Still in limbo IV

[SteveLW]

The whole thing is still kind of weird to me. W is sending naked pictures of herself to other people, flirting with multiple OMS, talking about moving out and being on her own, etc etc. And now, it seems like all of a sudden everything is....ok, I guess?

Im not suggesting that she has necessarily gone underground with her flirting or wayward behavior. From the sounds of it, it likely has subsided. I just dont really see an active change from her side. She still is playing on the apps all day, youre still doing the brunt of the housework, youre still engaged in buying a new house...

Maybe everything is great, I dont really know. You say that you "caught it early" and maybe thats all it was. But it feels somehow....fishy?...to me. Like shes getting everything she wants now, but once she doesnt, then youre going to be back in the same place again in a few months or years. Usually, when there have been changes in sitches around here, they are marked by significant events or discussions. Usually they are marked by the WS really making their intents clear. In this case, it seems like everyone just....dropped everything and swept it away like it didnt happen.

Maybe Im missing something or maybe I just have a more skeptical world view. Im just having a really hard time making sense of how you can go from being ready to divorce then back to everything good in the span of a couple days. Im not sure what the right attitude or action is for you. Id say if things are "working" then keep doing them. Im just worried that it feels like everything was covered over but not really resolved and that stuff will continue to resurface time and again until there are clear changes from her side.

Amoafwl, everything here is fair comment. And I don't have a lot of answers for you. I, too, was little surprised how she seemed to turn around fairly quickly. And I think a good bit of skepticism is good.

Here are somethings I can tell you:

1) I started letting go on day 3 after BD. It appeared to have a profound effect on how she was approaching things. She started to hedge her decision immediately. As if she wasn't sure why suddenly I seemed okay with everything. However, even in the letting go, she was seeing that I had 180'd on a lot of the things I had been doing wrong. She also made no effort after mid-January to move forward with her initial plan to get a job, get an apartment, and get a D.

2) We got into MC about 3 weeks after BD. And while I do believe initially she agreed and started going to be able to say later "we tried", the MC was fairly good and breaking down that barrier and getting my wife engaged. My wife did the homework and reading most of the weeks, and the MC was able to fully engage her in the sessions including a very intense session where my wife and her emotional scars were the focus of the session.

3) We had fairly big incident that I documented here where I asked to see her phone, unlocked, and even got her to install and log into some apps that she was uninstalling after usage so I wouldn't see them. This was shortly after the discovery of her dating profile on a dating site that I confronted her about, and she was still using that app to send messages to guys, all were way younger and had no interest in her. All of this came to her realizing that she had some issues to deal with. She cancelled the dating site memberships (she had 2), uninstalled the online games that she had been using to message people, and even uninstalled the karaoke app. She went through a pretty severe depression for 2 days after that. She did eventually reinstall the singing app with the promise that she would control the messaging capabilities better. This was coupled with me telling her I had spoken to a lawyer, and that I was ready to sit our daughter down and discuss her plan, a step she didn't seem ready to do.

4) In mid-Feb,shortly after #3 above, we went on a marriage retreat. This was faith-based and it seem to really sink into her that she had committed to me for life in front of God, and had a responsibility to herself, me, our daughter, and most importantly, to God to make the marriage work. As I said, this was coupled by an incident at lunch on the Saturday of the weekend where she was clearly rebelling against all of it. It was last act of defiance she has outwardly shown, and she followed it up by becoming more affectionate and seemed to come back to the MR afterward. Including telling me after our next counseling session that she wanted to stay in the marriage (first time she had expressed that since bomb day).

5) Several marathon sex sessions. And while many were skeptical of these at the time, I think it really showed her that she didn't have to go outside of the marriage to satisfy her carnal desires. That as our MR improved, as her attraction to me continued to comeback, as the positive changes I was making were seeming to be permanent, that she could enjoy sex within the bounds of the MR, instead of needing to go out of like she was yearning to do. This was followed by, a couple of weeks ago, her admitting that her insatiable sexual desire that she had been struggling with going way back before BD (and without me "there" to satisfy it due to the state of our MR), having abated back to a more normal level, though still higher than it had been in most of the years of our marriage. (Note we have been having sex at about the rate of once a week. Prior to BD we averaged once every 4 months, and had long periods (a couple spanning years) of no sex.

6) After 9 months of saying she had no interest in another house and had given up on the house search, suddenly she reinstalled Zillow and began house hunting again. (The background on that was that we had been searching for about 3 years until May of last year, for another house but she gave up when her, my daughter, and I could never seem to agree on a house.) Remember, at bomb day she had been looking for her own apartment, so this was a profound change.

So all of these cumulatively seemed to add up. Along with my continued differentiation/detachment (though I wasn't always successful at it), get a life, and as I slowly back off pressure/pursuit these things seemed to get her to come around to wanting to stay in the MR. Something she said to me and said to the MC in one of our sessions.

Now to your point, there are still some reflags.

1) Her casual contact with OM1 and potential OM2 on the singing app. She has told me I could give her a list of people to not have contact with on the app but 1) I would have to take her word for it. 2) I am afraid of the old "I want what is forbidden" instinct to kick in and 3) I have no desire to be with someone that I can't trust and that doesn't have enough judgement to know what is acceptable and what is not.

2) The fact that she still can't kiss me passionately, even during sex. I brought this up to the MC. The MC cautioned patience in this area, that after years of a broken relationship it would take time for full intimacy to return between. But that she feels we are on the right path and eventually that will return if we continue to put in the work to heal the MR.

3) She has shown the ability to go stealth in the past. And though she seems to be open to transparency now, I do have to question whether or not she has gone even more stealth with her messaging. Though it feels so differently than it did before BD, and for the 2 months after BD, maybe she has just gotten better at it? I mean she doesn't sit in parking lots for long periods of time anymore. I work from home on Fridays, and during Jan and most of Feb, she'd make an excuse to run to the store. I suspected she was sitting in her car on one of the app during this time since it would take her so long. However, recently, including this morning, she drops our daughter off for school and is back home in 10 minutes. So I am seeing really big differences in her when she was in full waywardness mode.

What you said that I like the most is that if this isn't handled properly we could end up here again in months or even years. And that is a big big fear of mine. This is why I need to make sure my 180s are permanent, and that we work through MC together to come to an understanding of the reasons for our issues, and how to fix them long-term. The MC has stated that full transparency will have to come at some point, but that we were too early in the process for me to demand that right now (this was in early Feb.). I think knowing each others unlock PINs and password will be something that will eventually need to occur.

Thanks for your insights Amoafwl. Understand that I am hopeful, but still on guard. But we seem to be in a place where we have both made progress. Time will tell if it is real or not.