SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

What do you think about inviting her to join SI and seek support?

If she posts and the advice is negative I'm going to be kicking myself. So I don't know. Its going to sound incredibly selfish but I have to do protect myself too.

Seriously?? That doesn't 'sound' selfish - It IS selfish.

Not sharing the site that helped you when you needed it, is incredibly selfish.

CheaterNoah, wake up. If you truly want to save your M then give her access to get support from others. You scheduled MC, but you need to do more. Telling her about SI as well as purchasing books for you both to read will prove to her that you really, really want your M back.

She needs the support. At least tell her about SI and let HER make the decision if she wants to seek support here.

OK, so here is the perspective of a BW who had a D-Day while pregnant.........

I did show anger and rage at first but quickly realized the health of my unborn child took priority over my feelings. We went back to status quo until I gave birth. Quite frankly, my WH didn't deserve a thing and I didn't share much with him. I took my wedding ring off and the man didn't get an ILY for a year and some change.

If you can't deal with the silent treatment right now, you won't be able to handle what will follow. I hated my husband for a long time afterwards because guess what, I wasn't happy either and his solution was to screw around rather than fix things.

I honestly don't see you sticking around to do the hard work required. The way wards here have been giving you advice that is spot on.

You are blessed to even be permitted under the same roof as your wife and children right now. At minimum, be about her until she has the baby. If you aren't committed to R by then, man up and leave.

I don't post very often, but I couldn't just lurk on this topic. There was no stop sign, so here goes.

Your wife is treating you as though you are dead to her, because you are! The man she married no longer exists, he is forever gone. The man that promised, gave his solemn vow, has been proven to be a liar. Not only a liar, but a liar, a cheat, and a thief. You have robbed her of her ability to trust and believe in you. Now she has to figure out, in her own time, whether she wants to take a chance on this "new" man, the one she knows has the capacity to cheat. She also has to figure out if she wants to do the hard work of separating the love of her husband from the hatred of his actions.

My question to you is why did you tell her in the first place? My guess is because it was too stressful TO YOUto maintain the secret. The reason I feel that way is your entire post is all "poor, pitiful me, my wife won't throw me a life preserver to save me from my bad feelings about myself". You are behaving like a whiny 3 year old. Your sense of entitlement is huge.

If this entire situation were the other way around, would you have the courage to stay? Or would you take the path of least resistance and bail? Be grateful for every day that she hasn't bailed. And be careful with your attitude, just because she hasn't doesn't mean she won't.

Be very careful of a woman that has the ability to maintain silence. That ranks right up there with x-ray vision and leaping tall buildings in a single bound.

With her help, I do think we can overcome this but to expect me to help us recover alone is too much.

The problem with this is that you don't want her help to fix things. You want her to handle it all just like she does everything else. Well, she can't fix this. YOU HAVE TO.

You admitted to being a poor husband/absent father who pretty much didn't help his wife with anything. That seems to be the way you handle things. You just let your wife do it all. And then you bitch about her not giving you enough attention and that's why you had the affair....not

Time to grow up. Quit sitting back and waiting for your wife to rescue you. She's got enough on her plat already. Be proactive and do something more than nothing.

CN, BS here. I found out just over a month ago and I was 35in weeks pregnant. Be glad she isn't showing you rage. She is protecting the baby as best as she can. I had to swallow so much hurt, anger, fear, and sheer rage because of the damage they would have done to my child. Are you aware of what could happen to her or the baby from the stress? High blood pressure (comes with high risk if stroke), low potassium, low magnesium, low placental pressure, etc. I went through some horrible things from the stress and I had to put my baby through them too. No, you may not be "getting" much from her, but be glad that she is protecting the child so thoroughly, from both her emotions and from you. Don't worry, after the baby is born, the flood gates will open. Once she is allowed to feel again without as much worry for what the repercussions will be for baby, I think you will be surprised at how much she has been stashing away. I wish you luck. And I pray for her and baby.

I felt like if I could open myself up to her and sincerely apologize we could end this as a team.

It is going to take a whole lot more than a *sincere apology* from you to fix this. It isn't as if you forgot to pick up milk from the store on your way home.

You have said repeatedly that the *reason* you got involved with OW was because of how your BW was treating you. And now it really sounds as if you are expecting your BW to *prove* HER way back into the marriage.

Listen, Noah. My WH has said a LOT of the same, exact things to me that you have been saying here. He wanted my *help*...he couldn't do it *alone*....he *needed* attention from me...we needed to be a *team*. And he was also very conditional....he was not willing to do anything for me unless he was going to *get* something....me being *nice*, or me *committing* to something for him. And if the things that he DID do were not met with an immediate fawning attitude of gratitude from me? Then he stopped doing them....because he wasn't *getting* anything in return.

I am divorcing him because of his attitude, Noah. Because he is self-absorbed, self-serving, disloyal and disrespectful.

My question about your level of commitment was *not* a trick question. It was not about the past. I was asking about how you felt today and going forward. Of course it sounds silly for you to say that you were committed to your BW while you were cheating on her. But what about today? Tomorrow? 10 years from now? That was what I wanted you to think about.

I know if the situations were reversed I would be distraught. Almost every other BW who posted on this site was at least hurt and broken up.

You know what my reaction was when I found the emails from my H to the OW? These words LITERALLY ran through my mind: "My husband is cheating on me. My husband is cheating on me, and I don't even care. Does that mean I don't love him? Maybe this is what it feels like when a marriage is over." He came out of the gas station, and I then proceeded to have the remainder of a 2 hour car ride with him and the kids, and Christmas holiday with his parents & family, and I didn't say a WORD about ANY of it. I didn't freak out. I didn't smack him. I didn't scream, yell, cry, ANY of that. Nor did I have an angry fit when he finally admitted 3 weeks later that he'd been sleeping with her (claimed on D-day #1 that he didn't have sex with her). And I didn't go off on him when he admitted 3 months later that he'd gone back to her after D-day#1, and that there were two other OW from the previous year. And I didn't scream at him the night he got drunk, was on the phone with me, and walked past her house while begging me to stay on the phone with him so that he'd be able to resist the temptation to stop and talk to her, and that he'd probably end up sleeping with her again if she opened the door. All things that one would imagine would cause a great deal of immediate fury from a spouse. But I didn't react that way. So I guess your W and I are not like "almost every other BW".

It doesn't mean I didn't care.

The anger showed up with a vengeance 9-10 months later (6 months from D-day#2). If you want her to be angry, just stick around. It'll happen.

How do I show someone I care when she avoids me, recoils when I touch her, and doesn't talk to me? I'm messaging her through the day telling her what I am doing, that I miss her, and her response is to not say anything back. I am trying very, very hard.

Ever read the quote, "Character is what you do when no one is watching"? This is the time when you show what kind of person you are. Do you do the right thing only so that you can gain an ego boost from being praised for it? Or will you choose to do the right thing simply because it IS the right thing, and continue to do it without expecting a reward?

You keep doing it, even when there is no response. It has been two weeks, during which - if I remember correctly - you didn't even go true NC (my apologies if I missed a prior post and you have done so by now)....you need to be patient. I hope to God you have a good MC who can help you understand this process and have a realistic view of time frames.

And hey, if she recoils when you touch her, that's a response. She's disgusted by what you did. Congrats. If she truly didn't care at all, she wouldn't be giving you the silent treatment, she wouldn't recoil. I think it's VERY unrealistic of you to expect her to not only respond to you, but for those responses to be feeding your ego by giving you loving words or touches right now, or anytime soon.

Gonnabe2016: Right now, you still have one foot out the door and I'll GUARANTEE you that your BW knows this.

Agreed. If a bunch of internet strangers get the impression from a few short posts that you seem to have a lack of commitment toward the marriage, I guarantee that your BW sees it too, and probably much clearer.

You need to take a decisive action - if you really can't do the work, leave. Don't put your wife and family through the torture of a false R. Go, and for goodness sake be BY YOURSELF for a while. But if you really want your marriage, step up and do things to save it....WITHOUT waiting for your BW to make the first move. I've just been talking about this with our MC this week (I go alone when my H is away for work). My H needs to step up and take healing actions without depending on me to ask/nag him into it. My assignment this week is to WAIT. Wait and see what he does, and then start thinking about whether what he's doing is enough for me.

Your wife may be waiting. Waiting to see what you do. Waiting to see whether you are committed to her. Waiting for you to prove yourself. If she's watching and waiting for that, what answer do you think your inaction is giving her?

It's a great first step that you confessed....the positive effects of that may not be very apparent for months or years, but it WAS a good thing for you to do. But just because it was a good thing doesn't mean that there aren't going to be negative side effects. Our MC illustrated the effect of a "confession" or even just admitting after a discovery....he held up a heavy object off his bookcase. He said this was the guilt/conflict my H was carrying because of the A. Then he walked over and handed it to me. And there I sat, holding this big heavy thing, didn't know what I was supposed to do with it. Well that's exactly what being told or discovering the affair does. All the guilt and conflict you were carrying around has now been handed to your wife. I am not surprised at all if it takes two weeks or two months for her to figure out what to do with it. In the meantime her "disconnection" may be the only way she has of not collapsing underneath the weight.

We have a counseling appointment next Wednesday and she did agree to come with me. That is the only positive sign she has given me.

Maybe MC will be able to help her process and express her feelings to you.

[This message edited by MFC2011 at 9:00 AM, November 30th (Friday)]

It was me missing the human interaction. The caring. I want it with my BW not with OW. Maybe no one can relate but its so hard to go from having someone love you, like OW did, to someone being indifferent and not caring, like BW.

If you seriously think that the OW 'loved' you, you're delusional. "Oh Noah, you are the biggest I've everrrr hadddd. You make me feel like such a goddess. You conjure up feelings in me that I've never had with anyone else" Yeah. Anybody can say that crap in a sultry voice and the recipient thinks, "Holy crap, I'm pretty hot stuff aren't I?" Doesn't mean it's love. It's actually called Ego Stroking 101. She tells you what you wanna hear, you do the same for her. Hardly the stuff that real relationships are built on.

In your last two threads you have questioned love. People asked you what love meant to you, how you felt about love vs. being in love. Where are you on that? What are you doing to figure that out?

Your wife is in shock and self-preservation mode because from your words here, it is quite obvious you aren't doing much, if anything for her. Instead, you're upset because she isn't sobbing and crying and begging you to let her help you fix the mess.

Why do you have to have someone holding your hand every second?

Why can't you stand up and do what's right?

What are you scared of?

Those are questions that have been asked before that you haven't answered yet. You continually side-step them. And hey, that's fine Noah. If you want to ignore the real, deep issues within yourself, knock yourself out.

You might be able to fool your wife, you might be able to fool yourself, but you are not going to fool the FWS on this board who have been there, done that, and got the t-shirt. We know every excuse that comes out of your mouth. We know. Why? Because we said the same bullcrap. We attempt to help you with our experience. Here's the kicker. We can't do it for you. You have to take some freaking initiative and DO IT yourself. Just like the rest of us. Now, you just have to figure out if you have the courage for it.

One more thing. As you read the replies that you receive, if you feel anger and defiance, examine that. There is a reason you're flaring up. People are hitting on a sore subject. They're zoning in on you. And it hurts when people find that sensitive spot. Again, examine it. I guarantee you it's part of the root of your whole issue.

CN, you are clearly still in the A fog. You are in serious danger of losing your BW and your family yet you cannot see it because you are only thinking of yourself and your unhealthy needs. Ask yourself why on earth would your BW want to stay in a M with you? After what you have done to destroy her, your children, and your M, what makes you think that you are such a great catch? As a BW, I will give you my perspective of why she would not. This is my experience of what a BW knows about her WH and their M:

1. He is a liar and a cheat.

2. He is selfish and has a false sense of entitlement.

3. He is capable and willing to risk exposing the BW to STD's and lifelong and/or deadly diseases. If the BW is pregnant then the WH also exposed the unborn child so that has to be a source of added extreme pain for her. Not only was he willing to risk her health but that of their child. That is a very bitter pill to swallow to know that her health and that of their child was at serious risk and she didn't know it. She never would have consented to continue to have sex with her WH if she knew he was also having sex outside the M. The rage she feels over that is enormous.

4. She knows she cannot believe anything that comes out of her WH's mouth as he has shown just how capable of deceit he is. Everything he says after DD will be suspect and need to be verified. There is nothing trustworthy about him.

5. She feels that her marriage is a fake and that the man she thought she married doesn't exist. She feels like she has wasted her life and feels all kinds of a fool.

6. Through no fault of her own and without her consent she is now a betrayed wife. Her WH really did cheat on her and he really did lie and deceive her. She has to accept that this reality is now her life and she will have a marital history of being a victim of adultery. She will feel immense shame over this new status even though she is not at fault.

6. She has serious doubts that her WH loves her or has ever really loved her. Her self esteem is eroded to the point of being nonexistant. She feels like the lowest of the lows if he preferred a cheating OW over her.

7. The mind movies will drive her crazy and cause many sleepless nights. The anxiety and pain of thinking about the sex acts her WH performed with the OW is extremely painful. Knowing he said "I love you" to another woman, spending time with OW, and giving OW affection will pretty much destroy her.

8. Money spent on OW will be a huge source of anger for her. The WH took money away from his deserving family to please an OW that isn't worth the dirt on the bottom of the BW's shoes.

9. The WH showed his comtempt for his BW and his children because he is willing to risk destroying their lives for cheap thrills with an OW. He is willing to throw them away for an A with a woman that is so pathetic that she doesn't care that he is married and has a family. WH and OW willingly harmed his innocent family for their own selfish gratification.

10. BW has to deal with the knowledge that an OW now knows what the BW's H is like in bed. OW knows what he looks like naked, she knows how he feels, how he smells, and how he sounds. OW will know what he likes and how to please him. The BW will compare herself to the OW constantly and beat herself up for perceived imperfections. She will wonder if the OW was a better lover than her and if her WH compares her to the OW when they are having sex. Thoughts of her WH being with the OW, the secrets they shared, the sex, the love, the time and attention he gave OW will drive the BW to the edge of sanity. If the BW knows the OW or is exposed to the OW it will crush her to have to look at the person that destoyed her life and has such intimate knowledge of her husband. Feelings of rage and hatred will be so far off the scales that they cannot be measured.

Now tell us again CN, why your BW would want to stay in a M with a person that willingly, knowingly, and deliberately ripped her world to shreds? Why would she want a man that is willing to throw her and her children away for ego strokes from a woman with no morals or values?

What I get out of your posts is that you preceived your BW wasn't giving you all the adoration you thought you deserved. IMHO, I think that you had the A as a way to punish your BW and to shake her up so that she would fall at your feet and beg you to love her again. That she would shower you with attention and whorship you. When that didn't happen, it threw you in a tailspin and now you are wondering what went wrong? Why isn't she screaming, crying, depressed, peppering you with a million questions, and clinging to your legs begging you not to leave her? Why would she CN? She is the victim in all of this, not you.

You are the one that should be crying and begging. You are the one that should be moving heaven and earth to right the wrong that you did. You cheated, she didn't. She is the prize Noah, not you. If you don't get your head out of your ass ASAP, you will lose your family forever. It doesn't sound like you deserve them, but if your BW loves you and is willing to work on R, then buddy you better make it worth her while. You need to do anything and everything to make this up to her. If you are too lazy or too selfish then do both of you a favor and go ahead and leave the M. Go into lala land with the OW and see how well that works out for you. Once you are in real life with the OW then you will realize just how effed up she really is. Your exBW will have had a lucky escape and move on to a relationship with a man that truly loves her and deserves her.

Your BW is likely in extreme shock and her mind has shut down in order to protect your unborn child. You should be relieved that she is capable of protecting your child as you have shown that you clearly are not. She will come out of this stage and when she does, you better look out. You will wish for the days to come back when she ignored you. Get ready for the shit storm, it's coming.

If you want your wife to adore you, to idolize you, to shower you with attention then you have to do things and behave in a manner to deserve them. You have to give in order to get. You reap what you sow, Noah. Doesn't sound like you have done any planting in your M. I hope you dig deep and find out why you are so selfish and needy. You and your family deserves better from you than what you have given so far. Best of luck to you in whichever path you chose to take. I hope for your sake and the sake of your family that you make the right choices. Take what you will from this post and leave the rest. I am not trying to beat you down but wake you up. If I am misinterperting your posts then I humbly apologize to you.

Another BS here. Please reread renee21's and soem of the others. Your wife is pregnant. My guess is your wife understands whether consciously or subconsiously that dealing with you right now could cause her to lose the baby. She may just be ignoring you for the safety of YOUR child. This is absolutely the wrong time for you to be selfish. What you should be doing is anything and everything you can to help your wife. Do ALL the housework/chores, cook dinner, give the other kids baths, make their lunches for school, play with them so Mom has some space, do anything and everything that will allow your W to carry YOUR child safely until delivery. No stress from you, you keep the peace at all costs unless she wants to talk. If you need to talk go to a counselor or come to thsi site. Any time you think a selfish thought think of your unborn child.

As for a typical BS reaction, there is no typical reaction other than complete and utter destruction of your emotional and physical well being. I am telling you now that your wife will, if she already hasn't in private, show the signs you are expecting. Honestly you may never see them but she will have them. Everything you read about will come.

I did not explode at my wife. I never cursed at my WW, never got overly upset, or anything. Was I utterly destroyed inside, yes, but I chose not to turn into a heaping mess in front of her or anyone else because one of us had to be funtional for our kids. I even rugswept myself because I couldn't handle it initially. Yes I was mad and upset but I vented to my counselor and incorrectly chose to hold in alot of my feelings. It all came out much later, I mean months later and do you know why it came out then? It came out because my WW had the same attitude you seem to have, she had one foot out the door. Begged me to work on it but when it came time to do the heavy lifting she couldn't and gave up after I had jumped through hoops. I couldn't heal my wife and she couldn't heal me. To me her quitting was just another lie she had told and another stab to the heart. That is worse than if I had just kicked her out on Dday or she had just told me it was over and left. You seem to be heading down the stringing her along path because you don't know what you want. Two weeks is nothing. You have years of stuff in front of you if you wife chooses to attempt R with you. If you want your marriage then jump in 100% with both feet. Yes she may leave but that is something you face anyway. I expect that once the baby arrives you are in for a very, very RUDE awakening.

My advice to you is to step up now. If you truely want your family then focus on becoming the best Father and husband you possibly can be right now. But do it for you not to impress your wife or get points. Do it because it's the right thing to do and you should be doing it anyway. Make a list of stuff you can do and get to it. Your wife will remember dday but she will also remember your actions after Dday. Do you want her to remember the needy, moping around the house you, or the H that stepped up and turned into someone she can depend on while working on his issues regardless of the outcome?

[This message edited by 7yrsflushed at 9:29 AM, November 30th (Friday)]

And I want to be happy myself.

Noah, does that translate into not having to grow up and continuing to run when things get tough? It seems like you want life to be easy. Life is not easy. It's especially not going to be easy now. R is 2-5 years of hard time.

With or without you, your wife is not going to claw her way back to happiness now for a very long time. Finding someone else who cares about her (or you for that matter) is not the immediate answer either. It will be a band-aid. Simply finding new people is not the solution to this problem or any other problem. That's just using people to make yourself feel better in the short-term out of desperation.

You didn't act how your wife expected you to by having an affair and she is not reacting the way you think she should. If it shocks you by her lack of emotion, just imagine how shocked she is by your betrayal. She could be in shock for days, weeks or months. Don't compare her reaction to anyone else in JFO, or to how you think you would react because really you have NO IDEA how you would react unless you've lived it.

You expect her to give you something, anything, when you gave her less than nothing. No consideration at all. And you are concerned that now you have no one. Right now she will be thinking she has no one, because you proved that to her. That is the shocking part.

I bet she is very hurt and broken up but she may not be showing those emotions to you -- her perceived 'attacker', as a way of protecting herself. Besides the shock, which will wear off eventually, some people have a hard time expressing anger. Or maybe she's afraid to let it out for fear of losing control. She may not even know the reason she reacting the way she is.

Why do you assume seeing her anger or rage would make you feel better or that you would react differently to it? As many of the WS and BS on SI can attest to the anger stage is definitely not easy either. Careful what you wish for, Noah.

You are right, you are demonstrating you don't have what it takes. You can't self-soothe. That's part of growing up and it's not easy.

What would you do if your wife had an accident and was paralyzed or couldn't speak and couldn't be there for you. What if she had been raped and traumatized and couldn't stand to be touched because of nightmares and flashbacks. Would you crumble because it's too hard to be with someone who isn't showing caring or effort towards YOU during their worst time in life?

You traumatized your wife. You did this. Stop making it about you and put yourself in your wife's place for a minute. Try to put your selfishness wrapped up in the guise of your *happiness* aside for a bit and see what happens.

You are putting yourself before her in every way, including worrying about her getting support on a forum like SI if it means negative things for you. I hope your wife has a lot of strength in her, she's going to need it for the sake of her children and for herself, and I hope she's talking to someone, anyone, even if it's not you because she needs all the support she can get at the moment.

Uh, yeah. I had to post...you sound so much like my STBX.

BS here.

My WS sounded a lot like you. My world had been torn apart. To shreds. I didn't look at him or speak to him for 2 months. I lost 15 pounds.

He said the right things "I really want us to work out...I'll do anything...we are going to make it...BUT *YOU* have to be nice to me!"

He became so hung up on why I couldn't see HIS pain?

We limped along for several months, in therapy, until the rage hit. IT will hit. Don't worry...you are going to see a reaction. But, she is pregnant. She couldn't care less about anything because her body is forcing her to care for that child FIRST. Even you, the one who feels like he needs something from her, comes last. Her body is doing it's job...baby first.

Her rage at you will hit. Mine didn't hit until almost 6 or 7 months later. When it hit...all I heard was how I wasn't being nice to HIM. He never was concerned about me. I threw him out *one night* ...and guess what? He went back to AP THAT night. He couldn't handle my pain for even one night. I found out 6 weeks later and left.

He is like you. Never really committed...too much hard work to look at yourself and SEE what you have done.

It's been 2 years now. His fog lifted. My WS now tells me he regrets every single thing he did. He didn't SEE me...he built in his head who I was, so he could happily continue his affair. He doesn't get to see his kids but a few days a month now. Everyone in my family hates him. He lost most of his friends Everyone at work gossips about him. He has to split holidays, he misses all the school functions, his kids see him as some fun plaything. He is a stranger in his kids lives. He lives on 25% of what he used to pay wise...the rest goes to me and the children. He sees me for who I am now. A person that was willing to take the most devastating news, and still TRY to make it work. He knows that I will never, never, never try again with him. He destroyed any tiny piece of love I had left.

2 years later, he tells me how much he regrets it. Tells me that he thinks about how much he fucked up every single day. How much he regrets those decisions. How he misses his kids. How he still loves me.

(My WS is bi...and is only dating men now....but still propositions me for sex, and still hangs out at my house, wanting his family back. Still tells me I am the only person he fell in love with. I send him on his merry way after every weekend. )

He was so deep in his own self, he couldn't let ME heal the way *I* needed to heal. He could only think about himself. He could only think about how HE wanted it to go. Since I didn't "play that role" in *his* fantasy of reconciliation....we bombed.

You are trying to control her reactions. Do you realize that? "If only she would...XYZ". I hear a lot of "If only...." from you.

So...guess what? From my perspective, the way you are acting, I'd guess you are going to lose her. You will then split your time with your kids, and she is going to continue on with her life...mostly regretting she ever met you. You, your wife, and your kids, will forever be changed. You may have to pay support to her for a long time. Take the money you, and maybe both of you make...and now stretch that into two separate households.

So, is it worth it to you? You need to let go of the control. You controlled the affair...and now you want to control how she is reacting. Why?? Why do you need her to be hysterical for you? Why would she? She hates you right now. She is planning on protecting her baby and planning how to get the fuck away from you as fast as she can. (These were all the things I was thinking after d-day. I didn't beg, cry, plead...nothing. I hated him. It was 6-8 weeks or more before I even could think R. And at that time...he was begging and pleading me to stay.)

What the hell have you DONE to make her want to stay? You are doing nothing but giving her more reasons to leave.

Reverse the situation. Put yourself in her shoes. Play the scenario out, except make yourself the BS. Just try. Think about her fucking someone else. Picture it in your head, because if her mind will let her...she has. She is seeing you do things over and over and over...and you saying..."But, but...but...YOU aren't being NICE to me!"

Dude. Wake. the. fuck. up. if you want your wife and family. You need to let her fall...and be there to catch her, with no expectations. She has to heal in HER way. She has to deal in HER way...not the way *YOU* need.

LISTEN to these people on SI. We have all been there and back. We KNOW what works. LISTEN to these wise people. Take the advice. You are on here for a reason. Listen. Read. Learn. Stop thinking about yourself.

If my WS had said to me, "I can't imagine how you feel. I am sorry from the bottom of my soul. I want us to work. What can I do for you right now? ". She will say "nothing" probably. So, do it anyway. Draw her a bath, arrange for food to be delivered, arrange a sitter so she can get a break. Arrange for her to go to a hotel for a weekend for a break and to think and cocoon for a while. Don't do stupid things like flowers...that is so bogus...do things FOR her so she can rest. Clean the house, hire a maid, buy her favorite food and just leave it in the fridge. Buy whatever tempts her...chocolate...bread...soup...anything to make SURE she is eating. SHOW her you give a shit. She may take it and throw it in the trash...it's a tiny way of getting back at you. Go buy more. Do it over and over and over.

I may have hated him and wanted out...but I would have noticed.

So Noah,

Wayward to wayward here. There are basically two pages here of BS's telling you how it feels to have it happen to them and from what it sounds like to me, you have been reading that and are looking for signs of that in your wife and are not seeing it. You feel you need this to continue the M, due to the fact that you need to feel wanted and desired.

So, I hear what you are saying in your last post, I really do. And what you have said in your other posts. And you have been asked the question as to whether or not you can do this, and you have answered honestly, you don't know. I think you have been honest about that, because you look at yourself and you do see someone who has a desperate need to have someone validating him all the time. Your wife is not doing that, and has not done that for some time.

So let's look at that for a minute. And I am going to tell you that I have some experience with this, my dad is exactly like you, he needs that constant feed in, just like you. So, you go through with the divorce, put your kids through all of that, and pick up with OW. What happens when she stops giving that to you and wants you to marry her and start having kids? Or everything is great, you marry her start having kids and she does the same thing? You going to cheat on her? Because the problem doesn't lie with these women. It lies within you. Now, I can tell you, there is an endless supply of broken women out there that are willing to give you what you are looking for, ask my dad. I have watched him do it my whole life. You can do this forever, use women to make yourself feel better. Or you can start working on you to fill that hole yourself and never rely on another woman again, and then you can learn to be a truly great husband and father.

See, as a wayward, all of us have to learn this very same thing. We were all in this very same boat that you are in right now Noah. We had to figure out how to fill this huge gaping hole in ourselves while at the same time getting nothing but anger and contempt sometimes from our spouses. Sounds hard doesn't it? It is, I am not going to say it isn't. I did it because at one point I finally realized that I wanted to be a whole person for me, for my kids. I had never wanted to be like my dad, and yet there I was.

So Noah, I don't want you to vapor on this thread. I want you to understand that it is normal to feel weak at this point in the game, it is normal to feel like you can't carry the load by yourself. It is normal to feel like you need to have the huge gaping hole inside of yourself filled, because well that is what you have been doing. But what you need to do now is decide if you are going to change normal, because normal is no longer going to work. You have to change normal, you gotta fix it. Can you do that? I hope for your kids sake you can. You have a support system here. Use it. Get into counseling for yourself. Change your normal. It really isn't working, not for your family anyway.

I wish you well. Hope this helps.

S

Hi Noah

I'll weigh in.

You mentioned questioning if you have the strength to do this. Recovery will not be quick, or easy. It will be the FIGHT OF YOUR LIFE. This close to d-day, positives are few and far between, and this will remain the case for some time.

Admittedly I am a romantic, love-can conquer-all kind of guy. I'm just built that way.That attitude is tempered by the knowledge that it takes a lot of HARD work. gonnabe mentioned you having one foot out the door.

Dude, R is not for sissies, or the faint of heart. You at least have some idea (hopefully) of how difficult this is going to be. Are you willing to go all in, BALLS OUT ? Max effort, and realize that this thing will move at glacial pace. You cannot half-ass this. Commit to your wife and go ALL IN. If you can't or won't, then let her go and find someone who will.

Cowboy up Noah

Holler or pm anytime

JKL

I fully agree with everyone who said she is silent for the sake of your unborn child. When I was pregnant with my girls I would feel incredibly guilty if I raised my voice. I avoided anything stressful. Thankfully I was not pregnant when I learned about my H's affair, but had I been my baby would have been my first priority.

YOU have to tell her how much you want the marriage. YOU have to tell her you love her. YOU have to tell her you are willing to do anything and everything to prove yourself. Don't wait for her to give you the green light. If you want your marriage go down fighting for it.

CN,

First, I wish I would have been on SI 2 weeks out from Dday. Maybe I would have been able to see the light early enough to make a difference. Even after I joined SI and started posting, it took me a while to stop being full of shit. I will say that you seem to be honestly sharing what you are feeling without any filter. That is great. Keep charing, and the SI community will keep on helping. I hope your realize how much a gift all of the BSs are giving you on this, and your other threads.

There is a ton of great guidance here for you. I hope you are letting it soak in. Everyone here wants to help you, please let them. As many have said, we have made the same mistakes, and want to help you avoid some of them. I know your situation seems to you so different and special. That you and your AP were in love, she cared about you, etc, etc. Well, you are not special, neither is your AP. She was not your friend, that was not love. You might not see it right now, you might not ever see that, but for your sake, your kids sake, and your BW's sake, I hope you do.

My suggestion; read the 10 items BaldwinBeauty59 wrote, and check in with yourself and see if you agree or disagree with any of the items. When you disagree with an item, explore it. I know that as a WS, when I was in the fog, i would have argued that some of those things listed were not true about me, but as things became clearer, they are all spot on. And notice that all of the items are about your BW, not you.

Keep posting. Keep being honest on the boards, and SI will be able to help you. But also be open to what is being said to you.

Noah, I feel TG has hit the most important GLARING issue at hand YOU.

Until you can address the insatiable need you have to be validated even to the point of EXPECTING your pregnant wife to initiate the clean up of YOUR mess, your results will be what you have always recieved.

Their is no "TEAM" in individual healing. Your wife can not fix you. Nor should she. It wont stick.

You need to figure out where this excessive need to be validated from outside sources comes from. Its not healthy. Just look at where you are.

I can appreciate that stepping outside the belief system that you have told yourself is scary. That challenging your own thought processes can be confusing. That opening up old childhood wounds is painful and leaves us feeling vulnerable. We all, no matter what combination of the alphabet is attached to us here, have to go down that path, if we are to have any hope of a healthier, safer and enlightened tomorrow.

You need to figure out where this excessive need to be validated from outside sources comes from. Its not healthy. Just look at where you are.

Agree agree agree agree. Please get into individual counseling. Figure out why you need adulation from the outside.

Just a guess - I know for me, the fact that my husband told me that I was so crazy, jealous, insecure, etc. when I had a problem with the things he was doing, hurt more than the actual physical cheating he did (the extent of the physical stuff he did was much less than your affair). I'm guessing your wife is remembering all the times she felt jealous, and all the times you told her she was ______ (fill in the blank with unflattering adjective). Quite possibly she is wondering if you were cheating those times as well.

Right after my first D-Day (the time he confessed, not the time he mindfucked me), I was pretty calm, too. He told me at lunch on a Tuesday, and by 5:00 I had called and set up an appointment for counseling, set an appointment for STD testing for myself, gotten a couple of lawyer recommendations, and opened up a checking/savings account in my name only. No crying from me (plenty from him). I was stone cold for quite some time (with all my friends commenting on my "strength"), and those who've been around here for a while know that I'm not really a stone cold kinda girl. It was just how I reacted at that time. I was in shock, but I was kind of rolling on in self-preservation mode. Taking care of myself and my daughter, who was ten months old at the time. Everyone reacts differently. In the months after D-Day, I showed signs of post-traumatic stress disorder. Sadly, that's pretty common in betrayed spouses. You delivered a trauma to her big enough to give her post-traumatic stress disorder. Don't heap further insult on her by judging her reaction to your blow as somehow lacking.

Please get yourself some counseling.

[This message edited by JanaGreen at 1:25 PM, November 30th (Friday)]

At two weeks out, it was all I could do to breathe let alone demonstrate, to the man who'd decimated my life, that he was of tremendous value to me.

I was present. I was willing to share the same home and airspace with him.

And that was ALL I was able to offer.

I wanted to R.

My husband was indignant that my response did not align with what he expected, or how he thought I'd behave.

Know what? He didn't want to R. He just wanted to find a way to place the responsibility for the end of our marriage on me.

With time--and with a consistent attitude like the one you're showing here (and Noah, I realize this may not be at ALL how you're behaving at home, so I really am not attacking)---I was MORE than happy to assume that responsibility.

He is out of the marriage, free and clear, and believing I was the one to end the marriage.

He needed that.

I needed a husband who, after betraying me in the worst ways possible, did not place unrealistic demands on me. I needed a husband who stepped up to the plate, accepted responsibility for his horrendous behavior, and did his best to make amends. I needed a husband who, for the first time in our married life placed ME above him--and realized that my behavior was a direct result of his actions.

I didn't get that. So he doesn't get a wife.

Think very hard, Noah, about whether that's what you want. Because it's where you're headed if, at 2 weeks out, this is where your head is.

(My husband posted here, just a few weeks after d-day, "How long do I have to eat this shit sandwich?" He had absolutely NO insight into the damage he'd caused. He just wanted it better. There's not a person on SI who doesn't really, truly understand wanting it better. But Noah, your pain--and your wife's? Both were wholly predictable and preventable. And now it's YOUR job to accept the consequences. That you're focused on how hard it is for you? Well, I suppose that's human nature, to a degree. But it's important that you get past your entitlement, and see that your wife's response is one of shock and tremendous pain--and very, very likely also related to the inward-drawing that occurs toward the end of pregnancy. (Have you attended any childbirth classes? Done reading about what a woman goes through during pregnancy? There really is a period of time when a woman draws inward to marshal the energy required not only to get a hugely pregnant body through each day, but also to prepare for the monumental task for delivery.)

ETA: If I were in your wife's shoes, I would NOT attend MC with you at this point. I'd want you to get some IC under your belt, and to gain some insight. MC with a WS who has not yet "gotten it" is emotionally dangerous. Your wife is pregnant; perhaps the selfless and generous thing for you to do would be to say, "Thank you for agreeing to go with me. That means a lot. But I've been thinking; I need to do some work on myself first, and don't want to subject you to more pain. Can we table MC until I'm safer for you?"

ETA again: Please understand that your wife is now at greatly magnified risk for PPD. It might not be a bad idea for you to make her OB aware of the trauma, so that s/he can be on the lookout for the signs and symptoms.

[This message edited by solus sto at 8:12 PM, November 30th (Friday)]

Noah;

FWH here. I'm not going to repeat everything all the other, much wiser than I have said, but seriously man, get your head out of your ass and take total responsibility for the havoc you have wrought. Total responsibility means total, you and you alone, no one else, complete responsibility to fix what you broke, on your own assuming no contribution from anyone else. Or don't, your choice. You can stay broken and take that brokenness into your next relationship and wait for the cycle to repeat.

In the end, you have to fix you. Fixing you means that you have to really understand and accept that you caused the pain and heartache your BS is feeling. This is a very hard but essential first step; and quite frankly, you are not there yet. You are still looking for validation from her that you have done something good by doing what you should have done all along. Once you get this, you can start the exploration of yourself as to why you need so much external validation. Why can't you validate yourself by just doing the right thing? Why do you need someone else to hand you the "atta boy" certificate?

You've started by telling her the truth and that is good, but while you feel relieved that the truth is out and are moving forward or at least in some direction, she is stuck trying to reconcile this truth with everything else she thought she knew about you.

Your expectation that she is going to help you figure yourself out while she is about to give birth is way beyond unreasonable. Like all of us, you want the pain to go away as fast as possible and have her feel better. The reality is that until a while after the child is born, this is way more than she should be dealing with.

My suggestion is that you discuss with her calmly that you know you fucked up and really appreciate her not simply kicking your sorry ass to the curb, and further that you understand that she needs as little stress as possible until after she delivers and you will do EVERYTHING you can to make it so. Let her know that you are prepared to discuss things on her time table when, as and if she wants to. Let her know you are willing but are not going to press her for discussion. You can be assured that she is thinking about it, but you have to realize that she is the one in control of her healing, you cannot force it, all you can do is work on you and support her during the remainder of her pregnancy. If that is her not talking to you, so be it. I'm not suggesting you rug sweep and ignore the elephant in the room, but you need to do your own work in addition to making her life as stress free as possible by being there, being supportive during these last weeks, taking whatever responsibility you can; cook, clean, grocery shop whatever she needs right now. In short, let her see that you are putting her and your new child first on your priority list. AND you need to do these thing without expectation that she is going to somehow validate you for doing them. This may provide her a glimpse of the man you can and want to be.

[This message edited by Finally10 at 2:41 PM, November 30th (Friday)]