EXPERIMENTING with physical touch with W

[Tallula]

You mentioned several times you are looking at marriage builders as well as Divorce Busting. I think this is a big source of your issues and confusion, and the source of exasperation from the people on this board. You need to pick one or the other, these two approaches are diabolically different in intent and approach. You cant cherry pick and choose aspects you like from each and expect anything other than the mess you find yourself in.

In DB, you should be doing "the 180" in its entirety. Detaching yourself by building a new life outside of your wife for the benefit of improving yourself whether or not your wife decides to reconcile. In DB, you DONT snoop. You DONT expose the affair. You DONT interfere with your wife's affair. You DONT do anything for your wife. NO pursuing, NO dating, NO valentines. You do things for yourself, new actions, activities, and build a better life for yourself outside of your relationship. It about you growing into a better person, and maybe or maybe not your spouse will decide you are the better option and choose you, and if not, you are in a good position to move on anyways.

Marriage builder's "plan A" does involve tons of pursuing activities like actively trying to meet your spouses emotional needs. So, yes, date them and do valentines. BUT!, BUT the "carrot" of plan A doesnt happen without the "stick" of actions designed to attack the affair - snooping, documenting, massive exposure of your spouse and affair partner to friends/family/work, confronting the affair partner, and doing everything in your power to interfere with and stop the affair - blocking numbers, canceling internet, cutting of money and taking away the car. And in marriage builders, if they still choose the affair after all this, before you would find yourself in the cake-eating limbo you are in you would go into plan "B" which is complete and total separation and non contact from your spouse.

As best as I can tell, most of your actions look like you are trying to use marriage builder's "plan A" carrots and ignoring the "180" rules against support and pursuing, but then conveniently choosing to use a few parts of DB's "180" to justify not taking any plan A "stick" actions over her flagrant abuse of you to further her affair. And then you are coming on to a DB forum for feedback and driving people here crazy.

My advice for you is to think about what you want, think about what kind of person you are, what you think you are and are not capable of doing or willing to accept, and then buckle down on one approach. But whatever you do, neither the 180 nor plan A can possibly be used to justify the position you are in where you are caretaking for your unremorseful, actively cheating wife while not providing any negative consequences for her abuse of you.

OK, now I get why my head hurts everytime I read SM's posts. He is creating his own "approach".After DB, when my H was still with OW, sleeping on the couch, treating me like crap and I was still having sex with him...I didn' t come on here asking if that would bring him closer to me. I knew it was cake eating. I KNEW it was hurting me. So I didn't need to ask anyone if it was a good idea. It was a bad idea, I just couldn't do anything different at the time. So each time you come on here, SM and continue to ask if the pursuing/cake eating things you are doing with your wife will equal the ONLY result you are even willing to consider, I just shake my head.

I know I wanted to address all my H's concerns and "win" him away from the OW. I kept thinking, if he does leave, at least he'll leave with the memories of the "new" me. When that happened, you'd think "Yippee!!" But we separated 2 weeks later. He's still screwed up, and so am I. Now we are working on ourselves apart. H has said that he has seen big changes in me and knows that he can fall in love with me again. But I do know that I wasn't able to really, really detach until I finally stated what my boundries were for him to continue to live in our home. He has also said, he has found my ability to stand up for myself incredibly attractive.

You need to pick an approach, and then stick to it. You can pick and choice the parts you want. I haven't been around here very long. I hesitate to give a 2 x 4...but I have to. I do relate to you. If you get really honest with yourself, I believe you really haven't entertained the idea that your M might be over. You say you will be fine if it ends, but I don't think you truely believe that yet. Why do I think this? Because you are accepting the unacceptable. What your wife is doing is hurtful and selfish. If you could simply live with her like a friend, detached and working on yourself, you wouldn't be thinking about a V gift. You are so scared to set a boundry, because she may leave and be gone forever. That's what I was afraid of. I kept saying I'd be ok if it ended, but if I truely was, I wouldn't have been ok with my H having one foot in, and one foot out. How do I know? Because today, I am out of the 'result' business. I spoke my truth as I needed for me to be a sane and healthy person. You are totally in the RESULT business. The result being, you stay married at all costs.

No one is telling you what to do, just own where you are. EVERY post is about effecting some response in your wife. EVERY! If you want to truely DB, STOP pursing! Do all of sandi's suggestions, even though it SEEMS like they would do the opposite of what you think works. Lets look at the record. Your wife doesn't work. She somehow has the gas money to drive to OM's city, stays with him for 2 days, comes home and you take her to her favorite psychic's event... So simply because she isn't kicking you in balls and ignoring you, you think the things you are doing are working to get her to stay in the M? I certainly wouldn't be mean to the person who was financing my fling & lifestyle and showering me with stuff...