milly1 Posted March 15, 2011 Posted March 15, 2011 Hi I am in a bad place at present. after discovering my husband of12yrs(together 15) was having an affair with a work colleague my world blew up. We have 2 kids 8 and 4 and so I was willing to enter into counselling. After being advised that full disclosure was the first positive step he could take (also to allow me to respond and learn why) he has continued to lie and to deny hard evidence such as phone records. As a result of yet another fight about secrets I left our home with the kids in order to find 2-3 days mental peace by visiting my mother. Whilst visiting I ensured the kids had unrestricted access to phoning him. I also wrote him via email (to avoid another fight) stating that I needed a seperation as the stress of sharing the one roof was bad for all of us. I gave him 2 options to consider 1) full dsiclosure and a controlled seperation with the aim of working through things over an unrestricted period of time or 2) not participate and dishonour my need for honesty and disclosure and seperate with the aim to divorce. My reply, once again, was about how distraught he is but no disclosure. i am torn. part of me is shrivelling up and dying but another part is telling me to be strong and move towards divorce. If he can't be honest and participate in an oppurtunity for potential healing and reconcilliation, how will it change in the future? i am in agraet deal of pain and very confused. I trhink the anger has finally shifted to resignation. How can a man who is saying how much he loves me and wants to stay togethjer still deny what is needed to heal? HELP!
What_Next Posted March 15, 2011 Posted March 15, 2011 There will be no reconciliation without full disclosure IMHO, also without clear and obvious remorse. Along with full NC with his AP, etc. Is he taking you seriously in your position?
ZXC123 Posted March 15, 2011 Posted March 15, 2011 I sent this to my spouse and it helped. Google, "letter to wayward spouse" This is a letter, author unknown, written to the wayward spouse. It's message is good and this has helped many. "I know you are feeling the pain of guilt and confusion. I understand that you wish all this never happened and that you wish it would just go away. I can even believe that you truly love me and that your indiscretion hurts you emotionally much the same way it hurts me. I understand your apprehension to me discovering little by little, everything that led up to your indiscretion, everything that happened during that weekend, and everything that happened afterwards. I understand. No one wants to have a mistake or misjudgment thrown in his or her face repeatedly. No one wants to be forced to "look" at the thing that caused all their pain over and over again. I can actually see, that through your eyes, you are viewing this whole thing as something that just needs to go away, something that is over, that she doesn't mean anything to you, so why is it such a big issue? I can understand you wondering why I torture myself with this continuously, and thinking, doesn't she know by now that I love her? I can see how you can feel this way and how frustrating it must be. But for the remainder of this letter I'm going to ask you to view my reality through my eyes. You were there. There is no detail left out from your point of view. Like a puzzle, you have all the pieces and you are able to reconstruct them and be able to understand the whole picture, the whole message, or the whole meaning. You know exactly what that picture is and what it means to you and if it can effect your life and whether or not it continues to stir your feelings. You have the pieces, the tools, and the knowledge. You can move through your life with 100% of the picture you compiled. If you have any doubts, then at least you're carrying all the information in your mind and you can use it to derive conclusions or answers to your doubts or question. You carry all the "STUFF" to figure out OUR reality. There isn't really any information, or pieces to the puzzle that you don't have. Now let's enter my reality. Let's both agree that this affects our lives equally. The outcome no matter what it is will affect us both. Our future and our present circumstances are every bit as important to me as it is to you. So, why then is it okay for me to be left in the dark? Do I not deserve to know as much about the night that nearly destroyed our relationship as you do? Just like you, I am also able to discern the meaning of certain particulars and innuendoes of that night and just like you, I deserve to be given the opportunity to understand what nearly brought our relationship down. To assume that I can move forward and accept everything at face value is unrealistic and unless we stop thinking unrealistically I doubt our lives well ever "feel" complete. You have given me a puzzle. It is a 1000 piece puzzle and 400 random pieces are missing. You expect me to assemble the puzzle without the benefit of looking at the picture on the box. You expect me to be able to discern what I am looking at and to appreciate it in the same context as you. You want me to be as comfortable with what I see in the picture as you are. When I ask if there was a tree in such and such area of the picture you tell me don't worry about it, it's not important. When I ask whether there were any animals in my puzzle you say don't worry about it, it's not important. When I ask if there was a lake in that big empty spot in my puzzle you say, what's the difference, it's not important. Then later when I'm expected to "understand" the picture in my puzzle you fail to understand my disorientation and confusion. You expect me to feel the same way about the picture as you do but deny me the same view as you. When I express this problem you feel compelled to admonish me for not understanding it, for not seeing it the way you see it. You wonder why I can't just accept whatever you chose to describe to me about the picture and then be able to feel the same way you feel about it. So, you want me to be okay with everything. You think you deserve to know and I deserve to wonder. You may honestly feel that the whole picture, everything that happened is insignificant because in your heart you know it was a mistake and wish it never happened. But how can I know that? Faith? Because you told me so? Would you have faith if the tables were turned? Don't you understand that I want to believe you completely? But how can I? I can never know what is truly in your mind and heart. I can only observe your actions, and what information I have acquired and slowly, over time rebuild my faith in your feelings. I truly wish it were easier. So, there it is, as best as I can put it. That is why I ask questions. That is where my need to know is derived from. And that is why it is unfair for you to think that we can effectively move forward and unfair for you to accuse me of dwelling on the past. My need to know stems from my desire to hold our world together. It doesn't come from jealousy, it doesn't come from spitefulness, and it doesn't come from a desire to make you suffer. It comes from the fact that I love you. Why else would I put myself through this? Wouldn't it be easier for me to walk away? Wouldn't it be easier to consider our relationship a bad mistake in my life and to move on to better horizons? Of course it would, but I can't and the reason I can't is because I love you and that reason in itself makes all the difference in the world.
Linda9999 Posted March 15, 2011 Posted March 15, 2011 That letter is awesome. I should send that to my husband again because I think he's totally forgotten it. Do not make any final decisions about the marriage right now. Separation is good - I kicked my husband out when I found out, I needed him gone - but I didn't make any decisions about whether to stay together permanently or not. You can live apart and decide later. He needs to come out of his fog before you'll get disclosure, and yes, he does need to do give you full disclosure. Give him some time to do so, and in a month or two suggest marriage counseling. Go from there.
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