WW, My Addiction, Patience, and HOPE

[Georgia Bulldogs]

I think you pursue IF and ONLY IF she has taken the first step to recovery which is NO CONTACT with OM.

In your situation both you AND definitely your wife feel your porn problems are pretty much equal to adultery. In such situations in particular, I think a betrayed husband needs to pursue even more and even harder. See how she reacted when you grabbed her into your arms and kissed her passionately. She melted.

This isn't YOU competing with or against OM. OM was a surrogate or poor substitute for what you wife always wanted and wished for from you. If you swoop your wife off her feet she's not gonna care one bit about OM (after withdrawal).

I'm not a fan of saying you want to recover your marriage and then taking trips by yourself (when both you and your struggling wayward are struggling). Take the road trip together. Get some marriage material on CD (something other than WMD so you don't lead her back her to your support group)....and listen to the material in the car. Pause and discuss. The longer the trip the better - as your wife is going through withdrawal and needs all the support and accountability she can get as she white knuckles her way through wondering what OM is doing, thinking and saying.

No Contact is the primary objective. There is just so much pressure and anxiety for your wife to try to continue the relationship as friends or have risky "closure contact" that this is a very difficult objective to achieve. IF she has closure contact you want her to tell you about it immediately. IF OM calls or seeks her out in public she needs to know what is expected of her (don't say anything because it's easier to explain than trying to recall a conversation that you simply won't believe and call you immediately).

You should be instructing her that a "no contact" letter is mandatory as an outward verifiable indication (ACTION) that she is genuinely "choosing you".

If she refuses - then you back off - stop pursuing - let her pursue you (she'll ask why you are backing off and you'll simply come back to "recovery can't begin until 'no contact' so though you still appreciate her delaying, her "choosing you" really isn't believable until she ends it with him OFFICIALLY. A no contact letter and letting you help her be accountable is the first step. Other than that it's just words.

[trumpet]

Trust none of what she says, and only have of what she does.

Those words I need to continue to remember.

I do want action - to see action. Am I impatient? Probably, and I need to just take one step forward - little steps.

However, I need reassurance that what she's saying just isn't lip service.

I can stop pursuit - and like before, she's likely to think something is up, that I don't want to be a part of the relationship. But I DO - it's just that we have to change this pursuit/distancer relationship, and my wife has to realize things are very different now - a couple comments last night and this morning all point to my wife wanting to go back to the old, without having to put work into it.

Relationships should be easy to her. She kept telling me in college, when we were friends, that all her boyfriends got boring after 3 months, so she'd dump them. Literally had a dozen serious boyfriends before I came along. Did each one pursue her, and then stopped once they had a relationship? Did she love the infatuation stage of love, but then tired of the work?

I'm beginning to realize that all those relationships were a pre-curser to what I'm dealing with now. My wife needs to find the skills necessary to build a lasting relationship. So do I, of course, but after almost 3 months, and now thousands of dollars later in counseling, I see things pretty clear, and my wife just notices when I stop pursuing, and when I start pursuing, is back to distancing herself.

The kisses were nice the other night - but it's like she said "Hey, I gave you something, now chase me, and maybe, just maybe, you'll get more." I've done this dance, and she's never delivered. The affection is on her timetable, and when she feels like it. There is no giving of herself, she's closed and protected, in case the hurt comes back, and then she can say "See, I told you, he's a jerk/abuser/inconsiderate, so my original fears are realized, I'll pull away to protect myself, and wall my feelings off so I don't get hurt."

I know I need to focus on myself - This self-actualization might take her a while. Do I live without what I need in the relationship for that long?

I'm committed to my marriage and my wife, and I have forgiven her. Again, every day I need to forgive her. But I ran back to the woman I love, just to realize she doesn't have the skills needed to emotionally keep me in the game.

Asking her to find those emotions, those skills, isn't going to be taken very well. I can't fix my wife - never could, although I tried. She's always nagged to try to fix me. A counselor would make headway, a trusted friend could help, but right now, all her trusted friends were the ones to tell her to dump me and move on.

How to bring a WW to see what the truth is. I'm not asking her to feel and see the away I view our relationship - she's got her own set of eyes. How to get her to grow. How to tell her what I need, but her not seeing it as a cut on her, but me wanting more of her.

I hear some of you telling me to work on GAL'ing more. Just trying to find a balance between GAL'ing while trying to repair the marriage with a wife who, to me, is half-trying.

[npmyst]

Trumpet,
First, congratulations on getting to this point. Second, I want to say that I am no expert but I have READ A TON on here for the past 2 years; I hope to achieve your levels of success in the future as my situation may be turning around as we speak (similar timeframes). I hope the other Vets can chime in on here as well as I am not familiar with your entire situation and as I read your post, I see a lot of RED flags out here and I’d love to just say, SLOW DOWN!!!! And please don’t take anything personally; I have nothing but respect for anyone here trying to save their marriage.

“I do want action - to see action. Am I impatient? Probably, and I need to just take one step forward - little steps.

However, I need reassurance that what she's saying just isn't lip service.”

I’ve heard it over and over again. You didn’t get to this point over night, you cant expect it to get better overnight, let alone a weekend. Patience. Slow down. Get you confidence back. Your wife has chosen to be with you and try and make this work. Learn to believe in yourself. And you need reassurance??? Honestly, getting to this point in DBing, I would have hope you understood that reassurance is neediness and is in no way ATTRACTIVE to your wife. Back off and let her pursue you…I don’t want to see it go the other way because of too much pressure from your end.

“I can stop pursuit - and like before, she's likely to think something is up, that I don't want to be a part of the relationship. But I DO - it's just that we have to change this pursuit/distancer relationship, and my wife has to realize things are very different now - a couple comments last night and this morning all point to my wife wanting to go back to the old, without having to put work into it.”

Trust me; you are still here after everything. She KNOWS you want to be part of this relationship. You have taken actions. Stop speaking and assuming her thoughts; continue to let your actions speak for you and continue working on yourself.

“I'm beginning to realize that all those relationships were a pre-curser to what I'm dealing with now. My wife needs to find the skills necessary to build a lasting relationship. So do I, of course, but after almost 3 months, and now thousands of dollars later in counseling, I see things pretty clear, and my wife just notices when I stop pursuing, and when I start pursuing, is back to distancing herself.”

As I listen to you write this, I cringe. “My wife needs to….” Give her time. How long did it take you to get to this level of understanding of relationships? It took 15 plus years before you realized you needed work and improvement on your end. Be PATIENT.

“The kisses were nice the other night - but it's like she said "Hey, I gave you something, now chase me, and maybe, just maybe, you'll get more." I've done this dance, and she's never delivered. The affection is on her timetable, and when she feels like it. There is no giving of herself, she's closed and protected, in case the hurt comes back, and then she can say "See, I told you, he's a jerk/abuser/inconsiderate, so my original fears are realized, I'll pull away to “protect myself, and wall my feelings off so I don't get hurt."

Isn’t DBing more of what works and less of what doesn’t? You’ve done this dance before and she continues to never deliver. So what can you do differently this time? “The affection is on her timetable..” I’m still uncertain about your level of understanding of what a WW goes through. You are fresh out of an affair and you seem to have expectations of “normalcy” based on your writing. Its not going to happen that fast and you have to trust the process of allowing her time to grieve her relationship with the OM. She will go through those “what if” moments and it will hurt you to know that she is experiencing them, but you have to understand that its part of the healing process and part of the cycle in order to get to full reconciliation. Be the bigger person here and stop making it all about you and your needs right now. Keep yourself occupied so that you don’t look for her to fill all of your needs; right now, she will not even come close and you are going to set yourself up for failure because you are mentally creating expectations in your mind already and those expectations are clearly not being met…

“I know I need to focus on myself - This self-actualization might take her a while. Do I live without what I need in the relationship for that long?”

Again, I cringe reading this. I believe you know the answer to this already. You wouldn’t be here typing if you weren’t willing to live in the relationship for that long without what it is you need. Marriage is the ultimate selflessness commitment. Get in that mindset and stop being “selfish”. How long was your wife in this relationship without her getting what she needed??? The Waywardness choices are on her without a doubt, but you have to change your mindset…

“I'm committed to my marriage and my wife, and I have forgiven her. Again, every day I need to forgive her. But I ran back to the woman I love, just to realize she doesn't have the skills needed to emotionally keep me in the game.”

After reading this; I am convinced that you still have a long way to go and are nowhere close to where you believe you are in relationships, validation, empathy, compassion, and understanding. Do you understand the meaning of forgiveness and what it actually consists of? If so, whats the need to forgive her every day? That’s exactly the opposite of forgiveness because that means every day, you wake up and hold her actions against her and then have to forgive her again. That is the opposite of what needs to happen for a fully restored M.

“Asking her to find those emotions, those skills, isn't going to be taken very well. I can't fix my wife - never could, although I tried. She's always nagged to try to fix me. A counselor would make headway, a trusted friend could help, but right now, all her trusted friends were the ones to tell her to dump me and move on.”

Everything you wrote right there would be considering pursuing. I believe the consensus from everyone here is to stop the pursuing, even at the stage you are at.

“How to bring a WW to see what the truth is. I'm not asking her to feel and see the away I view our relationship - she's got her own set of eyes. How to get her to grow. How to tell her what I need, but her not seeing it as a cut on her, but me wanting more of her.”

YOUR ENTIRE MINDSET HERE IS WRONG. How do I get her to do this? How do I get her to do that? All WRONG. You are not crossing the line into controlling her and nothing positive will come with that mindset. What did it take for you to be honest with yourself, self-reflect, and then take action to make you a better man? Self-realization is the only thing that will get her there for the changes to stick. It was the same with you, and it will be the same with her. Understand that and learn to let go of the outcome for right now.

“I hear some of you telling me to work on GAL'ing more. Just trying to find a balance between GAL'ing while trying to repair the marriage with a wife who, to me, is half-trying.”

I can’t help to say this again, but you have a lot to learn still. Your perception is that your wife is half trying. How accurate is that? You are assuming that she is half trying because she’s not doing what you are doing. Don’t you understand that she is not where you are at mentally and emotionally? I thought you knew that she has emotionally divorced you years before she chose her Waywardness…Don’t make saving your M your entire world. You will smother her and yourself. Understand this is a slow process and be patient with her; no pressure for her. You have everything you need right now. She chose you and wanted to work on the marriage; enjoy that moment and be grateful for that.
I’d also advise you to real ALL of Sandi2’s threads on the WW (6 threads). You will have a better understanding of what you are dealing with. This will take 2 plus years to get back on track…patience is your new best friend. The more you push because you aren’t getting your needs met, the more you pressure her into not being enough and reinforce her decision of Waywardness. Back off, GAL, and enjoy the moments with her and your family. Stop worrying about the outside negative influences. Be supportive of her and continue to learn more about empathy and validation. I’m proud of where you are at and hopefully, I will be there soon.

[trumpet]

npmyst,

Thanks for the 2 X 4, brother.

My frustrations are telling, huh?
I enjoyed being detached. Without expectation of my wife doing anything for me. Absolutely none. I was my world, and only my kids were the other ones I needed to make sure were OK. Would I talk with her? NO, didn't need it.

Well, now she says she does want to work at the relationship. With that, comes some level of cooperation. Effort. From the reading I've done, it's a lot of big see-saw action in this first month or two. Our desires turn into expectations. When my wife was full-on wayward, I learned that she was a different woman than I married. The spew I heard still rings in my ears, but I boxed that for now.

I let myself back into wanting more from my wife, since she stated she wanted to start the work to reconcile. My wanting more really hinged on 3 things in the last 48 hours: NC, in letter or if she called (I was ok with whatever), calling the lawyer to stop the D, and getting some counseling.
My desire for this was for it to happen quickly. Waiting 2 days, not telling me you've done those things really puts a wet blanket on my hopes.

I did do something stupid, and called her at work. Wasn't a great conversation, but she did admit she's done those three things, but 'none of them called me back'. My level of trust is at an all-time low. I expected some communication on the issue, so that I could feel like the reconciliation could go forward, just telling me she made the calls would have been nice.

I feel like I came out of my cave, in hopes spring has come, and it did for a day or so, and now I've got to get back into my cave and keep working on myself with no drive to meet my wife halfway in anything. I can truly detach, but tried to help the sitch.

Will reconcilation look like me still GAL'ing, and my wife doing all the work? That's what many have alluded to here.

Georgia Bulldog, your advice to pursue is contrary to the other advice I've gotten. I see that you know my sitch pretty well, and that my addiction puts us both in the betrayer category. I'm just trying to integrate what you're saying into npmyst's views, as well as Zues's, Sandi's, and others.

The more I thought that the light at the end of the tunnel was my wife wanting to stop the D and work on us, the more I see it as just a fencepost that I passed on the road of my life.

I'm so so so frustrated.

Should I keep my appt. with the attorney? I'm going to have to pass him some money, since my hour on the phone with him was my 'freebie'. $2,500 retainer. My wife sees it as a huge threat, which I can understand. But shouldn't I protect myself? The divorce was filed, but not served.

So confused. Sitting on my hands [censored].

[Mowgli]

Why not retain after you're served?

Don't have any expectations until she gives you reasons for them. they will only end up hurting you if things go south.

You have to be able to SEE action, not just hear it. Access to her phone is great, that's action. calling a MC for both of you is action.

If you're serious about not going back to the old M, make sure you're maintaining your boundaries;

This is when she'll start to test them to see how serious you are.

Remember, too, that she's sitting on the fencepost. She has 60 day until the paperwork expires. My guess is she's counting down those days just like you are...That's not "I'm willing to work on this" that, to me says "I'm willing to give this some time to see."

[trumpet]

Mowgli,

Thanks.

I'll cancel the appt. with the lawyer.

Yes, expectations. The reason I'm in the situation. The reason most of us are, right? We don't give our spouses what they want, what they desire, which in a relationship become unspoken expectations. When we get hurt, we get angry, and take it out on our spouse. They in turn return the anger. The cycle starts. For my wife and I, we were great at taking our hurt and turning it into sarcasm and passive-aggressiveness.

I will need to be mentally and emotionally strong enough to break this relationship at any time. Both times I have been given hope, I get sucked into the marriage vortex.

I'm going to have to really lower the bar on my expectations. Maybe just being able to say 'hello', 'have a great day', and 'goodnight' to my wife. I was much happier when I had distance between her and I.

[Mowgli]

So then keep the distance for now until you're getting your R needs met, or you're seeing that she's attempting to meet those needs.

To quote Friar Laurence from Romeo and Juliet: Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast.

[trumpet]

Well, she did break it off with OM yesterday.

The first time she did it, she was ornery and upset.
She got home last night, sent me a text she was going to bed, and the kids were mine to deal with.
She's still ornery this morning, and did tell me she talked with OM. Broke it off.

I trust the anger inside her - that seems to say she's hurting, which is what I expected on Monday. It's weird that anger and bitterness is what I come to expect, but it shows she's hurting from the loss.

I didn't like the phone conversation yesterday, but my wife saying she was going to break it off, and then her actually doing it, that I know was going to be tough. I pushed a little, but if she sincerely wants to start us up, she's got to start to let OM go.

I let her spew a little this morning while I made lunches for the kids. Made my lunch, she made hers, and I told her to have a great day.

No expectations of any calls or conversations. No expectations from me putting pressure on her. She'll have to work through the loss.

I'm hanging my hat on the feelings and emotions we felt together on Sunday. It was the really old, 1st 6 months of marriage 'us' - the great us. Passion and wanting to be with each other. I say 'we', but I really mean 'I'. From what I could tell, my wife felt the same way. Trusting what I saw then. Trusting the hurt I see now.

No expectations. Time to get back on the treadmill - my achilles hasn't hurt in 3 days, so I think it's safe to start walking. Really want to run a shamrock 5k in 2 months.

Does anyone have some rules to live by when trying to reconcile/piece? We should come up with a 37 rules by Sandi for piecing.

Patience, and taking it slow would be on the top of the list.

[Mowgli]

Does anyone have some rules to live by when trying to reconcile/piece? We should come up with a 37 rules by Sandi for piecing..

This!! I need this right now, too!

[TxHubby]

I think you're doing well. I'm happy for you. We can all give you advice but nobody here, or anywhere, knows you and your specific situation better than you, and WW, do. If something works for you then do that.

Sometimes we BS's over-180 the thing. We detach but forget that the reason we were here in the first place was to SAVE the marriage. The WS comes out of their fog and reaches out to us to work on the R and we're too detached. Nope, not interested. That doesn't help anything. The point of doing the DB'ing is to B the D. To get the walkaway or wayward spouse to come back to the table, choose the marriage, and want to work to save the marriage. In other words, that's when the DB'ing has worked and now you go into marriage building mode. That's a different website. ;-)

You're doing great and you got the desired results from DB'ing. Don't over-DB or you'll damage these fledgling new developments. This much be nurtured. Take is slow but with a committed desire from both of you to stay together, work together, heal, and move forward.