Moving here from the Infidelity forum. For some reason, I couldn't post anymore there; is that what people mean when they say they were "locked out"? Anyway, I'd been thinking it was about time I moved over here. My 1st thread was getting long and I think my W and I are sort of moving on to the next stage of A recovery, whatever that may be. Here's the link to my 1st thread:
The Nutshell Summary Personal: Me: 41, automotive engineer W: 39, nurse Together 11 years, M for 8 Kids: StepD 14, stepS 13, sons 7 and 6
History: Early 2/03: W begins A 2/26/03: W says "not sure I love you anymore". I think of her as a possible WAW, don't suspect A. Find DB, start DBing, some baby steps seem to be happening. 5/08/03: D-day, after I find incriminating emails. W says she doesn't want to break up the family, is willing to stay married (mainly for the sake of the kids), will break off all contact with the OG. 5/15/03 ish: I snoop and find out that she continued to call him. Confrontation #2. She again agrees to stop. 5/30/03: W gets new secret cellphone. I snoop and find it the next day, but decide to give her some space and not confront her about it then. 6/15/03: Father's Day. I get my 1st ILY from her since January. 6/19/03: W finds out that I know about the cellphone when she tries to access her account online. I immediately find out that she knows, because of an automatically generated email sent to me by the cellphone company. I decide to confront her immediately.
Summary of Confrontation #3 As a title for this thread, I almost chose, "Stop F***ing Calling the OG!", but decided on a less negative one. After all, other than the continued contact (no small matter, to be sure), things have definitely been improving in our R. We've been spending more time together, and enjoying it, with lots of affectionate touching and even some pretty wonderful sex.
Anyway, the confrontation went about as well as I could have hoped. She said that she had just found it so hard to stop talking to him cold turkey, but that in the past few weeks she had only been talking to him like a friend (e.g., no ILY's). She also said that she had seen him a few times since D-day (she had repeatedly lied about this, too), but not in the last few weeks, and that she had not slept with him since D-day. I mostly believe her on this (but who knows). She said that her plan had been to stop all contact with him once she felt "ready", and that she thought that she was "almost" to that point. She said that she thought that things between us had gotten much better, and that as things with me improved, that she felt less and less like she needed to talk to him. She also said, however, that she didn't yet trust in my love and the changes that I have made. She worried that things would return to the way they were before, and that I just want her back because of my competitiveness and need to win. She continues to think of him as her "fallback position", if things don't work out with me. She recognizes, however, that improving our M requires that she stop all contact with him, and that she has been very selfish about this, and very insensitive to the way this makes me feel.
For my part, I was relatively calm and tried to choose my words carefully. I told her that I love her very much, but that I'm done with the situation the way it is. Knowing that she is calling the OG and lying to me about it is driving me crazy. I told her that up til now I'd been careful not to issue ultimatums, and that I'd been trying to give her space and let her come to her own decision to stop contacting the OG, but that I am now at the point where she would be risking everything if she were to continue to contact him and lie about it.
I told her that the changes I have made in myself were real and would be long lasting. I also suggested that there were steps we could take together, like seeing a MC, that would help us to make changes in the ways in which we interact that might also be helpful over the long term (not much of a positive reaction to that from her).
She said that she hated feeling controlled by me (i.e., in regards to my insistence that she stop all contact with the OG). I don't understand this at all; I'm not really a controlling person, or at least I don't think so. As some sort of compromise, instead of immediately stopping all contact, she suggested that she could agree to stopping all contact with the OG by the end of this week (the 27th), that she will only contact him by phone, that she will tell me when she has done it, and that she will get rid of the no-longer-secret cellphone. I guess in her mind this gives her some control over how it ends between them. Whatever. I agreed to this, even though I think it's going to be a tense week. We have plans to go to Las Vegas for a few days starting on the 29th, so I guess this trip will mark a new beginning for us.
Recommitment Issues I'll list a few of the issues that I/we will need to start or continue to deal with as we move forward. I'm sure it's a list y'all in piecing could make yourselves (and probably add a bunch I haven't thought of yet). So here they are, in no particular order.
How to trust that the A is truly over, and that she isn't contacting him anymore. How to trust ANYTHING she says. How to know that she won't ever do this again. How to get past thoughts of the OG, especially in regards to sex. That she doesn't seem truly sorry for the A. That she still basically blames me for causing her A. How to make her comfortable enough to have R talks. How to get her to open up about what she really wants from me. How to get her to realize and respond to the fact that just as there are/were changes that she needed me to make, there are changes that she needs to make for me. How to get her to take some responsibility for understanding the A and for learning how to go forward from here (e.g., going to a MC, doing some reading, etc). How to have an argument or disagreement without fearing that it will push her back to the OG. How to regain my self-respect. How to regain my respect for her.
Well, I'm sure I'll add to the list over time, but it's a start.
