Withdrawal of OM and coping

[Hope4us]

Sorry for the hyjack, but talking about little things that gets to you...there is a phrase the H's use here on the board that I wished they would stop after his wife returns home or after she breaks contact with her OM. That being, to continue to refer to her as his WW. To me, it is constantly sprinkling salt in the wound b/c if she has tried to make amends, stop calling her that. It's just a touchy thing for me, I suppose, but you would not continue to refer to her as a WAW as if she was still gone but in reality she had returned home, so I don't think calling her a wayward wife is healthy if she has made the decision to stay in the M. I think she should just be called..."wife". JMHO. Maybe I am too sensitive about it.....I have noticed a lot of men in other threads that call their W's this, even though they have come back home to him. Why not just refer to our spouses as our sinful spouse? We would all fit into that category wouldn't we?

Sandi, If you're referring to my posts I'll try to explain. In my opinion my wife is still wayward because she still has not done anything to commit to our marriage. The most I've got from her is "I'll stay around for the kids until S16 graduates from H.S. and see how it goes with us". She reads book after book glorifying affairs, she still sleeps on the couch, she hasn't given me ANY sign of affection since last Sept, she has not apologized for having the affair beyond saying ONCE about 6 months ago "I know what OM and I did was wrong", but a few weeks later tried to arrange another meeting with him. She has not worn her wedding ring since last Sept. She still hides and locks her cell phone and refuses to get rid of any of her affair stuff. She's so far not read any of the books I've asked her to read about how to recover a marriage after an affair and she flat out refuses to Retro or MC. She introduced me to the enabler GF's boyfriend by saying "this is (my first name). Not, this is my husband. So to me, she's still Wayward with a capital W since the only reason she's staying in the marriage is "for the kids".

Said another way, would you call an alcoholic a recovering alcoholic if they refused to commit to not drinking again or attending AA meetings?

Trust me, nothing would make me happier than to call her my "former" wayward wife or more simply, my wife. But as she's made it very clear to me she doesn't think of herself as my wife I have a hard time not thinking of her as wayward.