Quote However, the transparency plan is your design. Make sense?
It makes total sense. My plan is to literally use the word transparency.
Quote you can tell her you need all her passwords to her accounts (email, SM, phone activity, etc.). Now, remember, she is the cheater, not you. If she starts talking about it being an invasion of privacy, I want you to realize she's really talking about invasion of secrecy.
This does make me uneasy. I don't want to police her but I understand why I should. When I spoke to my IC, which by the way he agrees with EVERYTHING on his board that I have told him. He tells me the same exact things you guys do, he told me to hold off on that conversation so that it can be discussed with him (he was our old MC and will be again once we get there). He said if that is something I want, then it is fair to ask for it.
Quote How can you have it both ways? It seems to me that you are really seeing the IC for MC.
My IC was our previous MC. We saw him for 4 months before BD, stopped, and then went back after BD. After the 3rd session and her continuing to have contact with the OM, he recommended to me that I stop (I called him a few days after and asked his opinion and that is what he said). I asked if he would be my IC since he knew both of us. He agreed and the plan is to go back to him for MC. I would then find another IC.
Hi advice right now: don't talk to her unless it is about our D. Leave her alone and she should leave me alone. He doesn't know that she is going to end contact so I will see what he says next.
Quote Frankly, I think you don't know what to do and just want MC to fix things. That's understandable
Partly true but I think I know what I need to do. Take time, take things slow, continue my work and allow her to continue hers. Set the boundaries/expectations on transparency. Trust but verify everything and make her work on us more than I work on us.
Yes, you have to still expect ZERO! Keep working on you and DBing! It's just one month since you started posting here.
Me: 34 Stbxw: 30 D:5 D:3 Mini bd: May/June 2019 Married: Aug 2019 BD: 6th Dec 2019 OM Confirmed: Feb 2020 March 2020: I filed for D Waiting for D to be finalized and W to move out end of January 2021
Quote you can tell her you need all her passwords to her accounts (email, SM, phone activity, etc.). Now, remember, she is the cheater, not you. If she starts talking about it being an invasion of privacy, I want you to realize she's really talking about invasion of secrecy.
This does make me uneasy. I don't want to police her but I understand why I should.
Then how is she going to be transparent? What is your plan? You tell me.
Am I correct in suspecting you of just wanting to say she'll need to be "transparent"......and then you leave it at that, expecting her to offer up what she wants you to know? That would be known as her plan of transparency, but it wouldn't be your plan. I can see how it would keep your nice-guy tendencies all comfy....but you are going to have to overcome it.
Don't look at it as though you are policing her life. She's not under house arrest. I see this transparency plan as a source of confirmation that she's being truthful, or a source to see that something doesn't match up. Transparency on this level is not a life-long plan. Do you get what I'm saying? Currently, she is not strong enough to overcome the affair addiction without a firm plan that calls for her accountability. Some nice-guy H's will tell me that if the WW wants to cheat, she'll find a way. True enough! The transparency plan doesn't prevent her from finding other ways of contacting OM....if she is so determined. If anyone thinks that's the purpose of transparency, they are missing the main point. Transparency is a method of accountability for the WW. It's her opportunity to atone for her betrayal. If she's not being genuine, it will be eventually be confirmed when the H is checking her phone activity (or whatever) and sees something that's not matching up.
I would think this method would be instrumental in offering some level of assurance to the betrayed H, as he begins to heal and can slowly taper off verifying that her speech, attitude, and actions match.
I don't want you to confuse transparency and accountability with the role of her support team. Okay? Think back on your wedding day. You both took a vow of fidelity. She has betrayed you by breaking her vow of fidelity. If she is serious about reconciling the MR, then she needs to be held accountable to the one she betrayed! I don't want her trying to skirt around accountability to you, by saying she'll be transparent to her counselor, friends, parents, support team, etc. She did not break a vow of fidelity with anyone but you. WW's are tricky, so that's why I'm trying to help you watch out for any slyness on her part. She doesn't have to love it. She just has to agree to do it.
Some H's have gone to great lengths to confirm his WW is being truthful or not, and if you need to add something else, I hope you'll bring it up to the board, first.
If I have said anything to confuse you, please let me know.
Quote
Trust but verify everything and make her work on us more than I work on us.
I was going to respond to your last statement, b/c it didn't sound right to me, but then I realized you probably said it hurriedly. If that's not the case, let me know.
Remain strong and hold the line.
It is not about what you feel should work in your M. It is about doing the work that gets the right results. Do what works!
My grandmother is doing much, much better. She is feeling great and we have been told she will be the oldest person in the state to beat this virus! Thank you for your concern.
There has been a lot that has happened over the last 4 or 5 days. After receiving the text from my W saying she told the OM she was done and was focusing on her family, herself, her work and her D, I asked her to write something to him saying it was over and to leave her alone. She drafted a text with her IC, let me see it and sent it to him. She deleted him from all social media in front of me (he got pissed about this but she said she doesn't care). In addition, we have talked a lot about everything and my W is owning it all. She said she never loved him but she was unhappy in her M ad strayed. She says this in a way that is sincere and real, not in a way of making excuses but rather in a way to try to prevent it from happening again. Unlike the beginning after BD, where she would become so angry and resentful towards me, like the A was my fault, now she is saying how dumb she was, how wrong she was, how sorry she is. She answers any question I have and hasn't gotten angry at all. She has said all the right things, including, that she is going to prove to me that she loves me and that she always has. I realize don't believe any of it but it is hard not to when all of her behaviors are backing up what she says. For instance, she has agreed to go to MC immediately, She has and will continue going to IC. She has given me the password to her phone and offered passwords to her accounts. I took the phone password and said I can look at it anytime I want and she agreed. Her exact words were, "I feel strange giving it to you but I understand and I'll do whatever it takes." Another thing she told me was she was aware I was on a dating app because a friend saw my profile. She was upset about this and asked a lot of questions and was nervous that I did something with these girls (I never even met them). I answered every one of her questions because since I want honesty, I gave her the same. My W told me that she loved me and always had. That she would say she was'tt in love me with me but she sais she really was and she knows that know. She was unhappy in our marriage and became numb after the A began. I don't know how much to believe but I have never seen her communicate better than this and there is a noticeable change in her demeneaor...she is back to acting like she did when we first started dating. I want to figure out how to make that last.
She invited me to her parents fro Easter so In went. We all stayed up late talking until my W said, why don't you stay here tonight? I was reluctant but the plan was for me to stay in the spare bedroom so I agreed. However, after my W went to bed, I stayed up with her mother. She told me so much about what my W has been saying. She told me that for weeks my W wanted to reach out to me and work on us, that she missed me and the family, that she knew how wrong she was but didn't know how to fix it. She told me my W is damn lucky to have someone like me and she knows that. She also said she will not allow my W to move back in there if she ever does something like that again. That if we decide to make this work, and I allow her back into the house, it is for good. This is not a game and what she did to me was inexcusable. Her father, who is a God to her, was so disappointed in her he wouldn't talk to her the first month she moved back. Lastly, my mother in law told me how much she loved me and how blessed she is to have someone like me watching over her D. She knows the pain I had was unbearable and she was sorry I had to endure that. Before I began to get ready to go to bed, she said, go in with your W. I was reluctant to do that too...I was letting her back I way to easy. But I did. And she welcomed me in and we fell asleep. Nothing intimate and that was perfect. I know many of you won't agree, but it felt right so I did it.
My W said that the pandemic is a blessing in disguise because it made her be alone and think. She said she would have continued going out with her friends and avoided the pain but rather she was forced to face it. When I went into her room that night, she had our wedding photos up on the wall, pictures of our family and art hanging from the wall that spoke of the importance of family and love. She said she looked at these every day. That it made her realize that marriages are never perfect and we need to work at it. That is why the pandemic a blessing.
Since that night she continues to answer any question I have with a calmness like I have never seen in her. She is sincere. I know my W, she has accepted what she has done and says she will prove to me every day how much she loves me and wants this to work. Sure, I get nervous about the OM, or any man for that matter but she continues to let me look at her phone and has been open. I said I am nervous about the bar in which she works because she would meet him down there. She said that he won't come there anymore. I said he will. She said she would tell him to leave if he ever did. I said I don't feel comfortable with that and she should just quit. so she said she needs to supplement that money from somewhere and the place will probably close due to losing so much money from being closed due to the pandemic (secretly I hope so). She agreed to talk more about in MC as the bars are closed for another month and probably beyond that due to the pandemic so I didn't push it now. I don't know how to handle that since it is her work (one shift a week). I told her I don't want her moving in yet. It is too soon. We are dating essentially; hanging out as a family, talking and enjoying walks and being outside.
I know many of you will say to slow down, and I am trying to some extent. I am not allowing her to move in. I want to go to MC first to build plans for when s#!t hits the fan. She agreed. She is allowing me to set the pace about everything. So any advice on how to R would bee appreciated.
I want to thank Sandi, LH, CW, Mr Brnside, Mumin, and everyone else who has provided me with support and guidance. I will continue to need it as I know this is a long road ahead but at least I finally feel like we (my W and I) are on the road when I was so lost in the forest before. I know this is all happening fast and I need to protect myself. But it is hard when I feel like I am getting back the person I love and the family I missed.
So please, any advice you may have will be appreciated.
