SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi everyone, I'm new here and have read a fair bit but no-one seems to be in a similar situation to me. A little of our story:

We had been married for 9.5yrs and had 5 young children (youngest 6 months). H and I had been fighting a bit, I was unhappy and no matter what I tried to express I never felt heard, I believe I was suffering from PND at the time and I just didn't realise it. Enter H's friend who kept calling while he was at work to check I was ok and discuss problems we had been having, constantly telling me H didn't treat me right, that the reason I was unhappy was H, blah, blah, blah. I asked H to move out after a huge fight one night and he did. About a month after we separated OM and I started a semi relationship, he pretty much only wanted friends with benefits there was never any real relationship there and it was very on again/off again for the 18 months that it occurred.

I broke it off completely at 18 months and spent 6 months thinking about life, why I was unhappy and just enjoying my friends and family. During this time I realised that I never stopped loving H and wanted to give it another shot. H said we needed to work on friendship and let it develop from there.

4.5 years later and we are still stuck in limbo. Neither of us have seen another person in that time, I have disclosed any detail he wants or needs to know 4.5yrs ago and am willing to answer any question at any time, he says he forgives me and trusts me now and knows I am sorry, H is 100% adamant that we are working on getting back together but I never see it happening. He decided to get divorced back in Feb (which completely shattered me as all I want is for us to be a happy family again and I would do literally anything he needs for us to achieve this), then he tells me after I had cried for a week and been totally devastated when the divorce was final that he wanted a fresh start, end the old marriage and work on a new relationship??? We started MC 2 months ago and he told H that he needed to make a decision that the M is what he wants and that he wants to work through our issues and give it a good 12 months to put everything into it to try and get back together. He swears it's what he wants and he is willing to try anything it takes, etc...

My problem comes from his actions. Nothing has changed, I am still not allowed to touch him, I can't say or do anything that he interprets as pushing or pressuring him to move along faster, he wants to go on family holidays with me and everything but god help me if I want to touch his arm briefly during a conversation. It feels like a friendship and nothing more, nothing has changed at all. There is absolutely no compromise about anything, everything has to be his way or nothing at all. I will eternally be sorry for the way I handled our relationship and the choices I made 6.5yrs ago, if I could change it I would in a heartbeat. I wish I could wash away his pain and make it all better for him. I am in no way trying to minimise his pain at all, but I don't honestly think he knows the massive degree of pain this 4.5yr limbo has placed on me. I don't honestly know how much more I can take emotionally, mentally or physically to be honest. Nothing I do is ever right, my opinion on everything is always wrong, everything I want he doesn't or he wants the opposite, if I say I want to move faster he always wants to move slower. I don't want to think this way about him but I am starting to fear that it may all be some subconscious way of him punishing me?? I don't believe he does it on purpose (I hope) but all of his actions seem to be pointing that way.

For example....when I first expressed my desire to R and did the full disclosure he was quite happy back then to be intimate, would hug me or give me a kiss on hello or goodbye, we were having sex, we spent a lot of time together, etc... Now I can't even touch him, he talks about going slow and not spending too much time together etc...

I ask him is this what he really wants, does he think he is too hurt to move forward with me, he always replies yes but then starts turning it around asking if I want out.

Every time I get upset, angry or frustrated about our situation or him pushing me away he starts saying I am just starting fights all the time and it's the fighting thats stopping us from getting back together and he thinks I am doing it to push him away because I don't really want to get back together??? OMG I am beyond frustrated because I would of walked away years ago if that was the case!! I am completely financially independent, own my own home that I purchased alone (we never owned a home), have a great job, doing really well raising the kids on my own and have for the past 6.5yrs...I am not here because I need him...I want to be with him. This limbo has been sheer hell and I don't wish this on my worst enemy. I don't think there is any way I can express what I have gone through in a million posts (and I am not comparing it to what he or any BS has gone through).

I am at a point now where something needs to change. I am starting to wonder if he is trying to push me so far that I just give up because he doesn't want to be known as the one who gave up on R?? Is this normal during R?? Is he maybe stuck in a stage or something??

I will do anything to help us past this stage!!!

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or help!

Welcome to SI,

There are a few people here who've been in similar situations. Really, it doesn't matter if it is the exact situation or not, as we've all made some pretty bad choices that got us to where we are now.

So, back when this "friend" started calling you, before the A, did you ever tell your H that you were having these discussions with someone outside the M? Can you see that maybe your the STBOM was working on driving a wedge between you two so that he could get in your pants? What do you remember about that time, and have you done any work to put things in perspective from back then? because a lot of us WS's have similar views of the past, and often those views fall into the category of re-writing the marital history.

What does your BH think about his friend who had sex with his wife? Does your BH know now that this friend was actively working against the M?

How is MC going? You said you've only been a couple of times, but what's your impression of the C? What is your BH's impression of the C?

Yes I told my husband that his friend was calling me, he thought it was great that I was becoming friends with him too. He knew he was talking to me about our fights among other more normal topics. He knew he would drop around and visit me when he was at work and invited me to his place. I was always completely open about all of that. I never at the time suspected that he had ulterior motives and it wasn't until I started to really look at what happened that I realised how obvious it really was. I was a complete fool to not see what was going on, but at the time he made me feel good about myself and I guess I never looked past that fact. The OM went to a whole new level once my BH moved out of our home and suggested he join a dating site online (which he did) then told me about him being on there and how he was talking to girls and that he obviously never loved me. Made up lies about BH that he was seeing an 18yr old with a newborn baby...all since have been discovered were lies.

I was at a very low point as far as self-esteem goes, after 5 kids very closely spaced I had gained a lot of weight, was very unhappy with my body, I am pretty sure I had PND, I was unhappy being a stay at home mother, I craved adult conversation and now I look back see that I felt I had no worth because I didn't work. I was unhappy with where we were living and the fact that we didn't own our own home. It was never my BH that was making me happy it was just life in general. We actually had a pretty good relationship compared to most.

I have done nothing but work on myself, reading books on surviving affairs, affair proofing your marriage, reading every website I can to try and find out where I went wrong. I have spent years going over and over every detail of what happened and why. I feel I have that time of our lives into perspective. We have spent so much time talking out everything and going over things.

We tried MC previously, probably 4yrs ago now. He was shocking and BH refused to go to MC again after that experience. On our first visit he wanted both BH and I to write down our sexual fantasies and share them with him...as you can imagine a BS...last thing he wants is his fWW sharing sexual fantasies with another man!!

BH totally hates his friend, but has apparently forgiven him and is polite to him if they ever bump into each other. He thinks he is a compulsive liar. He is fully aware of what he did, I have always been 100% open and shared everything with him.

This new bout of MC is going fantastic. The MC is great and we both really like him. He has said that he can see fantastic chemistry between BH and I and really thinks we have something great worth saving, he seems to think BH is holding anger in a P-A way which is not helping our situation. He also picked up during our conversations that BH has developed the need to always be right and always have everything 100% his way. He also thinks that while BH says he totally believes I am sorry and remorseful and that he trusts me completely now...that perhaps that is not entirely true. That I need to continue to work on 'showing' him that I am until he 110% believes me.

It's so hard to express our situation in words on a screen. We go camping 2-3 times a year and spend 1-2 weeks having an absolute ball, sleep beside each other, a stranger would see a happy family. We get along terrific and most of our friends and family are always saying we get along better than most married couples they know. But the minute I mention R or moving to the next level he totally pushes away...and yet says it's what he wants. I suggest moving in together temporarily so we can spend heaps of time together and maybe rekindle some of those feelings. You know lots of happy time and one day you just realise you are happy and in love and everything is alright. It's an instant hell no, thats stupid, we need to take it slow. Even after telling the MC he was going to put in a massive effort for the next 12 months, push himself outside his comfort zone, etc...he then turns around and tells me I am not to touch him as it makes him uncomfortable, that we can't spend too much time together, that I have to just take it slow....one month in now and I can't touch him, we talk on the phone every day, he drives me to the gym and home again 3times a week but we don't really talk there because you are busy and we are spending maybe a day and a half of the weekend together. But he lives 2mins away and we never see him between him getting home at 4.30 and picking me up for the gym at 7pm, he drops me straight back home after and leaves, the kids don't really see him during the week. Nothing intimate at all. And I'm not sure why we can't ever move past here??

Well, so very sorry you are going through this. I also have 5 littles (and close together too!) So I can relate a little. Being a SAHM is sometimes hard on our esteem and worth, but it sounds like you are doing a tremendous job at working on that. Kudos. I like the fact that you recognize your opinion counts. Because it does. Obviously there is more to the story/relationship that you (or really any of us) can put into words on this forum, but it seems the R has been a little one sided. I get that BH has still some hurt to get over, but so do you. As a BS myself, I have a lot of issues I need to work on and realize that it will take time, but I know my WH has some issues too. It sounds like he needs some IC to work on his issues, especially since it has been several years. R takes both people talking, listening, and being compassionate for each other. I understand about not being completely intimate especially because you are working on the friendship part first, but friends will give hugs and hold hands. We are human and need some sort of touch.

Continue with MC as it seems like you have a decent therapist this time, but he definitely has some personal issues to work on. If he can't, then you need to decide if you want to stay with someone that's treats you like you don't matter. You do matter!! And, as a parent, your children are witnessing your relationship for all it's good times and bad times. Do you want them to treat their future spouses they way he treats you? Sorry if that sounded harsh. I don't mean it to be.