The unexamined life is not worth living

[Denver_2010]

Sandi and True are hitting the nail on the head about the OW you've been "friends" with. My husband had these "friends" for most of our marriage, and it had quite a hand in destroying me and our marriage.

My question for you and the vets - is it possible for someone like my H to move beyond needing these other people in your marriage?

Will my H ever wake up to this like you have? I think he sees his need for the OW as an indicator we shouldn't be married, and we'll never get the chance to work through this. Reading this has really ripped open some old wounds for me.

Sorry to hijack. If anyone wants to respond on my thread it would be greatly appreciated. Good luck to you Denver, it sounds as though you are making headway.

No worries about the hijack Nic. I don't mind anyone's questions being put on my thread. It usually helps me too! And venting is okay too!

No, I did not take your post the wrong way Nic. Actually, it was helpful to me in getting a female's perspective on this issue.

First, yes, Sandi and Truegritter usually do hit the nail on the head when it comes to this stuff! Sandi was absolutely right about MY friends who are women, who were not also friends of my M.

I think that I need to be clear about that as it relates to my sitch. I never had any A's with any of these women. They are/were just friends. A couple of them were exgfs though.

This was mainly a problem very early in my R with my W. After we had been dating for a year or so, she expressed some discontent about these friendships. I basically told her that I was an individual and therefore had a right to have any friend that I wanted regardless of their sex. I told my W, gf at the time, that she was being insecure.

As time went on, these friendships became less and less. I just grew distant from these particular female friends. Unfortunately, the real problem had already been created. Bc I wasn't able to respect my W's feelings at that very early stage in our R, it became a 'wound' in that R going forward and ultimately in our M. It really came down to my W feeling that I didn't respect her feelings.

Yes, there was also a trust issue that related to having these female friends. But that was in conjunction with some other things that I did that were disrespectful... going to strip clubs on occasion, making my W feel that SHE was not good enough for me etc. So all of this together with the female friends issue created the trust issues.

But, I have never actually cheated on my W. I don't know if I'd even call these friendships EAs bc I wasn't really emotionally intimate with any of these female friends. They were people that I would go out for drinks with in a GROUP setting, on occasion, and talk about work and life in general. I hurt my W's feelings bc I would not include her in on these friendships.

Can your H change? Yes, he CAN. He is capable. Will he? I can't answer that Nic. I can tell you that he most likely will NOT change if or bc he is forced to change. Most people don't like being forced to do anything.

My guess is that change will come for your H only if and when he WANTS that change himself.

For me, my motivation to change has been my W leaving me. The devastation that I felt when this happened caused me to really look at the things that I did to my W... both early in our R and during the M itself.

I'm still working on it, but I can tell you that if my W and I reconcile, that my W will be a part of ANY and ALL friendships that I have going forward.