"I try and fail to keep myself from thinking about all the new experiences and memories they are and have been and will be sharing and building together."
Actually, it may be no bad thing for your sitch that they are spending so much time together. The more time they spend together, the more time there is to get to know the 'real' person. This is dangerous in A's, which thrive on 'fantasy' - so to be with someone when they are being bugged by their mother, or chewing their food noisily etc. is no bad thing.
In the meantime, do use the gift of time that these absences give you. Don't make that time about worrying over your W and what memories may be being built, make it all about you and building new habits and memories in your own life.....
T 13 M 7 Me 48 H 46 SS 15 BD 7.14 PA D final 5.16 (H filed)
We receive & we lose, and must try to achieve gratitude & embrace with whole hearts whatever of life that remains after the losses - Dubus
Yes, I am trying to make the most of the time (currently sitting in a Panera, using its wifi to job-hunt).
I just read some excellent advisements to the newcoming LBH (me) and, from them, realized that of course my WAW has no interest in "fixing" what had gone wrong in our relationship. And yet she is still willing to come with me to MC.
What would you recommend we talk about in MC? I don't want to abandon MC as long as she's coming to it, but if it's focused on something she doesn't care the slightest bit about, surely she will start thinking of it as a waste of her time and start suggesting that I should go by myself..?
...and tonight I learn the futility of having a boundary with no consequence. I had asked her to please not leave me alone overnight (again), and she had agreed. But tonight she texts me with the expectation that she will not make it home tonight (she's "still going" and having too good a time).
And so far her A has had absolutely no consequence to her. If it weren't such an awful idea I'd be tempted to out her and the OM on Facebook as having been in this A since last November. As it is, she and I promised the MC last Tuesday not to discuss anything D or R for two months-- which is fine for giving me the opportunity to job-hunt, but just atrocious when it comes to dealing with these lonely, lonely nights and yet another broken promise from her. But she doesn't care; as sandi pointed out in the WW post, all she cares about is how she feels right now.
I had the inspiration to look at Meetup and see what's going on around town. It looks as though I'll be able to keep myself busy every night of the week next week with some fun stuff, and I'll find out soon enough if I crash and burn due to having to do it by myself.
Sadpand, I have posted information about a wayward wife in an A. I started that thread with you and other newcomer H's who come here in total confusion about their W and her actions. You don't know which direction to take, right? I hope you will read it and that it may enlighten you. I plan to add more information as we go. Here's the link:
Sadpand. I'm terribly sorry about what just happened. Look around you, you are not alone, we have all been there.
Boundaries aren't about making other people different. They are about getting you to be different. People in fact, do not have to agree or like your boundaries. Don't argue with them on that.
Asking someone not to leave you for the night would be getting someone to do something isn't it? It's quite direct and I wouldn't call that a boundary.
Thank you Sandi for that post. I bookmarked it and named the bookmark "Read this every day."
Regarding boundaries.. of course that's not a boundary, is it. If it were a boundary then it would be something like "I don't want a relationship in which W disappears overnight, and if she does then I will X." But my statement to her is a request, there is no consequence, so it is therefore not a boundary. I think I understand the difference.
So meetup.com has interesting activities for me to head to on each night of the week next week. So as long as I persist in my job hunt during the day (making that my "day job") then I can give myself the nights off and not be home at all, regardless of whether she's at home or with him. Perhaps she will take my absence as her cue to go be with him. Or not. I'll be busy.
W actually did get in last night at 3am-- 13 hours with OM, although not entirely overnight. This morning, before I left for a meeting, she was all sweetness and light.. let me hug you good morning, let me tell you about something funny online, let me make you a cup of coffee, let me pat you friendly-like on the head, here's a stone I picked up on the beach for you while I was with OM. I accepted these tokens with bemusement, and did not return them; however, for a moment I was befuddled into actually trying to tell her something about my job hunt yesterday. Of course the moment I started saying something about myself POP she zoned right out.
Okay, I'm really not sure what to make of this. Maybe someone here will have an insight.
Today I returned home expecting to find the car (W had said she'd leave it for me to use) so that I could go to the library and get DR. The car wasn't there. I texted W, and she said she was half an hour distant but would bring it by. I said okay, even though it was cutting it close, as it would give me only 10 minutes to get to the library (I didn't tell her why I wanted to go, and she didn't ask).
She arrived with the car-- and the OM was right there in the passenger seat. They both got out and I leapt into the driver's seat and peeled out, willfully ignoring the OM's attempt to say hello (If you can't say anything nice...).
I did get there juuuuuuust in time (they locked the doors just after I walked in) and, having secured DR, read it from cover to cover before she got home from his place (today they spent 14 hours together).
So once she sees me again, she asks "Were you angry?" I say no, and she immediately asks why I didn't say anything to the OM. "What would I have said to him?" I return. "Well.. 'hi'," she says. I reply with a noncommittal "huh." After a moment, she says "He was really upset for about half an hour afterward. I explained to him that you were just really stressed out about wanting to get to the library before it closed. That's what it was, wasn't it?"
I replied, truthfully, that I had been stressed, and that I had not been angry in that moment. She clearly recognized that there was something I wasn't saying, but she let the matter drop (as I changed the subject).
I'm somewhat baffled by both of their responses. How could he possibly expect me to be pleasant and cordial to him-- a man who is gleefully, blatantly having an affair with my wife? Why would she think that I'd want to address him with anything other than vituperative bile? Maybe I'm being a little *too* good with the 180 in masking my disgust for their behavior. Or.. I have had zero contact with the OM since a week before they stopped bothering to hide the A, so he has had no insight into my thoughts and feelings other than what she has told him. She has told him that we're "definitely getting divorced." She must have convinced him that I am in agreement about D and am therefore perfectly okay with their A and not at all hurt by it. I don't see what other explanation would make sense.
She is openly, publicly rubbing your nose in her A. She has already said you should be fine with her pursuing a PA. She spends 13 hrs with OM, comes home smilingbear to ear, pats H on the head, and she's off to fantasy world again.
Quote:
She arrived with the car-- and the OM was right there in the passenger seat. They both got out and I leapt into the driver's seat and peeled out, willfully ignoring the OM's attempt to say hello (If you can't say anything nice..
Unbelievable! She was more concerned about OM being upset at your rudeness? Wow!
I think she will get more brazen. This type of WW is a level worse, JMHO, b/c she doesn't even care enough about her H's reputation and humiliation to be, at the least, discrete. Instead, she brings OM home with her, flings him in the face of her H........and expects her H to act all friendly with her AP? Affairs are wrong, period, no matter how secretive or public. Just saying.............this calls for some stiff boundaries, b/c she believes (and trying to get you to see) that you should be fine with an open M.
Read the book ASAP.
It is not about what you feel should work in your M. It is about doing the work that gets the right results. Do what works!
I do have DR now, and I will read it again today, for sure. What I'd like to know is how to establish this boundary. I'm not sure what power I have... withdrawal? Unfriendliness? I don't want to see him, I don't want to talk to him, I don't want him flung in my face. What is a desirable way to set that boundary?
This morning she revisited the moment. "I didn't have to bring you the car," she said. "And you just took off without saying hi to me, without saying hi to him. Rude. That was totally rude. It is my car too, you know. And I've essentially given up the condo to you already because I don't spend much time here. When we're divorced you're only going to get one. So which one do you want? The car or the condo?"
I stopped the conversation there. We had established in MC last week that we weren't going to talk about D or R for two months, and as we left the MC office I suggested that we have a code word so that, in case either one of us started harping on D or R, we could say the code word and end it. So I did.
But she has already (re)written the entire episode as yet another example of my awfulness. Our next MC session is tomorrow-- this is the only thing that's really worth talking about (except for discussing her prior observations of how I could improve as a person), and I don't see why she would listen to or care about anything I'd have to say about it.
