Don't know which way to turn...

[Accuray]

Nice work Dazed, everyone appreciates a good analogy. I'm a huge fan of the 5 LL's. When W feels she is done, you have to be very careful of pursuit and distance.

I'm sure you would love to make everything better "now" or maybe tomorrow would be ok. You would like W to give you a checklist of what you need to do, you'll work like h*ll to get those items checked off, and then you'll be good again. That's a natural way to feel -- it's broken, I'm motivated to fix it, let's go!

The problem is that how your W is feeling developed over a long period of time. She has trained herself how to think about you and the marriage, and you have also trained her what to expect from you. That training actually creates neural pathways in the brain that get used again and again. Therefore, you're now on a path of re-training versus "fixing". You need to create new neural pathways and reinforce that they are the preferred routes over the old pathways.

What does training require? First, consistency -- the new behavior has to be demonstrated and repeated over and over again. Second, patience -- retraining takes time. It's not a "push the lever and get a pellet" type scenario. It's push the lever every day for the next six months and maybe you'll get a pellet 3 months after that.

Right now, what W needs is space. She doesn't need you to rush in and address all this immediately. You need to tell her one that (a) you own the problems you brought to the marriage and understand why she feels the way she feels, (b) you're willing to work on your own issues for your own benefit, not just for hers, and (c) if she did have an EA, you understand how that happens and you're willing to forgive. Once you've made those points clearly, you do yourself a disservice by repeating them. Try to do it "one and done".

Then, give her space. Don't pursue, don't escalate. If she reaches out to you, mirror what she does. If she hugs you, hug her back but don't kiss her. If she says she's happy don't answer back with "I love you". Do not escalate, do not ask leading questions. For now, let her be and focus on your own improvements, and do not point them out to her. Let her notice or not.

Finally, at the point you get suspicious of an EA, there is probably one going on. I don't think I've read one case here yet where a suspicion was unfounded, though I have read several cases where the LBS was *convinced* nothing was going on but eventually discovered some level of infidelity.

That said, EA is a spectrum, and your W may be only barely over the line. I can tell you in my W's EA, she was 100% committed to and in love with OM, and I was the villain in the way of her happiness. It doesn't feel to me like you're in that position, and that's good. As long as OM is actively involved, however, it can be very challenging to decrease the emotional distance that W is trying to maintain. In fact, trying to decrease it usually makes it larger. If OM is still in the picture, your mission is to tread water and not make things worse. Give her space -- repeat that when you wake up and before you go to bed. It feels wrong, but it's the best thing you can do.

Accuray