Former DBer and H need your help

[rottzilla]

Long initial post - sorry guys... Hey all. I haven't been on the boards for some time now. It's been since March that I posted, and since July of last year that H and I reconciled. Sage, Slowly, Debcb - I see you are still around. Sage, I briefly read your most recent post. I will have to go back and read more. Of everyone on here, I learned so much from you. I thank you for your wisdom and kindness in the past to help me through my tough times.

Briefly to recap my story... In August 2003, H said he wasn't "in love" with me anymore. That he felt about me like a sister. I was shocked. We were the couple people looked up to as the "perfect" example of true love. We were so in love, and it was all a shock to me.

In Jan 2004 after doing all the wrong things - bitching, crying, making a general nuisance of myself - constantly going down the wrong tunnels over and over and over, I found DBing. I loosely applied principles, never really sure that it would work. Around that time, it came to light that my deepest suspicion - another woman - was true. H had begun having an emotional affair with a woman at work.

I began DBing and almost immediately saw results. I was almost a model DBer, and he was a model MLCer. Whatever I read in the book and on the boards fit his behavior to a “t” and I reacted back to his behavior in the right ways, I guess, because before long, he was admitting to having an EA. He tried unsuccessfully back and forth to break it off with her. Eventually, I got involved. I called her, she swore up and down they were in love and he was going to leave me for her. I decided he could have her, and started to walk out the door. Like a light went on, H suddenly panicked and all the love he felt for me “suddenly” came back to him. It was like his feelings towards me came flooding back, and he begged me to stay.

We cried a lot that day. It felt good. He did all the right things instinctively. Changed his phone number, cut off all ties, threw out all the things she bought him. He began to tell me the truth – all the truth. There was never anything physical between them, but he had felt he was in love with her and that she was his true love. Somehow, he had forgotten our “true love” and replaced it. Slowly he came around to realizing that he had never loved her at all, which I had felt all along. That little hope had kept me hanging on a long, long time. Through all the pain, I still felt that he and I were “meant” to be together.

To this day, he is the love of my life. He can’t explain why he did the things he did, but perhaps I should leave that for him to write. You see, we have decided to come here to discuss our lives now, for two reasons. One, we are having trouble getting over one last little hump. I will describe more later. Two, I am hoping that our story will help some of you still struggling. Perhaps he can even help some of you with insight into the other side of the story, and maybe learn something himself. My suspicion is that he went to another woman for emotional love because I had become absent in our relationship. Both because the first love in my life, and ex-boyfriend, had died recently, and I took it very hard. Mind you, he killed himself with a heroin overdose and I blamed myself. It wasn’t because I felt I had lost a love, but rather because I felt guilt about many things in our past relationship. I know now that nothing I did caused him to kill himself. But it still sometimes feels that way. Secondly, in my marriage, I had become a work-a-holic, always looking for the next way to make more money for us. Being a landlord, full time work, full time college, etc. I was just not there with him, and when I was, I was mourning my life. Perhaps something in him felt that he was a failure at making me happy. Which was the furthest thing from the truth. He was all I had in my life that kept me grounded and happy at all. The rest I spent a lot of energy trying to escape. My husband was and is the love of my life, my best friend, and somehow I had begun to take him for granted. I wish I had never done that, it’s my biggest regret.

We need your help and insight guys. First I will catch up on all the new people out there and read some posts. My husband is going to post to this forum also. Then we will post together what we are hoping you all can help us with. Maybe we need counseling. But I feel that perhaps just some insight from some good people will help us out with our last little hurdle to getting back on track. We have the love, and the friendship. We somehow are just lacking that last little bit to our relationship.

[SP1]

Hi Rottzilla -

Just wanted to say welcome Piecing I do remember you from when you used to post. I began posting in '03 (under different name) and came back this Spring
I think that it's great that your H wants to post here and work with you on the DB BB. I'll look forward to reading your & H's updates!

Take Care,
SP

[rottzilla]

Thanks for replying. Who were you before? (Or is that secret?)

I have posted over in SSM forum. Maybe our problems belong over there, but I think it has to do with guilt to some degree.

Again, I will post more of our question later after H and I have a chance to review some of what we read separately today while we were at work.

This is the best forum, you guys are all inspirations!

[sage]

Hiya! Welcome back! Sounds like things have continued to progress well for you and even though you guys need some insight (heck, who doesn't), I'm so thrilled that you're going to be posting together. That strikes me as very cool

Sage

PS Thank you for the kind and supportive words in your first post. I have much less time to be on the BB of late (due to a job switch) and must admit I needed that boost that I got from you!!!

[rottzilla]

Hey Sage, thanks for posting. And it's all true.

Anyway, it seems we are stuck. Maybe H is guilty. Maybe I am expecting too much too soon. We both agree we want things to go back to the way things were before the EA, before I began neglecting the R. But mostly, I want to truly know without a doubt that H loves me.

Going to the five love languages, I am physical touch, and he is acts of service. Lately, he doesn't feel like much PT, although our cuddle life is GREAT. I feel like I am ugly and he is not attracted to me. I also feel perhaps the guilt is getting the better of him, and that is making him hold back a little.

Well, I will let him speak his mind. And I hope you can all help us. Am I expecting too much too soon. Or am I expecting too much, period? UGH!

[JinBklyn]

I feel like a one-woman spokesperson for Shirley Glass (renowned specialist on infidelity) - this interview has some great information about As - the pain, guilt, and most important, healing. This excerpt, I imagine, would be particularly helpful in your situation:

Q: Do affairs ever serve a positive function--not to excuse any of the damage they do?
Dr. G. Affairs are often a chance for people to try out new behaviors, to dress in a different costume, to stretch and grow and assume a different role. In a long-term relationship, we often get frozen in our roles. When young couples begin at a certain level of success and go on to achieve all kinds of things, the new person sees them as they’ve become, while the old person sees them as they were.

The unfortunate thing is that the way a person is different in the affair would, if incorporated into the marriage, probably make their spouse ecstatic. But they believe they’re stuck; they don’t know how to create that opportunity for change within the marriage. A woman who was sexually inhibited in marriage--perhaps she married young and had no prior partners--may find her sexuality in an affair, but her husband would probably be delighted to encounter that new self.

Q: How do you handle this?
Dr. G. After an affair, I do not ask the question you would expect. The spouse always wants to know about “him or her”. “What did you see in her that you didn’t see in me?” Or, “what did you like about him better?” One man asked, “was it that he had a bigger penis?”

I always ask about “you”: “What did you like about yourself in that other relationship?"

How were you different? And, of the way that you were in that other relationship, what would you like to bring back so that you can be the person you want to be in your primary relationship? How can we foster that part of you in this relationship?

Q: That’s a surprising question. How did you come to know that’s the question to ask?
Dr. G. There is an attraction in the affair, and I try to understand what it is. Part of it is the romantic projection: I like the way I look when I see myself in the other person’s eyes. There is positive mirroring. An affair holds up a vanity mirror, the kind with all the little bulbs around it; it gives a nice rosy glow to the way you see yourself. By contrast, the marriage offers a make-up mirror; it magnifies all your wrinkles and pores, every little flaw. When someone loves you despite the fact that they can see all your flaws, that is a reality-based love.

In the stories of what happened during the affair, people seem to take on a different persona, and one of the things they liked best about being in that relationship was the person they had become. The man who wasn’t sensitive or expressive is now in a relationship where he is expressing his feelings and is supportive.

Q: Can those things be duplicated in the marriage?
Dr. G. That’s one of the goals, not to turn the betrayed spouse into the affair partner, but to free the unfaithful spouse to express all the parts of himself he was able to experience in the affair.

I see a lot of men who are married to very competent women and having affairs with very weak women. They feel: “this person needs me.” They put on their red cape and do a lot of rescuing. They feel very good about themselves. That makes me sad, because I know that even though their partner may be extremely competent, she wants to be stroked too. She wants a knight in shining armor. Perhaps she hasn’t known how to ask for it, or the ways she’s asked have pushed him away.

Here is the link to the full interview, which is wonderfully enlightening:

http://www.shirleyglass.com/psychologytoday.htm

Good luck!
Jennifer

[SP1]

Hi Rottzilla - To answer your question, I changed my name from before because I thought it would be too easy to be identified in case H stumbled onto the site, etc. But I did post in Newcomers and MLC forum and my name had to do with the color blue.

What name will your H be using? Mr. Rottzilla

Thanks, Jennifer for posting that excerpt from the Shirley Glass book...what an eyeopener

Take Care,
SP

[rottzilla]

Oooohhhh SP1, hi there. Sorry to see you back but glad you are here.

Not sure what Mr. Rottzilla will use, probably something to do with his favorite cartoon, Speed Racer. (He's so very cute.)

H read that post also, but he is so busy today at work he hasn't had a chance to post back yet. I am curious to see what he has to say. I never thought about the flip side to the typical question. I certainly asked him "what did you see in her" but never "what were you like with her." I know he is hurt and ashamed about what he did and so I try not to bring it up.

Believe it or not, the EA doesn't even affect me anymore. He was so beautiful in the way he reacted to reconciling that he took all fear and hurt out of me (yes, it took some time) about the EA. Now the only pain I have left is "what happened to the perfect R we used to have." I know it will take some rebuilding, but we are just stuck right now, I guess.

[Oh_So_Blue]

What a wonderful idea!!! The insight you will give others will be so beneficial ... I'm sure what you get in return will be helpful as well. I can't wait to read more!

[Rottzuki]

Ok, here I am, Mr. Rottzilla aka Rottzuki.
Talking in a forum like this is a little new to me so yeah, I'm a little nervous. I'll start with this because I think this is the most important.
Like my W says, there is this hurdle I have to get over and I'm not even sure what's causing it. She needs her PT but I only give it to her when she's gone without it for so long that she gets incredibly hurt and upset and starts to leave. We keep cycling like this and every time it's worse and worse. I don't want to keep hurting her.