Retrouvaille saved me - AN #3

[working on me]

AN,

I am very sorry to hear about your wifes diagnosis. She is lucky to have you in her corner right now more than ever.

Thanks for the reply as well, you both are in my prayers.

[Sara]

AN,

Sorry to hear about the diagnosis. But I am glad that you and she made so much progress before this happened. I hope you can still enjoy your trip. Best of luck with everything.

[PortlandDad]

AN,

I too am very sorry to hear about your Ws diagnosis. I pray that she will make a full recovery. I have only recently been pointed to your posts by KerryK and I have read through your sitch. It seems that our sitches have much in common.

My WAW is from Germany and on a trip there last year she met the German OM in my sitch at a school reunion. She has since left me and our kids and returned to Germany. Although it is early, the indications are that she will return in the near future and we will start piecing.

One thing that she always maintained was that she hated living here in the US, and that she loves living in Germany. She is originally from the Rhineland-Pfalz town of Kirchheimbolanden, and would like to live there again someday.

In another interesting coincidence, I am considering Retrouvaille as an activity for the two of us once she returns.

Viele Grüße

[AnotherNightmare]

Thanks to Puppy, CIPA, WOM, Sara and PD. I am not sure I can describe accurately what has happened since I posted the last time, but I want to respond to a couple of posts first.

WOMEN, HAVE YOUR CHECKUPS!!!! Us men love you too much.

Even more importantly, do your self-checkups (or let your partner do it). In our case, it was me who discovered the lump. It was completely invisible on a mammogram, and they even had trouble finding it with ultrasound. I guess I was just lucky, but I am very glad I did feel it.

But I am glad that you and she made so much progress before this happened. I hope you can still enjoy your trip. Best of luck with everything.

Unfortunately, the diagnosis also threw us quite a curve ball. Emotionally, I am still struggling with what my W did.
She actually e-mailed OM and told him about the diagnosis. I found out when he called her after the e-mail. After the call, I exploded and told her that if there was any more contact between OM and her other than an e-mail telling him to f... off, I would file for a D. (And I meant it.) I would not accept this one more time.

It turned into a few hours of arguing, her blaming me for not understanding her feelings, for taking the fight to an unimportant area, and telling me that she did not know why she told him. In the end, we made up again, but it has left a bad taste in my mouth.

Since then, I have been struggling, I have been torn, and our arguments have flared up every once in a while. I know that this is not the best support I can give her in this situation, but I struggle a lot controlling my reactions to my feelings.

Emotionally, I am going through hell right now, as she is in the surgery room with the surgeon performing a lumpectomy. I am trying to forget this for a while, but I also know it still stands between us.

My WAW is from Germany and on a trip there last year she met the German OM in my sitch at a school reunion. She has since left me and our kids and returned to Germany. Although it is early, the indications are that she will return in the near future and we will start piecing.

I have not been able to catch up on everybody's situation after my return, but I wish you all the best and good luck.

One thing that she always maintained was that she hated living here in the US, and that she loves living in Germany. She is originally from the Rhineland-Pfalz town of Kirchheimbolanden, and would like to live there again someday.

In her case, it has nothing to do with the country itself. She wants to be near her family, especially as her mother is nearing an age (she turns 84 soon) where every visit could be the last one she sees her. OTOH, with the current diagnosis, she said she is kind of glad that she is in the US, because treatment options and support are much better here than in Germany. The way they handle it at the hospital, they almost make you think this is a routine procedure such as appendicitis while never forgetting to give you all the emotional support a cancer patient needs.

We are actually from Nordrhine Westfalia, an area about half an hour east of Dortmund (where they make a lot of good beer and have one of the best soccer teams in Germany - just my personal opinion).

Good luck with your Retrouvaille experience. No matter what happens with your M after the weekend, it is definitely worth it and a very intensive transformation you will go through.

AN

[Sara]

AN,

It does seem to be one nightmare after another. I am sure everything will be alright after the lumpectomy. My sister had breast cancer, and they did a radical mastectomy the two days after she found the lump. When they are suspicious that it is malignant, they don't give you time to go away on a trip. But I know how difficult it is to sit in a waiting room while a loved one has surgery.

I'm sorry that she contacted OM again. This stuff is SO hard to get rid of. You can always do the Post sessions again as a refresher. Whatever you do, keep up with the Retro group -- do CORE meetings, go to enrichments, or just volunteer and go greet new couples. We find involvement very centering.

Best of luck to you and your wife after this surgery.

[working on me]

AN,

I just wanted to tell you from my stand point I admire you. You have accomplished a lot and have endured more than most can handle. You are in my prayers and so is your wife.

There is not much else I can say to you. My sitch has made a horrible turn for the worse. I am just trying to kep my head above water at this point. Though my life is real bad now I have faith!

[Puppy Dog Tails]

My prayers for your wife, AN!

Puppy

[AnotherNightmare]

Many thanks again to everybody! Fortunately, nothing unexpected happened during the surgery. It looks like the initial findings (well differentiated type = least aggressive, no spreading through the lymp nodes) have been confirmed, even though we are still waiting on the final lab results. My W has recovered from the sedation and had her first normal meal this morning.

I had planned to post last night, but I was exhausted, even though the relief should have given me more energy. I guess working, taking care of the kids and another adult is quite an exhausting task that I have not given her enough credit for.

Sara, we are both committed to going the CORE group meetings, even though we will miss the May meeting, because that day is my D5's birthday. My W has not decided about volunteering, because she has not let go of her plans to return to Germany. This may change, since we are definitely going to stay here longer than she had originally planned (she wanted to return to Germany this coming summer). So there is really nothing that stops us from volunteering, and if we do return to Germany at some point in the future, there is nothing that stops us from quitting then.

Anyway, I am taking it one step at a time. The April meeting was canceled, we will miss May, so let's see if we make it to the June meeting.

[working on me]

An,

I'm glad to hear your W initial findings look positive. I have begun to believe more and more that prayer has true power. Get some rest if you can.

[AnotherNightmare]

Lots of things have happened since my last post, so it is probably going to be a longer post:

After the surgery, my W was kind of tired and went to bed early, usually right after the kids went to bed. So we had no time to talk, and I did not want her to feel pressured by me wanting to talk. I took over pretty much all the household chores, so she really had the time, the rest and the peace to recover from her surgery. Also, before the surgery every time I tried to talk to her, it created tension, so I let her come to me this time.

One other point I think I had not mentioned before, after our fight about the e-mail to OM, she had promised that she would not send another e-mail to OM and that we would send the e-mail to finally end this EA and any contact together before April 30. Well, everybody can guess what would happen.

On April 28, I asked her when we would write the e-mail. I noticed this reaction on her face and asked her immediately: "Have you sent him an e-mail already?" After some initial denying, she admitted that she had sent him an e-mail telling him to end contact. So I asked: "Has he replied?" Again some hesitation, then she admitted yes. "So", I said, "you have not been very clear about it. What else did you tell him? How the surgery went? About our fight?" She again hesitated, but eventually admitted that she told him all of that. Then I told her that I would send him an e-mail explaining to him in no uncertain terms that his contact to her had ended.

My language in this e-mail is nothing to be repeated here. Essentially, I told him his attempts to contact my W were not welcome, that I had read every single one of his "stinky" e-mails (which was not true, but who cares?) and that if I ever found out that he tried to contact her again, I would "drop a few bombs over at his place". What I meant by that (but did not tell him) was that when I snooped back in November to confirm the EA, I had found and printed an e-mail from OM where he essentially told my W that if she wanted to run with the kids, he would be there and help her. Sending this information to the German police or his employer would probably cause an investigation or a charge of custodial interference, being an accomplice to attempted child abduction and a few other things that might be very unpleasant for a L like him.

I am not really sure if I would ever do that, but I was hoping that he would finally get it. To make sure that his e-mails did not reach my W, I blacklisted him in both her e-mail accounts. The one she used for her correspondence with him does not even tell him that his e-mails never reached her. He replied to me pretty much instantly with a nasty insult. I almost cracked up and felt a lot better knowing that OM thought I was worthy a response.

I decided to apologize to my W for all the harsh words I had said to her with some flowers, but also made clear to her that any contact between her and someone she had an EA or PA with during our M was not acceptable to me. I did not know what to expect now, but when we went to bed, she gave clear signs that she wanted to be intimate and we made up by ML.

Nevertheless I did not think this was the end. My W had admitted that he had been sending e-mails pretty regularly (once every two weeks or so) since she told him in December to stop contacting her. And sure enough when we returned from our weekend trip (I finished my first marathon this weekend), I found an e-mail in my inbox that he had also sent to her (of course, it never reached her):

Dear W, hi AN,

If you both read my e-mails, it is only polite to address them to both of you.

First of all, I want to apologize to you, AN, for calling you an a...hole. I do not think anything positive about you, but that is not a reason to use this kind of language. Sorry for that. I wish for you that you realize what incredible luck you have to spend time with such a wonderful person like W. Maybe you will then be able to get rid of your sick violent imagination...

I wish you, dear W, from the bottom of my heart that you will be healthy again soon and that you will find YOUR way to a happy life. I will never again intrude your life without being asked, but you know that I will always be there for you as a friend when you need me. You know how to reach me.

I wish you, AN, a successful way to realization, and you, W, a happy life for yourself,
OM

Initally I thought WTF. But isn't that e-mail slick? Trying to seed wrath between my W and me again? Of course, he does not understand half of what I was talking about ("dropping the bomb") and again does not respect our wish to stop contacting us.

The good news is this might have been his last e-mail. I have asked myself for several days if sending him the e-mail was the right thing to do, but in the end I now think it was the only way to finally stop him. It goes without saying that I have not replied to any of his BS (even though the temptation was there). So anyway, I hope this was it. And I hope with the pain subsiding in my sore legs, the pain in my heart will slowly go away as well.

AN