Hi BeHappy, this may turn into a long post......so take a deep breath.
The actions of your W are all too familiar in the stories we read on the board. Your situation is not unique, she's not exceptional, and it's not uncommon. I think your M can be saved. With that said, I don't think it will be in the next several weeks.
You two have been together 25 yrs, raised a family, and now the kids are out of the house. Like most responsible men, you loved your family by working long, maybe hard hours. Although she needed you to spend more one on one time with her and give her special attention.......the kids kept her life busy. Over the years, she tried to swallow disappointments, unmet expectations, and resentments. However, every time she swallowed, it just pushed those feelings down deeper in her heart. At some point, she began to feel some disrespect toward you. Maybe it wasn't obvious at first, but it showed in little things........and you just tried to brush it off, make some excuse for her, and tell yourself it was no big deal. Over time, her feelings grew more negative. She tried to talk to you about what she needed from you.......but the words sounds as if she was saying something completely different to your ears. You didn't get it. You never knew what was taking place in her heart. Therefore, her emotional needs were not met by her H and her heart began to harden.
To family, friends, and the general public........she seems fine. She puts on a smile, and people see her being a good mother and wife........b/c she's playing the role. However, she feels empty, dead inside, unhappy and unfulfilled. She finally gives up on her H ever tending to her emotional needs. She has not been attracted to him for years, and basically, just went through the motions of having sex with him. He had no idea how dissatisfied she was in her MR. She becomes angry. It's all she can do to prevent her resentment and disrespect from oozing into every interaction she has with him. It's in her tone of voice, the expression on her face, and in her attitude.
Like most women, if she is lonely in her MR, she will try to find ways to fill the void. I notice the ages of your children are pretty close together, so I'm guessing the nest emptied in a short span of time. Well, she was already depressed (although she tried to hide it from her kids), and now they were out of the house, grown, living their own lives. She begins looking at herself and the years she has lost. Everywhere she looks, advertisements and department stores are geared for the younger adults. Even her co-workers are younger.......but they seem to like her, and the young guys puff up her ego. Lord knows, she could use ego food! So, it begins. She feels better when she is around this group of younger people. She feels more excited about buying younger, maybe a little more sexier clothes. She gets a younger looking hair style, maybe changes the color, starts spending more time in the salons, gyms, health food stores, etc. Then something, or someone, happens along that causes her to realize the only chance left at happiness is to get out of the M........and grab for it. That's her new plan.......Plan A. But before running out and getting a D too quickly, she will hold back just a little to see if Plan A is going to work out. In the meantime, she will keep one foot in the M.......as her backup plan, or better known as Plan B. After all, she does receive certain benefits being M to you, right? Probably has a comfortable home, car, insurance, a built in escort to special events, plenty of food, expenses split, someone to help around the house, and surely some other things. Ever heard the term "marriage of convenience"? Well, I hate to break it to you, but that's what you currently have.
So, that's a very sketchy picture of what happens to many, many women in the world today. And that's just giving you a glance at how she got to that place emotionally. The interactions and destroyed R between the two of you would take pages to tell, or explain. And some of it can never be explained to the point the devastated H understands. I don't mean to sound as if there is no hope. The story above is describing, mostly, myself. But it's a story thousands of women experience. My M was saved, thanks to God, this board,.......and the vets who mentored me back in 2007. It became very important to me that I try to pass along the things I learned from my own experience, and even more, the information I have learned throughout these years of studying the subject of a wife who has a hardened heart......or wayward wife.
My first piece of advice for you is to run from your XGF like the devil is after you! XGF is a wayward woman. That's why she left her first H, and that's why she's already thinking of leaving this one......and flirting with you. You aren't the only one on her flirt list, either. So, get the heck away from her, and stay away.
I would not go to the Pator for MC, yet, b/c from what little you've said.......I doubt he'd approach it as though she has a hardened heart for her H. Unless the counselor really understands this issue, where it's coming from and how to deal with it........then you are wasting your time. It's much better to stick with the board, and once she commits to working on the MR, then you can go listen to the Pastor talk about how to have a good M. Currently, your W doesn't want a M with you.......so how are you going to work on something that no longer exsits? She's not interested in having a better MR with you. She is not interested in seeing a MC to save it. (Although some WW's do play that game, as a stalling technique). She just wants out. However, we can help you learn the information to use in changing the dynamics. I hope you will stick with us, and please, post something every day, if at all possible. It will draw more replies.
It is not about what you feel should work in your M. It is about doing the work that gets the right results. Do what works!
