Affair discovered

[STH17]

Withdrawal is my response when I am emotionally flooded. We actually talked about that a bit yesterday. W said she spews when she is flooded, meaning she says hurtful things in anger. I am glad she at least recognizes that. I acknowledged that to her and said that I shut down when I am flooded. We talked about the conflict in the kitchen earlier in the week when she said I didn't understand what was happening. Turns out I didn't. She apparently was just referring to how I was "icing her out", not about my avoidance of talking about divorce.

After we both talked about our experiences and different responses when we are emotionally flooded, I said I thought it would help if we could have a nonverbal signal to let each other know when that was happening to us and that we needed a break from conversation. I wish we had something like that worked out before so I don't just say something like "I'm trying to protect myself" again. I think she was open to that idea but we got sidetracked by something else so never agreed to any signals.

At the end of the night was when she came back downstairs to tell me how angry and abused she felt by me not working with her on the divorce. Especially custody, she thinks I'm refusing to work with her at all on that, that I'm leaving it up to her. I might have told her to come up with a plan by herself and I would review it with her. That just reinforced to her that I'm unwilling to do anything as a team with her. In typical fashion, I was at a loss for words at the end of the conversation, so she had the last word, telling me to write her a letter (since she was done waiting for me to talk).

So now I'm back to the apology letter dilemma, except now it's absolutely expected and I feel even more pressure to write it ASAP. She even told me the only thing I should be saying to her, rather than I want to save our marriage, is that I see how badly I have hurt her and there is no way I could ever expect her to forgive me or want to be in a marriage with me ever again. I can't really argue with that. I want a healed marriage, but I really don't expect that at this point.

Everything in our relationship right now seems to hinge on the emotional abuse narrative my wife is immersed in. I've struggled to know how to move forward with that. The ONLY solution to it seems to be an apology and me releasing her.