I think I need this deadline because otherwise I will let time slip by and do nothing.
So what exactly are you thinking of doing?
I'll tell you how the conversation will go: Lex - I know about all of the messaging with celebrity. You have to stop this. W - I hate you. There is no marriage. I'm going to do what I want.
Now what?
I'm not sure what to threaten
Youre not really doing this right. Why do you think YOU can control HER? She doesnt want to work on the marriage, se doesnt have your best interest at heart. Then why do you think you can "make her do more housework?"
If you want to confront her about the affair, then fine. But you need to be prepared for the fallout. You can evict her from the MBR, but what if she refuses? You can "make" her do more housework, but what if she doesnt?
What are YOUR boundaries?
Also, waiting a month is pretty weak. I wouldnt confront her until youre ready. But waiting until January seems kind of arbitrary.
Youre not really doing this right. Why do you think YOU can control HER? She doesnt want to work on the marriage, se doesnt have your best interest at heart. Then why do you think you can "make her do more housework?"
If you want to confront her about the affair, then fine. But you need to be prepared for the fallout. You can evict her from the MBR, but what if she refuses? You can "make" her do more housework, but what if she doesnt?
What are YOUR boundaries?
Also, waiting a month is pretty weak. I wouldnt confront her until youre ready. But waiting until January seems kind of arbitrary.
a wife who doesn't send erotic emails to another man is a boundary of mine.
a wife who is trying to work on our relationships is another.
I'm pretty flexible after that.
Waiting a month is arbitrary but I already promised her December so even if that was a bad idea i'm still going to keep my promise. my hope is that I can be ready by January. I believe that I can be. but i'm not ready now. i'm emotional in ways that I have never been before and my arguments are not formed.
if I tell her my boundaries and then there are no concequences then I may as well not bother. the concequence is what I am trying to figure out.
a wife who doesn't send erotic emails to another man is a boundary of mine.
So, she is doing this now. Why would you let a month go by before you address it if it is YOUR BOUNDARY?
A weak boundary isnt really a boundary....
So what would you do to protect yourself from this behavior? How does having her do more housework relate to this boundary?
I'm waiting a month because I'm a mess inside and I'm trying to find out how to enforce a boundary that I just discovered.
housework does not relate to this boundary so it might not be the right choice.
I won't sugar coat it. I don't know how to protect myself from this violation yet. I'm trying to figure it out now.
My next thought about this is having her leave our bedroom and/or no more bankrolling her art business. Both of these things are related to OM. she is tying in her business with him as she uses him for promotional purposes and she is making art for him.
She was mad at me today and I waited for her to calm herself. We then spoke fairly cordially and she said she is having big issues with domination and giving herself to a man. She said that I am like the goblin king from the movie labrynth. I agreed that I am a forceful person and that she called me correctly. I pointed out that she is like the girl character in that movie in that she doesn't know where her line is and the lack of definition makes it hard for me to be better. she agreed. she is trying hard to make her art profitable and she said that if she was financially independent then she would feel better. I asked her what she would do with this independence when she got it and she didn't know. I pointed out that it was risky to pin her future happiness on money and that she needed to look for a way to feel fulfilled no matter what happened. she seemed to agree somewhat.
So my current self improvement challenge is not to be to dominating but it's going to be hard because it's very subtle. she is already allowed to do anything she wants and there is no sex so I can't dominate her that way. It's pretty much all in my words but we aren't talking about our relationship much so that is a tough one as well.
she said she liked me best when I just seemed kind of moody and didn't try to do anything. I pointed out that if I stayed that way all the time she would not like me anymore. she agreed.
so she feels dominated but nearly anything I do is seen as domination. I have no idea how to address this. I have been using lots of validating.
I don't know if this is a plot or if she is honest but either way this ammounts to me never talking about anything and never having sex.
Not actively pursuing another man seems like a good boundary. Coming up with a good consequence is tough. You could tell her to move out of the bedroom but if she says no, then what? You could try to stop financing her art, but in most (all?) states your wife has legal claims on your income. So if she says no, I'm going to go withdraw money from our account to pay for art supplies, then what? It seems like the boundaries you've come up with could bounce right back into your face.
Your wife's pursuit of the celebrity might end, but the desire in her heart isn't going to go away. She's not going to suddenly fall back in love with you.
You say she sees you as dominating. But you always saw yourself as being helpful to her and serving her needs. I think this is an important point. Regardless of your kind and benign intent, the fact that she's living like a child whose needs are met by a grown up ... makes her feel powerless and resentful towards you. Healthy people go through this resentment process during their teens. They push their parents away and resent them, until they become independent.
That ties in directly with her need to be financially self-supporting. She needs to feel independent. Of course she's going about it in an unhealthy way, but the general desire to be independent is good -- except about 20 years behind most people.
I don't know how you guys run your finances (joint accounts, etc.) but what if you really did start to treat her like a real housemate? Make her to her fair share of shopping, cleaning, paying for bills etc.? I would stop driving her around places too. She has car insurance. If she has a phobia about driving, let her take some driving lessons or get treatment for a driving phobia.
I asked you earlier what would happen if you were not in the picture. Does she have the life skills to be a decent head of a household, take care of your kids? You said she'd be fine. Well, then how about letting her exercise some of those life skills, and empower herself?
Me: 50, MLC/WW 45 Young kids Nov 2015: BD1 Apr 2016: BD2 Jan 2017: W filed Feb 2017: D final
The things that have been holding me back from doing what I want and bringing it out in the open are.
-She will use my getting her pregnant as a battering ram to any argument. logic will not help here. I'm not sure how to respond. I am weak here because I do genuinely feel bad for what I did. I also realize that what I did does not make her flirting ok and that she started flirting before I hurt her.
Lex, confrontation is not meant to be a discussion about everything wrong in the MR. It is to tell her your position in this matter of her having an affair. You don't tell her how much you know, or how you know. Just that you know. Having affairs are not acceptable and you will not remain in an open marriage (if you really mean it). If you don't believe in open marriages, then stand on those beliefs. If she starts dragging other things up (and she will, if you give her a chance), tell her that nothing excuses an affair. Then leave the room, the house, or whatever. Do not argue about the pregnancy, etc. Stick to the issue of the affair. Don't call it by any other word, but affair.
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-I'm not sure what line to draw. most of my thoughts here seem to extreme. I control all finance so I can make whatever I want happen. But, most of this seems just punitive and mean. I'm sure she is hurting and it might just push her harder to go away.
It is not about punishing her. You are not her daddy. It is about standing up for what you believe. If you don't know what your personal values and beliefs are.....then I suggest you think about it before you start opening your mouth.
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-I'm not sure what to threaten
Don't threaten anything. If you don't know what you will do if she continues disrespecting the M, then you need to keep your mouth shut. It is not about you threatening anything. It's not about punishing her. If you are trying to control her behavior through threats and punishment, you will lose all the way around. It's not about you controlling her. It is about what you choose to tolerate, or not. If she doesn't end her EA, then the ball is in your park. That is what I want you to understand. Do not go into a confrontation that you don't even know what you're doing.
Personally, I think the girl should have had professional therapy a long time ago. I'm really surprised this is the first of any inappropriate conduct you have discovered, considering her past. I don't know much about her moral character or spiritual beliefs, but it sounds as if her parents were the best of examples, and/or did not spend much time in teaching some of the more important values to her.
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If I had to do it today then I think if she refused to stop I could have her leave our bedroom.
That's just plain funny. The first time you wanted sex, the separate bedrooms plan would crash.
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Another thing I am considering is that I could have her take over cleaning and cooking and washing the kids. Letting her know that if she wanted to be my roommate then she has to act like one.
Seriously? You think a roommate would clean, cook, and wash your kids? You should have made her job description understood when you were first M. But YOU were the one who didn't want her doing anything......so she probably doesn't even know how! Besides, why do you want her acting like your roommate? Don't you want her to act like your W? You can't use this to punish her for being bad! However, you can start to incorporate some of those duties......just not as punishment or b/c she is in an EA.
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I will let her know that I can't accept 2nd best anymore and that I want to work on a real relationship together.
Think about that statement in a stronger, more self confident light. You won't accept 2nd best anymore.
Look, I think you have a lot to read and learn before you jump off into doing something you don't understand or prepared to do. Believe it or not, you could actually make things worse than they are right now. So many newcomers will make the wrong move, then come back asking for help in straightening up their mess. That's not a good situation. So, please continue to read the material available here. Do some real soul searching and know yourself and what you really would do if she refused to stop contact with the OM.
It is not about what you feel should work in your M. It is about doing the work that gets the right results. Do what works!
Thank you for your help. The last 24 hours have been a weird black time for me. Sandi2, your post in particular has uncovered how much I don't know about myself. I am ashamed of this and it was painful to admit. Waiting before I uncover her affair makes plenty of sense until I get a better handle on this. In the mean time she as been weirdly nice to me. Touching me throughout the day and cuddling in bed. This makes my emotional rollercoaster even more intense. I would swear she is messing with me on purpose if I didn't know better.
I am at the moment caught in a loop. I keep replaying the same problems in my head with no answers forthcoming. Daily life is good and our kids are happy and healthy. I don't want that to end. Her flirting with someone is infidelity and I do want that to end.
My current state of thinking is now this. I would let her know that I know. I would state plainly that it was an affair and that it was unacceptable to me. When she refused to stop I would make it clear that I know that I can't stop her from making this choice but that I will not help her with this in any way either. I would let her know that her quest for independence would need to start with her art business and that I could no longer help with it via money or effort. (I help her with aspects of her art making and I know that some of those efforts were for him and not for the business) I would let her know that physical love if off limits for both of us while this continues. I would let her know that I'm not seeking anyone else and that I am open to reconcile. I would tell her that this could not go on long term without divorce. I think that our kids would come to know in their subconscious that we have no love and it will still affect them no matter how good our deception was.
Then I would wait for a period of time (not sure how long yet depends on what I see from here) and if there was no change or it got worse then I would begin the divorce process.
not sure if a deadline is a good idea or not but I can't live this way long term. It hurts to much.
Initiating the divorce myself seems wrong because it is opposite what I want but perhaps it's just acceptance of reality and what might be unavoidable anyway. I really don't know. I don't feel like I have a right choice. They are all just shades of wrong.
