SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Poppy - No, not everything people say here is healthy. But, by making generalizations that "this is the SI way" you are discounting advice born in hard experience and discouraging others to try and take it in. It's a bit of an antagonizing statement for those that are here with an open heart trying our best to help someone in a bad situation get to the better end.

Some of the advice is good but the delivery style is very strong and hard to take sometimes. While I felt annoyed at it at first sometimes has the best useful bits because the author is trying to hold a mirror up for a picture I don't want to see.

I am sorry your spouse is uncooperative about counseling and you finding help. I can't begin to imagine why someone would be that way, but maybe you are finding it hard to listen to some of the advice because you are resentful of his stonewalling you on this issue. It's hard to deal with some of our own issues if we are justifiably angry with our spouse. When you are ready and would like to process this as an issue I think you will find some great advice. Operating on the generalization of a group as a whole really will make it hard for you to share here.

Constant Learner,

I understand what you are saying. I had a divorce when I was very young (too young to be married or understand marriage), my mother didn't talk to me for 9 months and called me names to my family. Would put different aunts up to calling me and trying to "talk some sense into me". To this day I have never regretted the decision, and in the end even my Mom has said time and time again that I knew better of what I needed.

Your decision to divorce is completely up to you. Noone is saying that you aren't doing the work. We are only operating on what you have said and trying to provide alternatives with limited understanding. There are however some themes in all of our thinking which is why you see so many darts being thrown to figure out which of these are yours.

I do still feel that you maybe harboring feelings for the AP. Down deep, do you have the idea that he is your soulmate and things will be better with him? I don't say that to be antagonistic, but I know when I was saying things like I didn't want to be married and that we had these insurmountable recurring issues and patterns that I still very much was harboring those feelings.

My asking that is not to shame you. However, because I have been there I might be able to share more of what I learned that helped me get to a better place mentally. Depression and hopelessness was a desolate place for me and I understand where some of that came from. I keep responding to you because I see myself so much in your story.

If you are starving I am sure there are many good people who would assist you in getting something to eat,

ConstantLearner,

I was only referring to getting something to eat (the sandwich analogy), which is a physical need. I know getting emotional needs met take much more significance. especially from who those needs are being fulfilled

I’m not here to blame my husband. I’m just trying to say that I struggle with the narrative that the choice to cheat is completely separate from all the things that came before it

The whole point is that it is a choice. It was not a choice made under duress or a choice aided by permission from your husband.

I find it bewildering for you to say you own your cheating, then turn around and say that the things that came before it caused you to do it. What things? Because if you are saying the things your husband did or did not do, then you are still blaming your husband for your choice to cheat.

I would agree that he could have been more attentive to your emotional needs.His decision not to lead to the state of imbalance in your marriage. But that did not lead you to cheat. That was your choice. If you are saying your family narrative then I could agree somewhat with that. However you know right from wrong and you know cheating is wrong. Why do you think it is called "cheating" It is because you cheat your spouse out of a decision that they should be part of. It is because you take it upon yourself to selfishly fix a problem that includes both partners. In the end "cheaters" face serious consequences once found out because things were done covertly instead of honestly

[This message edited by ConstantLearner at 2:29 AM, February 28th (Wednesday)]

[This message edited by ConstantLearner at 2:30 AM, February 28th (Wednesday)]

Constant Learner,

Okay, there is something to work with.

You may not believe me, but the feelings you are harboring for the AP is a major part of where you are in your thinking. I didn't feel the whole "soul mate" this "person is perfect for me", but I felt like because he was so supportive of me emotionally I could never have that with my husband. And, the emotional connection is very important to women especially. I am also not a huge subscriber to the "fog" in it's exact terms that are spelled out, but you are in it. I wouldn't have believed me either when I was still in it. I could point to so many things that my husband wasn't, my marriage wasn't, and I was tired...so tired of carrying it all. Lonlier than I have ever been.

How long have you been NC? It's almost sounding like your AP was single? So, if he's single there is a high likelihood you've been able to communicate. I would not have been able to stop that on my own.

The reason NC is so important is that it allows us to come back to our rational thinking, and when you are back to that rational thinking I can't guarantee you will decide you want to stay married after all, but I can guarantee that you will have done what you needed to do in order to make logical decisions rather than emotional ones.

The AP is not a safe choice for you. I don't know if you will believe me about that, but he knew both you and your husband and he was willing to do this anyway. It means that he himself has boundary issues. The likelihood that he would have boundary issues in a relationship is high, or at the very least have trust issues with you. He was willing to sleep with another man's wife - justify that if you must but there is something very wrong there.

So, here is my advice: If you are not willing to give up the AP leave your husband. Save him from further pain.

If you are not willing to leave your husband then you have to make the hard choice to begin programming yourself to stay away from the AP- and try and see the ways he manipulated this situation for his own gain. Staying away from him doesn't just mean NC, it means staying away from thinking about him positively, looking in on him through social media...you have to give him up entirely.

You have to realize the reason I knew it was there is I could see the thought patterns behind it. I had these thought patterns. I commend you for admitting it, very hard to do around here.

I can tell you for me, once I realized I was really going to lose my husband, the life that we'd worked for, disappoint my daughters who would have to visit us separately on holidays and have to fret if it's okay to invite both of us to major events and have to take all the stress of navigating that.....well I came out of it.

What I came out of it to was still very bleak. Getting things back on the road has been hard and will continue to be hard. But, as I have grown and changed, I realized the ways I was blocking us from having that emotional connection. Yes, you read that right...it's true my husband is not very emotional...but I learned my own barriers that were not helping. He is still hurt, we are still working on it but we have more good days right now. I feel closer and more grateful for him than I have ever been. He is opening up more and responding to that. I also learned that his open handed way of loving was far more healthier in letting life flow than the firm grip the AP and I had on each other. Look up things Buddhist say about attachment for more thoughts on that.

Am I telling you this because I don't want you to get a divorce? No. I am telling you this

1. Because I want you to know that there are things you can't know unless you really put it all down to try. And, by doing that if you do decide to divorce it will be in clarity and not in all this mud that is in your head right now.

2. I am also telling you this because if you aren't willing to take that path, that's okay. Just don't put yourself and your husband through it any more. Yes, you will disappoint people. But in the end you are dragging your husband down a road for no reason. Love him enough to take the hit of disappointing the other people.

I hope you find this helpful. For me, I said once I was out of the "fog" that I would give it a solid six months, give it my honest to goodness all and then re-evaluate. I didn't need to re-evaluate by then. My path was clear. And for you it still might be clear that you still want to go but you could then do it in good conscience and will have done the honest work to grow healthier for the next chapter of your life.

I know right now you feel fear of really losing your AP for good... it adds a lot of pressure to the situation. Let that go if you choose the work on yourself and marriage path.

And, by the way, if you do choose to leave, the likelihood that you will work on yourself diminishes so much because you won't have the precipitance any longer. You will be back in happy land, until this relationship gets further down the road and these issues once again come up. Because some of these are your issues, you carry these with you.

Well said Hikingout.

i was thinking much the same.

[This message edited by ConstantLearner at 2:30 AM, February 28th (Wednesday)]

Well, these are your decisions, and if you don't make them they will eventually be made for you. The AP won't want to be the OM long term, and your husband isn't going to want to live in infidelity.

Where you say:

"I am not trying to compare the two at this point. I just know that I can’t go back to my marriage right now. Because in the same way that staying with ap leaves me no reason to change, going back to my marriage leaves my husband no reason to change and me no reason to change either."

Not true. I have experienced my greatest growth in holding the boundary with the AP, in digging deep into myself to really work on myself truly. It doesn't happen overnight, but it's significant change and growth. Also, because I changed, my H had a different stimulus to react to and I can see him beginning to change as well...without my asking or prompting. So much you say reminds me of what I would have said about my husband...super good guy, just can't engage deeply, so on and so forth. Now that I am on the other side of it, I can see clearly the person who showed me his love the most was my husband. No way I would have said that while I was still in the affair, which you still are.

And when you say:

My ap doesn’t keep me in a state of perpetual happiness.

Yeah, I get that, but when you are in a new relationship things are more likely to be hearts and flowers for the first couple of years, it's just the nature of a new relationship. There is much excitement to it even if it's vanilla. I would have used that same exact words about things I did with my AP, that it was vanilla. Even the physical aspects not much exploring was done, everything was pretty standard.

You do not have to justify your decision in leaving your H. I feel like that's been your over arching campaign here, almost like you want someone, anyone to say "Yeah I couldn't live with that, you should divorce him". But, having walked the path, I encourage you to really spend some time absorbing what people have said here and reading about limerance, you will find the reason we are able to identify is your situation is really not unique at all. There are distinct patterns in affairs, we psychologically react to them very similarly.

I think underneath of it, you are telling me you are just not willing to give up your AP. And, I have been where you are and understand how deep that runs. I know I am not going to convince you of anything on a forum.

If you do decide to give up the AP, you are going to need to find a way to be accountable to someone. I would make that someone my husband. Tell him how you feel, admit that the affair hasn't been over and give him access to all forms of communication. Write a NC letter together and send it to the AP. If the AP has a significant other, I would suggest that she be informed, your Husband can do that. It's going to take extremely radical methods to get you to break this cycle with him.

If you choose to leave your husband, know that if you do that without an honest try you may very well wake up regretful not so long down the line. Just from the sounds of it, your husband has better moral fiber than your AP. He believes in marriage, he's willing to forgive to keep it together, he's not off having an affair.

I say these last pieces not to shame you, but you really need to get some balance into your thinking, no matter what you do. I say that with grace and kindness as someone not so far out from finding that balance.

hikingout covered what I would say very well

[This message edited by ConstantLearner at 2:31 AM, February 28th (Wednesday)]

Are you still seeing your AP?

Constant Learner,

Okay, now you have ventured into a space I am not experienced in. It sounds like you can't respect your husband because he's acted like a doormat in all of this, dropping you off at AP's house and leaving you there for the night. I can't relate to that...at all.

I know that you have tried marriage counseling in the past, I am wondering if both of you should try going to IC? Do you do that? Sounds like he needs to talk to someone about this codependency issue, and you also need some support in all of this. I did IC by myself for 6 months and we have only recently gone into marriage counseling. Almost like "okay you get to where you know you are in it for real and I will be there on the other side to start working with you"

There are distinct stages of this, and this was how I experienced them (I gave them my own labels by the way):

Initial Affair Recovery (you don't really know what's going to happen to the M, but the one who had the affair works to leave the fog, become accountable and stabilize enough to do the work. Sometimes both people go to IC. It feels a little like co-existing, there is a lot of space) You all haven't done this step successfully yet. I can see why you are stuck - not just in your actions but his condoning is an issue. It's almost like you needed your husband do to the 180 on you so that you could respect him more. (you can read about that in the resources here). He is a prize you can win too easily???

Stage 2 of recovery - The AP is out of the picture totally, the WS is owning it, has empathy and beginning to show remorse, can see the damage that was caused by their actions. Willing to address the trauma. Can't really start working on pre-affair relationship yet because you have to get to a place that your spouse is safe enough to begin that work. The affair was a bomb and you are still triaging.

I have come upon a few conversations on here that I felt were maybe gross or not helpful, but it hasn't been my experience. I will say sometimes some carry out very harsh messages before the poor person on the other end is ready to hear it, but mostly I think the intentions are good. Keep writing and processing. But, nothing is going to get better until you make a decision and stick with it.

If it's not a clear decision for you, I would choose my husband and fully commit. You have way more to lose in your marriage than you do with your AP. As long as you are all wobbly on the decision, you are drawing out pain for everyone involved including yourself.

My decision not to divorce had nothing to do with me not having a job

HAVE no idea what you are talking about. I never said anything about a job or career.

[This message edited by ConstantLearner at 2:31 AM, February 28th (Wednesday)]

“That is horrible. No wonder if you therapist is blame shifting and justifying it on you starving. Whose fault was it that you stayed so long and starved. A healthy person would have gotten out of there and gotten a job.“

That’s where that came from, Zugzwang.

[This message edited by ConstantLearner at 3:11 PM, February 27th (Tuesday)]

My question is, short of divorce, what should I have done?

Divorce

If divorce is an option now, it was an option then. You just didn't want to because of whatever selfish reasons and the path to cheat was easier. The point is that divorce is a better option than cheating. Look at you now. You did something destructive, hurtful, and selfish- yet you are still leaning to divorce anyways.

Job refers to the analogy of starving. Not the money aspect. As if a person is starving for food they would get a job not steal.

Florida man agree with you on all points.

[This message edited by Zugzwang at 3:20 PM, February 27th (Tuesday)]

Thanks for the clarification. And seriously, if divorce were really a suddenly viable option don’t you think I would have filed by now? Or he would have? I know that you, for some reason, think you understand my situation better than I do. But, seriously, take it down a notch. You don’t know me.

Would you? I just don't understand that if things were so bad for you cheating was a viable option as opposed to divorce and still after the fact you ask what should you have done if you tried all other options? Sorry. I just don't live in a world where divorce is worse than cheating. I don't understand how divorce would be more shameful than cheating.