Wow, so much to respond to...and I'm not good at doing the "quote thing" on here....
Let me start by saying thank you, Pup, for speaking up. I appreciate it. And, Kat, thanks for your thoughts, too.
Allen....I can honestly say that there is nothing you can say to make me feel worse about what I did. I'm there. I know I have consequences. I face what I did everyday, and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't have regrets. In fact, forgiveness was something I was working on within myself, and I'm not there yet. I don't see it going away ever and people have been telling me I should probably see a counselor because of it.
I feel the anger in your own situation in your post, and I understand why you said things the way you did.
I take what you say with a grain of salt because you don't know me, and you don't know my husband, and you see what I say through the lens of your experience. With that said, I DO listen to what you (and all people who post) say because I need other points of view to LEARN. Ultimately, I make my choices based upon my own thoughts and views and background. It is what a forum like this is for...I see it as a place I can get advice on things, support, and different ways to look at things that I may not see. If it were not for this forum, and some of the posters here at the beginning (Jeff, Hopeful4her, Hope4us, Puppy, Kat, Karen, and Sara, to name just a few) I'm not sure I would have made it. If they had bashed me for making the mistakes I made, instead of helping me, I would have left. I've matured now, and can take what is given me. That being said, Allen, you really decided to let me have it.
Ok, let's try to have a respectful conversation about this. We can maybe learn from one another. Maybe not, though, because I feel like my situation is more involved than most. There are things I didn't share about my H because it isn't something I have control over. I can only control myself and my actions. Whatever my H has done doesn't give me the right to do what I did, and so I keep that to myself. But, you have to know that there are always two sides to every story. Right?
COnsequences. Lack of sex was not a consequence of my affair. There has been lack of sex since the first year of marriage. He never seemed to want it, and I did. The frustration I have is that I want this to change so that I don't get the same feelings I had right before having the affair last time. We talked about our sex life back then, and he knew there were problems but didn't do anything about them. Over 10 years of a lack of sex life, with me asking him to get help, trying to NOT talk about it, trying to talk about it, trying counseling together, trying to initiate, trying not to initiate, reading books, you name it, I tried it. He feels now that he drove me to the affair. I tell him that it was a choice that I made not him, and it was the wrong one, but he knows that the lack of sex did not help. Even with that knowledge, we are still having problems. That's the frustration I am having.
You said that the same thing is happening with you, Allen. Were you in a ssm BEFORE the affair with her wanting it and you not wanting it?
You said, "Ending the affair in your head and heart is the first step to getting there..." Yes. The OM still invades my thoughts. Can you see why? I have not had sex for a year, same old story from the 10+ years before the affair, and I am suppose to not think about the OM. I don't want to. I stop my thoughts as much as I can. When they come up, I stop them, thinking of other things. I pray. And, I will continue to do that.
As for warming my bed with the knowledge that I made the better choice.......I'm used to that, I've been doing that for over 10 years.
I complain. You are saying I have no right. Maybe I don't. I'm just trying to figure out how to fix it or ways to get through it. Maybe someone has been through this and has something that might help me. If not, I am patient and I keep working and praying and I wait...just like I did before the affair.
You said, "Every time I go to bed at night and want to be intimate and your husband isn't interested...guess what...tick off one time you had sex with your affair partner and your husband was out of the loop". I get what you are saying....it is the consequences and what I deserve as payback. I get it. Let me also have you look at it this way: every time he goes to bed at night and sleeps next to me and decides he doesn't want me in the way a lover/spouse should, he builds another brick on my wall of self preservation that I started at 10 years ago when this began. And, he tells me (by his actions) once again that I am not beautiful, not special, not desireable, and not loved.
Endless cycle is what it is.
The OM. My heart tells me to let it lie and leave the past in the past and keep working on my marriage and not let the OM have any power over my marriage. I could bare my soul but it would not help us. I'm suppose to tell him SOME things but not others? If I start telling him things it brings up other things which brings up the past and the past is something I'm trying to move from. IF my H asked me things, I would answer him. H says he doesn't want to. I've talked this over with a priest.
I may eventually think differently, though. I am pondering what Hope and Puppy said. Is keeping this from him something that could keep me away from him emotionally? I'm not sure yet. I think bringing it up would keep him away from my emotionally because he already has other things he is working on in his head (from before the affair). I'm reading the PM book, and then I am going to look into some counseling at least for myself and that may help me see if baring my soul to him about something that I want to keep in my past is a helpful thing. I don't know. I'm still working through it in my head.
