Bob, now you are the one making my head spin! just kidding.
okay I feel like you are extremely focussed on her not working on things. and I understand your feelings. You sound so much like my H back then. I think you are kind of having tunnel vision just a little here. You are so focussed on for the connection to come back she can have no contact with the om. I think you have this set in your mind and you want me to confirm it for you. I feel like you are missing the part about how you need to be friends first! They got a connection by being friends. You and her got a connection in the begining by being friends didnt you? Have you read Davids story? His W was involved with another man and he helped her pack to go on vacation with this om! He was being her friend. They are a success story today! There is not just one path to take.
okay let me point something out to you rearanging the order of your own words here: "We are past discovery (though they still talk on a limited basis) and now trying to get into recovery." "But that does not change her feelings and attraction to OM."
Just because you are past discovery dosnt mean she is past her feelings. She still has to let go. reread my above posts where I talked to you about what I went through.
1 step at a time. First she must let go of other man and SHE must make this decision. you want her to open up to you and discuss feelings etc. yet she is confused and probably dosnt feel very safe doing that with you yet. you are on the other side of her wall. This wall must be taken down by her. to get there you must become friends first. She needs to learn to trust you with her feelings.( I know your trust in her has been destroyed as well but you are asking me about her so I am trying to help you understand whats going on with her okay?)
She had a relationship and she needs to go through the mourning and letting go. before she can really move forward in her relationship with you. ( sorry I know that was a painful one to hear) This does not mean you cant work on your friendship with her.
I think her talking to him at all drives you crazy and you just want that to stop completely and for her to never talk to him again and make it clear to this om that she has chosen you and he is not closer to her then you are and you want her to make you feel secure in that as well. And you have every right to feel this way its totally understandable if this is how you feel. Really ask yourself what your true feelings and motivations are. Is it that it hurts like hell to know she talks to him and so you want to use the we are working on recovery so therefore you cant talk to him, as a way to control your pain?
"The problem is that she is not really putting any effort into the recovery process."
This is your view from your perspective right? Maybe she is not ready to do what you feel you both need to be doing to recover. remember how I felt: later when I was ending it I had to deal with those feelings of letting go and that made it hard to be around my H. I had to keep up a fasad of being okay when I just felt so torn apart and hurt so bad inside. I didnt feel I could let go and get over the om because my feelings felt like I just couldnt control how I felt and I just didnt think it would go away. After truly letting go and getting over it it was then easier to go out with my H.
also remember: Backing off I am sure is helping, you just probably cant see it because she isnt showing it in an obvious way. She is very confused right now and she undoubtley has walls up between you because she probably dosnt want to hurt you with her turmoil that she just dosnt understand. Thats how I felt.
You asked: " As I said before, how do you get a connection with someone back if you don't do the things it takes to connect with them again. How can you fully be in recovery if you still have feelings for OM."
ahhhhhh!!!!!! you are killing me here! remember work on being friends first. you want to give her a safe place. What exactly does it take to connect with someone to you? Do you expect her to turn off her feelings for the om? I am not sure what to tell you there, ask your counselor. I am just a regular housewife who has been through alot and worked very hard to get out of where I was at and move forward in my journey.
"We are 6 weeks past her admission of EA and things have gotten worse and not better. We are no further along then we where when we started couseling in June."
hmmm. okay let me tell you this. My H pressured me into mc before I was ready. things got much worse after we started going. I hadnt forgiven the past and didnt know how to let it go. So listening to him talk about being hurt by my actions of the ea just made my blood boil! it brought the past back for me with avengence. I needed further personal counseling but my H was going nuts so worried about what my feelings were and how we seemed we were getting further apart. He drove me crazy. I understand the intense desperation and turmoil he was going through but it did not help matters at all as far as bringing us together. it was through my own thoughts and my personal counseling that I decided to let go of the om. My counselor and I talked through so much and what ifs etc. then he told me you need to make a decision and stick to it. I made the decision to let go of him. For a long time my H tried to control that part. When all was out in the open it was quite ugly! and I was ordered to never talk to him again and he was ordered to never talk to me again. it was awful. It was left with such an open book and no closure. so many questions making my head spin. The more hell my H gave me the more I wanted to talk to the om again. During MC, it got so incredibly hard on me I started talking to om again, I just felt I needed his friendship and suport I couldnt imagine life with out him. I didnt have feelings for my H other then anger and a lot of pain, and yet was trying to work things out with him for the kids sake. I had feelings for another man that was forbidden, how in the hell was I suposed to do this? I was overwhelmed. it was too much for me to grasp at the time. I had to take it one step at a time. I was afraid to let go of om. I prayed for my feelings for him to go away and that made me so incredibly sad. it was a horrible place I was in and I felt I was asking myself to do the impossible. I had to stop looking at counseling as the ultimate goal was to love my H and spend the rest of my life with him because that was scary to me as well. BTW, it was a year after discovery that I finally let go of my feelings for om!
Her feelings are out of your control other then you should try to provide a safe place to talk to and open to. Dont push her or put pressure on her she needs time to heal.
"She sees the good things happening she tells me yet there is no reaction." It takes time! I went through the same thing! the pressure needs to be taken off as well, not just by you but her as well. She needs to not pressure herself to suddenly have these deep feelings for you back. Theres hurt to forgive and overcome and let go, and the feelings for om to let go of.
"OM's wife called me today to see how we where doing. She says that things are no better in their house. OM keeps talking about the past with her etc." He is going through the same thing I am sure. I know the om and his w were going through a D a few months after discovery and you know what, she was having an affair for over a year. there were problems in their marriage before!
Found out the day after discovery they spent 2 hours on the phone, probably planning the story they where going to spin to both of us." Okay what would you do in their place, how would you feel? whats done is done thats past dont even bother with it!
"What do you think would have happened had you not had an EA?" I think I would have left my H. The EA enabled me to prolong my misery in my marriage. He suported me and kept me going at a time when I was so broken down. I felt I was drownding and he put a hand out to me. I had already planned on leaving. I wanted my kids to have their family though.
" Do you think that everything would have come to a head with hub?" what do you mean? not sure I understand. what I think is I would have left and he would have broken down like he did and got help to keep him from losing his family and i think our recovery time would have been much easier. It definitly made things much harder!!! but also forced my H to realize just how bad he was treating me. just like many here at the board have learned the hard way.
" How long did you guys talk on the phone?" we talked several hours a day everyday. he would call me early in the morning after I got back from taking the kids to school and we would stay on the phone all day until it was time for me to go get the kids from school. He was working nights. We both cleaned our houses while we talked. and he wrote me every night. and he called me from work when he worked OT during the day, and from pay phones if his W was at the house.
that there is a big life change as well. they were used to talking and being there for each other and comforting and suporting one another through everything. then to have it suddenly gone - its hard!
I was totally honest with my H and told him all he asked. Really that didnt do any good, just gave him things to dwell on and throw at me in anger.
its so sad what can happen. That must be so incredibly hard on you to have them accross the street. I cant even imagine!
My om WAS my H's life long closest friend from when they were 4 yo., and he lived 2 hours away. He lives where we are from so when we go back home to visit family its painful for both my H and I. I really didnt think our feelings would go where they did, we were just friends, until we noticed the feelings just really snuck up on both of us. When we talked the several hours a day everyday that was later when we both realized what our feelings were and he was going through the D and I was planning on leaving my H as soon as he was stable enough. I feared leaving him he was very unstable and the om was very concerend about my safety of staying with him. I never thought it was possible to get to where we are now. I had a hard time forcing myself to keep trying here I wanted to give up countless times. I knew I didnt want to make a decision such as to split this family up without first trying to forgive my H, and let go of the pain and anger of the past. Then I thought when I did that then we could really focus on salvaging our relationship. after doing that I was able to see my H's changes with a positive view rather then a negative view. (see Rondos thread "she dropped the bomb")
oh gosh do I hope this helps it took me quite a long time to type this and thinking about the past dosnt feel very good, but I sure do feel thankful I am not there anymore!
You are right its much easier for you two to work on your relationship and move forward if the om is out of the picture, that is up to her to do that because she wants to in her heart not because she hased to because you said so or the counselor said so. Otherwise the What Ifs will make her head spin. I came to the conclusion that you can never know which path is the best path so you just have to make the best decision you can and stand by it. sure you can always look back and think well it would have probably been better to take the other path, but you just dont know until you walk it.
what helped me was listening to my heart and not my emotions, there is a diference. right and wrong is written on your heart and acting on emotions will get you no where fast!
First off thank you for taking the time to give me your thoughts. They are very honest and very much appreciated. I hope this forum does not bring up too many bad feelings for you. I hope you find comfort that you are helping people like myself through a very very tough time. You are a very strong person and should be proud of how you have evolved through some very tough times. So from the bottom of my heart I want to thank you for your thoughts.
Sue, I have been trying to be her friend for most of the year. I guess the problem was that she was in an EA and did not really care that I was trying to be her friend. In fact it made her mad when I was nice because she did not have an excuse to be nasty to me.
You right I probably do make your head spin because so does mine all the time. They say time heals all wounds. But I must say having someone right across the street from you, kids going to the same preschool, playgroup and him being a stay at home dad make it very tough.
I really think that the only way maybe to get into recovery is to move away from him. Otherwise there is still way too much contact with him. It sounds like your OM lives away from you and your chances of seeing him are much less.
I must say I don't know if I have the patience all the time to deal with what is happening. It has never been my style in my life business and personnel to just sit back and let things happen. Not sure if that is good or bad. I know the good is that this has given me a chance to improve myself and find out what I am really all about.
I really want to ask my wife if she misses him and that it is OK for her too. I know they had an attachement and I want to offer my help. But as you said she is probably not ready to accpet it yet. She has used the term safe feelings or saftey net with me in the past. That she has not felt safe with me.
Last word on friendship. Have you ever had someone that tried to be your friend too hard. That was really a turn off and you did not think that person was real. Maybe that is a little of what we are going through.
Detach, be cool, don't get mad, follow your heart, listen to her, be her friend. Lot's of stuff to do. Thank you again you are a great person for helping all us wayward men find love with their wives.
Rob! I know! and I have been running myself ragged today tyring to do it all! I have done a really lousy job of staying off line. its those darn DB notifications! I am addicted!!!! oh man! do they have rehab for DB adicts? tomorrow I will do much better!
Appreciatte the info in the Q&A format. Makes it easy to understand. Good insight into the EA thinking. I can see a lot of my W's thinking. But I thought you were taking the day off?
Amazing that I could still get new insight after reading your posts for 5 months.
Bob, dont worry, I am fine I have gotten so much more then I have given believe me. This kind of thing really helps me learn as well. I have overcome roadblocks while answering posts and looking at others situations. when explaining my feelings to the men here to help them understand their W's it helped me realize things for myself. When I first came here, I really didnt accept much repsonsibilty for my part in the destruction of my marriage. I felt hey my EA was a result of the situation I was in and it was only natural. But it really goes further then that. I didnt realize just how much I was setting myself back and keeping myself in a rut and not dealing with the problems at hand by using the om to "escape" and numb my pain just like my H did with alcohol. I was furious that my H didnt just get that. He kept wanting to be sure I knew just how wrong I was for making that choice so I wouldnt make the same mistake again. I finally got it what he was saying. I had written a long post to Bryan in were seperated what now on his thread "progress real or imagined" I was trying to get him to understand it takes time to get past everything and let it go etc. the next day I was writing to Karen Dewitt (I posted that post on my Newcomer walkaway thread) regarding her situation and while I was writing all the pieces of the puzzle fit together for me. it was like the puzzle pieces were things I had learned but didnt know how they fit together. I felt the begining of that break through started with my post to Bryan.
I dont want you to feel I am emotionless about your situation, oh do I empathize with you. I saw what my H went through. It must be just so incredibly hard to have patients right now. I have taken a lot of time with your posts because I have an idea what you are going through and sure wish someone could have been able to help my H when he was going through this. Like Sera and Rob mentioned, these posts help them too and most likely many lurkers who read but dont post.
"I really think that the only way maybe to get into recovery is to move away from him. Otherwise there is still way too much contact with him. It sounds like your OM lives away from you and your chances of seeing him are much less."
I hear you. yes there is really pretty much no chance I will even run into him with him living 2 hours away. So in that way its easier. Its really hard with the kids friends isnt it? my 3 kids and their 4 kids really got along well and everytime we are in town over there my kids ask to go visit them and I just feel awful about this mess I caused. Had I only reached out to anyone else! but I cant change the past. I truly thought it was "safe" talking to him in that no way any feelings could come between us, I had been friends with him for 12 years and priort to his W going through the changes she went through her and I were good friends there for each other through so much. It just seemed like it was okay to talk to him. Oh was I ever wrong and it really hurts to see all the destruction of the aftermath. I just have to do my best to forgive myself for my mistakes and ignorance and learn from what happend.
anyhow what I was going to say before going off on my tangent about my guilty concious, was even if you move still the phone is there. the computer is there. they can contact each other if they want to. the thing is she needs to decide what she wants to do. Its so hard. I went through a while of just wanting know how he was, and it made me so angry that I was being forbidden to talk to him. I needed to realize for myself why I had to let go. reading at Dr Harleys site does help to make you realize why. For so long I felt like why cant we just all be adults about this realize what happend its not like things turned physical lets forgive each other and move forward and still be friends. oh sure then I will devise the perfect peace treaty for world peace!
"I really want to ask my wife if she misses him and that it is OK for her too. I know they had an attachement and I want to offer my help. But as you said she is probably not ready to accpet it yet. She has used the term safe feelings or saftey net with me in the past. That she has not felt safe with me."
Do you truly feel that way??? Because I have to say one of the things that really helped me to feel close to my H and trust him and open up to him was when he not just told me he understood what I was feeling but he was able to verbally express how he truly did understand and he expects that and its only natural. Talk about making the situation safe for me to talk about my feelings. But I was afraid of him doing what he did over and over. He would be able to listen to me open up about my feelings and hey I didnt hold back I told him. He would be very understanding and very calm and show great compassion and empathy. then later after it tormented him boiling and bubbling over it for days he would just blow up at me! Mad as hell throwing it at me it tore me apart not only that but he would blow it out of proportion and make it more then it was. Tried to say well if you felt this way or if you two are having such a hard time letting go of each other it must have been physical! He drove me insane accusing me of so much. So I really didnt feel safe opening up to him because he would dwell on it and make more of it.
"Detach, be cool, don't get mad, follow your heart, listen to her, be her friend. Lot's of stuff to do." you get so sick of hearing it dont you? how about focus on you work on youself doing something for you that makes you feel good... ughhh! I know!
Rich gosh I am trying to take a day off! I am doing a lousy job at it. can you tell I have a compulsive obsessive personality!!! my h just noticed lol! isnt that funny. after 14 yrs 3 months together he tells me yesterday he just noticed this personality quirk of mine LOL!!! I laughed so hard. Yet he teased me about how my pantry and cabinets and closets all looked like they were displays in stores, for years!!!
any how yes I thought I was taking today thru weds off my job here then I think okay I will answer one post but it seems everytime I answer a post there is another there!
I wanted to add to my words of wisdom thread too. so I am going to do that next!
Thanks for your note last night. You should open your own web site for wayward husbands. One thing really struck me in your post and that was how you where stuck in a rut. That is where we are right now stuck in the mud. I know a couple of things: One is my wife tells me she still loves me but in so many words is not in love with me. The second thing is she is hurting really bad and must feel very trapped/frustrated in what is happening.
Both of these facts she has told me. Your comments above echo those feelings exactly of how you felt. You got out of your rut when you stopped using the OM as tonic to help with your problems in your marriage.
Let's face it Sue we all want to talk to someone that makes us feel good and validates our point of view. The hardest thing to do is accept your own part for any failure in a marriage. It has taken me sometime to realize this and that I need to work on myself. I am sure that the OM still makes her feel good.
I understand your point about recovery and living near OM. But still having a stay at home dad across the street from us makes it very hard. Also the neighbors seem to know what is going on (someone called me to tell me of the affair 6 weeks ago).
So I am not sure if staying near him will ever work. Too much closeness with the kids etc. It might have been much tougher for you if OM lived right across the street.
I will continue to take your advice and try to be her friend and create a safe place for her. Do you think showing her some posts from people on this web site would be helpful. I find them very helpful and wounder if she would. I think the reason she is feeling so trapped is becasue this topic can only be discussed with OM. She can't talk about it with her parents friends or me right now. No one really understands what she is going through
Have you ever read a book called the Solo Parnter? It takes at the end about the Pursuit and Distancer. It states that one person is always in this position, meaning someone is always chasing and the other one is trying be caught.
It said at sometime in order for the purser to catch the distancer they have to stop the pursuit. This is much like Harley's Plan B I would assume.
It is so true in that it always seems like someone is trying harder in the relationship. The fun is sometime in the chase and when you know that you have someone then it does not seem as great. What do you think? Did you ever have a guy in High School that you really like and thought he was cool. Then when you began to date him he did not seem as cool? I guess the samething happens in a marriage
Bob, that is a lot like what Michele says about the more one partner does the more the other slacks off, so do nothing to get something.
OH yeah the guy in HS, yeah there was one that turned out to be so diferent from his image, hmmm they all were! ha ha! I was always afraid of dating anyone for too long, I knew my rep and that people had an image of me that was so diferent then how I saw myself and I was afraid of anyone really getting to know "me" and be let down. This relationship with my H is the first one I actually stuck with and worked on. I let him get to know me and he was just crazy about who I was on the inside and began to change the way he looked at many things.
as for your question about showing her posts. I think in the position you are in you certainly could. because you both are trying to work on putting your marriage back together. Maybe you belong in the new forum that Michele just started rather then infidelity and jealousy. I really think Chris could be of the utmost help to you at this point. go to her in an understanding and enlightend way showing complete empathy for her situation. stating you have learned so much about what happend with you both and you really are understanding her more now and I thought perhaps maybe this might help her as well and if she dosnt agree thats fine.
I totally understand he is the only one she can talk to feeling, I felt the exact same way!!
I agree it would have been much harder at he been just across the street! We wanted so bad to see each other and the miles did help keep us apart. and help now with where I am at even now. I do still from time to time wonder how things are with them and really hope they are working things out inspite of what my feelings were back then I still wanted them to work things out if they could because of the children.
my own website! I would never get a thing done! hee hee. I am thinking of starting a thread "Dear Sue" like Dear Abby lol! I get so many questions and I completely understand there isnt a whole lot of walkaways here to help on the insights from their perspectives.
just kidding.
and I just feel awful about this mess I caused. Had I only reached out to anyone else! but I cant change the past. I truly thought it was "safe" talking to him in that no way any feelings could come between us, I had been friends with him for 12 years and priort to his W going through the changes she went through her and I were good friends there for each other through so much. It just seemed like it was okay to talk to him. Oh was I ever wrong and it really hurts to see all the destruction of the aftermath. I just have to do my best to forgive myself for my mistakes and ignorance and learn from what happend.