OK...I am the one who had the most recent A's.
So I am the one who is doing everything to win back trust, prove my love & loyality etc.
However....part of the reason why I strayed was the way H treated me....
When he asks me how does he know I am not going to get unhappy & stray again...I reply..well your job is to keep me happy....a very easy thing to do honestly...
Am I wrong to think that it took both of us to make our marriage bad enough that I went looking elsewhere & that it will take both of us to make it stronger & that we both should put in the effort to make the other one feel valued, loved etc.
I send H emails put notes in his lunch etc.
Am I wrong to expect some initiative on his part?Just wondered...
Healing...

There are, no doubt, a few issues that have contributed to the detrioration of your marriage. These issues also contributed to the environment that creates a higher likelihood for affairs. You, as a couple, probably already know what they are, but you would do well to spend time really seeking them out, dialoguing about them, and seeking counsel for them if needed.

However, your choice to commit adultery was something only you own. Many people are miserable in their marriage but do not resort to affairs. You cannot lay that blame at anyone's feet but your own.

Hey, Healing! Its good to see you on the boards. It sounds from your other post that things are going relatively well and that's good. I hope things go well tonight at therapy. It definitely is a long, long road we all walk once we get on this path. Just always important to try and put one foot in front of the other.

As for your question, the statement that jumps out at me is: "your job is to keep me happy." Hmmmm. I don't know. Is that really the job or role of a spouse? If one is not happy, does that mean the fault lies with the other?

I don't think that my H's job is to make me happy. However, I think he and I are still working on finding out the definition of what makes for a good marriage. One of the things deeply buried in my psyche was some warped view that my H's job was to keep me safe and protected (this was much more subconcious text than conscious). Though I suppose there is a piece of truth in that in terms of how we've structured our marriage with him as breadwinner so there's that element of financial safety I rely on him for. And I should be able to trust him and hope that he would respect me enough that he wouldn't do harm to me emotionally or physically, but I think I'm setting us both up for failure if I see his "job" as keeping me safe. If I say that, I pass off my own responsibility towards that end. It feels the same to consider your H's job is keeping you happy. Should he be concerned about your happiness? Yes. Absolutely. But not his "job".

Maybe its just nitpicking about semantics. Maybe not. What do you see as your responsibilities as a wife? I'm going to spend some time this afternoon asking myself the same question. If I had to give a quick answer, I'd say I've committed myself to love, honor and respect the man who is my friend/lover/partner by being the best person I can be...and when I'm not such a great person, that I be honest and talk with him about what's going on inside of me so we can travel the path together. I'd love to hear what others have to say on the topic, and absolutely, Healing, its important for you and your H to find clarity together on that. BlueIris

"We cannot wait for the storm to pass; we must learn to walk in the rain."

Ideally, each of us would awaken each morning with selfless thoughts about how we can make our spouse happy.  I think it is important to have that sort of mindset...not be responsible for that happiness but have that desire for our spouse to be genuinely happy and have our actions and words reflect that.  Sadly, we get caught up in our own thoughts and feelings and not only start to neglect our spouse but also begin to have expectations that are sometimes not realistic or fair. 

The truth is our personal happiness is primarily determined by our own attitude and how well we meet the challenges and opportunities in our lives.  It is a reflection of goals we set and the efforts we make individually toward becoming who and what we choose to in this lifetime. Then factor in other issues like social, financial, religious, and enironmental influences.  How can we expect our spouse to make up for all the mitigating factors that contribute to personal happiness?  What we can do, though, is provide a loving and secure place (the home) from which to draw strength and encouragement.  I do think that is the responsibility of each spouse - to contribute to a positive and nurturing home/relationship that will ultimately increase the other spouses personal happiness.

I was (and still am) the type of wife who did special things on an almost daily basis for my H.  But it did not stop him from having an A.  Nothing I did or didn't do was going to prevent him from having an A.  Only he could do that and he choose to have the A.

In answer to your question, I do think it is the responsibility of BOTH spouses to make the marriage work, whether BS or FWS.  Everyone wants to feel wanted and loved, especially in the framework of a marriage.  And when you are doing kind things for another, it cultivates kind feelings within yourself.  However, as you know from experience as a BS yourself, he has strong emotions to work through over this and may be struggling in this area.  If he was not the type of guy to leave you cuddly notes before, he is not going to think of it now while dealing with the A, nor will he think to do it later on.  This may be something you might have to teach him that you would enjoy as part of the marriage - not something that he owes you or is responsible for, but simply something that touches your heart and makes you feel closer to him.

Blessings

Jane              

           

"When he asks me how does he know I am not going to get unhappy & stray again...I reply..well your job is to keep me happy....a very easy thing to do honestly..."

I have a huge problem with this statement. It isn't ANYBODY'S job to keep you happy, besides your own. If you aren't happy inside, then nobody else is going to 'give' you that happiness. Happiness comes from within!

That being said, to some extent we need to not be selfish and love our spouse, putting them sometimes ahead of ourselves.

If we rely on others to be happy, I'm afraid we are missing out on life and we will end up sadly disappointed.

Kid

Ok, Sorry, by the responses I got I need to rephrase this.
I didn't exactly mean he was responsible for my happiness....obviously I need to be happy inside 1st.
What I meant was he needed to see to it that I felt loved, needed, appreciated & wanted by him, which is how I want him to feel by me.
Is that better?
Thanks,
Healing....

As with any marriage there are problems. No matter what the problem, no matter how he treated you or how much you felt or didn't feel loved, doesn't give the right away to go out and find what you think you are missing or not getting at home.
It's a matter of communication. I thought that my husband and I had good communication but come to find out, we really didn't talk at all. All the important things were swept under the rug.Even the not so important things. We now talk about everything. We have learned to tell each other what we want, what we feel and what we need. At first it was hard, but it gets easier. A book I would suggest is Getting The Love You Want. It teaches how to communicate by dialoging. It really goes work. It gets both involved.
Affairs happen. They happen to all types of people. It doesn't make you a bad person unless you don't change your ways. Look to find what really caused the straying. If you look hard enough, you'll find that it had nothing to do with your husband.
I wish the best for you.


Laura

Healing

I understand what you are saying and that is something that we all want...when you don't feel loved, needed, or validated you struggle..you shut down and that is the breakdown of a marriage..

The key is communication...really listening to your H and for you to listen to him..on going struggle in marriages because we expect our S to read our minds... how many times do we say.. but you knew that I ...and he didn't know..because S was not listening or forgot..or______. Our MC is planning to give us a test in listening skills..again...it is needed for us both..

I also put the notes in H's suitcase when he traveled..he still cheated.

You are looking for the romance and as my H said when I told him..we have been married for 35 pus yrs you know I care,..ahhhhhh.. I needed the physical cards, flowers,...attention...dating putting me first in his mind...


Hugs

Pat





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

I can tell you that prior to my H's A, he felt unloved. The irony is that the reason he felt unloved was because I FIRST felt unloved by him (related to HIS being OCPD and being totally unable and maybe even unwilling to listen to MY pain of losing four family members in 18 months). Because I felt unloved by him, I shut down. He used my feeling shut out and responding to his behavior as part of his justification for cheating on me.

Sigh.

ff

The feeling of being loved....well, I started to feel very unloved when I suspected my WH of cheating but I didn't cheat. He, on the other hand, told me that I never made him feel unloved and he did cheat. That is why they say it is about the WS and how they feel about themselves and why the A is so much their issue...they need to own it and they need figure out why they did it. Each of you may have cheated for different reasons so you both must find your own answers. That is why it is so important that you deal with the issues and not sweep them under the rug. Then I believe TOGETHER you can make it work if that is what you both truly want.

Best wishes,


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

In my mind, it comes down to the idea of what can "I" bring to the M. Not what my H gives to me, but what do I bring to the table each and every day. Do I give him my best self? Do I look for ways to build him up? Am I his "soft place to fall", as Dr. Phil would say? I need to be the absolute best W I can be, the woman God intended me to be, and trust the rest will follow.

Guess what? When I changed my thinking, AMAZINGLY my H got to the point where he was doing things w/out me asking! He was thinking of ways to make me feel good, and a big part of that came from me NOT depending on him to have a smile on my face.

It's a shift in attitude, Healing. It comes over time, and with healing to the M and yourself. Frankly, your H asks a very valid question....what is to stop you from straying again if he doesn't meet your needs? You need to find what broke inside of you and allowed that to happen, instead of putting it on your H.

I know now that no matter what, NO MATTER WHAT happens in my M, that I won't be the one breaking my vows. I'll get a D before I'd ever consider that again. And the biggest reason isn't because of the hurt I caused my H, although that's a huge part of it. The biggest reason is because I betrayed my inner self, and the woman of great integrity I believe myself to be. Hold yourself up higher, and know that people of no integrity or morals are the ones that cheat...you are better than that, it has nothing to do with your H meeting your needs or not. If you bring your best self to the M, he'll WANT to make you happy, because he'll be so crazy about you.

And when he doesn't, when the lulls in the M hit as they always do, you work through it and work at it, and it passes....I hope this doesn't sound preachy.

Blessings,
Sun

Great post Sun

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

I understand all that you said in your reply Sun...
However I am always doing something for him. I would just like something returned occasionally.
the 1st place...I am not looking for anything major..just a little romance & sweetness..
Healing

I totally get what you mean about the romance...nothing romantic about him being in a bad mood during the day and then expecting sex from you that nite..I feel like romance too, comes in the way we are approached, and treated . My H seems to feel like it is MY JOB to keep him happy and satisfied".. He pouted and was difficult to live with if for some reason I turned him down for sex that nite.....difficult to get enjoyment from sex together when your feeling used..

Hey HMH! I posted this on a recent thread here on Open, but again, in light of what Ami said, I think its worth considering in your situation, too. I've editted what I originally wrote to coordinate more with your situation. Just a suggestion. Its definitely helped my H and I.

"Around the beginning of the year, H and I started something new. He and I were doing ok, generally speaking, but I still felt like we were missing the boat with each other, because he felt like he was doing loving things and I kept looking for love and romance (especially in light of what I knew he had done with and for OW) and I wasn't seeing it - or I was really blinded by my knowledge of the A. So, there was this kind of wall we had hit and I really wanted to find a way to plow through the wall towards the next level.

On a love and romance site, there was an idea for "Love Tip Jars". Here's how it works: Each spouse has a tip jar. When I do something loving for H and its loving from his perspective, I get a "tip" in my jar (the suggestion was having the tip be be a quarter, a piece of candy...for us, its just a slip of paper that says "you did _____________, and I felt loved because of it.) The same thing happens with H's jar. If I see that he's done something that makes me feel loved, I pop a note in his jar that says what he did and how it made me feel. At the end of a month's time, we each count up our "tips". Whoever has the most tips, "wins" and the other spouse is responsible for setting up a date for us.

Ok, on the surface this sounds like some lovey-dovey whatever kind of game - the type of thing newlyweds might do to be silly and starry-eyed. BUT the thing that's been really nice about this and is helping us heal and push towards that next level, is each day, both of us have the focus of looking for (a) what we can do to be loving towards the other and (b) we're also looking at the efforts the other is making. There's tangible feedback when something works and noticeable absence if we did something that wasn't in a working love language for the other. So, for example, my H thought it was really romantic if he got the coffee maker ready for me for the next morning's brew. Its sweet, but I don't find it "romantic". This system has helped us both see what means something to the other and what doesn't. That means we're honing in on how to show each other and communicate love to each other. In the end, we both win, because we both end up getting a date with each other (which leads us to creating good new memories and communicating) and because we stay focussed on the love we're giving and receiving. We keep the jars in our bathroom, so they are in plain view and we have multiple times during the day that we walk past them and are reminded of our goal.

No books. It feels more like a game than "affair recovery work". There's a tangible reward in the end and an intangible critical benefit from what we're learning along the way."

One of the things that becomes really important in your situation, HMH, and frankly in all our situations, is to be able to talk with each other about how love/romance is being expressed. It occasionally hurts to know I've done something I thought was very sweet and romantic and then not see a "tip" in my jar. But if I push my pride aside and look at what I did unsuccessfully as a learning tool, i.e., H has shown me I wasn't speaking the same love language to him, then I can work towards expressing my feelings the next time more in a way that show him love that he understands. H has to do the same thing. He has to be able to see that some of the things he's doing just don't trip my emotional trigger and work towards speaking my love language.

This love tip jar system can be a way for you two to initiate conversations towards understanding each other...and then reward each other by learning from those conversations.

Give each other positive feedback for attempts towards loving behavior - even if they were unsuccessful. Point gently towards better understanding of what you each need/desire/respond to so you both can hit the "target" more often. The better you understand each other and are connecting with what is important to your partner, the more intimately connected you will feel. It becomes a positive snowball effect.

Do you think your H would be receptive to working with you towards understanding your individualized wants/needs/desires? I know it doesn't feel as romantic to have to spell out what is romantic to you, but if a guy needs guidance and direction and we quietly sit by just hoping they'll figure it out by process of elimination, they oftentimes will retract away from us because they feel stymied and like nothing they do is good enough. And there some seeds are sown towards looking elsewhere....yuk. Honestly, that sounds like some of what you're feeling, too, at the point you're saying you give up.

You're spot on in knowing it can't be just you working on this. Unzipping pants and pointing at a penis ain't gonna cut it in most women's minds and hearts. But you two need to have a positive conversation about the importance of working on this together towards a common goal of greater love and connectedness. As cranky as he's being, (and as you're sounding, too), can you both have that talk? BlueIris


"We cannot wait for the storm to pass; we must learn to walk in the rain."

Blue & Ami...
Thanks for the posts.
I donbut he would try the tip jar idea. He just isn't into stuff like that.
The counselor wanted us to do this thing where when he is angry at me I am supposed to say...
Ok so you think I am .......etc..etc...
Did I get it?
And he is supposed to say....yes & I also feel XXX
& I say OK so I am a blank & and blank & you feel XXX did I get it?
And he won't do it. Says its silly.

But anyhow....I do romance him. I put love note in his lunch...send emails saying I am thinking of him, sometimes what i'd like to do when he comes home etc.
He commented several times he was just joking with his 2 little funny gestures...and I know he was but that's all I get sometimes.
It just gets frustrating.
Healing...

HMH,

You miss my point. You are romancing him how you think romance should be, from a woman's POV. You have to romance him how a man would liked to be romanced. Get the book I recommend. It will help both of you romance the other in the right ways.

Mirroring is not for everybody. The key is validating his feelings in what ever way that works. Look into www.retrouvaille.org It is a wonderful program for married couples to learn how to communicate better.

HMH, there are no quick fixes. New patterns take a long time to work. It took me 9 mounths of changed behavior and a D-day for my husband to come around and start changing from his end. Change your behaviors because they are the right thing to do, not to get a result from you spouse. The hope is, that your spouse will respond eventually.

It could also be, that your husband wishes you would joke around sexually, that for him that is a type of romancing. I know my husband likes me to play occasionally in this way. I don't always, because it really isn't me, but I do at times, here and there, play along for him. In the end, we both feel better about it.

Ami

Good morning, HMH. Ami's message is a good one and is very worth listening to.

But I also went back to the beginning of the thread and re-read your intial post and I'm wondering if maybe I've missed a pertinent point from you:

"Am I wrong to expect some initiative on his part?"

It is critical that your H be involved in this process. A marriage cannot work with just one partner putting themselves out there. Its important for both of you to put efforts in that are the kind of efforts the other needs and desires. But absolutely you are right that your H needs to get on board, too.

I hear what you're willing to do. And you've told us things he is NOT willing to do. My question is what has he told you he IS willing to do to make this marriage succeed? The two of you should both be willing to have that talk with each other and work together towards a committed, united, loving, workable marriage. What has he said to you about what he is or isn't doing and what he's willing to bring to the process? ((HMH)) BlueIris

"We cannot wait for the storm to pass; we must learn to walk in the rain."

If I remember correctly, you guys are only a little over 8 months past your most recent DDay, right? The first year is brutal. It's about survival. I could not expect anything from my H other than not walking out on me, in the first year. And going back and rereading my very early posts will show you, this was a VERY frustrating process. I had a similar thought process as you did, that I needed him on board or we weren't going to be able to heal.

I was reminded by everyone here that the first year is about surviving, as a general rule (some take longer, some don't take that long), and that after that you can actually start to look at some progress after that hopefully. So maybe you need to give your H some slack, and be happy he even wants to make love to you. There are people that have posted here that won't let their FWS's touch them for a long time after DDay, which can be so painful.

Sun