My dear friends, my sisters in this horrible situation, I love and pray for you all. Thank you for your thoughts and understanding, your support is truly invaluable and I appreciate all of you more than you know. Disillusioneddessert girl I will check out the song. Sue and Celia your sympthy and understanding mean so much. Becky, Thank you for the bible verse, as I said I have little religion and I find verses like that extremely comforting. May, you have fought and lost the battle to so I know you have felt this exact pain and survived. Teresa and Kathleen, I will listen to your advice, I have already planned to begin attending a Divorce Care group that begins this summer. I know it will be good for me to get out and it may show my husband that I have a life outside of our marriage. Somehow I think that will come as a shock to him. Kathleen do not worry, I intend to do my best to watch out for my financial future although in all honesty I am not left with a good option. I am seeing a lawyer this week with the papers to see what he thinks. Strong Spirit, it was so good of you to outline a plan for me. I appreciate the thought and time that took. I understand your thinking and see the value in it. But I am not quite ready. The wounded child inside me needs the affection very badly, even when the woman I am knows it is not very real. But the time is coming. I am considering telling my husband that he must move out in July. If I can do that it will still give him time to see what he is missing and be a bit lonely before he plans to go to his OW. Susan I am especially comforted by the thought that God needs my husband to move on so that he can bring something better into my life. On good days that thinking gives me so much strength. On bad days though, I worry that God's plan is for me to be alone for the rest of my life. I do have so much love to give, so much I want to receive that I have not always gotten from my husband. I wish I could believe that God wants me to be happy and that he knows that I want a loving marriage more than anything.
Ladies, I do want to clear up one misconception. It will sound like I am jumping to my husband's defense but it is true. He is here with me, giving affection, sharing my bed, being intimate because I ASKED him to. At first it was part of my plan to show him what a wonderful wife I would be. It is also the wounded child within me needing those things so very badly. He wanted to leave immediately and is often saying that our time together needs to stop. Maybe he was right, had he left 8 months ago I would be that much further ahead in healing. But I do not regret my decision and in truth I do not think he does either. We are closer than we have ever been because of this time. This is not an illusion it is real even if I do not get the outcome I wanted. I would not trade this time for anything even though it has caused me so much pain.
I got through the night ladies. I am feeling fragile today but then I guess we all have those days. It is just a part of this process. It was so helpful to wake today and see all your posts. I can only hope that I will be able to be there for you all if and when you need me.
Thank you again. I am not always Alone. My real name is Cindy

Hi Cindy...

I read your post...and it seems to me that you kept giving...but did you ever think what you need? What would make you happy?...

...and no, it isn't him coming back to you. ...that won't make it right.

If you can answer those question....what makes you happy, and take steps to do them, then you will find some peace.

Cindy, I am so glad to know your real name. I know for a fact that God loves you and wants the best for you. He will fill the void in your heart and help you heal if you give it to Him. I really believe if what you need is a marriage filled with love to make you feel life is complete, He will provide it. . but in His timing. You will need to heal to be able to be ready. I read somewhere, that there could be a man praying for someone like you to come into their life. I think that could be true for you. You are such an amazing woman with so much to give. Know we are here for you every step of the way. Praying for you and ready to comfort you. Do not allow yourself to feel responsible for your marriage failing. It is something in him that has caused it. I felt every word of your post. My love for my husband was the same. Notice I said was. He left me for another woman. And now, nearly 5 months later, the love I had for him is slowly fading. I know it has to be that way to survive this. But reading your post took me back to where I was when he first left. . .a horrible place to be. Slowly you will heal and you can do this. If I can, I know you can. Because I remember telling God the first few weeks after he left that I couldn't do this. I couldn't live without him. But here I am, still alive, and actually most days doing pretty well. With His help and strength.

Cindy,

I let my husband come back three different times within a year to try to make it work. I know a lot of people told me I just should have told him not to come back the first time...but I needed to know I did my best before I gave up on our marriage. I think you are doing the same thing having him stay....not only for comfort and security...but to know that you gave all you have before you let him go as well. I do not regret giving my ex chances even though it did not workout because I know for myself that I did my best and you should not feel bad for having your husband stay as well if that is what you need to heal and let go when it is time. We each have to do what we know we must and each of us is different as well as having similarities because of what we are going through. Your husband is losing more than he will ever know when he loses you. Do not feel bad doing what you feel you need to do to make it through this trying time.

Susan

Cindy, I can't add anything more than what has already been said. I just want you to know that my heart goes out to you.

You have been together a long time. I encourage you to consider putting your considerable efforts into finding a way to hold and comfort yoursel and begin healing the wound he inflicted with a casual... I never loved you the way I should kind of remark. WHAT IS THAT ABOUT!!??? Cruelty is never ending. Science tells us that when a woman is in contact with someone, a man included, touching, holding hands, being held, that we release more progesterone responsible for bonding. It is one of the things that helps us bond so tightly to our children as we hold them often, even breast feed. Men are no different. A person (aka husband) can be toxic in our life, an emotional black hole that we can never seem to fill. But like a house we have invested too much in to let go, we hang on. We cling to the dream "husband". Well, enough of us do for me to not feel alone in this. The story goes, A man was walking down the road and he heard the hooves of a running horse. He looked to see a man clinging to the running horse and thought to ask, "WHERE ARE YOU GOING?" To which the man replied, "I DON'T KNOW, AS THE HORSE." We become that man clinging to our habitual ways and our will grasping at our habits and patterns and what Norman Rockwell told us would make happiness in his pictures, only to learn that it is habit energy that his carrying us along and we don't honestly KNOW to where.
My mother is also a conditional love sort of person and EVERY male person throughout my life has either beaten, violated, abused, or abandoned me. When my husband ran away from home 6 weeks ago without any notice I felt a tear in my sould I had never felt before despite my rich history of pain. We are of two minds, our rational mind and our emotional mind. During the pain, sleep deprivation, poor diet and sleep we tend to get lost in the emotional mind with no answers, nothing makes sense. I did some reading on Personality Disorders. I needed to understand how a man had played the role of my loving devoted husband for this long and now just didn't love me, didn't care and was even hostile toward me.
You may find this link interesting, I certainly did: http://counsellingresource.com/lib/therapy/self-help/understanding/
And it helped me to begin to bring some rational mind into the whole thing, stop blaming myself and stop believing that I had somehow failed (again) at the most important "job" of my life. We are not in control Alone. We are but human beings. My husband has the "shallow" emotions described on page 2 of the article and was able to amaze me and others by his ability to just dissassociate from me and begin a new life. He didn't have the courage to face me, make a plan, leave in 3 months and you have helped make me even more grateful for that despite the nightmare of problem solving he left behind. He left on vacation and sent me a text it was a one way trip. He also managed to be the center of life and control things by his actions and REACTIONS throughout the marraige. He did the small kindnesses that keep us hooked, believing we need them. My husband fit one of the Personality Disorder's perfectly. His love was manufactured and believeable. SO BELIEVEABLE... but he was not capable of sustaining it and not consitutionally capable of the sort of love that I am and that I understand.
Why do they snap at some point and decide we just aren't good enough, and yet he stays around for the postmortem of your pain? Who knows? There is a song that my daughter listened to when she was younger that I loved with a line in it, "You can't talk to a psycho like a normal human being."
We are on our habit horses, clinging to platitudes and ideas of what "should" work. You are fighting to "make" someone feel something when they may well not be constitutionally capable of feeling it. And that is the agony. Then what? Then we grieve. We grieve the dream of HUSBAND that we have had all these years. We grieve. Acute grief without the meddlings of the significant other takes an average of 6 weeks if left to run a natural course, and then who knows how long after that we still have pain that we work through. You aren't even being granted THAT with this THREE MONTH plan. UGH.
No, it's not fair. It never will be.
God doesn't put emotional black holes in our life to teach us anything. God created cause and effect, and set up free will, choice in the beginning and he watches as humans live in despair and cling to their own will and their own idea of what will make them happy, what will bring them peace. As I've said before, we are like toddlers squirming and fighting to be put down everytime God picks us up after a prayer for help. God will grant us strength, love, fill that massive gaping wound within. Help us to stop wondering how the broken men in our lives don't love us? Aren't we loveable? YES< we are. But do we love ourselves? A girl broke her doll and went to her father at the work bench, "Father, will you fix this." ... "Yes, I will fix it." Again awhile later the child asked, "FAther, please won't you fix my doll." ... "Yes, of course." the Father replied with love. Finally the child stomped her feet in outrage and screamed at her Father, "Father, why won't you fix my doll like you said you would!!!" The father looked lovingly to the child and said, "You must first let it go child. You must first turn it over to me." We are like that child. We are busy with out plans, plots and effort. WE are busy rining the parts of our broken dolls all the while wondering why our Father, why the Lord does not fix them. Because we don't let go. We don't give it over.
Just some ideas.
Don't discount the love of your children. They don't HAVE to love you. TRUST ME. Don't discount even the dysfunctional loves in your life of your parents if there is any at all. One friend, even here in this chat room. My love for you as a fellow sister trying to swim the shark infested waters of what makes NO SENSE with a husband you love, with the love of HAVING A HUSBAND. Don't discount these gifts. The sadness can bleed the things we have to be gateful for until they are pale and unable to give us strength. We have to intentionally talk to ourselves in ways we would talk to a friend. With patience, kindness and concern for our well being.
Right? Wrong? It won't matter. They are going to do whatever they are going to do. You can only look to what you are going to do. Don't throw bad money after good, and don't throw your last sanity after insanity. Pause, sit, and feel that love isn't one person, or two... it is deep and eternal and runs through us all. (PS: EASY FOR ME TO SAY!!!! ha ha ha)

So beautifully stated, Dana. Your words to Cindy are so true for us all. Thank you.