The Lure of the Siren

[Arsene]

Thanks AT. This means a lot to me. Cheers!

[Arsene]

Arsene, I also agree that you need to take things at your own pace. I also had a very limited circle of friends, and after nearly two yeas, I finally have some friends (though it's still a work in progress.)

Things take time. I think you're seeing some positive signs from your W. She doesn't seem to be pulling away. I can't imagine how hard it must be to deal with the thoughts of the OM, but you are doing it and dealing with it the best way you can.

Sending you support and comfort...

Thanks Tori,

That is the way I see it now. I might change my mind later and if I do, I'll change what I do accordingly. This morning, I interacted with W a bit as she woke up here and took D8 to school. The interaction was pleasant but nothing more. I think it bothered her that I was out last night. That's ok. She then talked again about the art show tomorrow and reiterated her invitation for tomorrow afternoon. I asked about the details and said I'd see.

I'm rethinking things right now and I might just send D8 with her and let them spend the day together. Besides, I have something to do tomorrow evening anyway. I'm the jury for a CD compilation competition at the cafe where I play. Heck I'm even thinking about telling W to keep D8 with her overnight and take her to school on Monday. I can tell her I could use some time to myself.

I think that would be totally unexpected. I feel detached right now but I know it might not last. I was reading Denver's thread last night and I'm at the point when they just came back from Disneyland. Denver was going through a lot of the same thoughts I am right now.

Sometimes I wonder if it's a good thing to learn from others or if we just have to go through it ourselves. I mean Denver followed his gut a lot and made many mistakes. Would he be where he is now if it wasn't for the mistakes? Would he have gotten there sooner? Would he have gotten there at all? Sometimes, the very things we do to avoid a situation, end up creating what we are trying to avoid. Right now, I'm for learning from Denver's thread but following my gut. I think if I truly want to be where I need to be, I need to live it myself. I can't just make myself be there. Life needs to do that.

Cheers!

[Denver_2010]

I was reading Denver's thread last night and I'm at the point when they just came back from Disneyland. Denver was going through a lot of the same thoughts I am right now.

Sometimes I wonder if it's a good thing to learn from others or if we just have to go through it ourselves. I mean Denver followed his gut a lot and made many mistakes. Would he be where he is now if it wasn't for the mistakes? Would he have gotten there sooner? Would he have gotten there at all? Sometimes, the very things we do to avoid a situation, end up creating what we are trying to avoid. Right now, I'm for learning from Denver's thread but following my gut. I think if I truly want to be where I need to be, I need to live it myself. I can't just make myself be there. Life needs to do that.

Cheers!

Those are good questions Arsene. And I have asked myself many of those questions over the past several months. Could I have fixed my situation sooner and avoided months of more frustration and pain had I made the choice to NOT let my W back into my life so easily at different points. OR, if I had done that, would I have killed my chances to be where I am today.

The answer for me NOW is that it simply doesn't matter. I am where I am, whatever the reasons, and I am happy about that.

The one point in my sitch that I continually go back to when pondering this is at the end of May/beginning of June of 2011. What has become known as the 'toilet incident'. I clearly busted my W violating the boundaries that I set. She tried use the omission excuse... that she hadn't ever, up to that point, affirmatively stated that OM was out of her life. But she knew my boundary, she knew what my expectations were, and she knew that she was wrong. I will never get her to admit that, but that is neither here nor there now, or for this post.

When that happened, I told her that I was done, filing for D, and told her not to contact me. None of those things was I actually ready to follow up on, so I should not have said them. In any case, she followed that day by calling my telephone 36 times in a single night. I was not answering. The next day, she cut off my cell phone altogether to basically force me to contact her, which I did. I had to.

When I did, she baited me into R talk and basically sold me some more snake oil. She told me that she needed some time to herself without talking to me or OM. She was going on a trip and that we would see where she was when she got back. Two weeks later, we spoke again. At this time, I told her again, more forcefully, that I would not be in her life as long as OM was. She seemed to agree to abide by that.

So I let her back into my life based upon those two conversations. We went to Disney World a few weeks later... where again I busted her violating my boundary when I checked her email and found that she had still been contacting OM.

I kind of went off the rails at that point. Almost made a mistake with an OW... actually did go on a few dates with OW... and went completely dark on W. I vowed to myself though that I would not allow myself, or my W, to be wishy washy about my boundaries. This was at the end of July/beginning of August of 2011. I believe from that point forward I was not wishy washy. I enforced my boundary pretty well from that time forward. She did cross it again a couple of different times, and both times resulted in me removing myself from her life. I no longer threatened things that I was not ready to follow through on, such as D. I simply refused to have contact with her.

But it was the point in June where I chose to let her back into my life, where I chose to go ahead and go on that trip to Disney World that I often look back on as a watershed moment where MAYBE I could have expedited the process. Had I followed through and said, 'no. I'm not letting you back into my life so easily. You blatantly violated the boundary that I set. I don't care if you think that you did not life simply because you omitted the fact that you were still seeing OM. I am done having contact with you until you completely cut off contact. And you will not be going on our family trip to Disney World. I don't care if you think that is unfair. I will not have this in my life. I am done with it." If I had followed through without that, while not talking about D (because I had not reached that point), MAYBE, just MAYBE, it would have woken her up to what she was doing... exactly what she told me 12 months later when I finally DID do that (but with the added piece of asking for D). Maybe my sitch would have ended there, and I wold have saved myself 12 months of more torture.

But I don't know. And I never will.

The other thing that could have happened is that it could have led to the end of my M.

I will never know.

Doesn't keep me from wondering though.

----

I will say this though Arsene... the difference between my sitch at that time and your sitch now, is that I had laid down that boundary. I may have let her off of the hook too easily, but she knew that boundary.

Your W has no boundaries.

A second difference is that I had much more too make up for. From what I know about your sitch, I was a much bigger a$$hole in my prior R/M with my W than you ever were with your wife. I let that affect many of my choices back then. I hadn't forgiven myself at that point.

A third difference is that when my W did choose to have OM in her life, knowing that I would not be, I let her be. This part I am talking about occurred after the Disney trip. I no longer allowed her to play both sides of the fence. She knew that if she was in contact with OM, that I would not be there for her to lean on or to spend time with.

And it was THOSE times that my W truly had the chance to see that OM was NOT what she wanted. And that what she DID want was me and our M. Yes, it took her time to get passed some other aspects, ie, forgiving me for past hurt, and getting over fear that things would go back to being bad if she did make that leap back towards our M. But it gave her the time to travel her own path... to investigate other life choices that she COULD make if she ended up deciding that they were better for her.

Ultimately, the answer to that was that those other choices were not better for her.

I don't think that she would have gotten there had I lingered around during those times.

Lastly, I was not physically capable of letting myself be in her life knowing that she was having contact with OM. That just isn't me though.

---

It's is funny that you chose to talk about that part of my sitch because I think that it really was one of the top two or three points of the entire ordeal. It was a time that I could have made the choice to do something completely different than I did.

Right or wrong though, I did it my way. And I did travel my own path doing my best to use DB and the advice here to guide me.

I lived pretty much the entire gambit of it all.

So I understand what you are doing Arsene. All I can do is give you advice from what I see on the outside looking in, and based upon my own experience. I will add though that sometimes others do see your own situation better because they are not in the fishbowl. That's why it is easier to give other people advice than it is to follow the same advice yourself. (not speaking about you specifically... but of everyone).

Not going to edit this because I am tired... so I apologize in advance if it doesn't entirely make sense.

[MKB23]

I don't mean to but in or be late here but something struck me about the not telling people also. For me, I felt shamed. I KNOW I did nothing wrong. However, by telling people that we were separated it almost felt like validating the horrible thought that I am not good enough or OW is better than me in some way. You know the old saying not woman enough to keep her man? Yeah. I bought into that. Not that it was smart. I still sort of buy into it in some ways.
I am ashamed. It makes me feel like I am broken when I have to say we are separated.
However, I have learned the hard way that things do NOT improve until all of the ugly truth is in the light.
Meaning..... so what? It's wasn't your choice but don't for one minute let LBS minimize your pain and your feelings by then lying and denying to everyone on the outside so that they can save face. It is fear of the consequences that keeps them from telling in the first place. It is fear of how peoples opinions might change, it is also fear that those feelings and opinions might be right! It nags on their conscience and lord knows the LBS hates it when the conscience rears it's ugly head. That might mean they are actually WRONG. Hmmmm.

I'm not sure if all that makes sense. I sort of got off on a rant. Could your not wanting to tell people be more reflective of being afraid of how you assume people might change their opinion of you more than her?

[Denver_2010]

I don't mean to but in or be late here but something struck me about the not telling people also. For me, I felt shamed. I KNOW I did nothing wrong. However, by telling people that we were separated it almost felt like validating the horrible thought that I am not good enough or OW is better than me in some way. You know the old saying not woman enough to keep her man? Yeah. I bought into that. Not that it was smart. I still sort of buy into it in some ways.
I am ashamed. It makes me feel like I am broken when I have to say we are separated.
However, I have learned the hard way that things do NOT improve until all of the ugly truth is in the light.
Meaning..... so what? It's wasn't your choice but don't for one minute let LBS minimize your pain and your feelings by then lying and denying to everyone on the outside so that they can save face. It is fear of the consequences that keeps them from telling in the first place. It is fear of how peoples opinions might change, it is also fear that those feelings and opinions might be right! It nags on their conscience and lord knows the LBS hates it when the conscience rears it's ugly head. That might mean they are actually WRONG. Hmmmm.

I'm not sure if all that makes sense. I sort of got off on a rant. Could your not wanting to tell people be more reflective of being afraid of how you assume people might change their opinion of you more than her?

That is dead on. Good post!

[MKB23]

I meant the WAS not the LBS. Sigh. I'm getting sleepy.

[ForeverYoung]

Yes, she might still be with OM (she's spending so much time around these days that I actually wonder if he's still in the picture) .

Your wife spending more time with you is a good thing. After all, that's part of the end goal here, right? To have your wife WITH YOU.

I thought Michele was very clear in DR. If the goal is to preserve your marriage, you may have to wait out an affair.

As men, we view being treated with honor and respect by our wives to be of utmost importance, so to me it is quite understandable that some are questioning your approach, and are advising you to cut her off. I don't know if that would draw her closer to you, and frankly neither does anyone else.

[chatterbug]

FY you seem to be mistaking the DR approach with the do not upset the WS at all costs approach. Michele does not promote being a doormat. Being polite and honourable and respectful is not being a doormat.

The end goal is not having your wife with you.

If that is your goal then its just round two and you will be back here again down the road. This is the mistake that Arnse is making with his version of the nice-guy bo-peep approach. No boundaries and no structure. Pick what you want to hear. Tune out the rest.

The end goal is to recommitte to a new relationship built around communication, truth, and boundaries and knowing you are going to be fine if you chose a different path.

[bustingout]

I don't mean to but in or be late here but something struck me about the not telling people also. For me, I felt shamed. I KNOW I did nothing wrong. However, by telling people that we were separated it almost felt like validating the horrible thought that I am not good enough or OW is better than me in some way. You know the old saying not woman enough to keep her man? Yeah. I bought into that. Not that it was smart. I still sort of buy into it in some ways.
I am ashamed. It makes me feel like I am broken when I have to say we are separated.
However, I have learned the hard way that things do NOT improve until all of the ugly truth is in the light.
Meaning..... so what? It's wasn't your choice but don't for one minute let LBS minimize your pain and your feelings by then lying and denying to everyone on the outside so that they can save face. It is fear of the consequences that keeps them from telling in the first place. It is fear of how peoples opinions might change, it is also fear that those feelings and opinions might be right! It nags on their conscience and lord knows the LBS hates it when the conscience rears it's ugly head. That might mean they are actually WRONG. Hmmmm.

I'm not sure if all that makes sense. I sort of got off on a rant. Could your not wanting to tell people be more reflective of being afraid of how you assume people might change their opinion of you more than her?

That is dead on. Good post!

I echo that! Excellent

[bustingout]

The end goal is to recommitte to a new relationship built around communication, truth, and boundaries and knowing you are going to be fine if you chose a different path.

well said. Thanks chatterbug