Not true. It's amazing what FEAR will make you do - it amazing how FEAR hijacks your powers of reason, causes you to lose your self respect and to supplicate to an adulterous wife.
Mr Mom, stand up for yourself my friend - your wife will respect you when you start respecting yourself and taking the control away from her. Gather some incontrovertible evidence of her affair and use it at the court hearing to make sure your kids aren't allowed to have anything to do with OM.
Ya know GH I never looked at it that way but its true. Fear of loosing, fear of change, fear of being alone, all those feelings made me pursue, chase, beg and fold. I know what I'm doing isn't going to change her but I am changing myself and am starting to stand taller. She texted me yesterday and I told her that I will not be meeting her to pick up the kids on her terms and would be working late. She didn't reply for over an hour and just said ok when she did. She called me later a couple of times throughout the day to talk about the kids but I did not fold. I'm going to call her tomorrow and tell her tha tI will be removing her and her car from the ins policy. This should cause some dramma but if she wants to be with OM then she can get him to pay for it. I will not anymore.
I have be working on changing my life for the better, GAL and within the last week I have achieved a few goals that I had made a while back and thought that I would share them:
1. Been working out regularly and eating.(I had lost 20lbs since first bomb)
2. Got in touch with and talked to some old friends. Found this to be very helpful as one friend has been though D just recently.
3. Went to a concert with friends and had a great time. I hadent been to a concert in years. (spending time with friends was the goal, concert was a bonus)
4. Made appointment with dentist to get teeth whitened. Figure this would be a good confidence booster.
5. Taken on all responsibilities around the house. Paying bills, cleaning, dogs, cleaning, yard maintenance, trash and recycling, cleaning, gardening, vehicle maintenance and oh did I add cleaning?
6. Connect with the kids as much as possible and give them support and stability they deserve. In the last few weeks the kids and I have had a ton of fun and at the same time learning.
Those are just the bigger ones for now. I just wanted to journal these and be able to look back at goals I have accomplished and be able to see that good has come from this.
I could use some advice form anyone willing. I posted this in the infidelity forum the other day. I go into a little more detail about what I think got me here and my sitch and was hoping that this forum with more traffic could help:
Originally Posted By: Mr Mom
FF, I have read your posts and have found them to be very helpful. I glad your here and offering help to others. If you have a moment to read this post I would really love to hear your perspective on my sitch.
My sitch is unique (like everyone else here) mostly because of my lack of expression of emotion in a healthy way and how easily I would just shut down and not communicate with my W. When we would argue I would stop talking to her and sometimes that would last for days. My inability to express emotions in a healthy way would get worse as time went by because I would just hold it all in. Well of course over time I would be irritable, on edge and even get angry over nothing. This grew into her feeling as though she couldn't tell me about things that she thought would make me angry.(this is what she says anyway) Over time she was hiding a lot of stuff and when I would find out about it I would get angry but the anger was not about the issue but about her feeling like she cant tell me about the issue and that she was hiding things from me because she felt afraid of my reaction. This hurt me deeply. Now yes I admit that I would over react at times but a lot of this is her just not communicating with me and just blaming me for a reaction that I haven't given her. Does that make sense?
My question to you is does it really make sense to go dark on my WAW when this is just the same old ME, closed up and not communicating unless she initiates? I know that right now shes gone and I cant change that and giving her an ultimatum right now doesn't make sense.
Originally Posted By: FightingFit
Mr Mom... I understand your regret over your failures in your marriage. And its commendable too. AND so healthy and necessary that we see them and see our part in a marriage breakdown.
But ONE thing you ALSO need to consider is this - you were always that way and for a long time she was fine with you BEING that way, it was clearly acceptable enough for her, and part of your personality, a part she didnt like sure but we all have things we dont like in our partner (bad temper, nasty silent treatment, not listening, we ALL have them.) REmember that when someone has an affair, they will do and say anything to justify it and no i am not saying they are LYING, those issues ARE real, but they are also used to camoflauge and explain BAD IMMORAL BEHAVIOUR and you have a RIGHT to point that out at all times in a loving way.
ie "I hear you saying I never listened to you and I was emotionally absent and I agree, and I believe I am working on that very much FOR MY OWN SAKE - but it doesnt excuse you for having an affair and trying to walk out on this marriage with another MAN before trying to work out our marriage."
you can only apologise and grovel so long for mistakes made in the marriage - if they are not prepared to accept your apology and take A RISK ON YOU to see if you really ARE trying to change then ask yourself (and THEM) this! "Why is is you were very ready to take a dangerous and RECKLESS and IMMORAL risk with this MAN, when you are not prepared to take a risk for ME and our MARRIAGE?" it is a GOOD question and its a VALID one.
Other things to point out to the cheating OW: if this other man is so supurb I wonder why he finds it ok to be a homewrecker and not WAIT FOR YOU? ie I beleive if he were a REAL man he'd want to be sure you were making the right choice and surely he'd want to have some INTEGRITY and tell you to not COME BACK til it was OVER. says a lot about what kind of man he is?!?! do you WANT that kind of man? if he did it with you he can do it TO YOU. better hope a sexy 19 yo doesnt come prowling!
Absolutely yes shes going to regret her behavior and for sure not giving it more of a try with you but the point is it can be all too late by then for you, if you move on emotionally (DETACH) and then its too late to regret anything anyway. And heres the kicker Mr Mom: your working on yourself now and is she FULLY PREPARED to take the risk that another woman might just end up with ALL HER HARD WORK (and thats exactly what happens yanno!)
regarding the fact you were always emotionally absent so you wonder if going dark now is good for anything, your probably right, i would guess she 'tests' you. but the point is you should tell her "no testing. you want to know how prepared I am to change and how much I want to be different then you be my wife to see that change, because its not fair to ME to make me express how I feel to you when you dont care". and it isnt, either, is it.
in your case... you might think of expressing these thoughts into a compassionate, logical letter to her; make it warm and loving (demonstrating your change!) but not whining or begging. give her some points to think about.
then leave it in her court. work on you. love your life as much as you can. put your head down and one foot in front of the other. one day you'll look up and the worst is past.
I would like to get others opinion on FF's idea about the letter and if I should do this. I started writing but found it hard to not cross the begging line or write in a way that is not angry. I guess if I were to do this it would have to be straight froward with no apologies and no blaming but loving at the same time. I just cant figure out how to do this or if I even should because I know that it goes against the DB rule.
Here is the final letter (besides email) that I wrote to my W and it may give you some ideas...
Nui,
The time has come to make the decision of whether to finish getting a divorce. If you cannot say that you will try to come back and be my loving wife, I will be preparing the financial papers again this weekend and get them to my lawyer next week so he can prepare a divorce agreement offer. I have been more than patient waiting for you to figure out if you will return to our marriage. It seems that many times you have other excuses for not focusing on our marriage situation and it makes me feel like a person hanging in limbo with no idea of his future. I hope you can understand it from my side.
You know where I stand, and that is for marriage and family. I want the loving wife I promised to spend the rest of my life with back. I want our kids to grow up under the guidance and example of two loving parents. My wife and children's happiness have always been my number one priority. It hurts me to know that maybe there was something wrong with me that caused you to go outside the sanctity of our marriage and seek the attention of other men in the nightclubs and to be living in the house of another man for the last 5 months. Maybe it was not me, but you; however I still wonder if there was anything I could have done different to not have had this happen.
I have not seen much from you showing that you want to try and make our marriage work. You say you don't know if you can change - what that means to me is that you don't want to change. Anyone can change if they want to. A good marriage takes work, commitment and flexibility from both a husband and a wife to keep the love alive. I have always been willing to do all I can to fix any faults or improve on any conflicts we may have. I have a vision of a future where both of us develop a stronger love for one another, but I know that will only come with dedicated work from you and from me. We both can't just snap our fingers and be back to where we were the day we got married. I do believe that in time we can get our love for one another to a higher level than what we had when we first got married.
Another thing you have mentioned recently is that you think I am too strong and would be too demanding or take advantage of you or ignore your requests if you came back. I suspect you got this idea from Aey, who is a good and well meaning friend, but maybe not the best person to get relationship advice from considering how many failed relationships she has had. Maybe she has seen something before in another relationship where the left behind spouse was a jerk when they tried to rebuild the marriage. I hope you know me well enough by now to know that I am an easygoing guy that would not take advantage of anyone, much less my own wife. If our marriage were to be restored, your happiness is as important to me as my own and I would want to do all I could so as to not make you feel trapped by restraints in our marriage.
I think if you have concerns about our marriage not working out if you came back, a counselor would be a much better person to discuss these things with. Personal counseling is something I think would be good for you along with marriage counseling for both of us so as to rebuild a marriage back to something that is much better than before.
I can't beg and plead for you to come back. That makes me appear weak and needy. I don't need you to live my life happily; however, I want you as my loving wife because I know we are so good together. There are no magic words I can say that will bring you back to me. You have to want me and our family life. Only you can truly make yourself happy
You seem like a lost person right now as you don't seem to know what you want out of your life or how to go about doing it. I have always hoped that something would snap in your mind and you would finally come to the conclusion that what we had as a couple and family together was so very special. Think seriously about your direction in life. I have thought a lot about my family, my self and what our life together could be. I know we can achieve great success as a family together.
If we get divorced, it is not only going to be tough emotionally, but we are going to have to make some financial sacrifices. Don't let this be the reason you come back. I only want you back if you really want and love me. Also, don't come back just for the kid's sake even though they want you back so badly. If we can't both be deeply in love with one another that is not a good family environment. I would much prefer that they see their parents happy in a loving relationship even if it is not between you and me, but with someone else.
Divorce is a terrible thing that leaves a scar on all involved. You and I both miss the full time with the kid's as do the kid's themselves miss spending full time with each of us. I know that in the event of a divorce that we both will try as hard as possible to minimize the affects of the divorce on our precious children.
Nui, I so dearly loved you and don't want to lose you. But if it is meant to be, I will move on, recover from this painful divorce and find someone else to share my life with. I want to have someone love me deeply for who I am and for me to love them more than my own life. I want to be the rock of a husband for the special lady in my life. Will that person be you?
Kerry, While you are asking her to take some responsibility there are elements of pleading which may have empowered her to continue along the wayward path. With an OM providing emotional support getting them to turn around is a tall order. In retrospect would you send the same letter again? (BTW I reached out this way at every major checkpoint in the process to no avail until I had tangible proof that the point-of-no-return was crossed)
The financial and social consequences of divorce clearly determines why the divorce rate in India for 1st time marriages is ~1% and in the US ~50%. If what your W did was not "rewarded" she would have thought 10 times. In the old days adultery was a huge punishable criminal offense. Now, esp. in the US, where serial monogamy and even adultery is socially acceptable, it is often rewarding.
