[Trustandlove]

It took 2 1/2 years for me.....  Once that was out I felt like I was getting on the rollercoaster from the beginning in some ways.   also finally felt that there was the possibility of reconciliation -- it was like a boil being lanced. 

[Rollercoasterider]

I’m reading a book now, the “How to Survive Your Husband’s Midlife Crisis” and I’m finding it good, but many women in here seem bitter to me, and there was even the comment that MOST women in The Midwife Wives Club did not succeed in saving their marriage. Perhaps this is how the author chose to present the posters to their boards, but to me, they sound bitter and angry.

I could not bring myself to read that book for a few years. I red the back cover and maybe the first few pages, but it did not feel forgiving. The forum is good, but I do feel more bitterness than where most of us are from. I think my first issue was that both authors were divorced. Divorce happens, especially with MLC circumstances, but I got the feeling that the authors either wanted it--eventually and may have sought it to a degree. Did they Stand at all? If a certain divorced DBer had a book, I'd by it in a second.

[HeartsBlessing]

It bothers me that I don't know for sure one way or the other on the whole OW thing.  Earlier on I confronted him but of course he denied.  I don't think he would confess yet either.  I'm sure he thinks covering it up will mean it will never come to light but I don't believe that to be true.

Trusting, I was in your shoes, I KNEW there was an OW, but my husband NEVER confessed it, and at this point in time, I doubt that he ever will.

Nothing done in darkness ever stays that way, but the clear signs fell, and I knew, I always knew, even through the lying/denying...and I came to understand that nothing I could do would ever force his confession....yet, I was STILL charged to forgive BOTH my husband and the OW.

Even though things are unknown for sure, you forgive, then work through the feelings on your own with the Lord's help to bring you to healing, and that takes TIME.  There is a reason for everything, and you also need to be prepared that he may NEVER tell you the whole truth about what he did.

You may say that it won't happen that way,  that you will have the entire truth, but who knows what the future may bring?  I waited for several years, and it never came...I went on into total forgiveness, acceptance, and then, healing, and in time, I left it behind...and now, with the way things stand now, I may NEVER have that confession I thought I wanted so badly all that time ago.

I can't say I was "misled" or even "misguided"....the Lord had already shown me that he might never tell...and I had to deal with that, and accept it...that didn't keep me from accepting the deed had happened, working through the negative feelings and fear associated with the affair, forgiving both people for their parts in it..my husband and the OW..and finally integrating it into my life, healing from it completely.

The only reason I still remember is that there was a lesson attached to it, as there always is when you go through something major like that.

I speak candidly of that time, but I no longer have the feelings associated with that event...it is the same with everything I experienced/endured throughout, I remember the events I can remember as "facts", but the "feelings" are gone...I can remember how I felt, but the emotional memories are not relived through the telling...this is true healing the Lord wrought within me.

I used to think that if he'd tell, things would automatically straighten out, but I found that was not necessarily so, he still straightened out within himself, in SPITE of the fact he never talked about it, and in time, has forgotten ALL that he has gone through in his MLC.

I also got pretty obsessive about it for nearly two years after the affair was finished, before I reached total forgiveness and meant it within my heart, and I know with a naked honesty that I was never emotionally ready to hear this truth until a few years ago, and it still never came, even though I'd forgiven him for it honestly, but had never told him until he dragged it up once more back in 2005, as he was struggling with the child that I wasn't seeing at that time......I was startled, and said that I'd forgiven him for it, and I remember he tried to twist my mind somewhat....I stopped him, told him to shut up, that if he wasn't going to tell the whole truth, then he could take it to his grave with him. 

In other words, it was "put up or shut up"....I wasn't angry, but I was firm...I told him that I'd KNOWN what I saw, I KNEW what I'd heard...and even though he'd lied to me about it, I'd still forgiven him for it..but if it ever happened again, I was GONE..and I also told him that he didn't need to think for one second that I wouldn't know if he did this again...but that there would be NO questions asked a second time, just a showing of the door and me kicking him in the butt as he went out of it.....
And I MEANT it...it was never brought up again.

Even though he was going through a different type of crisis because of that seven year old child that was missed during his processing from before, the affair was NOT repeated, and will never be...and I know that because this was shown to me by the Lord, and I trust HIM, when I can't trust anything or anyone else.

I reached a point at that same time those few years ago that I knew within myself that it did not matter if he ever told or not, so long as he made the necessary changes and became the mature man he was destined to be...and I found that statement became a necessary truth, not whether or not he had had OW...that was between him and the Lord...and I know for a fact that although he asked for forgiveness for what he got tangled up in with OW, he STILL reaped the consequences for his actions, and as long as it is not repeated ever again, I will remain with him as his wife...and quite honestly, I don't think about what he did any longer....it is not part of my thought processes at all....I have other things to be concerned about, and those events/memories are long gone.

Tell you something else, though, when you hold onto the wrongs that you know have been done to you, you have not truly forgiven anything...forgiveness has to be complete, or you haven't forgiven at all.

You may never know EVERYTHING your husband endured within the tunnel, Trusting, and I say this also, for the benefit of the others here, but he will tell what he can tell you, and you will need to accept whatever he tells you, and be prepared to forgive him completely, even if it takes time, as some things he will tell you will hurt you badly; and they will be unique to him, and what he experienced within the tunnel.

Anytime you think your husband is "stuck" check yourself first, God links the two as one body, even during the crisis, and I've seen things happen that wouldn't have happened if my attitude had been what it should have been....as I held back my forgiveness toward my husband, his progress was slowed and sometimes stopped within the tunnel, while I worked out what it was within myself that was with holding forgiveness; even if I didn't tell my husband, I STILL had to keep my heart open and forgiving, or I could not have dealt with the next step of the journey.

The two spouses are linked more closely than people think while the MLC is going on...you have the MLC spouse who is weak, the "sane" spouse who is strong that is the leader....and when the roles are switched, the journey is meant to go the SAME way, as the strengths and weaknesses are balanced out..at least they are supposed to be.

I spent a longer time in my transition than I was supposed, and that was directly linked to my HUSBAND, who was scared, and didn't know what to do, and so I had to lead for both of us, much like I'd done during his MLC.....I had a hard time going through, partly because of my childhood wounds that were suffered, other things that were suffered in my adult life and marriage...and it didn't help my husband was dragging his feet.

He honestly did NOT know what to do.....and did the only thing he knew to do, and that was grab onto me, which slowed us BOTH down...I saw these things in hindsight....yet, with the help of the Lord, he got better as I got better, and when I had surgery in 2007, on the downhill slide of my transition, I nearly died, and my husband never knew that.....when they cut into me, they discovered that not only did I have a stone that they knew about in my gallbladder, but they also discovered that my gallbladder was almost solid stone, and gave me MORE anesthetic to keep me under, and gave me too much.

It took the recovery room nurse nearly an hour to wake me up, and in error, she informed me that they'd given me too much stuff, and thought they were going to lose me...yet, the Lord had assured me BEFORE the surgery that He would be with me and see me through....He was even the one who told me what was wrong with me three months BEFORE the surgery, and instructed me to go to the doctor to solve the problem.

I didn't go,  had a severe gall bladder attack, landed in the ER in Kentucky, had a cat scan that if someone had known how to read, they would NOT have released me..but they did, I drove my truck home, informed dispatch that I wasn't coming back until I knew what was going on...these events led to this brush with death..and apparently was something I had to face while within The Change.

We made it through my transition with no damage that I knew about, and I didn't do half the stuff he did, that I remember...but the going was really slow.

You will find that as time goes on and you allow yourself to heal from ALL the damage that you become glad you endured this trial...I have NO problem with what I went through, understanding in hindsight that it was all for a reason...and though I never got ALL my questions answered, I understood enough to let the Lord deal with what I couldn't understand...and let the rest of it go, knowing it wasn't important enough to get stuck in...as bitterness can take up residence within you.  Your husband could become an angel, after it was all said and done; yet, if you allow yourself to become bitter  because of never having learned an entire truth, it wouldn't matter, and would tear your marriage to pieces.

It is all too easy to allow anger to fester within your heart...and I was one angry chick at one point in my life to the point of rage, and it scared me, because this wasn't what I was...I had to work THROUGH the anger/rage toward acceptance, forgiveness and healing.

It's wasn't easy for me to do this, but I got through it, and you will, too.

Trust all these things to the Lord to handle, Trusting..if it is meant for your husband to come to you with this truth you seek, it will be done, if not, it won't.

I'm not a weak person by any means, but I learned that some things are better left in the hands of the Lord to deal with, and He will deal with a wrongdoer in His time, His way.  The battle is HIS and he means that, it's not just blowing smoke.

I have watched my husband come forward this last time much more quickly than I have ever seen him move, in part, because I left him alone as I was supposed to; his broken ankle contributed heavily to some of this moving forward as He worked within that situation, but what I'm seeing is nothing short of amazing, and I continue to leave him in the hands of the Lord to work with.

It has been truly worth all that I have endured to see this man in the process of becoming what he should have finished years ago, but because of this one failure to face ALL his issues at one time, he prolonged his OWN suffering, and I had nothing to do with that.

[Trustandlove]

I used to think that if he'd tell, things would automatically straighten out, but I found that was not necessarily so,

I thought this as well -- when I finally got the confession, which was a bit of a surprise, to tell you the truth, my first reaction was an ecstatic "YES!  Now we can finally stop being silly and sort this thing out!" 

Well, it didn't work that way.  Because he still wasn't interested in a reconciliation; I'm not really sure what prompted him to finally tell me everything.  I guess the way it would be said here would be to say that he still wasn't (and isn't) out of the tunnel. 

But what it did mean for me was that I wasn't nuts -- that what I felt had been true all along actually was, despite his many protestations to the contrary.  That helped enormously in many ways, with my own self-esteem, confidence, and ultimately my stand for my marriage. 

[HeartsBlessing]

Well, it didn't work that way.  Because he still wasn't interested in a reconciliation; I'm not really sure what prompted him to finally tell me everything.  I guess the way it would be said here would be to say that he still wasn't (and isn't) out of the tunnel. 

You pushed him into telling, and his guilt got the best of him...that's what led him to tell you the truth.


You got what you wanted, but the further steps he was not ready to make...and his actions did tell you that he was not out of the tunnel yet.


So, what now?  You go on with your life, STOP worrying about him...let the Lord work on and within your husband; live your life, take what you can get, and trust in the Lord for all the rest, including the outcome.


It's not an easy path to walk...I didn't find it easy, either.  There was SO much damage done, and I got SO tired, so angry, so sick of this whole mess...and I wanted to give it all up, and forget it.

I kept going because I KNEW I needed to trust the Lord for what He promised me...the restoration of my marriage.

You know, when we take our vows, they do say for better and for worse..and this is the WORSE; and as long as you can stand, you want to do the best you can to become what God meant for you to be in this process, too.

And even though, I had to face the possibility that he might walk away, it was clearly shown me that I couldn't make the break, my husband would have to.....if I had done it, I would have been stepping outside of the Will of the Lord for my life, the marriage was meant to continue, but it was up to my husband to continue or not.  I could have stepped out at any time, but I would have been on my own, if I had, in time, suffering consequences for disobeying the Lord in His instruction to me.
He clearly said that there was hope as long as I loved my husband and He was aware that if it came to a time that I didn't love my husband anymore that He would be unable to force me to stay within my marriage...but He gently encouraged me along the way, teaching me about my husband's ways and troubles, and helping me to understand my husband more...and to really know someone, and understand them in a way no one else does, is to continue to love them.

Because I asked Him to, He granted me Unconditional Love, which is God's perfect love in regards to my husband.....my human love was dying, and I was having SO many troubles maintaining this in the face of all the damage that had been done toward me, and the damage he was, at that time, continuing to do to my love for him.
It did NOT mean that I would always LIKE what my husband did, but it ensured that I would still love, in spite of what he did, or even what he believed.

God loves us, but He doesn't like everything we do, He separates the behavior from the person, and loves us anyway...this is His way of dealing with us as imperfect human beings.

So, my love survived, having been replaced with this gift...and though, I STILL got angry sometimes about things he did, I never lost that love for him...and still have it to this day.

There came a time that I did take my focus totally OFF my husband and moved along...it wasn't helping for me to keep worrying about him, I wasn't letting him go into the Lord's hands when I did that....so, I let him go, as difficult as it was, and learned to just keep going, keep the focus upon me,, and when he reached out for me, I was there, but he reached out because I was moving beyond him....and he ran to catch up with me.

That kept the decision upon him to follow me; as he had been the distancer in our marriage, he then became the pursuer....and I will NOT pursue him ever again.

I had spoken of becoming the opposite within the marriage as MLC goes on, and it does work wonders.

Throwing him off-balance was but one of the things I did to stay mysterious, and it sparked his curiosity about what I was up to, and kept him coming forward steadily.  He was forced to ask nosy questions of me because I wasn't telling him anything about what I was doing...just coming and going as I pleased....he did see that to be involved with my life, he was going to have to get involved with ME.

I would allow him to stay involved just enough for him to know I was still there, but wasn't getting sucked up into his drama...and I noticed he kept improving as time went by.

But when I turned totally back, opened my big mouth, and got involved with what he was doing, interfering, if you will; it threw us BOTH backwards, and all progress was lost to start all over again......I did this several times before I learned to just leave him alone, and move forward without looking back.

You think that if you leave them alone, they won't move, but the opposite is generally true; they have to process on their own, and to do that effectively, they must be left alone to do this.

You will know IF they get stuck..don't doubt yourself in this.  The cycle that results, such as it is, will be very clear, and literally 'beg' to be broken.


Because you stand for your marriage, doesn't make it an obsession....people gave me some pretty strange looks, and accused me of being "addicted" to the relationship....it wasn't that at all.   I stood because I am a stander, and because I took vows that meant something to me all those years ago.  On top of that, God was with me, and I knew this as well.

Now, God will not show you everything in one fell swoop; if He did that, you would run like the d!ckens...the road would look to be TOO long, and the trial, such as it is, would overwhelm you.....He brings you along; one step at a time, one day at a time, and these things are broken down into stages, if you will, bits, parts and pieces that you can handle.

As He will not put any more on you than you can bear at any given time, as you gain strength, He will lead you along according to that strength, and things that looked so hard in the beginning, are nothing more than an obstacle to navigate.

He will ask questions from time to time, and He knows the answers to these, but it is for YOU to see more clearly where He has brought you from, and a more clear view of where you are going; especially during a trial as long as this one.

The bottom line is do you trust Him enough to follow Him, even unto the ends of the earth?  Faith is built through these trials...hope is increased as He gives small reassurances that things are going as they need to be.

A person ends up deciding within themselves in regards to standing, and God is NOT slack concerning His promises...those will come in His time; although His time is not ours, just as His ways and thoughts are not ours, either.

There are so many things to be gained from this experience, and it is not only the lessons we learn, it is also through the development of our relationship with the Lord we learn MORE about Him, and how He works within various situations.

We lose and we gain from this trial...our losses are nothing compared to the gains.....as long as we trust in the Lord for everything in our lives, we will lose nothing, and gain a whole lot of spiritual tools that will be useful down the road, as well as useful while still within the trial itself.

Faith is the evidence of things as yet unseen, and because we trust completely in the Lord for the outcome; He will bring us through, and help us to accept all that happens; reaching a new point within our growth.

[OldPilot]

Bumping this thread up.

[stillhere]

Thanks OP for bumping this.  I needed to read these bits of wisdom today.   

[OldPilot]

STILL what happened to your post in the other thread?

Put it in here.

Stllhere- No problem. Sometimes I get lucky.   

[Still]

OP,

I didn't realize we had one going already. Sometimes I think I have read things on a different site. Mind isn't what it used to be.

[Purple stain]

I just read something very encouraging by RCR about intuition. It's funny cause I've experienced the same thing. My H never "dropped the bomb" on me as luckily ('knock on wood") there is no other woman and he has stayed at home. He just started slipping away, going out all the time, staying away from home...so one night I asked him if he was going out all the time cause of me and he simply replied "yes". For the first time, i actually got an answer...that night we had a talk and he told me how he doesn't know why he is so unhappy but he feels like he is missing out and can't do the things he wants to do...when i asked him what it is that he wants to do he couldn't answer me. so anyway, that night, for some reason, i felt in my heart that we will be eventually OK. prior to that, i used to panic, cry, be angry sad etc. and that was the night i started detaching before i had even read up on all of this what I'm supposed to do in order to keep my sanity...actually, i do some positive thinking, feeding my subconscious mind every night...my H has written to me that he hopes as well that we will get closer again due to him being in IC. I'm happy that he has told me that but I do not cling to it or analyze it...at this point, i have my hope and feel pretty strong. I'm convinced that he will find his way back to me but i don't fool myself. one of the senior members wrote me that "he is giving me the gift of time" (sorry, don't recall right now who it was)...and yesterday, it just clicked. we are waiting with starting a family because i just started school again...i will take this as an opportunity to work on myself and hopefully by then he will be back, stronger and better, and therefore, we will be a stronger and better couple...ready to start a family (a couple of years). it just dawned on me that this is our chance to prepare ourselves, and grow as a couple. please don't get me wrong, again, i do not fool myself...but i do have hope and faith and intuition...

the one thing though that i am having a hard time with is the no touching, not being close, no physical contact. i wish i could just hug him and let him know how much i care for and about him...i was wondering how other members deal with that?