Affair, no feelings...is there hope? IV

[44tries]

Well, she's back to not sleeping in the bed. Two nights in, two nights out.

Today was not a great day. We had a lunch reservation with three of our friends and we met them in the early afternoon. We ended up walking around and having a few drinks and were with them for 8 hours. It was a long day, and I was to the point where I was feeling a lot of negative things and wishing for alone time...and my W felt the exact same thing. This awkward tension began to build in the last few hours while we were out and she would ask what was my problem, while I could tell she had a problem, and so on. This is where I really need detachment because I cannot let her emotions affect mine and further feed her moods. I can see myself doing it and it definitely does not help.

She is so filled resentment and contempt and it is days like these where it shows. These are the times she refers to when she says her treatment of me is horrible. She becomes extremely irritable and takes it all out on me. It's in subtle ways, but she knows how to make me feel like trash. I don't know why she has the irritable moods in the first place. I know people have moods, but I can honestly say I have never had the feelings she has that come on seemingly unprompted. It isn't even always toward me, she has it with her friends. Sometimes the way she talks about being irritated/disgusted by someone is so excessive to me. With me, it's not like we have a fight and then she's mad at me. Sometimes there are small triggers, and like I mentioned I know I feed it sometimes, but it seems like she just gets spontaneously flooded with resentment. Then she is short with me, ignores me, just overall disrespect. Once my mom was there for an episode of this and she told me, "you have a LOT of patience." (My mom doesn't say negative things, but that is her version of saying my W treats me like crap).

Tonight when we got home she immediately said she felt suffocated by everyone and was going to bed and needed alone time. Fine, I think all of us were feeling that way by the end of the day. But then she stomps around, purposely ignoring me, and for the second night in a row walks out of the room to go to hers without a word or glance. But she always has some reason to come back out or say something to the dogs. I probably shouldn't have done this, but I told her I thought it was rude to not acknowledge me or simply say goodnight. Of course she had some snarky response about not needing to let me know.

Anyway, in this case I think this was all triggered by me going to my workout class last night. She has been competing with my GAL for time. It's like there is this subconscious pull for her to not want me to go do GAL stuff. So, last night I declined her invitation/request to go get dinner because I had to go to the class (which she knew) and I think she was none too pleased (too bad). But when I got back she was colder and descending into the resentment flood. I think somehow some of her resentment toward me is for "abandonment", for lack of a better word.

During the "mini-BD" that happened last year, she had an outburst of emotion/tears that only lasted for a second before she stifled them, but she asked if I had any idea how it made her feel sitting alone at home every night, especially while I was out with friends/coworkers (this was referring to before we moved and I worked full time with a very long commute). I commuted 1.5 hours each way through bad traffic because it was cheaper and easier for us/her to live closer to base. I got home 2-3 hours later than her most nights because 1. She often got off early at 3-4pm 2. Her commute was way shorter and 3. If I left at the "normal" 5pm, my commute would have been 2-2.5 hours home. My job was very flexible with hours and it made much more sense for me to work 10-6 for traffic reasons. So she got home around 4 while I got home around 7:30. And she waited around and began her TV addiction. This is the beginning of her losing her identity and all motivation to do things as she did before.

Probably less than once a month, maybe once in two months TOPS, my coworkers and I would go to happy hour. I would usually stay until about 9 (although I can remember at least once it was as late as 11), but my W would start calling as early as 7. Other people had wives/husbands, but mine was the one harassing me about when I was coming home. I will also note I invited her to come every time but the drive made that sort of difficult and she always declined. Anyway, all of this stuff became a huge emotional wound for her. Even though I don't really know that I did anything wrong. My commute sucked but it was unavoidable. And surely I should be able go to happy hour once every couple months and stay longer than 2 hours. Once a week, no. But this was not a common thing. Now, I feel I am reopening these wounds with my GAL. Perhaps it is necessary in order to kill the codependency. But it brings out such a huge part of her resentment, which is the number one enemy right now.

Also, she was texting a bit today and I don't know who. I know her ex has texted her in the past few days about promotions (this is one of the only times they talk). I also know that as long as she has this much resentment and rebellion aka waywardness, it's only a matter of time before she finds someone else to talk to or contacts OM. Maybe it's time to go back to tougher love.