[Red Star]

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?

I don't think I can do it. I think I am going to be sick. 

BStar

[LifeGoesOn]

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.

[In this for ME]

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 

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.   

[Red Star]

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

[In this for ME]

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.