Wow, have things changed

[Tallula]

Ok...talk me down.

I snooped on his phone. He's been guarding it with his life since I admittedly looked at it a month or 2 ago. I looked at it last night, saw a text from a number I know isn't OW's, but there is no contact attached. He also did that with OW, memorized number, didn't put as a contact. It said "Are you will Tallula tonight?" I yelled at myself for looking, and tried to forget. Well, today at work I am going crazy. Reverse looked up the # on 2 places and those saidit belongs to a guy. Then I did a backround search and it says it belongs to a 22 year old girl. Well, on that site I looked up 10 of my friends numbers and 8 came up wrong...so I'm just losing it.

Help!! I want to either try and check his phone again, or confront him. I keep saying what is my goal. Is it to still see if my marriage can be saved? Well, my goal is to also not be married to a lying cheater. Clearly this person is in the know enough to know my name!! But not to be saved as a contact?!

[MrBond]

Try and not let it get to you. I know it's hard, but you have to do that in order to get your head on straight.

[Tallula]

Thanks, I know. I have to resist the urge to look again. Let it go.

Since this is not his first affair, it just has me wondering if there are even others too. This last one had an emotional aspect, so in hindsight I can see how I missed the signs. Well, I flat out asked him in the summer if he was having an affair. He said no. I believed him. But the ones before we had kids, I was clueless. He hid it well. He said he cared nothing for them, loved me, and did it to fill a hole inside him. This is what he is working on in IC. So I sit here and just think, if he is still hiding stuff, I should just get out now. But...even if I confronted him, I don't know if I'm capable yet of telling him to leave.

Why did I look?!

[Tallula]

Ok, I've thrown myself into work and am now on lunch.

He'll be leaving tomorrow night for his guys weekend, so I'll have plenty of time away from him. Bottom line, DBing, GALing, 180's and I'm not going to say anything. I really don't know if I want to save this marriage, and I don't know that I don't. So focus on me, and my choices will be shown.

NO MORE LOOKING AT HIS PHONE! I don't trust him, so why hurt myself anymore. God help me, calm it down. I really hope I can control myself to not look at his phone if it presents itself. Ugh.

[MrBond]

"Why did I look?!"

Because he had an A before and he broke your trust. After his first affair, did you go to see a C or did he undergo IC? Were there steps taken to re-establish the trust (he should be letting you see his phone any time any day) or were things just swept under the rug?

[AnotherStander]

Of course this is the Old "I'll just be friends with her..." that won't work to actually end this. He admitted to me that he spoke to her the day after he ended it. He said he knows how much keeping her as a FB friend hurts me and he doesn't want to hurt me, but he isn't willing to defriend her right now.

He's cake-eating, keeping his options open. Try being more firm with him, tell him you need a bigger commitment than that. If he's truly willing to work on the M then he should be willing to give you full access to his phone and email.

He is sleeping in our bed, willing to try to end this relationship and is scared of losing me.

Then he needs to show that through his actions.

But...now I am just flipping back and forth between "GET OUT!" and regrouping and getting back to DBing. Detach, not focus on him...ahhhh.

Stick with the DB'ing until he comes around, and even then some of the DB'ing techniques are healthy to continue even in marriage.

Ok, so I just scoured some of the recent posts. This announcement he made to end the affair, and his waffling has really just gotten me to take 10 steps back. We fought for 2 days, he slept on the couch saturday night.

Why the fighting? Just calmly tell him what your boundaries are. There's no need to fight over it. If he doesn't agree to your boundaries then tell him he's not ready to work on the marriage and you'll give him the space to think things over.

1. STOP talking about our relationship.

2.Only talk to IC or my friend Sarah, NO OTHER PEOPLE.

3. DETACH!!

Great stuff, stick to it!!

-sleeping in the same bed
-husband showing more affection
-telling me he loves me
-ML and him not getting upset after
-Asked me out on a date
-Going away for a weekend in 3 weeks
-willingness to end affair
-sees a future for us
-says he is starting to fall back in love

Those are fantastic signs!! Try not to have big expectations about it though, just keep up with your DB'ing and allow things to unfold as they will.

I mean, it's only been 2 months since Dday and only 5 days since he said he wanted to end this affair.

Yes, that's a very short timeline. So take it slow. Don't be impatient. Expect him to backslide and distance himself, it's going to happen so don't be surprised. Don't pursue him, give him time and space.

So I'm just going to keep doing this like it's a part of my journal. Maybe one day someone will comment.

Once you're off moderation then when you post your thread will go to the top of the forum. While you're on moderation it stays several pages back and not many people see it.

I've read a bunch of another stander's posts & get a lot out of what you say!

Thank you!

For 4 days before he cut it off, we was affectionate, loving, etc. since then, he has withdrawn.

I just mentioned above to expect that, it's the distance/ pursuit dynamic. Don't worry about it, it'll happen.

He'll be leaving tomorrow night for his guys weekend, so I'll have plenty of time away from him. Bottom line, DBing, GALing, 180's and I'm not going to say anything. I really don't know if I want to save this marriage, and I don't know that I don't. So focus on me, and my choices will be shown.

Good, that's a great attitude!!

NO MORE LOOKING AT HIS PHONE! I don't trust him, so why hurt myself anymore.

Well don't sneak looks, but you need to get to the point where he's transparent with that and is willing to let you look.

[Tallula]

He told me about all of them 2 months ago. I never knew about the the previous As. He admitts he is totally messed up and is going to IC and wants to be in a monogomous relationship with me, as that is what I said I am only willing to have.

I pretty much had a WAS in an affair sitch. He gave me the ole ILYBNILWY speech and that since he developed feelings for this one, he wanted a D. Through DBing I had detached and a week ago he ended it with the OW...sort of.

So here we are. Not even really to the point where we are actually work on the trust issues, since I'm working on what my boundries are. Clearly I'm not ready to tell him to defriend her or get out, but my IC and I decided to give an internal deadline of 3 weeks to really search out what will work for me. The main one is to detach again.

[Tallula]

Again, you are so insightful.

I am going to commit to not sneaking anymore looks at his phone and at our next MC appointment discussing transparency. We each do IC with our MC and she and I spoke about that the other night. I'm just being really impatient. I plan to re-read DR tonight. It always calms me and refocuses me.

[MrBond]

Total cake eater. Continue to not be as accessible to him and make your life a mystery.

[Tallula]

Thanks, MrBond.

Its so hard for me with this cake eating. It's like I feel like my only option is to tell him to leave, when maybe it's just being less accessable and doing my own thing. This is what my IC and I talked about. It's not all in, or get out. Or it is, but I'm not ready to follow through with that. Also, it's hard for me since one of his major compliants was that I was too distant from him and did my own thing this past year. But, while he is playing this limbo crap, I should set those boundries because it's only making ME crazy. ME, um, remember me?