A WW?

[Tofbrks]

Tofbrkks,

I remember reading some of your thread a while back. You've come a long way! Good for you!

W has remained steadfast at leaving/separating... Still
A boundary has been crossed and made me wake up and just drop it right there...
Sorry for the hijack ...

[lt0402]

No worries brother! I'm glad you pointed out your post and I'm going through it right now. Hopefully b/t our two sitches we can figure out the right way to go. Feel free to post whatever you want in here, any info is good info. thanks again and stay strong!

[AndrewP]

Hi lt0402 - welcome to our group. I've not been posting much lately for a variety of reasons but your story caught my attention because as others have said it's very similar both to mine and to a lot of other posters here so I thought I'd give back some of what I think I've learned.

I remember when my WW went off for a weekend with OM and it tore me apart as well. I've learned a lot from here and from others and from doing a lot of very hard thinking.

A couple of things that I've learned - some of which are in sandi2's excellent posts that I strongly encourage you to read are:
- You don't really exist to your WW any more as a husband.
- She will be wrapped up in a fog and in her own world and has disengaged from the marriage and nothing you do will make any difference to her.
- Don't try to mind-read or guess what your W's motivations are about anything - the chances are you are wrong.
- Do not focus on the OM - you will only destroy yourself that way and there's not a d@mned thing you can do about him or the A
- Focus on yourself and D and try to as they say here "Get A Life" and decide for yourself what sort of life you want that to be. Think both about a life without your W as well as with her.
- If you intend on trying to save your MR (like I still do), be prepared to wait until the A ends and your W recovers from that before you can make any progress with your W. She won't have any interest in making it work.
- Beware "cake eating" - where she'll string you along to keep the security of you as "Plan B" while still doing whatever the h@ll she wants. In some cases I've read a WW can be quite manipulative so question her motivations all the time.
- People will give you advice here that you won't like and won't agree with. Don't take it the wrong way, we're trying to help. We're not there on the ground with you but many of us have worn the same brand of shoes as you are and have walked a variety of paths in them.
- You can survive this but it will take patience and strength that you never knew you had.

Good luck - our prayers and good wishes are with you.

[lt0402]

Very helpful AndrewP. I'm finding the support here is helping me get a much more level head. The advice and lessons learned are extremely appreciated.

It seems like it's very easy to get lost in your thoughts and think you're the only person in the world going through something like this. It's unfortunate any of us are having to deal with this, but I'm glad all of you are here to help.

An update on my end. After my W sent me the "pizza" text this morning, which I did not respond to, I decided to let go and let her have her freedom this weekend and offered to take our D to a water park for a day and a night. W instantly shot down bc she says my D doesn't want to do anything this weekend but relax. Trying to be level headed and drop the rope so I'll keep trying to let her go and see what happens. Could be that OM can't meet this weekend or she doesn't want to make it two weekends in a row (what she did when we first started seeing each other), but right now I really don't care.

What I do care about is how our sitch is weighing on our D. I'm dreading going home tonight bc of the uncertainty over how to handle the family/M balance so planning on not getting there until 7/730 so it's post dinner and I can spend time playing with my D until she goes to bed at 930 and not having to do uncomfortable silence/chitchat w/ W. Been going to the gym or to swim most nights so my timing gets me there at hangout time. I'm starting to think this purposeful avoidance is bad and am debating telling my wife that I'm going to do dinner w/ my D at least a cpl times on weekdays and she should find something to do around those times if she doesn't want to be around me. Thoughts?

Anyways, I'm taking tonight off from exercise to sitdown and work through DR. Hoping to find some answers in there so I can better approach the situation. thanks again to everyone for the support.

[RDS]

Right now I don't even know how to handle things now that she's gone through with the PA. I think I'm supposed to leave but the thought of leaving my D is crushing me. I'm not even sure if she's a WW (bc the S and EA/PA happened so close together) so I'm at a loss on how to even handle her. I Love my wife and am in disbelief that the honest woman I married would ever do something this horrific and devastating to me. Is it even worthwhile at this point to try to reconcile things or is this so disrespectful to me that there's no chance?

The absolute worse thing a man can do is leave the house. It gives your W plenty of ammo against you if you get a divorce. Men think it's the "right" thing to do when in reality it's the worst thing. She is the one committing A. Why should you bend over backwards to please her.

[lt0402]

Thanks RDS. I'm starting to think the same thing. I'd never hose my W in a divorce proceeding, but I'm realizing I need to be extremely conscious about my own well being.

So an update on my evening at home. As soon as I walk in the door and say hello to my D I get this from my W..."I'm sorry but I think I left the laundry basket on your bed when I vacuumed the guest room today". Sure enough I go upstairs and there it is along with a couple other things moved around. I really felt violated that she'd been in my space.

I went downstairs and instead of saying something to her in front of my D I wrote on a post it to please not clean my room because I can take care on it myself, thank you. As soon as she saw the note she came over and held it in front of me and said "you know you can talk to me instead of leaving these around, I don't know why you want to make this an issue. We can talk about it later".

The last time she initiated a conversation to talk was on the day she announced the S. So I play with my D, we brush our teeth, and then the 2 of them lay on the mbr bed and I sit on my Ds side to play iPad with her before bed. I notice that my W has put on a vanilla lotion after her shower that she knows drives me crazy. Ugghhhh. Then it's bedtime and the two of them go through the routine (my D has slept in the mbr since I vacated two nights ago) and I head off to the guest room. When I'm getting ready to hop in bed I get a text from my W asking if I have five minutes to talk. I ignore it figuring if she really wants to talk she can ask in person.

So she knocks on my door and asks to speak for 5 minutes, even though our daughter is not fully asleep. I tell her I'll be down in a few and then wait and head down there. When I get down there she wants to discuss how I'm messing up my Ds medicine/eating routine bc I'm angry at what's going on. She reiterates that they have had their routine for 9 yrs and I'm new to it and I can't just barge in and change things. She mentions that it's starting to mess her up.

Ok, rational me agrees, I can't just step in and change the routine so I offer that I did not mean to rock the boat and I'll work to get in line with my Ds routine to keep her from getting stressed. Next she talks about my S plan that I left on her counter for when she got back. She says that I can't just decide things. She tells me that I can be the type of man who locks out bank accounts if I want, but that's not how it works. She says that it all needs to go through a lawyer bc none of these decisions are mine to make and I should find a lawyer if I haven't. Then she says that there is no way she's going to get a job the week after my D goes back to school especially when we are in the middle of divorcing. She says that we've been this way work wise for 8 yrs and I am only going to be hurting my D by doing this.

Then the post it note comes up. She says I get that you are mad and what you are trying to do. I tell her that after this weekend with the OM I don't understand how she could think that I'd want to talk to her right now or have her invade my space like that. She asks me what I mean. I tell her that she packed a bag, walked out the door on my D and I, and went to have sex with OM. She latched onto the packed a bag part of it and lit me up.

She started with the fact that I go on trips all the time and leave her at home with my D and that for 10yrs I didn't let her go anywhere overnight with friends bc I refused to learn how to take care of our D (half right. I tried to learn but anytime I did something wrong I was completely cutoff from ever thinking about being able to do it again. ie the meds, I tried to get her to teach me 5 yrs ago, but I did one step wrong and instantly was banned from any idea of ever doing it again. My fault for doing it wrong, hers for not getting over and letting me try again). Again I know I have flaws as a H and dad, so I'm not blameless here. I do actually feel bad that I didn't press her harder on taking over this stuff. If I could go back in time the first thing I would do is get us MC around this. Bleh

Then she went into, "it's none of your business, but 30 of my college friends were there and I didn't do anything with OM. In fact I've barely spoken to him since you and I spoke last Thurs about it. We all slept down on the dock." Again, I'm fairly certain this isn't true bc I saw her MSGs to him before Thurs which mentioned him visiting his friends who were a couple with kids and that she could tag along and they'd be ok with it and give them private time in a bedroom in the back of the house. Also, I saw the lacy underwear in our laundry room carefully placed beneath everything else when she came home. I really want to believe her on this but everything rational screams that it's a lie. My wife has never lied to me before all of this though, but I'm wary that she is right now.

What followed was her saying I'd robbed her of her life the past 10yrs by not letting her out of the house and she could never count on me. Then she told me to not dare play the victim here and began crying and telling me she couldn't talk to me anymore.

I was so torn between comforting and waiting it out that she said a second time that she couldn't talk to me anymore and I just got up and walked upstairs. She went in the bathroom and came out about 10 minutes later, but I could hear her crying all the way up here. It broke my heart but I'm not sure what to make of it.
I do feel like the victim with what's been going on recently, but I understand where she is coming from with the things in our past. I know my husband and dad skills were lacking and she does have a valid complaint. However, I know that if she'd been willing to bend just slightly over the years we could have worked out all this together. Again, a if I could go back in time moment.....ugghhhh...a lot of those recently.

My rational side says I'm being played bc I pressed on the job front and financial security stuff. I also think the leaving the mbr may have rattled her a little bit, but I think it's more bc she sees me messing up another room in the house. My emotional side wants to race downstairs right now, tell her how much I would never hurt her, and we can make this S process painless by working together. God I love my wife, even with the flaws we have in our marriage. Having trouble just ignoring her hurt, even if it's not real.

Have my IC first thing tomorrow AM. A lot of stuff has happened since last Wednesday. Unsure where to start.

Going to bed rattled by her emotions though....

[lt0402]

IC this AM. Can't wait to get his take on things.

The other thing I forgot to mention is that before she left on Sunday to see OM, or not see him per our convo last night, she removed that she was married to me on Facebook and unfriended me so I can't see her posts. [censored] mainly bc she's always putting pictures of our D up there during the day. Also, she left her ring here when she left and hasn't worn it since getting back.

I'm very confused after last nights talk and feel like a bad guy for all the stuff I know I did to put stress on our M. Won't ever not feel bad about that stuff. Unwilling to have her play games with me though if that's what is going on right now.

[AndrewP]

Man o man - you've got a struggle there my friend. In my case my WW just ignored me except - and this is a similarity - when money came up. Just like your WW mine was paranoid of any suggestion that the gravy train would be cut off. It made it a lot easier for me to detach and get my own life together than it may be for you.

It also sounds like your WW like mine and like many others is living both in her fairy tale land with occasional visits to Realsville but doesn't make any connection between the two. Your's though is used to controlling you, your home, your finances, D9 and the agenda. Like me, you may well be an enabling, Mr FixIt kind of guy who very likely just wants everyone else to be happy.

One thing that I did which quite upset my WW was right after I discovered the A I sat with her and laid out the ground rules of what I would not accept and what I would commit to. For me they were if I remember correctly:
- I would not contact / threaten OM
- OM was not to come on to our property
- I wouldn't do anything "stupid" (meaning broadcasting the A to the world)
- I would stop snooping
You may want to do something slightly formalized like that as well.


A couple of pieces of ammo for you similar to ones I used that might help. They might cause some short term conflict but they will help you define the ground you need to stand on.
- She is not the boss of you - she gave up that right when she broke the MR. You are now essentially room-mates until she decides to return to the MR.
- You (presumably) are committed to the MR and D9 and she needs to decide if she is in or out. She might not be ABLE to decide though if she is in the fog of an A.
- Make note of the day you moved out of the MBR. Where I live that is the official date of separation and starts the clock ticking for a "no fault divorce".
- If you decide to do something with or without a lawyer, it is your choice, not her's (mine actually went so far as to tell me what L to use - I didn't)
- If she is out of the MR then you have no immediate obligation to her, only D9

Buried in sandi2's posts are her own story of being a WW which are very worth-while reading if you want to understand the "other side". Each sitch is different and in your case your WW sounds very controlling and is still engaged in your marital home. Many WW from what I've read and including my own essentially detach and walk away from family and the marital home to live in their fairy tale land. But an important point from sandi2 is that until the WW is faced with some sort of loss they won't wake up. Since (I presume) your WW is very controlling and trying to run everyone's life including yours, you may actually want to push your agenda harder - perhaps on legal letterhead. It will help you set your own ground rules.

Even though our children are grown and on their own I found that for my WW and I that communicating important stuff through notes / text / email worked better as they gave me time to compose my thoughts and her time to digest. Keep in mind though that if you put it in writing of any sort it can become evidence in a court so make sure you only write what you would be comfortable having an opposing L wave in your face even if it is on a post-it note. One that turned things around for me I think was a very long letter I wrote to W and gave her about 3 weeks after I believe the A ended. 90% of it was about how I loved her and wanted her to come back and reconcile. In there though was a sentence where I stated that if she would not reconcile or could not decide in a "reasonable time" (had my L read that part) that I would start legal proceedings to end our marriage. Since then she has stopped talking about leaving and while she hasn't agreed to reconcile I see her re-engaging with me and our home more and more each day. I still have no clue as to where her heart and mind are though.

Part of what you may want to work at is what is called here "detaching". Some people interpret it in different ways but for me (eventually) it meant putting my WW in the "friend-zone". It is VERY hard for me to do and I find myself getting wrapped up in speculating what W is doing, with who, what she's thinking. I'm getting better at it but expect it to be hard. For others it's avoiding your W at all costs and not letting her be part of your life to the point of being "mysterious". It is one of the things that MWD writes about in her excellent books where in many cases as you pull away that the spouse will be drawn towards you. It didn't seem to work for me but then I probably have been pretty bad at the pulling away part.

Good luck - we're all rooting for you and D9

[sandi2]

Your WW is trying to normalize the new setup. As if it is perfectly normal to announce to your spouse you are leaving for the weekend to commit adultery. Then she comes home and expects (seriously) for everything to resume as she previously had it going her way. She is the boss. Her word is law, especially with the daughter. She has taken full control away from you...........and you have allowed it. Now, she barks orders to you as if you are nobody to your child. You are the father of that little girl, and the mother is an adulterous wife. So, when considering what is best for D, this fact should be at the top of the list. Does that sound too harsh? The wayward wife is harsh. Never doubt for a second what she is capable of doing, or how low she may stoop to get her selfish desires fulfilled. I tell you this so that you can begin preparing yourself for things to get worse, before they get better.

What do you wish to accomplish by being a pussycat? Yes, in time the A might wear down and she'll stay home........but she will not feel much for you. You will live with her hostility and disrespect. At best, you will be roommates. Before your wife will want to give up her OM for you, she is going to have to realize a few things. First and foremost, her H still has his b@lls. Second, her H will not tolerate being disrespected in his own home. Third, her H has boundaries and when those boundaries are crossed, there are consequences. Fourth, she is the one who has brought a third person into the M, and therefore, the normalcy in the MR has abruptly ended. Fifth, this is her mess to clean up. Six, she has lost her H's trust, and she is quickly losing him.

Well, I could go on and on, but I suppose by now you see that I don't give the soft candy type of advice. That is b/c I was a WW and I know how cold their heart becomes and the complete disgust they feel for their H. I understand their mindset........and trust me, I haven't met a H yet that comes close to guessing it. You cannot be a sweet, nice-guy type and expect to win your W back into a warm, loving MR. If you have not looked nice guy up, it is a free download on the Internet. It has been an eye opener for a lot of LBH'S. I don't mean to imply you have to be mean, cruel, hateful, cold, etc. But you do have to show a manly quality of inner strength and confidence. Standing firmly on what you believe to be right and wrong and not willing to compromise your integrity.

Right now, you are gathering the information you need to develop your plan. You will need a plan to follow. You can't trust your emotions, and you can't go into this blindfolded.

[J5K]

lt,

You have good advice from Sandi and AndrewP. Waywards want to control even when they are not with you. Their sense of entitlement is high and will do anything to get what they want.

Make a plan and stick to it to protect yourself and your D. That is what is most important at this time.