He's telling friends he thinks we'll reunite

[MarieC]

Thanks for your concern and advice, Allen. I am reading a lot on detaching right now. Concrete examples help, as a lot of what I've found is very abstract.

The folks who say they want to string him up are all senior officers, so it's unlikely they'll do anything to him (and I truly wouldn't want that to happen) but he used to be admired and respected in the community and now he has made himself look like a nasty, immature loser. Lots of people here drink a lot (I'm a teetotaler because of my family background) but crossing over into blackout territory is frowned upon. I haven't given out that detail, but one of my taxi driver friends told me he saw him staggering home from Bimbo's bar the other night. That was sad, but you're right - there's nothing I can do about it.

[MarieC]

Hi again, Allen.

No worries - though tempting, I would never send that photo to him. I've tried to take the high road during this whole debacle. I don't want him to have the slightest excuse, based on MY behavior, for what he's doing, so I've bent over backward to be dignified, polite, and kind. It probably helped that I was waiting for the post-nup to be drawn up and signed during the worst of the lying about the bimbo. He had been busted in SO MANY WAYS, but I kept my eye on the prize (my hard-earned retirement and savings) and just kept biting my tongue as he lied to me, over and over and over again, this man who I'd though was so honest and decent and ethical...


I have to think about what you said re: his telling my friend how he loves/misses me and thinks we'll get back together. I had planned to tell him that I'd heard some strange things that didn't make sense from her and that if he wanted to talk with me, he should talk with me directly, as otherwise outsiders' agendas can creep into our conlives and impressions of what is going on with one another.


This is all so hard to figure out.

[Allen A]

He could have said that for any of the following reasons :

1. To save face
2. To alleviate his own guilt
3. To test the waters (thinking it would get back to you and YOU would come RUNNING to him after hearing the news)
4. To look magnanimous

I would pay it NO MIND... you take him back when he shows REMORSE and not a MOMENT before that... LEARN to SPOT INSINCERE remorse too... he's likley to play that...

How do you detach? Get his stuff out of your life, get NEW stuff INTO your life, get new friends, new surroundings... create a new YOU and leave the OLD you to cling all she wants (ya I know that's abstract but... I think you'll get it)

With my wife I took all my belongings and put it into moving boxes (she was still living in our home when cheating) and I started some new hobbies (guitar, theatre stage hand, cycling, etc)

Just do something different as MWD would put it.

[Seeing Red]

Hi Marie,

Thinking of you. Any updates!

[MarieC]

Hi, Red,

Am in Warsaw, Poland, on a business trip and something told me to check in on the boards - and you posted this 21 seconds beforehand! Funny, eh, that women's intuition? Haven't looked here since Alan's last post.

It's tough right now. Ran into him last Thursday for the first time in 6 weeks. He saw me before I saw him and pulled over in the car as if we were still together and had just had breakfast a few hours before, all full of smiles, calling me "honey." He was so friendly and warm and full of compliments (I had on a new suit and high heels and had just had my hair done, and he noticed the new clothes, said I look "beautiful.") The few minutes we talked, he really stared at me and tried to hold my gaze when we talked. (It's hard for me to even look at him; I don't want to cry in front of him and hadn't had time to prepare myself for running into him, so I was a bit shaky.) We exchanged only brief pleasantries and then he - all smiles - offered me a ride in the car back to the MC, saying "this should confuse the gossipers!") but I (politely) told him thanks, it's gorgeous out, I'd prefer to walk, and then said goodbye. He seemed puzzled, hurt, and actually a little offended that I didn't take him up on the offer of a ride. (??)

He's been sending me a lot of emails since the end of May, too. In them, he's also full of compliments - about my intelligence (I think he wants me to edit his thesis, now that he is apparently working on it again), says he knows no one with my integrity, says I'm kind and good. He told me he learned so much from me, that I'm principled and live according to my values and most people don't. (He can't believe I liked turkey and tuna and cheese steaks back in the day but won't eat them because I now think that it's wrong to kill animals - that is really hard for him to believe for some reason.)

He's also very protective of me, for instance, when (his hero) the retired womanizing ski bum told some lies about me to mutual friends (who told me), I called my H (I think the only time I've called him) and told him I was really angry to hear that his friend was spreading false stories about me. When my H heard this, he became furious (with his hero! for at least 5 minutes!) and said (then and wrote the same thing again later, this week) that he would never let anyone say anything bad about me. He told me how sad and how hard it was to separate on two occasions now, the latest last week. He also mailed me some of my files that he found mixed in with his and in the note he attached, he said he loved me. He hasn't said that in a long time (except during the moving days) - I don't know why he started again now that he's left me.

That said, I keep reminding myself that the REALITY of the situation. First, the neighbors tell me that the bimbo beer waitress is calling him his fiance and that he went on vacation with her to her home country to meet her parents. This coincides with the week he was "working on his thesis" and couldn't be reached by email or phone AND that the skank's bar was closed for renovations. Also reality: he is living with this amoral bimbo, has a bank account with her (bank called ME by accident about HER trouble logging in to their joint account) , and has said and done NOTHING to indicate any change in his plans or his intentions. Since I got an infection from them and had to take antibiotics for a week, I know he's not using condoms, so I am bracing myself for a pregnancy announcement any day now. It's very hard.

After the unexpected meeting with him last Thursday, I sent him a short note telling him I felt bad about how our discussion went and offered to talk with him (or actually, listen to him) - I told him I'd noticed his increased emails and attention and wondered if that meant he had anything he wanted to discuss. Not a PEEP from him since, and he's been so chatty (4-5 emails/day/most days for last three weeks.)

Any thoughts?

[Seeing Red]

We exchanged only brief pleasantries and then he - all smiles - offered me a ride in the car back to the MC, saying "this should confuse the gossipers!") but I (politely) told him thanks, it's gorgeous out, I'd prefer to walk, and then said goodbye. He seemed puzzled, hurt, and actually a little offended that I didn't take him up on the offer of a ride. (??)

All charm -- then offended? Sounds like he had a hidden agenda. That you didn't play along made him go off and pout.

He's been sending me a lot of emails since the end of May, too. In them, he's also full of compliments - about my intelligence (I think he wants me to edit his thesis, now that he is apparently working on it again), says he knows no one with my integrity, says I'm kind and good. He told me he learned so much from me, that I'm principled and live according to my values and most people don't.

I know I'D be confused, if not for:

The neighbors tell me that the bimbo beer waitress is calling him his fiance and that he went on vacation with her to her home country to meet her parents. This coincides with the week he was "working on his thesis" and couldn't be reached by email or phone AND that the skank's bar was closed for renovations. Also reality: he is living with this amoral bimbo, has a bank account with her (bank called ME by accident about HER trouble logging in to their joint account) , and has said and done NOTHING to indicate any change in his plans or his intentions.

He's trying to cake-walk. Raunchy lifestyle from OW, brains and $ from you.

Since I got an infection from them and had to take antibiotics for a week, I know he's not using condoms, so I am bracing myself for a pregnancy announcement any day now. It's very hard.

I can imagine!

You have to determine what your boundaries are. If a baby is the deal-breaker for you, then let that be the "line in the sand" at which you begin divorce proceedings. Let him know.

The bottom line is: actions speak louder than words. He's straddling the fence right now, flirting with and pining for you, but living and banking with OW. Bimbo is proceeding like they're together.

If he wants to reconcile with you, OW HAS to go. Then he has to apologize. He also has to have a clean bill of health.

Not a PEEP from him since, and he's been so chatty (4-5 emails/day/most days for last three weeks.)

Hmm. It sounds like:

1. He was buttering you up for something that you nixed with your refusal to ride with him that day, and now he's either pouting or working on a new strategy.

or

2. There's some crisis brewing with OW, like she found out about the texts/emails or someone told her they saw you two together.

Either way, I imagine you'll find out soon enough -

Enjoy your trip! My 3 kids are on their 2nd day of summer break, bored, and driving me nuts...

[MarieC]

Hi, Red,

Thanks for writing! I hope the kids find something constructive to do this summer. Any plans? Pool open soon? Anything you could do with them that would be fun for you and perhaps pique your husband's interest in the cool things you're doing together? Just a thought - I think about you and your situation a lot, as I have a hunch that this OW in your case will DISAPPEAR once she has her degree and has landed her first job and doesn't need him anymore. Then the ball's back in your court. I could be wrong, of course, but that's what I'm suspecting.

As for my spouse, if she gets pregnant in Germany, she OWNS him until the kid is 26. It is OVER for me. In addition, he's adopted and was very upset when we weren't able to have kids. Our only hard time prior to this was when I lost a baby at 15 weeks; he had been so looking forward "to having someone I'm related to." That would be the nail in the coffin for us, I fear.

I keep thinking back to him telling the lawyer, when he was pressuring for when to file (first chance is around Valentine's Day), that he doesn't love Bimbo, he loves me, but he needs some space and time. Afterwards, the lawyer told me he was an "Arschloch" (a**hole) and quoted that line Paul Newman used about why eat hamburger out when you can have steak at home. The lawyer ended up being a little too friendly with me, unfortunately, but at least appreciates me for my brains and what I've accomplished and apparently my looks. My husband seems to be appreciating my looks and brains of late, but I want my husband to leave that bimbo and LOVE me and - though he said he loved me in that note last Thursday - the REALITY is that he's still with that bimbo.

What you said about there perhaps being a crisis brewing with bimbo was interesting - you might have something there. Before I saw my husband last Thursday, in response to an email he sent, I wrote back and told my husband what my neighbors said about bimbo saying he'd gone to meet her parents and that the neighbor definitely knows who my husband is as he even knew our license plate number, so I wonder if my husband got upset with bimbo for talking about this visit, when he still seems to be keeping her under wraps. He has gone so far as to deny he left me to our former neighbor and an older man who has always been such a dear friend to us - and to me he acts like bimbo doesn't exist. (I do NOT understand *this* at all, as I am open about her existence.)

THis whole situation is so hard. I just think I'm too close to it to see it clearly.

I don't know what to think. He wrote a lot over the last few weeks, often 4-5 times/day, and was positive and trying to get a conversation going - about ANYTHING, even the rain. I was trying to DB - told him in that "willing to listen" note (as advised by MWD) that I would be willing to really hear what he had to say - but then - again, as suggested by MWD - left him alone and went dim on him. I wonder if I screwed up when he started writing so often and trying to get a conversation going when I only politely but almost curtly responded, but never enthusiastically and never warmly, which is totally out of character for me. (I have always been warm and friendly and enthusiastic with those I love - in my huge suburban high school years ago, I was "friendliest" and "most cheerful" in the yearbook - and I'm still the same way.) So I have been wondering if he has been trying to make overtures that I've just repeatedly shot down.

He also knows that when I was in London a few weeks ago, I met my up with old friends, including an old boyfriend who had proposed marriage several times. My husband knows me well enough to know that I would not let anything physical happen with this old boyfriend, but at the same time, he knows this guy is still important to me (though my husband was always secure I loved him more, as I turned down the ex-boyfriend's marriage proposals but enthusiastically married my husband.) In addition, at a time when my husband was failing his MBA program, I was meeting my old boyfriend, who has a PhD in economics and is so successful (he's a multimillionaire and executive at a huge company, and we met when he was the smartest man in our group at Harvard), but even with this situation, my husband still started writing (actually, started writing MORE) when I was in London and kept up the increased friendliness and effort to stimulate conversation (which I only minimally responded to) for the last three weeks.

So I've been wondering if I missed some "baby steps" on his side toward at least starting a conversation again, as I was so focused on not "chasing" him and going dim....

[MarieC]

Just to clarify:
"I keep thinking back to MY SPOUSE telling the lawyer, when THE LAWYER was pressuring US BOTH, IN PERSON, for when to file (first chance is around Valentine's Day), that he doesn't love Bimbo, he loves me, but he needs some space and time."

[Seeing Red]

I have a hunch that this OW in your case will DISAPPEAR once she has her degree and has landed her first job and doesn't need him anymore. Then the ball's back in your court. I could be wrong, of course, but that's what I'm suspecting.

It's my guess as well - unless, of course, she decides to do her post-doc here. I'll have to wait and see...

As for my spouse, if she gets pregnant in Germany, she OWNS him until the kid is 26.

OMG - those Germans don't mess around, do they? So he's pretending like he's not with her yet he's NOT taking precautions? He needs a good whack upside the head with a 2x4!

He was very upset when we weren't able to have kids. Our only hard time prior to this was when I lost a baby at 15 weeks; he had been so looking forward "to having someone I'm related to." That would be the nail in the coffin for us, I fear.

My heart goes out to you, Marie. This was not your fault, you had no control over it. Perhaps, if this all works out, you can try again. If not, perhaps you, too, could adopt.

I wonder if my husband got upset with bimbo for talking about this visit, when he still seems to be keeping her under wraps. He has gone so far as to deny he left me to our former neighbor and an older man who has always been such a dear friend to us - and to me he acts like bimbo doesn't exist. (I do NOT understand *this* at all, as I am open about her existence.)

This is insane! I don't get this at all. Is his denial part of the fantasy?

That boy should be GROVELING AT YOUR FEET and begging for forgiveness instead of worrying what the neighbors think!

I wonder if I screwed up when he started writing so often and trying to get a conversation going when I only politely but almost curtly responded, but never enthusiastically and never warmly, which is totally out of character for me. So I have been wondering if he has been trying to make overtures that I've just repeatedly shot down.

It's hard to say. You didn't refuse to correspond - you just weren't your regular congenial self. But why should you be? He's living with OW and has made your life a living hell for months. Countries have gone to war for less.

He also knows that when I was in London a few weeks ago, I met my up with old friends, including an old boyfriend who had proposed marriage several times. My old boyfriend has a PhD in economics and is so successful (he's a multimillionaire and executive at a huge company. My husband still started writing (actually, started writing MORE) when I was in London and kept up the increased friendliness and effort to stimulate conversation (which I only minimally responded to) for the last three weeks.

He's jealous and worried you're moving on - which he should be! He took it for granted that you'd stay at home drowning your sorrows in Haagen-Dazs, awaiting his return like the prodigal son. That you skipped town to see an old boyfriend freaked him out.

So I've been wondering if I missed some "baby steps" on his side toward at least starting a conversation again, as I was so focused on not "chasing" him and going dim....

Don't obsess over this. When he wants to see, he'll find you - just as he did last week on the street. You haven't slammed any doors in his face, you haven't not responded to texts and emails, you haven't been nasty.

I still think he's either pouting, re-strategizing, or dealing with OW crisis. You'll see him again.

Remember: whomever's being chased has the power.

[Allen A]

WHy would you even talk to him when the car pulled over, i would have spun around and walked away...

When you open yourself up emotionally, listen to him, let him compliment you and look at you, all of that feeds his ego and his confidence that he can keep playing the field...

DETACH

Stay AWAY from him, IGNORE him, his smile, his charm, his car, all of it...

Until OW is gone he's a USER and you need to steer clear