WW is onboard with trying to save the M

[JGuy]

Thank you all for chiming in. I have spent the past day practicing detachment, but holding off a very strong desire to confront her. I am reflecting more on everything today. As I mentioned in my last post, she is back to contacting the OM again and is lying about it again. Last night, I had a quick, 30 second conversation with her where I kindly reminded her that I really need to know if she decides to contact the OM again, since it is a significant factor for me in what I'm comfortable with moving forward. She reassured me that she will tell me if she decides to. She added that she has been thinking about it - which is a blatant lie as I know she has already been contacting him.

This continued dishonesty and betrayal has thoroughly pushed me across the line and I no longer have any interest in giving her more chances. She has crossed a boundary that I set very clearly, which is that I won't live with her in the same house if she chooses to continue staying in touch with him. I must now follow through with those consequences. I am forcing myself to hold off for a day or two, partly to let the feelings settle and contemplate exactly how I want to do this. But also to give her a chance to be honest on her own and see if she decides to tell me.

[Zues126]

I thought you were getting it for a moment, but this last post proves otherwise.

Your post looks normal at the surface, and maybe some people are nodding along...but from my vantage it is literally insane. Just insane. Like straight jacket insane.

This continued dishonesty and betrayal has thoroughly pushed me across the line and I no longer have any interest in giving her more chances. She has crossed a boundary that I set very clearly, which is that I won't live with her in the same house if she chooses to continue staying in touch with him. I must now follow through with those consequences.

This. All complete garbage. I have spent hours trying to express to you that your feelings are creating thoughts that seem logical but are rationalizations to take action to generate feelings of control and closure. I warned you not to listen to them. I told you that you 'intelligence' may destroy your life because you are smart enough to come up with such good rationalizations you can believe them yourself. But the truth is that you are completely lost at sea and continue to insist you are clear on what you are doing.

I feel like you're drunk at the bar and continue to insist that you can drive. I concede. Keep your keys. You have it figured out. Think up a plan that makes you feel in control, enforce your consequences, execute, slam stuff around in your life, hit some goals, find some new woman, rinse repeat.

[NYGal]

JGuy, I have to practice detachment big time I guess. My W is with the OW right now, and has texted that she will be home in three hours, after having been a gone girl for 10 days visiting family. I can only assume that she has made her decision and is choosing the A. Up until now she swears it was an EA. I'm torturing myself right now imagining them together for almost 7 hours before she comes home.
Very difficult times.

[trumpet]

Zues said:
"I think in general setting the goal to not make any conclusions for 3-6 months, and just walking the road in front of you and becoming the best man you can be and in a consistent manner with your core beliefs, GALing, 180ing, and detaching...this is what you should be doing. And yes, this means you let go of the M. But letting go isn't the same as throwing it away."

The last two sentences are hitting home for me today...

JGuy, does this last paragraph make sense?
Can you do this? Are you ready to do this? Do you WANT to do this? Willpower, my friend. Willpower.

[Azzork]

I don't think you can practice detachment for a day and say you are detached.

How about giving it a couple months before you start doing anything?

[JGuy]

Zues said:
"I think in general setting the goal to not make any conclusions for 3-6 months, and just walking the road in front of you and becoming the best man you can be and in a consistent manner with your core beliefs, GALing, 180ing, and detaching...this is what you should be doing. And yes, this means you let go of the M. But letting go isn't the same as throwing it away."

The last two sentences are hitting home for me today...

JGuy, does this last paragraph make sense?
Can you do this? Are you ready to do this? Do you WANT to do this? Willpower, my friend. Willpower.

I am definitely onboard with GALing, 180ing, and detaching while also holding an intention to save the M, but when I visualize trying to do this while staying in the same house as my W while she continues with the A, it is unbearably miserable for me. So, unfortunately the answer is no, I don't want to do this. I don't feel like I have it in me to truly detach as much as it would take while also still holding onto an intention to save the M. It would just be too painful. I'm also concerned about giving my W the message that I don't respect myself. I am willing to DB and be patient as long as she doesn't continue with the A, but if she does, I'm out. I don't advocate that this is the right choice for everyone, but I have consistently felt pretty strongly from the start of my DB journey that it would be the end of the road for me if she decides to continue with the A.

Here's the thing: The fact that she has continued to be dishonest while continuing the A violates everything that a M is all about for me, on such a deep level. After all of the recent conversations we've had about honesty, after she has promised that she would finally start being honest now, after she had reassured me multiple times that she has learned her lesson. This really is the last straw for me and there MUST be consequences. If in response to this I don't change my actions in some very noticeable way that shows I have self-respect, then how can I possibly expect her to respect me? Several of you have given me this exact advice on my thread.

So, I need to send her a clear message that I'm done with being treated in this way, and that I now want "out". What "out" means is still something I'm semi-flexible on, and how quickly I get "out" is also flexible. This is where I would really like everyone's input right now. I still want to take it slow, not burn any bridges unnecessarily, and since she doesn't know that I know about her most recent breach of honesty, this buys me some time to carefully prepare my response.

As you know, I have a growing ambivalence about wanting to save the M myself, and this is seriously going to limit the amount of determination I am able to muster at this point. I am still open to being surprised by a miracle, but I definitely don't think I could last for 3-6 months while she continues with the A. Is there any other way?? Perhaps if my response to this latest breach could serve as a wake up call to her that I am serious about my boundaries and that she really is going to lose me if she continues with the A, then there might be a chance. The problem is that I have zero trust in her. I'm feeling very sick about snooping as it violates my own values and don't want to do it anymore. So, not snooping means that I will have no clue if she is continuing with the A or not.

I am back to thinking about the LRT. Could my response to this latest breach of honesty be used as a launchpad for initiating the LRT? I don't know how long I would last, but I might be willing to at least start trying it to see where it takes me. I am willing to delay my urge to file for D immediately if there's a chance that this could work.

[Zues126]

I don't feel like I have it in me to truly detach as much as it would take while also still holding onto an intention to save the M.

I agree...so don't hold onto the intention to save the M. Just let go of the 'it's all over' stuff.

Here's the thing: The fact that she has continued to be dishonest while continuing the A violates everything that a M is all about for me, on such a deep level. After all of the recent conversations we've had about honesty, after she has promised that she would finally start being honest now, after she had reassured me multiple times that she has learned her lesson.

I agree. There cannot be a marriage without trust and honesty. In her current condition there is no question that is not possible. Therefor you would have my 100% agreement that it makes sense to let the marriage go and move forward with your life, while setting firm boundaries to protect yourself emotionally from an addict. Where I disagree...

This really is the last straw for me and there MUST be consequences. If in response to this I don't change my actions in some very noticeable way that shows I have self-respect, then how can I possibly expect her to respect me?

I need to send her a clear message that I'm done with being treated in this way, and that I now want "out".

This makes no sense. If you were truly 'out' then what bloody difference does it make whether she respects you, or whether she gets the message? If you were 'out' you'd simply walk away and not look back. Who cares if she respects you? And she'd figure out the message that way (by detaching) a lot faster than if you TELL her something (which shows you care enough to have that conversation- why?).

As you know, I have a growing ambivalence about wanting to save the M myself, and this is seriously going to limit the amount of determination I am able to muster at this point.

I can see you are in pain beyond your ability to cope, and I gather that you believe DB is about desiring to save your M which causes pain that you aren't willing to endure. My first point is that a real man steers by his beliefs, not his feelings. Secondly, there is no reason DBing should in any way tie you to wanting the M back and enduring pain.

I definitely don't think I could last for 3-6 months while she continues with the A. Is there any other way??

She is an addict that you can't trust to be close to you emotionally. While she behaves this way it would be impossible to be in a relationship with her. For those reasons you should let go of the marriage, set firm boundaries to protect yourself emotionally, detach from her emotionally by GALing and rebuilding your support network, do some 180s so you grow into a stronger and healthier independent man, and move forward with your life. End of story.

Letting the M go means leaving her to her addiction (which by the way I recommend you look at as a drug addition or a gambling addition, viewing it that way makes it much less personal and eased the pain for me quite a bit). Letting the M go means grieving the loss of the M and finding ways to enjoy the life you've been given despite this ultimate loss and betrayal. Even filing D could be ok if you're at the point where it makes sense legally and spiritually...filing D is not the same as being 'done'.

So really, I agree with a lot of what you're saying...but you do not need to make any conclusions about the future to do this, and you do not need to try to control WW's behavior. So saying you're 'done' or 'sending her messages' is all a bad idea. I'd actually like you to be done while walking a road that doesn't burn bridges so that if she changed into a person in the future that could be a good partner you reserve the right to reevaluate. You can also know that you did the right thing as a man. Can you go with those semantics?

[JGuy]

So really, I agree with a lot of what you're saying...but you do not need to make any conclusions about the future to do this, and you do not need to try to control WW's behavior. So saying you're 'done' or 'sending her messages' is all a bad idea. I'd actually like you to be done while walking a road that doesn't burn bridges so that if she changed into a person in the future that could be a good partner you reserve the right to reevaluate. You can also know that you did the right thing as a man. Can you go with those semantics?

Thank you for this clarification, Zeus. It helped a lot. Indeed, I think I have been feeling like DBing required me to "stay in" while also detaching which seemed like a contradiction. I do think that I can go with these semantics... and the only questions I'm pondering now is whether I can do it while still living together, and for how long can I hold off before I feel like I need to file for D myself to feel a sense of closure. Even if I do file for D, there is a minimum delay of 3 months required by state law, so that does give some built-in time for us to change our minds if it comes to that.

So, although I really do feel "done", I definitely see the value of not rushing things by filing for D right away... I would like to make a real effort to GAL and detach for awhile without burning any bridges, to leave room for a miracle. I do find it hard to walk this fine line without slipping back into attachment though.

For starters, I'm going to just give it some time and work on detachment while we're still living together. If I find that to be impossible then I may need to reassess and consider taking steps toward establishing greater physical distance. It's quite possible that she may take that step first, in which case my plan would be to not resist.

[JGuy]

So here's the latest. I did end up deciding to talk to my W last night in order to come clean about my snooping over the past week, the fact that I know she is still in contact with the OM, and my intention to stop snooping after seeing for myself how wrong it was and the effect it had, despite my good intentions of doing it in order to "take" the trust I needed to stay "in".

I told her about this not to try to save the M anymore, but in the interest of holding to my own values of honesty and out of wanting to maintain good will and preserve whatever trust we can in our R, regardless of whether we end up saving the M or continuing with a co-parenting R.

I didn't share the details previously, but what happened is that as part of letting go, I decided I didn't want to snoop anymore, and so I went on to her computer to remove a key logger that I had installed only 3 days prior. When I opened it up to disable and remove it, I took one last look at the log and that's how I saw that she had contacted the OM. It is ironic that I saw this at the last moment while following through with my decision to stop snooping!

When I told her about it, she was angry at first, but after letting her calm down I reiterated that my intention was to stop snooping after realizing how wrong it was, and it was only while removing the key logger that I inadvertently noticed that she had contacted the OM. I told her that I had decided to let go anyways, and that she was free to do whatever she chooses from now on. I no longer need reassurance that she is maintaining NC since I have decided to let go myself. By the end of the conversation I had earned back her trust that I wouldn't snoop anymore, and we were on good terms.

She said that she is feeling certain and final now that she wants it to be over between us. She does flip back momentarily into doubting this, but it was so painful for her to let go that she doesn't want to have to go through it again. She shared that she is very scared about what the future holds. She contacted the OM for emotional support, and wants to have privacy around that now as she wants freedom to if she wants to. I told her that she was always free to do so, and all I ever wanted was honesty. However, she revealed that the OM has actually been distant because A) he has become involved with his ex-GF again, and B) because he is uncomfortable with how messy this has become. So, she is feeling very alone like she is going to lose both of us. We had a nice, enlightened conversation about what we are both learning from all of this, and how it's probably a good idea for us to both be alone and focus on healing ourselves.

Later, she wanted to talk about more details of how separating might happen. We talked about how we might split up belongings, how we might manage the 50/50 joint custody, if and how we could still afford the private school that our son attends. We agreed on a few things, including the fact that she would move out and I would stay her and buy her half of the home. It felt good to see that we might be able to go through with D using a mediator instead of having it turn nasty with separate lawyers. We both have a very strong desire to do it harmoniously if it comes to this. We only touched lightly on the details... perhaps just enough for us to peek through that door and start to get a sense of the reality of what a life apart would look like. There were some areas of disagreement that we identified but didn't argue about. This type of talk seems to be helping me to detach and is helping things shift. It is also alleviating her fears that I might drag my feet and make things miserable for her. She feels lucky and does really see me as a good man.

We both agree that we'd like to take it slow. She acknowledged the remote possibility that we could always change our minds but that all she knows is that she is glad that things are moving and changing. Indeed, I can see that if we both detach and let go of each other, we may feel more objective and in touch with ourselves. Who knows, maybe things could turn around at the last minute, but at this moment I actually feel a bit of relief... I don't think I want to go back to the painful state of attachment either. It would be nice if that feeling would finally stick for me! Flipping back and forth has been very rough on me emotionally.

[2ltl2lt]

My W has said these same things to me and turned around the next day with something completely different. Our situations are in the very early stages and I am still trying to back off and not talk anymore R stuff. All it seems to do in my sitch is giver her ammo for the future. Right now we are friendly and cooperative and that is all I can ask for. I too have discussed buying her out of the mortgage if we can't work things out. I stayed in the house after BD and insisted that she be the one to leave since she was the one who wanted out of the MR. So far I think it was the best move I made in this mess.