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I remain guarded about discussing these things when he continues to debate whether or not he wants to work on things. I fear the more I tell him, the more he will want to D.

I think this is a common reaction for WS's, and I KNOW this is where your instinct to protect yourself is most likely to lead you astray.

Even though it feels like the more honest and transparent you are, the more likely you are to push him toward D, the opposite is true. I, for one, left my FWH because he could not bring himself to be honest and transparent. I knew the A was bad. I knew I was in for a world of hurt by learning the details, but I needed him to offer those things to me freely. I needed to know that he was so fully committed to saving our M that he was willing to take the risk. Until he did that, I would even consider R.

The more you put yourself out there, the better your chance that your H will choose R. The longer you choose to hide and protect yourself instead of considering what he needs and putting him first, the less likely you are to save your M.

IMO...IC is much more important for both of you before MC when you are at the beginning of this.

MC will do no good if you each haven't gotten some solid footing under you beforehand. IC will do this for both of you.

And if you are still hiding things and it sounds as if you are..MC will be a huge waste of time and money.

Can I point something out to you? This wiating for one of you to go first is bull.

Your initial refusal, taking the A underground for a month after D-Day (or was it just a few weeks?) showed your WBS that you didn't value HIM, or that you couldn't be trusted. You lied. You state that you want to work it out to him, yet you continue to lie, to hide, to minimize.

At this point, he does not see any commitment from you--or any effort to place value on him, so why should invest in you? Why should he invest in an MC if his wife doesn't value him? Why should he take risk on you when you've proven you won't take the risk on him?

I say do it--tell him everything. Come clean--what's the worst thing that can happen? A D? Looks like that's where this is heading anyway. So why not?

Continuing to lie and minimize and rug sweep and insist on MC for a marraige that doesn't even exist right now is ludicrous. You want to end this for good? Keep doing what you're doing.

You want to fix it? Take a good, long look at yourself and your actions. Take the steps to make a healthy dicision and leave the OM and the OM's family to his own. Take the steps to establishign a wonderful relationship with your children and focus on living an honest, healthy life--because with or without your WBS, you're going to have to life with yourself.

Good luck.

[This message edited by D!senchanted at 1:44 PM, May 25th (Friday)]

I read all of your responses....there was truth and good suggestions in all of them. I have fully entered NC with OM. I gave BH my A phone, and all passwords to fake emails, FB, as well as the real/active ones I normally use. He is free to look at my cell phone and anything else he needs to know I am being truthful and open. I did not delete conversations on FB messenger and he was able to see my comuunications wiht OM, photos, etc. I hid nothing. It was completely humilating, but something I needed to do to get honest and sincerely commit to R if he will allow it. Right now he continues to say that he wants to D, and indicated he was going today to file. I have no idea if he has or not and the thought of it sickens me. He has been gone for a few days and came home yesterday. I received a text from OM, that BH saw first. It was a nasty text about how BH and I deserve eachother. Fortunately, it does show BH that I am not in communication with OM. I have asked him to keep the fake phone and the minutes will run out in a week, so it is headed for the trash, if it hasn't already made it there. When I returned to work this morning, the same message was on my work email, which I immediately forwarded to BH and deleted without responding. I tell BH daily how much I want to work on our marriage, and express remorse, sadness, guilt, and love for him. I left him a card this morning asking him to take time to see if this can be fixed, rather than rushing to file. He sent me a text thanking me for the card. I feel like all I can do is tell him I take full responsibility for my actions and am willing to do whatever it takes to begin the process of repairing and rebuilding. He has not ended his RA, which saddens me, because I know he cannot commit to R if he continues to talk to her (she lives very far away, so he only talks to her now). Obviously, I can't R alone, but I'm not pushing him right now as he's already one foot out the door. Despite him claiming the M is over, he's talking to me daily, and acknowledges that I have offered up full transparency, athough he expresses fear that I have other outlets to communicate with OM. True, but I do not want to speak with OM, and vowed to myself that if he contacts me again, I will notify BH immediately. The next thing I need to do is put my cell phone away when I get home, admittedly this hard, as I am getting a lot of support from friends and am feeling so sad and lonely and panicked, but if its how I show him that he is important right now, than that's what I'll do.

Thanks everyone for your honest responses. I'm listening.

That last post was tremendous. I don't know where this will ultimately land for you, but those are real steps in the right direction.

Pulling for you and your BS.

You have made a huge step forward and have done the right thing.

For what it's worth, if your H is still talking, he most likely hasn't given up completely. Don't give up and keep showing him that you are there and that you're working on fixing you.