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This is my first post. I am terrified and ashamed of all that I have done. My husband found out on March 8, 2014. For the first few days I tried to hide and minimize what I had done. Little by little I let it all out. Finally I wrote my husband a long letter of what happened putting everything on the table. He now doesn’t believe that this is everything (bc I wasn’t upfront at first). He says I owe it to him to divorce him when that is that last thing in the world that I want. I have been in counseling and really looking into the “why” and if I really want to be married. The answer is YES!

My husband travels for work and before D-day he wouldn’t always call/text me, sometimes for days. Now in the last two months I have talked to him more than I have in the last 5 years – it’s nice to have him call me but I am scared that the calls/emails are going to stop. Most of them are mean and negative but I don’t mind because I know he is hurt and angry. He has now been gone at work for the last month and isn’t making any attempt to come home. I’m hurting, lost, and broken.

I am losing him and I don’t know if I can survive that.

((lostlove7))

Welcome to SI. I'm glad you found us. There are a lot of people on here who have BTDT, and are fountains of information and good advice.

Are you in IC? Are you talking with a doctor or a counselor about your fear of not surviving?

Please take care of you. Sleep, exercise, eat, and get into counseling!

Please read the healing library, it is a font of information. Your husband is demanding you divorce him. If this is not something you want let that be know. Let it be known you will fight for him. He doesn't believe he knows everything and its not just because you TT'd (trickle truthed) him its because you had an A and lied about it and hid it. His world was blown up. Take care of yourself and dont let the negative hurt you too much, take it as a good sign he is even willing to engage. Keep posting we're always here.

[This message edited by Unagie at 4:29 PM, May 7th (Wednesday)]

im a betrayed husband.

your pain is palpable. my heart goes out to you and your family. coming here was a big step for you. a good step too. despite the trickle truth (which is in some ways worse than the affair itself) you managed to tell your husband the truth and thats huge.

i cant tell you what your husband wants to hear or what he wants to do, i can only put myself into his shoes and tell you what id want.

tell him you are sorry. dont justify what you did, it was wrong. be honest ALWAYS. if he asks something and you dont know then say you dont know but you will try to find out and then do so - because contradictory facts crush us, we feel lied to and it kills whats left of the trust. tell him you love him. tell him that you want him. FIGHT for your marriage. FIGHT for him. let him know that you cant control his decision but your decision is to be with him. be transparent - let him have access to anything and everything so he can check if he wants.

more than likely he is sad, confused, and in pain. no matter what he decides to do .. you should try to do the right thing ... which is to help him heal. showing genuine remorse and being a rock for him NOW goes a long way towards showing him that you DO love him.

I am glad that I finally decided to post but I am timid to tell my BS - I am currently in IC and he finds that to be a joke most of the time (other times he wants to know what we talked about and seems interested). Then again, he would have to talk to me in order for me to tell him.

I have been telling him i am going to fight for him but he says they are just empty words. He isn't here (due to work) so i don't know how to show him besides waiting for his call, being available, and writing him emails.

I am the one who did this and i am trying to respect whatever decision he makes but i can't really fathom life without him. He has mentioned that he is going to push me and break me until I want the divorce. I don't see that as likely but it also frightens me.

He has the choice to come home and he doesn't. He is in control of his work situation and he is choosing to be away from me. This hurts but I know that he needs time. What else can i do? I want to show him I am willing to be patient and that it is only him.Each day is so different...I also feel like when i am trying to help i make things worse.

Eating and sleeping have been nearly impossible but i have been getting up in the morning and surviving the day. Since my BS isn't here I have been filling my "free time" with working out and cleaning - but every little thing reminds me of him.

[This message edited by lostlove7 at 8:49 PM, May 7th (Wednesday)]

I'm glad you posted, too. What I'm hearing, underneath all this, is that BS doesn't want to D. If he wanted a D, he'd file.

he is going to push me and break me until I want the divorce

It sounds like he's in what we call "limbo," meaning he's not motivated to D, but he isn't ready to commit to R (reconciliation). Your job now is to keep doing what you're doing. Keep digging in IC, read books, learn to accept yourself as a flawed (we all are!) human being.

This is hard, but to really start my own healing journey, I had to let go of the outcome of my M. Whether BS chose D or R, I knew I had to *fix me* for me. For my kids. To be a better citizen of the world.

Being physically separated may actually be a blessing in disguise. It'll give you both a chance to process your feelings. BS is angry, hurt...you get that. And you haven't been a safe partner in the M...you also get that. Trust takes a long time to rebuild, and time may not heal all wounds, but it certainly helps.

Clearly you (both) can't live separately and in limbo forever, but, as you said...

Each day is so different

Things could be much different in a month, or two. If there's little/no change in 6, or 12 months? You'll have to decide what to do, and by then I think your heart will know.

[This message edited by 20WrongsVs1 at 8:35 AM, May 8th, 2014 (Thursday)]

Since he doesn't have a phone (he broke it in a fit of rage) we basically have started to communicate by email. He has started to write me multiple emails saying that he has made up his mind and that no amount of conversation will change his mind. He sees staying with me as dangerous and that I am a liability to him…every time he says these things they hurt and I don’t know if this is the time that he means it. I've told him and made it clear that I don’t want a D – he just says this is me continuing to defy him and not do what he wants…. How can I combat this? When I do nothing he says that I am a horrible wife and when I try to talk to him he says that he doesn't want to hear it.

BW here.

What you do, is you keep reaching out. You email him each day, telling him what you've been doing, asking about his day, offering apologies. And part of what you email him about every day is what YOU have been doing to help heal from this.

You buy "After the Affair," "Not JUST Friends," and other books recommended on this site, you read them, you internalize them, you put them into practice, and you share any insights that you have with him. When he lashes out in you with anger, you apologize, and when I say apologize, you specifically apologize. Him: "You're a liar and a cheat and you fucked up my life with your whoring around." You: "I'm so sorry that you're hurting. I'm so sorry that I hurt you. I lied to you while you trusted me. I betrayed you and I'm working really hard to find out what it was inside of me, that led me to think that betraying you was even a potential option. I was so stupid, so unbelievably wrong to betray you. I'm working as hard as I can to make sure that never happens again. What can I do for you? How can I help you? I love you and I want to help you in any way possible. What can I do for you?" Don't just give a generic apology, address the issues he brings up. And if you haven't, find a good IC to get to the bottom of why you did what you did.

If you want to fight for your marriage, you need to FIGHT. Not roll over and whine, but FIGHT with specific actions meant to try to restore trust. Buy him a new phone, link it to yours so that he can see whatever is on your phone, install a tracker, and give it to him. Send him frequent photos of where you are and what you're doing. Be totally accountable. And be humble.

Best of luck to you.

You need to understand why you betrayed your husband and deal with that issue(s).

Your BH probably thinks he is not sure that he can trust you and he never wants to feel this pain again. So he is likely in limbo.

You say you told him everything did you give him a time line.

The fact that he caught you and you lied and TT makes things so much harder for him.

As a BH I can tell you this soon after D Day there is no way he has processed what has happened.

How can I combat this?

So glad you're here and you're trying.

But, combat isn't the answer. It isn't the right viewpoint.

Set aside your expectations (yes it is hard) of whether he is leaving or reconciling and how it impacts you.

Work on your healing. Work on his healing. Focus on those two things because they are what matter whether your marriage survives or not.

Help him to heal.

Help yourself to be the better, stronger person that you want for yourself, your husband and the other important people in your life.

And trust that if you focus in those areas you have the best chance for both of you to have the best possible future.

best luck

Thank you for the posts – it’s nice to hear the other side of the coin and to also know that I am not the only one that is dealing with this (even though I feel like I am alone and no one else gets it). I am in IC once a week – to work on me and to help me deal with why I did the things that I did. I am trying to fight, I am trying to show him I only want to be with him but he says I am doing a “shit job at it”. Everything I say is wrong, everything I do is wrong. I have no doubt in my mind that I won’t stray again but he doesn’t know that, he doesn’t trust that and he doesn’t believe that – I know time, patience, honestly, devotion….will all help this. However, sometimes I don’t feel like I am strong enough.

I know that we have our good days and our bad days but the bad outweigh the good so often that it is easy to lose hope. Yesterday was a tough day. Since he doesn’t have a phone (won’t let me get him one/don’t even know where he is) our conversations are limited & rare. When he called yesterday it all started negative (I never know which H I will be getting when he calls) – he was on a name calling rampage & goes on about how I can do what he says/think what he wants or I can just F*off. I know he was in an angry place and that I am the one that did this to him but I can’t help but be sad, hurt, regretful… I don’t mean to complain and feel like “woe is me” but it’s just hard hearing the love of my life say those things. I am installing a tracker and plan on emailing him the information this afternoon – he says he doesn’t want reassurance and doesn’t want to look into what I am doing but I feel like this way he wants it. He has all my passwords and I have been sending him detailed emails on a nightly basis.

I broke him, I broke us, and now I am completely broken. Today is a hard day.

lostlove how are you doing. What is going on with your situation. We are here to help. Don't give up.

Welcome lostlove7,

I know things are hard now. Hang in there. Have you looked into getting the books "after the affair" and "not just friends"? You should tell him you are reading them and share the things you are learning in your emails. Maybe he would want to read them too? I also highly recommend "how to help your spouse heal from your affair."

It is very early after d-day so rages and name calling are not unusual at all. My BH went through those times too and even though verbal abuse is not acceptable I chose to hear it as him expressing his pain. Whatever he was saying I would understand it as, "you hurt me worse than I have ever been hurt in my life. I have to express this pain somehow and this is how I'm doing it." It was scary but I felt like facing his anger and pain was one small thing I could do to help him. Don't get defensive. Continue to give sincere, specific apologies. Tell him you aren't giving up and you aren't going anywhere.

Ask him for time. Even if he's angry and raging ask him if he can hold off on making a decision to D or not until he is thinking more calmly. Tell him you are working hard on becoming a better person and a better wife and you will wait to see if he will give you an opportunity to prove it. Tell him you will respect his decisions and you understand that you don't deserve a chance or time but that is what you want most in the world and you will do what it takes. Even if he does decide to D keep working on you. There are many couples on here who have reconciled after D so don't give up until you feel it is right for you. Respect his need for space and respect his decisions regarding communication with you but keep working and let him know what you want.

Keep posting. We are here for you and hoping for the best for you.

Thanks for checking in @knightsbff & @10yearsafter-

I have written multiple posts with things I am dealing with but by the time I write them I feel like things are different (again). A few things I don’t know how to deal with/manage:

• His switching of personalities. I know that its trigger things that get him to go from talking to me to yelling and name calling. I’m trying to get thicker skin and listen but I am finding it more and more difficult. Usually it ends with me groveling and crying. Every day he talks about me defying him, which I did. He talks about how he wants me to be his Bi**h not his wife. He is demanding that I do things for him and I do them willingly – I keep telling him yes, I keep telling him I am doing what he wants but he doesn’t hear me because I hurt him so badly and have made him think that I am not going to do what he wants. Is this a normal thing that people deal with? I hear him with the name calling and I deserve it but I am having trouble with being able to stop the spiral of negativity….

• He has been threatening me not just with divorce but with how he is going to ruin me, ruin my life, and completely screw me over. I believe that this is from the way that he feels, his projection of what I have done to him. He is scaring me and it’d hard for me not to get defensive. I keep telling him that I love him and am not going anywhere but his threats are scaring me. Usually these threats come after he has been drinking and I try to remember that….

• I’ve been going to IC and trying to understand why I did the things that I did. When I tell him or talk to him about this he says that IC is me being selfish again. He isn’t in IC and doesn’t show any promise of going. Every once in a while he mentions MC but that is rare. Plus, I don’t even know when or if he is coming home. I’ve been trying to not ask him his plans or when he is coming home. If/when I do he says he is doing what he wants and if I’m not ok with it I can just F off. I’m want to wait and be patient as he works through things and I want to help him heal but I don’t know if he is ready to.

• Then he switches tones and he wants to have “dirty talk” and have me send him “sexy photos”. Part of my A was sexting, it was never part of my relationship with my H - We never had dirty talk and we never sent any photos to each other. It’s hard because I want to do what he asks and I want to make him happy but at the same time I don’t know if this is a game to him…he will tell me all the things I want and like to hear and that makes me feel good and gives me a sense that maybe he is thinking about me but I don’t know what to do?! If I don’t send him photos he says that I would do it for my AP but not him and he gets angry. If I send him photos he wants more and wants them to be nude. He also says, you trust me, right? If I don’t respond right away he says that he won’t beg me for these and then he gets angry (again). This is very confusing for me.

I keep telling people that I am okay and that I will be okay but I know that isn’t true – I am not okay. I love him so much and I hate to hear him and all this pain. I hate that I did this to him/us. I’m trying to be strong. I’m trying not to give up hope. I tell him daily I love him and want to do everything that i can and I am trying to SHOW him that but I don't know if he can see that....

I'm feeling very removed today.

[This message edited by lostlove7 at 3:12 PM, May 14th (Wednesday)]

This sounds like a really painful situation.

I understand the desire to do what he says in order to reconcile. However if he's threatening to ruin your life and you don't even know where he is, I think it's a really bad idea to send him nude pictures. Who knows where those will end up.

Yes, you hurt him and yes, you did wrong. But it'll take the two of you to work together to heal and it sounds like he's nowhere near that right now. It's ok for you to have boundaries too, and that includes having limited tolerance for hateful language and to not be bullied into sexual stuff that you don't want to do.

I'm trying to set boundaries. I'm trying to be strong but I am so terrified of his reaction if i go against his wishes. It makes me feel like i'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop...

Does anyone else deal with not trusting you BS because you are sacred of what they will do?

I just started to read “After the Affair” – thanks to all for the suggestion. It has been a tough week [and I’m sure there are many more to come]. Up until this point my BH has been e-mailing consistently and calling randomly – even though it usually has a negative tone I am grateful that he is still in contact. He hasn’t been in contact for the last two days. I’m still emailing him a recap of my day/checking and it’s so hard not to get a response.

I want nothing more than for him to call me or say that he is coming home…

Lostlove, hang in there. It sounds like you're doing the best you can in a very sad situation. Keep working on yourself. Be frank with your counselor. This situation will resolve and the important thing is that you're ready for that resolution, whatever it may be.

I miss everything about him :(

I have been going to IC once a week and I find it so helpful, its a chance to regroup and really dive into my issues. I'm trying not to lose hope and work on myself but on some days I find that so hard!!! I've been keeping myself busy- I'm actually competing in a horse show this weekend (something I haven't done in a long time) but all i want is to share that with him. He is the one I want to be there, the one I want to call, and the one I want to tell everything to.

I'm sorry I know this has to be hard for you.

Your H is having trouble believing that the person you were is gone. He doesn't believe you are safe for him, and he knows this, so he is pushing you away.

A lot of BH go through a thing I have causally called the "test." He is going to push you away to see if you finally give up or how committed you are. It is obvious giving up for any reason would show him his assumptions are correct and he will feel validated when you D.

To most BHs we cannot understand how if our WW were really committed or love us they could still cheat on us. The love that we assumed is no longer assumed. Unfortunately it requires some fairly significant actions before we take down the wall enough to even consider that a possibility.

It doesn't help that he isn't present to see you in person. If he has confided in any of his co-workers I can tell you that 99% are telling him he needs to D you. He has no way of knowing you aren't still cheating on him. Words, emails, etc. are not going to work when there are large amounts of time he is not in contact with you. For transparency to work he needs to be present.

The only thing I can think of that might help him "want" to come home is to offer him something that shows just how deep your commitment goes. That you care more about him that you do the M. Your disconnect is that he considers the M over and you are fighting to keep it alive after running over it with your car (metaphorically speaking of course)

This is my view and take it or leave it, but tell him that you really, really don't want to D him, but want him to be happy and if that makes him happy you will agree to a D. Then tell him you will find an attorney to get that process started. This will show him that you are capable of giving him what he wants despite the cost to you.

He told you what he wants. Give it to him. Nothing says starting the process has to end up there, but you have nothing to build on right now. If the D is too scary for you, you need a very big action that demonstrates your level of commitment to his happiness. Go visit him for starters. Start making amends in any ay that you can. If you know him well think long and hard about what you did that originally attracted him to you. Things that made him want to marry you.

Pretend you are dating, build him however you can and show him that you are feeling the consequences of your actions. Right now he doesn't feel that there are any because phone calls, emails only go so far.

FWIW- Sometimes you have to be willing to destroy something to save it.