struggling to make R work

[garyjlost]

Hi. After a separation, I'm back at home with my wife. Things have been going well for a couple months. But last night my wife said she wanted to go out drinking with her friends this Friday. And I sort of froze up. You see, she has had numerous affairs in the past few years of our marriage (16 total years). And this is how it always started, with her going out drinking. I was hoping I wouldn't have to deal with this for a few more months. But there it is.

I told her I felt uncomfortable about her going out drinking. We have plenty of examples to show this is problematic behavior on her part. And then she said she feels smothered by the marriage. In the past, I gave her lots of room to do whatever she wanted. But now I have expended a huge amount of time and energy to make the marriage work, and the marriage is now my complete focus. All my energies have gone into making it work. I made huge changes. I'm very involved in all family activities (we have one daughter, 9 years old). My wife and I have date nights every week or two. I go to parties with my wife (I wouldn't do this before) and we go out dancing together (I rarely did this before).

At the same time, though, I have felt that my wife wasn't completely satisfied. On more than one occasion, she has said something like this: "We went from you being rarely around -- for 16 years -- to you being around all the time. It seems a bit much."

I can give her space. But I've done that in the past, and problems resulted. She doesn't make good decisions when she's drinking.

The bottom line, I suppose, is she feels suffocated by the marriage. This didn't come to the surface until last night. For the past several weeks, she seemed happy, although she had some reservations that she wasn't willing to talk about. She thought we were talking too much about the marriage. She just wanted to "live" the marriage. So I respected her request and we haven't talked a lot about the marriage over the past month or so. But that means we haven't been dealing with potential problems.

So I need help from others who have had to deal with a partner who broke their trust. Somehow I need to develop trust again, but this is really hard, especially when confronted with statements from my wife that she 1) feels suffocated in the marriage and 2) wants to go out drinking (without me present).

How have others dealt with situations like this? I'm sure my situation isn't unique. I'm starting to freak out. Help.

You can read more about my situation by using the link below.