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Hey, brah!

Better to see you over in Piecing than Infidelity. However, I do have to agree with the others' words of caution here.

This is one place, I'd like to believe, where misery *doesn't* like company. I think most people here would love to see every marriage work out. As such, I don't think that people are going to caution you to keep your eyes open just because they want to believe your W is having an A. Nobody wishes that on you.

People are cautioning you because they've been there. I've been there. And at some point in our process, we *all* said "S/He's not having an A, because I asked him and s/he said no." Guess what -- I said it, too, when I asked my H point-blank if he was with another woman. And he told me no. Meanwhile, OW was sitting 30 miles away, pregnant as hell.

Now, just because that was my experience doesn't mean your W is screwing around on you. God knows we all hope she's not. But by definition, an A is when your spouse is confiding -- emotionally and/OR physically -- in a person of the opposite sex who isn't you. You can soft-foot around it as much as you want to in an effort to try to avoid the painful truth. But the fact is, your W is -- by definition -- having an A.

And the way it's coming across here is that you're not only okay with her having such an A, you're condoning it in an effort to "put your W first," because that (another man) is precisely what your W says she "needs."

I think you're kinda caught between a rock and a hard place. You want to put your W first, which means bending over backwards to make her happy ... even if that means condoning an inappropriate relationship she has with a man you've never even met. Perhaps that's the way you want your M to be. Maybe it works in yours. It wouldn't work in mine. Why? Because here's the nasty underbelly of what your acceptance could be doing: Your W could very easily be perceiving your acceptance as indifference. In other words, it would be very easy for her to confuse your acceptance of this R as you actually not giving a sh!t about your M, regardless of what's coming out of your mouth. If she's not looking at it that way, the only other way I see that she could perceive your acceptance of her having a R with another man is that you're either dumber than a box of rocks or willing to let her do anything just in an effort to "keep" her. In the last scenario, you've just landed yourself squarely in the doormat category, which is where your W -- if I'm not mistaken -- has placed you many times before. That's extremely unhealthy, and if you do indeed reconcile with your W without making your M more healthy this go-round, you will have to tend to this same sh!t again down the road.

Your W has said to neutral parties (making this more credible than what she has said to you) that among her biggest problems with you is that you're indecisive, the two of you have nothing in common and therefore can't have real conversations, and that you think that everything that's important to her is stupid. She has never said -- at least to my knowledge -- that her feelings for you have changed because you didn't put her first. If anything, you've put her on a pedastal, and she doesn't like having to look "down" to see you. I hate to offend, but in her eyes, you haven't been "man" enough for her. And you blindly accepting a R she's having with OM isn't making you more of one.

She turned to OM for one reason, and it's not because you were not physically present. It's because you were not, at least in *her* eyes, emotionally present. Your W can say they're just friends all she wants, but no friend of mine has ever talked about me as obsessively as she talks about OM -- to every member of her family and every one of her friends ... even her real male friends.If nothing else is indicative of her having more-than-friend feelings for OM, that is.

You may have thought you were emotionally present to your W. But she didn't. So my suggestion is that you figure out exactly what it is that your M was lacking and fix it soon, because OM has been working on that the past two months.

When you get a chance, please go thru Bombardier50's thread. I don't know what kind of access you have to reading material over there, but you also really need to read Shirley Glass' Not Just Friends.

You don't have a new wife who has a new friend. You have an old wife who's having an affair. Many affairs are born out of a highly stressful situation that makes the affairee question their outlook on life (or "frame"). That doesn't make the affairee unique and doesn't require special handling. Compassion, yes. Placating, no.

Given your occupation, I know you understand how important it is to deal with the facts on the ground, and how disastrous it is to deal with a sitch the way you'd like it to be rather than how it is.

You've said your W and the OM talk on the phone. How often do they see each other? How much time do they spend together? Do they go to movies together (i.e. dates)? If you told your W that her R with the OM is inappropriate and has to end, how would she react?

Pretend it's two or three months ago. If your W had taken legal steps to separate your finances and accused you of having an affair, would your reaction be to want a fast divorce (which was her reaction when you did that)? Or would you assure her you were innocent and do everything you could to show her that? People who have nothing to hide, hide nothing. Affairees who have something to hide try to put their accusers on the defensive. Do you feel on the defensive, even though *she's* the one in an inappropriate relationship?

Choc, what kind of person is your W? Is she a Christian? Impeccable morals? Active in your church community? Loves her children? etc...

Awwww, BB, we cross-posted!!! Just like old times!

Burg,

Yes, my wife is a Christian. Before we were married, we went to Bible study together, we never had premarital sex (OK, we did go pretty far, but ...) and she's always been, by all accounts, a very moral, upstanding woman. She doesn't consider herself particularly "religious," but it's been HER over the 20+ years of our marrage, I'm ashamed to say, who has gotten us back on track when we hadn't been praying as we should, or going to church as a family.

That all changed when she had her affair. Suddenly, she didn't want to "talk about God" anymore, and she got EXTREMELY defensive when I would invoke God in a conversation about her behavior.

Simply put, Burg, since the two couldn't co-exist in her moral framework, she altered her beliefs, to fit her desire (her affair), rather than try to justify the affair in the context of her beliefs.

Does that answer?

- Choc.

Choc,

Here is the issue....YOU ARE RIGHT!

YES YES YES...I have such a dread of losing her and having to look my kids in the eyes and explain to them why I could not keep their mommy from leaving and why we are not together. This is more emasculating to me than anything else. I was raised in a family, as was W, where divorce was not an option. You work through your difficulties with sweat, tear and all the other stuff. RIght now I am not able to do that from here and I fu**ing hate it...I am enraged and depressed right now.

I got my a$$ chewed today because i was trying to get one of her friends to talk to her about what is going on. She feels that I backdoored her again and she told me I was fu**ing wrong for doing it.

She also told me that she felt like I was snooping because i was asking about her online friends. I was not trying to snoop but this was my way of trying to understand the new herand relate to some of the stuff she is going through. I guess I feel as though if I don't interact with her then it will give her freedom to file for D or take other action to put a bigger wedge between us.

I crashed hard this morning and have resolved to do the LRT as I honestly don't feel that there is any other way to show her how much I love her and how much she is screwing up a wonderful marriage that needs work.

I am going dark over the next few days and see what happens. However, this change will be almost seamless since I am over here and all she has to do is turn off her AOL to get rid of me. It is hard though as I have to engage her if there is a problem with the kids.

Ok...enough whining. Physical training has become a stable stress reliever and depression extractor.

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!! I know you guys are right but this is like watching my life go down in flames and it burns, burns, burns....




Put it this way...she is spending the whole day with him on the anniversary of her father's death...I think. Right now, I have the brick wall tattoo on my forehead for running into it so much.

AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!! I can't take this you guys. I see everything you are saying even though i don't want to see it. Yes, she puts me on the defensive when we talk, she says she would not stop talking to him and she does not care what everyone else thinks.

WHAT THE FU***!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so pissed at myself, and just pissed in general for having to sit in another country and deal with this for the next three months, it is overwhelming.



No, I would have been like WTFO??? Kind of like I am now.

Have i said this...AAAARRRRGGGHHHH!!! My other fear in this thing is losing her whole family as I have grown very attached to them. Due to my kids I know they will always be around but I am having the proverbial rug yanked out from under me.

Dang...you people are so right and I need to get my head out of my a$$. I am going dark with her although I am not sure what good that will do as I am over here and she has all but forgotten me anyway.

If I have not said this yet...this is hard but I thank all of you for helping me take off my blinders. I know my life is worth than her and I will continue to live it for my kids but this stuff sucks really bad.

I guess it is time to get my big boy pants on and start living my life as if, 180 and LRT style.

Just something else to make you go WTFO...I actually told her that I wanted to meet the guy to thank him for being there for her when I could not!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF is wrong with me...I am such an idiot.

I think I may need to move my string again...I will wait for responses to determine.

ok...so now that I have had my big boy britches firmly adjusted...thank you all. I am moving my string back to the infidelity page.

W said the other day that if she had the support she would move closer to her job (in with OM?). This scares the living sh** out of me because my kids are young and very impressionable. I can't lose her and them at the same time and I refuse for some other man to raise my kids.

ok guys...here is the big question. I do not believe this sitch can wait until I come from deployment. She has already moved out to other side of state, kids are in place, she has a job (i.e. no need for my money), her own car (don't get me started on this one), own apartment and all that.

She is independent so outside of me (ILYBNILWY)and our marriage (she says I am dead to her) what is left? I guess it will just be the fact that her dad would be immensely disappointed in her...sad thing is he is dead and will not be able to tell her?

How can I still bring her back from the brink but tell her she needs to stop turning to OM for emotional support and turn to me when we have a hard time getting through to each other on the phone?