Hi Everyone,
I am not sure if anyone can help me with this but right now this is my biggest struggle, probably my biggest hurdle in getting over the affairs of my husband.

To recap briefly - within months of our marriage, my husband was with his first OW. We have been married 34 years and for 33 year of those years, my husband had a total of 5 affairs. My husband is completely remorseful and hates himself for what he has done and we are working on restoring our marriage.

So what is the problem? The problem is that in 1998 - 3 years after affair number 4 - my husband went forward during a revival and accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Great news and I praise God for that. Having accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, my husband became convicted of what he had done - to the OW - but not to me. He thought about going to the OW (number 4) and apologizing to her for what he had done. He never considered coming to me and asking me to forgive him. He thought of her at his conversion.

Does anyone have any idea how that tears me up? He says that he had no feelings for this woman whatsoever. I have never been convinced of that. He was willing to give up his marriage, his wife, his children and his job for this woman - and now after he has accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior - his first thoughts are of her - and not of me, our marriage, our children.

How do I get past that? I realize that satan could very well have put that thought in his head - and no doubt did. But having that thought in his head did not push him to come and apologize to me instead.

I don't know if anyone can help me with this but I thought I had nothing to lose in posting this. I realize that to some they are wondering why this is a problem for me since my husband and i are trying to make our marriage work. All i can say is that this devastates me. I won't even allow myself to think about it cause it brings too much pain, confusion, even anger.

Thanks to all who have read this post.
May the Lord God Almighty, richly bless you with every spiritual blessing.

naomi

Naomi,

I am so sorry you are hurting so much. It sounds like you are feeling what all of us BS have felt--that the OP is/was more important to our WS than we were. Those are natural feelings, given that we have been betrayed by the person we trusted the most.

The most obvious question I can ask you is if you have told your H how you feel and why you feel the way you do. Have you told him that the person he MOST needs to apologize to is YOU? Have you shared with him the agony his behavior has caused you? The pain that lingers because his concern seems to be with the OP and not with you?

Please remember that one fallacious thought many of us are guilty of is expecting our partner to read our minds. As long as we expect that, we will be disappointed.

Even though your H may have stopped having A, if he has not done the hard work of understanding WHY he had them and what the damage his behavior did to you, you will continue to hurt. Having a strong faith can be extremely uplifting, but if he is letting his faith be his crutch and believing that asking for and feeling he has been forgiven by God is NOT the same as asking YOUR forgiveness and working to show you true remorse for his actions.

Just my fairy cents' worth and comforting fairy hugs,

fairyfriend

Naomi...I am so sorry you are hurting (((((HUGS)))). I think your devistation is understandable. I cannot add to what our wise friend FF has said...all I can tell you is that I agree with what she has written.

I lost a baby. Although it was not my fault, I asked my daughter to forgive me, and I asked God to forgive me. I believe they did. But the hardest part was forgiving myself. Maybe your H needs to forgive himself before he can ask forgiveness from you. In other words, as FF said, he needs to show you that he has changed. If he has truly changed maybe he will be able to forgive himself, and then ask for your forgiveness. There is a book that I like that explains this better and may help you titled "How Can I Forgive You". It talks about all different types of forgiveness. You and your H may want to read it together. I know you are a Christian, and as Christians we are taught to forgive...but this book is not about the spirituality of forgiveness, it is about how we are humans (no matter what your religion) about how to obtain and give forgiveness as human beings, which is different than God's forgiveness. I hope that made some sense.



~ CAL
"You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection" ~ Buddha

Hello Fairy and Anon,

Thank you for replying to my post and for caring! I really do appreciate that and want you to know that.

Yes, my husband knows how much this tears me up and he has asked for forgiveness. I am in the process of trying to forgive him. I have said i forgive him with my mouth but i am not sure i feel it in my heart.

The problem - at least to my way of thinking - is not so much that i can't forgive him - but that i don't know how to push past this, how to reconcile this, get over this - even deal with it. For those within the Christian community - the day that you receive Christ into your heart as your Lord and Savior is as monumental as the day of your birth. Actually there are some who no longer celebrate their birthday but rather celebrate their REbirthday - as that day is far more significant than the day they entered planet earth.

To know that the most significant day of my husband's life was filled with thoughts of the OW rather than me - and 3 years after he had been with her - I just can't explain how devastating that is. I was already saved. I had been praying for my husband. He resented me, my salvation and did everything he could to not come to church, not believe. But God answered my prayers and opened my husband's eyes. It was a great day of rejoicing for me.


My husband still can not say why he had his affairs, tho he has recently begun with an IC just for that purpose of finding out why. And he does know how this has all destroyed me. I too have recently begun going to an IC who has already diagnosed me with PTSD. But again, I am learning how to deal with the affairs. What i can't deal with is on the day he accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior - his thoughts were on her and not on me. Why? How? And how do i deal with that, reconcile that, get over that?

Thanks and God bless you all
naomi

Naomi,

I am so sorry you are hurting. From my own experiences with A, I must agree with your IC. You sound like you are suffering from PTSD. Of course you are still hurting.

Until I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt why my H gave himself permission to have his A, I was terrified that he could and might have another A. Saying he was sorry seemed so miniscule compared to the depth of betrayal and subsequent pain his horrible choices brought me.

Many WS truly do not comprehend just how cuttingly deep their betrayals are to the BS. It is as though they have cut through our flesh and shredded our souls. We feel thrown aside, replaced, trashed, unloved and unlovable. Whatever self-esteem we once had is gone. We spend much of our waking day dreading everything. We are afraid that our WS are still lying to us. We want them to be with us, and yet sometimes we hate them so much we can't bear to look at them, much less have them touch us.

This is all part of the process of dealing with a WS' A. Until you have the answers to the questions you need answering, you will be afraid and you will not be able to truly forgive your H--it won't matter what you say, you will know in your heart that you haven't forgiven him. And frankly, why should you until he proves his genuine remorse to you.

My H's OW really angered me when she threw out to me what I like to refer to as the religion card. She said that since God forgives man, I should forgive my H. Talk about trying to make me feel guilty because I didn't forgive my H! See, I think some people throw God in their victims' faces with the cruel comment that we are supposed to forgive people as God would simply by their saying they are sorry.

I don't believe God is stupid. He knows what is in a person's heart. Just because someone says God forgave him, does not mean that GOD thinks that way. God expects us to be remorseful and to make amends for the wrong we have done. Is forgiveness a good thing? Absolutely, but false forgiveness is not!

I am glad that your H is FINALLY going to IC. He needs to do so in order for him to heal, you to heal, your family to heal, and your marriage to heal. The more he works on himself, the more he answers your questions honestly and deals compassionately with your justified fears, the easier it will be for you to let go of your fears and begin to incrementally forgive him.

And you know what? It is OK if you can't forgive him 100%. My H realizes that I may never forgive his actions 100% and he is OK with that because my not abandoning him after multiple DDays and staying married to him is enough for him. He knows that I love him--I stayed--but he also knows that I am changed by his actions.

I think all of my heart used to belong to him, but now, a sliver doesn't because he damaged it beyond repair. I love him, and we have a much better marriage than we did before, but now I no longer give him the degree of the benefit of my doubts the way I did before. I think that all relates to the fact that prior to DDay, most of us trusted our WS completely. We have now given up that ability--and that is healthy too.

When your H is 100% honest about his A, when he steps back from his A and dissects them and sees that they weren't about love, but rather about selfishness and immaturity and poor coping skills, then you will be able to feel safer.

Gentle fairy hugs,

fairyfiend

I just want to add to what FF and Cal wrote…

Please communicate with your H...if you need to write him a letter explaining why you are upset without a confrontation please do so… Nothing hurts more than knowing that our S put's the OW before the wife.

Your H may have his reasons why he wants to communicate with OW and ask for her forgiveness… He may have lied to her too and has guilt feeling..simple but you are the one hurting and he is neglecting you and your feeling. Communication is the key.. so please talk, or write ...but make your needs known..

I also have forgiven my H in my heart but not openly.. I put the A's in Gods hands and asked him to decide what was in my H's mind...if Gods forgives then so do I...easy ..and I feel good about my decision...It is all up to God.

Please keep posting ...it will help you get the poison of the A out of your system..

(((hugs)))

Pat

"Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time."

Hi Everyone,

Can you tell me is it truly possible to come to the understanding that the affairs were not about the BS or the sex or the OW - but really about the emotional need, whatever - that was not met in the WS?

My husband had told me that part of the reason why he had his affairs is because I was too overweight and so he was ashamed of me, embarrassed by me and didn't want to be seen with me. He also thought he could be better sex from another woman. So how do i separate that out and say it was a need in him not being met and the affairs weren't really about me?

Fairy- i really wanted to take your post and show it to my husband - except that he doesn't know that i am posting here and i feel he would feel terribly betrayed if he knew i was. But your comments about the affairs and how they have effected me are so right-on.

Fairy - i am sorry that the "religion" trump card was thrown at you. I have experienced that same thing - not in the forgivness part but with people coming to me and telling me i am to be like Paul -
forgetting what is behind, i press on towards the goal - Phil. 3:14-15. To me, the affairs are not in the past - even tho my husband began 34 years ago to commit adultery - and only quit last year. No, the affairs are right now and unless someone has experienced what i have experienced they won't be able to understand that.

I do know that forgiveness is not meant for the WS. Forgiveness is for me as it releases me from the pain, the anger, etc etc. As long as i can't forgive, then the pain and all the bad emotion will be there. I also know that forgiveness is not an emotion, it isn't a "feeling" - it''s a free act of my will. And i believe i have granted my husband forgiveness in that i have chosen to forgive. However, I also believe that forgiveness can go from an act of my will, to an emotion - and right now, i don't feel in my soul that i have totally forgiven him.

I did talk to my husband today about how devastated i am concerning the fact that when he got saved, he thought about the OW instead of me. I told him that right now my thoughts are that possibly i will be able to get over the affairs, but i don't think i can get over that fact - his thinking about her when he got saved. He already knew that, but it has been on my heart so much this week that i thought mayhaps i should let him know.

Thanks again for all of your help. It is nice to be able to post here as i can release thoughts, feelings, emotions, that i don't want to release to my husband. He is completely remorseful - he hates himself for what he has done. He is head-over-heals in love with me and daily beats himself up for not realizing this sooner. He feels he has wasted 33 years of his life. I don't want to add salt to his wounds, so much of what i think, feel, i keep to myself. The HH allows me to vent and get rid of those emotions.

Thanks and God bless all of you
naomi

Naomi,

Absolutely it is possible to come to see the TRUE causes of an A--which are NOT about sex (or the lack of it), the BS looks or weight or personality, the OP looks or weight or personality. Your H needs to do a WHOLE lot more work before he understands exactly why he was able to give himself permission to have an A.

Telling you "he had his affairs is because I was too overweight and so he was ashamed of me, embarrassed by me and didn't want to be seen with me. He also thought he could be better sex from another woman." is a HUGE blame-shift from himself to you. I say this because he is putting the focus on YOU rather than on himself. He is saying that if you weren't overweight, he wouldn't have had an A. BULLSH*T! That is just blaming the victim. There are plenty of folks here that are not and were not overweight (I know because I have seen their photos!), but being attractive and normal sized didn't stop their WS from cheating. No, their WS just found other excuses and justifications for their A.

Your H's blaming you is not unusual because, after all, at some (or many) levels, a WS KNOWS that what s/he is doing is wrong, wrong, wrong. So one way they can stop feeling guilty and ashamed is by finding a justification for their behavior. In your case, your H is using your weight. If he couldn't use your weight, I promise you that he would have found some other excuse.

When he comes to see that he was using your weight as a justification, you will know that he is growing and taking responsibility for his poor choices.

People cheat because of a lot of reasons. Often they do not have firm boundaries in place, they don't have the same level of commitment to the marriage and spouse as the BS has, they have skewed beliefs about sex, they feel entitled to cheat, they are overbenefitted in the marriage (while the BS is underbenefitted), they compartmentize and justify their actions, they tell themselves that what the BS doesn't know won't hurt him/her (HUGE lie!). In short, they have MAJOR issues, many, if not all, of which began in their childhood.

Right there tells you that an A is NOT about some real or imagined shortcoming in the BS. If the roots of an A are in the person from childhood, then there is NO FRIGGIN' way we BS can assume any responsibility for a WS' A. Nada. None. Rien.

When it comes to the BS' pain, it doesn't matter if we find out while the A is ongoing or if it had already stopped. I found out 1 1/2 years after my H's A had ended, but for me it was as though the A had ended the day before I found out--the pain was so crushingly strong and heavy.

I am so sorry people have given you likely well-meaning, but useless and in some cases, downright hurtful advice. People often think they know what they would do if their spouse had an A, but the reality is NO ONE knows what s/he would do until or unless s/he is in the situation. Telling you to act like Paul was just hurtful and impossible. You are a victim of one of the biggest traumas a person can survive. You can NOT just put the past behind you because the past won't stay in the past until the situation has been dealt with and that calls for HARD, HARD work on the part of the WS.

On another note, it is likely that your WS thought of OW at the time of his salvation because it is pretty normal for WS to want to be considered perfect in the eyes of the OW, to see himself as a knight in shining armor, as a perfect man. Again, that view is not because he cares what she thinks so much as it is that HE wants to think of HIMSELF that way. I hope this makes sense.

Some members of HH have told loads of people; some have told no one other than members of HH. Telling can be cathartic, but it can also invite undesirable reactions from others, unfortunately, which is why some folks decide against telling.

It is all well and good for your H to "beat himself up and hate himself," but much more productive will be for him to continue IC and be open to exploring his past, his thought processes, implementing positive changes, being open to answering ANY questions you may still have for him, showing you true remorse by working on himself and your marriage.

My H used to call himself a "felon," until our IC/MC came down hard on him. She told him NOT to call himself names that weren't true because he could use those as an excuse to not work on himself and implement positive changes. She told him to use the correct label--adulterer--and work to understand why he gave himself permission to cheat and what he needs to do to avoid cheating in the future.

BTW, my H knows that as much as I love him, if he decides to cheat again, I will leave him (or rather he will find his things in a suitcase on the lawn). So WS need to understand that there are natural consequences for their action. The natural consequence to their cheating is that their BS is completely undone, their marriage is threatened, their children are hurt, etc., etc. They have the choice to change or lose everything they claimed they loved.

I am concerned that you believe your H would feel "terribly betrayed if he knew" you were posting at HH. Why should he feel betrayed? YOU ARE THE BETRAYED ONE, NOT HIM!!! Since when did he consider your feelings?!??? I am not saying that you shouldn't consider his feelings just because he cheated, because you should, but that you have a right to do whatever you need to do, within reason, to help heal yourself. He CAN NOT heal you. He can heal himself. He can help your marriage heal, but he can NOT heal you. If you need to come here, or read books, or go to IC in order to help you heal, NONE of those are unreasonable. He spent way too many years thinking only of himself. It is past time that he start thinking of you, your needs, and your marriage.

The thing about this site is that we are open and honest. We do NOT slander people or ill-treat them. The mods are very good and do not tolerate bad behavior from the members, so your H should not be worried about your posting here. NO ONE will slander him or tell you that you should throw the bum out! What would be wonderful would be if your H would come post in the OPEN section of the site because we have some terrific FWS who can give him some wonderful insight and help.

The goal isn't to prove that you are the angel and your H is the devil; it is to have him come to an honest understanding of his behavior and how you had nothing to do with his having an A. You are responsible for your share of any problems in your marriage, of course, but the decision to go outside of your marriage was his, and his alone. (Like going outside of a marriage would ever solve problems INSIDE the marriage?!?! Big DUH here!)

The only way for you feel at peace is for you to have an understanding of your H. My H's going back to IC, coming to MC, and working hard on understanding himself and changing the parts of himself that even he doesn't like are what make me want to stay married to my H. I know that my H didn't like himself when he was cheating, and he never wants to feel as bad about himself as he did. That fact may be even more important than knowing that he wants never again to hurt me the way he did by having an A instead of working on himself and our marriage.

I am sorry you need to be here, but I am glad you found this loving and supportive group.

Encouraging fairy hugs,

fairyfriend

Naomi,

I had the same issue in my life… My H told me that I was an embarrassment to him… so he sought out beautiful women to have sex with…

I have fought the weight issue all my life… what my IC said was the ideal weight was my H's issue not mine to own..yes I was heavy..he had ONS's...But I was also super thin..size 7… thin and he still had ONS's... so the weight issue had nothing to do with his decision..my weight was his excuse ...reason to blame me..but I was not responsible for his decision to seek OW...he did that all by himself…

If I wasn't heavy there would have been another excuse… I could be perfect and he would still seek out OW...the A's were about H. ... NOT me…

The decision to tell your H is up to you..my H knows that I post here but he isn't interested in reading or wanting to know what I say or do here… posting here has been healthy, for me I realized that what I was experiencing was normal and I wasn't abnormal in my thoughts… or crying..all the emotions were normal and knowing that helped me heal.

Please don't let your H make you feel embarrassed because you posted.. we need the affirmation from people who understand were we have been..Adultery is not an everyday occurrence and unless it has happened to someone you know people have very scurried beliefs about what they would do if they were in a similar situation..

Just sending you hugs..

pat

"Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time."

Naomi,

Naomi, you have received some very insightful and powerful replies to your post.

I am 8 years past d day and I could have never put my experiences into words like the others from our precious HH family have.

My H an I were 2 years past d day before we found the wisdom of this site to help us. H found this site for me because I was in dire need of help. Circumstances had enabled H and I to keep the A private between the two of us (The anonymity was my choice because of our daughter's risky pregnancy that she announce 3 days after d day and I absolutely didn't want to cause her any undo stress). By the time we found this site we had done a lot of personal work together but nothing compared to the help we got here.

We did not have formal therapy but cherished our new open communication and tried to be honest with each other. One motto I found powerful and enlightening was that when you become partners in a relationship to never do something behind your partners back that you wouldn't be secure doing in front of them.

My H practiced elements of adultery for over 20 years of our 26 year marriage. One of his worst thought processes was, "What she doesn't know won't hurt her". I wanted my H to adopt a healthy, logical mind frame. I wanted him to consider consequences before he did inappropriate selfish things. I wanted him to respect me as a life partner.

When H found this site I was so grateful for the deep wisdom and the tools to recapture my sanity. My self worth and self respect returned and I had confidence asking questions that weren't always friendly to H but caused me great concern. Coming out of the fog was a long process for my H. The continued good advise from this site successfully guided us to where we are today.

We are celebrating our 35th Anv. this year and I can honestly say the A is nothing but a sad memory to me now. The trust levels are growing but 100% trust is no longer in me and may never be in me. H knows that the trauma he put me through may be responsible for this caution with in me.

Amber

Hello Naomi,

I wonder if your H thought of the OW and his guilt towards her on the day of his conversion because she was the lesser guilt. I can imagine from what you described that the joy of feeling saved would also have the very frightening feeling of the depth of his sin. It is very difficult to acknowledge the full depth of wrongdoing and perhaps in the experience of conversion he went first to this OW and could not go down as far to very significant wrongdoing towards you right away and perhaps especially in that moment - I don't know but wondered about it.

My H is also overweight, has been from the beginning, not grossly, and sometimes less and sometimes more. I sometimes have found it embarassing and sometimes not stimulating. I didn't have an affair in our marriage, neither EA or PA. I haven't always been generous about his weight and how I regarded it but I have come to accept that his weight is just something he struggles with - I changed my focus to worry about health more. We both work out and walk a lot and try to be sensible about what we eat and drink - it's all the really matters with respect to weight. It took me some time to get there.

Welcome to this site

Hello everyone,
Once again - thank you for reading my posts and for responding. I am getting a lot of very useful advise - and going back to my husband with it.

Last night i did tell him that i had been posting here - and he was fine with that. Please understand that my husband's mindset is that whatever i do that can speed my healing along -he is all for that. He knows and acknowledges that he was selfish, self-centered, self-serving and he deeply deeply regrets his actions. If he could go back and undo what he has done - he would do that in a heart beat.

I did pose to him the statement from Fairy Friend that mayhaps the reason he thought about the OW when he got saved is because
"WS wanted to be considered perfect in the eyes of the OW, to see himself as a knight in shining armor, as a perfect man." We talked about that for quite some time and there may be some truth to that. 8 years after his affair with gal number 4 - he was involved with yet another woman from his work place and once again, it was all about being the knight in shining armor and looking good in her eyes. Thanks FF for posting that, and it has been bringing both of us some understanding.

Pat - Even before you posted, i went back to my husband last night and as we were talking, i asked him if he would have had his affairs had i not been overweight. He admitted that that was the excuse he gave and that no doubt, even if i had had the perfect body, he would have found some way to justify what he was doing.

Amber - did you know that your husband was committing adultery on your all those 20 years? I always suspected my husband - not because i had any proof - but because he had opportunity and the intimacy in our marriage was so lacking. Over the years, from time to time, i would ask him if he was cheating -but the answer was always no. Then last feb - after an encounter with our Lord Jesus Christ, he came to me and confessed that for all 33 years of our marriage he had cheated on me. I am so sorry that that happened to you. For me, truth became lie, lie became truth. What i thought i had known all my adult life - was now a lie and what i hadn't known, what he had denied for 33 years, now became truth. I felt that my past died, that i now no longer have a past because the past i thought i had - i never had.

My husband's motto for 33 years was "what my wife doesn't know won't hurt her". He has found out that that is a huge huge lie. Not only has it hurt me - but it has hurt our children as well - children that were not even born to us until further into the marriage. Thus - the actions of my husband 33 years ago, are greatly effecting our 21 year old son, etc etc.

I do wonder if i will ever be able to completely trust my husband. I live by God's Word tho that "with God all things are possible - Matthew 19:26. I also wonder if i will ever completely heal from this but again i look to the Words of our Lord - He is the Lord Who heals - Ex.15:26.

Maria Magdalena - your comment "I wonder if your H thought of the OW and his guilt towards her on the day of his conversion because she was the lesser guilt" - i will take back to my husband and discuss that with him as that makes a whole lot of sense to me as well. Thank you for that.

Thanks everyone, once again for your help, wisdom and care!

God bless you all abundantly
naomi

As a fellow Christian, I have shared some of the same concerns and struggles that you share. For example, I've often struggled with the forgiveness needed after adultery. One thing that I've realized is that true forgiveness is something I've never had to do for any significant hurt. Most of the time I've either resolved the hurt by breaking the relationship or by excusing the behavior. It's only in the aftermath of infidelity that I've learned what is required to give true forgiveness, and I realize that it's not easy.

In addition, I've struggled with some of the why's around my wife's affair and the implied meanings of her actions, as you have with your husband's first thoughts toward the OW at the time of his conversion. I've decided that I have done this in my efforts to understand things that I can't know. I have done this to understand my wife's true feelings, her true motivations, and her true commitment to our relationship when I want to go beyond what she says, what she has done, and go to what it truly in her heart. However, knowing what is truly in her heart is not possible for me or anyone else, and looking for hidden meanings in things she has said or done is usually fruitless.

However, that said, there is much to be learned and discerned about our spouse's true intentions when we look at their aggregate behavior. For example, my wife did not want to face certain truths about the affair. She did not want to acknowledge the romantic feelings that she had for the OM. She worked very hard to avoid revealing that to me, but eventually the evidence of the affair revealed the truth. It not only showed the truth about those facts, but it also showed her ability to lie and deflect important information from me and possibly even herself.

The fact that your husband thought of the OW first in that moment, by itself, is not necessarily any indication of his true feelings or his intentions. However, it is also possible that it is part of a pattern of behavior that will reveal some foothold of sin in his life.

It wouldn't be surprising that footholds like that exist, since the path from conversion to discipleship usually takes time, experience, and personal struggle as the new believer learns to submit to God's will. I see much hope in your situation today and I hope you will find the help and support needed as your work in recovery, not only here on The Healing Heart, but in your daily life as well.

TomJ

Hi Tom J,
Thank you for replying to my post. There are many truths in your posting.

Like your wife - my husband is in a whole lot of denial as to what he was thinking, feeling, etc etc in regards to the women he had affairs with.

I have maintained that with gal number 4 - that it went beyond just a desire to have sex with her - that he truly had loving feelings for her. He wanted to be her knight in shining armor, he wanted to take her hurts away, he wanted to help her feel better about herself - now does that sound like someone who was just interested in the sex? Gal Number 4 is the one WS wanted to go to when he received Christ. She was the one he wanted to apologize to. Again - i think this indicates that he had deeper feelings for her that he wants to admit - and even admit to himself.

We have been dealing with this now for 14 months - what my IC calls avoidance - i refer to as denial. But we are working on it and i think his eyes are finally opened to the fact that he does avoid, does deny. Prior to this, he wouldn't even consider that fact.

Again, TomJ thanks for your help here and your insights.

God bless you
naomi