Barrybran

[Lostforwords]

"I'll also work on finding out what a "safe, happy home" feels like to my wife in our conversations"

"I had a thought pop to mind just now. Many people say that in-house separation is better than separation via different homes. I've not seen a situation where an in-house separation has resulted in reconciliation while I've seen many situations result in reconciliation after a time apart. I understand the need for the WAS to feel a sense of loss and I don't really know how that can be achieved with both parties in the same home."

Do either of these quotes seem like somebody who is detaching and working on them self? Or do they sound like someone who is not detaching and acting in a manner to their relationship with their spouse?

As to the family....act "as-if" nothing is going on. Act as you would with the family as things are great in the marriage. Actually being social would probably be an 180 for you....and no mention or talk with the family about the separation.

You are missing my point on leaving B....You have left before in the past multiple times. That has built lack of trust and security in your wife. Because of this your wife probably see's you as distrustful, weak, and providing her no security.

By staying you are saying...I will not leave my family again. I am going to live to my purpose of a father and husband to stay and will not take the easy road out. Being a man of conviction and purpose leads to security and trust. You will NOT get love for this, you will NOT get praise....More than likely just evil spew and hate because this behavior is not old B. A man of conviction stands up to spew and hate and in his soul says and knows....I will act as more core tells me to act.

[Barrybran]

Rightyo. I'm just confused about it all. I understand that my statements may seem undetached. Where I was coming from was gathering as much information as I can to make an informed decision and to listen to and learn more about my wife in the process. You'd think after five months I might actually know more than I do.

Is it worth seeing the lawyer and real estate then? I wouldn't mind seeing the lawyer in case my wife does something I don't expect.

[Barrybran]

I swear I need a life coach

[cat04]

I'm just confused about it all. I understand that my statements may seem undetached. Where I was coming from was gathering as much information as I can to make an informed decision and to listen to and learn more about my wife in the process. You'd think after five months I might actually know more than I do.

Your statements seem like you are undetatched, because you are undetatched. No if's, and's, but's, or explanations about it.

Believe it or not, we understand you pretty clearly without you having to explain every single thought you have.

It is the reason you don't understand the reference to the cleaning.

If you were detatched, you would clean as much or as little as you want to and not worry how your W feels because she owns her own feelings and you don't.

Right now that particular topic is a no win situation because she wants to make you responsible for her feelings. It allows her to stay in anger.

There is a book, called After the Affair. I haven't read it but I have heard good things about it. It may help.

Barry, in your first thread, you gave excuses as to how you ended up in the affair. You blamed your W, you blamed yourself, you cried the "it just happened" card, and you know you were wrong.

Do you really understand how you got there?

What have you done to ensure that it won't happen again? Have you learned how to meet your own needs when your W doesn't?

Do you understand even a little bit how deeply wounded your W was by your actions?

I am not trying to bash you, but I get the feeling you just want to move past the affair, and fix the M, and your W is no where near ready to do that. She has no faith that it won't happen again. There is no guarantee that she will ever be able to find that faith again.

The best you can do at this point is work toward really understanding it, really being remorseful (even if you never express it to her), and work toward being a man who is secure enough within himself that he can move through times of strife without looking for validation and attention from any woman.

Just MO.

[gogofo]

I haven't read a book on surviving an affair. If anyone knows of a good one, I'd love to know.

I have not finished it yet, about 1/3 of the way through it, but I am reading "NOT just friends" by Shirley Glass. It is a long book, 456 pages, but it seems to equally approach each side of the affair. It even addresses the person the cheating partner cheated with. It has a cover quote by Michele Weiner-Davis.

I like what I have been reading so far, but have not put it into practice. I am reading it because I think my wife was seeking emotional support and probably had an EA when we were together and right after we separated. Don't know if there was a PA, but I am reading the book to get insight into my feelings and emotions as well as hers. It walks you through how to address the affair and steps you through how to work through and reconcile, if possible.

[Barrybran]

OK, finally replying to Mach's questions. I hope my responses don't appear out of context. If they do, head back to page 2 of this thread where Mach posted them with my quotes.

So one might say that your actions are more of an obligation, and that is what drives you ???

Was your Marriage more of an obligation ?

At work, definitely. When I go to work I feel that I am there to do a job, there are certain expectations of me and if I don’t do my job I”ll be out of work. I take work very seriously. Outside of work, I feel there is so much choice that I don’t know what to do about it. What job do I want to do? What do I want to do for fun? Should I run errands or have downtime? What should I do with my money? There are so many ways to live your life and I have no idea how I want to live mine. As such, I see life as not being an obligation and how I’ve conducted myself in marriage has been an extension of that.

So, if you were to take away the context of your recent conversations, and focus on the content, would you say that there is better communication now ? Or say, a month ago ???

Absolutely. It has continued on since then and I am very happy with it. It is clear both ways and when one of us doesn’t fully understand something, we ask until we do understand. She is still pissed off at me however she is very clear with me now and I appreciate it. There is a lot less misunderstanding going on between us.

You cheated, I get that.

You also found an excuse to cheat. And you also found a way to justify cheating to yourself. Yet you list that as one of your qualities.

Should you pay for that forever ???

Absolutely not....

Yet you really need to dig and find out why you cheated. Not just a superficial scratch on the surface. The real root cause of why you cheated.

For me, this was answered when I read 5LL. I know I’m not unfaithful at heart and yet I did it. I was ashamed of myself and it totally went against who I thought I was. I understand the symptoms very clearly. The reasons, however, came down to my wife and I loving each other in our own love languages and not understanding, and therefore appreciating, the love that came our way. Add in the fact that I have been codependent all my life and I wound up withdrawing first and ultimately cheating.

I think that you are patient, with what YOU want to be patient with.

Little girls are just younger women in training....

Until you learn about Women, you will have trouble with Girls...

Have you read Mars/Venus ???

I can’t say that I have. Should I be reading it?

[Barrybran]

Barry, in your first thread, you gave excuses as to how you ended up in the affair. You blamed your W, you blamed yourself, you cried the "it just happened" card, and you know you were wrong.

Do you really understand how you got there?

What have you done to ensure that it won't happen again? Have you learned how to meet your own needs when your W doesn't?

Do you understand even a little bit how deeply wounded your W was by your actions?

I understand how I got to the point where I cheated. As I wrote in my responses to Mach, I didn't understand that my wife was loving me in her language, I had expectations of how a marriage should be and I was incredibly codependent. It made for a nasty cocktail.

I stopped going to the website I'd abused in May last year when my wife first brought things up. I did that to save trouble for myself. It took me six months to understand the magnitude of my wife's feelings. In November (BD) I cut all contact with the female friend I'd cheated with as well as another female I'd dated briefly while my wife and I were separated before marriage. I hadn't been back to the website in that six months and my motivation for doing so shifted from keeping me out of trouble to understanding that my wife didn't trust me there. I've not been back to the website in nearly 12 months nor had any contact with the people I've cut contact with since November. My wife has had access to my accounts (email, Facebook, etc.) since November (she asked for access in May 2013) and she is free to check them as she sees fit.

I'm still learning to meet my own needs. I feel a lot more in control of myself with regards to neglect and rejection. I understand that communication is key when problems arise. The biggest thing that I've taken away from this is that I am responsible for my own feelings.

As for how deeply wounded my wife is, as mentioned before, that took six months to understand and I've been learning ever since. She's been dealing with it for 14 months and I've been dealing with it for five months.

I am not trying to bash you, but I get the feeling you just want to move past the affair, and fix the M, and your W is no where near ready to do that. She has no faith that it won't happen again. There is no guarantee that she will ever be able to find that faith again.

I can see why you'd think that. I do want to fix the marriage. Deep down, I wish my wife had access to some of the information that I've come across. To understand that you are responsible for your own happiness is a powerful thought and yet it's taken me 30 years to discover it. So much of life is about attitude and I watch my wife walk around angry at me when she could do some reading and turn things around for herself. Of course, I understand that I have hurt her, that she doesn't trust me and that she feels I am the cause of her problems and that she is not interested in building a constructive relationship with me in the foreseeable future.

[cat04]

Barry,

Wondering where you are...

Mars Venus...an older book but very accurate to the difference between men and women.

[Barrybran]

I'm still around. Nothing of note has happened in the past couple of days and my last couple of posts were big ones so I just took a breather :-)

[Barrybran]

My BIL and his fiancé left today after a pretty good week. I stayed out of most things, only joining in where asked or appropriate. There weren't too many awkward moments surprisingly. Our situation didn't come up the entire week though I didn't expect it to. As I left for work this morning my BIL's fiancé said she hopes everything works out between my wife and I and that hopefully things will be good by the time were due to visit them in February. I said thanks and left it at that. I appreciated the thought as it's nice to know that while people are respecting our privacy with regards to the situation, there are people on my wife's side rooting for me.