Sandi- Thank you so much for posting. No, it's not a "cover up" in case I might change my mind toward OM. I'm in this marriage for the long haul. I will never leave him. I'm absolutely positive of that. I'm just working on this as best as I can. True, about keeping the emails. They are gone.
Thank you for the validation on the OM thoughts I am having. I'm stopping them as quickly as I can, but I would be lying if I said they don't come into my mind. I am doing my best. I do feel I made the right decision in staying in my marriage. I just don't want to live the way we did before. It's going to take a long time, and I know this. I'm not going anywhere.
I posted to see if there was any advice regarding what I am going through and how to make it through. You're right that the former WAW does hurt. I'm frustrated that this thing had gone on so long before (10 years or more) and this was his problem. I couldn't do anything to fix it, it had to be him....and it is still here. Just frustrated. He's open to doing what he needs to do. I was expressing my feelings about it. I think he'd go to MC if I asked him to. We are both kind of wondering what direction to take. So, based upon some other advice, we are reading books first, and then we will go from there. There is a part of me that thinks if we "break the seal" on the no sex thing, that we will be fine slowly but surely. WE are both so scared about it. THIS Is the main issue here...not the OM.
Thanks again, Sandi, I was hoping you would post.
Sandi, Saffie, Puppy, Allen, and Karen...about the OM. You got me thinking. My decision on this I do not take lightly. I'll think aloud: Sandi is right, it could make matters a lot worse. It will cause unnecessary pain. Saffie says by not telling I will be treating him like a child. Because I'm censoring what I tell him, right? Yeah, I can see that....but even if I tell him that he contacted me, I would have to censor other things anyway....should I tell him that he works 3 blocks away, that I still think about him off and on, all of the past things he and I did and said, etc....all of which he already told me he didn't want to talk about and he wanted to leave the past in the past (He said this before Retrouvaille, and reiterated it again after)....I know my H. He is not like Puppy or Hope or Allen (from what I gather so far). This would not help him, this would cause him pain. Unnecessarily. If I was swaying and thinking OM might be the man I want to be with again, and feel like I was second guessing myself...that would be different. But, I'm not. I know what Saffie is saying that if it were her, she would feel happy that her spouse was open with her. I guess my H would, too, but only that point would make him happy.....then, about 30 minutes later the pain and thoughts would set it and that would last forever. I've hurt him so much already.
Puppy says it is most important how my H sees it. If I was hiding this because I thought, as Sandi said, that OM might be a possibility in the future...he would see me not telling him as bad. But my reason is because I don't want to hurt him more. So, I would see that as loving. Ok, the kicker is the intimacy. Will me not tell him destroy intimacy? I'm not sure if the pain will help or worsen intimacy. I don't know....
Allen says that it is best learning it from me if he ever finds out. Probably, and yet it would be worth the chance that he never has to find out because if he did he would understand why I didn't tell him those things. The hurt would not be offset by my voluntary honesty....I'm not worried about me, here, I'm worried about my H. I think he would respect me and be "ok" about hearing this..there would be no anger and I would even bet he would be kind and caring as I told him....but then, he has to add this to the whole other slew of things in his head that he deals with as it is. You just don't understand or know him in that way.
Karen said I should change my info. H knows OM could contact my home phone. I suggested we change it earlier and he did not want to. I could change my email. He never had it, but it is my name so that's how he must have figured it out. I will do that.
Ok..still thinking out loud....if I tell him JUSt that he contacted me...by email and phone...he will want to know what he said and when and what I did...I would tell him all of that. Then, he is hurt and it will play in his mind over and over just like the very small things he DID ask and I answered about the OM earlier on...which he later said he did not want to know and wished he never asked. He is not like most in that he didn't NEED to know specific things in order to move on. In that After the Affair book it talks about how some need to know and some don't. I have to deal with my thoughts daily and it is sooo hard, why put my H through this???? I just don't see it as the right thing to do. Our SSm was wayyyyy before the A and this will not help. It will worsen my H's issues.
I'm not trying to hide something from him because I'm up to no good, I'm trying to keep him from getting hurt. Allen says IF he finds out.....I don't think the good outweighs the bad......I'm going to mull it over some more.....
