My belief is that my W wants to see more consistent change before she takes the risk of jumping back into the M. She has brought up a lot of issues of which I knew nothing about. She confided that she spoke with an attorney two years ago about divorce but never went through with it
This statement bothers me. She denies her affair, gets to continue it, and will only want back into the marriage if YOU continue your changes (Super-husband/trained-seal act). The mature way to handle this is to see a marriage counselor and lay it on the table. The wrong way is to have an affair, deny it, put you though hell, and then demand change before changing her mind. How do you plan to handle the denial of an affair? How long do you need to keep your changes up? Forever? Good luck with that. When there are other things she doesn't like in the future (which inevitably she will, since you are a flawed human, like the rest of us) will she go to a counselor or choose to get involved in another affair which she won't tell you about?
Your wife handles problems by unilaterally choosing to pull out of the marriage and have affairs. When is HER behavior/attitude change going to come into this? Unless she SERIOUSLY owns up to the pain she's caused you, admits her affair and asks for your forgiveness, and has an "aha" moment when she realizes she needs to take 50% of the responsibility for working through your marriage issues, this isn't going to work.
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What is she afraid of losing...she has said that she is afraid of losing me and our family. in fact, yesterday she said that her biggest fear is that I move on, meet someone else and continue to do the good things that I have been doing lately.
She's not afraid of losing you. She doesn't want you as you are. She's afraid of losing the guy you haven't become yet. She's waiting to see what kind of super-husband/trained-seal you can become. She's afraid that you might turn out to be an emotional/relational/sexual winning lottery ticket. Shodan, she has to be afraid of losing you as you are now and afraid of putting your kids through a divorce. What I see is you are the only one really afraid here. And you're scrambling furiously to be the kind of guy your wife doesn't want to lose.
Then you said:
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but she also admitted that she fears recommitting to the M and that I go back to my old ways.
Guess what, Shodan. You will go back to your old ways. All of us think our changes are permanent. We SWEAR we'll never slip back. We all eventually do. This doesn't mean that you can never change, or that, in a relationship with someone who is committed to your marriage, you can't compromise, fill their love bucket, speak their love language, etc. But right now, your marriage's survival is predicated on YOU keeping up this impossible game of walking on eggshells, self-improving, GAL-ing, and being hyper-tuned into your wife's needs. It will always be a game of, "Shodan, what have you done for me lately?" How long can you live your life like that? And let's assume she wants back in. Can you REALLY keep this up? How will you be able to live with your wife's denial of her affair and refusing to deal with it? How will you ever know she's stopped? Are you prepared to check on her for the rest of your married life? The affair is the elephant in the room and she's lying to you about it.
There are two guys on the DB boards who were the expert coaches on how to save your marriage. We all turned to them for advice. I spoke with both of them on the phone multiple times. Much like Starsky, they were revered as guys who beat the odds. But unlike Starsky, their marriage was saved much the way yours seemed to be being saved: they went on a furious GAL program and did tons of 180's and LRT. They became the better option. And yes, their wives wanted back into the marriage. And yes, we all cheered their victories. Two-Three years later, they were both divorced. What happened? Well, for one, their wives never changed. It was all about their husband's becoming better people. Both of their wives went into counseling and even apologized for their affairs. But both of the apologies were perfunctory and not heart-felt. Second, their husbands (our heroes) eventually slipped back into old behavior. They could only be super-husbands for so long. Third, their wives were never faced with the REAL possibility of losing their husbands the first go-around. Their husbands never showed back-bone or resolve, and somewhere their wives lost respect for them. In they end both set of walk-away-wives got into a new set of affairs and divorced their divorce-busting husbands. One of these guys tried to do GAL-ing and 180's again, but his wife didn't buy it and didn't want to be married to a less-than-perfect husband. The other guy went off the deep end and his life was shattered (lost his house, etc.)
Starsky went about it differently wit more resolve up front, and he's still married. Have a heart-to-heart with him. Please do this.
I strongly suggest you go the Chump Lady site and look at some of the articles on "The Humiliating Dance of Pick Me" and the "Unified Theory of Cake". It's hilarious. It may not change your mind, but it may offer a sobering and Starky-esque perspective.
