I have been lurking in these forums ever since D-day. I've read both DB and DR, I've read and another book, and I've read through all of Sandi2's rules and WW threads. I've brushed over the validation cheat sheet as well. This is not to say I think I have all of (or any!) of the answers, just to give you a heads up on what research I've done thus far. I'm going to go into my long story, and then I'm looking forward to hearing some suggestions as I'm kind of in a bind as to what to do going forward right now. First, the elongated and I'm certain wholly typical backstory:
My wife and I have been together for almost 16 years and have been married for 12. She was my first serious girlfriend. We were married in 2005, and had our first son in 2006. Shortly after we got married, I began to actively suffer from alcoholism. My addiction has been a dark cloud over the entirety of our marriage. Our second son was born in 2008. Throughout all the years we've had ups and downs, and last year I checked myself into alcohol rehabilitation to finally kick the addiction for good. I am 9 months sober today.
Unfortunately, not drinking and being in active recovery are two different things. After I got out of rehab I did not work the AA program, instead I was just a miserable drunk who wasn't drinking.
12 years of marriage to a man who was emotionally checked out, verbally abusive, unpredictable, selfish, quick to lie by omission. The most major mistake I made was a one night stand in 2012. After rehab I'm sure there was hope for change, but I continued with all of the self pity and jealousy, control, verbal abuse, unpredictability, and continued to push her away. I can see that it was probably the last straw.
February 9th 2017 was D-Day. She came home with a car full of groceries, I was unemployed at the time pursuing online content creation and was "working" on a video game I was playing. She asked for help carrying in the things, I dodged the request. She made a sideways comment, the argument escalated into a screaming match, and I left to go for a walk to collect myself. While I was out she texted me that "I need a break". When I asked from what she said "From us."
I rushed home and did all the things I'm not supposed to. I begged, I pleaded, I threatened to kill myself, threatened to drink, guilt tripped her over the children, if you can find something on the internet they tell you NOT to do...I did it. She gave me the standard script stuff. "I love you but I'm not in love with you." "I need space to figure things out." "There's no one else, I just want to be alone." "I'm tired." We both pretty much followed our scripts to a T. I asked to go to counseling, she said it won't make a difference she's made her mind up. After begging and pleading her to go to counseling, she relented just so that the counselor could confirm our marriage was dead.
At this point we split up the marriage bedroom. She started to sleep on the couch. I told her that my only boundary was no extramarital relationships with potential romantic interests and she agreed. She said no intimacy of any kind, she doesn't want me touching her at all.
I made an appointment to see a marriage friendly Emotionally Focused Couples Therapist for Monday February 13th. We went to the first session, and very early in the session he identified that I wanted to save the marriage and she just wanted out. He pivoted us from EFT therapy to "discernment therapy" which is essentially individual counseling for each of us while we discern whether or not there is still a marriage there to save. It lasts a maximum of 6 weeks. It's not therapy at all, just exploration of willingness to find a path of marriage recovery. I didn't want to do that, but it was discernment or divorce so I agreed.
The next day I was reading all of the forums I could, and kept reading how "ILYBINILY" and "space" are all indicators of an affair, but I was sure my wife would never do that. Still, all of the script signs were there so I decided a little light snooping would help me sleep better. I pulled up the cell phone logs to discover thousands, I repeat THOUSANDS, of text messages to a strange number over the last month. I punched the number into Facebook and was staring OM straight in the profile picture.
I confronted her immediately over the phone. This was the beginning of the trickle truth. First he was just a work friend and they'd been discussing work. I mentioned that she had more text messages to this one person than every other text message to every friend and family member combined so I'm not buying it. Then she admitted ok they were friends, but it was strictly platonic. I continued to press about the frequency and the times, and she admitted ok she had a crush on him but she stopped talking to him weeks ago. I reminded her that I was looking at the phone logs that showed him texting her THAT MORNING. Finally she admitted it was an EA. I asked her how far it had gone, and she said they never met up only texting and sexting. She claimed she never sent nudes, but they did talk about sex. I was devastated but instantly forgave her and said I didn't care. I did demand NC immediately, and to the best of my knowledge she has maintained that to this day. This was still severely damaging to me, as it was a clear violation of my only actual boundary and when she dropped the bomb she laid such an emphasis on my one night stand from 5 years prior being the main reason she can't love me again.
We continued for the next few weeks in discernment counseling. I read the 180s and tried my best, but I was weak and continued to slip into psychosis where I would hold her hostage in a conversation and attempt to force her to see things my way. I did a lot of snooping on her Facebook and once in a while I would steal her cell phone to check in on how she was feeling. I knew these things were wrong, and hated myself for doing it, but I was weak. I used the information from her texts to prove that she was lying to my face when asking about a few things, which only frustrated her more. I knew this was unhealthy so I asked her to go ahead and change all of her passwords so I couldn't snoop any more. I didn't want the temptation.
Leading into week 5 of discernment I was at my breaking point. I couldn't handle not knowing any more so I gave her an ultimatum: either commit to the 6 months of marriage counseling (EFT is 6 months of weekly counseling where divorce is completely off the table) or I'm moving out. I gave her until the next morning to decide. She came to me the next morning and said "I"m not sure I want to do counseling, but I'm sure I'm not confident that I'm completely done so I'll do the counseling." I considered this a victory, though I wasn't happy about it.
We started on the actual marriage counseling, and started seeing improvements. We got over the awkwardness of cohabiting while being split up and got back to some of the usual stuff. We still watch all of our favorite TV shows together, we still do family outings together, we would text each other from time to time. I read some stuff by Dr. Jack Ito that said that the first step to reconnecting is to become friends again and then once you're friends and her guard is down you can start working on attracting her back in a romantic way. So that became my focus, being a great friend (without backing off on my earlier extramarital boundary) while working on my alcohol recovery and getting in shape. I used to do absolutely nothing around the house, so I picked up all the housework I could handle. I went out and got a new higher paying job. I started focusing a ton on my relationship with the kids. Things were moving along pretty good.
I started to get my hopes up because we seemed to be connecting again, but every time we'd get into counseling she would say things to the effect of "we're co-eexisting" or "he doesn't bother me and I don't bother him" and I got FURIOUS. I brought this up in counseling and her response was to the effect of "I joke around and am friendly with everyone. I don't want things to just be awkward and quiet whenever we're around, but that doesn't mean I want to be with you again." This was so frustrating, but I had to remind myself "trust nothing they say and less than 50% of what you see".
Another issue started forming around the second week of April. My wife plays roller derby, and her coach is a man who's about 6 years older than she is. He's got checks in each of the biological trigger boxes (high self esteem, successful, passionate about something that she's interested in) and I noticed they became friends on Facebook in late March, and by early April they were basically liking every one of each other's posts. Now this isn't exactly a crisis of course, but as my wife is fresh off of an alleged emotional affair and we're still working through the very early stages of MC I was justifiably concerned.
I came to her to voice this concern in a constructive manner. She assured me that they were just friends, nothing weird. He's just her coach, they have similar interests and a similar group of friends. I thanked her for not being offended that I checked in and we had what I thought was a very good conversation. That night she stayed up until 2am talking to him on Facebook messenger. When I asked to see the messages the next day, she said she deleted them.
Clearly I was furious, but I kept my cool. I asked her to explain to me what it would look like to her if the roles were reversed, and she understood. She assured me they were just talking about roller derby and that nothing inappropriate was going on. She just deleted the messages because I had just said I was worried about him, so she didn't want me to worry more and was trying to avoid a conflict. I believed her, because I know that in the past it would have been a MAJOR conflict (remember I've admitted that in our previous relationship I was severely jealous and controlling) so in order to prove to her I was changing I told her I understood, and that she didn't need to hide things from me. She's allowed to have friends that are men, just as long as she abides by boundaries. I asked her to treat the relationship with him how she'd want her hypothetical high school aged daughter to treat her relationship with a high school volleyball coach. They can be cordial, but they don't need to be associating outside of the sport. She agreed to this boundary.
The next week they had their last home game of the season. She invited me to come watch, and afterwards said she wanted to go to the after party for just a little while. I am working on not being jealous and controlling, so of course that was fine! She got home at 2am easter morning and was active on Facebook until 4am. I confronted her in the morning and asked to look at her phone. She agreed. They had been chatting until 4am to the surprise of not me. Nothing too serious, only one orange flag sort of text from him, but the point remained that this was not adhering to the boundary. I was hurt badly, and went on the attack.
I again asked her to see it from my perspective. I started in on her about how disrespectful it was considering she had a 2 month emotional affair that she had just recently ended, and mentioned that I hadn't ever pushed her on details. I started asking questions about the previous affair. By the end of the conversation, her emotional affair had magically changed into a physical affair. I was devastated again. I demanded reconciliation or an end to the marriage. She said if those were her only two options, she wanted to be done. Unfortunately she called my bluff and I backed off. That night we talked and agreed to go back to the prior arrangement. We live together, we attend counseling, we figure out what we want. She said during our fight in the morning that she never wanted to do counseling in the first place, but during the evening conversation she said that she can really see counseling is helping us so she wants to keep going even if we are going to divorce. It was nice to hear her validate the need for us to be in counseling.
Fast forwarding a few weeks of counseling, and she has appeared to have backed off on her friendship with her coach. Our church has a 10 week marriage ministry program called RE:Engage that starts on May 3rd and I asked her last week if she would be willing to go. I told her I really would like to go and think it would help but I would give her as much time as she needed to decide. A few days later she came to me and said she'd like to go. I took this as a great sign, because she never wanted to do any form of counseling at all and now she was agreeing to a second counseling commitment that I had laid absolutely no pressure on her for.
So this leads us to present day, and where I'm starting to struggle a bit. I identify my wife as being somewhere in between a WW and a WAW. She obviously has wayward tendencies because she had a physical affair, and she's been pushing the boundaries of an EA with her coach. However, she's not behaving in any other sort of manner where she's "rebellious" or "mean". I really do think she was a WAW first that went wayward in an exit affair. I'm not delusional, however. I do know it's completely possible that she's completely wayward and just hiding it for convenience and it has been convenient. I take care of the lion's share of the housework as she's the primary earner in the family, and works many more hours than I do. I have manipulated my work schedule intentionally so she can continue to play roller derby this summer (and spend more time with her coach, who I presume will be coaching the summer league as well). Literally right now she is in Los Angeles with her team, and her coach of course is with them. This is obviously crushing me as I have no idea if she's really adhering to boundaries with him or if she's crossing lines. I've read enough to know that if she's a full blown WW that nothing is off the table at this point, but as I'm not snooping I really don't have much more than her word to go off here.
This is where I start to ask for advice if anyone has any. I'm sort of approaching the MR in between Dr. Ito's reconnecting through yes! strategy (build trust, reconnect, work on marriage) and Sandi2's rules (180 baby!). I'm 100% not pursuing or discussing the MR at all with her unless she engages me (which she hasn't yet). I'm doing the GAL. I don't text her first or start the conversation first. I've lost 30 pounds (and she's commented on how noticeable it is) and am signing up for a bunch of races this year to get back into running which was my first true passion. When she approaches me I respond and am open to amicable and fun discussion. We continue to laugh and joke, because I want to foster our connection and make her feel more comfortable. She sometimes references our inside jokes, sometimes fondly discusses things from our past. She'll slip and call me babe, her old nickname for me. She'll go to the store with her mom and come home with stuff she grabbed because she thought of me. She has stated in counseling that she isn't attracted to me and can't imagine being in love with me again, and can't fight the feeling that if I can get her to come closer and open up she can find those feelings again.
My concern lies with the fact that she's had wayward behavior around her coach, and I'm really worried that she's shuffling me into BFF territory. I am afraid that she's getting all the marriage responsibility stuff from me (housework, childcare, shuffling work schedules so she can skate, listening and empathizing with her problems, making her laugh, giving her positive reinforcement, watching our shows together) but that she's getting the romantic emotional needs met elsewhere (coach, possibly other person I don't even know about).
To be completely honest here also, I haven't been really applying Sandi2's rules for long. I really started the day after I found out about the PA so I've really only been detaching and giving her room to breathe for about a week and a half. She's in California now, and I pick her up from the airport Sunday night. I'm trying to decide where I go from here and I could use advice. I've been hybrid detaching and reconnecting. I'm enabling her to keep her convenient schedule for her hobby with a person who could possibly be a barrier to reconciliation. We have MC on Tuesday morning. I've considered the following options:
1. Pick her up and carry on as I have been. Ask her nothing about the trip. Do not engage her. When she engages me, respond and keep the conversation light and enjoyable and comfortable and friendly to promote reconnecting. Watch our slate of shows together Sunday night as usual. Carry on our normal routine, and approach MC Tuesday the way I always do. Just go with the flow and allow the counselor and her to direct the conversation. It's very likely that my discomfort over her being in California will be discussed, as it was discussed on the session the day she left as a major source of anxiety for me. We will have church counseling the next day as well.
2. Hard detach. Make it clear from the pickup I'm not interested in light conversation, without being cold or rude. When she asks if I want to watch our shows, tell her I'm pretty tired out from the weekend and I think I'm going to go to bed early and then be done with her for the night. Be scarce on Monday, again excusing myself from hanging with her Monday night. Address the fact that I feel uncomfortable with our arrangement in counseling on Tuesday.
3. Confront her right from the pick up that I'm not ok with her relationship with her coach, given the recent history of our relationship. Let her know that I will not be her errand boy cuck while she goes out and gets her emotional needs met by other people. This is a dangerous option because it's a difficult conversation and we won't have the counselor there to buffer.
4. Another suggestion I haven't thought of yet from you fine people!
So there's a giant wall of text for everyone. I am very recently at a point where I'm legitimately detached from the outcome of this whole ordeal. I am 100% committed to finding a path of marriage restoration, but I am aware that I can't force her to change how she feels. I've let go of trying to control and change her, and am focusing 100% on making myself the best version of me that someone would be insane to divorce. I realize that we're not even 3 months into this journey, and I have patience today like I have never had before. I know there is no quick and easy solution here. I'm grateful that she's giving me the most valuable asset I can have in this situation, MORE TIME.
In summary, the most important question: Should I carry on with trying to reconnect while doing my 180's/GAL with the knowledge that this friendship has the potential to evolve to an EA/PA or do I take action to make sure that doesn't happen while I'm taken advantage of? That's the rock and hard place I'm in right now. Thanks for reading! I'll be very active on the forums, and feel free to ask for any further information or clarification as I'm sure I left things out. Thanks for being here. So many of you have helped me so much already, and we've never even met =).
Last edited by Cadet; 04/28/1701:26 PM. Reason: do not mention other books against TOS
M:33 W:34 S:9 S:11 M:12 years T:16
BD: 02-09-2017 (ILYBINILWY) MC Started: 2-12-2017 EA Discovered: 2-13-2017 PA Discovered: 4-16-17
You may be on moderation now, post in small frequent replies and stay on this thread until you reach 100 posts (for your thread, you can also post on other peoples threads to give support). Especially on this Newcomers forum, where the posting activity is very active, and your posts can quickly fall to the bottom of the page or even several pages down. Keep journaling and asking questions - people will come! Most important - POST!
Get out and Get a Life (GAL). DETACH.
Believe none of what he or she says and half of what he/she does.
Have NO EXPECTATIONS.
Take care of yourself, breathe, eat, sleep, exercise.
Take the parts of this advice that you need and don't worry if I have repeated something that you have already done.
Here are a few links to threads that will help you immensely:
This is definitely a tough one. New hear myself, but at least you know that she still cares about you. Love never really goes away, it just get buried as partner running away loses hope. Tough part is that you have to come off as a better option than the OM. I know they say the OM isn't important and you shouldn't focus on him. But I'm curious to the type of person your W had an A with. From I've noticed WW have a habit of choosing OM who are worse than the spouse their leaving. So don't think that have nothing chance due to your past.
I also stumbled onto Dr. Ito before coming here. His explanation on how why the WW exist is very similar to Sandi explanation. And I also agree with the method of earning back the W trust. That method had me set up perfectly for when I stumbled upon the DB method. I can tell you now that yout W isn't given up her hobby for you. It s provably when she feels the most free. So if you make that demand your going to get your feelings hurt.
You should GAL and do a 180. But uour going to habe to be around somewhat to form a basic friendship, so she can at least learn to like you again. To her you may be the monster she wants to run away from. So go ahead and watch a few shows with her. Just don't dedicate all your time to doing so. Option 4 is your best option. If something happens between her and the coach, then you may just habe to accept it. Or consider that uour breaking point to just getting a BD. Keeping them apart is impossible, especially with the current state of your marriage. Coach is connected to what she deems her safe place. Hope this advice helps.
Just keep POSTING and one other bit of advice from Wonka that I totally agree with.
Originally Posted By: Wonka
Get DR/DB book. Keep this to yourself. DO NOT share this book or this site at all with your spouse. It is your playbook and not to be shared with the "opposing" team.
It is important to clear the search/browsing history from your computer on a daily basis to prevent the possibility for your WAS to stumble on the DB site and discover your posts here on DB. Erasing the search history will protect your posts and you as well.
We have seen too many Marriages blow up in pieces after the WAS discovers the DB site or DR book. Why is that? It is because the WAS thinks, erroneously I might add, that you are "manipulating" them back into the M.
Keep the DR book and DB site very close to your vest.
Thanks for the reply Tread! I definitely know she still cares about me, she shows it all the time. The guy she had the A with was a handyman that did some work for her company. Totally different kind of person than I am. I'm a desk job, northern liberal type and he's a redneck work with his hands guy. I don't know anything about him save what's available on his public FB profile, but I'm assuming he's uneducated. She's already made it clear she wasn't in love with him at any point, and that her feelings for him weren't real. It was about escaping our relationship, not specifically about him. She hasn't had any trouble going NC.
It's funny that you say "I can tell you now she isn't giving up her hobby for you" because you couldn't be more wrong. As a matter of fact, I GUARANTEE she would if I asked her. She already wasn't going to go on this trip to California, and I convinced her she should. She wasn't going to pursue the summer league, I pushed her to do it. This is all part of my 180, pushing her to go and do these things that she wants to do. I don't want to hold her back from anything any more.
I don't think she'll do anything physical with her coach. I know she won't talk about her marriage issues with him (she hasn't told anyone on her team that we're having problems and I'm at every game they have so her team is aware she's married and unaware we're in crisis), but I consider the flirting and stuff to be on the border of an EA. The only way I see it going any farther than light flirting is if alcohol is involved and it's some sort of impulse ONS type deal. Even then I consider it very unlikely. Of course I'm dealing with a WW spouse hear, so NOTHING is impossible.
My biggest concern is that we're trying counseling to reconnect, and so if her emotional desires and heart are with someone else (coach) I think it will be very hard for me to get her to open her heart to me to reconnect. Sandi2 talks about how even an emotional affair even in the imagination can be a barrier to reconciliation. That's my anxiety.
Since I posted yesterday, I sort of settled on sticking to the 180/GAL and continuing to try to slowly reconnect. Hopefully I'm overreacting about the coach, and she's being honest that there's really nothing romantic there. I consider that unlikely, at a minimum I'm assuming a biological attraction, but if that's really all it is and she's really being true to the MC process if I come on strong I'll just push her away. Just need to trust the MC process and make myself too good to leave.
I feel like one major thing I have going for me is that she still LIKES me. Like, you said to her I'm a monster but the monster was our relationship not me. She likes to spend time with me, and whether she admits it or not I can see the connection coming back. She's said it a ton in counseling and to me one on one that she doesn't hate me, and she isn't disgusted by me, she's just not in love with me.
One thing that gives me a ton of hope is that during the miserable parts of our marriage I was suffering from active alcoholism. Now that we're attempting marriage recovery, a lot of the positive changes will be connected with my getting sober and a lot of the terrible things that happened in the marriage will be associated with addiction behaviors. So there's a clear association with why things can be different. Another major incentive to stay sober.
M:33 W:34 S:9 S:11 M:12 years T:16
BD: 02-09-2017 (ILYBINILWY) MC Started: 2-12-2017 EA Discovered: 2-13-2017 PA Discovered: 4-16-17
It's good that you convinced her to go. Though I imagine it was difficult due to her behavior involving the coach. But it shows that uour willing to support her. And having a hobby makes her feel an individual rather than just a wife. From what I've researched many if these WW get tired of just being wife and mother.
Her liking you still is big step in my opinion. You need to be the first person. She thinks of when she needs advice, tell a joke to and etc. The love should resurface hopefully sometime after that. As for my monster comment, I'm not sure who you were when you drank. It could have been completely terrifying in her eyes. And then when you sobered up could have been the man she feel in love with. I am sure she nervous in regards to you staying sober and having to do deal with the alcohol issues.
The biggest thing is her having hope in the marriage, because she has pissed that. Much like most of our W. But I encourage you to keep it up, because it seems as if your on the right path.
Yes it was difficult pushing her that direction for that exact reason. My counselor actually made a point of it to really emphasize how supportive I'm being and how selfless it is for me to truly want her to be happy even if it makes me very uncomfortable. He was saying how even in happy long term marriages, not every husband is truly supportive of a wife's individuality. It's a love deposit for sure.
I was def a monster when I was drinking. I'm sure that, even if she won't admit it now, she's scared I'll turn back to that person in the future and she won't be able to take it. I just need to keep up with my 180s, my GAL, and just give it time. My actions are what's going to get her to maybe come around.
She has ZERO hope in the marriage in her words. Every time we are in counseling she says "I still feel the same." However, the fact that she's even going to counseling and talking about how much it's helping and the fact that she's open to adding secondary marriage ministry help are actions that seem to me that she may have a bit more hope than she is letting on. I don't want to mind read or set expectations, but as long as she's still going there is hope.
I have another issue I could really use help with. Our dog is going to die, in the next couple days. She got sick right before my wife left for her trip, and was hospitalized the day she left. I just picked her up and they told me at this point we're just going to give her medicine to keep her comfortable until Monday and we will likely have to put her down. This dog has been our dog for almost our entire marriage, and we are both EXTREMELY attached to her. I was crying my eyes out on the drive home. What I need advice on is how to handle this with my marriage sitch.
I'm over emotional and during the time she fell out of love with me I was a big crying baby, constantly throwing pity parties and guilt tripping her and everyone around me. Through the first 3/4 of the time after D-day I would continually break down balling and beg her and try and make her feel sorry for me. One of my major goals with this 180 is to become a stronger person. I'm not ashamed of being sad, but I need to be strong for her and my kids. I can cry when I'm alone. So I'm considering not being there when they put her to sleep, because I can guarantee you I will not be able to hold back from breaking down. Also, I need advice on how to handle my W with this. She knows how much my dog means to me, she's going to know that I'm devastated. I don't know if I should just tell her I need to deal with the grief on my own, or if I should be with her and grieve with her. She cares about me, so to a certain extent I'm sure she'll feel obligated to comfort me but I don't expect her to want to hug me or hold my hand or anything like that and if she doesn't want to I certainly don't want her to feel obligated to, and then do it with a negative deposit in the love bank.
I'm confused on my best course of action here.
M:33 W:34 S:9 S:11 M:12 years T:16
BD: 02-09-2017 (ILYBINILWY) MC Started: 2-12-2017 EA Discovered: 2-13-2017 PA Discovered: 4-16-17
I'm sorry to say but you still sound in redouble controlling to me. You've just redirected it from "pulling" to "pushing". I'm not sure that's any better.
Also, a boundary is around you. It is about YOUR behavior. You say that you laid out a boundary for her - that's controlling, not a boundary. For example, you can say: "I'm not interested in having a marriage relationship where you are texting inappropriately with another man." It's her choice to do it, but you've made it clear what YOU are going to do. So she had an A. You set a "boundary" for each other. She crossed it. And now what? You're just moving the fences around to accommodate her. I'm not saying you should do anything. I think you need to read a LOT more before making major boundaries. Remember - a weak boundary is worse than no boundary.
Last thing for now. Read read read about detachment. It isn't about being cold or ignoring her. It isn't something you talk about with her. It's not being physically distant. It's about taking control of your emotions. It's about learning how to not be "weak" as you say it. There are some great resources here. Before you make any grand claims, start reading them.
I appreciate your advice. I tried to search for Maximus' story but could only find his posts from 2016 where he was checking back in. I'll continue looking.
I can see how my "boundaries" are really just ways to try and control. And I suppose you're right, I'm looking at detachment as pulling away to try and pull her in.
I'm just going to be completely honest: I'm afraid of losing her. If you have any specific advice I would love to hear it.
M:33 W:34 S:9 S:11 M:12 years T:16
BD: 02-09-2017 (ILYBINILWY) MC Started: 2-12-2017 EA Discovered: 2-13-2017 PA Discovered: 4-16-17
