NewGuy,

I hate to tell you, but this has nearly ALL the earmarks of an affair, and there is really nothing you can do while she has given her heart (if not more) to another. I can certainly assure you that you can't "nice" her into not wanting to divorce you.

All you can do is let her go (notice I didn't say "give up"), and live your own life while protecting yourself financially and legally. If this is what she wants, tell her that she will have to initiate it, but that you won't fight her.

Be thankful you don't have any kids . . . it does make it easier.

Find a way to get back in touch with the "aNewGuy" that perhaps got lost along the way in the last five years. Who is he? What are his interests, his passions? What are his non-negotiable core boundaries of personal integrity? What are his dreams, his aspirations?

If you're like most of us were when we got bombed, your first inclination is to respond with something like "well my 'dream' is to get my wife back," but I'm afraid that's not what I'm talking about. We have live our own life, with our own interests and passions as our "cake." Our spouses are only supposed to be our "frosting," and if you've (like I did) puffed your wife up into more than that, then you need to do some reading on co-dependency and "enmeshment."

I think you should prepare your heart for the eventuality that something physical happened with her and an OM the night she came to you with her "we need to talk about us" talk. Would this be a deal-breaker for you? it doesn't have to be (my wife and I found our way back to each other, for example), but you need to do some soul-searching now about what you will and won't abide in a marital relationship.

As Cadet has said, your wife has given you a gift of TIME . . . use it wisely.


Starsky


M57 W 57; D30 D28 S24 S20 GD7 GD2 GD1 GD5m GD1m
BD 5/07; W's affair 5/07-8/07

At the end of every hard-earned day, people gotta find some reason to believe. (Bruce Springsteen)