[quote]Your problem, Jim, is that you don't know where you stand in your MR, and that's why you bring up all these things and say she doesn't really fit the mold.[quote]
^^^This this this this and THIS. It is quite possible (POSSIBLE, though perhaps not PROBABLE) that my W is in a bona fide state of "no contact" with OM. And forgive me, for purposes of THIS post, I DO NEED to go into what SHE is doing:
The last in-person contact MAY HAVE been nearly four weeks ago (6/10). There have been other opportunities-- most notably this weekend right here and then she had lunch with bff three weeks ago on a weekend out kind of near OM's neck of woods, BUT... for the latter I knew where she was going, she knew I knew and at that point she also knew I was wise to the whole A, so doubtful she did anything there AND she was not gone for too long.
This weekend is a bit dicier: Three hours away, at beach, trip has been planned for months so I am CERTAIN that OM knew about it and, if not outright invited to stay with them (which I doubt-- small condo with other girls in it) could easily have made plans to also be there this weekend. Also, he IS on vacation this week (I called his office-- zero risk check-in which I hoped would put my mind at ease if he was in town) though that is potentially less meaningful as a clue given that it IS July 4th week. Also, my W's bff, who socializes with OM's crowd and may (I am not certain) have a new beau who is familiar with OM's crowd and who also has been an assistant/enabler of the A particularly on "girl's weekends" is the one who set the trip up and was in CONSTANT contact (both phone and text) with bff during our family's beach getaway in first half of week. Most notably, as I mentioned, the night we went out and stayed out late together she disappeared for 35 minutes at one point "to go to the bathroom" but actually to talk to bff (or at least to talk to someone on bff's phone-- when she was gone for so long I checked the phone logs.) She did share a number of texts between her and the other girls but didn't say squadoosh about the bathroom phonecall or indeed the several other calls she had with bff when I wasn't around at beach, maintaining she "limited her responsiveness because she wanted to hang out with us." Now, she confides in bff about EVERYTHING and always has, including our MR, so it doesn't have to be anything plotful and insidious but... they were talking a LOT. She had considered (or at least so she told me) not going at all and just coming home with the family, but then got "talked into" going down. She DID come home first so she could have her own car and come home Saturday as opposed to Sunday. Anyhoo... hard to read this one and I am not doing any kind of monitoring of her. Once I found out OM is also "on vacation" my assessment of the likelihood of a meet up is that it is not a certainty but still somewhat likely (say 50-75%, just knowing OM and how relentless he is and what wife's current frame of mind is.)
As to frame of mind, I will expand on the Friday counselling in a different post, BUT... while she has been distant and surly and pouty to a certain extent over past few weeks since I dropped MY bomb, she has not been the full-on emotional teenager I expected. (Idunno, maybe the previous couple of tries at NC where she DID kind of go off of the "Im trapped, I can't do this, 9-1-1" deep end was/were ACTUALLY the start of the withdrawal(?). At any rate, she is still "defending" OM's character, even in counseling, now has the "additional" doubt of WON she could have a relationship with me because she knows I don't trust her and she'd always be "second guessing" herself and wondering if she could go out with her friends and that she might not be able to "be herself" under such circumstances. And, right now, "hersfelf" at least as she puts it, involves her thinking of herself "with her girlfriends" or "on her own" more than it does with me. Finally, when we were talking about commitment to the process, and based on something that MC said I asked her if she could remain faithful to me and she said, tearfully: "i AM... but if this continues, if we stay together and things don't change between us i WONT be, i KNOW i wont be." Surprising, but, i suppose, honest words from her.
With that frame of mind, I am not sure what to think. She could easily, of course, be continuing in some sort of contact with OM, although her FB activity as fallen WAY off... sometimes no more than once a day or once every other day.. although OM is still on her "contacts" list and not, AFAIK, actually "blocked" even though she unfriended him. (She doesn't share her phone with me openly enough for me to discern all of that). He could be calling her on her work phone, as he has been wont to do in past, and bff could obviously be relaying messages. Again, I have no way of knowing. Last verified contact of ANY sort was a little over two weeks back she sent or tried to send him a card and small gift (t-shirt) for his birthday... something she had been planning to do with bff's help BEFORE i dropped bomb on 6/14, so she might have just been offloading it, IDK.
So that's the picture. If i AM legitimately at "no contact", it seems as Sandi indicates that I need to be trying to take advantage of that. And MC is cautiously of mindset that we need to be moving forward and building some positive momentum. And she (W) DOES seem interested in doing some things in terms of openness and transparency, though she always does it kind of obliquely and seems reluctant to come to me at all contritely and say "look, I know what I did was wrong... this is what I want to do to make up for it" which MC indicates is kind of important. (Though she did say, when MC asked in counseling "Yes, I know that what I did was wrong.") For instance, dinner out last week she wanted to have with bff (which I am PRETTY certain might have involved OM and some sort of birthday get-together of his friends) she waffled on back and forth and then, when I calmly voiced my concern she instantly backed off and said "yeah, I totally get that, I was thinking of not going anyway." So, are we at NC or aren't we at NC? IF we ARE at NC, then her mind/heart certainly does not seem to be into taking the next step (how could she run off with bff this weekend if so?) I just really am at a quandary as to how to handle my interactions with her, particularly when she comes home.
YES, i continue with my OWN 180 and GAL efforts, (which she HAS noticed... and maybe its just my own male vanity but i DO see her "checking me out" when she thinks I'm not looking and she HAS started noting my changes/improvements to friends (he's really getting into good shape these days and taking care of himself) rather than being so relentlessly negative) AND YES, I play it cool to a certain extent with her, but... am I still at a place where I want to drop the rope and/or keep hammering her on the transparency/openness? I really feel like I need to know if she is maintaining the NC and wish I had taken a little more effort to monitor things on this beach trip. If she is at NC, if I shut her out now seems to me could be counterproductive. Or maybe not. Thoughts please.
H53/W51, R-ing 4/'18
"Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires"-Sg.of Sg 2:7
"So oftentimes it happens,that we live our lives in chains, & we never even know we have the key"-Eagles III 1:3
sandi2 knows what she is talking about...and I hate it. But she is absolutely right...unless she goes NC with OM there can be no path forward. It seems you and I have a similar sitch... Although in my case W has been more intimate lately (while not saying she is back in love with me).
as hard as it is to accept...it seems most of us go through the same trajectory. It's insane how common this is apparently...
Friday counseling session was unsurprising in many respects-- the usual description of the magical soul-bonding relationship she wants to have and how she doesn't have any of those feelings for me and doesn't know if she can, an outright near-angry outburst where she came close to blaming me for the relationship being already "over" because of the pain I caused her by the time OM came on the scene, several statements to the effect that by harping on the affair we are "beating a dead horse" and not being helpful and only hurting our relationship (which she sees more like a friendship right now).
A couple of surprises, though, were that she came out with a couple of details about the A I did not know... one particular one about an early meet up between her and OM at Starbucks which she identified as being a "big moment" in her having feelings for OM where he "hurried ahead to open and hold door for her" and then where he "helped a little old man who needed help out the door as they were leaving" and it was then she realized he was a "good guy" (even though she allowed I would not believe that) and how she went back to her car and cried because she had been "missing that all these years" (and, yes, she was right, I was very self-absorbed and often not gentlemanly with doors and such over the years.) To me, this was a) good to hear from an honesty standpoint but b) hard to hear because it sounds more soul-mate-ey and harder to overcome than mere physical attraction.
Revisionist bomb she dropped-- apparently we only had sex five times in 21 years... and she was confident in and sad about that number. (For the record, while woefully insufficient, it was WAY more than that, though I didn't argue point at time because I was so dumbfounded and because she was in middle of pouring herself out.)
Also, we talked about the future and whether or not we would want to split "as a team" and "want each other to be happy", in the context of who knew what, family and friends, about our sitch and about the A. Particularly involving telling the kids. I reiterated that I had no intention of going around trashing her or outing her to anyone, though I did say I was not certain I would be able to lie to kids if one of them asked me point blank, BUT... I did ask her to consider, if "happiness" and "wanting the other to be happy" was so important, how happy she thought it would make me to internalize and carry around the betrayal that OM had committed against me, taking my wife, and then being introduced around to friends and family as this nice, new, clean relationship and as a "good guy" when the truth was so much different, and potentially, having a relationship with my sons, and what kind of example that would set for them if they found out. She was very quiet in response to that.
In sum, though, her general frame of mind seems to have changed very little and, in fact, I would say she even seemed slightly LESS committed/interested in continuing to work on MR than in previous sessions-- "Not sure I want to keep doing this."
She and MC talked a bit about being raised as the “good girl” and “not to do this or that” and how that is hard as a sexual being (MC is Christian Sex Therapist as well—who know there WAS such a thing—who believes sex is awesome and that God intended us to have LOTS of it—although obviously just with our spouses) and that what my W did was the “first thing she’s ever done just for her and just to make HER feel good/happy without thinking about anybody else.”
As to boundaries, transparency, openness, etc., in-session MC indicated that each couple is different and has to decide what works for them but that a "it's over" letter or call is pretty standard as is some sort of phone transparency. As a follow up to an IC exchange I had with MC today, she reiterated to me that it is entirely appropriate and indeed preferable that I enforce the line I drew with my wife regarding contact with OM, that I should couch it in terms of what I feel and what I can allow, but that it is something that I need and without which I can't and won't continue to work on the MR. Said it was okay for me to insist on something tangible and provable as opposed to sort of the ad hoc stuff I've been getting from W. Would be easier, of course, if I knew outright she was cheating still, which I don't know.
And let me reiterate that I am NOT afraid of separation... BUT... I strongly believe that if it comes to that that I am not the one who should leave the house AND I am still not sure how to "force" that issue if it comes to that. Rope dropping I can do. How to get to separation where I stay in the house is a mystery to me beyond the concept of saying I think that that would be appropriate and best given the circumstances, and then going completely dark.
H53/W51, R-ing 4/'18
"Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires"-Sg.of Sg 2:7
"So oftentimes it happens,that we live our lives in chains, & we never even know we have the key"-Eagles III 1:3
Smh... Dude, did you even read what Sandi2 posted? I read her post and understood that the MOST important thing is that your WW needs to respect you, that you need to man up..
And you responded by giving percent of chances of her meeting up with OM, and are holding dearly to the percent that she's not... It doesn't matter if she met up with OM, if she wanted you, or to save M, she wouldn't have gone either way..
What you're doing isn't working, ready to try something else?
M - 9 1/2 years 5/5/16 - Bomb drop - 3 week EA 10/31/16 - We sold house 01/10/18 - D Finalized
I know this is really hard to take in sometimes and can be painful.
She has not given you a commitment to work on the M. She has be giving you many hints that she does not want that right now.
You keep analyzing contact, vs. no contact, but neither one matters until she says and shows you "I want to make this work"
Until that happens, you need to LET GO. Whether or not she is contacting, not contacting OM, until she is truly ready, there is no point in wasting your energy on that, and you are putting a lot of energy into it.
She is not committed to your M right now. She did some pretty cruel stuff like tantalizing you and then telling you she is not attracted to you. Until she stops this crap and beyond, forget about what she is doing and just DO YOU. You may have GAL, but you need 180's.
Your wife SAYS she's not attracted to you in MC sessions and then in person. Says she wants what she feels for OM.
The things about boundaries you are repeating here, come from your IC/MC, not from your wife.
The percentages and the possibilities of your w "MAY have had contact with OM" and yada yada
are just, imo, you spending a lot of energy maintaining the illusion that your wife in all in with the marriage. She's not. To her credit, I guess, she says so pretty openly.
I'm not even sure why the charade of "working on the m" is happening, unless it's for her to bide her time with the boys and money and whatever else.
You're getting bogged down in options you think you have, but they relate to your w and not to JUST you. Take a look...
And let me reiterate that I am NOT afraid of separation... BUT... I strongly believe that if it comes to that that I am not the one who should leave the house AND I am still not sure how to "force" that issue if it comes to that. Rope dropping I can do.
2 x 4 coming your way, so please put on your helmet.
Who "Should" leave the house is no longer relevant b/c none of this "Should" be happening.
As for you dropping the rope, I just don't know if you can do that b/c so far you have not.
How to get to separation where I stay in the house is a mystery to me beyond the concept of saying I think that that would be appropriate and best given the circumstances, and then going completely dark.
These ^^ are great justifications to keep doing what you have been doing - which is not working. Which is you Staying stuck and spinning.
M: 57 H: 60 M: 35 yrs S30,D28,D19 H off to Alaska 2006 Recon 7/07- 8/08 *2016* X = "ALASKA 2.0" GROUND HOG DAY I File D 10/16 OW DIV 2/26/2018 X marries OW 5/2016
I get what everyone is saying here. But what if, just what if, she is actually maintaining "no contact" right now... which is a pretty significant possibility (though obviously damaged by the fact that she is not going out of her way to be transparent and contrite). But... very very possible, perhaps even the most likely possibility, that she HAS broken contact BUT at the same time has no interest in working on the MR. In that case, couldn't I, as Sandi2 seems to intimate, "shoot myself in the foot" by continuing to hammer her about "No contact"? I get that if she is not interested I need to detach/step-back like I did a couple of weeks back (with results, too), and given everything I know that certainly looks like my best move for both me and for any potential future MR, but Im going to come across looking pretty insecure/etc. if I keep harping on "no contact" if she is already "no contacting."
Just sayin'
H53/W51, R-ing 4/'18
"Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires"-Sg.of Sg 2:7
"So oftentimes it happens,that we live our lives in chains, & we never even know we have the key"-Eagles III 1:3
I get what everyone is saying here. But what if, just what if, she is actually maintaining "no contact" right now... which is a pretty significant possibility (though obviously damaged by the fact that she is not going out of her way to be transparent and contrite). But... very very possible, perhaps even the most likely possibility, that she HAS broken contact BUT at the same time has no interest in working on the MR. In that case, couldn't I, as Sandi2 seems to intimate, "shoot myself in the foot" by continuing to hammer her about "No contact"? I get that if she is not interested I need to detach/step-back like I did a couple of weeks back (with results, too), and given everything I know that certainly looks like my best move for both me and for any potential future MR, but Im going to come across looking pretty insecure/etc. if I keep harping on "no contact" if she is already "no contacting."
What I and I and I believe others is, the no contact doesn't really matter much right now. You shouldn't harp on it at all. If she isn't recommitted to the marriage, it really doesn't matter if she is contacting or not at this point. She could have zero contact with him, but if she hasn't committed to piecing, what difference does it make at this point? I see her contact not making a difference either way where you guys are at right now. So there are no "what if's?"
Right now it seems like she is getting a whole lot of pressure to get her to be into saving this M, but right now, as she expressed to you and in MC verbally and through action, it is not her best interest at this time.
So your best move is to forget all about who or what or how she is doing, and refocus your attention on YOU.
It is tough. Lord do I know it. But when someone doesn't want in, do you want them to feel forced or pressured?In the meantime, back waaaaaaaaaay off, do your thing, be the person you want to be.
