Man, I'm seeing this over and over again from those of my gender. For some reason, they often don't want to talk much about it, and want you to move on.

Translated: I feel guilty as hell and I don't like it, so I would rather not have to face it, deal with the consequences of my actions, and act like everything is normal again, at least pretend so I don't have to face the horror of what I did.

I think part of it is for many men, they feel loved when they feel respected. Well, the A sort of destroys that for their wife. They know she doesn't respect him any longer, and so they do what they can to try to save face, and one is not dwell on it, because that just throws the lack of respect in their faces, all the time. They still want to be seen as the knight in shining armor instead of the evil villain. But do they seriously think that ignoring it means she starts respecting him again?

But what they fail to understand is that not dealing with it only causes it to fester, and grow, and end in divorce. The bottom line is they wounded their spouse and the marriage, and it is up to them to fix it. Avoiding it does not fix it, rather they are letting the spouse bleed to death on the floor.

Let's see him go tell a person with cancer, "Why don't you just move on with your life, get over it." Or will that help someone get over their fear of driving after a bad accident? You don't deal with that by ignoring it, but by facing it.

And no one can move on until the BS feels secure. And it is up to him to make them secure, and that simply takes time. Time showing that they are being honest. Time showing they are no longer pursuing relationships outside the marriage. Time learning to love each other in deeper ways, to improve the marriage. None of that happens if the response is after a week or two, "Get over it and move on."

What you are experiencing is the result of his infidelity. It is not for him to decide when you are over it, but you. Your healing does not work on his time table. I doubt he would be happy with you telling him to get over it if the tables were reversed. How fast any one person "gets over it" is entirely a unique time table. Rather than expect healing to happen within two to three weeks, (which is about as realistic as expecting an alien from Pluto to land in my back yard), he needs to be prepared to help you through this no matter how long it takes. Whether it is two months (it will be longer, but that would be about the shortest I could even begin to imagine) or ten years, or the rest of your marriage.

It will take months, if not years, for you to rebuild your trust in him to anywhere close to the level it was before (it will never be the kind of trust it was before, never, but it can get close).

So, I apologize for my gender. Why we do this so frequently, I don't know. And I'm very glad my W didn't take that approach. Or I wouldn't be as far along as I am. But I admit I'm getting tired of hearing of men doing this, over and over again. You'd think we would have more sense, get our heads out of our rears, and deal with the situation like men who love their wives, who are repentant that they've hurt them so bad, and are willing to do anything and everything to heal that wound. Men are supposed to be strong, take the bull by the horns and fix things. Not run from them.

I can only hope if, God forbid, I ever found myself having done this (and I can't imagine I ever would, especially now), that I would have the courage to admit my sin and seek to repair it, not hide from it like a crying baby while my marriage bleeds to death on the floor. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Hey Mama....lots going on here, hey?

Disclaimer - my opinion only...I have a really hugely hard time telling anyone to stay in a situation that they find to be unbearable. Broken. Unfixable. We take a look at the ashes of this aftermath and try to resurrect our marriages - sometimes, it works. sometimes, what comes out of the ashes is just not good enough. It brings more pain, or continued pain.

I hear you there.

No one here can tell you to be done. That is all on you. Not what you wanted to hear? But Mama, it's true. And I'll tell you a 'woman to woman' secret, when you ARE done, you won't be ASKING if you can be done. You'll come strolling into this room and say, 'hey, I'm done. Period.' There will be no question about it.

My best advice to you is to put all your cards on the table for that one last ditch effort to get those ashes to resurrect. Put all your needs on the table, once and for all. State them clearly. Calmly. 'This is what I need...' and then walk away. Set a time limit for this to all register, be digested, accepted, and acted upon. Say - two months. That is totally fair.

If he picks it up? Alright. If he doesn't. Alright. Either way, you have your answer. See? If he picks it up, that says, 'man, I do want my marriage enough to make what matters to her my priority.' If he doesn't do anything, that's like him saying, 'screw that. Bitch isn't goin' anywhere anyway.'

Then the direction this goes is up to you.

You may have some tough choices to make.

You have my support here.

Make no idle threats. State what you need. Keep the time limit to yourself.

My EX had his own time limit. Notice - I said 'Ex' and not 'H.' 'Nuff said?

Cookies???? Mama, this kind of rapport happens out there. I work with all guys. All men...and then there is me. Would you believe they thought I would be making them baked goods and bringing cookies and pies in for them? I said, 'like hell. This is America! You can cook! I'll eat it!' This kind of rapport happens.

Sure, it may have triggered you, but have you considered that it would not have triggered you if you didn't have the scene going on quietly in the back ground? The 'can't talk about Dday...can't talk about the A....can't talk about anything...just expects me to trust him...just expects me to move on and all while not being heard...' Those cookies may not have bothered you too much, if his life to you was open.

See my point?

Sending you support, L~

Cole50,
Why can't there be more guys like you in this world? Your wife is lucky she came to her senses because she would have lost a good thing if she hadn't

Thanks, Always.

Who knows what I would be doing if the shoe were on the other foot, and I was the CS. I would hope I wouldn't be doing what it seems so many of these guys are doing. I would hope I would have more sense than to be more concerned about my own pain than I would be about the pain I'd caused my wife.

But since I'm the BS, and because my W didn't have that attitude, but faced her demons and dealt with them, and still has no qualms about discussing the A if need be, now just over five months out I feel our marriage is stronger than it has been since we were newlyweds. So I've experienced it from this end, and know what works, and what doesn't work.

I mean, if my wife had pulled this stuff on me, we certainly wouldn't be doing as good as we are now, and more than likely I would have given up on the marriage by now.

She has expressed to me many times how lucky she is to have me, and how wonderful I am. And I've expressed how lucky I am to have a W who when push came to shove, chose saving our marriage over saving face. And that seems to be the choice of many of these men. They'd rather save face than to save the marriage. Whether they realize it or not, that is the choice they are making. Very stupid.

Call me suspicious but I think he made those for his new friend. If this were my h, I would have taken the f!@#ing cookies and flushed them down the friggin toilet. Really. To think that a cheating husband has the gall to become that friendly with some new bimbo would tick me off. There's a limit. I wouldn't be able to have my h be so dismissive of my feelings that I think it would be the final straw.

Hey mama....our marriage counselor said something so simple but so true that helped my H understand. I am on a completely different time table then he is. Clearly he is ready to move on but me...almost a year later has flash backs occasionally like it just happened 5 minute ago. Once that was pointed out to him, he mellowed out on the time tables he thought I should be on.

Your H has to understand that. Even if his cookies are "innocent" he has to understand that it triggers you and if he doesn't maybe you need to shock it out of him.

If you're ready to leave then tell him that (only if you really are). After 3.5 years he's probably not expecting it..he'll come around and if he doesn't then you're probably better off without him.

Sending you hugs

I think your husband sounds like someone with maybe not many emotional skills. He doesn't feel his own feelings and discounts yours or maybe doesn't hear them. Chickening out of counselling or maybe just not understanding it? It would annoy me if he was taking the time to bake cookies for someone else but I felt he was ignoring me.
Having said that, I'm a bit of a stayer. I am separated now and it's a long story how that came about. 20 years is a long time to be together and pulling the plug on that is a big deal. I'd have to do something in this situation though. I remember your recent post so I know this has been bothering you for a while. After 20 years, the very least you deserve is to be heard on this.