I understand she is trying to get the truth and assess whether to continue. I believe she has already decided to continue no matter what she finds. I believe all the snooping takes away her opportunity to learn to trust. How can we start trusting if we are constantly looking for something.
I need to be working myself and doing healthy and happy things me. My sitch was not like hers but the basics are there. Snooping and finding things I didn't want to find hurt alot and set me back. Trusting that things are going to change gives me hope. Forgiving gives me hope. Trusting that he will begin to make decisions and choices for his betterment and betterment of the M gives me hope and helps him feel valued and trusted. Telling him all the things he is doing wrong and what he should do to fix it can make him feel like a child and a failure.
I have learned to detach (and it is hard) and let him figure it out for himself. Letting him have the opportunity be an adult and make his own decisions. And if he stumbles, which he probably will, just being a friend and encouraging him to move on.
I cannot work on myself if I am obsessing about what he is doing or not doing.
Yes, control is an illusion. We have no control over anything but ourselves. So I work very hard at watching what I do and controlling myself and letting my H figure out what he needs to do for himself. He appreciates that greatly. I trust him to make his own decisions and to take my needs into consideration when he does. Sometimes he doesn't and sometimes he does.
I believe in patience, forgiveness and detachment. Sometimes I slip and it takes a long time to make this habit.
Lost I have never read your thread, but stumbled upon it today. Do you have links to your threads? My H's personality is so similiar, except I dont believe he has porn addiction. I went through the list your H wrote in a previous post about his morals values and who he hurt. It is what I thought of my H when I lived with him.
I started to question my wanting to return to my H because of deeming him narcisstic when I left. All the lies, ego, manipulation and stories came to surface when I read your post.
I too monitored him when we were reconciling. I had to find out what I was dealing with, I never knew the truth and maybe still dont. He was carrying on other relationships and telling them he is getting divorced and writing love letters to me. I needed to get to know this man, my H, because of his false self. He hides behind a mask I never knew existed.
What hit home for me was I had to be precise when asking him a question.
Are you seeing OW? no he would answer, but in his mind he was friends with OW not seeing her.
Are you having an affair? no, because in his mind our marriage was over
Where were you tonight? I had to interview a secretary, in his mind, it was an interview because he asked OW questions.
Did other woman spend the weekend with you? no, because in his mind she came over on Saturday and technically, thats not the whole weekend.
So you see, he never lied to me in his mind.
Sorry about the hijack, but my H just had a pattern of one woman after another after another. I can relate to you and the funnel of confusion in your mind.
I remain respectful of my H by continuing to cook for him, clean for him, do his laundry, etc. As a result, he has stepped up recently and has taken some responsibility of his own to help me with these chores and I have told him I appreciate that. He did not or very rarely helped me before.
I regret that my attitude though has not been at it's best in the past few weeks, and I have apologized to my H for it, but he tells me I have nothing to apologize to him for.
My H, without my knowledge, met with our pastor this morning to make arrangements to officially join our church this coming Sunday. He will be baptized at the Sunday evening service. There has also been some talk about my H giving his testimony to the church and providing disclosure of his past sins. He just shared all this info with me in a phone call.
To those that were concerned, I have not put any keystroke loggers on any computers yet, nor have I placed any sort of GPS monitoring system on my H's car. I am trying to trust my H again, but it is extremely difficult after having been trusting in the past year of reconciliation only to learn of his continued infidelity. What makes now any different???
Larjo--if you wish to read my posts from the past, all you have to do is click on my name, scroll down the screen that comes up to the lower right and click on "show all user's posts". The next screen that comes up will have a list of my posts from most recent to the distant past. Keep clicking on the "Next" option to keep going to older and older posts. Eventually you will arrive at a screen that will have my very first posts. Start reading there!
SC--enjoyed spending last Friday evening and Saturday with you!! Hope you did well in OKC this week.
Blessings, LG
A blessed and happy marriage is a union of two forgivers and Him, because...a cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Ecclesiastes 4:12.
Lost, you sound so much better and I think you are doing great and obviously seeing some baby steps for your efforts. And your H sounds like he really wants to change his life and get forgiveness for what he has done. I think this is wonderful news. It is hard to trust again--everytime his cell phone rings it brings back a bad feeling--not so much anymore though. It does take time, but we can get there. Patience and take care of and be respectful to you too.
I will not pretend that this is easy or pretend that I am not hurting still. I really want to believe that my H is FINALLY changing his ways, but he allowed me to believe that for the past year and did not change one iota of his behaviors. The ONLY things that are different this time are 1) his proclaimed belief in Christ as his Savior and 2) I now fully know what he has done regarding his infidelity. Will this be the turning point for my H?? I can't answer that yet, but I am trying to be patient. I don't want to walk away from my marriage, but I have yet to make any definitive decisions. It could still go either way for me.
I was dismayed to watch the Oprah show last week and see a topic such as sexual "swinging" discussed. Granted, the swingers interviewed were consenting married couples, supposedly. My husband and his women would present themselves as a married couple when they "swung". So, the fact that these people claimed to be married didn't hold much water for me.
What floored me, though, was when the "married" couple admitted they went to church. Is that to be believed? And are they true believers themselves? If they are, they don't appear to follow biblical doctrine very closely, if at all! Will my H continue to believe in Christ, yet "swing" in his free time? My H has a heavy travel schedule due to his job and promoting his book that is about to be released next month. All his other women know about his book, thus they will be able to see him at book signings. I am invited to go with him at times and other times I am asked not to, or simply never invited. What should I continue to make of that?
Well, you are correct, molliew, it will take time, and I guess I have lots of it. It WILL be hard to trust again. Very hard. I hope the good Lord will grace me with the ability to do so and grace my husband with the desire to love and cherish me and finally be faithful to me in our marriage. Only time will tell...
Wishing peace to everyone this weekend, LG
A blessed and happy marriage is a union of two forgivers and Him, because...a cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Ecclesiastes 4:12.
I have my few good days every now and then where I can push the knowledge of my life and pseudo-marriage to the far recesses of my mind and feel some happiness for a little while. Then I have my bad days where everything that has happened to me is just so incredibly overwhelming. Today seems to be some version between the two.
My H admitted to me recently that he manipulated my emotions our entire marriage to create behaviors from me to justify his ongoing infidelity. In light of all that he has done with his sex addiction, that only provided me some very small comfort. I now question if I even know who I AM, let alone who my H is. His treatment of me over the years to suit his needs has totally shaped my perception of myself and who I am. I truly believe that my H has no real concept of how his treatment of me has affected me. The knowledge of the emotional abuse that I have suffered at this man's hands weighs heavily on me. I see many, many sessions of counseling in my future.
On a positive note, my H came forward last Sunday morning at church and made his public declaration that he had accepted Christ as his Savior. He was baptized at that evening's service. I am still left wondering if this is all for real yet or if it is simply more manipulation. I am so screwed up in the head, I have no idea anymore. Time, of course, will tell.
This past week H and I met with the rest of H's family and his mother to spend some time with them and to make plans for his mother's care in her remaining days. Her doctors have decided that her cancer is not treatable with chemo or radiation therapy, so now they are focusing on the surgery aspect. They need to do one more CT scan next week of her abdomen that zeroes in on her hepatic portal vein. If the vein looks clear of cancer, they will do the cancer removal surgery in 2-3 weeks, removing everything they can, including up to 30% of her liver. If the vein appears to be infiltrated with cancer, the doctors will then consider some other treatment options that involve the use of a laser. The laser treatment will provide a shorter life expectancy, but it will be more time than if she is unable to be treated with anything.
We are praying for her to be a surgical candidate, as that will provide her with the longest life expectancy, however, recovery from the surgery will be extremely traumatic and she will require 24/7 care for up to a month following the surgery. Since I am not working and would like the distraction, I volunteered to care for her in our home following her surgery if she is able to go that route.
Today looks to be a beautiful day weather-wise, so I intend to seek a bit of joy in my little corner of the world by spending the day gardening. I hope there is joy to be found in your day too!
LG
A blessed and happy marriage is a union of two forgivers and Him, because...a cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Ecclesiastes 4:12.
My H asked me last night if he might purchase a new laptop computer to use at work and at home. After I had taken a few deep breaths, I said that I WOULD mind him getting a new laptop as it would make me incredibly uncomfortable. And what makes him think I could possibly trust him with a new laptop or on ANY machine at this point in time?
I dropped the subject for a bit as I thought about bringing up the placement of a keystroke logger. I decided that I would rather catch him being good than catch him being bad, so I plunged ahead with our discussion and told him that he could have a new laptop, but in compromise, I would get to place a keystroke logger on ANY and EVERY machine I thought he might use at work or at home for as long as I wanted and only I would have access to the reports from the software. He said he would welcome the accountability.
So at this point, I am thinking, hmmmm....is it as simple as that? I can't really tell if my spidey senses are tingling or not yet,...so I am pondering the following...
Is this truly good and righteous behavior from him....do I really believe it? Or does he simply have me in the position he wants me? Are my thoughts simply based on possibilities or potential reality?
What if he has no need for the internet anymore to connect with other women? Suppose there are plenty of local women he has remained in contact with...there would be no need to use the computer....all he needs is a phone. There are always prostitutes here and when he travels, he's done that before. He can also use his coworkers as covers--they could be knowingly or unknowingly aware they were being used...or he could simply use another computer with no keystroke logger.
If he uses any of the other routes as mentioned above... would I ever become aware of his continued behavior? Plus if the key logger data on all the computers are providing me with positive reports...is this all he really needs to "prove" to me he is behaving aboveboard if in fact he really isn't?
The other major problem is his and my lack of intimacy. When May rolls around next month, we will have had sex one time in the past 12 months, and not from my lack of trying. I really hesitate to call it ML. I don't know if he and I have ever done that in our entire 15 year relationship.
I really want our marriage to work and I want to believe my H is actually trying to finally change, but the doubts linger. Is my H even addressing his addiction? Has he truly acknowledged his behavior and owned it yet, is he really active in his treatment and taking the steps to recover, or is he merely making me grandiose promises and am I still enabling his behavior?
I spoke to a friend this weekend about her brother who was put into a rehab center recently for 30 days for alcoholism after a family intervention. For those 30 days, the counselors forced her brother to focus completely on his addiction and the incredible damage his behaviors caused others and what behaviors existed to cause his alcoholism. It turns out that at some point during the rehab, it was discovered that the alcoholism was merely secondary to his true primary addiction--sex!
It is possible to consider my H a binge drinker, but I doubt he would be classified an alcoholic like my friend's brother. Last night for example he drank an entire bottle of wine by himself. Not good for a diabetic. I had a heck of a time getting him up and out the door to work this morning. Prior to last night though, the last time he drank was this past Thursday evening and it only constituted two beers and prior to that was the previous Saturday where he had one beer.
Drinking the entire bottle of wine last night caused me to recall his extreme drinking behavior at what I believe was the height two years ago of his sexual addiction behavior. I do think the two can go hand in hand. And why did he down a bottle of wine last night AFTER we had our discussion about laptops and keystroke loggers? What is the relevance of that? Will this be the direction his addiction takes now? I am thinking that since the porn has been finally removed from the house, it is now time for all the alcohol to go too.
LG--wondering if all this even constitutes being in piecing anymore, or even on this website
A blessed and happy marriage is a union of two forgivers and Him, because...a cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Ecclesiastes 4:12.
Hi LG, just visiting and looking up a few old friends. Wow, your story sure has had its turns and bumps. I don't know, really no one knows, and in some way, that's why it sucks so much. You know you can drive yourself crazy wondering all this stuff; contemplating the "what ifs?" Do your best to let go of all that and live life as best as possible right now. You never really know how many more days there are. I know I am sounding a little (maybe a lot) simplistic and philosophical, but when it is all said and done, you may have just plain wasted too much time in the worry mode.
Although our situations were/are vastly different, I can tell you that I, too, could not believe my H had changed so completely - so quickly (remember, he had sex in his truck with DS too, he also would lie about what he had "given up"), he gave me complete access to everything also after all was said and done, yet, like you, I continued to wonder if he had just found a new route. All I can say is that slowly it all went away as no more hiding and cheating were revealed.
The alcohol thing is also a concern for me, it is the one behavior that has lingered, although lessened greatly. As you remember, my h is a cardiac patient, so the large amounts he drinks at one time on occasion are of concern to me. Again, I can only give a friendly suggestion for his health and must let it go or I will drive myself crazy. I truly believe that what WE are supposed to learn from this are the lessons of ourselves, not of them. Take care, love and peace. WW
