The crack in my perfect life...

[Accuray]

Sweetbriar,

I just read your thread -- I'm very sorry for what you are going through, that is very difficult to read. You are right, betrayal is "soul destroying" and creates more pain than can be imagined. One thing I will share with you is that time will heal your feelings -- broken hearts do mend. Know that no matter what happens with H, you WILL feel normal again, and may even feel better about yourself than you did before.

I went through this situation about 18 months ago now -- W and I are now truly piecing and things are going well. In my journey, I observed that the majority of people who get divorced seem to come away feeling that their spouse was the cause of all their issues. The big value that I personally took from DB was to challenge that perspective and to realize and "own" the difficulties that you brought to the relationship yourself. Why is this important? Why, when your spouse is putting you in more pain than you thought possible should you start examining your own flaws? Because they are the only thing that you can CONTROL right now, and regaining control will simply make you feel better.

I was discussing with my DB buddies that the more time passes, the easier it is to see yourself as the victim versus a co-perpetrator in causing your marriage to go south. I can tell you, however, that the more time you spend challenging yourself and digging deep, the more that you understand yourself, your insecurities, your needs and your vulnerabilities, the more you will assure yourself that you are a spouse only a fool would leave, and the more confident you will become that you can make this marriage or the next one successful. If you don't address your own issues and focus on H? The divorce rate for second marriages is appallingly high -- why? Because people who had "non marriage friendly" attitudes and behaviors that did not address them simply took them forward into a new relationship. Address those things and you can virtually guarantee yourself success.

Like "AnotherStander", I'd like to see yourself dig deeper than "I didn't stroke his ego enough". What else about you could be considered subject to improvement from a marriage perspective?

You and your H both have needs in your marriage -- those needs are in a hierarchy, some are extremely important, and some are less so. What often happens with affairs is that you get into a mode where you are not meeting all of each other's important needs. That's not because you are bad, evil, or willfully neglectful -- more often it's because (1) you don't understand what your partner needs or don't appreciate the importance and (2) your partner has done things to make you resentful which doesn't provide incentive to make the extra effort.

We tend to get into cycles where we're not getting our needs met, so we withdraw, or nag, or punish. Our spouse is then hurt by these behaviors, becomes even less likely to meet our needs, and you have a cycle going that drives the two of you apart.

Now if your spouse is not having their important needs met by you, they are VULNERABLE. Let's say of your H's top ten needs, you're meeting 3 out of 4 of the important ones, and 2 out of 6 of the less important ones. Now he meets an OW who is willing to satisfy that important need he's missing with you, maybe one more of his important ones, and 3 of the less important ones you are not meeting. Unfortunately, those things will take on a huge amount of increased importance, because he has literally been starving for them.

Once he leaves you, however, those things YOU were providing are now gone, and he mourns their loss, which is why he keeps saying he wants to come home, then he gets there and misses the stuff you're not doing and he's off again. It's a yo-yo dynamic where he's getting his needs partly met by different sources. You can break that dynamic longer term by figuring out how to meet ALL his needs, and educating him on how to meet yours.

That's very important -- it's not his responsibility to figure out what you need by mindreading -- it is your responsibility to figure yourself out and teach him what you need and how.

A few books for you to read:

1) "The Five Love Languages"
2) "How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It"
3) "His Needs, Her Needs"

All of them are available as e-books. I truly believe that if you can read those three, they will help you with your situation and give you a path to pursue.

A few observations for you:

1) You keep beating yourself up about not letting him move back in when you had the chance. YOU MADE THE RIGHT CHOICE. Setting and enforcing boundaries is a very important skill to have, and you're doing a very good job with it. You should not take him back until he's willing to stop betraying your marriage, work with you on building a better relationship, and providing complete transparency. Do not waver on this boundary or you'll be right back here. You've tried that, you saw what happened, so don't do it again!

2) Relating to your pregnancy:

although he questioned we should keep it. (one of the 2nd things he did to make me thing something was really wrong with him..the first was the A) I told him there wasn't a choice. Period.

Okay, so you got pregnant unexpectedly. That's returning to having an infant and caring for a baby, it's a major life change for at least five years until the child is fairly self-sufficient. It's a major expense, another college tuition, and at a time when your marriage is in trouble.

Your H wanted to discuss with you if you should keep the baby, and you shut him down cold because in your opinion, to even ask that question means that "something is really wrong with him".

A new baby is going to turn your H's life upside down, and rather than discussing it with him and validating his feelings, and listening to what he had to say, you just said "talk to the hand, your feelings don't matter". Now you're angry because you don't feel he's being properly supportive, asking about your doctor appointments, etc. You made a major life decision unilaterally, steamrolled his objection, and now expect him to get in line and support you in the way you need it.

Is this a pattern in your marriage? Is this another thing you need to work on? When my W feels very passionate about something, she probably gets her way 95% of the time, but I can tell you that for me, it makes a BIG DIFFERENCE if she listens to me, has a discussion, and validates how I feel about it if we don't agree. If I feel she just steamrolls me, I will resent that, and I won't feel good about it for a long time. You do NOT have to agree with him or be a doormat, but if you're in a marriage, you do have to listen and validate, and be willing to discuss.

3) Controlling and Punishing:

I just dont get that he would put us all out of our home...(Then later) In fact, would probably benefit me.

So your H wanted to refinance to lower the mortgage payment, and you spun that into him wanting to put you and your kids out of your home, and then got mad at him about that. After speaking to your lawyer, you learned that his plan will actually benefit you?

Is this a pattern you need to examine? Do you have a habit of assuming the worst?

The only hesitation is that it will benefit H and he will be able to move out of his parents, get his own place and do exactly what he wanted from the beginning. I know I shouldnt care, but I feel so burned by him, that I kinda wanted him to suffer at his parents for awhile!

You can't control H -- he's going to do what he wants, and trying to put up hurdles will just make him resent you. With regard to wanting to punish him and make him suffer, is this a pattern you need to look into? Have you been passive aggressive in your marriage and done things to make sure H "pays" for his transgressions against you?

Finally, you mentioned that when your father was living with you, H started going out at night to escape the "pressure" at home. What was the pressure H was escaping from? Did H agree to having your father move in? Did he buy in, or was he given no choice?

I'm not saying these things to beat you over the head, please take them in the spirit of gently prodding you to take another look at your role in things. My questions above could all be "no" answers, and you could certainly be faultless in all of this -- you'll just do yourself a great service if you dig deep.

I feel very badly for your situation, and H has certainly done very wrong by you. He made bad decisions and has treated you very heartlessly. To focus on that, however, doesn't take you forward. The path forward lies in doing the hard work on you. If you become the kind of spouse that only a fool would leave, then you will never have to fear anything like this happening again.

Accuray