Well, H packed his suitcase and headed out the door tonight. I confronted him about the new affair information I had found and told him I would no longer live like this. He confirmed that is HAS been physical.
I am just sick. I don't know that I want him back anymore.
SunnyD, Sad to hear you are going thru this... You and I are the only ones up at 4:30am...these affairs ruin your sleep... I am in a similiar situation... Are you both going to MC/IC... Have you read Dr Harley's book His Needs/Her Needs?? or Love Busters?? If not I might suggest them both because they helped me alot on learning what happened to my wife and I... Over a ten year period my wife and I stopped meeting each others emotional needs, and we drifted apart and did not spend enough time together...spending time together is one of the emotional needs... Dr Harley has the top ten emotional needs and they are: 1. affection 2. sexual fulfillment 3. conversation 4. recreational companionship 5. honesty and openness 6. an attractive spouse 7. financial support 8. domestic support 9. family commitment 10. admiration Dr Harley says that if a couple are not striving to meet each others top five EN then they are substracting points from each others love bank account... Dr Harley states that we need to meet each others top five emotional needs and be working towards the other 5 EN in order to maintain a safe healthy marriage.
I know that in my case my wife and I were not meeting each others emotional needs... But in all honesty we did not have Dr Harley's roadmap for success until I found his books about three months ago...
I believe everyone of us that are suffering marriage problems have fallen into not meeting each others emotional needs to some degree...
I hope this helps... Stay positive and keep yourself busy...
I am so sorry to hear this. I know from reading your old posts that this is something you were afraid of, and now that it's been confirmed, I'm hoping you can at least have some peace about the truth of what's going on.
I will reach out to you in the alt to see how I can help.
Thanks Two. I have read Harley's works. In fact, it was a big part of the New Beginnings workshop we went on in July. H wants to hear none of it. He claims it was all me - that he put up with "years of crap" and that his short affair of months is nothing in comparison. (Yes, I recognize my faults, but I don't see the YEARS of crap I supposedly gave him.) In any case, he justifies the A by saying he had told me in April he was "done" and stopped wearing his ring.
He can tell himself whatever he wants. The end result is he looked to solve his problems outside our marriage and is ruining our family because he still refuses to resolve it inside.
Sunny my H said a lot of the same stuff the day he packed to leave. My H to this day claims that there wasn't sex before he left, but that he couldn't control himself with the OW and said that out of "respect for me he was leaving before it got to that point." But he blamed me for all the problems, even down to saying that a major fight we had, that that very week was when he noticed the OW for the first time. I mean he admits that he only turned to her because our rel. had problems, but he acted like I caused all of them by not meeting all his needs or by not understanding him enough when he was in MLC. He claims he is no longer in MLC now, which I do not believe at all, and now he says that he "regrets placing all that blame on me but that he would've said anything that day to get out the door because if he hadn't said what he did I would never have let him go." This is just such twisted logic--because he always had the power to leave. But the issue for him is that he acknowleges that there wasn't a legit reason to leave me unless he could make me hate him, and then he could say that he had no choice, that he that would prove I'd never be able to forgive him.
Yes very twisted logic.
I think what it comes down to is that our H's are weak. They lack courage. They are in a second childhood or they never developed adult coping skills, and the first sign of trouble, they bail. They run away. And they know that's wrong and they know it's cowardly, so their answer to that is to turn the anger at themselves on us. It's easier to blame us for their failures than to face themselves.
So please, please don't listen to him. It's not you. It's him. I am not saying that we don't bear some responsibility for marital problems, we do, but we don't make them cheat. THEY cheat. We stand by them. They run. They betray us, not the other way around. I know how bad this is for you because I spent the first 2 months at least after my H moved out to "explore the rel. with the OW to see if that was the path he should take" by blaming myself for everything. Then I got out of that phase, and I see that I'm not to blame, but the bottom line is he is still so delusional that he thinks this affair will last, so he filed for divorce. I can't do anything but protect myself.
And that's all you can really do to, but you know, it is a lot. It doesn't sound like "much", to "just" protect yourself, but in doing so you're already doing far more than he is to fix yourself and your ability to persevere in your life and future relationships, while he's running from himself. I think every day is a struggle but every day you get through you are one little bit stronger.
My thoughts are with you.
M45 Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11 Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy "Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying
I would not be able to say any of that (and of course I mean every word) were it not for my 4 months of therapy which is still ongoing, my journaling, and the people who have helped me on this forum. This forum has been a blessing to me because no matter how bad it gets, someone is always here who has walked in our shoes. Sometimes that is exactly what we need to keep standing up again after being knocked down.
M45 Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11 Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy "Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying
AB, Excellent post... You are spot on in your analysis of why the husbands run...it is a cowards way out... These guys have no kahones...if they did they would stay and work with their spouse thru MC/IC to resolve the problems... I have seen alot of these affairs in my life, and I cannot remember any that were a success...in 12-24 months most of them are over... I am into 4 months now with my seperation and a WAW... Some days she wants to talk and visit with me, and then a few days later it is like the demon from hill got ahold of her... I am like you because finding this site has been a true blessing to me...it has helped me deal with this stressful situation, and I would not have handled it well had I not found this site and read alot of the great posts... Alot of us are going thru similiar situations, and it sure helps to mentor and share our stories together... Stay positive...
I'm in no contact right now--after he filed the papers and I went to the courthouse to be served and to turn over the separation agreement, I told him that I was unblocking him from being able to contact me because I wanted to be able to detach from him without any more "help" electronically. I figured I needed to see if I had the willpower to do so. It has been about 10-11 days. I have not contacted him; he has not contacted me. I keep thinking of how completely insane it is that it has come to this, to spend 23 years with someone and then poof, it's like I don't exist to him (I can't say he doesn't exist to me, I think about him constantly and can't seem to stop). But I also know that I haven't been nearly as stressed or crying since I began the serious no contact part of this whole thing. Like you said, twom7, I was getting a nice person some days and a demon others, and the stress of wondering what an interaction would end up like was not good for me, and I finally realized that, so that's the good side of no contact.
On the down side, I keep thinking this will be the way it is forever. No more contact ever. That just kills me. But if he's hurting me and can't do anything but hurt me, I need to learn to care about myself to stop him. He won't protect me; only I can protect me.
Anyway Sunny at some point you'll probably be in that same boat of no contact; all I can tell you is that people told me to do it for a LONG time and I tried and failed about 5 times before I finally felt that I was truly ready for it. I think in our heart we know it's the best thing for us to do but doing it is another matter. You will do it when you are ready and it is totally part of the whole protection phase and taking care of yourself.
M45 Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11 Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy "Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying
Thank you Antonia for your VERY wise words! Everything you said is dead on.
Thank you also Frank and Two - for the support.
No contact is right around the corner for me. It's hard with kids. H kept contacting me yesterday and I am definitely seeing the Jekyll and Hyde. One minute he was blasting me the next he was talking about wanting to try to work things out if I was willing to sit down with the kids and truly hear everything I had done wrong as well as what he had done too. The boys did not want to. I have discussed with them over and over all my wrongs. They have forgiven me and they don't see anything I've done as a marriage killer. They see what he has done as being one though.
My college daughter is so confused...I feel terrible for her. She took H's call yesterday and then ended up more hurt because of course, there's a large part of her that just wants her daddy back.
