heeeeelllllppp!!

[25yearsmlc]

"If my wife would have said no at any time I would have stopped."
"I did not initiate the sex."

Actually that's not a contradiction. Look it up.

A contradiction is 'I did not initiate sex, but I told her I wanted to have sex" or something like that.

What I was talking about way 25's inappropriate "rape" comparison. when I was talking about the if she said no, I would have stopped. That was the ONLY way that was a part of the conversation for that limited purpose.

My comment was in response to your statement that "I'm a guy after all" ...which I think is an immature excuse for misbehavior.

I compared it to what the men in the Middle East use as their excuse to rape women when the ankles or wrists show b/c they, the men, are 'men, after all" and cannot be expected to put the women's needs ahead of their own.

You can certainly detest the comparison, but don't lash out and accuse me of "projecting"...that is you TRYING to insult me, and it's a revealing tendency of yours.

WHY DON'T YOU EXPLAIN THE "I'M A GUY, AFTER ALL" COMMENT, SO I CAN GRASP THE MEANING OF IT?

Is this how you want to spend your time, 'working on you'?

[25yearsmlc]

Val, normally I agree with you, but something like that just can't be ignored. There are laws for slander for a reason.

I hate to belabor this b/c belaboring a pointless issue probably happens in your life a lot, but I'm a L, and there was no slander.

(And if it had been a statement declaring that you were a rapist, which it was not, it would have been "libel", b/c it was in written form, not spoken.)

Comparisons and analogies are used for illustrative purposes. Deal with it.

Even when people here support you, as we all are trying to do, but only on 9/10 of it, you argue the one point.

That's wasteful and misguided.

Of course we all made mistakes. Many! But when someone told me I was off track, I listened carefully and made changes.

I didn't repeat the same mistake --ONCE-- I understood why it was wrong or off base. I learned.

You persist in wanting to do things that go against DBing, and against what everyone here says but then, you want to argue it more.

Either take the advice and learn, or work a different program, but don't keep telling us your way is better.

Your way got you here.

[2stepboogie]

I've your read post and have been keeping up with it and all I can do is shake my head in disbelief at what I read. You actually caused me to come out of retirement.

The reason people are getting somewhat annoyed is because you don't do backslides. You do Olympic high jumps in the wrong direction and then follow it up with a 3000M run just for good measure.

If i have to quote and comment on the things that i think you are doing that is hurting you instead of helping you I would be here till next week so I will skip all that.

First let me tell you that NO ONE and I mean NO ONE can claim that they did not make mistakes. Even the famous 25 made mistakes along with J3B and everyone in between. When you react and think emotionally you are bound to do things that are counterproductive to what you want to accomplish. That being said.... the question then becomes not how many mistakes you made but how you adjusted to them.

You have gotten some patient and decent advice. I read you have a learning disability and sometimes it takes you several reads before you get it. Well, if that is the case then I suggest you read the post you find helpful many times over.

People get DB confused I think with some magic potion that is a cure all. They imagine they can come on this forum get some advice and then go and execute it with huge success. Naturally they become discouraged when they don't see any results. Sometimes they see what appears like positive results and they spend the entire sum of their day analyzing those "signs" from their spouse.

From someone who lived, breathed, and died DB for almost a year I will tell you that it is a total waste of time.

I see so many areas of concern with your sitch that I wonder what the value in what you are doing is. If you can't focus long enough to read and digest the information you are reading then maybe a new approach is in order.

It is important that you realize a few things.

By the time you get here your sitch is much more damaged than you realize. I doubt a few post or some chapter in a book can fix it in short order. What you can do is start to work through the grief and pain that is sure to come. By being with like minded people who care and take time from their day and their own pain to help people they will never meet. That in itself has value. This is a LONG process and you must know that regardless of how it turns out. You WILL survive it. In life you don't lose. You learn or you win. That is it. Please set proper expectations. No one will give you a magic pill that will somehow change what�s in your wife�s heart overnight. If you are serious about saving your marriage then strap up your boots and settle in for a long curvy load with plenty of potholes and cliffs. It is a battle of attrition and in the end you will have won or you would have learned.

This is much more about you at this point than it is about your marriage or your wife. Of course right now you will neither understand nor realize the truth in that statement. In changing you, you will affect all those things in your life you want to influence. The answer is in you. The peace you seek is in you. The love you crave is in you. Weird I know but true. In time that will make sense.

You see the sooner you remove yourself from the situation that is causing you anxiety, pain, grief, and all those emotions you don�t like the sooner you will see positive changes in your life and the way you feel. Maybe, and this is a big maybe, you wife will be there to notice them and react or maybe not but if you have truly lived for you it really won�t matter all that much.

Sounds easy right? Not so fast. It is anything but. Everyone comes here seeking the same thing. They all want the same outcome. To be reconnected with their spouse and live happily ever after; swearing to change and become the man/woman their spouse always wanted. They read everything they can get their hands on try any technique they find in order to convince their spouse that the change is real and that somehow even though the majority of them have already made up their mind they should somehow give the marriage another chance. In essence what you are asking that person to do is do a 180 on a decision that for most of them has taken them months sometimes years to come to. They have convinced themselves that they are right and we want to come in with promises and dreams of a new and improved life together because of some new found knowledge we only recently discovered in a book.. Based on what? Something you read? Your words? Your pleads or tears? When you look at it that way do you realize how ridiculous you sound?

So what do we do? Admit the fact that you have very little control of the situation or its outcome but you can start working on healing right away. That is hard and it is painful but extremely necessary because until that reality happens you will find yourself in eternal mourning. Please understand that this process does not happen overnight and no one single thing will start it. It is a progression of events that build up little by little until one day your first thought is not your wife or your marriage. It is what you have planned that day.

It is time for you to sit and ponder as to what went wrong. We all do it, might as well get it done early. It is also important for you to realize that less of half of what your thinking went wrong is actually accurate. As I stated early, when we think with emotions our vision is blurry and our thoughts distorted. Right now everything is your fault. Your wife has every right to feel the way she does and she gets a treat you like garbage pass because after all the pain and misery you put her through how could she not. She will accuse you of all sorts of things and call you names. You will believe them and wallow in self pity. All par for the course and you need to know it. However, in her endless criticism of you and your actions there will be some legitimacy, your job is to figure out what is true and what is BS. I imagine there will be much more BS than truths. How do I know this? Because it is the status quo of every spouse seeking a quick exit��

Now that you have given some thought as to what you would like to improve about your life it is time to get to work.

Unless you are an offensive linemen for an NFL team you don�t wear 75LBS nicely. So I notice you have started to workout, good! If you are waiting for your spouse to notice or comment on it don�t. You are doing everything for your benefit not hers. Take control of your life. Get your paycheck back! What is this idiotic practice of giving your wife your paycheck so that she can give you an allowance? Are you a child? Your paycheck is your paycheck. You worked for it you earned it. This should not be complicated to figure out.

No one is going to tell you what the future will hold but if you maintain your current trajectory you will drive this marriage right into divorce court.

Two things you need to start worrying about. Your wellbeing and your children. I cannot stress enough how difficult this is on children and you rarely see the effects right away you seem months later. You need to be there for them, spend time with them, love them, reassure them, and be a role model for them. Don�t worry about what your wife is doing. Don�t worry about her interactions with them. You do not own her and any control you thought you had is clearly an self created illusion. You do have control of you and your impact you have on your children.

I don�t subscribe to the idea of letting the spouse do as they please while I sit around working on myself theory. You are still a person regardless of pass transgression. You are worthy of respect and honesty and while she might want to be with you at the moment she should still treat you as she would any decent person. There are boundaries you must have and everyone picks their own. I had mine that were firm you must decide what they are for you. Be advised though that constant fluctuating boundaries are more damaging than they are helpful so if you lay one down make sure it is something you can live with, if not don�t bother (isn�t that right Denver?)

Well you have plenty of reading material. Best of luck! Remember�..you win or you learn but in life you never lose!

[25yearsmlc]

nice post 2step, and welcome back.

To echo one thing 2step said, yes we all made mistakes. I had a lot of trouble with the concept of "fairness not mattering" b/c to me, that was about justice.
OR so I told myself. Sometimes it was really about me wanting to punish or teach my h "a lesson".

But my need to be "right" was not working! It was not helping our marriage. So I had to take steps towards my h that I did not think he "deserved"...and then I had to let go of the idea that it was about who deserved what.

I wanted to save my m, if I could. I needed to become a happier woman, if I could. Being "right" was NOT more important than being happy.

The two goals were intertwined, but my being happy regardless of the marriage, was something I put ahead of all else,

b/c there is no way to save a marriage if you are miserable inside.

And being happy IS a worthy goal.

Finally, reconciling is a great thing.

BUT it's not as if DBing was the only thing I did to make this happen. Dbing was part of a multi pronged approach to my situation.

THere were more than marriage problems to deal with, and that is clearly the case w/you here.

I had a great therapist, and a good priest to talk with. I GAL BIG TIME...which is key. I worked the program as thoroughly as I could.

I read everything I could and I used the time away from my h to work on myself.

I did a LOT of introspection about how I wanted to live my life and who I had become and who I wanted to be. I changed. I learned to forgive, which was something I had not seen growing up. It's a big important gift to learn.


DBing was key b/c it's a different, solution based approach, and that's way more successful for my type of situation than other "history re-hashing" can be.

[Many worries]

Oh Crapolla.

So I've been taking a beating on here and for good reason. I wasn't listen to you folks, but that's really secondary now.



Last night my wife drops another huge bomb on me.
She asked if she could talk to me. I really didn't want to talk and told her that if it was bout our marriage then we should probably not talk. What came next was a kick to the gut. She admitted that she's been having a PA with my ex friend for like a year. A YEAR dangit. They've only be physical a handful of times. She started telling me stuff and I was kept telling her that I didn't want to hear it, I couldn't hear this now. She said that she was so mad at me for my crush on my co-worker that she wanted to make be pay. First it started as a joke with my ex friend, but then it turned into sex. They decided to end it just before I confronted them.

i was so numb that I couldn't really talk about he. She was very uncomfortable with my silence. I wanted to scream and yell at her, but I couldn't find it in me. She just ramped up the anger at me. saying that if I was more involved, if I took care of myself, if I hadn't written the stupid poem for a her then none o this would never have happened. She said that she needed that in her life at the moment, but doesn't know what the future is.

She said I was selfish in our marriage and we just didn't work for a long time.

I just stood up and said. I don't know what to say and went to the in law apt. She followed me with more anger and yelling. I told her that I can't do this now and I need some time to take in this information.

This really changes things a lot for me.

[MrBond]

Well we did mention that the affair you had probably had affected her much worse than you thought. Although if she was unhappy, then an A was definitely the wrong way to go. Just as wrong as you blowing her off when you had the A.

IMHO, here's what you need to do.

Continue to change for the better and concentrate on yourself and your kids. The next time she gets into you about her A, calmly tell her that you had apologized and are changing for the better. And that how she acts towards you is her decision. Then walk away.

[AnotherStander]

I wasn't listen to you folks, but that's really secondary now.

What have we been telling you? Detach. Get a life. Work on the one thing you can change- YOU. This revelation from your W doesn't change that. That is STILL your goal. Improve yourself.

She said I was selfish in our marriage and we just didn't work for a long time.

I know it must hurt deeply to learn about the A, but try to understand what she's saying. People are nearly always driven to an A because of huge problems in their own M. They're seeking something they're not getting in the M. Maybe it's sex, maybe it's validation, maybe it's companionship, love, etc. Or a combination of those. So own your mistakes, do 180's on them, make yourself a spouse only a fool would leave. You'll be a better person regardless of what happens to your M. But when you become a better person, often the WAS takes notice and starts thinking of returning.

This really changes things a lot for me.

How so? Haven't you said from the beginning that she was having an A?

[25yearsmlc]

Another Stander and Bond have said it all. TAKE IT IN....LISTEN...for emphasis, I'll repeat this...

TAKE THIS IN and PROCESS IT...listen like you've never listened before.

We know this hurts but that doesn't mean you turn off your head and ears and heart.

Well we did mention that the affair you had probably had affected her much worse than you thought. Although if she was unhappy, then an A was definitely the wrong way to go. Just as wrong as you blowing her off when you had the A.

IMHO, here's what you need to do.

Continue to change for the better and concentrate on yourself and your kids. The next time she gets into you about her A, calmly tell her that you had apologized and are changing for the better. And that how she acts towards you is her decision. Then walk away.

It may be difficult but it is NOT complicated. Work this program. It's simple.

Start being more disciplined.

Work on you and remember that we told you the "EA" you had with OW was a big BIG deal...so was your weight gain. So was the way you two interacted and swept things under the rug (they were not under the rug, they were hurting her...and you were ignoring her pain).

Why does this change things for you? IF it's b/c you now think you are "right", and wanted an excuse to leave, then I don't know why you came HERE in the first place.

It's okay to feel hurt. We all would. But if you want to save this thing, you may be able to. She outlined some of the reasons for her A. While it isn't justifying it, it DOES tell you what she needs.

Why do you believe she told you all this, BUT DID NOT ask for a divorce?

[Many worries]

You know I am being more disciplined but it is a process. You guys got on me about my weight - like my wife did. So I decided to do something. A realistic healthy plan.

i wanted a better relationship with my kids, so I did something about that.

Honestly, it's hard to have you people telling me that I am NOT listening when in fact I am listening. I do have a disability after all.

Yes I know it will take more than a few weeks and it has to be consistent over time.


The PA was always a deal breaker for me and it still might be. I don't know where I will go, but I will work on being a better person for now. I came her before the PA, I didn't want a divorce, but sometimes those are the hands that are given.

Tonight was pretty tense around the house. Not a lot of talking. I was pretty silent and detached. I tried to keep up appearances for the kids.

[MrBond]

"I do have a disability after all."

Whatever your disability is, you certainly don't show it in terms of understanding us. You're clear and articulate. You're just doing the same thing most newbies are doing. We're trying to help you get over that as quickly as possible so you do start understanding. So stop making excuses and using things like your "disability" as a crutch.

In terms of her PA, you're REALLY going to have to start understanding how much your original EA affected her. You really did blow her off and thought that a simple apology and then you treating her the same way as before wasn't going to work. YOU put her in this situation. So when you say that a PA was a deal breaker, then you're minimizing the fact that YOU were the one who caused it.

Start taking responsibility for that.