By Kenda-Ruth Stumpf

The Hero's Spouse: What it's about.

Well, if you've found this site, you are probably looking for help with your marriage. I'm Kenda-Ruth—also known as Rollercoasterider and if you've been wondering:

How do I save my marriage?
Or maybe, can my marriage be saved?
How can I Stand for my marriage when my spouse won't even talk to me?
How do I stop crying, begging, panicking...?
How do I detach?
How do I forgive?
How can I trust again?
What is going on inside my spouse's head?
Why is my spouse so mean to me?
Is it really all my fault; that's what my spouse is saying?
Was my marriage all a lie?
What is midlife crisis?

Or maybe you just want support from others who are going through the same things as you.

Breathe a sigh of relief, because you are in the right place.

Here's how The Hero's Spouse will help you Stand for your marriage.

I have a three-pronged approach:

Information
I define and explain the psychology of midlife crisis and infidelity.
Healing
I call this Paving the Way & Mirror-Work. You need to learn to detach from the drama so that you can function, right? You need to pick yourself up and live even though you are hurting. You need to stop having those awful movies playing through your head.
Interacting with your spouse
I know, your spouse keeps screaming at you, or withdrawing or they won't talk to you at all and you want to pull your hair out in frustration. Help is here. Learn what to say and how to say it or what not to say and when to walk away. Learn what to do or not do or what you might be doing that is AWESOME and on target or what you might be doing that is helping you stay stuck.

How do I do this?

Well, I do have a lot of articles, but I don't work alone. I have you and your peers and I want to put you together. Though I believe the articles I have written for you will be invaluable in helping you through this trauma, the greatest resource is my online forum where hundreds of betrayed spouses meet to tell their stories, advise and support each other. Not a joiner? Then you can read along and maybe you'll change your mind, but it's okay if you don't.

So my first piece of advice is to head over to my forum and register. Then post your story. You will be amazed at the support. And I send all newbies a welcome message with all the first pieces of advice and which articles to read first. This stuff can be pretty overwhelming and so I don't want to overload you all at once because it's hard to know where to start.

And maybe one of the most awesome things about the forum and posting your story is that we have a peer mentor program. You can read more about it here. If you start a story thread I will assign you a mentor from our team of peer mentors. It is that person's job to check in on you and follow you for the first few months on the forum. Worried about your spouse finding you, we have a solution to that as well! I offer a Private Board Subscriber board for those who purchase a 6 or 12 months subscription. You can read about those here.

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Standers

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My next piece of advice is sign up to receive email updates to my blog Love AnyWay. It's where I post my newest articles and by signing up you will get a notice in your mail every time I post something new. In addition, you get the personality disorder reviews from my popular article series Affair and Midlife Crisis Personality Dynamics, with special bonus additions available only if you sign up.

What people have said about The Hero's Spouse website

Your site has been the most informative I have encountered on Midlife Crisis.
Your articles give me a lot of insights which helps me gain a better understanding... I have heard a lot of advice, but thus far your website has given me the advice that I need.
An amazing site! You made a lot of confusion clear, the acting strange, coming and going. This site helped explain what it might be and is helping me thru.
This information is a Godsend to me. Your words explain this all so clearly.
Been struggling with decision to/not to divorce my adulterous wife who doesn't want to divorce. This site has been validating and a source of strength to not throw in the towel.
Thank you so much for your newsletter and website - I subscribed only yesterday, but already feel that I am getting more concrete answers to what is going on in my marriage.
[The MLC site] changed my whole world... It helped me move on to new levels within days. Now don't get me wrong, I am in NO WAY cured, as a matter of fact, I haven't stopped crying in days, but I don't have that one question running thru my head anymore. Why did he do this to me? Or What did I do to deserve this?
OMG! This MLC site describes her and the situation verbatim!
Even though my marriage will end, your site was still very helpful to me. Helpful in understanding what I must do to get back on my feet and have a good life. So again...thanks.
If you have helped only one person, and that person is me, please know how extremely important your words are to me.

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Standers

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My Story

First the news you want to hear; Sweetheart is home. Now for the part you don't want to hear; he was a multiple returner, moving home and leaving again 8 times in total--though a few of those were only a few days, most were a few months in duration. Most MLCers leave and stay away for long periods--though they may return briefly within the first days or weeks after bomb drop. Sweetheart was a Clinging Boomerang. He filed for divorce during his first leave and we stopped it soon after; he never filed again. After that he used divorce as a threat to get what he wanted and I quickly learned it was empty and called his bluff--often he immediately called off the bluff and admitted he had not meant it.

Before I go on, I thought it might help to see where I was in those first weeks after Bomb Drop on 20 March 2005. Below is my first forum post. I've added notes in two places. My post is in purple, with my notes in black.

Rollercoasterider
Thread Title: New: Please Help
Date: 15 April 2005

Please help. 3.5 weeks ago I brought up the baby issue and my husband dropped the bomb. For a few days he let me think the issue was that he refused to have children--any. Then he let me know--after letting his family and friends know first--that it was over. I'm still reeling in shock.

We've lived together 9.5 years, married 6.5. I'm 32.5, he's 39.5. No kids, 1 dog, 2 cats.

I've done the begging and pleading. Tuesday eve - Fridays have been good, weekends so-so and Mon - Tues awful. I just found out it is because he has a crush on a client at the gym--he's a trainer. He's been meeting her for lunch for the past five Saturdays. Until last Friday, this poor woman didn't even know his intentions. He admitted his crush to her then.
[I later learned that the alienator was the pursuer and they worked together at his full-time position at a Retirement Home where he was the Fitness Director and she was the Certified Nursing Assistant; she was not a client at the Gym. But at this stage it was more true that it was a crush--actually an Emotional Affair, but I had not yet learned that term.]

He is moving out the first weekend of May. He's renting a friend's condo. His mail will continue to come to our house, and he will keep his toys here--the toys are not recent/MLC purchases. He also plans to come and do yard work, and we will go running together on Tuesdays after work.

I'm being very strong. He's confused, sending mixed messages. I understand them--in fact he lets me hear them--tells me one thing and lets me hear him tell another thing to someone on the phone a minute later. We then discuss this sometimes. I'm making an effort to help my father and a few others understand what he's going through--so that they will not judge too harshly.

He wants to file, but told me he doesn't want me to sign. Why? The crush may require that he file before she dates him. [At some point, she may or may not have told him this. He was afraid she would not have sex with him if he did not file, his fear was only a fear, but I think she planted it. He was raised with a lot of Catholic guilt and she understood that and used it.] He can then tell her he's filed, but the process will be long because I won't sign. When we talked the other day, after I read the MLC chapter in Divorcebusting, he expressed belief that we could make it. In the next breath he said that he didn't want a counselor to know that--he would say that it's hopeless and he didn't want it saved. He told me this like it's our little secret.

He's placing no blame on me and our relationship has in many ways been better than ever. We're talking more and the sex is like it's never been. So many stories show couples not talking and tension. It's not like that. I'm scared and confused. Why are we getting along so well through this? I lost 5 lbs in the last five days. I don't know what to feel. And I'm VERY tired of being called naïve for having hope.

Please help and reassure me.

The divorce pressure always originated from the alienator who resorted to desperate actions--faked a pregnancy, threatened indirect suicide, trespassing in our yard where the police found her--when he left or threatened to leave her. He originally moved into an apartment and moved in with the alienator once the relationship became physical; from that time on he always moved to her house when he left home.

On most occasions Sweetheart taunted me with his infidelity to get me to kick him out; on these occasions I refused to be the bad guy. It was clear he would eventually leave, but he needed to make the choice. He was home for an entire year in the midst of his crisis, when I discovered he was still seeing the alienator secretly, I kicked him out. I initiated his leaving on this occasion because he was cake-eating by keeping his affair secret and trying to play the part of a recovering MLCer.

Sweetheart initiated his returns, but I often would not allow him to return until he left the OW's house and met conditions. In my situation Sweetheart was the beg-and-pleader. It was in this area that I caved too early and often. Money was tight and we had no funds for him to have an apartment--his first apartment had been a friend's condominium and was no longer available, we had also changed jobs and our income had decreased significantly since Bomb Drop. When he first returned I told him he could not come home and we arranged for him to stay with a friend in our neighborhood. He soon threatened to return to the alienator unless I let him move home. I caved and he left for the alienator's within a couple of days anyway.

In the first year he went into a three month cycle where he was home and away for three month increments. In order to break the pattern I refused to allow him home until it felt right. After six months he moved home--that was when he was home for a year. After I kicked him out, I again let him move home too soon. Big mistake. Sweetheart rarely entered Monster, but that mistake sent him into the Monster I'd dealt with a few years earlier right after Bomb Drop. He told me how he was going to take everything from me in a divorce, he called the alienator from our home phone while I worked because he knew it would bother me since I had access to the call logs--he admitted this later.

During Monster or cycling behaviour such as this it became obvious when he was preparing to leave, so I told him that if he left again he would not be allowed to return to our marriage for a full year, and that he could not return directly from the alienator's house. We had broken his three month cycle and upon leaving he immediately (on one occasion he told me that he wanted home within three days, and he said it was within three hours on another occasion) left Monster and wanted to come home, but he also refused to move anywhere other than home--the march of his refrain. Eventually he agreed to move in to the spare room of the same friend who offered him a place in the beginning of the crisis; but he told the friend it would only be for a few weeks. It was at this time that our blessing arrived. My grandmother was living with my mother, but she needed more care than my mother could offer alone. I'd just been laid off and was available. I moved in with them, 100 miles from Sweetheart and home. This meant Sweetheart could move into our house. We had 8 months left before the one year was up and I told my mother and grandma that I could stay no longer than that. During that time I returned home for a couple of days every few weeks during which we worked on rebuilding gradually. I returned home in August of 2009. Sweetheart spent most of his crisis living at home or in contact with me--attempting contact during No Contacts. I was used to having him around; the transition toward living together will be more dramatic for those of you whose spouses have been more distant during the crisis and is often dramatic even for those of you with spouses who are Clinging Boomerangs.