WAW affair admitted 2

[Jefe]

You're twisted

[Ontheup]

very good.

I've had some pretty twisted thoughts myself lately...........push them out my mind

D8 is home so my day just got better. She told me on way home I the best daddy anyone could ever wish for. had to fight the tears back on that one. tea then ice skating. woohoo

[MrBond]

"Mr bond when it all came out and since I have asked to just stop lying but she continues to whilst trying to be my friend."

And what boundaries did you put in place? You said that she works with the OM so they have to see each other. Do you honestly think she would feel comfortable at telling you she was with him? That's why she's not comfortable at telling you the truth.

"There is a lot of cake eating going on now. It would be easier if she just didn't say anything but she feels the need to lie."

Probably because of the way you've been acting around her.

"No she has never said she will not see OM. They work together. It is not going to stop I know that. I can deal with that. It's the continued lying that's wearing me down."

So why don't you tell her that? Tell her that if she's seeing the other guy to just tell you and you'll be okay with it.

"The other day she was as typical waw script saying please don't hate me which was her saying she is continuing to see him without actually saying it."

No that's not what it means. That's mindreading. You two have a child together and with all the hate that you have in you, of course she doesn't want to hurt you. There are MANY WASs on here who purposely go out of their way to hurt the LBS. You're lucky your W isn't one of them.

Rather than sitting around and complaining about it, go and talk to her about it.

[Ontheup]

Mr bond. You're crushing me again are you this tough on everyone

I'm not asking her to tell me she's with him I already know she is. What I'm asking is don't come in and spin some story about where you've been today. Just don't say anything. The secret is out you don't need to keep spinning it.

Cake eating has been going on for months. I have been walking on egg shells eager to please scampering after every bone. In fact I've been like that for the last few years. As she has become more successful and me more domestic dad she lost a lot of respect for me. On top of the issues with my mum and wife feeling like she is a single mum. This is the crux of our issues I'm trying to be as normal as possible for sake of d8 but yeah of course I'm not good. She still wants the family home life but obviously loves OM and what she gets from him.

As above I don't want to hear " oh I was round at OM tonight" but just don't say anything. There is no need to keep making the stories up. We're all in on the secret now.

Ok I was mind reading again. This was my interpretation of what she was saying. I've fallen in love with another man, please don't hate me cos I still want to be your friend. The hate comments were part of a much bigger R talk.

I'm filled with hate. ....to be honest until yesterday when she was just lying making a story up I was feeling slightly better. Then yes that was a kick in the gut and it has made me angry

I'm a northerner. Complaining is what we do cos it rains all the time. In all seriousness I didn't take the opportunity to do so. I followed your advice.

[Arcola]

SRD,
I saw in Jefe's thread you had a question about separation and how your D8 would take it.

When me and my W separated my D9 took it pretty hard the first day from what I could tell. W was crying and decided to talk to D9 so it made her cry. Since, I haven't witnessed something similar from D9. Ive asked her how she felt about the back and forth between houses and she simply said she didn't know. My D9 is always expressing of feelings.

My others age 4 and younger took it in stride it seems.

The one thing that bothers me with S is that the children will more than likely pick sides. In my case they've chose W it seems as they're always asking where is my mom or why didn't she pick me up, mom, mom, mom.

With S I do miss W, but its helping me grow. Some days are good others are bad, just gotta keep the GAL or change of thoughts.

[Ontheup]

More R talks today.
I said to the wife please don't keep lying to me, just say nothing at all. I said I knew very well that this has been going on a long time, years and I can deal with that she is with someone else but to please just stop lying, just say nothing at all. Ill be leaving soon.
From this is stemmed off into 2 hours of talking about us, our D8 everything where we went wrong everything.
We both agree that for our D8 we have to be friendly and civil and make this as best as we can for her. For our sakes as well. We will always be a part of each other as we have D8.
We both empathised that we're both hurting and that it is going to take a lot of time to move past that. Explained I wont be just coming round all the time as I need to move on with my life which we both agreed on.
It ended calmly. both upset but calm.
My pride and ego still stand in my way to fully let go but the truth is I let her go a long time ago. years.

[Starsky309]

More R talks today.
I said to the wife please don't keep lying to me, just say nothing at all. I said I knew very well that this has been going on a long time, years and I can deal with that she is with someone else but to please just stop lying, just say nothing at all. Ill be leaving soon.
From this is stemmed off into 2 hours of talking about us, our D8 everything where we went wrong everything.
We both agree that for our D8 we have to be friendly and civil and make this as best as we can for her. For our sakes as well. We will always be a part of each other as we have D8.
We both empathised that we're both hurting and that it is going to take a lot of time to move past that. Explained I wont be just coming round all the time as I need to move on with my life which we both agreed on.
It ended calmly. both upset but calm.
My pride and ego still stand in my way to fully let go but the truth is I let her go a long time ago. years.

Well I'm glad you finally confronted her on this. Know that this (not being willing to be openly lied to) will likely be a boundary that she will re-test in the days and weeks ahead. I hope you'll remain 100% consistent with this, as it WILL need reinforcing. It's good practice for you to flex your new "boundary muscles," as it's definitely an acquired skill.

You handled the convo decently well, but one thing I would urge you to do is NOT make this a moral equivalency with her. You should say things like "Look, I know I was _____, ______ and ________ in the marriage, but I'm also WORKING on those things. Deciding instead to have an affair is not only obviously not fair to ME, but something you are going to have to decide why you took that outlet to deal with your own issues. I'll own mine, but I will in no way condone your decision to go outside of our marriage" (or something similar in your own words).

I say this NOT as a pride thing, but something your WIFE is going to need to work on going forward. You do her no favors by smoothing over the necessary introspection that she's going to need to do in the months ahead by applying the conveniently-soothing salve of moral equivalency.

(this also applies, albeit differently, if the betrayed spouse ALSO cheated earlier in the marriage. There you should say something like "Look, I'm obviously in no position to lecture you on infidelity; I made the same mistake and I've learned since that it was a selfish, horrible thing to do and not an emotionally healthy way to handle any dissatisfaction I was having with our marriage. But I also owned up to it, and have tried to do the things necessary to work on myself and on our marriage, and you haven't done that yet. That's something you're going to have to decide, but make no mistake: despite what I did in the past, I will NOT live in an open marriage now. So we both have some decisions to make here."

(or similar).


Starsky

[Ontheup]

Hi Starsky

After todays talks we're both pretty much done. It seems my wife has been involved with this person for longer than I thought. At least emotionally. Not that it really makes any difference. She was vulnerable because I had stopped giving her what she needed. We were both naïve. Red flags were ignored. This all ties back into when we first started having problems about 4 years ago. This is around the time she started working much more closely with OM.
Again im not innocent. I have strayed in our marriage as well as I wasn't happy.
At the moment there is just too much pain to even think clearly. We are both hurting a lot.
Im not fooling myself. Our marriage is dead in the water. It was a long time ago. I think we only stayed together for D8, money, comfort and friendship. Now OM is divorced there is nothing to stop them having a relationship. We're still married obviously but its just a piece of paper, any commitment behind it went a long time ago from both of us.
She has noticed the changed me though which is a shame. I didn't ask but she said today she is "annoyed as now im the perfect husband and dad. Why couldn't I have been like that before. The next woman will be very lucky". same for everyone on here I guess. horse and bolted spring to mind.
Its sad we have both done this to each other and our family. We never had the right tools in the 1st place to fix things before they got too bad. We got married and off we went into the big wide world believing everything would be great. No one ever said "you need to do xyz to keep the marriage going" We discussed this today and how sad it is that divorce rate is so high and media just concentrate on celebs getting divorced and remarried like its a good thing. What we should be concentrating on is providing people with the right skills to make a marriage/relationship work. If id found this site about 4 years ago I wouldn't be writing this now. I'm sure we'd be happy and in a marriage where we resolve our problems by dealing with them not blaming and then looking elsewhere for comfort. I know so many people who would benefit from this site and the guidance you get here. Im going to a wedding in April and you know what im going to buy them. DB book.
I have learnt a lot over the last few months about relationships, how to make them work, how to protect them from harms way. I cant look back now. I have to move forward. With time the pain for both of us will ease and we'll move into new fulfilling lives. Im glad I now have the skills to make not just a future relationship but my life in general better.
Im going to keep posting and help others on here where I can. I'm no vet but i've learnt a lot with a long way still to go.
Who knows where life will take me next.

On a positive note Ice skating with D8 last night was brilliant. We're both starting to get the hang of it Great GAL activity

[MrBond]

IMHO you gave up pretty easily. It seemed like you couldn't let go of your pride and ego.

And let's face it, if your W didn't say she was leaving, you wouldn't have changed to begin with. In fact, didn't you say that you were the one that threatened to leave and D her? No woman wants to hear that if they don't give their man what he wants he's going to bail on her. That's one thing you don't seem to understand.

The OM was there for her and accepted her the way she was. I don't think he ever threatened her with leaving her. The number one need of women is security and safety. It just seemed from the way you described things, you didn't give her that.

[Ontheup]

Mr bond

Your spot on. If I truly detach myself from the situation and look at it objectively I stopped loving my wife a long time ago. If I'd truly loved her I wouldn't have strayed and I would have been more supportive. It's hard to say but it's true. We've talked today and tonight and talked more openly than we have in many years.
All this time it is just my pride and ego getting in the way of me letting go.
The sad part is we could have saved our relationship years ago when there were first signs of trouble. I could have been more supportive and communicated with her in a more open and honest way. My wife could have told me she felt insecure and was having feelings for another man and we could have stopped it. Non of this matters now.
All that matters now is how we raise our d8
There's nothing to give up on. We both already gave up years ago. It still hurts but we both feel calmer after talking. I don't blame her for her affair. Yes she crossed a line and continued to do so. Yes she could have and should have come to me but she didn't because she probably felt she couldn't. If she felt safe and secure with me then she wouldn't have made that connection with OM. Same goes for me.
Life goes on and we are still a family just one that will live in separate houses.