On the verge, have I caught this thing?

[25yearsmlc]

Hi 3,

I'm hopeful for your sitch b/c I think the question "why couldn't you be like this before?" means she wanted THIS from you

and now you are giving it.

Do that more and negate her reasons for wanting to leave.

I don't recall if you have children together. They are a big bond but you can make it back without them.

I am NOT a proponent of snooping (neither is this site) except in one circumstance and one only.

If you KNEW you'd end the m for a PA, then I'd say snoop and file.


Thing is, your focus is, imo, wrongly placed there. Regardless of whether it's a physical affair, YOUR behavior helped get you here and the other man ("OM") is simply a symptom of that.

Change YOU and don't worry about OM....BE the better choice.

Also I think GAL activities that involve meeting new people help the most b/c they keep you from obsessing which something tells me you do a lot of.

PLEASE begin to see the harm and damage in snooping. She will stop trusting YOU if you keep that up--

plus it means you are not working on YOU so much as staring at another "cause" of the problems - which is an exit strategy for you....not pro marriage.

I am troubled by your wanting "back up plans" so fast and that you are so close to wanting to leave and date On one hand but

"still in love" on the other hand.

Are you sure you want HER, as opposed to simply not wanting to lose her to OM?

Here is a post from a hurt WAW (a walk away wife to her h) you might find helpful or insightful...

FYI***(S = spouse or son, so check context. R = relationship and m=marriage. H is husband and W is wife and LBS is left behind spouse)***

Read it and Figure out what, if anything, applies to your situation and go from there.

Good luck and keep posting!!

FROM A WAW TO A LBS HUSBAND WHO HAS "CHANGED" BUT WONDERS WHY HIS WAW HAS NOT COME HOME YET, & HOW SHE CAN BE AT ALL INTERESTED IN OM….

"When I read your interactions with your wife, I could so easily identify with your wife's feelings/words/sentiments. I have been in her position in my M. I was the ignored, the devalued, the one who was treated as less than. I even got chills when she talked about the FB issues, because I've been there and done that, bought the "t-shirt". Of course, my H went a step further and cheated, then left, adding an extra crunchy layer of goodness to my sitch.

One of the things that I have tried my hardest not to do, is not to engage with another man. Not just because of my marriage vows, but because I knew that when I truly engaged in any type of R with another man, it would make it that much harder to ever reconcile with my H.

Because being treated differently (better) than the way he treated me would lessen him so much in my eyes. So, I can see where your W is coming from.

When you've been mistreated to the point where you actually let go of your R enough to let another person into your heart or bed or whatever, it takes a boatload of work to get back on a page where you're recommitted to being with your S - and those uncertainties that she's expressed to you, I don't know if you truly, truly fathom how deep they run.

Six months of getting back on a page where you treat her the way that any wife should be treated, does not even scratch the surface of the years, the intrinsic devaluing that occurs when you're systematically mistreated for such a stretch of time. And I promise you that while you have recommitted and worked for 6 months, your W has simply been trying to get to a point where she can even buy into the changes, where she can even think that you might have changed and not scoff at the thought.

Because when you build up hope again and again and again in your H and he crushes it again and again and again, you develop a thick skin, a protective doubt, a conditioned response to even the slightest, grainiest seed of hope.

You are taught that when you hope, you will be disappointed. When you try, you will fail. You are taught that you will never be what he wants and it is hard to shake what you have come to believe is reality.

And for the changes that you've made to have come only when she walked away and OM became competition, I can definitely see how she can doubly doubt that you truly want to be in a Marriage with her, and not just to win.

Even you today say that you are not sure that you don't just want to win.

Step 1 - figure that sh!t out ASAP. Because if you actually do manage to convince her that you really do want her and really have recommitted to her BUT you actually just want to win, you'll put her through hell.
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