Please help me to not give up............

[grant]

Wifey, GFI and PDT,

Thanks so much for your encouragement and support. It really is all I have to lean on right now.

GFI, I'm so humbled that you find I'm showing dignity and strength in my postings here. Perhaps sometimes I'm really torn about how to act around my w. I had been following through with the DB premise, that the only way forward was to try to be her friend and love unconditionally, never mention OM, never show her how desperately destroyed I have been and continue to be.

Because my contact with her is limited, ( a couple of days a week at weekends ), it has been difficult to evaluate any progress that a particular strategy might be having. Also, I'm conscious that patience is a huge issue.
But 6 months in, if the truth be told, I still cry every day, with regret, remorse, and a very deep sorrow that I seem unable to have much control over.

PDT......... Frankly, you are a hero for taking a stand in areas that many fear to tread. I really don't know for sure, but it seems that when you were able to take such a strong stand, you felt that you were not to blame, and that you had the courage of your convictions.

I feel like I am compromised, weak and at the moment, pretty ineffectual.

Part of my problem, is that I now know so little about the status of my Wife's R with this man. She has always maintained that they are just friends, and has had little to do with the actual end of our marriage. She's very clear about that in the extract from her email. Though I know what I FEEL. I am not paranoid, and though I have tried to avoid the "snooping" and pursuing, the fact remains that she is having an inappropriate R outside our M. I would imagine that because we are separated, she feels like it is none of my business, and has clearly given me categorical reasons for our separation.

I most certainly get an overwhelming sense, that although my efforts are making things more pleasant when I visit my kids, she is day by day, withdrawing further, and her lack of respect fro me as a man is more apparent every time I see her.

I am at home now, and though she hugged me and told me she had missed me too, quite quickly, it's all gone pretty cold and there is an atmosphere of bare toleration of my presence here.
The boys are wonderful, and are 16 and 13 years old.

I DO feel terribly emasculated and my self-worth is pretty non existent.

I know that the counselling will help, and I look forward to exploring that further.

How can I ask her to do things for me, like stop her EA with OM, when she doesn't respect me, doesn't love me, and no longer trusts me.

It seems to me that you came from some sort of position of strength when you demanded these things from your wife PDT. Well, quite obviously you did. I guess what I mean is that you still had self respect, something I am quite clearly lacking.

I guess perhaps I was a bit controlling, although I very much encouraged her independence. Maybe I'm a bit of a pleaser too. I'm not entirely sure what I am or was any more. That's why it's difficult to do anything with absolute conviction.

Well, I will post more perhaps when I leave my home.I will start to think all of this over, and it is EXACTLY the kind of thoughts and experienced voice that I needed to hear. It's a different take on things, but I can relate to all that you say PDT, and it all makes sense. It's just where to go next.

Can't tell you how grateful I am. Thanks so much.

Grant