Thanks for the advice, I have realized through this whole process that I can only change and control myself and that I can not go back and change the past. I have contributed to the position that I am in today and hopefully through actions I will be able to make myself a better person. All of this is so easy to talk about and so difficult to deal with. I make the mistake at times of projecting the future as opposed to focusing on acting as if.
I do believe that time is both on my side and against me. He is pushing very hard on the other side and I am trying to work on me as opposed to trying to influence her decisions.
It's tough when you feel like you are competing with an 18 year fantasy. My W's OP has been a friend for 5 years and the affair happened in the last year. "Friends" are wonderful because all that family, mortgage, bills and kids crap is left at home and it's just you and your friend, nothing in between. It's a completely different R than a H and W. I know when I go out with a friend I come home feeling energized and happy but if I had to spend my "real" life with that person we'd probably be in the same boat as I am now. It is impossible to convince your W that this is "fantasy". It feels damn good to her and she wants more (and my W got more!). The OP says all the right stuff e.g. "go with your heart" (don't worry about your f'ing brain!). It's tough stuff to deal with. So, as I have been advised, don't compete cuz you can't beat a fantasy. Just go with doing what is right and what will make you a better man and you'll come out a winner, with or without your W.
Sorry you're here. Your sitch seems a LOT like mine except for the long distance EA thing. Read my threads (you can get a full list of links, in order, Here.
Please, at least this once, bore us with the details. It really does help us get a feel for how we may help.
I will attempt to provide details focusing on where I am at today and trying to fill in the history of how we got here.
My wife would like to follow her heart and be with the OM.She feels she has never followed her heart, I really must be clueless because I thought she did this when we got married. She believes she has outgrown me and now with the help of the OM understands what is important in life and I cannot provide that for her. She would relocate to another State, roughly 10 hours away with our children, he would leave his wife and child and they would be married when the law would allow.
She loves our children dearly and recognizes that I am their father; however, she has convinced herself that OM would be a better father because he has so many better traits than me, he is selfless, loving, considerate of all people, understands women (reads Glamor and Cosmo) works at home and frankly just understands what is important in life.
She feels trapped because of the kids and the fact that financially we stand to lose 80% of our net worth if we seperate and go different paths. She believes all the changes I have made our for me because of the kids and the money and also believes I will never be able to change enough to make her happy (tried to explain I can not make her happy - that did not go over well)
I am trying to work on myself, still have trouble with pointing out my changes to her which equals manipulation. I have been so naive to this whole process. I am working on myself with the hope that this will reignite our relationship and if not help me be the kind of person and father to my children that I desire to be.
I will follow up later with more details on what has happened.
I can't help think there is a textbook out there that they all read! Your W is spouting the same stuff we all hear. Take it with a grain of salt. That doesn't mean dismiss it but recognize where it's coming from. I'd like to hear how her OM's W would describe the wonderful H and father! Your line to her was "I can't make you happy..." is one we've all tried and it never turns out well!!! Ditch the convincing because she doesn't want to hear it. I went through it all with my W, telling her that her new R is a joke and it's just a big fantasy blah blah blah. It was a waste of time although it did make me feel a bit better! Stick to getting together a DB plan around what was missing in the M because that is real, not fantasy. We all got into these messes by NOT meeting our S's needs. That is fact. Now it's time to try and do that as best you can. Lastly, do the GAL thing, it's crucial.
This process has forced me to take responsablity for who I am and how I contributed to the point that my wife felt like she needed to talk with somebody outside of our marriage about our issues inside our marriage. I have come to realize that I was controlling, at the time I thought I was making the best decisions for the family, unfortuntly I did not let my wife particapate in those decisions. I also have a problem with my pride and ego by trying to always be right and defend my actions. I hope I now realize I am not perfect.
Two area's I am still having problems with are the following:
Showing my emotions - I am someone who keeps his emotions pretty much in check. I go by the philsophy that things are never as good as they may seem nor are they ever as bad as they may seem. This works fantastic in buisness and awful with relationships. I am trying to figure out how I can start becomming a comoplete person that can show and feel emotions to the people I am close to.
The second area is I found myself at times paying attention to the OM and what qualities he has that I do not. I need to focus on myself and strengthen and or fix the character issues that opened the door in the first place. I was wondering if anyone had the same issue?
I now realize that my wife and I are at different places in life. while I have been focused on financial security she has moved closer to gaining self respect, attention and to some degree trying to figure out the meaning of life.
I do not mean to ramble; however, the details of my relationship are so similiar to the others I have read. I am trying to put my effort and energy into fixing myself.
Thank you for linking me to your threads, I have read through the 4th thread and it appears that my sitch is following somewhat closely to yours. I am in a very confusing place today and will attempt to provide details on what is going on.
My Wife dropped the bomb that she wanted a D in July. We have two sons age 4.5 and 14 months. I panicked and did all the wrong things. Late July I found out about OM and the fact that she has been talking with him since Nov 04 and pursuing him since Nov 05. He is married with a 4 month old son. His wife does not know about the affair, and they live in another State about 10 hours away. If my wife will leave me he will leave his wife. His wife is the primary provider in their family and he works out of the house. My wife stays home with children while I work. I am still living in the house as of today.
Unfourtuntly like everyone else we have complications if we get S andd or D. The one major difference is the fact that we stand lose partnership interests that equal more than seven figures. My main focus is on the children and being able to provide for them in the future.
I realize that I have chosen to stay in my marriage and fight and therefore I have chosen to experience alot of pain from my decision. I have read some great things posted by Muddlethrough, Whatis and NYsurvivor to name a few that have really hit home.
I am doing the following: counseling every week, coming home early from work, giving my wife a break by watching the kids, detaching from my old controling behaiver, working on the house weekly, and spending time trying to listen, touch and validate her feelings.
I will walk you through our past weekend. On Friday I made the mistake of snooping and looked at her e-mail where I saw that she was still communicating with OM. She had told me that she had broken off contact; however, she had started being secreative with her cell phone which made me curious. I knew I should not look; however, I did it anyway. We had a function to go to in the community that night and I found the e-mail right before leaving work. I pulled myself together on the way home. She was getting ready when I got home and as we were talking she asked if I would mind if she went out of town to visit one of her girlfriends for a girls weekend. I asked if it was see OM and she said no and further said she was not communicating with him. I said I did not have a problem with it, and please bear in mind that she has never gone a girls weekend.
We went to the function with another couple and finished the evening up at their house pretty late. Everything went well besides the fact that she utilized the restroom to check her cell phone all night. Saturday morning I got up with the kids and took them out of the house to clean her car, run errands, and give her a chance to relax. She called to check on us and I asked if she wanted us to bring her lunch, which she did. We ate lunch together and after lunch I worked on the house for about 3 hours, this was one of my wife's complaints in the past that I did not do enough handy man things with the house. The unfortunate truth is that I am not very good at it.
I lined up a babysitter for Saturday night for us to go shopping and out to dinner. We were pretty tired and this went OK. I stayed away from all R talk we mostly just had small talk. We were unable to find cloths for her and instead found cloths for me that I could order online later. Even though this was supposed to be shopping for both of us, it was not good when we did not find that much for her.
Sunday mornings we usually go church; however, the kids have colds and we would be unable to drop them off in the kids center, and my wife really did not want to go church anyway. I therefore asked her if she would like to go out shopping for herself since she did not have much luck the night before. We had planned to take our 4 year old to the mall and I asked if she could come back early afternoon for us do that together and this did not go over as well as I would have liked and made her feel that I was not happy staying home with the kids while she left. The 14 month old was sleeping at the time. I reverted back to old habits and followed her out to the car to talk it to death before she left and even followed up by talking with her on the phone while she drove to the mall (OUCH). I finally realized I needed to shut up and get off the phone.
I once again made the mistake of checking her e-mail to discover that she is planning on meeting OM on her weekend away. Up until this point I have been told that this has been a EA. I am shocked and devestated. I call her to let her know that the baby is up and find out if she would still like to go to the mall together for our 4 year old. She said yes and came on home. On the way to mall we talked about the R: W you are selfish and not thoughtfull M what am I still doing presently to make you feel this way W I do not want to be with a man that I have to tell how to act with me. You should know. M If I knew we would not be at this point in the R and I believe that it would be less frustrating for both of us if you could communicate your desires to me.
At the mall she asked why I was not more excited over the cloths that she was buying and I said I am excited just sad and depressed over what we are going through and I was not sure if we buying cloths for our future or her future and at one moment I turned and looked at her and said I need to know the truth even if we are not going to be together in the future I need you to be honest with. Are you talking or seeing OM, and she looked me dead in the eye and said no. This broke my heart because I know the truth.
Last night before bed we had the following convo. M How do you view me W What do you mean M As your husband, your my wife? W I view myself as your wife, why do you ask? M It just popped into my head and I was curious M When you say I am not thoughtfull how does that make you feel W I don't know M Does it make you feel hurt and frustrated W Yes M I am trying to process what you say and not start a fight but I am coufused based on a list of things I have been doing that you said were thoughtfull. W She gets mad and says she needs to be loved and feels like she is wasting her life right now and is just not happy. M I ask her if she feels I should be dating someone else. W She says that may be a good way to discover if our relationship is the right one or not. M I tell her that I believe for me it would only confuse the issues (like taking a bite of the apple) W She opens up that part of her is scared that I am pursuing goal of her and that if she showes affection back to me that I may take advantage of her. M I ask her to help me understand what she means by being taken advantage of and also tell her that she may be suprised at how I would react if she did show me some affection.
This morning I woke up early and gave her a massage with the intentions of not letting it lead into anything else. Which is not that hard to do these days given we ML week ago Sat. and before that it has been at least 2 months. She intiated it this mornging and we ML. She stated after that this is the first time she felt like we actully ML in our marriage. I stated she needed to be careful because she was saying that I might be changing and added through a fruedion slip where was that in our past marriage. She quickly stated that we are married and I was quick to add that I meant in the past.
Thank you if you have read this far. I am confused and not sure how to proceed forward. I love this women and she blames me for all of her unhappiness, she was depressed before but she did not realize that it is all resulf of me. I am not sure how to respond with the knowledge I have about the upcomming trip. Why does she continue to lie? If she told me the truth what can I do, besides potential allimony payments.
