Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums For Newcomers That REALLY escalated fast. (Hoosjim's 14th)

Idunno. It confirmed she believes im gone. (and i will continue to rebuff any overtures for "joint"--My MC, who has stated she doesnt want us in joint right now, is actually getting frustrated with me because i told her to back off on the cross sharing of info.) And it confirms she at least actually believes she has to do some work... and that she's doing it even though she believes i'm gone. Dont know how many times she said "he's gone, he's gone... no coming back from this". I think it also confirms she's had her "Come to Jesus moment"... as do some things in the letter that i will get to later. Not that that excuses here, or lets her off the hook.

But it does indicate, to me, that she is moving in the right direction. She has the right help around her now, too... if she can just shed bff. I'm not going to go over and jump her bones (But holy CRAP some part of me last night desperately wanted to ), but i am willing to allow that the possibility exists for her to do the right thing, here.

Don't know what that does for me. As you have said about your own sitch: now is now and what happens a week or two weeks from now may be something different... if her fickle, WW feelings change. I really think IC can help her with this, though. We'll see.

Im hopping right now so forgive the piecemeal response.

I hear what you're saying... i just want to make sure you're clear on particular facts. She told me the very same thing at a moment when she was convinced i saw them actually together (I didn't). Something like "What did you think you were seeing? It was just that 'hello, goodbye, are you coming here again tomorrow, no im not' exchange and side hug...that i found very uncomfortable... that you saw." It was less clinical-sounding than that but that's pretty close and was the essence of it.

Again, i don't know how i can trust that she didn't see him other times as well, but... at some point i may have to allow that possibility. At any rate, even if she didn't "See" him, she damned sure talked on the phone to him fairly regularly.

I agree that if she chooses the recon the M you get to your boundaries on what transparency means to you. She gets to agree or disagree... then if she disagrees and that's not acceptable you move on.

I think spying on her with bugging device is not something she has agreed to and its a huge invasion of privacy and as Artista pointed out the info was really of no true help to you anyway.

The bugging of the bedroom is the behavior of someone who is controlling. Remember the only person you can control is yourself. When you can truly walk away not caring about what your WW does... When you are not obsessive about what happens when you are not around... only then do they ever really truly want to come home for good. At that point they are doing all the work because you have written them off.

I will change my opinion of the matter... Sorry if you don't like it.

oops.. left out the NOT change my opinion.

Good luck to you.

So, her letter, that i read at MC/IC's suggestion was... i don't want to say good but... thought provoking. And anger provoking. and a host of other things as well.

On the one hand, she, finally, is saying all the right things: "What I did was wrong (and she gave specifics)", "I never should have done it" "It was disrespectful of you and of our mr and of our family", "I know it hurt you and I am sorry for that too", "It was the biggest mistake of my life" etc etc.

OTOH, she insists on, idunno, "justifying" is the wrong word because she says "there is no excuse", but "explaining", maybe? She says she has known her feelings for me have been growing but that it was just like when we first dated and she kept getting cold feet and didn't trust herself to be able to give herself fully to me... as she says has been the case with every relationship she's ever been in. She says OM had called her periodically at work and that she usually didn't answer or else put him on hold until he hung up, but that he kept leaving messages saying how much he was "into her" and implying he would come by the office, and he had approached our son once already (my son told me about it) so she was worried about that AND she says she was afraid of a confrontation between me and him (he has a concealed carry permit) so she would sometimes pick up and talk to him briefly, but she never went to meet him as he requested. Until Saturday. She said she had been feeling the barriers in her coming down, but she was still worried she was not going to be able to commit, or that she would change her mind, so she said she felt she wanted to see OM, in passing, just once more so she would know her head was in the right place and, when she did, she knew for certain there were no more feelings there. She said she had been "over him" for a few weeks now, as it was, and he was not "in her head" any more, but she decided to do this and, even though she felt nothing and that that was like a big burden lifted off of her it was a horrible mistake... she should have trusted me and trusted the counselor and gone to her first with her thoughts. She said she called me repeatedly after she left gym (she did, i wasn't picking up though because i'd seen OM going into gym-- he didn't see me) because she was so excited to see me, that she'd had this epiphany... blah blah blah blah.

I mean, some of that i can buy, and i don't doubt some of her sentiments are genuine. She invoked the souls of our four children, including the "two in heaven" which she almost never (and in the case of the one referring to the abortion she had in college NEVER EVER) discusses. This past weekend i know she had gone to confession and to mass for the first time in a long time. I know alot of you are probably rolling her eyes, but i know my W... even wayward she would never be that evil.

But still... she chose to do what she did. She continued to entertain advances (and they were unquestionably advances) from the OM by phone. AT A MINIMUM, she is guilty of a serious, serious betrayal of my confidence and trust, and epically bad decision making. And, given all of that, i can't be confident at all that there's not more... other shoes to drop.

And the fact that she even bothered to include any sort of explanation/justification/whatever you want to call it angers me as well. It was wrong. Period.

There was a lot of other sappy stuff in there: She knows what she wants now, and its me, and us, and our family, and to do all the things we never did before and have a fully intimate marriage where we share everything etc etc etc and that she is dying inside without me and knows i can probably never forgive her but she hopes that one day i can and that i can come home.

That's it. I'm still mulling it over. Like i said before i have a strong inclination, and had it already, that she had turned the corner. But that corner is still a long way from home.

J,

So if I am reading this correctly, if you wouldn't have been tipped off by the meeting by bugging her office phone, she would have left the gym came home and jumped your bones and you guys would have gone at it like wild animals?

When in the last year or so you had one awkward kiss. Correct me if I am wrong but isn't your W a very sexual woman? Isn't that the information you passed on to OM to start all this in the first place.

Jim, what I am trying to say is something doesn't add up here and IMO there are going to be many more shoes to drop.

Time and space will make everything more clear.

Good luck!

jim, I agree with LH. it sounds like she isn't ready to give up the MR. Mainly because she would be ashamed for your sons to know. I saw that with my wife. Anytime talk turned to telling our daughter were divorcing she'd immediately start hedging.

WWs don't like to give things up. I think you said you're a lawyer. I'm guessing she doesn't make nearly as much money as you do. I bet you have a nice house. Drive nice cars. You can afford gym memberships. She'd be walking away from a sitch that most women would kill for.

Do not mistake not wanting to give up what she has for being ready to give up the OM. I've seen this movie before. She has been having her cake and eating it too. WWs doesn't like to stop cake eating.

Yeah, alot doesn't add up. Funny that you use the "dropping shoes" cliche-- my buddy (W's bff's XH) was just talking to me two days ago about the "closet full of shoes" that kept dropping out, one at a time with his toxic WW.

I mean... i think she is turning the corner, but i also think she is not completely levelling with me. Whatever. The counselor is basically saying now that she "has her right where she wants her". Not those exact words of course, but saying she's been waiting for her to get to this point for months now... and now she can finally make some progress, if she's willing.

i do remember that a couple of weeks after my husband and i separated for good (where i finally moved in with my parents) i sent him an email... i was so broken... sad... i missed him and our family... the four of us being together... i said again that i did not want a divorce... that i only wanted him...

the positive that you and your wife have going here that my husband and i did not is that you are already in counseling... you are both already working with an IC... i hope this contributes to a cleaner salvage of your marriage than what my husband and i experienced... only time is going to tell...

I'm a lawyer, yes. But a lawyer who works for the govt. And who has major medical bills. And who has two kids in college (almost) And who lives in a major metro area that is VERY expensive, and who crashed his finances during the dotcom crash and thus got a VERY late start on the career savings front... So we are not really doing all that hot, certainly not in comparison to the average demographic around here.

I can afford the gym membership, and the occasional vacation (the Cancun thing was going to be a splurge), but, while i do drive a BMW, it is 13 years old with 130,000 miles on it. And a cracked windshield where my Tourettic son kicked it from the inside during a fit W does drive a fairly nice car but nothing extravagant. First World problems, i know, but, at least by the metric in our town, we are not "affluent".

Nonetheless, i don't doubt you are right about the dynamic. OM is a tow truck driver, in the same metro area, so living with/off him would definitely be a step down.

OTOH she would be entitled to a share of my federal pension as long as she didn't marry the clown... Which is why if things go sideways i have vowed to myself to either a) fight it till there is nothing left to give to her or b) quit before my retirement vests and become a beach bum. No way in hell i'd ever let that SOB realize the benefit of anything i've made.