Sorry to hear this, but I don't think you're back at zero. At least your W is not hiding anything from you. Small comfort, I know, but this situation will be resolved for the best.
~Nicola
Life isn't about finding yourself; it's about creating yourself My thread: Trusting God's Plan
I am really sorry to hear about that GH. I know how bad it feels just when you think you are making progress. You have made good changes in yourself and inspired others. Your W is being upfront and honest with you and that is not a bad thing. Hold on, and take your time to before making any rash decisions. Keep your head up, I am pulling for you!
Married 11 years, together 15
Two Daughters 6 and 2
D-day Jan.14 2006
Thread 1
GH, At least you now know the truth behind the lack of intimacy.
SS gave you some wise advice:
Quote: I know there was much discussion of implementing a no contact rule. I would say that is a waste of time. She didn't consult you when she started the A, why would she ask your permission now. If you make it an issue it is only likely going to make her want to see him more. Eventually, she will grow tired of him, and end contact on her own.
Keep doing what you have been doing. Do not throw in the towel just yet. Alot of us are DB'ing in the midst of an A. Your W is very confused and as much as I and others would like to smack her upside the head, she has to figure out what is important to her life. Continue to be the wonderful man, husband, father that you are (maybe minus the backrubs) and I promise the A will fizzle out on its own. Hang in there!!
Quote: I know there was much discussion of implementing a no contact rule. I would say that is a waste of time. She didn't consult you when she started the A, why would she ask your permission now. If you make it an issue it is only likely going to make her want to see him more. Eventually, she will grow tired of him, and end contact on her own.
SS, you are correct that any rule that is "imposed" by the LBS will simply make the WAS want to do the opposite.
What's different is if the WAS really wants to work on the marriage, and the rule can be mutually agreed upon as part of a plan to restore the marriage. Most WAS's, at the point of wanting to restore the M, don't realize how strongly they are going to be tempted to call the OP. They want to think, like my W did, that they can just be friends. Let's face it -- if the WAS wasn't a little confused, he/she wouldn't be a WAS leaving and then trying to return to a marriage. There's always going to be some rocky point in a reconciliation when the WAS is going to really want to talk to the OP. Knowing that in advance and planning for it is a great way to stop the cycle that we see in some sitches where the WAS returns to the M, then goes back to the OP, then repeats the cycle over and over again.
My two cents ...
The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth." (Psalm 145:18)
SS, I know the no contact rule is a stupid idea at this point. She's clearly not committed to working on things, at least not to the point I am.
To everyone else, thank you SO much for your words of encouragment. I know progress has been made, but to hear your W, whom you THOUGHT had committed to working on the M full time basically say that she's still not sure OM is the wrong thing to do and really, for the first time, entertain the idea of a D (I brought it up, not her), it's a little disheartening.
That said, maybe this WAS a good thing, I don't know. Like I keep saying, there was a LOT said by both of us and a LOT of new territory covered. I may get around to posting as full a recap as I can sometime but until then, I AM taking care of me, I have stopped ALL pursuit of my W (no more backrubs, lol) and I told her exactly why I did that.
We are roomates once again and while it sucks all to hell, maybe it's a tiny bit better than wondering what's REALLY going on.
The worst part now is that there is the possibility that she may see OM again and while I don't think I will leave, or try to get her to leave if she does and admits it to me, I am not too sure how that will affect me.
That's a bridge to cross when we come to it (er, or when I find out about it...may have already been happening).
GH, Thanks for checking in. You are ALWAYS here so it is very disheartening not to see you around. In any case, I really feel for you. Why is it that we can see all the potential of your M and your W cannot. Maybe she needs to feel what it is like without you. I really like the no more backrub rule (I did mention this before) but why should she get to feel good when you cannot? Start doing things with your kids without her. Don't even tell her what you are doing. The logistics may be difficult but I'm sure you can do it. I have been doing this lately. On the one hand my H is a little miffed that he wasn't invited and on the other he seems genuinely sorry that he wasn't there. She needs to feel life WITHOUT you. You are so accomodating to her that she doesn't realize the impact of D. Hang with us. Go dark on your W if you have to BUT (I know you hate that word) don't go dark on us. Vent. We have all come to care deeply about you and your sitch, please don't leave us in the dark.
Hi GH, I am sooooo sorry for what is happening. You are such a good and loving man, and I know this must really hurt. But here's the thing. It's just not over yet. Expectations got the best of you, it was all looking so good, and now it's not what it appeared to be. It sucks, but truly, better to know than not to know. On top of that, better to clean every bit of crap out of your R with your W, no matter how it turns out. I know you probaably don't want to hear this right now, but this ping pong back to the A partner is common. These affairs are addictive, and the addiction is hard to break. OM is your W's heroin. You do what ever it takes to take care of yourself and your kids while she is addicted. Set healthy boundaries, and be firm GH. You do not have to set ultimatums, and you do not need to react in anger either. It is time to tell your truth. Just remember, though, that it is a good thing that your W told you what was going on, and that she didn't lie or procrastinate for weeks and weeks. This was an improvement over her past behavior.
Let her know you are hurt and are not sure you can tolerate one more round. Let her know her behavior is unhealthy, and you don't want to watch or participate. But remember, it is more important than anything else that your W tells you the truth. I know you are upset, hurt, angry, and dissapointed. And you thought something different was going on, and that your W was working on your M. But here's the thing: you need DBing now more than ever. What expectations did you have? Were your communications, commitments and promises to each other crystal clear, or could you have communicated better? Were you being 100% authentic, or were you holding back some? Just take a look GH, to see if there is anything you can do to self-correct and learn from what has happened. Don't get me wrong, GH, I think your W is behaving badly. But something is still there for you to do, I am sure. Be patient, and try not to react impulsively. It is a good thing that you at least know what's going on. Anger is a cover up for sadness and hurt, so remember that when you are feeling angry. Maybe it's time for W to see the consequences of what she is doing, instead of you always sucking it up and doing all the work and then getting hurt without her seeing it. You are the best GH. Tone down the number of posts on the boards if you like, but don't quit your process. You have grown so much since I have been reading the boards, and you have helped so many. You are just discouraged. I understand. But there is more to be revealed. Please know we are with you, all the way, no matter what.
(((((((((((( GH ))))))))))) biggest hug ever
PositivelyListening ************************************** When one door of happiness closes, another one opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us. - Helen Keller
Ok, here is goes. This will probably be LONG, even for my standards. I don't really want to do this more than once so I will TRY best I can to remember as much as I can. This should give you the good, bad and ugly of where my sitch is today. This all happened two nights ago.
Where to start...
Well, like I said, I went downstairs at around 11:00pm and straight out asked W if our issues were still just our issues or if the OM had something to do with it and she said it was too late to talk. Then about a half-hour later she said if I wanted to talk, lets talk because there was some stuff she wanted to tell me. I guess the best way to do this is to kinda list what we talked about, and I doubt I will get this in chronological order so...
-She asked me what I wanted to talk about. Of course I said "YOU said there were things you needed to tell me." She got miffed for some reason, and said that I seemed to be holding back something for weeks now. I said, ok, you want me to just open up.
M: W, for the past several weeks things have been great. We have been getting along like never before and really enjoying each other's company but when it comes to intimacy, there is so clearly a barrier that I can't figure out for the life of me. What is that about? W: You're right, there is a barrier and I don't know what to do about it. M: Ok, so it that about him? W: Maybe. I don't know. (this is a summary of a lot of things she said that all meant the same thing) It's really hard when you love somebody. I don't like to say those kinds of things to you because of how much it hurts you, but it's the truth. You want me to just stop loving him and I don't know if I can do that.
-I told her that I understood but that the only way she was going to get back to us was to yes, stop talking to him or seeing him cold turkey. That every time she talked to him it made things worse between us and harder to reconcile.
-She said she knew all that but she didn't know if she wanted to do that.
-She spent a LOT of time repeating all her "everyone in my life has controlled me and I have sacrificed my entire life so that other's can be happy" mantra that she talked about in the first bomb drop. Note to self...MLC sounds more likely every day.
-I DID not validate much of what she said. I argued with her and told her she did plenty of things for herself, etc. I even got angry and told her that "Well, now with two kids, you'll likely never have that freedom you seem to want."
-We talked about what the future would be if we split. I brought it up, to which she got VERY upset. She cried a LOT when I talked like that. She still insists that she does NOT want a divorce or to separate. She claims that will never happen.
-Of course I got upset at that, telling her that she didn't get to decide for me what I could and could not deal with in our marriage. I asked her how that would work.
-She said she didn't know. She just knew that no other man would ever live in her house with the boys (then later on asked what I thought about them meeting the OM...cuz if they ever were "together" they would know him...to cut THAT story short, she agreed NOT to have that happen) and that she just didn't understand why I was being "like this". My W is clearly not right in the head if she can't understand why I am being "like this."
-I started to try the "put the shoe on the other foot" and asked her how SHE would be reacting if it were me doing all this. She said even if I did it now, with all that is happening, she'd hate it.
-At some point (listen up PL) we got on the subject of my anger issues. I actually said, just in the stream of the convo, something to the effect "Well, at least my anger is not under control" to which she stopped dead and said "Like hell it is."
-She went on to describe how my anger had come back over the last several weeks and how she knew it was because of her. I agreed. I then saw she was right. Damn, DBing right out the window.
-We also talked strategy, i.e. she said that she has felt all this time that everything I do and say is from a book. She feels like she is waiting for something genuine from me. She still has zero respect for books or counseling but claims to respect me for trying to do what I feel is right.
-At that point I got really bad and cried in front of her for the first time in a LONG time. DB was totally gone at this point. THIS was the reason for my "square zero" title. I cried and said "OK, you want genuine? I WANT to save my f--king marriage. I have been laying it on the line and now feel like I've been hit by a mack truck...again, something I never thought I would have to deal with again. I love you. I want you. I hate crying in front of you and swore I'd never do this again." She walked over to me, wiped away my tears, cried herself and said "see, this is why I can't talk to you about these things. It hurts you too much."
-F--K ME!!!!! All that hard work to get her to trust me and now this. Now, while I am sure this convo was genuine, I wonder if she'll tell me any more...oh well.
-We talked more about the intimacy thing. She kept saying over and over again how I was in great shape now, attractive and all that...and I added "but you just can't 'do' me anymore, lol." She said, no, it's not even that...she didn't know.
-She said more about how she was just still in love with OM and that it was hard to go back to us when there was something more with him, more passion, more spark. She said she tried to leave him for good but could not. She said it was too hard and she didn't know what she wanted. She claimed to understand that I was probably right about that feeling dying down and she thought it had but...
-I got angry again and said something like "OF course it's full of passion and spark, it's new. You said he was abusive, physically and mentally and now he's 'all better'? BS. You're making excuses for the mf-er. Whatever. Oh, and BTW, I keep hearing how your parents, sister and I put all this pressure on you and how the OM is the only thing in your life that you actually CHOSE on your own. It's the only thing that you've EVER done for you as if none of your life up to this point has been something you wanted (she started to protest...I cut her off... unfortunately, there was a LOT of me cutting her off). What about OM? Last I heard he was stalking you, putting ENORMOUS pressure on you to be with him. That's not pressure? WTF!"
-She said that was then. Now, he is back in town and he has contacted her a few times and she him but that he is saying she needs to just do what she needs to do. She says he is putting NO pressure on her at all (damn, he's a better DBer than I am at this point). I think that's BS, but WTH.
(Forgive me if I repeat some of this stuff...hard to keep it all straight)
-When I got specific about why she recoiled when I tried to touch her, she just said she "couldn't". I got what she meant. I told her how much that hurt and she said she knew but that she tried.
-To that (or some other time she said she "tried" and to give her credit for that at least) I said "Yes, you tried, but what you tried was to go back to the old M, the one that didn't work for either of us. You NEVER really tried to make US work. You tried to be a great mom, a happy person in the family, etc, but you never tried to be a wife again. I have been doing all I can to change the dynamic between us and you have done nothing."
-She said she knew that was true but then went back to saying that it was really hard after 7 (dunno where this number came from) years of "nothing" in terms of intimacy to believe that I could change like that.
-I said that I could and did change but unfortunately the only way to prove that to her was to ML and then have the intimacy continue, something that could not happen right now so long as the OM was in the picture and making her hold back from me.
-She agreed and asked (she asked for this MANY times) for some kind of mini-resolution. I asked her what she meant but she said she didn't know. I felt like she wanted me so say it was ok for her to see OM, or not ok, or something like that. I told her I didn't know what she wanted me to say, and more than that, what I wanted to say myself but that if she decided to see OM again, I didn't know how I would react.
-I did manage to tell her that I DID understand how she felt and how hard it was to think about leaving OM for good because I know I feel that way when thinking about being away from her for good. Probably not the best thing to say but...
-I want to stress again, for what it's worth, how much she talked about all of my "ideas" being from a book and my C. She kept saying "Oh, did you read that somewhere or do you really think that?" She has a point to a certain extent, but I simply kept saying "I have a right to read and get info from wherever I want. I may be getting ideas from books, but I am intelligent enough to distill them and form my own ideas. What I say to you IS my opinion, no matter where the original idea came from."
-(this hurt BTW, and I can hear all the posts now, so please, if you can, ease off a bit on me) You have said that in the past but you never did anything.
-OH, so I guess since I didn't leave, you don't think I did anything?
-No, I didn't say that, and I never want you to leave. It's just that you said those things in the beginning. You like to threaten (remember people DON'T put out an ultimatum if you aren't going to back it up...otherwise you get THIS) but you don't follow it up. I respect you for what you've done. You've shown me more love by sticking with me than I ever deserve from you but I don't get why you keep acting like you will leave when you know neither of us want that.
-I told her again that she doesn't get to decide what I do and that while she was right, I didn't want to leave, nor have her leave, I needed to consider all options.
-At that point, I did something that REALLY shook her to the core. I know it was "right" in the context of the convo but this was the only thing I actually regret saying. I simply asked her if she really considered what would happen if we got a D. Again, for the record, she entertained ME saying those kinds of things, but made sure never to bring it up herself.
-She said she had not really considered it since she never thought that would happen (WTF???).
-I told her (this it the bad part) that if we got D, she WOULD NOT see the kids all the time like she said she would ALWAYS do no matter what. At best, 60-40 and at worst, maybe the courts would give me full custody, who knows.
-She INSTANTLY broke down more than I have ever seen. She looked at me with more pain in her eyes than I have ever seen from another human being and asked me why I would say that.
-I stopped talking and held her. I said I was only trying to get her to see what COULD happen, not what I wanted. She said it sounded like I was going to TRY for that to punish her and that she could not live without her boys. I told her I was NOT interested in keeping them from her any more than she was from me. She calmed down. Like I said, I just regret the WAY it came out but I think it needed to be said.
-To that point, a LOT of what was said that night was about me trying to paint a bleak picture of life without me. It was NOT DBing at all and really, a lot like begging and pleading.
-PL...this one is for you. Throughout the convo she pointed out that I was still VERY P/A, angry and needy...all 100% right. I have a LOT of work to do. I DID get complacent and I DID build up expectations WAYYYYYY too soon. Damnit!!!!
-Last thing in the list...she mentioned that there were a TON of factors she had to weigh in terms of our marriage and a TON of things she stood to loose if it didn't work out, namely her family (parents/sister) and money...yes...money. That is the problem, she feels SO much pressure to make things work, I don't think it really matters what I do in terms of personally not putting pressure on her, her family does enough to be an issue.
-I KNOW I left out a lot, probably some VERY important things. If I think it important enough to journal, I will post more, but I hope not to have to do that.
More random thoughts...
In the end, I tried to once again, get a "where are we now" idea from her. She said she didn't know. I asked her if she planned on seeing OM and she said she didn't know. Throughout the convo she kept saying she didn't know if we were working on us or not. She didn't know what she wanted to do. I told her that I had to pull back and that if she wanted to know why I was acting in a way that she didn't recognize, especially lately, either remember I said this, or simply ask me. I just had to do it to protect myself.
So, right now, I am pulled back as much as I can be. I am still nice as can be (something she actually disputes, saying that I CLAIM to be nice but to her, I am not a lot of the time) and we even had a GREAT day at one of the water parks yesterday with the boys (I took the day off).
I truly don't know where things will go from here. I KNOW now, 100%, that anything I do to pressure her will fail. She is rebelling against any and all control/pressure in her life and running towards the one thing that SEEMS to be her release. I get that. I told her I got that.
I am going back to DBing 101. I realized that I was a fraud in certain respects. I had NOT made most of my changes for me, I had done it for her and this convo, the way I reverted back to my "old" self, proved that to me. It's why I am staying away from here for awhile.
You know, Amy asked me either in a post, of via email, when I was going to get tired of being the only one trying to save my marriage. I guess the answer to that is never, or really, never so long as I am actually doing that. So far, I don't think I have been because to REALLY work on my marriage, I have to work on me first and I know I have a LOT more work to do in that respect. My mind is pretty made up that this is the course I will take. No "no contact" rule, no pressure, no nothing in terms of my W. This is all about me right now.
I don't know what will happen now other than I will continue to pull back, act cordial around her, continue to GAL and be the best daddy I can be to my boys. It's all I can do. It's all I want to do right now. She is a grown woman, she can do what she wants...but when I get to the point where I KNOW I am the man I want to be, then it's likely I won't be around much longer to see her become the woman I once wanted.
Like I said, I am pretty much dark. I will check the boards now and again, but for the time being, I am not going to be on nearly as much as before. I need some time away from my sitch and being here keeps the wound open too much.
Thank you all for your support and I felt I owed you a little more because of it.
First of all, not ALL of the convo was bad. There was a LOT of "I DO love you" comming from her. Also, she said she was still making plans with US for doing things way into the future and she thought she was doing that because she knew things would work out but she just didn't know how. She also said, at the VERY end of the convo that she was really glad to have talked and that while a lot of it was painful for both of us, it was better than each of us keeping it bottled up, which we both do all the time. To this I agree.
Sorry, just wanted to set more of the tone of the convo. I am focusing on the negatives but there WERE plenty of things, if you were so inclined, that you could take as positive. I guess my mood isn't there...yet.
Oh (this edited in) also, I did manage to tell her that I would not settle for a one sided physical relationship anymore and that it had been that way from the beginning. She agreed that it had been that way with us from day one but didn't know what do to about it. I said get help, that's what.
Something I should have put in my original post is that I told her MANY times that she needed to get help...that WE needed to get help. I told her that trying to do everything to save the marriage, for the kids, whatever, meant admitting that you don't have all the answers and are willing to ask someone, or some book, for help. It's what I did and it doen't make me better, but it does show that I am willing to admit that I don't have the answers. "W, you are not willing to do that. You think you know how things should be. You know everything..."
