Confronted spouse...now he wont come home

[25yearsmlc]

Okay this is a LONG post (might be a personal record)

but hopefully it'll be "interesting/entertaining" enough to hold your attention.

soooo,

Before you hang onto the righteous anger, don't forget your first post...remember? You said you were to blame. I am NOT Saying this is all your fault at all...

but it's interesting that you have not mentioned what your role was in this since you discovered the affair.

Did you see the movie "It's Complicated" With Meryl Streep/Alec Baldwin? They were married 19 years, he had an a and the m ended. Later on he wanted a recon...

at one point in the film, Streep admits to him "You know, I knew BEFORE the affair that our problems were partly my fault.

But I let you take all the blame when you had the affair, b/c I was so angry" (or words to that effect). Think about it.

See how little she'd have learned if all she did was whine about HIS affair?? She'd be the same woman as before, and she NEEDED work...

so, bottom line is,

IF your h does NOT believe the marriage to you can be better and different,

then he won't want back in...so what are YOU doing to change YOU and the m?

If you can manage to show him that marriage between you two can be a good thing again, then perhaps OW won't matter.

OR if she does, at least you'll know you owned your part

AND you'll know that you became a woman only a fool would love.

Since I sense so much anger in you (which I understand...I DO...)

but I'm worried that your h won't believe you can ever forgive him...

will you hold this over his head the rest of his life?

Will you throw it in his face every time you two fight?

Also, the more people you tell, the harder it will be for YOU to forgive him. And the harder it is for him to return...

IOW, why tell all those people? (To punish? To cement your choice to give up? Giving up is easy. It protects us from looking within ourselves and making the real journey, the inward one...)

What good could it possibly do, unless you want to be seen as a blameless victim, (which isn't fair or accurate) OR you want to stay on track to end it...


My DB coach said to "Keep The Road Home, Paved & Smooth"...good advice...

don't make it harder for him to come home than it already will be...

so the more people who know, the harder it'll be for him to return.

Therefore, YOU need to decide what you want and if you are not sure, then be quiet and thoughtful about this, deliberate a lot more...THINK IT ALL OUT and

do NOT react in anger or out of fear or pain.

Make your choices and actions come from a place of love and self respect

BUT Not from needless punitive measures or so called "boundary setting" when what you are really doing is cornering him

or issuing ultimatums you don't want to enforce...

Consider this real life example I had growing up...

I grew up with neighbors who were a fun military family. The dad was a retired Colonel in the Army and a former POW (5 years in Vietnam) and there were 5 good looking kids around my age. After the war but years before they moved in, apparently, the h had had an affair with OW at work.

oh How do I know?

We ALL KNEW b/c the wife let it slip out enough...she'd make snarky remarks about him or imply things about him were "Not so heroic" etc....

if we asked him about being a POW, or any war story or about one of the medals he had received,

she'd change the subject or interrupt every time. At first we thought she was protecting him from reliving it, but no, she wasn't...she was punishing him some more... and she was far less subtle than she realized. Heck, I was only a teenager yet I sensed such a bitterness in her...

thing is, no matter what happened in their past, as of THEN/THERE, we all detested HER - and admired HIM...we felt she effectively pushed him into the arms of OW w/her bitter ways and her resentments

b/c who wants to be with a woman who would punish her h (and thereby her children) for all those years?

30 years later and I still recall it vividly and NONE of her 4 daughters are still married, (2 never did marry) and the son lives FAR away from her. The Colonel passed away and was finally treated like the war hero he was. She could no longer deny him that...

To me, she made the worst of choices. She stayed married but refused to forgive OR look at herself...so they were stuck in hell.


IMO, you need to decide EVENTUALLY, (no rush!!)

to Either move on and leave the guy, b/c for some people it's just something they'll never be able to move past, OR learn from,

OR stay married and TRY to learn to forgive.


Staying married and holding onto that pain and bitterness is the worst answer for ALL concerned.

Don't become my neighbor. Don't think you know your h's pain. that's mind reading...rarely helpful. maybe never.

Forgiveness is a process. I never saw forgiveness growing up so I had to learn it. But it has been so freeing.

Without it, my m would be over, and I'd have learned very little.

I'm a better woman for my "nightmare" experience.

You can be too. Look up endeavor's thread if you can. Her m is surviving an affair and it has NOT been easy at all...but it's getting better...

And if you want to do the Div Busting method, THEN DO IT...don't confuse yourself or mix up a bunch of conflicting approaches and behaviors, and then say "they didn't work"....

Read and choose and stick to ONE choice for at least awhile.

And btw, look at my signature block. My h was gone for 2 years. You've been at this for what, a month? Two?

For a 12 year marriage and 3 kids, that's all you can handle, WHILE knowing you were partly responsible? Come on...you know you have more stamina than that...

BTW, since all you control is YOU, let's work on what you agree needs work. What would you change about you as a partner?


for instance, Why was the marriage sex starved? Did you have anger or were there intimacy issues or body image...?? Regardless, What are you doing to address those issues?

Have you thought about how it felt to be your h when he was getting rejected those nights? Every night you did not initiate, or said no to him, was a night he felt rejected and undesirable...food for thought.

My reaction to your letter was "way too long" and "way too much about your pain" and not enough about your part in this...or that's how I read it...
So I'm impressed he kept it or read it. But I would not write something like that again. How do you feel your C has been, vis a vis DBing?

This is a simple yet radically different approach to marital crises. It's solution based, and short term, so instead of the endless taking of the "history of a childhood" and "why h has mommy issues" or whatever, AND OR

instead of just "getting things off our chest"

we look to see if what we are doing is helping the m, and if so, we do more of that...OR If it's hurting the m, we do less or none of that.

I know it's easy sounding but it's not easy to do. Way too many of us want to rehash the past. So do a lot of t's and c's.

It was eye opening to me to hear my h's version of events that sometimes, were not "insane"...I mean, he really did have a different POV and sometimes he was just as "right" as i was.

So we agreed we did not have to agree on our past...but we DO have to agree on how to go, from this day forward.

And let go of the past...that's part of forgiving and living in the present.

See if you can enjoy the time your family is together for just that...being together. Give him something to miss...

I know this sounds like a lot of 2 x4's and I'm sorry.

I really am sorry for your pain. It stinks big time. Often it's just gut wrenching even when we can step back and say "Wow, I own part of that!"...That is a brave thing to do, and sometimes people feel worse for it!

But I say, see those insights as empowering. The more YOU can change in YOU, the more YOU can reduce the risk of this happening again.


It's good to have people tell you they empathize.

But don't forget to do YOUR WORK b/c that's what YOU control here. Not him.

Be the best woman you can be, be a woman only a fool would leave.

And leave the results up to God.

(Please read the Div Busting or Divorce remedy book asap--I prefer the latter).

And know that If it were not for THIS SITE and this approach

I would have divorced 5 or 6 years ago. I'm glad I'm not divorced. I'm glad I came here...but I changed ME a lot for a long time BEFORE h changed at all...welcome to reality.

Ugh, I can't believe it's only been a week since my last post. Anyway, H is still traveling extensively for work to OW's city. I have been trying to do the LRT and I think I've been fairly successful. I don't reach out to him unless it is something about the kids...I wait for him to reach out first. I haven't been initiating R talks (although he has twice). I also don't make plans that include him although he seems to want to do things with us when he is home.

I sense some cracks beginning to emerge...but, he is saying he needs to see what happens with the affair (he wants me to give him a few more weeks). Otherwise, he will always wonder about it. I completely think this is a joke...very disrespectful and I've told him that I am clearly his second choice which I do not deserve. I had told him to move out...but with his travel, he hasn't made a single move towards that. I've asked him about different options for where he would live, but I can tell he doesn't want to think about it.


what is your goal in pushing him out? I assume you want him to choose you --but he's clearly in the throes of a new affair, so it's not likely. He likes feeling desired and it's so new to him...

The cracks I see are that he is saying more positive things about me and our marriage.

Great^^^.


I asked him if he would move to OW's city and he said,

why are you asking him this? It's NOT DBing...it's pressure. The more you challenge and question his choices,

the more you force him to defend and cement those choices...Stop it.

Learn to deal with SOME ambiguity - b/c we all do. Stop insisting on clarity when it's not possible yet.

"that would be a long ways off, I love you, I love our kids and I like living here". He has also been noticing changes in me--I am going out more with friends, am in better shape (I've lost 20 pounds and wasn't really overweight before this started), and I've been a bit mysterious about what I do when he is away. We've continued to have some affectionate moments and he looks at me like he is attracted to me.

All ^^^ good stuff...keep it going...

But, am I a fool?

what? B/c there are positives? B/c he has not ended the A immediately?

Ever think it's possibly b/c he does NOT know that you are different for real, OR that you are going to keep YOUR changes going if he returns, and he does not want a sexless marriage....


I feel so torn between DBing and putting his possessions on the front lawn while he is on a trip. Has anyone read Torn Asunder? That book talks about making sure the cheating spouse knows the extent of your anger and hurt. I have done some of that...but I feel like DBing may almost be too nice?


Well that says a lot to me...you don't know what pain he feels but you fear it's not enough for you? HE needs to suffer more?

That's not coming from a healthy place or a loving place in you. If you want to be able to hold your head high later on, stay in touch with the love and light within, not the pain and darkness or bitterness...

But DBing is NOT doormat behavior. It can require temporary shelving of some emotions, but so what?

If you "fear" DBing is "too nice"...First -please see that admission for what it is... telling. Learn from it. Was one reason you didn't make love more often b/c you held onto resentments or grudges b/c of something he had done or said earlier in the day/week/month??

How was forgiveness modelled for you in childhood? WHAT DID IT LOOK LIKE?

Here's your option if you have decided he has not felt enough pain for you...

Punish him. Teach him a lesson! YOU Show him the consequences of his actions, which you will determine...and enjoy the misery you can create for him bc after all, HE does not deserve to be happy

and his misery will somehow give YOU peace and joy and happiness...right?

wrong. Don't make this about being "right". Make it about being happy.

I recall wanting my h to "be accountable for what he'd done"...and My DB coach said,

"LIFE is what makes them accountable and life is what shows them the consequences of their actions. It's not the spouse's job to do any of that!"

What you are teaching your daughter's about forgiveness? Do you believe in the concept of redemption? Can your h ever redeem himself in your eyes? Do you believe in love and committment?

Can you redeem yourself? I mean, do you believe you can become the warm loving woman and wife he needs, and you might once have been?

All I'm hearing is you wanting to be the judge/jury and executioner.

Pick an approach and give it a fair shot. But Don't do 4 conflicting approaches all half ass... make sense?


My fonts are weirding out so I'll quote you here....You said:
[color:#666666]
Like I said though, when all trust is gone...it's hard to trust that H could be seeing the light.

(Does anyone else wish the OW would just get hit by a bus???)

RE THE OW getting hit by a bus question... We all know that one...and answer is YES...) but let's look at the other question another way.


the question about trust...


Why should your h trust that if he returns to your arms, they'll be open & warm to him, when they've been crossed and shut for so long?

Why should he trust that you won't hold this over his head, like the sword of Damacles? You've already been telling everyone you meet.

Why should he feel safe and loved when the only thing that got your attention was his turning away from you?

Trust goes both ways...and both of you have some re-building of trust to do.[/color]