Hello, everyone. I’ve been sitting on the fence for a while now, reading other people’s stories and hoping to find advice that I could use as well. I finally decided to jump in and share my story too, maybe someone will have advice for me.
I’m sorry this is such a long post – it’s a long story, and even summarizing it “briefly” comes out several pages long. Anyway I assume that my future posts would be shorter, but this time I have the whole long story to explain.
And so - H and I have been together for 40 years, married for 38. We have 3 grown kids.
About 30 years ago, H’s work started to involve a lot of travelling. It’s not just a job for him; the work involves training and mentoring of others in his profession, and he is considered a “big expert” in his field – very flattering for him. Due to the mentoring part, and due to the teaching of various communications skills that are part of the training he provides, some of the clients (especially the female ones) will sometimes ask him for advice on their personal problems. In most cases he helps them without getting personally involved, and has helped quite a few people in this way to solve personal problems or to get along better with their families or significant other.
But in some of the cases, he does get personally involved. It took me a long time to find this out, because over the years when I would see something that looked suspicious, he would always wave it away with a lame excuse, and of course I would feel like some kind of paranoid for suspecting an “innocent” H. Then, in May 2005, I got a call from the husband of one of our business associates, who had found email correspondence between my H and his W. My H and this guy’s wife had been having a PA for at least 6 months. I confronted my H, and I finally managed to get out of him an admission (on condition that I would not reveal this to OW’s H) that it had actually been going on for 5 years – i.e. practically the whole time that we had known OW. H claimed that this was the one and only time he had ever done anything like that, and I forgave him on condition that he wouldn’t do it again.
From time to time after that, I would sometimes encounter suspicious things, and H would again just wave it away with his lame excuses and make me feel paranoid. For example, in the spring of 2006 I discovered some personal emails between him and some of our female clients; he got angry that I was “snooping” (actually I had been doing some administrative tasks in our business email account and found these accidentally) and he claimed that there was nothing going on, he was just “talking to them in a friendly way”. The emails didn’t have anything explicit, but they did seem like they were on the way towards a developing EA. Or, one time I noticed a folder (locked with a password) on one of his USB flash drives. The folder was named after one of our past clients, with whom we still have occasional contact. I asked him, “why is there a folder here named after so-and-so?” and he didn’t reply, but just asked me very angrily, twice, if I had opened it. (Of course I hadn’t – it was locked!)
During this time (from 2005 to the present) I told H from time to time that I need him to be more open with me if he wants me to be able to trust him. He didn’t seem to care about me not trusting him – I suffered tremendously from the feeling of not being able to trust him - feeling stupid for not knowing about the 5-year PA (because if OW’s H hadn’t called me I would never have found out), and feeling both stupid for continuing to believe H, but paranoid for suspecting him – if you know what I mean. I’m sure that this feeling is well-known to many on this forum. From time to time I would try to talk to H about it, but he would deny everything and get angry at me for suspecting him. I told him that I felt like a ship drifting in a sea full of icebergs, never knowing when the next one would hit; but he didn’t care.
During the past few years, H started to have problems with impotency; and gradually this led to a SSM. He would come home from a business trip, and although we would spend time together in general, weeks could go by without him touching me in any way. If he did occasionally initiate sex, he didn’t always succeed. I did everything I could to be patient and encouraging, telling him that I realized that he comes home tired from all the travelling, and he shouldn’t be embarrassed if it doesn’t always succeed. I even told him that I wasn’t even asking him to “perform”, that even cuddling together was fine with me. But most of the time he didn’t even do that, and I just felt so rejected by him not even approaching me. (And in the meantime, I wondered – is he ignoring me because he is getting it elsewhere?) Eventually, I got him to ask our family dr for a prescription, and that has helped, although I still get the feeling that he thinks he is “doing me a favor” to have sex with me. e.g. when he initiates it, he doesn’t begin by approaching me or anything, he asks me (usually on a Saturday morning) whether he should take one of the pills. I understand that he wants to be sure I am “available” before he does it, because each pill is like $20 and we don’t want to waste them, but the way he asks makes it sound like he is only doing it as a favor to me. He says that of course he wants it too, but he is so “polite” about it – not insistent, like he used to be when we were first married.
Anyway - last summer, when doing some housecleaning, I found some letters that H had received from some female clients in the 1990’s. One of them (the one whose name was on the locked file on the flash drive – I’ll call her OW2) had sent several love letters and a very explicit Valentine’s Day card, another one (OW3) sent suggestive pictures of herself, and another one just wrote about her problems with her elderly mother and her siblings. (I’m not sure whether the 3rd one was involved in an affair with him or was just one of those who occasionally asked his advice about personal problems.) After this I again confronted H, and he claimed that this was all ancient history and there is nothing going on between him and these women for at least 10 years. I pointed out that we are still in occasional contact with OW2, but he said that the PA between them was over a long time ago and the only contact between them now is for business reasons.
Of course, all this time H was very secretive about his email, never allowing me to look at it. (After I found the emails in 2006, he changed his password.) From time to time I would try to talk to him about this, and he would claim that it is just that his privacy is very important to him, because when he was a teenager his mother would pry into his personal affairs and tell all her sisters about it. (Another lame excuse.) And that there is nothing going on (of course) and I would need to take his word for it. In the meantime, I read a few self-help books. One of them was “Not Just Friends”, which had so many parts that I identified with. I tried to get him to read it too; after a lot of begging and pleading he agreed (unwillingly) to read a few small parts of it, but I could see that he wasn’t really taking it to heart, it was more like “ok, I read those pages (without paying any attention to them), will you stop nagging me now?”. I read DR about a year ago (I didn’t share that one with him though). Also I found some good articles online by Peggy Vaughan, about what needs to be done to restore trust after infidelity, and (again after a lot of begging and pleading) got him to read some of the main articles. But even after he read the articles, he didn’t change anything. Whenever I would try to talk to him about what he needs to do to enable me to trust him again, he would just listen without responding (like someone waiting for a thunderstorm to pass, so they can go back to what they were doing before) or he would claim that nothing is going on and he “doesn’t know what I want from him”. I told him many times, that a person who has nothing to hide, doesn’t need to hide it. But it didn’t faze him.
Then, this past Feb (after repeated discussions and begging and pleading), I finally got him to agree to show me his email. He gave me the password and I spent a whole night (after he was asleep) going through them. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack, but I’m good at research, and let’s say I found a whole pincushion. And it turns out that I was not paranoid. There were emails there from 2008 to the present, and even though a lot of messages had obviously been deleted, there was still plenty there. Including, at the end, a message to OW2, OW3, and a few others that “from now on please write only to xyz (a new email address) because I am about to allow my wife full access to this address.” (I think those might have been in the “deleted” folder.) Also there was a message to one of the women (I’ll call her OW4) arranging to meet the following week “at the same place we met last time” while he is on his way to his next business trip. (Just a note, when I had asked him regarding the 5-year affair that I knew about, why he had been unfaithful – he said it was because it was “so lonely on the road”. But in this case, he had been home most of the time for 2 months straight, first due to the holiday season, and then local business in January that didn’t require travelling. So this was going to be his first weekend away after we had been together for 2 months and he was already arranging someone else to spend it with.)
Until that time, I had assumed that he was just pursued by admiring female clients who idolized him as being “the big expert” and “the great mentor”, and that it was difficult for him to resist the temptation and flattery. But after reading the emails, I realized that in many cases he was the initiator – i.e. that he would start out by advising them on their personal problems, and gradually develop a personal and then physical relationship with some of them. Obviously not with all of them – most of our past clients didn’t ask him for personal advice at all, and some only asked for brief one-time advice; but this modus operandi of hitting on our clients happened with enough of them to have several PA’s going at any given time.
I was both crushed and furious, and I confronted H the next day, and told him that I was not willing to continue like this; my anger finally shook him up and he said he would stop “cold turkey”. He wrote an email to each of the current OW’s (those to whom he had written the previous day regarding the new email address – there were 6 of them) that the infidelity was causing an internal conflict for him, and he is breaking it off and returning to his wife. There was also another recent client with whom he had started to correspond in a sort of personal way, and he wrote to her saying that from here on they should correspond only about business (if at all, and as needed) but not about personal matters.
I checked his email for a few days after that (both the old one and new one – I insisted on getting the password to that too) and most of the women didn’t reply. But OW3 wrote a long email saying “I am shocked and confused. We no longer have a sexual relationship. What do you see as wrong about us? What has happened to make you say this after all these years?” and then she went on to bash me with accusations that are completely opposite to reality: “You were put into a very unfair situation in your marriage and you did the best you could to be responsible to your family and also remain sane. Your wife has never been fair to you and you shouldn't feel any guilt. From the beginning she picked through the marriage taking what she wanted and leaving you cheated and unfulfilled. A man can only be expected to endure so much. Most men would have divorced her but you stuck it out. Please talk to me. I care so much about your happiness and I am coming to you as your loving friend, since the sexual part of our relationship that you are feeling guilty about no longer exists.”
I was really crushed by this, because it is the complete opposite of the truth. For the past 38 years I have been a loving, devoted and faithful wife, but H did not always reciprocate. And for the past 30 years, my “career” has been, to promote H’s career; to raise our children and take care of our home and family when H was on the road most of the time; to manage our office and also to be available 24/7 for anything H needed (such as – “my car is making a funny noise, can you find a dealer in the next town on my route, who can fix it right away?”) Not to mention emotional needs, if he was feeling down or discouraged or upset about anything, I was always there to encourage him and cheer him up. I was always everyone else’s “cheerleader”. But nobody was ever there for me. If I needed encouragement or cheering up, most of the time he would criticize me for “always getting depressed”. (Ok, sometimes he would say things to cheer me up, but I couldn’t depend on it like he could depend on me to do it for him.) So everything she was saying there was the exact opposite of the truth – I had always been there for H, he had not been there for me. If anything, I am the one who was “put into an unfair situation” and who was left “cheated and unfulfilled”. I had given everything for him – all my time and energy, while he wasn’t there for me physically or emotionally, often criticizing me and making me feel worse when I needed encouragement. And the way she patted herself on the back for being a “loving friend” – what had she done for him at all? As if her giving him occasional free sex was such a big contribution, compared to my 24/7 loving and constant attention to all of his needs. I confronted H about this, and he said that he had never told her anything about me that would make her think these things (yeah right!) and it was all her imagination.
Anyway I insisted that he not leave this hanging, but would write to her saying it wasn’t true, and he did – he wrote: “My decision is not because of you. I got up this morning and I saw the light, and I decided to make my life a lot saner and complete. My wife has been a very good wife, partner, and friend to me and I am very sorry I didn't act accordingly. I plan on doing my best to save my marriage... I love my wife and I care for her and I am terribly sorry for the way I acted. I wish she will forgive me. I wish you the best, just that I cannot be for anyone other than my wife. Please accept my decision and forgive me as well. Also, please consider this email as the last one from me, as I cannot go back to the way I acted."
After this she wrote again, but we agreed that he would not reply to her anymore.
In the meantime, OW2 also wrote, saying "I am sorry for the problems that I know you must be going through right now. It must be really bad. Take some deep breaths. You will get through this. You will come out on the other side stronger and better and wiser. I care about you and want you to be better." (Actually a letter like this could be taken either way – e.g. a friend could write these same words to encourage H to rebuild our marriage. But I think that OW2 is saying the exact opposite, i.e. she means that I am “the problems he is going through” and she is the solution. Even though I have met her and spoken with her as a friend, before I saw the letters she sent H in the 90’s.)
Since that time (in Feb when I went though his emails and we had the confrontation), H has agreed to talk to me a few times about the past, and answer some of my questions. But on the other hand, these conversations are few and far between, and nowhere near the amount that I need. When he is travelling and working, he puts in long days and is really exhausted in the evening, and I know I can’t impose on him then, even for important business questions. And if he comes home for a week or a weekend, he doesn’t really want to talk about it, and how can I jump on him with these discussions and “ruin the good feeling of being together”? Sometimes, if I even ask to have another discussion on the topic, he gets angry, claiming that I am “just trying to make him feel guilty”. Even though I have explained to him repeatedly that this is not the case, I am not “trying to make him feel guilty” but just trying to make sense of what happened, and to undo decades of deception by learning the truth. Or, he asks “why are you always rehashing this?” As if the few discussions so far could possibly be sufficient to undo years of damage, and why can’t I just let him sweep all the rest under the rug? And even if he finally agrees to talk about it, he “stonewalls”. He claims that he “doesn’t remember” or he answers in really general terms that don’t really answer the question I asked.
Also, even though he let me see those past emails, how do I know that I can trust him now? For all I know, he might have opened another new email account and still be corresponding with these women, or others.
I don’t want to throw away a 40-year marriage. If not for the multiple A’s, I would want to stay with H because I do love him and he has a lot of good qualities. I want to save my marriage and I want him to be faithful and to reciprocate what I have given him. I want him to be supportive and encouraging towards me, as I have always been for him.
But I just feel so discouraged. While he has his admirers and fans (all of those adoring clients, both those with whom he had affairs, and those who just admire and flatter him), I don’t have anything like that – all I have is him, and sometimes I just feel so discouraged and worthless. Even though I know, logically, that it isn’t so – I know that I have done a lot of amazing things in my life, both for our immediate and extended family, and for our business, and for other people in our community. In recent years I have also been doing tutoring, helping school kids with their math and science homework, and I know I have done a lot of good in helping the kids feel better about their abilities. So I know, logically, that I am not “worthless”, but I just feel that way when I think about how for all these years, my own husband was so nice to all those other women, and often not-nice to me. He doesn’t hesitate to yell at me if he’s not satisfied with something, but I’m sure he never yelled at them. And in the emails, he wrote a lot of romantic things to them, that he never said to me. (He claims that he “didn’t mean it and just said what they wanted to hear”, which I don’t believe, but even if that were true, why didn’t he do the same for me?)
There is nobody among my friends or family with whom I could share these feelings, because I can’t tell them the real reason I am feeling down and upset. Not just because it would shame him in our family and community, but also because most people, like my friends and family, who have not experienced infidelity, assume that infidelity equals divorce, and they would not be able to understand why I am not abandoning the marriage immediately.
So I really have nobody to talk to about this, and nobody to encourage me, unless H is in a good mood and “kindly” says some nice things. And even when he does, he says it in such general terms, that I get the feeling he is just saying it to pacify me, not because he cares. Then there are the other times when he is not in a good mood, and he gets angry at me for “rehashing the past” and I just feel so attacked. I have spoken to a DB counsellor a few times, and she has really helped, but I can’t afford to have conversations with her as frequently as I would like.
So I finally sat down and wrote out my story, and maybe someone here will have a good word for me, to help me get out of this bottomless pit. (And no, I don’t want to take medication, as a matter of principle I want to use my mind to feel better, I don’t want to be drugged into feeling that way.)
Yes, I know the usual things, such as GAL, and I am doing that, and it helps somewhat. But it’s not enough to help me quickly enough, and I’m just feeling down and discouraged in general. I don’t feel depressed all the time, it comes and goes, but when I do start to feel down, I just feel so unwanted and undesired and worthless.
TT,
I must admit, I only got about halfway thru your long post, but I think I pretty much got the gist of it:
Your husband is a serial adulterer, and refuses to end this behavior and be fully transparent with you (at least without you hounding him about it).
The question is, what are you going to do about it? What are you WILLING to do about it? You do realize that his current attitude about it all is because he's pretty much been able to return to the marriage each time in the past, without any real consequences from you, don't you? I mean, you'd cry or get angry or beg or plead, but I'm not seeing where there's ever been any real meaningful consequences for his destructive behavior. Because of that -- and because he's probably a narcissist personality to begin with -- he's developed a VERY strong sense of entitlement and even INVINCIBILITY, and I highly doubt he even thinks he's in danger of losing anything meaningful to him at this point.
What ARE your true, core dealbreakers? -- your "N.U.T.S." as it were? I like to call them "My Boundaries of Personal Integrity," and with most married people, one of them is "I will not live in an open marriage," or "I refuse to share my husband" or "I refuse to make a priority someone who treats me like a convenience," etc.
Without these, you will find yourself adrift, like the proverbial "frog in the pot of boiling water" story, and then suddenly you wake up, look back at your life, and say to yourself "What was I THINKING???"
Put another way, would you have even CONSIDERED marrying a man like this, if you knew he was capable of this? Now that you ARE married to him, why should you tolerate it now?
Starsky
Sorry that you find yourself in this situation.
I would seriously go to C for the both of you. This will show you how serious he is about staying with you. If I were you, I would also say that this is a good time for you to stay scarce. Since he's had so many affairs, his paranoia about you having one will be at an all time high. This is what's going to be the catalyst to get him to stay.
I now you want things to go quickly but it doesn't work that way in long term relationships. There are issues he has that took years to build up. They can't switch overnight.
1) Marriage counseling - you both really need to see a good counselor, if he won't go, that might be a dealbreaker for me. He's gotten away with this for so long, he might not take you seriously unless you take some action, but the first step would be to insist on counseling.
2)See if he will attend SLAA (sex and love addiction) twelve-step meetings. He'll actually find out he's not unique, others struggle with these same issues and CAN be helped (I have a good friend who goes for her love addiction issues, but she has mentioned guys who are there for exactly these kind of sex addict behaviors).
3) Start reading about sex addicts yourself (Pia Mellody has some good books). I don't know for sure if this is your H's problem - maybe he's just a jerk or a narcissistic sociopath - but reading more about these things may help you figure out what you're dealing with.
4) Take charge of your finances. Make sure you know where every penny is, the status of every credit card, etc. Men who are addicts in one arena, may be hiding other things as well such as gambling, credit card debt, etc. Make sure you protect your financial future.
5) This is not about you. Your H told those women whatever stories he thought would get them to sleep with him. He would have been long gone if he'd actually wanted to be with one of them.
6) Think carefully about your own life - if you don't feel confident to tackle it on your own, what can you be working on so that you get to that point? I am not suggesting that you give up on your marriage - but no one should stay simply because they don't have a full life on their own. Develop your full life, with YOUR friends, doing activities YOU like - then you can decide whether your H still fits into that, and whether he's willing to do the HARD WORK to keep you in his life.
7) From here on out, trust your instincts. He's been gaslighting you for so long - now you need to start trusting yourself.
thanks to everyone who replied. I feel a lot better knowing that you are out there and I am not alone - sort of like after a wound is bandaged. I know that it will take a while to repair/heal, but at least I know it is in the process.
Starsky - those are good points about the "N.U.T.S". I will start to work on that.
also very good point about the "entitlement" and "invincibility". I need to find a way to show him that this won't work anymore. but on the other hand - I really am timid about it, because I know that if we would split up, I would be alone (I'm 59 and not getting any younger) but he would be surrounded by admiring female fans, regardless of his age.
MrB - I will look into counselling. but due to the logistics, it might not be possible. also, in the past there were times when he agreed to go to counselling, but wasn't willing to take any advice! just to try to convince the counsellor why he was right and I was wrong! I can't imagine him behaving any differently now. if he did accept a counsellor's advice, that would be great, but it is so out of character for him. he is accustomed to telling people what to do, not to be told.
KML - thanks, I went to the library yesterday and got some books by Pia Mellody to look through, although I don't know if he is actually "addicted". it's what I thought when I first saw his emails in Feb, but after some reading (e.g.
www.recoverynation.com) I think he is not actually "addicted" and doesn't need a 12-step program, he just needs to learn how to keep his hand out of the candy jar. more like what you and Starsky wrote about him being narcissistic. I would also say "spoiled", because he wasn't like this when we first got married. I think it happened gradually due to being surrounded by admirers.
I'm the one who does the bookkeeping for our family & business, so I am able to keep track of our finances. unless he has a credit card that I don't know about? how could I find out? on credit reports, they "encode" the information and it's difficult to know what card they are referring to. same story with - maybe he has a cell phone I don't know about.
but since our credit reports always come back ok, I don't think he has any outstanding debts.
I am not so much concerned about him leaving me for someone else, because he seems to be a "cake eater". he knows very well that none of them would be the efficient 24/7 support system that I am for him. (and on the other hand, there is a limit how much I could boycott him on this, because often it is necessary for our business. but I could limit my help to things that are necessary and not just for his comfort.)
I will pay more attention to the things I enjoy doing that don't require his presence.
one of my problems is - because of his long working hours, we are able to talk or see each other only according to his schedule. so I need to be available when it works for him, not necessarily when it works for me. e.g. to be available to talk (usually by phone or IM if he is travelling) when he finishes work for the day, before he goes to sleep, exhausted, at 7-8 pm. or, if he cannot come home for the weekend, sometimes he wants me to travel to where he is. and it is nice that he invites me, but sometimes it is a hassle for me to travel like that. my feeling is that if I "make myself scarce" then he will use that as an excuse to get the companionship from someone else (as he has done in the past). I am glad that he "wants" me, but I shouldn't have to feel that I am replaceable if it is not possible or convenient for me to be there for him. I never tried to "replace" him with someone else when he was away.
I don't post much anymore....and I am usually upbeat, but your story hit many cords with me. It definitely sounds like your husband has a sexual addiction problem to say the least. The key being is it is HIS problem.....not yours.
The question then really becomes what are you going to do about for YOURSELF? Can you live in this world where your husband has an issue. And this issue goes way beyond just a general affair....it is almost a sickness.
I see the similarities to the man my wife had her last affair with. The look for a specific personality type that is also looking for advice. Then the page gets pushed a little bit each time to see how far the seducer can go....a slow process and very thought out. This is often accompanied by statements about how bad the cheaters spouse is...How horrible they feel in their marriage, etc. Basically laying the blame for anything that happens on the unsuspecting spouse. Of course then their is the other half of the affair who has a whole world created in their mind that isn't the truth, but they will believe it.
What has happened with my wife's OM...He begged his wife to return home, played the reconcile game, and within three months was prowling for another woman. This continues to this day were he has even called my wife again....among others.
IT is a sickness by the sounds of things and in the end you need to protect YOURSELF.
Ok, here is an update – and some journalling, I guess.
First, I don’t know if H’s problem is actually an addiction, or just a combination of narcissism and doing what he feels like with no regard for my feelings. But even if it were an addiction, I can’t see him ever participating in a “12 step program”. It’s not his style. Just as an example, when our dr told him he needed to change his diet drastically due to high cholesterol, he went and did that without outside help. I helped him figure out a workable diet based on our dr’s recommendations, and he has stuck to it, even though he had to give up some of his favorite foods. But I can’t see him ever participating in “Weight Watchers” or any other “program”. It’s just not his style to “join a group” for something, and the “12 step programs” also involve the humiliation of admitting the addiction, etc. He would never do that even if it was an addiction – and, I’m not even sure it is one. So we will have to scratch the idea of a “12 step program” as “maybe a good idea for some, but wouldn’t work here”.
On the other hand, counselling could work – but only if he would agree to actually follow the counsellor’s recommendations. The only question is how to get him to do that. i.e. – 1) to agree to counselling, 2) to follow up and actually participate in the counselling, and 3) to actually do what the counsellor recommends. My feeling is that if he would do all that we wouldn’t even need the counselling - because he wouldn’t do any of that to begin with unless he had already decided to completely abandon his previous behavior and make our marriage (and me) his priority. And in many ways (as shown by his stonewalling when I ask him questions about the past) he is certainly not there yet.
Anyway, update for this weekend – on Sunday morning I am going to be driving a few hundred miles to a national park, where I will join other amateur astronomers in showing a solar eclipse to the public. This is something that I have been planning for a very long time, because there are only two solar eclipses in the US in this decade – this one, and in 2017.
I have been active in our local astronomy club for about the past 10 years. We often have “star parties” where we bring our telescopes to a school or other public place, to show beautiful sky objects to people and explain what they are seeing. And I really enjoy it, first of all because I find astronomy to be fascinating; and also because it’s really rewarding to see people’s enthusiasm when we show them these things through our telescopes. You see teenagers saying “wow!” and adults telling us that this is the first time in their life that they’ve actually seen a galaxy, or Saturn’s rings. And people have also told me how much they appreciate that besides showing them these things, we also explain what they are seeing in the scope.
But H has zero interest in astronomy. So if he happens to be at home on a day when our astronomy club is having an event, I need to choose between going to the event, or staying home with him – because he certainly isn’t interested in coming to it. And that is sometimes a difficult choice, because he travels so much and isn’t always home. In fact, in some cases he might have travelled very far to be home with me for the weekend, so then it would really be rude for me to just go out and leave him alone. But, the astronomy events are the one time when the focus is on me. Usually the focus is on him as “the big expert”, and I am “wife of the big expert, helping out in the office”. At an astronomy event, I am one of the “experts” explaining to people what they are seeing in the sky.
Now, this weekend, H wasn’t planning to be home. He was supposed to be driving a long distance to get to next week’s job location. But that job was cancelled for next week and postponed to a later date, so H has an empty week. (For simplicity, I’ll talk about L1, the place where he was working last week; L2, the place where he was supposed to be next week; and L3, the place where he needs to be right after Memorial Day. L2 and L3 are pretty close to each other, but both are pretty distant from L1. All three are quite distant from our home.)
So last week he was in L1, and this weekend he was supposed to be doing some very intensive driving to get from L1 to L2. But now he doesn’t have to go to L2, so he has a whole week to get to L3. Our plans for Memorial Day weekend are, that I am going to travel to L3 and we will spend the weekend there together, because if he would come home for the weekend, he wouldn’t be able to get to L3 in time. He needs to be already there.
So yesterday when he finished last week’s job, he wrote to me – “I was thinking, since I don’t have to drive to L2, I can come home for a day or so before heading out to L3. I wouldn’t be able to be home for the weekend, but I could get there by Sunday afternoon.” (This means – he is offering to drive an extra 1000 miles, just to spend a day or two with me at home.)
But I told him – Sunday afternoon I will not be here. I’ll be at the national park showing the eclipse. (Ordinarily, I would not have replied that way. If this were an ordinary star party, I would have cancelled and said, “ok, if you are coming, I will stay home”. But this is an eclipse! I have been planning my participation at this event for the past few years.)
So he said, “Ok, have a good time, I’ll just start driving to L3.” I told him – just a minute, if you were willing to drive home, why don’t you drive to the national park and see me “in action”? Suppose I played a musical instrument and was giving a concert, would you stay home because you’re “not interested in classical music”?
He wrote back right away that he will be happy to see me “in action”; he thanks me for the invitation and was even thinking of suggesting it himself, before I wrote about it. So I am going to be at the eclipse star party at the national park, and he is coming to see me there!
Now, this might seem like something small. But basically he offered to drive about 1000 miles out of his way, just to spend a day or two with me at home; and he then revised that to drive the same long distance, not only to spend a day with me, but to also participate in something that is important for me, and not important at all to him. In fact, even somewhat boring for him, except for the fact that I am involved. So I guess that’s worth something.
On the other hand, counselling could work – but only if he would agree to actually follow the counsellor’s recommendations. The only question is how to get him to do that. i.e. – 1) to agree to counselling, . . .
TT,
First of all, I think your stargazing stuff is WAY cool!
Regarding the above quote, you don't "get" people to "do something." That an ULTIMATUM, and it's controlling. You can only let them know what YOUR boundaries are.
A simple example would be to say "I forbid you to see this other woman!" (ULTIMATUM)
Instead, you should say (if this is indeed true, which is why I wanted you to do some soul-searching about what your core values are): "I cannot remain in a marriage where my husband is still having contact with someone with whom he's had an affair" (or whatever). That's a BOUNDARY.
See the difference?
Starsky
thanks, Starsky. yes, I will continue to think about this over the weekend.
since I last wrote, H and I have had ups and downs. sometimes he is “nice” to me (e.g. if I pretend nothing has happened in the past, and don’t ask him about it, we can have good times together). and sometimes he is just not nice to me. sometimes he can be reassuring and sometimes just hurtful for no reason.
the problem is, I still don’t know whether I can trust him. he says he is not seeing any other women – but he also said that in the past, when he was actively having multiple affairs. so how can I know if he is telling the truth now?
he still refuses adamantly to answer my questions about the past. I haven’t pressured him about it, because I realize this is a sensitive point with him. (some of what he did with the OW’s was apparently “kinky sex” and he is embarrassed to talk about it. or at least that is what he says. anyway I am not pressuring him on that for now.)
instead I have tried to concentrate on at least getting empathy from him – with mixed results. again, sometimes he will be reassuring, and sometimes say things that are very hurtful.
last week we finally had a conversation about what I am feeling, and he said some nice, encouraging things. I want to be reassured by this, and I want to be able to trust him, but how can I be sure about it when he is away from home so much and has so many opportunities? since he travels for his work, there is no way for me to know (short of hiring a PI) if he is spending the weekend alone or with a “guest”.
while thinking about this, I went back and looked at one of the IM conversations we had in the summer of 2011, soon after I found the old letters from several OW’s. here are some of the things he said at that time:
“I am more than happy to share my life with you.”
“I am really willing to cooperate with you to rebuild the trust between us.”
“I also want to fix our marriage. I love you and I respect you.”
“I am willing to share with you more about myself.”
“I want us to go on into old age together.”
“I really want to do my share to put this stuff behind us.”
when I wrote "I am willing to forgive the past, as long as I know that it is all in the past and not continuing”, he replied "Yes. Just in the past."
so that’s reassuring, right?
the problem is, I later found out that when he wrote those nice things, one of the OW’s was right there in his RV spending the weekend with him.
even though I have access to his email account and cell phone records, he could easily have one (or more!) email accounts and cell phones that I don’t know about.
so how could I possibly know if I can now trust him?
since I last wrote, H and I have had ups and downs. sometimes he is “nice” to me (e.g. if I pretend nothing has happened in the past, and don’t ask him about it, we can have good times together). and sometimes he is just not nice to me. sometimes he can be reassuring and sometimes just hurtful for no reason.
the problem is, I still don’t know whether I can trust him. he says he is not seeing any other women – but he also said that in the past, when he was actively having multiple affairs. so how can I know if he is telling the truth now?
he still refuses adamantly to answer my questions about the past. I haven’t pressured him about it, because I realize this is a sensitive point with him. (some of what he did with the OW’s was apparently “kinky sex” and he is embarrassed to talk about it. or at least that is what he says. anyway I am not pressuring him on that for now.)
instead I have tried to concentrate on at least getting empathy from him – with mixed results. again, sometimes he will be reassuring, and sometimes say things that are very hurtful.
last week we finally had a conversation about what I am feeling, and he said some nice, encouraging things. I want to be reassured by this, and I want to be able to trust him, but how can I be sure about it when he is away from home so much and has so many opportunities? since he travels for his work, there is no way for me to know (short of hiring a PI) if he is spending the weekend alone or with a “guest”.
while thinking about this, I went back and looked at one of the IM conversations we had in the summer of 2011, soon after I found the old letters from several OW’s. here are some of the things he said at that time:
“I am more than happy to share my life with you.”
“I am really willing to cooperate with you to rebuild the trust between us.”
“I also want to fix our marriage. I love you and I respect you.”
“I am willing to share with you more about myself.”
“I want us to go on into old age together.”
“I really want to do my share to put this stuff behind us.”
when I wrote "I am willing to forgive the past, as long as I know that it is all in the past and not continuing”, he replied "Yes. Just in the past."
so that’s reassuring, right?
the problem is, I later found out that when he wrote those nice things, one of the OW’s was right there in his RV spending the weekend with him.
even though I have access to his email account and cell phone records, he could easily have one (or more!) email accounts and cell phones that I don’t know about.
so how could I possibly know if I can now trust him?
TT,
I must admit, I only got about halfway thru your long post, but I think I pretty much got the gist of it:
Your husband is a serial adulterer, and refuses to end this behavior and be fully transparent with you (at least without you hounding him about it).
The question is, what are you going to do about it? What are you WILLING to do about it? You do realize that his current attitude about it all is because he's pretty much been able to return to the marriage each time in the past, without any real consequences from you, don't you? I mean, you'd cry or get angry or beg or plead, but I'm not seeing where there's ever been any real meaningful consequences for his destructive behavior. Because of that -- and because he's probably a narcissist personality to begin with -- he's developed a VERY strong sense of entitlement and even INVINCIBILITY, and I highly doubt he even thinks he's in danger of losing anything meaningful to him at this point.
What ARE your true, core dealbreakers? -- your "N.U.T.S." as it were? I like to call them "My Boundaries of Personal Integrity," and with most married people, one of them is "I will not live in an open marriage," or "I refuse to share my husband" or "I refuse to make a priority someone who treats me like a convenience," etc.
Without these, you will find yourself adrift, like the proverbial "frog in the pot of boiling water" story, and then suddenly you wake up, look back at your life, and say to yourself "What was I THINKING???"
Put another way, would you have even CONSIDERED marrying a man like this, if you knew he was capable of this? Now that you ARE married to him, why should you tolerate it now?
Starsky
I would point you back to this, from last year, TT. Did you ever do any serious thinking about this? This is a great example about how such a framework could help you, because either "I need him to be open with me about the past affairs, and he won't" is a dealbreaker for you, or it's not. In my experience, some betrayed spouses need to hear these kinds of details while some do not, but those that DO usually really DO need it before they can feel safe in the relationship again and begin to heal.
Find your non-negotiatable core values, and everything else will flow from those.
Starsky
Starsky, I haven't ignored your previous advice - in fact, I have thought about it frequently.
I would *prefer* if he would be willing to answer my questions - not just to "satisfy my curiosity" but as a sign of remorse. because previously, the OW’s knew all about me and I knew nothing about them; and therefore he can show that it is really all over by exposing them. like the “walls and windows” principle in “Not Just Friends”.
however, I realize this is a sensitive point for him. he doesn’t want to expose them because he doesn’t want to expose himself. so I am willing to hold off on that for now, and to hope that at a future time he would be more open about it. this in itself is not a "deal-breaker" for me. it is more of an item on my wish-list.
I also want him to be kind and empathetic towards me, but I realize that this is also something that needs to be built over time. so that is a “wish-list” item, not a “deal-breaker” right now. I wouldn't wait with this forever, but am willing to wait temporarily.
the deal-breaker would be: if I would find out that he is continuing to see other women. right now I just have suspicions, and I don't know if it is a "gut feeling that I should pay attention to" or if it is simply "hypervigilance".
I don't have anything concrete – just bits and pieces that might not mean anything. e.g. a few weeks ago I came up behind him when he was sitting with his ipad in the evening, and he was furious. I didn't see anything on his screen - he was just playing solitaire, I didn't see any IM windows disappearing, but why was he so angry? he said it was because I startled him by approaching so quietly. but it reminded me of times in the past when he would quickly close an IM window on his computer (and be angry at me for approaching quietly) when I came into the room.
in December, when he was home most of the time, he was "not-nice" to me a lot of the time - and not because of anything I did. it gave me a feeling that he was angry at me for taking away his candy jar. or that the anger might even be a reaction (or smokescreen) for him needing to hide things from me. again, no evidence, just my own suspicions from being burnt in the past.
on the other hand, even when he is "nice" and reassuring towards me, he could still be seeing other women - as in the example I gave in my earlier post today.
this past week was really stressful for me, because it would have been an ideal opportunity for him if he were still seeing other women. it was a week between job locations when he was travelling from one job to another, but didn't have a *lot* of travelling to do. also it included V-day, and is followed by a federal holiday (long weekend). so, ideal opportunity, but no evidence of anything actually happening. of course, in the past, when he was actively conducting multiple affairs, there was usually never any evidence either.
so I just don't know. if my “deal-breaker” is to know that he is not having any further affairs, how can it be a "deal-breaker" for me if I have no way to verify whether anything is going on?
and that brings me back to my first question: how can I tell if anything is going on?
yes, “believe nothing they say and only half of what they do.” great. how do I know when I can stop doing that and allow myself to trust him again?
otherwise I feel that all my DB efforts are just building a sand castle.
Let me get this straight.
He won't discuss HIS infidelity with you because it makes HIM uncomfortable?
Do you see the problem with this?
He cheats repetitively, without an ounce of thought to your comfort.
Now (supposedly) he's stopped doing that, and you need him to discuss his behavior in order for YOU to heal.
He refuses to discuss this, because it's too uncomfortable... for HIM.
Do you see the problem with this picture?
All he cares about is how comfortable HE is.
If he gets uncomfortable, he cheats on you.
If you get uncomfortable, you just have to suck it up?
Come on...
Oh TT,
this is a sad situation indeed. I hear you when you say you don't want to throw away a 40 y/marriage. And that at times, things are decent between you.
But sweetie, he was a serial cheater, and continued to cheat even when saying he was not any more.
I ASSUME/LIKE TO THINK he's cut down on it, but truly, I think he'd be totally transparent now if all the OWs were gone.
And the lack of empathy, the inconsistent concerns about YOU and his inconsistent treatment of you are signs that he's also quite self centered.
If you "resist" or want anything from him beyond what HE feels like giving, he blames you or lashes out and says you "stay in the past", which is the defense an unrepentant man uses.
I see the gesture of going to the eclipse as a gesture...
Look TT, SOME women and a few men are willing to tolerate continuous affairs as long as the affairs are not in their face.
I'm not one of those people but they exist. I won't judge you if you are one of those women, but I think if you are, do it with your eyes open. Own it.
I say this b/c I think you're telling us in effect, you have little chance of "getting him to stop" and you have almost no chance of KNOWING if he has stopped (b/c he won't be transparent).
So really the issue to ME is whether living like this is alright with you...or "alright ENOUGH" to go on, taking the good times for what they are, and pretending he's deployed to Afghanistan when he's not at home...
I won't tell you what to do or not to do. But I hope you'll see a lawyer JUST IN CASE he meets an OW who would like to live with him or for whom he has stronger feelings...
or to see if marital funds are safe. What would happen to you, financially,
if you divorced?
Can you at least protect yourself or get some knowledge from a legal consult?
You do NOT have to tell your h of this. But knowledge is power. I found that knowing my rights was empowering
and then I didn't feel "trapped" in my m.
But I CHOSE to stay married -for a time- for the kids, and then after MY awakening, things got better. My h had an awakening of his own.
IF things did not improve, fast, I'd never have reconciled.
You have some tough choices to make TT. I don't think the choices are as complicated as you're making them out to be, but they are still quite difficult choices to make. I really feel for you.
Good luck
Oh TT,
this is a sad situation indeed. I hear you when you say you don't want to throw away a 40 y/marriage. And that at times, things are decent between you.
But sweetie, he was a serial cheater, and continued to cheat even when saying he was not any more.
I ASSUME/LIKE TO THINK he's cut down on it, but truly, I think he'd be totally transparent now if all the OWs were gone.
And the lack of empathy, the inconsistent concerns about YOU and his inconsistent treatment of you are signs that he's also quite self centered.
If you "resist" or want anything from him beyond what HE feels like giving, he blames you or lashes out and says you "stay in the past", which is the defense an unrepentant man uses.
I see the gesture of going to the eclipse as a gesture...
Look TT, SOME women and a few men are willing to tolerate continuous affairs as long as the affairs are not in their face.
I'm not one of those people but they exist. I won't judge you if you are one of those women, but I think if you are, do it with your eyes open. Own it.
I say this b/c I think you're telling us in effect, you have little chance of "getting him to stop" and you have almost no chance of KNOWING if he has stopped (b/c he won't be transparent).
So really the issue to ME is whether living like this is alright with you...or "alright ENOUGH" to go on, taking the good times for what they are, and pretending he's deployed to Afghanistan when he's not at home...
I won't tell you what to do or not to do. But I hope you'll see a lawyer JUST IN CASE he meets an OW who would like to live with him or for whom he has stronger feelings...
or to see if marital funds are safe. What would happen to you, financially,
if you divorced?
Can you at least protect yourself or get some knowledge from a legal consult?
You do NOT have to tell your h of this. But knowledge is power. I found that knowing my rights was empowering
and then I didn't feel "trapped" in my m.
But I CHOSE to stay married -for a time- for the kids, and then after MY awakening, things got better. My h had an awakening of his own.
IF things did not improve, fast, I'd never have reconciled.
You have some tough choices to make TT. I don't think the choices are as complicated as you're making them out to be, but they are still quite difficult choices to make. I really feel for you.
Good luck
Great post.
Starsky
25mlc, I appreciate your input.
It’s not that I “don’t mind if I don’t know about it”. It’s the exact opposite. I don’t want to be deceived. I feel so stupid for having been so easily deceived in the past.
On the other hand, it is certainly possible that he is being faithful now. He claims that he gave up all the other women “cold turkey” about a year ago, after he showed me his emails; and it is certainly possible that he is telling the truth. Based on other things (e.g. his ability to drastically change his diet when he needed to lower cholesterol), I am sure that giving up his infidelities “cold turkey” is something that he is capable of doing, if he wants to. The question is – does he want to? I don’t know. And I don’t know how to find out if he is now faithful or not. Maybe I am just being “hypervigilant”. Or maybe not. I feel paranoid if I suspect him and stupid if I don’t. But the most important thing for me right now would be – to have some way to *know* one way or the other.
As I said previously, if I would find out that he is continuing to see other women, that would be the dealbreaker for me now. The question is, dealbreaker in what way? I don’t see any advantage for me right now in getting divorced. I would be alone; he would have no lack of companionship. (I have cousins who divorced and remarried, at a much younger age, and each new husband was 10 years older than the previous one.) So I would simply be taking everything I have worked for over the past 40 years, and handing it to another woman on a silver platter. No point in doing that.
But I would make changes – I would not continue to be there for him as I have been till now. I do a lot of supportive things for him, and I would stop doing those things. I feel really stupid for having been supportive towards him all these years when he was doing these things behind my back.
I am pretty sure he would not want a divorce, because then the whole story would come out. For all these years, besides being a devoted wife and partner/co-worker in our business, I have also been his “cover story”, enabling him to be respected in our extended family and our community. So if I have any leverage, this is it. (Of course I would not use this as a threat, because I want him to stay with me and be faithful to me because he wants to – not because I can threaten him. But it is an important thing to know - that divorce is not advantageous for him either.)
Financially – I am totally dependent on him. My “career” has been to raise our family and to promote his career, rather than building up an independent career for myself; and at this point in my life, I would not be able to support myself on my own. Our kids are grown and self-supporting, but I am now responsible for my mother, who needs full-time care. (She has a live-in caregiver, who is much stronger than I am, and is able to do all the things my mother needs. But it’s expensive.) Fortunately my husband has taken full responsibility for my mother’s upkeep; but it is another way that I am dependent on him.
I should probably speak to an attorney as you suggest, just to know what my rights are. How would I go about finding a good one confidentially? I don’t have anyone I could ask, and I hesitate to pick one at random from the yellow pages.
Thanks for your help.
25mlc, I appreciate your input.
It’s not that I “don’t mind if I don’t know about it”. It’s the exact opposite. I don’t want to be deceived. I feel so stupid for having been so easily deceived in the past.
The only way I know of, to KNOW if a spouse is cheating or being faithful, is to hire a private detective to follow him around or investigate the emails and other ways of communicating.
Normally I would not support doing this, but if further deceit is a dealbreaker, then I am supportive of it b/c it would change your approach/course of action (in other cases, when the LBS wants to stay regardless of OP and work on themselves, I often wonder about the reason for snooping. In your case, it might make sense).
On the other hand, it is certainly possible that he is being faithful now. He claims that he gave up all the other women “cold turkey” about a year ago, after he showed me his emails; and it is certainly possible that he is telling the truth. Based on other things (e.g. his ability to drastically change his diet when he needed to lower cholesterol), I am sure that giving up his infidelities “cold turkey” is something that he is capable of doing, if he wants to. The question is – does he want to? I don’t know. And I don’t know how to find out if he is now faithful or not. Maybe I am just being “hypervigilant”. Or maybe not. I feel paranoid if I suspect him and stupid if I don’t. But the most important thing for me right now would be – to have some way to *know* one way or the other.
I understand this^^^ but I don't believe you're "paranoid" at all, given the lengthy history and number of affairs you are aware of. If he thinks it's paranoid, that's just a self serving lack of empathy, imo.
As I said previously, if I would find out that he is continuing to see other women, that would be the dealbreaker for me now. The question is, dealbreaker in what way?
Your use of "dealbreaker" is unusual. For ME, dealbreaker means the end of the marriage. (Not saying that makes me "right", but different). If I hear you correctly, for YOU, "dealbreaker" means changing how you react to him. And probably how you view him and integrity, his honesty, etc.
I don’t see any advantage for me right now in getting divorced. I would be alone; he would have no lack of companionship. (I have cousins who divorced and remarried, at a much younger age, and each new husband was 10 years older than the previous one.) So I would simply be taking everything I have worked for over the past 40 years, and handing it to another woman on a silver platter. No point in doing that.
OKAY HERE WE HAVE IT^^...the answer is here in your own words....
To me, you're saying, in effect, that no matter what HE does to you or behind your back, you will stay married to him. I mean, short of physically abusing you, this is accurate, correct?
AND BTW, who said you'd be alone? You are not alone when he's gone, are you? What's with that fear based choice making of yours? And you assume that any/all OWs would marry him AND that they would be happy?
And that if they are happy that means what about YOU? Please read up on detachment. HIS happiness is not relevant to yours if you divorce.
But I'm reading that you'll stay married to him pretty much no matter what...that's what I'm reading TT. You tell me if I have it right or misunderstand
(or if it's just too scary to see that^^ in writing).
But It's true, isn't it? He can do anything he wants with OWs and you'll stay with him...right?
But I would make changes – I would not continue to be there for him as I have been till now. I do a lot of supportive things for him, and I would stop doing those things. I feel really stupid for having been supportive towards him all these years when he was doing these things behind my back.
Can you give me three+ examples of how you would treat him differently?
Be as specific as possible please.
I am pretty sure he would not want a divorce, because then the whole story would come out.
So his shame could keep him with you, at least for appearances sake? How would that feel to you?
Do you see ANY cost to you for this? I'm not referring to the tangibles, but the intangibles.
And btw, just b/c another woman you know (or a few) did not remarry men their age, is not an index for you to expect the same. Are they happy? I have no idea what you look like or how physically active you are, but you sound like an interesting, kind intelligent woman who is active. That's cool to me.
I guess my point is that who cares if HE could find another woman even younger, (especially if he already is having them)?
I mean, why does that factor in to your choice about how to live your life? Part of detachment will be when you no longer care what HE does or who he is with, if you live your life apart. If he were to marry Christi Brinkley, I can see why an ex wife would feel a tad insecure---unless she is happy on her own. But let's look at 2 other scenarios. One, he marries an OW who appears for all intents and purposes to be a "loser". She's over weight and not attractive, she smokes and has tattoos...yet he chooses her.
wouldn't that also make you feel bad? (So you see, either way, what HE chooses can make you feel lousy if you let it.)
OTOH, what happens if YOU find a man who treats you well? A man who sees your gifts as important or interesting (maybe an astronomy guy) and is attracted to you...and faithful to you? What about that possibility?
Can you see that you give up any chance for finding that, by staying with a man who is cheating on you and probably will for as long as he is physically capable (assuming it's happening)? And what about that? The blue pill issue...
Are you hoping that when he's no longer able to cheat, (I have no idea if an 80 y/o can use them or if there are restrictions other than cardiac ones) THEN he'll be faithful b/c he has no choice? Like a waiting game...but then, how would you know if he was telling the truth and not simply giving it out elsewhere?
I don't say these things to hurt you. I say these things to explore the possible outcomes of your path if you accept his infidelities, which you seem willing to do.
I don't know if you can do that as well as you are pretending here. If you could, then the deceit would be less important. In fact you would not want to know, if it were something you could overlook.
Do you see my point? I worry that by staying married to him, IF he's still cheating, (or is in some 'gray area' like Bill Clinton--gray to HIM, that is)
it'll eat away at you and eventually, a piece of you will die inside. I hope I'm not merely projecting. I think I'm being honest.
For my situation, I know I could live well enough on what I'd have in the event of a divorce, to be fine. Sure, my h is an MD and some OW would "benefit" but on the whole, given our children and what I think I'd find out there, I don't see him as coming out the "winner" but then again, I would not care.
All that would matter is how I was living MY NEW life...b/c I'd definitely be able to detach from a man who repeatedly breaks vows and isn't repentant and won't be faithful...
If your h is still cheating or on the market for a new OW, that means by its nature, that he's not repentant. Nor is he sorry for hurting you "from this day forward."
How would you see him then?
OTOH if he is being faithful, then at some point, you'll have to stop worrying about it. Can't hold it over his head or throw it in his face when you fight.
However, the way you described his behavior, it sounds as if he never really "got it" as to how hurt you were.
Were there any tears on his end? Any genuine signs of true remorse? Not at getting caught, but b/c of hurting you?
The way he treated you in December is revealing to me...and deeply disturbing b/c it answers most of these^^ questions...
And please, please know this.
If he's happy, that does not equate to him "winning" or you "losing." By the same token, if you are unhappy, that proves nothing about HIM.
The index of happiness/misery for you two would be separate. You need to see this clearly. You seem to think if he finds someone (anyone) then you are the loser.
But if he's a cheater, he'll cheat on the next one too.
Case in point.--My uncle left my aunt for OW#1 decades ago. It crushed my aunt for a few years, but she GAL big time, and has an innately positive attitude about life. That's attractive.
She remarried a man who really "got her" and she was happy w/him. He helped her raise her kids as her ex h, the uncle, lived overseas and was not very involved.
Though her 2nd h died early/suddenly, she grieved but again remarried. She's again in a healthy m, and btw, both her 2nd and 3rd h's were younger than she is -by a decade. She's out going, happy and very active physically.
My main point however was this---8 years after her ex h had married his OW, the OW called my aunt to see if uncle (the OWs' h) was over at my aunt's house...So you see, yes, he was still cheating, even on his "new" w. (& God only knows what it took for OW/(aka the new w) to call MY AUNT, the woman uncle had left for her!!...)
At that moment, my aunt said "a weight was lifted off my shoulders. No more sick to the stomach feelings and worrying about where he was or why he was late again...I finally saw that he'd done me a favor by leaving". And she was right.
For all these years, besides being a devoted wife and partner/co-worker in our business, I have also been his “cover story”, enabling him to be respected in our extended family and our community. So if I have any leverage, this is it. (Of course I would not use this as a threat, because I want him to stay with me and be faithful to me because he wants to – not because I can threaten him. But it is an important thing to know - that divorce is not advantageous for him either.)
So you think either he's going to "fall in love" again and not cheat b/c...why? I mean, my GUESS (and it's only that) is that he likes the "falling" part. He craves the attention and intensity of the newness, which he can't get with you b/c he knows you are always going to be there for him. No challenge. No "hunt".
OR
You think shame will be effective as a way to keep him, yet you also don't want to admit that to him or be seen as threatening exposure?
I don't know about that being effective. A Russian author once wrote, "when a man feels guilt, long enough, he attacks". I think there's some truth to that. If they don't get forgiven and allowed to drop the issue, (and that takes humility & effort on their end, to process BEFORE you can just "drop it")
then they tend to resent the party they blame for their guilt. IT's not the OW they blame. (I think this also applies to women, btw). Maybe One can only handle guilt for a certain amount of time.
You either work through it and earn the trust of your loved ones, or you give up and become bitter and blame them. (To be fair, there are some LBSers who make it too hard for the WAS to come home & regain trust. The LBS SAYS "come home" but It's as if they want to punish the wayward spouse more. For those couples, esp with kids, I think it would make more sense to just split up. To me, The worst possible choice to make, is to stay married AND stay miserable)...
I do not think you should make it harder for him to regain your trust, (b/c you need to keep the road home, paved and smooth)
but at this point, he's doing virtually nothing to earn it. He appears to EXPECT you to believe him...as if he's never lied before. That's not realistic or fair or loving, imo.
Financially – I am totally dependent on him. My “career” has been to raise our family and to promote his career, rather than building up an independent career for myself; and at this point in my life, I would not be able to support myself on my own.
That's not true if you are in the USA. You clearly need to see a divorce attorney. Every state has either "equitable division" Or is community property. Both ways you'd get about half of what you two have acquired during the marriage. For life... Yes I'm a L ---but rather than pretend to give you legal advice here, let me repeat my earlier request. SEE A LAWYER to know your rights.
Our kids are grown and self-supporting, but I am now responsible for my mother, who needs full-time care. (She has a live-in caregiver, who is much stronger than I am, and is able to do all the things my mother needs. But it’s expensive.) Fortunately my husband has taken full responsibility for my mother’s upkeep; but it is another way that I am dependent on him.
I should probably speak to an attorney as you suggest, just to know what my rights are. How would I go about finding a good one confidentially? I don’t have anyone I could ask, and I hesitate to pick one at random from the yellow pages.
Thanks for your help.
Yes you need to see a lawyer. You have a lot of fears about asking someone if they know a good attorney. My first suggestion would be to ask a divorced friend (male or female) if they had a good/bad or fair experience with their divorce attorney.
If you won't do that, which I highly recommend, then you need to find someone who does "Family law" primarily or exclusively. Not as part of an overall 20 types of law, but their main source of business. You want a specialist.
Frankly, your property division does not sound complex b/c there's no child support and the marriage is so long there's no argument that he would not have to pay support and divide assets equitably.
The only wrinkle is your mom's care, which 1) is negotiable. Let's face it, if your h is half as concerned about his image as you say, then you have some unspoken weapons in your arsenal that might pressure your h to continue his promise to support her and
2) no offense, but your mom's condition is not permanent. He won't be forever obligated. My mom is 91 and I love her very much. But I know her time is limited.
See a lawyer asap.
Stop feeling trapped and please read about detachment so that you won't care who he ends up with if it's not you.
If he really truly were happier with some OW, then fine, let him go be "happy" with her. At least it'd be out in the open, and the cards would fall where they fall.
I think he'd look like a cliche, and he'd cheat on her OR she'd demand so much "transparency" that he'd find it confining.
You have to respect/love yourself enough to realize what HE'D lose, not what you would lose. (And don't forget what you'd gain).
IF you two divorced, what would YOU really lose? You'd divorce him only if he's cheating so that means
you'd lose A man who cheats and lies and pretends to be someone he's not, and who is
usuallyself centered and even unkind to you, for no reason other than his guilt.
For a moment, assume that you'd be fine financially, even if divorced. Assume that you'd only have your expenses, that you'd do perfectly well in a slightly smaller home OR that you'd get the home..
.just for a minute, assume you'd have enough to live well.
NOW how do you see your marital situation?
And what if he is still cheating? Then what?1) You want to KNOW he's being faithful, and
2) if not, then you would want out. IF this is true, then what keeps you with him is the chance that he's being faithful, and financial fears.
So address those two^^ concerns. That is where your focus ought to be, AND on creating a new happier life without him, which you can do b/c he's been gone a lot over the years.
You know how to be happy without him. Keep doing that.
(I have cousins who divorced and remarried, at a much younger age, and each new husband was 10 years older than the previous one.)
Ha ha - and just to put your fears to rest about THIS one - I was divorced at 52 after 26 years together. I've dated five men since. One was 2 years older. All the rest have been younger than me
25 , great, great, great post.
klm, I like you so much
To me, you're saying, in effect, that no matter what HE does to you or behind your back, you will stay married to him. I mean, short of physically abusing you, this is accurate, correct?
AND BTW, who said you'd be alone? You are not alone when he's gone, are you? What's with that fear based choice making of yours? And you assume that any/all OWs would marry him AND that they would be happy?
And that if they are happy that means what about YOU? Please read up on detachment. HIS happiness is not relevant to yours if you divorce.
But I'm reading that you'll stay married to him pretty much no matter what...that's what I'm reading TT. You tell me if I have it right or misunderstand
(or if it's just too scary to see that^^ in writing).
But It's true, isn't it? He can do anything he wants with OWs and you'll stay with him...right?
Well – it’s not exactly the way you describe it. but I appreciate the input.
It’s not “fear”. I just don’t see any advantage to being divorced. And on the other hand, I would lose out on the few advantages that I do have from my current marriage.
First, we run a business together. How would that work if we divorced? Believe me, my input is important for our business, even though we do have a secretary aka “office manager” who does an ok job, but still my input is important. I can see the difference when I am travelling and not accessible for a day. So if we divorced, I would either need to leave the business (and my absence would be felt, and that would harm me since I am expecting to continue getting income from the business) or I would need to continue to work with my ex – yikes! I CANNOT see that working!
Also, there are times when I need his advice, whether for a household or family matter, and he does give intelligent advice. I have had occasion to compare the advice I have gotten from him, to the advice I have gotten from friends and relatives, and his advice is better, darnit. He has an analytical mind. It’s not for nothing that he is a “big expert” in his field.
And – yes, we have been together for all of our adult life, and raised a family together.
By “alone” I didn’t mean “alone alone”. Yes, I have friends, I have my kids and grandkids, and I spend time with them, go out places, etc. I have my astronomy and tutoring and they keep me busy and give me a lot of satisfaction from helping people. But I don’t have to get divorced for that.
What I meant by “alone”, that was a euphemism for saying that I do not expect to find another husband. Besides the examples of my cousins, there is also the example of my sister, 3 years older than me and widowed for 3 years. She retired from her high-level business job and spends her time with her kids and grandkids. I don’t see her dating at all. And she is a “go-getter”.
On the other hand, I don’t think he would remarry if we divorced. He would continue “playing the field”, although I suppose he would have fewer excuses to give the OW’s. I can guarantee that none of them measures up to me. And I’m not bragging. I just know who we’re talking about.
Divorcing him would just mean that he would continue to do the same but would really do it in my face, and I would have nothing to say about it. After all, if we are divorced, he owes me nothing. And this would make things better for me how? Because I am "free" to date non-existent suitors?
So I don’t see any advantages for me in getting a divorce, but I do see advantages for him (once he gets past the fact that his name would be ruined in our family and community).
Can you give me three+ examples of how you would treat him differently?
Be as specific as possible please.
Well, basically I would detach. I would be looking at an unofficial separation, not a “legal separation” or anything official, but I would stop doing all the little supportive things I do for him.
I would not bother to be available to chat with him, watch movies together (which is more important to him than to me), etc. I would not share “my day” or my thoughts or opinions with him, and would not be available for hearing his. I would not do all the little errands that he doesn’t like to do. I would continue to do the minimum that is necessary for our business, but not with the extra “above and beyond” for his benefit and comfort that I have been doing till now. Basically it is the “After the LRT”.
It doesn’t sound like a lot. But I know it would make a difference. He’s a cake-eater, and I’d be taking that off the table. And if, as a result, he did have an “awakening” and realize what he is losing, that would be a lot easier to fix if we are “unofficially separated” than if we were in the process of getting divorced. “Keep the road paved….” etc.
So, why am I not already doing this? Because he claims he is being faithful. And I don’t have any evidence to the contrary, just bits and pieces that don’t really prove anything. And if he is being faithful, then boycotting him as if he is unfaithful would ruin our last chance to fix our marriage. So I can’t do this unless I am sure.
[quote=too trusting]I am pretty sure he would not want a divorce, because then the whole story would come out.
So his shame could keep him with you, at least for appearances sake? How would that feel to you?
That’s not what I meant. What I meant was that because of this factor, I am not concerned that he might suddenly decide to leave me for one of the OW’s. Yes, I am aware that this is due to his own selfish motives.
Also, while actually getting a divorce would not really give me any advantage, the fact that divorce has this drawback for him, could be a motivator for getting him to change, i.e. stop cheating, if he is still doing that.
If he were to marry Christi Brinkley.... [or if] he marries an OW who appears for all intents and purposes to be a "loser"... wouldn't that also make you feel bad? (So you see, either way, what HE chooses can make you feel lousy if you let it.)
Well, yeah, that’s one of the problems I currently have. At first I thought that he was seeing other women because our clients are mostly “career women”, the type who go around in high heels and uncomfortable but stylish clothes and spend an hour every morning on their hair and makeup. And I’m more “casual”. I’m ok but not “glamorous”. And I thought, at first, that maybe that was the reason he was looking elsewhere, because even if I tried I would not look like a fashion model.
Then I found out who some of these OW’s were – and they were definitely not the “glamorous” ones. Yes, some of them were total losers. So how did that make me feel? Right, even worse. Either way I feel lousy about it.
I don’t know what to do about it, though. Yes, I realize (logically) that it reflects on him a lot more than it reflects on me. But the "logical realization" doesn’t help me when I start feeling rejected.
OTOH, what happens if YOU find a man who treats you well? A man who sees your gifts as important or interesting (maybe an astronomy guy) and is attracted to you...and faithful to you? What about that possibility?
It’s a nice dream, but for various logistic reasons that I’d rather not go into here, it is highly unlikely that I would meet someone who is available and not looking for a nurse. not because of me, but because of demographics.
Are you hoping that when he's no longer able to cheat, THEN he'll be faithful b/c he has no choice?
No, I’m actually hoping that this “After the LRT” will shake him up a lot sooner than that, and make him realize what he is about to lose. No, I wouldn’t let it go that long, till he is “not able to cheat”. And I don’t think he would let it go that long either.
Also, when I say that he is cheating, it’s not just the PA’s but the EA’s also. I know (from the emails I’ve seen) that he was a lot nicer to the OW’s than he is to me. And that really bothers me.
OTOH if he is being faithful, then at some point, you'll have to stop worrying about it. Can't hold it over his head or throw it in his face when you fight.
Well, yeah, that’s the thing. If I could be sure that he is now being faithful, then I would calm down right away. Like, really right away. What is eating me up inside is that in many ways he is behaving like he still has something to hide. That is the only reason I am still worrying about it.
However, the way you described his behavior, it sounds as if he never really "got it" as to how hurt you were.
Right
Were there any tears on his end? Any genuine signs of true remorse? Not at getting caught, but b/c of hurting you?
Nope
You think shame will be effective as a way to keep him, yet you also don't want to admit that to him or be seen as threatening exposure?
No, more like – this is the natural consequence of his behavior, and I am sure he is aware of that, but it would be wrong and counterproductive for me to phrase it as a threat, as if *I* am threatening him.
"when a man feels guilt, long enough, he attacks"... If they don't get forgiven and allowed to drop the issue
Again, that is why I want to know one way or the other, so I would not be dragging out the heavy artillery for something that might just be my own “hypervigilance”.
"I do not think you should make it harder for him to regain your trust, (b/c you need to keep the road home, paved and smooth)
but at this point, he's doing virtually nothing to earn it. He appears to EXPECT you to believe him...as if he's never lied before. That's not realistic or fair or loving, imo.
Yes, exactly
[quote=too trusting]at this point in my life, I would not be able to support myself on my own.
That's not true if you are in the USA. You clearly need to see a divorce attorney.
Yes, we are in the US, and we’re in a community property state. But, I know nothing about how it applies to other aspects aside from our assets. e.g. he is probably not responsible for my income, since our children are grown, and if so I would have difficulty making ends meet. He would probably not have any responsibility towards my mother, either, and that is a big expense. My earning ability is very low because I haven’t developed an independent career, and my available time is limited because of the things I need to do for my mother. (Even with a full-time caregiver, there are a lot of things I need to do also.)
I did call the local bar association referral service, though, and have an appointment for a 30-min consultation tomorrow with a family law atty.
For a moment, assume that you'd be fine financially, even if divorced. Assume that you'd only have your expenses, that you'd do perfectly well in a slightly smaller home OR that you'd get the home...just for a minute, assume you'd have enough to live well.
NOW how do you see your marital situation?
But if he is not cheating, we could rehabilitate the other parts of our marriage. In the scenario you describe, I suppose I would be ok, but would be sorry for having broken up the marriage if it was not necessary.
1) You want to KNOW he's being faithful, and
2) if not, then you would want out. IF this is true, then what keeps you with him is the chance that he's being faithful, and financial fears.
So address those two^^ concerns.
well, I am going to talk with an atty tomorrow, so I should have more information on the financial side. (I don't know if it would be good news though.)
as for whether or not he is currently faithful, let me recap what I understand from various parts of your response -
1) the only way to be *sure* about this is to get a PI. (which I would hesitate to do because it's somewhat invasive to snoop like that. not to mention probably costs a fortune. I was hoping there is some other way.)
2) on the other hand, part of the problem is that he is not making any of the other motions that would be expected from a repentant, now-honest spouse. i.e. - he would be sorry not just about getting caught, but because I was hurt, would show me kindness and understanding, would not get angry when I ask him questions, would not act like he has something to hide, etc - and if he would be doing these things I wouldn't need to hire a PI? or am I stupid to believe him, ever?
That is where your focus ought to be, AND on creating a new happier life without him, which you can do b/c he's been gone a lot over the years.
You know how to be happy without him. Keep doing that.
Yes
just to put your fears to rest about THIS one - I was divorced at 52 after 26 years together. I've dated five men since. One was 2 years older. All the rest have been younger than me
kml, I am happy for your success, but in this case I think "mmmv".
Do you see the problem with this picture?
All he cares about is how comfortable HE is.
If he gets uncomfortable, he cheats on you.
If you get uncomfortable, you just have to suck it up?
Come on...
Shelly, I agree in principle, but I can understand that sometimes, if someone is ashamed of their past behavior, they don't want to keep talking about it. I would be willing to give him some leeway on the "talking about the past" if he would be doing other things that allow me to feel more secure.
I know nothing about how it applies to other aspects aside from our assets. e.g. he is probably not responsible for my income, since our children are grown, and if so I would have difficulty making ends meet.
In most places, he would have to pay you alimony. In my state, typical was 1/2 the number of years of the marriage - I was married 24 years, and would have gotten 12 years of alimony (I traded away 2 of the years for something else).
The bigger issue is whether his income would suffer with you out of the business, whether you could own part of the business, whether you would have to work with him still, etc.
As for the YMMV comment - just fyi, I'm cute but no Christie Brinkley, youthful but 30 lbs overweight. Doesn't seem to matter to the variety of younger (sometimes MUCH younger) men who have found me sexy and interesting since my divorce. I never would have expected this before my divorce - so don't ASSume.
Shelly, I agree in principle, but I can understand that sometimes, if someone is ashamed of their past behavior, they don't want to keep talking about it. I would be willing to give him some leeway on the "talking about the past" if he would be doing other things that allow me to feel more secure.
Talking is the first test of commitment TT. If he can't even manage that, you can't trust him anymore.
No one is suggesting that he has to keep talking about it forever. There SHOULD be a termination date for questions. He should not be in a dog house forever. But at the moment, he refuses to even step inside of it for a day.
You expect this guy to tough out marital repair when he is so spineless he won't even talk about the damage he's done?
THIS is his proof of commitment. If he can't even talk about what he's done, then he can't be trusted not to repeat it. The talking is how he demonstrates sincere maturity and growth.
At the moment, he's showing NONE.
And yes, there are other things he can do of course, but he's not doing THEM EITHER now IS HE?
Sorry, but he's NOT overwhelming anyone with confidence in any maturity or change on his part here.
And if he's not matured or changed, he's just going to cheat again.Refusing an offer from an OP to cheat is HARDER than talking about having cheated in the PAST. THIS guy can't even talk about the damage he's done.
What's the chances he's able to fight OFF temptation later when he won't put up a fight to help YOU NOW?
ZERO.
in my state, (a community property state) w/a 31 year marriage, and w/my h's income a lot higher than mine, I'd get spousal support until if and when I remarried. It'd be nearly half his take home pay, plus in our case, some child support for our youngest still at home.
Child support ends when the youngest leaves.
All assets would be divided in half. IN your situation, your H might have to buy you out OR pay you a salary if you kept working there...
but I understand why you don't feel alright with that. Spousal support is not related to having children, (just to child support) but to length of marriage and income disparity. Division of assets acquired during the marriage is pretty easy to compute.
(Only inherited assets and gifts are not part of community property. That applies to you as well, so if your mother leaves you something or if you inherit, please keep those funds separate from marital/community assets)
In California, a marriage longer than 10 years is presumed to be a "long term m" and
therefore the chance of permanent spousal support leaps upward to increasingly likely. With Your marital length, it'd be permanent or until you remarry.
(Remember Tom Cruise filed for divorce a month before his 10th anniversary? Nicole Kidman was planning a party for them and she was pregnant too. But I'm sure it was a coincidence on his end...
)
Will your standard of living go down? Yes, for both of you. But is it manageable? I'd guess yes.
More later...
TT,
I want to be clear that I too, support your desire to stay married. I really do.
But I have to ask a question of you.
Is there anything he could do w/OWs, short of living openly w/one of them, (and maybe even then) that would make you file for divorce from him?
IF there is, what would that be?
The other issue you are focussing on, aside from your presumption that you would not have suitors and (sorry, I don't know what mmmv means)
AND that he would be happily surrounded by OWs, indefinitely,
is that you want to KNOW what's going on. My presumption is not in his favor due to his lousy attitude towards you and poor treatment.
I'd LOVE to think it's his guilt/shame, but I fear it's not that...and I think you fear that too. Like I said, there is only ONE way to KNOW and that's to get a film of it. Won't he lie in the face of emails and letters and what most of us would consider damning evidence?
i mean, you have some of it but you seem to need more b/c he SAYS he's being faithful (while also not being kind to you AND being more kind to OWs, which in itself would make me want out)...I gotta be honest. It would kill me to see him being nicer to OWs who've done nothing for him, than to me, the woman who raised his kids and helped him with the business so much...
But even that is not enough to make you want out, so sure you are that HE'LL be happy and you'll have no husband...
so again I have to ask you, what is there that would get you to file or leave?
I think it's nothing, b/c every argument about how badly he treats you or the high liklihood of him cheating again or now, is countered by you saying "divorce won't improve that" and I hear you.
But I wonder how you can be happy feeling so powerless.
Can you?
mmmv - my mileage may vary (variant on YMMV, your mileage may vary)
to both kml and 25mlc - thanks for the encouraging info. we'll see what I hear from the atty tomorrow.
The bigger issue is whether his income would suffer with you out of the business, whether you could own part of the business, whether you would have to work with him still, etc.
Those are good questions, we would need to find a solution. Communicating via secretary or via email?
Will your standard of living go down? Yes, for both of you. But is it manageable? I'd guess yes.
Yeah, that's another one of the disadvantages of "just" getting a divorce. Even in the best case, splitting up the household tends to double the expenses; and then there are atty fees. I just wonder about *him* being willing to go through with this just to hang onto his candy jar. It would be so much better for everyone (him, me, our kids – even though they’re grown) if he would just behave the way a good spouse is supposed to behave. The way I behave towards him.
Is there anything he could do w/OWs, short of living openly w/one of them, (and maybe even then) that would make you file for divorce from him?
IF there is, what would that be?
I guess – if I knew for sure that he was continuing to see other women, and if my attempt at “After the LRT” did not motivate him to change. (Right now I don't *know* if he is doing it, I just have a bad feeling, based on some very inconclusive evidence – and I might be wrong.)
The other issue you are focussing on... is that you want to KNOW what's going on. My presumption is not in his favor due to his lousy attitude towards you and poor treatment.
I'd LOVE to think it's his guilt/shame, but I fear it's not that...and I think you fear that too.
yep
while not being kind to you AND being more kind to OWs, which in itself would make me want out...
Well, I don’t know for sure if he is currently seeing OWs. So we might be comparing his current grouchiness to how he behaved *in the past*. But I know from the emails that he spoke to them patiently, kindly, romantically; was always willing to listen to what they had to say. Which means - he's capable of doing it.
But he doesn't have that kind of patience with me. Even if I want to talk to him about a neutral topic (not about what he needs to change, but maybe my opinion on something, or things I have done/am doing) he doesn't always have patience to listen to me. Sometimes he does, but not always. Or if I am upset about something/someone else and need encouragement. Sometimes he can be encouraging, but not always.
And I am always there for him if he wants to talk about something, or needs encouragement, or even if he wants to tell me that he is dissatisfied with something I did/am doing. But if I need to talk to him about things that need to be improved, he says I am "criticizing" him and he gets angry at me for even asking. (And how can we fix things if I am not allowed to talk to him about it?) Even though I never talk in an accusatory way, I always do these things tactfully and diplomatically, like "I wish you would…" Or "I feel…" etc.
I gotta be honest. It would kill me to see him being nicer to OWs who've done nothing for him, than to me, the woman who raised his kids and helped him with the business so much...
Yes, and in my first post I quoted what one of them said. It just burns me up. He says that he never told them anything about me and those negative opinions are only their imagination. Yeah, right...
But I wonder how you can be happy feeling so powerless.
Can you?
No.
Well, in situations like this, I'm a big fan of the idea that knowledge is power.
- see an attorney to get a reasonable idea of what your financial situation might look like if you divorced.
- if you can't decide if you are being paranoid or if H is really still up to something, pay for a P.I. to find out or find some way to confirm it to your satisfaction (not sure how legal it is, but one person here put a voice-activated recorder in her H's car and was able to hear him talking to OW and making plans to leave wife for her).
- even if you decide to stay, start making financial contingency plans - pay off debts, get needed dental work done, stock away a little emergency cash, make copies of financial documents, etc. Better to be prepared in case H does go off the deep end one day.
- check out the Ultimate Retirement Calculator at financial mentor dot com - the easiest and most complete one I've used, can help you run some scenarios.
- run credit checks to make sure your H isn't doing anything screwy with money, like running up big credit card debts.
TT,
There is a way of gaining more confidence in his fidelity short of a PI.
I was the cheater. This is what I had to do to regain the very beginning of my wife's trust. I will have to do this the rest of my life. If I breach it she will have EVERY RIGHT to suspect me.
1) A complete openness to any question she wants to ask about my infidelity and my current daily going's on.
2) Full access to ALL my communication. Email, text, phone, IM at any time she desires. That means I give her all my pass codes. She has the right to pick up my smart phone at any time and read my emails, texts and look at phone numbers. (I can't tell you how relieving it is to not have to worry that she'll find something)
3) Participating in ongoing joint counselling. (It is now focused not on my infidelity, but how to improve our marriage) Not only is it helping our marriage, but it gives her confidence that I am not cheating because it would be impossible to continue the deceit in that setting.
If your husband isn't willing to live with this structure then I think you have every right to question his honesty.
I believe he owes your mutual relationship this level of transparency not necessarily as a penance for his transgressions, but because that's what people who love and respect each other do.
I was the cheater. This is what I had to do to regain the very beginning of my wife's trust. I will have to do this the rest of my life. If I breach it she will have EVERY RIGHT to suspect me.
1) A complete openness to any question she wants to ask about my infidelity and my current daily going's on.
2) Full access to ALL my communication. Email, text, phone, IM at any time she desires. That means I give her all my pass codes. She has the right to pick up my smart phone at any time and read my emails, texts and look at phone numbers. (I can't tell you how relieving it is to not have to worry that she'll find something)
3) Participating in ongoing joint counselling. (It is now focused not on my infidelity, but how to improve our marriage) Not only is it helping our marriage, but it gives her confidence that I am not cheating because it would be impossible to continue the deceit in that setting.
If your husband isn't willing to live with this structure then I think you have every right to question his honesty.
I believe he owes your mutual relationship this level of transparency not necessarily as a penance for his transgressions, but because that's what people who love and respect each other do.
Brilliant Post!!!
You including a cheating spouse's [
u]openness to TALK about their past infidelity as part of the full transparency agreement[/u] is worth five stars ALONE! This is great stuff.
Ok, I talked to an attorney yesterday; and I talked to my DB coach this morning.
The attorney said that since we are a community property state, all assets would be divided either equally or equitably (for things that can’t be divided down the middle). This would include my part-ownership of our company; the company would be appraised and I would get half the value of that. (I already knew the part about division of assets, but I never thought of our company itself as being an asset.)
Since this is a long-term marriage, and since I am not at an age when I would be able to go out and obtain a suitable job, H would be responsible for spousal support, either permanently or until I remarried. The amount would be determined by the court and would be based on our income in recent past years – he could not get out of it by quitting his job in order to leave me without income (which is one of the things that he threatens when he is in a bad mood). So, that is good news, it sort of levels the playing field.
He would not have any obligation towards my mother, so I would need to cover that from the spousal support, but I could probably handle that.
The conversation with my DB coach:
I need to realize that I don’t have any influence over him. We can’t change other people; we can only change our own feelings, attitudes and actions.
The only way I can be sure if he is seeing other women, would be to to catch him redhanded by hiring a PI, which would cost 5K or more, and that’s way more than I could afford. And if the PI *didn’t* find anything, I still wouldn’t know for sure – e.g. maybe the PI followed him on one of the weekends when H *wasn’t* entertaining “guests”. If H is meeting with OWs, then it is sporadic, not constant.
But I shouldn’t let it bother me that he was nicer to the OWs. I need to realize that he could easily be that way to them because they never requested anything from him, and never talked to him about relationship problems. Or if any of them did, they would be out like a hot potato.
Similarly, I shouldn’t ask myself “what did they give him that I didn’t” because his relationships with them were a fantasy, not real life. His attraction to the candy jar is not due to anything that I did or didn’t do; it’s his own weakness. (I’m not saying I’m perfect, everyone has faults, but I’ve been a darn good wife, business partner, and support system for him. And we both know it.)
I need to accept that he does not want any suggestions or advice from me. Not only does he refuse to be transparent, but even when I tell him that I will not pressure him about that, and just want him to be empathetic, or to read a book about what an unfaithful spouse needs to do to fix what he broke – he goes ballistic over that too. So, since he isn’t listening, I should stop asking him for anything concerning our relationship. (“Stop going down cheeseless tunnels.”) And I should not take it personally or blame myself, I should consider his behavior as a sort of disability on his part, like an emotional handicap. Just as I wouldn’t expect him to do certain things if he had a physical handicap, I should stop expecting him to do things that he is not capable of, due to his emotional handicap.
The goal for now is not to ask him to be reassuring or transparent, because he won’t; but to get him to be nice to me. That is a realistic, “baby-step” goal at this point.
Therefore I should totally back off for at least a month, not share how I feel or ask for reassurances, not ask him to read books, not expect him to change or meet my needs in any way. I don’t need to boycott him, I can treat him like a “friendly neighbor” and have good times if the opportunity arises, e.g. see movies together, eat meals together, go out to dinner. But not to expect anything from him and only do what I feel like doing. Not to do anything specially for him or to go out of my way for him in anything. Even if he asks me for a favor, I should only do it if I feel like it. Otherwise I can say, “I’m busy… ” etc.
I should stop wondering about whether he is seeing OWs. Maybe he is, but maybe he is not. If he is, then I will find out sooner or later. In the meantime, worrying about it is just causing aggravation for *me*. So I should stop wasting my energy with worry about “what if” and just let time tell.
I should GAL and do things I enjoy doing, and take personal responsibility for healing myself. Not to expect him to do it. And to see that as a strength on my part. (An analogy I once heard – “to plant my own garden and not wait for him to bring me flowers.”)
Detachment doesn’t mean boycotting him, but detaching myself from the feelings, so that I don’t care about what he is doing. And really, even if I would file for divorce, I would still have to do that. So I might as well do it anyway.
Right now I don’t feel that a divorce would be beneficial for me in any way. The information from the attorney is certainly a load off my shoulders – it means I do not have to base my decision on a feeling of dependency or “being stuck”. It means that if I would reach a point where I feel that being divorced would be more beneficial for me than remaining in the marriage, I do not have to be afraid to do it. But right now I feel that divorce would not give me any advantages. It would not cause him to be nice to me, it would make that worse. It would not solve the problem of him (possibly) seeing OWs; it would make it easier for him. So how does that benefit me exactly? Right, because Prince Charming is waiting around the corner. If I happen to meet him, I can make a decision then. In the meantime, there are certain social and other benefits to remaining in the marriage. So there is no rush to dissolve it.
Life isn’t perfect. Everything has pros and cons. And in every situation, it’s important to weigh these pros and cons and then choose the best route. It’s not a matter of “fear”; it’s a matter of doing what is most beneficial for me at any given time. And right now, GAL and detachment, and possibly repairing the marriage from inside, are more beneficial for me than rushing into a divorce. So that is my direction at this point.
kml, good suggestions, and I will do those things (except for the PI which I wouldn't be able to do right now).
shelly and l'infidele, logically you are right, but he is not acting logically. I am first going to try the route suggested by my DB coach, and keep the other option in reserve.
TT,
Go for it! I only offer up my experience so you can see an alternative.
I hope this works out for you.
Peace be with you.
also a good thread about "boundaries"
http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubb...179#Post1859179and one about "detachment"
http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubb...615#Post1852615written by "Coach" and posted by Chatterbug in another thread here
shelly and l'infidele - yes, I totally agree. but after the conversation with my DB coach, I basically went back to the chapters in DR about how to change the marriage, and what if the spouse is not ready yet to make the change. and the answer is - set "baby step" goals, etc. so I am going to work from that direction before giving up and going the other route. I agree that his behavior is suspicious. but he is not all bad. there are good things that he does too. so after 40 years I am going to make every effort to repair our marriage, before giving up.