I understand, and am sorry that I have been a source of sadness for you.
I will say one thing, and then just let it drop. She is not being left out of the decision. My decision not to engage in full disclosure here has no bearing on how things proceed between my W, me, our MC, and my C.
Thank you again for your concern and your POV. Sorry again if I have opened up any hurt feelings.
Chrome
"Recollect me darlin, raise me to your lips, two undernourished egos, four rotating hips"
I don't feel hammered, I do want all of you to know that this has nothing to do with how I view your opinions or how glad I am that I have such a supportive community willing to help me. I just feel that for now those things are best left in C sessions.
To answer your question, yes. My C knows everything. I haven't had the time (at $150 an hour and competing schedules) to do full disclosure yet with MC (i.e. all the details), but it will happen as I feel it is absolutely imperative that she know so she can effectively treat us.
Thank you again for your concern. It does make me feel good that although some words from people on this board are hard for me to hear, I can sense that they are coming from a place of caring and not from a sense of animosity towards me, even though it would be easy to feel that way towards me.
Chrome
"Recollect me darlin, raise me to your lips, two undernourished egos, four rotating hips"
I've tried to distract myself from feeling this way. I'd forgotten how much it hurts, especially the inescapable fact that it was me who did it all. I was just hoping that maybe here would be a place where I could talk about moving forward, being the kind of person I need to be, how I should have been all along. I can never be the true alpha male, because I have forever soiled my integrity. But I can try to be the best person I can be and work towards the best life I can provide for my W and kids.
I'm sorry again I betrayed you all.
"Recollect me darlin, raise me to your lips, two undernourished egos, four rotating hips"
Please, drop the drama. It has no benefit and it certainly doesn't move you forward. I asked only because I feel that it is very important that at least one person that you are counselling with knows the complete situation.
Advice based on partial truth or outright falsehoods doesn't do you any good.
From my viewpoint, you are asking advice from people while at the same time not being forthcoming AND asking us to ignore the pile of elephant poo that sits amongst us. I think you have shown a pattern of deception that contributes to unnecessary dramatic upheaval in your life, a flurry of mea culpas, and then business as usual. That doesn't make you evil or unredeemable (or fill in the blank of whatever expletive you may tend toward), it does perhaps take you beyond the scope of the forum.
I personally think that you need to work with someone who is apprised of the complete truth.
I think your current forum topics are possibly keeping you from examining and dealing with the issues that resulted in you lying to 3 women and this forum. Rather than moving past it, I think you should move *through* it. I can tell you that "moving past it and going forward" is the typical response.
You can't build intimacy and trust, when there is deception and withholding. The reality is that if this indiscretion had occurred 15 years ago, that you could perhaps "move past it". But it happened recently and it is impacting your relationship *now*.
I can't tell from what you have said whether or not your wife knows anything. You have hinted that she knows something. I think that is another one of the things that throws me off when corresponding with you, it's like we can't get a simple yes/no answer from you, there are only whiffs and hints and we're forced to read between the lines.
If your wife knows or suspects something, what are you doing to build trust? If your counselor is aware of everything and your wife does not know anything, what plan has the C given you to rebuild the relationship and what has been instituted to keep you accountable regarding your weakness?
:Edited to add this - Chrome, I have to deal with my own tendency to sugarcoat issues and avoid direct communication with those close to me. So, I didn't want you to feel/think that you were being labled with something unique - I deal with it too.
I appreciate very much your straight talk with me. And all the others here as well. It is hard to hear the words deception and falsehood attached to myself. Maybe that is a big problem I need to deal with. I tend to stick my head in the sand when I come face to face with my bad side. Perhaps it is a FOO issue. As a child I learned that when I did something wrong, there was always SEVERE punishment attached to it if discovered. So I learned to hide and hide well, even lying to myself to help prevent discovery under interrogation. I'm thinking the "dodginess" you are picking up on is probably me not wanting to be honest with myself, even for a mistake in the past, albeit recent past. I'll have to work on that so that I always move through my problems instead of around them.
"Please, drop the drama."
I'm afraid that is going to be a tough one for me. Intense emotional responses are not an act for me. It is yet another thing I have to learn how to control effectively, but I doubt it will ever go away.
"it does perhaps take you beyond the scope of the forum. I personally think that you need to work with someone who is apprised of the complete truth."
You are right. I apologize for setting up "strawmen" on this forum and wasting people's time. It was not my intent to do so, just more avoidance on my part I guess.
I should have taken my own advice more seriously. I need to take care of myself and my family, and that isn't going to happen here under the present circumstances.
Sorry again everyone
Chrome
"Recollect me darlin, raise me to your lips, two undernourished egos, four rotating hips"
I realize I didn't answer your two questions in my haste to get what I wanted to say across. So, one last post.
My efforts to build trust have involved being home more often and curtailing a lot of my social activity after work (which really wasn't that high to begin with). The idea being increased visiblity each day. My C and I have not really put forth a specific plan on dealing with my weakness as you call it, other than the obvious things of not allowing myself to get in situations where there is even a remote possibility of being compromised, etc. But I do have a meeting with him again next week and could ask him to help me make a specific plan of action.
Anyway, I thought I would at least answer those questions you posed.
Chrome
"Recollect me darlin, raise me to your lips, two undernourished egos, four rotating hips"
Jesus Christ, people. Anyone else want to take a kick at Chrome while he's down? Anyone else want to yank his shorts down and laugh at his bare azz in public? When in the he!! did this place become judge and jury?
He came here asking for advice on a trip to New York and clearly stated I don't know how many times that he didn't want to talk about the OW... he's working on the issue with his C, his MC (PROFESSIONALS), and his W.
Then he gets friggin' hammered. And you are all saying... 'well, how can we trust him, give him appropriate advice if he isn't being forthright with us?' Are you kidding? This is a flippin' ANNONYMOUS BB and there is absolutely NO WAY of knowing when people are being honest or not, telling the whole story or not... are y'all kidding?
I don't see Chrome hiding a whole lot here, kids, but even IF he is... IF I don't trust Chrome, if Chrome's topic is painful or personal to some... then guess what? Don't continue to interact with him to give him ANOTHER CHANCE. That's my/your choice. But to pound this man continuously into the ground on a topic which he CLEARLY asked not to speak about... how is that any better than what y'all are beating him up about?
Why don't we just tie him up and let him swing at noon? Shoot the bastard. It's below the belt and I think it sucks. Just really fcking sucks.
One day at a time, one step at a time. We've ALL done things that we are not proud of, that have caused us profound shame... most certainly me included.
Make yourself better. Do the very best you can. When you trip and you stumble, get up again. But don't go belly up, my friend. And don't hang your head. You just tend to trip when you do.
We are not "all saying... 'well, how can we trust him, give him appropriate advice if he isn't being forthright with us?"...you are jumping the gun with that statement...and if you took that from my posts, you read far too much into them.
I have withdrawn my participation on this thread now because of my own situation and my inability to remain objective with Chrome. So if your comment was directed at me (and I am assuming it was since I was one of the people asking direct questions)...along with "others" it was misplaced. I withdrew because I know now that from my own perspective I cannot give him fully constructive feedback....his situation hits too close to home for me, so often my own emotions cloud my advice.
I did not pound away at the man, I asked questions for my own clarification....then I made my own assessment of my ability to remain impartial. As far as anyone else participating on this thread other people do have points here....and well, we have all at times buried our own heads in the sand and hidden from our issues. THAT, I believe is what some of us on here were trying to guide Chrome back to...that's not something to set people in front of a firing squad for.
You have a right to your opinion as always, but don't fire at everyone with both barrels on this.
