SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

WH started an EA one year ago. It started out as friendly and progressed from there. (If you have read "Not Just Friends" we are a textbook case.)

Our M was in sucksville, due to both of us neglecting it, money stress, lack of intimacy-both emotional and physical. We grew apart, and neither one of us was happy. We were not communicating at all and both went into our own shells. Basically, we were at the point of coexisting.

In January he told me he wanted a separation to "figure out what he wanted." I wasn't happy about it but knew we were in a shitty place so I could understand it. I told him then that I thought our M was viable but that we had a lot of work to do. I told him that I loved him and believed we could fix our M and have a better one. I told him that I didn't want a separation but wanted to work on things. He told me that he wasn't sure if he wanted to fix things and that was why he wanted to separate. So in my mind, there wasn't much I could do about it. Can't work on a M if both partners aren't going to.

So we "separated" but not physically. I started looking at places to live but he didn't want me to move out-he didn't want me living in a shithole. He said as long as we weren't "at each others thoats" we could share the bills until we figured things out. At that time, I was thinking of moving back home (different state) and was looking for a job. My current job is unstable as they declared bankruptcy and I am in a niche field. I just was keeping an eye out on jobs and moving was an going to have to be option. I didn't want to move but if that was the only way I could have a job I was going to have to. We continued to basically coexist togehter so it really wasn't much different from the way things were before. In the beginning I didn't talk to him much and we changed the way we paid our bills to make it 50/50 but that was really all that changed.

In April WH told me that he was confused and thought that maybe a lot of his negativity was misplaced. A lot of our money stress was aleviated and he began to question if he wasn't "down on everything" due to all that stress. Now that he was feeling better he started to see things differently. Anyway, he said he thought he might want to work things out but wasn't 100% sure. We didn't really do much to R because I was reluctant to open myself up to a maybe.

Anyway........Dday was in June. blah blah blah-you all know the story. End of July he says he's "all in" for R. He says he is sorry, and feels bad for a lot of things. He answers all my questions and has initiated and kept NC. He seems to be genuine in wanting to R.

So here's the problem. He admits that the EA was an affair-but stops short of admitting the physical part was an A. He admits it was wrong and hurtful. He says he never wanted/wants to hurt me. He says he understands my pain. He says he wishes he had never met OW. He says he handled many things the wrong way. He thinks that because we were "separated" that it was ok. He asked for the separtation on Jan 1st-one week later he was fucking her. To me he asked for the separation to absolve himself of guilt and to give himself permission to do what he knew he was gonna do. He knew he was going to see her in Jan (she lives in our home state and he was going for a visit)and I think he wanted to open that door to sleep with her guilt free. This is our disconnect. And it's a BIG one. He can't feel remorse for something that he feels he was "cleared" to do. But at the same time he admits that the EA was an A and a betrayal. Could he be having a harder time admitting the PA to himself?

We have our first MC appt next week and will bring this up then but I was just wondering what SI's take on this is. I hope that MC will help us to come to a mutual understanding about this. If he really thought that he was "out" of the relationship then I can see where he may have been ready to move on but he should have told me that and been honest with me. He LIED about having feelings for her. He didn't say that he wanted a separation because he wanted to date another woman. When he said he might want to work things out with me (in April) he continued to talk to her and saw her once more and had plans to see her again until Dday happened. WTF.

I see this as infidelity. He cheated on me. EA for a year, PA for 6 months. No you get to ask for a separation and a "get out of jail free" card.

I just don't know if we will ever see this issue the same way. If we can't, I wonder about the possibility of R.

What say you SI?

He may not want to admit it but what he did was have an affair. Its worth discussing in MC

(((canteat)))

The separation is no excuse to go out and screw someone else.

Unless you said flat out--its ok to see others while we're separated, he was cheating.

Good Luck with the MC, your dday is fairly recent.

His head is still somewhat up his back end i think.

sending you strength,,,,,

IMO he asked for the S to justify his A.

He is wrong, plain and simple. If he is really being open and honest he will eventually see it for what it is.

It's a load of BS and he's just trying to make himself feel better.

Good luck with your MC appt :)

He was having an affair before you separated. All he did was add to the manner in which he was cheating and escalated it to physical. The intent to physically cheat was already in the works before you even separated, so he can't deny the physical affair.

Thanks for all the replies. After posting here we talked (I seem to do that a lot. I guess posting here helps me clarify my thoughts first) Anyway it went pretty well. I think he knows the PA part was an A. He says that the EA part was, and has alluded to the PA in that way too. I think it is harder for him to admit that part to himself for some reason so he seems to flip flop some with the PA part. I am hopeful that he will really "get it" I hope MC helps.

Does he understand your perspective about you feeling like he asked for S so that he didn't have to feel guilty for sleeping with OW? What was his response, is he insisting that this isn't the case?

During the time that he was being physical with her and "thought that he was cleared to do so," was he being honest with you about, or was he hiding it? My guess is he was hiding it. If he REALLY thought he was in the clear, as he claims, then why would he hide it?

In April, he claimed that he might want to work things out...did he continue to sleep with OW in April, May, and June before D-day? If so, that doesn't sound like he was genuinely wanting to R or really putting very much effort into it.

Those would ALL be things I would bring up in marriage counseling as to why you consider this to be an affair. Maybe even sit down and say, "IMO, this is what I consider to be an affair. These behaviors are affair behaviors."

Does he understand your perspective about you feeling like he asked for S so that he didn't have to feel guilty for sleeping with OW? What was his response, is he insisting that this isn't the case?

Yes-this is one of the things we talked about. He can see it from my perspective. He agrees that he may have asked for the separation as a way to ease his conscience. He says that at the time he wanted to ask me for a D because he thought he was done with our M. Asking for a sep was his pussyfied way of easing into D. (the pussiness is his own admission) And no, he wasn't honest about being with her until Dday when I had evidence. I asked him why he didn't say he wanted to /was seeing someone else and he said he was just too much of a pussy to tell me the truth.

that doesn't sound like he was genuinely wanting to R or really putting very much effort into it.

Back in April neither one of us was putting in any effort. I asked him how he could continue to talk/see her when he felt he might want to work things out with me. He says during this time he was very confused and was waiting to see if the changes he saw in me and felt about me were real (he had been closed off to me emotionally for so long) or a last ditch effort on my part to save the M.

(More info: One of the biggest problems in our M was communication. Which is mostly my problem.(thanks mom) I have been in IC for several months and have changed. He started to see those changes but wasn't sure he could trust them until some time passed.) When he started to become re-interested in me and the potential in our M he started to back away from her. He didn't end things then but he said he started to feel weird about her. He started to think that we could R and that things could be different so he started to distance himself from her. He DID see her again(once)when he was up north and he says he wasn't sure why. He was involved at that point and was kinda just going through the motions. He says he knew he didn't want a relationship with her but wasn't positive he wanted one with me either.

In a fucked up way, we both view Dday as a type of divine intervention. He has said that if I didn't find out when I did that things would have been too far gone to fix. And that he was too much of a wuss to come clean on his own. He was on his way out the door and needed a wake up call to snap him out of it. I too needed that wake up call because I didn't realize how bad our M was suffering and my part in it until I took a real long hard look at it. We both agree that an A was not the right way to handle a failing M but I think we would have let it die a slow death without some kind of wake up call to stop us. He (and I agree) says the A is all his fault and that even though the M wasn't great that the A is in no way my fault. He knows its his fucked up shit that allowed him to do it.

[This message edited by canteat at 7:16 PM, August 2nd (Friday)]