MLC, affair, internet pictures, we're a mess

[cantslowdown]

I don't know where to begin. My wife seems to think our entire relationship has been some carefully crafted sham. I have been the epitome of a nice guy (the bad kind).

When we started dating I wasn't always the best financially, but always worked to "stay one step ahead." I also casually looked at porn. She found out both these things and I promised to reform (porn was as she said a no go). For a while, I did.

We got married. We've had two kids. We've moved away from extended family for work so she could stay at home with them. I rarely initiated sex (not that she was exactly pleasant when I got home from work where I'd want to). Being on one income was tough. I began to fall into the same habit of trying to provide whatever she wanted (not saying no) to make her happy in theory that she'd be nicer and just "want" me, where I could avoid the confrontation of asking for love (I was too "nice" to put her out for my needs). I bowed at the altar of her approval. She went out and got an evening job so we spent more and more time apart. It was easy never to talk about money or sex and we grew more distant. When I revealed that I was having the same habits with money she was initially angry and then "forgave" me. That should have brought us closer to work on stuff, but it pushed us further apart. She also “trusted” me to get it together with no help from her (she went back to spend first ask questions later).

She began an emotional affair with one of her college students when we weren’t clicking in the bedroom (although how could we? We spent a lot of time apart). I began to look at porn again. her college student was also our babysitter. He broke into my google personal account to find that I had looked at porn and was just telling her because he cared so much (because he just "knew something was wrong with me").

She told me she loved me but she was not in love with me.
After that she and he began an affair. I made sure he was never at the house again when I found out and I told her she needed to stop seeing him. Every time she told me she stopped or she'd give us a try she was lying. She left open a letter on the computer when she was going out to see him that showed on Father's day, two days after she was "through" that he wanted her to run away with him. She kept lying about contact even though I knew the truth (but at the time hadn't called her on it). The phone bill doesn’t lie.
I began reading books (like No More Christian Nice guy, proper care and feeding of everything, divorce remedy.) I realized that if I want my life to be any good I also had to come clean with how I was still mishandling the finances. I couldn’t fix them while lying and I couldn’t live with myself to go on lying (we are not destitute, but we have the average amount of American debt and the sad, sad, average amount of American savings). I thought she was leaving before I came to this realization, so I had let us spend too much on family vacation and whatever. It reached the point I was losing sleep, hair, putting on weight, everything trying to keep my lies going. I realized that I had to stop. I told her while also coming clean about what I knew about her and her “friend”. Now she's mad at me for all that, too (with justification on the finances), but she firmly believes that her entire life has been my fault and I robbed her of her twenties. Everything bad I am being blamed for one way or the other (I have responsibility for what I have done).
When we moved here she made friends who all moved away. She began hanging out more and more with her college students. She thinks that divorce is some magic pill, but she thinks also that she can’t even afford that, and it’s my fault (tough friggin luck about that one). Her actions and words for the past 2 years have been textbook midlife crisis talking points. I feel like our life is a mess and I want to naturally fix it, but I also know that I can only fix me and then the cards will fall where they may. I don’t want to ruin our children’s lives. I told her if she files for divorce that is on her. That is her giving up. That is her choice. She says ask any child psychologist and the kids will be fine because now “Mom’s happy.” She said she is only going to counseling as a checkmark to say “she tried everything.” I can assure that she has not tried everything and for that matter neither have I.
The problem is I feel like I am living with a rollercoaster that never stops. I never know what to expect, except to have my buttons pushed and for me to realize that when it’s happening and try to deactivate the fuse before another argument ensues (I’m getting better at this). If she wants to leave, there are ways to leave, but they’d be hard roads to go down (and I’m not going to give up my kids without a fight). Problem is that her parents don’t support her in that (and they know EVERYTHING, she told them most and when they confronted me with such detailed information they found out that her friend was not “just a friend,” but also that I really, really wanted to work on things). That would have been her lifeline out. Instead after her dad and I talked she sulked and locked herself in the closet all night to call the other boy because I would not succumb to the detail of our conversation other than one word (what did you talk about? Everything). He gave me great advice, especially in turning to God and reading the bible. It has helped to repeat certain verses in my head to keep me focused on what I can do and on the good things in life, not on the approval of others.

Right now we live in the same house, sleep in the same bed, and never touch each other. She has no kind words for me. In the same argument she said I am an excellent father she’d give me that, but also said I am a horrible, horrible, person. I am learning to detach. I am reading the bible and praying everyday. I am taking classes for my third degree (because work pays for it and I’ll make more money at the end) which she also is resentful with me for (because she thinks I derailed her entire teaching career somehow). Each day I write in a journal to start the day (at work). It helps, too. I don’t know wherer to begin, but to deal with myself first (porn was never an addiction, but it was disrespectful to her and I have stopped again, taking precautions for myself with search filters and the like to keep myself honest for me. No good is in it). I keep a running budget and spreadsheet of all our accounts and passwords that she can look at and discuss anytime with me. I tell her the budget is xyz and we can’t spend more than that. I get snide comments, but most of the time I can let them roll away, because I know there is anger in there. I also have to withhold my anger and hurt about the affair because I feel like right now, she doesn’t care that she hurts me because she doesn’t like me (she also says she hates me). We were together for two years before we married. There were red flags for us both (she “deserves” nice things and is sometimes unusually judgmental of others). But we chose who we married because the good outweighed the bad (at least from my perspective). We loved each other. I still love her. I want to improve who I am, rebuild love and trust, and save my family.

I’ve also been reading William George Jordan’s writings and I love them. They are very inspiring.
“It ofttimes requires heroic courage to face fruitless effort, to take up the broken strands of a life-work, to look bravely toward the future, and proceed undaunted on our way. But what, to our eyes, may seem hopeless failure is often but the dawning of a greater success. It may contain in its debris the foundation material of a mighty purpose, or the revelation of new and higher possibilities.”

[cantslowdown]

Well we're spending Thanksgiving with some of my family and we also agreed to travel home and spend Christmas split between both our families. Our first counseling session will be this Monday. So far the only advice I have for that is keep my mouth shut, don't make excuses about the past (just take responisbility for what I did do wrong), and focuse only on what can be done to do good things today and forward. Let everyone else get stuck in the past if that's wherre they want to go, but don't let myself get wrapped around that wheel. If I do, I will either try to psychoanalyze all the wrong thinsg I've ever done or make excuses instead of saying yes, that was wrong, but what can I do right today and int he future.

[cantslowdown]

Something I've been working on is getting back into shape (we both let ourselves go, but she started losing a lot of weight and running during this, but before "I Love you, but I'm not in love with you" happened). Not only does this help me physically to keep up wiht the kids, but also I feel much better about myself confidence wise, ironically NOW my testosterone is up when I have less 'use' for it, my pants are 2 to 3 sizes smaller. I've stopped hitting this as hard as I did in the beginning (part of it in the beginning was getting out the rage about her affair), but I am maintaining pretty well. Getting through the holidays will be tough, but I am WAY better in the self control department and not nursing my hurt feelings with tasty food (it doesn't help that she's a really good cook).

[cantslowdown]

She texted to let me know that she and the kids went to get groceries today that I was originally going to pick up after work and that all I needed to get was the wine. I texted back thanks and that i'd pick up the drinks on the way home then. Now I don't need a response after that. Its plain and simple, no mlaice, no expectations. I get a simple one word answer anyway, "Yep" which in her terms is very curt.

I feel like communication in that manner is another way she is trying to bait me into an argument. I feel like she has gone out of her way to send a three letter text to let me know just how much she doesn't care. No response would have been sufficient and not at all interpreted by me as being mean. This response just seesm mean to me. How do others "act as if" and just ignore this stuff? Instead of reading into it being snippy, do you just reinterpret this stuff "as if" she said, "Tht's escellent, honey. Thanks for stopping off to get the wine. By the way we have white so I was hoping you'd choose a great red. You're so good at picking out wine to go with dinner." When I do that, I already smile a bit knowing, that, YES, I am picking out a great wine that our family will enjoy. I am good at that (not that I need her approval, but I'd rather go without anything than what seems like baiting for a fight).

[cantslowdown]

my family in town. so far so good. playing it cool, and I (yes I) am enjoying myself.

[AnotherStander]

Hello and welcome to the forums! Something you didn't post that might be helpful is the age of you and your W and how long you've been married. Also how many children you have and their ages and how long since BD.

Sounds like you're on the right track as far as taking stock of your issues in the marriage and working on those. Your W clearly isn't putting forth any effort to save things, but that's pretty typical. At this point she's convinced herself she is done and the M is dead. So just keep working on yourself and give her plenty of space and time. Don't expect any progress in the short term, it usually takes months to even start seeing baby steps. Stick with your 180's and have patience.

A quick warning about the counseling, it most likely will not help. A WAS that's one foot out the door nearly always ignores any potentially helpful info and embraces any comments the C makes that appear to validate their desire to leave. My W largely ignored everything the C said that would help work on the M, but as soon as the C said that maybe separation was the answer she jumped all over it with great enthusiasm.

She texted to let me know that she and the kids went to get groceries today that I was originally going to pick up after work and that all I needed to get was the wine. I texted back thanks and that i'd pick up the drinks on the way home then. Now I don't need a response after that. Its plain and simple, no mlaice, no expectations. I get a simple one word answer anyway, "Yep" which in her terms is very curt.

Don't read too much into such things. Texting is a lousy form of communication. You can't hear voice inflections and see body language. People read all kinds of crazy stuff into the shortest of texts.

I feel like communication in that manner is another way she is trying to bait me into an argument. I feel like she has gone out of her way to send a three letter text to let me know just how much she doesn't care.

That's mind-reading. Don't engage in it, it'll just make you bitter. You need to act "as if" everything is great. She's "curt" to you, you be pleasant to her.

How do others "act as if" and just ignore this stuff? Instead of reading into it being snippy, do you just reinterpret this stuff "as if" she said, "Tht's escellent, honey. Thanks for stopping off to get the wine. By the way we have white so I was hoping you'd choose a great red. You're so good at picking out wine to go with dinner." When I do that, I already smile a bit knowing, that, YES, I am picking out a great wine that our family will enjoy. I am good at that (not that I need her approval, but I'd rather go without anything than what seems like baiting for a fight).

Well we don't typically build entire stories of acting "as if" out of a simple text message, LOL! But I guess if it works for you then do it. Acting "as if" usually means just ignoring our spouse's poor behavior towards us and acting like we're content and happy in spite of it. Act as if your life is fine and you'll be great with or without your W. Have you read the 180 DB tips sticky at the top of the forum? They're great, it's helpful to review them several times a day until you memorize the intent of them.

[ForeverYoung]

I agree with AS. My wife also wanted to 'check off' MC so she could say she tried. Our counselor actually told her (in a single solo session) that she's seen people older than my wife who were now sorry they didn't make a marriage change back when they were her age! You better believe wife jumped on that!

Drop MC and do coaching instead. This is for you, wife gets to decide what if anything she wants to do, you leave it up to her.

As for the short, curt responses, accept that this is where she is emotionally at the moment. Don't take it personally, just give her the space she is craving right now. Things can change, but it will take time. Only show happiness and contentment. Post often.

[labug]

feel like communication in that manner is another way she is trying to bait me into an argument. I feel like she has gone out of her way to send a three letter text to let me know just how much she doesn't care. No response would have been sufficient and not at all interpreted by me as being mean. This response just seesm mean to me. How do others "act as if" and just ignore this stuff? Instead of reading into it being snippy, do you just reinterpret this stuff "as if" she said, "Tht's escellent, honey. Thanks for stopping off to get the wine. By the way we have white so I was hoping you'd choose a great red. You're so good at picking out wine to go with dinner." When I do that, I already smile a bit knowing, that, YES, I am picking out a great wine that our family will enjoy. I am good at that (not that I need her approval, but I'd rather go without anything than what seems like baiting for a fight).

This is mind-reading, if you have the book look it up. You don't re-interpret it, you ignore it because you really have no idea what she meant. Doing this will make you crazy. Ask me. I've been an mind- and signal-reader all my life.

It's so much easier to let that go and focus on how you can change.

[Cadet]

Welcome to the board

Get out and GAL.

DETACH.

Believe none of what she says and half of what she does.
Have NO EXPECTATIONS.
Take care of yourself, breathe, eat, sleep, exercise.
Most of us lose weight after BD.

You are on moderation right now on the forum.
SO post in small frequent posts until you get off of it.

Your W is giving you a GIFT.
THE GIFT OF TIME.

USE it wisely.

[cantslowdown]

I'm 33, she's 32.
S4 S2
Married 6 years together 8
ILYBINILWY February 2012 (shocked that this phrase was SO internet searchable).
found out about her PA March 2012

happy thanksgiving, everyone. And thanks