If she feels like the trust is gone (which it has in a lot of ways to be fair) and that she no longer knows me because of some of my reactions over the last two months, how do we get beyond this?
One of my 180's has been to not let the emotion of being cheated on cause me to get angry. Generally I have done pretty well with this but when there has been the odd outburst and argument over this its all she focuses on.
With all the talking we still do and her dread of moving out (although she is still proceeding with it) I cant help but feel there are still some nagging doubts in her own mind about what it is she actually wants out of all this.
If it is just a best friend and partly for the sake of the children she is going to be sorely dissapointed.
For my own sanity and ability to move on, I need to minimize the contact with her going forward.
What I am interested in is how people find the balance between being civil, nice etc but yet showing wife that being best freinds is not acceptable?
Based on your previous post stating that you told her you couldn't be best friends going forward, IMHO for consistency sake, I would think that 2-3 days away wouldn't be acceptable.
Me 37/W 32 S 5 D 4 ILYBNILWY 5/12 Sep 8/12 Starting to find myself 11/12 on
So in reading other threads it seems its best to keep the wife in the house as long as possible?
Does that mean I should consider letting her spend SOME time at home as well as the other place or do I enforce the separation as if you are gone, you are gone?
I dont like the thought of cake eating.............
So in reading other threads it seems its best to keep the wife in the house as long as possible?
That's not altogether true. For a period of time yes, but certainly not for ever.
Originally Posted By: JamesH
Does that mean I should consider letting her spend SOME time at home as well as the other place or do I enforce the separation as if you are gone, you are gone?
The latter.
Let the Reality Stick beat as much crap out of her as possible.
You are not to do this - that's the Reality Stick's job.
Let OM and herself meet all of her needs. The bubble will burst soon enough.
Tell her in hushed, gentle, soothing yet blunt tones that you are no longer in a position to have any contact with her whilst she's active in an affair.
Pitch, uttermost blackness works best. I flew to the other side of the world in my sitch and severed all contact with my wife whilst she was living with OM. She followed me back 3 weeks later.
Originally Posted By: JamesH
I dont like the thought of cake eating.............
Neither do I.
If you let here parasite off you (she will try) she won't respect you.
And if she can't respect you then she can't love you.
Now to your questions on SM34's thread...
Originally Posted By: JamesH
GH31,
So if my wife wants to be out of the house for a few days and then come back and so forth, you think it would be best to allow that?
No, not for one nanosecond.
However, choose the tone carefully when laying that boundary down (see above).
Originally Posted By: JamesH
It feels wrong to me
BECAUSE IT IS.
Originally Posted By: JamesH
...but if this will help me in the long run to help our relationship then I will be prepared to consider it.
It won't help.
I have never seen any man here or anywhere else get his wife back by being a grovelling, supplicating, pleasing, accommodating, spineless wussbag. Not a single one and I've read LOTS. I know you are not this type of "man", JamesH.
You have great instincts and you wrote in an earlier thread that you had ignored them before the bomb dropped.
TRUST THEM AND HEED THEM THIS TIME.
GH31
Me: 46 W: 46 T: 23 M: 20 DS12 DD11 DS5
W left: 01/28/08 Discovered OM: 02/26/08 W back for 9 days: 04/08 W returned 05/21/08 EA/PA - 01/08-07/09 W's MLC 2008-2014 (realised this much later)
I agree that when there is an OP firm boundaries need to be set and upheld. Make these boundaries about your principles as a loving H and man, not about your emotions or need to teach her a lesson. That is, if you still love her and want to keep the door open a crack.
M: A really long time. Crisis: 5 years. She's still worth it.
Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose. -Viktor Frankl
Wife said a couple of weeks ago that her and OM had a long talk and that she informed him that she was not in a position to be in a relationship with him with everything else that was going on in her life.
I'm not sure where they stand at this point as I have stopped buying my ticket to their show.
Wife and I have been getting on well last while. Im not sure what to make of it however.
Based on all this, wife at the moment is still planning on leaving as of Jan 1st
My gut says she is still at least talking to OM if not meeting him.
Should I then stick to my guns in terms of the separation?
One thing I am really learning quickly is not to focus on what went wrong or what I didn't provide in the past. All that is gone. I can only affect the future at this point.
