That REALLY escalated fast. (Hoosjim's 14th)

[hoosjim]

Ginger:

AHHHHHH! Yes you can! She has been behaving well for 5 minutes so you can't establish boundaries?! She has NOT been behaving well for quite sometime, she lied, cheated, then lied again. A few days of behaving and you have no right to place boundaries?

Artista:

you are doomed to fail your marriage if you do not stop this nonsense! of course you have leverage... she cheated on you... you have not worked out the points of reconciliation... you can still and you MUST lay out your terms... it is NOT TOO LATE!

Ladies, No, not what I said. I said "What she is doing RIGHT NOW does not give me any leverage. Of COURSE I have leverage based on what she had been doing previously. I damaged that leverage of course by having sex with her, but, yeah... I get what you are saying ^^^^^, and, more importantly, I didn't say anything contrary to it... just trying to describe what I saw as hurting the dynamic, and how. Not sure we are on different pages, here.

sandi2:

I have been pretty quite (for me), for two reasons. First, I felt that Artista could help you more at this point. And secondly, I felt you got a little pi$$ed at me and was shutting me out when you said you didn't need my blessing (or something to that affect). But I was still very interested, hopeful, and concerned.

I don't recall being ticked at you. Then again it was a rough week. I might have said in my "manifesto" that "this is who I am and that's not changing" or something like that. IDK. Anyway, sorry if I barked too much. I'll go back when I get a sec and read through the thread and see if there is something I can clarify. Otherwise, please accept my apology.

You even think moving to a new location isn't a bad idea. Speaking as one who has moved a lot in a lifetime, I can testify that memories move right along with you. Now, I get what you were saying.....and I hope you'll get what I mean, as well. Moving off is not all it's cracked up to be, and a person can feel isolated and out of place in a new location......in which case, might not be helpful to your W. Anyway, I encourage you not to do move before your youngest son is settled into college. Again, don't take this to mean I'm selling you short of knowing what's best for your family.

There's more to the "moving away" than just re-setting our MR. I have talked about leaving this place before, from time to time. And even W did in the distant past before we became somewhat shackled to our jobs. (Try leaving government employment only four years from a vested pension and lifetime health coverage-- it's a powerful disincentive). We are both small-town transplants to the big city. I grew up on a farm in SW Va and she grew up in a dying steel town in Western PA. Our respective families are all very far away-- the closest are her folks at 5-plus hours. Mine are 600+ and 1000+ away, respectively. We have siblings but they are equally far away, or more. IOW we have no family support network nearby, and we both grew up in "close" families. For me, I often feel like this place is killing my soul. The outrageous cost of living (I could sell my house and buy two large houses not three hours south of here) traffic, the pace of life, the coldness and "Achievement Culture" of the residents. I visit my friend in a small town south of here, where everyone knows each other, are friendly with one another, help each other out etc etc. No traffic. No smog. Sun goes down in in fire over the mountains every evening.

That this place is now associated with the pain of our MR difficulties and, now, the affair, is an added incentive, but not the only one. Still, you are probably correct that it shouldn't be done precipitously.

To be honest, I was much more concerned about your W's behavior toward the Doc and that whole situation.....than I was about the OM. I read your posts intently, hoping to see some mention of it. It sounded as if most of the focus was on her interaction with OM.

Considering her lack/poor boundaries of conduct with other men......I really hope you will follow Artista's advice and hold your W's feet to the fire about these type of situations that make you feel uncomfortable and triggers old memories.

Yes. See below.

Anyway, you are seeing some mistakes and are wanting to know your next move. Well actually, I think you've already said what your next move will be......and that it's happening tonight. By my clock, tonight is right now! So, I'll wait to see how it turned out for you. smile.

We each had an IC today. Half-session because, unfortunately, MC/IC is out of town due to a family emergency. She is, however, taking time to keep in touch with us because she has a special interest in our case and because we are at a crisis point or fulcrum point or whatever you want to call it. Like I said before, she is really a blessing.

We also had a "joint" session afterward, where we talked about where I "was" and MC talked to us about appropriate boundaries and what I (hoosjim) would need to feel safe and feel like I could continue and be open to a rebuilding of trust in the MR. Also that we HAD to do work on processing and getting past the affair, including full accountability by W, etc.

Specifically:

I made clear that I had conflicting emotions about "us". That I was (obviously) still attracted to my W, that we on some level had reconnected over the past couple of days and felt that draw towards each other, but... that I was still angry, and hurt, and betrayed... and did not feel still like I could trust W in the mid to long term, even as I believed that, right now, she felt like she wanted "us" and wanted to work on the MR.

That brought up the issue of boundaries, which MC and I had discussed some in my IC and, which, apparently, MC had advised W as she had in the past that, if she was serious, W would need to be willing to "sacrifice, no matter what". (FWIW, MC had also told me this earlier, that that was W's chore/burden/whatever, while mine would, eventually, be to learn to "Trust, no matter what") Particular boundaries we got to were:

1) W contacting OM to tell him to get lost, stay away, forever, or we'll have you arrested for harassment. This was uncomfortable for W... she didn't want anything in writing, electronic or otherwise because she was afraid OM would use it against her or our kids, and she knew that having me on a phoncon would be tough because I still want to kill the guy and that that would obviously be harder emotionally in a real time call. In the end, we opted for the call. Not pleasant, but done. (FWIW, W said she had previously told bff to tell him to stop calling... both of them because bff was allegedly tired of his constant calls asking about my W). W is also having phone number changed. There is no way to "hide" her at work... she could change her extension but then the office message is required to give info on how to reach her extension whatever it is due to her position. She offered to quit, even to quit and work two jobs if that would make me feel safer. We are going to talk more about that situation (work) tonight... but I'd rather she not quit as that would make things very hard on us financially... an added stressor id just as soon avoid right now. OTOH, if it's the only way to truly move forward in the MR and trust-building...

2) Transparency on devices, social media, apps, account numbers, etc. She was agreeable to this. Sharing passwords (in fact, even sharing profiles on our apps where you can do that... FB, for instance, allows you to have multiple accounts on your phone.) All apps we know OM is on, she is deleting. I'll have access to her PlayStore account so will know if she installs anything new.

3) She continues IC regularly, either weekly or bi-weekly. Jessica (IC/MC) is to be the place she can go if she starts to feel an "itch" or has other issues on an ad hoc basis, as well. Agreed. But she (W) also wants us to also be doing MC. I said I would agree to do that as long as she was doing IC.

4) We follow the MC's advice. Even if its hard, even if its uncomfortable. MC has been wanting us to do this post-affair recovery program she likes, and we (mostly W) had kept putting it off. She (W) thinks we are headed in the right direction now, but agreed to do it.

5) Acting married, bff, and wine downs. We just got started on this, and are to continue it today. (Jessica had to go and attend to some family matters and had to cut off our session which had already gone over time at that point.) Wife just nodded and cried a little and said "I know, I know..." when I relayed (again) how I felt about bff and that I did not want her (bff) having any involvement with us right now." MC made it a point to say, before we went, that this was the kind of thing she was talking about when she told W that she would need to be willing to "sacrifice, no matter what" and urged w to think overnight about what was important to her and what she was willing to do...

There are other things I am going to expect of her. In general:

"No secrets, no lies." With the exception of wanting her to be able to confide in Jessica in IC, we are not to keep or have secrets from each other, or confide in others things that we have not confided in each other.

Accountability: I want her to finish the narrative and timeline of her contacts with Scott since last August, how she felt, etc. She had started doing this at Jessica's request last week, and I want to see the finished product. I also expect her to come clean about the beach trip last summer. Debating whether I should push her for a "Full Affair" narrative, though I have told her in session and otherwise on more than one occasion that a) few things build my trust for her more than when she shares difficult things like that with me AND b) that I don't want any skeletons/shoes left in the closet that might cause her to be afraid to open up to me or that I might find out something in the future that would damage the MR or make me want to bolt... I feel like this was a big problem in our MR previously (MC agrees)-- fear of what the other's reaction would be to hearing something or finding something out and the associated hiding/secrecy/dishonesty.

Also, obviously the rest of the "Acting married" part, including "girls weekends" and the after-work "wine downs". (I'm not going to budge on that one, though I expect push back since her work GF, the Christian one, also attends these sometimes and seems to think they are okay-- she is the one that herself was the victim of infidelity so she should know the risks, smh. OTOH, maybe she figures she has the huge upper hand on her H, now because of the infidelity and figures she can do whatever she wants to, lol. Whatever. They're a problem. Maybe they'll invite me-- as her work gf actually suggested once or twice).

Lets see, anything else? Oh, yeah, talked a little about how for a few days I actually felt "free" and that it was nice... in the sense of not having to worry about "where W was" or "whether or not W was with Om or talking to OM" because I was basically "done". Now, I'm obviously "back" and there has been some reconnection, and we obviously enjoyed the sex, but there are still the underlying issues and those need to be addressed if I am to stay and keep working on this.

Incidentally, she still maintains, and did with MC as well, that she did not intend for us to end up ML, though she did get caught up in it when I responded so strongly to the situation, and that she had just wanted some fun and playfulness and flirtiness, especially since ummm, the time of the month was not the greatest for this, and then we got carried away. I was like "look, what did you expect, really? You, looking like that, with the set up you laid out?" And she was like "Yeah, but except for very early when we were dating you were never that much of the instigator. I was surprised that you came on so strong... I liked it (blushing, and lowering her eyes) but it surprised me some." I still wasn't buying it, but MC interjected and said "okay guys, the important thing is is that were no regrets or recriminations right afterwards, that both of you felt comfortable with what happened and with each other, right?" Which we both agreed with. She said the trouble arises in that situation when there are hard feelings immediately afterwards as opposed to the bonding and closeness you usually get, say when one partner feels "used or manipulated" or immediately feels anger over the previous affair for some reason. While she would have preferred that we had been able to check in with her so she could have cautioned us, or that we somehow otherwise had been more... ummm... restrained, she didn't see this as a profoundly damaging thing... AS LONG AS WE WERE COMMITTED TO CONTINUING AND DID IN FACT CONTINUE TO DO THE WORK.

I'll update more after tonight's session