My Intro: Thanks for Reading!

[faithisbelieving]

Hi RSF...I just read your intro link today and I commend your courage in presenting how life went off course.

1) Actively engage with W in pursuit of agreement to reconcile.
2) Minimize engagement, focus on me, allow things to play out.
3) Disengage with W, go after divorce full force.

I was not successful in staying out of divorce court so I will not present myself as having all the answers. I can give you some thoughts, but, as a man, you already know that the decision is totally yours as to how to direct your marriage.

Recall the time that you were out of your wife's life and your feelings about reconciling with her. Now...put her in that place.

Scratch number one. It is pursuit. Not only that, does it allow your wife to see you as someone who knows himself? You have to be careful about straddling the fence...hanging between the "I love you, I want to reconcile and you can walk all over me until you do" property and the other side which is the "I love you but I have boundaries and a marriage is 2 not 3".

My only real piece of advice is don't become an enabler.

My close friend from childhood recently went through a nasty divorce. Suffice it say that his XW went into MLC and bee lined for an old HS BF, wanted to keep the status quo except "pluck me out and simply replace me with Darren (from the TV show Bewitched)." Of course, 3 years later that relationship is dead and over. They remain divorced. Similarly, this R of hers may burn out, but, after how long?

What I am saying is what you already know: pursuit and enabling is doomed to failure. You need to find a pathway that does not permit affairs, does not enable them, draws lines and allows your wife to realize that she could lose you forever...ALL THE TIME allowing the door to stay open.

Michele does NOT condone affairs NOR does she counsel anyone to hang out and wait. She counsels an LRT or last resort technique. Frequently, that is not purveyed here in our forum. Fear is a powerful thing. Hope for reconciliation can be a form of denial. Dr. Gray of Venus and Mars fame says in one of his books that one can never truly reconcile unless the old R/M is destroyed/terminated/ended and then rebuilt from the ground up.

RSF...what do you want? How do you see your life as a man and husband in this played out? Is hanging on and pursuing...or just waiting around....better than grieving it and letting go or even filing?

Sometimes a long walk on the beach with a beat up pair of sweat pants and your oldest worn out sneakers can help.

Supporting you.
FIB