Midlife Crisis: Support for Left Behind Spouses
Archives => Archived Topics => Topic started by: Red Star on March 08, 2011, 03:30:30 PM
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I am a green newbie, on the other side, HELLO! :)
I am just 4 mos post BD. One thing I am struggling with is the idea of being intimate again with H, IF he returns. I'm not so sure that I can get past the PA. :'(
Many of you far into this LBS/MLC journey seem to handle sex with a betraying spouse just fine. HOW do you get past all the bad thoughts and visions? :( :o :'(
BStar
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I'll jump in, because I remember having all of the thoughts and bad movies running in my head. You will feel so differently 6 months from now... a year from now.... it won't be anything like how you feel today. You really don't need to worry about it. You are going to learn how to handle a lot of things you can't even imagine being able to... you will just learn to take care of yourself, and if the time comes for you, and you want to have sex, you WILL. It may be while he is with OW, or not until she is long gone. No way to know for sure how any opportunity may present itself to you and how you will feel about it.
So, just crumple that question up and toss it aside and TRUST me.... you'll be just fine when the time comes. :)
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BStar,
I am 9 - 10 months past BD. I don't see my MLCer and I getting together "in that way" anytime soon - if at all. So, honestly, I don't spend much time thinking or worrying about it.
That said - I would ask for STD testing and/or condoms.
Probably would piss him off - but - I would offer to take the same tests.
My .02 cents.
L
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So, just crumple that question up and toss it aside and TRUST me.... you'll be just fine when the time comes. :)
Since there are many things that can and will happen before the ending of an affair IF, it should come; that's not even a question that should be considered at the moment.
You're putting the cart in front of the horse; and you don't even KNOW if your MLC'er will even return to the marriage.
Don't cross that bridge until you face it; there are more important things to face than that....and as you come forward; you will realize this.
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I've worked on this A LOT. Because I want to so badly be intimate with him again.
I've crashed coursed myself. But HB is right it is the cart before the horse. But if you can start working on it now it might be helpful later..but focus on what may have been missing FOR YOU in the relationship FIRST.
A test for STDS is a must.
There's a book called "After the Affair" that helped me get some perpective ..but what has helped me more is talking with him now that the ow is out of the picture.
I also made some power plays like telling him I was going OUT!! And he knew what that meant. But none of what I did am I advising you to do.
He didn't like that one bit.
I'm only into this for 8 months and in that time I was divorced he MOVED HER INTO OUR HOUSE and INTO OUR BED!
He has acknowledged what he's done by saying rather strongly "I cannot imagine the pain I caused you and you suffered by me bringing her into our bed!!" And after I got done losing it. He said "You don't have to worry about that anymore!!"
So if we ever do get back together that particulaer piece of furniture is getting burned or sold. The house would be hard enough to go back to knowing her skanky ass has been in it.
He actually blerted out one time after she was gone"The sex was incredible!!" . That almost killed me. But I think he realizes now that her ulterior motive was to get his money. That all the sex was for her was to get anything she could. I know he thought he was in love..it was just homones and the fact that we hadn't been intimate in a while compounded by all the other stressors his job loss etc.
When we talked about things in another coverstaion I told him that he had "set the bar pretty high"..( she was a prostotute from the age of 14 until 22)
And he said "You don't need to worry about that!". Both of us have confirmed to each other our attraction is undeniable also.
But what I had done very graphically in an email was descibe for him what it was like for me to be with him that way. You see I'm starting to understand sex wasn't the problem..COMMUNICATION was.
I had finshed the email and was getting ready to send it as I felt there was nothing left to lose. When emailed me to tell me the affair was over. So I sent it anyway. His response?
"Holy Crap!"
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IMO before getting to the sex we need to work on forgiving them and that is part of our journey. Coming to terms with our H committing adultery is our biggest hurdle to jump.
Eventually when and if they ask to return I think we should all be sensible and ask them to get tested. HIV and other sexually transmitted infections are growing more in the midlife age group and now we are beating the teenagers :o
You can bet you bottom dollar that while they are having 'incredible sex' they won't think about a condom.........
So while it maybe months or even years away thinking about it may help but have no expectations. This is a very very long journey :-\
xx
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I agree with the forgiveness part.. It was huge for him to acknowledge my pain as I tried to deflect anything I was feeling about the situation to him and focus on the kids and how they felt about the invasion of that particulaer body snatching low life fithy dirty piece of garbage.
When he did acknowledge it..it was though I had been set free somehow. I have forgiven him only because I understand what he was and is going through. But I haven't told him yet.
And he's never been able to wear a condom he just loses the physical ability to perform..must be psycological. . We used withdrawl for most of our relationship or I was on something pill, shot, whatever.
It's a wonder I don't have more than two kids as I only gave him one chamce to get me pregnant the second time because I was scared to death to have another baby. And he did it.
Then he got a V. after that.
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Another good book was "Secrets About Men Every Woman Should Know" This info was gathered FROM men about them and thier needs. I reread this one a lot.
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I think, for me. It isn't so much the "sex" rather the "emotional connection" we think our H's have with the OW.
This is not my H's first PA, SO I have had the unfortunate reality of how this feels more then once.
To me it is just sex. It's human nature for a man to "procreate" There is a part of me that believes a man really
cannot be 100% faithful, only because it seems they are driven by "instincts" to continue the "Bloodline" LOL!
Maybe this is my own way of getting past the betrail. Plus forgiveness is KEY here. That must come first before
anything else.
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Well, due to my nature, it is not putting the cart before the horse. My mom's favorite story of me is when I was around 4 years old. I was quite stressed because I could not figure out how I was going to be able to learn how to drive a car. You see, I plan ahead! LOL ;D
Sex is an emotional thing for H. He bonded with ow first emotionally. Now that ( I have no proof, is a valid assumption ) they are physical, it is like he is bound to her for life. We had always had a super sex life until his emotional issues initiated a distance between us. Things went downhill from there. In spite of the continued chemistry between us, we had not been intimate for a very long time.
I just don't know if I can get past the betrayal. IDK. I go back & forth. I am Standing presently cuz I feel forgiveness. But if H moves out, divorces me, moves in with ow or marries her....years go by where they are devoted.....then he says 'opps, made a mistake'.....I think that by then, my hurt will be too big to overcome. He will just be a man who is capable of betrayal and nothing better. When I found he had made ow a Valentine disc and named the song he wrote, and shared with me on my computer, after the ho-ow....my ability to Stand was challenged.....these are things he stopped doing for me years ago.......I feel he has started a new hot romance with a married ( allegedly divorcing ) ow. Do I sound like an inexperienced newbie??? lol
BStar
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Oh, yeah, well, the STD are another story. Condoms prevent the exchange of ONLY SOME body fluids. Without being too graphic....what man or woman has ever come away from intercourse dry and clean? :o
I don't think I can do it. I think I am going to be sick. :'(
BStar
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I too am a planner. I like to be prepared for any contingency. But I have had to let go of planning for some things....
I have no idea if I can get past anything H has done. I can forgive, but that doesn't mean I can look at him with love in my eyes and heart again...let alone sex! Now is not the time to decide that. If we do get to a place of rebuilding, how well I get past it all will depend heavily on H and his behavior.
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My sitaution is a little differnt.
I think he thought I didn't love him anymore because of the lack of intimacy.
I acutally made an overture to him almost immediatley after I left. He said "I didn't think you were intersted in me anymore that way" I was the one who backed out as my emotions were out of control.
Then I started to anaylze the situation and realized we never really TALKED ...I mean when we were scared or anxious or anything like that because we were both ashamed of how we felt after he lost his job.
So this is where it ended up. Just too many stressors with no way to handle it. AND I didn't feel like having sex but I've read where men use it as a stress relivier :o
But I knew if we had been intimate I would have just been going through the motions as I couldn't connect with him emotionally and I know he would have known that also.
So with exow I think it was emotional for him for a really short time..MY wife is mean etc etc.. And she took the opportunity to sink her claws in ..but not for long.
Us getting turned on by each other isn't the problem..if we could just get some kind of clue how to say..I want you or whatever. I told him I needed him to say that once in a while and he refused toThe man puts me over the top that way.
But too much was left unspoken for too long. It was fights or angry silence.
We did attempt it once before the BD and he lost his erection while we were in the middle of things. That never happened before..so I just thought it was my fault..and I knew he already felt so bad about everything and I couldn't bring myself to bring it up. :'(
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IN THIS
I can relate to so many of the things you expressed. They relate back to the reasons H gives for never wanting to try again. When I dwell on those things, I understand how he might have given up on us = WAS. But then I start thinking about his turning on his values, being willing to leave his family, dumping everything he built for 25 years, the rewriting of history, the projection, the lies, the hating of himself...and I think, = MLC. His therapist told him it's NOT MLC....."go....leave your wife and your life behind, and have an affair with a married ow. It's perfectly natural to feel that way and do those things."
I am CERTAIN that with all the changes I have made and am going to make, and if he can love himself again, that we WILL be able to iron out all that stuff. But I don't know if he will ever give us a chance....he has hated himself for a long time. This new person functions well enough in his new world. And if he lives alone and dates ow, the new man he is may be able to function indefinitely. My own dad went through 4 wives. With the new knowledge I have about MLC, he absolutley was in one when he left my mom. My dad never left the tunnel. He was unhappy, with no one else to blame in the end, so he just got more miserable and depressed, and then had strokes and died. H could go the same route. :'(
((hugs)) cuz, I know how you feel
BStar
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Yeah..it's the never wanting to try again part that's killing me too .we did try quite a few times but I never could put my finger on what was missing!!!
Now I've founf it and it all may be too late.
He cried with me once and said he was scared... I don't know how to reassure him I'm not going to hurt him anymore..I know what we need to do now. Or really whenever he's ready.
I'm starting to think he's afraid of the intense emotion he may start feeling and doesn't want to "expose" himself that way to me. And I'm pretty scared too..but I want to try. And if he doesn't that doesn't make him bad..he's just in a lot of pain. :'(