The bomb woke me up, but she still won't talk

[lusa]

Just a couple of things to add, that might be important

IMHO, it's part of the painful work she has to do. She has to overcome her pride, in order to feel remorse.

Her stubborn pride is/will be a huge issue. She's always had a problem with it. Even S13 regularly comments how frustrated he gets with her as she never admits she was wrong or says sorry easily.

it sounds as if she needs professional therapy considering her XH previous track record.

Her father died before I met her and she was very close to her mother. Unfortunately she died suddenly about 6 years ago and it really hit her hard. She really never seemed to heal from it and didn't go to any kind of therapy.

[sandi2]

Well, you can't make another person feel remorse. The wayward spirit will likely rebuke any sort of guilt card the H may play in an attempt to stir remorse in his WW. If she is defensive or you hit a nerve......she'll pounce on you like a tigress. She'll bring up everything you've done the past 17 years.

My H has such a forgiving heart but when he looked at me and said, "I can't believe that you haven't even apologized to me", I saw none of that good heart. Looking through my WW eyes, I saw a H filled with self-righteousness, and I wanted to tear into him. I wanted to tell him that it was his fault that we were in that mess.

After hearing of your W's loss of her parents, it makes even more sense that therapy may be needed. Is she the type who wants to talk about her feelings, or does she bury them in her heart? Some people are very touchy about someone suggesting they see a "shrink". I may understand the WW side of her, but I don't know the person you've known in her. To be honest, I don't recall another case where the WW broke contact with OM.....with the intent of no further contact until she joins him years down the road from the present time. It causes me to question if this is just a case of waywardness, or if there is more to what's going on in her. Don't misunderstand what I mean. The psychosis in some WW's can be very alarming. Every sitch is personalized by its history and experiences within that woman's life.

The lack of contact could throw her into withdrawals, but I am concerned she is keeping that dream alive......which would be a common act for WW's. She may write her feelings and dreams in a journal, or just fantasize about how wonderful their life will be together. She may fuel her dreams by losing herself in romantic novels (it happens). The logically person would eventually give up and realize that OM isn't going to wait for her that long. He's just playing the game. However, I have to ask.......how logical is she? When a woman is unhappy and her emotional needs are not being met, she will reach out to something or someone that will stir some feelings that assure her she's not dead. Even if it's nothing more than a fantasy, if it makes her feel good......she continues doing it.

Does your W have a close female friend? Does she have any relatives still living?

Okay, so let's continue to talk about this for a little longer. You've waited this long, you can wait a bit more. So far, I've learned she has a lot of stubborn pride; has suffered loss of both parents; has kept secrets from her H. What type of personality does she have? Who would you say "wears the pants" in this relationship? Would you describe her as a bully; self entitled; a perfectionist; high strung; low key; quick to anger; affectionate, timid, etc.

How are things going in the bedroom? Still having sex? Here's an important question. Does she let you give her open mouth kisses? You know the kind I mean. Does she engage in sex, but avoids the open mouth kisses? Are there any nonsexual show of affection throughout the day, or is all pretty much hands off?

You may see my questions as pointless and not getting you any closer to actually addressing the EA. I'm trying to see "her". I'm trying to see what is driving her wayward ship. I'm looking for a piece of the puzzle picture, I suppose. I will quickly tell anyone I am no expert. You don't have to answer anything you don't want to answer.

[lusa]

After hearing of your W's loss of her parents, it makes even more sense that therapy may be needed. Is she the type who wants to talk about her feelings, or does she bury them in her heart? Some people are very touchy about someone suggesting they see a "shrink". I may understand the WW side of her, but I don't know the person you've known in her.

I have previously (lovingly) suggested she see a “shrink” many times when she was grieving for her mother, it didn’t go down well, and she refused. Funnily enough she is a trained psychotherapist and life coach so is good at listening to other people’s feelings but not talking about her own. She is definitely the type to bury her feelings in her heart rather than talk about them. I can easily see how she kept burying her resentment towards me in her heart rather than discussing it with me.

The lack of contact could throw her into withdrawals, but I am concerned she is keeping that dream alive......which would be a common act for WW's. She may write her feelings and dreams in a journal, or just fantasize about how wonderful their life will be together. She may fuel her dreams by losing herself in romantic novels (it happens).

She has been losing herself in romantic novels for years. I didn’t think anything of this and even used to buy them for her. Once I read on your threads what this could mean I became more aware of the amount of these novels she was devouring. Sometimes one a day all about affairs / lost love regained etc.

Does your W have a close female friend? Does she have any relatives still living?

She has far more friends than anyone I know and is constantly trying to connect/reconnect with friends from the past. As for close female friends, her closest disappeared on her when her mum died, but she still has plenty of friends from her school days that she does talk to regularly.
From what I know though she hasn’t told even her closest female friend the full truth about when the EA started. Just that he conveniently contacted her a month after I’d moved out.
She has a few relatives still living but they have been no support to her, an older sister who has been evil to her since she was born and an auntie who doesn’t really care about her.

Okay, so let's continue to talk about this for a little longer. You've waited this long, you can wait a bit more. So far, I've learned she has a lot of stubborn pride; has suffered loss of both parents; has kept secrets from her H. What type of personality does she have? Who would you say "wears the pants" in this relationship? Would you describe her as a bully; self entitled; a perfectionist; high strung; low key; quick to anger; affectionate, timid, etc.

It’s hard for me to answer who wears the pants, I would say it was me up until I turned into a mess since BD. She is very self-entitled, works hard, a good public speaker, a fantastic caring mother (even through this last year of hell). She’s always been very quick to be extremely defensive, I used to put this down to childhood bullying from her sister. Likes to play the victim sometimes, states that she finds confrontation very hard. Easily gets very upset when a friend doesn’t treat her right or says the wrong thing. You reminded me of her when you wrote about what a “good girl” you were. I married her because she never lied to anyone and always went out of her way to help people, prided herself on her moral integrity and “simple faith”.

I’d never met anyone like that, she seemed like an angel to me compared with women I had known before.

How are things going in the bedroom? Still having sex? Here's an important question. Does she let you give her open mouth kisses? You know the kind I mean. Does she engage in sex, but avoids the open mouth kisses? Are there any nonsexual show of affection throughout the day, or is all pretty much hands off?

The bedroom has been a big problem for a decade or so, basically since she got pregnant, we have had a SSM. This in turn caused a lot of negative reaction and pressure from me over the years, however I think she had a problem with sex before that. I remember her going to a therapist for her IC work around that time and him telling her she needs to buy a porn mag or read sex books because she had issues even talking about sex.
Sex was great when we met and until she got pregnant, but I can’t help thinking it was part of an act. There hasn’t been any sex now since her “symbolic reconciliation” initiation.
When we are intimate and do kiss she always uses her tongue, but it mostly seems quite forced into my mouth. I don’t think she has a problem with me given her open mouth kisses but more of a long-term issue with any type of physical affection and sexual activity. Up until BD I used to complain on an almost daily basis that I couldn’t stand never having non-sexual touches, it was like torture to me. I used to crave just an occasional hand on my back while I was cooking etc.

Since her attempt a R there has been more non-sexual touching. I have almost trained her to hug and kiss me before I leave for work and now she initiates that when I say goodbye. Sometimes she now initiates a hug when she is upset. She also slowly moves towards me and ends up leaning on me when we are reading in bed. I don’t really initiate anything any more because I don’t want to pursue and am sick of rejection. The most I’ve been doing is sometimes holding her as she goes to sleep.

I forgot to mention she is almost double her ideal body-weight and has been this way since giving birth to our 1st child, so this will certainly play a part for her.

One other point is both pregnancies were really difficult for her, she was sick and had migraines nearly every day for the whole nine months, our babies wouldn’t grow to term inside her properly. Both were emergency caesareans, the first was so small he was in an incubator for 3 weeks.

You may see my questions as pointless and not getting you any closer to actually addressing the EA. I'm trying to see "her". I'm trying to see what is driving her wayward ship. I'm looking for a piece of the puzzle picture, I suppose. I will quickly tell anyone I am no expert. You don't have to answer anything you don't want to answer.

I don’t see any of these questions as pointless, I have read a lot of your writing and understand why you’ve asked for this information. Thank you so much for your interest and support.

[lusa]

So I've been back in the house for 6 months now and apart from some initial spewing when I moved back there has not been a cross word or outward showing of disrespect from WW for all that time. Then it reared it's ugly head again this morning, a stupid situation where the light's had fused so it was dark and S14 had made a mess in the kitchen raiding the food cupboards in the middle of the night.

When WW found the mess in the morning, she presumed it was me and disrespectfully started accusing me of it as I was waking up. I immediately called her out on it and when she walked away as I was talking told her that was immature. She made a half sort of sorry later on, but I just told her I won't tolerate any form of disrespect from her, said my goodbyes to the kids and left for work.

An hour later I received a text from her stating "I am sorry I was bad tempered and disrespectful to you this morning"
10 minutes later I replied "Apology accepted. Don't do it again"

Then a few hours later she rang to apologize again, I again accepted her apology and plan to ensure the kids understand that she was out of order and has apologized to me. I feel this is very significant and symbolic of the fact that i finally have my balls back and will no longer tolerate any form of disrespect including any repeat of her secretive EA actions that I haven't called her out on yet.

I'm not sure where the anger came from but I've been out GAL 3 nights out of the last 5 and she doesn't like it, so it could be that. Anyway she'll think twice now before showing me further disrespect.

[sandi2]

Good job at calling her out.

.

[lusa]

I have read here before about the WAS who is actively involved in an A changing their behavior towards the bewildered LBS just before they go and see the AP or when they make contact with the AP again. Trying to create some kind of justification or for their behavior or to appease their guilt, it now looks like that is just what's happened to me.

I found out yesterday that Tuesday night / Wednesday morning's rare show of disrespect coincided with her resuming contact with the AP.

She had an old FB account since before we were M. Soon after we were married, when I found her communicating with ex-MIL I explained it wasn't ok with me and had to stop. She listened to me then and stopped the communication. I was too naive to insist the account was deactivated, not that it would have made any difference anyway.

This FB account then became secret and at some point around 3 years ago she resumed contact first with ex-MIL and then with ex-H. This was their main means of communication while her EA was cemented and in her words in a diary they "made great strides in their new love".

I can currently monitor the number of unread notifications on this account and it has been my main source of intel. It showed me that she had stopped logging on and checking messages around 3 months ago. I have been checking this once a week or so and the number of unread notifications slowly increased each week, 1 on V-day for example till it got to 23. I checked again yesterday morning and found the number had gone down to 19. This means at the very least she has been reading his messages of love, if not replying and full-on resuming contact. This feels like the last straw for me, I now feel betrayed, battle fatigued and finally completely done with all of this.

Last week I was so eager to find out how to "address her EA", now I just want her out of my life. Even with the best case scenario, involving her properly ending the EA, I would still be living as plan b waiting for OM2/BD2. She would still be wayward and I don't see her going through the process to rid herself of that. She doesn't love me enough, she has way too much stubborn pride and wouldn't be willing to do the hard work on herself. The last thing that has been keeping me hanging on is protection of the kids, but I can't carry on like this, I need my dignity back.

I just want to tell you that your kids are my kids age and they will be fine as long as you and your W are able to treat each other with respect.

Hang in there man!

Thank you LH this gives me strength, I love them so much I'd do anything to protect them but can't carry on like this.

[SteveLW]

Lusa, take some deep breaths and let your emotions subside before doing anything. It rarely is wise to make decisions when emotions are raw.

Sorry man, but try to concentrate on you again. How's GAL going?

[lusa]

Thanks Steve, I feel that I've been here long enough and read enough to successfully stop myself acting from emotion when I get the urge. Also Sandi reiterated this to me recently.

All I ask is if you will run things by the board before you jump into some major decision or have a serious talk. LBS's tend to make more mistakes when they feel a spurt of inspiration or desperation (whichever) and don't discuss it with the board, or give the board time to reply. I don't want anyone getting dependent on the board to make their decisions, but I hope you understand what I'm trying to say.

GAL is going ok, thanks for asking. As always I could be doing more but have started some new things recently. As well as the usual going to a friends once a week to play guitar and learning songs at home on my own I have a couple of new GAL activities:

1. Walking. I have a step-counter and am making sure I smash my 10k goal every day. I am making the choice to walk instead of drive for local trips whenever possible. It's amazing how the simple act of motion can move emotion. Plus I seem to get to smile and say hi to a lot more strangers along the way that feels good.

2. Mens Group. I have joined a mens group which meets every 2 weeks for a couple of hours. It consists of 7 men and my IC. The men all have their own issues and we are learning to talk about our feeling and how rare this is for men to do. The concepts are based on a book called Circle of Men and there are groups set up and ran by men all over the world. The idea is that after our 6 sessions we will choose to continue meeting on our own. The next session is a 6 hour session where we will all get chance to talk about our stories and share our feelings. It's certainly took my out of my comfort zone which is always a good sign for GAL.

Thanks for your support

[SteveLW]

Good work lusa!

[lusa]

Just when I said I wasn't going to say anything, I ended up saying it. I woke up this morning, WW came in the room to ask something, I answered and then stayed in bed with my eyes shut. i thought she'd left the room and the words "I want a divorce" just came out my mouth. She was actually still in the room, and crouched down getting something out the drawers.

I was half asleep, and shocked she was still there, she asked me what I said a few times, and I replied nothing and she left the room. The morning routine went by as normal, but she didn't move to hug me when I said goodbye so I just left.

The truth is I do want a D now, I don't want to be passive aggressive, or play any games. There's no point now. So I slipped up, she knows and now she's at home alone playing sad songs about it. When I get home I don't care if she's going to be angry and treat me badly, or gushing and treat me well, it doesn't make any difference. Going by her track record I presume it won't be mentioned.