Thanks for the words of support. Based on your experiences, this is something that I need to be very patient with.
Cold - it is reasurring to hear words from someone who is in the same position as me.
My wife still works with the OM and like your situation, my wife comes home on time and things seem to be moving in the right direction. What she does at work is out of my control, so I need to block this out of my thoughts. You can waste alot of time thinking of all the things they maybe up to during the course of the day.
I recognize that my wife will need to go through a period of grieving and it seems that this will likely take many months.
Keep me posted as to how things are going with your wife and if you see signs of the fog lifting.
Thanks Bolt. In what way did you push things too fast? For me its the wanting to have the R discussion. We haven't talked about our R since I confronted her about the OM about 6 weeks ago. Everyday I wrestle with wanting to bring up the discussion to find out where she is at with me and the OM.
Its a big struggle to hold back and not push on the R discussion. Instead of focusing on the R discussion I need to focus on keeping a positive frame of mind etc and not expect much in return until my wife sorts out exactly what it is she wants to do.
I started seeing results and got a little too excited and expected more. I have learned to curb those expectations completely.
I saw W being more affectionate once and got very comfortable with that. When the affection didn't continue the next 2 (TWO!!) days, I got insecure and voiced my feelings - mistake.
As far as the R, let her bring it up. The ball is in her court. Any convos about our R has always been brought up by W. I simply go with it and don't be overzealous about it.
m 40 w 38 married 15 together 18 d11, d8 bomb 12/19/10 2nd bomb 3/30/11 COMPLETELY DONE
Wife works at same company as the OM but in different departments. They do not have to interact with each other for business, simply pleasure. They ahve known each other for about 4 years and have been involved in the EA for about 18 months I believe.
Wife is looking for a new job which is positive. It can"t happen soon enough for me, but I have never mentioned this to her or demanded that she change employers.
Punchy, from my most recent experience, do NOT let her know you know. As a matter of fact try not to know. Don't check up on her. It will backfire, I promise.
I can speak from experience since it just happened to me today. I wish I could start this day completely over and now I have to refix things I thought I fixed.
Also, chances are you are making a ton more out of it than you think. Paranoia is hideous to us right now.
m 40 w 38 married 15 together 18 d11, d8 bomb 12/19/10 2nd bomb 3/30/11 COMPLETELY DONE
Thanks for the advice. Sorry things went south for you today. Its hard to not let our pride and anger get in the way of what we should do. We are in a very difficult place and need to work through it.
I have to continue to remind myself that I need to focus on the needs of our kids vs my frustration with what my wife is up to.
Thanks for your support. Good luck with recovering from todays setback.
No further info from wife re status of our situation. She focuses all discussion within the moment. There is no discussion about anything in the future and it is primarily focused on the kid's activities. No discussion or interest in my job, how I am doing or feeling.
I continue my DBing efforts. Her reaction to this is quite interesting. For example, I offered to make her something to eat after she came home from her evening class. She declined saying she wasn't hungry. 5 minutes later she was in the kitchen making herself something.
I am seeing more and more of this behaviour where she goes out of her way to deny me the opportunity to do a nice thing for her. Not sure if this is something that I should back off of?
My challenge is that this would have me return to my old way of being selfish and not doing things for her or other people.
OM is currently out of the country on a holiday, so this may have something to do with her mood. Our interactions continue to be on the level of two distant friends, not two people who have been married for 20 years.
Punchy, I see very similar behavior with my w. I will offer to do her laundry, clean up after meals etc., sometimes she accepts, sometimes not. I'm at a point now where I don't let it bother me as much if she rejects my offers. I think we slip into mindreading and that is a hard to stay away from right now.(my IC said mindreading is a big no-no)
I was selfish, insensitive, miserable in the past, but I've been working on that and if she accepts my changes fine, if not, then they will be for me. I have many years of bad behavior to erase, so I accept the fact that it may take a year or more for her to be convinced I've truly changed.
As for the om, I'm pretty sure when my w doesn't have contact or he's pouring his heart out to her (via cell ph) she's not all there, very distant.
I may be wrong, but I have adopted an determination to wait this out and let her feelings for him die a slow death.
When I feel down or think its hopeless, I sob only in private.
I think its been said here before, this process does NOT work in a straight line, there's going to be plenty of zigs and zags. We all want this to be over now, and want our w's back so we can show them how great things can be. Unfortunatly some people have a hard time forgiving and forgetting the past.
