Quote: The only thing that confuses me about your post is that you thought it "sounded" better to call it an EA. Aren't they both sins? Does one sin carry more 'weight' than the other? I don't believe they do. I would confess them both, as it sounds like you committed them both, and then carry on. Why continue to punish yourself over it?
You’ve got me there. I don’t know why I thought it sounded better. Maybe it just seems like more of a personal failure to let it get physical. It’s easy to slip into an EA. You’re friends and the friendship gets a little stronger, a little more personal, and before you know it, you’re emotionally involved. A PA is a whole different animal. There is a definite line crossed when the clothes come off. I guess I didn’t want to admit that I crossed that line. Yes, both are sins – and the Bible tells us that in God’s eyes, a sin is a sin is a sin.
Quote: Fwiw, your marriage never would have been valid in my religion. Without consummating a marriage, and having regular sex throughout, a marriage is not valid. It is not a MARRIAGE in God's eyes, is what people of my faith believe. That is how serious it is to withhold sex from your spouse.
I understand that the Catholic Church doesn’t consider an unconsummated M to be a M at all. I agree that the Bible equates IC with M – Leah was given to Jacob instead of Rachael without his knowledge, but once they “did it” she was his wife. He had to put in another seven years to get Rachael. (that Laban was a slick one.)
On one level I agreed with that. That was one of the things I used to justify ending the M. But another part of me, a stronger part of me, looked at the other side of the coin. I did marry her and promised to be faithful to her through thick and thin. Malachi 2:16 says, “For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away”. Matthew 5:31 says, “But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.” Matthew 19:8 says, “He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.” There are plenty of others. God does not like divorce. And nowhere in the Bible do I see where God promises us happiness and fulfillment. I felt that in order to find true happiness, I would have to do what God wanted me to do.
Quote: I am not justifying what you did, because I do think you were acting like a turkey. But I think you repented and have moved on. However, the intense guilt has given your wife an upper hand that she never should have had. It seems like it may have frozen her in her f-ed up tracks. She gets to be the wronged partner and is not required to embark on personal growth.
I agree with all of that. W actually has handled uncomfortable situations by taking the supposed moral high ground. “You are the one who …”. She does get to be the wronged partner. And that has been an ongoing stumbling block in progressing. But it’s just as much a stumbling block for me as it is for her. Even if she never mentions it – heck, even if I never even actually say anything and give her the chance to say something – I always feel the guilt looming.
That guilt has been a heavy burden. It feels good to come clean here.
Quote: I did marry her and promised to be faithful to her through thick and thin.
Understand that I am not trying to assuage your guilt or do anything other than have a friendly theological discussion, which may or may not have any significance on your sitch. lol
My thoughts on the above statement are this: When you promised to marry her and be faithful to her, it was under the assumption (the unwritten part of the vows, but still legitimate and binding) that you would consummate your marriage. That you would be MARRIED, in other words.
Don't get me wrong. What you did was wrong and many people in your situation wouldn't even bother with guilt, they'd be so sure they were right. So you are to be commended. But I think there is such a creature as too much of a good thing. Feeling SO guilty that you go back and allow her to continue to be a non-wife to you is not the way to go either, do you think?
My H carries around a little scrap of paper, in his wallet, that has a saying on it about a husband's (or wife's) true purpose is to help their spouse get to heaven.
Do you really think you are helping your wife, by solely carrying the burden of guilt? What responsibility does SHE take for this incident?
Did you ever address the OW in counseling? Is this one of the taboo subjects?
By the by, and I'm being flip but not too much, what DID you talk about in counseling, if not sex related stuff? It seems to me that so many of your problems stem from lack of intimacy in the marriage. Of course, that is an HDW's perspective so take that with a grain.
Bube, I think it's time to forgive yourself and your wife (and the OW) for past transgressions. And begin forging a new path whereby you show all involved (including God) that you learned something from it. Require more of yourself than purposeless guilt. Require more of your wife than self righteous neglect.
Quote: Do you really think you are helping your wife, by solely carrying the burden of guilt? What responsibility does SHE take for this incident?
Did you ever address the OW in counseling? Is this one of the taboo subjects?
By the by, and I'm being flip but not too much, what DID you talk about in counseling, if not sex related stuff? It seems to me that so many of your problems stem from lack of intimacy in the marriage.
No. As far as I know, none. No. And sort of.
I don’t think I was helping W by being the only guilty party. But I don’t think I’m doing that any more - more on that later. W has never, ever expressed any responsibility for the A in my presence. She may have in individual C sessions, but I don’t know about it. We never really did discuss the OW directly in C sessions we were in together. Obliquely, she was there, but we never discussed her. In fact, we’ve never discussed either the OW or the A. W has steadfastly clung to the apparently paradoxical position of acting like it never happened while at the same time, holding it over my head.
What we did discuss in C is a little more difficult. While she’s not a lot like MrsHD, W did have the same problems with generally unfocused anger and had an admitted hatred of men. There were money handling issues. There were respect issues on both sides. I had completely shut down my emotions (“the C called it emotionally blunted”).
Quote: I think it's time to forgive yourself and your wife (and the OW) for past transgressions. And begin forging a new path whereby you show all involved (including God) that you learned something from it. Require more of yourself than purposeless guilt. Require more of your wife than self righteous neglect.
That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to do this last year or so. Around the time I signed up here, I forgave everybody – myself included. I still have guilt, but it’s no longer bothersome. Unlike God, I can’t put my past sins as far from me as the east is from the west. I know I was wrong and I’m sorry for what I did. But it no longer actively bothers me. I know that I learned something. I know that I’ve changed as a person.
As far as requiring more of myself than purposeless guilt, I think I’ve done that too. I’m not all the way there yet. In fact, I’m not sure I’ll ever really be completely there. But I’ve made a lot of progress. You’ve read my posts over the past year and you’re aware that I’ve made some changes. I’ve changed a lot of attitudes, I’ve changed my behaviors toward W (the old me NEVER would have had “the Talk”), and I’ve become more willing to discuss what I want and need from W and from the R.
Your last sentence up there in the quote is the hard one. I would love to require more of her and actually get a response, but that hasn’t happened. I still can’t even get her to talk to me. I had a whole thread on trying to get W to talk, but the fact it, she still won’t. Any time I try to have a serious discussion with her, she stops responding. I know I’m still handling it poorly, but then the discussion turns into a soliloquy, and I end up getting frustrated and angry with her lack of response. I guess I still don’t know how to require more of her.
ZB, I can understand why you hedged a bit in telling your story. I've been pretty frank on this board about the "sins" I've committed in the past and, haven't felt a whole lot of understanding from the crowd. So your wanting to save face is totally understandable. (I guess I'm the Mary Magdelene of the group. )
It seems irrelevant to me in the context of this forum to discuss or even care whether what you did was a "sin." The "sinfulness" is between your God and you. None of us was inside your head or inside your marriage or inside the OW's head. And contrary to what we allow ourselves to think, no one is inside the mind of God, or can even fathom the mind of God.
While you're quoting scripture, don't forget the woman who was about to be stoned for adultery until Jesus that anyone who was without sin should throw the first stone.
You've been flogging yourself with this for a long time.
Have you ever seen the movie The Mission? In it Robert de Niro plays a guy who through some twist of events kills his brother. He feels so bad that as a penance, he carries around on his back a bag of rocks. He becomes well known for this and after a few years, people just accept the fact that he goes everywhere with this bag of rocks tied on his back. Jeremy Irons plays a Franciscan priest, and the Franciscans have all these natives engaged in building a mission on top of a hill. (Some of these details may not be exact). Robert de Niro is working with the natives, carrying rocks up this hill in addition to his own bag of rocks on his back. At one point the native chief sees Robert(and Robert may have done something heroic right before this-- don't remember), and asks Father Jeremy why the bag of rocks. Jeremy tells him that it's a self-imposed penance because Robert killed his brother. And the chief says, (God-- I get goosebumps as I remember this!) I think he's done enough penance," and he steps up to Robert, pulls out a knife, and cuts the bag. All of the rocks go tumbling down the hill into a ravine. It is one of the most moving moments I've ever seen on the screen. I cried and cried when I first saw it, because I really "got" what forgiveness is. Yes, he erred, and yes he did penance, but no one-- and certainly not God-- expects him to carry that bag of rocks forever!
I suggest that your W has punished you by reminding you that you're still carrying that bag of rocks. And that somewhere in you, in a perverse sort of way, you derive some prideful satisfaction over the fact that you are strong enough to keep carrying the rocks, AND to take her unkind attitude, too. There can be a sort of backwards pride and satisfaction in clinging to this kind of guilt-- like Robert de Niro did in the movie.
What you did was human. It's over. You've repented. It was years ago. Time to zero out the odometer. Stop beating up on yourself, and don't let anyone here beat up on you either. And btw, the statute of limitations has run out on your W's entitlement to have the upper hand. I mean, people forgive murderers before they forgive someone who has had an affair! What's up with that?
I'm comin' at you with this knife-- hold still while I cut that bag and let the rocks fall all the way down to the bottom of the cliff! Now stand up tall and let the circulation come back into your shoulders! You're just a regular human being-- no better than some and no worse than others.
You're right. But instead of dropping the bag of rocks or letting someone else cut the bag, I've spent the past year pitching the rocks over the cliff one at a time. As I told HP, I don't know that I'll ever let go of that last rock at the bottom of the bag, but I'm still working my way toward the bottom of the bag.
Re Lil I'm comin' at you with this knife-- hold still while I cut that bag and let the rocks fall all the way down to the bottom of the cliff! Now stand up tall and let the circulation come back into your shoulders!
Lil, you are so thoughtful and so talented to write something like this (the whole post) to ZB. I hope he can see a way to take this powerful advice.
ZB. I just stopped by in the middle of a job and have to go to work. I did not read everything, but I hope this works out for you.
I don't know. It's just become part of me. But let me point out again that I am making progress. The nature of the guilt has changed as well. I used to feel guilty for having the affair; now I feel guilty for the damage I did to my M. I know it’s a fine line, but there is a difference.
That difference is what has helped me to finally forgive myself. That was over half a marriage ago, and by any way you care to measure it, the second half of the M has been better than the first. So I know that what I did was wrong, and there will probably always be some measure of guilt hiding in me, but in all honesty, I have to admit that the net effect has been good. The A pushed us to resolve the other issues in our M. The A and the recovery made me a better person and a better husband than I was.
I wanted to give you some WOA's here, bube. I know that you have progressed--just since you've been here on the bb, so I imagine it's quite a lot since the beginning of your 30 year marriage.
It isn't easy moving a huge chunk of granite, but you're doing it.
)