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Assuming it was a male friend (hope so, Denver!) then the mysterious friend doesn't really matter... it's the fact that Denver's W was so intrigued that she HAD to meet him there, had to know who was meeting for drinks. Someone with an OM R going on wouldn't care less. I think this is a very good sign.

It doesn't sound like you were a pushover - it sounds like you were a good guy who cares about his SS, who is trying to be supportive of your W and her career. You didn't drop your plans and rush to meet her. You responded perfectly!!! You kept your own plans but also helped her out too. Really, I don't think you could've handle it better.

I understand the impatience but you're doing really, really well, Denver!!!! Slow and steady wins the race.

Okay, my apologies Denver. I thought I saw where you referred to the friend with feminine pronoun.

So, to ease my mind.....is this the same friend who was having problems with her M before?

Lol... No Sandi, it was NOT a female friend. I was meeting a male friend who is in a similar sitch as me. No female friends who are not friends of my M. I promise! I am glad that I have you holding me accountable though!

Hope - Yes, I definitely think that W is intrigued by what I am out doing these days. Thanks for your take on how I handled the sitch too. I think, today, that maybe you're right that I handled it okay.

Exactly 2Step! And also, at what point does a little pursuit help the sitch rather than hurt it?

Update/Journal

1/29/11

W did call after her gig was over. As expected, it was very late/early 2 a.m. or so. Nothing special to report other than I'm fairly confident that she was by herself and not with OM. Unless she is covering it up his presence really well, I feel that my imagination is starting to get the best of me.

W called this morning to let me know that she was going to pick SS up and go to lunch with her sister. We chatted a bit about her show tonight. The location is about 2 hours away and she told me that she was driving up there with the other lead singer of the group. The other lead singer is a male, and I know him pretty well. It is not the OM that I am concerned about. The guy she is car pooling with is older and is M.

This news made me feel good that this will be another night that she is NOT seeing OM. I beginning to really wonder what, if anything, remains of R bw W and OM. I just don't see when my W would have time to be spending with OM. I can account for almost all of her time and who she has been with over the past couple of weeks and the only time OM has been remotely close to my W was when he took SS ice skating last Friday night. I guess I still don't know though. That's the bottom line.

W and SIL just met me at coffee shop to pick up SS. She was again concerned about something with her car so she asked me to come out and look at it. W and SIL came into the coffee shop for a bit to order a coffee. I got to chat with them for a bit. Again, VERY pleasant with some joking around. W told me that she is feeling worn down from working so much. I feel badly that she is having to work so much. She is struggling financially since her move. In addition to her full time teaching job, she is doing singing gigs and/or rehearsals 4-6 times per week.

W will be calling me later to let me know when she will drop SS off so that he and I can go see a movie. Weird thing, I am enjoying all of this time with SS way more than I ever did before W left me. I took both of them for granted.

BITS
Denver

In response to IW's post on my other thread:

"damn i like your attitude denver. "What I do know is that OM is in for a big disappointment. He's not going to destroy my M or my family. I will prevail." PERFECT way to put it. i have a similar situation. my thread is "young couple with WAW". i hope you get a chance to read it. i would appreciate any feedback."

Hi IW. In response to your post on my thread... first, thank you. I do think that having a positive attitude is important with this whole process. If you're having problems with that, just give it some time. It becomes easier. And certainly becomes easier as you begin to see some victories, even small ones. Your confidence will build. But it all starts by how you view things.

I've learned an awful lot since the bombs were dropped in my sitch and coming to this board. I started off in a terrible place. Someone described themselves as being in the fetal position... that was me. I cried for nearly 3 weeks straight. I thought that the world was going to end if my W didn't change her mind.

The first thing that I've learned that I'd like to pass onto you is that: the world is not going to end. The sun will come up tomorrow regardless and you will still have a life to live. If our W's do not come back, we will have to choose, 1) live a happy life, or 2) live an unhappy one full of regret and bitterness. I think that everyone in our sitch should think about this choice from day 1. Which life will you choose IF your W does not come back to you?

Secondly, I think that we all have to decide what we are willing to do and go through for our W's, for our M's. What do our M vows mean to us?? I know for me, when I got M'd, I didn't REALLY think about the vows. They were what they were. When faced with my sitch though, their meaning to me hit me like a train. I realized that they were a matter of personal integrity to me. I asked myself, when I told my W that I'd always love her, did I mean it? If I didn't, why did I say it? Did I mean it when I said that I'd be with her during good times and bad, through better and worse? If I didn't mean those words when I spoke them, what good is my word with anything? I read Truegritter's entire thread, all parts, and it really helped me process my feelings on this. But for me, I decided that my word is my honor... so for me, this is the "bad" this is the "worse times" that those vows refer to.

If one decides that their vows are meaningful to them and that they meant them, the next questions are what are you willing to endure and what are you emotionally capable of enduring? Being a LBS is a rough, rough thing. It is not for the weak that is for sure. The pain that I endured in the early weeks of being a LBS felt as bad as an actual physical wound to my heart. I literally felt pain and shock. It does get better, but the pain endures for weeks and weeks, months and months, and, for some, for years. How much are you willing to endure for your W, for your M? It was either Timeheals or Truegritter who asked rhetorically on some thread, "Are you willing to walk through the gates of hell for you W"? Bc that is what you will do if you choose to take the DB journey. I am choosing to walk through the gates of hell for my W. But that is my choice.

As I'm sure that you have seen, there is a lot of talk about detaching on this forum and in DR. I have struggled with this concept and the different definitions for it that you will see out there. To me, it really means getting your mind off of what your W is doing, thinking or feeling. To get yourself to a mental and an emotional place where you do not worry about those things. At first, I thought about day and night. I could not concentrate on work or anything else in my life. I did work on detaching, but have never fully detached in the true sense.

Detaching IS important for you to do at least to some degree. Especially in the early phases of being LBS. It will help you get to a place where you are emotionally stable so that you can function in the other aspects of your life. It will help alleviate some of the pain that you are experiencing. And it will help you mentally prepare for the mountain that you are choosing to climb if you choose to DB. You need a lot of emotional and mental strength to do this, and detaching helps you get to that place.

What I have found though, is that, for me anyway, detaching does not have to be an all or nothing proposition. For me, detaching has been:

1) the realization that I love my W unconditionally,
2)that she has free will,
3)that I want her to be happy in life,
4)that I cannot control her choices or actions,
5)that I only control mine,
6) and what happens in this period her life without me will not matter in the long run... whether or not we end up back together.

Once you understand unconditional love, you can say to yourself "I want my W back, but if that is NOT what she chooses, I can accept her free will, still love her, and still hope that she finds happiness." At the same time, you can also say, "I will also choose to try and find happiness for myself." Once you are here, and I admit that at times I am while others I am not, you will find that your interaction with your W is not so focused on your own wishes and desires. That you are able to also understand where your W is emotionally and mentally. That, right now, she does not want to be married to you. This will help you when you have interaction with your W... You will be able to better to 1) listen to your W; and 2) validate her feelings. These 2 things are something that you need to learn to do. And they are weapons for you to use to DB. There is plenty on the board to read about them.

At this point, you choose what you will do with your own life. I think that you have 2 options. 1) Let go of your hopes that your M will be saved (I think that this is really complete detachment) or 2) to proceed with your life by doing things that will continue to give hope to the possibility of reconciliation. You can choose #2 with the idea that it will be an indefinite period of time that you will do this, or you can give yourself a timeline which includes milestones where you decide that you will reevaluate the situation.

For me, I chose #2 and have given myself a 6 month milestone, where I have said that I will reevaluate where things are. At that point, I again will choose bw #1 and #2 above. The reason that I chose to give myself a date certain to reevaluate, is bc I believe that my own happiness will have to be a priority again. My own dreams and goals in life will have to be recognized and addressed. At some point, if there is no reconciliation, I will have to seek happiness somewhere else... I will have to seek complete detachment.

OM or OW in WAS sitch definitely complicates all of this and makes reconciliation much more difficult. If you've read my thread, my W did have an EA with OM (even though she has never agreed that it was A). And, to this day, I do not know if that ever progressed to PA and do not know the present status of that R.

I really struggled with the fact that OM was in the picture with my W. My ego took a severe hit... still does. Throughout my life I have ALWAYS said that I would never, ever tolerate my W having an A of any kind. Well, since it has happened, I realize that we can never really say how we will respond to a traumatic situation until we find our self there. When we do, we realize that there are so many factors and circumstances to it that it is not as black and white as we previously thought.

For me, it was the fact that I realized that I had been a terrible H to my W. While there really is no excuse for an A, I drove my W to it. I also realized that my W is human and makes mistakes just like we all do. My W has a very high moral character, but she is human. I had created a situation where our M was a very lonely place for her. I was not fulfilling what she needed in her life. I allowed her very human weakness to be exposed. OM saw the opening and took advantage of it. That's what OM and OW do. They are predators with very little respect for themselves, the sanctity of M, or their fellow humans. Most likely bc of their own emotional frailties.

After much thought on this and much self reflection, I realized that I did not want to succumb to the threat of this predator. I had created the danger to my W and to my family, so I have decided to defeat it. I look at like it is an infection to my M... a virus.

If I had done all of my thinking and self reflection and came to the conclusion that I had been a good H and that OM was the result of some moral flaw in my W, I think that I would have made a different choice. But, like I said, that is not the case. If I had been a good H and not made my W's life so lonely, she would never have allowed an A to occur. Never.

So how do we defeat the predator, get rid of the infection... by being the better man/woman that we know that we are. That is what I chose to do. And it all circles back to loving our W unconditionally and accepting the choices that they are making RIGHT NOW.

Be the better man - This is where you apply all of the DB techniques that you read about.

GAL - this is about enjoying your own life and helps with detachment, but it is also about becoming a better person. A person who is not unhappy, predictable, and bitter towards your situation. Those are all unattractive qualities and don't help "being the better man". GAL helps you have a PMA... helps you have some happiness in your life... makes you seem less predictable... makes you exciting... helps you smile a bit. These ARE attractive qualities, and do help you be "the better man".

180s - Being the better man includes figuring out where you have come up short in fulfilling the needs of your W and your M and fixing them... in yourself. What is it about OM that your W finds attractive? OM is definitely meeting some need that your W has. Whatever it is, you need to start working on it, doing it, doing a 180.

Be the man that your W fell in love with. That person IS the better man when compared to OM. Your W married you!!! NOT OM. Once upon a time, your W chose you as the better man... over all men!! Be that person again! I cannot stress this enough.

These are the weapons that we need to use for this WAR. And don't let anyone fool you, that's what this is if you choose to fight it. You don't fight it with ultimatums to your W, threats to D your W, personal threats to OM, or other tactics that have been referred to on this board as the "hard line approach".

You fight it by showing unconditional love... by being the better man...

I hope that my perspective helps. Good luck man. I will continue following your situation. Now go crank up the volume on some "this is war" by 30 Seconds to Mars or whatever upbeat music that gets your adrenaline flowing and get to the battle!

BITS!!
Denver

Sorry HRT...

Everything still looking good, my man. A couple of weeks ago, you and I were pretty much standing side-by-side on this road. But, you have clearly pulled out to a huge lead on me and that is OK! Now, I have someone who can warn me about the pitfalls ahead. Please continue to post the updates. It allows me to watch and learn. It really is starting to look like you might be a success story very soon. Be careful though. Tread carefully.

Dude, I am so freaking stoked for you. Yes, do really wish we could have that beer. I think it would be great!

Hey, sorry again if I scared everyone last night. I was really drunk and trying to avoid the "drunk dial" to my W.

BITS never walk alone!

FOBD

No worries FOBD! I absolutely and completely understand what happened with you last night. And again, I'm very impressed that you were able to hold the drunk dial in check!

Thanks for the words of encourage FOBD. Things are looking up for me right now. I'm not a success story yet, but I really hope to be. But I do feel a badly for everyone else when I am having some success and posting about it. Though I also feel much safer treading into this new phase of my situation knowing that I have everyone here supporting me.

I want everyone here on this board to be a success story! Everyone here deserves it. The mere fact that you and everyone else is fighting this fight, and here on this board, I think is proof enough that our S's would be making a VERY big mistake by choosing anything but their M to us.

BITS!
Denver

This entry, Denver, is an inspiration to me. If you've read my threads, this week and especially tonight was heartbreaking and awful for me. Even though there's no OM, the very thought of my wife dating another man, and possibly her having a good time with his thingamajig and he hers, makes me sick and so so awful. It eats me up inside, really. I was her first and she was mine...call it possessiveness or whatever. I know it's not the physical that counts, but emotional and spiritual, but as a guy...I just don't want to think about it too much or I'll breakdown again.

Sorry this was so random.

No worries Alamo. I have tried to keep up with your thread. I have a had a lot on my plate the past few days though so haven't been as good about it.

I've also been cutting back on posting bc the moderators still have my account in purgatory.

BITS
Denver