lover not a fighter's sorted affair story

March 29, 2006

but therapy..I don't believe I can handle that. :-(

Don't even try going until you're ready to deal with it all. To change and really accept things...Even hear things that you don't want to hear. Therapy is hard work! What you put into it, is what you get out of it.

March 30, 2006

Don't even try going until you're ready to deal with it all. To change and really accept things...Even hear things that you don't want to hear. Therapy is hard work! What you put into it, is what you get out of it.

therapy isn't for me..in all seriousness when I say I'm generally a person who'd never do this ,it's true and also when anyone I know has a problem I am their therapist..I usually have such sage advice for others yet I've done this to myself.

if I can't get myself out of this at least somehow where I feel half human again I'll never feel I can be what my friends and family have come to love about me.

I will be living this half life..and it isn't good enough for no one.especially not me.

I did decide to listen to owl and me lean on someone (this is particularly out of character for me) and told my mother and my sister last night.

my sister was in total shock,but amazingly had a open mind..my mother shocked me to pieces and described to me a story that happened to her that mirrored my own..her first husband and the other man (who was also married)..was my father!

I never had any idea,I knew she was married before because my eldest sister was from another marriage but I never knew the circumstances of their divorce..she never told me any of that before.

and my father never ever talked about his first wife..never in fact till I was adult I didn't know he was married before either.

anyway drawing from her experience she seems to think my MM is sincere. but she did say move on with my own life..and don't worry about him till when and if he comes to be with me.

I believe he is sincere to..the mere mention of NC has made him visibly shaken..I seen him yesterday and he was mess..vomiting,sweating,shaking..I felt so horrible..in all the time I've known him I've never seen him sick.

he said for us to please have that sit down next week and really talk..not like this in passing or on the phone or in letters.

so we are going to go ahead with that..but until then I'm gonna try to avoid as much contact as possible..we both need to clear out some cob webs from or minds..that will something at least.

thanks again everyone for listening.

March 30, 2006

You know...I should give up my 'techie' job and become a therapist!

March 30, 2006

I did decide to listen to owl and me lean on someone (this is particularly out of character for me) and told my mother and my sister last night.

my sister was in total shock,but amazingly had a open mind..my mother shocked me to pieces and described to me a story that happened to her that mirrored my own..her first husband and the other man (who was also married)..was my father!

I'm glad to hear that you took this leap though. Keeping it all inside can't be good. I can appreciate how difficult it is to reach out though. Probably why boards like this exist though.

March 30, 2006

O/T: Walking Away, how are you doing? I was looking around for you and saw you here. I hope things are going ok. Stay strong!

Hanging in there Chump...hanging in there.

Hugs to you...hope you are even better than okay. You are a formidable woman...A man would be lucky to have you....Know it and believe it.

It's true.

April 2, 2006

You know...I should give up my 'techie' job and become a therapist!

yes you should!

I'm glad to hear that you took this leap though. Keeping it all inside can't be good. I can appreciate how difficult it is to reach out though. Probably why boards like this exist though.

I agree...I felt insanely guilty after talking with them and honestly didn't tell them half of what I spilled my guts here over...it's so hard to reach out...I am elated this board..wow am I.

Hanging in there Chump...hanging in there.
Hugs to you...hope you are even better than okay. You are a formidable woman...A man would be lucky to have you....Know it and believe it.
It's true.

I've gotten to read some of chumps post..I feel bad because of her handle..she isn't a chump at all!

though of late that's exactly how I feel.

I'm weaker and weaker to my MM all the time. I asked him again to stop talking about leaving because again he starts back tracking of the why he should stay stuff.

I told him as of now I'm not lead on but if he continues I'll believe he'll join me and that isn't fair so just stop it . I said look I don't expect you to leave and you won't expect me to wait and let's leave it as that.

he always gives me that look like "omg" but agreed to stop and what does he do like 2 hours later? starts telling all this stuff we are going to do when we are together like we should be.

I'm suppose to see him again next week.I am going to ask him again to stop and tell him we should work on our lives,like has been said in this thread and if we meet afterwards then we'll make things work.

April 3, 2006

LNF-

The BEST thing you could do for yourself here is to tell him point blank what you're expecting from him, and then cut him out of your life until he meets those expectations.

This is what I was referring to earlier.

Simply tell him now (don't wait, or you never will) exactly what I'd said before..."I'm not going to wait for you. I'm not going to continue on in this fashion anymore. I am ending this now. Completely. I want no more contact with you in any fashion until you're ready to be in a committed relationship with me. That means that you are divorced, you are financially/emotionally/physically no longer dependent on anyone else. When you are AT that point, come talk to me and we'll see where our futures lie. But until you're divorced and ready for another relationship, there can be no other contact between the two of us."

Doing anything less simply sets the stage for this story to continue on and on and on without end. And it will...because there is no true reason for him to change anything in his life. He's got both women fighting for him...so he's feeling pretty good in his ego right now. Even if this creates stress for him, it's still not enough to cause a change.

Hang in there...you've got friends and family to help you deal with it. So take this step and let him go until he really can be ALL yours.

April 3, 2006

LNF-
The BEST thing you could do for yourself here is to tell him point blank what you're expecting from him, and then cut him out of your life until he meets those expectations.
This is what I was referring to earlier.
Simply tell him now (don't wait, or you never will) exactly what I'd said before..."I'm not going to wait for you. I'm not going to continue on in this fashion anymore. I am ending this now. Completely. I want no more contact with you in any fashion until you're ready to be in a committed relationship with me. That means that you are divorced, you are financially/emotionally/physically no longer dependent on anyone else. When you are AT that point, come talk to me and we'll see where our futures lie. But until you're divorced and ready for another relationship, there can be no other contact between the two of us."
Doing anything less simply sets the stage for this story to continue on and on and on without end. And it will...because there is no true reason for him to change anything in his life. He's got both women fighting for him...so he's feeling pretty good in his ego right now. Even if this creates stress for him, it's still not enough to cause a change.
Hang in there...you've got friends and family to help you deal with it. So take this step and let him go until he really can be ALL yours.

but that's the thing though until he started talking about leaving I never expected him to..I would bat down every attempt he made to talk about 'our' future.

we are both married after all and we didn't intend to fall in love..I would love to have a real relationship with him but it isn't realistic that that will happen.

I am going through the steps to work out my separation with H we plan on selling our home and going our ways..if my MM was as in love as me I think he'd be doing the same but the is just tossing around ideas which I don't want to hear because I'm starting to feel lead on.

but now I need to be strong and for no other reason but the fact that he's causing me more stress than any sort of helpfulness at the time I need all the help I can get I seriously need to listen to you and let him go.

I was thinking I'll tell him if we were meant to be,I'll see him on the other side and wish him the best..though I won't tell him what I expect because that to me will leave room in my mind that he's doing what I want because I twisted his arm..I want him to do it because he loves me and choose it for himself.

and if he doesn't he then severely needs to work on his marriage with out me in the picture..and like you said right now he has the best of both worlds and won't doing anything at all.

you know the old saying "if you love something set free...." I seriously need to imply it.

I sort of sent him a heads up last night and copy and pasted all these breaking up for the right reasons kinda quotes,like for hope and love,right love wrong time stuff..told him he needs to think and so do I,and left it at that.

I have to focus on my life..I tried to tell him that and I think that's why just in a few short hours he started his future with me stuff again.

I will listen to you owl,it's just really really hard to do whats right when you know how much it will hurt.

thank you for your advice and support...I defiantly will post my results as they happen,hopefully sooner than later.

April 3, 2006

you know the old saying "if you love something set free...." I seriously need to imply it.

You know...I wonder if your H isn't practicing the same kind of thing here in moving forward with your seperation from him.

You remember what I'd said about how MM's W 'could tell' something was wrong...because of the emotional distance created due to how much he was emotionally investing in you instead of her? I wonder how much of that has occurred in your own marriage...and how much of that might have led to the marital breakdown the two of you have reached as well.

Not attacking you here...but it IS something you might want to give some thought to. I know that my wife was pretty convinced that she didn't love me the same way anymore, that there really wasn't any chance of us reconciling, that we'd reached the end of our marriage. But...once she got OM out of her system and she realized that I was STILL there loving her and trying to do the right things for her even when it hurt me more than I could ever admit, she fell right back in love with me. And has been that way ever since.

Take a look at the book "The Five Languages of Love"...it's a good read. You might give some thought about the 'in love' vs. the 'long term love' feelings in chapter 2, and see how they could apply in your case as well my friend. At this point,what would it hurt?

April 3, 2006

Not attacking you here...but it IS something you might want to give some thought to. I know that my wife was pretty convinced that she didn't love me the same way anymore, that there really wasn't any chance of us reconciling, that we'd reached the end of our marriage. But...once she got OM out of her system and she realized that I was STILL there loving her and trying to do the right things for her even when it hurt me more than I could ever admit, she fell right back in love with me. And has been that way ever since.

I know you weren't speaking to me, but I have been reading your insightful advice here, in this thread, and other places. Owl, are all marriages really meant to be saved? Unless both partners learned and grew from the experience, isn't the same discontent that allowed the original affair to happen, just going to manifest itself again. (I'm not talking about your marriage in particular as it appears from the posts I read of yours that both of you developed new understandings. I just wanted to emphasize that, lest you think I was challenging your situation personally)

Maybe my situation is different;I don't know. Yes, I realize that an affair really didn't solve my marital problems, only masked them. However, they were there pre-affair and they will be there post-affair also. I am not going to fall back in love with him because I doubt I ever truly loved him. In fact, I know it now.

Perhaps, I should just head out to some deserted island somewhere with a good book. Seems easier, sometimes.

April 3, 2006

Blind Illusion-

First...I took not one bit of offense at your questions...very valid questions and I know that they were by no means intended as any kind of slight to me. Actually, I'm glad you asked them, because they're VERY pertinent to what's going on with pretty much everyone on this forum. By the same token, please recognize that my response isn't in any way 'aimed' at anyone. It's not...simply a response back.

I would agree...of course not every marriage is 'salvagable'. But I'd also like to add two caveats to that.

One...no one can review what they've read on a site such as this and truly KNOW if the situation is salvagable or not. Simply not enough information available to make that decision...but I normally work from the premise that MOST marriages are salvagable, and that whoever I'm giving advice to is likely in that situation unless it's screamingly obvious even to me that there isn't any hope. Only the poster "could" make that choice...which leads to caveat #2.

Two...the problem is, anyone involved in an affair simply cannot look objectively at their marriage. It's like trying to look at a picture through sunglasses...or maybe trying to decide what color a flower is in a black and white photo. Their current situation has altered their mindset enough that it's virtually impossible for them to look back on their marriage objectively and HONESTLY evaluate what state it's in.

Over on marriagebuilders.com, they call this fog. And when it pertains specifically to how the WS (wayward spouse) views the marriage, they call it 're-writing marital history'. Consider it something of a mental defense mechanism, but it's flat out true that being in an affair directly impacts how the person in the affair will view both the past and the current state of their marriage. I've seen it happen with tons for friends who have been in this situation, and I've seen it first hand in my own situation.

My wife told EVERYONE at the time she was 'caught' in her affair that she hadn't been happy in YEARS in our marriage. And NO ONE could see that. Not family, not close friends, not our kids, not me. NO ONE. I could see where she'd been unhappy for the past year prior to and building up to her affair. But even THAT unhappiness was of her own doing, and the kids and I had FOUGHT to help fix the situation. For that year prior, she'd been fired from her job (not really her fault, although she just gave up on trying to do anything about it which is unlike her), she stopped taking her AD medication, gotten addicted to online gaming, and because of the gaming and depression, QUIT trying to do anything for herself, me, or the kids. All of this were contributing factors that led up to her affair.

I could see that...but YEARS? I asked her in marriage counseling exactly how many years...and she made it sound like it was the last 10 years or so. Huh?!?! Again, no one could see it. But then she gave up the idea of running off and living with OM...it dropped down to 'the last couple of years'...closer to the truth, but again, she'd been very happy for a good while...not quite a match up yet. Then we started reconciling, started seeing a new (and MUCH more effective) MC...and the time dropped down into what I knew was the truth.

You see, her mind was justifying her affair. She was convinced that I'd been some kind of totally non-emotional robot who never loved her at all...she couldn't believe that I fought so hard to save our marriage!!! (again, if she would have seen things like everyone else did, she would have understood it) She convinced herself that her affair was 'justified' by the fact that I'd emotionally neglected her and had sided with the kids on maintaining the household (I had simply picked up doing all of the things she had stopped doing as a result of her affair).

Now, read all the advice I've given here...do I strike ANYONE as an emotionless robot??? I hope not...

You see...she couldn't make a real assessment of what our marriage was like while she was still in the affair. She couldn't make an HONEST assessment over whether or not what we had was worth saving...because if she did, she'd be forced to 'admit' (even if just to herself) that what she'd done was NOT justifiable.

I honestly believe that this applies to pretty much ALL of the posters here who are married and in an affair, to one degree or another. In some cases, the marriage may NOT be worth saving...but THERE IS NO WAY THAT ANYONE INVOLVED IN AN AFFAIR CAN HONESTLY MAKE THAT JUDGEMENT AND NOT ALTER THEIR JUDGEMENT BASED ON THEIR OWN CURRENT AFFAIR.

If you want to know the TRUTH of what your own marriage is like, whether or not it's salvagable, then end the affair, go through the withdrawl pangs you'll suffer afterwards, and THEN take a look at your affair. Maybe try going to all of the friends and family who knew you and your H together and ask THEM for an UBIASED opinion...but honestly, I'd expect that you would end up coloring the responses back with your own viewpoint from the affair as well.

Again, this wasn't an attack on you or anyone else here, BI. Just a summary of why I take the tack I do with this stuff...and again, this is something I've seen both firsthand and repeated over and over in other's situations.

That's why I almost always encourage people to end the affair first...go through all that this entails...and THEN take stock where your marriage is at. And if after you've completely dealt with the end of the affair, talked with an MC about your marriage, perhaps consulted with friends and family who have seen how your marriage works...you're still ready to end your marriage...do it.

This is what I offered my wife two years ago. I KNEW that everything she was saying and doing was clouded by what she was going through. But I was willing to give her up, give up our 17+ years (at the time) of marriage if she still felt like it wasn't worth saving...if she still felt that way ON HER OWN, without any 'affair goggles' on.

Again, look at where I'm at today. My wife and I spent an AWESOME weekend together. I took Friday off to spend with her before I started my new job today...we went shopping, to lunch, and to a movie. We had a GREAT time together.

Things can turn around like you wouldn't believe...an affair is a tremendous 'wake up call' to EVERYONE in your life. My wife would have never believed that I would have made the changes I did to work things out with her...she would have never believed that she would have been willing to make the changes SHE did to work things out too. But here we are.

But...it's all up to you. No one makes your choices for you unless you let them.

I hope this helps someone/anyone out there who reads it. It's where I've been.

April 3, 2006

Not attacking you here...but it IS something you might want to give some thought to. I know that my wife was pretty convinced that she didn't love me the same way anymore, that there really wasn't any chance of us reconciling, that we'd reached the end of our marriage. But...once she got OM out of her system and she realized that I was STILL there loving her and trying to do the right things for her even when it hurt me more than I could ever admit, she fell right back in love with me. And has been that way ever since.

I wish it was so easy with me. You know, get OM out of my system and then get on with our marriage because my H loves me. I guess that I left the marriage because in different ways, my H betrayed my trust in various ways, I felt unsupported by certain decisions I made that I needed his emotional support for and he didn't give it and I felt that he took me for granted on a financial standpoint. Sometimes its just from the way he says things that lead me to feel the way that I do. I was never one to rock the boat prior to leaving the marriage and now, I don't see that I have much to lose.

April 3, 2006

I just lost a huge response to your questions, BI. Gonna try this again.

BI, I would absolutely agree that not all marriages are salvageable. I would say that most are, but it's pretty much impossible for anyone sitting here reading on a website to truly know just from what they read here as to whether or not a situation is recoverable. So I pretty much provide my advice based on the fact that most of them can be saved. But, being able to decide that isn't possible from where I sit...it's really up to the people involved. But...that leads into my caveats here.

One...the person actually involved in the affair is incapable of looking at their marital situation without viewing it from the affair perspective. It's like trying to view a picture through colored glasses...or maybe more like trying to decide what color a flower really is when you see it in a black and white picture.

You see, someone who's involved in an affair simply cannot see their own marital and family situtation accurately. Even the past is suspect...because their mind makes it appear MUCH differently from the way others view that same past. It's kind of a mental defense mechanism. It helps to 'justify' the affair in a way. If they DIDN'T see things this way, it would force them to view their affair in a much more negative light...which their mind will not accept.

Over on marriagebuilders.com, they call this 'the fog'. And when it's specific to how a WS (wayward spouse) sees their marriage, they call it 're-writing marital history'. I've seen this happen numerous times...both with friends that have been through this, and in my wife's case as she viewed OUR marriage from the perspective of her affair.

You see, when she was in the affair and during the first month or so afterwards, she was convinced that she'd been "unhappy for years". But no one else could see that. Not our friends, our family, our kids, not even me.

I could see that she'd been unhappy for about a year. Up to and then including the duration of the affair. And that unhappiness was pretty much brought on by her own actions...she'd been fired from her job (not totally her fault, but she fought this far less than she normally would have), she stopped taking her AD medication, and became addicted to online gaming. This gaming was to the point of 16+ hours a day. It was destroying our marriage and our family, since she stopped taking care of the things around the house and taking care of herself too.

But unhappy for years?!?! Nope, no one could see this. I asked her to give me specific things/times that she was unhappy with...but she just couldn't come up with anything. Interestingly enough, once the affair ended and we started marriage counseling this time began to drop rapidly. It went from 'years and years' to 'the last few years'. Again, she couldn't pinpoint anything when I asked for specific things, dates, occurrences, etc... And then once she truly decided to reconcile, it dropped down to what all of us knew...about that last year.

Up to that point, she'd been convinced that she hadn't been in love with me in years. That she'd been unhappy for years. Even though no one else could see it. Even given she couldn't point out ANY major indicators or reasons for what she was saying. She was convinced that our marriage was beyond saving at that point.

Again, it was kind of one of those situations where her mind was playing tricks on her...it was a mechanism where it was justifying what she was doing so that she could avoid the guilt of what she'd done to me and to our family. And she didn't even realize that she was doing this.

This is why you'll see that I normally try to advise people to end the affair FIRST. Because trying to honestly assess whether or not your marriage is worth saving while you're involved in an affair is virtually impossible. Even your own memories of your marriage become suspect...again, because you're looking back at that history through the lens of your current situation.

So I advise to end the affair first. Even if that means you need to stand on your own for a while, it's better to do that first, and then assess what needs to happen with your marriage and family after you've managed to get 'clear of the fog'. Do that, and make your judgement then on what to do. If you choose to reconcile your marriage, it's a much more realistic decision based off of a more accurate recollection of what your marriage has truly been like.

And if you choose to resume your relationship with OM after you're divorced, then there is no 'blame' for anyone in that case.

Again, I'm not targetting you or anyone else here, BI. Just noting that this does tend to apply to anyone involved in an affair. Take what happened in my case as an example. And then lets look at where we're at today. Just under two years after all of this came to a head. We had an AWESOME weekend together. I took Friday off to spend with her, as I started a new job today. We went shopping together, got lunch, and then caught a movie. And that set the tone for the rest of our weekend. It was a blast.

Two years ago, she would have never believed that any of this was possible. She didn't believe that I could make the changes that I've made. She didn't believe that she could make the changes that SHE made either...but she did make them, and things are going great now.

I hope sharing this helps someone.

April 3, 2006

Zara-

Your situation is what marriage counseling was made for. You see, my wife felt like I did a lot of those things too. I didn't support her when disciplining the kids, I wasn't there for her (but OM was), etc...

But once we started dealing with a lot of this in MC, it was interesting to compare how she viewed these things with how I viewed them...and then to work out a better way to deal with things than we'd done before.

On the kids things...it wasn't that I sided with them. It was that her METHOD in dealing with the kids wasn't working, and was causing more strife than anything else. And...I didn't have the whole picture either. I'd see her blow up over what seemed to be a small thing to me, but was actually the same issue she'd dealt with them over and over and over with throughout the day. Once we both understood where the other was coming from, it was easy to find a compromise in how to deal with the situation

On the 'not being there' thing...well, the real issue was that she never clearly communicated to me what she needed/wanted from me. She assumed I knew...when I couldn't have possibly known without being telepathic. She told OM clearly enough what she wanted/needed...had she said it that clearly to ME prior to the affair, things would have went a lot better. She didn't understand the communication differences between men and women...neither did I at the time, but we've both learned a lot since.

Question...have you CLEARLY, PRECISELY, sat down and told your husband EXACTLY what you want/need from him? Men don't take hints...we're not built that way. And you can't 'build up' to a subject with us. Men take in information in 3-5 sentence chunks. If you fill the first 3-5 sentences of your conversation with prelude information, you've lost him. (women on the other hand need that prelude information to setup their thinking processes...watch how a group of women sit and chat sometime and then do the same with a group of men...you'll see what I mean). So...how well does your husband know what you need from him? If he doesn't know, that's NOT his fault... You need to make sure that you got the message across to him in a format that he clearly understands. Again, MC is HUGE for this.

If you don't have anything to lose by rocking the boat, then take the time to rock it the right way. I would suggest that you start marriage counseling, but in my experience, marriage counseling is a colossal waste of money if either party is involved in an affair. The odds are VERY high that you won't be able to be 100% honest with your H or the counselor, and that will completely skew the advice and assistance the counselor could/would give you.

Look at it this way...at this point, what would you lose by admitting to the affair, and taking the time to truly work through things with your H? Here's the kicker...if you leave your H now to be with OM, you'll NEVER know if you honestly did all that YOU could have done to work things out.

This is the key reason why the vast majority of marriages that begin in affairs end in divorce in less than five years. Because that same baggage that caused the end of the first marriage transitions over into the second...you've not solved any problems, you've run away from them. As a matter of fact, this is EXACTLY what I told my wife when she was all set to leave me for OM...I told her that I didn't want her to realize six months from the day she left that she'd taken her problems with her, and that now it was too late to reconcile what she and I had had for all those years.

I don't know that your marriage is salvageable...but honestly, given what you've told me so far, I've not seen anything that tells me that it's not.

April 3, 2006