Any Advice 3

[gw5263]

|Surprised myself again today. W asked me to take my daughter to a pool party and pick her up. my son and i did, and went to the store as well. Due to time and distance, we stayed in town and hung out to gether for a little. She initially said we would all go, but she wanted to take her "walk" which is when she calls OM. initially i was going to say yes to stop the call, and again something Sandi said got thru - stop managing her. |So i did. told her no take your walk me and my boy will go. So we did. inda proud of myself, two opportunities to mess up and i didnt. so far so good.

[gw5263]

Can anyone advise how to handle the hoidays with a WW? her birthday is saturday and i have no plans to get her a gift or celebrate it with her. The kids will, but not me. She let mine pass with only a happpy birthday text. Now sunday is OM birthday, and she got him several gifts and shipped them to him. Is this the correct way to handle it, and how should i handle thanksgiving and christmas? We have no family near by and usually do thanksgiving by ourselves, same for christmas.\
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A nd i gotta say i harbor a secret fantasy about throwing everything that he gets her in the burn barrel, especially the smelly butt perfume he got her.... Not gonna do it but would love to. chaps my butt everytime i smell it.

[gw5263]

Just some very late night musings - W and i seem to be getting along better now than before the A. dont get it.\
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She talks about the family in the future tense - but says she is not open to M repair. and cannot explain whyshe isnt open to repair. dont get that\
Seems like this would be easier to deal with if OM had a physical presence rather than emotional. Hard to fathom a telephone and words dictating our life, even though its been explained to me by Sandi more than one time( and thanks for the patience, Sandi(\
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wish these types - EA - had a solid expiration date. sorry for the odd characters, keynboard buttons arent working correctly...... lol

[LH19]

GW,

There is a tendency for LBS's to read into every word said by WWs. She's talking about the future that must mean we're getting staying together. It means nothing. Those are just words. Look at actions.

I'll try again. You need to take the focus off your wife. Work on the man you want to become. Get out and get a life like there is no tomorrow. Be mysterious when possible.

Then just maybe your wife will come back to a different marriage. That's the only way it works out long term. Until then she will throw you a bone every now and then so she can continue to live off you and eat cake every night.

This $hit isn't easy!

[gw5263]

|Got ya |LH, just some observations, thats all. |My sitch seems very odd to me. i think, no, i know she is cake eating. getting from me what he cant provide over the phone. shelter, etc, basics of life. company, conversation.\
Here is what confuses me. our R now is like we never skipped a beat. no fights, no arguing, none of that. until R talk pops up and i ask about working on us. other than that, if you were here youd never no there was an issue. the only difference now is we dont share a bed, no intimacy of any kind, and of course, the elephant in the room, OM. \
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i read other threads where there all all these different issues, and we have none of them. so its hard to figure out which path to take other than |GAL and 180, which i am working on. My goal is to save my M, and build a beeter one. just curious if my sitch is the norm or an anomoly.. it is like none of the others i have read here.

[joejoe1]

GW,

There is nothing normal about your Sitch. Didnt your wife neglect the finances and now you are filing for bankruptcy? Just because you are not arguing, dont mean things are normal. There is OM that your wife is in love with. Do you find that normal?

You need to read love is tough. In the book the Dr. Talk about creating chaotic moments, confronting the problems head on. It's a great book and opened my eyes.

[gw5263]

|I know there not normal, far from it. he is still in the picture getting his 5 oclock phone calls from my W every day. I am continuing to work on 180's and GAL. As LH suggests i am also working onnot focusing on her anymore. i can only worry aboutme. it just frustrates me that other than these phone calls it feels some what like it did pre OM, thats all. makes it all the more difficult for me.

[dirxml]

GW

Gotta say, you keep going the same things expecting different results. People have told you to detach, do the 180 and you’re wondering how to get respect back? Dude, she is in an active affair, rubs your nose in it repeatedly and you’re worrying about getting respect back? You keep hoping to nice her back, how is that working for you? At some point you’re going to have to face the grim reality that what you are doing isn’t working.

I get you can’t kick her out and INS [censored]. You need to detach as much as possible from this woman and focus on your kids and yourself. As someone else pointed out, treat her like a neighbor. Cordial and polite but that’s all. Make her see what she is losing. Become the best person that you can be, the best father you can be. Don’t let her hoover you back in will fun little trips; all they are are little crumbs to keep you around. They have done nothing to get her to turn back to you and away from the OM.

[sandi2]

Surprised myself again today. W asked me to take my daughter to a pool party and pick her up. my son and i did, and went to the store as well. Due to time and distance, we stayed in town and hung out to gether for a little. She initially said we would all go, but she wanted to take her "walk" which is when she calls OM. initially i was going to say yes to stop the call, and again something Sandi said got thru - stop managing her. |So i did. told her no take your walk me and my boy will go. So we did. inda proud of myself, two opportunities to mess up and i didnt. so far so good.

I have tried to think how to say what I want you to understand. I don't want to take this too far and have you feel I am picking on you. It's a good place for me to touch on this particular topic. I think you are making good changes, and I hope you will continue. Please remind me, does she know that you are aware that she takes these walks as the opportunity to contact the OM? If she knows that you know......then you don't need to run her errands and tell her it's so that she can take her walk. That may sound as if I'm telling you to manage what she does, but I'm not. I am saying that if she knows you are aware of what she's doing on these walks......don't tell her to go ahead while you do something to free up her time, b\c you will never get her respect that way. And, if she doesn't know you are aware....then I'll just say to find a better 180 than running errands for her.....or rescuing her so that she can have more time with OM. B\c it will eventually come out that you knew she was contacting OM on her walks. Especially if she's so bold to say that she doesn't want to miss it. See what I am saying? It is about respect.

Does this sound contradictive from managing her? No, you don't want to manage her, and neither do you want her managing you. Don't go from one extreme to the other. I'm glad you enjoyed your time with your son, and perhaps this was a 180 from your usual actions......but why would you tell her to go on with her walk? I don't get it.

Some H's get confused and try to 180 everything, and become like an unpaid employee. They totally lose all attractiveness b\c they have carried the 180 principle overboard. I'm not saying that you have, I'm just saying to stay balanced in your thinking, okay?

W and i seem to be getting along better now than before the A. dont get it.\
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She is not feeling any pressure from you about the affair....or the MR. She is ultimately cake eating. She gets benefits from the M and the affair. She is very close to friend zoning you, if she hasn't already.

She talks about the family in the future tense - but says she is not open to M repair. and cannot explain whyshe isnt open to repair. dont get that\

Believe nothing a WW says.

Just b\c there is no arguing does not mean the MR is better. On some level it can almost feel " normal", and that becomes a problem. At worst, the H has the misconception he is slowly winning her back. At best, they are friends.

((Hugs))

[CW2017]

But it's still a weird feeling this "normality" yet I understand everything Sandi is saying about the lack of pressure and cake eating. So in my case I get the pre-affair W but with a vastly improved relationship plus the bedroom activities that were never there before. Quite mystifying!