Frank..have no deadlines..have no expectations...do not read into tears...do not see babysteps. Look only at you right now..and do what people tell me: treat her with repsect and love for you both had together in the past.
FIB
Me 55; XW 47; 2 kids (S13, D11) Bomb 05/19/06 Original thread http://tinyurl.com/yg2ou2t Last anniversary 04/25/10, Divorced 5/12/10 Status: Loving father of 2 beautiful children;
She needs to be able to come back to you as a mature, strong, independent woman. She needs to not need you financially. If she's on her own, if she can make it without you, if she has all her choices of "spiritual" boy-men but THEN she wants to come back to you, Frank, it's for real.
That's the best quote I've seen in on here in ages.
I often wonder if this started out as MLC / running away but has progressed to her really just not being in love with me any more.
How do we ever really know? I guess we don't.
That's pretty wise, frank. Maybe no one ever knows, or few know. It seems to me it's better to assume it isn't until you've tried everything, than assume it is and assume it will get better, unless you can't anymore. And then I pray your spouse will DB YOU back.
YOU and YOU ALONE set your conditions for her return. Frank, go deep for this. This shouldn't come from ANYONE HERE.
WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO HAVE.
And What would be the FIRST SIGN that it was going that way.
The truth is you almost never get the whole thing at once. You get baby steps. And YOU will know what they are, if you're paying attention. Don't let anyone talk you into them, and especially don't let anyone talk you out of them.
In general some folks are fine if their spouse doesn't come back. I could be wrong, but my gut tells me you're not one of them....your posts lead me to believe you still want the miracle. IF YOU COULDN'T FAIL...WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
sg Love is PATIENT, love is KIND, LOVE never fails / DB since 2001
It's time for this emotional game to end. It has almost destroyed you once before. Allowing it the chance to do so again, without GOOD reason to believe she has opened her eyes and seen the truth, should not be an option.
It's not just you Frank.
It's your two lovely ladies at home too.
I've told you on the phone many times that I believed that your wife was one who would not see the mistakes she was making until she began to TRULY live the life she THINKS she wants.
And the danger Frank is that it turns out she really did want just what she's about to get.
But you have to let her go anyway.
If you allow her to find the easy way out of this difficulty again, you are nothing more than an enabler. And ultimately you will be unable to point fingers anywhere but at yourself.
It's the old Fram oil filter commercial.
Pay me now or pay me later.
I think they tried to tell us the first option was the right one.
Blessings,
Bill
"Don't tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon."
I often wonder if this started out as MLC / running away but has progressed to her really just not being in love with me any more.
How do we ever really know? I guess we don't.
What we know, Frank, is that love is a choice.
Speaking only from my own experience and my own heart, I can tell you that if/when everything finally clicks in your wife - when she finally 'get's it' - when she realizes in her soul the value of family, the strength of the ties...the importance and the depth...that choice becomes easy.
Everything and everyone that's out there in the world will pale by comparison.
She'll know that everything and everyone else will forever only be second best - nothing can ever be recreated or substituted.
If she ever realizes those things - the search, race, the run and the hysteria will just end.
Whether or not you'll give a rat's ass by the time that day comes, if it ever comes, remains to be seen.
I don't even know that your wife has the guts to face any of those things. I don't know if she has the potential for that kind of understanding. She could be one that runs and searches forever. That's very sad indeed but it's not for you to "save" her from herself and the results of her foolish, careless choices. You can't "save" her.
But as surely as she has made the choice not to love for the time being, you can still make the choice TO love.
That doesn't mean become a doormat. That doesn't mean open your front door everytime she wants to come over. It doesn't mean you shouldn't take steps to protect yourself.
It just means that when you speak to her or when you speak of her you do so with the spirit of love. And Frank it means praying for her, too.
Frank, to whom much is given sooooo, sooooo, soooooo much is required...
So if at any moment you find that this situation doesn't take everysingleounce of strength you have within you and then still have the absolute audacity to require more... well my friend, you just ain't doing it right.
But if it is, and if it does, you can rest assured you're probably right where you need to be.
Me 55; XW 47; 2 kids (S13, D11) Bomb 05/19/06 Original thread http://tinyurl.com/yg2ou2t Last anniversary 04/25/10, Divorced 5/12/10 Status: Loving father of 2 beautiful children;
I do agree with the spirit of this post. It's the year or more of this that I don't like. Not that I'm waiting for her, it's just no fun to be alone. She's not alone, but I am because I don't want my kids to deal with someone new in their life, and I'm not 'over' W.
The reason I put a seemingly arbitrary timeline of one year is for both your sakes (if you want to redeem the marriage).
Why?
You used strategies last time and won her back, but didn't really undergo any deep personal change. She didn't undergo any real change or ephiphany, she never faced consequences for her actions, she simply got disillusioned with OM and decided she would "will" herself into becoming a wife again. Neither of you changed or really grew stronger, the same dynamics applied and the same drama played itself out three years later. You think you changed, and you really didn't -- you just spent yourself trying to save the marriage. She thought she had changed, and really didn't -- she resigned herself to "be a wife", to use her language.
I think, and I can be wrong, here that neither of you can effectively change if she's allowed to live at home while having an affair. You will implode and she'll remain in her fog. In other words, you can't survive, much less get a life with her living under the same roof playing the MLC cat and mouse game with an affair on top of that. And it seems that she won't change, either with baby-steps or with a dramatic epiphany while you enable her infidelity/MLC/disrespect for you. She needs consequences and reality.
Our moderator rightly points out that baby-steps and small changes occur and often we miss them because we aren't looking for them. If we see them, then we end up being encouraged and it gives us strength to persevere. We are like DB-ing bloodhounds sniffing for clues (crumbs/babysteps) which lead us further along the trail until we win the prize -- our spouses back. That's chapter 2 of Divorce Remedy. It's the textbook approach.
While we do this, we are supposed to be on a continuous path of self-care, getting a life, losing weight, going to the gym, "discovering" ourselves and making ourselves the better option. Partly for us, but also to win back our spouses.
I don't disagree with it. I think, however, that situations that are long-running 2-5 years might not lend themselves to such a marathon approach. It might be too exhausting to continue. Most of the cases I see on the boards where the textbook approach worked seemed to happen within a 6-12 month time frame. In some cases separation was a help since it got the faithful spouse out of a toxic environment to enable them to make the changes. I might be wrong, but that's my experience.
Michelle's advice is, when you've decided, "it's enough" to try the LRT, and the The After the Last Resort Technique and then The Ultimatum. That's fine. I don't see the After the LRT or The Ultimatum encouraged or sucessfully documented on these boards.
There are other more forceful/direct approaches that might work when, indeed, the marathon has been too long/exhausting and a person still might want to save the marriage: asking the unfatihful spouse to leave the house, creating consequences, etc.
This is to say, Frank, that I think babysteps are fine, but, perhaps a year's worth of baby steps might be necessary for you to re-establish trust with your wife. I also think we are dealing with a repeat offender here (3 affairs) and perhaps, you will need to see some real character change.
Amy said this more eloquently than I could about character change in a MLC....
Quote:
Speaking only from my own experience and my own heart, I can tell you that if/when everything finally clicks in your wife - when she finally 'get's it' - when she realizes in her soul the value of family, the strength of the ties...the importance and the depth...that choice becomes easy.
Everything and everyone that's out there in the world will pale by comparison.
She'll know that everything and everyone else will forever only be second best - nothing can ever be recreated or substituted.
If she ever realizes those things - the search, race, the run and the hysteria will just end.
Amy's holding out for a miracle. I would agree. I'll take it in a moment's flash or a year's worth of babysteps. But I still think a year is a good testing ground to see if the "flash" of enlightenment really happened. Frank you probably need the year to work on yourself and get physically, emotionally and spiritually healthy. If she REALLY wants you, she'll wait the year. I think too much it at stake to offer her "cheap grace" and an easy in at this stage.
In addition, there is some anecdotal wisdom about the WAW and the nature of woman's feelings if she's willing to have an affair. Generally, if a woman has an affair, she's really emotionally checked out on the marriage, and, perhaps has closed the door on it. DB-ing a WAW may be harder than a philandering husband. Reas Michelle's artice on this website about the WAW. Even she says when a woman has reached that stage it's almost too late.
On the other hand, if you decide "enough is enough" and desire to end the marriage, you have our support.
