How can I still bring her back from the brink but tell her she needs to stop turning to OM for emotional support and turn to me when we have a hard time getting through to each other on the phone?
You stop "going wobbly" every-other day, and you fight for your marriage and your family. You make her make a choice. Yeah, right now, if you made her make it today, it may not be you. But divorces take time, and that choice won't be made today. They take months, even years if they're contested, depending on what state you live in. During those months, you have a chance eto demonstrate to her what she would be losing, and to work on YOU.
mcol, you need to stop feeling sorry for yourself and steel yourself to fight for your family. I KNOW this sucks. I HAVE BEEN THERE. Infidelity is worse than rape, they say, and I believe it in that it's done to you by someone you love.
You can do this, but you're going to have to go more than ONE DAY with the "Man of Steel" suit on, before going groveling back to the "making her #1" and "I want to thank the OM" stuff. That stuff is absolutely KILLING any attraction she still has for you. If you don't feel like you can do that when you talk or IM with her, then maybe it's best to "go dark" for awhile, although I'm certainly no expert on that subject.
Just something else to make you go WTFO...I actually told her that I wanted to meet the guy to thank him for being there for her when I could not!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think I may need to move my string again...I will wait for responses to determine.
I'm not an expert on the "piecing" concept and its strategies. But I'm nearly certain that you can't begin to piece your marriage back together so long as your wife is actively engaged in an ongoing affair with another man. I think the "Infidelity" forum may be the place where you'd get the best ideas and strategies right now, and then you can move back here when the time is right.
She also told me that she felt like I was snooping because i was asking about her online friends. I was not trying to snoop but this was my way of trying to understand the new herand relate to some of the stuff she is going through.
Um, you ASKED her if she felt like you were snooping. You need to stop apologizing, placating, supplicating, and overall asking her permission to be YOU and to feel what YOU are feeling. You are human, a man who loves his wife and his family. A flawed man, surely (we all are), but you are responding to your wife's decision to become at LEAST emotionally involved with another man (and I suspect that it's also physical). Frankly, she's lucky you're still talking to her at all.
mcol, you need to get to a place where you can pull off the following, and pretty much stick to it (yeah, you'll have good days and bad days, but you can't waver much at all):
"Yes, I love you, but I'm not going to apologize for my response to your affair. No matter what problems we may have had, you had no right to break our marriage vows, and it's unconscionable that you would not only do it while I'm off serving our country, but that you would use THAT as a weapon against me and then lie to me about the nature of your relationship with him. Despite all of this, I do not want a divorce, and I want to try to work on our marriage. I think we owe it to our kids, if nothing else, to do so, and I think we'll both regret it for the rest of our lives if we don't. But I absolutely WILL NOT do that while you are having an affair, and you need to end it -- now. You're being disrespectful to me, our marriage, and to our family."
I would recommend having some new, hard evidence in hand before you confront her with that.
Just a tip, don't try to talking to W's friends again about any suspicions you have or even ask them generally what is wrong. They are HER friends and will run to her and you will end up looking bad. If she is close enough to them to tell them what is wrong then they are unlikely to be there for you - they are there for her and will see you as the person she has painted you to be - not as you are.
Saffie me 46 H 46 M in 1986 D20,D18,S16,D13 H's A 01/05 to 07/06 H recommitted to M 07/06 renewed vows 09/06 Going from strength to strength
The first step in solving a problem is admitting there is one. You've just done that. And while you just embarked on a thousand-mile journey, know that the first step is the most important one.
Okay, I'll let Confucius rest.
You're not an idiot. You're just hopeful. You want to believe what your W tells you. Because, historically, you've been able to do that. And just about everybody I know, in some way, resists change, 'cause it's not comfortable. Remember when I told you in the beginning stages of this nightmare that you would backslide every now and then? Well, that's all that happened. The good news is that you've found yourself in the hole -- and now, you can make the choice to stop digging.
It sets you back a few steps. But that's not important -- just forget about it. What's important is what you do from here on.
Listen, this DBing is a friggin technique. All of us would like to believe that our sitches don't fit the mold. The mold, after all, sucks. Your R (and its current issues), unfortunately, isn't so unique that it doesn't fit the mold. To that end, read and pay attention to what people are telling you -- they are not emotionally connected to your sitch and can give you a lot of very credible, objective information.
This website will only be a godsend if you allow it to be.
mcol Me: 34 Deployed W:32 (EA started Oct 07) S:8 D:3 S:18 mos ILYBNILWY-12/14/07 Request for backdated separation 12/14/07 Top areas to work: 1) Communication 2) Repairing me, focusing on me
