Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums For Newcomers LRT - Dealing with WAW Affair

I'm sorry to just vent. But it's "type" or "call her". My WAW has been so distant for so long, to watch her cry and tear up... but NOT say what she's thinking was so hard tonight.

I know I was a solid C+ in reference to DBing. But crap. It's week one of NC/dark/dim as I can be and I feel guilty for not comforting her. It's what she wanted, and I deflected.

Push, Pull.., I have read and thought and educated myself so much that I dream in terms of "GAL", "WAW" "AP", etc...

I read everyone's threads and think "How the F did they get through that? (R or not, Piecing or not, D or not) And I just wonder... Who's journey is harder? Theirs or ours? And if my WAW and I get through and R... Will she really ever know what I went through? Is it easier to be the perpetrator or the guard? She packed her clothes for the season and left so easily. Tears lately don't mean much to me... they can very well be followed by a text to her AP. How do they do they do that? My stomach turns at the thought of betraying her now, even with everything I know.

It would have taken a knife to the throat to make me leave her and our home. I read the words, "her journey", "space", "processing", but seriously... I was in the same marriage, on the same beach when we took our vows. I didn't cheat. I didn't fall apart. I didn't run away.

Sorry... cycling through anger. Better you guys hear it than her right?

(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((RT))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

i think you handled the weekend so very well RT. you are letting her take her journey without pressure and taking care of yourself.

the emotions come in waves... and i have found that it is best to just accept them, sit with them and allow them to wash over you until they subside....

in hindsight, it felt like the big emotions arose every time i took another step toward detachment (cadet calls it peeling an onion and i agree, it happens in layers) sounds like you are taking a big step with your boundaries, so the feelings will come. it does get easier with time...

i have been working recently on sitting with my feelings without throwing the 2nd arrow.. meaning that when the first arrow comes and i feel sad or hurt , i sit in the feeling.. i try my best not to throw the second arrow and get mad at my STBX, OW or myself. i tended to beat myself up a lot... regrets, name calling, shame. this concept is helping me to be more conscious

take one moment at a time... all you have to get through is right now..

tell your story here... and the story of your M...there is much more for you to tell us. most of us have been told things by our WAS about ourselves that we do not understand and this is a good place to sift through.... the kind people here have so much help to offer. i think that our sitches are a type of trauma and that is what we do to heal trauma, we tell our stories to uncover our strength and make sense of ourselves best we can.

this is a great time to read... there are so many good books to help you understand yourself, find the strength to move through this and understand your W better. have you read DR? you seem to have a great handle on DBing.

many of us have read a great deal by Buddhist monk Pema Chodron.. i have heard that she was an LBS too and that spurred her to find a path to peace. Google her quotes and you will get a good taste.

post a lot and tell us more, RT. i heard recently that at the end of her life, Margaret Mead told her protege Jean Houston not to work with bureaucracies and governments bc she now believed that true change would occur in small learning communities with individuals helping each other grow and then venturing out to change the world. i thought of this place when i heard that and believe it to be so true. i am glad you found your way here.

Thanks for checking in on me Grace. I have been really trying to feel the emotions. Until a few weeks ago I was using xanax to supress them everytime they surfaced. I decided that I did not want to ignore them anymore and am no longer using medication when I feel anxious or despair. I want this pain to mean something in my life. I want it to have a redemptive purpose.

I've been thinking a lot about the reasons my W's journey took this path. I pulled out a letter from her that she wrote me about 4yrs ago. She wrote it after a fight as an apology and to express herself. In the letter she talked about her unhappiness with her life and was honest that she blamed me. I don't remember exactly what my response was at the time but I know myself and I'm sure it was oppositional. 'Blame me? What are you talking about?... You are overweigtht because YOU don't take care of yourself. We don't have a baby (she tried) because YOU didn't get pregnant and won't let me try yet. We are having financial troubles not because of me, I've kept the same job, provide our benefits and retirement. YOU are the one who won't work a 9-5'. Although I never told her these things I'm sure I thought them after reading her letter and probably passive aggressivley got my point across because I was wounded by her blame. My point being, I took her resentment for me personally and projected her perceived failures back at her. I didn't have the relationship skills at the time to understand that she was reaching out to me because she needed me. I don't think she had(s) the skills to realize it at the time either.

When she gave me the ILYBINILWY speech in May 2012, she voiced the exact same resentments, only now they were stronger. Unbeknownst to me they had been fueled and validated for a year by our "friend", her AP.

I know all those things are not my fault. Our marriage is a partnership so we share the ownership of these things in some respects. I know she will have to come to terms with them on her own and in her own time. But it's very upsetting that the AP is in her ear. It's like were trying to work on our marital issues and individual issues except she is being sabotaged by someone with alterior motives. Who's ultimate purpose is to bring about the end of our marriage for what she thinks will be the beginning of hers. We are not the first time the AP has been the OW. We are the third. The other two, one heterosexual marriage and a lesbian LT relationship did not survive. The AP claimed her prize in both, and had two failed relationships from them.

As much as I want my W to be happy, I'm scared for her too.

RT, I want to let you know you did an amazing job regarding the test text as well as the other encounters.

You may be tempted to reach out because she's being nice. Just remember, the text was a CONSCIOUS test. The other stuff... UNCONSCIOUS tests... She is showing you that she still has emotions regarding the M, yet it is not enough "pain" for her to turn her around.

Until she tells you that she actually wants to talk to you about the M and your futures, together... THAT will be a time when you might open up and listen to what she has to say. That is a different part of the work if she ever "returns" and is not something to worry about, right now.

Hey RT, kudos on an amazing set of behaviours, you are an inspiration. NeedGrace is in a really good place right now and I take a lot of strength and enlightenment from her posts right now

Good luck to you and post everything here, it helps!

So RT... you are aware the AP is a predator. I understand you are scared your W. Why?

You will go through the grieving stages as we all do and anger is one of them. I think it is important that you point to prior anger and passive-aggressive behaviours. Good that you notice that in yourself.

How are you working on that?

Hello IO and KD. Thanks for checking in on me. This forum is just what I need right now.

KD, I am learning that I have a control issue. Not an out right in your face control issue but a subtle, manipulitive one. I thought about your question. Why am I scared for my wife? And the answer lies within my control issue. I'm scared when I don't control other people's choices when I think they will directly affect me or the people I love. I want her to do what I THINK she should do and I don't trust that she will make the right decision for herself. I'm afraid if I'm not locked in competition with the AP, effectively pointing out her faults that left unattended my WAW will be duped like the other two women and she will turn around 3 years down the road and regret her decision and be terribly unhappy. I'm scared for her because letting her go means letting her make her own decisions and I'm afraid she will hurt me.

My control issue manifests in passive aggressive tecniques. During the time that she was travelling on the road for work, even prior to the AP joining her company. I had my own resentment issues. I resented her for not being at home every night. For not taking a 9-5 like I have so we could be together more. When she would return from a trip I would shut down. I would test her love for me by not doing the dishes, the laundry, walking the dogs. I was making her prove her love for me and forcing her to take care of me. I was the lonely spouse holding down the fort. I thought I had it worse than her and that her life was all hotels and cocktails. I now know she was very lonely on the road.

The DB process itself is wholeheartedly forcing me to admit and look at my passive aggressive control issue. I'm a fixer to the Nth degree. Not because I'm a caretaker but because I am trying to control the decisions around me to protect myself from pain.

Since working on detaching I've realized how freakin' tiring that was! Spending mental energy in controlling decisions that ultimately I really don't have any control over at all. It has caused me to be very closed off to opening up to new people. I could only juggle so many balls at a time.

As for the AP, yes she is most definitley a predator. Up to the past two weeks or so I've always felt like I had to protect my WAW from the AP. But I was just pushing her closer by being a "know-it-all", "my way is best", "can't you see", kind of person. My WAW has always taken longer to process emotions and make decisons than me. But if I stop and really look at it... even though her decisions were not within the time frame I wanted, she always made the right choices. For herself and for us. I need to trust her to do that, but it's very hard after this betrayal to trust her at all.

I had a really hard day yesterday. Sometimes, especially when I'm busy at work or life, My W and the infidelity briefly drift off from my mind and then I snap back to reality and it's like I'm hearing it for the first time again. I feel shocked and it's surreal. I go straight into "No way. Not my W." You see, we weren't perfect but we were closer to perfect than anyone else we knew. When I exposd the affair to our friends and family everyone, not just most, everyone had the same reaction. "No Way! Not your wife." We were the standard they all strived for. (including the AP)

I was in denial and hid it from everyone because I was ashamed for quite some time. I thought I could bring her to her senses and no one would know. I went through this phase of trying to protect her from her mistake. Control again. Control so I wouldn't get hurt. So I wouldn't have to suffer the public humiliation.

It got to a point where it was too much to handle. I needed support. I talked to my W about it. (this was prior to her moving out). Of course she didn't want anyone to know and I was enabling that but I told her I couldn't be alone. We agreed together that I would confide in one of our closest friends. I'll call her BFF. BFF had know my W longer than anyone, almost 20 yrs. Over the course of the 12yrs we have been together, BFF and I have become very close as well.

One night over the phone I told BFF everything. She was angry. She was so angry. She knows the AP too. BFF has been such a soft place for me to land and been a tremendous source of strength but what neither my W or I expected was that BFF would be so dissapointed in my W, that she now finds it hard to have a relationship with her. Now W shows resentment to me for it even though BFF was my W's idea in the first place.

My W underestimated the expectations that BFF would hold her to. She thought friends forever and no matter what. Honestly so did I. They have been so close for so long. I have even tried to encourage BFF to reach out to my W... that even though my W made a mistake she needs her friends too. But as BFF puts it "If you can't trust her RT, how can we?" (meaning our circle of friends.)

So I have watched my W throw away our M, lose her job, lose the respect of her closest friends, and even some of her own family members. She said to me recently that it seems easier to just run away with the AP and start over with new friends and a new reputation than to stay "here".

What if she just can't forgive herself and "woman" up to repair the damage she done? Not just to me, but in the other relationships in her life that were so important.

It's hard to watch someone you love so much be in so much pain and make so many mistakes. But I am learning that I cannot jump in and save her. I have to keep my feet planted firmly on the boat. If she doesn't do this on her own, she will not grow from it. If I get in it with her, we'll both drown.

Ending on a GAL note... BFF and some other friends have planned a vacation and have invited me along. We leave for a week in about a month. I am excited but scared and sad. It will be my first vacation without my W in 12yrs. This is the group of friends we normally travel with. They chose to ask me instead of W even though I met them all through my W. It will be weird to just be "RT" with them and not "RT & W". Plus they are couples and I will be alone. I'm sure it will be easier than I think.

P.S. I'm still NC. And she has been too.

Keep thinking that. Alternate with reading the 37 rules. That should keep you out of trouble for a little while.

You've already seen that changing your behavior has an effect. Stick with it.

Learn to feel all your feelings and take good care of them yourself so they don't leak out at inopportune moments.

I'm on a busy road trip so don't have time to write more now. I'll just report that listening to songs on the radio is proving to be a bad idea, still.

Hi SD, Thanks for checking in. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and advice. I appreciate everyone so much.

Yesterday was tax day and she was supposed to get the info to the accountant. She didn't, we filed an extentsion. But we are in the middle of a Re-Fi on our house and the mortgage company wanted the tax returns by yesterday. So yesterday I emailed her that I was taking the federal forms to the accountant. That's when she told me we are extending. Today I responded that I need to call the mortgage company and let them know when we will be sending it and could she tell me when she would get the tax info to the CPA. She responded back that she would send it by Monday (that tells me she hasn't been working on it like she eluded to recently). At the end of the email she complimented me, "Thanks for being on top of this!"

This is a bit of a 180 for me. She has always handled our finances. But between ILYBINILWY and PA BD, she turned over all of our finances to me. It was one of her resentments... that she carried the burden alone. I never knew it bothered her. I thought she preferred it that way so I always entrusted it to her.

It was nice that at the bottom of this email she acknowledged me. No worries friends, I will not respond and I will fade back to dark (unless Monday comes and the CPA doesn't get anything, I can't allow her to negatively effect my finances... at least until this modification completes and I have more room to separate finacially) I did open my own checking account! She did not like that.

It is curious though, how one small nicety from her can elevate my mood or make me hold my breathe. It just shows me how much more work I have to do with my detaching. I am still giving her control over my emotions. It's a reflex that I need to be more conscious of.