Barb

<I just don't understand why we BS have to be so concerned about the pain our WS is going thru.>

I am not at all reading anger into your post. I see someone who is hurt and having a hard time dealing with being betrayed. Aren't all of us? However, even though my ex and I didn't make it work, I saw a great deal of pain in his face after his A. We would watch TV and he would cry when he saw cheating scenes because of what he had done. This made me realize that he was human and realized he made a huge mistake. When you make a huge mistake that hurts someone you love, you are also hurt pretty badly by that. I do believe my ex was hurt by what he did quite badly. I don't believe his A was what split us up, it was his addiction that did it. This caused him to keep lying to me.

I'm curious if your H has shown any signs of remorse from having his A? Forgiving him is done for you mostly and not him. It will allow you to accept what happened to you and put it behind you. If you H is making steps toward reconciliation and you can't accept it, I wonder if he feels like he can't to anything to make you happy right now. There is another side of this though and that could be that he isn't taking any steps to help you heal or hasn't shown any remorse, and sometimes betrayed people lash out when they feel they are still being played a fool or when they don't believe there is any true remorse. Either way Barb, you need to make a decision whether you can live the way you are now. Do you and your H speak about this? I think I've heard you mention that you talk to him.

A C can help a great deal with your feelings Barb, I know you say you don't have the money now, but I'm sure there are services out there somewhere for a fairly cheap price. It seems you have found some extra spending money to buy your puppy lately - isn't you marriage or your health worth the same effort/money?

<t's just I don't feel the need to baby him or understand his pain.>

I'm wondering if your H knows you don't care about his pain. Can this be part of the reason that he isn't remorseful about his A? Barb, the more you push him away, the LESS he will feel badly about his A. I know that stinks, but it is true.

<to me it would be like feeling sorry for someone who just murdered someone else.>

I know your hurt but your H did not just murder someone else. That's like comparing apples and oranges.

<Hopefully if he's going thru some pain he will learn something from it>

As long as you are pushing him away, I'm not sure he will learn something from it. He will likely justify why he had done it if he only sees upset and anger from you. I'm not saying you shouldn't feel those things, I'm saying that if that is all he sees, why would he even "want" to feel any remorse? Barb, I'm not trying to be blunt, I'm just trying to point out that you may be pushing him farther away - is that truly what you want? When I realized I was doing that with my ex, I stopped doing it. Bob wrote something good about this subject on another thread - I am too tired to look for it but I liked what he said.

Charlie

Thanks Charlie. No, i don't see alot of remorse. He never brings up the A. Only I do. The only time I knew he was really hurting was the nite he got drunk & strangled me in front of the kids. He had never done anything like that before. Anyway, we never see each other except when he comes home between 1 & 4 am so I don't really know exactly how he feels. There's no time for counciling right now. I work from 6:30 am until 1 am. Doesn't leave time for other things right now.By the way, the puppy was free.He does say "I'm sorry" when I'm upset but that doesn't mean anything to me.

Barb

I'm glad you've found something that makes you happy i.e. the puppy. I just know how expensive food, vet bills, accessories and the like can be.

How do you work until 1am? Are you watching someones child who is there until that time? Does that mean you can't go to bed until after that? Ughh!

Charlie

Barb,

I guess the best way I can think of right now to answer your initial question would be to start with other questions...

Do you want him to understand and acknowledge your feelings?

Do you believe he doesn't?

Do you think he is willing to do that if you can't acknowledge and understand his?

Do you look at it as him having to understand your pain and you not needing to acknowledge his?

Do you think he doesn't deserve to be understood?

Do you judge that his feelings are wrong?

Are you afraid you might hear something that will be difficult for you deal with if you listen to him instead of telling him how he should feel?

Do you feel like it's his responsibility to fix your marriage?

Was your marriage perfect before the affair? Does he think it was?

Do you think he will be willing to make anything up to you if he's busy shielding himself from your arrows?

What were your answers? Remember them. Now replace all the "He's" and "Him's" and replace them with "I", "My", "Mine" and "ME" as if YOU were asking those questions of HIM, but you got the same answers from him that you gave me. How would you feel about that? Would you feel defeated and hopeless if you had to ask those questions of the person you love and receive the answers you gave? Would that make you want to understand, or just push you farther away from him?

Don't get me wrong...there's no questioning that an affair is the most stupid, hurtful, disrespectful, selfish thing a married person can do, and the WS must take responsibility for their horrible mistake in order for you to move forward in your relationship. It's undeniable torture for a BS to try and deal with the aftermath and decide if they want to move forward. There's no pain like it that I've experienced, and it still is a huge part of my everyday life that I'm dealing with...slowly...but I am dealing with it.

The difference is, I have made the decision to love my wife and show her that I acknowledge and understand her feelings without judging them. This has made it safe for her to acknowledge and understand mine without judging them. Again, feelings are neither right nor wrong, they just are what they are, and they change. Once my wife and I made it safe for each other to communicate, I have seen a very remorseful, very introspective person come out who wants to talk with me about everything - affair-related or not - and wants to work on our relationship WITH me. She in turn has found a person who can express his feelings without degrading into an angry, mean spiteful person who yells and disrespects her....but even more importantly, one who will listen to her and really hear her without telling her that the way she feels is not the way I think she should be feeling.

One of the most important things for you right now is to get him to understand how you are feeling, right? There's no way he will want to if you don't allow him the same respect. Does he deserve your respect right now? You probably don't think so, and you may or may not be right. Doesn't matter! If you shut him out and disrespect him, he won't even want to try, and the less he'll feel like what he did was wrong...just like Charlie said. If that's what you really want Barb, then you're headed down the right path. If that's what you really want, hold on to that anger and don't give him a chance.

I'm just trying to get you to see that no matter how much you reserve the right to want to make him understand your feelings without acknowledging or understanding his, you aren't communicating properly and you're not allowing him to want to make it better for you...so he won't.

There isn't really much to understand about his feelings. By looking at him you would never know anything was different in our lives. He doesn't cry, doesn't talk about the A. All he has ever had to say is that "he's sorry" & that it was a stupid thing to do. He says that our marriage was good & that he had no reason to do what he did. He says that he wasn't unhappy. We always talked about how happy & lucky we were to have each other. How couples that fought all the time or cheated on each other or split up were so silly.Everyone that knows us is surprised that he did what he did.So, there really arn't many feelings to acknowledge as far as I can tell.He is dealing with this the same way he has always dealt with things. He says that we will be fine & things will get better with time.I talked to him for a few minutes this a.m. & told him that I am having trouble healing because I don't feel that he's being very proactive in this mess.He doesn't have time to go to counciling but says he will someday. Also I brought up the fact that he never talks about the A unless I bring it up. I feel like it's basically not being dealt with very well.Yes, I do stay up until 1 a.m. I have one kid that leaves at 10:30 pm, one that leaves at 11 pm, one that leaves at 1 am & one that leaves anytime between midnight & 1:30 am. As far as the dog, he doesn't cost that much. Just the extra dog food.

Talked to H last nite. He says it's his goal to prove to me that what he did will never happen again. My thoughts on this are that it's not really possible for me to trust him . I feel that since he spent 15 yrs. telling me that he would never cheat & then he did it, how can it be possible to trust him when he says he knows for sure it will never happen again. That's a big gamble with my life & my feelings. I have read on this site where the WS promises to never do it again & then several years later that person is cheating & lying again. Know what I mean? I told him this & that I also feel that he will not cheat now but that once he feels safe in the relationship, that somewhere down the line he will do it again. He says he knows he won't. Since he still says he doesn't know why he did it, I really find it hard to want to even trust him.He still says our marriage was good & that he loved me & that none of it was my fault.So......... I have no idea what I want at this point. I just survive each day. Luckly I got a few more daycare kids & I am too busy to cry much anymore. Next week I will be starting at 5:15 am instead of 6 am & will still be working until 1 a.m. Terry might have a new job soon. This guy Roger,who he does some remodling work for, has offered Terry a job. Roger owns Global Industries in a nearby town & wants to open a regular store & have Terry manage it.Global Industries buys surplus items(mostly auto parts, etc.) & then sells them.Anyway, if Terry takes the job(they're building hunting right now), he would work full time there & would still have to do his side jobs too but maybe we would get to see him alittle bit more. That would be nice!

Wow, today was actually a good day. Actually the last few days have been pretty good but today was the best. I spent 5 hours at two different parks with the daycare kids. I'm worn out & they still have energy! I didn't think about the A so much today. It was on my mind,as usual, but it wasn't bad. No anger or hatred today. I feel halfway normal for a change. It feels good. Especially since I hadn't been doing so well the last 4 weeks or so. Again, thanks for putting up with me when I'm bitchy.There is nobody here to talk to & I have no family anywhere.Now if the price of gas would go down($1.15 for regular) then I could afford to fill up my 14 passanger van & I'd be one happy lady!

Barb

Glad your doing well today. Do you think it was the nice weather and being outside that helped? If so, maybe it would be a great idea (weather permitting) to get out more often with the kids. I did daycare for about a year when my youngest was a baby and I know I couldn't handle staying inside with them so much. I didn't have as many kids as you though but I remember getting out was huge in keeping my sanity and making myself feel good. Maybe that will help you more too?

Charlie

My mood probably has something to do with the weather, but my allergies are acting up so it's not always so fun for me to be outside.I think that my mood mainly has to do with the fact that my daycare is almost full again.Plus, I have had such a down month or so that I guess it was about time for my mood to change. In fact I did really good this a.m.! H didn't get home until 7 a.m. this morning. He left a message about midnight & said he would be done work in a few hrs. Then he called at 5:50 a.m. & said that he had lost his keys at the house he was remodling. At first I thought that it was some dumb ass story but then I finally decided not to let it bother me. He says that he went to leave about 2 a.m. & couldn't find his keys anywhere in the house. Then he thought maybe he locked them in the pickup truck. So, he got a coat hanger & got into the truck. The keys weren't there & so he called his friend Roger that he does alot of the work for & asked if Roger could send someone over with a vehicle that he could borrow because our daughter has a soccer game out of town today & he had to take her.So, when Terry finally came home around 7 a.m. he had one of Roger's trucks. So, my H actually was telling the truth & I'm glad I didn't jump to conclusions. It's hard not to though.Now he's over at the house he's working on trying to find the keys. He's afraid that they fell out of his pocket while he was putting in some lower kitchen cabinets & that he will have to take them out to find his keys. He's not too happy right now. Anyway, I'm glad that he was telling the truth this time.