[Synicca]

Lisa,

I actually DO agree with just about everything you say here...I have had all the same thoughts and feelings at one
point or another, In fact again today I am battleing the desire to move on with my OWN life with my D and be done
with this sh*t.

I feel like you do today...It was all ripped out from underneath me too. but AGAIN though. not one time, not two times
but SEVEN frikken times! so yah! I do get it.

I see where the deep hurt you feel comes from, everything that you knew to be safe was ripped away like it
meant nothing. YOUR whole life becomes a "joke" or the feeling that it has anyway. so I DO get it.

Your not the one that "stepped" out and abandoned you and your kiddos, HE DID. That kind of hurt runs deep.

So, I am just gonna say...I do really REALLY wish you well. with or without your Marriage in tact. I can only hope
that for all of us.

many hugs!
Syn

[Thundarr]

Thank you, Lisa, for a very heartfelt and to-the-point post.  You speak from a point of someone who has experienced and owned their pain and is moving on, but maybe not exactly moved on as of yet.  I can't imagine the pain you've been through with how your H handled the D and remarriage.  You must have been cut to the core, and I'm kind of feeling that you would never be able to trusy ANY man the same way you did your H and that may be the reason for your position.

I'm very early on in this, but  I have been having the thoughts lately of how I want to spend the next decade of my life.  I will be 40 in a week and I think my age is working against me in that I just don't want to spend my 40's sad and lonely.  I KNOW that I could find someone else, but I DON'T KNOW if my W will ever be willing to commit to the marriage again regardless of what happens.  I have alot of decisions to make, but I will not make them out of anger.  I, too, want to share the best years of my life with someone of the opposite sex.  I also want to enjoy the great sex like you mentioned and have no desire to live like a monk.  I take my vows seriously, but if the marriage IS dead then what do my vows even mean anymore? 

I wouldn't make excuses to ditch my marriage, but it pretty much ditched me.  I may have nothing to stand or fight for anymore.  And, if that turns out to be so, then I have no desire to put any energies into a lost cause.

[In this for ME]

I don't know which is worse EA or PA.

I guess the PA has been for me because we struggled so much in that area. Trying to get my brain around him doing the things we did with someone else- wow I mean it took so much for me to make myself that vulnerable physically. And the emotional connection that made for me when we did connect was off the charts.
It didn't happen oftern but it did happen.

I belive we are both deeply connected emotionally ( and have been even through this shi*storm) we just don't know how to communicate it. It makes us feels weak.

He wanted the divorce I gave it to him and now were living together  This whole whirlwind has been almost exactly one year. But he's still in MLC.

I don't know how to recover from the physical betrayal 

[wondering]

Love, I believe if your H sincerely comes back you will be able to forgive him. My H also had said something similar to his OW about loving her. He told me he said it because she said it to him but that he didn't mean it. Now I had seen some emails and he certainly had no problem saying to her with ease. At first I was so hurt. But now I see it as just a symptom of his problem, and could sense that it was true that he didn't really mean it. I'm sure he believed he did at the time. It was infatuation not love. As he lost his "love " for her it was more clear that it was never love. True love is deep, developed over time. Affairs are not love even if they convince you of it. It just two disfunctional people desperately wanting to feel love so they both take the first thing that comes along and pronounces true , undying love for each other In time when OW shows their true colors and when our H's show their true disfunctional state, the cracks start to appear. I hope both our H's get their act together soon

[unbroken]

Thanks, Wondering.  Me too.  Hang in there.  As you know, I see hope in your situation.

[LisaLives]

It has all been painful, it's painful for all of us, but I have never really taken it personally.  I freak out sometimes and think it's my fault, but at the end, it was his choice and what he has done to his kids is not about me.  So, no T, I still trust people and I want to trust people, especially men, and even him, but that's why I struggle a lot with detachment.  If I were to become detached enough from him that my it would be difficult for him to hurt me, it would make me less sensitive to others also, and I don't want that.  Selective detachment is hard for me...   

All my life I tested ENTP, very strong NT on the MB.  I still do some OD consulting and recently was retested as an INFJ.  The last five years of life have given me a lot of personal development in sensitivity and emotional awareness and forgiveness of others.  I did not grow up in a supportive environment and it took me 25 years to allow myself to trust and be vulnerable with others.  He can take my marriage and my family as I knew it, and for 20 years he robbed me of so much of me, but I don't want him to take any more, and that's part of not wanting to stand, too. 

I value the trust I have for others and the fact that I have known deep caring and support from complete strangers.  If I have to deal with him and his craziness, he will slowly, but surely erode all that, I could feel it happening before I went NC.  And also brings me back to the part of me that thinks he is a narcissist and because he will never be happy himself, he will not rest until he has taken everything he can from me.  I don't want him close enough to know what those things are, and I sure as hell am not letting him close to my heart without some kind of guarantee. You know that saying, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me... 

[Synicca]

Lisa,

I am going to say something here...please do not take offense...

But, we are all responsible for how WE feel, right? We are the ones that ALLOW others to TAKE from us.

Your H could NOT have taken so much of you for 20 years if you did NOT allow him too. I can sit here and blame
my H for all the years of addiction and affairs and blah blah blah...and blame him for taking MY life away from me.
but really, if you think about it. I allowed him too...I didnt stand up for ME. and I dont think you can souly blame
HIM...I dont think any of us....should BLAME our H's or W's for EVERYTHING.

We have the right to choose to walk, to STAY. to do whatever...its OUR choice. So I CHOSE to stay with my H for
24 years..MY CHOICE. Why blame him??

your H is 100% responsible for his ACTIONS and REACTIONS to everything in life and the same goes for YOU.

I think your still VERY angry here...I just would like to see if you can look at it from a different angle.
ya know??

Hugs
Syn

[Foxberry]

Hi Guys,

When my H told me that he'd had unprotected sex with OW last September I was physically sick.....I thought my world had ended....the end of the safe world I had known for so many years....I thought it was the worst pain I would ever feel...it wasn't...the worst pain for me is the betrayal of the intimacies of our marriage that have come to light over the last twelve months and unfortunately are still coming to light...why would he do this? I don't know....but he has told OW so many things....

For me the act of betrayal and adultery took place long before he had a PA, it was the moment he even considered it, thought it was ok, and gave neither me nor our marriage a second thought against his own selfish needs....that for me is the thing I struggle with so very much.      The sex is dreadful - a nightly terror that haunts me, but the betrayal of intimate secrets - that trust has gone forever...

Love Foxy
xxx

[LisaLives]

Syn, I don't understand where you see anger.  What part of my post sounds angry?  You are right, I willingly gave up everything for him for 20 years, thinking that it was for the greater good, for our family, but what I gave was never enough.  I was not intending to blame him, but I do feel robbed me, in that he took without fulfilling his end of the bargain.  I am past the anger, but I know I felt it, and there will be days for the rest of my life that I will still feel it.  But I don't live in anger or blame.  What I was trying to say was that I am not going to let him take anymore, that I have to learn not to give and that's hard for me.  Why is that angry? 

I think thou doth protest too much, sweetie, with love and all due respect...  I am truly happy and at peace with my choices and my decisions, and I choose to put myself out there, so that others can call me on it and use my experience to process their own, but I think I threaten you somehow.  You can say in one post that you agree with me, but then when I try to explain that my decision did not come from a place of hurt, but was a resolution and a recognition of past hurt, you change tune and want to condemn me.  I know you are struggling, I know we all struggle and I won't deny pain and anger and all that stuff, but it is not a part of my daily existence and it is not how I have made my choices.     

I don't want to spend the rest of my life dealing with a crazy person who keeps trying to hurt me.  And if my just reward is a return to a family that never wanted me in the first place, what have I won?  I think that's a pretty sane decision, really.  And if not for my commitment to my marriage and family no one but people here have ever questioned me.  My friends, family, even his colleagues don't understand why I was married as long as I was...  This site is focused on standers, but RCR has said a lot lately that she knows most will not stand forever.  And this was part of a discussion about knowing when to "stand down." 

Sure I doubt my decision, every day, because dealing with a crazy person you love will do that to you, but I am comfortable with my decision, even if I never convince you I am okay, I really am.  And you will be okay too, and I hope you have the best life you can, standing, sitting or hanging on for dear life to the back of the bus--but will you never be okay with anyone who chooses not to stand, or is it just me?   

[Synicca]

Lisa,

Maybe it isnt anger I see or read if you will? I guess its more of a frustration?? I could be very wrong.
If so, then I am glad you are at peace. I do want that for everyone. I do not question your stand.

I'll admit, I dont understand what keeps you here? I am not saying you are not allowed here or even welcome here.
I just dont understand it?

Really, I am not threatened by you at all. I think your who you are, and quite the wonderful person I am sure.
and I do still agree with "how you have felt" I have felt that too. so its not a matter of saying one thing and
then doing another. I agree with parts of how you feel, but on others I dont. But I do not judge you for it.
This is YOUR life. not mine.

Maybe it is because I question my own stand? maybe because I am not quite sure if you totally understand MLC?
I dont know. You are free to do what you want and feel is best for you. I would NEVER tell someone to DO as I do.

I really do not know what you have been through with your H, I wont ask. That is none of my business. I hope
That you atleast (and I could be speculating) feel grateful for YOUR life. Past, present and Future. (with or without him)

Many hugs