Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Page 7 of 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 1,433
T
Train Offline OP
Member
OP Offline
Member
T
Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 1,433
***I should clarify: when I'm talking above about H's ex-GF, I AM NOT referencing OW#1. I'm referencing the girl he dated and lived with for 3 years before we met. Just want to clarify that ...


M: 40 H: 44
Married 14 years
S11 & D6; D20 & D19 from previous M
2BDs/PAs, 8 years apart
Piecing: April 2014
Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 951
F
Member
Offline
Member
F
Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 951
maybe some posters in the piecing section will have some insight too...

smile

we all get angry and hurt over things and you are right...marriage (even without reconciliation as an aspect) is a dance...

sometimes you give, sometimes you take

there has to be a balance

You should not be giving up everything
but, realistically you may have to give up something

I am a believer in lists

list the things you love
(you might even add what it does for you)
then check the things you are unwilling to give up

I used to love puttering with my plants and my house was full of them and pots and pots and pots in all the rental homes I owned. I realized I was escaping through gardening.

when I didn't need to escape any more, I didn't NEED that gardening...

Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 1,433
T
Train Offline OP
Member
OP Offline
Member
T
Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 1,433
Thank you so much for that, fig. I think a list sounds like a good plan. smile I am willing to give up a lot. H is more selfish. It makes our relationship difficult at times. Always has. I just want a different dynamic this time. More equality.

Question for you all:

How does a former WAS seemingly turn their feelings for their spouse off and on so suddenly? I know H's feelings perhaps weren't turned off suddenly per se. But they were turned ON almost overnight, it seems.

I obviously have some MAJOR trust issues going on right now. Those will be dealt with over time, I presume. But I don't understand how H can say he felt like he hated me a month or so ago and now he says he feels total love for me. How can I start to trust that? I'm finding it hard to commit to working on our M, honestly. It's hard because I expect he could just up and start hating me again at any moment.

A couple nights ago, he sent me this text: "Girl, you should still be reaming my as$. I'm having trouble coping with the damage I've done. Please, I don't want any sympathy, just want to let you know that this time around is different for me. Don't think I walk up into that house and everything is fine. I may act like that, and I think you mentioned that I have. You are being way too nice. And it's just unreal that you are willing to work sh!t out, totally unreal, makes me think twice on the kinda person you really are, wow, I love you!!"

It was nice and thoughtful. And unprompted by anything I had done or said except I had sent him a text telling him I still get happy butterflies to see his name pop up on a text telling me he's heading home. Still, I read what he wrote and immediately thought: "Awww, that's so nice ...... and I've heard it all before ....."

Ugh!!! This freaking blows! I don't want to feel that way!!!

Today, H spent his lunch break at home on the phone with our insurance company to square away everything we need to do for MC.

These actions should be making me HAPPY. And they DO. Sort of.

Am I normal???


M: 40 H: 44
Married 14 years
S11 & D6; D20 & D19 from previous M
2BDs/PAs, 8 years apart
Piecing: April 2014
Joined: Sep 2011
Posts: 221
H
Member
Offline
Member
H
Joined: Sep 2011
Posts: 221
Train,
Yep, you're officially "normal".

Trust takes a long to to rebuild. He must earn your trust little pieces, and sometimes big chunks, at a time. I was a live wire with internal worry at first too. I was crystal clear with my wife about what worried me, and she made every effort to assuage those worries. As you may have read, get all of the details of the affair out in the open now. All of your questions answered by your H, as painful as that is, and absorb it. Do not get angry or he will shut down. Accept it. Once that is done, put it away and never revisit it again. You don't want to beat him up forever or he will begin to feel ashamed and hopeless.

You must start living whatever you want your new marriage to be RIGHT NOW. if you want transparency, then ask him for it (I'm sure you already have). If you want affection every day without him looking for sex, then ask for it. If you want intimate conversation, you guessed it.... At the same time, your H will have things that he wants too, you should know what those needs are and meet them with enthusiasm. I make a concerted effort EVERY SINGLE DAY to meet my wife's most important needs and she does the same for me.

Will the A, your husbands old words, the OW etc. plague your thoughts in the future? Yes. I'm just being honest. Don't lose hope, however. At first, I would think of those things just about every minute of the day. Then every ten minutes. Then a couple of times an hour. Fast forward over a year and a half and thoughts (sometimes brought on by a trigger) still come to me several times a day, but they are much more mild and are gone as quickly as they came. That's the trust bucket filling back up. One day I hope to go a day or a week or longer without a thought of it. Visiting these boards to "pay it forward" certainly doesn't help, so I disappear from here periodically for a month or so to take a break. To be honest, I've been considering going away from here for good, soon. I've helped some folks here, like you, so I've done my work wink.

Will your H stray again? It's certainly possible. Anyone can cheat- no matter what their morals are. I'm a man. I recognize that, married or not, I find women attractive. Sometimes their beauty is accompanied by a great personality too, and when I find that, I run like the wind! I don't ever want to become unfaithful, so I guard against it. Your H needs to do the same. I think that if you continue to be open and honest with each other, ask for what you want, and meet each other's needs with enthusiasm, then your risk for another A is very low.

These are very important and precious days for you- don't put aside the hard work for another time or place. Has your H read HNHN?

-HS

Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 6,810
S
Member
Offline
Member
S
Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 6,810
Originally Posted By: Train


These actions should be making me HAPPY. And they DO. Sort of.

Am I normal???



Yes. More later, but YES!!!


Starsky


M57 W 57; D30 D28 S24 S20 GD7 GD2 GD1 GD5m GD1m
BD 5/07; W's affair 5/07-8/07

At the end of every hard-earned day, people gotta find some reason to believe. (Bruce Springsteen)
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 7,319
W
Member
Offline
Member
W
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 7,319
Train,

What's happenin' over thar? How's things going for you and H?

You might want to check out DearPeggy dot com. It opened my eyes a bit.

Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 1,433
T
Train Offline OP
Member
OP Offline
Member
T
Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 1,433
Hey, y'all!

I'm still here. smile Checking in daily, but not posting. Fact is: I don't know what to post most days. I'm still as confused as ever. My mind goes back and forth a million times ... and in a million different directions ... many times a day.

The same stresses are still here: OW is outright rejecting the no-contact letter now, but she isn't being *obsessive* (though I guess that's relative). While she said she would "absolutely" honor H's request for no-contact - and told H and our family to stay away from her, even the grocery store at which she works - she's now started blocking her number and calling him every-other-day or so. At first, H just assumed it was her; but an assumption, for me, wasn't pressing enough to have his number changed (at aNOTHER hefty cost to us). I finally told him to answer one of the blocked calls so we would know for sure; I *didn't*, however, tell him what to say/do if he discovered that it was, in fact, her calling. He got his chance the day before yesterday. And sure enough, she was on the other end: "Are you alone?" she asked. H hung up on her. She tried calling back. He didn't answer. And now he's insisting on changing his number, no matter the cost. We plan to go check into that this afternoon.

He has now officially blown through our entire tax-refund; every penny was spent on what he wanted during the affair/our physical separation ... and now on getting out from under OW.

It makes me irate. But I keep reminding myself to keep my eyes on the prize.

And then, I think: Prize? Am I SURE there's a prize here?

I'm just being brutally honest.

I am paralyzed at times with fear and hesitation and confusion. H senses it. He told me the other day he's scared sh!tless. He doesn't feel 100 percent commitment from me. And I *know* there's a reason for that. I mean, even as early as my very first post here after BD, I was questioning whether he was a quality person ... whether maybe I should just cut my losses and move on. As a friend says: "The only thing harder than moving past your H's betrayal ... is moving past ANOTHER one."

I've never felt more torn and confused about anything in my entire life.

The motivating thought/fear behind my confusion is: He's going to do this again. It doesn't matter what I do. We will slip back into our old pattern. And he'll do this again.

I mean, our relationship before wasn't all THAT bad. We've identified what we believe was the breakdown (brace yourself because it's not like ANY other problem in ANY other relationship out there ... *note sarcasm): Lack of affection, intimacy and sex.

But is it really that easy? THAT simple?

I'm just so afraid that it won't matter. I don't trust him. I don't trust my own judgment right now. I just can't seem to make myself trust ANYTHING right now.

He told me the other day that he can see a huge difference in me this time compared to when he came back last time. But he keeps assuring me that HE feels differently partly BECAUSE of that. He LITERALLY said, "Last time, you worked with me and fixed everything. This time, you're making me handle my own mess." I've also told him, in no uncertain terms, that another affair is a deal-breaker for me. No questions asked. One more time, and I'm done.

I just don't remember the last time being this hard. All I wanted was HIM. That's it. But even then, our relationship was awesome for the first three or four years. Then everything went to he!l. Financial burdens mounted, H's income decreased. That's when he had to get a second job.

And we're stuck in that right now, for at least another year while we wait on D16 to graduate. BUT, H and I are working together on ways to balance everything. He says he can work his second-shift job four evenings a week (one or two of which I'll spend at the shop with him, which he LOVES for me to do now - it visibly lifts his spirits and motivates him for me to be there ... quite interesting to watch, actually). That will give him one evening a week at home with the kids and me. We will devote Saturdays to house/yard work and maintenance, which he hasn't had time to do in at least a year, and we'll wrap up Saturdays with date night for the two of us. And then, he'll take Sunday mornings to go ride his bike. And then we'll have a family evening on Sunday.

We're trying to work on "intimate conversation." It is SO foreign. We only ever talk about kids and work. Stressful things.

HS, you said the other day:
Trust takes a long to to rebuild. He must earn your trust little pieces, and sometimes big chunks, at a time.
I learned this first-hand the other day. Re: H hearing from his XGF, after I lost my cool about it, H didn't mention a thing about her for a few days. Then all a sudden, I got a text from H, saying: "I'm learning so much about how affairs start and literally wreck a family in four short months." He said I had been right: His XGF - who is engaged to be married - had continued messaging him, even while he ignored her, finally asking, "Just out of curiosity, why did you look me up and contact me?" And when he didn't respond to that, she sent three photos of the two of them from when they were together in the early 2000s. She told H that her DD had "just" found them in a closet.

That's all it took. H - without even telling me (until afterward) - sent her a message that said essentially: "I contacted you when I was away from my wife. You didn't respond until I was back home. I was wrong in replying to you last week and mentioning anything about my marriage or delving into the issues you and I had in the past. What's done is done. It was disrespectful to my wife and family, and I'm happily back with them now. I don't want us to communicate or have any sort of emotional connection. I wish you all the best."

I was quite floored. But I just thanked H and told him I expect that my trust in him (at least as much as possible) will be restored, little by little, over time. But I need him to be ALL mine ... and very consistent in his actions, as he was with his XGF.

I know he's trying very hard. I *see* it. Just the other day, H and I had a bonfire and burned all his bedding from the A because it hurt me to look at it. I'm also watching as he struggles with seeing me not being as enthusiastically willing to commit to HIM. Don't get me wrong: I'm definitely cleaning up my side of the street and taking steps toward him. But I'm always so "in my head," and my doubt and confusion can be read on my face sometimes.

H said the other day: "I'm willing to deal with any questions you have and answer them. I'm willing to deal with you lashing out right now. I know that's where you are right now, and I can handle it. But one day, I'm going to ask that you read every text and e-mail that you need to read and then delete it. I'm going to ask that you move forward with me."

Pretty much at that moment, I thought of what HS said about getting all the details about the A out in the open, dealing with it, quietly wrestling with it, then letting it go. And I decided I'm *just* about there. I'm trying to decide if H and I should have one BIG conversation about the A, instead of talking about it little-by-little, as we have been doing. At first, I thought that's how I *needed* to handle it: in small doses. I'm not a person who needs the details. But I'll think of things here and there that I'd like to know. That's when H and I will talk about it. And he's been VERY open ... sometimes TOO open.

But now, I'm almost ready to put it all behind me. So I think - and I've told H as much - we need to have a talk, one in which (as HS said) I don't get mad. I just ask questions and listen. And then, let it all go. I think I'm ready for that now.

Oh, and HS, H doesn't read. EVER. I mentioned downloading HNHN (if it's available on audiobook) on his iPod the other day so maybe he could listen to it at work. He said that would be perfectly fine, but he's concerned that he wouldn't be able to pay full attention to it. He asked how long the book is, so hopefully he'll make time to read/listen to it soon. In the meantime, I'm reading sections of it to him as I can. smile


M: 40 H: 44
Married 14 years
S11 & D6; D20 & D19 from previous M
2BDs/PAs, 8 years apart
Piecing: April 2014
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 7,319
W
Member
Offline
Member
W
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 7,319
Train,

Go to DearPeggy dot com and print out stuff there. They all address what you mentioned ^^ about your "paralyzing fears"...I was a few steps ahead of you in anticipating this. No, I don't have ESP. I am just a good student here in the DB forums and learn some here.

It is VERY, VERY encouraging that your H has seen the "light" on how affairs start and is doing EVERYTHING he can to keep the walls around the M strong. He is taking proactive and concrete steps in protecting you, the family and the marriage. What a keeper!

How about Retrouville? How about giving H the 5LL book and you guys discuss your LLs together? Look for ways to bond as a ONE united marital unit.

Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 6,810
S
Member
Offline
Member
S
Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 6,810
Originally Posted By: Train


I just don't remember the last time being this hard. All I wanted was HIM. That's it.



Because you didn't do it the right way last time. The right way is ALWAYS more difficult.

Look, Train -- at some point, you've GOTTA trust him. Yeah, it's "trust -- but verify" -- but you either are willing to open up your heart to him one more time or you're not. You've let him know what your stone-cold dealbreaker is (do it again and I'm OUT -- PERIOD), so let that lie and work with the man.

I totally get your fears. I had them too, for a good 2-3 years after my wife agreed to reconcile. And I STILL get triggers from time to time, no matter how good things are now between us and no matter what she writes in my anniversary cards and such. It's natural.

Slow and steady, and communicate to each other your fears and concerns. I think Retrouvaille would be an AWESOME thing for you two right now, because it really focuses on communication more than anything else. I hope you'll consider it.


Starsky


M57 W 57; D30 D28 S24 S20 GD7 GD2 GD1 GD5m GD1m
BD 5/07; W's affair 5/07-8/07

At the end of every hard-earned day, people gotta find some reason to believe. (Bruce Springsteen)
Joined: Sep 2011
Posts: 221
H
Member
Offline
Member
H
Joined: Sep 2011
Posts: 221
Train,

Are you still out there? Hope things are going well!

-HS

ps: was just down in Charlotte area this week- great weather smile.

Page 7 of 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Moderated by  Michele Weiner-Davis 

Link Copied to Clipboard