WAW and 4 kids

[tryingtilDorR]

Sandi - thanks again for all your help. The 'balance' I am getting from your feedback is going to help me starting now/today. The new understanding is that there is probably a delicate balance required when you are dealing with an A, and you will never get it right if you let emotions drive your actions.

The balance is between setting boundaries and having backbone so that spouse doesn't lose all respect for you, but at the same time not badgering her about what she has done so that they feel worse and just want to run away. Initially, in order to prevent her from feeling so guilty that the guilt would be an insurmountable problem, I told her how much I loved her and would forgive her - now I realize that this was the WRONG approach. It made me look weak and she even mentioned it a couple of times I think. I should have just treated her with respect and let her know I could forgive what she did, but not gotten all overly-affectionate with her. Immediately detatching was what was needed. I have stopped that since then, but it has been 4 months!

The other complication was that we were doing the Retrouvaille program in the middle of all this. I knew that something was going on when we started, but I proved the EA when we were about a month into the program. This was really bad timing, since the program makes you focus on the R and each other as well as yourself, which was the LAST thing my W wanted to do and I think it pushed her away. She even mentioned somethign like this, that things got worse after we went to Retrouvaille.

Once I proved the EA was happening, she told me that after the initial weekend she tried to cut off the EA but after a short time realized how much she was 'attached' and then resumed it. She said something like that trying to do Retrouvaille with me (it goes on for about 10 weeks) made her realize she had 'feelings' for OM that she didn't realize she had, etc etc. I still think it was worth it because it helped me wake up and re-arrange my outlook on just about everything, but hte timing was really bad for her. It is the kind of thing I would love to do in the future again if possible if she ever was willing.


I am realizing that my anger over re-discovering the EA more recently has driven a lot of my actions over the past month and things aren't much better as a result. I think confronting her and telling her that I expected it to stop was the correct thing to do obviously, but some of the things I have done since haven't helped.

Looking back, just in case other LBSs are reading this, the big mistake I made was telling others about the EA before she had a chance to respond to what I found out after confronting her. I was so angry that she had been lying to me I couldn't think straight. I thought my marriage was over and would take a miracle to save, so I figured I didn't have anything to lose. Now I realize I did have a lot to lose based upon my reactions in those first weeks after uncovering the EA.

I do understand why LBH's get all up in the air over OM and how their ego has been hurt. I go get that! But what bothers me is how they quickly seem to forget that the problem was there before OM and now they want to blame the entire stitch on the A.

Again, I do recognize that things were bad before the OM and the issues in the M are what led her to do what she did. My obsession over the OM has been driven by the fact that I don't think M/R has a chance if OM is involved. Therefore, the choice is:

a) try to get her to dump the OM somehow some way, but LBS has no power/control over this directly. I did it by exposing what she was doing to people that I thought she would respect, etc but it kind of backfired as you point out. On the other hand, the pressure from her family has temporarily kept her here with us but not sure if that will be good enough over long haul.
b) lead her to make the choice to dump OM by trying to get her to see that she can be happy in her M

(B) is a tough sell, and the counter-intuitive thing is that the way you accomplish it is to detatch to the point where she isn't feeling 'smothered' and might possibly think that what she would be missing if she D is something that is worth fighting for.


Also, she slept in our room last night for some reason. I am thinking it was out of convenience because the room she had been using was 'busy' with kids and friends over visiting when she laid down last night. But, she also went to her IC yesterday and maybe she had a change of heart on this front but I am not getting my hopes up. The fact that she is in there has been a source of several arguments of late, but I am going to back off now.

I am looking forward to your 'dropping the rope' advice!