There were enough "good" people & good examples in his life. There were friends that cared & would have helped him talk to me. Why was it a confrontation to talk to me about your feelings of being unloved & unappreciated but you could tell her anything & tear me up one side & the other? How did that make sense? 30 years & you couldn't talk to me? Really? I want him to figure out why he walked away from a God, why he didn't hsve boundaries against those not so good people in his life , why he thought it would be ok & he could have an affair & God would forgive him. That it was ok to not talk abut how he felt with me before the affair & then lay everything at my feet as justification. Why did he nor think of his kids or commitment or his integrity? Why was it "different" with you & her when she had a reputation for f-I go married men?
I feel good about me. Ive done a ton of work on me & counseling & things for me. I'm doing things he likes that I do r really like but I'm putting myself up there more than I used to. He does a lot of things. He's been looking for a job for over a year with no luck. He spends less time at work. He's home with me & the kids more than ever. He's made several changes. He's good at doing things but now when I want to talk about these questions more ( not the affair details) he doesn't want to. He's embarrassed. He wants to move forward. "We've done so good" I'll hear from him. He's been a good stuffer & avoider for years so that's his pattern.
Am I out of line? Am I making a situation that doesn't need to be made? Advice welcome. I never told OW betrayed spouse & that may be part of my frustration. I feel like she got off Scott free. He said so many mean things to me during the 3 months after he was caught. He continued to email w her for almost a month after I caught them. That really pisses me off still. He filed for divorce & then backed out of it. We are still in MC.
If you are in mc, isn't that a safe place to bring those things up? Does your mc know that your H doesn't want to talk about these things? We are completely traumatized as a bs, we need to talk about it...I think it helps us process and move forward.
Not telling the obs may be something that keeps haunting you as well. If there had been another spouse for me to tell, I definitely would have. But, there may have been reasons you didn't tell at the time, what were they? (Undonelife)
I would be worried too. We rugswept for a bit and it just doesn't go away. He needs to get passed the embarrassment or shame to start healing.
What happens in MC for you both?
"Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive" - CS Lewis
23 months out here. Similar story as yours...but will try to offer you some hope and comfort.
Wife is traditionally a stuffer and avoider to....not expressing herself honestly is part of that. Good people around us as well. Zero boundaries with other men too. Believed in God but not walking with him. Slow to find her "whys" and is still searching more out...even slower to share them with me. Wife offers me to ask her about the A but is up to me to bring it up, for me to question her journey to find out how she is feeling.
30 years of doing this!?!?? yes. Thats how coping mechs work....they work until one day they just.....don't. It took my wife 30 years to have hers broken enough to where she hardly uses them anymore. Took 30 years for me to see the all of the unhealthy results from coping with life rather than processing life.
How am I reconciling this within me?
I am looking at me.
23 months out I have healed enough and grown enough to see my own feeling, thoughts and actions as they truly are.
Because of my own past sexual sin and infidelity (used porn since age 12 and brought it openly into our marriage from the begining) some of the waywards journey hits home with me. I had boundaries with women...and credit that to have not chosen full blown adultery as another false-intimacy choice of mine. Porn and career where my go-to gap-fillers.
I spent 30 years of my OWN life denying my pain, hiding my feelings, knowing of but never walking with God.
About 5 months ago I stopped asking my wife "How could you?". I did because I KNOW how she could....I have a selfish, decietful heart to. God is changing my heart....and I have today to repair the damage and choose healthier (Gods way to do relationships).
Now....to the "whys".
That is something I am still very interested in hearing from my wife. I am because until I found my own "whys" my growth basically consisted of me not doing the same things. That is more like damage control and does not equal healthy growth.
We both must search out our whys to experience the healthy growth we were hard wired to experience inside the marital bond.....to experience what God has planned for people who enter this bond.
We tried it our way.....and I am a member of this site because of it. As scary and unnerving as change is...change must occur because our old M is of zero interest to me. I have no energy or desire to breath new life into that corpse.
Learning to R takes TWO. I, like you, have experienced solid healthy internal growth. But if I were to think I single handedly could save this marriage, keep my wife from cheating again....well, that would be my old CoD choices and influences breathing again.
Not going to do that.
God is with us all.
[This message edited by blakesteele at 6:40 AM, June 28th (Saturday)]
Teach8, KatieG, blakesteel: I didn't the BH tell because the OW told people her husband beat her, that he threw things at her, that he was a Jekyll/Hyde personality. she told these things to the whole workplace. Her BH is an avid hunter as well. I envisioned this "angry" betrayer spouse coming and either demanding my H job or bringing a rifle to the workplace and shooting people up in anger. I now believe that was all lies about the mean BH. I think she said those things to get people to feel sorry for her and for her own justification for screwing other men. She has a reputation for having affairs with married men that she works with. I regret the decision not to tell. IT might have cost him his job and affected us all financially, but I still regret not exposing it all.
Also, I was intimidated. This OW was 22 years younger than me. She is skinny, pretty, professional nurse. Im an office worker. We could be her parents. I felt very intimidated by her. fWH said his heart was with her and he didn't want to break things off with her. I thought at the time that she had the advantage over me because she "had his heart". There were 16,000 texts in a 3 month period, phone calls every day. Meetings at work almost daily, and rendezvous for sex every weekend. I caught the affair 2 days after he'd brought her into our home and had sex with her in MY bed while I was out of town visiting my mother. I was totally devastated. I did everything wrong -- begging, pleading, reasoning. I didn't want to do anything to drive him away. I truth I should have pack my self and my kids up and moved out and moved on. I wasn't gonna give her anymore chances to come into my home. She wasn't gonna be texting my husband 300 times a day anymore. I was trying to stop at least what I could stop about the affair. I was fighting back to gain the advantage, so I thought.
MC does know he doesn't want to talk. She tried several times in counseling but he got really defensive. She tells me in solo sessions that he has played the "victim" for so long he seems to enjoy it. He was sexually abused as a boy and had an awful nasty bitter mother. So he does have issues.
I am stuck I think. I told him last night I didn't want to be married to him anymore. I wasn't happy and didn't believe I'd get past his affair. He tells me he's not letting go of me. that he loves me, and "please don't leave me". Honestly I don't know whats real or not with him. He stuffed things for so long, didn't talk to me, and tells me he was living a double life. How do I know when he's being real or fake? I really cant tell anymore. He's had me fooled for so many years. Even during the affair he was planning things on the surface with me. Making me think he wanted to do things like buy a farm but he was seeing her too, planning to have her on the side after his divorce was final. Here I was totally oblivious that he wanted a divorce. No one knew but he and the OW.
I went painshopping a week or so ago and looked at OW Pinterest page. She had posted some meme about loving her husband, her best friend, the man who brings out the best in her, blah, blah, blah. I was seething. I wanted to post a reply so badly! I wanted to call her BH then and there. I didn't, but it set me up to be hurt again. She's gotten of scott-free. That hurts. I shouldn't have looked.
blakesteel: I believe he has settled on the "I walked away from God" things. Its not sitting well with me. I have done a ton of work on me, looking at me. I've attending 4 weekend long workshops by myself and about a year of counseling to see my part in the breakdown of the marriage. We had our issues, but I honestly kept reaching out for him, expressing that I wanted to spend more time with him, that I wanted him to be more a part of our children's lives, that I missed him. I spent many evenings on the couch in tears asking him to spend more time with me and that I was lonely. He ignored me for about 5 years because of work. I should have been the one to have an affair if one was to be had. I kept planning things for us, for the family, asked him to go speak to men at church. He refused all of it and then had the nerve to say me not loving him was the reason he turn to OW. She listened to him -- I don't know how I could have listened anymore to him than I did. It really was his choice. He liked a younger woman paying attention to him. He simply didn't care. That is hard to swallow. I would love for him to realize that his coping mech's aren't healthy. Im not sure he'll even go there. Yeah --30 years! Probably longer since he was probably doing it before I met him. We are in our 50's so he's an expert at stuffing/avoiding.
Sometimes I almost wish he'd have another affair so I could pack and leave.
Gently, what else do you want your H to change, in addition to the changes he's already made? What's missing in your M?
If you answer those questions for yourself, you can ask him to make the changes and see if he delivers.
I think 18 months is a tough time. You've seen some good stuff, but not enough to rebuild trust. You can see you've got more work to do with no guarantee of success. You see some changes, but you don't know if they're permanent. You're getting over the initial trauma of d-day, and you may not see what else is coming up that you have to deal with. It's a time of uncertainty.
In other words, part of what you feel and think may be related to where you are in recovery.
He never told her what a horrible mistake he made, or how he was wrong about me and about her or that he wanted to be with me instead of her.
This is similar to what I got. It was almost like my WW came back to me out of some kind of "duty" or "responsibility", she wanted financial support, a father for our sons.
No, thanks. I continued to be their father, but not her husband.
[This message edited by tfkeel at 3:55 PM, July 7th (Monday)]
He been good at doing "things, actions". he knows how to follow rules when he is forced to. The open-endedness of the end of the affair still haunts me. I wish I'd have seen a NC letter or email, or been able to hear a phone call from him telling her he'd really screwed up and didnt want anything else to do with her, that he loved me and was horrified that he hurt me the way he did, etc.... I just dont know what I want at this stage. Any thoughts are appreciated.
The open-endedness of the end of the affair still haunts me. I wish I'd have seen a NC letter or email, or been able to hear a phone call from him telling her he'd really screwed up and didnt want anything else to do with her, that he loved me and was horrified that he hurt me the way he did, etc....
I just dont know what I want at this stage. Any thoughts are appreciated.
Well, if your wayward wasn't horrified by his actions in hurting you so obviously badly, I am horrified for him.
The fact, though, that he hasn't said those things to you, doesn not mean that he doesn't feel horrified by what he did.
Maybe he is one of those macho men who thinks admitting he screwed up shows a weakness of character.
He needs to discuss this in MC if he's willing and capable.
Have you asked him to send a letter telling the OW he regrets the affair and all the pain it caused so many other people?
