SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

We didn't even get to our homework of listing the things that make us feel loved in our MC session today. Instead we sidetracked into something that I think should help us move forward.

I was very upset about an argument we had this morning and our MC was having WH look at me, see the pain and respond. He started with "I'm so sorry I did this, I didn't mean to hurt you. I'll try to help you get through this etc".

She then stopped him and said "what is 'this'". You keep apologizing for "this". You need to own what you did. Lay it out. Tell her you are sorry for starting a correspondence with her friend behind her back. You are sorry for sleeping with her friend. You are sorry for texting thousands of times a month. You are sorry for devoting energy to a relationship that was not your marriage. Own up to it. It was not a this. It was a long series of actions all of which you need to be remorseful for.

WH sat there like a deer in headlights. This was not what he expected but I think it really cleared his fog. Apologizing for a this is easy. Owning up to what happened is hard and painful but needs to happen to reconcile.

Then we got into a discussion about the semantics of him 'trying to help me heal'. I had never really understood why his reassurances hadn't resonated with me . Well it is all semantics. Saying you'll try doesn't mean you'll do. Saying you'll try is a cop out. It gets you off the hook. As does "helping". It is not his job to help me, that's pushing the responsibility back on my. It is his job to do everything in his power to heal me. He needs to man up, put conviction behind his words and follow through.

Now if only he can process and input this information and get off the road before the deer in headlights gets run over.

This is really good. I too often feel like his apologies are unsubstantiated. Because it's just in sorry. Or sorry for the affair.. I like how your MC had him break down the actions.

I will share this with my WH. I like our MC but don't go often too expensive but I think it feels To ME that she's more lienant towards him. Often she would ask me if I want to get over it. That I need to decide if I am staying and work towards R. I told her I can't make that decision because I can't tell if he is worthy of our M yet. She said that was too elitist. I was no I can't tell him if I want to stay married if he doesn't do the work. Needless to say I was pissed after that MC session.

I am glad for you guys!!!

Thanks for sharing 😊

Sounds like you've got a good MC

Agreed, they have to "own" it and (for me) blanket apologies didn't cut it. I needed to hear specifically what he was sorry for AND how he was going to not make the same choices again.

I like that MC. I still find that blanket apologies are more insulting than anything. My wife and I continue to work on getting specific with apologies instead of just mumbling a pitiful "sorry."

Oh my gosh I love this. I can only hope that we can find a MC as amazing as yours sounds!!

That is a good MC!

Ours was good, but my wife was so broken that she couldn't talk to her like that, I needed it, but in the end i had to do without.

WOW... You just summed up my needs and the needs of so many on this site. OWN IT... I am going to strip off everything from the site and email this post to my WW. Hell I may email it to our MC, because she is like many of the others listed lower int he post.

THANK YOU for this submission.

C

Thanks everyone. She is really good for the most part. The affair recovery sessions we have are terrific. It can be hard when she veers off into marriage repair though because I am not ready and sometimes she wants to move us along faster than I am comfortable with. We are her first couple that has dealt with a double betrayal and she is really working to understand how that impacts the recovery process (it sucks and makes everything doubly painful from a BS's side)

I'm glad we found her and I hope she is getting through to WH. I'm going to write a list of specific things I need an apology for and remorse over. Not just I'm sorry but I'm sorry and horrified that I did each and every one of these things. Because the I'm sorry for hurting you and I'm sorry for the affair isn't enough for me. I need more to be able to move on. Hopefully I can get that from him because if not we remain in limbo.

Well, I did just what I said and sent it to her. I think it hit, and hit hard. We haven't yet sat face to face for the apologies for the exact wrongs, but she texted me and we spoke some about it last night. how she saw exactly what I had been saying and what an impact the post had. She did start inquiring about where I was getting this stuff (SI) and I told her it wasn't ber business, a place for people who have been cheated on. i am not ready to share this site with her. A place for me to vent freely.

I also email it to our MC this morning, but have not heard anything back, maybe she will keep it for the next time we meet.

THANK YOU AGAIN. might have just moved the fog bank around her head for me.

OMG, that's exactly what I have been trying to get my WH to understand this very week! Explaining that he's said "sorry I fucked a whore and let her ruin us" is not taking responisiblity and not apologizing for the specific actions. I have asked him what he's sorry for specifically and all I got back was "I'm sorry you trigger over shows, songs, books and sights etc" Really? This is me banging my head against a wall!

Betray,

Do what I did, strip off all the stuff from the site, but send him the orginal thread. It hit my WW like a stone. She got it yesterday, i don't know how long that will stay with her, but I also sent it to our MC for inclusion in our next meeting. I just cut and pasted it into an email and fired it off. I had been trying to tell WW that saying Sorry didn't make me feel any better, that saying it will never happen again didn't help. This orginal thread and sending it was a start.

I hope it works as well for you and yours..

C

Copied and sent to WH. I have been saying the same thing for the past 8 months. I need him to feel it, to tell me what he is sorry for. "I'm sorry" is canned and tells me nothing. At first I even thought he was sorry I caught them. Really. He is trying, he really is. But it's not enough, at least not yet.

We have a new MC, 2 sessions so far. I think she gets it. I may send this to her as well. The last one really didn't. And I mean really didn't.

3k30y

I am a huge fan of copy and paste. It has been the launching pad for a great number of very productive conversations. :)

This is deep. I'm sitting here trying to recall what specifically my WH has said he's sorry for. I remember several "general" sorries, of course. And I do remember him saying he was sorry for not trying harder to resolve our marital issues before he fell into an affair. I had known there were some issues about him not getting what he needed from me, not feeling loved, although I always loved him. And I was trying, not very successfully apparently, but had no idea whatsoever he was as desperate as he was and pondering divorce after our youngest graduates high school. This was so incredibly off my radar, and it was partially because most of the time he acted like everything was fine. He gave me an anniversary card on our 22nd saying he wanted to breathe me in for the rest of his life . . . his written words, not what was printed in the card . . . and the very next day he kissed her for the first time.

So, while I knew things were not as great as they could be, I was completely oblivious to what was going on in his brain, that he was basically leading me on, contemplating divorce and falling for another woman.

But I digress. He did apologize for not doing more to fix things before it came to all that. Such as counseling or . . . "something".

I can't say I recall him getting specific about anything else. And one of the hardest parts about this whole thing is that I had to go through two Ddays. He told me about the A, that it was short and now it was over. And five months later, on Christmas Day, no less, I find out it never ended at all and all those months I was dying over what he did to me one hand . . . and pouring my love all over him on the other, he was still seeing her. He saw how tortured I was and he still saw her.

ARRRRGGGHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

MAN does that hurt like hell.

Well, anyway, I think your post is giving me something to think about. We've had discussions about him owning up to what he did and I don't really know that he gets it. He feels like shit, and he makes that very clear, but that's not the same as owning up to it.

I don't know. Thanks for your post. Glad it was a breakthrough for you guys.

[This message edited by Patchy at 2:23 PM, October 11th (Friday)]

I agree with this 100%; this is something my WH doesn't seem to comprehend. Time and time again he likes to blame his reactions on the actions of others, and therefore seems to think this absolves him from any misdoing. Whenever we talk now I challenge him to accept not only his actions but his INTENTION behind said actions, good or bad. At least if he owns what he does he can say "you know what? This was all me; take it or leave it". At the end of the day that's all I want from him; I can accept what he gives if I know it's 100% him and not something he's going to try and pass the buck on.

I mentioned this last night to our MC, it didn't seem to have much impact with her, but the WW and I covered a lot of groun dlast night and didn't really give her much time to say anything so i will see next time...

Crazy

If you guys haven't read the book "How to help your spouse heal from your affair." We have started and it is all about this. It is a road map to what I need in terms of owning it...