WW in A. NC or not NC? Unsure. LImbo. (4th thread)

[Ginger1]

^^^^^ THAT

[hoosjim]

Coconut, I am going to ask you to be a bit contemplative and introspective here and answer what might be a difficult question for you. I am also going to ask Sandi to chime in as well if she sees this, at the potential risk of board comity.

I have read over a good bit of your earlier threads, describing your sitch and your ultimate break-up with your W. I know you have said here on my thread that you truly believe that if you had separated completely for 6 months things might have gone differently with you and your W. As you said and as you noticed, I have seen some similarities between your sitch and mine, notably that W shows some early signs of cutting the cord with OM, but then suspicious (though not conclusive things) show up later. While you say you think a 6 month separation would have helped you, I am going to ask you (and Sandi) if you think that OTOH there might have been a "sweet spot" somewhere in there where your W actually WAS willing to work things out and cut off the A but you could not (and very arguably rightfully so, given the sitch) bring yourself to trust her and every little thing that came up became a trigger that sparked some sort of confrontation or served as a reminder of the lack of trust. It certainly seems that Sandi, Wonka, and others thought that this might have been the case-- that she was doing some very encouraging things and that at some point you maybe have to make a decision to take the leap and try to start rebuilding the trust and good feelings. I am saying this not at all to discredit you, because you have experience here and I value your input... rather, I am trying to make sure I do not miss some opportunity that might be out there with my own W by jumping to too many conclusions or going off the deep end or pushing her when she is already moving in my direction. And I am NOT saying that that (her moving in my direction) is necessarily the case either... but I am trying to discern that.

I note that Sandi and Wonka in particular seemed to think things were moving in a very positive direction and that you had a pretty good shot. Did you ultimately find out that it was ALL Bulls**t and that your W was fully engage in the A the whole time, or is it possible that the comabativeness between the two of you and the continued suspicion (and jealousy?) might have pushed her in the opposite direction or at least made her more hesitant about committing to returning to you? Again, I know, perhaps a hard question, but these are hard situations and the stakes are high. Want to make sure I am fully exploring all facets of this thing.

And, again, interested in Sandi's take on this as well.

Thanks, all, and again, Coconut, PLEASE don't take this as me "calling you out"... I am really just trying to learn, and i DO see some similarites between your and my sitch (although from reading I think our respective W's are very different people... and at different points in their lives and prolly in their respecive A'
s as well)

[hoosjim]

So, here's the deal.

W is really, truly "No Contacting". Can I be 100% certain? No, but, then again, nothing ever is. We talked last night. I had been going to talk to her anyway about transparency and proving trustworthiness, etc., and then there was a bit of a rough spot due to her staying out later than anticipated yesterday, so that got layered into it as well.

She had stayed after work with several co-workers, male and female, to have a "wine-down". I knew she might be going to be doing this, but assumed she would confirm if she WERE going to based on her saying "we have one of these coming up and Thursday but I don't know if I will be done with my work on time to do it" and it has bugged me in the past, particularly during the depths of the Affair, because she wouldn't tell me when she was coming back and would just show up really late with little explanation. Also, I didn't think she would be staying after, or at least for long, as she had indicated she would be dropping by my hangout after work. Last night, Thursday, is my afternoon/evening to leave work early and go to happy hour at an outdoor patio near our home where they have live music. She knows she has an open invite to stop by, and had told me she would do so yesterday. We had talked briefly by phone around 4:45 and she said she would call me "when she was leaving." Around 5:30, she texts me that they were "waiting for the doctors to finish" (she works in a medical office) but no indication as to WON that was so they could leave or so they could crack open the bottles of wine. Nothing for an hour from her, at which point I texted her "Music's great, what's your status, girl?". Fifteen minutes after my text, she responds (6:45): "Okay I will call on my way out" then me: "What's holdup", then her "Finishing glass of wine with _______, _____, and ___________, 7:30 goal" Then, at 7:20 "Still good, 7:45". I call her at 7:30 and she is talking with friends and says she is "almost done", and is clearly getting a little tipsy. I ask if she's okay to drive and she says "yeah, I think so". Then, at 8:05 text from her "are your friends still there? Leaving in 5." She calls me at same time but I don't hear ringer, no message left. At 8:15, music has ended where I am, my friends pay tab and leave and so do I. I am pretty annoyed by this time, so I head over to her office, partly because I am pretty sure she is not okay to drive, and partly because I'm ticked at her for blowing me off and partly because she didn't really let me know ahead of time what she would be doing and for how long. I call her just down block from her office, about 825 and ask "Whatcha doing" and she says "leaving Arlington, are you still at bar?" and I say "No, Im coming to give you a ride", to which she says, "okay, just let me say goodbye and I'll come down." (Obviously, she was not actualy "leaving"...) Nearly TEN minutes later, I get tired of waiting and go up to her office and knock. She is in there, of course, and comes out with another girl she works with. I give her a ride, we stop to eat and have a drink and talk a bit, and then more when we got home.

That whole episode sort of dovetailed into my ongoing concern with her that I had already intended to discuss that she doesn't really "get" a) how serious a deal her affair was b) how much it hurt me and c) how much the affair and then her subsequent breaking of her no contact promise damaged my trust in her and that I don't really feel like she is interested in doing what is necessary to restore that trust.

So I started with that, beginning with "Hey, when I came to pick you up, I was really happy for you to see that you were having a good time and enjoying yourself with your friends at work, and that you were able to be there and enjoy each others company, because I know how much they all like you there and I know how hard you guys work during the week..." (It is a very, very hectic office, and my W is a very "magnetic" person that everyone there just adores, and she has told me she worries about "being able to be herself" and hang out with friends or stay after work or such because she worries about second guessing herself because of having violated my trust in her). Continuing... "However, while I really appreciate what you have been doing with texting me where you are and so forth, I really feel like you still do not understand or respect the dynamic between you and me right now, and are not showing me the respect and consideration you should, or trying to do what needs to be done to restore trust." (and none of these are exact words, I am a really crappy "Dictaphone.") I explained to her that when she goes from "not sure she is going to stay" to "waiting for doctor" (with no explanation of what that portends) to "having wine, leaving when done" and then to "7" and then to "730" and then "8:00" in dribs and drabs and then "Im leaving now" (when she's not actually leaving) is not exactly the best way to restore trust, especially when I think she's going to be somewhere else (and particularly when that somewhere else is with me). If she's going to stay after like that, she needs to let me know when and where ahead of time.

She wasn't all that happy about that, saying she had "told me" and that she "texted me regularly" and that she felt like she was "doing a lot" and "what she was supposed be doing." And, like I have said in previous posts, she probably believes that. Detailed and heartfelt "Mea Culpas" have NEVER been her thing. Ever. She is also extremely stubborn. I have a BIT of mixed feelings about this particular episode-- like there was a communication gap or something and that maybe I "jumped on her" at a bad time, when she is trying to move towards openness-- BUT... I also DO feel like there was definitely a degree of being inconsiderate on her part, as well as some disrespect, intentional or not, and a lack of... something. Idunno. She was somewhat defensive about it, saying "You know, there's a part of me... the "bad, witchy woman" part... that wants to ask you "Okay, I am doing all of these things you want me to do [meaning no contact with OM, transparency, telling me her plans, texting me, etc.], what are YOU going to do for ME?"" And she then said she knows that that's not really the right attitude to have, but it IS how a part of how she feels. She also said that part of her does bristle when I say how much the A hurt me (for past 6 months) and hurt our trust when she has "all those years" of hurt built up when she felt like she was "dying inside" etc etc. (And I totally understand, listen to, and validate her feelings of hurt and having been neglected, and have taken ownership of that repeatedly, even as I have also told her that I don't for a second consider that as an excuse for the affair). And she has said she knows that that is not an excuse and that what she did was wrong.

We also talked about trust and transparency in the larger sense. I related last night to her wanting to go have lunch with bff after having been away for weekend at beach with bff (remember that bff has been at least complicit in and quite likely actively involved in facilitating it), and that it was the same sort of thing as last night where she does not seem to fully understand or appreciate the loss of trust and/or does not seem all that interested in respecting my feelings and doing the things necessary to regain my trust. (MC is on permanent hold right now, because I have told her I am not sure I see the point-- she has not seemed committed to trustworthiness, let alone to working on anything in the MR ) I told her that I know she is doing a bunch of things, and that I really appreciate those and that she is maintaining NC with OM, but that I hadn't seen anything that makes me think she is REALLY committed to that... Told her I didn't know "what had been said to OM, and when, and by whom, regarding her decision to NC", and that she had not done anything to really open herself up in terms of transparency with her phone. She said nothing had been said to OM, that she just stopped contacting him "cold turkey". Regarding her phone, she just unlocked it, handed it to me, and said "look." It was a completely surprise request by me, so she'd had no warning to delete or erase anything. There were no suspicious apps on it, no DMs in FB messenger, OM had been unfriended... She had NOT blocked OM on messenger, but there was no evidence of any communication for about a month (interestingly, there was a group chat DM he had sent in FB still there from a little over a month ago, which she said she did not even know about, which seems to mesh with her telling me that she doesn't even use FB messenger anymore). She blocked him on that app last night and gave me her phone password.

There was some other talk, too, mostly volunteered by her, that she still "doesn't know how it [relationship with OM] got to that point". She knows it was wrong and that she crossed the line, and she knows that she was hurting and angry and resentful, but she can't pinpoint at what time she "thought it was okay to do what I did or else got past the point of caring that it was wrong and that I just wanted to do what I wanted to do" or pinpoint what the exact action/time/incident was that put her "across the line." She also copped to still "thinking about him [OM]" and "missing him, and the way he made me laugh." Which hurts to hear, but at least she's being honest, I guess...

At any rate, she is being increasingly open about the A (not that I am all that interested in the grim details) and appears to be willing to share, be open and somewhat transparent, etc., although she is clearly still stubborn and defensive about it to a certain degree-- which, to her credit, she admits. To almost every indication, though, she is maintaining No Contact with OM.

Which puts me, exactly, where? She still has, at best, conflicted feelings about me. We laugh and talk and joke and connect on about every level, socially, intellectually, etc., except intimately. She no longer pulls back when I touch her, but neither has she warmed up to me that much, and still says she "doesn't feel that spark" with me that she wants to feel and that she feels like "we both deserve." She is a little more comfortable around me socially in a group than she had been (last night picking her up her work friend pulled my sleeve up to see my tattoo and she was like "Hey there, watch your hand on my man, there.") She is also clearly still down in the dumps sometimes, though having friends around and/or doing things (even with me) seems to cheer her up. I have told her that "maybe we need some time apart" (which seemed to jolt her a bit), and maybe we do. She wants to do some of this workbook program that our MC gave us which is about healing from an Affair-- but I am uncertain. Maybe we need to put that on hold too until we have both had some time to ourselves to reflect on all of this and figure out where/who we are.



As a final note, since OM has apparently not been explicitly told "do not contact me" (though W says he knows she and I are "working on things") I am feeling like he and I need to have a talk. Putting this at the top of my "to do" list: 1) Have "Stay the Hell away from my wife" talk with sleazy OM. 2) Try hard (but not too hard) not to kick his sorry a$$.

[doodler]

As a final note, since OM has apparently not been explicitly told "do not contact me" (though W says he knows she and I are "working on things") I am feeling like he and I need to have a talk. Putting this at the top of my "to do" list: 1) Have "Stay the Hell away from my wife" talk with sleazy OM. 2) Try hard (but not too hard) not to kick his sorry a$$.

hoosjim,

I think talking to the OM is a good thing to do. From what I've seen, not too many husbands do that. You don't want to do anything that will cause you to spend some time in jail, but I've got no issues with putting the fear in the OM.

[Tread]

Also for the record. Messenger has a secretary messenger section that automatically deletes messages for you after the other person reads it. That's what my W and OM started using after I was discovering messages in regular messenger. Great app for the cheater who forgets to delete their messages. So just be aware of that.

[hoosjim]

Our carrier logs all SMS messages, even deleted ones. She'd have to get a dedicated app like whatsapp or Viber or the like. I thought she had downloaded text she received, but the explanation could have been otherwise-- there are other possible explanations, and neither of those apps, nor any others, were on her phone last night. And she had NO advance warning that I was going to bring that (phone transparency) up.

Of course, if someone wants to cheat, they will always find a way. I can think up probably two dozen without even trying, most obviously that OM is still calling her on her work phone or that bff is serving as a go between where it would just look like W was talking with bff. (Bff hangs out at bar and sometimes with same crowd OM hangs with. Wouldn't be at all a big deal for her to dial up my W and say "here, OM wants to talk to you", although opportunities for this are even much less since these days, in the evenings, she is almost always with me or the boys.

[hoosjim]

You don't want to do anything that will cause you to spend some time in jail...

^^^ Ya think?

Actually, I have a cousin who's done two stints in the joint, and has been quite graphic about what its like, so I have NO desire to end up there myself.

Would love, love, LOVE, however for OM to take a poke at me so I could kick HIS a$$ AND have HIM thrown in the clink...

[doodler]

^^^ Ya think?

Well, I came very close to going to the pokey. When I saw the OM I was freaking livid and my brain shut-down. Luckily a nice cop intervened.

[Coconut]

Coconut, I am going to ask you to be a bit contemplative and introspective here and answer what might be a difficult question for you. I am also going to ask Sandi to chime in as well if she sees this, at the potential risk of board comity. )

Not difficult for me to try and answer (I no longer am on a roller coaster ride of emotions regarding my sitch), but while I’m able to provide introspective on my own sitch when I learn or realize new things, it’s not so easy for me to apply the same detailed introspection to others, which is why most posts are usually short and to the point. But I’ll try my best to give the details I think you’re looking for.

I know you have said here on my thread that you truly believe that if you had separated completely for 6 months things might have gone differently with you and your W. As you said and as you noticed, I have seen some similarities between your sitch and mine, notably that W shows some early signs of cutting the cord with OM, but then suspicious (though not conclusive things) show up later. While you say you think a 6 month separation would have helped you, I am going to ask you (and Sandi) if you think that OTOH there might have been a "sweet spot" somewhere in there where your W actually WAS willing to work things out and cut off the A but you could not (and very arguably rightfully so, given the sitch) bring yourself to trust her and every little thing that came up became a trigger that sparked some sort of confrontation or served as a reminder of the lack of trust.

Ok, here’s the thing, contact with OM or not, she’s not recommitted to you or the MR, and neither of you have had the time, space, or put in the work to be able to not only recommit but also to form a truly healthy MR going forward. I wanted nothing more than to save my M, and I don’t think my W wanted to deal with any stress, guilt, or negative feelings from others regarding the A, so I believe she was willing to “try to save M” but wanted to just sweep everything under the rug and continue with the same M that got us there in the first place. Although I bought into it at first, because I wanted nothing more than to save my M, although she would say she wanted to try, she wouldn’t do anything to show that she was trying. So essentially I was trying, I was trying to build trust but she wouldn’t do anything to earn the trust, which just ended up with me questioning everything, which turned into more lies from her, then more anger from me. I say that if I could go back I would have just left for 6 months and then reached out because it would of allowed her to go on her journey and me on mine without more resentment building up, without more lies being told, without making it harder to be able to trust again in the future. By waiting 6 months, we both would have been able to decide what we wanted without hurting each other along the way. If she continued on her A path, then she wasn’t ready to try on our M and I would have saved myself a lot of stress along the way. On the other hand, if she stopped the A and went NC because she wanted to save her M, then I would have known she was committed to at least trying and would have been able to focus on piecing rather than verifying.

In a nutshell, her being half in caused more anger and resentment in me than her actual A, I unleashed my anger on her (saying mean things, not physical), which resulted in even more issues to work past if reconciliation was to ever happen (I was really mean). Also, I wasn’t ready at that time to try piecing because I “wanted to”, at that point I wanted to piece because “I needed to be with her”.

It certainly seems that Sandi, Wonka, and others thought that this might have been the case-- that she was doing some very encouraging things and that at some point you maybe have to make a decision to take the leap and try to start rebuilding the trust and good feelings. I am saying this not at all to discredit you, because you have experience here and I value your input...

In the scheme of things, my wife’s A was pretty minor. She had only met OM like 4 or 5 weeks before I found out, it was mostly texting back and forth and 2 or 3 times that they kissed. My wife didn’t flaunt anything in front of me, she wasn’t intentionally trying to be mean to me, or make it a point to show me how much she hated me.. She never said she didn’t want to be married to me, never said that she hated me, just that I had hurt her a lot in the past, left her emotionally empty and made a mistake and let OM fill that need. I’d have to go back and re-read, but I think that Sandi2 and Wonka both felt like I was trying to move things forward to fast and not giving her enough space or time to work things out in her head (I do remember Sandi2 being disappointed I initially backed off my NC boundary)… But as you obviously read, I was pretty hard headed and wasn’t able to give her space, they started giving advice on the path I was going, even though it was not necessarily the path they would have recommended.

rather, I am trying to make sure I do not miss some opportunity that might be out there with my own W by jumping to too many conclusions or going off the deep end or pushing her when she is already moving in my direction. And I am NOT saying that that (her moving in my direction) is necessarily the case either... but I am trying to discern that.

From what I read, I don’t believe your W is moving in your direction at all, I think she is at the least biding time until she can start A back up. My experience from my sitch, and from reading others sitch’s (including those that end up back here after years of piecing because another A started) is that you can’t save the M until the WS decides that’s what they want to try and do. Not because they don’t want to break up the family, not because they don’t want to move out or sell the family home, they need to 100% realize that there were issues in the M, but by working on themselves, and putting the work into the MR, that staying together is what is really what they want, and are willing to do ANYTHING to make it work. At that point, their attention will be completely on you, not other friends.

I note that Sandi and Wonka in particular seemed to think things were moving in a very positive direction and that you had a pretty good shot. Did you ultimately find out that it was ALL Bulls**t and that your W was fully engage in the A the whole time, or is it possible that the combativeness between the two of you and the continued suspicion (and jealousy?) might have pushed her in the opposite direction or at least made her more hesitant about committing to returning to you? Again, I know, perhaps a hard question, but these are hard situations and the stakes are high. Want to make sure I am fully exploring all facets of this thing.

I don’t believe the A was ongoing as far as them being intimate with each other physically or emotionally (OM was M also, and his W found out through some texts that I put on their Fire Department group chat), but I am pretty sure they always kept up secret communications (even though she would tell me she wasn’t talking to him), I don’t know if the A would have picked back up after all the dust settled, I just know that she was still talking to him and stated to many that he was “just” a friend. As long as I was still fighting for the MR, and we didn’t have to sell the family home, and she didn’t have to give up volunteering at the fire department, what did she have to lose? I don’t think my continued jealousy and snooping resulted in her keeping contact with OM, but I do believe that it further deteriated my MR and caused a lot of anger and hurt in me.

Thanks, all, and again, Coconut, PLEASE don't take this as me "calling you out"... I am really just trying to learn, and i DO see some similarites between your and my sitch (although from reading I think our respective W's are very different people... and at different points in their lives and prolly in their respecive A's as well)

I’ll be the first to say that I was one of the worst DBr’s in history, even though I really had some of the best advice anyone’s ever gotten, but I will say that I’ve come a longway from that person in a little over a year. I know how much my emotions have calmed down in the last year, and I can see that I'm in a much better place now to try and save my M (if I wanted to) than I was back then.

[AnotherStander]

So I started with that, beginning with "Hey..

Why do I have a feeling there's a big ol' "but" coming?

Continuing... "However, while I really appreciate what you have been doing with texting me where you are and so forth, I really feel like you still do not understand or respect the dynamic between you and me right now

Ah, there it is OK well first of all, I get the lack of trust. But (there I did it too, haha!) I think the way you approached it with her is coming off as a little preachy, like a parent scolding a kid. I mean I do get that she was cheating and there are trust issues there, but an important part of communication is expressing feelings, so rather than saying this:

...and are not showing me the respect and consideration you should, or trying to do what needs to be done to restore trust."

Maybe try this:

"I just want to explain to you that because of everything that's happened I still have major trust issues, it's something I'm really struggling with. So when you keep postponing like that it's making me worry and is even giving me anxiety. Can you see why I might react that way?"

Because the former is just going to put her on the defensive, but the latter will make her feel like "wow I hurt him again even though I didn't mean to, I need to do something to stop that." Notice the focus on "I" language in the latter statement and not "you" language.

This sharing feelings thing, it's really tough for me and really for most of us guys. I learned a lot about it in Retrouvaille but it requires a lot of work because I'm constantly defaulting back to being preachy/ parenty like what you did above. But my experience with XW and now GF has been that women react MUCH more favorably when you express your feelings to them.

She wasn't all that happy about that, saying she had "told me" and that she "texted me regularly" and that she felt like she was "doing a lot" and "what she was supposed be doing."

See you put her on the defensive. The thing is, YOU ARE BOTH RIGHT! Again, try to turn these conversations into a sharing of feelings instead of paving the way to anger and resentment.

Regarding her phone, she just unlocked it, handed it to me, and said "look." It was a completely surprise request by me, so she'd had no warning to delete or erase anything. There were no suspicious apps on it, no DMs in FB messenger, OM had been unfriended... She had NOT blocked OM on messenger, but there was no evidence of any communication for about a month (interestingly, there was a group chat DM he had sent in FB still there from a little over a month ago, which she said she did not even know about, which seems to mesh with her telling me that she doesn't even use FB messenger anymore). She blocked him on that app last night and gave me her phone password.

That was a huge, huge move on her part. I hope you thanked her for being open with you and sharing that, and expressed to her that you felt relieved and more secure that she really is making a strong effort. For a woman to hand you her phone like that, that's a big deal. A lot of them view someone looking at their phone as a violation.

Which puts me, exactly, where? She still has, at best, conflicted feelings about me.

Of course she does. You BOTH need time to build trust and lower the walls. I'm sorry but sometimes I get people's timelines mixed up, are y'all going to MC or have you discussed it? Also you mentioned Arlington, I'm in the Dallas area and Retrouvaille does have sessions here (I think the one we went to was in Irving) so do check into that.

We laugh and talk and joke and connect on about every level, socially, intellectually, etc., except intimately. She no longer pulls back when I touch her, but neither has she warmed up to me that much, and still says she "doesn't feel that spark" with me that she wants to feel and that she feels like "we both deserve."

And that's OK. Things have really progressed from where you were and will continue to progress if you both work at it. If you read the piecing threads you'll see this is very typical. The intimacy takes a while.

As a final note, since OM has apparently not been explicitly told "do not contact me" (though W says he knows she and I are "working on things") I am feeling like he and I need to have a talk.

I agree with Doodler, don't try to talk to him. BUT, you do need a boundary with W that she has zero, and I mean ZERO contact with him.