Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums Piecing Our Marriage Back Together Again NikkiB #16

Hi all - guessing my last thread will lock soon so here's a new one. I'll respond to everyone from my prior thread in just a moment.

Thanks again everyone for your posts and support!! Apologies in advance, this is kind of long between replies and journaling.

Ourcrisis
Thanks, the empathy definitely helps! Interesting how our sitches are reversed, a bit. H was actually not being secretive about it at all at first - but he also kept justifying why it was OK, rather than telling me he was going to further reduce contact. I think that's where the friction came in. During one conversation he asked if I wanted him to be honest and my reply was "I'd rather have you not doing anything that you would need to worry about being honest about" (or something like that). I think that's when the hiding started.

Ellie
Yeah, I guess I knew to expect it but it's harder than I thought. It's hard that he still seems to see no real problem with it (more on that in a minute). I start feeling like I'm crazy. I totally agree with you that I should not have said anything, but I screwed up and talked to him about it last night. Overall an OK talk but I wish I had waited as you suggested. With them working together I KNOW there will be more contact than I want, no matter what, so I will just have to deal with that.

Oldtimer
I have such a hard time looking at it that way. I know I SHOULD look at it that way, but it's hard to do that and keep my self respect at the same time. When I was thinking of it as "things I'll need to forgive if we reconcile" it was much easier. Now it's flat out "H is choosing to both be with me and hurt me, and I am putting up with it." (which starts to sound in my head like... "and I have so little self respect I'm letting it happen, just like I did all last year"). I know, I need to snap out of it, just venting and trying to work it out here a bit.

SuperDad
Thanks for the hug!! You know... on the snooping... while I mostly agree I think there's a point where it's not ALL bad (during Piecing - during LRT I've never seen it be a good thing). In my case yes, in a way it does bring me closer to my goal. My goal isn't just "be back with H" - it's be in a marriage with H that is based on trust, caring, mutual respect, etc. Pretending this wasn't going on was really eating at me because I had this gut feeling something was wrong. So... if my snooping had led me to "the calls have stopped" then I would have dismissed my fears about it as just that, empty fears. Instead I found out that I'm not crazy, my fears/instincts were in fact correct, and there is something more that needs to be handled/dealt with as we move forward. I hope that makes sense. And of course the flip side is, it's not very trusting and respectful of me to snoop... so I do see that there are two sides to it.

Absolutely, in LRT or the "not sure" stage there is NO good to come from pushing on the EA. As we're piecing though I really will need H to acknowledge, at some point, that what happened was wrong. He really hangs on the "but I never slept with her" and I just want to shake him sometimes! I need him to acknowledge it so that I don't have to constantly live in fear that it will happen again because there was "nothing wrong with it." He will sometimes border on saying there was a problem but it's always just something like her flirting too much with him or generally being a destructive person.. never really gets to the core of the issue. I don't "hound" him on it and don't plan to, but it's one of those future R/M goals that I have. I don't even care if he outright says "This was wrong," but I need him to stop justifying it as OK.

And I know.. I feel bad even complaining about this when I am SO fortunate to be where I am, I feel almost guilty when I read the newcomers threads and see everyone struggling in the middle of this stuff. That's actually why I moved over here to Piecing. The "struggles" are very different.

ST
Thank you! I feel exactly like you do... how do we really know? I guess at some point it's that leap of faith but I'm not there yet. And good point about just hiding it better. I hope I didn't push him to do that because I did talk to him about it.

Thank you for the fish advice too! I need to get a better water test kit. I have the nitrite/nitrate and ammonia strips but I think I should get the full test kit to get a better idea what's going on. Sadly I am now down to 2 fish. The one with fin rot started getting some kind of fungus all over itself yesterday, so I moved it into a separate "quarantine" tank (bucket actually, but with a filter and a screen over the top). I treated it with some fishy medicine and it seemed to be doing better by last night - but sometime during the night it jumped out of a very small gap between the screen and the side of the bucket. H found it on the floor this morning. Poor thing, I feel bad. Kind of second guessing if I should have moved it into the bucket but... too late now. And it may have saved the other two fish (who now have NO potential "escape" areas in the top of their tank!).

Nick
Thanks for checking in! Hope DR is helpful for you. Hey now you know one thing about fish - they can be quite determined when it comes to jumping out of their tanks!

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So on to a bit of journaling. Saturday was pretty good as I mentioned with the races, had a lot of fun there! H was really excited that I went, and we had a blast watching the movie of it over and over.

Sunday I took care of my fish, and did some stuff on my own for awhile. Early afternoon H came in and told me about a surprise birthday party coming up for one of the girls in that same group who had the last party. I was excited about it and said "Sounds fun!" but H was acting really weird. Finally about 2 hours later he came and told me "I am just telling you this because I don't think it's fair for you to be surprised, there's a good chance that [OW] will be at this party. She didn't come to the last one specifically because you were going and she knew you wouldn't appreciate her being around."

I really don't know how to respond to stuff like that.. a million things run through my head such as 1. thanks for telling me , 2. I can't believe you even considered NOT telling me; 3. that was nice of her but I still don't like her; 4. am I supposed to be all grateful or something?; 5. why in the heck are you and OW talking about me at all??... and there's more, but you get the gist. I thanked him for telling me and he responded with "So...??" and I said "I'll just have to think about it."

It bugged me ALL day. And yeah, I know, I let it and should not have. I just hate that I feel like the crazy overly jealous woman who can't deal with this "just a friend" - especially when she's so nice and respectful that she didn't come to a party just so I wouldn't be uncomfortable. (yeah right... I've seen her in action, she is far from nice and respectful to me or any other woman in general, but it really bugs me that H is seeing it as such a wonderful gesture).

By last night I had gotten very quiet and withdrawn, just trying to avoid confrontation (bad, bad, bad old pattern). H kept asking what was wrong and finally I told him that I couldn't stop thinking about the party. It got us talking about the OW more and back into "You know nothing ever happened with her, right?" and I said "That's not true, something happened. I believe you didn't sleep with her though." (for anyone who's read my sitch for awhile, sound familiar???).

I then said "So since we're on the subject I just have to ask. Why do you call her almost every day at lunch time and after work? Is it to coordinate where you're meeting each other or something?" H said "I don't do that!" and I said "Babe I see the phone bill, you do." He said "I used to call her every day but I don't anymore, just sometimes." I said "I do appreciate and thank you for cutting back so much, I know you used to call her a lot more. But I'm not OK with you calling her at all. I don't understand why you have ANY reason to call her." He tried to deny calling her that often again and then asked me to show him the bill - website was down yesterday so I couldn't show him then. I won't push it but will print it out if he asks again.

I decided maybe it's time to get a nagging question out of my head so I said "Did you come back home because you wanted to be with me, or because you wanted your life here back? The house, the garage, all that." He said "Both. But I understand what you're saying and I did come back because of you." I thanked him for that and said "I just love you so much and I am so afraid of losing you again. I'm scared to bring this stuff up because I don't want you to run away." He said "I know, and I won't." I said "So here's what I don't understand - you're back here because of me, but your friendship with [OW] is so important to you that you're willing to hurt me and hurt our marriage by contacting her?" H replied "But she's just a friend."

At that point I was looking around for a brick wall to go bang my head against but I couldn't find one. I didn't even really respond, there was no point.

He brought up the party again and I asked if he would go without me if I decided not to go - he said no, it wasn't that important - so I was glad for that.

I stayed calm for the most part and I think overall it was an OK conversation. I REALLY need to get the focus back on myself though. I let this mess up my PMA partly for one day and completely for another day, I let it turn me into a needy, not-fun-to-be-around wife, and ultimately it lead to a conversation that is WAY too familiar.

Sorry to dwell so much on the negative, but thanks for letting me get all that out!!

On the positive side...

- I'm going out of town for work tonight and won't be back til very late tomorrow night. Need the break, so that's good! Tomorrow night I have dinner w/my brother and SIL, which should be a lot of fun.

- I thought I wouldn't see H after this morning until late tomorrow or Weds AM, but he stayed in bed and snuggled for an extra 20 minutes or so, so I could "save up" for while I'm out of town. Awwww!!!!

- H is coming home from work early just so he can say bye to me before I leave. Wow!

- This is not so positive in that the fish died... but H was so sweet about it this morning. We have been kind of jokingly doing a "fishy head count" every morning. Yesterday he proudly came to me and said "I counted, there's still 3, you don't have to count today!" I thought that was really cute. This morning he went to make coffee then came back to the bedroom and looked really concerned. It took him about a minute to finally say "Your fish jumped out of his tank last night." I asked how because it was covered and he said he must have squeezed through a hole. Then he said "I'm sorry. You tried really hard, you took good care of him." and gave me a really big hug. Now really.. these are carnival gold fish, they aren't ever really expected to live that long right? But he knew I'd gotten a little bit attached and I thought it was sweet that he took it so seriously.

So today I'm working on getting re-focused on my PMA and on shaking the rest of this stuff off for now. I will re-evaluate in a month as everyone suggested. Reminder to self: 99.9% positive is a very, very good place to be!!

awe Nikki.

First, it sounds like the goldfish would have died anyways, and you may have prevented deaths to the other fish, but just try not to get too attached. Like I said, fish die so much easier, even when your doing everything your suppose to. And they quite possibly could have had a disease before you got them, especially being at a fair.

On your H. ya, same old convo huh. are you sure you didn't want to hit HIM in the head with a brick? We need to think of something for that "But she's just a friend" statement. Obviously he keeps trying to defend himself. So part of that may have just been being defensive from your questioning/attacking (not saying you were attacking, but he probably perceived it that way).

Hopefully you guys won't go thru that same convo again, but I have a feeling that he will say this again someday.

I know part of you wants to just kick him out or something, but really you have to decide what your going to allow-meaning allow for an alloted time to see if they are on the right track towards respecting the M- and then just deal with the consequences as best as you can until reavaluating. It really sucked for me, but I had faith that it WOULD end and I was not ever going to blow up about it, and I did have 2 very calm convos about it, and after about 5-6 months it stopped. I know that seems forever, but I really think that it's like a drug for them. I think he really knows it's wrong, but is still trying to justify it, and I think he will eventually do the right thing, he's just in a difficult position with her as a co-worker. Of course he is an adult and can take charge of his sitch, but just because they came back, doesn't necessarilly mean the "crazy" part of their brain is all fixed just like that.

Now that you talked about it again, I think you need to really refrain from doing it for a while. Otherwise he's going to just feel constrained and pressured and think, ugh she's never going to be happy kind of attitude. This may not be right, but you have to think, what can I do to give me the results that I want.
So, either you could give him an ultimatum, or you could stick it out for a month GALing and enjoying time with H and see what happens, or you could continue to act upset about it.

IMHO, I think the first and last choices would only push him away.

Hope that was somewhat helpful.

And you are right 99.9% positive IS a very very good place!! Focus on how good next year is going to be!

ST thanks for the reply.

On the fish - yeah, I think he probably wasn't gonna make it anyway. I know not to get too attached to them, that's for sure. My bro had fish growing up and I remember MANY a fish funeral - I think he was about 16 before he stopped getting so attached (before that we had burials, poems, the whole works for every fish!).

On the rest - haha thank you for the laugh with the brick comment!! I agree that it probably came across as attacking even though that wasn't the intent.



I think I did better with the "blowing up" part in that the convo was pretty calm. I need to work on the first part, though. I guess I'd feel more confident that it will end if H was telling me something like that, as opposed to the "just a friend" BS. But I'm not going to get that right now.



Totally agreed here. I do think I need to work on a reply to the "just a friend" in case H brings it up again, which he may, but otherwise I plan not to for a long time. What's weird is when I see you say it here, about kick him out or something, I think to myself "No way, everything's going way too well!" And a month even sounds too short - as in I'd be happy if it's "only" a month but OK with allowing more time if it's needed. I'm feeling a little better about "owning" that choice now though, as Oldtimer put it.

I just need to go back to being patient and giving him time to do the right thing. And I definitely gotta get back to my happy, GAL'ing, PMA self NOW - no question there.

Nikki,
Great job! Enjoy your break from the sitch, GAL, relax, and recharge.
SD

Thanks SD!

I'm in my hotel now and enjoying the break. I had a fun drive and holy cow, this room is amazing!! My company usually pays for pretty decent rooms but they outdid themselves this time. Comfy bed, marble-topped furniture, down bedding... snazzy! Oh and a huge flat-screen LCD TV. It's too bad I have to go to work tomorrow, I kind of want to stay in my cozy bed and watch movies all day .

Had a nice although weird interaction w/H before I left. He came home as he planned to say bye which I thought was really sweet. I thanked him but I was also feeling guilty about last night and acting very insecure (didn't realize it at the time, realized it after I left)... I kept asking H if he was doing OK or wanted to talk about anything and he kept saying no, then finally said "Why, do YOU?" I said "Well yeah, I guess I do, I feel bad about last night. I wanted to bring all that up but I didn't mean to attack you and it probably came across that way. I'm sorry." H said "Yeah ok." (in a pretty PO'd tone). Ugh. I said again "I approached it wrong and will work on that, I'm sorry." H replied "I know you are." Then after a short pause, "Don't you need to go? You're kind of driving me nuts."

Ugh. I realized later I never should have even mentioned it again. Get back to happy, secure me and learn from my mistakes. ACTIONS, right? At the time the "driving me nuts" kind of hurt but now I am actually happy about it - he TOLD me rather than keep it inside, so that's good, right. We're screwing up some, but maybe we're finally learning this communication thing.

I had promised to call when I got to the hotel, which I did. No answer from H but I left an upbeat message on the machine anyway. And he called back just a few minutes later to say goodnight... I kept it light, fun, short... whew... back to the basics and that worked really well. Even got an ILY.

good for you! I think I did the same thing once, appologizing for getting upset or whatever and if I remember right, he did seem kinda annoyed or not as welcoming as I thought he would be. I think maybe they are uncomfortable.. I mean, guys usually don't like to talk about feelings anyways, and that's all us women talk about!

him saying "your kinda driving me nuts" almost makes me laugh. What does he think he's doing to YOU?!!! It's like we're hanging over a clif by a thread and if we fall we will hit insanity!

however, they already let go, so I guess that's fair.

I know it sucks because your thinking, okay, you decided to come back, why should I have to wait for you to try to do the right thing. You should just DO it. But we have to remember, we are all human, all sinners, and all very influencial by the world. And your being a very strong lady for owning your choices and letting H do things on his time.

Definitely have a wonderful work trip! Your room sounds awesome! Maybe you and some coworkers can go out?

Nikki,

Agreed with all of the above statements from others -- he does need you to invest in the happiness that your R has and not dwell (even if it is justified concern). The less you focus on the OW communication and the more time he has to reflect on it in his own mind without outside influence, the more he will come to realize that doing this is wrong, whether she is "just a friend" or not. He really needs to empathize by putting himself in your shoes and seeing things through your eyes and heart. Until he can do this and appreciate the sincere feelings you have about this matter, he will not fully understand the strain he is putting on the piecing of your R. However, he will have to make the leap to step into your own shoes on his own -- this is where his true growth will take form. And I totally agree with needing to come up with a response to "but she's just a friend." I would be beating my head against the wall over this redundancy too!

Enjoy your "snazzy" room and having quality time with yourself!

Nick

Hi ST and Nick,

Thanks for checking in!

ST
haha I hadn't even thought about that "driving me nuts" comment in that context.

Had a pretty good end to my work trip! The meeting itself was way too long (7 hours with a 5 minute break to make sandwiches from cold-cuts they brought in, that was it - sheesh!). Tonight I didn't go out with coworkers because I already had dinner plans with my bro (got home just a few minutes ago). Next time I may try to stay 2 nights if the company will spring for it. Most of my coworkers are in the other office so we mostly work via phone and it'd be nice to have a night to socialize. My bro and I went out for Polish food at this really cute family owned restaurant in San Francisco. I've never had Polish food (beyond the obvious Polish sausage) so that was neat. And as always it was great to catch up with my bro. I guess my sitch and my dad's kind of shook him and his W up a lot. 6 months ago things seemed "ok but shaky" - in fact we had a long serious talk shortly after H dropped the bomb and my bro was pretty shocked. I still remember him saying "Oh my God we all have the same problems!! Why don't we fix them in time?" I gave them 5LL for Christmas and they both liked it a lot. Today they seem very happy and are even talking kids in the near future. Very cool!! (and not "kids to fix this," but "kids because we're secure and ready"). All good stuff.

Nick
SO well said, thanks!! I hadn't thought of it that way, we BOTH need for me to invest in the happiness actually. Who wants to come home wondering if they're going to be attacked for stuff? No one right?

I do notice when I TOTALLY back off he tries to "guess" my needs and does things like telling me where he is, who with, calls her less because he "thinks" it's important to me. Kind of funny that he'll do it if he figures it out himself, but if I express it directly I seem to push him INTO doing it more. Will need to give that s'more thought.

Had an interesting night - as I mentioned had a great dinner with my bro, and left for home way later than I should have. I had told H I'd call when I was on the way - and I tried. No answer. Called an hour later, no answer. Where did my mind go? Straight to "Damn it he's with HER again." SHEESH!! I have not felt this out of control since the early months of my sitch. BUT in good news, I snapped out of it much quicker. I realized the quickest way to drive him away was to keep reacting to this stuff - heck if I'm going to accuse him of inappropriate behavior, why not just go all the way right?? (not that I even have THAT much control but I can see where it'd drive him to "live up" to my bad expectations, if that makes sense). So I decided to treat him as trustworthy, respectful, doing the right thing - and act "as if" for now, if I have to. 15 minutes or so later he called me back and we had a nice light convo about each others' nights - he told me where he was, who with, asked about my day etc. Yay!! I was proud I snapped out of the bad mood so quickly.

When I got home he was already in bed but awake so we exchanged some nice kisses. Then he said "You forgot to leave me a note on how to take care of the dog and the fish." I said "Oh, did you need a note? I'm sorry, thought you had it down." H said "Well you always leave a note so I thought you would." I took the opportunity to boost his ego a bit... "Well babe I know you're good, so I knew you could handle it." So how funny is that? I did a 180 without even knowing it, leaving the control to him instead of helping him handle it while I was gone. Not a huge deal, but I always kind of smile when I do an accidental 180 because it shows a true change on a deeper level, I think.

Hope everyone's doing well.

Lol, next time leave a note, but don't mention the fish or dog. No "to do" list, except what you want to do when you get back, nudge nudge, wink wink.