My wife of 10 years and I have just separated. We have two young children (2yr old girl and 7 yr old boy). Although we have historically both been "hotheads" (both Scorpios) I thought we had pretty good life (sound familiar?) We travel a ton all over the world both with and without the kids, we live in a mountain resort town with a great environment and great schools. Historically I've made plenty of money to keep us comfortable although the last couple of years have been stressful as they have for everyone. Basically I thought we had it pretty good.
Back in September I had a bit of a breakdown because of some work stress and stress with our son who has some behavioral issues and said (though not seriously meaning it) that I would be better off dead. In hindsight, this was the straw that broke my wife's back of constantly supporting me, being my emotional crutch and dealing with my negativity. We fought and bickered extensively for weeks after that and finally had THE discussion where the topic of "the fire's gone out" came out on the table. By late October she told me she wasn't sure she could be the wife I needed any more, the she wasn't happy, that she couldn't support me any more and that while she still loved me, maybe "our marriage has just run its course" and that maybe it was time to go our own way in life even though we'd had a good run of it.
I started reading the Divorce Remedy and other books (5 languages of Love, etc.) and really reflecting on where I'd gone wrong and how much I hadn't treated her with respect and emotional support for many years. She was right. Now don't get me wrong, she's no saint, but I definitely had a major role to play to which I admitted. Still, we seemed stuck at this same level of her saying "I'm just not sure I can get my feeling for you back" or "I feel no connection with you."
After some counseling and more arguing, fast forward to late December. We were just sort of stuck in place not moving forward. There were some good times but it didn't feel like we were connecting any more and she even said a couple of times "I'm just not feeling anything for you right now."
One day we're out in town and we she introduces me to this guy as a friend of hers. I'd immediately had a bad feeling about this guy she'd introduced me to. Seemed like they were pretty friendly for someone I'd never met/heard of. One day I decided to check the phone records and bang, there were lots of calls/texts to this guy. I confronted her on it and she denied anything was happening but admitted that she had "developed an emotional connection with someone else," words that still burn in my ears nearly a month later. I felt like I'd been kicked in the stomach. I was crushed. This was my soulmate talking, someone with whom I'd shared everything about me, and she had a connection with someone else? Turns out there where 25 hours of calls and 1700 texts over a three month period beginning right after my breakdown. She swore up and down that nothing physical ever happened and frankly it really doesn't matter if it did. She told me she'd end it the day I discovered it (12/28/11) but I know from my obsessive checking of the records (I know, a no-no) that while there has been a HUGE reduction in the communication, she still talked to him briefly this past weekend. Although she keeps saying she's trying, I can't understand how she's trying if this guy is still in the picture.
After the discovery we had a couple of blowouts in front of the kids that were totally and completely out of control. We were talking immediate divorce, no going back after that. But I called her on the 3rd and said look, I know you've been trying and I know what just happened were the worst fights we've ever had, but is this the way to end it? I said clearly we needed to separate to calm the waters and see what happens. We decided to give it three months apart and then see where we were at that point. So I've pretty much been out of the house since the 28th, although much of that was business travel. I just physically moved out on the 15th and into my apartment.
We had our first joint therapy session today since I moved out last Sunday and in tears she said once again "I'm just not sure I can get my feeling for you back" I asked her if I'd been replaced by this other person and she said no but that she'd been so emotionally needy and he did help her. She said she's felt like she was going to have a nervous breakdown since the separation, doesn't know what to do or what the future holds, is scared of her feelings and has been trying and wishing they would change but they're not. But then earlier in the week she asked me to coffee and also called to see if we were still planning on doing a vacation house swap so we could go to the Caribbean in June! She is all over the map.
So I'm trying the LRT, doing both joint and individual therapy, have hired one of the coaches (Laurie, she's awesome) but am so terrified that I'm going to lose her if I haven't already i just don't know what to do. I'm trying to play it cool, no pressure, definitely not arguments of any kind (since 1/2/12) and whether in therapy or just when I see her to exchange the kids, etc., being open, listening and patient. But it is all driving me insane. I've at least made a pact to stop the phone snooping and like I'm on the 12 step program or something, I've made it 24hrs which I'm proud of give that before I couldn't make it 15 minutes.
I guess I'm just at a loss, living in another house without my kids and wife, hating that, wondering what will happen and trying to do the right thing, whatever that is. I'm trying to surround myself only with people who offer the kind of support and encouragement I see on these boards. I guess I could just use some more to help me through and to know that it can work and that it's not over.
Hi Inner, sorry you find yourself in your position. You will find plenty of support here as you work through this.
You received some pretty classic comments from your W. And as you found, these types of comments CAN be indicative of an A. And believe me when I say, I understand what it means to say that it doesn't matter that it wasn't physical. It still hurts... maybe worse...
It is good that your W is indicating she wants to work on the M, even though it doesn't seem to be moving forward and even though she could be simply cake eating. What many find is, while your W is invested in the OM, she cannot fully focus on the M.
I want to be clear about this right now. Confronting her and pushing her on the A is very likely to have the effect of pushing the A further under ground. The A won't end, you will just be less privy to it. The harder you snoop and the more you confront, the more you are likely pushing your W out the door and towards a D.
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. If you can emotionally handle it. If not, do what you need to protect yourself emotionally. Even if you could convince your W to completely stop contact with the OM, she will go through a grieving period during which she will still be unavailable to you. And further, if she sees you as the cause for the demise of her OM relationship, she may resent you for a long time because of it. Keep yourself out of harms way.
LRT is very appropriate at this time. None of this is a technique to manipulate our spouse to return to us. It is a way to help us become better people and hopefully the side benefit is saving our M. You are not directly competing with the OM. Rather, you are becoming an amazing, interesting, attractive man that ONLY A FOOL WOULD LEAVE. Hopefully, your W isn't a fool. And when she chooses to leave the A behind, she can have some of that good stuff...
Keep working on yourself and keep posting here. You are likely moderated for now and your posts may take a while to show up. But with a good driving record, you will be off moderation soon enough and your posts will appear immediately.
Keep your nose to the grind stone and keep doing the hard work and it WILL get better.
KD is spot on and when I just read his post it helped me realize a bit about my own sitch.
"classic comments"
It's really so amazing how these situations are all the same. They use the same words, the same rationals. In one way that makes it tough because our spouse thinks their feelings are so unique. The LBS is in some ways much the same. But these waters have been navigated many thousands of times.
And unfortunately I know that doesn't make you feel one bit better.
But many have navigated them well and come out the other side better for it. Either as a better person or a better person with a better marriage.
Early on in my sitch I studied lots of books, figured it all out, and then explained it all to my wife.
That didn't work so well.
Now I just work on myself. I often fall into the traps but I'm pretty quick at righting my course these days. The faster you can learn to consistently do that the better.
Snooping does just the opposite. Snooping makes you feel worse which causes you to snoop more which causes you to feel worse, ad infinitum. I know my wife is still using her secret email address. When I checked to see I felt like crap for days. Still do I guess. I know I could snoop a lot more. But it serves no good purpose.
I also don't really try to figure out where the R is anymore. I was usually wrong in the past anyway, so whats the point.
So in the end it really really comes down to taking care of yourself. Make yourself happy. Do good things for yourself.
This is the most painful thing a person can go through. Hang in there. It gets better.
Thanks so much to both KD and huh for the great and prompt replies. I know I'm going to be one of these guys that's going to need to hear the same message time and time again, from my therapist, my coach, my parents and my 1 or 2 close friends who really believe in this.
It's just so discouraging at times when you sit there solo, dealing with all the BS that has to be dealt with during a separation just to keep the whole circus afloat financially and practically. And, you say to yourself: "WAS, you're soooo unhappy that you'd choose this disaster over ending this crutch of a relationship with whomever and making our marriage what it could be?" Even though I know many of the ways in which we drifted apart and allowed it to happen, I ask myself how could she think that there is a better alternative through divorce (this is by the way her second marriage, shouldn't she know how un-fun that is (and that was without kids involved))? And of course, the worst of all is when I see the family photos around my new place and think: "was it all a lie? Was I crazy to think we were happy? I mean, we spent a MONTH on vacation as a family this summer in Italy. Yes we had the kids but we had a sitter many times too. It was romantic (I thought), relaxing (I thought), fun (I thought) and connected (I thought).
The hardest part for me is just to let go of the outcome. I know (and I mean I really know) what needs to be done on my end to make myself a better person. I really know that this is necessary to become the person I can be and should have been for a long time. So I get it intellectually that this is for me, regardless of the outcome. But what makes it so tough is to let go out my desire for the outcome I want and to release the fear that if this doesn't work, that it will somehow reflect that I failed.
Sorry for babbling on but this is so new and so distracting I can hardly think of anything else at this moment. Thanks again for listening and for the advice.
I feel for you as I am pretty much in a similar boat. My wife had developed this online friendship with the gym instructor where I used to go as well. I found out after she left me. She left the gym and apparently made no contact with him till November while she was working to get her feelings back for me. She did say that she was thinking if moving back etc - but all along I was her safety blanket. Anyway, I think her game with me is over- and I fear the same for you. Just be the best you can for your kids. Apparently this newness feels like a drug like cocaine for women and makes them oblivious to any pain they cause their family. Hopefully she will realize the bond is stronger than these fleeting feelings and make her way back to you. In the meantime expect coldness, childish behaviour and selfishness.
Hey IE... you no doubt also understand and believe that, as time goes on, things get easier... and better...
The world shows us, time... and time, again... that the natural tendency is to take the "easy" fruit... even when we are awed by... say a giraffe... that has figured out out to take the TOP succulents... understand this... for the giraffe... the TOP succulents, are the EASY succulents, for them...
Your W is choosing the easy path. It is easier for her to try to start a new R, then to build up the old one, with you. As though THIS TIME, it will be magical... and if this new one doesn't work, then the next one after that will be "the one"...
yes, the "numbers game" does work and maybe that isn't the easy route, either... if you become the best you can be, and become the easy route... who knows what could happen...
What motivation might your W have, to chase after you, because she's realized that she really wants you? It's not a competition with the OM. It is simply being a great option for her... and ultimately, for anyone...
Move the mountain one stone at a time.
What little, sub goals can you set, that will help you get to your big goal? Sometimes the big goal seems too difficult, because we don't have any "easy" little goals in between...
Thanks for the replies guys. At this point I'm not sure what she's choosing and I'm not sure she knows either. We just had an interesting counseling session today. She began by acknowledging my changes (which was great), but telling me she wished that they had taken place back when it mattered. She recognized her own part in that though by also acknowledging that, like her own mother, she sat silent on her needs and didn't let me know that she'd been having doubts and emotional issues for years until it all broke out this fall. But, when I asked her if she wanted to reconnect, she said she did, but that she had to be clear that there was no guarantee that she could, that it might be too late for her heart.
The therapist asked if there was anything that I wanted to say but was afraid to say and I brought up the "friend." I said that I appreciated her acknowledging hurting me with this friendship and her saying she was sorry, but that the hurt was continuing because I assumed their friendship continued and she remained in contact with him. She said she had seen him one time since the 1st of the year at yoga and had just had a text from him last week about some banal thing. She maintains he's just a friend, to which I said he may be a friend of yours, but he's no friend of this marriage. I said if I had one wish it would be that she would call him and tell him not to text/call her again, and that their "friendship" was over. She did not give a response to that and the therapist, perhaps sensing a coming argument, said OK W, thank H for telling you that, which she did, and we left it at that.
Now I am faced with a bit of a divorce busting dilemma: Do I a) take the tough love approach and say that I am not doing anything more until you end this relationship period once and for all, or b) continue on as I have been, hope that it continues to fizzle and die of its own accord. As much as I want to take the tough approach, I am concerned that we don't have enough positive momentum in place yet for that, and that with my W's personality, it will backfire big-time as she is firey. Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated?
Trying to be optimistic about this as it all sounds like its straight out of Michele's books, to a T. Things do seems like they're loosening up just a little bit though. She stopped by last night to drop off something for my son and ended up staying for about 30 minutes and talking. To my total surprise, she told me she's going to be staying away from one of her female friends i consider to be totally toxic to our marriage. This bimbo is 28 (we're 43), unmarried with a kid, and comes from a total wreck of a family and regularly sleeps with other married men. My W said "I just don't need to be around other confused people like that right now, and I certainly don't need her advice (I can only imagine what that advice is)." I could have said Amen to that!
Also today in the session she agreed to begin to do some small things together, light fun things, to just spend some time with each other and see if that helps us reconnect a bit.
Just trying to remain positive stay calm. Thanks for the help.
Best of luck mate. It is a hard process but their thinking is so hazy, anything can make them feel like you are the reason of their unhappiness. I was reconnecting with my wife, she certainly said so, mentioned she was thinking about moving back - but wham - she reconnected with her gym instructor again and went on a high. I feel so sorry for her because she is so confused and living in fantasy world. Wonderful to hear that your wife is staying away from her toxic friend - that is a good sign. We have toxic people around - one of her friends deems herself to be an expert but seems to get some sort of a perverse joy from seeing us apart. To each his own. They ultimately have to decide for themselves like grown ups - not be under someone else's influence. Take care and stay strong.
