Not a very happy story, I'm afraid..

[Accuray]

Hi 9600,

Welcome to the board. I believe your W is absolutely having an affair, which your intuition I'm sure has told you. The only reason people distance that fast and that far is because they have stepped over the line in an outside relationship and become infatuated. At that point, a few things happen:

1) You are standing between her and her happiness with OM, so she resents you for that

2) She knows deep down that what she's doing is wrong, but doesn't want to feel badly, so instead decides that "you pushed her to this", that nothing in your marriage was ever good, and that everything bad is because of you. She convinces herself of these things because it makes the affair okay and justifiable.

3) When you don't act out your assigned role as the "bad guy", she resents you for that too and will get even angrier.

Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do quickly to turn this around, once she's in love with someone else, she's gone until things are over with the OM. This can take 6 months to 2 years, but it rarely lasts longer than 2 years. That means that you're facing a marathon and not a sprint, and you have to steel yourself for how difficult this is going to be.

An affair only requires one thing to get started -- opportunity, but it is helped along considerably by dissatisfaction and unmet needs. In DB we suggest that you take this time to work on yourself. Examine your role in meeting your W's needs. If there are things about you that need to change, change them. I recommend reading DB & DR if you haven't already, and I also recommend reading "The 5 Love Languages". Regardless of what happens with W, you will be better off for having done so.

WRT W, the best thing you can do right now is give her space -- in fact, it's best to give her MORE space than she wants. What does this mean? It means you need to drop ALL pursuit. Pursuit includes inviting her to do things, initiating relationship discussions, starting conversations, looking for opportunities to see each other, etc. If you're in a virtual dance right now, you need to let her lead -- she makes the first move. You can mirror, but you cannot escalate.

Everything you do right now needs to be measured against a yardstick of resentment. She harbors a TON of resentment toward you now for things real and imagined. Your goal is to not make her resent you more. She will resent you for doing any of the following:

-- Making her responsible for your feelings by telling her or showing her that she is making you sad
-- Blaming her for not working on the marriage
-- Implying that anything she's doing is wrong
-- Telling her you love her
-- Making invitations that she does not want to accept

Look at it this way, she wants space. She wants to have a 9 foot foam block between the two of you at all times. When you pursue her, you compress the foam block which builds up pressure, and she deals with that by moving farther away. Each step you take towards her results in her moving farther away again from the baseline in your marriage. Each step you push her away, you have to later repair, so your goal right now is to stop her movement away from you.

If instead of moving toward her, you take a step in the OTHER direction, the foam block falls to the ground and it's safe for her to take a step TOWARD you while preserving her desired cushion. That's what you want to do. Give her MORE space than she wants, and use the time to work on yourself, make new friends, become a marriage expert. If there's something you did that really used to bother her, start doing the opposite.

In addition, the more that you can shake things up with you, the better. Get a new haircut, dress differently, make new friends and start doing new things. If you have set routines, break them. She believes that she knows everything about you that there is to know. You can get her thinking about you and what she's giving up if you make her question this knowledge. You can't point this stuff out to her though, you have to let her notice for herself.

I might also suggest dropping the joint MC sessions. If she's not a willing participant it's going to do you more harm than good, because you will put all your cards on the table and she will not. She needs to *wonder* what you're thinking, not be told.

I would continue to see the MC by yourself if it helps, but for now, space, space and more space.

Accuray