WW in EA, NC w/OM(?), W's BFF interfering, part 7

[hoosjim]

The reason I ask b/c I think my WW is anxiously waiting for me to get together with someone so that she can finally legitimize her OM in everyone's eyes. Like "see, he's over me and dating, so my future is with OM and all of you need to forget about Painful b/c he doesn't want to be with me"

What Sandi2 says makes sense if you read her detailed discussions of WW's, but... I have to admit that my gut, like yours is telling you, keeps telling me my own WW is eager for me to get together with someone else so that she can be freed up. In fact, she told me this during one of our conversations several weeks back-- I mentioned that the comments she made and things she said on a few occasions in years past made me think she thought I might be having an affair, and she responded that she had actually hoped that i was having one from time to time because that would have given her an easy out.

[sandi2]

But do you you believe your statement above is true for all WWs or just specific for H?

I won't go as far as saying it is in every single situation, b\c I have no way of knowing for sure. I am basing my statement on the nature of most females and the characteristics of most WW cases I have observed. Certainly, there are exceptions.

For the WW, she believes everything is about her. Not only is she selfish, but she is very jealous about anything that takes away something from her. She may not want to act as her H's wife, but she doesn't want to lose any of the benefits that came with being his W. She still thinks she should go along on the family vacations, be invited to all the family events, etc, as though nothing has changed. She still wants control over him, and thinks she's entitled to know where he's going, who he saw, etc. There is a reason she is so curious about his activities and why she asks questions. She is jealous of another person getting the attention she feels should go to her. This doesn't have to be OW, it can be her own family, or her LBH, or anyone.......b\c her mindset is so sc@wed up and her emotions are so out of control.....it's like she is neurotic. Her feelings and thought process makes no sense to a sound, logical person.

She may claim that she wants her H to meet someone else, so she can be free to move on.......but what is holding her back now? It doesn't stop her cheating. She will demoralize her H in order to justify herself, anyway. It's one thing for her to make statements that she wishes he would meet someone else, but entirely different to actually seeing another woman fill the place that once belonged to her. Whether that place be in the heart of her H, in the marital home, or in the lives of her children. The green monster still abides within the WW.

I am not telling you to run out and find another woman to make your W jealous. Dating and rebound relationships only add more potholes in the road back. I do encourage GAL like there's no tomorrow, and don't reveal details to your WW's nosy questions. I recommend being mysterous... if all you can do is leave the house and go to the library and read, she doesn't have to know anything except you have been "out".

[hoosjim]

For the WW, she believes everything is about her. Not only is she selfish, but she is very jealous about anything that takes away something from her.

And this is the flip side to my earlier, above-posted "gut-think"... the WW's "me me me" syndrome. Throughout my own ordeal, I have been convinced by things my wife has said and done that probably the major reason she is still around is that she is "afraid of losing [or hurting alienating, or driving away] the kids." But to a WW, this is not so much about not hurting the kids or destroying the family, but rather that the kids "will hate ME" or "will be angry with ME" if I openly run off with OM.

Heaven forbid.

[Tread]

Sandi,

My question is why would the WW run around talking about they want to leave the MR. But yet they still want all the benefits that come with the MR. So do they know that they really don't want a divorce when it comes down to it?

[sandi2]

My question is why would the WW run around talking about they want to leave the MR. But yet they still want all the benefits that come with the MR.

It's their self entitlement and their self justification mixed together with their anger.

So do they know that they really don't want a divorce when it comes down to it?

I think it depends upon the individual WW. The key words in this question are, "When it comes down to it". By the time they are in an affair or living like GGW, they are giving over to their fantasy & rebellion. Some WW's may think they want the D and will ride off into the sunset with the OM.
However, if reality starts crashing their fantasy....it could cause them to pull back from D. That particular scenario is too varied, and depends upon the individual situation.

I think a lot depends upon what happens between the BD and D. A lot of hatred can come from both spouses during this period.
There have been cases where the affair ended, but they still went through with the D.

[Tread]

Sandi could check out my thread and give your opinion. Emailed divorce papers and parenting plan to my W on Monday. And have yet to hear a thing. If you catch up on the thread you will hear what happened four days later. The whole thing has me a bit confused.

[hoosjim]

Well, that's up to you. Just beware b/c this thing is far from over. You think you'll know, but didn't she fool you in the past?

The things she is saying about MC doesn't sound good, and I wish it wasn't two weeks until the next session. However, she is feeling depressed and continue for a while yet.

Setback and depressed and conflicted (My W) indeed. And it's still showing.

We had a college visit scheduled for S17 this weekend. Then, Friday morning, I get a call from S18... from jail. Nothing too major, ya know, just an alcohol-related arrest (under-age). So we detoured down there Friday night because he sounded pretty down and desperate. (In case you dont recall, he has OCD and generalized anxiety disorder, and also a slight reading impediment). In a nutshell, things were kind of bearing down on him in school, he exercised some poor judgment, and ended up getting arrested. No threat to his school enrollment or anything, but it was almost the last straw for him stress-wise. We ended up not even really having to "beat him up" too much about it... he really did an overboard job of that himself. W was in tears when I spoke with her on phone-- she really really hurts on the kids' behalf when something bad happens in their lives. I went down ahead of her because she couldn't get out of work. Cops illegally detained him for long after he should have been released, so I talked with the magistrate's office by phone on the way down (Im a lawyer) and got him released but not before he'd missed a full day's classes, which didn't help his stress level (or his Mom's). Anyhoo, got him calmed down, had a stern but heartfelt father to son talk with him, got him to understand he'd messed up, it was going to cost him time and money and embarrassment, but that the world was not going to end and that all in all he was very lucky something worse didn't happen to him than being arrested in his state (he was extremely inebriated.)

Why is all this important? Two reasons: One, much added stress to already stressed and potentially at very delicate point in her "recovery" WW. Two, we were then away from home in two cars. On return trip from S17 college visit, we stopped back through S18's college town where I had left my car. W and I agreed at least one of us needed to go home to supervise S17 who had returned home from college visit with a friend who was also visiting the school and who was having friends stay over at our house. Okay, good idea, check. But, W ALSO wanted one of us to stay over a night in S18's town, have breakfast and go to church with him, and make sure he had everything squared away (he also had a bad eye infection from sleeping in his contacts at the jail) and wasn't about to go plunging back into panic mode. In fact, she was insistent. VERY insistent. So, I stayed, and she drove home solo.

Her demeanor, however, had gotten very cold, and I was getting a really weird vibe from her (which in the past such vibes have usually been right) and so I took an opportunity to affix the tracker i keep in my car's trunk to her car, unbenknownst to her. I already "track" her in the sense that she has turned on her phone's locator voluntarily and she knows at any time I can punch up where she is, within a reasonably close distance, but the car tracker is also a tracer and keeps a record of the car's route and time, etc., and is also pretty much pin point accurate whereas the phone locator is not always so.

Anyway, long story short, she made two near drive-by's of OM's hangouts... One on the way home Saturday night, and one on Sunday morning on her way in to work before I got home from visiting S18. Saturday night was actually, I thought, somewhat encouraging, in that she got off of the interstate two exits early, a not ENTIRELY indefensible detour depending on conditions, etc,... a route which necessarily takes her right by the strip mall containing OM's main hangout. Despite what would have been an easy detour/drive-by into the parking lot to see if he was there, she did not do so. (And mall is situated in such a way that without detouring into parking lot she would not be able to see any of the cars in the lot or the people sitting outdoors on the patio or even any other part of the establishment.) Okay, small sight of relief.

Then, this morning, she heads out of the house and heads in the completely opposite direction from her work. And doesn't call me to tell she's leaving to go in, which is a departure from her recent practices and pattern. She had mentioned earlier in the week that she might go in on Sunday, but had said nothing since then, and recently when she has done something unplanned she has always alerted me when she is doing so. So, she heads about three or four miles directly in the direction of OM's house and his two hangouts, makes no other stops, and turns back JUST shy of hangout #1, proceeding from that point to her office. Absolutely no reason for her to do so. When I called her from the road on my own way back, she was very quiet, sullen, and moody. Didn't want to talk at first. After we hung up, though, she immediately called me back and apologized: "Im sorry, I don't know what's wrong with me right now, I'm just... grouchy."

I MIGHT previously have suspected some sort of meet-up, but her office, as a medical offices where co-workers frequently show up unplanned and unannounced it would have been very risky even had there not been a couple of the other girls there with her already. And as best I could discern, she didn't leave her office at any point while she was out. Finally, she was not "all dolled up" as she always habitually got in the past when she was going to meet OM-- Jeans and T-shirt and ponytail today.

Later, she returned home shortly after I got back. She was a little on the quiet/sulky/moody side, spent some time with her sister on the phone and a little time facebooking/surfing later. She lightened up a BIT later and I told her I was going to go out and find a place to watch the football games (she's a big sports and football fan and her team happened to be playing this afternoon) and grab a bite to eat since we were pretty much out of food and S17 was with friends and, surprisingly, she said "wait for me I'll come too." So, she changed out of her T-shirt and fluffed her hair up some and came along, and we had a pretty nice time, talked, laughed, met a couple new people at the bar. Stopped at grocery on way back to pick up just a couple of things we needed for the coming week, and joked and laughed our way through the store...

But she got quieter towards the end, wanted to go out to the car to wait for me because it was cold in the store, and then was pretty quiet and a little sulky/moody it seemed once we got home.

We have counselling scheduled for this Friday, out of town (it's about a 2 hour drive to where our counselor is), for effectively four sessions, at least one of which (and more, i think, if MC has her way) will be IC with my W. W has seemed alternatingly committed to and hesitant about these upcoming sessions. We have already postponed them once because of her work demands, and nearly did a second time when it looked like S17 was going to be on Homecoming Court. W was really insistent that we were going to have to at least cut them short and possibly postpone them altogether to get back to see S17 in parade, etc., when in fact it would have been pretty easyh to have all four sessions and still make it back in time. Anyhoo, irrelevant now since he didn't make it but... W is still dropping little "If we DO end up going" statements here and there, and has said a few times "Do we REALLY need to go all the way down there when she is capable of doing skype" or "what are the 'difficult things' that you think still need working on...haven't we already talked about all of that?"

Considering offering to postpone the sessions if it is "too much right now with her work and everything with the kids"...but then wondering if this is a cop-out. Professional help IS one of things I had insisted on when I "took her back" so to speak, and she definitely needs help with the "getting over the affair" part and probably a couple of other things in IC, but... She's definitely in kind of a mixed up place right now.

[leahsue]

The thing that jumps out at me about this post is that almost every single sentence is about W. I realize y'all are in the same house, and I guess "working on the marriage"- not questioning your word about it, I just can't remember and haven't gone back and refreshed my memory-
but even with all that..... I think there is WAY more focus on her than is healthy.

Just wondering if it would be healthier for you to make yourself and your actions/activities the more important of the two right now. For instance, if you had just gone out to watch the games without her, had a great time, met some new friends, maybe even been unavailable by phone for a while..... it sounds like you "threw that out there", by telling her where you were going as an enticement for her to join (based on your comment about her loving to watch sports), she bit, and went, but the "fun" part sounds a little forced, maybe in the re-telling.

Just a thought. Maybe you feel good about the day. If so, ignore what I said. Do what's working for you.

[CW2017]

Hi Sandi
sorry to jump on to this thread but in case you were passing! A simple question which may aid the debate here. As the WW's MO is that of an ultra selfish person what if that person was selfish to begin with i.e. in the DNA? I ask because my W would definitely fit into that category. In that case would be the WW selfish behaviour be on another level? As one of the vets said to me a while back there is a difference between who wears the trousers and who is the head of the household which I have always strived to be. Yet my W has always put her own needs first and not just in matters of the heart. thanks all

[Ginger1]

First, I am glad you got your son squared away. Hopefully he won't be doing that again.

Secondly, I second leahsue. Man, you are so enmeshed with her every move and mood and action, and deviation...... It has got to be exhausting.

You say she drove by his hangout on Sunday morning. Where does one hang out on a sunday morning? A bar? church? A Diner? What hangout is this?

You all live in the same town I take it. And if you keep tracking her routes and mindreading why she may have taken them, you are going to make both of you crazy.

She is either going to chose to run to him or not. You tracking down her every move won't stop her. If she wants to, she will. And you will find out. But you are going to burn yourself out.

Your son's had some big life events going on, yet that was all about how those events might affect your W's waywardness. Sometimes, you need to focus on what is important in the moment