For WAWs: Doormat Vs. Self Respect

[HFGW]

Thanks SC once again for your reply. It helps so much during this confusing time.

1. I agree with your IC that you need to express your feelings. However, now may not be the best time. Is your W receptive to hearing your feelings ? If not, you'll feel invalidated, & rejected. That's not good. You can practice expressing your feelings out loud or in your mind just with yourself. Be aware of what you're feeling.

I think she is open to my feelings but clearly not at the expense of hers.

Prior to her having an EA (which is very hard to pin down anyway, are they really just close friends ? do they want it to move physical? does she plan to be with him after your D ? ).

They are planning on being together after our & his D. They quickly went from friends to lovers.

Were you controlling, domineering or a doormat before ? Whatever you were before, do a 180 now. If you were domineering & demanding & would have slammed your hand on the table & INSISTED she end it, I wouldn't do that. My H was like that before, & if he even tried it after the bomb, I'd walk away from him. He just pissed me off by trying the same old [censored] that I'd been telling him didn't work for the past 17 years.

I never told my W what to do and I do not believe I was domineering or controling. However she may believe I have been controling. I think she views it more as her values restricted her - "why be married to someone I do not love."

I'd work on myself, & let her work on herself. You can ask for certain boundaries, like not having OM at your house, her not getting physical with him, not telling him confidential relationship information, etc, etc. I don't think you can ask her not to speak to him at all. I think it's appropriate to ask her not to speak or text to him when you are around.

We pretty much have those boundaries.

It is so hard to have the person I love committed to someone else.