Drowning still - 23 years, feel like I am sinking

[CBK]

Well, dang. What a back slide...

W came into office where I hang out and wanted apologize how she said that she was in love with this other guy... didn't want to hurt me... blah, blah, blah. Well, we got into a huge R talk - I was doing so well until she came up and started talking to me...

Basically I slid all the way back to zero. Told W that I am here, being friends will be very difficult, we can work this out, and I know that she is not in a place to make this decision. This was an hour and a half conversation... I know she is totally torn up right now as I am - she asked what I wanted, I said to give us a chance when she is ready - I get not wanting to settle adn that the feeling needs to be there for her and I just hope that if and when it comes back, I am there. I did acknowledge that I knew she couldn't make this decision right now. She thought that it may be easier if one of us moved out, I said no, that makes no sense and I am going to give her the space she needs to make this decision - that I am going to the most difficult thing that I have ever done and that is to detach from her so she can get her space.

What a night - I thought after MC I was doing so well, knew I was "fragile" and wish I would have just accepted her apology and let her go.

I am so bummed that I backslid. W at the end said we need to take this hour by hour. I guess I saw that as a good sign.

Groan....

CBK

[sandi2]

Dear CBK.....I really think it would be best on your mental and emotionally health at this time to stop going to the MC with your wife! Every time you gain some ground and are feeling better, it is time for another session and you leave all torn up and your confidence shot. So, if she wants to work on herself or the M (which she obviously doesn't right now....she wants to be left alone) I would go to IC and stop worrying about why she can't see what a good person you are. It doesn't work that way. My H is a good man. Always has been....I had to always be the "bad guy" with the kids growing up b/c he did not ever discipline them...I had to. I also had to be the one to deal with their teenage problems and rebellion....at least I felt alone in that. In every situation he came out smelling like a rose and I smelled like poop! I resented him for that, too. But the point I meant to say is that the issue of you being a good person and this "great guy" is not impressing her....that is not the issue she has. You have to understand that. I don't know what to say to get it through to you that you could be a "super husband of all husbands" and she would still be in this stage that she is in. Right now, I personally don't think C is doing her one bit of good. B/c it dwells on the R....you can't go into MC without R talks...that's what it is all about! She doesn't want to cooperate with the MC b/c she doesn't want to continue in the M. She is not going to change right now.....get it through your sweet head...please. You have made some wonderful changes.....she admitted she sees them but it doesn't change her mind. For Steve and for many men it does make their W's stop and notice and then have second thoughts about leaving. But, in other cases, you have to take a different path. However, keep the changes of your improvement for you......not her.

I believe in MHO that the only thing that is going to get her out of the addiction with OM and this "fog" she is in is for her to be on her own and away from her family on a daily basis. I still maintain that you should not leave the house, but if she wants out....I would let her go. Let her find a place. In fact, it might be a complete 180 if you just told her she was free to go and that you were not going to try any longer to get her to reconcile in the M. Tell her she is free to leave. That is not kicking her out......it is throwing the ball in her court. See what she does. If she asks if you want a D, tell her that is not what you said and that you won't file....it is her move. You are simply saying that you want try to convince her to stay with you in the house. But, you aren't leaving....if she wants out.....she can leave. What have you to lose at this point? Nothing else has worked. MC has been nothing but one long cheese-less tunnel. She is trying to justify her own decisions by calling your changes as "super husband" and making a joke about it b/c she sees it as you doing this simple and only to win her back to you. If she doesn't even want you to put your hands on her to move her out of your way in the kitchen while the two of you are cooking......she has big problems.

I know you don't want to take this avenue. I know you are scared to death to see her leave in fear that she will never return. However, there are many stories where the W thought that is what she wanted until she got it.....and then she woke up to what she had done. Also, her infatuation with the OM has got to run its course. Until it does......or until she decides on her on volition to call a cease to the A and cut out OM......I don't see her changing at this level. Time to go to plan B.

This is just my personal thoughts for whatever they are worth.

With you staying in the house with the kids, that gives them stability of sorts and also, it pretty well tells who the "guilty party" is by her leaving the home. Not all times is that true b/c a lot of H's leave when they discover an A, but when a woman leaves her home.....IMHO, it is b/c she is guilty of either an A or else she truly cannot tolerate what is going on in the home any longer (such as abuse, etc) or, one other reason......she wants to be free! I remember when my freedom something I wanted so badly that I came very close to choosing that over my M and my family. I think that is where she is right now. She wants freedom......so I would tell her...there's the door and she can walk out whenever she likes and you won't try to stop her.

You see, she has heard a lot in the MC sessions about how you love her and want the M to work out etc. You have taken the responsibility for your share of the breakdown. So, this would be a shock, I think, for her to see this change in you.

DB does not usually go that route unless it seem useless to continue putting the family through the anguish that yours is going through now.....and there doesn't seem like she plans to changer her mind. So, I think she needs to be away from her great guy for a while. That would be the detachment that might really work. Being under the same roof seems almost impossible for you to detach from her.....and especially with the kids home right now. Your emotions are too unstable to be able to detach with her right there for you to see all the time. It stirs up all the memories and the pain. The main thing that concerns me is that I'm afraid it has affected your physical health now.

Well, just take what I said for what it's worth, but in the end the decision is always up to you. We are just here to offer support and suggestions.

Take very good care and don't forget that doctor's app't. I known....I'm beginning to sound like a nag.

Sandi

[CBK]

Sandi - so glad you are up still.

I am actually doing well right now as my son and I are watching some stupid movie.

During the conversation tonight, I said I am not sure why we are going to MC since we are going for different reasons. She wanted to go back tomorrow to see the MC and I said that it isn't helping and that if when we want to work on our relationship, we can start to go back. We may agree to monthly which may work.

My W sounds like you, she did most of the heavy lifting with the kids, etc. just like you and built up a lot of resentment. She is the one in the MC that said I was a great person, etc. I do realize, and during our conversation tonight, I acknowledged that she is NOT in a state of mind (not exact words) to work on R and she needs to work on herself. I went even so far to say that I can no longer work on us as I need to work on me for awhile. I know she isn't going to change right now. I even told her at one point that I really didn't want this conversation to happen and that we can talk about this much later.

I understand about her moving out. She is dead set that she will not move out of the house and that is why she wanted to go to MC to help us decide which one should go. I have been pretty clear that I am not going. So the hand that dealt to me is both of us in the house. I need to find ways to stay out of the house, GAL, etc. I am going to call my buddy that said his home is always open, no questions asked and get a key so I can crash there every once in a while.

I am going to keep my personal changes going - I am not trying to be "super husband" and again, I told her that and the changes I am doing are for me. She "kind of" gets this.

She did say that she understands how I feel because she has had to let go of OM - I think maybe she is, but this will take time for her to "get over" him. I know that will take a lot of time.

Sandi, I am at a lose on how to treat her. Tonight after the conversation, she has been super nice toward me - I know she feels guilty about causing me pain - maybe the guilt is weighing in, I don't know.

I am eating more, actually ate a couple of meals today, and hit a bucket of balls. I will make that doc appointment, just to be sure.

I am really tired, mentally exhausted tonigt, but am trying to find that "happy" place I was in earlier.

Will see what happens. I am just beat and will try and hit the sack in about an hour or so.

I am okay, will actually sleep tonight. I do take melatonin - usally three of four at a time. They do help.

Sandi, thanks, glad you were on tonight.

Peace,

CBK

[CBK]

Okay, went downstairs to say goodnight to kids, W was on computer paying bills. I said goodnight guys, W says goodnight. Not reading anything in this, I just know I am totally beat, and am looking forward to tomorrow. I may work out of the house so I can just relax, go to the gym, get a massage or something. I have always been a "touchy feely" type guy and lack of physical contact is a killer. I love my hugs, so poor daughter is getting a lot of them lately. I don't think she minds! :-) She asked why I hug her so much and I said because I love you so much and am her to be strong for you and your brother. She is a sweetheart and daddy's little girl who will be 21 next month!

Tomorrow a new day, the really good news - NO SNOOPING has been in effect for awhile and I have not buckled!!! I think once I hit the bottom, I figured there was no where else to go!

My friends, I am taking care of myself, taking my vitamins and saying my prayers. God will see me through this as well as W. What He has in store is up to him.

The hardest part, as Addie was saying on her thread, is going to bed alone. I have been doing this for years because of my heavy travel schedule, but never at home. A long time ago, I told W how I get through the lonely nights was hugging a pillow as I could feel her heart beat all the way across the country or in a different country. I miss that heart beat!

Okay, off to sleep, or at least read a bit.

Peace to all,

CBK

[sandi2]

Dear CBK,

As a lot of folks have read my story and I don't mean to repeat myself (but I do a lot of times), I have always went to bed alone. It started just a few months after we were married. My H was a night owl and would set up and watch TV. This was the very first step in the breakdown of our intimacy b/c I needed the sweet talk and the cuddling etc. That was my security and the foreplay to sex for me. I never could make him understand that point. So, over the years when he came to bed at the same time as I did.....I knew it was b/c he wanted sex. After sex, he would get back up and watch TV. After trying for so many years to explain to him how this made me feel and would ask him to compromise with me on this one issue......and he wouldn't....more and more resentment grew. I just tried to push it down inside of me and tell myself that that was just the way he was. When our first grandchild was born, he lived with us the first two years of his life. After he got too big for his baby crib, he wanted to sleep with his grandpa. Even though our GS stopped living with us permanently, he was here most of the time. So, my H would make out the hide-a-way bed and they would sleep together in the room with the TV. That worked great for my H b/c he could watch TV until he fell asleep on the couch. This developed a very bad habit. Well, it has been 22 years later...and he is still sleeping on the couch every single night. He has not slept in our bedroom since. So, I know a little bit about what it is like to go to bed and not have anyone to hold you, cuddle with, talk intimately to, or make love with. The times that we had sex grew farther and farther apart....but I was always to blame in his POV.....and I could never make him understand that he was not helping my emotional needs and that it made me feel almost like a prostitute for him to go to bed, have sex, get back up and go about his usual nightly routine that did not include me.

I guess I'm the one venting today. CBK, it was March of 1996 the last time I was touched intimately. So, I can understand the loneliness and feeling all alone.

When I came to the DB Board, after a while I was talked into going over to the SSM forum, but it didn't work out too good for me and I finally just settle down in the "Piecing" forum. In many ways, my H and I are like "room mates"......or friends or companions. I don't know how to really describe it. We are like an old couple that no longer has any intimate touching, etc. I never wanted to see us end up like this. My grandfather was still having sex when he was 80 until he got cancer and was too sick. However, I think my H has gone so long now without having sex that he may not be able to perform.....I know he was having some problems the last few times we did tried to have sex. I know this is personal.......it really gets personal over in the SSM forum (lol). But, I am telling you this b/c I understand the loneliness. I understand your need for physical touch. After my dad passed away, my mother said something one day about the only time she felt another human touch was when one of us kids hugged her or when she went to church and someone hugged her. It really made me think about that and how we forget that older people that live alone need that touch of another human being. That is the way we are made.

Back to your stitch, I can see you as a man working hard for his family and being away on trips that your job required. Even though you said you ate in nice restaurants and stayed in nice places while your W was home raising the kids (basically alone), that was part of what you had to do on your job. Perhaps she became slowly resentful over time due to being alone and feeling that the raising the children was basically on her shoulders.....and I'm sure she also felt the loneliness when she went to bed alone while you were gone on your business trips. So, I can see both sides to that situation. It was what it was at that time and both of you had to do what needed to be done. Men get very involved in "making the living" for the family and depend on the W's to take care of the home and kids. But in the society we live in today, I personally think that women have too much on them. They go out into the workforce, plus have to go home and do everything they would have done if they were SAHM. Then the kids get old enough to be in sports or other activities that just run the parents to death getting them to all their stuff and the thing is.....the H & W are so exhausted with the lifestyle they are living until they often don't realize that over a period of time....their M is breaking apart. Then, the kids are grown and suddenly their lives have shifted and there they are and they discover things are very different. This is what I'm reading in so many stories here on the board.....not just yours. I am seeing where couples that have been married 20-25 years are breaking up more and more and in MHO I believe it is b/c they have grown apart over those years and can't find their way back to what they once had. So, one of them finds another person that fills that void in their personal need and the first thing you know....there is an EA and if not stopped it usually turns into a PA.

Why people can't see earlier what is happening to their R! Just as I described in my own. We had been M less than four months when my H was choosing to stay up to watch TV instead of going to bed with his bride at the same time she did. But yet, he always blamed me for not wanting to have sex as much as he did. My sex drive in the fist few months was fine, but over a period of time, it did get lower and lower b/c of my resentment. Over the years, other resentments about his mother & family issues would happen that were never resolved and I would try to push it down further and further inside of me and go on and try to fill my life up with church work or whatever to stay busy and try to find some type of fulfillment in my life. But nothing can replace that need for "closeness" with the one that you are M to.

I never thought of an A all those years. Never looked at another man or had sexual thoughts of anyone in real life. I could watch a movie and fantasize about the hero (lol) but that wasn't real life. I have told the story of how I kind of "fell into" a world of temptation of flirting and finding out that other men thought I was attractive and sexy. Yes, it was a choice that I made and I don't mean to say it wasn't....just that I was very vulnerable at that time and didn't have enough strenth or sense or whatever to stop it. This was right before I was facing my 60th birthday, and it was an ego booster for me. That surprised me that it even bothered me, b/c birthdays had never been a problem for me before. However, I think it was b/c I felt like I had missed an important part of life when I was young. This OM that I met on line.....he had been divorced for many years and like you, he had put his job first and finally his W had enough and left him. So, his entire life had been centered around his work.....which he loved, but he would go home and be alone and the loneliness caught up with him. Then we met and started talking over the Internet and was flirting and then it became more sexual and when my H discovered the IM's he confronted me about it. As I told you before, I saw a side of my H that I did not ever want to see again. Unfortunately, it pushed me toward the OM even more and it really became an full blown EA after that. Thank God it never was a PA and I never met him face to face other than the web cam.

Gee whiz, I don't know why I got off on all of that. I woke up at 4:30 this morning after being up past midnight last night, so I haven't had much sleep either. Guess I just needed to talk.

I wanted you to know that even though I was the "wrong party" in my stitch.....I think I can understand how you must feel. My heart goes out to you and I have cried when I have read some of your posts b/c of your pain. I know that I have caused my H the same pain, only he kept it from me and wouldn't really open up and talk to me. He told me how he almost had a heart attack when he discovered my IM's to OM, and how disappointed he was in me and he tried to lay a big guilt trip on me about how my dad would be so disappointed in me, etc. (b/c he knew that I always wanted to please my dad and that made me almost hate him for trying to make me feel guilty about that.) It was more "preaching" to me......and it was not what I needed from him. He did like so many other H's when he first discovered the IM's.....and he started the over-kill with trying to tell me he loved me and show attention, etc. Well, it was too late as far as I was concerned and it just turned me off from him. I didn't want him to touch me and I didn't want him telling me he loved me b/c I could not or rather did not want to tell him I loved him too. I always had until that time. I felt so turned off where he was concerned. Everything about him was a turn-off to me. I didn't understand why I felt that way toward him, but it was like all the resentment over 40 years came to the surface and I did not want to be around him. I was in a fantasy world with the OM. He seemed to be everything my H wasn't. That is how it usually is. The WW or WH finds OP that is totally opposite from their S.

So, again.....I think I understand and this has been a terribly long post and may lock your thread and you'll have to start another one....but that's okay (I hope). I will be known on the DB board for writing longer posts than anyone else....lol.

Detachment for your part will be so hard b/c you still feel the "in love" feelings for your W. When the WW stops feeling the "in love" for her H and it turns toward another man......that is what she is craving....that fresh "in love" experience again. When I came on board and people started telling me how this was actually a physical chemical thing that happens in people's brains, etc. I couldn't believe it! I had never heard of that before. They explained how I was addicted to the feelings that the OM was giving my ego.....which I could see that but didn't want to admit it. Then they told me how it would fade away.....even if I left my H and went to OM....in a few months or even after a year or two at most....I would be in the same shape (or worse) than I was now. That really got my attention! I started reading books that said the same thing!

I was not financially able to support myself and knew my H wouldn't help me and he told me if I left.....there would be no going back. So, I had to make a decision. I wanted my freedom so badly b/c I just wanted to escape from everyone and everything. I think that is where your wife is at this time only for some reason, she is refusing to leave the house.

Gosh, I've got to stop and get ready for work. Sorry for the long post. Just needed to talk.

Sandi

[Arthur]

Sandi - Thanks for that insight about your sitch as I imagine that relates to a lot of people. I can certainly see it in my own sitch and the neglect for giving my W what she needed, attention, compliments, cuddles, affection has got me on here and in my sitch.

So, how do we turn this around ? (I'm not sure the ultimation like your H gave will work for most of us)

[john210]

CBK,
I can not tell you it is a good sign but what I can say is that this sounds very familiar to me. My opinion for what it is worth is that your W (ok maybe mine also) is still in love with the OM. I have a feeling that if you play your cards right, you still have a shot. I am not saying this will happen overnight (that is the mistake we all make) but I did not hear too many negatives from your W towards you. It just sounds like she is a little confused (maybe MLC). Hang in there, it won't be an easy road but if you want it bad enough you will have the resolve.

[gForce]

Your comments about missing the physical contact really hit home with me. I also miss dearly the physical touch of W -- I'm not talking about the sex, though I miss that too. But just the intimacy of holding her at night, the feel of her skin on mine. When she was starting to withdraw from our M late last year (and now I know, getting involved with OM) she started turning her back to me when we went to bed together. She would let me put my arms around her for a while, but then eventually asked me not to even do that. She used to hold me as well, but during that time started hugging an extra pillow. Man, that hurt.

I guess I am not being helpful to you except to say that I understand your feelings in this regard. Hang in there. We all are trying to hang in there.

[CBK]

Sandi -

I did not know your entire story, so thanks for sharing. My heart is aching for you. For some of us, physical touch means so much and the lack of it is sobering. I wish I could come give you a hug!

You have my sitc pegged to the tee. I hate what I am going through, for what all of us on this board are going through. I wish W would understand the A and the chemical euphoira that comes with it, but that is something she will have to figure out. I know she is trying to detach from OM, and I know this will take time. Time, I have.

I know my W feels very guilty and is confused, she says this all the time. I guess that is a good sign. I am sure like others on this board, even as you start to detach, every phone call, email, text that comes in, you are just hoping and praying it is your S saying - whoops, sorry... We all know that isn't going to happen, and those that fully detach probably get away from that feeling. I don't know when I will get there, but I hope sooner than later.

I saw W this morning as we got ready for work. Said good morning to each other and she said she would be home normal time. If the weather is nice (supposed to be chilly though), I am going to sit on the front porch and drink margarita's - she may join or may not, but no expectations. Usually when we do that, neighbors stop by and we end up with a small party going on. Need to bring happiness back into the house.

As you know, yesterday was a setback, but not a horrible one. It was another learning opportunity about us and,even though I shouldn't have, was able to say a lot to W. This may have driven her a little further away, or a little closer, who knows. I know that this isn't going to happen quickly - I am hopeful that it will happen though.

Thanks Sandi for your support and sharing - it means the world to me and others that you post to.

I hope that someday I could meet you and say thank you, no matter how my sitc' turns out.

Peace,

CBK

[CBK]

John, I think you are right on, my W is still in love with OM - although those words hurt when she said them, I know she is in a fog. I do believe I still have a shot - I am still hopeful. I just need to settle down and, like you said, play my cards right. My W has few negatives towards me, it is really bizarre to have her in the house with me as sometimes it feels like "normal" whatever that means.

Thanks John - CBK