Looking for Advice

[gutwrenching]

Made it through the weekend, have a lot on my mind as we start the week.

Unfortunately, what I thought was positive steps forward earlier in the week, don't seem to be any longer. W has either pulled back to where we were before, or it was just the emotion of the crisis of the suicide and I was there/comfortable for her, or she's getting support from OM, or there are just so many stressors in her life right now that its all a mess. She worked in the house a ton this weekend.
Just seems we are right back to where we were, kind of disappointing. The only thing different is I haven't been pursuing (though I am doing too many things for her, but I would do that for a roommate too with all that has to be done). No longer getting hugs goodbye, Sat morning was the last time for that. No physical touch of any sort in the bed, back to the great divide in the bed at night, been that way since Thu. No pyhsical touches/pats on back/etc during day, but maily because I stopped initiating. W not talking near as much about situation and how she is handling and what she is feeling.

Today is the memorial service here, she is speaking, she did have me review her talk last night.
W has verbally thanked me a few times for all that I have done, but that is it. Again yesterday thanking me for taking the kids out of the house for 5 hours to let her work. About the only thing different I have noticed, was her attempts to pull more of her own weight with "chores" around the house when she wasn't working. She seemed to be honestly trying to give me a break for an hour or two yesterday and it seemed genuine. No more getting pissy over who was filling what role with the kids but I am also a little more cognizant of that and how sensitive of an issue it is.

Next issue - the pay as you go phone she admitted she had. Its back. It had been in her backpack and then it wasn't for a couple of days, it was again today. I didn't have enough time to mess with it to see if I could tell when it was last used, but she is probably smarter than that to leave the evidence on the phone anyway. The battery was still just about dead, flashing at me after I powered it on.
My question - do I bring this up before she leaves for the funeral on Wed. I guess I don't want to make it easy on them with a phone already bought and number they already know. Or do I just let that one go too...or I could conveniently just remove the phone from the backpack and she probably would never even know it was missing till she went to try to use it at the airport or more likely, final destination.

Also on the subject of the trip, need advice from Sandi/others on how much do I try to communicate with W? According to W, one of the straws that broke the camels back this summer, was that I didn't make enough effort to communicate with W enough every day while we were apart--TM/Email/Phone Call/On-line chat/etc. This is the first time since the bomb and since I dedicated myself to changing that we have been apart. I know what I want to do is show I've changed and initiate communication, but given where we are at these days, would that be the wrong move...counterproductive?

Last question for now on trip coming up - I think I know the answer, just looking for confirmation. I should probably not mention/remind/etc about OM and the boundary we have...correct? The best answer is to just not mention him? I can tell you that the natural thing for me is to say something about it but that is probably the fear/anxiety talking of them having a few days to really stoke the fires of the EA again.

So today, I work again on no pursuit/detaching. This is tougher than I thought it would be, but I've made little bits of progress. There is the memorial service in the afternoon. I asked once if she would like to ride together and the answer was no because she needs to be there a couple of hours early. I will play it by ear about the ride back...I don't know how she will handle/hold-up at the service and whether or not she'll want a companion on the drive back to work.

Last relevant topic - the iphone. When I went to bed at about 1AM and she said she needed to do a few things, I nicely asked if there wasy anything I could carry up for her. She gave me a couple of items including her iphone. I think that was intentional to show she wasn't hiding anything on there. Yes I checked. Password was off and there was nothing on the phone that I could see other than OM's phone number is still her contacts page. Not sure if I should raise this as an issue or not, like I think I said before, I'm sure she has it memorized. Everything else I'd like to see, I'd need the password (Yahoo e-mail account and Skype account mainly).

Lastly, I need to journal on how I'm doing. I'm tired. First of all, didn't get to bed till 1:00 or later last night. Was helping W with her memorial speech and ironed her shirt and took care of everything around the house as she worked till about 1:30. Also tired because I had the lions share of the house work and kid responsibility. I had one or both kids well over 3/4 of each day with just me. Did all the laundry and cleaning for all of us and even made dinner last night. Couple all that with the disappointment (I'll admit it) of the pull back and uncertainty of the upcoming trip, and well, I'm tired already and its only Monday.

[gutwrenching]

Lost - the boundary was no contact whatsoever or else I tell OM's W...no phone calls, no e-mails, no texts, nothing. A couple of days later, I had to re-iterate that boundary included facebook and said I wanted her to block him from viewing her stuff and vice versa.

My gut tells me they are e-mailing and probably chatting with Yahoo instant messenger, Google talk or Skype.

I do know they aren't using our phone. After about 500 minutes of talking last month, she is at 13 minutes about half way thru the next billing cycle and those mintes are all to me! HA! I can at least get satisfaction from that. One of these days I have to approach her about reducing the number of minutes on our plan to save of us money, cause we sure as heck don't need that many minutes any more!

THANKS for confirming what I was thinking. I think she knows I didn't see anything or else she would have been much more "loving" to me last night to try to get it out of me...that's what happened the last 2 times she thought I saw something (and one of the two times I did). But hopefully I'm making her think twice...

It is WAY TOO EASY to be secretive these days.

[gutwrenching]

Lost - My wife's EA I think began from actually working together for a while this summer. I think she starting bonding and then the net amplified it. I think that once apart they actually starting probably talking even more over the net, in the mean time, I'm not talking enough (because I was working 20 hour days and our time zones were off by around 17 hours) and suddenly the EA is full blown and we have a classic WAS with EA scenario. I don't know this and I wouldn't even ask...she wouldn't tell me the truth anyways. According to wife, EA didn't begin till after they were apart and for some reason, that part I beleive. She claims it started recent (ie Nov/Dec) but that I don't beleive. Phone records tell me it was more like September.

[rockedworld]

Hi GW,

First... how you are doing. Tired makes sense. It is completely exhausting to be the one who takes care of everything, plus deals with the emotional stress of your M sitch. DBing is exhausting also, because it is counter-intuitive and therefore takes a lot of energy to implement. This is just your reality for now. And, it will be for awhile. Sometimes we just have to accept this, and it sucks. But, as people keep saying on these boards lately, we can choose to "embrace the suck"... My interpretation of this is, we are choosing to fight for our M, therefore we can embrace all the crap that comes with that, as hard as it is, because we know it will be good for us and our kids no matter what. So, hang in there, and keep looking here for the support you need.

Second... don't say anything to her about any of what you mentioned. It won't do any good. There were two trips my H went on during my sitch in which I was desperately worried about contact with OW. The first one (end of July, before I knew about DB and came on here) I begged, pleaded and made him promise there would be NC with OW. He looked me right in the eyes and promised 3x there would be none. Then, drove to her home, picked her up and took her with him. He was in the fog. The second time, in Sept. when I was first learning to DB, I didn't say a word. Again, she went along, but I realized she would have anyway, no matter what I said.

The thing is, if your W is determined to be in contact, she will be, no matter what you say or don't say. Your best chance of the EA dying out and your W seeing you differently is if you can DB.

About how much to communicate with her... I struggled with the same issue. My H's main complaints were that I had been emotionally unavailable to him prior to the A. These are valid complaints. My job is very demanding, we had some signficant stress and change in our lives just prior to that, including a major move, and I was depleted.

So, I tried to find the balance between not pursuing, detaching, GALing, 180's... and, when he approached me or there seemed an appropriate time or reason, to offer the kind of emotional support I would to a friend. I continued to tell him, "I will be here for you, as long as you choose to end R with OW. If you continue it, not only will that end our M at some point, but I will not be your friend."

I think you also need to think seriously about doing less for your W. She is cake eating. I stopped all the little, wifely things I used to do for H during the height of my sitch. That got his attention. I calmly let him know that until he could treat me as a wife should be treated, I would not function as a wife would. He was choosing this sitch, so if it is a room mate he wants, then that is how I would treat him. That was so hard to do. But, it had an effect. These things need to be done calmly, without contempt or emotion.

Gotta run, but will try to check in on you again.... hopefully Sandi will be back around to offer her always wise advice.. and she is better at 2x4's when needed...

[gutwrenching]

Rocked -
Thank you! I needed someone to ask how I was doing, cause I'm beat and I get how's the W doing about 10x a day because of her situation. You know, faking that gets old too. Anxiety over what W doing much, much more mild today, so that is good, and I am happy with myself for that. Not where I need to be yet, but progress two days in a row are helping me stay optimistic that I can and will get there.

I continued to tell him, "I will be here for you, as long as you choose to end R with OW. If you continue it, not only will that end our M at some point, but I will not be your friend."

Interesting, you "continued" to tell him this...in other words you would say something like this frequently/occassionally? I haven't said something like this to the W since putting down the boundary. And was your H claiming to have ended the A or if I remember correctly, he hadn't. My W claims to have gone cold turkey and ended EA. That's what she told me she was going to do and she told me once in anger a couple days after the fact. Since then, no words. Except for the one time when I told her how surprised I was she was suddenly being so nice and she replied to me "if you are wondering, no I did not contact him"

Just curious if should say something similar occassionally or not.

As far as saying anything about OM, I knew that was the answer, guess I needed to type it out and get a confirmation. The pay as you go phone bugs me. I can't remember her exact words when she told me about it, but it was certainly implied she was getting rid of it, so for it to be around bugs me. I was real close to throwing it in the trash this morning. But I grabbed control of my emotions and placed it back in her backpack. That's what I'd really like to do, is just throw it away myself or maybe take out some stress with one strong whack with a hammer and then throw it away.

My job is too is very demanding and her complaints of me being emotionally unavailable were legitimate also.
I have cut back out of necessity for my kids and hopes of saving a M and have learned to be more efficient and am surviving (but barely). I started cutting back when I saw how checked out she was which at first I thought was work and later figured out was the EA. I exposed the EA right before Xmas and then we both took the week after Xmas off, so this was the first week to see if she would check back into the kids and show any effort at us. I got about 14 hours of observation (which were positive on both aspects of kids and us), and then the suicide happens, so now I have little to no valid observations.

Prior to all this, 12-13 hour work days were the norm for me with often an hour at night also. Now the roles are reversing. W is in a demanding position till 1 Feb + the suicide and she is turning to work to escape reality of our situation, I firmly believe that, I'd bet a paycheck at Vegas on the fact she is using work to escape either the reality of her situation or to escape having to be around me so much.
What is going to be interesting is come 1 Feb, things should return to normal for her (with regards to work) and there just won't be that much for her to do to use it as an excuse. In fact, we've talked in general a bunch about taking time off after 1 Feb, but I really have no idea on that...it just seems too far away right now.

[gutwrenching]

Oh yea, and on a lighter front I am pissed off at my attempts to put weight back on. I know, most people would say I wish I had that problem and so would have I up till recently. W did ask me yesterday if I had weighed myself recently and if so how I was doing at putting weight back on, she does seem genuinely interested and concerned (in fact last night she said she wanted a high carb dinner so that there would be leftover pasta for me to add to my dinner that we have each night). I put on about 1 pound, that's it. This is getting old. I know I need more weight on me to be more attractive. I need a minimum of of 7 more pounds if not 10-12 more.

[rockedworld]

GW,
The reason I "continued" to say that... was that, prior to the PA being exposed, my H continued to tell me he realized the EA was wrong and inappropriate and hurting me, so he was "winding it down". He would ask me to let him do that on his own time frame. But, then something would happen that would make it obvious to me that this was not the case, we would have an argument, and I would say that to him. This was, for the most part, prior to be me learning to DB.

AFter learning to DB, I didn't say those things much, as I avoided R talks. But, when H would raise it, or when the need came to set a boundary, I would say something along those lines.

So, no, I don't think you should say that ocasionally, unless she brings the issue up or something significant happens that a boundary needs to be re-set (ie you discover proof of on-going communication).

No point hiding or destroying the phone. It is too easy to just get another one. Like I said, if they want to be in contact, they will be.

You are doing great! Keep it up, and take care of yourself!

[Lost Rabbit]

It exhausting continuing to DB, my H is away for ten days and tbh Im struggling this week, think because we are starting to piece things back together and I was getting some uplift from that and of course hes not here so Im not getting anything to keep me afloat also the bad weather here in the UK isnt helping.. what Im trying to say is that it is an up and down thing! you can get along fine for a week or two then splat back down you go, it does get better with time but then things change and off you go again, the trick is to be flexible and be open to change as much as possible, also think through lots of situations and what you might say then it wont come as much of a shock to you as not rehearsing. If the only way you found her payg phone was snooping best not to say anything you wont win that war cos you were snooping in her books and thats out of order.

Certainly cut back on the chores of hers that then enable her to have time to talk to OM on the net, can you get on her laptop to see what she has been up to, or is visable by her bills. Accepting she will do this somehow is a big move forward for you, because not only will you not care less that will be portrayed in your behaviour. It wont hurt to keep taking the girls out on trips on the pretext of giving her space, eventually she might have enough space for it to be boring, the interesting thing is in all of this EA is she hasnt been brave enough to just waltz off that does say a fair bit.. Hope you get a good nights sleep tonight and tomorrow is a better day, but feel free to rant away on here its good for the soul!

[gutwrenching]

Lost -
I can get on her laptop, but now she is much smarter than before I can't catch her unless I actually bought/loaded software that would trace keystrokes and programs in the background. Except when she slips up, which is getting rarer and rarer these days. She is careful because she realizes I am smarter with computers than her, but she is no dummy on them. I am surprised she left her Skype open so that I could see the balance and his contact info in there...there were only 4 contacts: me, my parents, OM, one mutual friend

I can develop a mental plan while she is away on what chores I will stop doing. Will wait till she leaves on her trip.

interesting comment on the it might get too boring. I got one text from her this weekend about something with the TV while I was out. I wrote back I thought you were working. her reply was it was too quiet in the house, needed some noise. She has in the past always said she needs to go the basement because its the only place she can get peace and quiet...so maybe there is something to that.

Also - she has told me more than once, before I was DBing mainly, that "I haven't left yet"...she would always tell me she isn't in a place where she can work on our M and of course the ILYBNILWY, but then she'd always say she hasn't completely quit, I haven't left yet. Maybe that is because he is thousands of miles away and married with 3 kids, but she is still here, still in the house, and still physically (not emotionally) in the bedroom.

Once the funeral is behind her, it'll be harder for me to take the girls on my own. We have always done almost everything together on the weekends and she feels so guilty these days about not spending quality time with the kids, that she might try to push for the opposite, where she takes the kids, but I will be surprised if she allows me to have a bunch of alone time with them...that and the jealousy over them that I've seen lately.

Yes snooping was how I found the phone, but not like she was trying to hide it real well. In her backpack, and frequently she will ask to get something out of her backpack. That's what I found so odd, prior to this, I don't even know where she kept that phone (when she was using it reguarly), she had it hidden well.

Maybe what needs to be on of my short term goals is learning to accept that the EA is probably still going on and learning to deal with that. I'm not there yet. I am still amazed that they would both risk so much. I won't go into the specifics, but the OM has a ton to lose if this were exposed and W a significant amount also. I'm talking on both a personal and professional level. OM must be one cocky/arrogant SOB that he thinks he is bullet proof on all this.

[gutwrenching]

Crap - looking for help/support. Bad day, I didn't do well. The memorial service got to me, brought on a flood of emotions that I wasn't expecting and ready for. Being so tired didn't help either. Then everyone coming up to me wanting to know how W was doing didn't help, hell I felt like she didn't even want me there. So that pissed me off, then the memorial service.

Then I had to talk to her afterwards about riding back to work and really wanted to see how she was doing. Well her wall was up and over the top and she saw right through me. She told me I as about to lose it, what was wrong. I told her the truth, I wasn't about to lose it, she said yes you are. I said I was fine, we could talk about it all later. Thought that would suffice, thought that would stall her and let me get my emotions under control and get a grip on things especially since she was with the family. Nope, not at all, she said come with me lets find somewhere to talk. I tried to stay vague, she kept pressing and seemed so cold about it. After all this, she says the memorial service helped bring closure to her and she thinks she can now move on past it, for me, it makes me a wreck. Oh freaking great. I rambled and just said the memorial service brought on a flood of emotions (true), and it was hard on me, but that I needed to and would deal with everything, accept it, move on, and be fine. She just nodded at me.

She said to me we can ride back together, that will be fine, I just don't know how long I am going to stay. I then made the mistake of saying, no you don't actually want me to ride along, I'll get another ride back. Crap, that actually came out of my mouth. She re-iterated not the case, she just didn't want me tied to waiting on her (I don't know if I believe her or not). In the end, I found another ride back.

So, I'm still not doing well. The memorial service was tough on me. Funerals and memorials are always tough on me. I kept thinking about my kids and what would happen if this happened to me or W soon, etc, etc. Of course I thought about us too, and I thought a lot about church, God, faith, etc...something we lost in out M a few years back. And that brought a lot of guilt and remorse on me as well, I don't know how we lost that but we did. During my begging/pleading stages, I suggested we get that back, she wanted nothing to do with it which is out of character for her.

And I wondered what she was thinking. I was sitting right behind her and she kept on looking back at me, so I wasn't detaching at all.

Now the next concern. I don't know if she will bring it all up again or not. She isn't the type that wants to talk about our R, probably because she doesn't feel we have one. But you never know, it could come up again.
I have to admit to myself, since I haven't detached, it hurts feeling like you got kicked to the curb. I worked my tail off to support her when she was hurting and then support her in dealing with all this, and now all of a sudden she's past it and I'm kicked to the curb, she's cold again, doesn't need me. So that quick, I go from being neede to get her thru this and take care of the kids to I'm fine, get out of my way, oh except for the next 5 days when I'm out of town for the funeral.

So, someone, give me a 2x4 or reassurance or whatever I need, I don't know, I just know I need to get a grip and get on track quickly. What today showed me is how precious and short life is and I want to get my ENTIRE family back together now.

So I'm asking for help, I'll take it any form I can get it. Thanks