Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums For Newcomers Wayward Wife, my addiction, advice needed

Trumpet, there are two addictions going on here.

One is WWs. She is addicted to OM. She has NOT broken off contact permanently. At best she has gone a day or two without messaging or meeting. More than likely she has just taken it underground. My take away from what she's saying is: I am not willing to break off contact with OM or recommit to our marriage. "being scared" and "taking it day by day" is addict talk for not wanting consequences for the choices they are making. She knows exactly what she wants. She wants the benefits of a marriage while she carries on with her other relationship and sees where it goes and lives both lives.

The other addiction is your addiction to the marriage, or trying to control or steer her behavior. Maybe this isn't an addiction so much as a natural clinging, but I wanted to get your attention.

The point is you can't change her behavior. You can't end her addiction. No matter what boundaries you draw up you can't end her relationship with OM. And no matter what the consequences are to her, there is a good chance she'll continue down this path for months, years, or for the rest of her days.

The only thing you control is your behavior. You must step. Detach completely from her. Believe none of what she says and half of what she does. Get a life to meet your own emotional needs elsewhere outside this relationship. Don't invest in your marriage, invest 100% in your new life on your own.

This doesn't mean be angry or hostile, this doesn't mean file a divorce or start dating. Heavens, no. It just means that you need to get yourself in a better position.

Remember- How can you expect her to have the strength to cut emotional ties with OM if you don't have the strength to cut emotional ties with WW? Act with the character you wished she had and lead yourself and your family forward.

Love it, Zues126. Thank you. I'm going to have to go back to having a backbone again, like I was the first 3 weeks. Back on the bus, trumpet!

gs9, thank you for the post.

What complicates things is my addiction. It's in check, and I'm seeing a counselor for it. By next year, I'll be in a men's recovery group, and seeing them for 2 hours a week. My wife thinks I have a built-in excuse, and even told our MC that she thought it was 'convenient' of me to use the addiction as an excuse. I've hurt her, but she can't have empathy for me when she's still emotionally involved with someone else... thus my boundary of NC and full access. That hasn't happened yet, but I'm open to anything my wife wants to see - happy to do it. I have nothing to hide. She, on the other hand, won't let go.

Wife still won't leave the MBR, as since the counsel made me admit my porn addiction was 'cheating' on my wife, we're both 50% at fault. So, I'm sleeping downstairs now. I've asked multiple times for my wife to find another place to sleep. Every time is met with an emphatic 'NO'. I can't make her, but I did let her know that if she wanted to explore getting an apartment for herself that she should.

Up at 5AM again this morning - the every morning early workout is becoming habit. I have work today, and homework for counseling to finish tonight. Friday I meet up with our pastor for a one-on-one, which I think will be good. So far, I've really had to keep my mouth shut during the husband/wife sessions, and he even mentioned last week that my wife was always angry towards me. Oh, the crazy things wayward wifes do. I can tell she is scared of what might happen, which does give me hope that she's turning a corner.

The fog will take MONTHS to lift. My hopes of a week of fog was WAAAAYYYYY off the mark.

So why are you continuing with the MC? It doesn't work if she's not committed to saving the M.

Good work, Trumpet!

Sounds like you are doing the things you need to do.

Keep working on yourself and remember that YOU can only make choices for YOU.
Once I realized that, everything else got a lot easier. My W is here because she wants to be; I'm here because I want to be. If I didn't, or don't at some point, I always have the option of leaving and doing so with my head held high knowing I did everything I could. This has been empowering for me.

Only you know what you can tolerate.

Another revelation I've had recently is about attitude and how I allow my wife to talk to me. My dad always told me "pick your battles" and I took that to heart.

here's what I've realized about myself and W, though. W is high anxiety to start with and becomes easily frustrated over small things. In the past she's been very condescending in some of her comments(and I've let her get away with this recently as well); a perfect example being moving nuts from a big container to a smaller one the other day. I was going to move some nuts to a smaller container and she got kind of weird about it and gave me a bit of attitude.

I let her gat away with it because it wasn't worth it to me to argue about peanuts, but what I needed to do was stand up for myself regarding how she was communicating, not the peanut and container thing.

I need to let her know very clearly that I won't tolerate being spoken to in that way. It really has nothing to do with peanuts at all.

make sense? So we may still pick our battles, but even if the subject isn't a battle worth fighting (like peanuts) the respect is.

Keep doing what you're doing. Keep posting and keep improving yourself. Be the man you want to be, not the man you think she wants you to be; that's the difference between happiness and misery.

Sandi,

Continuing with the MC is a great question. I think right now, in my meeting with MC/pastor on Friday, I'm calling it off. I'm unwilling to go to MC when we don't have both of us on board. End of story. I know he wants to help, but we're not there yet, and I think he'll be a good way to get us both to re-connect, when we're ready. She's not ready. She's grieving. Her last 3 Facebook comments are about 'holding it together'... so her fantasy world is crumbling, and I have to let it crumble.

Question - I know it falls contrary to DB, but with my addiction, I can understand if my wife wants the bedroom for sleeping at night - the dog crate is there, the kids are upstairs, so she's there for them. Should I just buy a bed for the basement? I don't think I'll be back in the master bedroom for a few months, so my thought is to make it as comfy as possible. Should I care if it sends the wife into orbit?

A friend asked me to play racquetball with him - never played. I took him up on the offer. I need to find a couple more hobbies, but I did buy a pennywhistle, and pulled a guitar out - never learned either very well. I was a band director for 5 years, and played brass. Going to play tuba for Christmas services, so have the tuba at home - gotta work on the valves and music for rehearsal next week.

I had my addiction counseling this morning. A few of the goals of the counseling is to forgive my wife and myself, and set good boundaries to live by.

I discovered that my wife is still looking at apartments, and might still be in communication with the EA. I did confront her on it, and she denies it, but she said she is 'scared' and 'doesn't know what to do'. I told her it's simple - I refuse to live in an open marriage, and want NC with EA. Secondly, I want complete transparency, which means she's not looking for another place to stay, she's not hiding her accounts on me (she is), and that we THEN can move forward with MC.

Until that happens, we cannot move forward, and meeting with our pastor would seem like a waste of his time. I am prepared to tell him that on Friday. The wife has until then to come clean.

The addiction counselor (who's Christian) is trying to help ME be the best ME there can be, and helping to ME move past the hurt. His recommendation was to add 2 more conditions/boundaries... if there is transparancy, and NC, then we can do MC, and also wife needs to go to counseling to deal with the long-standing scars of her life and growing up, which puts her into the 'fight or flight' reactions I'm so used to seeing for the last 20 years.

In our MC last Friday, she called up my addiction counseling as a waste. She questioned if I had an addiction, and that I was using it as an excuse. It hurt, but I realized then that she was trapped in the 'session', so she was fighting to get the upper hand. My daily exercise and bible study also bothers her a lot, and she mentioned it. Her personal demons are coming back, and since she has no outlet now (me or the EA), she's completely locked up.

She couldn't even make supper last night for the kids - I got home, she looked like hell, and said she felt like throwing up all day. She then laid on the floor for an hour while I made and cleaned up supper.

There is a small part of me that enjoys watching this, I have to admit. The EA is ending, from outward appearances, but she's in limbo, and doesn't know what to do. She's still digging the hole. I will reinforce my boundaries, and let her know that I truly care about her, and want her to get any help she needs.

Absolutely!

Depending on why the EA ends, will matter a lot. In other words, if she isn't ending it to save her M, then there could be a lot of back & forth making up, etc. Even if it finally burns out, she has stuff she has to deal with.

As for offering to get any help she needs, I would hold off telling her right away, unless she has said she needs someone to help her. That suggestion from you might not set too well with a WW. Don't misunderstand, when the A ends, she will definitely need your support.