Well, I agree that what she is doing is flat out wrong! I have been tempted to pull the plug on this but it is still her own mess....and she needs to understand what a dangerous game she is playing.
I still want to DB for me.......and for my daughter, but not to save my M. I want to do this to save my sanity.
~Sol
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Single Dad, and luvin it! ~ Happiness is a state of mind ~
No amount of pleading on her part (which she is doing now....) is going to make me stop from doing the right thing.
It seems hard for me to do, but as long as I think about my and the kids safety and future I can gather strength. I didn't want to do this, but from her persistent activities that I have posted, she is way out of her league and out of control.......
She actually said to me that she feels sorry for me - that I am obsessing too much and attacking her by lashing out on my own. She sees it as me lashing out, I see it as pointing out right from wrong and where I stand in our M.
We all reap what we sow.....(I need to sow and reap good things now....)
Last edited by sol1696; 06/05/0702:22 AM.
~Sol
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Single Dad, and luvin it! ~ Happiness is a state of mind ~
Okay, think carefully because this might be a BAD move for your sitch - or it might not - but have you thought about making an anonymous report to immigration about this? I understand they have a procedure for investigating "fake marriages"; interviewing the parties to see if they really know anything about each other, like whether they leave the cap on the toothpaste, etc.?
Just thinking, maybe OP would get thrown in jail for immigration fraud! But - most likely W would figure you were responsible, and wreak some vengeance on you that would make it not worth it. Still, it's a thought, isn't it?
W is happy now - she is getting what she wanted. But she still needs me in order to have a place to live. I have more reason now to go file for divorce. She has taken this too far......and is being more selfish than before, but trying to act the part of the innocent underprivileged little girl she used to be by trying to seduce me now.
Sooner or later they will discover it was a sham.....there is a major language barrier there, that is enough to cause red flags.
I don't feel right about what is happening now. I have a bad feeling about staying with her, so I am going to trust my instincts on this one and bail this "dead-end marriage" of my own.
~Sol
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Single Dad, and luvin it! ~ Happiness is a state of mind ~
Can anyone see that my W is more interested in helping OM, paying him money when her own family needs it, and that she cares deeply for OM? It's not just her sister she is trying to help, but if my W really cared about ME she would let OM go after her sister on his own without her help.......I have talked to my W about this before.
Also, can anyone tell me at this point if my M is dead? I couldn't see it before, my W kept me guessing that things would get better.....and I believed her, but this thing that is happening...
* OM will still be in my W's picture * W gave him money, even after having her A. * W appeases me to keep me guessing, but she is still getting what she wants.
~Sol
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Single Dad, and luvin it! ~ Happiness is a state of mind ~
Sol, my friend, sorry to see you in such a pickle. Things really are tough for you right now and I can see you struggling with such overwhelming decisions. None of this is certainly easy.
For what its worth I think many others here have given you great insight, especially considering the further facts you have provided.
My advice....distance yourself as much as possible from this sitch. Right now, your W is a very odd place and her focus is nowhere close to being on you, your M or herself. It is what it is. No amount of wishing, hoping or pushing is going to change any of this and the more you try, the more frustrated you are going to become.
This may sound harsh, but I can see your wife playing you like a violin here. She berates you and has no respect for you, until you start to man up a bit, and then she's nice as pie. Without respect, she will continue to push you and never stick to established boundaries in your M. Point blank, you have to take control of YOUR life (not hers) and make the decisions that will best serve YOU and your D. You have to make decisions from this perspective, not from the perspective that she will not do what you want her to. I don't mean that you threaten with separation or divorce or whatever, don't talk about it, just do what you need to do (and only YOU know what you need to do).
This whole immigration thing just stinks and the fact the OM is involved is really even stranger. Its way too much drama and you, my friend, are getting dragged into it.
"Achieve success, but without vanity; Achieve success, but without aggression; Achieve success, but without gain; Achieve success, but without force." Lao Tzu
You're too sucked up in YOU. You're too worried about what your wife is doing to YOU. Pride does that to a person.
Yes, your wife had an affair; perhaps may still be going on. Why? Because things weren't going well in your marriage. Is it the ideal answer to a problem? Not to you. To her, it was. It may not be the right answer to the problems in the marriage, but it was the only answer your wife could find at the time.
The spouse who has an affair has (usually) done it because they did not know how to fix the problems in the marriage. They thought this (the A) was the only answer. The only way to escape the pain of the failing marriage.
In all your posts, you come across as very hostile and unforgiving regarding your wife's A. Your focus is misdirected. Stop focusing on the A; stop focusing on everything she's "doing to you" and take your share of the responsibility in the breakdown of the marriage.
You cannot change your wife. You can only change YOU. And you can change your reactions to your wife and the situation. You seem to flit around - one minute all for DB, the next, when wife doesn't respond to you in the way you want her to, your back to filing for separation.
To be effective; to get the most ppoistive outcome, you are going to need to swallow your pride. Anything she says or does at this time you need to rise above. She's in pain and is going to take it out on you because she can. Don't let it get to you. Or at the very least, do not outwardly show to her that she is getting to you. Ignore the sarcasm; ignore the OM bull; and focus on yourself. Stop being so inconsistent.
Here's something from another website that also ficuses on rebuilding marriages, there's some good advice in here (fpr all):
Quote:
Do you love your spouse?
I don't mean in some abstract, "I love all people" kind of way. And I'm not asking if you love your spouse like a brother or some other member of your family.
I mean: Do you love your spouse?
Do you feel the passion you had when you first met each other? Do you share a deep connection that runs through your relationship like a powerful current? Is your marriage charged with the electricity of love?
Be honest. There's no reason to lie or keep secrets here. Unless you are sincere with your answer you aren't going to help your marriage.
Do you LOVE your spouse?
My guess is that either you or your partner will answer "no" to this question.
If not, you probably wouldn't be reading this article.
You don't have to be ashamed. You share a common problem. Based on my experience, many couples have hard times and go through periods where one or the other spouse falls out of love.
My follow-up question is to the person who thinks he or she has fallen out of love:
Do you want to be in love with your spouse?
Do you want to spend your life deeply in love with and passionately connected to the person you call your husband or wife?
Don't hedge. I don't want to hear any qualifiers. A simple "yes" or "no" will do. Do you want to be in love with your spouse?
If your answer is an authentic "YES" then there is hope for your marriage. You even have a fighting chance to make your marriage happier than ever.
You need commitment, knowledge, and a set of skills that have helped other couples create wonderful relationships.
I've seen this work many times.
Before you do any of this work, before you learn the other skills you need to rebuild your marriage, there is one thing you have to do. This one step can change your marriage by starting to reverse the downward spiral and help you find your way back up to being in love again.
Do you want to know what this step is?
You have to learn how to control the caveman within you.
Inside every one of us (me included) there is an uncivilized, crude, brusque caveman lurking ... waiting to come out. And this caveman has the power to destroy even the most loving marriages.
The caveman in us still wants to respond as if there were no civilization. In Western culture, its most common form is anger. This is the same anger that helped protect the caveman before civilization was ever born.
Sounds pretty terrifying doesn't it?
It can be terrifying. I have seen otherwise wonderful relationships fall prey to this awful beast.
But there is good news. Once you accept the truth that there is a caveman within you, one that may be tearing your marriage to pieces, you can learn how to keep this part of you at peace in our civilized world.
I know I'm being vague about all this right now. But don't worry. This article is dedicated to teaching you about the caveman lurking within you and giving you some strategies for keeping this monster at bay.
Learning how to control your inner caveman is one of the most critical steps you can take if you want to rebuild the love in your marriage. So if you're facing marital problems of any kind, I urge you to pay close attention to the ideas and steps that follow.
Understanding Your Inner Caveman
Inside every human being is a kind of "psychological wiring" that dates back to pre-historic times. This wiring was designed to help our great, great, great ancestors attack, defend, and flee from animals or other potential enemies that intended to do them harm.
This caveman "wiring" includes "automatic" responses to hunger, sex, thirst, waste elimination, anger, social needs, speech, and so forth.
In today's world, we have civilized almost all of these responses. Making the decision to do the socially-appropriate response is usually easy.
For example, you would not have sex right on the spot with an attractive person you just met, even if you were feeling horny.
Similarly, at a restaurant, you would not grab food from someone's plate at the next table even if you were quite hungry.
The choice to follow these rules is easy to make in today's world.
In caveman times there were no laws, no police, no courts--if you were big enough and strong enough, you could do anything you wanted, anytime, and with anyone.
It was a different world, and cavemen had different responses than we have now.
Yet some of those caveman responses are still with us today.
One caveman response that slipped through the crack of being civilized is anger. Anger was intended to help us deal with a true enemy.
But we rarely use anger that way in today's civilized world. Just take a moment to think about all of the people you have gotten angry with. How many of them are your true enemy? Probably not many.
One person I bet you have been angry with (especially if you are struggling in a relationship where the love has seemingly died) is your spouse.
But your spouse is not your enemy. In fact, your spouse is supposed to be your best friend.
Nonetheless, your inner wiring--the caveman lurking within you--has identified your spouse as an enemy.
As you can imagine, it is difficult to be "in love" with someone you have incorrectly identified as an enemy.
Hence you have to learn how to preclude the caveman within from appearing. You have to learn how to identify your spouse as you friend again and not your enemy.
The first step to doing that is understanding how and why your inner caveman has identified your spouse as your enemy.
How Your Inner Caveman Makes Your Spouse Your Enemy
In today's civilized world, we don't attack each other with clubs and stones. Instead we attack each other with words. We attack with accusation, blaming, personal criticism, name calling, and other hurtful speech.
When we are attacked, our natural, "hardwired" response is to identify the person attacking us as an enemy. After all, who attacks you, a friend or an enemy?
The moment you attack your spouse or your spouse attacks, you set up a situation where you will identify each other as enemies. That age old caveman response called "anger" comes out when we feel we are under attack, and as a result we look at the person attacking us as an enemy.
And guess what happens next?
Yep. That's right. Out comes the inner caveman.
The inner caveman may respond to being attacked in any number of ways. It might become afraid and run away or "freeze." It might try to defend you. Or it might try to attack back.
But no matter what the inner caveman does, it is not going to be the best, most adult response you can make in today's world. It is going to be a response based on fear. It is going to be a response to an enemy. It is not going to be the kind of response you want to give or receive from your spouse-- the person you love and cherish most in the world.
This is how the inner caveman can come in and wreck an otherwise wonderful marriage. When hurtful words are spoken, when you treat your spouse like an enemy, he or she will respond to you as an enemy. Then the inner caveman rages and you end up tearing each other apart emotionally.
Over time, this interaction creates more of the same, eventually deteriorating your loving feelings. If you have identified your spouse as an enemy or your spouse has identified you as an enemy this is going to eventually break down your marriage if it hasn't done so already.
The solution? It's actually simpler than you think. But as I'm sure your life experience has taught you, not everything simple is easy.
Nonetheless, here's the solution: Learn to treat your spouse like your best friend instead of your enemy.
Here's how you do it.
Treating Your Spouse as Your Best Friend Instead of Your Enemy
One of the great things about being modern humans is that we are no longer cavemen. We are no longer completely controlled by our instincts. We have a conscious mind, and we get to choose what we want to do with our lives and how we want to behave.
There is caveman inside you, just as there is one inside me. But you are in control of that caveman. It isn't in control of you. You get to choose when you want to let the caveman out and when you want to keep it locked away.
When you are dealing with your spouse, when you are communicating with him or her in any way, this is a time you want to keep your caveman safely locked in his inner chamber.
How do you do this?
You remind yourself that your spouse is your best friend and not your enemy.
After all, your spouse is the person you love most in the world right? You may not have those head-over-heels "in love" feelings at this moment. But you did say you wanted to be in love with your spouse at the beginning of this article didn't you?
To be fully and truly in love with your spouse means he or she needs to be your best friend. So if you're trying to rebuild those loving feelings (or perhaps ignite them for the first time) it's time you started thinking of your spouse as your best friend.
Every time you speak with your spouse or every time you listen to your spouse, remind yourself to communicate with this person as though he or she were your best friend in the whole world. Be grateful for whatever communication is offered. Think of it as though it's coming from your best friend--not your enemy.
You don't have to like the communication, you don't have to agree with the communication, you don't have to do what is being asked or commanded, and you don't have to like the mode of delivery--which might be harsh or nasty.
But the communication itself is something to be grateful for. When your spouse opens up and shares with you, consider this a good thing. It is your best friend sharing his or her heart with you.
I know you're probably thinking, "Dr. Gunzburg, this just can't be done so easily. It's hard to think of my spouse as my best friend."
You're right. It isn't always easy. And it gets a lot harder when there have been complicating factors in your marriage like an affair.
In fact, it might be downright impossible at first. After all, an affair is the action of an enemy, not a friend. You aren't going to be able to identify your cheating spouse as your friend--at least not immediately after the affair. And it's likely your inner caveman will rear its ugly head from time to time in the early stages after an affair.
But assuming that your spouse is committed to rebuilding your marriage, and assuming he or she is taking the appropriate actions to prove to you that he or she is, in fact, your friend, there will be a time when these awful feelings dissipate and you are able to start thinking of your spouse as your best friend again.
If you go on believing that treating your spouse like a friend instead of an enemy is too difficult or simply impossible, you might as well accept that you are creating the next argument and asking your spouse to identify you as an enemy rather than a friend.
You might think this is an impossible task, to always think of your spouse as your friend so the caveman is not released. If you think you cannot do this, there are approaches to make this much easier. However, that takes much more clarification and instruction than I can provide here.
Ideally, you will both be working toward this goal, but even if just one of you succeeds in accomplishing this attitude, you can make a significant difference in your communication and in your marriage.
The previous point is really important and many couples miss it so I am going to repeat myself: even if just one of you succeeds in accomplishing this attitude, you can make a significant difference in your communication and in your marriage.
Learning how to think "friend" toward your spouse will help you manage your inner caveman. This is one of the most important early steps you can take toward rebuilding the love in your marriage and making it better than ever.
If you can accomplish this, then other changes will be much easier.
Being best friends with your spouse is the path to finding that deep, electric, passionate connection you have always dreamed of.
All you have to do is learn to love your spouse as your best friend.
Have you read above "my whole sitch"? PA Rob is right, my W is playing me like a violin.......I have heard that from someone else before also......a master DBer.
~Sol
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Single Dad, and luvin it! ~ Happiness is a state of mind ~
But - most likely W would figure you were responsible, and wreak some vengeance on you that would make it not worth it. Still, it's a thought, isn't it? 