What should I be Doing (piecing 6)

[Georgia Bulldogs]

I'm no pro-divorce troll.

I'm a long recovered betrayed husband. My wife had an affair and we've recovered.

I am very pro reconciliation but I'm also against rug sweeping away the affair. I've tried my best to help many betrayed husband's save their marriage (if and for as long as they want to). My story isn't on any public forum. I've just read several forums for years.

I am religious and I do volunteer in the marriage ministry at my church but I'm not a marriage counselor.

I don't want to encourage you to be mad or adversarial. This is your wife who you love even though in her mind, she FEELS you don't love her enough and aren't or weren't there for her. I know, from experience, that Her FEELINGS are merely rationalizations but to her they are 100% real so giving her ultimatums (or, God forbid) putting her in the driver's seat of your recovery would both be mistakes. Despite your pain, fear and uncertainly, you are the only sane spouse remaining in your relationship right now. So you simply and calmly put the boundary out there. It's not up for negotiation or manipulation. You, her and your family are worth more than a stupid firefighting volunteer position she can, at least, hold off a year on DUE TO HER POOR CHOICES. If she values her family and you as I believe she does, she'll acquiesce, begrudgingly; and, in time (might not happen immediately as she plays out her attempt to control and manipulate you) get over it.

Your marriage can survive and even thrive once she gets over her self inflicted upsettedness. OM remaining in her life ~ it might survive, for a time, but it certainly won't thrive. I've never seen a recovery work with OM still around. Even if she really despises him (and really, how can you trust for sure that's the honest truth) it's still contact which messes with her mind and keeps her trapped in foggy wayward thinking.

I literally DON'T want you to divorce - my advice is PRO-marriage.

What would you do if your weren't afraid? Fear is debilitating and demoralizing. Let he continue working with OM and you'll be fearful every time she sets foot out that door.

[Zues126]

Coco, I started to write my reaction to your W's email a couple of days ago but had to stop. I was too fired up. In general I have two things to say.

1. Any spouse that cheats on their partner should be asking what they can possibly do to make things right, what they can do to help minimize their partners pain, etc.

2. The idea of putting S first and her first was disturbing to me. I am 1000% against the idea of children coming first and nothing being stronger than a mother's love. I think GB nailed it when he pointed out the selfishness of this all.

I'm not giving advice here. I'd have to sort through a lot to uncover what I believed to be right. Divorce is not out of the question with a spouse that has betrayed you.

I think if you let her dictate the terms of R and accept her story you might save the M in name, but I don't see it as a ground in which an intimate relationship will rebuild. I, personally, might be willing to stay in an unloving marriage for the remainder of my days because I said I would...but the problem is since she already used the lack of intimacy as an excuse to cheat and walk once, it would be hard for me to invest further decades of sacrifice to a woman that has basically said she isn't prepared to make sacrifices herself. She seems to want a marriage that is almost unrealistic to achieve without making it the priority it demands.

All I know for sure is that I'd be very detached. I like what GB has written, I don't know how I could ever be emotionally open or vulnerable to someone that has me and our marriage last on the priority list after putting it in a precarious situation.

[Rose888]

I don't know, Coconut. It all feels like a big mess.

Your wife's letter made sense to me. I can relate to the need to find a passion as your kids leave home. I can understand why she feels she can't count on you to be there forever. I might be getting people mixed up, but S is from a previous relationship, right? So some of the trust issues might be holdovers from her first relationship.

And although I put my H first in my life now, if we divorced and I somehow ended up in another M while I still had kids at home, I would put my kids ahead of the new M.

And even now, I could see theoretical situations where I would put the needs of my kids ahead of H's needs.

I wonder if response to her letter will split along gender lines, or if I'm just odd.

[Zues126]

Thanks for the response Rose.

I spoke with my mom about this at dinner the other night. We both agreed that once you have children and are a single parent you definitely have made a commitment to take care of those children and you can't usurp that because you want more in your own life.

It would be a problem if she put another man in front of her child in a way that negatively impacted him.

It is another problem if she uses having a son as an excuse to not commit wholeheartedly to the marriage and making her husband the center of her world as well. My mom (who is a feminist with a PHD) said "people that say the kids have to come first are making excuses because they don't want to put what's needed into the relationship".

Her conclusion was that any talk of putting one love in front of another was kind of disturbing to her, the same way as it would be to say you loved one kid more than another. She feels you have to honor your love and commitment to both, and that anytime you prioritize it doesn't play out well. Just wanted to clarify that when I said I am against 'putting the kids first' I am not necessarily for putting them last either. I just happen to agree that it's a bad path to follow.

I like your posts Rose, thank you for sharing.

[Ginger1]

I'm going to step back from your thread for a while, coconut.

I'm going to leave you with this. My daughter will be number one in my life. Yes, it makes a big difference when the child is from a previous R. There is no guy who is going to walk into our lives right now and take precedence over her. It is what it is. Does that mean I will not give loving attention to that guy? No? It means the one constant in my life is my daughter and I protect our future and I know that guy could walk out at anytime. Her well-being will always be first. Heck, it's always number one before my own. Even when a married couple have a child, I believe they are very different kinds of love, and I loved my husband and my daughter with the same strength, but in different ways.

I have said this before and I will say it again. I don't think it is ok to cheat. (my ex cheated on me in the very worst way). However, there are many offenses in a marriage both partners that commit that are hurtful and cause distrust. Cheating and these offensives are mutually exclusive. One does not make an excuse for another, but both can be very hurtful and take lots of repair. There are many ways to break marriage vows.

I have had, since I was divorced, a few married men try to have an EA with me. None of them ever wanted to leave their wives. I had not cut off all communications with them the second I realized what they were doing. I counseled them instead, and did my best to lead them back towards their wives.

Again, I see people here telling you what you should tolerate and what you should not tolerate. You need to decide for yourself what you feel, and not how you SHOULD be feeling.

I wish you all the best and hope you find some true peace and come to a decision that you are comfortable with.

[Coconut]

Ginger, I appreciate your input, not sure why your backing away, but if for you I fully understand, I just hope it's not because you don't think it's because I'm not listening to you, because I am.

Ok, so I want to clarify.. I never felt she put son in front of me until I disengaged from family, but when we have discussed current sitch, the last couple of years is really the time frame that is usually referenced, and during that time it was her and son quite often (my own doing). Prior to my disengaging, it was always me and her and OUR son, we both love him as much as each other, all 3 of us where in most pictures and she didn't try to get pics with her and S without me. But the when I really confirmed her withdrawing from me was when it was obvious she didn't want me in a family pic. When I brought up her putting S before me to her, I was referencing little things like me saying where I wanted to go to dinner and her checking with S to see if he was ok with going there, it really was just little things like that. I guess it was me feeling like I'm the man of the house and get to make decisions without his ok, it's not always like that but enough that I brought it up to her.

My biggest issue with what she wrote is that it's almost written like she's replacing sons pending absence (he will be going off to college in two years) with firefighting, instead of trusting I will be there. My problem is if I am going to be there, I'll be there alone with her gone at fire fighting. But realistically other than academy class, firefighting calls and meetings take up minimal time, maybe 10 hours a month (most calls she's gone 20 minutes, and meetings are once a month for 2 or 3 hours, truck checks are 1 hr a week). I truly believe OM isn't in picture right now, other than seeing him when also at station and at the meetings. But i do understand that just seeing him is too much.

For the most part, I don't worry when she's at station, but it is always there in my mind. So now I ask myself what's the right way to handle, do I expect her to quit immediately, or do I continue working on me and stop working on R unless she quits? She already knows my stance on NC, so barring voicing my boundary again, do I just move forward with separation and work on my future without her in it? Or would a better way be for me to contact him on her group me app, say it's been 1 1/2 months since he said he's changing stations very soon, and ask specifically when that's happening? Or do I let her finish academy and see how I feel then, and possibly have her take a 6 month leave of absence until I join, if I do, and if I don't then readdress her going back without me (at least we would have 6 months total no contact).

[Si_07]

Hi Coconut, I'm not sure if you have read my whole story but last February was when I had the first confrontation with my W about her work colleague. After a few weeks she was out at a work thing and said she nearly drove to his place. Came home and told me about it and said she was scared of her feelings. I was already mentally exhausted from building a house so you are in a much stronger piece of mind than me. When this came out it completely broke me, I even spent one night in hospital. My W has never taken full responsibility for her actions, always said it was a symptom of other problems. She wanted to keep being friends and wasn't willing to seek counseling for herself etc. Everything was still my fault.

I know how hard the working environment situation can be and I couldn't get past it especially when their contact and conversations with each other starting building after 3-4 months. I had no time to heal and got angry and it broke me completely driving me crazy.

My only thoughts with you is while the letter had some issues, from what I understand she has taken responsibility and is working on herself counseling, yes?
I don't know how to advise you, I did ask if my W would leave her job for me and she said no. She then wouldn't give up 1 'friend' for me either, she gave up her family instead. I can only suggest the risk is still there. I don't know if you can use other people as examples in communicating with your W but in my experience it just didn't work. I never got any full no contact but I also hadn't learnt or found any help in dealing with the situation.

[Si_07]

Maybe I should add, some friends of mine who went through a similar experience where OW was pursuing a friends husband. He wasn't returning the pursuit but it was causing problems between him and W, he moved departments for his W to prove his loyalty. She has told me of the great strides that he is doing to rebuild trust even considering he didn't get involved with OW.

When I see them, that's when I see things about what it means to be truely loved by a spouse.

[Wonka]

Coconut,

I have been following along your thread very closely over the past two weeks. I am concerned enough to step in and offer some thoughts here. Although I am really pleased that you asked some posters really hard questions about their motivations.

To me, I thought W wrote a really heartfelt letter and she took the risk by being vulnerable to you. That is a huge step on her part for it is very obvious to me that she's put a lot of thought into it. It is her point of view. You can parse it all you want, but THE BOTTOM line is that she is opening up more and more to you. That is very good in my book for piecing. As you can see around DB threads, very seldom do WASes apologize for their awful choices.

Awful choices notwithstanding, one must remember that it takes TWO to destroy a marriage and it also takes TWO to re-build it together. It seems fine and dandy that some posters come around and blast W putting all the blame on her shoulders while forgetting that both parties contributed to the M breakdown. The only thing you truly can control is your actions, patterns, and behaviors. Frankly, you fell short in the H department too and you've acknowledged here. I think it would be a really good idea for you to have a talk with W by thanking her for her letter and owning up to your shortcomings as well.

Patterns, behaviors, and actions all originate in one's head. What I mean by that is that all thoughts drive one's behavior. If one has a negative outlook, then actions will manifest them outwardly. If one approaches situations with a loving mindset, then actions will follow accordingly. This is why piecing is so, so, SO tough for many DBers because they all forget to approach it with a beginner's mind and re-learning about their WASes in a new light.

Coconut, I strongly believe that you truly want to save your M deep in your soul. The problem I am seeing from my vantage point is that your emotions get the better of you and you get riled up by some posters who try to push you to take this or that action. Remember, they don't get to live with them...but you do. They go away on their merry way because they don't actually walk in your shoes nor in your M.

Use your head here, my friend. Your head will not steer you in the wrong direction if you remain cool, calm, and collected. You are not some small toy sailboat being tossed by some "unseen" forces out there. You are the Captain. Take charge of your emotions.

Stop the "separation" talk for real. It is your emotions doing the talking...better known as the little ego. Be more expansive and take the long-view here. Yeah, granted that it is not ideal that W continues to interact with the XOM at the fire house. In my mind, I would sit back and stay quiet until the completion of the academy training. Why is that? When the academy training is done, then you will be able to see clearly the next steps. What do I mean by that? Upon the completion of training, you will see where XOM will go or W will be placed. That is the key factor to take into consideration.

THEN that will be the prime time for you internally re-evaluate your position. You really don't want to constantly hold the sword of Damocles over your W. That will end the M very quickly. I believe that you sincerely do not want that, right?

Going forward, you really need to engage W and discuss solutions on how to make your M stronger, healthier, and happier. In reading your latest posts, you seem to move the goalposts willy nilly....is that fair to you, W, and the M????!!

Healthy marriages nurture each other's individual passions. I think you can figure out a way to support W's passion. For me, my passion is golfing and if someone told me to quit golfing, I'd die a slow death. No question. In fact, if I were you, I'd attend the station's social events. Facing XOM? Pllfffft. This ins't the time to act like a scaredy cat. You are waaay much better and bigger than him. I bet he would cower around you and avoid you like the plague. Just watch.

In summary, you and W really need to turn toward each other. It starts with you now that she's sent you the heart-felt letter. What are you going to do to step up and engage with her? How would you go about it?

Forget about the separation talk nonsense. You are your own worst enemy at times.

[Wonka]

If I had to distill all of that ^^^^ into one sentence it would be this:

Do you want a Mexican standoff or save the M?