Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums Infidelity/Extramarital Affairs/Jealousy W31, OM20

Thanks, GH. I don't know if I'm really applying all the DB principles right now, since I'm not talking to her. When she moved OM in with her from Little Rock after telling me he was getting his own place, I was so angry that I just felt that it would be better for me not to talk to her and just to work on myself for a while. We'll see how I do in a few weeks when I resume contact.

I do think I have a good plan, but it's a lot easier in my sitch than in some of the others I read. I know that I would despair if I were in some of the sitches I read on this board.

I don't know if "self-aware" is really the best word either, especially as it concerns my porn problem, because I believe that conviction of sin comes from the Holy Spirit. I don't really feel that I deserve any credit for that.

Well, my computer is broken, so I'm not going to be able to post nearly as frequently now. This may be my last post for a while.

W left me a voice mail at 2:30 saying that she was sending me an email (no mention of what it was about). It's now almost midnight and no email. A couple of weeks ago this would be driving me nuts, but now I can pretty much just shrug my shoulders.

Taking stock of my sitch:

Staying dark for a while and rededicating myself to God have really helped me find some peace. I still love my W just as much as before, but I know now that I'll be fine if she never comes back. I may have lost my relationship with her, but my relationship with God has grown dramatically, and I know that He will never leave me or forsake me. There certainly isn't anything wrong with romantic love, but I don't HAVE to have it to be happy.

I'm very excited about the new support group I'm launching on Sunday helping men with pornography. I met with our pastor today and saw the inserts for the church bulletin, went over my testimony, and discussed ideas for running the group. I'm continuing to do the study in advance, so that I can be prepared, and I'm now on day 10 of the 60-day study at www.settingcaptivesfree.com.

I've got a new career plan and am getting certified this summer as a schoolteacher so that I can better take care of D.

I'm having fun taking ballroom dancing lessons. I'm planning a vacation for myself and D.

I'm continuing to get in better shape. I've lost 15 pounds since W first confessed to the A on Oct 29, but I just set a personal best of 45 pushups and 14:50 in a 2-mile run. It feels great to be healthy and fit and to know that I look good.

My W is no longer the focus of my life. If she comes back, she comes back. If not, then it's her loss (not that I'm so great to live with -- I'm talking about her losing her self-respect, her relationship with God, her closeness to her family, her ability to live with D most of the time, etc.)

I'm not saying that I don't sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and wish I could reach out and hold her close, but (overall) I'm OK, and after the excruciating pain of the past few months, that's something to be grateful for.

Thanks to everyone in these forums who helped me get to this place.

Well, I haven't posted in a couple of weeks. For a while, that was due to a lack of developments (I wasn't talking to W), but there have been some recent developments in the last week and a half since I started talking to her again.

The good news is that my plan to give her time to let her realize that OM is not her dream man has worked dramatically. I took D and her to dinner a couple of times -- and food really seems to help her open up (especially since she can hardly afford to eat out anymore).

OM didn't get a job for over a month after he moved in with her, and he supposedly now has a job that will start March 24. She complained that "he's so sensitive that he gets mad about every little thing." She has discovered that he is going to have to declare bankruptcy soon and he is being sued and suing someone else.

There was a revealing moment on Friday when she had some leftover pizza in her car and I asked if I could eat it and she said with a smile that OM would be disappointed that the pizza was gone. I said "OK, I won't eat it." and she said "NO, eat it -- I paid for it." The smile on her face was very knowing.

Since he can't get his own place, she still has no prospect of our D staying over with her. She said that she is depressed and misses D, misses being part of a family.

On Monday, she said that she knows what she needs to do, but doesn't have the strength to do it yet. She brought up that "after he goes back to Arkansas", she might want to live by herself for a while. She told me Friday that she has already tried to kick him out once, but he got very upset and she gave in and let him stay. She also told me Friday that she was thinking about my grandmother and how much she must hate her. She talked about writing her a letter as a first step "when this is over."

Thursday, she snuggled and cuddled with me some and just let herself enjoy my company for a while, though she didn't want to kiss me (said that she "wasn't ready for that yet")

Friday, I gave her back a key to the house and told her that she was welcome to come by anytime, instead of only at the previously agreed times. At that point, she reminded me that it wasn't over for her yet, she still didn't want to believe that the A was all for nothing, and she still felt that she "needed a miracle."

I told her that was fine -- I could see that her mind was coming back, even if her heart had a while to catch up.

I also told her that I felt our marriage was over, but that I loved her more than ever. I said that I wanted us to have a fresh start, with renewed vows, a second honeymoon, and celebrating that day as our anniversary in the future. She said that that "there was a lot of good in our marriage" (very different from previous statements of hers), and I agreed, but said that there was also a lot of hurt and it would be easier to leave that pain in the past. She said that she had also been thinking about a fresh start, maybe in a different city. I also told her that I wasn't going to completely take her back until she got right with God and was ready to make Jesus the Lord of her life. She agreed that this was what she needed to do and said that she was considering going on a fast to ask God's help in making the right decisions.

So, to sum up, my W has gone in the space of two months from demanding an immediate divorce to accepting that the A will have to end and talking about "when" she ends the A and comes back.

Anyway, that's an update on my W. I'll update everyone on myself in another post this evening or so.

Wow! I think you are making progress! Keep up the good work! Keep focusing on what works!

Thanks for your post, it gave me some insight into my actions with my H.

All right. I've updated you on my W; now I'll let you know more about me. During the 3 weeks I was dark with her, I really focused on self-improvement. I read a great book "When Anger Hits Home" that helped me realize how I have developed patterns of anger with my W, and how I brought that into our R from my parents' marriage.

I also started a group at my church helping men overcome pornography addiction. I started that by going in front of my (large) church and gave my personal testimony of how porn had hurt my life. This has been incredibly empowering (as well as having the added bonus of drawing respect from my W). I've started contacting additional churches about sharing with them, and I will be speaking in another church this Sunday.

I'm also going to be taking a big step and take this ministry in our prison system. This was partially inspired from reading the interview that Ted Bundy did with Dr. James Dobson just before he was executed, when he talked about how viewing increasingly violent porn had led him into a fantasy world where he eventually felt compelled to act. Who knows? This ministry could some day save some teenage girl from getting raped and murdered.

It's funny, but every time I start to feel sorry for myself, I feel God urging me onward into more service for him. When I am serving God and focusing on Him, I miss W much less.

I've also drawn a lot of spiritual inspiration from reading the stories of Joseph and Job. They remind me that God's timing is His own and I need to be patient and wait on Him.

Another irony is that, as my W is making progress, I'm getting increasingly angry with her. I've pretty much removed my own expectations, but seeing my D get hurt sets me off.

When W told me a week ago that she was depressed because she missed D and missed being part of a family, the next day I was furious. "What about the fact that D cries just about every day because she misses you?" I wanted to scream. I can hardly believe that she still doesn't get that life is about more than HER feelings.

Yesterday was one of the three days a week she is supposed to visit D, and she didn't visit, didn't call, and didn't return my call to ask if she was coming over. Needless to say, I'm angry again.

If she ever calls, I'm going to very politely and calmly explain to her why I'm upset and see if we can agree on a system for her to contact me for the future.

OK, W went out of town again with OM, and that's why she didn't come by on Sunday. She says she sent me a text message Sunday night, but I never got it. Oh well. It's still pathetic that D expects to see her on certain days and W won't even bother to let her know that she won't be seeing her. Our D cries because she misses her mommy, and that's hard for me.

Keep going on the last resort principles. Take care of yourself. Do not beg, plead... Just find your own way to be content.

Take care of your daughter. Have some fun with her so that she does not focus on her mom's behavior. Do not say bad things about W to D. This will make D feel worse.

I can imagine that you are having a hard time. Invite some good friends over and enjoy a meal or do something fun. Try not to spend your time complaining to them as much as possible.

Sounds like you have been working on some of your own behaviours. Keep up the good work!

Well, W did not come by today, since she is very ill with a urinary tract infection.

Something she said on the phone, though, has definitely piqued my interest. Apparently, OM is going back to Arkansas for a few days, starting tomorrow. This will be the first time they've been apart for more than a few hours since he moved in with her on Feb 6. I don't know why he's going back, but I have to view this as an opportunity/good sign, especially since W has already tried to kick OM out once but let him talk his way into staying.

W wants D to come spend the night with her for a night, and that's good. We'll see if I ultimately get invited to spend the night as well. Actually, I really am hoping that I'll get to spend some more time with her in the next few days, and that can only be very good at this point.

OK, so D and I are going over to her apartment this evening for the first time and D is going to spend the night. W is making cookies. I'm sure that D will be very excited to do this, especially since she hasn't seen her mommy since Friday.

I'm really unsure what's going to happen between us tonight, because I really don't know the circumstances of OM's leaving for a few days, or how W feels about that.

She did say that she wanted to go ahead and start figuring our taxes out tonight, so that doesn't sound too promising, but it does provide an excuse for me to stay awhile and us to spend some time together.

We'll see what happens after D goes to bed.

Well, W invited me to spend the night (clearly not an invitation to ML), but then OM called and angrily demanded that she kick me out, which she refused to do the first time (and I indicated my willingness to leave and she insisted I stay), but the second time she gave in to him ("since this is his home too right now") while saying that she really wanted me to stay.

We had put D down for the night and were getting comfortable on the couch and snuggling when OM called the second time, so I'm hoping that his jealousy ends up backfiring on him.

During the evening, she told me more bad things about him, said that she knows she'll never be able to deal with all his issues, etc. All this is stuff she volunteered, because the only question I ever asked was how long OM was going to be out of town.

I'm very proud of myself for DB'ing effectively tonight. Though it was humiliating and infuriating to see all his stuff mixed in with hers (not to mention his Bible lying out front and center), I was prepared for this and didn't let it get to me or let it show at all.

Ultimately, the main thing is the D and I had a lot of fun with W at her apartment. I'm hoping that W compares having us there to having OM there and decides that it's more fun to have us over. We'll see what happens tomorrow -- W wants me to play tennis with her, which should be fun.