Author SidLyon Posted June 30, 2009 Author Posted June 30, 2009 Sorry to be ignorant but can anyone please help with how to get replies properly interspersed? S If you are interspersing into one person's post: - select the Quote button at the end of their post - at the end of the sentence or paragraph where you want to add your comments, type . This will place their text in a separate box when you submit your reply. - add your comments - using your mouse or cursor highlight the next sentence or paragraph that you want to comment on - select the little square bubble icon on the menu above where you type your posts. It looks like the bubble in comic strips when people speak, with a little tail. The menu bar is all the little pictures above the reply box where you type replies. Selecting the bubble will wrap QUOTE tags around the paragraph which will set it off in a separate box. {QUOTE} starts the quote box, and {/QUOTE} ends the box. Although you don't use the {} parens; you use the [ ] parens. - add your comments - highlight the text you want to quote, select the bubble or type in the quote tags. add your comments. I'm trying it out - thanks NoraJane. If you are commenting on multiple people's posts: - Select the quotation mark (") button at the bottom of the post you want to quote - Continue selecting the quotation mark button for each post you want to quote - When you are done selecting quotes, select the Post Reply button. - All the posts you selected will appear in the reply box - Type in your comments in between each quoted post So far it looks good. You can delete text from the posts if you don't want to quote the whole thing, or only want to quote a sentence or paragraph. It seems to work. Alternate method: Copy and paste only the text you want to quote. Highlight each selection you want to set off in a box. Select the bubble icon or type in the QUOTE and /QUOTE tags in parens [].
Author SidLyon Posted June 30, 2009 Author Posted June 30, 2009 Hmmm....I would bet that he got massages and went surfing the internet even when he wasn't "abandoned" by his primary sex partner - if he's framing his actions for you this way it sounds like he's putting the responsibility for his inappropriate behavior on you (ie: if you don't have sex with me when I want you to, I have no choice but to go over here). At least in my case, even when I was having sex with my H, he still surfed porn for at least 4 hours every day. EVERY DAY. Yes I think there's an element of this. Internet porn has not been a major problem for him. I happen to know this because my computer skills have become very good since starting my law degree. I am also a qualified CPA and previously investigated financial fraud. Once I found out about my H, I was able to go back over our finances and pretty well work out what he had spent and when - including finding his secret credit card and bank account. I had never thought before to look at my own finances with a view to seeing where the money went. His problems will not be your children's responsibility - hopefully you teach them good boundaries so they don't get sucked into his world. The worst thing we codependents do is teach our kids to do the same...set up good boundaries yourself and your kids will learn by example. I hope so - I don't want them to learn from me. It's quite difficult for me knowing now, how long this has been going on without me having a clue. S
White Flower Posted June 30, 2009 Posted June 30, 2009 I hope so - I don't want them to learn from me. It's quite difficult for me knowing now, how long this has been going on without me having a clue. S Sid, your story really touches me. You obviously love your husband and are willing to do what it takes to help him. I hope in the process you take care of yourself as well. I would like to know your general ages because you say OW had a baby and then her H died. How long did he know her? At first I thought you all were older, and then I envisioned 20 or 30 somethings after I read about the baby. Goodness, my next thought is whose baby is it? (Hope that didn't hurt). What I would like to know is how long have you been dealing with his philandering (whether you knew from the beginning or not in some ways you dealt with it). Did he cheat during the entire M? If so, would it have helped if an OW or sex worker came forward and told you in the beginning or would you have believed them? Thanks, WF.
White Flower Posted June 30, 2009 Posted June 30, 2009 If you are interspersing into one person's post: - select the Quote button at the end of their post - at the end of the sentence or paragraph where you want to add your comments, type (deleted). This will place their text in a separate box when you submit your reply. - add your comments - using your mouse or cursor highlight the next sentence or paragraph that you want to comment on - select the little square bubble icon on the menu above where you type your posts. It looks like the bubble in comic strips when people speak, with a little tail. The menu bar is all the little pictures above the reply box where you type replies. Selecting the bubble will wrap QUOTE tags around the paragraph which will set it off in a separate box. {QUOTE} starts the quote box, and {/QUOTE} ends the box. Although you don't use the {} parens; you use the [ ] parens. - add your comments - highlight the text you want to quote, select the bubble or type in the quote tags. add your comments. If you are commenting on multiple people's posts: - Select the quotation mark (") button at the bottom of the post you want to quote - Continue selecting the quotation mark button for each post you want to quote - When you are done selecting quotes, select the Post Reply button. - All the posts you selected will appear in the reply box - Type in your comments in between each quoted post You can delete text from the posts if you don't want to quote the whole thing, or only want to quote a sentence or paragraph. Alternate method: Copy and paste only the text you want to quote. Highlight each selection you want to set off in a box. Select the bubble icon or type in the QUOTE and /QUOTE tags in parens. Now just copy this and pasted it into a word document for future reference. Thanks norajane! ps. I had to replace brackets with parenthesis and I added the word deleted to make this post come out right.
Author SidLyon Posted June 30, 2009 Author Posted June 30, 2009 Sid, your story really touches me. You obviously love your husband and are willing to do what it takes to help him. I hope in the process you take care of yourself as well. Thank you I would like to know your general ages because you say OW had a baby and then her H died. How long did he know her? At first I thought you all were older, and then I envisioned 20 or 30 somethings after I read about the baby. Goodness, my next thought is whose baby is it? (Hope that didn't hurt). I am 52, my H is 48 and OW is about 40. Her H was about 46 when he died last year. The "baby" will be 7 in October. The paternity of the baby was recently discussed in another thread and I don't really want to re-hash the discussion, but there may be a paternity test sometime in the next few months. What I would like to know is how long have you been dealing with his philandering (whether you knew from the beginning or not in some ways you dealt with it). Did he cheat during the entire M? If so, would it have helped if an OW or sex worker came forward and told you in the beginning or would you have believed them? [ QUOTE] Thanks, WF. My H is utterly hopeless with timing - always has been - which is why I have only approximate details of the OW's age and the date they started having sex. He doesn't even remember for sure the date of her birthday. So the massage parlours started about a year after an event he remembers, which puts it at about 8 or 9 years ago. The A started in early 2002 about 8 or 9 months before the baby was born. I found out last October and at the most had minimal clues about his activities and nothing that pointed directly to an affair. My H is an absent minded professor type and he genuinely forgets things which he used to his advantage for anything connected to his activities. His A was conducted almost exclusively during lunch times and the massage parlours were taken in during his evening jog - it only required an extra quarter hour apparently. He went to enormous lengths to hide it from me. He and the OW never contacted each other during family or holiday times. That was their rules. If I had found out earlier then obviously there would have been a much earlier d-day. He says it was always his intention to stop if I ever found out and from what the OW told me this was her understanding too. He seems to have believed all along that I would forgive him and we would move on. Maybe because his own parents had a similar experience. He says the experience was something he wanted at the time but now he is past it. I will forgive him (he knows me well) but don't want to go through it all again - if I do there will be no additional chance as it's too painful. S
2sunny Posted June 30, 2009 Posted June 30, 2009 i can't tell by your choice of words if your husband is sorry he cheated or just sorry he got caught? has he done anything to show that he is remorseful? does he intend to repair the M or just leave it as it stands? what ACTION is HE showing that forgiveness and moving forward is even worth the consideration?
Author SidLyon Posted June 30, 2009 Author Posted June 30, 2009 i can't tell by your choice of words if your husband is sorry he cheated or just sorry he got caught? Well it's hard to tell. I caught him out on a dating website last October - he was basically out of control so much that he was doing it in front of me. He has since commented that he felt totally confused and was out of control, unlike the earlier times. This was a few months after the death of the OW H's, which for my H meant the dynamics of their relationship had completely changed. Prior to this she was a married W who he felt was safe to have a no-strings A with. Then her H died and then his brother-in-law died under eerily similar circumstances. I caught him on the dating website 5 days after my brother-in-law's funeral. I then used my computer skills to hack into that dating website and another he was on, as well as the secret hotmail account (all in the name of his alter ego). I discovered his e-mails to the OW as well as the "chat" with the women on the dating website. Given that I was never meant to see these, I thought they were a reasonably reliable chronicle of the A and his activities with women on the dating site. His profile and the e-mails made it very clear that he was married and had no intention of leaving. On d-day I think he was both sorry and relieved that he was caught. He seemed almost happy that years of a secret life were finally out in the open and that there was no need for him to pretend with me or lie to me anymore. The sex workers he confessed to me and I would never have found out about them by myself - but after he told me I could see from the financial accounts that what he told me was substantially true. has he done anything to show that he is remorseful? does he intend to repair the M or just leave it as it stands? Yes and this is the only reason I'm still with him. He has provided all mobile phone accounts, receipts and invoices, work time sheets and e-mails that I have requested including ones sent to him by OW. I was able to go through these and reconstruct what happened and when; and it seems that he was truthful about most things. Eg I picked up the withdrawal to pay for the full service with the sex worker (only once) as it was more expensive than massages. He told me of this before I even started to go through the accounts. We have been to counseling. He has made a real effort to be totally transparent. This has coincided with our children being just old enough to be left alone on Saturday evenings so we have been going out together to things we enjoy and we have been away on holidays together (and with the kids too). We are going away as a family, for a week next week too. We have both made a big effort to be more intimate and affectionate with each other. To be honest this part of our marriage recovery has been wonderful for us both. On the other hand it's a bit like discovering today that an apple I ate last week was wormy. I am having trouble dealing with the fact that for 8 or 9 years my marriage was so badly undermined by his infidelity. He says it was a total of only 4 years (ie the times he was visiting the massage parlours, the A and the 6 month period last year when dealing with the 2 deaths). He feels that we have made substantial progress in our marriage whereas I still dwell on the past. Normally he is a very optimistic person and I am a pessimist so this does reflect our different personalities. what ACTION is HE showing that forgiveness and moving forward is even worth the consideration? As above really. I know we have improved our marriage and he is definitely making a real effort and seems genuinely remorseful and determined to make it up to me. But perhaps because I am a natural pessimist - in my darker moments I worry that it will all come crashing down again. S
PhoenixRise Posted June 30, 2009 Posted June 30, 2009 I think MM are the same if the women are the same. If the women both sit back and listen to the pleading and just hope that the MM will recommit to the marriage (the BS) or leave the marriage (OW). I think when BS are too afraid to leave the marriage the MM knows this and behaves accordingly. He can deal with the temporary tears and recriminations then go right back to cheating with his AP or a new AP. I think the fear of losing the MM to the OW keeps many BS from enforcing any consequences for the affair and in some cases the BS will push down her pain and go out of her way to make the marriage look super fantastic to the MM hoping the MM will chose to value the marriage. It is all about fear. I think in the case of the OW if SHE is too afraid to leave the relationship the MM knows this and behaves accordingly. He will deal with any hurt feelings, talk of how bad things are at home, talk of the need for patience, talk a rosy future, then he will go right back to his wife. The OW won't enforce any consequensces for MM bad treatment of her because if the wife is the bad choice she wants to be the better choice and if she enforces a boundary he might find it easier not to chose her at all. It is all about fear. Similar behavior will probally get you similar results. It doesn't matter if you are a wife or other woman if you are scared to leave you will continue to get walked on. My H "forgot" that I don't consider marriage a hostage situation and I ain't scared. I think the woman who is willing to stand up for herself and who is NOT afraid to walk away will ALWAYS win whether she "gets" the guy or not.[/QUOTE] Yes I think you are right. I guess I'm really wanting my marriage to work and for my H to be faithful in future. Most people consider me a strong and coping sort of person - I am too - or have usually been. I want my H to understand that I am not scared to leave but realistically I don't want to have to actually leave to prove it. Actually leaving involves considerably uprooting ourselves and destabilising our children. In the past when I have left relationships it has been easy despite shared ownership of homes, shared finances and shared pets. I absolutely do not want to upset my children and it would be awful it it were done just to prove to my H that I'm serious. In reality I want my marriage to survive and for us to go on to bigger and better things. But yes a small part of me questions whether it is just about the fear of the unknown. I feel very conflicted still. S I completely understand feeling conflicted. You love you husband and you are comitted to him and you want your marriage to work. I really do hope things get better for you. I would never suggest that someone leave their marriage just to prove a point or just to teach a lesson to a WS. I left because deep down I knew it was the right thing to do at the time. Things are working out for us though and my husband is now working very hard to recover the marriage. But even if this had not been the result I know that I would have been ok. I think that fear of the unknown does play a big part in why BS and OW stay in the relationship.
PhoenixRise Posted June 30, 2009 Posted June 30, 2009 Hi Sid, I ...Yet, you say he's been unfaithful throughout the M. That is his quirk, his flaw and it concerns me, to tell you the truth. My gut reaction is that he is a serial cheater, CS, and I even wonder if he cheated on the OW and you both. If so, how much will it matter to understand how the A began or the OW for that matter? I hope it is not true, but how do you then explain all his other philandering? His other philandering was at massage parlours; and it did continue while his A was going on. The OW was horrified when she found out and yes I told her about it. When the A ended he made a decision to end that part of his life but was unable to stick with it when she re-contacted him out of the blue early last year. After her H died he went off the deep end and joined an internet dating website, meeting several women from that. The only sex my H had outside marriage was either with the OW or sex workers as he was never very successful with women. As I've said he is very shy. It must be obvious to all now that my H has problems with self esteem. From what he says the OW was a huge boost to him, although he now says it's been the worst thing that ever happened to him. This is totally humiliating for me to admit. ...Let me ask, is your H a thrill-seeker? Does he like to fly, ride a motorcycle, go sky diving, etc? It may just be an integral part of his personality to live on the edge. Having and OW may be fulfilling the thrill-seeking part of his personality, albeit part-time, while most of the time he is getting the comfortable life with you. My H is not obviously a thrill seeker - he is a very quiet introverted man. However he has always had a rich fantasy life in his head where he goes on fantastic adventures and women fall all over him. He writes wonderful stories about it so I have always known of it - he is extremely creative and is also a talented musician. What I had failed to realise was that not all of it was just in his head. Wow Sid I am so sorry that you are dealing with this. How do you keep this situation from undercutting YOUR self esteem? Are you getting regular counseling? I don't know much about sex addictions but it sounds like this is your Husband's issue. You must love your husband very much and I hope he really knows how lucky he has been to have you. Sid, maybe you should start thinking about creating healthy boundaries for yourself and for what kind of life you want for yourself and your children independant of whether or not your H gets healthy. What if he never gets healthy? How much of this are you willing to cope with? Do your children know about any of this? My heart is really breaking for you. My father was a drug addict until the day he died. He went through rehab several times and he always relapsed. Eventually my mom had to separate from him for good- she never divorced him though. Addictions can make good people do some truly horrible things.
MistyK Posted June 30, 2009 Posted June 30, 2009 But perhaps because I am a natural pessimist - in my darker moments I worry that it will all come crashing down again. S It's only natural that you worry, it's not a personality flaw. Unfortunately once someone has shown you their ability to be decpetive and hurt you with careless disregard, it's impossible to "forget" that - you can't put toothpaste back in the tube as they say. IMO, it appears that you're doing your best to ensure you have some kind of guarantee that he will behave himself in the future and that none of his past activities come back to haunt you. You have limited to no control over those things, and that can be so frustrating when you so want control of your life back. I hope you feel better soon.
Author SidLyon Posted June 30, 2009 Author Posted June 30, 2009 Thanks for your kind words - all of you. I re-read some of what I wrote and may have given the impression that my H had resumed with the sex workers - this wasn't the case - he ended his visits to them several years ago. What appeared to me to be out-of-control was his dating website activities - basically where he arranged to meet local women. Although he met 3 of them they didn't progress beyond the first meeting. My H is very shy and not much of a conversationalist so probably doesn't make much of a first impression. Funnily enough "sex addiction" was one of the first things that crossed my mind at d-day. However his psychologist as well as the one we went to together both say no sex addiction. The psychologist we saw together had all the facts and said no, although that wasn't her specialist area. I doubt that he lied to the one he saw by himself (as it was a referral from the first one) who was a specialist in sex addiction. My H has no other addictions as far as I can tell and does not seem to have an addictive personality. Perhaps I'm wrong but I think the out-of-control behaviour I saw just before d-day was a response to the extreme and unusual situation that both our brother-in-law and the OW's husband had died in similar circumstances - both in their mid 40s. My original point in starting this thread is that many MM just want stability in their lives and for those in an A that can mean all the comforts of home with W and kids plus the comforts of the OW who provides excitement and an escape from the boredom that often come with long term relationships. When both of these are threatened by a d-day the MM does not really want to change either as they have both come to suit him. Faced with the loss of something important to him he is willing to beg, plead, lie and crawl to both woman to retain what has become very important to him. Basically he does not want to choose because that will mean losing something that he considers essential to his well being. Hence my belief that the MM's behaviour to both women is very similar. But of course any man with even a modicum of intelligence knows exactly what he is doing to both of them - as do both the women I think. It is a very foolish OW or BW who believes without question what her MM/H is saying. This is a good reason for the OW and BW to talk to each other and is one reason why I did contact the OW. However even this is no guarantee as there would be no obligation on either party to tell the truth. S
White Flower Posted June 30, 2009 Posted June 30, 2009 It is a very foolish OW or BW who believes without question what her MM/H is saying. This is a good reason for the OW and BW to talk to each other and is one reason why I did contact the OW. However even this is no guarantee as there would be no obligation on either party to tell the truth. S Did you post about your conversation with the OW? I would like to read it if so. Thanks, WF.
Author SidLyon Posted June 30, 2009 Author Posted June 30, 2009 Did you post about your conversation with the OW? I would like to read it if so. Thanks, WF. Yes I posted some of it: [FONT=Times New Roman][sIZE=3][COLOR=#800080]http://www.loveshack.org/forums/t186419/[/COLOR][/sIZE][/FONT] When that thread was closed down it was continued on: http://www.loveshack.org/forums/t186700/ I used the word "confronted" in the subject but it was really a very civilised conversation. I didn't give her a choice and just arrived to see her. In a subsequent phone conversation she was awful. I think that was because she had contacted my H and asked him to meet with her without telling me. He told her he wouldn't meet and that he would be telling me. I guess she was probably half prepared that she would hear from me - she was really unpleasant. As a result I sent her another e-mail and copied her older son into it. Other than a paternity test there seems no reason for anyone from either of our families to have any further contact. I'm happy to answer any further question you have. S
White Flower Posted July 1, 2009 Posted July 1, 2009 Yes I posted some of it: [FONT=Times New Roman][sIZE=3][COLOR=#800080]http://www.loveshack.org/forums/t186419/[/COLOR][/sIZE][/FONT] When that thread was closed down it was continued on: http://www.loveshack.org/forums/t186700/ I used the word "confronted" in the subject but it was really a very civilised conversation. I didn't give her a choice and just arrived to see her. In a subsequent phone conversation she was awful. I think that was because she had contacted my H and asked him to meet with her without telling me. He told her he wouldn't meet and that he would be telling me. I guess she was probably half prepared that she would hear from me - she was really unpleasant. As a result I sent her another e-mail and copied her older son into it. Other than a paternity test there seems no reason for anyone from either of our families to have any further contact. I'm happy to answer any further question you have. S Thanks, I will go and read these threads. I am very interested in learning more about OW/BW discussion.
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