4 years pieced and still a work in progress!

[BluWave]

Hope, I have some time to get caught up and will read your updates soon. I have been thinking about you.

Sunset, Thank you for your kind words. I think when I was on my vacay, I started to read your sitch and couldn't keep reading. You have a toddler and newborn, correct? After several posts, my heart literally ached for you, and I had to put the screen down because it was too much! Unbelievable what someone can do to a young family and a parent caring for their own babies. As much as I have tried to understand the actions of these spouses over the years, it still blows my mind, and the younger the children are in the sitch, the more egregious the assault seems IMO.

Re your question as to how my H felt about his reputation -- yes he cared what people thought about him and it haunted him. We had several friends and family that were disgusted by what he was doing. I mean, he not only left his family for OW at a vulnerable time, but she and her H were our mutual friends at the time. It was a mess all around. And my H prided himself on being the nice guy -- he was that man that would help out anyone -- family, friends, neighbors -- and he is mr dad and with our kids when not at work. He was proud of his identity and so it killed him that he had become this adulterous selfish jerk! I could see the struggle daily in his face.

Here is the strange part of that -- him having this identity crisis, did not lead to him turning around and making positive changes. Other people, including his parents, even tried to intervene. It actually made him feel worse about himself and turn to the one person that was there for him and boosting his ego, which was OW. Then he felt even more like a dirtbag and round and round he went. He would even try and tell me how stuck he felt, and how he knew it was wrong, but he was so low in his life he had sort of given up hope on things ever being better. Then there were other times he was moody, defensive and even cruel and wanting to blame me -- I think he had to rewrite history to justify his actions at times. He yo-yo'd for sure. It was all very strange indeed! If you asked him today to explain these things, he would struggle to. He might even describe that time as foggy and there are even a few things he doesn't recall saying.

The MNG concept gets used a lot on these boards. It seems as if we all have a MNG WH and most of the male posters claim to be one. It leads me to wonder if being a MNG includes characteristics that we all have, but to varying degrees. Perhaps there are several qualities and each person measures a different amount on them, and so the worse a person ranks, the more toxic the resulting coping mech has been developed. I would argue my H ranked high in all categories. I also think his NG personality is what makes him quite likable. The issue arises when an unhealthy behavior results from the personality. I think we often confuse the personality quality (which is good) with the poor adaptive behaviors (which are bad).

I will read your sitch tomorrow as well.

Best,
Blu