Just Confronted - A Litttle Confused

[Allen A]

She may be slowly coming down out of the clouds... its a bit early for that... but it may be... just keep setting a good example and keep your distance, shes going to bait you into arguments to get an emotional connection.. don't allow it... walk away when she puts a bomb out there for you... walk away

[Quicksilver264]

I wouldn't say coming down out of the clouds, yet I think.

APART from the EA, she has other, real contempt and apathy for me. For my failures as a husband and partner.

She may be coming to accept that the OM may not contact her back, but she still just is treating me like a disliked roommate.

I don't know how long I am supposed to keep up with detachment, or when to try something new.

There is a family gathering I was invited to on Sat, and she has explicitly said she doesn't want me to go. But her PARENTS do.

She expects it to be awkward, and for me to be a jerk. I guess my 180 can be to go and be the nicest person ever, and help with everything.

People are right when they say this is the HARDEST thing you will ever do. It's hard to see the way she feels toward me and how much she sometimes enjoys talking about the divorce and what she is doing to make it go forward.

Emotions can really suck and be hard to control. I have to just keep reminding myself that this is only ONE day, and there will be many more to follow before the divorce process goes to the lawyers.

I have 90 days from when I am served before it will go to court to divide assets. I should be served next week. I wonder if that is long enough to DB enough and see if it even makes a dent.

[Puppy Dog Tails]

There is a family gathering I was invited to on Sat, and she has explicitly said she doesn't want me to go. But her PARENTS do.

She expects it to be awkward, and for me to be a jerk. I guess my 180 can be to go and be the nicest person ever, and help with everything.

BINGO.

Puppy

[Allen A]

You can look at this as a phase where your wife is testing your commitment... she's being the most miserable person on the planet in a very misguided attempt to find out what kind of man you are...

So, show her...

What you could do is not go WITH her to her parents, but go on your own...treat it like a date or something and her parents are setting her up with you...

90 days is a lot of time to work on her... and at the 90 day point she can always ask teh courts for more time.. it happened to TWolf on this forum too... he had 30 days and at that point his wife asked the judge for another 60... he was shocked but he got another sixty days to work on his wife.. and that's exactly what he's doing...

You need confidence here... not arrogance but confidence in yourself... if you project undesirability and doubt your wife is going to feed off that... whatever energy you are projecting your wife is feeding off of ... so make it something you WANT her to feel...

Commitment is a powerful emotion... give it time and trust that your wife is still in there somewhere...

[Quicksilver264]

90 days is a lot of time to work on her...

Thing is, a good bit of that time she is going to be away on business where she has made it CLEAR that she doesn't want me to call her.

So in reality, subtract 21 days of total no contact from that 90. And that is about what i have.

[Allen A]

You need to look at this positively instead of a negative... Penny Tupy is a great FT and she RECCOMENDS NO CONTACT with your spouse is THE BEST strategy.. check this out :


People have all kinds of reasons for why they
believe they mu st have some continued contact with
their straying mate. We‘ll talk about the most
common of those below but, first I want to address
what I believe to be the underlying force behind
tho se reasons: Attachment. It is crucial to
understand attachment and the ro le it plays in
Protection Phase so that you can use it to your
advantage.

Attachment is one of three aspects of the mating
and pairing drive (the other two being lust and
romantic infatuatio n) . Attachment is what keeps
partners together through goo d and bad times,
thro ugh the proverbial sick ness and health, and


richer and poorer times. The evo lutio nary purpose
for attachment is to keep parents together during the
trying years of child rearing in order to give their
offspr ing the best chance at survival and su bsequent
procre at io n. Unli ke lu st and roma nt ic infat uatio n,
which almost always wane as the r elationship
progresses, attachment is deeply embedded within
the depths of our being.

Attachment is permanent. It is the reason straying
partners have such difficulty ending their marriages
in spite of their claims to have no desire to stay in
the marr iage. It is also the reason betrayed par tners
have such difficu lty carrying out a well- executed
Protection Phase. Attachment dr ives us to hang
onto, and stay attached to, each other. It should also
be noted that once attachment develops between the
wayward spouse and the affair partner, ending the
a ffa ir beco mes muc h more d ifficult . If, for no othe r
reason, ( and there are plenty of reaso ns) attachment
and its permanence make it essential that the
betrayed spouse be timely in taking necessary steps
to protect the marriage.


And this :


In my experience, continuing to have minimal
co ntact is one of the risk ier str ategies. Unfortunately
it is the one that, intuitively, seems to make the
most sense. So let‘s take it apart a little and see if I
can help you understand why this strategy has the
power to be destructive to the go al of saving your
marr iage.

Minimal co ntact that is conflicted and ad versarial
does nothing to heal the relationship; it o nly ser ves
to drive a bigger wedge between you and your
partner. I think we‘d all agree that‘s pretty obviou s.
What may no t be so obvious is that min imal
adversar ial contact has po ssibly a more adverse
affect on the betrayed mate than the o ne having the
affair. Remember the Great Race that I mentioned
earlier ? Ad versarial and co nflicted co ntact is very
likely to accelerate the betrayed partner‘s readiness
to throw in the towel.

Minimal co ntact that is calm and courteous, then,
seems like the best po ssible solution. Instinctively
and intuitively it‘s what you‘ ll be dr iven by yo ur
own attachment chemistry to maintain. Do n‘t be
fooled. Minimal courteous contact can be deadly. A
few thing s happ en which, combined, create a
dangero us biochemical time bo mb.

First, you send a lo ud and clear message to your
spouse that the affair really isn‘t all that devastating
to you. After all, if yo u can inter act pleasantly, then


you must be doing just fine. You must be accepting
the inevitable break up of yo ur marr iage. Even if
you have said so mething to the contrary, your
actions are where the real message lies.

Seco nd, you derail the attachment chemistry we
want to trigger in your spouse. When a relationship
is threatened (even a relatio nship we claim to no
longer want) the instinctive reaction is to find it
suddenly more attractive. But in or der fo r this to
happen there must be a perceived threat to the status
quo. When you r emain in co ntact and you give the
appearance of being calm and at peace, there is no
perceived threat to the relatio nship.

Yes, I understand that your wayward partner says
they don‘t want the marriage, or perhaps they say
they need to make up their mind about it. Those
kinds of statements are made within the context of
having all the co ntrol over the destiny of the
marr iage. Yo u‘ve already made it abundantly clear
that you want to save the marriage and that yo u‘re
willing to do what it takes to do so. But when you
take back so me of your personal empower ment and
remo ve yourself fro m a situation which you find
unacceptable, yo ur partner understands at a very
basic bio logical level that he or she is no lo nger in
total control of the outcome. This triggers the
reactio n of needing to hold o n to the marriage more
rather than less.

Think about being in junior high or high school. We
all had friends, or maybe you yo urself did this, who
wanted to dump a bo yfr iend o r gir lfriend first œ
before getting dumped. It‘s the same so rt of
reactio n. We want to have the final say on the


relatio nship- it doesn‘t matter if we‘re fourteen or
fifty- fo ur. Everyone wants to be the dumper and not
the dumpee!

Third, yo u short circu it the dynamic of forcing the
affair partners to rely entirely upon each other. In
almost ever y triang le the spouse plays a certain role
and the affair partner plays another. The straying
mate has two people vying fo r his or her attention
and do ing all they can to entice him o r her to
choo se. Removing yourself fro m that dynamic now
puts the burden entirely o n the shoulder s of the
affair partner. Almost always he or she comes up
short, but your spouse won‘t find that out until you
step away entirely.

And finally, staying in min imal contact keeps you
from fully detaching and healing. It keeps you stuck
in that p lace of hur ting and obsessing. When the
affair ends, and your spouse is ready to talk about
reconciliation, you will need every ounce o f
strength and calm you can muster. This isn‘t
possible when you are caught in the chao s of the
betraying spouse‘s affair drama.

If you are wo rr ied about giving the impressio n that
you‘ve mo ved on with your life and are willing to
accept the new relationship, min imal courteous
co ntact is the worst thing yo u can do. Even if you
made verbal or written statements to the contrary,
your actions will speak volumes drowning out your
words entirely. Minimal co urteo us co ntact says lo ud
and clear, —I‘m fine now that yo u‘ve left, and I
really don‘t find it all that distressing. In fact, I‘m
quite happy to accept your new life and yo ur new
partner.“

[Allen A]

I am not telling you not to contact your wife while she is there in your home now, I just want to give you a different perspective here... You have to make some decisions and I think you are learning to cope with her new attitude.. You were in a lot of emotional shock for several days..

I would bet solid money that while your wife is away, she finds some excuse to have to contact you... She may nto contact you, and that's good too... But I would bet money that she does...

She may RANT or throw a nasty snit when she calls, but I would not be surprised at all if she called.

[Quicksilver264]

Well, I have been trying to make the home an inviting place. I have done so much home improvement lately, that I can barely do anything useful at the gym I am so sore. I do all this stuff, and I do it hard. I am careful and meticulous with it all. I take GREAT pride in it for me. Complete opposite of what I used to be about that.

And it makes her dreadfully angry, like "Why couldn't you have done this before???? What does it matter now?" And she doesn't acknowledge it to me one bit. She goes out of her way to make sure I see that the doesn't care.

You were in a lot of emotional shock for several days..

No kidding there. I was in emotional shock ON HERE AND IN PRIVATE. I had to let my emotions out somehow so I could keep up with the poker.

My first week after the bomb I was a mess. The second week I was better, but had the EA to deal with. The 3rd week is when I exposed and all Hell broke loose. These past 2 weeks I have been being detached ect.

But she holds onto things ALOT. In her mind, she is still living in the 1st and 3rd weeks and all the negative emotions. She mentioned an "awkwardness" between us, and I just replied "I don't feel anything like that".

And finally, from my intel, she is 100% expecting that when I am served the papers, that I am going to go ballistic and make her life miserable. My 180 then has to be to make sure she KNOWS I got and read the papers, and then just act like I got a meaningless document that doesn't deserve my attention.

I actually want to act like there is something else that is far more important that REALLY needs my attention.

But dealing with her and her stubbornness, is really, really difficult. She has done things that are so outrageous just as a matter of principle of her mindset that it defies any and all logic. And this is apart from the divorce.

[Allen A]

There will be a bit of frustration on her part that you are doing what she wanted, but just keep doing it... I theorized a while back on this forum that this is all a subconcious test of your commitment...

That your spouse makes things great for years and then suddenly wonders... what is he willing to go through FOR ME?

Then hell starts and lasts for a long wasteful time and you have to prove your commitment under the most painful circumstances you can...

Re : D papers, you have a pretty good strategy I would say... Oftentimes I thinks he's just trying to get a rise out of you to konw you still care... don't give her the satisfaction... it will turn into a sick game if you go that route...

I wish her parents or her sister could tell her meddling friends to get lost though, they are an obstacle right now...

[Quicksilver264]

There will be a bit of frustration on her part that you are doing what she wanted, but just keep doing it... I theorized a while back on this forum that this is all a subconcious test of your commitment...

That's the thing. I know she tells EVERYONE that I have finally accepted the divorce and there is no going back. She has told many, many people that she is very relieved about it. Her parents still hold out hope that things will get better. It is hard for me to believe that a woman who values money so very much would drop 1000$ on a lawyer retainer, and 390$ on filing D papers if she didn't intend to go through with it. Maybe it is subconscious and she needs to see the changes in me are consistent and REAL.

She is seeing an individual counselor right now starting yesterday, and I know which one. Overall, the C is very good.

But her traveling so much makes it hard to get in visits to the marriage counselor. That is where I feel we might make some progress.

Boy today has just been a roller coaster of emotion and I have no idea why. Thank God no one is home right now and I can let it out.

Anyone have any suggestions what to do or how to control that rise of emotion? I see that as my only problem to DB right now. My FEELINGS are screaming for me to do one thing, only when I know I need to do another. It is so draining to constantly have to fight like that.