Hi grant, I'm Sandi and was an AWAW. You asked me to drop by your thread and look at your stitch. I had tried to take a few days off from the board b/c I was spending too much time here every night. Even though I want to help others, it doesn't help my stitch to not spend enough time with my H and other family members. But, it sure is hard to feel like you leave people "hanging".
I don't know if you have read my thread, but I have been M for many years....over 42 years now. So, yeah, you are talking to an old woman.(lol) Not really, I was just a babe when I married. Anway, we had problems from the beginning and most of it was about sex. No matter what I thought the issue was that we needed to talk about, he always brought it back to not enough sex. Well, I begin to resent it more and more as the years went by. I did everything that all the popular M books told me to do to keep my M "alive" and to have fun in the M and to please me H.....so and so forth. But, no matter what I did, it never seem to be enough or else it would backfire in my face.
When our first grandchild was born, he lived with us for a while and that was when my H first started to sleep with the grandson instead of in the bed with me. B/c that was what the GS wanted. They would watch TV until they fell asleep. Then it got to where if/when my H came to bed, he had developed the snoring problem by then....and it would keep me awake. So, he used that as an excuse not to sleep with me. I always wanted to have the intimacy and especially the words of affirmation (which was my LL) but my H did not talk! So, I got neither the words nor sleeping together. So, for about 20 years, no bed partner for me! I can tell you that a couple can grow apart like this b/c the only time he came into the bedroom was to have sex and it made me feel like a prostitute. I resented him more and more. I prayed for years and years for God to give me the "desire" that a wife should have for her H. So, finally God answered my prayers. I just knew everything would be wonderful. (Realize that I am leaving out so much history here b/c it's too long.) Well, it was nice for about ......almost three months and then, my H suddenly, without a word of explanation, just stopped ML to me. That was that! No more sex in 12 years! Whenever I would try to talk to him about it......I got a flimsy excuse that made no sense to me at all. So, I thought he could not perform any longer due to a heart surgery he had had and the medication he was taking for other problems. I didn't press it matter, but thoght how ironic the entire thing was that he complained about me being frigid all those years and then he can't perform! I almost wanted to reverse the treatment on him that he had given me. I did get in a few snide remarks to let him know how it felt, but that just wasn't going to do, so I didn't say anything more.
Anyway, after that, I was on anti-depression meds plus a lot of other stuff b/c I have Fibromyalgia. Guess it was all the meds combined or else the AD's but I just felt dead inside. I also felt like I was dying a slow death....physically.
To try to make a long story shorter, certain circumstances happened and I would come to the computer room and play on-line games to get away from my painful reality. That is when I learned that you could "flirt" with OP on line and it was like......okay, b/c they didn't know you and you didn't know them. It was fun, felt a little naughty, but I got a "thrill" out of it. Do you have any idea how long it had been since I had felt "anything"? Much less a "thrill"! I had always been to "proper" to be naughty or to feel a thrill!
So, after a while, I went farther into things and I found an adult site--and the rest is history. My H found out....due to my stupidy and thinking he did not know anything about computers and couldn't trace what I had been doing. He confronted me and demanded that I delete everyone from my IM list. He laid a very heavy guilt trip on me and made me feel lower than dirt. So, like a good little girl obeying her daddy, I went and did what he said. And then I cried all night long b/c I did know what I had to look forward to anymore. Then a couple of nights later when on the computer.....one of the men that I had deleted, somehow was able to reach me. I suppose he saw when I came on line.....I don't know....but I grabbed hold of him and didn't let go. So, then we begin to get better aquainted and it was leading to some very sexual language. Guess what? My H discovered that too. He spied on me, snooped through my things, tried to lay traps for me (I felt like anyway) and would come and stand behind me while I was on the computer. It would make me furious. I almost felt hatred for him! So finally, it all hit the fan and he said he would never give me a divorce. He was screaming at me and I saw a side of him I had never seen before and I hated it. I left to go to my mother's and he called her before I got there to tell her to make sure I told her "all of the story"! Can you imagine how I felt when she told me that? Do you think he won any brownie points with me? Do you have any idea how I felt telling my elderly mother about me having an EA with another man on-line? I had been the "good" daughter! I will never forget the shock and hurt in her face when I told her. Did I ever consider all of that while I was in the mist of my "thing" with OM on-line? Of course not. You are insane at the time......one doesn't think of rational things.
Then, as I was crying, she told me that I would always be her baby (at 59....lol) and that she knew how things had been between my H and I and she did not approve of what I had done, but she understood how I was reaching out to somebody to fulfill the emotional needs that my H had never done since the first day we were married. My mother and I had always been close, so I had talked to her many times over the years about my stitich.
Well, I went back home that very night, but it wasn't b/c I wanted to. I really debated about whether to stay or leave. I was miserable. Talk about being in limbo! He did not make things easier b/c he was so angry and bitter and acted so "self-righteous" and even told me that he had never done anything wrong! I had cheated. I had had an affair. I never had a PA.....never even met the man in person, but as far as my H was concerned, I had committed adultry.
I have already taken up too much time tonight, so I will tell you more later. But, I remember how terrible and miserable I felt day in and day out. I would get up with the intentions of making my M work and by noon be having doubts and by the end of the work day....would be trying to figure how I could support myself if I moved out. I never left, but I can tell you it has not been easy. I stayed....not b/c I wanted to, but b/c I had to. There were other circumstances that influenced my decision, but to say that it was out of love for my H would not be the truth. Mainly b/c I didn't even know if I did love him or if I had ever loved him. Sound familiar? That is how a WAW starts to think and that is why she starts to rewrite her history with her H. She doubts the feelings that she ever had for him. The thought of starting over in a brand new R with OM seemed a lot easier than to remain in this awful old R with this H that I didn't even know if I loved anymore. That is where you will find most WAW's.....right there.....in tha state of limbo. It is horrible and I never want to experience it again. I saw the OM as my knight in shinning armour. That is how a lot of WAW's see their OM. They are in a "fog" and it takes longer than any three months, or whatever some people will tell you, to get over it.....if you truly were in emotionally deep with that person.
Well, I will talk to you more later.....and try to get into your stitch, but wanted to tell you a little about mine.
Take care, Sandi
It is not about what you feel should work in your M. It is about doing the work that gets the right results. Do what works!
