Struggling and need help

[CharlieBrown]

Nauseated ...

[JBolt]

If there is one thing I have learned in the last 6 months, it is how to let myself vomit; don't fight it and get it over with. Not a good or happy thing to learn mind you, but I've lost 68 pounds (doesn't happen daily anymore, but man the stress of all this took its toll last year).

okay, that has to be the most bizarre thing I've ever posted on the internet.

[Verum]

Steps I have taken:

1. I have been spending a lot more time at home, taking the kids to practice, helping around the house, walking the dog with her, etc. But, our fun time has mostly had other friends around. Wednesday she suggested going out to dinner as a couple only and I was looking forward to it, then yesterday she emailed that she had a new recipe to try...
2. Therapy, as described above. We have weekly appointments set for the next few weeks already.
3. Snooping. I know this is a dangerous activity, but I feel so alone and in the dark that I have been. She has been very protective of her phone, so either she suspects I am looking at it or there is more on there that she is deleting.
4. I have tried to focus a lot on the kids.
5. Even before the talk, I had started watching my diet and not drinking if she wasn't, plus working out. I am ideally 205, but am usually 210 +/- 5 lbs. I had reached 229 in January, and am back to 213 this morning.
6. I haven't talked to any family, and few friends. The only friends are husbands of wives where we are close friends with couple. I feel like a failure and am embarrassed, plus I don't want things to be weird with friends and family once we work through it. But, I suspect she has talked to more.
7. I have subsribed to Mort Fertel's marriage max daily feed and as a result have:
a. Got her a nice card for Easter.
b. Put a card in her car last week telling her I loved her.
c. Bought her a small gift - $7 Brewer earrings, that reflected I had been paying attention when we were shopping the weekend before.
d. Gave her another card yesterday.

8. I have been texting and emailing her daily to see how her day is going and volunteer something else in terms of my day. Sometimes she responds positively, othertimes, crickets.
9. I am about halfway through Gottman's Seven Secrets book. Great book. She said she will read a book that our therapist recommends, but wants to wait (he recommended this one for me).

How am I doing?

A lot of this seems like pursuit behavior, which you don't want to do with a MLC. In newcomer's see Sandi's 37 rules.

[CharlieBrown]

Great session with MC today and wonderful night after. Will post more tomorrow but tonight will be my first good night of sleep in a month.

[TSquared2]

Yay!! So glad to hear that CB! Until tomorrow...
T^2

[makingmagic]

enjoy your zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz's! Nothing like a good night's sleep.

[reachingHigher]

Great session with MC today and wonderful night after

glad to hear this good news!

Let us know how it went
rH

[mrtwopointfour]

3. Snooping. I know this is a dangerous activity, but I feel so alone and in the dark that I have been. She has been very protective of her phone, so either she suspects I am looking at it or there is more on there that she is deleting.

From this above quote it sounds like you are making an extra effort to snoop?

DON'T DO THIS. YOU WILL ONLY FIND OUT THINGS YOU DO NOT WANT TO KNOW RIGHT NOW. AND IT WILL NOT HELP!!!

I started this behaviour, and became obsessed. I tracked W when she went away, and found she stayed somewhere different to where she said she was going. It killed me to know, and it killed me that I could not ask to find out any more (well i could have done, but I am pretty sure this would have pushed W out of door). To this day I assume she was with OM. However, it could have been innocent - for now I have to forget about it. My take right now is, as long as kids are ok, my finances are ok, and OM is not effecting my or kids day to day life there is nothing i can do about it, and will just assume thats the decision W has made - in some ways it makes her the weaker person in my eyes, and as cruel as it seems i feel like a better person in a better place than she is. If W decides she wants back in, then I will raise this as something i know, and take it from there.

So my point is, yes you will find out more, but do you want to know? How will it help you. If you found something out would it change the way you think? Or will it just eat you up inside like it has me?

As for her protecting her phone. My I discussed with my W, she said it was because she used it to talk to friends about US. Thats fair. I use mine for that too and would not want W to see it!

[mrtwopointfour]

Of course I have just noticed this is a way back in your thread so now i feel like i have jumped in when you could have already stopped this!!! Whoops!

[CharlieBrown]

I have gotten much better at it, but still slip once and a while. I understand your point about not wanting to know, but for me it wasn't about catching her in the act, it was about trying to understand. The snooping involved reading her text exchanges to her closest friend, who she has a history of talking to about very personal things that she doesn't open up to me about, plus she was with her a lot in the two weeks before she came to talk to me, while I was out of town. Also, looking at her friends and likes on FB, and Googling the unfamiliar ones (that is how I pieced together the Likes and Comments she made to tattoo-boy, by going on his FB and Twitt).I was just hoping for an insight, but I know it was wrong and I need to respect her space. If for no other reason, because I wouldn't like it. Plus, you are right, it becomes a non-productive distraction and obsessions.