I have been married 8 years and I have 2 young children. I am 35 and my W is 30. For the past several years, our marriage has been in decline... loss of communication, loss of emotional and physical connection/intimacy, etc.
My wife had her first EA with OM about 3 years ago. The OM was a guy she met in a class she was taking at a Community College. When I confronted her, she broke down emotionally and apologized profusely. She voluntarily cut off contact with the OM and we reconciled. In retrospect, we never really healed our marriage. Things just continued as they were.
In August 2014, my wife started another EA by telephone/text with an old boyfriend. He lives a few hundred miles away in her home town. I discovered the EA in December 2014. When I confronted her this time, she refused to end the affair. She told me that she wasn't in love with me anymore and wanted to separate. In January 2014, while I was traveling for work, she met with him and the affair became physical (one time only).
We still live together. She wanted to leave back in January but quickly realized that she has no financial means to move out and provide for herself. She is a stay-at-home mom and student.
She has continued the EA by phone/text. Hundreds of text messages every day and hours on the phone while I'm at work. She even texts him throughout the evening while I'm sitting right next to her on the sofa and hours into the night after I go to bed. She still shows no sign of stopping the EA and no interest in reconciling with me.
I have been generally following the guidance found in DR by MWD, ignoring the affair and trying to provide a more attractive alternative. I have also been trying to recreate attraction in our marriage without being needy, etc. We actually get along like best friends but she never lets it go any further. Nothing is working. We are stuck in "neutral". At times, it feels like things are getting even colder.
I know I have been less affectionate with my W over the years (her biggest complaint) but I also know that my wife is generally unhappy with her life. She complains that we married too young, had kids too young, she feels like she lost her youth, she's unhappy with the status of her education/career goals, and her relationship with her mother/father has never been good. She is the product of divorced parents and a mother who cheated on her father throughout their marriage. She fails to take responsibility for her problems and blames me for all her unhappiness. She has become very self absorbed of late.
At this point, I feel like she may be using me until she can get "on her feet" and leave. I also know that she has always handled stress poorly. She becomes anxious very easily and also may have been depressed at different times during our marriage. I talked to her about depression a while ago. At first she agreed that she had been depressed, then the next day she denied it entirely.
I'm looking for advice. Here are a few specific questions but all advice is welcome:
What should I be doing now?
Boundaries? Out of respect for me and our home, should I ask her not to engage in the EA (texting) while I'm at home with her?
What should I do if she wants to travel to see the OM again?
I know every situation is different but, for those who have reconciled, how long did it take on average?
In my situation, how should I interact with her? Like I said, we still act like best friends. We do everything together.
How do I disengage but stay out of the "Friend zone"?
Should I consider contacting the OM and ask him to stop the affair?
You may be on moderation now, post in small frequent replies and stay on this thread until you reach 100 posts (for your thread, you can also post on other peoples threads to give support). Especially on this Newcomers forum, where the posting activity is very active, and your posts can quickly fall to the bottom of the page or even several pages down. Keep journaling and asking questions - people will come! Most important - POST!
Get out and Get a Life (GAL). DETACH.
Believe none of what he or she says and half of what he/she does.
Have NO EXPECTATIONS.
Take care of yourself, breathe, eat, sleep, exercise.
Take the parts of this advice that you need and don't worry if I have repeated something that you have already done.
Here are a few links to threads that will help you immensely:
She's never going to be re-attracted to you if she doesn't respect you, and she's never going to respect you if you're allowing her to carrying on her affair -- literally -- right in front of you.
Start with the no calling/texting OM from inside your marital home, immediately. Who pays for her cellphone plan? Your internet connection?
You said she doesn't work outside the home; what else are you paying for that's enabling her to continue her affair? Lingerie? Hair (beyond a basic cut)? Other?
Oh, and if it were me and she traveled to see OM again? She would find her stuff neatly put into white plastic garbage bags and placed out in our garage for her to come by and pick up, and the locks would be changed.
I have been delaying taking any action with the texting/calls. I thought I should be focusing on myself and ignoring the affair. I thought that setting boundaries would be perceived as pressure her and focusing on the affair. I will have the boundaries conversation tonight! Thank you again!
I have been delaying taking any action with the texting/calls. I thought I should be focusing on myself and ignoring the affair. I thought that setting boundaries would be perceived as pressure her and focusing on the affair. I will have the boundaries conversation tonight! Thank you again!
Thoughts about contacting the OM?
Any other advice is appreciated.
Even if you ignore the affair (advice that I don't agree with), that doesn't mean you have to ignore every aspect of it. The thought is, to control the things that you can control, and to lay out (and learn to enforce) your own healthy boundaries.
It's more of a "you're free to do what you want, you're a grown woman, but I won't live in an open marriage" thing. Or a "but I won't have inappropriate text messages be sent in front of my face, that's incredibly disrespectful to me, to our marriage and to our family. If you can't control yourself, I'd ask that you take that outside."
Who pays for her cellphone service?
NO, do not talk to the OM. What, to ask him to stop the affair? What makes you think that a dishonorable man (by definition, a PREDATOR actually) would do the honorable thing? It will only make you look weak and the two of them will have a good laugh over it.
This was probably the best single post I ever read about boundaries. It was written by a poster named Jayne, who I don't think posts here anymore but it was so good that I saved it in my personal archives:
Jayne, on “boundaries”:
Think about boundaries like this:
Boundaries are not about controlling the other person, because boundaries are about drawing "circles" around *you* and determining what you will and won't allow inside that circle.
Your wayward wife can do whatever she wants OUTSIDE that circle. You are not telling her what to do.
But you will only let into that circle people who treat you with respect.
She's free to go on treating you with disrespect, but you won't know about it because she'll be outside your circle. She's free to go on and draw her own boundaries of no expectations and no responsibilities, outside your circle.
She can do WHATEVER she wants. She's a free person, free to make WHATEVER choices she wants.
BUT SO ARE YOU, and you are free to choose who to allow within your circle.
That's all. Not about trying to control her at all. Tell her she's totally free. She has the WHOLE WORLD, outside your circle, to go and do whatever she wants.
If she's saying you have to let her into your circle no matter what, then THAT is about HER controlling YOU.
Also, can you point me to where in Divorce Remedy it says to just ignore a spouse's affair? I know the book pretty well, and just re-perused the section on Infidelity, and I'm not seeing it.
I know that you are really confused right now and it seems that the advice given to you is straightforward but you still can't grasp it.
One analogy that put it into perspective for me is that your wife just fired you and you were shown the door.
Going back to work and being an exemplary employee would be seen by your ex boss as pitiful. Sending them emails telling them they should take you back? Spying on what is going on within the company? Inviting yourself to the company picnic in June?
No. None of those things.
You need detach from your wife. Just like your ex boss who may be a reference sometime later, you're not going to do or say anything stupid.
Pick yourself up, mentally separate yourself from the company, aka your W. That's Detaching.
Update your resume, get training. Go knock on doors. That's GAL.
Interacting with your ex boss assuming he may be a potential reference. That's 180.
Rubicon ... sorry you find yourself here but ^^^^ is like having the Kung Fu Master in your corner and that advice up there ^^^^ Golden
It does seem she doesn't respect you and you need to do some mirror work and fix YOU there. As far OM, yeah ... he is getting the frosting off the cake, that A must be terminated by your W and at the moment .. why would she do that while she can still text him sitting next to you? The point is ... she is not feeling ANY consequences from her actions, I assume this is not working for you. Time to roll up the sleeves and start standing up for yourself.
