Time for the Loop the Loop on this rollercoaster!

[SM34]

Firstly, Sandi thank you so SO much for your insight. I definitely to need to work on some passion in many ways. You will see what I mean in the posts I am about to write. And I will address your questions and update you on spontaneous fun things i come up with for us to do.

Starsky and MrBond yes you are right. I took time off from the forum to think about who I want to be, and to practice humility. I came back with a fresh mentality to turn a new page. and I wrote several posts to update everyone on what has happened.

I was really trying hard to practice being the person I want to be. Understanding, caring, humble etc.. and I was doing pretty well. I kept quiet about the moderation thinking the mods will remove it once I demonstrate I am a worthy member of this community.

But after many posts at a critical time in my sitch, and repeated pleading with the mods to read my post and maybe respond as to why I am on modetation. I started getting frustrated...a definite back slide from the 3 weeks work I did on my own to work on those characteristics.

I wrote an email to virginia requesting removal of moderation and perhaps an explanation as to what I did wrong so I dont repeat it. I got an automated response that she is on vacation until the 15th.

I forwarded my email to karen hoping for some help, but I as informed I had to wait for Virginia. So first thing this morning, the 17th, I wrote Virginia another email requesting assistance with this matter, and still got no response. I let me frustration get the better of me! Although I dont think I was wrong for stating that a persons life experience with the divoce of their parents influences their choices later in life (A view MWD shares), I do regret exhibiting frustration and being "in your face about it". I apologize if I sounded like I was teaching you all a lesson. The truth is, the more time passes the more I understand that you all have knowlege about relationship issues that is far superior to mine, and I am in debted to all of you for the help I have been given.

Starsky and Mr Bond, today I found out something that has COMPLETELY changed my view on my sitch. It has shed light on why 4months of 180s have done nothing to help my sitch. Also, it goes along with the view that I see both of you posting repeatedly on all the guys threads about how a wifes love for a husband is directly tied to her respect for her husband.

So my next post will detail the new revelation, lets see how you all think I should proceed.

[SM34]

So the latest...

From the start of my sitch, i have been focused on the things that my wife spewed out during BD. Things like I don't finish projects arond the house, I don't dress like a business man, I come home too late from work, I don't pursue her sexually etc... And there is definitely some truth to ALL of these. But I was never satisfied with those being the reasons for my wife wanting out of our marriage.

Sandi said it best in her last post. She said why am I focused on goof interactions with my wife now, when it is obvious that we always had good interactions. So basically we dont have issues with fighting, or cursing at each other, or disrespecting each other, or any of those common issues that can benefit from a 180.

I was focused on the sexual side of the sitch, but even then I stated several times that we made love at least once or twice a week so again, this was probably not enough to leave an otherwise perfect marriage over (although I am sure she wants more sex and more pursueing, and I am not negating that things need to change in that respect for her to feel good about reconcilliation).

However, I know my wife, and she is not petty. I was never satisfied that those were the reasons. We have an AWESOME friendship that many couples would be envious of, and a genuine care for each other. Something else was going on...

Now you probably all remember several things that perhaps didn't make sense to you, and actually didnt make so much sense to me either.

1) I felt like I needed to expand my business in order to make more money, even if that may result in me working more, which was AGAINST one of the excuses my wife gave me for wanting to leave.

2) When the subject of GAL come up, I kept on gravitating towards trying to join the local chamber of commerce, or any small business groups so I can mingle with other business owners. Several of you told me to just GAL by doing something novel and fun, and put work aside for now.

3) I started reading the MBA book that my wife had gotten me. I wanted to learn more about how to be a successful business man. Actually my wife had gotten me this book AFTER BD.

4) We established one time that we thought that my wife's actions were a cry for help. That she wants to feel good about the marriage, and she wants to love me. But she also wants to be happy. OM is a loser and she knows it, so there must be something else going on in her head, and she needs a distraction from it.

I snooped on her FB messages a long time ago but it was with a focus on what she was saying to OM and trying to figure out the appeal that OM has. After finding no appeal that made sense, I dropped that.

Well, after all the weird stuff she has been saying to her best friend that didn't seem to add up, the session I had with HER therapist where she confirmed my wife never said she was unhappy in our marriage, something just didnt add up.

So tonight she is at OM's and she left her ipad with FB logged in. So I went really far back in her message and msot messages to her friends included the same cover up stories but with different twists. We only made love twice a month (huge re write of history), he comes from a different culture so that is becoming a problem (I was raised in a western community foreign to thaf of my family of origin), yadda yadda, all the cover up excuses you have heard me list. But where is the part where she lost respect for me?

So I looked at conversations with a good christian married guy friend who doesn;t know me. I went back and read the messages from a few days before BD. And there is was.... the ONLY message I have ever seen that pre dates the affair and so has my wife talking with complete sanity and clarity. No affair fog, no cover up excuses to justify her affair, no cover ups to not hurt my feelings... just the honest, educated truth!

So the nest post I am going to type WORD FOR WORD what the message says.....

[SM34]

Message to a Friend:

Hey I really need your advice. I've been wanting to talk to you for a few weeks because i dont want to talk to go to any of my friends that know husband out of respect for him. I'm really losing faith in my husband as a businessman and I know that is a really sh*tty thing to say as a wife. Believe me its a really sh*tty feeling to have also. He tells me how hard he works and how its just not getting him anywhere and i just sit there silently. I've told him so many times that there's a difference betweem working hard and working smart and I'm pissed about that fact that he didnt get a tv commercial on TV years agowhich would have created barrier of entry for all those little competitors opening up everywhere. It also would have enabled him to get a better location in a much better area of town. Google maps his main store and you will see what I'm talking about.

This seems so f'ing obvious to me and to watch him sit there and scratch his head like hs doesn't know whats going on just strains my respect for him and again I feel awful even articulating that to anybody. But I look at where I want our family to be in the future and I just dont see how we are going to get there at this pace.

Obviously I realize I dont contribute financially, but me being a stay at home mom was his idea and he doesn't realize what a huge leap of faith it was for me to trust him to be the sole provider. This is exactly the situation I was raised to worry about. Now I'm having panic attacks I'm going to see a psychiatrist, she put me on an antidepressant...I dont know what else to say to him and what good could anything I have to say possibly do?? He's not a businessman, and irs not like I can pull a reset button out of my ass for him to pick a different profession as much as I wish I could.

Anyway, I just wanted to get your perspective on it....

SOME OF THE BACK AND FORTHS AFTER THAT:

Guy: Most importantly, is it only about the business?
Wife: Yes, I love him, I dont want to leave him. I NEED him to be a better provider though.

Guy: What is holding you back from being more active in the business?

Wife: Our daughter cant stay in day care more than a few hours a day because they cant handle her.

Guy: If he cant step up, he needs to get a partner that can.

Wife: Well his brother has been helping him. hes just all over the place and doesnt focus. I need to get him Adederol or something lol But why do "I" have to be the one to save us when he doesn't even buy in to my way of doing things.??

Guy: Because he is not capable of it. You want an Alpha and you got a Beta. Its not a bad thing. he probably has great ideas. Implementation is not his thing. Hes not a one man show, he needs help. He should listen to you.. I bet you are the smartest person he knows.

Wife: He used to be Alpha and then something happened when we got married..lol

Guy: You neutered him?

Wife: In his mind I became his mother.


THIS IS ALL 10 DAYS BEFORE BD. Then, I remember a few days after BD, I was absorbed with reading relationship stuff on my phone all the time. So one day, she came over to me with the MBA book she had bought for me (which I had stopped reading in favor of relationship stuff) and she said, why dont you get off your phone and read the book i got you.

When I announced to her I was purchasing a new store on the nice side of town that she always thought I should be in, things started to warm. I was relating it to my DBing but now I think she is having some hope again.

That is why she has been asking me hows work going, and offering to help me again. the other day she signed my business up for Angies list, and also Groupon to run specials on. But she is on the fence, and still seeing OM for the thrill.

Another conversation in her FB chat was from just 4 hours ago (while she is at Oms). She is talking to a guy who is a friend of both of us. he is a good guy and has been going along with what she says she wants, but also playing devils advocate a little.

he said to her, so you and husband dont ML?
Wife: No. Its not like that anymore
Guy: So no attraction? nothing?
Wife: Oh no, there is DEFINITELY attraction, I'm just with someone else now.

======================================================


So what do I make of this? has made my 180s completely different. Some of the stuff of course is her point of you....like her knowing exactly what it takes to turn my business around...sure she does, but she has no answer for where we get the money to do it... so she's not very realistic.

Plus if I was never a business man, how come and 24 years old I was making 6 fgiures and was the most successful boyfriend in all her crew? She doesn't see that the economy hit us badly, and also I listened to her and borrowed too much to have an extragavant wedding, and redesign our house to make it very VERY nice, and also borrow 30k for her to go to school. also, me wanting her to be a stay at home mom....sure, Our daughter is three, plus the pregnancy time so a total of 4 years. What about the 10 years before that when she barely worked?

What kills me is again when people say things to someone who is venting and dont realize how desparate that person may be. This same guy is in a sex starved marriage and his wife "allows" him sex 2 or 3 times a year. But he hasn't left her! He tells my wife your husband is beta and you want an alpha, and you cant change him, he is juts not cut out for business, he needs a partner etc... and she bails on me.

What now?

I have been working diligently on business not for her, but becauase I feel like now I am solely responsible for D3. However, it would seem that is why she is warming up to me, and we seem to be REALLY close but just not sexual because there is this other guy. (Who has no job in 4 months, and is a high school drop out).

Suggestions?

[SM34]

Bump

[MrBond]

All your "revelation" shows is that you haven't been paying attention to what people have been telling you.

For one thing, 4 months of doing 180s without seeing any changes is not a big deal. Remember I had 3 years of very short answers with my W until she actually started opening up.

Second, you analysis of your W wanting you to step up to increase business and how she finds you attractive, etc. is just BS. If that was the case she wouldn't be with an unemployed guy and having sex with him.

When are you going to start understanding that there is no "logical" way to think of this? There is no definite solution. Sometimes it really does take time.

The only thing you haven't done differently is kick her out and lay down a boundary. She blames you for alot of things but never understands that her "job" is to support you no matter what your decisions are. And not to bad mouth you to someone else.

[SM34]

Thank you for your.opinions. Much appreciated!

ready for bed. Glad they caught the bad guys in bpston.

[sandi2]

Sm, I'm not buying it. I don't believe for a minute that she wrote it. B/c it is "you" I hear in those messages! It nearly repeats word for word what you've said in past posts!

[SM34]

Mrbond, I realize it takes time. I am being patient.

Sandi, I wish I was making it up. It sounds like things I have qritten before because my gut was telling me those were the reasons.

There have been many things I have been accused of, but never fabricating stories. Why would I do that anyway? I am here to seek help and how can I get help if I make up stuff?

you know that Dr Harley lists 'financial needs' as an important emotional need for women? OM is just a vessel to help her gain self esteem, we have established that already here in my threads. He is telling her what she wants to hear as far as her looks go. Remember all of you were saying she wont be with him long, and asking me what I tgought of the idea of OM2?

I swear on my little girls life that those,messages are word for word what she typed. My daughter is the only precious thing I have in my life right now, and I would NEVER swear on her life if it wasnt true!

Sandi I know it is hard to.believe. Like I have said before, everyone who knows me thinks I am destined for big things. I was top of my class, I was a dual major in college and one of the youngest engineering grads in my class. I owned my own business at 21, bought a house, two fancy cars, went on expensive vacations etc...

My wife had placed a huge bet on me back in college. I was smart,.funny,.and popular. all her friends and family liked me. But simewhere along the lines I assumed the fatherly role and I was now responsible for her hapiness.

Witg my ex partners drug addiction, and my business going south causes by the economy, I started to lose faith in myself. I was not supposed to steuggle financial (that'd what I thought to myself). And I guess it showed how scared and helpless I felt in the last few years. Those are not atteactive qualities in a man!

Its not that we have struggled financially that has made my wife lose respect for me. She is not a gold digger, as we see by hee choice of OM. Its the fact that I lost faith in myself. I have gone through the motions of business ownership for a few years now, feeling a lot of dispair. THAT, is what is not attractive! When the going gets tough, the tough get going.....and a,woman needs to know her man is fearless.

Also, she has always felt like I dont listen to her and take her.opinions in business matters. To me it is because she is smart, but has no business experience and so concepts like 'scarcity of resources' are foreign to her.

In any case, whether my wife stays or goes, I need to succeed in my business. I need to get back to wherw I was financialky, where I should be. A lot is riding on my success, and I feel better about myself when I am doing well.

New store location is going okay, but still needs a lot if work to become profitable. I am a determined person and I WILL pull through this...wife or no wife.

[MrBond]

"Mrbond, I realize it takes time. I am being patient."

That wasn't my point. It's not so much you being impatient. You are still trying to find the main reasons that she left you when there may not even be one. You're still looking at it too logically. I'm sure the financial issue may have played a part of it, but it wasn't the main reason.

"you know that Dr Harley lists 'financial needs' as an important emotional need for women?"

Yes, but it's not an "emotional" need. It's the need to feel secure in their environment. Finances is just a part of it.

"I swear on my little girls life that those,messages are word for word what she typed."

Don't ever say something like that again. Sounds creepy.

"Also, she has always felt like I dont listen to her and take her.opinions in business matters."

BINGO! This IS the reason why she left you. Not just because of business matters, but in all matters it seems. Look at how you are on here. People give you advice that you ask for, but you don't listen and don't seem to take some opinions kindly. And that made many people drop out of your situation. Can't you see that's why your W dropped out of your M?

"To me it is because she is smart, but has no business experience and so concepts like 'scarcity of resources' are foreign to her."

See? This is EXACTLY how you talk to people on the board. And what turned everyone off is that it makes it sound like you're superior than everyone else. Just because they aren't YOU doesn't mean that people don't "get it".

Re-read that part again. That is the reason why you turn your W and many people on here off.

[AnotherStander]

All your "revelation" shows is that you haven't been paying attention to what people have been telling you.

For one thing, 4 months of doing 180s without seeing any changes is not a big deal. Remember I had 3 years of very short answers with my W until she actually started opening up.

Second, you analysis of your W wanting you to step up to increase business and how she finds you attractive, etc. is just BS. If that was the case she wouldn't be with an unemployed guy and having sex with him.

When are you going to start understanding that there is no "logical" way to think of this? There is no definite solution. Sometimes it really does take time.

The only thing you haven't done differently is kick her out and lay down a boundary. She blames you for alot of things but never understands that her "job" is to support you no matter what your decisions are. And not to bad mouth you to someone else.

SM, read this ^^^, then read it again, then again and again for good measure (especially the first line). I am simply astonished that here you are, almost 5 months from your first post, still looking for that "AHA" smoking gun moment that will explain away everything in your sitch. There is no single thing that landed you in your sitch and no single thing that will allow you to snap your fingers and get out of it. You really need to break out of this pattern of "more of the same" behavior that you've engaged in since the beginning!