If you do want to confront him Pass, here is some excellent hard core advice from Phil McGraw's site that I consider to be excellent.. he's a VERY direct therapist, he' doesn't mince words. You may wnat to cut some out that isn't relevant. Your call
Advice to Cheaters:
Look at the statistics. The chance of a successful relationship born of infidelity is not even one in 100. A marriage that starts in infidelity has no foundation. You go into it with guilt, shame, angst, worry, and all the baggage that comes with that. Add to that managing your ex and going through possible custody battles for children. Is it worth it?
Think of the children. If you have children and you are cheating on your spouse, your children will suffer. You are turning their lives upside down, fracturing their family unit and destroying their peace and harmony.
Think ahead to what the courts might think of you as a parent. You may think your partner wouldn't fight you on custody, but people change when they get into a divorce court. Your spouse might just decide that the person who stole his/her partner will not steal the children as well. If you enter the divorce arena in the midst of infidelity, you have put your children in play. Again, ask yourself, is it worth it?
If the person you are having an affair with is married with children, ask yourself, "What right do I have to fracture his/her family unit in which innocent children are growing every day, just to feed my need?"
Be honest with yourself. Is the unfaithfulness over with? Moving forward, do you absolutely and unequivocally have nothing to hide? You'll never get past this until you start being drop-dead honest. Remember, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. If you don't think you can stop on your own, get professional help.
Be honest with your partner. By not being honest with yourself and your partner, you're doing nothing but perpetuating the deception. If you know that you will continue to be unfaithful, and if you really care about your partner, you will let him/her go and get yourself some help.
Accept responsibility. Have the decency to tell your spouse in all honesty and candor that you own your choices. You're the one who ran this relationship off in the ditch. This had nothing to do with your partner. If you want to fix your marriage, you have to accept responsibility and do whatever it takes to earn your partner's trust back one step at a time.
Assess your commitment level. Are you committed enough to your partner in order to do the work necessary in order to repair the relationship? However long it takes to get this relationship back on the road, is however long you need to work at it.
Behave your way to success. Keep in mind, you can no longer be in contact with the person you were having an affair with. Avoid the places you know he/she frequents, change your phone numbers, and if you're unsure of your strength in staying away from him/her, then move. If you're so out of control that you're like a moth to a flame, then get away from the candle!
Turn toward your partner. When your life or relationship becomes rocky and affects your sexual relationship, that is the time you should turn toward your partner, not away from him/her because of your sexual needs.
Re-engineer your life. If you are a sex addict, and you really want to change this, it's not a quick fix. It's an entire reengineering of your life, values, beliefs, thoughts, conduct and emotions. It's about deconstructing your life, and reconstructing your future. Unless you get professional help, you're going to continue to victimize everybody who you touch because you're controlled by your impulses rather than your values.
I would keep your statements short and sweet. I had a list of reasons like what Allen A posted that I told my W and after I rattled them off. She just shrugged and said she just didn't feel like being M any more.
Well that pretty much killed on my "reasons".
M-43 W-40 2D - 9 and 5
Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet a new life.
Thanks Allen. What do you think about the whole "H runs from problems and if I take away all his support he'll only run to her" thing? To be honest, that was one thing I really worried about.
Looking back at the last time, I did a total DB as best as anyone could. I KNEW the whole time that we were going to make it through. What worries me the most is that he's introduced her to his friends. That's how he brought me into his life. However, he's still planning on going to Retro, so it's weird.. either he doesn't want to "hurt" me or he wants to look like he tried everything. However, the nice girl thing did work for me before.
Worried about it backfiring, and now I'm more worried about it. He is not able to handle conflict at all, but then again, he has that deep need to be respected and admired by friends and family, so that may be a heavy thing also. Oh, I'm going crazy.
Remember the points I posted should go ALONG WITH consequences.
When you confront your spouse about their infidelity consequences are your negotiating currency.
You can list the poitns above, but you NEGOTIATE with consequences.
If you have no consequences for them, you are asking them to quit their addiction free of charge, and they won't give you that for free... you have to buy it with the threat of consequences.
"However, he's still planning on going to Retro, so it's weird.. either he doesn't want to "hurt" me or he wants to look like he tried everything."
That's exactly why he's going. It's to clear HIS conscience not to soothe you. He's going so he can tell his buddies "hey I did everything I could".
It's why you should bust up his little fantasy beforehand. Besides R won't work if he's not honest. Stand firm and confront him about the OW. It doesn't have to be the full blown intervention, but talking to him calmly yet firmly to show your strength and resolve is what's going to help.
M-43 W-40 2D - 9 and 5
Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet a new life.
Thanks Allen. What do you think about the whole "H runs from problems and if I take away all his support he'll only run to her" thing? To be honest, that was one thing I really worried about.
I'm not Allen, but I'll tell you what I think anyway.
To me, that's the beauty of boundaries, or -- as I like to call them -- "My Boundaries of Personal Integrity." Only YOU know what they are, but they should be a very short list; your "dealbreakers," as it were . . . those things that you, as a person with your values, morals and ethics, simply CANNOT ABIDE.
And this is how it works, in practical application: If you decide that "I will not live in an open marriage," and you state that as a boundary to a cheating spouse, and if that drives them away from you, and toward the other person? Well, then that's THEIR CHOICE, and them cheating -- and staying with me -- wasn't an option for me anyway, based on my own authenticity and values, so what have I lost? All I've lost in that instance is something that I could not have abided anyway.
"You must choose between her or me" is an ULTIMATUM. It's about THEM.
Boundaries should be about YOU -- "I will not live in an open marriage." It's then up to the other person to decide what to DO with that information you've now shared with them, so seriously.
