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Not guilt over how the kids feel when the parents S or D but guilt over how the other party is hurting. My WH and I are separated. I've told him I don't want to R (personally, I don't think he would appreciate R if I allowed it yet anyway - but that's another story!). I told him if he kept his pants on we wouldn't be S. I just can't get over it. I was doing better but my mind goes to the A a lot. He cries, tells me he loves me and his A was a huge mistake. All the stuff you're supposed to say. But I feel guilty. I cry. I feel like the bad guy, but, I know I'm not. Is this normal? It's hard not to fold when he SEEMS to be hurting so bad. Idk.

I think it's normal if you've had some codependent tendencies in the M, and feel responsible for your partner. But he is an adult. These are consequences he invited. He can handle them, or not. You only need to worry about you. He's not your problem anymore.

And if he's trying to make this all about him then he just doesn't get it. He should care about your healing if he feels remorse. This is just self-pity. Pathetic. It's still all about him in his mind.

It's normal, especially if you're dealing with a broken, broken person.

They use FOG - fear, obligation, and guilt to try to keep you as their doormat and under their control. Once you're aware of that, it's easier to recognize the feelings for what they are and not to let them tie you down to years or decades of misery.

I think it's completely normal. You care deeply about this other person. Those feelings don't turn off over night.

Get IC or try MC you hot remorse and regret. Mist on here never get that and in fact have it rubbed in our faces.

Thanks all. I appreciate your words of wisdom.

feel responsible for your partner

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I've been the "adult" in our M for a long time.

They use FOG - fear, obligation, and guilt to try to keep you as their doormat and under their control

This is especially true. He uses how long we've been together and our kids to try to get me to stay but -- why didn't our commitment and children mean anything during his A?

It's nice to get advice from those that aren't directly connected to us. I tried to get pastoral counselling and our pastor took HIS side. Wow. I have been seeing an IC as I don't need to hear "you made a commitment before God. There's nothing He can't forgive Stronger as long as this other lady is out of the picture." What kind of advice is that? It's like telling him it was ok to cheat.

What kind of advice is that?

Ignorant advice. And by that I'm not trying to insult them - they just don't know what they are talking about. I'm sorry you were fed such a hurtful bunch of nonsense.

((((stronger))))

I tried to get pastoral counselling and our pastor took HIS side. ... What kind of advice is that? It's like telling him it was ok to cheat.

Change churches. Today. Go find yourself a church that will give you the bible in context instead of just picking and choosing to benefit one party and not the other.

Yes, forgiveness is important. And yes, we need to eventually forgive. But when adultery is involved, "the faithful spouse is under no obligation to take the adulterer back" (this statement is an actual quote from my own pastor, said during the sermon recently).

Think of it - even your spouse committing murder does not give you right to D. But adultery is the only biblically sanctioned reason for dissolution of marriage besides satanism in modern Christian dogma. Because it's about protecting yourself from a future of sin and pain not of your doing. So you have to be sure he has changed, and you always have the option to bolt if he cheats.

And taking him back and forgiving him in your heart are two completely different things. You can forgive him but still divorce him. I'm very close to forgiving my STBXWW now. But she hasn't changed. So I'm Ding. If she changes, there's always remarriage.

You'd be following both Matthew 6:14-15:

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses

But also following Proverbs 5-8 (about an adulterer, in this case a woman):

Keep to a path far from her, do not go near the door of her house,

lest you lose your honor to others and your dignity to one who is cruel,

lest strangers feast on your wealth and your toil enrich the house of another.

About my STBXWW, if this doesn't describe NC and the 180, I don't know what does.

All of Proverbs is great to read when in infidelity recovery, I think.

On taking STBXWW back before she has done the work on herself first, I rather like Prov 6:24-35:

keeping you from your neighbor’s wife, from the smooth talk of a wayward (woman).

Do not lust in your heart after her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes.

For a prostitute can be had for a loaf of bread, but another man’s wife preys on your very life.

Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned?

Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched?

So is he who sleeps with another man’s wife no one who touches her will go unpunished.

People do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy his hunger when he is starving.

Yet if he is caught, he must pay sevenfold, though it costs him all the wealth of his house.

But a man who commits adultery has no sense whoever does so destroys himself.

Blows and disgrace are his lot, and his shame will never be wiped away.

You do your work, find a church and a pastor who gets it (is there a DivorceCare group in that church? They are usually better informed on these matters), and let WH work on his own stuff.

10 years ago now, I caught my now XWH in an affair. He cried, went to counseling with me, cried there, made promises in the counselor's office, told me it was a huge mistake and that he would spend the rest of our lives making it up to me, went crying to friends and family, begging them to help him get me back.

I thought wow, he must really mean it! He must really love me! He must be so sorry!

I let him move back in on a trial basis. He scammed me, smooth talked me, and was the model husband for 6 years, right up until D-day with OW#2.

At the time, I thought "what if I always regret not giving him a 2nd chance?". Now, I regret giving him that 2nd chance. I would have been so much further along in my healing, my career, everything, if I had not let him back into my life after the 1st affair.

I've been on SI for over 10 years now. The amount of re-occurrence is astounding.

You are not making a mistake. Yes, it hurts, but I'm telling you that you will be so much further along later. Don't delay your healing. Start now.

We want so much to hear those things from them. I actually in a perverse way don't want to hear them, because that's when I cave. I do feel guilty when he talks about the kids, or our 20 years together.

But I think that guilt has to be separate from your decision. It's a normal emotion but has nothing to do with what you should decide, if that makes sense?

The self pity thing- right on the mark. Think back on what he has said to you- is it "Woe is me and what I've done to my life"? or is it directed at YOU, and what he's done to YOU? Most of the time if I go back and read texts, whatever, my WH is feeling sorry for himself. And that doesn't last. When I let him back home a few months ago, within a couple weeks he was back to acting like his old self.