Out of ideas - advice?

[james17]

Hi 2016sux,

I'm so sorry about what you are going through, and wish you all the happiness in the world. I'm in the beginning stages of dealing with D, but thought I'd share with you a little of my experience that may help with guilt.

I was the husband that had an emotional affair, and decided to leave my wife, only to realize my mistake and beg for her back. She was never able to forgive me or trust me again. While I was trying to win her back, I was overcome with guilt, and I realized two important lessons.

1. If you feel guilty while trying to win back your spouse, there's a part of you that wishes to right the wrongs and remove guilt. But this motivation is based on fear instead of self love. this motivation makes it harder to win back your spouse
2. the best way to get over guilt, is to become a better person that would not do those things. For me, i realized that the horrible way i treated my wife will always be wrong. i have been trying to look deep into myself to find the issues that caused me to do those things and heal. I'm not there completely yet, but becoming a little bit better person allows me to forgive myself more. one day, i will awaken and be the type of person that would treat his wife with love and respect always.

i hope that helps a little bit with the guilt. I know it can be really hard to hate yourself. I've done it for a long time, and i hope you find ways to love yourself.

[Dawgs]

I know it can be really hard to hate yourself. I've done it for a long time, and i hope you find ways to love yourself.

I think that in some form, we all have resulting from this situation. I've done it myself in reflecting back on my marriage - I wasn't the best, and had I known my ex's history and how it affects her present and future, I would have done things differently.

[Anchor]

BluWave!

OMG - its like I've been touched by a celebrity! I've read all your posts in 'Piecing' - you're one of the success stories that gives hope. Particularly when you describe how you didn't do DB-ing right to start with.

Having said that I think your husband's return has as much to do with him as it does your efforts. Which is why I don't think my WH will return - he just doesn't want to : (

I apologised yesterday anyway, before I read your post. It did NOT go well. He thanked me and then told me not to beat myself up, because the marriage broke down because of the two of us. He told me the 'old' me would be beating herself up about it for a long time and he didn't want that for me or our son. So in a way I felt absolved and a bit released. Like I could move on a bit.

Then it all fell apart. I broke cardinal DB-ing rule - asked him if he thought we could ever give it a go. If he felt any love for me. Told him I loved him, was in love with him!!! (EEEK ARRGH). Cue a lot of squirming on his end saying "I don't know how many times we have to go through this."

I get confused because he says things like "If we continue down this path, we are getting divorced." And "unless things change we are getting divorced". I read a lot into the "if". Am I wrong to?

I don't quite know how but it became very quickly about money. I lost control and pointed out that he only gave me £200 for December, pleading poverty, when he spent £450 on the OW, on nice dinners and nights out. And on Wednesday when it was sleeting I asked him if he could pick our son up (he has car, I have a bus and long walk) and he pretended not to have read the message until an hour later - stupid move because WhatsApp read receipts showed he read it 3 mins after I sent it. I had kept that to myself but then told him I knew he had read the message and ignored me because I got riled up when he said he would look after me if the cancer returned - as if! When I can't even get a pick up for our son He went onto the defensive and accused me of spending too much - on self help books from Amazon! He walked off really angry and frustrated with me.

On the whole though, I felt I stood up for myself. But at the same time wish I hadn't brought up what I did about OW spend and the WhatsApp message - should have saved it for lawyers. Self control is not my thing : (

[Anchor]

BluWave, I wanted to say thanks for sharing about how things were in your marriage, like the lashing out etc. Because whenever I see a wife, someone with a ring on her finger, someone walking with her husband, I just want to weep because I think "There goes a better woman than me. Her husband still loves her because she's nice to him." I feel so worthless.

[Anchor]

Also thanks to JuJuB and Jeep. I haven't heard stories until recently of how other people lash out at their WS. It's only when I've been describing to my friends how our marriage broke down, they start to say, well actually, I do the same thing etc, but they admit they haven't gone to the extent I did.

Add to that WH's assertion that all he wants is a little bit of kindness in his life and the OW is the nicest kindest woman he's ever met and there goes my self esteem down the proverbial drain. Again, I feel like the ugliest person around.

[Anchor]

Hi james17

Thanks for reaching out - I read your post and I feel your pain. I think you're pretty amazing because you've realised the mistakes you made and you didn't go into the self pity party my husband used as an excuse to make his EA a full blown PA. I think you should give yourself some credit for that. You've shown your wife a lot more respect than my WH has ever shown me. I wish my WH was more like you - it takes awareness and a conscience to be in your position, as painful as it is.

Your advice is amazing and spot on. It's about self love. I have been willing to take this emotional beating, being nice to WH when I know he's going home to OW and living the life with her he should be living with his W, because of my guilt, my self hatred. Which serves no purpose but to make me weaker. So I will take your advice to heart. From now on am focussing on being a better self, and not wasting time on regretting the past. Thank you for sharing the insight - it's valuable and I can see was hard won.

[Anchor]

"I was also willing to work on our relationship and work on making changes. My ex was not."

JujuB - this is a really good point. I am beginning to realise I want to be with someone who doesn't give up when it gets tough. Sometimes when I am feeling more lucid, I know in my heart he's done me a favour by walking away now. If I am in a positive frame of mind, I realise that it's better to be alone than with someone like this, who was capable of lying and acting and compartmentalising to the extent that the persona he was projecting bore no resemblance to who he was inside. And then I feel happy that OW has landed him because as you've pointed out previously, he ain't no prize. I read somewhere else that WHs are prizes for the losers.

"...although I admittedly want husband to want to reconcile if that makes any sense."

I totally understand this. I realise there is conflict in my wanting him back - I want him back but not as damaged as he is now. I realised I just want him back first and then I want to be able to decide what to do with him. I guess, quite bluntly, I still want control of the situation. I want control of my life.

[Anchor]

Well yesterday was a major disaster. I wasn't well at work, started developing a fever, and was dreading hauling myself home. And then thought to myself - why should I have to get on a bus and drag this weary body home when my husband is so busy taking care of his OW? So I decided to call him and asked him for a ride home.

He complied, but was v strained and wouldn't look at me or speak to me really, unless I asked him a direct question. Once we got to the house, he busied himself by making me a hot drink and something to eat, while I crawled into bed. Then he went to get our son from nursery - it was his night to do it anyway.

When he came back I saw he had bought me some meds and a cough sweet he knows I like. It affected me.

I fell asleep and then woke up in a blind panic, one of the worst panic attacks I've had in a long time. I couldn't stop thinking - if I get sick, who's going to look after me? I couldnt' stop thinking about him, about how much I wanted him to get into bed and cuddle me, the way he would have years ago when he cared. So I shouted out for him. He came to the room and sat perched at the edge of the bed as far away from me as possible. And then I fell apart. I did everything you're not supposed to do. I reasoned, I stopped just short of begging, I cried...

[Anchor]

He just sat there, stoic. Didn't really say anything. I told him I loved him, was in love with him. Our son kept bouncing in and out of the room, I asked him not to do this to us. In other words, text book everything you're not supposed to do. He told me he doesn't want me anymore, he's not attracted to me, doesn't see me as a partner ...

When he was saying all these things to me, a part of my mind went quiet and thought of something Cadet always says to all newbies when they post, it's a DB slogan of sorts, isn't it - "Believe nothing of what they say and half of everything they do." In my madness - (I know I'm not right at the moment) - I have to ask - does this mean I shouldn't believe it when he says he doesn't love me anymore and can't ever love me again?

[Zues126]

While you're right that we shouldn't be too consumed by words, we do have to look at behavior. In this case the behavior is that he's had multiple affair partners going on for over a year and that he's not responsive to your pursuing. DB is about doing what works to improve your interactions. Whether a M can be saved or not can't be guaranteed because it depends on them, but you can do your part to break out of old patterns that don't work and give it a chance.

We all battle our emotions at time, trying to do what we know is right despite our fear, our pain. We have to do what we have to do though. For you what you have to do is to quit pursuing behavior, and to detach emotionally from WAH. There are a few thoughts that I held on to that helped me during this difficult period:

How can I expect my WAS to ignore what her emotions are telling her and do what's right (ignore attraction to OM and continue to invest in marriage) if *I* can't do it myself and control my own actions and behavior?

How can I expect my WAS to let go of her dependence on OM, if I can't let go of my dependence on WAS?

It's not fair for us to hold them to a standard of expectation we can't achieve ourselves. Beyond that, you need to be a leader right now. You can't follow your WAH's path. You have to go down your own path. Make it a path that leads by example. Maybe he will follow your example. Maybe he won't. But you have to do your part. Doesn't matter what happened up until this moment. You can start now. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.