Just curious. I remember you said your wife worked in the hotel industry, I believe. Catering? Has she had many male friends in the past? I realize this has crossed a line, however, I was also wondering if having a make "friend" is new for her. The way you describe her sounds like this almost takes her to a different time if that makes sense. The gushing..
3 kids BD 12/15/13 (IDKIILY. ) Rope dropped Cirque du Soleil style D final 9-9-14 "Some people are born on 3rd base and go through life thinking they hit a triple." Barry Switzer
She's a front desk clerk. Been at the same hotel for 20 years. Part time job, perfect mom hours. She's always had male friends. That in and of itself was not surprising. I've never had reason to mistrust her before.
Her story (for what it's worth): Things in our M have been off for a while for other reasons (that's true). This current male "friend" got her motor running sexually. (I still believe there's been no physical contact) Suddenly she decided our M has been out of sorts for most of the time we've been together, and she started thinking maybe she should start life over w/o me. That idea didn't even necessarily involve OM.
She used to fantasize that they were soulmates and she should move off to Georgia to be with him, if it just wasn't for that pesky wife of his. She doesn't talk that way anymore, but I don't believe that the fantasy isn't somewhere in the back of her mind.
Last edited by Rzrback; 11/30/1401:23 AM.
Ex Rzrback Me 43 Her 44 D11, D15 T21, M19 BD 9/9/2014 Piecing
Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands - Clint Eastwood
I worked from the hurt little boy again. Damn, why do I keep doing that. We had been getting along so well. I don't know what to do anymore. I allowed myself to get angry and tried to lay down the law when it came to OM. I meant to just say that I'm not willing to discuss OM any more. God, I am such an idiot. I'm sure I set us back.
Ex Rzrback Me 43 Her 44 D11, D15 T21, M19 BD 9/9/2014 Piecing
Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands - Clint Eastwood
We've had a good few days until last night. W was ordering prints for the house and we had been painting a couple of accent walls. At one point she turned to me and asked if I felt weird about doing all this given our situation. I did say that it did feel strange to be doing all this work for a house we might be selling in the future. She didn't know that I would push to sell the house if we D. She doesn't want to do that until the kids go to college, so they can continue living in their home. It was a far down the road detail of D that we had just never discussed. It devolved into a fight really quick. During the fight she looked me straight in the eye and told me she felt no love for me anymore. That's when Clint Eastwood took a coffee break and scared, frightened, lonely little boy came out.
After that had calmed down I tried to tell her again (why do I do this?) that she needed to cut off OM for the health of our relationship. She's still holding on to this fantasy that she can be "friends" with him and still potentially remain married to me. I didn't present it as a "cut him off or I'm leaving" thing, but she took it that way. Of course it devolved into everything else, and she still blames me for how she feels. She looked at me at one point and told me that she "used to love me, and that I had it all and threw it away". She found my perfect button, because that's the one thing that I keep playing in my mind over and over. I reacted to that much more calmly than I felt. Things calmed down, as they always do. I did apologize for losing my temper; that was a legitimate mistake on my part. We ended the evening on relatively friendly speaking terms, but I just feel like I cut myself off at the knees all the time.
It seems like every time I feel like I have this DBing thing down, I screw up. While I've done a good job of remaining friendly, PMA, etc. I'm still too attached to outcomes. I haven't yet learned to let go and stop trying to control things. I stopped working on being a better man regardless of my M outcome. That's what last night was about, me trying to control outcomes again. I ruined several days of good feeling in one fell swoop.
To make it worse, D15 found this forum on my laptop and told W. Specifically she saw my post about W putting OM's pics back on her phone after deleting them. I passed it off as a thread I was simply reading, not one that I was posted to. W may or may not believed me, but I noticed she changed her phone passcode last night.
I just hope I haven't made that one mistake that pushes her away for good.
Ex Rzrback Me 43 Her 44 D11, D15 T21, M19 BD 9/9/2014 Piecing
Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands - Clint Eastwood
The old adage stop thinking about green elephants wearing yellow tutus.
What is the first image in your mind?
You know this so, when W starts triggering the green elephant think about purple sheep.
Trigger......response Pavlov Do a pattern interrupt think about purple sheep, Charlie Chaplin, frozen the movie, your lovely children, the Xmas tree, your favourite steak.
In order to remind yourself you can use a rubber band on your wrist, ping it.
I have a 30 minute alarm on my laptop and I think something positive when I flood with pain. It works most of the time and some days I don't need it and on others every time.
When OM comes into your head do something with the image, make it small, swish it away, or my very favourite trick turn it into a cartoon. It is called reframing and my IC taught it to me when I could not detach from an image of H gambling all our cash. Took me a while to master and I started on small images, i imagined my favourites cake full of maggots to avoid eating it. (Sorry about that!) An IC may help you with this. Regards Vanilla
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to loose. V 64, WAW
That's something I haven't thought about before, vanilla. that makes sense. Something to break through the hurt I feel at the moment. I'll give that a try the next time I get tested.
I'm really thinking about starting with an IC after the first of the year.
Ex Rzrback Me 43 Her 44 D11, D15 T21, M19 BD 9/9/2014 Piecing
Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands - Clint Eastwood
We've had a good few days until last night. W was ordering prints for the house and we had been painting a couple of accent walls. At one point she turned to me and asked if I felt weird about doing all this given our situation. I did say that it did feel strange to be doing all this work for a house we might be selling in the future. She didn't know that I would push to sell the house if we D. She doesn't want to do that until the kids go to college, so they can continue living in their home. It was a far down the road detail of D that we had just never discussed. It devolved into a fight really quick. During the fight she looked me straight in the eye and told me she felt no love for me anymore. That's when Clint Eastwood took a coffee break and scared, frightened, lonely little boy came out.
After that had calmed down I tried to tell her again (why do I do this?) that she needed to cut off OM for the health of our relationship. She's still holding on to this fantasy that she can be "friends" with him and still potentially remain married to me. I didn't present it as a "cut him off or I'm leaving" thing, but she took it that way. Of course it devolved into everything else, and she still blames me for how she feels. She looked at me at one point and told me that she "used to love me, and that I had it all and threw it away". She found my perfect button, because that's the one thing that I keep playing in my mind over and over. I reacted to that much more calmly than I felt. Things calmed down, as they always do. I did apologize for losing my temper; that was a legitimate mistake on my part. We ended the evening on relatively friendly speaking terms, but I just feel like I cut myself off at the knees all the time.
It seems like every time I feel like I have this DBing thing down, I screw up. While I've done a good job of remaining friendly, PMA, etc. I'm still too attached to outcomes. I haven't yet learned to let go and stop trying to control things. I stopped working on being a better man regardless of my M outcome. That's what last night was about, me trying to control outcomes again. I ruined several days of good feeling in one fell swoop.
To make it worse, D15 found this forum on my laptop and told W. Specifically she saw my post about W putting OM's pics back on her phone after deleting them. I passed it off as a thread I was simply reading, not one that I was posted to. W may or may not believed me, but I noticed she changed her phone passcode last night.
I just hope I haven't made that one mistake that pushes her away for good.
On one hand, she's telling you she doesn't love you. On the other hand, she's telling you that she wants to remain friends with the OM and also still married to you. Do you see where her conflicting emotions are? She probably has no idea what's going on in her head.
Create a script. Learn it. Memorize it. It should go something like this: "I admit to my part in our troubles, and I'd do a lot differently if I could. I'm willing to work on our marriage and rebuild to a place of loving trust again, if you are. We can't do that when you have any contact with the OM; it's disrespectful to our marriage. The choice is yours on this."
Then maybe also work in "It's your call, but I don't want to divorce; I want to fix our marriage." as appropriate when D talk comes up, too.
Every time she tries to goad you into an argument like the one above, repeat the lines above.
There's no need to get into anything else at this juncture; the D will only happen if she files (classic DB advice -- if they want the D, let them do the work) and it doesn't sound like she's in a place she wants to do that.
Your job is to state the facts (wording is so important) and then carry on with your life AS THOUGH she's welcome to come along, but you're not holding up your healthy existence for her.
ME: 38 BF: 40 T: 10y, no kids, no M (by choice) BD: 7/14/14, BF admits to PA, wants out, lies about new R. 10/1/14: I move out, BF lies about move in with OW 12/4/14: OW confronted, reveals all the lies
You can snap it really hard! I've used that a few times. I had some red welts on my wrist. But I sure felt better in the noggin!
And while I agree with Little's advice above about the "script", it's best said once, maybe twice. You don't need to keep repeating yourself or it weakens your position.
All she will hear is "Blah..blah...blah..." (He's saying the same old thing.)
But scripts are great.
Here's one: "I have not yet decided what I want to do about -----. When I do, I"ll let you know." "I am not willing to talk about this under the current circumstances." (She knows what those circumstances are.)
Show her with your ACTIONS. Get busy doing other things. Stop making her the focus of your thoughts and plans. Take your time responding to her, as long as you need to make your point short and sweet. The more words involved, the more you run into the possibility of the convo getting away from you.
Clint Eastwood's character is a man of few words. His actions speak for him. Be THAT guy! -----------------------------------------------
But here's one for you:
Why indeed ARE you ordering prints and painting accents walls with your wife in a house you might be selling after divorce?
Whose idea was this and why is this important right now?
Like many of the WAW on this board, she seems to have an idea of what she wants (the kids to stay in the house) and that if you do not make those wishes come true, you are the bad guy.
Also, why are you working on this project with her when you're supposed to be detaching and GALing and not feeding into this fantasy world of hers?
Think about those and get back to me. -------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, as we say there is no magic bullet to fix your marriage, neither is there a magic bullet that blows all chances for R if you screw up.
We ALL screw up, big time. I have done so many times.
Things are going to happen. So she knows about this board. She changed her password on the phone. So it goes. Now you can't snoop the phone AND you know that she wants to hide certain things from you. (Been there, done that.)
IF I were you, and clearly I'm not, I would make myself scarce around her. If you can't control your emotions/actions (almost impossible at this point for the mere mortals among us) then don't be around her!
Sometimes some separation is a good thing to get away from all the insanity.
Can you take a trip or something? Go to a cabin in the woods with some fishing buddies? Go sight-seeing in NYC? Whatever floats your boat.
You've got to put some emotional distance in here for your well-being. Sometimes that requires a physical distancing for a time for you to get your head straight and get stronger.
One thing you can do while under the same roof is enforce your "No OM" boundaries by only dealing with her about necessary day-to-day operations. Period.
You can be friendly and kind about it, but you won't be helping her paint the house she doesn't want you living in. (Do I have that right?)
It's in the books... Make yourself scarce. Be too busy for her.
You are going to make things worse by continuing to engage and hang on her every word.
You've got to work on this. You have the info, now--as Vanilla said--there is no "TRY". Just DO it.
If you need to walk away--go to the bathroom, whatever, to get a break, do it. Just say: "I am not willing to discuss this with you now." And WALK AWAY.
Be strong. You can do it.
---(G)GGG
Me 54 Him 63 M 23 T 29 0 Kids Funny Farm of Rescues 12/12 OW-- 5/13 ILYBINILWY: A denied 9/13 Proof OW: ENDED 2/14 Got D papers on my BD I kicked him out for my sanity 9/14 He wants to "talk"?
