What a week! I am emotionally drained and exhausted.
David - your book arrived 'His needs/Her needs' I also ordered another 'Not just good friends'.
Like many others here I started reading and thought 'this is me'!!
H has been busy, but I thought if I read the book first, I can re read and then discuss chapter by chapter when we go walking with the dogs. The book really stimulated my thoughts, and I felt that I was now strong enough to discuss further.
H was happy to talk and felt that the book made quite a bit of sense which he could relate to ie setting the scenario for starting an affair.
H mentioned a couple of small comments/facts which were slightly different to how he told me after d day 2. I imediately clocked onto this, and in no uncertain terms told him that I no longer believed I had the whole truth. I had niggling doubts about gaps in information for some time and would no longer ignor these niggles. I said that I wanted to end the marriage now unless he was willing to give 110% honesty about everything.
he maintained everything he told me was the truth. Yes but i said what about all the little omissions - what have you not told me!
So after more digging he finally admitted that his first A continued much longer than I had thought, and that he even called me from a hotel room just after being with her whilst she called her son! then they both went back to it!
He also revealed that when he met the second Slag, his brother was with him and they took both girls back home. he admitted to telling his brother all about the first A (BRAGGING).
He has defended his bro's innocence all this time - I knew my gut was telling me otherwise.
So - H is trying to be honest (BUT only because I dragged it out of him again)
I feel humiliated that this is not just between us now and that other people know about it. H would rather protect his Bro. and they are not even close. than protect his marriage or my feelings.
His reason:
He felt that if he told me everything in one go, I would surely leave him. He did not want me going to Bro's wife and ruining his mariage.
I feel Bro' looks at me as if he has one up on me and it makes me angry.
So where do I go from here. H wants desperately to repair the damage he has done. He says he is not a bad person although he has done a really bad thing,and wants the chance to prove that he can be the husband I have always wanted and the man he feels that he really is. I told him he wasn't a good person but a positivly evil one. I was angry and hurt and said only a monster could call me inbetween sex and then continue. He looked pretty gutted. When I came home from work, he spoke to me as if I had said nothing, and asked if I felt better.
Should I invest any more time and energy on this person who has only extended my hurting further. I know I asked for the detail, so i should be able to handle it, but I stressed a year ago that I needed complete honesty. If I stay does that mean I am not following though? Am I sending out empty messages?
Bro's wife is planning to go on holiday without him. H said that Bro will take any opportunity that comes along. Should I warn SIL?
I told H that I plan to leave him after my daughter finishes school next May. If he wants to fight for our marriage between now and then, we will see what happens. Was i wrong to do this?
In the mean time, I plan to go back through these books and discuss with H.
I also read one of David's posts re writing down all the things that cause me so much pain.
I know this can be the start of a new relationship, but I am not sure if I like this person any more. Most of the things I admired about and respected him for are gone.
What a mess!
Dragonfly - thinking of you I took castor oil (old wives tale) and it did nothing! LOL
Anyway it can't be much longer to wait now. Hope everything goes smoothly! Last time I took in some soft music and the nurses dimmed the lights. It was a very peaceful delivery, and made all the difference taking the harsh hospital environment away.
Telling him that after your daughter finishes school in May you are leaving him is fine as long as it isn't a threat but rather you have ever intention of going through with it. Plus it gives him time to get his **** together and start proving to you that he is willing to commit to working on this.
I would be so tempted to tell brother's wife. How would you feel if she knew and didn't tell you. Are you two close? Perhaps you could anonymously mail a letter to her giving her enough detail to raise her suspicions but not know who the note came from. Just enough to make her wonder and start investigating herself.
I think that I would want to know if my H was cheating. Lots of people say they wouldn't, but I think the farther I get away from dday the more my mind is definitely made up that I would want to know.
I have just read on another thread how difficult it is to undo our attachments ie throwing out old stuff etc.. What you are doing with H is giving him the chance to shape up before all that happens. But in my view, the hurt of detaching from those attachments is something you should do now anyway, whether the marriage lasts or not. That way you can have some perspective and deal with things with some equanimity. Think in terms of how you can care for all those involved ie yourself, H and children + relatives/ friends etc.. This is what real true love means also in effect. Know also that this detaching and perspective getting is a critical part of becoming happy in life. Don't fret and see it is as losing. See it as winning a path to happiness. You can stop yourself continually beating yourself up and it gives you some control over at least your end of the situation. My feeling from what you say is that you are being strong and handling things well. You clearly have a weak man (and brother/ family) with problems. You can, as you are, giving him the chance to make good. I would do just what you are doing. But, you are the strong one here and you need to stay that way are if you are to help him. You married this man and you had some reasons for that at the time.. Try to remember those and work on the good things. People change and WS can mend their ways and grow strong and much stronger than you ever thought - I would work on that now.. and keep your heart open to love. This is like hard work in some respects. I have been treating our marriage as if we are starting again and she is new to me. This is not a bad way to do things. It is hard to tear up the past and start again in fact but the attitude is not a bad one at all. Leave the past pain behind and try to see the current pain with perspective and equanimity.
Wow...you have a lot on your plate there. Always finding more lies and betrayal is hard. I think you handled it well by sticking to your boundaries and telling H of your plans to leave. Like Kid said, as long as you mean it! You can change your mind IF he can do what needs to be done by that time...if not, then he knows where he stands and what the consequences are. Bravo for you!
I agree with Kid, I would want to know if my H is cheating. I think something annymous is a good idea. It would be hard for me to sit by and not do nothing, knowing how painful the situation is. I would not wish that type of pain on my worst enemy.
I'm sorry you are hurting, but kudos to you for showing your H your inner strength! You go girl!
I agree that I, too, would want to know if my H were cheating.
Re your feeling humiliated. Please don't. You have done NOTHING wrong. Your H and his brother (and the OW) should feel humiliated, NEVER you, for what they have done.
it seems very strange to see people saying that I am strong! I certainly don't feel very strong at the moment.
The message which seems to be coming through is really perhaps the next stage for me. It is very unfortunate that I have had this set back now. I think I could have handled this better and with tons more control than I did.
H is hardly going to open up any more if I react like this.
I think previous to this, I might have been sitting on the fence (and wobbling a bit) LOL
It seems a huge step for me to take the plung and risk being hurt again.
Jerry you are right, i know you are and I must force myself into new territory. a blank sheet etc. I am scared this is a lose/win situation for me though. I stand to lose again, and he is given another chance so he wins. It just feels as if the scales are not balanced. What does he stand to lose?
We do not see much of Bro and SIL (not a close family), but SIL has no idea what her h has done and what he intends to do given any opportunity. I also do not wish to be a marriage wrecker. SIL is very busy working and all her 'free' time is spend with their three kids leisure activities, so I can see that the scene is set for her h to want to wander. I don't think she would believe anyone who said that her marriage is being compromised. He would not do that to her - he loves her etc.
I am not going to rush into this one!
Carol - it is scary that he is guarding this building. There must be something very 'hot' in there. Good luck with it all.
Thanks everyone for your hugs. It means so much to me to have you there.
Yes you are correct they are doing the damage not us, we just sweep up the mess LOL
Fairy friend you said to David in his post on open
'It took my finding out as the impetus to his getting help to figure out what in himself could let him have an A'. I have discussed with H the big WHY. We talked about the 'scene being set' ie I was far too busy and he felt neglected. His basic five needs not being met etc. and I can see that again the scene was set. He agrees with all of this and whilst knows that it was still wrong to take THAT action instead of trying to fix things or leave me, he can't explain any further as to WHY? He says he just made a very bad choice in one of lifes decisions. Do you anyone know of any readings where we can get to the bottom of this aspect?
Or is this where you come in Jerry and remind me that I am talking of 'letting things go' (not forgotton) and move forward with a clean sheet? Can it be that he really doesn't know why he took the wrong path?
AS far as SIL is concerned;
I would not wish this on my worst enemy. Do you think I should discuss this with H to try to make him see why SIL should know.
On chatting to my daughter, she amazed me by saying that some people would rather never find out. Her words - ' He has done it already, we don't know if he really will do it again so why tell now' 'she might wish she never ever was told the info'. So daughter advised me not to tell!
I think me doing nothing is in a way enabling BIL behaviour in the future. He does not know that H has come clean to me with the A. and the damage that it has done to us so still believes that A's are great. Perhaps the way to go is for H to now go back to Bro and let him know the misery he has caused with this great 'pasttime' of theirs!.
Just a thought.
I have heard statistics mentioned several times but you know it is only over the past couple of days that as I have been walking around passing people, dealing with colleagues etc. I am thinking for each two of you here more than likely one has strayed. So when I attend a meeting with an ave. number of 10 people (males) - 5 of these colleagues might have done it. Really scary when I then look at the people there!! LOL I now mentally try to work out who!
I know what you are thinking - I need to concentrate more on these meetings and be there in body and mind LOL.
OK, the problem is your H MUST go further in his history to answer the question 'why.' Certainly, he may have felt that the scene had been set for him to have an A, but there are plenty of people suffering through a bad time in a marriage who never even dream of having an A, much less have one (like many of us BS for instance!).
My H had to dig into his lifetime, starting with his childhood to discover how he could give himself permission to have an A. I will tell you what he discovered (with lots of thinking, talking, discussions with me, counseling, and reading):
Children model themselves after their same sex parent. His father was a stern authoritarian who never praised his sons. He would blow up with little or no apparent provocation or warning. He would berate his sons. If something happened (like something got broken), he would yell at them "Who did this?" until the guilty party admitted responsibility, then he would spank said child. My H told me that he mostly hid in his room or outside when his father was home because he was afraid of him.
His father expected his wife (H's mom) to take care of everything around the house. He would get angry at her too. He would never take time to go see his sons do anything, like track meets or plays, so they felt like he wasn't interested in them.
He worked at work, and he worked at home. So the model they learned was they had to work themselves to the bone and that was what being a good husband was--NOT being involved in their family life, NOT talking to their children, NOT spending quality time with their wives, NOT spending time just relaxing, but always doing, doing, doing and feeling guilty if they weren't doing.
Neither his mom or his dad EVER talked to him and his brothers about morality, about sex, about relationships, about much of anything! How were they supposed to learn what was appropriate or acceptable in a relationship if they never saw or heard or were taught those lessons in their childhoods?
When my H was around 12 or so, he found a stash of hardcore porn in his father's filing cabinet. From that, he learned that looking at porn was acceptable, that you don't share your sexuality with your wife, that men are entitled to sex, that sex isn't related to love, that women are to be available to men when and how men want, that you lie about sex. Because he was sneaking the porn out of the cabinet and because he was terrified of what would happen if his father found out, he developed extreme guilt associated with sex. So ever after EVERY time he had sex, he felt dirty and guilty afterwards. It wasn't until the last year (and he is 50 now) that he has FINALLY stopped feeling guilty for having sex. (I never knew, BTW, until he told me this past year.)
He had a number of girlfriends who cheated on him with other guys. He ended up cheating on a couple of his girlfriends after he had been cheated on. So what did he learn? That you cheat when you are angry or unhappy--instead of discussing the problems in the relationship, you do something to hurt your partner instead.
He had alcohol, drug and porn addiction problems before (and porn addiction unknown to me after too) our marriage. Of course, those all relate to his feeling so bad about himself starting with his childhood and trying to fill up the big hole in himself. And of course, those things only made him feel worse about himself, not better!
He had low self-esteem (obviously) and never stopped to analyze his life because he is a compartmentalizer. He didn't carry the pieces from one compartment to another to put the whole puzzle together. He allowed people to abuse him (ie false friends, cheating girlfriends, etc.) because he was so hungry for friends and girlfriends.
In our marriage, he was very overbenefitted, and yet no matter how much I gave, it wasn't enough, so when things got rough (my parents and two brothers--one by suicide--all died within 1 1/2 years of each other) and I needed his support desperately, he couldn't give it to me because he is emotionally rigid (another thing we learned in counseling). So when he pulled away from me, I retreated, and thus the stage was set.
His workplace was insane and he was suffering from depression. Add his hidden porn addiction to the equation and a predator OW, et viola' the A begins!
So you see that looking just at the marriage is NOT enough. Remember that an A is ALL about the WS and NOT about the BS at all, so if the WS truly wants to know the answer to the question why, s/he MUST look at his entire life, not just the marriage.
On the question of your BIL's marriage, I guess I can only say to ask yourself if she knew your H were cheating and you didn't know, would you want her to tell you or force your H to tell you? If the answer is yes, then tell your BIL that if he doesn't tell, you and your H will. You have to look at motive. Are you thinking about telling because you want to hurt her or because you want to help her? I know it's the latter. Doesn't she deserve to know? How can she make informed choices about her marriage if she doesn't know?
HUGE fairy hugs to you,
fairyfriend
edited for typos and to add that his father NEVER praised his sons, only criticized them. His parents NEVER told their sons they love them (and they still don't say it). And forget about hugging or kissing them ever! ARRRGGG!
This message has been edited by fairyfriend on Jul 23, 2006 3:24 PM This message has been edited by fairyfriend on Jul 23, 2006 3:22 PM This message has been edited by fairyfriend on Jul 23, 2006 3:20 PM This message has been edited by fairyfriend on Jul 23, 2006 1:27 PM This message has been edited by fairyfriend on Jul 23, 2006 11:34 AM
Wow FairyFriend - what an excellent response - I could say much of what you say about my WS too and I agree on the BIL advice you give.
For sure we are all complex assemblies of past actions events and so on. We are all conditioned. But we all have a choice and a will to affect what we do or don't do. I am heartened all the time to think that we can and do change and that if we are able to let go of the past and learn then we can make things better. I sense from what you are saying Heatherone that you feel that in some way if you start again from a clean sheet then H will not have learned anything, not have changed and the pattern will repeat. Yes, I believe you are right and there are plenty of examples of this. The problem is that you will never know for sure and so at some point you will have to decide to accept the risk with H or move on. Another problem you may be having is one I know too and this is that you still feel somehow as if something needs to be put right ie after all a major harm has been done and something must be done to judge, jury and correct all that.. ie in fact this means you have not actually forgiven WS. I may still suffer from this problem a bit and I feel there are others here in HH who carry this heavily on their shoulders.. It is a terrible crime to forgive and move on from for anyone and not being able to move towards forgiveness can become a life long and crippling burden to carry - with the potential to poison the soul. So.. in the end we all get to a place where we have to take a risk and forgive as best we can if we are to move on. Sometimes this will be with new partners, sometimes to try again in a new relationship with existing spouses. One thing is for sure here though and this is that the world and nothing in it is perfect and will meet our wishes. However, this does not mean we all end up miserable and unhappy.. Getting to be happy in a world like this is the difficult path to tread but we all have to find our own ways on that one. The main thing is to work something out and start the journey.
Last point - and something I am working on right now - How to see your WS with perspective ie how to get a clear picture of this new person you now are seeing, in many ways for the first time... for this is how it feels for me. I guess I am stepping back a bit and being a bit detached and trying to really watch her and myself as from a distance to observe and check how we really are together. It is very hard in a long marriage relationship to do this ie to, sort of, step out of your own marriage and look back at it. But this is what I am trying to do. To see my wife again as if for the first time and then,, perhaps then I can see how we may be able to work better .. or even at all.. in the future. I believe we are both changing and both doing some of this right now. And I feel it may be quite a good attitude to retain even during a long marriage ie never taking anything for granted and always checking how things really are between you. I hope your H can do something similar as you need him to participate or he will not change and not learn and things will not improve.
It took me 2.5 years to start to trust other people again and to not look at everybody and wonder if they were cheating or if they would cheat. I would mistrust the little things - just a gesture somebody was making for me - and think what do they want from me.
I used to look at people I worked with and people on the street and crazy thoughts would enter my head. I think it is totally normal now that we realize how pervasive infidelity is. Then there is the choice - the devil you know or the devil you don't. I am taking my chances with the one that I don't and hoping that by open communication I won't have to go through this again. uck!
