Lost and need some guidance on my next steps

[AlkalineThoughts]

How did that make you feel?

Again, does it change anything for you IF you know 100% that she is in PA with OM?

As I've been operating with the mindset that PA HAS been happening, it doesn't change anything.

Thinking a lot about your sitch and listening to your answers and replies to my posts. Telling someone to cut off contact in a situation like this is tough. Before I tell you, or anyone to do that, I really want to make sure that I am confident in my opinion. And, it is just an opinion. Only you can decide what is right or wrong to do with your particular situation.

You've mentioned a couple of times that you have been trying to balance advice that you get here with the advice that you are getting from IC. That suggests to me that some of it has been conflicting.

You will also get conflicting advice here on the board. For example, I'm not so sure that posters such as 25MLC or even Jack3beans would agree with me or Starsky. Sometimes he and I probably don't agree.

Yeah. Well, as you probably know, IC is not in the "advice-giving" business... Mostly goes on what I say and expands upon that. I haven't brought up what we're discussing (confronting and then going dark) except in passing. But he, up to this point, has been advocating that I stay as a friend, that I continue to GAL and work on myself, but keep the communication open as she "explores" her current life (Which he thinks is her revising her past... her youth again).

But that may change tonight when I speak with him about this in earnest. I'll be sure to update then!

The bottom line is that YOU have to take any and all advice that you receive and decide what will have the highest probability of working. Put aside the advice that you believe will not work, and use the advice that you think WILL work. The number one rule of DB is do what works!

Well that's another thing... I'm not sure if what i'm doing NOW is working, so there's that! But this advice is really making a lot of sense to me... Showing strength and conviction was never a strong point in my R with W, and this may very well be the 180 that I need for ME.

You have to use any opportunity to see into your world. At the same time, I would caution against having expectations...

That means, don't EXPECT her to call you every time that you tweet that you went out and had a few drinks, went to a concert, or whatever.

I do believe that you GAL for you... to help you get through this and to see that life can be happy without your wife.

BUT, since the whole goal is to try to save your M, we also want her to see that you can move on without her...

That SHE risks losing YOU by continuing on her current path!

She's never called about my GALing tweets, but will often comment on how big our puppy is getting or how a certain picture of him made her smile or sad... Either way, I have no expectations on that front!

I don't know if you've read much of my situation. If you have, I'd expect that you see that there are many similarities between mine and yours.

However, there is one BIG difference that I see...

I was a bad H/BF to my W in many ways for a very long time. I was NOT how you described yourself in a prior post. Admittedly, I neglected my W's emotional needs... and was probably emotionally abusive to an extent. I did not mean to be this way to her, but I was. Something that I have learned to accept and forgive myself for.

My point is that I had a lot to make up for and you don't. At least not from what I'm seeing.

It's an important distinction because I don't think that you need to spend NEARLY as much time in, what we call "Plan A". It's from a book called 'surviving the affair'... Starsky can name the author. I forget even though I've read much of the book.

While I don't want to give the impression that I was this fantastic H the entire time (as I didn't pay enough attention to her unhappiness and didn't take the actions that I should have taken), I certainly tried in my own ways OVER and OVER and OVER again to make her happy... I think she sees that.

So... Yes. I would absolutely lay down the boundary that you will not be a part of her life as long as ANY OM is.

There is a reason that she is sure to contact you at least once per week, and why she cries when she hears particular songs on the radio... and why she refers to your dog as 'our' kid.

It sounds that her R does provide something for her on an emotional level... even now.

So... take that away.

I think that you have the conversation about OM because you need to know for sure. Either in that conversation or shortly after, you set your boundary.

You then enforce it.

THAT will be the hard part.

We will be here to help you.

Make sense?

Yes, It does make sense. And Yes, I know this will be the hardest thing I've had to do up to this point...

I'll update more later, but I must run to IC now...