What to Do? 3

[Lovelyp]

I like the update. I am learning from your journey Chris19. You are doin very well. May everything work for the best for you.

[chris19]

Thank you all for the feedback.

I have a question for the board. Is anyone aware of a situation within this board where there the H was left behind and the Wayward W moved out and wanted the D? The kicker is, the M was fixed and now are still together. I can take this from the W or the H point of view. I am trying to find more insight to my specific situation.

Basically I am trying to find the same sit as mine, but the M was fixed. It is hard to search through every single post on this board, so I am just wondering if someone know off the top of their head.

[Maika]

Chris - totally don't follow you on that last post.

The H was left behind and the WW moved out and got a D right away? I think that might've happened in some cases. So many WW/WAS say they want a D when BD happens.

What do you the M was fixed? like an arranged marriage?

[Lovelyp]

I am new to the forum so wouldnt know from here.

Personally after confessing to my H that I cheated I was away from him and even wanted to cut contact with him. He threatened that if I do he would have to talk to my family about everything. I had made up my mind to leave him and divorce because we have had many fights and he has been so passive. I got admitted to hospital and didnt even inform him. He found out from some person and he called. He flew in the next day and he was insulting me and saying bad things. I even made my mind that i need to leave him.
After a week or so when I was out of hospital he asked if we could go and see a MC. we went for 2 weeks. He was hurt but for the first time in years he was making an effort and being a good husband. Of course there are times he gets angry and I detach myself. I used to pursue him and be the one who keeps conversations and try to initiate communication all these years but now he is the one who makes an effort. He understands that I had not planned to cheat and I didnt love the OM. He is more supportive than before. He is not passive and making a huge effort to get the marriage going. Though we are still in there I can see light at the end of the tunnel. Seems our marriage may ed up being way better and already I am feeling my needs are being met.

[chris19]

Maika - Yes, you are confused. I am basically trying to find a scenario which is almost identical with mine....only further down the road and the marriage was fixed.

It can be from the H or the W perspective.

Love - your story is very similar to mine; just from the W point of view. That is what I was looking for (along with others if possible). So would you say you had the A with the OM because you H was passive, co-dependent, showed lack of boundaries with you (basically what ever you said goes)?

[Lovelyp]

Let me try to answer you. I think I am a bit similar to your wife because in terms of education and career I think I have been blessed and have had very good positions that my peers havent had. My husband careerwise he is above his peers. I think maybe i might behave and my thought processes may mirrior your wife a bit though I do understand that people are different. My husband is a good person and very family focused, he provided for me and daughter. I must mention he is very attractive. When I cheated she was 8 years old. He is great dad. However, since we married he hs been passive. He would not make an effort to do anything or to resolve fights. When we had problems he would withdraw and avoid saying anything and he had so much resentment. He was not initiating communications or anything related to the marriage so I felt the need to plan for us. I would literally suggest what I need us to do and he would grudgingly go along and do. Slowly I would bottle in a lot of things that hurt me and as a result I lost desire for him. whatever I said he would do and he would not even make me know how he feels so it got to the point where I would feel he is doing out of duty and his heart not in it. Sometimes I would suggest something in a way to provok him to stand his ground and refuse and when I saw him comply I would get turned off. So basically all he did I felt wasnt coming from the heart. I am a quite a strong character and I easily say no to anything that I dont like. In his resentment he would open up to close friends about things happening in our marriage and I accidentally found out. That really made me feel he is a coward and doesnt have the guts to say things to me. I like to be in control so I decided to say things to provoke him to say his issues to me. He said he felt controlled and that I only like to do things my way and that I disrespected him. He told me he had decided to avoid communicating his feelings and decided to just give in to what I want so there would be peace. Problems got worse and he would burst and say bad things because of resentment he had. he withdrew from any form of intimacy and we would only have s*x only when I initiated. I also had so much resentment and things escalated to a point where I just felt overwhelmed and got extremely depressed to the point that I felt to work for months. Failure to work led me to spend more time and effort in work. I then met someone at work (sort of a workmate) who started to help me with a task. He proposed something very interesting and with my husband s blessing started wotking ont hat with him. (This person is a workaholic and not attractive to me- everything from his physical appearance and his character isthe opposite of what I like). In working and talking to me he noticed I was depressed and started asking about whats bothering me. For some time I tried to avoid mentioning anything to him. One day I was really low and he suggested we work over lunch and I opened up. He was having problems of his own in his marriage and seemed to understand. He would say compliments abt my intelligence, how i looked, how i dressed and I started spnding more time with him because I felt better around him. I would look forward to seeing him only because I liked things he said to me and how I felt around him. He met the needs that my husband wasnt for most of the marriage (affection, openly saying how he felt but standing his ground). He was himself around me and didnt seem controlled by me. I would say what led to the A was that I was vulnerable, failed to set boundaries and my resentment and unmet needs cemented the A.

My decision to leave were because I felt overwhelmed by guilt and feared the fights and accusations. I felt my H could never forgive me and i couldnt make things right and I thought divorce would be best. However, how my husband handled this is what made me stay. He didnt tell his friends about the affair and that gesture made me understand that he really wants to work out things. (Most times we had a fight he was always telling his friends so this showed me he has changed in that respect). He seeked MC and paid for it without even complaining. He tried to communicate more even when we were apart and when Im home he started coming home early (he used to come home very late and put his friends first). From the BD he initiates sex and when Im withdrawn he initates conversation. he has so much anger and sometimes he wakes up in a bad mood but he is a better husband. I can see so many changes.
I think how you behave after you found out about the A makes a difference to your wife. If you start to make changes in things she complained to you about it may make her see that there is hope that she can be happy with you again. If you tell many people about the A it may make it difficult for her to stop because she will feel that "there is nothing to loose after all everyone knows about it".
I hope I answered you.

[chris19]

However, since we married he hs been passive. He would not make an effort to do anything or to resolve fights. When we had problems he would withdraw and avoid saying anything and he had so much resentment. He was not initiating communications or anything related to the marriage so I felt the need to plan for us. I would literally suggest what I need us to do and he would grudgingly go along and do. Slowly I would bottle in a lot of things that hurt me and as a result I lost desire for him.

This basically describes me. Through reading the posts to my sitch along with others, it is obvious how the passiveness within the H can cause loose of desire with the W. I believe this is my major failure, and I kind of know because my W has expressed this before...I just never really understood it until now (which is prob too late). I am still trying to find ways and understand how to not be passive as a person in general to 180 myself. But I cannot seem to find to much literature on the subject.

Sometimes I would suggest something in a way to provok him to stand his ground and refuse and when I saw him comply I would get turned off.

My W has done this in the past; the most obvious form of this is when she told me about the OM when she first met him. She told me he made her feel like she wants me to make her feel.

I have a question for you; when you were involved with the OM, were you like addicted to talking with him? I made the mistake a couple weeks back to look at my W phone records, and she seems to call the OM constantly (multiple times a day - some calls are lengthy, other calls are just a few minutes). It just seems she talks to this person soooo much. She even calls the OM like right before or right after contacting me. What does that even mean?

Also, where you ever physically separated from you H? I am currently living apart from W.

[Lovelyp]

yes I was addicted to talking to the OM because he would say things I wanted to hear and make me feel needed. I felt understood. Of course looking back he would listen to my frustrations with my H and made it a point to do that. I can say its all because he had information of what I am missing whereas my H didnt have and kept doing exactlty the same mistakes. I would talk to H and feel worse because he would repeat same things o actions that hurt me. There was a lot of tension between H and I so would feel so empty after talking to my H and would even want to talk to the OM more.

Yes I was physically separated from my H. Of course we had problems but distance made it worse because after being away I would think he would have changed for better but when I was with him and he had become more passive and said things out of anger I sort of gave up on us emotionally. When apart our communication was worse. What would really help is to try to work on how you communicate with her so that she enjoys talking to you. In my case a slight communication and seeing H trying to understand me would have helped. The first year of staying apart he tried and despite our problems I was positive about the marriage. He would come visit and did small gestures and that made me desire him. Some things he did were visit me and take 1 week work leave, talk more about us and asked what I wanted him to do differently, he had done a research of how to improve our sex life and small things I wanted him to do that he had never done before. The second year we drifted and the affair happened during the 3rd year of staying apart.

[Lovelyp]

In fact we were fightin so much and thought staying apart would really help. Initially it did help because H missed me and had time to reflect on certain things and was making an effort. However our communication deteriorated from the second year and our marriae got worse. At times I would really miss my H but as soon as we start talking I would regret even talking to him and start having bad feelings. I think the things he talked about put me off.

[chris19]

Hmm, so do you think if your H detached from you more and GAL for himself you would have been more incline to see the changes in him? Or become more interested?

It seems the things you wanted from your H after being separated are exactly the opposite from what this forum and the things I have learned from reading Michelle's books are.

After the W dropped the bomb and moved out; it is clear detaching from her is the pathway to re-connection (per this website). But you are saying your H did not do that; he was more pursuant towards you?

Are you still involved with the OM? If not, what caused you to stop? Did you H make you do a no contact type of agreement?