No, don't pound your chest. Very unattractive, and also pointless.
But "not accepting it" should mean more than saying that it's wrong. That's not agreeing with it, which is a much weaker thing.
"Not accepting" would involve separate living quarters and separate finances.
Rose888 - I don't know - it's a nice chest - lots of hair even if grey and pretty manly. I would suggest it would sound pretty nice if I pounded on it
I do agree that my stance is a much weaker stance than has been suggested. I do tend to have a soft touch - perhaps too soft which may be why I ended up here. "Your" stance on what "not accepting" means doesn't have to be the same as mine though.
To address your and DDJ's points - I am realistically only a month into this journey. We have separate sleeping quarters - WW's own idea which I objected to but now know has been best for both of us. Is that "everything" I could do? Absolutely not. Am I willing to go farther? I really don't know. I do know though that this is still early days and that small actions that I take now could have big results (See? I did read the DB book). I do believe that big actions now would have a small effect in the long run or blow the whole thing apart. WW is not engaged in our MR. I don't know if she knows this but I certainly do. She does however seem to be drifting back - again - small changes that I believe I need to be patient about. Is she going to have sex with OM again? Undoubtedly. Is there any d@mned thing I can do about that even if I forced a separation or D? No. So why do it other than for my own pride? She will eat cake - but I won't be feeding it to her. I'll be trying to figure out how to be in the next room making an omelet.
Am I doing nothing? I don't think so. I'm working on me. I'm learning from people like yourself and others about their own journeys and about what paths they took and how those paths turned out. Those lessons I am trying to take to heart even when I don't agree with them.
Anyway - that's about all I've got for now. I've been inspired and overwhelmed by the support I have gotten today from everyone. It's made me feel great that so many people have been so kind to share their thoughts with this lost lamb.
Time to quit wasting the company's money though and head for the subway and my 3 hour journey home.
Thank you all again.
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
Is there anything that your wife could do that would be so unacceptable to you that you'd ask her to leave?
Yes - she could violate the very simple ground-rules we agreed to at the beginning and invite OM into our marital home.
On the other hand, I agreed to no snooping (emptying the garbage doesn't "quite" count). If I started hacking into her computer, or if I violated the "nothing stupid" by announcing her A on Facebook, or if I went after OM to smash his face in, it would be more than reasonable for her to do the same.
There are two of us in this dance even if we are listening to different music.
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
Yes you can do something about it, you can tell her as long as she continues to disrespect you and the marriage she can find another place to live. You can let her know that while you may still love her you refuse to allow yourself to be humiliated this way. All you are doing right now is telling your W you don't like that she is sleeping with another man but if and when she stops you'll still be around for her. That's ludicrous, time for action
Oh boy - I'm with the majority here Andrew. Your W is deep into an A and has a warped sense of what's 'OK.' Her behaviour is deeply disrespectful and her sense of entitlement has beer believing she can go off for a lustful weekend with OM and continue in the MH during the week.
She won't change that, but you can. Believe me, a doormat guy with no boundaries is not attractive. I think the correct response would be - It's up to you how you spend your weekend - but if that's what you want to do, you are not welcome to return on Sunday evening.
JMHO of course - and sorry if the 2x4 sounds harsh...
T 13 M 7 Me 48 H 46 SS 15 BD 7.14 PA D final 5.16 (H filed)
We receive & we lose, and must try to achieve gratitude & embrace with whole hearts whatever of life that remains after the losses - Dubus
I do respect everyone's opinions here. They come from a place of hurt that I know well. There are no simple answers though to a complex problem. Wheels are in motion and I'm the guy on the ground so I'm following my gut on this one. I do certainly admit that I am somewhat blinded because I am close to the issue but I have a lot more of the facts too.
No matter what I do - I cannot change her behaviour myself. Only she can do that. The A has been going on for some months. Her having sex with another man has been a fact that I have had to acknowledge exists. I don't like it but there's not one d@mned thing I can do about it. If she wasn't here she would be even more free to carry it on and perhaps feel more justified in doing so. The fact that she - in a well intended way - let me know that she was going away changes nothing. The LBH isn't the only one who doesn't always follow the standard script. One thing that I didn't mention was that the information came up because she was offering to take her dog - that I don't like - with her. A stinky, barky dog would have been the "perfect" compliment to a romantic night and in some ways perhaps I should have said "sure". He however is not currently well, has been having separation anxiety and it is best for the dog if he and I have a movie night tonight. Her telling me came from a place of honesty and respect for the fact that I don't like her dog.
I do challenge the idea that I am a doormat with no boundaries. My boundaries and attitudes are my own and I feel that I am standing true to them. And I truly don't give a rat's @ss whether anyone finds me or my attitudes attractive. I am working hard on being ME - W - and everyone else can take it or leave it but I am rediscovering who I am and personally, I quite like the guy.
As I said earlier - she's not saying anything - so I don't have to discount that. However her attitudes and actions appear to have swung not 180 degrees but certainly well past 60 degrees back towards being a member of our family again. Even if I only believe half of that it's still 30 degrees. I certainly feel that she is finding me more attractive as a man and a better companion than she has in many months. I don't know how I compare to OM - and I absolutely truly don't care. It's weird to say that but yes - it's true.
One thing that I keep telling myself is that this is a long journey and there are no quick fixes. I'll keep flapping my butterfly wings and get myself to my own goal. Who knows - perhaps I might also cause a hurricane.
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
You can let her know that while you may still love her you refuse to allow yourself to be humiliated this way.
WSB - I wasn't going to respond directly to this since you are repeating what a lot of other people are saying but you raise an interesting point that I would like to address.
Of my core principals, Honour, Truth, Loyalty are among the top. These are not everyone's principals including W's especially at present and I don't expect them to be. The respect of others, while it is pleasant, is not a key driver of who I am or what I do. Despite what Shakespeare may say, in many ways I AM an island. That is one reason why for many years our marriage worked. We were two independent people who overlapped on some areas but not all.
Humiliation is something that you take on to yourself as a mark of shame in front of other people. I do not accept the humiliation that others may feel that I should be feeling. I feel proud that I am standing true to my own principals, to my marriage oath (which W at one point tried to tell me didn't matter), and myself. Just because she has broken her oath does not mean that I need to. Our oaths were separate and I am true to mine. To love, honour and cherish from this day forward. In no part of MY oath was there anything about her being loyal and true to me.
I once had a room-mate who was an undergrad studying psychology - he always said that whoever wrote a paper about my personality would have no trouble getting grant money
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
Hi Andrew, I don't mean to cause any offence and what I meant was - it doesn't matter if I find that attractive - but I presume if your W doesn't find it attractive, that's a problem.
I don't believe your stance will win her back. If she is all into OM just now, she'll take whatever she can get and if that's you carrying her case out to the car, that will be just great for her. If that's you holding true to your vows and waiting in the wings, I don't think that is going to attract her back.
I think a more alpha approach is likely to be more effective - and of course DBing is about doing what works. Your aim I think is to plant seeds of doubt in her mind - I don't think things can be the same if I carry on like this. It looks as though I may lose Andrew etc.
Of course you could carry on as you are. And OM is likely to be a bit of a moron - that he has become involved in this situation in the first place says all we need to know about him. You could choose to wait it out and carry on with your current approach - however, I think that then relies on the A 'running it's course' as opposed to her being attracted back to you. And you may be happy with that - in which case fine.
Good luck with whatever course you take. For my part, I never regretted telling my H there would never be a R with me whilst there was one with OW. And I never regretted us living apart as I knew from the very bottom of my heart - that I could never live like that. However, my H has just finalised our D - go figure....his loss! but I am doing ok regardless.
Take care
T 13 M 7 Me 48 H 46 SS 15 BD 7.14 PA D final 5.16 (H filed)
We receive & we lose, and must try to achieve gratitude & embrace with whole hearts whatever of life that remains after the losses - Dubus
To cut to the chase, you're telling us that you're okay with an open marriage; is that correct?
doodler - nope that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that there is nothing I can do about what my WW is doing. She's a big girl and makes her own choices as do I. My choice is to be true to my own standards and morals which at present are not in line with her's. No amount of threats or ultimatums will change any of that. Whether she is here or somewhere else she'll continue to do whatever the h@ll she wants at this point.
Rambling, semi-coherent justifications follow as usual on my posts.
One thing that gets lost in all of this though I think is her. We label our WW with an abbreviation and tar them all with the same broad brushes. Behind that though is an individual who came to make choices that have hurt others. I'm working on trying to find that person as well as myself and I have found her at least some of the time. I also remember that she is a person who I have loved and admired and respected who I feel has made a mistake.
I also think that I have come across here as rather passive. I have chosen to try to find joy in every day, not hate or anger. I do "feel" anger like when WW told me she was leaving for the day and I assure you that she knows of that anger. She also knows of at least some of the pain I feel but I am positive she is blind to most of it. I am the sort of person though who doesn't strike out at others either physically or emotionally. I do stand my ground even when people walk around it. There is nothing I can do about the paths that other people walk but have no doubt, those around me are very clear on where I stand.
I also feel that I need some more time. MWD and many of the other moderators emphasize the importance of time. I've also literally spent days reading everything I can put my hand on by sandi2. I wish some day that I could give that woman a hug for all of the comfort that she has brought to so many with her perspective. Buried in what she has written though is the story of how she herself turned away from the WW path. It was through the intervention of a trusted relative who helped her to see the path she was on. In my own case my WW has told me last week that she is going to seek the advice of her brother. A man that she trusts, respects and who with his wife has healed from his own A. I've nudged that along and they are having lunch next Sunday. How that will turn out and what choices W may make after, I have no idea. I can only hope for clarity and action from her.
In the mean time I am working hard on my own GAL and on detaching. To me and from what I've read detaching is more like putting the other into the "friend zone" more than walking away from them. My W and I have been communicating more and have even dipped our toes into R talk. I am still the man that I've always been who was lost for a while and we are both rediscovering who that is. I'm also working hard on listening to who W is. Having spent over half our lives together doesn't mean that you know someone and their hopes and dreams nearly as well as you might want to.
One poster on my thread, darknes I think it was, gave me an excellent point that I didn't really "hear" at the time that I'm going to try to repeat here. The comments on that thread are all around "getting my W back" and "making W feel pain for the hurt she's caused" and my own comments were a whining complaint about needing "good" advice on how to work with my W. darknes's point was that DB isn't necessarily all about healing a marriage. It's about healing yourself.
So - my best friend is currently out with OM. I am hurt, I am angry but I am still ME. Tonight I will probably sob into my pillow. And yes, we still live under the same roof but sleep in separate beds. And yes, we are civil and human to each other.
I will not however take this out on WW and make any attempt to "punish" her or force her into a path not of her own choosing by making threats or demands. They won't do any good on her - they might work on others but I'm positive that they won't work on her. Instead I will continue to be me and try to find the joy in the world. I will hope that W will be able to find her own heart and make her own path in the world. If W choses to walk beside me and share that joy then that's fabulous. If not, I will walk my path alone. Right now she is still lost even if she seems to be rediscovering herself and me. Today is part of a journey I actually believe that she NEEDS to take to determine if her path lies with OM or on her own. How can she possibly make that choice if access to OM is denied to her? Now that the cover is off her A to me my mind-reading powers tell me that a lot of the thrill of the secrecy and being a "bad girl" has also faded. Giving them time alone to discover each other may pull them closer together, or it may push them apart. Up to now it's largely been clandestine meetings and EA conversations. Adding the stinky, barky dog might have helped with the reality check but I have too much heart to subject him to that stress. I am trusting in her to find her own path and give us both peace and a future. For me, I know where my path lies and am walking it.
So - to re-iterate, no - I'm not OK with an open marriage. Right now my marriage is broken apart into many pieces and does not exist as a "whole" thing. I have found many of my pieces but W would need to find her own pieces and then we could try to put them together to make a new marriage if those are the choices we both make.
P.S. - I'm just about to start our ironing but can't find your shirts. And where are those peanut butter cookies? I know you've had time to buy more peanut butter after your W emptied the pantry
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
