I spent many hours last night reading your posts and your original sitch. GH31 has recommended a long time ago that I read the threads of the successful male veterans.
i have read a lot of David, Nathan, Denver, and now your threads and I am honored that you have been coming to my thread to offer me support! Your story is inspirational, and I think you would probably agree with my previous post that sometimes tough love can be very effective with spouses active in an affair.
Call it consequences, call it the "reality stick", call it boundaries, call it what you want. The bottom line is that us LBS need to get out of the way of the lesson that our wayward needs to learn. We cannot protect them, we cannot soften the landing, we cannot keep providing the emotional needs that OP is not meeting.
I saw that you said you think you were successful with your wife because you were stern and not accomodating, but at the same time you showed affection (like kissing her forehead, covering her when she fell asleep on the couch etc..) when it was the right thing to do. I admire your abilities, and hope I can have the strength to do the same.
Laurie has had me experiment with light touch, similar to what you did with your W. My W did not recoil or back off, and was even willing to touch me, at least to give me a nice back rub. Not sure what Laurie will have me do next, but I would assume it is probably more physical affection. I just need to work up the courage to also come down hard on the financial aspect. That will allow me to exhibit my tender, soft, loving, affectionate side, and my strong confident and masculine side at the same time. From your sitch, and the other vets I mentioned earlier, that seems to be the effective combination when dealing with a WAW who is not "done" with you yet (when you seem to be plan B).
SM, thanks for this; it really touched me that you read all of that. I had a LOT of posts (as both Chocolateeyes and Puppy Dog Tails) !!! To know I've helped you in any way is humbling.
As I just stated in my previous post to you, I see a lot of my wife in your wife, and a lot of ME in YOU. Despite my hard-ass personae on here, I was always very much a classic fixer/pleaser/rescuer/"Mr. Nice Guy" in real life, and adding these new decisive and boundary-setting tools to my toolbelt did NOT come easy. They STILL don't, nearly 6 years post-bomb and post-reconciliation!
Trust me, you will FULLY need all of the "softer" skillset tools before this thing is over. You just have to keep most of them in your toolbelt for now. Not all, but most.
You can do this. And the good news? The new skills you pick up along the way will improve other areas of your life dramatically.
