Preparing for the end game, maybe.

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So here’s what’s going on now. I think I’m kind of sort of in piecing, but I’m not sure. It seems so far away still.

We get along well. We treat each other well. We can talk and we can enjoy each others company. It’s almost like before the bomb, and that’s not all good. Our M was missing a passion. I didn’t feel happy or loved. Now, I’m not loved, but at least it’s in the open. Then again, before, we were sleeping in the same bed and did ML a couple of times a month or so. I could kiss her, and cuddle with her. Now, there is hardly any physical contact at all. Sometimes a hug, that’s about it.

I think this is what she is thinking and what is happening. Of course this is only my opinion, and only part of the story, but I think it is the crux of the matter. She felt totally responsible for everything, including my happiness. She felt it was her duty to take care of everything and everyone even at the expense of herself. As I grew more unhappy with the lack of passion in our M, she felt more and more like a failure, and she kept trying hard to do her duty. Finally, it got to be too much for her. She couldn’t live with the guilt and the feelings of failure. She felt trapped and started to become desperate. Then the OM contacted her. Now she had a way out. She had somewhere to go.

She left the trap she was in and went to the relative safety of the OM. She denied her ‘duties’ and decided to live for herself. Of course, every action has consequences. She missed her children and felt terribly guilty for leaving them. So she came back, mainly for the kids. (Maybe, the OM being fairly fresh out of a D himself, and possibly needy himself, she found herself in the role of having to do her duty for him too. Another reason she may have came home.)

Now she’s back, and trying to figure out what she wants and how to live her life. She is afraid though. She is afraid she could fall back into the trap she was in, that she could lose herself again. She is afraid I will have expectations that she can’t meet and she will feel like a failure again. She doesn’t want to even try if she thinks there is no way she can win.

I had an A. How does that affect her? She says not much. I tend to believe her, but maybe it does really bother her and that also keeps her from being able to get closer to me. Maybe it means nothing.

She says she doesn’t love me in that way anymore, but that she would like to, and she is willing to take the time to see if the feeling comes back.

My view of this is as follows. It is mainly her journey, her issues, which we are working through now. Yes, I made many mistakes and have many faults, but this is mainly about the expectations she had for herself, the expectations she thought I had, the sense of duty and responsibility she felt, and her finally casting off those chains and working on living a healthy life. Some of what she felt was probably true, but many of the chains she felt were of her own making and in her own head. The OM was a chance for her to escape. (I don’t get the OM thing. Everything I know about him, and my W’s impeccable taste in men, leads me to believe he is really great. Why didn’t she stay with him? She could have had him, and the kids, at least part time, and been rid of me. I question her reasoning on this one).

Sex, and physical affection, is an issue with me and in our M. She thinks I have expectations in this area that she can’t meet. Her love for me in this way has been killed or at least pushed way down by my expectations and her fear of losing herself again. Having control of her own body is very important to her.

My mistakes were taking her for granted, not addressing the problems better, being needy and demanding, expecting her to fulfill me and validate me, setting unrealistic expectations, mainly in bed, about how she had to act to prove she loved me. And of course, breaking my vows and having an A. (there are more…)

What am I to do, how should I act, what is the best strategy? I think it is to continue as I have been, only more so. I need to give her space, and be patient. In the meantime, I need to find ways to GAL and keep myself happy. I need to work on not building up resentment toward her. I need to support her and help her in her journey through unconditional love.

But being rejected, craving love, having her so close and yet so far on a daily basis, is really hard. Not letting resentment build is hard. Not pushing for more affection, not pushing her to make up her mind and love me already, is hard. Feeling that I’m failing and losing her because I’m not doing something I should do is hard.

I still think I have at least 50 – 50 odds of making this M work. Is patience really the biggest part of it? If I can relax and wait while loving unconditionally, can this really become a good M/R and can it happen before I lose patience, feel resentful or just plain get tired of not being loved and go find someone who will love me? I hope so.

Should I try a 180? Since she doesn’t love me, would doing something romantic, which would be a 180 for me, make her feel I was trying to manipulate, trap, or coerce her?

What does she need so she can feel love for me? I think she needs to feel free (not trapped), safe, respected, loved, appreciated, and forgiven. And she needs to feel that way long enough so she can trust that it’s true.

She came back. She left the OM (as far as I know) and came back. She had to face my anger (and she is terribly afraid of anger), her guilt, the opinion of friends and family that she is an adulterer who left her own children, and her fear of being trapped again. It took a lot of courage for her to come back.

Here is our plan, and it is killing me, but I think it’s a good plan. She will move to AR with my D, while I stay here with my S until he finishes HS, then we will move to AR too. She will buy a house there and I will sell the house here. We will pay off our debt and start saving because houses are much cheaper in AR. S and I will travel to AR whenever we can and visit W and D. If we were to divorce, we would do much the same thing. We will establish separate financial accounts, but I will contribute to her income so she can make ends meet in AR. If we were divorced, it would be like child support. (Of course, if we divorced, I might be able to win custody of the kids and make her pay child support to me. Then she would have to live on her own income and probably not afford a house but have to rent something a lot less expensive.)

She won’t say, or can’t say, that she loves me and wants to be with me. So is she just leading me on and using me? Is this a way for her to use me to get the house she wants, get my D full time, get a car and financial safety, until she feels strong and secure enough to tell me to take a hike?

But her actions don’t seem so manipulative and cynical. She says We when taking about AR and the house. She is planning all the times when the kids don’t have school that we can visit each other. She isn’t rushing to get her own financial accounts ( I may have to push her on that). Basically, she is being a good friend and parent. (which can make it harder for me. If she can be so good as a friend, why can’t she touch me, why can’t she say she loves me?).