Trying to Follow DB & DR

[Miman2]

The semantics of "syndrome" aside (MWD refers to it as such on pg. 39 in DR). I have to disagree with you.

"It was really only after she left and continued to see the OM/OW did it go from being something condoned into an A. "

That's just a matter of perspective.

Is it really a matter of perspective?
Let me try to put it in terms everyone can understand.

Some people trust that their spouse can interact with members of the opposite sex without intercourse being involved.
If intercourse is envolved, then usually that is a betrayal of that trust.
People often give it a label such as an affair, or cheating or whatever.

In the swinging lifestyle there is a code of ethics that most people follow, think of it as "honor amongst thieves" if you will.
One basic assumption is that you and your partner are participating in this because you trust them enough to know that at the end of the night they're coming back home to you.
When they don't and they betray that trust... well I guess you can connect the dots from there.
The only hypocrite now is the one who betrayed the trust.

I don't know about you but I see a theme here. The question is how far do you trust your spouse.

Bottom line is that you willingly introduced other people into an intimacy that should have been reserved for just you and your W. But when you let the others in, your W has no need for you because she can now have that intimacy and have her emotional needs met by other people.

Nope. See above. (Hint the secret word is: TRUST)

The lifestyle did do a lot for our marriage.
Before we got active in it my W could not regularly achieve orgasm, afterwards...
EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
Mostly multiple times at that too.
It brought us closer for a long while. We were going on vacations and making new friends. We laughed and had our good times and our bad. But it worked for us.
I'm not making excuses for what we did or even glorify what we did.
Just trying to give a bit of insight. They say the lifestyle is not for people who are trying to fix their marriage, and that's not what it was for us.

Aside from your swinging, what other issues did you have in your M? You can't change what she's doing, but you can change what you do and what things you did to contribute to your marriage downfall.

Now I can get to the real bottom line. Why was that trust betrayed? My conclusion is that she felt that she had too much responsibility in the M.

We dated for a year before I moved in with her and her parents, my parents kicked me out long story. So while I lived in "not-my-house" I did what I could but most of the chores were handled by the house owners. I helped cook mostly.

When we moved and got our own place, I had a full course load and she was taking just one or two classes. So she took care of the household. Along the way she would say things like "don't worry about it, I enjoy taking care of you". This time our kitchen was smaller and she felt I was in the way, so I got pushed out of there.

Now in our new bigger apartment she still did ALL of the chores, taking care of the pets, cleaning, cooking, laundry. My single sole chore was to load and unload the dish washer, and I didn't even do that religiously.

We were students when we got married and moved across country, we're just recently done with school. We have a lot of debt in our name that we've accrued along the way.

She had been out of school for a bit longer than I have and was making decent money. But instead of her being able to enjoy her hard earned money most of it vanished into debt repayment.

She would have loved to go and buy a new wardrobe every season but I tried to be the responsible one and remind her that we shouldn't be spending that much money. Because I thought we had other goals we were working towards, like a house eventually.

I was extremely restrictive when it came to trying to go on vacations or buying things she felt she needed (clothes), mostly because I felt it took a large percentage of our income.

She however would have no problem letting me drop $5 here or there on something that I wanted.

In terms of the 5LL Our physical touch has been off kilter since we started dating. I love tons of it but too much for her starts to annoy her.

Because of the other people involved and spending almost every weekend with them we lost all quality time together.

If you're familiar with 5LL then that's 4 items right there that we've been ignoring acts of service, gifts, quality time, and our physical touch. The only thing we had left was the words of affirmation and those were being shared with other people.

What she saw was not a husband but a roommate. We were living together but I was not communicating my love to her in a way she could understand and I didn't see the way she was trying to communicate her love back.

So that leaves me with what exactly do I do with my 180s?

So far I would say doing more around the house would definitely be on the list, but because we're separated now I definitely have to take care of the house on my own. So its hard to differentiate the 180 from self preservation.

Assuming she comes back I would also say we could keep our money separate, pay for our common bills, put a little aside, and whatever she has left she can use on herself.

I've been selfish in the R. We come home, she cooks, I play video games, we eat, we play video games, we go to bed late, we get up late, go to work, repeat. The R with the OC has allowed her/us to get out of that cycle a bit by allowing us to ignore the duties around the house during the weekend.