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Good advice. Thanks pearlharbr. I feel a little bad running to her mother with this information. But we do have a very trustworthy mutual friend who I think I will consult.


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What Pearl said. ^

Puppy

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Originally Posted By: Frosty Michael
Oddly enough that's pretty much the way OM operated too. He's kind of a Yesman, and I feel like he won her over by valiantly defending her and validating everything she felt.

Meanwhile as her husband I was giving her logical advice which is just no fun.


Yep. thats a pretty good way to steal someones unhappy wife.

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Originally Posted By: Frosty Michael
Okay. I definately do not walk on Eggshells about the OM. In fact I feel like I've EXHAUSTED all the reasons why he is terrible and a predator. I'm not sure it does me much good to do anything at this point but plainly state he's no good for her and she knows why. Then tell her to pick herself up and make some good decisions about her life.

I think available to talk about the mess she made is more the way I would describe it. The OM helped her make the mess unfortunately.

Trust me I'm quick to remind her she's making a big mistake every day she chooses to remain unfaithful. And aside from that she's making a big mistake being with this guy EVEN if she was single.


And you are still doing it after he has stolen her.

You - honey, you have made a mess of your life you are making mistakes.

Him - wow, your a$$ looks great in that skirt. i love the way the line runs up the back of your stockings, no dont take 'em off. leave 'em on.

BIG DIFFERENCE VERY BIG DIFFERENCE

Originally Posted By: Frosty Michael
Oh and to be clear if she's just calling to say "OM and I are having problems" but she's otherwise behaving in a healthy mannor. Again, happy to blow her off. That's never happened.


I dont know. its been said but i am going to say it again. i dont see how listening to the "OM and I are having problems" makes you the more attractive option in the long run, honestly, it you may be viewed by her more like youre a gay friend listening to her boy friend dilemmas. is that something she is going to want to come back too? in the back of her mind she will be thinking he actually listened to me crying about my other relationships he must not really be attracted to me.

NOW. on the otherhand. why do you need to assess the damage? is she really coming to you in a time a need, or at a time when there is noone else to listen (big difference). why do you feel like you cannot turn her away? she has turned away from you.

what if you gave her 30 days of no contact. went out and started dating. let her assess the damage she has caused. wait till she comes to you wanting to be exclusive and work on your relationship. Work on yourself and your confidence to demand respect.

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explain this a little more:

Quote:
In our relationship she would often lay there and refuse me if the foreplay and the role playing wasn't just so.


what kind of roleplaying was she demanding?

Quote:
What she tells me now is that she's learned that her affair partner has some uncontrollable ethereal "something" she cant put into words that makes her crazy about him sexually.


??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
when she told you this what did you do?

and after she told you this. you continued to listen to "problems" with the other man?

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Originally Posted By: Steve McQueen
explain this a little more:

Quote:
In our relationship she would often lay there and refuse me if the foreplay and the role playing wasn't just so.


what kind of roleplaying was she demanding?

Quote:
What she tells me now is that she's learned that her affair partner has some uncontrollable ethereal "something" she cant put into words that makes her crazy about him sexually.


??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
when she told you this what did you do?

and after she told you this. you continued to listen to "problems" with the other man?


Hi Steve, Thanks for your thoughts.

Suffice to say, she was very particular about how sex should be innitiated. She enjoyed role play, I was open minded but I didn't take it seriously enough for her I guess. Gradually, getting her in the mood became a complete mystery and she stopped being very cooperative about it. I've read SSM and I think I have a good handle on how that happened and have ideas on how to overcome this, but it would require her to compromise which is sort of moot with the current sitch. I certainly take my share of responsibility for the emotional disconnection which impacted our sex life.

When she told me that about her attraction to OM I honestly don't remember what I said. She told me that was the ONLY thing about our marriage she thought might be beyond repair. I think it was over the phone and I just sort of told her that was a horrible thing to tell me and told her I didn't believe sex was an insurmountable issue for us. But yeah that was devastating to hear. I LATER shared with her in writing that I felt she was confusing the newness of her relationship with him with something that would last. And again later in writing explained some of the issues I uncovered through reading. That time (this was more recent) she replied to say that she was glad I had worked so hard to figure out what happened and seemed to agree with me. But she didn't explicitly say whether or not she'd changed her mind about our sex potential. Not surpising because I think she's trying to keep all her cards hidden and her options open even if she's starting to see the sense I've made.

Again I think the "listening to her problems about OM" angle is getting overblown. She's only mentioned problems with him twice to me during late night hysterical phone calls, during which I had reason to believe she was a danger to herself.


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so there is the possibility she is not low drive afterall?

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I go into this in the other thread I started under "sexual issues" a lot more. But basically I feel like she was/is low desire but her emotional affair kicked her sex drive into high gear again. She and I enjoyed a very good sex life earlier in our relationship.

I think theoretically if I left her life, and she continued on with OM she would level out again. For all I know she may already have started to?


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Originally Posted By: Frosty Michael
Hello everyone,

Like many of you I am right smack in the middle of a very long bizarre and terrible journey. I guess I should start at the beginning. I’m going to try and condense and consolidate this as much as I can, but because I‘ve been married for less than a year the background here is very important. My wife and I are both 26 years old. We have known each other for almost a decade. Became friends in high school. Dated casually after high school. Tried to maintain a casual long distance romance which did not work out for various reasons our first year of college, and through all of that became very close friends. We stayed in touch throughout college, got together whenever I was in town, tried to date again a few times on and off; but there was usually some other guy in her life who was more involved with her than I was. It was upsetting, but it was never damaging to our friendship. I knew I was two hours away at school and we didn’t see each other nearly enough to have a real relationship. We were young, and perhaps other opportunities would arise. Still in a way I pined for her in the back of my heart. I did date some other girls here and there, but it was never quite the same.

When I returned from college, my wife was one of the few friends I had around me while I was in a transition phase in my life. Both of us had graduated college, were living with our parents, and having trouble finding a job and moving on to independence. At this time we began to spend a lot of time together as friends and become involved in community theater productions. My wife was now dating another man. Their relationship had been sour for some time, and I did not respect him very much. They had intense fights, and he lead his life very irresponsibly. I am very ashamed of myself now, but at the time it made so much sense for me to try and seduce her away from this man. We had a mostly emotional affair towards the end of her relationship with this person, and that transitioned into a 3 year relationship, a more than one year long engagement, and marriage.

I would describe our dating during these four years (which eventually lead into marriage) as without question the happiest time of my entire life. Neither one of us was perfect, but I feel like we had a very healthy, honest, open relationship and we complimented each other beautifully. I could go on about the highs and lows of dating/engagement and why I consider this a time of discovery, in which we did not have a perfect relationship (as nobody truly does), but suffice to say we did have shared goals and a responsible sincere love for one another that had seemingly endless promise and potential.

Late in our engagement (a few months before the wedding which was now all planned out with invitations sent), my wife began to experience doubts. Cold feet as I thought it was. As much as she sincerely appreciated all that I had done for her and with her, and as much as she felt she wanted to be with me for the rest of her life, she was now grappling with the practicality of being with one person for the rest of her life. External influences on these thoughts were not one, but TWO other men who had confessed an infatuation to her. My wife is an extremely attractive, caring, honest, fun person and I certainly can see why men become attracted to her. And at this time, she was very faithful to me. She saw their advances for what they were and blocked them. But she did indicate to me that she wasn’t so sure she was the marrying type anymore. When asked point blank how I would feel about calling off or postponing the wedding, naturally I told her that I thought it would be a huge step backwards, a big disappointment and embarrassment, and that the long term result of this I couldn’t honestly know. I did indicate that I might not want to stay with her if we didn’t get married. After a brief phase of this uncertainty, during which time I admit I was in a kind of denial about the fact that the wedding might not proceed, she did confide to me that she loved me very much, could see herself spending the rest of her life with me, and sincerely wanted to get married.

The wedding came and went. We were both very happy and in love, and I believe incredibly sincere about our vows and this transition. But a mere 8 months into our marriage we both began to experience doldrums. I thought it would be a passing phase, but for her there was an emotional disconnection that was becoming more and more serious. She was propositioned again by one of the men who had become infatuated with her. They began to spend more and more time together and I began to notice startling changes in her behavior. Immaturity, selfishness, and distance went through the roof. I gradually picked up on the fact that she was having an affair, but by the time I confronted her about it, she was pretty far gone. She resurrected her doubts about the concept of marriage. She told me that she was angry at me for having “given her an ultimatum”. She felt I had threatened to leave her if we didn’t get married and forced her into it, but I really feel like I was just being honest about how I might react. Worst of all she sincerely believed that she was deeply in love and had found some kind of soul mate in her affair partner. To make things worse, this person was a mutual friend and I knew a thing or two about him, the way their friendship worked, the kind of person he was, the kind of mistakes he made, and the way he seduced her. He was a “yes man” to her, a valiant defender, and a hopeless romantic who encouraged and propagated all her fantasies in their minds. As a husband and a partner I always tried to be a loving realist, someone who encouraged her but also strived to give her practical advice about her life and career goals. She had started to resent me and only think negatively about me, while only positively about him.

My wife had been seeing a therapist on her own for a month or so, trying to figure all of this out without informing me of what was happening. After my discovery, we went through a tumultuous but abbreviated period living together with her still seeing this man. It ended with me kicking her out of the apartment for thinking she could see him, spend the night with him, come home to me and have the nerve to be angry at me for making her feel guilty. She was like a completely different person; a cold, uncaring, pleasure-seeker who didn’t care who she hurt or what she destroyed to have a good time. But prior to my having kicked her out she received what I consider to be very questionable advice from her therapist. My wife was told that she should move out, continue to date her affair partner, and see me “at least once a week” to figure things out. I find it very strange that she was told to separate after having been married for less than a year. And I find it impossible for any professional to think that I could be “given a chance” under those conditions. Naturally, she liked this advice. She grabbed it and ran. She could move out, have some freedom and “independence”. Pursue her passion for her affair partner, and see me very little. In fact in the three months since the separation started… she has seen me three times. One of those times was obligatory. The other two were very short encounters that added up to a few hours. We have kept in touch on the phone and through Email as well to an extent. But she does not make an effort to spend time with me.

I’ve been seeing my own therapist since this started, and have been working very hard to figure all of this out, self-reflect, and determine whether or not I should even be with my wife and whether or not she is capable of change. I have determined for myself that yes she is worth it, and yes she does have what it takes to make our marriage work. But my wife spent the first few months of the separation enjoying herself, and sharing her life with her affair partner in a blissful sort of fantasy world. I spent a day trip with her driving to an acting gig I had gotten her long ago, and we had a long productive talk in the car. After that I felt like she was ready to hear some things from me. I had composed several intense, loving, positive, honest letters to her that I had been holding onto. After that week I felt that I finally broke through the bubble of her fantasy life and made her realize what she had done. She began to feel incredible stress and sadness, alternating with the same dizzyingly blissful highs of her now highly sexual relationship with her affair partner. We both began to understand that there was something chemical and addictive about her relationship with him. But on it went. She is experiencing more clarity now, but is so busy and stressed working on a play (with her affair partner as her assistant director!) I don’t believe she will have the time to really give herself the peace of mind to reflect on this until this play is over which is very frustrating to me. The play ends on October 24th (The day before our one year wedding anniversary if this isn’t set up dramatically enough.) And I feel I have to wait this out at least until November to give her the opportunity to settle down.

Recently there was a very eye opening and powerful incident in the saga. My wife was feeling very stressed and overwhelmed about a variety of things including her personal life. She called her affair partner for emotional support. Instead they fought. She told him she was feeling suicidal and had taken sleeping pills with alcohol. He became irritated and hung up on her multiple times. Low and behold I am then awoken at 2AM by a hysterical phone call from her. I was very sympathetic, understanding, and angry at this man who shunned her at a time of such serious crisis. I went over to her new apartment and sat up with her for a while until I felt that she was okay. Over the next week we had very sincere conversations about the reality of the man she was now with vs. the fantasy of what she thought she was going after. But even so, I tried very hard to remind myself that this was far from over. That she would likely continue to see him as they continued to work together. That she would probably slip back into the chemical high for a while even if it was alternating with devastating lows. Naturally that's what happened. After having made a lot of progress and self discovery, I finally had a new devastating moment when I realized they were continuing on. Even though I had tried to prepare myself for it.

Now I'm feeling like I just can't watch this happening anymore. I love her way too much to watch her degrade herself by being with this person. She is a strong, intelligent, compassionate young human being. And she is wasting her time addicted to a forty year old, unemployed, living with his mother, unmotivated grown up child. My wife is the third married woman this man has dated. He doesn't seem to learn from any of his mistakes and he doesn't seem to want to live in reality. And he's perfectly content dragging my wife into fantasy land with him. Granted it was ultimately her choice, so I am just fed up with both of them. I want to give her a chance, but her actions are speaking much louder than her words. I'm beginning to feel very stupid for hanging on and I desperately need to distract myself more. I feel like what I need to do is focus on reacting to her if/when she comes to me, and stop reaching out to her. I just keep setting myself up for disappointment.

That's the story so far. I feel like there are hundreds of solutions out there for us to make our marriage work, but I'm helpless to use them without her. I don't know how long to wait, but I know I could wait for her much longer if she was not dating another man. There are many, many, oddities and interesting details about our situation which I can go into in later posts perhaps. But for now I guess that's it.

Thanks for reading if you got this far!



No kids All this drama
Send her packing & move on she told you she wasn't sure & you were able to get her from another guy
What did you think was going to happen???


WAW 32
ME 38
D11, S9 & D2
Together 10/96
Married 4/2000
Bomb 4/2006
PA1 9/2006
PA2 11/2006
I now know I want out, With my Kids!!!

After a year, love is a choice not a feeling!
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So are you still trying to convince her how she's wrong and you're right, if she just does X, Y, and Z the marriage will be all better?

None of that is attractive or effective.

On a different topic, just because you don't have children does not mean it's easier to move on or that you should just throw in the towel. You won't have to deal with your ex forever as co-parents, but it doesn't mean your R is worth any less or the pain of a breakup is any less.

Last edited by pearlharbr; 10/02/09 08:46 PM.

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