She starts working full-time week after next, still at the gym (what a surprise). She has not resisted her responsibility to make the credit card payment, and seems prepared to move forward to do what she needs to do to become independent.
My struggle has been -- and continues to be -- how much of these thoughts and feelings of hers are indicative of the affair chemicals running thru her brain right now, and how much are what she has felt for a long, long time, but just never had the courage to approach me (or me, her).
I believe it is some of both.
We've clearly had problems in the intimacy department most of the past 20 years, and I've never been happy there. She has issues there, and she doesn't want to seem to address them, and until she does, she will never be truly happy with ANY man -- me, OM, or some OM in the future.
She also clearly lost feelings for me several years ago, and as I look back at her weak response to my last "bomb" 3 years ago, I now understand why she tried so little. I think she was emotionally "checked out" even then, but was afraid to "a", hurt my feelings, and "b", of the financial reality that her independence would mean.
But it's also true that her current affair has totally killed off her motivation for even WANTING to try and work at this, and it's also given her a stubborn boldness and "screw everybody" mentality that's sabotaging her family. And she doesn't seem to care, or at least, if she does, that care is not stronger than her romantic feelings for the OM.
This problem that I have with my wife has always been more complex than a simple SSM, and even more complex than a simple (albeit ugly) affair. Lack of sex was always just the SYMPTOM of her underlying intimacy issues (and my inability to detach and deal with them with her in a loving way), and this recent affair was just an obstacles -- a HUGE obstacle, don't get me wrong -- but an obstacle for her to WANT to try one more time to renew and repair our marriage.
It's clear to me now that I have to move on. I have to move and work at ME -- become the best "Paul" I can be, and the best dad, and the best friend, and son and sibling. Our finances are in a mess as well, and all of that will have to be painfully attacked and started over. But I can't keep trying to blindly save the marriage, to save a relationship with a woman that's not really been there for many, many, MANY years. I realize now too that I've been in love with an IMAGE of Mrs. Choc., an image that I wanted her to be, instead of who she really was. Rather than deal with who she really was, and learn to negotiate with that person, and learn to grow and love together with that woman, I grappled instead with some image in my mind of who I PICTURED myself with, who I thought maybe she was or at least could be, if I could just say the right combination of words, or do the right combination of pleasing behaviors.
And NONE of that was healthy.
I don't know where her affair is going, and I don't know what path my marriage will take in its ending, but it's time to focus on Chocolateeyes, and my kids.
