This is my first post. I would welcome any advice on how to proceed. I have both DB and DR on order, but they haven't arrived yet.
Background
My W (36) and I (36) have been married for 6 and a half years, and have been together for 13 years. We have a S4. She is an administrator at a college and I work in a different professional field.
My wife is also an academic, and continues to do research and attend academic conferences around the world. At one of these conferences about 3 years ago, she met a guy that she hit it off with. She and this guy work in the same field and started to collaborate on research. They would meet up a few times a year at various conferences.
I was jealous of the amount of attention that she paid to this guy, and the fact that she met up with him 3-4 times/year in various locations around the world. She spent a lot of time messaging him and skyping him, supposedly to work together on their research. I told her the quantity of time she was spending on him bothered me. We would periodically fight about this, and each time should would say they were just close friends.
Last month, I woke up early to find my wife in bed texting with this guy, in a way that made it clear they're in an EA. She was messaging him about how much she loved him, called him "my love", and how she couldn't wait to see him during their next research trip. After the conversation was done, she went back and erased the record of the romantic-type messages, and left only the friendly ones, I guess in case I checked her Messenger account.
I confronted W about this and said I thought she was having an EA. She agreed, and said that she wasn't unhappy with me, but that she'd met the OM during a rough patch in our M and that they had a special connection. She apologized for hurting my feelings, but said that her relationship with the OM was important to her, and that she might not be cut out for strict monogamy. She said she still wanted to keep our relationship as the primary one, and that the EA with the OM was not physical.
W has now gone away on a week-long research trip with OM. I'm not sure what to do. I don't believe her that this thing isn't physical, and I'm worried that it is going to erode our M, with her turning more and more towards the OM.
I think our M is still pretty good; we talk a lot, have very regular sex and still manage to make time for us. On top of that, OM lives in a different country, so it would be very difficult for her to go to him and keep our S4. But I am feeling hurt, betrayed, and jealous.
I realize my situation is not as dire as some on this site, but I would still appreciate some advice on how to fix the M without driving my W into the OM's arms. I have been trying to GAL by focusing on my work and spending time with my S4. Most of our friends are mutual, but I have been reaching out to my other friends to try to spend more evenings out of the house (I am a bit of an introvert).
I love my wife, and I want to make this marriage work. Thanks for reading and for any advice you might have.
I guess it all depends on what your own core boundaries and beliefs are, and whether or not you're willing to live in an open marriage. Because that's clearly what your wife has flat-out-to-your-face proposed to you here.
She's testing you, and it would seem like she's been slowly turning up the heat over the years to see how much of this you will tolerate. I can only tell you what I would do.
How would you counsel your son, if he came to you as his dad and said he was in this exact same predicament, 30 years from now?
@Starsky309: I'm a pretty monogamous guy. I'm not sure I would want an open marriage, because I'm really not that into seeing other women. Plus I worry that her talk about openness is really just an excuse to be able to continue thid one relationship with the OM.
@Starsky309: I'm a pretty monogamous guy. I'm not sure I would want an open marriage, because I'm really not that into seeing other women. Plus I worry that her talk about openness is really just an excuse to be able to continue thid one relationship with the OM.
Then considering this:
Quote:
I confronted W about this and said I thought she was having an EA. She agreed, and said that she wasn't unhappy with me, but that she'd met the OM during a rough patch in our M and that they had a special connection. She apologized for hurting my feelings, but said that her relationship with the OM was important to her, and that she might not be cut out for strict monogamy. She said she still wanted to keep our relationship as the primary one, and that the EA with the OM was not physical.
W has now gone away on a week-long research trip with OM. I'm not sure what to do. I don't believe her that this thing isn't physical, and I'm worried that it is going to erode our M, with her turning more and more towards the OM.
it would seem that you'd better take a very strong, clear, unequivocal stand, don't you?
I realize my situation is not as dire as some on this site . . .
Not to be overly negative, Kieran, but I'd say it's pretty dire. You're making the very common mistake of equating your marital situation's seriousness by how "nice" (or not) she is being to you. The only reason she's being nice is because she seems to think you will tolerate the open marriage, at least if she can convince you their affair isn't yet physical.
You do realize that, to a woman, the long-term EA is the far more entrenched, more-difficult one to break, right? Moreso than a PA?
When you say detach, what does that mean, exactly?
Try this definition
Quote:
Detachment with love means caring enough about others to allow them to learn from their mistakes. It also means being responsible for our own welfare and making decisions without ulterior motives-the desire to control others. Ultimately we are powerless to control others anyway. Most family members of an addicted person have been trying to change that person for a long time, and it hasn't worked. We are involved with other people but we don't control them. We simply can't stop people from doing things if they choose to continue. Understood this way, detachment with love plants the seeds of recovery. When we refuse to take responsibility for other people's alcohol or drug use, we allow them to face the natural consequences of their behavior. If a child asks why mommy missed the school play, we do not have to lie. Instead, we can say, "I don't know why she wasn't here. You'll have to ask her." Perhaps the essence of detachment with love is responding with choice rather than reacting with anxiety. When we threaten to leave someone, we're usually tuned in to someone else's feelings. We operate on raw emotion. We say things for shock value. Our words arise from blind reaction, not thoughtful choice. Detachment with love offers another option -- responding to others based on thought rather than anxiety. For instance, as parents we set limits for our children even when this angers them. We choose what we think is best over the long term, looking past the children's immediate emotional reaction. In this sense, detachment with love can apply whenever we have an emotional attachment to someone-family or friend, addicted or sober. The key is to stop being responsible for others and be responsible to them-and to ourselves.
I'm unsure what to do because they are colleagues etc. Clear and unequivocal would be like "I don't want you talking to or seeing the OM again." Is this what DB/DR recommends for confronting spouses about affairs?
Sorry for the hijack, but I thought of something to say to Cadet.
After some thinking about your "welcome" greetings to newcomers, here's some suggestions for you. Over in the MLC forum, you do the usual greetings along with links to helpful resources/information.
I thought, why not do the same for newcomers and add links to Sandi's Rules along with Validation & Boundaries Cheat Sheets in your general greeting. That will aid the newbies in getting off to a good running start from the get go.
What do you think, Cadet? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
