TIME for a change

[Denver_2010]

Wow Denver thank you so much! I greatly appreciate you taking the time to review my sitch and provide such great feedback in a constructive manner. I am still reviewing your sitch in it's entirety but I think you have swayed my thinking on the decision to file.

You are welcome. I owe this board more than I can ever repay. So I'm happy to come in and help when I can. Unfortunately, the board reminds me of some really hard times. So I don't come here often anymore.

I'm not trying to convince you to not file, or to file. I just don't want you to do something based upon a false belief that it will bring you closure. Nor do I want you to do something that you will regret. When I chose to make the decision to file, I honestly felt that I had exhausted all avenues to fix my M. I never wanted to look back and regret not trying something or not giving it enough time.

But no one can tell us when to be done. You will know when you are done.

I also feel that I should caution you much the same way that Jack 3 Beans cautioned me. You can read about some of the success stories here and take hope from them. But I've seen the M's of most of the people that I 'grew up' with here on this board NOT be saved. I believe that most of them were success stories in other ways. But they were not able to save their M's. The odds are against those of us who come here. So please don't EXPECT that anything that you take from my story or any post here is going to be a miracle cure. I do think that if you do certain things that you give yourself the best odds of success, but those are still low. I would be remiss if I didn't say that to you.

What I want, is another change for a loving R with my W. I realize that our marriage as it was is dead. If I could get another shot at it, I know we could do it right. I miss her and my stepkids tremendously. Reconciling has been my goal since the bomb including from the day I found out about the OM to present. In my heart I have forgiven her for all her missteps. When posting here I sometimes mention them to give context to my sitch, but in my heart I have sincerely forgiven her.

Forgiveness is very difficult. But essential. Not only for possible reconciliation, but also for yourself. You don't want to carry bitterness or resentment along with you for the rest of your life.

I believe that I have forgiven my W. But I do still have moments of anger towards some of her choices. However, I try to focus on me. What I did to contribute to the breakdown of our M. At the end of the day, the only person that I can, or ever could, control was me. It is not my job to punish my W or teach her any lessons. She has hopefully learned on her own from her mistakes.

And I do think that it is okay to post about what choices your W is making that give context to you sitch. Realize that it is easy to misinterpret what people are truly thinking in their posts. And I think that some people here like to jump on anything that they see as a mistaken thought or feeling.

Since our last physical contact, there were some arguments, and some pleasantries. The arguments were when she made it known she was still seeing her affair partner. Then a couple of months ago she reached out to me when her sister was seemingly on her death bed. Really having been speaking by phone primarily by text, last phone conversation we had was on our anniversary and she admitted she may be falling in love with OM.

Not going to lie to you. That is bad news.

First, you have absolutely zero chance at reconciliation until she resolves her feelings for OM. While my W always told me that she did not love OM and that I was 'home' to her, she did admit many times that she did have feelings for OM. Those were emotional connected feelings. And they are very difficult to overcome as the LBS. In fact, like I said, it is probably impossible. Your only hope here, IMO, is that your W realizes, as mine did, that he is not what she wants for her life. Or, there is always the possibility that he decides that she is not what he wants. The bottom line is that those emotional feelings have to be resolved before she will ever look to you like that again.

Second thing here is that you need to eliminate ALL negative interactions with your W no matter what. If you feel that you cannot do this, don't have contact with her, or end whatever contact that you are in the middle of. Every time that the two of you have a negative interaction it reminds her of why she left you (even if it has nothing to do with why she left you). It validates her present choice.

Affirmative she is still seeing the original OM I busted her with. First guy she corresponded with on Match.com literally. <mind reading> I think to some degree she was scared of her situation financially for her and the kids as she moved out, and latched onto him for security. In speaking with some of her family through this they have mentioned she has always been the "material girl" and are not so much surprised by the situation.

She was scared when she left you. Perfectly natural. My W was too and I know that's why she latched onto OM as well. My W finally admitted that OM was an 'escape' for her from everything that was going wrong between us.

If her choices are driven by financial security only, I have to ask, have you thought about why you want to be with your W? I realize that you love her. But you have admitted that you are a 'fixer'. Is there any concern that there was never anything more to your R with her than you being that 'white knight' and her 'latching on' to you for financial security? Please don't take offense to the question. I am not rendering a judgment or making an assumption. I'm just wondering if you have thought about it.

Your nice guy synopsis is spot on for me too and I though the same way. I always considered it "ours", but in the back of my mind I knew I was contributing 80% with no support from elsewhere for the stepkids. This caused me to harbor resentment and exacerbated my "male privalege" making me think I was entitled to come and go as I please and say whatever I felt without consequence. All of these thoughts and actions were very much wrong. I have always been a fixer too, first wife, other relationships, and especially this one. I fixed her bankruptcy but certainly had/have no chance of fixing her.

Bingo. Very similar to my situation. A strong M is one that is built on equal footing. That can't happen if one person is the 'fixer' and the other is the person trying to be fixed. IMO, it inevitably leads to a unbalanced R. That is very much what happened with me. I can tell you that during my S my W has grown very much in this department. I think mostly because she proved to herself that she could make it without me. The result is that she is much more assertive in what she wants and what she expects in our M. And that surprisingly has made it easier for me to understand her. At least so far.

Control has been issue for me and still is, I am still working on this. She is still driving a car that I bought at Christmas. When I confirmed OM for certain on Sunday I thought of issuing an "either buy the car or let me know when I can pick it up" type of notice, but have thought better of it. If I hadn't confirmed OM I wouldn't have considered this. I was considering it out of spite and hurt and an attempt to control her in a way.

Definitely you trying to control her. However, I will say that if you are still paying on this car, I would end it. It is one thing to pay for some essentials. I continued to pay for my W's health and car insurance during our S. Part of it was because it kept us connected in some way, part of it was because I simply didn't want to deal with changing that stuff, but part of it was also that I wanted to make sure that she would have those things. I knew that she was struggling financially, and I very rarely helped her with anything else financially. I figured it was a small thing to keep her under my insurance policies. BUT, paying for her to have a BMW seems to be a bit much IMO. If that is the case, I would politely tell her that she will have to take over the payments or sell the car. Give her 60 days notice so that she has plenty of time to make arrangements. Again, JMO.

My sobriety has helped me personally a lot, as per conversations I've had with her she still doesn't buy it, since I don't see her there is no way to prove this to her.

Prove it to her through your interactions with your step children. It sounds like you love and miss them. There is nothing wrong with you having a R with them during this time. If that's what they want as well. I maintained my R with my SS throughout my ordeal. I never used that as a tactic, but I will admit that it did allow me to have some connection to my W even when she and I were barely on speaking terms. It was through these interactions where she first noticed that I was changing. Use the opportunity to have brief encounters with your W if you can. And I mean brief like maybe picking your SS up from the house and saying hello to W as you are doing it. No R talk. No arguing. Just a big smile and a 'hello'.

You're right on the verbal abuse. I said some very mean things and some meaner things I'm sure that I don't remember saying in a drunken stupor. In one of her chats with the OM early on she mentioned "someone can only hurt her so many times then the wall goes up permanently". Unfortunately that's where I am with her and I doubt the wall will ever come down.

I was there too. I will also say that my W also said that there was no way that she would ever forgive me. And the walls were there even when we were trying to work towards reconciliation. Realize that this is what makes OM so appealing to her. He has not hurt her the way that you have. As a result, it is very easy for her to get angry with you and to blame you.

Our last negative conversation as I recall was in March when she mentioned the OM. Since then I have been showing nothing but unconditional love. I've been contributing to the 529k's I set up for my 3 stepkids. I sent flowers and was willing to do whatever to support her while her sister was in the hospital. Sent flowers and supported her when she said she'd had a hysterectomy. Offered to do things for her. Been giving her the space she wanted. Given she doesn't want to see me and we don't have kids together, there is really no catalyst for us to see each other. I would do other things but they would seem persuing so I don't do them.

Don't do anything. My advice to you is to just go live your life for now. Don't file for D, unless you are ready of course, don't pursue her, don't offer to do things for her, don't do anything but live your life and do your best to be happy. Maintain your R with your step children if that is possible and is what you want. And let things be for now. There is nothing that you can do to control the outcome of this. So stop trying. And I get it... I fought that concept tooth and nail for almost the entire time. Turns out though that that same advice that I was getting was right. Everytime that I would just leave her alone, no initiate contact, be brief when she contacted me... well, it was only a matter of time before she would start to wonder what I was doing.

As much as I love her Denver I feel that I am running out of gas. I have done everything within my power and tried harder to work this out than anything in my entire life, only to find out she is still with the original OM. It would be easier if she was with someone else honestly. I was babysitting my stepchildren the day that I busted her red handed. One day I have custody of her three children, the next day she filed a restraining order on me because she was fearful of me after I busted her affair. I said nothing mean to her all had nothing but forgiveness and wanted to work on things immediately. She said she wanted to kill me because the OM dumped her that night when I confronted him. The past year without question has been the hardest of my life.

I know. Me too man. Me too. I only found relief during the times that I would just let go. That is all that I can tell you. But again, letting go does not equate to filing for D.

I think you've convinced me to give it some more time. I know she is with OM so I am not going to deal with her at all unless she approaches me. I am going to hang out with my SS on Monday and am looking forward to that, but that has nothing to do with her. I will be LRT'ing and handle any comms from her in a short business manner as you suggested. Hell maybe she'll serve me on the 27th who knows.

Maybe she will. Be prepared for it as best you can be.

Try to make follow up plans with your SS when you are done hanging out with him on Monday. Remember that he is going through a tough time as well most likely.

And yes, a good boundary for you is to not be a part of her life as long as OM is. IMO.

Her birthday is 8/14. I should absolutely do nothing for this right? Of course my idea was to send her a card with notification of retrouville session in early September or a coupon for the "husband of her dreams" lol Cheesy and worthy of about 50 2x4's right?

Absolutely not. Yes, that will get you about 50 2x4's. I would do for her whatever it is that you would do for a close friend. Send her a friendly, non-romantic, birthday card and simply say 'wishing you the best on your bday. Broken74'

Please do not offer her retrovaille. It is pressure and it is pursuit. You have to stop all of that. Trust me.

I'm just going to chill and see what develops and reevaluate my feelings as time progresses. I've never made it more than 2 weeks with no contact so will be interesting to see what happens.

I used to get kicked in the head for my timelines here on the board. LOL... I still think that they helped me get through this by breaking up the long a$s time that I was being tortured. I believe in breaking up your DB into increments of time. Start with 2 weeks of no contact. Reevaluate and then set another increment of time. Repeat.

Thanks a million for your thoughtful feedback Denver. I am so happy and envious of your outcome. You have given me a new lease on life and hope for a sitch such as mine. You're .02 is worth more than it's weight in gold and I can't express how much I appreciate. Enjoy the spoils of your hard work for my friend, I am pulling for you in your quest for lifelong happiness with your W.

Thank you Broken. I appreciate your well wishes.

I will leave you with this for now. Do an internet search for 'the miracle of the chinese bamboo tree'. Tell me what you get from that.

Peace,
Denver