As a BS I'd like to point out some of the things you have said that have triggered me.
1) So I know I have to work more on reassuring him that I know it bothers him that I'm going to certain places, but he also wants me to go out and have a good time.; let me assure you he does not want you to go out and have a good time, he wants you to stay home and show you are committed to your M, not your friends, etc.
2) I felt we really needed to talk about our needs, and not focus on the affair as much, which we have talked about to death; I'm sorry but your M will have nothing to do with your needs for a long long time, it should be all about him.
3) not feel at times disgusted with my behavior; Never going to happen, he will always feel disgusted over this behavior.
4) I always left my cell phone around, he had such blind trust in me. If only he had looked at my phone he would have seen it all right in front of him; you sound almost like you blame him for not finding out sooner, blind trust is a gift, one I assure you that he will never again bestow upon you a 100%.
5) my husband points out I was and still to a point very naive. It used to drive him crazy how I never saw a bad situation coming, or that people were manupulating me; this is a big one for me, my exh used the same line. "I never saw it coming", really at what point when you were taking off each others clothes did you not think something wrong was happening, nobody can make somebody do something. Just the fact alone that you think this man manipulated you shows that you do not acknowledge responsibility for your part in the A. You weren't naive when you went back for seconds, you knew exactly what was going to happen.
6) I really thought if I wanted this, then I would do this alone; something you should have done before you slept with the OM the first time.
7) I had a lot of resentment towards my husband, yes that's true. I didn't hater him though. He had a serious neck injury 15 years prior, and required suguries and physical therapy to overcome this. During this time I felt I was in the "caretaker" role while my own needs were not met. Again not the reason I had the affair, but possibly made it easier; it's just an excuse, remember the vows? In sickness and in health?
8) I never said that during the affair I wasn't a liar, cheater, or uncaring, I was all of those things and worse. But does it mean that I am doomed forever to these qualities???? can a person not change??; sadly the truth is yes you are doomed. He will most likely always have doubts about your intentions, honesty, integrity and faithfulness. My exh said the other week, "why don't you trust me, I would never do anything to hurt the kids" I told him I don't trust him because he has proven to me otherwise. As BS's we learn to keep our guard up, our trust and nativity got the best of us once, and we learned a hard lesson. Many BS's here who have successfully reconciled have not recovered 100%.
I mean none of the above as an attack, just trying to point out the things you say that trigger me, in the hopes that they may better help you relate and heal your H. I would also recommend a book called How to help your spouse heal from your affair by Linda J. MacDonald M. S.
Curious to know if any of your family and friends know of your infidelity? And if not, why not?
I too feel that the OP is an intelligent, empowered, confident woman, it's too bad she doesn't possess humility, affection, and integrity to go along with her other good qualities. Tell me, would you be willing to submit yourself to your husband? In ALL things he would feel are important to him? I think that your pride and selfishness will always come before your marriage. As far as being naive, that is simply a lie. As another poster said, when you were stripping to f**k the OM, didn't you feel that this might be a bad idea for a married woman to be doing? We are here to help you, but you should, at least, try to be as honest with us as you can.
Also, devoting your career to "caring", isn't the same thing as feeling it yourself. DDuring your affair, You didn't care about your husband or children. Own it.
It sounds like you are really trying now. I can only imagine how painful it was with your son so you now know to multiply that for your husband. I wish you luck.
Thanks Bryanp, appreciate your words, I was starting to cringe when I'd see your name.....lol
Working, it's one thing to say it, but another to FEEL it. In none of your posts, have I gotten that you are feeling anything like my STBex wife's pain and remorse. She would and has gotten on her knees to BEG forgiveness. You, on the other hand , still seem as prideful and remorseless, as when you had the affair. Your lack of respect for your husband , AS A MAN, comes through in your posts. Either he is a really good man, or a really weak one. The point I am trying to make is that you need to fix you. I cannot see how you can have a good marriage until you really FEEL the heartbreak and pain your husband is feeling. This empathy is crucial to reconciliation, in my opinion.
So, I guess that in answer to your original question, "what more can I do?" I would have to say that you have already done so much to ruin your family, that anything you do to atone , will be unsuccessful, because of your own personality and issues. You should divorce your husband so that You can go into counseling to try to understand why you are so cruel and careless with the emotions of your family. I truly hope, for your sake , that someday you will be able to have the depth of feeling , respect for others, and integrity to become a good wife. If you had possessed these qualities, before, you would not be here, now.
The OP is trying to be honest and open. She is also being judged by anonymous strangers on the internet. That shows that she is committed to fixing to it atleast on some level. But reading her posts makes me think that she never addressed the real issues behind the affair.
The more I read this thread the more I rage.. No decent human being would do that to their spouse.(She cheated and then asked him to leave). I do think that the husband was/is a doormat to some extent. (He left, took her back immediately)
I do feel that she won't(most probably) cheat again but she won't fix the marriage either .
One more question. You said you dropped it off immediately when you saw the pain. Did this coincide the time that you realized that the OM is not for you?. Maybe the OM is not that into you because the affair is open now and had other priorities. Or maybe he disgusted you when his real nature was out. Or when you realized the OM wasn't a viable prospective in any form. You also told him that you never contacted him again. Now realize that this is the guy who made you kick your husband out. So it wasn't something that was purely physical. But when you say that that you never contacted him, was it because you lost interest in him? Did you get back because you lost any interest in the OM?
Also W_T maybe you advised your son(if it was after the reconciliation) as such because you did not think that the affair was a bad decision.
Edit: Wait, what? W_T had sex with the OM in her house? That is f@$ked up in so many levels.
Who said I had sex with the OM in my house???
No, my interaction with OM was not purely physical, of course it was emotional. He said everything I wanted to hear at the time, something I felt I wasn't getting at the time. Did I get tired of him? drop him just like that? I pulled away from him while my husband and I were separated, he knew I was going back to my marriage. I just realized that it wouldn't have lasted with my guilt towards my husband and the pain I saw in his eyes when he would pick up our kids for the weekend. I knew that I would have to be alone for a while before starting a new relationship. Did it work out that way? no, hubby and I R. far too soon, where we should have worked on some issues first. We both wanted to get our family back together, probably too soon.
The incident with my son was 2 years prior to my affair.
Firstly I want to say that you sound like my husband did when he had his affair.......he was able to just separate the affair and the emotional side of things.........but they will not work for your betrayed husband, I know for me I felt like I lost my life and everything I have believed and trusted in I have also been married for 24 years, it is the last thing we thought our spouses could do to us, because we figured after 20 some odd years we would have at least gained respect from our spouses, to find out that wasn't true has devastated us...............
After you are in a marriage that long it does identify one to a degree, if we aren't married what are we now........what do we believe in, what can we trust in..........
you treated your husband worse than you would have a stranger or someone you hated.........
You couldn't have done anything more painful for him, because he believed in you and what you had together and the life you two had built together ...........gone for him.
We as betrayed spouses question our own self worth and self esteem blaming ourselves if things had only been different and then there is the physical attractiveness we now question and our sex lives now are forever compared to someone else......
We are angry we didn't have a choice as to how our lives would play out, as wayward spouses you took our lives and ripped it apart and left us with the pieces for your own selfish needs......
We had a right to have a conversation with the person we spend 20 some odd years with whether this would happen to our lives.....no consideration you just did what you wanted to do......
We now question everything because we don't know what to trust anymore or what is real and what we can believe in, it's like waiting for the next bus to come along and run us over.
It doesn't take us much to get to that questioning place again, we are highly sensitive to every word and every action......
My husband and I are also trying to recover but I will tell you the only reason I can get to that is because of him and his attitude and his openness and honesty now........we doesn't let me feel any doubt he is proactive with everything he does, goes and says.........
There are lot of triggers for me and he avoids them at all costs and if they happen, he holds me and tells me that part of him is over and I have nothing to fear any more and he will spend the rest of his life making it up to me, he is scheduling holidays for us every 6 months or so, is organzing a renewal of our marriage vows and has done nothing but making sure I am alright, he just says if I am happy he will be, he doesn't worry about himself any longer.........he says all he needs is for me to smile. It takes humility and remorse everyday for however long it takes, you meet all your husband's emotional needs and make him fall madly in love with you again,
affection
sexual fullfilment
converstion
admiration
family support
financial support
recreational companionship
open and honesty
do little things for him, non sexual contact all day long......
words and reassurance all the time.......
right now forget about you, that will come when he is madly in love again, fix what you broke.......
that is your job now....
I'm glad you cleared that up. But please realize that many wives who were cheating on their husbands, did use the marital home and bed to have sex with their OM while their husbands were away. As someone said, the house itself becomes a huge trigger to the betrayed husband and makes it much more difficult for him to recover.
Quote:
I knew that I would have to be alone for a while before starting a new relationship. Did it work out that way? no, hubby and I R. far too soon, where we should have worked on some issues first. We both wanted to get our family back together, probably too soon.
It is extremely hard to work on marital issues if the two spouses are separated. The more time spent away from each other, the harder it becomes to reconcile. Even your husband could have ended up having an affair of his own while the two of you were separated. That would have definitely complicated things and made it harder for the two of you to reconcile. But even if that didn't happen, there was the danger of him growing accustomed to living away from you and not wanting to go back to you even if you wanted him badly.
Jessi, I disagree with you. The OP isn't able to feel the pain she has caused, so any attempt to "make her husband fall in love with her again", will fail, until she can truly understand who she really is, and why she acted as she did.
"I just realized that it wouldn't have lasted with my guilt towards my husband and the pain I saw in his eyes when he would pick up our kids for the weekend. I knew that I would have to be alone for a while before starting a new relationship. Did it work out that way? no, hubby and I R. far too soon, where we should have worked on some issues first. We both wanted to get our family back together, probably too soon."
I think the problem with the above statement the OP made is that the word LOVE isn't in her explanation.
She went back to her husband because of her guilt and because she wanted her family back. Not because she loves her husband. My feeling is that if she loved her husband, she wouldn't have cheated on him. Without love, their reconciliation is doomed.
Morituri, You know of my situation. Does it appear to you that the OP is remorseful? Like my wife was/is? She ( OP) understands , intellectually, what she has done, but doesn't feel the pain she has caused. In my opinion, with this ability to empathize, there is no true remorse. What she is feeling is guilt, which is selfish, not remorse, which is selfless.
"I just realized that it wouldn't have lasted with my guilt towards my husband and the pain I saw in his eyes when he would pick up our kids for the weekend. I knew that I would have to be alone for a while before starting a new relationship. Did it work out that way? no, hubby and I R. far too soon, where we should have worked on some issues first. We both wanted to get our family back together, probably too soon."
I think the problem with the above statement the OP made is that the word LOVE isn't in her explanation.
She went back to her husband because of her guilt and because she wanted her family back. Not because she loves her husband. My feeling is that if she loved her husband, she wouldn't have cheated on him. Without love, their reconciliation is doomed.
Very good point, SSIA. The word "love", is conspicuously missing from her posts.
Morituri, You know of my situation. Does it appear to you that the OP is remorseful? She understands , intellectually, what she has done, but doesn't feel the pain she has caused. In my opinion, with this ability to empathize, there is no true remorse. What she is feeling is guilt, which is selfish, not remorse, which is selfless.
Badblood, keep in mind that she has no emotional investment in us so it is easy for her to make comments in an emotionally detached fashion. We have no idea how she behaved/behaves in front of her husband. Besides what good is the 'on her hands and knees' type of remorse if the cheating wife continues contacting the OM as it was in your case? You more than anyone else know that actions are what really count, nothing else matters.
Very good point, SSIA. The word "love", is conspicuously missing from her posts.
Even if she had said that she wanted to reconcile because she loved her husband, many of us would have blasted her anyway by saying that her actions proved otherwise. So she is damned if she did, damned if she didn't.
Re: What Else Can I do? 
