WAW seems to be making positive steps...whattodo?

[25yearsmlc]

I am working as much side work as I can get.

She won't be involved in financial decisions right now...refuses to plan with me.

She has said she wants to try, has appt w/counselor, and is willing to read. What should I suggest? (suggestion for 5 Love Languages noted)

Suggestions were already made so I hope you are "hearing us.".

I don't know what suggestions YOU can make to HER about what SHE ought to read b/c it seems so odd that a woman who has left you b/c she felt mistreated (and by your own admission, she was) and has found OM who is treating her better I presume.

But here's a book that MIGHT help if she's truly confused...
"A Year by the Sea:Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman" by Joan Anderson. The autobiographical book traces the changes of a woman who has not been living authentically and or has had to basically serve others instead of having her needs met. She moves to their seaside cottage for a year to gather herself and write and work out the relationship issues she and her h have.

But the author DOES reconcile with her husband and they do seem happier but it takes a "year by the sea" to do so.

Do you actually believe she's in the guest room at OM's house?

You've been apart what, 6 weeks? Most WASs don't believe that an LBSer can change that fast. ( I don't either) What convinces them that your changes are real?

consistent change + sufficient TIME = change SHE can believe in...

Please stop obsessing about getting HER to see things your way right now, b/c you are the one who needs to hear HER and see things her way, imo.

There is an OM in the picture now so remember that since you are the only one here working on the m, and the only one YOU control, stop worrying about what books SHE should read (why don't YOU read more?) or getting other people to talk to her.

YOU are the one who you can change and you said you NEED to change...why not put your energy there?

And finally, if you want to Keep The Road Home, Paved & Smooth, involve as few people as possible. That only makes it harder for her to come back.

Plus, if you keep challenging her choices when you know there is some validity to them, then you remind her to defend them and that makes them more cemented in her mind. And you prove to her that she is "right" to have left b/c you "still don't get it".

Do you get that?

Oh, and Don't use the kids as weapons...

Anyhow, here's the post I think you need to read to get a better handle on how your wife is viewing things...mind you, the woman who wrote this had been apart from her newly changed LBS husband, for 6 months...a lot longer than you've been at this.

FROM A WAW, TO A LBS HUSBAND WHO HAS CHANGED AND WONDERS WHY HIS WAW HAS NOT COME HOME YET, AND HOW SHE CAN BE AT ALL INTERESTED IN OM….

When I read your interactions with your wife, I could so easily identify with your wife's feelings/words/sentiments. I have been in her position in my M. I was the ignored, the devalued, the one who was treated as less than.

One of the things that I have tried my hardest not to do, is not to engage with another man. Not just because of my marriage vows, but because I knew that when I truly engaged in any type of R with another man, it would make it that much harder to ever reconcile with my H. Because being treated differently (better) than the way he treated me would lessen him so much in my eyes.

So, I can see where your W is coming from. When you've been mistreated to the point where you actually let go of your R enough to let another person into your heart or bed or whatever, it takes a boatload of work to get back on a page where you're recommitted to being with your S - and those uncertainties that she's expressed to you, I don't know if you truly, truly fathom how deep they run.

Six months of getting back on a page where you treat her the way that any wife should be treated does not even scratch the surface of the years, the intrinsic devaluing that occurs when you're systematically mistreated for such a stretch of time.

And I promise you that while you have recommitted and worked for 6 months, your W has simply been trying to get to a point where she can even buy into the changes, where she can even think that you might have changed and not scoff at the thought.

Because when you build up hope again and again and again in your H and he crushes it again and again and again, you develop a thick skin, a protective doubt, a conditioned response to even the slightest, grainiest seed of hope.

You are taught that when you hope, you will be disappointed. When you try, you will fail.

You are taught that you will never be what he wants and it is hard to shake what you have come to believe is reality.

And for the changes that you've made to have come only when she walked away and OM became competition, I can definitely see how she can doubly doubt that you truly want to be in a M with her, and not just to win.

Even you today say that you are not sure that you don't just want to win.

Step 1 - figure that sh!t out ASAP. Because if you actually do manage to convince her that you really do want her and really have recommitted to her but you actually just want to win, you'll put her through hell.
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