I strayed, W kicked me out. Please help?

[bustorama]

Hey IWS,

I'm another cheater/neglecter that's been left (read my sitch below).

1) You need to stop pursuing your wife or taking her temperature about where things stand between the two of you or asking for her back.

2) I suggest reading some books on infidelity to help you empathize better with what your wife is feeling. In your situation, Not Just Friends by Shirley Glass is especially appropriate and I have also found Don-David Lusterman (Infidelity a Survival Guide) and Intimacy after Infidelity (Solomon and Teagle ?) to be helpful. It also will give you better insight into your responsibility for what happened and how to prevent in future.

3) I agree with what people have said that based on the way you wrote your story, you probably have minimized your responsibility re: the affair to your wife and that has just pissed her off more and more (your W says as much). It is a tough decision as to whether you need to initiate a FULL owning up/responsibility/apology to her in person where you OWN UP to YOUR FULL responsibility for what happened and FOR HURTING HER AND BETRAYING HER. You ask FOR NOTHING in return. You don't ask for her to come back. You simply own up and apologize for hurting her. The problem with initiating it is your W may be too hurt to hear anything about it now or may perceive it as pursuing or may not want to talk about it (and so it is unwelcome). The ideal situation would be if your W brings it up and then you take that opportunity to apologize in real-time admitting that YOU did it, YOU crossed the boundaries, YOU failed to control yourself, SHE did not deserve it, YOU hurt HER. And you are so sorry for doing so and are making amends in your life so that you would not hurt anyone (not her, ANYONE) like that again in the future. Is she still talking about the affair?

4) I suggest you get Divorce Remedy and follow the sections about stopping pursuit/pleading, engaging in 180's in your life and getting a life. Once you have made a full apology to her for your actions, then you need to focus on improving yourself and giving your wife some time/space to see if she cools down and decides she might want to come back.

5) If she expresses desire to work on things, I agree that Retrouvaille and/or MC would be helpful for you guys to get back on track.

I'm in a limbo stage of my situation -- 3 months out. Ambiguous about where things stand in R though appear to be warming. I am CLEARLY, however, in a much better place personally as are my kids regardless of outcome of R and so will you and yours if you embrace the DR tenets.

Best of luck on your journey!