Limerence and My Situation

[Parkema]

Hello All,

Sorry looong post.

Firstly I thank you for being here and appreciate your support.

Having been reading your own situations on these boards I have seen much to know I can benefit from telling my own situation.

I have been married 7-years and have been in a relationship with my wife for the past 12-years, we have 2 children together aged 7 and 10. D-Day was Jan 8th 2017 when my wife told me she had been having an affair with a co-worker since Nov 2016, to say I was devastated would be an understatement!

Throughout this time and up until Feb 18th 2017 I remained in the family home but having to cope with a physical affair being played out in front of my boys and me, this was extremely hard on us. My wife would come home late from work each night and wait for the "ping" of her mobile to which she would then go and get herself dolled up to meet her AP leaving a massive void at home and me answering difficult questions asked by my boys.

I couldn't take this any more and asked her to move out which she refused, the situation got worse to a point where she might as well have copulated with her AP on our dining room table, I was being systematically tortured mentally and she didn't care. I moved into a place of my own and arranged joint custody of our boys each week, this was and remains very amicable.
Throughout this period my wife changed dramatically to a point where not just me but my boys as well didn't know who this person was! I decided to find out how better to manage this, ... was a great help in explaining what most people go through and the 3-phases that encompasses it's process; Limerence.

This information really gave me comfort for the below reasons:
-It always ends (3-36 months)
-My wife IS NOT herself she is basically a prisoner to a cocktail of brain chemicals that changes her mentally.
-The LO is almost always a pale example of her long term partner (never a better person.)

I'm not sure if my wife is in limerence or that it was an exit affair but it's still going strong. When I asked her why she did it she said it was nothing I had done and that we had a good marriage. I would agree and that's why it hurt me so much.

Moving on until today and I am in my own place and see my boys every day either in person (I prefer) or by FaceTime not the same. My wife is still deep into her affair but see's me in person almost every day but always at my new "home", I am just beginning to use some strategies with her as I am still deeply in love with her and know our marriage if we can R will be so much better than before (although it was good from the outset)

I have ordered DR and intend to read it but am doing the following (any comments whether they are right or wrong truly appreciated)

LC - I basically stay dark I never initiate conversations in any shape or form. When she comes around I am there but separate myself from her- she comes to me.

P.I.E.S - I'm basically working on improving myself, this is not for her but for me but obviously she might notice

When she's around being her best friend - listening to her a lot and validating positively.
Being her safe place - I basically want her to feel she can come to me if she needs comfort or just someone to talk to and not be judgemental or pressured by awkward questions about the A.

Complimenting often and gauging the response.

All the time I'm engaged in being the best husband I can trying to make her laugh whilst showing her the massive investment in being a great father to my most treasured.

There as been no mention of D and I am now predicting heated moments and pre-empt these by staying neutral. Sometimes all of this is extremely hard especially when I slide and start to see those pictures of them in my head but know that statistically their relationship is very hard to sustain but I'm not relying on these and am working on my life getting better every day with or without her...

My only concern now is whether I can keep this up but hope to see the cracks start to appear... Your thoughts?

Appreciate all those that got to this point in my post

Thanks Mark