Newby here, desperate for some advice (thread 4)

[ForGump]

I like what lt0402 said about drawing your confidence.

Your W might be driving the bus, but you're the one w/ the right map, you're the one truly concerned for the passengers. You're the only adult on the bus. You might feel jerked around, but you're the one with integrity and heart for what matters. She can't take that away from you -- nobody can.

[JRuss]

Thanks lt0402 and ForGump -- really appreciate the support.

Last night went well. I kept it light and breezy. We split a bottle of wine over the course of several hours, talked like friends for quite a while on the back porch (an owl (my spirit animal, if internet tests are to be believed) flew very close to us and sat in a tree for quite a while just looking at us). W even hung out in MBR for a while and made small talk before heading to her new bedroom. It wasn't quite the arrow to the chest when she left that it has been the prior 4-5 nights, but it's starting to feel permanent and part of the gradual plan she has and is now implementing.

Sunday's my anniversary. W has either forgotten or is deliberately not going to mark it in any way. So I know I also need to not draw attention to it, but it's hard. It was always one of my favorite days of the year. She actually wants us to go out to eat the day before with several other couples, and I want to say to her "I'd rather go out the follow day . . .", but I don't guess that's BD-approved.

[JRuss]

Rereading that, it sounds like Friend Zone, and I should have been more distant, doing things that were interesting by myself. Ugh. This stuff is impossible.

[Rose888]

Rereading that, it sounds like Friend Zone, and I should have been more distant, doing things that were interesting by myself. Ugh. This stuff is impossible.

I don't know that the Friend Zone is bad in your sitch. Last I remember, there was no OM and your wife wasn't being wild or irresponsible.

I'm not sure shutting down the friendship is going to help win her back.

But, maybe I'm wrong. The gender difference might be as significant as the wandering/walk away difference.

[RDS]

JRuss, I am really pulling for you to stay strong on your anniversary day. As you know I had mine yesterday and I survived it okay but I also didn't have two young kids to deal with and my W is out of the house. I'm sure having your W around is makes it a hundred times worse.

I know I'm probably in the 100 percent friend zone, but I'm doing it as it seems to make my life easier to deal with and my DB coach said I have to be her friend before I can be her lover again. I can't imagine dealing with an angry and resentful W while I'm separated and probably heading towards a divorce.

[sandi2]

I think there is a question about a possible OM, now. The jury is still out.

[JRuss]

Sandi -- she may have created a fantasy OM in my friend, but I'm pretty close to positive there's no one else, at least not yet. That may be enough to make her full-on WW, I don't know. I can say she is at times disrespectful/antagonistic to me, but she has done none of the more overt things I read about WWs doing here. Doesn't do the Girls Gone Wild thing, isn't dressing inappropriately, etc. I've always had difficulty putting her in one of the DB "boxes". She's certainly dissatisfied with her marriage, certainly doesn't respect me the way she'd need to in a healthy marriage and is fantasizing about a future that gets her out of the marriage. She's maybe more walk-away than wayward, I don't know.

[JRuss]

Honestly, her main, overarching "symptom" (probably not the right word) is a general dissatisfaction with the life she has right now. She is overwhelmed by the demands of working the job she thought she wanted, still trying to be a good mother and, honestly, I think she sees a split as a way to get some time just to breath and not have quite as much responsibility.

So a lot of my 180s have involved trying to take things off her plate and be more helping than I was pre-BD. That at times runs into NGS/doormat issues, so I'm still trying to figure out the right balance there.

[sandi2]

I didn't fit into some of the boxes either. For years I was much like your W. I had carried resentment and disrespect around in my heart for years. I had a lot of unmet expectations from M, and unmet emotional needs. I was always trying to find something that would make me happy, to fill the loneliness and stop the depression.

I used to be embarrassed to admit it, but I was hooked on romantic novels. The embarrassing part is how it would leave me feeling so hungry for love and romance. It actually made me more resentful toward my H for not being more like the hero in the novels. I would see our neighbor who was constantly working in his yard or remodeling his house, and resent my H for not being like our neighbor. I was bad about comparing my H to other men.

Over time, I became more & more depressed about my life and all the "bad stuff" that continued to happen in our lives. It's a long story, so I won't get into it any further, except to tell you that I became very vulnerable. When a person is "reaching out" b/c they are unhappy, lonely, and trying to find comfort, love, excitement, companionship, or whatever.......they can get into trouble pretty quickly. If you had known me, you would have said I was the last person to do what I did. And, I would have probably agreed!

I am trying to say that when certain conditions continue for a long time......a person can become vulnerable to things they never were in the past. That's not an excuse, and I knew better. All it took was someone saying the right thing that fed my ego and made me feel in a way I had not felt in a really long time.

So, I can see the same thing happening with your W. Whether she's in an EA with your friend, or not, she is vulnerable for one. She put herself in this position of vulnerability, b/c of her mental attitude and how something/someone is suppose to make her happy.

We have had former LBH's who would discover the W was in an EA, then approach the OM and find out that OM knew nothing about the WW's feelings. I believe that is quite possible in some situations. I think your friend should have been a heck of lot smarter, if he really is as innocent as he claims. However, that doesn't mean she wasn't having feelings for him.....and allowed those feelings to affect her MR.

[JRuss]

I don't disagree with any of that, sandi. I think in my situation, since we have this bizarre "1-2 years for the kids' benefit" thing laying over our sitch, that my W, at least for now, sees that as when she'll "escape" and hasn't felt the need to go further down the wayward road, because she knows she's out at something like a date certain (that, apparently, only she gets to know). I definitely understand that she's vulnerable to some smooth talking POS swooping in, though, believe me: it makes me crazy thinking about the possibility, and I try to keep it compartmentalized, because it's debilitating and keeps me from DBing. Thank you as always for the thoughts, and I don't judge for liking romance novels once upon a time!

RDS -- thanks for the kind thoughts re the anniversary. I'm just going to try to stay busy and treat it like any other day, and, hopefully, a good day with lots of GAL and kid stuff.