I’m confused. Wanted some input. I think my wife may be having a MLC affair, or maybe she is a WAW! I really don’t know which one she Is. Sorry for the long post.
My wife and I have been married for seven years, and we have no kids – We have been together for ten years. This January she informed me that she was not happy, and wanted to get a divorce. She said she wanted to live on her own and be a self-sufficient person who doesn’t have to depend on anyone, or ask for anyone’s permission to do things. She gave me the “I love you, but am no longer in love with you” line. She informed me she was planning on getting her own place in June. It is also around this time that her personality around me completely changed. She had put a wall up, but every now and then I would see the wife I know and remember come through, but then the wall would quickly go up again. It was also around January that she seemed very depressed, she started losing a lot of weight (she now looks a little anorexic), she started wearing makeup, she started listening to different music, she started dressing differently, she started drinking a lot – at a New Years Eve party she got so drunk that I had to spend three hours with her in a bathroom holding her hair back while she threw up into a toilet and when she would just lay her head on my lap I was literally scared she was dying -- and things she said about her plans dealing with leaving didn’t really make any sense (financial decisions she was making didn’t really add up and she was being somewhat irrational).
I did all the wrong things. I begged. I pleaded. I fought. The interesting thing is that she told a mutual friend of ours that she told me that she was unhappy in January and that I did nothing. She didn’t tell the friend that she told me she wanted a divorce. She didn’t tell the friend that she told me she didn’t even want to try working on it. She didn’t tell the friend that I was making an effort to do things, but she was resisting with all her might.
Well, on Tuesday, May 8th I found out my wife was seeing another man. I confronted her. She lied. I pushed. She admitted it. I told her that she had to choose between him and me and left it at that.
On Wednesday, May 9th I found out that, instead of going to work, she spent the day at this man’s house. She sent me a text saying she would be by to pick up some things, because she would be staying with him. She has told me that she is moving out of his place sometime in June, that she loves him, but isn’t interested in anything long-term, or marriage related with him. I also found out that she started talking to him in January, but the affair didn’t start until March. I interpret this as “We started our emotional affair In January, but it didn’t get physical until March.”
A few days later I was very emotional and asked for a divorce right then and there, and she agreed. She came over started filling out the divorce paperwork online, and I was very unhappy about it, however there was some information that was missing so she couldn’t complete it. She saved the information and agreed to come back in a couple of days. Two days later she called me and told me she found some financial information that would affect us both and we should wait a year and a half until we get the divorce. I am currently in nursing school (for another year and a half) and it takes up so much time that I am not working at the current time. She wants to keep me on her health insurance plan until I finish nursing school. The nursing program I am currently in is one that you have to be accepted into – 300 people applied and 50 were accepted based on GPA. Around December 2011 I found out I was accepted into the program and my wife was so happy for me, and she was still talking about our future together. Our plan was that I would go to nursing school, and when I finished she could quit her job and go back to school for a Masters in English.
After she left, at first, she stopped by the house on several different occasions and we would talk, and she said things like she hasn’t been happy for four years, but her timeline would change. Sometimes she would say four years, sometimes, three, sometimes one. I asked her why she didn’t tell me, and she informed me that she did tell me. She kept pulling up this example from a fight we had four years ago (I don’t remember it). She remembers walking around a college campus crying with her best friend due to the fight. I asked for other past experiences that caused her to be upset, but she kept going back to that one. It also appears that she has rewritten our whole marriage into something I don’t recognize. It was during these stops at the house that I told her that I thought we could work on the marriage, but I was letting her go. She was free to do as she wished. I still love her and care about her, but she is free to go. I also told her if she ever felt like she didn’t find what she was looking for that she shouldn’t hesitate to see if I was still interesting in working on our marriage. Then I started going No Contact.
I have been looking through pictures, and the interesting thing is that pictures from November and December of last year with her in them all have her smiling – she appears genuinely happy in these pictures! But, I was looking through one of our computers the other day and I stumbled upon pictures she took of herself starting in January and in all of them she looks absolutely miserable. It’s kind of scary. It’s like she transformed overnight.
I finally read divorce busting (I MADE A LOT OF MISTAKES AT FIRST), and have put NC into effect for about two weeks now. She has only been gone for three weeks, and she doesn’t seem to have a problem not contacting me. I’ve also heard from friends that she has been going out with her affair partner and doing things that sound like great fun to me… going to dinner, camping, riding RV’s… could it be that they are meant to be together, or is it just that they are in their honeymoon phase still? I am basing my assumption of their relationship being “perfect,” on my imaginings of their relationship…so that really doesn’t mean anything. The chances are against them working out long term right? She has also been going to biker bars, and staying out all hours of the night with her OM.
Anyway, again I am doing NC currently, and if she ever does try to call or talk to me I plan on using the advice I read in DB. I am currently working on making myself happy and a better person, but it is VERY difficult. After a hard day at work I miss talking to my wife. We used to be best friends and share everything with each other. She used to tell me that I was the only one for her, and she was always sure that she would be the one to die first so she told her best friend that when she (my wife) passed away some day way in the future, that my best friend was to take care of me. She would also point out cute old couples and say that was us! It feels like my wife has been abducted by aliens! She has changed so much, I don’t even recognize her anymore! HELP! Another interesting thing is that she has told me that she will never forget me, she still loves me and cares for me a great deal, that I am a good person, that I was a good husband (What?!), and that I will make an excellent nurse because I am so caring! Why would two people who still love and care for each other get a divorce!?!? I told her the feeling of being in love is something that comes and goes. . . oh well.
You sound so much like me, it's scary. Typical "nice guy," fixer/pleaser, trying to make everything OK if I just say and do the right things.
That's co-dependency, not love (two books I'd recommend, AFTER you read Michele's DB or DR, would be "Co-Dependent No More" ).
As "alien" as your wife has seemed to you, if you will spend some time studying affairs (and I strongly suggest that you do), you will find that nearly EVERYTHING she has done is pure "SCRIPT." The ILYBINILWN speech. The re-writing (and ever-changing) of marital history. The "I don't want to be with anyone right now" thing. The back-dating of when the affair really started (to a date before they tell their spouse, that way it's not really "cheating," you know ).
Sadly, the only thing I think you can do is to let her feel what it's like to live without you (which you're doing), and to modify what you told her about letting her go to take away the open-ended nature of it (should have said "If at that point I still have feelings for you, we can see ... ").
I do think you need to see a family law attorney -- IMMEDIATELY. It doesn't mean you have to DO anything, but you do need to know what your rights and responsibilities are, and protect yourself).
In the end it's all BS. They may have very well moved on in their mind, and there is nothing to do to let them go.
I think when we go into marriages we need to be sure of who we are with and understand the difficulties and pitfalls along the way.
After having cheated on people earllier in my life and having basically my last ten years stripped from me from being cheated on in a horrifying and brutal fashion, if I am ever again with a nother woman at the center of my life my actions will always say "I love you. You are important to me." And hers should too. They will know that cheating is adeal breaker, you may as well just leave.
I wish all of you thebest, but in these cases they usulaly move on and you should too.
Your story sounds just like mine, only difference is we have a D. I'm dark at the moment but I'm finding it real hard to do. She has been out of the house for two months and the only time she will answer a text or email is if it has to do with our D. I'm really hurting at the moment and I'm sure all of us think this, if she would only stop and talk with me, we can start working on our issues.
I'm also torn by loving her and wanting her to be here, but I don't know how I will deal with the affair if we do get back together.
M-41 W-41 D-7 M- 10yrs I still love you, but 4-25-12 Think she might have EA/PA 5-17-12 Confirmed PA 6-9-12
I've been doing no contact for awhile now. When I started I was under the impression that I wouldn't hear my wife for months if at all. However, after only two weeks of NC my wife contacted me to see how I was doing. I was very cordial in my reply. I didn't give her any information about what is going on in my life. I just said something like "I am doing good, how are things going with you?" She proceeded to joke with me and tell me things that were going on in her life.
Then I went a bit longer with no contact, and she texted me again saying that she was thinking about me, and she hoped that things were going well.
What is she doing? Should I reply to her texts, or should I just ignore them entirely? Ignoring entirely just seems so rude, and I was under the impression that I am not supposed to initiate contact, but if my wife contacts me I am allowed to respond but not give away information about what is going on in my life.
Another interesting this is that my wife stopped by the house a week or two ago. I don't remember the exact date. It's in my journal, but I am being lazy right now. She told me that it was good to see me, and she initiated several hugs. She was even squeezing me hard. She informed me that she wasn't texting me more often because it was "too hard," because she "loved me," (past tense).
I don't think there was a long period of neglect. Her best friend and I were analyzing EVERYTHING when this first happened, and it seems that my wife was knocked into a very deep depression by several things that happened in her life recently. I don't want to list the specifics here.
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