Merry Christmas robx and the rest of the DB community out there. Wouldn't have made it through this crappy year without all of you folks. I will toast to all of you and a better 2010 when I open a cold one tonight!
Hi Rob, I'm a little late to the fray. Here's what I have to say about the sitch: You are asking your wife to separate the ashes from the lentils of her life. She is forced to sit by the fire and take inventory. She brings the lentils picked from the ashes to you and hopes for admittance to the ball. Only the wicked stepmother is cruel enough to force someone to do this. Aschenputtel (the Grimm forerunner of Cinderella) is an allegory for taking stock of our lives. It is a task that your W just can't face.
I'm not saying that you don't need or deserve this information. I'm just saying that this is possibly more than she can bear.
You might make a spreadsheet for her Name EA/PANI/PA Month on-month done Info I need
I need to know names, EA or PA (w or w/o Intercourse), dates, and anything I need for social interaction (we jeopardized jobs, friends etc.) That way she knows what is expected. The interrogation won't be endless. After one year of transparency (reconciliation or not) the spreadsheet will be ritually burned along with any conversation about the matter. If there are any lies, even one, it's a dealbreaker....
It's an idea. Merry christmas, I'm off to wrap the last.
Robx, I'm trying to contact some of the men to go guide a newcomer in the WAW Sydrome forum. He apparently won't listen to me or wait to get the answers he needs. He is Maynard under Please Help.
Thanks
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!
I was just wondering how your situation is coming. It sounds great that your W is wanting to reconcile, but I can understand your issues of trust after the affair. There is a scripture in the bible. Forgive me I'm not that well veresed.
God asks a man to marry a prostitute. Things go well for some time and he loves her dearly. Eventually, she strays and becomes a prostitute again. She sinks to the lowest and ends up being a slave. The man ends up buying her back and forgives her despite her sin and indescretion. He loves her unconditionally and forgives her just as God forgives us. Think about that.
Me:49 W: 41 Kids=D14/D14/S10 Married: 15 Together: 16 Bomb: 08/26/09 Currently: separated but in the different houses.
Not sure if you've considered this aspect or not, so here goes. What's holding your W up from giving you the info you want could well be an unwillingness to face the depth and breadth of her own shame. It's a form of denial. And while denial does involve deceit, it doesn't quite carry the full weight of outright lies. Behind the shame is fear - fear of what you will think of her, fear of what SHE will think of herself and fear of what you will DO with the information she reveals.
Will you use it to bludgeon her with for the rest of her life?
Will you use it in a hostile divorce?
Will you use it to trash her name in the community?
Will you put it on a blog on the internet? etc.
If you can validate, and then alleviate, the fear and shame, she may move forward. Right now, you and she are in adversarial positions. Is there a way you can maintain your own boundaries and yet become a source of (emotional) support for her? Is there a way you can become a team instead of adversaries?
Yes, she does have to face her shame to move forward. She can do that best if she doesn't have to face any fears, rational or not, that you will rub her face in it.
The trouble with having an open mind is that people put things in it.
My sitch - Divorce Busted! http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1804137#Post1804137
Dia, sorry to hijack this stich but I have been reading yours and your advise is fantastic. I am on 'He is about to file - do I give up? Would really appreciate it if you could have a look at my stitch and give me some insight.
Many thanks L
Me 37 years young!! S11 S7 T22 M14 D final 13.05.2010 Today is the first day of the rest of my life!!! First post: D Day has arrived
I was just wondering how your situation is coming. It sounds great that your W is wanting to reconcile, but I can understand your issues of trust after the affair. There is a scripture in the bible. Forgive me I'm not that well veresed.
God asks a man to marry a prostitute. Things go well for some time and he loves her dearly. Eventually, she strays and becomes a prostitute again. She sinks to the lowest and ends up being a slave. The man ends up buying her back and forgives her despite her sin and indescretion. He loves her unconditionally and forgives her just as God forgives us. Think about that.
Took a break from the forums, only commented a few times in the past few days, as for my own situation, I spent new years eve with my kids and we had a great time, my wife spent it with her parents and was visibly affected by all of this - she forgot that she had done this to me the previous year - I reminded her that this is what joint custody was all about, sharing the kids and each of us would be losing out on specific dates.
Today she texted me easily 2 dozen times and also asked if I was ignoring her, that she wanted to talk to me, how I could easily brush her off, etc. etc. I was at the gym for a few hours and I missed the bulk of these texts but you can see how not replying to txt messages and phone calls can drive a spouse crazy, each msg was followed by another one only a few minutes later with a heightened sense of anxiety attached to each one.
She wants to talk badly, I told her to call me later in the evening after the kids are in bed and we can talk - we'll see what she wants to talk about ;-)
She came over tonight for a bit after I put the kids to bed.
She hasn't admitted anything, she looks very scared and she was crying quite a bit.
"No matter what i do from now on, it won't be good enough" "You're going to be angry with me" "You'll never forgive me" "I wasn't well before, I'm better now"
And then she mentioned that she's been going to personal counselling for her issues and she wants me to come there, I asked why, she said it would be easier to tell me things in that environment.
I just repeated the same things to her: - I won't live without honesty in my life, - I won't be with someone who lies and is deceitful and hides things from me - I won't be with her just because of the kids, my life is too valuable to waste in a loveless relationship - I am happy as is (and she knows it), joint custody works for me, I have no problems taking care of my kids and I could do this indefinitely
She talked about us, she mentioned that she wants her family back, she wants me back, she loves me, etc.
I told her that all those things are good things but I would only decide to be with her after she's been completely honest with me, regardless of how scary it is, I want to know what happened.
I told her that she doesn't have to tell me, she can keep her secrets but she has 0% chance of being with me if that's what she chooses.
I also told her that I won't guarantee that I would decide to take her back even if she admits what she has done and with who, she can't expect to tell me everything and just expect that I forgive her for what she's done and take her back. I told her that I could learn to forgive her in time but that was my decision to do so and it was also my decision if I wanted to be with her or not. If she would only admit to me what she has done on the condition that I take her back that she was still attempting to control me. When she lied to me in the past, it was her controlling me, that's what happens when people lie to other people, they are attempting to control the other person's reaction - when you're honest with someone, it can be scary but you have no control of the outcome other than the fact that you were honest.
She cried for a bit, and I held her because she needed it, it was the kind of sobbing that makes a person's body tremble uncontrollably. (trust me, been there, done that) I'm not an ass, regardless of my decision in the end with her, I wouldn't let anyone regardless of what they did to me, disintegrate with that kind of emotion & fear in their body. She's holding on to alot of pain, anxiety, fear, etc.
She thanked me for listening before leaving our home, I told her to drive safe and to get some rest because she has an early morning shift at work tomorrow and that was that. She asked if we could talk again tomorrow, told her to call me tomorrow and I'd let her know if I was available in the evening or not.
I handled it well, I'm actually feeling really good about all of this, I wasn't an ass, I validated her feelings while we talked because I really did listen but I also made my stance clear on all of this and I feel good about that.
I've never seen anyone so sad & afraid to lose someone as i did tonight.
The floodgates on all of this will soon open, you can feel it (well I can feel it, my intuition has greatly increased over the past couple of years, I'm just really good at reading people), the words almost left her lips this evening about what she had done, you could tell in her breathing, the way she was talking, her body language, etc.
