Can My Marriage Be Saved?

[Denver_2010]

My story is long and fairly crappy - but I could definitely use some advice and hope because my internal reserves are wearing thin.

I definitely take the lion's share of the blame for where my marriage is at, and expect some harsh words, which I will try to handle gracefully.

My husband and I have been married 9 years, together for 10, and have 1 son, age 7, as well as my daughter from a previous marriage.

When I met my husband, online, I was in an abusive relationship - physically and emotionally. I left my abuser for him, but in retrospect, should not have entered in to a relationship as I was very broken.

I was dishonest with my husband about the state of the relationship I was in, telling him it was over when it wasn't yet.

In the year before we married, I had unacceptable conversations and interactions online. I was physically unfaithful once. He found out about everything almost immediately. I stopped, but 2 years later - about 6 months after our son was born - I entered into 2 other inappropriate relationships with friends from online. They both went as far as kissing before I stopped. My husband later informed me he was aware of them, although I had not known that at the time.

About 5 years after that, in 2009, my husband had an emotional affair with someone he met online. It included cybersex. I began an emotional affair with a coworker, which became physical to the point of kissing.

We had a DDay and I promised to break it off, which I did not. While he was out of town at his grandmother's funeral, I saw my affair partner again. My husband found out, and we had another DDay. This time I did break it off.

I have been affair free since then but the issues that caused the affairs were left unaddressed. He asked for marriage counseling but I was too scared to sit in front of someone and tell them what a horrible person I am.

Three weeks ago, he told me he can't see us together in 10 years and "I love you but I'm not in love with you". He can't see how to get past all the terrible things I've done. I can't blame him, but I want to try tom save my marriage. We are seeing a marriage counselor who we both like - we've been to three sessions.

In the last 3 weeks, he's stopped hugging me, kissing me, saying "I love you", really touching me at all. He will occasionally tell me to come hug him if our R talk has led to me crying, but that's it. He sleeps in the same bed with me and we do "family" things, but he's very distant.

After receiving and reading DR last week, I've been trying to put some things into practice - no R talk unless he initiates it, no asking for reassurances (hugs, no "I love you"), no inviting him to do things (although I do say "I was thinking of taking S to the Aquarium tomorrow" and he will say, "Yeah that sounds like fun, let's do that"). I don't follow him around or ask when he's coming to bed, what he's thinking/feeling, etc. He's noticed - he mentioned it in counseling on Thursday. He said he feels bad because me not asking for hugs has made the last week less stressful for him, but he knows it's hard for me.

But any words of hope or advice? I know there will be the "leaving you is the smartest thing he could do" posts, and part of me agrees, but I'm hoping to save my marriage, so hoping to see those posts too.

Girl - First, I certainly wouldn't say that leaving you is the smartest thing that he could do. You obviously love your H. And he obviously loves you... or he probably would have been gone long ago.

First, I would suggest that you continue to go to MC. You need to be 100% honest with the MC and your H about the issues that you were dealing with when the 2 of you met. Most likely, those issues led to many of your indiscretions over the years. You also need to be honest about any childhood or young adult issues that may have contributed to the 'why' you did these things.

Bottom line is that very few people cheat because they are bad people or WANT to hurt their spouse. Infidelity is a symptom of other problems. Could be personal issues or problems in the M itself.

You need to find what the underlying issue is that cause you to be unfaithful.

Second, IMO, you need to sit down with your H and sincerely apologize to him for everything that you have done. You need to recognize his TRUE hurt. I can assure you that your actions hurt him much more than he probably has ever let on to you or anyone else. We men don't like to be completely honest about how much anything hurts us or about how deep some wounds go. We want to be strong and invincible. I promise you though, your actions cut into his male pride and his ego deeply... your actions hurt him to his very being.

You must own that. You have no choice. Take responsibility, which it seems you are beginning to do. But truly acknowledge how much you have hurt him. Apologize. Pour it all out to him. Tell him that none of it had to do with him (if true) and that you are ready to fix the things that caused it all. Tell him that you love him and never want to hurt him again.

Lastly, I personally would suggest that you throw in some male pride building into your DB efforts. Throw out a compliment or two each day to your H about how he looks... about his biceps, his eyes... whatever you find attractive. Give him an affectionate womanly touch once or twice a day. I think that you can subtly do this without putting too much pressure on him. Just don't have expectations about how you think he should respond to this.

I really would suggest reading the book "5 Love Languages". There is a chapter in there, I forget which, about a woman who had a 6 month plan of treating her H better, using his love language, to see if his behavior towards her would improve. It did. I think that you could benefit from reading that chapter. I think that it's the chapter on 'loving the unloveable'.

Hang in there. I do believe that your M can be saved. I believe that there is always hope if you are willing to work... be patient... be understanding... and give things time to improve.

BITS
Denver