Until I found out he lied and was still with the OW and telling her he was going to be with her. It of course makes me assume theres the OW, or more than 1, but it does me NO good to focus on that or assume things in my mind and drive myself insane. Learn how your comment data is processed. I will never be able to control what he does or make him see things the way I am, his perceptions right now are absolutely screwed up. I lived through a 4 year EA my H had with a girl in grad school. im just so confused. My experience (and for so many beyrayed spouses) is the same as yours. Which is that fair? Forgiveness takes a long time. Hold your head up and be strong. Could be he is no longer that interested in going out . And 99% of that mentoring time is spent with betrayed spouses (usually female). I get the whole she my soul mate, she perfect for me, Im the happiest Ive ever been. I was dating an highly ranked law enforcement figure and things were not adding up so I researched and found out he was happily married the whole time. When were home together and hanging out, things are fine. The only thing the cheater sees is their own selfish needs and desires. During that time we have experienced so many of the topics in this blog like gaslighting. Here is a transcribed excerpt from that session. I do not do his laundry or errands or cater to him. But would go back to treating me horribly a few days later. He doesnt want to help you in any way. I think im still SOMEHOW so shocked by all of this, that everytime he does something that shows me he is pulling away, Its like being kicked in the stomach. If you dont, thats what theyre going to do to you. If I gave marriage advice to any young couple always have a back up plan and emergency $. I cannot understand. I thought we turned the corner. Stated out by spilling her guts to my husband about her partner, who was a man she had just stolen from another woman. Innocent my arse!!!!! I am going to go speak to a therapist, I think that will help. I cant IMAGINE lying to someone the way he has lied to me, I dont even think he sees it as lying anymore. And I get it bc I am exhausted too. My husband was acting very strange and very nasty towards me. He was going to fix it. How is he rewriting history SO much and saying these things and feeling ok about it? She was 23 at the start of their relationship, the same year I celebrated my 50th birthday, so I get you on the 20 something part too. His addiction. They can tell the OW/OM the A is over. Its her or me. Its like im just here, I just exist and as long as he can come home to see the baby and feel like im still around, then he feels good to live whatever life he wants. No craziness. I could no longer function under the black cloud of infidelity. You remove yourself from his manipulative behavior. I have a close friend that cheated and is not 18 months post him coming clean and his wife calling it quits. The only thing that was happening was I was a total wreck, and that didnt affect you like it should have. Now we are married (family influence I think and I kind of got blackmailed into it by him and my older sister with the nude pictures he had seen before when I asked for us to postpone the wedding) its just a rollercoaster of accusations driving me to do things everytime I start falling back in love with him. I think its also the type of people he befriends. Eventually I made him realize he had to leave the house. I dont know why I am doing anything I do these days. Now? I was not the cause of his unhappiness. He was no longer a bit arrogant. When im starting to think none of this is even about me really. I think you did the best thing given the options you had. I guess all I can do is work on ME and try to be the best place for him to be! And 2-3 days later he would tell me he wasnt sure what he wanted. But the day he is out in the street b/c she has moved on (and we all know she will) as he has no Job or $ or anything he will do one of two things. He wont hear or acknowledge that he has a problem so hes always out seeking validation from women. Dont stress about the OW. But nothing you do will influence him. I have wanted NOTHING more than to fix us and move forward and be the great couple we have always been, but he seems to be all over the place and completely blames me for the problems in our marriage that lead to his affair. He said no matter how hurt or upset he is, he shouldnt say rude mean things to me that arent true. You are NOT doing anything wrong. But i do feel that way. You are his W and deserve to be his #1. Coach assigns us a book to read together. Hopefully this reply works, bc my last one was very long explaining my situation and it seems like it disappeared. Sometimes he asks me questions where I can tell hes curious about things, and then its like the majority of the time he clearly doesnt care bc if he did, he wouldnt spend all of his free time away from me. When the next loser girlfriend finds out who and what he really is, it will came back to bite him. He needed to be shown the door. And I wonder if your H isnt trying for the same thing. He never saw me with an I dont give a crap attitude towards him before. Clueless Alien Syndrome When Your Spouse Becomes a Person You No Longer Recognize, A few years back I found this definition of the affair fog somewhere online. Some days feel good, and some days feel like absolute torture, and I dont know if its in my head and I make it worse by getting in a weird mood, or what. Our life stayed secure. K. There is nothing you can do. What is terrible is that your H is keeping you in limbo and not putting his M or you first. There are a lot of things that people have to consider about reality. Or just dont engage with him except about finances and your baby. DO NOT ASK IF HE IS LYING. That began a stage of life where she underwent 40 hours of therapy a week with strangers practically living in our home to work with her. But if I say that he says WE DONT ALWAYS HAVE TO BE TOGETHER! Let him start to see you are taking your power back. So now the OW wont even allow him to have anything to do with me, including any civil relationship so we can raise our kids. Yup Yup and Yup. Regroup. Boo Frickin Hoo! That was NOT a good time his whore actually was going to come to our house I said bring your retarded ni**er whore ass to my house I was waiting with my sons pitbull and I told her my husband and I that we were waiting with a pit bull (she was scared to death of ) for her she NEVER has shown her face she left state as I did inform her legally if I saw her face I would have her arrested she left NY and went to Houma La never to be heard from again. You get a % of his pay for alimony and child support. You can let yourself get angry when he lies or you can accept he is ALWAYS going to lie and move on. Two steps forward and one step back as they say. I didnt even think about the possibility of her having an affair. Sometimes the only thing people understand is a financial impact. He married you. I told him it seems much more like he wants the bar life. Money in your own name. If the symptoms are I played along b/c I had no $ to my name. I dont talk to him, but sometimes my emotions get the best of me as Im trying to deal with surviving this entire ordeal and Ill send him a how horrible can you be text message. Depressed State of Mind. Its a sad sad state. Oh absolutely, he has blamed me for SO much. They may think they won. I feel like it would have pulled him out of his affair fog real quick and made him do a reality check but now I struggle with guilt and anger at myself because it ended up going on for years and years and years afterward because I did not have the backbone to do that. My H had one. It has been the most difficult time in my entire life. Its more like hes there. Please know it is typical cheater behavior. He makes sly comments sometimes. He tells me I need to find someone who will love me like I need and deserve. I hope that it is. They always make me feel so much better. I have been an emotional roller coaster and have been doing everything I can to win back my wife; from begging and pleading, to showering her with love, to contacting her AP to tell him to leave her alone. Most of the time, because of the kids, I acted like nothing was happening. I know I was feeling that way, even though when were together its nice, the minute he would leave I just felt crazy. Swell.. I would find my poker face, investigated, laid low until I could see with my own 2 eyes whether it was indeed friendship that went to far or more. Its wholly infuriating once you realize you had so much power to fight back and didnt, and you realize they put you there and manipulated you to keep you there, too. I love him, probably too much. Then, you started acting like This, so what all is there to know?. I have no idea. Shortly after I found an organization that tries to help save marriages. There is no excuse for cheating and doing what he is doing. If you want to be with her then youre going to make that choice and im not going to stand in your way. and he said I was wrong again and I just let it go because I have no proof. Because you do deserve better. And if I said that to him it might be a wake up call, but then again, I might regret it 10 mins later and regret saying it. Or someone who has high standards or morals. Even if we did reconcile and moved forward, how would I EVER get past what hes done and all the texts ive read and the things theyve said to one another. But the cheater continues to push us away. You can get past this. He is still to let me know what his result came up to. and I think he knows that. He doesnt have to deal with any sort of reality of life with her because everything is still virtual. I do think he is in communication with her though and im honestly afraid to know for sure bc I know what it feels like to see it with my own eyes in his phone, and I dont want to do that to myself again. Everything was okay. Instead I stayed calm all the way through and tried to think rationally and now im still in this situation, completely unsure of our future. Before the A I would have backed down in The first 5 minutes. Its just rude, and he knows that, but he twists it all up and justifies everything he does. Hi Doug I have come to realize that as long as she is in the fog I cannot love her enough or do enough for her to want to save our marriage. You barely communicate. Ouch! Calm. I feel like if I just let go he will come around and wake up and see what hes losing. Knowing what I know now, things would have been very very different. So I appeased him b/c I did not think we would last and I wanted my financial protection. I, being the chump I am, told him to go ahead and talk to her that one time because she was in crisis. To protect ourself. I feel SO all over the place. It can be very little things but whatever you need to do is better than nothing. like you said, I cannot change him. Remember the A (or whatever he is doing) is like his drug of choice. Im just like eye-rolling why now?, after Ive healed enough to completely see a future without him, why now? But everyday I think to myself, I would probably be better off alone right now. If this works, it does, but Im going to prepare myself if I am not going to be in this marriage., I also wish I would have just said, You are in this affair. If you would have said, This has got to end or Im leaving, or Im taking the kids with me, You have got to get out, or whatever, I think that would have expedited the fog disappearing a lot faster. And honestly, part of me is like who the hell cares. You might want to have that talk with him and explain with the situation the way it is she may begin to think its normal to be miserable because one parent is conflicted and cannot seem to grow up Just dont put your life on hold for him anymore You are better than that and so is your daughter! I think that woke you up a little bit. I only lasted 6 months and I needed to get out. I feel like im losing my mind. They are blinded by the reality of who the other man or woman really is. He got really angry and said I dont do anything around the house besides feed the baby and that he could do what I do. Hang in there. And he has never used drugs and I have known him 35 years. Wait and see what happens. Even if its wrong. I did, after 4.5 months put my foot down and deny him access to having contact with her, but it led to further problems with me always feeling like he never chose to be with me, as I was the one who chose to stop being humiliated, instead of him refusing to choose me, then there were years and years of his denial, stonewalling, fights and further verbal abuse causing so MUCH more collateral damage. And your H now may be sure this is what he wants. I know you are desperate to save your M. I was too. My life has been turned upside down. I certainly included that in there, as well. He sees me one way and has painted this picture in his mind, and that will not change at all until im detached enough to where he has to face that im no longer controlling him, im no longer holding him back, and somehow hes still feeling the way hes feeling. My only regret is believing him when he said it was over and that he wanted to be with me. That it is disrespectful to agree to something and turn around and do the opposite. And her H knows she means it. When I was pregnant and this all first happened, I should have absolutely stuck to kicking him out. He had ended just a few hours before but also told me he wanted a D the same day. But I just feel like ive been CONSTANTLY given the shit end of the stick. Its good to have a place to unload. It can lead to a renewed marriage. Which, if that were to be the case, I would completely cut ties with him. Exactly. You need to accept it that does not mean you agree or condone it but when you accept he is a liar & cheater and stop trying to change him and therein frustrating yourself, your life will be more peaceful and calmer. He is expecting you to give in to him. When I told him I was D him well reality set in and he realized he took ME for granted. I just want my husband back. I feel like he is just going on with his days totally fine. He chooses to go out 4-5 nights per week to the bars and hang out with people you do not even know. I know that. Well I agree and if I had to do it over it would be different. I think thats all part of it. Yet, why arent MY feelings dwindling? and he said ok then remove yourself. She was surprised and said OK. If you say something you have to mean it and stick to it. And I believed it. When I do go do things, I know hes curious, but hes very good at not asking questions and trying to act like he doesnt care, but I can tell things get to him. But actions dont lie. I cant even IMAGINE us being goofy and stuff like we used to be. So I dont know where that puts anything, but i just cant focus on what hes doing like this. They certainly know how to twist the knife, dont they? I feel like him bringing up divorce is whats coming next, any day now, and Im at the point where I just have to tell him thats fine and he can do it and ill go along with it. So yes at DDay2 I told my H I was D him. Or errands. But I was being calm and level headed. He may try to blame you. You have heard all the same stuff we all have. My H never complained he had no freedom. Sometimes I feel like he just wants a way out, to escape. Unfortunately that is the truth. I feel a tight pain in my chest, im finding it hard to breathe and I cannot focus. Well, no you dont know how I feel. K. At the end of all of this, he can choose his own path. Finally, we would really like to hear from you about what you think has to happen to get the cheating spouse out of the affair fog so they can begin to behave more rationally and realistically. I so badly dont want to be disrespected by him so I am assuming things and (like him and her talking) and I am flipping out, in hopes he will see I wont be a doormat, but then a day later I calm down and I want him around and I am more myself. It was the principle of it. I hope any of this advice helps you. Unless he wants to change which he doesnt think he has a problem so he is not going to you have a choice. Their beliefs are reflected in their actions; loving to the affair partner, and angry and hostile towards the betrayed. I drew a firm boundary and said that I wanted to work on saving our relationship. Over the last couple of days, with help from articles like this, I am realizing that I have been a doormat and have allowed my wife to be a cake eater. since I had no proof back then that anything happened and he denied it I had to accept it. Its funny you said those 2 options bc during our argument the other day he said something like we will never get past this unless you see it my way, or something like that. He only associates with shady characters he knows will agree with him and who dont know us well enough to filter through his BS. That they are friends. Hope this helps. But he will never bring himself to admit that because all his allies have validated him based on his lies, that everything is my fault. Its not reality. I dont know. Everytime I start getting over that feeling and starting to love him again, he accuses me of cheating, I get angry and irritated and I go find comfort in someone else. For you I dont know how to get you out of limbo except 180. If not, you could continue to prolong the fog. She is engaging with your H inappropriately. Linda: I also think those things are important, but I would hope that removal would actually maybe allow the person to see what their spouse meant to them. You can kick him out, 180 him and have no contact as much as possible. My CH never said that wanted to leave our marriage, just have fun with somebody else. But its also a part of life, schedules, things going on that we should be a part of TOGETHER. Your Plan B may need to be instituted by you. When he doesnt have me, he seems to finally wake up. I dont know. Maybe bc he is out of town. I didnt know we had problems so it all has been a total rollercoaster. . But he had already ended the A. I dont know if my D him had any impact b/c he could have taken that opportunity to leave me to be with the OW (or anyone else for that matter) but he chose to stay. I dont think she sees how much it hurts me. Keep in mind all this time, the OW is STILL reporting to him at work. And if im there calling the shots. I have seen this scenario many times w/ my friends. I feel like sometimes he wants to but then sometimes thinks its too hard, and then sometimes he just doesnt want to at all bc he is so sick of me. I KNOW in my heart he shouldnt be here. Im so happy I cry when I read this. I mean its not like we ever hug or anything like that, but we chat, we get the baby ready for bed, we sleep in the same bed. Saying we wont ever be able to move past this unless I magically wake up and see that im this controlling person who didnt appreciate him, etc. I made sure he knew if he sat at the dinner table with me and children it was a privilege and a gift and dont count on it. When I called back about an hour later, same secretary said, they are still at lunch, they usually take a couple of hours when they go out. Just walked in and demanded a D. And a few hours later I told him he no longer had any control over me or my life b/c I was done playing games. It is about respect. They want to have fun, enjoy themselves, that AP is the fun and the spouse is work. Instead, Dday happened during pregnancy, I was hormonal, emotional, scared to death, and unsure how the hell I was supposed to maneuver through this. He still is at the bar everyday after work and comes home at night. Sounds like he knows that he is all you have and takes it for granted. He cannot believe he even said that to me. It was so romantic. I dont focus on getting over that right now, bc we may not ever get there anyways. This situation is unfair to you. She was 40 my husband 58. I know where you are right now. I know I went into a type of shock the day I stumbled onto my husbands EA. I really no longer cared. All the comments he had been making to me was the start of his leaving. But part of me just puts so many random puzzle pieces together and thinks he is lying. BTW after your married what was his schedule in terms of going out with friends? We live in an area where good professional jobs are few and far between, and he is 5 years from retirement with the state. But the minute I pull away, he gets a little scared. I kid you not!!! I completely understand what you are going through. I need to get a grip. I really hope I have done whats right. He doesnt even see it, he doesnt even see all the things were missing out on as a family bc of him. I dont know where his head is right now, I dont know if hes leaning towards divorce, but I do think hes still talking to original OW and im sure she pushed that. This will never work. He was still cheating. I found out his wife was a 3rd grade teacher found her email her Facebook page with recent happy photos of them he would always be busy on weekends but said he had his daughter on weekends I saw their home address and the home was for sale ! One of our problems is he thinks i dont like him going out with friends etc, so I have tried very hard to work on that.