Be mature enough to recognize that life is not always all about you and what feels good for you in the moment. If you are married and have children, you have an obligation and a commitment that far transcends what feels good.
I love ^ this too!! Very true in many areas in life not just marriage.
Me: 28 H: 32 1st marriage 4 both 1 1/2 year married 2gether for 9 1S: 6months 1stepson: 2yo
But seriously whatnow, I strongly reccomend that if you have a member of your support system that wants to approach your WS who is cheating that you do what you can to educate them on your boundaries and what you will accept being said and what you wont' accept
But, I prefer giving them a script as above... they will usually improvise... but if you give them a script to start from its better than just letting them rip into him blind, they may say something that does damage
When you have a support system member go after your WS, they are acting as an INFORMAL FAMILY THERAPIST
This being the case, the same advice applies that I recommend for the formal FT :
1. KNOW their boundaries 2. KNOW what they will say to WS 3. KNOW what they wont' say to WS 4. KNOW their goals 5. KNOW their plan
All of that applies to both a formal FT going IN, BEFORE the WS talks to them, and this applies to informal FT support group members who wish to approach the cheating spouse
You need to MANAGE the AFFAIR-BUSTING process.. don't hand it over to someone else to manage for you... keep on top of it at all times
Its' ok to have others do work for you, particularly if you are in protection phase that's a must... but you need to be sure WHAT they will be DOING...
It's just like managing any other project in the workplace... you delegate the workload to your team, make sure everyone knows the goal and how you plan on that being achieved
So yes, hand them a script if needs be, or at the very least a list of points you want to get across... the Protection Phase Letter you send your WS is a great start to educating your support group members on where you are at and where you are aiming to end up.
Be mature enough to recognize that life is not always all about you and what feels good for you in the moment. If you are married and have children, you have an obligation and a commitment that far transcends what feels good.
I love ^ this too!! Very true in many areas in life not just marriage.
Yes, its more or less saying "grow up"... but its one of my favourite truth darts because WS's almsot ALWAYS argue from the position of how THEY FEEL
WS : I am sad, I am lost.. I want a divorce AS : Well guess what, your KIDS and WIFE get a vote on that TOO. It's NOT just about how YOU FEEL... a FAMILY is divorcing here, not just YOU.
That sort of thing.. I LOVE throwing that statemetn out, it pretty much completely disarms a WS in argument... I can't think off the top of my head an argument a WS in an affair has made that wasn't about how they felt in some way.. this statement pretty much TRAMPLES all of that in one fell swoop of the pen
Oh and mb28, him changing his facebook status may very well have been prompted by a fight with OW... she may have saw you on there and had a fight with him and he ended up changing it to shut her up
Honeslty, you have no idea what's driving things on his end...
I suspect it was to soften his guilt, but it could just as easily be to keep OW from complaining...
I also believe to soften the guilt- they will do anything to create the "reality" that their M is already dead, so they can justify doing what they're doing.
W did it too...
Sad part is you cannot argue the point that there is still a M...very very sad- but that's on them
The thing is Maynard, you have to dig for the positives, you always have to dig for those every day... its like mining for gold... you end up covered in dirt but if you persevere you will find something worthwhile...
If you look at mb28's husband, he's shown a lot of guilt, so I suspect that's why he flipped the status. But more importantly, he hasn't posted anything about OW on there publically either... so there IS SHAME as well.
But most important is that where there IS guilt there is shame, and where there IS shame, there is also hope.
Your husband is showing signs of his conscience getting the better of him.
He does NOT want to keep the current state of affairs (excuse the pun), he clearly wants to make somthing happen asap. So mb28 you know this won't last much longer as he is under stress as well. There ARE some spouses who have little inhibitions about what they are doing and look like they could keep up their affairs almost indefiitely... those are SERIOUS cases where there is a much taller mountain to climb.
In your situation mb28 your H just needs a nudge to what DIRECTION to take to end the pain... he is looking at D and he is looking at R with you and they both cause him panic, but he hates where he is NOW as well so... He isn't giong to keep this up for much longer...
All he needs is to be gently nudged (or maybe not so gently) nudged twoards a reconcilliation through FT sessions. He just needs some nudging there, he clearly wants his pain to stop.. We just need to make sure he doens't decide to take the D route to try to end that... your friends have so far done a great job warning him that D will NOT end anyone's pain and will just make things a LOT WORSE. I believe he knows that... but the more times he hears that from more people the better.
So, if you push HARD for protection phase YOU are safely working on yoru life and your children and your school work. While you are enjoying your life your husband wrestles with his conscience and his addictions and just goes through mroe stress...
THIS is the IDEAL... where YOU are minimally affected and HE has the weight of the world on his shoulders and yoru friends are working on him daily...
YOU are not exposed to any of that... that is the ideal... YOU are healthy while he gets more ill by the day...
THAT is what you want to aim for ... THAT is what is going to bring an end to this thing...
YOU can't fight an affair if you are ill... and being exposed to him and his affair will make you ill... i think I lasted about six months before I started to get headaches, back pain, and nausea...
But I didn't protect myself well at all... just steer clear of him and let him get worse... he will do the rignt thing I am confident of it.
Immaturity is stubborn, and he's rife with it right now unfortunately... but the adult in himi is pushing hard to come out, that in my opinion is why he's so ill... The adult in him wants free and he's fighting it.
me,34 exH,34 S,16 months S:3/31/09-left for OW started DBing 10/09 d final: sometime 10/10 current: http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2022856&page=1 met in 2004
