WAW Using God III

[pigskin]

Journaling:

Got an email from a pastor at my W's church expressing his sadness that his attempt to reason with my W and the OM apparently did not do any good.

W called to discuss some logistics with the kids and it turned into a 2 hour R talk. I told her that I heard from her pastor, since she has expressed feelings that things are going on behind her back. I was just being open about it, since I know the pastor is only trying to help.

She talked about feeling overwhelmed with everything - her demanding volunteer work, new job, 3 kids in school and the shuffling around relating to that, our "shared" friends turning away from her, et. al.

We rehashed a lot of stuff, including that she wants to see concrete evidence of me changing, and me telling her I have changed but I won't pursue her while she has another man, and that it is impossible to show her changes when she is not around. She still tried to say it was just a close friendship, but I told her she was just rationalizing and the relationship is totally inappropriate.

She said things that would be encouraging had I not heard the same things months before. She claimed she has "reached out" to me but I rejected it. I told her that her attempts at reaching out were very veiled if they were genuine attempts. That I won't accept any reaching out while she is trying to juggle two men. I will not be the guy on the back burner.

She said I am not on the back burner; "You are the father of my children." I told her plainly if she really was serious about reaching out, tell me one simple sentence - "I am done with this affair and I am serious about reconciling."

She went on to talk about how she thought it would be impossible to never see the OM anywhere. "How am I going to know what church service he is going to? Would you tell me I have to leave my church and find another one? If I am leading a volunteer effort would I have to say that he could not volunteer for a committee I was on?"

She doesn't seem to get the fact that this is an addiction and any contact would do harm to any reconciliation we were attempting. I did say that no, I would not force her to find another church, but that our marriage would have to take precedence over anything regarding the church. Not her relationship with God, but she would need to never put herself in position to be in contact with him. If he truly cares about you, tell him to leave you the hell alone.

Then I put it to her straight "Answer me - do you want to try?" She paused. I told her that her not giving me an immediate "no" might be perceived as progress, but that I don't see any enthusiasm for the question. She said she still has some soul searching to do to be sure. Which is basically the same garbage I've heard time and again when it seemed she was cracking.

She did end by saying "Maybe I need to get down to the root cause of what I really am expecting to see from you; what is keeping me from believing that things would be different and we would not fall back into the same old rut."

She said she wanted "soul searching" from me - looking at what "I" thought were the ways I hurt her and how I plan to do things differently from now on. I just reminded her that I never argued about any of the things she raised as being problems. I totally agreed with her that I did not respond adequately in those situations. But short of going back in time, it is impossible to PROVE that I would act differently in the future; recognizing her feelings, stating my understanding and telling her I can't see myself responding in the same way today is all I can offer.

It is a catch 22 - she wants to see the changes and I want her to drop the affair before I do anything to put myself out there again.

I assured her that she will see everything she wants and more, but I will not tolerate her involvement with another person. She has to recommit herself to the marriage.

So two similar talks within a short period of time (we spoke at length a couple of weeks ago as well), both of which addressed reconciliation. Could be progress, could be the same old spew. I remain as before - marching forward toward dissolution until I see real concrete commitment. Not there yet.