# Have I been sucked back in?



## crisis1008 (Mar 9, 2010)

Good afternoon, all. If you don't know my story, please read my original post, "Scared of making wrong decision." Beware, it's a long one, and so is this. I don't mean to drag it out. I just want whoever is reading this to know exactly what is going on in my head. I want you to picture it the way I do.

A couple of weeks ago, a mutual friend of my husband and I, who is in the same situation as we are, told me that my husband had changed and loved me very much. He begged me to give my husband another chance, as he cried. He said that there was no hope for he and his wife, but sees hope for us. He asked me if I still loved my husband, and told him that I did. I explained to him that you don't spend almost eleven years with someone, and not love or miss them from time to time. I explained that it was hard, but that I was happy being alone.

This friend then went and told my husband that I still loved him, which spawned the rebirth of text-messaging between my husband and I. This seems to happen every month or so, and will keep up until I find the strength to cut him off, once again.

I have a hard time, being mean or too direct with my husband. I have acted in such a way on a few occasions, but he just makes me feel bad as he tells me that I am treating him like sh*t. He tells me that I am mean to him, and, in turn, I coddle him. Being direct with the way that I feel, has never made a difference in our separation.

When he would ask me if there was a chance of us reconciling, I would flat-out say "No." However, he would simply leave me alone for a week or two, then start text-messaging me all over again. 

When he begins texting me, it is usually regarding an issue that he is having with one of my step-daughters, or a simple funny comment. When it comes to my step-daughters, I feel obligated to get involved, as I was the one who raised them and held every situation together in the past. He acts as though he is terribly distraught over the situation and needs to speak with his wife to find the solution and calm down. When it is a funny comment, I think to myself "Well, he is trying to be nice and light-hearted throughout all of this." so I try to give him the same courtesy, by responding with a light-hearted reply. I feel as though I am being rude, if I do not reply. 

The problem is my response always eventually turns the text-messaging into phone conversations, which leads to invitations for dinner, which leads to invitations to watch a movie at his house, which lead to invitations to stay the night. There have even been times, when after watching a movie at his house, I have just stayed the night at his house without even being asked. It has either been too late to drive home, or become too sick with fever (when I had flu) to drive home.

This chain of events is what I have a hard time stopping, and is what gives him hope. We always eventually get to talking about us.

He is constantly asking me if I ever miss him. I tell him the truth, which is that I do miss him every now and then, but feel like I am lying. I guess I am not certain if I truly miss him, or am just experiencing extreme loneliness when I think of going back to him.

I ask myself whether or not I really want to be with him, and the truth is I'm not sure. When I am with him at night, I want to be with him, but refuse his sexual advances. I like it when he holds me while sleeping, but don't have any urge to be intimate with him. During the day, I am happy to be away. He appears to have made some changes in the way he treats me. He is very nice now, but I wonder how long it will last.

Even if he has changed at this point, I fear that he may be miserable in the future, as I have changed too. I am very sensitive to his every comment or action. If he gets ****y or sarcastic in the least way, I hone in on it and think he is reverting back to his old ways. It is very hard for him to deal with. I am always waiting for him to say something or do something disrespectful toward me. I am like a crouching tiger, ready to pounce and attack.

It used to be I walked on eggshells for at least the last seven years, if not longer. Now, he is the one walking on eggshells everyday, afraid to make the wrong move. I refuse to walk on eggshells any longer, and fear I will if I go back to him.

Nonetheless, I am still seeing my husband, and cannot find a way to either break it off, or feel comfortable with it. I am afraid I have been sucked back in. I want to be able to make a clear decision to return to him, if I wish to do so. I don't want it to just happen under my nose, without having total control of where I am going and what I am doing.

Am I making any sense?


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## Lifelover (Feb 7, 2010)

Yes you are making sense. But let me tell you how similar that situation sounds to me, and take it from a guys perspective. People can change, a little I think, but it's the really bad times that have the biggest impact on our character, right? Good days rarely make a serious dent in the way I go about my life.. And generally people remember what made them change, bad example, but like a rat learning not to touch an electrified cupcake.. Anyways, I think people become defensive of the certain things that changed them in some cases. Now am I making sense? Haha. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you get punched by someone, it's normal to react defensively to their arm ****ing back in the future. I think it works the same with verbal as much as physical. But that works both ways, from you to him.

To be more specific, in my situation (alot like yours) there were alot of things I couldn't say or do without my wife automatically thinking I had bad intentions or had gone back to the "old way" of thinking and acting. Stuff most people work through eventually I guess. And that put it in defensive mode, assumptions were made, etc. On the other side of the coin, since my wife had previously initiated the first break up, now that we were back together, if she acted a certain way, said a certain thing, anything, that I mentally related to the breakup, I became defensive. Thinking she was considering leaving me again. Bad little mixture of misconceptions that (for us at least) cycled its way into a full on divorce and just really alot of anger and resentment. No friendship left to salvage I'm afriad.

So what I'm telling you is, from my personal experience, if you even have a doubt, a shadow of a doubt, well, end it now. Get on with things. After 11 years, ask yourself how much of that time you spent happy? In love? Willing to make it work? And take it from a guy who knows how it feels and is still giving you this kind of advice, don't let these feelings build up. Figure it out, quick, however you have to, and make the next biggest decision of your life. It sucks to be on the recieving end, but at least the healing closure gives can start.


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## crisis1008 (Mar 9, 2010)

LifeLover, 

I thank you for taking the time to give your perspective on my current situation. What you say does nake a lot of sense. Metaphorically speaking, I am not sure if I will ever stop cringing when his arm c*cks back. 

I never know how to handle myself when issues concern him or our relationship.

For instance, I have a friend, a guy friend, that I met after I left my husband. While my friend did divulge that he had a crush on me, I made it very clear at that time that I was not interested in him in such a way. I explained that there was no spark, but would actually like to keep our friendship, if at all possible, and we did remain friends. Well, I have told my husband about my friendship, and he does not like it. When he asked me if I would still be talking to my friend I became a little fearful of what was considered right and wrong to him, so I stopped answering my friends calls. I have felt terrible, as my friend has been a great friend, but felt like I couldn't. Anyway, my friend called last night while spending the evening with my husband. When I did not answer, my husband asked me why I did not answer the phone. I explained, just as I had told him about two-weeks prior, that I did not feel that it was necessary and that my friend would soon get the picture. 

Between us, I don't have the guts to tell my friend about how stupid I am in hanging out with my husband, who was severely abusive to me in the past. I couldn't stand the idea of hearing his disappointment in me in his voice. 

To get back to the example, I feared my husband would be mad that I did not answer the phone, so I asked him if he wanted me to call my friend back to tell him that I would not be talking to him anymore. He said yes, so I did, but did not want to. I only did it, because he appeared to be agitated at my not answering, and was afraid he would make off-the-wall assumptions about my reasoning for not answering, then being to drill me about it until I became distraught. It was very hard to do, and when I hung up with my friend, I needed a moment because what I had done was out of character for me. I needed to come to terms with handling the issue in such a way that I ordinarily would not have. I felt pressured into acting out of character, and this was something that I had an issue with for many years while with my husband. I did many things that were out of character for me, due to feeling pressured and feeling that I had to conform to what my husband wanted, or suffer the consequences. The fear and anger crept over me, and my husband became angry that I was upset.

Funny, but while writing this post, my husband just called to apologize for pressuring me to make that call to my friend. He said that he now understood why I was upset last night, and that he was sorry. He said he knew that just because he would handle something in a certain way doesn't mean that I was wrong in handling it a different way. He realized that either way, I was not apeaking to my friend. While, I truly appreciated his understanding and his apology, I feel that his attempt to understand should have come long before, my friend called me last night. I had already explained this to him. Attempting to understand the next day, did not prevent the pressure and conflict I felt last night. Either way, he c*cked his arm back.


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## orcowa (Mar 19, 2010)

Crisis - the one thing I want to add her...and mind you, I am not and have not been in an physically abusive relationship, but for what it's worth... If you are looking for changes in your husband, then I look at the last paragraph as a possibly change. Did he do that before? Call the next day or talk to you the next day and apologize? 

I am currently in a situation where I am trying to act on things I have learned during my separation. I am trying to use some of the "tools" that I have gathered in the past 3 months and when I talk with my wife (who cheated on me)...I try to utilize my conflict resolution skills to the best of my ability. Unfortunately, emotions come in to play and as soon as she defends this other guy or talks about how bad things have been, I immediately forget about everything I have learned. I relate it to sports or a hobby you picked up. You are trying to make changes during the game, where you haven't had enough practice time to really make them stick...

I have some other thoughts, but if you are looking for change and he called to apologize, just know that he might actually be working on things. You talking to a guy "friend" who has a crush on you would drive me absolutely nuts (of course my wife did cheat on me emotionally and physically, so I may not be the best person to comment on that part).


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## Blanca (Jul 25, 2008)

crisis1008 said:


> I have a hard time, being mean or too direct with my husband. I have acted in such a way on a few occasions, but he just makes me feel bad as he tells me that I am treating him like sh*t. He tells me that I am mean to him, and, in turn, I coddle him. Being direct with the way that I feel, has never made a difference in our separation.


You obviously have unfinished emotional attachments to him. You will probably go back to him and that's not necessarily a bad thing. It means you want to. You're not being dragged back in. Emotionally you need to heal, and you need your H to help you heal. i know that sounds nuts because of the way he's treating you, but a popular treatment in psychology to alleviate a person from their fears is to expose them to it until they can be in its presence without that fear. Running away from something you fear can actually make the fear worse- you can never actually be healed. so dont beat yourself down that you might be going back to him. you're trying to heal yourself from something. Logically you might think you _shouldnt_ go back but thats not a realistic judgement to put on yourself. your soul will compel you to heal yourself and you might not even understand your own methods. the important thing is that you are learning. and i think what you really need to learn is what it means to be "mean" to someone. i think this is the part of your journey that you still need your H for. 

You cant hurt his feelings because you hate it so much when you are hurt. that's the core of it. when you get that guilty feeling because he gets hurt by something you have done, it has nothing to do with him. He is not making you feel guilty. it has everything to do with how you feel when someone hurts you. 

My H has a really hard time doing anything that upsets me, even if he doesnt want to do it and resents me for it. But me on the other hand, i have no problem whatsoever saying no to someone even if they get hurt. i dont feel guilty at all. 

So I think learning to set firm boundaries without feeling guilty is your emotional journey right now. try to embrace it instead of cringe that you are being beguiled. You will need your H for your healing, so its not necessarily a bad thing to let him back in.


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## Believe (Aug 27, 2009)

I agree with Orcowa. It does appear that your H is trying to change. I have been training myself for over a year to think before I speak or act out. It takes a lot of practice. The first step is realizing that you did or said something wrong and saying your sorry and then over time you start to notice it quicker. Maybe a few hours sooner at first and then in a few minutes until you will finally realize it before the words come out. It is retraining your brain and its like learning a new language and with practice it gets better. Start noticing the small changes and then you will begin to see some of the others. Focus on the positive stuff and not the negative because what you put your focus on is what you will get more of. 
Keep us posted. It is very interesting to hear this side of the story. Makes me wonder if my H is doing the same thing. Just being nice to me when I reach out to him. How do you think you would feel if your H stopped all contact with you? If you never heard anything more about your stepdaughters or anything going on in his life? (just curious) Do you think it would be more of a relief or do you think you would miss it?


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## crisis1008 (Mar 9, 2010)

It's funny you should ask how I would feel if he cut off all contact. You see, I had almost seven months of my attempting to cut off all contact with him. When he left me alone, I felt fantastic. 

As far as my step-daughters go, the oldest is 25 and living her very own life. As an adult, she had really gotten to the point where she was only contacting her father and I when she was in a rut. She has a lot of animosities toward her father, as he was abusive toward her too. 

The youngest is now 16 and is a daddy's girl who can do no wrong. Once my husband realized that the parenting techniques he used with the oldest made her rebel and turn into everything he tried to prevent, he went to the opposite extreme with the youngest. He has always allowed her to do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted to. She is very spoiled and gets whatever she wants, whether it costs $1 or $500. 

The oldest was always good to me. I was like a big sister to her, but have been used to not hearing from her for a few years now. The youngest has always been either very loving or very evil toward me. She expects me to be her mother and take care of her every need, but whenever I attempt to lay down the law, she would lie to her father and tell him that I was being mean to her. He almost always took her side. She would treat me as though she were disgusted by me. She would give me dirty looks, then beg me to help her with her homework. She ran my house, and I resented both he and she for it. I did not feel like my house belonged to me. 

I feel totally guilty in saying that being without contact has been an almost painless relief, as my youngest step-daughter had a habit on many occasions of being just as mean to me as he did.

I am terrified of going back home. I am terrified of allowing either one of them to be loved by me. I feel as though they do not deserve my love. 

Funny, the oldest daughter, who was a good kid growing up, rebeled against her father by becoming a stipper as soon as she turned 18, doing drugs, becoming pregnant by 19 (stopped stripping and doing drugs), and is now an alcoholic at 25, but I like her more than my youngest step-daughter and husband. She was always very respectful toward me. She always appreciated everything I did for her as a child and adult, and was never mean or disrepectful toward me in any way.

I am almost mad at myself for feeling weak in allowing myself to spend so much time with my husband. I feel like I must be stupid or something. I think to myself, "I have been gone for so long now, and been happy alone. How could I possibly allow myself to take this huge step backwards?"

Furthermore, my husband is driving me nuts with all of the "I love you."s. He is constantly touching me in a sexual manner, which makes me sick right now. He makes comments about my 'not putting out.', which makes me uncomfortable and angry.

I am worried about the fact that, while I do have sexual urges, I do not have a desire for him. He asks me if I find him sexually attractive. I do find him sexually attractive. I look at him and do see his allure, but any sexual desire I have goes away when I am even near him. I get angry at his touch, or even his suggestive comments. He is constantly telling me that he just wants to make love to his wife, and I have no clue when that might happen.

I am so messed up right now.

As far as my friend goes, I completely understand why I needed to stop talking to him. I understand where my husband would be jealous of him, or see him as a threat. If my husband and I should work things out and reconcile, I do not want him to feel as though he must compete with someone else. I do feel bad for my friend, as he was a great friend, and I wish I could have his friendship during this time, but do know that I can't. I do see where his advice and guidance could be biased. I just did not like having to handle things in such a way that I ordinarily would not have. I knew that my friend would realize what was going on, and would leave me alone. He was always very respectful toward me and my situation. Some would say that I should have wanted to be direct with him, but I did not have the heart to do so, and did not like feeling as though I had to do so.

If it were anyone other than my husband who had asked me why I did not answer my friend's phone call, I would have said "As I explained to you before, I did not want to." and left it at that. I wonder if I will ever truly get over the way he has treated me in the past and stop reading into his every word or action. I wonder if I will ever stop worrying about making the wrong move when it comes to him.


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