Re: I can't lie here beside you, because you steal my soul when you are near.
Quote:
Originally Posted by daggeredheart
No matter how much space gets between us and d-day, I know it's a traumatic experience that I will carry for as long as I breath perhaps pass the point where it becomes dusty for him.
The worst part is that it's a struggle and pain that I can't share with him anymore because he can't relate to these types of wounds. Yes he can feel remorse, guilt, relief etc but unless you have been on the receiving end of this type of betrayal- when you've been made to feel replaceable and forgettable, it cuts to the deepest center of your identity.
You don't know what is real anymore and everything you thought you knew and had changes into grains of sand that slip through your fingers. Nothing feels solid and safe.
Sigh!
The heartache no one ever should experience!
Being in this club stinks.
I truly believe the WS will NEVER understand the pain of a BS however remorceful and sorry they are. The pain is absoultely excrutiating.
Re: I can't lie here beside you, because you steal my soul when you are near.
Quote:
Originally Posted by daggeredheart
We are trying to repair the damage caused by his EA and his general computer addiction. It's a bundled mess.
How is the Internet addiction recovery coming along (I believe it also included porn). Didn't you find a therapist recently to address this specifically? Do you feel like that side of things is progressing?
Re: I can't lie here beside you, because you steal my soul when you are near.
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Originally Posted by oaksthorne
Now I am just left wondering if men "love" in a way I can never understand? We were together 19 years and our bedroom activities were in a slump, related to illness ( mine ) and other things. He didn't seem to have a problem with it, but he was actually storing up resentment and feeling deprived and disrespected, according to him. He never said a word about it to me though, but he complained bitterly to OW who became his AP. His love for me seems very conditional.
I wouldn't say he loved in a 'male' way but rather this issue of not communicating his needs and expecting you to be a mind-reader is a hallmark of many a cheater.
My husband also feels I should be able to read his mind. Or at least, he used to, when he was deep in the affair. It actually left me questionning by ability to read him or people in general.
I've since realized in therapy that I have no problems getting my needs met. I have a need, I express it, I either realize I have to compromise or take less than fulfillment on that need, or maybe it really isn't a need, or else get the need fulfilled. My husband, on the other hand, I see him as avoiding conflict and reluctant to tell me if he has a need. That is why I'm pressing him to go to IC (STILL hasn't made that appointment! grr).
Re: I can't lie here beside you, because you steal my soul when you are near.
Quote:
Originally Posted by iheartlife
How is the Internet addiction recovery coming along (I believe it also included porn). Didn't you find a therapist recently to address this specifically? Do you feel like that side of things is progressing?
He is struggling with it. With the help of a therapist that helps with those addictions and of course going all the way back to his cruddy childhood stuff, to see why he turned to computers as his only friend. It's not pretty stuff. I hate sitting through those sessions because it is always ugly and leaves him depressed for a few days.
He puts up huge walls around connection and intimacy of all kinds. Funny when you marry as youngsters, you never pay attention to the red flags.
Re: I can't lie here beside you, because you steal my soul when you are near.
One of our biggest problems is because it's been a few months since Dday- he is past the point of wanting to talk about it, so if something triggers me ( like his far away thoughts) and I want to ask a question, he shuts me down and says, "we are moving forward, I don't want to dwell on that stuff from the past" to which I reply, "quit trying to control my recovery"..... he doesn't want to feel the pain, miss the addiction of her or the game or maybe he's hiding from the shame/guilt...... I don't know because he won't share some parts.
He told me once that he does think of her from time to time but doesn't want to share that with me because he doesn't want me to think he doesn't want to repair the marriage.
I think the more important issue is _what_ can I live with? Picking up the pieces of my fractured heart and trying to understand what I can live with. Each day is a struggle and I don't know if I would have peace if he were here or gone.
There is a deep loneliness/injury within me after this..I'm not sure a repaired marriage can fill that??????
I'm looking for others to share with me how they are working through those moments when you feel *their* commitment to you is being divided by the linger thoughts of the AP
Re: I can't lie here beside you, because you steal my soul when you are near.
If you're sure he's out of the affair, and he is making sincere efforts to curb his internet addiction--are you ready to start trying to retrieve your love for him? The books 5 Love Languages, His Needs / Her Needs, and Love Busters are all terrific (they each have a different role to play)--also because of his past Boundaries in Marriage by Cloud and Townsend. Maybe do that first? It might provoke some good conversations that will get more out of him.
My husband became exhausted talking about the affair every day--and I haven't had a day off thinking about it in over 3 mos --but I had to curb my wish to bring it up all the time. I learned to write down my questions and save them up and warn him in advance that I needed to talk about it. Also if I just couldn't resist the urge to ask a question, I would say, "I need to ask this," and that would signal an affair question was coming, it would prep him to answer better and with less defensiveness over being grilled all the time.
Re: I can't lie here beside you, because you steal my soul when you are near.
I have his needs/her needs but have not heard of the others so I will get those. I devour anything that helps me heal. I'm also learning how to not be co-dependent.
The problem is that I can be so good at squashing my urge to ask questions that he thinks things are fine because we got a week without the subject and then when I do question him (outside of counseling) he feels pulled back into the topic and the scab is scratched off.
I also gave him a book in the beginning "how to help your spouse heal from your affair"...he never got past the first chapter. Selfish on his part.
Re: I can't lie here beside you, because you steal my soul when you are near.
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Originally Posted by daggeredheart
Was your spouses affair ever physical?
I have been waiting for someone on this forum to ask that question. Because for those keeping track, my husband was in a 4.5 year emotional affair with a former co-worker. Sometimes I just say affar and other times I say EA and no one has ever called me on it.
As far as I know, the most physical it got was kissing. I have read hundreds of emails they exchanged, all of which I discovered entirely on my own. The first set were in the secret account I found open on our computer--that was DD#1--so I know that these were undoctored. The second stash I discovered on his work computer with him sitting beside me angrily telling me all emails had been deleted. He was astonished to see 55 more pop right up. Having read all of this stuff, there is not a single mention of anything physical. Nothing about hugs, kisses, sex, meeting to have sex, nor are there code words, or references to hotels, zero, zip, nada that would suggest the affair was physical.
Now all that said--I have made peace with that. I decided already that I could forgive him if it was physical.
However, two separate times I made a big dramatic statement that he better come clean about this because I keep discovering stuff on my own. And if there was anything left to hide, he better tell me.
I still have to go through nearly 5 years of credit card statement to see if his story backs him up. He likes to pay cash for everything so it's a bit of a waste of time which is why I am just now getting around to it.
The phone records also back up his story (because with cell phones I can see that the calls were originating in two different cities).
If I ever catch him lying about the physical side, I will show him the door. It will not be about having sex, because as I said I was willing to forgive that. It will be about the LYING.
Re: I can't lie here beside you, because you steal my soul when you are near.
Quote:
Originally Posted by iheartlife
I wouldn't say he loved in a 'male' way but rather this issue of not communicating his needs and expecting you to be a mind-reader is a hallmark of many a cheater.
My husband also feels I should be able to read his mind. Or at least, he used to, when he was deep in the affair. It actually left me questionning by ability to read him or people in general.
I've since realized in therapy that I have no problems getting my needs met. I have a need, I express it, I either realize I have to compromise or take less than fulfillment on that need, or maybe it really isn't a need, or else get the need fulfilled. My husband, on the other hand, I see him as avoiding conflict and reluctant to tell me if he has a need. That is why I'm pressing him to go to IC (STILL hasn't made that appointment! grr).
I spent nearly 20 years giving him the benefit of the doubt trying to meet his needs and making allowances for his foibles. He made no such allowances for me. He didn't hesitate much at all when she offered herself to him. I don't think he knows what love is. He says it all the time, he said it to me ( calming any suspicions I might have?) all the time he was sleeping with " the poor confused child". No I am quite sure that his kind of "love"is much different from mine. Humping someone else's wife is not a need; it's a selfish destructive want, but he thought it was his right due to my inability to fulfill him. I think that I am going to devote myself to a lot more selfishness from now on. People who put themselves first last and always seem to make out very well. He gets to feel like a stud and still keep his family, and she hasn't a care in the world. Makes me wonder why I ever thought being a good and faithful wife was important at all. Think of the goodies I have missed. Why right now I could be pouring my heart out to an AP and be feeling just great. When I got caught I could just tell H how awfully sorry I feel and that it was all just a big mistake and we could go right on as if nothing ever happened. Only problem with that is that a lot more men than woman kick their cheating partners to the curb. It seems that men don't think that "what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander". What I am supposed to do now, as the good girl that I have always been, is to work like a demon to make everything wonderful for him and make sure that he never feels the "need" to cheat on me again. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I don't feel all that inclined to do that. He is stung too that I don't trust him anymore isn't that odd that I would not trust my H who loves me so? You can probably tell that I am having one of those days.
Re: I can't lie here beside you, because you steal my soul when you are near.
Quote:
Originally Posted by iheartlife
I wonder what percentage of BSs who take their cheaters back live to regret it--even with a WS who ends all cheating.
Predictably, the long-term consequences of interpersonal betrayal depend on whether one asks the betrayed or the betrayer. For example, Hansson et al. (1994) found 26% of respondents reporting on their own betrayals claimed their behavior had actually improved the relationship,41.5% reported no change or only temporary harm, and only 29% claimed their betrayal had damaged or ended the relationship. However, not one betrayal victim claimed the relationshiphad been improved by their partner’s behavior; rather, 86% claimed it had damaged or destroyed it. Jones and Burdette (1994) obtained very similar findings. Betrayal ... Fitness
Re: I can't lie here beside you, because you steal my soul when you are near.
No I am quite sure that his kind of "love"is much different from Humping someone else's wife is not a need; it's a selfish destructive want, but he thought it was his right due to my inability to fulfill him. I think that I am going to devote myself to a lot more selfishness from now on. People who put themselves first last and always seem to make out very well. He gets to feel like a stud and still keep his family, and she hasn't a care in the world. Makes me wonder why I ever thought being a good and I have always been, is to work like a demon to make everything wonderful for him and make sure that he never feels the "need" to cheat on me again. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I don't feel all that inclined to do that. He is stung too that I don't trust him anymore isn't that odd that I would not trust my H who loves me so? You can probably tell that I am having one of those days.[/QUOTE]
*you know I can relate to everything you said and was especially impressed at the point you made about him feeling the need to cheat- I try to imagine myself five years in the future, wondering if his "taste" of cheating will create a hunger to do it again. My therapist ( sounds so cliche eh?) says that it's actually the _secrets_ that fuel the affair and the desire.....the overwhelming need to have a secret.....the forbidden kind is so powerful and tantalizing. If they felt safe to share that secret building...then it would be diffused once it's told. I think the concept behind marriage builders is the same way, policy of total honesty?
Re: I can't lie here beside you, because you steal my soul when you are near.
Quote:
Originally Posted by daggeredheart
Married 12 years, two kids. It's really sort of odd how I found out. Looking back I'm sure I picked up on subtle clues but it happened so fast. He was sitting on the couch and I walked up to him to show him something and he quickly minimized a window on his laptop and I jokingly said, " are you chatting with a woman?" which he denied, then he went upstairs to tuck the boys in bed ( meanwhile he was deleting evidence) which I didn't even think about. When he came down he avoided me, so I pounced. He confessed it all ( long distance online EA of two weeks, so rather quick event over all).
One minute I'm oblivious and the next it all came crashing down. Like a car accident I suppose.
* I don't want to minimize that the shortness of his EA meant it was less threatening because HE felt he was deeply, madly in love with her...... and that was the biggest threat to our marriage, he was neck deep in the fog and it was beyond powerful- so I treat it as such.
Exactly, the fact that they could even think of dating or loving someone else while married is moronic and sicking.
It does not have to progress to a full affair to be painful.
Re: I can't lie here beside you, because you steal my soul when you are near.
Quote:
Originally Posted by iheartlife
I wonder what percentage of BSs who take their cheaters back live to regret it--even with a WS who ends all cheating.
You know I reflect on this question a lot. In the midst of the discovery, when he was gone (at my request) and as I terrified and hurt as I was, there was a spark in my soul that imagined a life without him. A way to start over. A new beginning even though it was covered with fear, sadness and confusion.
Maybe it's a coping mechanism to deal with loss?? I hope I don't regret it overall but some days I damn sure do.
Re: I can't lie here beside you, because you steal my soul when you are near.
Quote:
Originally Posted by daggeredheart
You know I reflect on this question a lot. In the midst of the discovery, when he was gone (at my request) and as I terrified and hurt as I was, there was a spark in my soul that imagined a life without him. A way to start over. A new beginning even though it was covered with fear, sadness and confusion.
Maybe it's a coping mechanism to deal with loss?? I hope I don't regret it overall but some days I damn sure do.
I would love to hear that stat as well.
That is why I decided to file for divorce. The fact that when he was upset about something in his life, he turned to another woman.
It is obvious this woman was looking to change out her husband. My STBEH claims he could not see that.
But I think that is Bull. We were having huge fights while he was seeing her and at one point he asked me to divorce him.
He denies saying that now. But he did and to my mind it meant he was thinking of changing me out, too.
Those words will always be between us. I don't think I will ever trust him and be comfortable that he is watching my back as a spouse should.
He already proved that he was willing to stab me in the back. Why should I ever trust him.
As Iheart said somewhere else. The sex with someone else is terrible, but the lies and the ongoing lies is really what bothers me the most.
I mean seriously, when I teased him about staying away from other women on his boy's night's out, this guy many times looked me right in the eye, ruffled my hair and assured me that he would never cheat on me.
And then he left the house to spend money on her, while I sat at home.
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Re: I can't lie here beside you, because you steal my soul when you are near. 
--but I had to curb my wish to bring it up all the time. I learned to write down my questions and save them up and warn him in advance that I needed to talk about it. Also if I just couldn't resist the urge to ask a question, I would say, "I need to ask this," and that would signal an affair question was coming, it would prep him to answer better and with less defensiveness over being grilled all the time.
