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Flawed, I haven't posted before but I've been reading. I didn't think I had anything to add since you seemed so reflective and on top of things and were getting such good advice. But I might have come up with something today. I hope it helps.

But first - Hikingout - that is such a perfect example. I also hardly ever question myself outside of BH but defer to his opinion automatically, building up a little resentment volcano I’m not even aware of. But I digress and I t/j. I’ll ponder this in the other thread.

Flawed, have you thought about stepping back from your "crazy" and observing it in the moment? And maybe having a bit of a laugh at it? I probably go to humor too quickly when something serious is happening, but it's sometimes not a bad strategy.

We had a recent argument that seemed to be about nothing. He was offering a nice weekend together and I was hearing what he misunderstood about me. At the end, we were about to retreat. Him into confused silence, me into misunderstood resentful frustration.

Pre-A, he would have licked his wounds for a while and then sucked it up and apologized for being a Dense Male From Mars who does not Speak My Love Language (!) and I would have said thanks, sorry I’m difficult, let’s do what you want since you gave in first and I am pretty clearly irrational and in the wrong.

Post-A, I see underneath his confusion, his hurt and scared look. That’s new since the A, his fear and my noticing, and it makes me want to take care of him. (I should have been like that before. But, resentment and stubbornness). Your BH might look angry. I realize how much he has been through and all of a sudden realize I need to fix it ASAP. I ask if we can go into another room for a bit to talk differently. He resists, and I say, please, this is very important. Please. We sit close to each other, I rub his back, and I speak softly. You were trying to do something kind. You are always trying so hard to be good to me. I am so silly sometimes! We review the conversation from my point of view and have a laugh at it. He calls me Quantum Pippin and says he needs to pay more attention to which state I’m in. I say that he keeps trying to find the Keep Pippin Happy algorithm and I’m having none of this being predictable nonsense, I am making sure he pays attention and stays on his toes. He relaxes. It is funny! All day we joke about it. We plan silly trips for the weekend, different romantic trips, but we are not going anywhere.

Now, long term, it’s funny and it’s not funny. There is a lot that points to Real Actual Problems to work out. BUT . . it’s a step. The Post-A scenario is a bit better than Pre-A (apart from what it took to get us there), and I wonder if looking at your thoughts with a bit of objective distance, humor for your brand of crazy, physical touch, speaking softly, acknowledge what he’s trying to do instead of resenting it . . .that might help for now.

[This message edited by Pippin at 7:54 PM, April 8th (Monday)]

Last night, my BS asked me if he satisfies me. I said he does more than that, that he fulfills me. I thought about that a lot and thought I could have said it better. When he got home this afternoon during our kids' nap time, we cuddled up and I told him that I am working on being able to be fulfilled on my own, and that he is the icing on the cake in my life, that I could not imagine a better partner. We had a long talk in which I tried to convince him again that my affair and lies had nothing to do with him, and everything to do with my faults that allowed me to make the decisions to cheat and lie. he feels like if I loved him more, If he was more attractive, more anything, then I would have thought about him and not cheated. I feel as though I cannot convince him otherwise (which is understandable) but I will keep trying. This conversation triggered him and instead of having sex we had a fight. I apologized sincerely for starting the conversation and triggering him, when I also really wanted to use our precious time together to make love. He got really upset and angry and told me that I am incapable of thinking about anyone but myself, that I will never be able to predict how he's going to feel when I say something, and that I have no empathy.

This is where I disagreed with him. I said that I was actually really thinking of him when I told him about being the icing in my life, that I wanted to show him I'm working on becoming safe and that he is the ideal partner for me - I do not want to live my life with anyone else. I told him I agreed that I might never be able to predict how he feels or reacts to things I say. I'm working on this, but I will never be a mind reader.

Nope, you're never going to be a mind reader. And pardon me if I'm remembering someone else's thread, but weren't you dealing with complaints that you were too measured in your speech and thinking too long about your words? How are you supposed to both be authentic and think before you speak? It sounds like you're living your life on eggshells, always wondering what comments are going to be taken out of context and thrown back in your face. And believe me, if this is the case, I've dealt with that dynamic for more than three decades, so I understand how unpleasant it is.

Even though words can be fairly clear, people still tend to misunderstand one another, particularly when one of them is caught up in their own narrative. My WH is an insecure man with narcissistic tendencies, and although I love him, he speaks a whole different language at times. I remember in the aftermath of his first foray into online cheating, he told me he felt very "vulnerable". Of course within the context of our conversation, I took that to mean that he didn't feel emotionally safe being open with me. On closer questioning though, what it actually meant was that he still felt tempted to cheat.

I learned a valuable lesson when one is dealing with a person whose communication style is problematic. Listen, Rephrase, Repeat... and keep doing it until the meaning is clear. You can't control whether or not the other person will stay engaged in the process. My WH will sometimes fly off the handle much as what you've described in the incident above rather than dig in and work toward understanding. The thing I remember is that when it happens, he's trapped in the narrative he's created and won't hear me yet.

I'll be honest with you... this is a hard way to live. I love my WH and I can see the gears turning in his head, so I empathize with why he's the way he is. This has become a quirk of his nature for me. But he is self-centered and he does willfully misunderstand me so as to feed the narrative of the moment. He often plays the Victim in the Karpman triangle and then struggles with the repercussions of it when he finally realizes his internal narrative was wrong. This of course, makes him feel badly about himself so he engages in love-bombing (Rescuer role) to mitigate the damage, and finally Persecutor role when the afterglow of his apologetic love-bombing has worn thin. The cycle repeats.

I'm not saying that this is what's going on for you, but I will say that we can't just assume that because someone is a BS that they're suddenly a master communicator. If you're not in MC, it might be time to go. Learning better communications is pretty much the point of it. If you need some homework, type into your browser "four horseman john gottman" and read the essay you find. Try also a copy of Gottman's What Makes Love Last?: How to Build Trust and Avoid Betrayal. And if you haven't already done so, research the Karpman Drama Triangle. There's lots of information to be had online regarding it.

If you guys are bent on reconciliation, your communication styles need to mesh. I can see your progress as you search for your voice, so kudos on that. But it takes two. And if you doubt how important it is, try also a copy of How Can I Get Through to You?: Closing the Intimacy Gap Between Men and Women by Terrence Real. Your little people are watching and learning, modeling their own future relationships on what they see. This dysfunction has a tendency to replicate itself, so breaking the chain now is serving them later. It doesn't matter to future generations if you were once wayword, the hushing of a woman's authentic voice is still damaging in the home.

MrRadical -

With regards to empathy, have you and your BS fully discussed how you would feel if your histories had been reversed? if he was the one who had the affair in the past. how would you genuinely feel about it? how much would you care? if he had an affair/ONS now, how much of an issue would it be for you? surely this all shouldn't be too much of a leap of the imagination. i don't see a better way of discovering empathy.

I kind of want to piggy back on to what MrRadical asks here and also ask if you and your husband have ever watched the movie Passengers. I think his resentment is closer to what Jennifer Lawrence's character "Aurora" feels after learning the truth in her situation. Given "choice" being the most recent topic discussed, how it relates to your husband's choice not ever being exercised in light of what happened in the past, how he feels his future may have unfolded if his choice was ever exercised as a result of knowing the truth, how selfish he may see you being in making that choice for him as Aurora felt toward Chris Pratt's character, "Jim" for waking her out of his overriding desire for companionship, thus the cost of affecting her future for the benefit of his own needs.

I'm not saying that was your intention all those years ago, but I wonder if it helps you step into his shoes to understand just as MrRadical asks as well.

Also pay attention to the lesson in empathy and forgiveness shown by both characters as a result. It was a powerful movie.

It has been a really rough couple of weeks. I realized I don’t post when I’m consumed with emotions, only when I’m reflecting so I come off as aloof and analytical. In some ways I think it’s a coping mechanism – a way to numb the pain. If I’m analyzing what happened and what I need to work on then I don’t have FEEL everything. But yesterday, I stopped thinking so much and I could not hold myself together. I was so fucking sad about everything I’ve done to my BS, to me, to whatever “us” there is left, to our family. I hid in my office with the door closed and cried and cried and went home and cried with my BS some more. And now I’m reflecting on all of it, so the weight of those feelings probably won’t come through here.

MrRadical & Jduff – Greater empathy for my BS is something I’m working on. He tells me it is impossible for me to understand how he feels, and he’s right. I will never truly know the depths of his pain. But what has become clearer to me over the past couple of months is that he is suffering immensely and even if I can’t know exactly how much pain he is in, it hurts me to know that he’s hurting and that I am the reason he is hurting. It’s made me want to hold him as tight as I can and never let go. It makes me want to kiss his tears and lick his wounds and nurse him back into the confident, nurturing, sarcastic, discerning man that I know he is. I’ve felt a crack form in the shield I built around myself to protect me from feeling sadness, anger, and fear – from feeling vulnerable. I think he may have felt my shell beginning to crack over the weekend when he was vulnerable with me about experiencing a painful trigger and we held each other and cried on each other’s shoulders. It felt different. I felt different. I guess maybe it felt more like empathy than sympathy?

Beginning to understand his pain has also given me the strength to remain present in his fits of rage rather than withdraw from him as I have done in the past – knowing that it’s the unbearable pain from the trauma I caused feeding his rage. Knowing that he’s lashing out at me because he can’t escape the pain and that saying hurtful things to me transfers some of that pain and serves as consequence for the damage that I’ve done to him, to me, and to us. But I still don’t really know the best way to respond to his anger. I used to just try and absorb it, to survive it, to hate myself for making him so angry, to want to physically hurt myself because I didn’t know how to cope with it (to focus on me instead of him!). Now that I understand where it’s coming from, I remind myself that he’s angry because he’s suffering, I try to stand in it without making myself smaller by agreeing with everything he says, but sometimes I still get swept away by it. Sometimes I do empathize with his anger – I’m angry at myself for being so selfish and making such awful choices as a 23-year-old that will haunt both of us for the rest of our lives. But a lot of times I don’t know how to show empathy when he’s angry.

To be honest, sometimes I get confused about what empathy means. I think there’s the kind of empathy that occurs in response to my BS when he triggers and tells me about it or when he appears to be lost in thought and I assume he is thinking about the awful things I’ve done. This is the kind of empathy that I understand, that I have grown and will continue to grow. I think what my BS would say is that having empathy also means being able to predict how things I do or say will affect him. And this is where I find myself constantly failing. Sometimes I fail egregiously – the fuckups that occur when I’m not thinking about how I’m affecting my BS (he has plenty of examples in his thread) – and sometimes I fail because I’m thinking about my BS but just can’t find the right words or the right time to communicate something. Frankly, I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to find the right words or the right time to communicate certain things without hurting his feelings. I think he has deep, deep wounds that are so raw that it’s very easy for me to hurt him, even when I put thought into trying to say the right thing. I so badly want to get better at this. I so badly want to be both empathetic and authentic.

Nope, you're never going to be a mind reader. And pardon me if I'm remembering someone else's thread, but weren't you dealing with complaints that you were too measured in your speech and thinking too long about your words? How are you supposed to both be authentic and think before you speak? It sounds like you're living your life on eggshells, always wondering what comments are going to be taken out of context and thrown back in your face.

ChamomileTea - You are right. I think right now my BS would prefer the measured approach over the candid blurting out approach. So, I kind of feel like the work I’m doing to try and help him heal and the work I’m doing on myself are at odds with one another rather than working in harmony – should I tell him what’s on my mind to practice authenticity or keep it to myself because I fear it could hurt his feelings? I do feel like I’m walking on eggshells – afraid of doing or saying anything that will cause him more pain. I think he sorta feels the same way – waiting for me to say or do something that will hurt him. And he really, truly cannot take any more pain right now.

Even though words can be fairly clear, people still tend to misunderstand one another, particularly when one of them is caught up in their own narrative.

Thank you for this perspective. I think there might be some truth to this – my affair and 12 years of lies absolutely destroyed the narrative he wrote about his life: If I rescue the right girl and show her enough love than I will be worthy of her love and can live the fairy tale of my dreams. I was cruel to let him write that narrative without the whole story, and it hurts even more that it actually became true but is only a mirage.

I feel like the new narrative that’s in play when I say or do something hurtful is more like: I should have known you would betray me, that you would hurt me, that you don’t understand or appreciate me, that I did nothing to deserve being treated this way, that everything is so horribly unfair and it doesn’t matter what your intentions are – you deserve consequences for your actions. It almost feels like because I “got away” with lying for 12 years, that I shouldn’t “get away” with anything that’s hurtful ever again. That it would be letting me off the hook to give me the benefit of the doubt because he did that for years and he is mad at himself for it, for letting himself be fooled by me. It makes me so angry that I brought us to this point, so sad that he internalizes my horrible choices as partly his fault, afraid that he will resent me forever if he chooses to stay with me, terrified that I won’t be able to stop inadvertently hurting him no matter how fixed I get because relationships are relationships and I just can’t promise that. I’m so scared that he won’t be able to heal if he stays with me because the small hurts will always have the potential to become big hurts.

I want him to stay and for us to both heal and for us to build a new M grounded in authenticity and mutual love and respect. I want him to want it badly enough to eventually be able to let go of the old fairy tale narrative, the current justice-seeking narrative, and to write a brand new narrative with me. But he doesn’t know if he can. It would feel like compromising his morals, the very essence of his being, to do so. It scares the shit out of me. So much so that I feel my inner voice telling me to keep it quiet. I hear it trying to bargain with me – if you just stay quiet long enough for him to heal then he’ll be in a better place to hear you. I don’t want to be disingenuous, I just want to stop hurting him.

Pippin - Thank you for sharing. I'm all for laughing at myself, but I just can't seem to really get there about this. One of the things that attracted me to my BS was his sense of humor. He is witty and charming beyond belief. I had never laughed so much or so hard before I met him. This part of him is lost in the wake of the destruction I've caused. We have our moments here and there, but our conflicts tend to escalate beyond the point where humor would be an appropriate tool for diffusing them. Maybe we will eventually be able to laugh at ourselves and each other again, maybe even about how we manage conflict, but it's too raw and painful right now.

physical touch, speaking softly, acknowledge what he’s trying to do instead of resenting it . . .that might help for now.

I think you are right that this would help. Thank you.

To be honest, sometimes I get confused about what empathy means. I think there’s the kind of empathy that occurs in response to my BS when he triggers and tells me about it or when he appears to be lost in thought and I assume he is thinking about the awful things I’ve done. This is the kind of empathy that I understand, that I have grown and will continue to grow. I think what my BS would say is that having empathy also means being able to predict how things I do or say will affect him. And this is where I find myself constantly failing. Sometimes I fail egregiously – the fuckups that occur when I’m not thinking about how I’m affecting my BS (he has plenty of examples in his thread) – and sometimes I fail because I’m thinking about my BS but just can’t find the right words or the right time to communicate something. Frankly, I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to find the right words or the right time to communicate certain things without hurting his feelings. I think he has deep, deep wounds that are so raw that it’s very easy for me to hurt him, even when I put thought into trying to say the right thing. I so badly want to be both empathetic and authentic

Empathy, in the simplest terms, is the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes. So yes, a big part of that is thinking about how what you say will affect your BH before you say it. It means giving thought to your choice of words and considering the context - both immediate and broad - of what you're about to say. You may not be able to read minds, but between the ability most people have to show basic consideration and the length of time you and your BH have known each other, it's not unfair for him to assume that you should have a reasonably good idea of how to communicate with him without being tactless and hurtful.

The trouble is that you're a faker. You've spent the last twelve years wearing lies like a second skin and presenting a facade that you hope people will like. Your capacity for honesty and for empathy is terribly stunted which leaves you emotionally underdeveloped. In conversing with your BH a couple of days ago, he's enumerated several of the ways in which you've recently been stunningly inconsiderate and unempathetic and expressed his exasperation with it and questioned whether or not it's ever going to get better, or at least good enough.

Right now you're in a bit of a quandary because you know you can't continue to be the same person you've been your whole adult life, but at the same time you're married to a man upon whom you've inflicted an incredible amount of pain and who you absolutely need to treat with gentleness, kindness, and empathy. How do you grow into someone who knows how to be honest and authentic without being insensitive and hurtful in the process? It's not an easy question to answer, but it it something to reflect on.

In a previous post in this thread, I mentioned that right now it's unwise of you to expect your BH to be very attentive to or considerate of your needs. I want to reiterate that. Being kind to someone who has been so incredibly cruel to you is incredibly hard even when they're doing an amazing job of trying to make it up to you. It's even more difficult when they're still hurting you - even if only inadvertently - on a semi-regular basis by not thinking before they act. Bearing that in mind, understand that the fact that he's still there and still trying is an incredible gift that's very hard for him to give, and that however difficult you think things are for you, it's nothing - nothing - compared to what he's trying to do. So every time you have the urge to get snippy or be defensive, nip it in the bud. Right now your BH's feelings do, in fact, matter much more than yours and you need to treat them as such. Set aside your pride and your ego. Don't consider yourself above begging. He needs to feel like you'd walk through hell for a chance to stay with him, because you've already thrown him in hell.

...I feel my inner voice telling me to keep it quiet. I hear it trying to bargain with me – if you just stay quiet long enough for him to heal then he’ll be in a better place to hear you.

I'm a co-dependent. It's built into my psyche by a squalid upbringing with neglectful, selfish parents, then reinforced by living with a high-maintenance man for 35 years. I've tip-toed on those eggshells most of my life, and punctuated the conflict avoidance with occasional outbursts of dazzling defiance. So, while I'm not a psychiatric professional, I'm seeing a little something familiar here. A co-dependent strives for more perfect compliance, believing that if she's good enough, she'll earn the love she craves.

Right now, you're striving for perfect empathy. No such thing exists. We can't feel another person's feelings. It's just not possible. We can't anticipate their needs with 100% accuracy. We're not an extension of another person as if we were an arm or a leg. This is why good communication is so necessary. It's how we resolve conflict.

Don't get me wrong, empathy is a beautiful thing and it's absolutely essential to a healthy relationship. But... it's never going to be perfect and neither will you. Try some of those references I mentioned. And consider adding a copy of Brene Brown's Rising Strong. Someplace in your husband's narrative, there needs to be room for YOU, the you that exists, not the you he manufactured.

Think of it this way, if he can only love the you he created in his own mind, the real you isn't receiving love. By coming to a place of authenticity in your heart and in your interactions with others, you can then be assured that whatever love you receive is real. Co-dependents eventually end up burnt out, with no internal identity because they're over invested in the many hats they wear to buy affection. So it's worth the time to rule it out as a problem. Consider a copy of Melody Beattie's Codependent No More as well. If you see yourself in it, get with a therapist and break the cycle.

I'm sorry. I keep throwing books at you.

Firenze - thanks for coming back with the harsh truths I need to hear.

You may not be able to read minds, but between the ability most people have to show basic consideration and the length of time you and your BH have known each other, it's not unfair for him to assume that you should have a reasonably good idea of how to communicate with him without being tactless and hurtful.

I agree this is a completely reasonable expectation and I want to be able to do this. I am a horrible communicator and have struggled with this throughout our entire relationship. I am guessing it has a lot to do with the lack of healthy communication I observed in my FOO. I can think of one example where I managed to "get it right" so to speak. It was several months ago and he was reading on his phone at the dinner table. I was nonchalant and direct and said something like, "Hey, can you put your phone away when we're eating dinner together?" He said yes and references this example when he tells me how he wants me to communicate with him - clearly, directly, and in a timely fashion. I remember feeling anxious about saying it and was almost shocked by the fact that he happily complied and didn't get defensive or mad at me. I think he happily obliged because he perceived it to be a reasonable request and I managed to effectively communicate it.

I have no idea how to begin to communicate my feelings in a way that doesn't hurt his feelings. I've been reading some Gottman and trying to focus on using "I statements" but it's new and hard and I'm pretty bad at it, especially because I've spent most of my life pretending I don't have needs or feelings. I completely hear you when you say that his feelings are more important than mine right now. One of the reasons I keep trying (and failing) at communicating my feelings more effectively is that I've identified a pattern in when and how I lash out at him, and I think that being able to effectively communicate my feelings is the antidote.

For example, we were on a date a few weekends ago and discussing whether to pick our kids up early. He said he didn't want to and I replied "Do you even miss your kids a little bit?" That shitty comment came from a place of me projecting my own feelings of guilt on him. It took me some time to figure it out, but I realized that I was feeling anxious and guilty and wanted to pick them up. I want to be able to identify my feelings and articulate them in a more timely and compassionate fashion. I wish I had said to him, "I'm having such a great time with you and I know it doesn't make sense but I'm feeling really anxious and guilty about leaving our kids at daycare much longer." I don't think my feelings are more important than his - I do think it's absolutely critical for me to be able to express them in a way that is gentle and compassionate, and prevents me from lashing out with hurtful words.

Your capacity for honesty and for empathy is terribly stunted which leaves you emotionally underdeveloped.

I can't argue with you on this. My new IC used that exact word "stunted" in my first session with her and it was one of the reasons I knew she was going to be a good fit.

ChamomileTea - I think you found my narrative: If I could just do and be better, if I could stop fucking up, then he'll be happy and love me. If I'm not perfect, he will be unhappy and won't love me. My little voice constantly tells me I'm not good enough, I'll never be good enough. So I guess I get caught up in my own narrative because that's what I hear when he is upset with me.

empathy is a beautiful thing and it's absolutely essential to a healthy relationship. But... it's never going to be perfect and neither will you.

You are so right about this. I am a perfectionist and learning more about what that means and how it has limited me in so many ways. I won't ever have perfect empathy or be a perfect human, but I do want to grow more empathy and be a better human. It's really hard to remember that "perfection" is bullshit and not the end goal.

And please - keep throwing books at me. I'll keep adding them to my list and get to them one by one.

Flawed:

Read Awareness by Anthony DeMello.

It is the ultimate book on acceptance, and would do you a world of good when your mind begins to run in directions you know it shouldn't.

You should be able to get it used TYD for under $5 from online sources.

Flawed- I have been lurking and reading both you and your husbands posts. I am sorry for what you both are going through and I think as a FWH I have some things for you to at least consider. First I want to say that I am not an expert but I am coming at this from a male perspective and how I would feel if the roles were reversed. (I think you need to spend some time doing this as well) Also you are getting a lot of really good advice from a lot of incredible people who really care and are very thoughtful in their responses. Please take mine or leave it. And please don't be offended by what I say.

Your husband is a nice guy. You know what they say about nice guys; they always finish last. This could be one of the many narratives in your husbands head. You talk about what a great marriage you had prior to disclosing the "A". I think in a way your husband is doing the "pick me" though it is different in your case because the narrative is different. THis happened a long time ago. Your husband may be feeling like she picked me because I was the safe bet. She knew I would give her the better life (or the life she thought was better when she was 23). Not she picked me because I was the better man, the object of her desire, the one she liked better, the one she had better sex with, I'm funnier, etc. etc. And to be honest based on everything you have said, this is kind of how I picture your husband and how I might feel too.

Many WW come on here and state whether they are given the gift of R or not; they talk about how their husbands were the better man. They were funnier, they made them better people, they were more interesting, and yes some of their physical qualities were better too. (I also realize these WW's are doing a bit of rationalizing themselves.) But they state these things. And I believe they communicate them to their partner. I know I had to communicate these things to mine. She had a lot of insecurities. Picture what OW would look like in your head if the roles were reversed. She would be hotter than you, tighter body, infatuated with your H, more confident and sexually open, etc etc. How do you compete, when clearly you don't measure up. It's a nightmare for anyone to think of; and a total mind fuck.

I don't know the gory details of your A as I believe they were removed from your post back in December. So you can pm me or not. I don't know if the sex was good or not? You have never mentioned this, never mentioned if you orgasmed or not? If you AP had an amazing dick that drove you wild and you did things with him you have never done with hubby? (You get the point) All these things are in the head of your husband. And I don't know how much nitty gritty you went into with him. Not sure I really need to know. But there are things I have not heard from you in your posts that I believe he might need to hear to feel safe with you. You have never put down your AP. It might be a good idea to do this. Or was he the perfect man just not the safe choice and your husband can't measure up? (Find away to do this. Sounds like hubby is a winner; he must be better in some ways. If not, BH is going to give up on you when he can't rebuild his confidence in your relationship and himself) Your once confident, humorous husband has zero self worth and is constantly rewriting his life narrative over in his head with all these thoughts and the lies you have fed him over the years. No amount of "I love yous" are going to build up his confidence and counter this. Sorry ladies, its not how it works for nice guys. I think he needs to know that he wasn't the safe, stable choice. The one who could provide the better life, the better father, husband, whatever. He needs to hear that he was the preferred man because of x. Some of these qualities and traits need to be physical. (I know for me, if you couldn't do this; I would eventually rebuild my confidence. Just not with you in my life) I have read that you think your husband is handsome, and you are still sexually attracted to him. This is good. Man of integrity, loyalty, etc. (Input lots of good personality traits here. Just make sure some are physical too)

I think you need to tell him why he was the one you chose. After all you have admitted this was more than just sexual. You were developing feelings for OM. What if on some level your husbands thought process was that the sex was so good you started developing an emotional connection. Also you mentioned you have a good sex life now, but in the years surrounding your A it wasn't that good. Believe me, your husband knows this. The reality is you robbed him of those years of that good sex. It wasn't his deficiency it was yours. I had to spend a lot of time on this with my wife. She had in her head that when we made love after the A that I pictured the AP. That was so far from the truth. Your husband on some level is trying to measure up to your AP, and based on what you have stated he might feel like he is losing.

Please please help your husband understand why you picked him. You started down this path recently when talking about his humor, demeanor, etc. But you need to go beyond this to tell him (sorry to be graphic) but its his dick you love, and his body that you love and prefer, that he is better, and hopefully sex with him is better, etc. To make him feel safe you need to make him feel like he was the better choice not the safe choice. Everyone knows you love your husband. But help the man rebuild himself. I can't see where you have done that. You once mentioned you have never once since being married thought fondly of your time with AP. Why? Only because you knew at 23 he would be working retail at 35?(I don't know if this is the case...I'm merely making the point that you knew at 23 hubby was the safe choice) I think I have beat this horse enough.

I also want to say it sounds like you have been very reflective as to trying to find the reasons why the A happened. I commend you on this. I just think you need to spend some time rebuilding your husband into the man you know he is and the wonderful husband and father he is; not only looking at your reasons why. Lastly, if he asks you to beg for him not to leave him. My suggestion is that you do it. Sounds like hubby is a keeper; if so; he is worth begging for everyday for the rest of your life. I still do it occasionally because my W surely is. Good luck

One strategy for checking to see if your response is the best for a situation while remaining authentic is the Buddhist practice of right speech. It really helps in emotionally charged situations and conversations;

Ask yourself for what you are about to say;

Is it true?

Is it kind?

Is it helpful?

Is it prudent? (Is this the right time)

If any one of those 4 is not true, it may well be a good time to take more time with your thoughts and feelings and evaluate the situation and your motives.

Just my $.02. I hope it helps and I wish you both the best. I know how hard it is to be in the raw, emotionally flooded times.

I am a perfectionist and learning more about what that means and how it has limited me in so many ways. I won't ever have perfect empathy or be a perfect human, but I do want to grow more empathy and be a better human. It's really hard to remember that "perfection" is bullshit and not the end goal.

And please - keep throwing books at me. I'll keep adding them to my list and get to them one by one.

Well, if you really don't mind.......

You might start with Brene Brown's The Gifts of Imperfection, followed by Daring Greatly, and then Rising Strong. These will flow one into the next, beginning with how you deal with your inner perfectionist, then how you access vulnerability, and finally how to recover when you've gone "face down in the ring". Each book builds upon the last. (Don't neglect Gottman or the Karpman triangle though)

I know you're catching a great deal of flak about "empathy". Frankly, I don't see lack of empathy as the problem in your situation. I suspect it's more to do fear of abandonment, people-pleasing, or even codependence. Those are guesses, not dianoses; I'm not in a position to say. But I really do feel like it's something you'd do well to get to the bottom of.

When I read your story, it seems like every time you put yourself out there, you get your hand slapped, so it's no wonder that finding your authentic voice has been such a challenge. But when you roll back the clock, if you'd been speaking from a place of authenticity back during your engagement, all this would be water under the bridge right now. Your current husband would have either broken up with you or he would have moved past the infidelity and happily married you anyway. So you see how speaking truth from an authentic place can prevent hardship. You can't let a slapped hand prevent your truth. It's your truth.

Your marriage may (or may not) survive all this. But YOU will survive. And frankly, I'm an older woman who will tell you plainly that who you are ends up being important in the end. Your internal identity MATTERS. To be loved is to be seen, to be known for the real you and not just what you can do for others. So, when you're authentic and you're still feeling loved, you will stop experiencing the insecurities which made you feel like you had to withhold the truth for so long.

Sorry for the ramble. You've got so much pressure on you to "heal" your spouse. Problem is, you can no more heal his emotional wounds than you could heal his bones if they were broken. All you can do is encourage a healing environment. It's the same for all BS's. We have our own work to do in that respect.

((big hugs))

You said in one of your comments that before you disclosed the full extent of your affair to your BH, you talked to a female friend and asked her advice about it. You said that she advised that you not tell your BH. I'm assuming your BH now knows about this "friend" telling you to keep him in the dark. Is she still a friend of yours? How does your husband look at her now? Kinda curious, because before your disclosure, your AP knew, the OM knew and now this friend of yours knew...all before you BH learned the truth. How do you reconcile that?

One major fuckup was recently telling my BS that I had been Facebook friends with the woman who caught me having sex with my AP in the bathroom at a house party since 2008 (2 years after the affair ended), and that I unfriended her about a week after our recent DDay. When I unfriended her and 2 other “friends” from that time of life, I was hurting and angry and never wanted to see their faces again or be reminded of the worst thing I’ve ever done. I was still looking for people to blame for my own unconscionable behavior.

Flawed, I am kinda late to this thread. I read this and I think there may be something deeper to this. You deleted at least one person who had information about your affair. To me, this looks more like a closing down of a point of information akin to deleting texts, or emails.

I wanted to point this out.

Farsidejunky - I've added Awareness to my list of books to read. Thank you.

jf2006 - Thank you so much for your post. I really needed to hear this, or maybe even get knocked upside the head with it. There was never a question in my mind who was the better man. You are right that I need to remember to tell my BS in much greater detail about all the ways he was and is a better man – so much more than merely a safe choice – and why there was never a choice in my mind to make.

I wasn’t in love with my AP; I used him like a drug and as confused as I was about what I was doing and feeling, I knew what I felt for him wasn’t love. I never thought twice about going complete NC with him when my BS discovered the text that started my 12-year-long lie that I had only kissed my AP. I didn't experience the “fog” that I hear about on this site. I immediately directed all the fear and anger I was experiencing about my own choices to my AP - making him responsible for all my awful choices so I didn't have to take responsibility for them. I never pined for him, never again thought fondly of him. I have hated him ever since. Mostly I think I hated myself for betraying myself and my BS, and it was easier to hate and blame him than to be honest with myself.

My BS is the best man I know. He is my favorite human in this world. He is better in every way, and I absolutely need to tell him all about it more than I do. I’ll say a little more because I know he reads what I write, and even though I’ve said these things to him I know it can’t hurt to hear them repeatedly. He is one of the most passionate and driven people I know – he can do anything he puts his mind to and usually does it better than anyone else. He has a thirst for knowledge that I find magnetic. He has this incredible superpower - he somehow knows every lyric to every song he’s ever heard, and I love that he’s not afraid to sing out loud, to unapologetically own his voice in ways that I have never felt capable of. Those who have read his thread know he is a man of integrity, he’s not afraid to challenge others’ beliefs and actions. I absolutely love watching him interact with other people – to see how he shares his beliefs and feelings so openly, to observe his confidence and endearing mannerisms. I always feel so lucky to be the one who gets to go home with him at the end of a social gathering.

I believe he truly loves who he is on the inside and I hope that one day he will see just how attractive he is on the outside through my eyes – his smile turns me into a puddle, looking into his eyes makes my heart flutter, his hands are strong and dexterous in all the right ways, I could go on and on and on about his many assets but I want to reserve some stuff just for him. He also encourages and challenges those around him to be better versions of themselves. He has always made me want to be a better person, and in some ways I think that contributed to my fear that just being me and letting him see the ugliest parts of me would disappoint him, that he couldn’t possibly just love me for who I am, that I had to be perfect to earn his love. I have always doubted myself, but I have never doubted that he is the best man in my world.

NoSelf – Thank you for sharing. I love this and I hope that I’ll develop the presence of mind to ask myself these questions, especially when my emotions want to take control.

ChamomileTea – Thank you for the additional book recommendations. I just read The Gifts of Imperfection and it was eye-opening to say the least. I’ve added Daring Greatly and Rising Strong to my list.

I don't see lack of empathy as the problem in your situation. I suspect it's more to do fear of abandonment, people-pleasing, or even codependence. Those are guesses, not dianoses; I'm not in a position to say. But I really do feel like it's something you'd do well to get to the bottom of.

Yes, I do need to get to the bottom of this. I’m pretty sure it has to do with fear, maybe fear of being vulnerable and getting rejected, fear of showing my imperfections, of not being enough or acceptable just as I am? I’m pretty sure I grew this fear a long, long time ago and trapped myself inside of it as a way to protect myself against rejection or disapproval. And because I don’t have practice sharing my thoughts and feelings in a vulnerable, honest way it comes out awkwardly – maybe even abrasively – which makes my BS feel as though I have no empathy because I’m unpracticed in my delivery. I am going to keep reading about communication and try to be more mindful about how I communicate what’s in my head and heart.

Mountainwestdad

before your disclosure, your AP knew, the OM knew and now this friend of yours knew...all before you BH learned the truth. How do you reconcile that?

There are 2 people who knew before my BS who I am still in contact with. The first person is my best friend from childhood who I had confided in at the time of my affair. She did not condone my behavior - she challenged me to think about my BS and what I was doing. When I told her about my recent confession she was surprised to find out I hadn't told my BS the truth 12 years ago; I was such a coward I didn't even tell my best friend I had lied. So I wouldn't consider her an enabler.

The other person is my friend who I had gone to for advice on whether to confess or not. I don’t think I painted a very fair picture of my conversation with this friend. I was vague about the truth with her so she did not have much information to base her advice on. She told me that there are things she knows about her husband’s past that she wishes she didn’t know, that once you know something you can’t unknow it. And because of that, she said if she were me, she wouldn’t confess to spare my BS from having to live with something he might wish he didn’t know. But she also encouraged me to listen to my gut and do what I thought was the right thing to do. And when I told her I confessed, she told me she admired the courage it took to do it, that I should feel proud for listening to my gut and making the more difficult choice. I didn’t feel proud or courageous, and reflecting back on what she said I realize that deep down, she too knew that confessing was the “right” thing to do and her advice was wasn't really about doing the right thing, it was about wanting me to do what she thought would keep my BS happy - kinda the same story I had been telling myself all these years. She, like everyone else in our lives, wants us to stay together and so she told me what she thought would ensure our happily ever after. I am not sure how to reconcile this.

Sorrowfulmate – Thank you for pointing this out.

You deleted at least one person who had information about your affair. To me, this looks more like a closing down of a point of information akin to deleting texts, or emails.

I was definitely in cover-up mode when I deleted my friend. No doubt about it. I was angry and ashamed at myself for being “friends” with her. If I knew then what I know now, I would never have deleted her without talking to my BS first. But I didn’t do that. And, I didn't think she had any more information than what I had shared with my BS. When I told my BS about deleting her, I let him take control of the situation. He reached out to her to see if she would be willing to speak with him. She reached out to me and I let my BS type up the response to her on my behalf in which I asked her to please consider speaking with him. She eventually agreed to speak with him over the phone. She confirmed the part of my story that she knew about and told my BS about what a “player” my AP was. I felt played all over again just hearing how she described him, but I know I can’t blame him for my horrible choices that my BS and I will have to live with forever.