!Help! Need Advice and encouragement!

[stark648]

We had coffee last night.

W was saying she felt like I was keeping the girls from her. She was sick and looked really sad. Part of the time, she was tearing/crying, also.

I assured her I wasn't coming between her and girls, but that she left them and that was her choice. She said she was putting them first in leaving them with me and that they were always #1.

I said, "No, you have MAYBE put them as #2, but NOT #1. You put yourself first, by far."

I said visits just needed to be scheduled.

I also said the girls want her to stay, which is not going to happen, so they are always extra sad whenever she leaves. AND, I told her that she cannot maintain the same family-type relationship she had with them because things are different now.

We talked about a lot of things, and it wasn't a bad conversation. I was upbeat, positive, confident, etc.

She was talking about the college thing, and I told her that I had offered that before I knew she was dumping me for another man and LIVING with him. I said OM should be taking care of you guys. She said OM doesn't make near as much money as I do, and that after bills are all paid, they don't really have anything left. (They both spend a lot on small stuff.) (I don't really make that much money). I told her that that was the choice she made--it was her decision.

She was talking about how marriage was over long ago...she was not attracted to me romantically for a while, -the brother-sister thing- and I told her that we should have gone to counseling...(she agreed)-

I also told her about how I had felt that way before, but the romance had come back. I also said I felt she had a wrong conception of how a long-term relationship was.

BUT--I reminded her that a week or so before this mess with her OM got heated up, our friends were commenting how we seemed like a couple that had only been married a year or so, because we were so "close"--so I'm not buying all that

She even said that she told the girls she noticed that I am happier lately since she left.--I told her that I was just re-discovering me--working on me, going out, etc... I told her the girls were really nosy about who I was talking to or going out with.--

I reminded her that she had "shut me down" socially, way back when she was soooo insecure that she didn't want me talking to other women or going out with the guys--because I might meet other women. I told her I had been willing to do that for her and for the sake of our marriage, but I had kinda lost myself in there.

I also said it was wrong for her to have always had male friends and that she had emotional affairs with them. I said she had done that since we were married, and that she did not "guard" her heart as she should have.

This last one progressed to a physical affair. She said they did not mean for it to. I made a face and said she had put herself in a risky situation. I reminded her of the girl at work that was attracted to me--but I never let myself go anywhere with her (even in a group from work)--I would not put my marriage at risk.

I said, well, that's neither here nor there, now--

She kept talking about how unhappy she had been in our marriage. I told her that I thought the unhappiness had more to do with her own self-esteem, not us as a couple. This whole type scenario has played out previously over the years before (without an OM -at least to my knowledge). She used to finally say OK --it's not you, it's me--I'm not happy with me, and we would plan some constructive things for her self-confidence.


But she really keeps seeming like the bloom is coming off of the honeymoon over there. She doesn't seem happy, now.

It really wasn't a cranky conversation, like it may sound like.

We were leaving, and she seemed like she wanted a hug good bye or something--?? I kept my distance and just said "I'll see ya' later"

Any thoughts??

Advice???