I was wondering how many of you kicked your WS out of the house on d-day, or even after, or maybe you left the house? And if so, did it work? Did the WS wake up and realize they needed to do something to save their marriage?

I have asked this before...many say that if you kick out the WS it is the begining of the end, that seperation doesnt do any good. But I have also heard that the WS finally saw they had something to lose that there were consequences for their actions and worked hard to save the marriage. I have often wondered if I did the right thing by not kicking my H out, or at least going so far as to try. My H keeps saying he has nothing to lose. He is wrong. At this late point, 18 months since d-day, I really dont think it would do much good now. But I still wonder if I should have...

I know my H pretty good and if I did something like that now, if I told him to leave, I know it would be over. He is too stubborn and has too much pride, plus he says he has nothing to lose. He would probably even be relieved that he did not have to make the choice to go so he did not have to feel like the bad guy. He can say "my wife kicked me out", and probably wouldnt even tell anyone it was because he cheated on me for 2 years and didnt do anything to rebuild the marriage...that I somehow treated him like sh_t, like he said the other night. Anyone who knows us would not believe it.

I have a friend who told me that maybe he needs a little scare. If I dont want to kick him out that maybe I should leave for a few days and get my MIL to take care of the kids for me. Just go to a nice hotel close to home and dont tell him until I am there...no warning, just leave, but let him know where I am, and not even tell him why. I certainly could use the time alone to think, that's for sure...maybe get some much needed sleep and de-stress!
Any thoughts?

Carol~

Carol don't kick your husband out of the house in hopes he will wake up. You cannot punish him or give empty threats or I promise they will backfire in your face.

Kick him to the curb or leave because you can't take the pain anymore, or that is what you have decided is best for you!

Kim...honestly, I think I am just grasping at straws. I have done so many things to try to make it work without much cooperation from my H. Hope seems to be fading fast lately. He just has too many issues he cant deal with, the A just being one of them. I cannot fix him...I have known that for a long time. I guess I am just willing to try anything. What do I have left to lose, right?

I still think I need a few days away to de-stress though, lol. It certainly couldnt hurt

Take Care,
Carol~

I left the house the day after dday and moved 200 miles away. My H wasn't sorry about the A, he was "in love" and he had no intention of breaking it off. "She was a good friend." Looking at him made me sick. I didn't want to run into them at the Albertson's (grocery) I didn't want to pass them on the street. I just left.

(At the time, as long as I could get to an airport, I was okay to get to my job. We have no children. All family on both sides live hundreds of miles away. As long as I had a cell phone, no one would know we had separated. My situation was very "easy" (if you don't count the gut wrenching experience of loading your immediate needs into your car and driving off to a month-to-month corporate apartment.)

Okay - your question - did it help?

Hmmmmm. I was angry BEYOND words. It was a Hell-Fury, a Rage.

She was still actively in the picture. He was deep into Fog Territory. For us, I think it helped because he never really saw the absolute blood curdling rage. I'm guessing, but I'm thinking that would have been a deal breaker for him. He tended to avoid conflict so Hell-Fury Woman would have been bad.

Meanwhile, he was overdosing on the reality of spending all the time he wanted with someone he would write in his journal "really isn't very smart." He found time with her to be (and this are quotes from his journal) "Not very interesting, but if we are in bed it is fantastic" (end journal quotes, but insert gagging sounds as I type)

So for us it helped him to see that life with her would be one big couch potato bonanza (unless apparently they were in bed) AND (this is a big AND) he never saw me really angry. I do think that if I had been home and he had known the anger, his choice would have been to leave me, break up with her when the sex wore off and just be alone and playing the field.

It's possible that our circumstances are different enough that this perspective is useless - but I thought I'd offer it on the chance.

If you are looking for free advice, I'm not sure a "here I'll show you" moving out with a planned return date would do much good. The kids will know how long they are going to be farmed out. That's not a secret you are going to keep from him for very long.

-Susan

Oh the other hand

A good long "Look, this isn't working for me. You are refusing to help me. This is not easy to get over and I have big decisions to make if this is what you think is an acceptable marriage. X will watch the kids. I'm going to go think for 4 days."

Now that's honesty, no fake punches, it lets him know that he has choices and you have choices. It also lets him know that you don't consider yourself trapped.

I'd be prepared however to come back with some expectations and boundries ready to go into place. Maybe not a fix to all issues at once, but at least setting expectations on what you will live with for the top 2-3 issues.

In my opinion, that's better than a "shock and awe" approach.

For what it's worth

Susan

I never did boot my H but I seriously told him to go. I even bought him a new suitcase to pack in. This woke him up when he saw I was serious. So just doing it to make a point may not work but doing it seriously as a real decision and being willing to take the consequences may have an effect but then again it may not.

After my H's first A, 9 years ago, I took several weekend trips with only the newborn, leaving him at home with two pre-schoolers. I didn't do this to be mean or teach him anything. I just needed to get away for a while. You might concider doing that for YOU.

Trinity

PS Shortly after he decided he wanted to stay I left him at a store when he walked away from me. I stopped to look at something and he did his usual thing of not paying attention to my interests but expecting me to care about his. So I left the store. This had a big effect on him. So a short term trip may help him a little or at least it may help you.

"He just has too many issues he cant deal with, the A just being one of them. I cannot fix him...I have known that for a long time. I guess I am just willing to try anything. What do I have left to lose, right?"

You know, Carol, the more I look at my H, the more issues I see. What's gone wrong between us, and the A, are just manifestations of that. Sound familiar? I'll bet it does...H is a profoundly inadequate person who has managed to function on pretence and 'front' driven by insecurity and plain fear, all his life so far.

Therefore, NOTHING you do, or I do, will change that. Even if the heavens opened and some bolt of lightning struck our Hs and they suddenly decided that they would act like they wanted to be married, it would be one heck of a long hard haul for us, propping them up, carrying them along, unless and until they finally grew up and did some of that for themselves. And in the meantime what do we get in terms of caring and companionship and input for ourselves? Very little, if anything. I suspect Carol that like me you didn't much notice how little came back from your H in times past because you cared for him so much, and you didn't put yourself into the picture at all. That isn't actually how it is supposed to be...!

Lately I have been playing a game with myself, I look at our situation and think, if I was looking at this from the outside, what would I see and conclude? That it's a complete waste of time and energy, sadly > and anyone I ask would tell me so, too.

However, all that being so, I am still not prepared to tell him to go YET. I just am not. I haven't moved that far. I am always ready to be persuaded otherwise, but I think it's just going to take me a long time to digest reality. And in the meantime I don't want to behave in any way which would compromise MY integrity, and making some pretence of leaving myself, or going for a set length of time, would only look like a tantrum on my part and wouldn't make me feel any better. After all who is the tantrum expert in our house..H has that market all sewn up > and do I want to stoop to that..nope.

Sadly Carol, nothing you do in the way of 'leaving' unless you make it final, will 'do' anything for your M, I reckon.
But if and when you DO make it final - and it could be years away - you will know you meant it for real and it was the best thing you could do. OK by then you will have moved on and its unlikely you will even want your H, or rather, see him as someone worth wanting and having as a husband. But honestly - that is actually the way things are right now - you just haven't taken action on it yet, like me.

You DO have your self-respect left to lose Carol - keep a good hold on it - behaving like your H isn't going to make you feel good. Give yourself space and time, and look after yourself first and last. Plus, pandering to your H by doing stuff you don't really 'mean' isn't doing him a favor either - it will just reinforce his projection, deflection and blame setup some more.

Coventrie

Every one is right of course...thanks for taking the time to tell me.

I do see that getting away for a few days because it is what I need is a good thing. If I did end up leaving for a few days it would not be to punish him or make him see what he is missing...you cannot make a blind man see nor a dead man feel. I just really do need time away to think. I just know that when I am near him I cant think. Not that he's around a lot but that I am in the house with the kids and all sorts of other factors that prevent me from seriosuly thinking about what I want. I wanted to go away before but just did not have the opportunity...maybe after the holidays.

Thanks everyone,
Carol~

He says he wants the marriage but he sure doesnt show it. Words are only words. There are several things he needs to do in order for the marriage to work and I dont see a willingness in him to do any of them or even TRY to do any of them.

1) Figure out why he had the A. This takes looking inside of yourself and he cant do that. He is too afraid to even begin to go there.

2) Stop smoking pot. First of all it is illegal, and second it is a mind and mood altering substance. How is he ever suppose to know his true feelings if he doesnt feel anything? And it is his addiction to pot that allowed him to say to himself that having an A was OK. And pot is what he and OW had in common, it is what bonded them, and it was what the relationship was based on. I dont see him stopping. He sees nothing wrong with smoking pot on a daily basis and thinks it should be legal. Without him giving up this addiction there is no way the marriage is going to work because he will always be vulnerable to having another A, plus it's just wrong and unhealthy. He needs to grow up and face responsibility, not keep running from it by smoking pot.

3) I want him to go back to counseling to get help dealing with his issues...the childhood issues that lead him to start smoking in the first place and his subsequent addiction to it because of self medication. He refuses to go. He doesnt think he needs help when it is obvious that he does since he cannot face them on his own. We went to 4 mc appointments about 6 months after d-day and after that he said everything in the marriage was just fine, he had no issues with the marriage and no longer saw the need to go. Nothing was solved.

4) He has to learn to communicate. I think we both do...we need to learn how to talk to each other so that the other hears us. Most of the time he wont even let me talk to him and when I do he normally doesnt say anything. He wont even answer a direct question. We can not rebuild a marriage if he will not talk to me about it. Communication and honesty are vital to any relationship and life blood after infidelity.

On d-day he said he would do whatever it took and promised he would do all of the above...18 months later and he still has not done any of them. He has broken promise after promise to me and I am just feeling like such a fool. I really thought we could work this out. I loved him enough to try for both of us, and for the kids. Try as I might, it takes two no matter how much I love him.

Take care,
Carol~

Carol likely on dday he meant he would do everything it took to repair the marriage......unfortunately it wasn't till later that he found out "everything" included having to face emotions, pain, childhood issues etc.

On dday they tend to say and do really stupid things.....voice of experience talking

I kicked mine out 3 months after dday. We had just came back from Florida 4 days earlier and I found out she called our home and he didn't tell me when asked directly. (i secretly installed a caller ID so I know she called). I phoned him at work and told him he needed to find somewhere else to sleep for a while. I didn't mean forever, just so I could have time to gather my thoughts and figure out what to do next. I thought he would argue and say he loved me and wanted to stay. I thought it would teach him a lesson or punish him and make him realize what he had done. Guess what......none of those things happened. Instead the next time I talked to him he hated me and was angry because I kicked him out of his home. Apparently that crime was worse than the affair in his eyes.

The last words out of my husband's mouth the night I kicked him out were uttered as I was sitting balling at the kitchen table and he was stroking my back "don't worry this will be okay, I love you and we will work this out, I promise"

Andddddddddddd you know the rest of the story