I have been reading a lot of the posts and the DB book. I have come to realized that my wife must have read these too because she seems to be doing everything that is talked about. The short version is that she has an EA that I don't believe is physical. She came up with the classic ILYBNILWY. She suggested and I agreed to start MC with the second session tomorrow. She doesn't want me around and claims to be sick of me. She constantly is trying to start a verbal fight (I will not go there) and is trying to push me out the door to date someone else. My response has been to tell her that I will honor our marriage vows unless it ends. I have also started to take charge of my life by running more (lost 20 lbs since June 1st!) I have two kids (10 and 12) and took the last month off of work to sort out my life and work on my family. I have been giving her a lot of space and now just tell her that I am going out to do stuff (usually with the kids). An interesting thing happened the other day when I went to a kids day at a baseball game with another single mom and her kids. (No interest there-the single mom had her new boyfriend-our kids are really good friends). She didn't want to go and then the night before at 12:30 am she woke me up and told me she wanted to go. I couldn't believe it! I said ok and she went to the game. She sat in the stands and didn't look happy at all. When we got home, I took care of the kids and left the house to visit a friend and get some space from her (only so much negativity I can take). I came back home two hours later and she was mad. When I asked why she was mad it was because she had to take care of the kids again (a perception that I disagree with-I think she has been neglecting the family while she pursues a text message relationship with the OM). I looked at her and told her I understand her concern but I thought we needed some space. Then she told me that she was mad because she knew that I was talking about her. That is true to a point but I have resigned myself that she is an adult who can and will make her own choices. I will let her know how I feel about those choices and go on with my life. We may or may not have a future together. In any case my friend and talked about a lot of other stuff and not really her so much. I also tried another tactic that seemed to work. She told me that she wanted to get a traveling position in her company that would require 6 months of travel a year. I told her to do what she has to do and I will too. She said that she wanted to move to take a promotion in a few years to another city. I can retire in 9 years and again I told her to do what she wanted to do and I will too. Finally she then told me that she wanted to go out with some friends at a strip bar in a city about 75 miles away. She said that she would probably spend the night. I told her that I was not comfortable with her going out overnight while we are in MC. If we work things out, then she can go on an overnight trip. Before this happened, I wouldn't have cared if she did. This is a point that she does disagree with and has rewritten our history to convince herself of this fact. But she has taken 7 trips since April (work and family mostly) but also a trip to run a marathon with her sister. I also wanted to go a small street party in our local city. There were live bands, a lot of friends, beer and it is always a good time. She told me that she wanted to go. I asked her what time was she coming back because I was going to and I needed to know if I had to get a baby sitter. She ended spending time with me while we talked to several mutual friends. We then walked home and she talking about getting a yearlong separation. I told her that I didn't want to discuss it and we could save it for MC. So I am writing this to get things out and say that at least as of now I can say that no matter what happens to us, I have tried to make our lives work and keep our family together. Stay strong out there and know that I have felt a lot of the pain that several of writers have talked about. The attitude that you go develop will help resolve the pain and hurt (at least it has started to work for me).
Why do you keep starting new threads? It makes it difficult for people to follow your sitch, as does this non-formatted text chunk here -- it's unreadable.
I am not able to write more than a paragraph at a time so I wrote the note on a word document and pasted it to here. If there is a better way-let me know. I am still learning this computer stuff. In regards to a new thread-I didn't realized that you should just keep updating the old thread until now.
I have been reading a lot of the posts and the DB book. I have come to realize that my wife must have read these too because she seems to be doing everything that is talked about. The short version is that she has an EA that I don't believe is physical. She came up with the classic ILYBNILWY. She suggested and I agreed to start MC with the second session tomorrow. She doesn't want me around and claims to be sick of me. She constantly is trying to start a verbal fight (I will not go there) and is trying to push me out the door to date someone else. My response has been to tell her that I will honor our marriage vows unless it ends.
I have also started to take charge of my life by running more (lost 20 lbs since June 1st!) I have two kids (10 and 12) and took the last month off of work to sort out my life and work on my family. I have been giving her a lot of space and now just tell her that I am going out to do stuff (usually with the kids). An interesting thing happened the other day when I went to kids day at a baseball game with another single mom and her kids. (No interest there-the single mom had her new boyfriend-our kids are really good friends). She didn't want to go and then the night before at 12:30 am she woke me up and told me she wanted to go. I couldn't believe it! I said ok and she went to the game. She sat in the stands and didn't look happy at all.
When we got home, I took care of the kids and left the house to visit a friend and get some space from her (only so much negativity I can take). I came back home two hours later and she was mad. When I asked why she was mad it was because she had to take care of the kids again (a perception that I disagree with-I think she has been neglecting the family while she pursues a text message relationship with the OM)
I looked at her and told her I understand her concern but I thought we needed some space. Then she told me that she was mad because she knew that I was talking about her. That is true to a point but I have resigned myself that she is an adult who can and will make her own choices. I will let her know how I feel about those choices and go on with my life. We may or may not have a future together. In any case my friend and I talked about a lot of other stuff and not really her so much.
I also tried another tactic that seemed to work. She told me that she wanted to get a traveling position in her company that would require 6 months of travel a year. I told her to do what she has to do and I will too. She said that she wanted to move to take a promotion in a few years to another city. I can retire in 9 years and again I told her to do what she wanted to do and I will too. Finally, she then told me that she wanted to go out with some friends at a strip bar in a city about 75 miles away. She said that she would probably spend the night. I told her that I was not comfortable with her going out overnight while we are in MC. If we work things out, then she can go on an overnight trip. Before this happened, I wouldn't have cared if she did. This is a point that she does disagree with and has rewritten our history to convince herself of this fact. But she has taken 7 trips since April (work and family mostly) but also a trip to run a marathon with her sister. The next day she told me that she was not going to the strip bar.
I also wanted to go a small street party in our local city. There were live bands, a lot of friends, beer and it is always a good time. She told me that she wanted to go. I asked her what time was she coming back because I was going too and I needed to know if I had to get a baby sitter. She ended spending time with me while we talked to several mutual friends. We then walked home and she started talking about getting a yearlong separation. I told her that I didn't want to discuss it and we could save it for MC.
So I am writing this to get things out and as of now I can say that no matter what happens to us, I have tried to make our lives work and keep our family together. Stay strong out there and know that I have felt a lot of the pain that several of writers have talked about. The attitude that you go and develop can help resolve the pain and hurt (at least it has started to work for me). I will see how long that lasts...
Went to counseling session number 2 and trust came out as a major issue. She is still in an emotional affair and I have a hard time trying to build trust. Yet she is saying (probably correct) that we can't have a relationship without trust. I can't force her away from this OM so how do I go about this. Any suggestions or ideas?
Went to counseling session number 2 and trust came out as a major issue. She is still in an emotional affair and I have a hard time trying to build trust. Yet she is saying (probably correct) that we can't have a relationship without trust. I can't force her away from this OM so how do I go about this. Any suggestions or ideas?
What did the counselor say about this?
Does this counselor have any experience with infidelity?
"Trust" must be EARNED. If one person in a marriage is having an affair, then they must agree to end all contact, and enter into a temporary period of complete TRANSPARENCY in order to EARN back the trust of their betrayed spouse.
Went to counseling session number 2 and trust came out as a major issue. She is still in an emotional affair and I have a hard time trying to build trust. Yet she is saying (probably correct) that we can't have a relationship without trust. I can't force her away from this OM so how do I go about this. Any suggestions or ideas?
You set a boundary, and you stick with it. You do not tolerate an EA! Respect yourself!
What he has said is that I need to work on getting her to like me again to work on things that we both had fun doing and to listen to her. His take on this is that at some point she will start to lose interest in him and gravitate towards me. If I push her - she will continue to see him and I will drive her away. It is taking everything that I have to not try and find this guy (to see who he is) and/or determine the exact extent of the relationship. It is hurting me in the worst way to know that she is talking with him while we are going through this.
What are the boundries that you would suggest? What would happen if she violated them?
How do I get her to suspend the EA and work on us without driving her away?
Should we seperate or call it quits? I can't go on forever like this.
She's having an affair, of a type that for many women is more important than a physical one. You won't be driving her away, she's driving herself there now.
Others who are much better at this stuff will give you specific advice for busting this A. Hang on tight.
