Wow - lots to respond to. Guess my thread has woken back up again.
gForce: "Funny how your W seems to be questioning you suspiciously about your R with your mutual friend.
I think what may be bothering W more is that mutual friends go out of their way to do things for me - mainly because I'm nice and friendly and let them know I appreciate whatever they do. W is withdrawn and just works, and I think deep down she knows she tends to push people away even though she's more socially engaging than I am.
bridgestone: "Maybe the WAS are trying to take the high road by not trash talkig about the LBS to friends who don't want to be put in the middle of a couple's marital discord."
That is certainly a valid point, although I think WAS do plenty of trash talking themselves - would they admit that or think they're justified? Both sides probably feel justified. In my sitch, I shouldn't have trash-talked, but that was re: the affair. And the sliding scale of justifications for the A. And advisor already suspected and was frustrated that STBXW wasn't presenting her side. And to put things in perspective, trash-talk was along the lines of "why wouldn't she say something" or "she thinks OM is her muse" or "she knew the A was misplaced emotions and a road to disaster but she still refused to approach working on the M because she was afraid it'd affect her career."
I only can view things in re: to my sitch, and STBXW said she was happy - not perfectly, but happy - until she slept with and got emotionally involved with OM. And then she shut down. And will only work. And advisor says it's affecting her work. So I agree with H4U - an A changes things completely.
bridgestone: "cattle tank & lawn chair"
So when I lived in the SW we had a 5' round stock tank up on cinder blocks. It took 2.5 hours to heat by building a fire underneath, and once you got the zen of it, you knew when to put on that last log so that just when the temp reached 104, there were nothing but coals and the bottom of the tank was cool enough to sit on.
WCW: "I think WAS and LBS want all their friends to ask them what happened so we can all justify our actions to them."
Ain't that the truth! But I've tried to temper that in my conversations and admit that I hadn't been giving W enough attention. Problem in our sitch is that I had asked for her support while I pursued my grad degree, with the understanding it would eat up a lot of my time. She said she'd be there for me and then bagged when her own interests came into play. Okay, fine. She didn't feel supported because I was at the library or in class. So I drop everything and take incompletes to make real change, and she says she doesn't want to take time away from her OWN grad degree to work on M. That would be called hypocrisy.
