Just my opinion, but I agree with your thought of maintaining your course of D as it is. Right now your wife is cake eating, as you seem to understand, and she will continue to do so while watching what you do. You have set a boundary, and must stick with it until she really goes NC and agrees to create a new marriage with you.
The OM sounds like a creep and it will not work out for long with your W, if she try's to make a go with him. When (not if) it crashes and burns, I'll bet she'll be back at your doorstep asking for you to take her back. I suggest one of your conditions for R is that she quits real estate.
Good luck to you, you seem like a decent guy. 40 seems like a magic number for affairs to start.......
I was following your story on another forum and your situation has been particularly heartbreaking. I think you have kind of glossed over just how horribly your wife has been treating you on in your posts on this site.
I think DB and the 180 will be very good for you to emotionally detach, regain your center, rebuild and move on. However, I would humbly suggest you not look for strategies to reconcile with your wife from this or any other approach right now - she is a cake-eater of the highest order, completely devoid of any real empathy for you, and nothing you do can change that. You need to protect yourself and your kids. She is clearly in a state of limerance/fog right now. As painful as it is, I think pushing the divorce forward as quickly as possible and trying to maximize custody by documenting your position in recent years as primary child care provider and the only stable parent will put you and your kids in the best position possible in the future. I would bet your wife will never snap out of it until well after you are no longer an option.
Well that is a pretty brutal story. It reads like you have been a good husband, communicated when you needed to, etc. I think in general folks on DB are quick to tell you that you weren't meeting your spouse's needs, or there was something "wrong" with what you were doing in the marriage that lead to this, and that is always a great place to start looking and good soul searching to do. It's not always the case however, sometimes you didn't do anything wrong and you can still get cheated on.
That said, no one is perfect, so it does bear doing the introspection and determine if there is anything about you that needs to change to make your future relationships (with or without your wife) as affair-proof as they can be.
Following your story, your W went into real estate, which is a highly "social" profession. The business really runs on referrals, so it's important to spend time building relationships and getting people to like you. My MiL was a mortgage broker and had an affair with a realtor. The whole realtor / mortgage agent / real estate lawyer ecosystem seems to thrive on wining, dining and socializing in order to build the referral network. There's at least one other person I'm aware of on the boards whose wife is a realtor and had an affair with another realtor.
If your W was also hitting some kind of MLC point in her life, then you had a perfect storm brewing of opportunities to court validation and affirmation outside of the marriage outside of a regular workplace. I agree that getting back on track may well require her to change careers for some period of time until you have mutually re-established trust.
I think what to do next depends a lot upon what you want. When a WAS initially leaves a panicked LBS tends to think that the WAS returning "will make everything all better", but the reality is that the return of the WAS is just the starting line for the next period of struggle and hard work. If your wife returns but remains uncommitted or checked out, I guarantee you a life of misery.
Relationships need balance to survive, which is to say that each party needs to "want it" to roughly the same degree. If she comes home reluctant, your M will be out of balance, and she will do as she pleases or threaten to leave you when things don't go her way. She'll know you want it more, and that will impact how you relate going forward. When the WAS comes back for the safety net, or as a second choice, and is not willing to do the work to make the marriage better, I think you're better off if they didn't come back at all, because you are just prolonging an inevitable destruction.
That said, I do think it's worth it to play hard ball. The steps are as follows:
(1) Determine what YOU want: What do you want in terms of a recovery and reconciliation plan? What does a longer term marriage look like that makes you happy and satisfied? Spend some time figuring that out for yourself.
(2) Communicate your needs to W: "W, I believe in marriage, and I would like to save ours from dissolution. I'm willing to do the work to make things better between us and deliver a relationship that will make you satisfied. I will not, however, be disrespected or do it alone. If you want to re-engage with me, we will need to work together to improve things between us. I'm not telling you what to do, you can do whatever you want to do. If you want to start a new relationship with me, I will have some requirements."
(3) Create and Enforce Personal Boundaries: W, I will not be in an open marriage. If you persist in seeing OM, I would like you to move out. If she will not move out, resolve that you will limit your interactions, separate your finances, etc. etc. Definitely don't stand for or enable cake-eating.
WRT your filing, as long as she is involved with OM, or even still in contact with OM, she's very unlikely to take any action to make things better between you. Therefore, if she's still with or seeing OM, and you proceed with your divorce filing, you are likely to end up divorced.
That can be a fine long term approach, as the best way to get your spouse to re-engage as equals is to first completely "drop the rope" and let them go. That said, finalizing a divorce is expensive and comes with some structure and rigidity regarding custody and finances that can be very inconvenient.
One strategy might be to suspend the divorce proceeding without telling W and wait out the affair while pulling back on any behaviors that would enable cake eating.
Once OM is gone and W no longer has a back stop, that's when I would put the divorce proceedings back on track if you're not seeing any re-engagement and feel stuck in limbo.
Good luck!
Acc
Married 18, Together 20, Now Divorced M: 48, W: 50, D: 18, S: 16, D: 12 Bomb Dropped (EA, D): 7/13/11 Start Reconcile: 8/15/11 Bomb Dropped (EA, D): 5/1/2014 (Divorced) In a New Relationship: 3/2015
Well I lost my patience after trying to do the 180 for a couple weeks. Since my wife got served the D papers, she has gone out at night almost every night returning at 11pm-12midnight. The last 6 nights, she went out 5 of them. I finally had to say something to her which was basically "it's not good for our kids, don't forget you are still a mother". She got all defensive, saying it was all work related and she is just busy right now. But she admits some of the days were just drinking with co-workers and a party with friends. The other days I am reasonably sure she met the OM after her client meetings (if there even really were mtgs). Who stays out with clients on weekdays til 11-12midnight?
I finally asked her how she feels about my filing for divorce. She said she is worried about divorce. Then we get into an long argument. She denies the affair is still ongoing. I ask her to show me her 2nd cell phone bill to prove that. Or just admit that the affair is still ongoing which is why she is still on the fence. I said I can understand her indecision if the affair is still active. But I say I can't stand the repeated lying. Her response to me was lets just get a divorce then. She refuses to do either of the things I ask. I have a sense that she doesn't want it to look like the marriage is ending because of the affair. That is why she is unwilling to do either of the things above (because both will show the affair is ongoing). But I tell her the reason I filed is because I think the affair is ongoing and she is lying about it. And that is my boundary.
So I really feel like I can't back down now. My wife maybe trying to bluff me. Or maybe she really decided divorce is what she wants. I really can't understand what she is thinking. I will continue the 180 and go very dim/dark on her.
I'm now having doubts if I even want to be still married to her. I definitely made mistakes before and after D-day. But I put way more effort into the marriage prior to the affair. And even after the affair, I've made all the effort to try and fix the situation. If I think this is the way its going to be even if we do try to reconcile, and maybe after, it's not very appealing to me. Maybe I should cut my losses and just go through with the divorce.
. So after getting DB and reading alot of this website, I changed my plan. I stopped talking about our marriage, the affair, trying to reconcile. I stopped showing anger. And I stopped pressuring my wife. I basically am just trying to be the nice guy
This is great!
As hard it will be, you have to stop putting your energy into the OM. Focus on you and what you need and want to change about you. Stop talking with OM W.
M46,W41 D16,D18 M22,T25 BD 11/12 W moved out 01/13 Piecing 10/13 Divorced 01/15 "Whether you worry or not has no affect on the outcome. But, moving forward, letting go, and making changes can." UrWorthy
Well I lost my patience after trying to do the 180 for a couple weeks. Since my wife got served the D papers, she has gone out at night almost every night returning at 11pm-12midnight. The last 6 nights, she went out 5 of them. I finally had to say something to her which was basically "it's not good for our kids, don't forget you are still a mother". She got all defensive, saying it was all work related and she is just busy right now. But she admits some of the days were just drinking with co-workers and a party with friends. The other days I am reasonably sure she met the OM after her client meetings (if there even really were mtgs). Who stays out with clients on weekdays til 11-12midnight?
I finally asked her how she feels about my filing for divorce. She said she is worried about divorce. Then we get into an long argument. She denies the affair is still ongoing. I ask her to show me her 2nd cell phone bill to prove that. Or just admit that the affair is still ongoing which is why she is still on the fence. I said I can understand her indecision if the affair is still active. But I say I can't stand the repeated lying. Her response to me was lets just get a divorce then. She refuses to do either of the things I ask. I have a sense that she doesn't want it to look like the marriage is ending because of the affair. That is why she is unwilling to do either of the things above (because both will show the affair is ongoing). But I tell her the reason I filed is because I think the affair is ongoing and she is lying about it. And that is my boundary.
So I really feel like I can't back down now. My wife maybe trying to bluff me. Or maybe she really decided divorce is what she wants. I really can't understand what she is thinking. I will continue the 180 and go very dim/dark on her.
I'm now having doubts if I even want to be still married to her. I definitely made mistakes before and after D-day. But I put way more effort into the marriage prior to the affair. And even after the affair, I've made all the effort to try and fix the situation. If I think this is the way its going to be even if we do try to reconcile, and maybe after, it's not very appealing to me. Maybe I should cut my losses and just go through with the divorce.
1. Breathe 2. Implement the 48 hour rule or something similar. Don’t make any decisions or say anything to your W until 48 hours have passed. 3. Keep trying to not worry or fix the A. Doesn’t matter if it is happening or not right now. You can only control you. 4. GAL You are going to have changes in what you feel and want weekly, daily, and hourly. Please make sure you have read DB, I prefer DR and read and follow: Sandi's Rules
You can do this.
M46,W41 D16,D18 M22,T25 BD 11/12 W moved out 01/13 Piecing 10/13 Divorced 01/15 "Whether you worry or not has no affect on the outcome. But, moving forward, letting go, and making changes can." UrWorthy
