It must not be easy for you, just like it isn't easy for my H.
I'll be happy to answer any other questions you may have. Since I'm on the same side of the fence as your H, it might help you see things clearly by someone who is in his shoes.
Hi Piper, Here is the other side, hope it helps your understanding. GH, you are too wonderful, how very kind and eloguent. My H had an affair, told me about it after it was over. He begged my forgiveness, told me he didn't feel like he deserved to be around decent people, would do what it took to take care of me and keep our family together, 4 kids, S 24, D22, D20, S 15. Here is what I thought and said: You piece of filthy lying worthless....shall we call your daughters so you can explain this? What will I tell my children? Now I have your filthy secret to deal with and I have to lie to them also, and pretend, which I never have. No, this isn't happening, MY husband would be sad, estranged, lonely, struggling in our marriage, (which we were,) but MY husband would never do this, he has too much integrity, I KNOW my husband, he is too good for this kind of behavior. I have looked up to him, been proud of his trustworthiness, his parenting, his providing for us. MY HUSBAND would not do this. I then named the notorious men in our community that everyone talks about for infidelity and told him I HAD thouhgt I was special for having a special man who was above this base kind of behavior, but obviously I was wrong, idiotically wrong"
So, I find out I am married to someone else than I thought I was for 20 some years. I married the totally wrong person. The ONLY thing I really wanted, the ONLY thing I have taught my children about family, about love, about caring and character, is that TRUST is the basis, the rock bottom. So, now I don't have any trust at all, I don't know him, I don't trust him, and I don't like the man he is. I don't want to be married to him. I WANT to leave and feel clean. He disgusts me. BUT, I have four children who I love more than I love myself. They know mom & dad are having hard times, but they know we are trying to make things better. Do I tell my daughters not to EVER trust men, that if you can't trust the man I taught you to trust, you should trust no one, and believe me, girls, I told you I trusted him and I was WRONG. Should I worry that my sons will repeat this behavior in their own lives? Should I tell them? When? Do I keep quiet and preserve the lie of "happy" family my kids think they come from? Or do I sacrifice myself to this lie. Its been 2 years almost. I cannot describe the depth of the hate I feel for what he did to my family. My kids come home from college and talk about other families, like, well, "Melissa's dad is a scumbag, he had an affair, can you imagine him cheating on her mom, her mom is so cute and so nice. What a creep." Do I say, "Oh no sweetie, he is an ok guy who just made a mistake--she should forgrive him." Or, how about, "No darling, don't call him a scumbag because your dad did the same thing to me and you might hurt his feelings." Now, I have to look into my daughters' eyes and listen to this, and think, what should I say? What should I do? Women friends say to me, well, if he ever cheated, that is my bottom line, I am outta here. How does that make me feel? Pastor's wife told me that herself--that she wouldn't stay if that ever happened. Wanted me to say the same thing, which I used to also say. Let's see, "Well I used to think that too, but then it happened to me and I decided that keeping my family together and forgiving my H was a better course for us--do you think I chose wrongly?" It makes me feel like a fool and an idiot for staying and keeping quiet and dying inside like I am. If I leave, I hurt my kids, all of our extended families, him professionally, me professionally, I hurt my family forward, mess up weddings, grandkids, holidays, all the things Michelle describes. If I stay, who hurts? ME.What do I have now? A hollow pretend-relationship with a man who despises himself and is awful to be around, no real smiles, all fakey ones, no one to share this with, a lie for a life, no love I can believe in, a "dutiful" husband for appearance sake, good provider, helps around the house, mechanical hugs, no sex, no peace, constant reminders of infidelity everywhere--his mother teasing me about "cute Nurses"--he is a doctor and she has no clue what happened. I picture myself saying to her, "Please don't say that, it reminds me of the affair he had with a nurse here in his hospital, and I find it kind of painful." I am told to 1. forgive 2. put up stop signs in my mind to what happened 3. get a life 4. realize that he is an ok guy who made a bad mistake. To me, this isn't a "mistake"--its a life-altering, family-altering, never-to-be-forgotten mind-brand, a deliberate suicide bombing of the meaning of love in my life. I will tell you what I want. I want it UNDONE. And if I can't have that, which I can't, I want him to HELP ME FIND SOME SORT OF PART Time peace and happiness. I want to think that my happiness matters to him, as much as his happiness. The OW--I want her to feel horror and shame for hurting me, a person she never met, in the most profound and filthy way she could, and for hurting my children, and hers, and her husband, and the rest of her extended family, whether they know or not, and I want her to spend her life making it up to all of them. So, under these circumstances, can you see how hard it is for me to be thinking about how bad he feels? Not only have I been thoroughly devalued and humiliated, I also have to help heal his self-loathing by being careful not to bring up my pain, because it hurts him, and that hurts our chances for happiness. I am trying so hard to DB, I am trying to do what we used to do for fun, making nice meals, going places with him. I don't feel I have any time to waste in getting better. I WANT to be better. I want peace, harmony, friendship, happiness, laughter, trust, comfort, to cherish him and feel cherished. I want to cuddle up and watch TV and not flinch at infidelity jokes, infidelity programs, infidelity reality shows--I want this common and low behavior of betrayal away from me and mine. I don't want him to hurt. The kids also worry about him because he seems so sad and serious and worried and rigid, which is SO unlike the guy I married. So, I have to listen to them express their concern for him and talk about how we can all help. "Well, dears, don't worry, when he forgives himself for having that little affair with , he will probably perk up, so no, its nothing you did." I want to get past this. I have forgiven HIM, but I am not anywhere near healed. I just hurt and hurt and hurt. And I trusted him, completely. Ugly stuff, this infidelity. I don't recommend it.
Wow. What else can I say. I guess there IS that position too. Piper, I guess it's pretty clear that there is a WIDE range of reactions to affairs. The point is that while it would be nice if everyone just forgave each other and the healing began on day one, it often takes a LOT longer. I think that's one of the main reasons why reconciliation fails in a lot of cases, because remember, the cheater had one foot out the door already and this "stubborn" hanging onto the affair by the LBS causes them to rethink their decision to come back, just as you are now.
Going back to our knife wound (Which keening did such a "saving private ryan"-esque graphic description of) analogy, while it's entirely possible to recover from that wound in time, the first thing that happens is the knife is removed and a new pain replaces the pain that the knife itself was causing. It's the pain of the void. It's the pain of loss of blood (love/trust) and the pain of rebuilding that part of the body.
THEN after the wound has closed up, any touching of it, or God forbid, knocking it against something, may re-open it and require more stitches, more pain, more recovery time added to an already long process.
Once it's all healed up, do you think the fear of knives ever goes away?
Not to belabor the point, but all I am saying is that I don't agree, you are NOT an evil, vile person as possibly suggested by keening. You committed a vile act but your actions, while raising the ire of most people, do not make you evil.
You do need to understand though, that ANY attempt to make his pain seem somehow on par with what you suffered leading up to the affair, TO HIM, is probably going to be met with anger, resentment and renewed focus on the affair.
It is a $hitty process, one, as keening said, I would not recommend. Where I DO differ with her though is the idea that I would go back and undo it. I would not. I am not alone in that feeling either. There are several people who have expressed a similar feeling, and it doesn't seem to depend on where they are in their sitches, although admittedly, it is easier to think this way if things turn out for the better. My reasoning for that is I didn't realize how unhappy I was and how much I was not living my life the way I wanted to. Does it suck to have to get this wake up call? Sure does, but since my W DID really try to tell me before this (and in NO way am I condoning her actions) it took her affair to really get my attention. Of course, in hindsight, I think there were ways my W could have gotten my attention other than that, but that's not my reality and now that I have my eyes open, I don't want to close them again.
Keening your post was very humbling and made me cry. I feel in some way responsible for your hurt, I guess because my H has or does or periodically does feel just as hurt as you do. What your post did was make me realize I need to slow down and let my H take the lead in healing. I need to follow his lead but also be able to see the subtle clues and try to read him when he needs me to because it's too difficult for him to tell me that he is not handling it very well sometimes. In one of my earlier posts I said something alongs the lines of him having to work harder to heal (I don't want to say to get over my A because that would be foolish), but in reality it's me who has to work harder. I need to be able to turn on a dime when he needs me to, to go from a place where he is genuinely happy to be with me, to a place where he feels very alone and sad and angry, and I have to do it without any sign of it bothering me, because it must be about getting him to a safe place where he feels loved again completely by me, and that the love will overpower his sadness.
My H said he did not want to discuss my A with anybody because he didn't want them to see me as a bad person, which I was. I know that is not the same as the reason you give for not discussing your H's A. He is ashamed of me, and I am ashamed of myself for my actions and decisions and utter lack of respect for the life I had created with him. I didn't get the feeling that you were at all interested in any perspective from me about your H so I won't go there, rather that you both want me to know the depths of your pain, and comprehend the mess I've created for my H's life. I'm sorry because I didn't mean to minimalize the pain and upheaval in your life and those in your situation by giving any sort of instructions on how to get over it, (like the four items you listed). Those are tools that have been suggested to us by our MC during times when either one of us has felt helpless and hopeless. It doesn't mean it works for everybody, the stop sign was something that my H could relate to because he needed help not asking all kinds of questions. Not because I wouldn't answer them but because he didn't really want to know the answers.
I'm really starting to understand what it means when I am being told I need to stand by him and help him heal. In one respect, I am glad that I am in a place where I want tomove forward with my H and attempt to find happiness in our lives, because otherwise I would be unable to do the work if I was caught in the place your H is. Less thinking about how my poor decision has affected my life means I have more time and energy to devote to him, and now I am starting to learn where to direct that energy.
GH my H is not in that place where he can look at what was going on in our M prior to my A and he is not one to go searching for it. I do not dare discuss it. Maybe I should. Maybe, I don't even know what it was, but it definetly involved lonliness, including feeling lonely when we were actually in the same room together, and fear that because of his new job I would be alone the majority of the time. Anyways that's not actually what I want to focus on. My point is that while I know better than to compare how my feelings before my A with his feelings following it, there is a fear in me that he won't do the work that is required. I just need to be patient I guess, and realize that things need to happen in a certain order. When did your W have her A? When did you decide to start considering your role in the breakdown of your M? (Not her A, that was her poor decision).
Piper, in light of AmyC's hiatus (lol) from posting as much, I will summerize what I THINK she may tell you. First of all, if you are not familar with her, she is on "your" side of the fence and has been working VERY hard on repairing her marriage in the aftermath. She is one of the best posters on this board and I asked her to visit you when she gets a chance.
Anyway, she usually tells people in your position that one of the first things that needs to happen is for your to understand the depth of the hurt your actions have caused, something I think keening's post has helped you do. Once you have "fallen to your knees" so-to-speak over the pain you feel because of what you did, you then need to forgive yourself for it. You don't ever forget it, but as you say, the longer you spend thinking about it and dwelling on what happened, the less time/energy you have to devote to the difficult work of repairing the damage. Of course, as you now understand, PART of that repair job is not yours to do, but when you can help the process, you need to be ready and willing to do so.
Your case is somewhat unique. I often say that it's sad how most of these sitches are usually one of the following after the affair is confessed/discovered. 1) The WAS doesn't want to stop and is not really interested in reconciling while the LBS is heartbroken, wanting their marriage back and usually willing to do whatever it takes to make things work or 2) The WAS is repentant (as you are) and the LBS is so angry/hurt that they want nothing to do with reconciliaion.
It's rare to have a WAS that repents and a LBS that is open to working things out right away. You sitch is a gift, but it CAN turn into one of the other, more common sitches if you're not careful, something I think you know now.
I WISH my W felt the way you do, or came here for help with the way she feels. I WISH my W would go to C or read books on the subject. She doesn't "believe" in those things. That said, I am lucky that my W SEEMS to be getting there on her own so we'll see.
Quote: GH my H is not in that place where he can look at what was going on in our M prior to my A and he is not one to go searching for it. I do not dare discuss it. Maybe I should.
Then you are in a similar place as CM except you had the affair I think she avoided. I know that sucks but for the time being, maybe it's best to get through this immediate thing (the affair) and address the rest a LITTLE later? I don't know.
Quote: Maybe, I don't even know what it was, but it definetly involved lonliness, including feeling lonely when we were actually in the same room together, and fear that because of his new job I would be alone the majority of the time.
If you came up with this, then I would guess this is a factor. The good news is that maybe, through your reading and posting you are figuring out that you can be more of a source of happiness for yourself and not so dependant on his "persense" to be happy. The part about feeling alone while in the room with him DOES need to be addressed and my W said the same thing. I have since learned to just BE closer to her, both physically and mentally. Another thing on that point is that she used to actually SAY she wanted me to be upstairs so she could have some "alone" time. That's why I said one woman's neglect is another woman's "alone" time. I am still confused by this because she now claims, like you, that I was never there but I claim that even when I was, she didn't want to be around me. Another mixed message. Actually, what she said to that was that she was so "fed up" with me by the time I got home, or was "available" to be with her, that she didn't want/need me around. It's THAT kind of thinking I want you to be aware of and guard against.
Like I said, the fact that he will physically be gone a lot is not as important as how you two act when he IS around.
Quote: I like your letter. Did you actually give that to your W? I hope so.
Um, that wasn't a letter, just me telling you/my W what I wanted/felt, etc. I have told her those things in the past and if I HAD written a letter, I would not have given it to her. In the past, I have posted a bit about the fact that my W doesn't like when I give her letters/notes. She recently told me why, after years of scoffing when she got them. She said because I am a good writer, she feels like I craft my words too much and because of that, she isn't really getting my open, direct feelings. She prefers me to just talk to her without the benefit of editing. I guess I can understand that.
Quote: She has no right to both reside in your home and not willingly be an open book to you. She must make herself be aware that anything she does out of your sight causes you anxiety, and that equals lack of respect towards you, and quite possibly for herself.
Well, with all due respect, she HAS the RIGHT to live in OUR home and do as she pleases within reason, just as I have the right to set boundaries as to what behavior I will accept and what I will not. At this point, transparency is semi-there but there is still that barrier of her defensiveness when I confront her about things that SEEM out of the ordinary.
... as an aside, one of the things I thought of is that my W seems to always think the last time the A came up, or the issue of trust, would be the LAST time it comes up. She acts like each time I bring something up, I am digging things up again and holding onto the affair, much like you suggested your H does. I don't see it that way. To me, there is a difference between forgiving the affair, which I have done, and rebuilding trust, something that unfortunately will relate to the affair for some time. So, for her, there seems to be a counter reset every time I bring up a trust/affair related issue. I don't think she gets that the timer for me hasn't even started yet and won't until I can trust her again... who knows when that will be.
So, while I agree that there is a respect factor at work here, there are also a lot more issues so that one is not the deal breaker. Hell, if I can look at the affair and not consider it a total slap-in-the-face lack of respect, which I can, then I can take her being somewhat defensive when it comes to certain things. Not forever, but for now, yes.
Quote: I know the cell phone thing well. I work at a desk so H can always call here, and he does, several times a day, or I call him. When not at work and if I forget my cell phone when I go into a store and he calls and I don't answer I'm sure he freaks out and has a mild heart attack. He handles it well though most of the time. And the first thing I always say is I’m sorry I forgot the phone. Sometimes he forgets that I have gone somewhere that I can't have a phone.
Ok, I get all that, but do you ever get upset when HE can't be reached? I know my W does and that's what bothers me the most. She'll go for hours without answering her phone but if I don't answer for 10 minutes, she gets in a mood. Double standard for sure. Just make sure you are not doing this, and as for those times you "can't" answer, I guess I would make sure those aren't the same times you used to be with OM the most.
Quote: What you W is doing to you is kind of mean.
Maybe, but I choose not to see it that way. I am not being "done to" so much as I am choosing to be in a situation where my W is not acting in a way I like all the time. I don't think that's to spite me, I just think it's where she's at right now. I think she WANTS to be "nice" but circumstances make it somewhat difficult.
Quote: You are both hyper sensitive right now, in polar opposite directions, so you're bound to misinterpret each-other as we do.
Yep. That's for sure. Working on that.
Quote: However, her actions may be an indication that OM is not out of the picture. Do you know he is for sure?
No, I don't know it for sure. I am 98% sure with the remaining two percent just left because I don't know if I will ever be SURE he's gone. I can say I don't "feel" him around anymore but that doesn't mean she's not in contact with him. Actually I don't believe there is NO contact. I believe they still talk occasionally on the phone. I don't think they meet, but I'm not sure. In any event, I am 100% committed to working on me and what I can control, which is my behavior in the marriage. Hers, I can't do much about other than decide how I am going to react to it, if at all.
Quote: Why is 11 - 1 the prime time?
It's when they used to see each other the most. That said, she did also used to see him 2-3 times a week at night too. That stopped long ago. Now, if they see each other, it's most likely during those hours when she would normally be at the gym.
Quote: Does she look you in the eye when she talks to you?
Yes and no. Actually I have only recently realized that I had a problem with that myself. I found out that I RARELY look people in the eye when I talk to them. I don't really know why, but now that I am aware of it, I notice that my W looks away sometimes, but for the most part, she does manage to meet my gaze.
Quote: It's possible she hasn't told you everything yet.
Very. Actually, I suspect that she still needs to fully confess that they had sex, something she still denies although admitting kissing/making out. I am 50/50 in terms of whether I believe her on this. If she does ML with me without confessing this, I think I would be more like 90/10 in terms of believing her. She is a bad liar (yea, I get the irony, but she really is, which is why she confessed the affair in the first place, it was becoming obvious) and sex with me without telling me all there was to tell would be a huge form of lying to her.
Quote: You can't really demand answers from her, but you can demand respect, and you can tell her that too. Ask her if she thinks she is respecting you by leaving you guessing all the time. Ask her what she's getting out of it by not trying to avoid situation that might cause you grief.
GREAT points. I will be SURE to remember this next time it's time to talk. That is a great way to not attack her, but really get her to think about what/why she's doing.
Quote: I sometimes feel trapped underwater, like we'll never surface, the times that H chooses to relate a fun time to my A. That is his choice, and all choices have reactions whether he means to or not.
Maybe it's his/my choice but I think you are mistaken to think of it like that. You still think we KNOW these things we say to you will hurt you and still do it anyway. You still seem to think we are punishing you or ourselves when we spoil a good time with affair talk. I assure you, at least speaking for myself, this is not true. It's usually just that I feel something, or see something that she didn't see/feel in a given situation, i.e. let's say we enjoy a family day out and it happens to be at a place where we used to go on dates. I may get emotional and start thinking about how things may never be good again, then start thinking of the A. I may decide that I don't want to keep that in and since you are in an ok mood, I will just say something to you, thinking you will just reassure me that things will be ok and it's safe to just be happy. Of course, your reaction might be "Damn, here he goes again. He just can't let me have ONE good freaking day. Why does he keep doing this to me? Can't he just let it go and enjoy what we have?" Then you may say to him "What the hell? I was having a good day and now this. I understand you may still be hurt and all that, but I want to move forward with our lives. Why can't you do that?"
My point is that it MIGHT be that he simply needs you to understand where he is at and NOT jump on him for it. I THINK that may go a long way in smoothing things over. I know it would in my case but my W's pride gets in the way. She even admits that.
Quote: Ok I have a dumb question, and I can't seem to PM you so everyone will have to get a good laugh, but how do you post quotes and how do you post multiple quotes in a response?
You just hit the "Quote" link and it should drop the front and back end of the quote script (quote] [/quote) and you then just past the text you want to quote between those two things so it looks like (quote] This text will be quoted [/quote)
Grasshopper, why is that your name? just curious. I'm going to risk saying this and I could be dead wrong and spark anger in someone here for focusing on some of my own feelings, but I think it's worth it. I've been reading some of your old posts, including the first one, by no means all of them so I may have missed this important factor. Has your W told you if her A was physical? The reason I ask is because when I said how I couldn't look my H in the eye when I talked to him, I meant to say it was on that very topic, where I had admitted to the existence of OM, but not to the sex. I had told H about OM when it was EA, because believe me he asked me that question. I said 'no' and at the time it was true so this made him finding out the truth about what happened in the following month even worse.
When I returned home from my trip (NOT with OM as I already talked about, stayed with family in order to break away from OM mentally), we were trying to recover as best as we knew how. I wasn't sure if I should say anymore than I already had for fear of ruining his life and losing him. It happened, I could not take it back, what good was it to tell him now. Slowly I learned why that was a bad idea.
OM actually called our house to appologize to H (but really he just wanted to keep the whole horror story going, he is no more noble than I am)and asked H how H could stay with me and that H didn't know the truth. Actually, I was relieved. With or without the intrusion of OM's phone call, one of two things would have happened had I not told H everything, either I would have become so detached and distant and depressed I fear what I might have done, or I would have told him, and I'm talking a matter of days.
In any case, never mind if I felt relieved when H finally knew everything, the point I'm trying to make is that our M would have died a slow death had I not. There would have been no life left in it. I'm not suggesting that is your case, however, from reading some of you past posts, I see some of myself in your W as you have picked up on as well.
There were two distinct reasons and times for me to be unable to ML to H. The first was when he did not know the whole truth, and the second we've already discussed, my own shame for hurting the person I love the most in my world. Quite likely it goes against all her values if she's still keeping something from you and that may be what's keeping her distant. Like I said I have no idea, less of an idea than you do, but it's something to consider as potentially why you guys are kind of stuck here after 8 months. Just a thought.
Quote: Well, with all due respect, she HAS the RIGHT to live in OUR home and do as she pleases within reason, just as I have the right to set boundaries as to what behavior I will accept and what I will not.
really good point and something that maybe I need to address about my own insecurities.
Quote: Ok, I get all that, but do you ever get upset when HE can't be reached?
no I don't. we are actually really good at keeping in touch. He's kind of funny, I always get an exact timeline about his day and what he'd doing next and when. Just one of his quirks that's always been that way.
Quote: I believe they still talk occasionally on the phone.
what on Godly earth would she still have to say to him. All OM ever had to say to me was why am I doing this to him, how can I just forget about him, how can I say I loved him and then leave him? I cold turkey stopped communication with him after one last phone call with that sole purpose. I don't think it's very healthy for her if she continues to talk to him. In fact, in order to break free of him I asked a friend of mine to go into my email account which was how we mainly 'talked' other than in person, and change my password.
Quote: I suspect that she still needs to fully confess that they had sex
Sorry I missed this when I asked that question in my last post, I read it I just couldnt' find it again.
I sometimes feel trapped underwater, like we'll never surface, the times that H chooses to relate a fun time to my A. That is his choice, and all choices have reactions whether he means to or not.
