WW ended EA 4 mos ago; trying to restore intimacy

[hoosjim]

Why do you think she ended the affair? Sense of duty? Catholic guilt? Because she missed you? Because she was sorry?

What was her reasoning?

Okay, gonna answer this, but all y'all who get on me for "mind-reading", remember: This time, I was asked..

Ginger, I am not even close to 100% confident I know why. And, of course, that makes the assumption that she has actually ended the affair (a prospect which Sandi2, who has been pretty much completely and unerringly right in reading my W and her status for pretty much my entire tenure here, deem questionable at the moment... maybe worse than questionable.)

Based on what she said, alone and in a vacuum, it would be because "she didn't want to be 'that person' who was 'the cheater'", and she didn't want to do anything to hurt her kids. What she supposedly told the OM in the very sketchy break up call was that she "wanted to figure things out with hoosjim". (Not sure how or if she further qualified that.)

I would wager all I have financially that the kids are at the very least a significant element of it. She has a strained relationship with the one already, and fears losing them or alienating them, though she loves them both desperately. She has said she sees us all sitting there when we have a good family dinner or engrossing family discussion or some other moment and "can't envision us doing that separately or not having those moments in the future."

She has also said she knows that her leaving would hurt and disappoint a whole bunch of people. Obviously her parents who she always has been afraid of disappointing and being shunned by. (Funny thing is with this aspect of it, which is also probably very significant, is that if she is to be the "whole" vibrant person she can be... she likely has to shed that aversion, at least to the extent she practices it now.

And then there's me. She says she doesn't want to hurt me, and I believe her. She actually says she doesn't want to hurt anybody. One of the convos fairly late in the A that I recorded was her talking to bff, and bff was asking her what she was going to do, and she talked a lot about OM and about "not wanting to hurt him", at which point bff said "what about hoosjim? I'm not hearing you say anything about him." To which my W responded: "It's sad, but I've already hurt hoosjim..." (implication being she had not yet hurt OM and didn't want additional people to be hurt). This came up in our discussion a few days after she had called OM to break it off and then I had gone to confront OM to warn him off... which didn't get physical but did become pretty ugly, and in front of his teenaged son (a teammate of my son's on the football team), where she was very teary eyed and said "I hurt him, and now he's been hurt more". And, fwiw, she seems legitimately distraught and remorseful when she or I talk about how much that betrayal from her, with a friend, really hurt me.

Her "Come to Jesus" moment, where she confessed (some would say forced to confess by circumstance) that she had been keeping in touch with OM by phone and text, and where I subsequently walked away, down a wilderness trail miles from home, was extremely emotional. "No! Please Don't Go!" she cried, tears still streaming down her face as she got out of the car to come after me. But I neither answered nor looked back. I think then she realized what she had done, how damaging it was to still be talking to OM, and how much it hurt me. So I think there is a desire there "not to hurt hoosjim anymore" as well, though if I had to guess I'd say I'm second to the kids and maybe, MAYBE tied with her parents.

Does she really want to "give us a go?" Uncertain. Very early, she said she wanted to "see if she could get to a point where she wanted to try to work on us" (this was before the final confrontation, above). Later, it was "Everything is so much better between us and you are such a different person... but the sparks still not there. I want to see if I can be happy living in that kind of relationship" (meaning without the intimacy). More recently, she has granted that if we DO want a return to intimacy that we are going to have to work at it and be deliberate about it... the "just do it" approach. But it still feels very weird to her.

I would say she is definitely NOT at a "I am all-in on this marriage, no matter how hard and no matter WON we are successful in restoring intimacy" or a "I know that we CAN restore intimacy if we are both committed and working on it" point. Which, I think, is a problem. Part of her (or a lot of her) is convinced it can't happen. So it probably wont.

Hope that answers your question




Addendum to the above. A couple of times right after that breakdown at the car and before we both decided to "give it a try", she made teary calls to me, leaving messages saying "I've really been thinking about you a lot the past few days" and said the same FTF a couple of times along with "I do miss you"... though still not in a sexual way.