Mom4, hello and welcome! Your sitch has been going on for quite a while. Have you read DR? The chapter on cheeseless tunnels? I think you're setting up your lawn chair in front of a cheeseless tunnel waiting for something to change when it never will. Here's the thing about BD that most of us just struggle with understanding early on- it changes everything. Once BD happens your situation doesn't become a simple matter of "fixing" your spouse's complaints and expecting things to go back to normal. It's more like a switch flips in the spouse, and once that switch flips, they are no longer who they were. Your H isn't that loving, faithful man he once was. He's a lying cheater now. And lying cheaters just simply love engaging in cake-eating. You get relegated to housekeeper (and temporary tool for sex when he feels like it), and meanwhile he is pursuing his affair/ affairs waiting for "something better to come along".
All the brilliant housekeeping in the world isn't going to bring him back. What might? Well he has to feel like he may lose you, and when he thinks that and looks back, he needs to see a sexy, attractive W that he would be a fool to leave. If you need to lose some weight (who doesn't after 4 kids!) then lose it. Dress nice. Get a life outside the house when you can. Go out with friends and make HIM watch the kids. Don't tell him where you're going or who with, just tell him you need some "you" time and then leave the house looking like a million bucks. Quit pursuing him. Quit allowing him to use you just when it's convenient to him. Quit killing yourself trying to please him (he is un-please-able right now).
Right now he has all the control, but you can change that!
