus, she's funny!)

The angrier you show your h you are, the easier it is for him to justify the A. My t said let h see the hurt, not the anger. My DB coach eventually said, (a few months after h left) to be upbeat, applaud loudly for the 1% positive" etc and lots of that stuff you cannot hear right now.

But maybe the hurt and or strength is what you need to show him, if anything. As for wondering about being fun in bed....pleasee...... I will say one thing on MY end though. WHen I'd be angry at h for being late from work (and interpreting it as a sign that he placed more value on work than family, marriage, etc.) I often "welcomed him home with my arms crossed", emotionally if not literally. Thing is, lots of women need to feel close to ML, but lots of men need to ML to feel close....

That's the rub of it. I should instead have welcomed him back to a warm home he''d want to return to. Why on earth did I think being cold would incentivise him to be home? I repeated this unsuccessful behavior for YEARS....and I thought I was a smart woman.

FOR NOW, you need to heal. He fears lots of things, probably the biggest zinger is if he loses contact with the boys (and later maybe he'll care more about the girls, but he knows they're going to know the truth and at some level he feels deep
shame...I also once read that "when men feel guilt, they attack."

So all you have to reassure him of is that you won't keep him from the boys b/c they love him and your love for your boys will always outweigh your anger at your h...and leave it at that. Don't let him play the victim here.

As for OW. YOu have no idea what she's going through. Believe me, she is ACTING and maybe she deserves an Oscar. But I suspect you are seeing cockiness where there isn't much. Not if all the workers and HM know and her h had a stroke. I can see where she'd maybe need some passion and justified an A, but with a married man? She knows more than you realize. The trip will be a nightmare for both of them if any other adults are there. OMG I'd love to be a fly on the wall b/c if other adults know, they'll be mortified. The down side is if you make too big a deal of it, you'll push them together into a "us against the world" type of R, so avoid doing that. LEt them face the consequences of their choices without any punitive comments or involvement from you. Remember, YOUR focus is on your children and your future without h. (Assume no future with h, in a way that closes the door without locking it. You have to make some choices and not give his indecision or cheating or whatev, any power over YOUR future).

You have to contrast your behavior with hers. Yes I mean IGNORE HER B/C SHE IS NOTHING. She is a bandaid over a sucking chest wound in your husband. He's bleeding and she's not fixing it and she does NOT matter at all in your life. Give her NO power over you.

FOcus on being the best mother and woman you can be. Don't go around telling people too much either. It makes you look vindictive and worse, it makes it harder for you to reconcile down the road...that's right. The more people that know, the harder it'll ever be for him to crawl back and even if he did, it'd make it harder for your pride to take him back when the whole world will tell you to drop him.

I think it was Balzac who said "there are no frigid women; only inept men." Don't know if that applies, but it could.

Again, listen to the experts on this. For now, it's all about YOU baby. Enforce the boundaries. You have to. It's a 180' for you and YOU NEED to do it for you and the kids. And maybe even the M.
((( hugs from across the ocean and a whole continent too )))
j-