Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums For Newcomers My WAW - Chat/Text Msg affair with her ex

dan - if you feel you may end up down the D road, i suggest that you start keeping a journal of things that happen. You know them now but in a month or two the details may become hazy. who knows what may help you later.

also think you have the "Fear" right now. The fear of the unknown, the fear that you will push her farther away....how has that been working so far for you?

gman

Dan, I replied to your post in the WAW forum.

Dan,

There IS no logic in it! She is a PEA-addled, infatuated, acting purely on a potent mix of entitlement, adrenaline and hormones WAYWARD at this point.

Instead of this:



You need to say:

"I've decided that I'm no longer willing to pay for anything that you're using to conduct your affair, including your cellphone."

Men don't talk, we ACT. And we don't ASK, we DECIDE.

People in affairs, emotionally and physiologically, are like TODDLERS. Would you try to reason with a toddler with a "Gee, do you think it's fair that you not pick up your toys, and Daddy has to do it when he's tired and has been working hard all day?"

Same thing.

You don't CONTROL her. You made your own boundaries -- these are for YOU.

From my own archives:

The best way I can answer that is that if you make it about HER, they will come across as "demands" and being "controlling."

If you make them about YOU, and what YOU need, then they are "boundaries of personal integrity."

Example:

"I forbid you to see OM" = CONTROLLING

"I can't live in an open marriage" = BOUNDARY

"You need to check in with me every day, and give me your cellphone bill!" = CONTROLLING

"In order to feel safe in our reconciliation, considering your recent affair, I need to know that you're no longer talking or texting him by having the cellphone bill come to me for awhile" = BOUNDARY

"You can't talk to me that way!" = CONTROLLING

"I like ME too much to allow myself to be spoken to so disrespectfully. Please come back when you've calmed down, and we can talk further." = BOUNDARY

Make sense?


Puppy

WRONG. This will not work.

Reasonable people can differ about different aspects of DBing and affair-busting, but I'm pretty certain that "passive" isn't in the description of ANY of the successful methods, or their various hybrids.

There is a whoooooooole range of behaviors, stances, statements and actions that you can make in between the black of "moping"/"on the verge of meltown"/controlling/accusatory, and the white of "calm, confident, assertive and detached."

It is in that GREY that you will find your most successful approach, Dan.

Puppy

I read a lot of "I feel like" and "I think" in your above posts. You need to move away from assumptions and reacting to her actions.

Take some time to think about what you want in your relationship, and how you want to go about doing that.

As for being too aggressive, you can set boundaries without being aggressive or overly confrontational. And I can guarantee that anything you do to change things or assert yourself will be met with hostility -- you will be moving out of her mental image of what you are like, which means she has to figure out how to deal with you.

OK, I did it. I blocked this guys number through ATT's Smart Limits feature. I'm sure she will know what's up and it will turn into a confrontational argument, but I don't want it to go there. I would like to calmly explain to her that I don't want this guy in our lives dictating the outcome of our of our family. She thinks I'm controlling her and it makes her resent me even more, but I'm not trying to control her I just don't want her talking to her ex.

Today was an ok day, I dropped my son off at school and picked him up, but while I was gone she was texting him. When I was down stairs playing with my son, she was upstairs texting him. I feel underhanded and sneaky, but it's no worse than what she's doing. I'm afraid I will push her away farther and quicker, but I also feel as long as this guy is in the picture, it won't get better anytime soon. She will continue to be confused and not clear what she wants and reminded everytime she talks to him she's not happy with me.

I can't understand how she thinks divorce will be fine. Today when she was leaving to go to her moms, she said she was going to miss her babies so much. I reactively said "yeah, it would suck not being able to see your kids". She took that as I was giving her a hard time for her going to her parents, but what I meant by it was that it will not be happy times after a divorce when we won't be able to see our kids like we do now. She's dissillusioned that everything will be fine after a divorce, the kids will be fine and we'll still see them just as much. I contend that it won't be, it will be completely different, no more vacations together, no dinners togethers, no playing together, no camping trips, trips to Chuckie E Cheese together and on and on. Maybe I am doing the wrong thing by trying to justify it, but it's my first instinct to do because she is so convinced nothing will change and it's worse on the kids if one of the parents isn't happy. So far to this point, we have great kids, very respectful and well mannered kids, so I don't see her side of it. After a divorce, I can't see how they will be better off, I just can't see that and there's no way I will be convinced of that.

I look forward to more of your comments, I'm struggling bad and I feel like I'm day to day not knowing what is coming next. I have my kids tonight while she's gone and it's a complete thrill for me, and at the same time it makes me so sad to know on the horizon I may not be able to see them as much. I will get the raw end of the deal like most fathers do, so it's easier for her because she will still have her babies most of the time. She tells me she doesn't want my money or the house or any of my stuff, but that is not what even matters to me. Losing my children and my wife is worth a 1000 times more than those material possessions.

Everyone's help is greatly appreciated !

Dan

I hate to break it to you, but that's controlling behavior.

She has the right to associate with who she wants, and you have the right to make decisions based on that. That's not what you did.

That's where PDT was going with the whole "controlling behavior" vs. "setting boundaries" post. It was even in his examples!



You need to sloooooow down and think about what you need to do. It was 5 hours ago that you were debating blocking his phone number until you did it. If you are going to do something that you're pretty sure is going to provoke an argument or cause the R to deteriorate, I would wait at least 24 to 48 hours before taking action. (This does not apply to things like protecting yourself from emergency spending sprees, taking money, her packing her bags and moving out, etc.)

Every rash decision you make right now is something that you are going to have to answer for on the other side. Because if you are really hoping to make the marriage work out, you both are going to have to do a lot of soul-searching and answer for what you have done.

I blocked the number, but then I immediately unblocked the number like an hour later. She knew I was doing it and called her sister. Tonight is a challenging night for me, where to begin... My wife left today to go to her "parents" but I found out through her sister she never showed up. She is with OM tonight doing who knows what, my worst fears is that they are getting close and she thinks she's in love. I don't want to control my wife Trent, I just didn't feel like it was right she was having this affair in my face, so I wanted to show her how I disapprove and I was going to try and take a stand by an action.

Her story yesterday began that she was going down on Saturday to have dinner with her aunts, and cousins. Guess it's something they do every year and my wife was going to go for the first time. Today she told me it turned into breakfast, so she needed to go down there tonight so she can get up in time for the breakfast. My wife left around 5:30 so she could have dinner at her parents house tonight. Her sister called about 7:30 and said she was worried about her because she hadn't showed up yet and my wife told her I was blocking her messages. Thats when I unblocked the messages because I could see that had confrontation written all over it. I called her sister and told her I haven't heard from my wife and didn't know where she was at. So her sister and I began texting back and forth about what has been going on in our relationship the last few months. She was completely shocked about what was going on and tried calling and texting my wife and she would not answer. I gave her sister OM's phone number and she called him up and bitched him out. I was so proud of her for saying what I was dying to say to him. Her sister and mother both know what she's doing and they both totally disagree with what she is doing and have confronted her about it, but my wife won't listen to them either. So my wife is out with this guy as I write this and I have no idea what is going on. From what her sister says, he is still with his wife, so that gives me a glimmer of hope their relationship isn't sexual yet. I will be so crushed if I find out she is having sex with OM, absolutely devestated beyond belief. I do however think I could find it in my heart to forgive her if she decided to come back, hard to say at this point because I'm so confused right now.

Tomorrow is going to be a very very challenging day. When she comes back, I will know that she was out with OM, and somehow I've got to hold it together and not turn it into a confrontation solidifying why she doesn't love me anymore. These are such challenging times and I feel like I'm skating on the thinnest of ice ready to break through at any time. How do I handle this in the best manner possible?? I don't want to be a pushover, but I don't want to be controlling and overbearing either. It's like she's challenging me to get into an argument about this all the time so it gives her reason to escape our marriage.

I think my best coarse of action tomorrow is to not bring up any of what I learned about her night. I'm going to go about my business and if she talks about it, then I'll talk, but I just don't want to get into an argument. It doesn't help that my wife has some anxiety issues, so anytime there is the threat of a potential confrontation, she elevates the heat of the moment faster than it needs to and nothing gets solved. I am trying so hard to just stay calm, talk like an adult and have a productive conversation and it's like she wants an angry argument with me to somehow justify how bad our lives are when in fact I think our issues are petty compared to people with real relationship problems. But this is real and it's serious and I'm at DefCon 5 trying to figure out the best coarse of action.

I have the kids tonight, so that is comforting to me. She wanted to take them, but I knew that would mean she probably wouldn't come back for a few days. Since they are here, I'm pretty sure she will come back tomorrow. My wife is a great mother and loves her kids dearly, but right now she doesn't see much value in keeping our family as one which really hurts.

The one thing positive that came out tonight is I got to talk to her sister extensively about what is going on and how tore up I am over all this. She was totally sympathetic and didn't know all this was going on. So I've got her and her mother on my side, which may be a good thing if her family disapproves of what she's doing. I wanted to contact OM's W, but don't know how to get in contact with her. She is on Facebook, but I can't send her a message or anything. I wanted to let her know that my wife and her husband have a pretty serious EA going on. What I'm scared of is if I do that, it will end their relationship and all of the sudden OM will be totally available for my wife. If you can't tell, I'm running a 1000 different scenarios thru my head trying to sort everything out. I barely sleep, I didn't go to work this week and when I am at work, I'm totally distraught and don't get anything done. I'm at my wits end on what to do, I absolutely hate this. If we can somehow pull through this, it will make me such a better husband because I never want to go through this again. I'm sad it took this for me to wake up, although it's not all my fault, I didn't help the situation a lot of time. I was not very good at being married, and definitely not very good at reading into what my wife's needs were.

Hi Dan,

I do know what you are going through. My H went away for a long weekend and told me it was to be by himself. of course, it wasn't. He took a nice little trip with OW. And I was aware for at least one full day that he was with another woman and I just had to sit home and wait.

How you handle this is completely up to you. confront, don't confront. That is your choice. In my opinion, it is just as well that you have already confided in her sister and mother. No point in hiding her wrongs from them. It doesn't help you any. And it just makes her affair easier. So that is out in the open.

Keep in mind that you have 2 young lives to think about. You can be all upset for yourself, but the kids are counting on both of you to act like adults.

Affairs are upsetting and hurtful. But they are not the end of the world. There can be life after an affair if the two of you choose that. Many couples go on and have good marriages after healing, and many divorce. You are at a crisis point. My suggestion is that you get some advice from someone you trust, perhaps a priest or therapist, who can help you form a plan for how you will deal with the crisis.

It sounds like the very first thing you have to do is decide if her sleeping with another man is an absolute deal-breaker for you.

If it is, and she did, then I think your decision is clear.

But it doesn't have to be, as Lotus said. There are many relationships that heal after infidelity. It's not going to be easy, but it is possible.

The next thing is: be very careful what you tell other people, especially members of her family. Even though they may disapprove of what she is doing, when it comes down to it they are her family, not yours. She will still be their daughter or sister long after your marriage ends.

It's good that you want to work on yourself, both for yourself and whatever relationship you may have in the future. I've suggested reading material before; no time like the present to start.