I tried, but I just can't do it.
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| Wed, 02-02-2005 - 3:31pm |
I wanted so badly to have NC with him. I just cannot. I was so proud of myself. I went an entire day and up until the next morning without talking/emailing/text messaging him. Then he called me crying and telling me how much he loves me and I am right back 100% into it again. I want to stop. I am so tired of hurting all the time and crying myself to sleep, when I am able to sleep that is. But I just cannot not talk to or see him.
Oh, yah, I know I said I wouldn't come back on here, but I just can't stay away from here either! Does that mean that you are going to hurt me like he does????? Just kidding. I just feel a lot of comfort when I am on here and reading what everyone is going through and I soak up the advice and support like a sponge. I really need you guys!!!! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!
Kelly

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"Fear is a damning emotion. It plays tricks on the mind. It is the emotion behind the "what ifs", the I "should haves", the I "could haves." Fear of letting him go and having to deal the real life that keeps me exactly in this place that I ultimately CHOSE!"
YES.
YES.
YES.
Fear is the stronger one in me. Stronger than my guilt. Stronger than my morals. Stronger than my pride. Stronger than my will. Stronger than my anguish.
If I were less fearful, I could back up my WILL with actions.
Loves
Lov
Way don't you sit down a draw up two honest lists one with your husbands upsides and downsides and another with yours.
Look at yourself from your husbands point of view, how many reasons does he have to cheat but does not.
You decision to Cheat has nothing to do with your husband it is a statement about you not him, discouver the reason(s) you decided cheating was a viable option and start working on you from what I have read of your posts your husband is already working on himself.
Free
Hiya Loves,
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The only thing stopping you is you. Buck stops here.
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Yes, it does. It's not an excuse, however. The buck still stops with you. Read Id's posts for wonderful advice on how to continue working with your ex affair partner.
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Those affair partners who both want to stop on the same day at the same time have no need of support boards such as this one. It's a mark of respect to yield to someone's wish to end a relationship. If he weren't putting his own needs above yours, he'd respect your wish to end the affair. For what it's worth, exOM STILL wants to play happy-families & live happy-ever-after. However, rather than seeing this as remotely flattering, I find it deeply offensive since it displays remarkably little respect or consideration for whatever *I* might need or want.
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Sure he does, you've told him how and shown him your own words carry no weight whatsoever. You don't respect you so why should he? No one can reel you if you aren't willing to be reeled. I love what Burnie said about ceasing to focus on what might be and starting to focus on what *is*.
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If a frog had a pocket, he could keep a gun in there so he could shoot snakes...But he doesn't, so he can't, so it doesn't really matter and furthermore it's actually pretty ridiculous pondering it further, isn't it? You're saying "I could be happy and not stray if H were just X, did Y and wanted Z." Basing your happiness on whether or not someone else performs certain actions or changes his/her behaviour is inevitably dooming that relationship to failure.
It's really not anyone's job to *make* you happy, secure, fulfilled as a person, Loves, and placing that enormous burden on someone else's shoulders can only lead to the burden carrier collapsing under the weight you placed there but not before becoming deeply resentful of having been given that burden in the first place. Aim for being happy *alongside* someone rather than being happy *because* of someone. The former is a healthy mature love relationship while the latter is a co-dependent he77.
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Just not enough to quit grabbing those feel-goods. You have to face the woman in the mirror, no one else does. Equally, no one else can adjust your behaviour for you in order that you can become comfortable with whoever it is that gazes back at you from the makeup mirror.
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It's more basic than even that. It's about wanting to stop. If the want-to ain't there, you're farting in a whirlwind. If you don't actually want to stop, you're b-sing yourself more than anyone else. No one else stands to gain or lose in whether your affair is on again or off again. There's no success score card, no funds will be withdrawn on the basis that you don't end your affair, the sun will most likely rise tomorrow and people will go about their normal business. Only you stand to gain or lose anything. So the buck stops with you.
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It's easier to continue doing the easy wrong than it is to consider doing the harder right. I'm a good person, I deserve to be happy, etc. right? When it conflicts with what we want, we tend to leave out the bit where it says "except where my happiness directly or indirectly harms others." Not pretty to gaze upon, perhaps, but a true reflection nonetheless.
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No want-to. Right now your feel-goods are more important to you than the possibility of others' lives being utterly anihilated by your actions. Fearing the possibility of being caught and fully appreciating the devestation it would cause to some little people as well as two big people are two vastly different things.
You speak of love, Loves, your username is "Loves EC." If you loved him, wouldn't you want him to be the best man he could be rather than the worst you could make him? Would you, if you truly felt love for this man, encourage him to lie to, cheat on & betray people who also love him, some of whom are children? If he loved you, would he be quite so happy to see you flushing your own morals & integrity down the toilet? Since when is love something which must be kept hidden & secret like something for which one should feel ashamed?
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The problem with this hope is that the goalposts shift in accordance with our need, Loves. Re-read that, it's important.
What you will tolerate will change as time marches forward. You will accept less because you'll believe you deserve less yet your need, your craving, will increase rather than decrease. Every microscopic scrap will assume enormous importance, it will be desperately needed proof that you really *are* worthy, deserving of loving and of being loved. In the absence of real time spent with him, you'll spend inordinate amounts of time picking over every possible nuance of every syllable he ever utters in hopes of finding some validation, some proof, that he really meant X although he said Y. Not only will you accept his excuses, too busy with work, my wife, my children, but you'll begin to find his excuses *for* him since you need to prove you *do* mean everything he says you mean to him.
You see it being lived all over time & again endlessly on the active affair board, Loves. We read others' stories and tell ourselves we'd never put up with this or that or the other. We know that our affair is different, we know we're golden. And we never notice *our* goalposts shifting, and that we're now the ones posting about things we'd never have tolerated before. And the newbies will arrive, read our posts and confidently state they'd never put up with that and provide hopeful strategies for stepping out of a self-destructive cycle they don't even know they've just begun for themselves.
The archives will reveal that I put the day off of accepting there was more torture in the A than in feeling the pain of ending it for nearly 4yrs. Id put her day off for 7yrs, I believe. One MW here put that day off for 15yrs.
Presupposing no discovery interrupts the needs-meeting feeding-frenzy cycle, the fact of the matter is the longer you permit the A to continue:-
(1) the more emotionally invested you become;
(2) the more our true needs fail to be met as we continue to mask them with the excitement-buzz of the affair, the more we *crave* those masking feelings hence needing more & more masking buzz before becoming resentful that there's insufficient buzz to mask those true needs which begin peeping uncomfortably through the curtain;
(3) the further back your integrity slips the easier it becomes to allow it to continue slipping;
(4) the lower our self-esteem/self-worth plummets from staring at a lying, cheater in the mirror every morning, the more willing (if resentful) we are to settle for fewer & fewer scraps which slowly, gradually become less & less grade a choice prime cuts and more like those cuts the supermarket butcher keeps to one side for pet consumption; and
(5) ultimately our sense of self diminuishes to the point where we come to believe we deserve nothing better than whatever crappy scraps we're thrown since we're still waiting for the answer to all our problems, the ONE thing which will finally *make* us happy, which is someone who isn't free and doesn't actually want to be free to be with us in the real world.
How often do we read phrases such as "you deserve better" or even "I know I deserve better?" Until we decide we deserve better, until we mark those boundaries, until we find sufficient self-respect to fiercely protect and maintain those boundaries we've marked, we ain't going to receive any better.
Ultimately, you write your own life story and you decide how the affair chapter ends.
When ya wanna, ya will. And not before. The buck stops with you.
Strength & peace,
Posie
*not checking for typo's or grammo's*
TO ANYONE WHO CARES TO READ THIS:
I just wanted to comment on something I seem to read alot on these posts. I am borrowing lovesec's words but the same idea is on a lot of posts.
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I find it interesting that so many of us look at our H's as boring sexually, not exciting in life etc. etc... I tend to wonder if that is because WE are actually only fun, vivacious, great shagging pals to our XOM's and XMM's only. Is anyone actually trying to do some of the same things with their H's they did with the AP? I know for one that in any relationship the sex is gonna get stale if YOU do not keep it spiced up. Even in an A. Hell, in my A the sex started to be worse than at home. Their was no intimacy, only the ACT of sex. I feel more comfortable with my H whom I have known for 10 years, and therefore am more relaxed and fun. And I want to make HIM happy with me and happy with our sex life as well. Even outside of the bedroom are we actually TRYING to make our marriages fun and work or just longing for our fictitous, vibrant affair lives?
I guess the point I am trying to make is you are going to get what you send out in return, in the bedroom and in life. If YOU send out happy, fun, exciting sex vibes to your H I can't imagine him not responding as happily as your AP when you did it with him. Am I wrong? I know that any man (almost) is going to respond well to a more happy, sexual wife.
Oy! Sorry to step upon the soapbox, but I have been pondering this idea for awhile. Maybe it is different because my A was pretty much,a purely sexual affair, but just curious what other people might think.
Happy Thursday all you crazy kids!
~nuttmeg
Ironically, I wanted to post about this...I am trying really, really hard to be a better person, figure out what will make me happy, do thoughtful things for my DH, suggest fun things we can do, seduce him, keep the house really clean, give him backrubs... and more and more and more. And it feels like I am doing these things to a child who cannot appreciate them. He has offered me little in response. I know he is hurting b/c I had the A, but I am at a loss. I don't know if I should keep trying these things, leave him alone a little, give him space, move out for awhile, what? Maybe I am trying too hard but I really, really do want to do the right thing and am doing a lot of work to find out what is wrong with "me." I wish he would just contribute a little bit. This is what kind of led me to have the A in the first place. I had tried and tried to tell him what I needed, tried to go to counseling, tried to get him to read books and he did not respond. He is a great father and a nice person and I love him. But I am getting so discouraged.
DM
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Sunshine,
Great post! Admission to one's part in an affair is the most difficult emotional task to perform. From here comes acceptance, and then the rest is history (with time). No one held a gun to our head when we made the choice to get involved with MM/OM. In that case, it would be rape, but there is still a fine line between affairs and rape because IMO, the act was *STILL* conducted against someone's will. The BS.
Good luck in your healing,
Id
Regarding the poster that suggested I work on my self as it sounds like my H is working on him:
I have been going to therapy every week diligently for 7 years. I write in my journal. I explore myself, I work hard on taking MY responsibilty and role in the state of my M. I take good, hard, painful looks at myself every single day.
To the poster that suggested that perhaps I am not bringing fun and sex and excitement to the M:
NO. We NEVER have IC unless I initiate it. I give oral, I smile, I play, every new position is due to MY introducing it. I bought sex ed books home, I wear lingerie, I light candles, I do the seducing. My H DOES NOT seduce me, and he is limited in that way. He has sever social anxieties, sexual hangups, issues with intimacy, anger problems, etc etc etc. He is a solitary, withdrawn, socially disinterested person and he admits this. He will most likely never change and I need to decide whether or not I can handle that. He has NEVER been sexually adventurous, sponteneous or particularly fun except when we first met and he was an alcoholic and the drink made him more fun (until it spiralled out of control and he became abusive.) Sorry, I admit I am not perfect, but I have a handful in him. He is a complicated man.
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You know, everytime I read this in whatever form it is presented on these boards, I notice my *whatever* mood turns sullen and refective. Coming to terms with understanding how *WE* enabled these self-proclaimed "Loves of our life" to participate in our own selfish, attention sucking needs still saddens me, although I no longer have any guilt attached to this. (Took a while, but eventually it was appeased). All we are/were really doing is/was giving our love interest a noose by which to hang themselves. And we think/thought we were so special to them????
Id
LS2,
No, I am not married, but he is. The W actually knew about me a while back, but she think that it was over. I have been seeing him for almost 3 years now. He tells me all the time that he doesn't see how I can put up with this, but that he isn't strong enough to not see me any longer.
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