WW, A ended, but struggling to reconnect (My 11th)

[hoosjim]

Ok, so we have a telemedicine session, joint, this evening, and there are a couple of issues that might come up that I wanted folks' take on.

First of all, quick note, our conversation got started last night when we were discussing how to handle the appointment time we scheduled for tonight. We had blocked it off with the counselor, but not specified whether or not we were going to handle it as a joint session or whether one of us was going to take it as an individual. At some point, wife says to me, "you know, every time we've gone down there in the past for the intentions, you have been very talkative on the way back. This time, it seemed like you were very quiet and I was wondering the whole way back if something was wrong." Now, the funny thing about this, is that I was thinking the same thing about her on the way back, and I told her so last night. Know that there was nothing inordinately traumatic about the sessions last week, nor were there any big Revelations. It just seemed like both of us we're waiting on the other one to say something on the way back and neither one did.

Anyway, first issue,somewhat minor, and it actually came up when we were talking last night, and was, incidentally, the "immediate" reason we were discussing the use of the counseling session for Wednesday (today):

Periodically, and for about the past year and a half or so, she has been staying after work with friends to talk, decompress, and share a bottle of wine. Sometimes these get-togethers involve most of her office, and even a couple outside of the office friends of one of the doctors. Other times, though, and on two or three occasions, it has been as few as her, her close work girlfriend, and one of the male doctors there, and probably an equal number of times has just been those three plus one additional girl with whom W is friendly at office. This male doctor is the one who has always provided the wine for these get-togethers as he keeps a stock in his office. My wife's girlfriend is significantly younger, late twenties, and a single mom. The doctor is our age, and married. I am friendly with and like both the doctor and his wife, and, over the past couple of months, as wife has increasingly let me into the circle, I have become friends with her work girlfriend, who is very nice, and very Christian, and at least seems to be very interested in helping W and I reconnect. (She was the one W and I spent late NY Eve together with after W brought up the idea because GF was alone-- her family lives in New York-- and "had no one" to be with that night-- it was actually a fun and good evening)

During my wife's affair, these after work get togethers were a trigger point for me, because she would frequently be very late getting home from work without further explanation, or, at best, she would vaguely say "I am just going to hang out for a little bit after work with everyone and I'll be back soon" but then she wouldn't be back soon at all and would never update me by phone or text. I am uncertain as to whether or not she ever used those blocks of time at any point to see the OM, but I think it is probably likely, all things considered. Now, wife and I have discussed these get-togethers fairly extensively, as well as, obviously, the affair, and she understands and accepts that they are a trigger point for me, and, accordingly, when she does go to them, always lets me know ahead of time as well as letting me know who is going to be there, and then she always updates me via phone or text when she is going to be late. A couple of times they have even called me from the get-together and joked around and talked with me on the phone. (And work gf also sort of obliquely invited me last time saying "you should really come by and hang out with us, Hoosjim"... though W has not extended a similar invite and I have not brought it up.

On a couple of occasions previously, I have implied to W that I am not completely comfortable with the dynamic, for two reasons: One, that her being late home from work was often code for her seeing OM, or at least that there were many times where she just "disappeared into a black hole and I had no idea" and, Two, that I am not sure I was completely comfortable with the dynamic. The latter concern was always voiced in terms of "So what does Doctor's Wife think about him hanging out after work, by himself, drinking wine, with two or more attractive women, in his office?"

Now, let me reiterate that W is "friends" with both the Doctor and his W, that when we were at the Christmas party that was at Dr's house, Dr.'s wife got fairly tipsy and my wife spent a lot of time hanging out with her and taking care of her and keeping her out of trouble and putting her to bed, etc., so they clearly like each other. (And, yes, this is also the doctor that she gave the warm hug to on the way out the door that made me a bit resentful-- and I have told her that as well). I also know doctor (who seems to me to be, and by all accounts and from what most people say is a "good man") and wife and am friendly with them, though I don't see them enough probably to properly call them "friends", and W has suggested us all "going out" together in the recent past on a couple of occasions. Further color is that I believe, based on observation and from scattered and somewhat vague "scuttlebutt" that Dr's marriage might be somewhat strained because of his W's drinking... which is why he keeps his wine at his office.

Anyhoo, W calls me yesterday afternoon from work and says "Work GF and Dr. are asking me if I can stay after for a bit tomorrow to hang out, but I know we had scheduled that MC session... are we going to do that as a joint or as IC?" I am at work and she is at work, and she is being somewhat discrete about our sitch as am I so I tell her: well, let's keep it on the books and talk about it this evening when we get home" and she says "Okay, that's my priority, but I wanted to make sure."

So, when we are talking about how to configure the session tonight, and going over some of the stuff MC gave us to go over, we have the talk about why neither of us talked and neither of us brought up the homework that MC assigned (though it turns out W had reviewed the materials on her own after last week's session) until 6 days later. After we decide we will do it as a joint, I tell W (and maybe this was a mistake) "You know, in the spirit of complete honesty, I have to tell you something... I am not completely comfortable with the dynamic of you staying after work with a married man and one other girl, and I kind of wonder, as you know, what Dr's wife thinks of it..." To which W responds "She (doctor's wife, who periodically works in that office as a nurse/aide and who on a couple of occasions has herself attended these after work get-togethers) has never said anything that I know of so AFAIK she is okay with it" and "It's never behind closed doors, There's almost always other people there as well... our other friend a lot, and Dr. X and Dr. Y sometimes pop their heads in, and then last week girl 3 and girl 4 were there, too... This is the one thing, apart from seeing bff probably once a month these days, that I have of "my own"... I don't see what's so unusual or troubling about hanging out with a couple of people whose company I enjoy." And here she was getting a little emotional, as she did the time a couple of weeks back where I brought up being a little triggered by her being home very late from work after a similar get-together where, admittedly, she had kept in touch with me, and then "missing her exit" and ending up in the neck of the woods where OM's bar is, sort of the same demeanor as she had then when she got all teary and was like "how long are we going to stay focused on this one thing, like the only problem with the MR is me and what I did". (That was what she had said last month in a MC session, not last night, but her demeanor was similar.) My response was "You have told me so many times how you do not know at exactly what point you 'crossed the line' with OM, just that you obviously 'let him in' too much and let things get too close and intimate with him... that clearly there were not sufficient boundaries. And, I understand as you have told me that you have always been more comfortable being around and being friends with men than you have been around women..." [very true, this is something she told me as far back as when we first met, and she does have a lot of male friends but always wanted to be 'just friends' with them-- which was a problem for and confusing for some of the guys especially because she has always been so touchy/warm-- something which also always frustrated her and she never completely understood] "...But, here you are, hanging out after hours in a usually empty office with a married man with as few as one other person there with you... this doctor and two women, one single and one married. I just... are you aware of the dynamic, there? Are you "letting him in" too much? Is he "letting you in" too much?"

We talked a bit more about it back and forth. I told her I didn't want her to "stop being her", and I didn't want her to stop hanging out with her friends, I just wanted her to know how I felt about it and that, on a sliding scale, I was decreasingly comfortable with it the fewer people that were there with her and the doctor, and that I am pretty sure I definitely would not want her there alone with the doctor in that same situation. For W's part, she seemed surprised and wondered if I thought she was "looking for someone" or "on the hunt" and said she was sure that doctor did nothave anything like that on his mind, and I said I was less worried about "something going on" between her and doctor than I was about her maintaining proper boundaries to keep something like the A from happening again. I also copped to feeling some jealousy now from time to time, including when she hugged the doctor at the Christmas party.

Not sure there was any "resolution" to this issue... and I am not sure I would want to tell her "you need to stop doing this", because she DOES need to have friends (she got really tearful last night when she talked about her bff moving out of state in a couple of months-- "Im trying to deal with it.. I don't really have any other close friends") and, in a perfect world where we were "solid" and I was fully confident in our relationship I would not have any qualms about her hanging out in those types of situations. But... it is fairly likely to come up in session tonight, so any thoughts on how to approach it without looking either "weak" or "unconfident" or "domineering" would be appreciated.

Issue two: The Beach Trip Which Must Not Be Named. I have brought this up a few times, here. Last July, before we had our final confrontation/BD/blow-up where she finally broke down and broke contact with OM and decided to "work on us", she left the family beach trip to go to a previously-planned "girls weekend" at a different beach with bff and another gf. She had waffled back and forth all week about going: "Maybe I'll just go home with you guys and not go", but, ultimately, when we packed up from the family trip and headed back, she hopped in the car and drove to the other beach to see bff and gf. Later, I found out (through idiot OM's posting pictures about it on FB) that OM had been at the beach, just three blocks away from where W was staying, during the same time period. I have told W a couple of times, I think October might have been the last, that I know OM was there and that, under the circumstances, the closeness of hers and bff's relationship with him, how much they stayed in contact, and for how long the girls trip had been planned (since the previous January), I found it impossible to believe that they and OM did not each know that the other was going to be there, and that I found it only slightly less unbelievable that they didn't see each other while they were there. W's responses about that were (July-- "I have nothing to say about that, maybe you should ask bff", and October-- "I don't know what you want me to say about that.. there's nothing to tell..." or something to that effect.) For further color, there are some suspicious phone records from that night-- W calling bff's phone after midnight (why weren't they together) and some other calls/texts, and W had installed and then uninstalled "WhatsApp" while there. I never told W I had checked the phone records, though I did mention the WhatsApp saying it popped up on my own phone when I was looking at that app for me, and she said she never used it, just installed and uninstalled. She also had called me the morning of her return and said she had taken a "long long walk on the beach by herself, and done a lot of thinking" and later that she "didn't want to be that person who was 'The Cheater'" so I am wondering if something "happened" between her and Om and that it didn't feel right or made her feel really guilty or the like...

At any rate, all of that... the beach and whatever happened there... are clearly in the pre-ultimatum, pre-breakdown "we're working on this" phase and so would be "covered" under any forgiveness I am granting for the Affair. However... it gnaws at me. She left a family vacation (we cut it short by choice but without her looming girls weekend prolly would all have stayed another day or two)... her kids... to go see OM, or at least to go to a beach where she know Om was going to be. And then, when she was late getting home on her return day and I got angry because she wanted to "extend" the weekend by going to have lunch with bff (and for all I know at that time the lunch could have included OM) she had the gall to say "I was thinking about you guys on the way home and I was going to give everyone a big hug and say how much I missed everyone, and now this.." and be a little ticked or self-righteous at me. (And remember this was all about two to three weeks prior to me finding her second burner phone where I walked away and she finally broke down.)

This is something I actually discussed in IC with the counselor, under the rubric of "things I should or should not bring up, and how I should bring them up when I do in a constructive manner" and IC asked me "well, you may need to ask yourself is knowing that information necessary to the rebuilding of your MR? Can you live without knowing it and, if you did know it, could you live happily with that if it was something you didn't want to hear?" I told MC that I think I had it in me to let it go in general, however I would anticipate a similar "girls beach weekend" at some point in the future, and at that point I mam not sure I would be able to either keep silent about it or give my blessing to her to go knowing what I know and strongly suspecting that she had never come clean about it. I have told W several times that that there are very few things which build my trust in her more than when she shares something difficult like that with me, and few things which damage my trust more than when I find out she has not been completely candid or honest about something relating to the A.

So, collective braintrust, WRT both of these issues: Should I bring them up again, and, if so, how, and what are ways of discussing them that might prove CONstructive as opposed to DEstructive.

Thanks as always.