Wayward Wife & LRT (5)

[NDY]

GB. Pure gold. I have been struggling with this for quite. While now. The conflicting messages just drive me mad. Thank you for this. I look forward to the sample email.

/derail

I know, right?

Some messages say: manipulate her by validating her and listening to her, spend time with her and others say manipulate her by detaching from her because she needs to feel the loss and be punished.

Frankly, you (anyone) can go either way (when trying to manipulate your desired outcome) depending on your personal wants and needs. Either way is being manipulative and there isn't anything inherently evil or wrong with trying to manipulate your wayward spouse into doing the right thing. It may not be healthy for you long term but almost every betrayed spouse does it (even the ones that go ballistic the first night and give ultimatums that work with the inherent thread of violence or coercion). I personally think men should strategically pursue more (doing a dance of pursuit and distancing) and go into the fog and TRY to lead/drag their wife out of it; however, I think it's entirely too much to ask or suggest for a betrayed wife to do the same.

Then again, to some men it may be too much too whereas some women can emotionally put up more of a fight.

All generalizations.

Also...these strategies aren't mutually exclusive. The pursuer - distancing strategy presumes some pursuing AND some detaching.

I also think the posters save their marriage or not. I'm a bit of a fatalist here but many/most betrayed husband's come here to get affirmation and confirmation that the way they are choosing to handle themselves is o.k. They supplement their decisions with our information and reconcile or divorce all on their own. There isn't any magic way for me to tell which way this situation is going to go. I could see them jumping in bed together next weekend (almost every reconciliation story begins with "and we had sex last night") or; she could be filing the divorce papers today and running off to be with OM. Either way, Defacto is better off having this place and our [sometimes conflicting] support because the battlefield he finds himself in is ever changing and uncertain. He can apply my tools one day and someone else's the next. It's all good.

Decacto, sorry for the derail.

GB thank you for this message. I knew the distancing thing was, to her at least me coming across as a jerk. I struggled with the concept of rebuilding the attraction on a daily basis. My WW loved me because I was the funny, talkative interesting guy. Now, trying to follow what I've seen on here I just make it worse. She responds better when I'm the 'old me'. Lots of people here talk about self improvement, fixing the things that she didn't like about you. Not just for the M but for yourself. But what about the thing you forgot to be? What about the old you that she fell in love with? Sometimes that person needs to come back. Know what I mean?

So I like the idea of making your feeling be known in a manly way. She has already left. So I want to AT LEAST TRY and intice her back. It doesn't mean there isn't an improved NDY waiting but the old NDY, the one she loved has to come back too.

I'm biting my fingernails for this email. Defacto and i's situations are similar in a lot of ways.

Peace

[T384]

GB

I guess I will have to respectfully disagree on some aspects

As I'm sure you can gather from my posts I am not about being walked all over. When I said get along for the kids I mean be able to exchange the kids pleasantly and hopefully be mature adults. If you've read my previous posts I also said I did not think they should be doing things as a family. That's the repercussion the W or H has to deal with by choosing an A. Others argue to allow the other partner see what they're missing. I guess it could go either way.

At the end of the day we are all adults and hopefully those here can utilize all that's offered here and formulate their own approach. I think it's important for people to realize that there isn't one thing that will make or break the relationship.

Best of luck, D!

[Georgia Bulldogs]

T0234...you'll probably like my proposed letter than. It's the take away after a period of time of spending time with them, meeting their needs and showing them what and who they'd be missing.

Defacto might HAVE conversations relating to information in the proposed letter/email prior to sending it. I think if she actually files for divorce and serves him....he should certainly be sending this letter/email and withholding all contact and interaction with her.

I also worry about Defacto's legal case. His wife has already threatened to take more custody of the kids from him like she's the gatekeeper granting him 50/50 custody. If Defacto's number one priority over and above saving his marriage is making sure should they end up divorced that he maximizes his time with the kids and minimizes the conflict and expense of the divorce process...being and playing nice is likely in his best interest (to the point you take advantage of HER being nice while not giving in yourself at all...just to be nice).

Here's what I wrote (don't you dare use it word for word or someone might find it here and consider it insincere):

Dear wife,

This is a difficult letter for me to write, one that I have been mentally working on for weeks now. I have written this letter with the true love that only a husband can have for a wife. Please read every word I have written, for it is from the heart.

These last few months have been emotionally devastating to me. Despite appearances, I am not some stoic robot devoid of feelings and I was blindsided and crushed by your affair with {x's husband]. That being said, I do apologize to you for any part I played in creating the environment that helped make your affair possible. Perhaps I foolishly over-pursued my goals without understanding my responsibility to meet your most important emotional needs. Perhaps I was not there for you when you needed me the most and we are now both suffering for my mistake. It's really tough for me to pinpoint what I did wrong let alone take responsibility for it at this time but I am sorry none the less.

I am willing to avoid the mistakes I've made in the past and create a new life for both of us that will meet your needs. But I cannot do that until you end your relationship with [x's husband] once and for all. Living under these conditions where you text me about loving me, say you are having second thoughts, and asking for hugs while also texting me for information pertinent to filing a divorce petition, threatening to keep my kids from me unless I call you whenever you demand and wondering when and where you are going to drop such petition in my lap has been the most painful experience of my life, and I can no longer endure it. Just the other night DD4 ask me when I was going to find another wife and I had no response or explanation. I STILL have one but I couldn't even tell her that and risk setting her up for further disappointment. I think the mixed signals she must be getting from our interactions lately must be very confusing and hurtful to her as well. She's a bright girl and I already see her picking up on way too much.

As far as OM. I am and will always be the better man. We took vows before God and family and God doesn't make mistakes. You are my best friend and I find myself missing you terribly; however, until your affair ends, and you are willing to follow a plan of reconciliation with me, I need to avoid seeing, texting and/or talking to you so I can regain my dignity and self respect. I won't compete for the love and affections of my own wife against such a miscreant. Our friend, ________, has agreed to act as our intermediary to help us make arrangements and establish and maintain a set schedule with the children that is mutually convenient. It is my understanding there is also online parental scheduling apps that could assists everyone with an easy to use and set online adjustable calender such that we can minimize our necessary interactions to the greatest extent possible. {friend] will also provide a convenient drop off and pick up location so I can avoid the turmoil and pain of running into you at every child exchange. If you want to communicate about the children or any other matter, it will have to be through him/her.  I'd request that you only text me directly for any and all TRUE emergencies. I will also agree that we each have the children call other parent at least once per day while they are in our care. I'm sure we can come up with more agreeements in the coming months to make this transition as easy as possible while permitting me the personal space necessary to rebuild my life.

I ask that you respect my decision to disassociate myself from you in this way. This isn't about you. I am not punishing you. This is about my feelings. You must know about the suffering I have endured because of your relationship, and I simply cannot be around you any longer knowing that you are still communicating with him and set upon divorcing me and splitting up our family for no justifiable reason. I know only getting 50% of the time with the kids is difficult for you too, but I didn't get a vote and I still don't want that. This divorce, if you pursue it, will be entirely on you and I would view it as YOU punishing me/us for your mistakes that you refuse to apologize and make amends for. I can't and won't sit here any longer while you accuse ME of being mean or punishing you as though my feelings are insignificant. Just know I still love you but I cannot continue to see you under these conditions.

If you desire there currently remains a way out of this mess. As soon as you are willing to permanently end your relationship, follow precautions to avoid absolutely any contact with the other person, and join me in a plan to restore our relationship, I will be wiling to discuss a future together with you.  Hesitantly, I am also maybe willing to discuss a plan whereby we mutually agree not to file for divorce for 6 months while you pursue finding a new job outside of xyz hospital (and away from OM for life), with precautions in place to the extent possible and verifiable that you and OM aren't seeing or speaking to each other any longer where we spend as much time together as a couple and family as possible without too much pressure to fix anything until such time as you leave working with OM and establish true “no contact”. In other words, if we are perhaps going to divorce anyway...let's put it on hold and have one last good FUN summer together, giving us both a chance to understand each other better (since we obviously don't) and just give both of us a chance to figure out our “second thoughts” (yes, I have second thoughts too, some days I want nothing to do with you and others I just miss my best friend) without worrying about when the other shoe is about to drop.

I hope that we will be able to rebuild our marriage some day. I want us to be able to meet each other's emotional needs and to avoid doing anything to hurt each other. We can build a new lifestyle together in which everything we do makes us both happy. I can forgive and I have no intent to hold this over your head. Then there will never be a reason for us to be separated and we can each have 100% custody of our children. I want to be your best friend, someone who is always there for you when you need me. And I want you to be my true best friend and lover again.

That being said, I just don't understand your end game here. Do you think you and some serial cheating doctor are seriously going to end up together? Say you divorce me and he divorces his wife, he'll be single then, what's to stop him from dating a lot less complicated and less burdened (maybe one that's childless and absent an upset suspicious ex husband)? Why would you trust a man that you KNOW is willing to cheat on his wife and children? How would you ever trust such a man at work or around OUR children? I know I wouldn't, God forbid. Accordingly, be advised that If you ultimately divorce me, that we can't and won't remain friends at all. First off, it's a terrible example to the children. It teaches kids that other people matter more than them. That they should suck it up and tolerate abuse instead of distancing themselves from it. I wouldn't want (DD4) staying married or hanging around an emotionally abusive husband just “for the kids”. Besides, in time, I will remarry. I LIKE being married; and, I imagine any 2nd wife I have won't like me hanging around my first wife too much.

I cared for you when we married and I continue to care for you right up to this day. I hope you can turn your life around, do the right thing and correct this colossal mistake you've made but I have learned I cannot make you do anything; and, I cannot be around you or help you as long as you continue your destructive relationship.

With Love and Conviction,
(signed)

A copy of this letter could also be sent to OM with a note saying something like:

I understand you think you've convinced [om's wife first name] that I'm some jealous abusive husband and that she just thinks that you two are working this out and moving on but I know better. I've got lots of friends in this town and my spies are everywhere. I even had someone send me pictures of you two talking intimately at work and documentation that you are now calling my wife from your business/clinic landlines, pictures I'll gladly share with your wife if you don't completely get and stay out of our lives. I love my wife and I am willing to do whatever it takes to make her happy. I am waiting for that chance. (OM's hate hassles and confrontations with the betrayed husbands....this kind of message lets him know that you are going to sit back and keep poking at him forever and make your wife far more hassle than she's worth. The affair was far more fun with it was just sneaking around in the hospital but now you have spies who knows where and you have completely made this no longer fun. He's not near as emotionally invested in your wife as he's lead her to believe or as you are making it clear you are. This also goes against the narrative your wife has likely told him about you from the beginning. He didn't expect you to actually stand up and fight for her. Plus, if and when you recover. Your wife will think you are chivalrous for having stood up to him for her. If you don't recover. Bygones. Who cares what she or OM think at that point. Lastly, use OM's wife first name whenever possible. They will both hate that).

[Starsky309]

GB thank you for this message. I knew the distancing thing was, to her at least me coming across as a jerk. I struggled with the concept of rebuilding the attraction on a daily basis. My WW loved me because I was the funny, talkative interesting guy. Now, trying to follow what I've seen on here I just make it worse. She responds better when I'm the 'old me'. Lots of people here talk about self improvement, fixing the things that she didn't like about you. Not just for the M but for yourself. But what about the thing you forgot to be? What about the old you that she fell in love with? Sometimes that person needs to come back. Know what I mean?

So I like the idea of making your feeling be known in a manly way. She has already left. So I want to AT LEAST TRY and intice her back. It doesn't mean there isn't an improved NDY waiting but the old NDY, the one she loved has to come back too.

Peace

I have no problem with this in THEORY, if someone is skilled (and self-assured) enough to thread that needle. In my experience, very, VERY few men can and so my advice is usually to get them to learn to lay and enforce strong boundaries (while remaining civil), and get them the hell AWAY from the simpering pursuit and supplication that we see way too often on this forum.

Heck, very few emotionally HEALTHY males can pull off what ol' Georgia Bulldog describes above; how many just-bombed and WOUNDED men can?


Starsky

[NDY]

Q

GB thank you for this message. I knew the distancing thing was, to her at least me coming across as a jerk. I struggled with the concept of rebuilding the attraction on a daily basis. My WW loved me because I was the funny, talkative interesting guy. Now, trying to follow what I've seen on here I just make it worse. She responds better when I'm the 'old me'. Lots of people here talk about self improvement, fixing the things that she didn't like about you. Not just for the M but for yourself. But what about the thing you forgot to be? What about the old you that she fell in love with? Sometimes that person needs to come back. Know what I mean?

So I like the idea of making your feeling be known in a manly way. She has already left. So I want to AT LEAST TRY and intice her back. It doesn't mean there isn't an improved NDY waiting but the old NDY, the one she loved has to come back too.

Peace

I have no problem with this in THEORY, if someone is skilled (and self-assured) enough to thread that needle. In my experience, very, VERY few men can and so my advice is usually to get them to learn to lay and enforce strong boundaries (while remaining civil), and get them the hell AWAY from the simpering pursuit and supplication that we see way too often on this forum.

Heck, very few emotionally HEALTHY males can pull off what ol' Georgia Bulldog describes above; how many just-bombed and WOUNDED men can?


Starsky

but I'm not just bombed. Nor unhealthy. Starsky, I just feeling the 'standard' approach isn't working. It's making things worse, much worse.

/derail

[NDY]

GB, stop by my house anytime. I like the cut of your jib.

[Defacto]

Gang,
So much wisdom has been shared here today. I am completely overwhelmed and humbled by the support. This site truly is a blessing to those who need it most.

Thank you to Zues, T0, Mahhhty, Ripken, RAI, Matt, NDY, Starsky, and GB! Much was discussed even though not all was agreed upon.

The boundary that was set limiting contact with STBX and establishing a protocol for contacting the children on off nights was as more about what's best for my emotional and mental well being than punishing or teaching STBX a lesson.
Tonight was a case in point.

STBX sent me a video TM of S1. I enjoyed the video but didn't reply. Later, I texted STBX asking to speak with the kids. A few minutes later, she called with the kids on the phone. It was a joyous conversation and D4 and S1 kept talking over each other. D4 even spilled the beans on a surprise birthday gift for me. STBX would interject now and then but the whole call revolved around the kids. Two minutes later, we said goodbye and I was on my way to dinner. STBX sent two more video TMs of the kids. I watched them and laughed out loud. However, I didn't reply.

This works for me. Like GB and others said, this arrangement allows me to have some breathing room to work on myself, a time to not worry about analyzing every single stinking thing.

Ultimately, we will adapt an outlook that is wholly customized to fit our particular sitch while founded on the core DB principles. At least, that is what I am trying to do.

All in all, not a bad day for me. I still have a lot of work to do. The dialogue sure helped me keep my mind of my STBX for most of the day for sure. And I have re-read GB's posts at least three times already and plan on reading them one more time before bed.

[claire7]

Nice to hear, Defacto!

in the long run, I think you'll feel that taking the high road when it comes to the kids is better for everyone.

[Defacto]

GB,
I wanted to personally thank you for the time and energy you spent to compose that letter. A few others here have found it useful but It was obviously personalized just me. It's apparent you know my sitch almost as well as I do. I'm going to hold onto it for now and consider sending it if something happens, like you said about getting served.

--------

Part of me is wondering if I should check STBX's phone records again for any intel on the A. I don't like doing it because it sets me back personally but maybe I need to. The other part of me thinks that it is irrelevant if the A is over if STBX is still not expressing interest in working on the MR. However, to GB's point, I don't think she will just walk up and tell me out of the blue that she is ready to try again. Just thinking out loud.

[T384]

I was not a WAW but I know many people fear that the other spouse will not ask to work on the M for whatever reason.

I strongly believed this. I just KNEW my H and knew even if he wanted to *mind reading* that he wouldn't because he was too proud and had done so much damage to our family.

Well - he did do what he needed to do. I'm sure some will argue men vs women but I believe if someone wants something bad enough they will move mountains if need be.