New thread- Newcomer pre-bomb drop

[Bern19]

Thank you Sandi, I was hoping you'd weigh in.

During the session with the MC, did your WW ever offer an apology or express regret that she had deceived you and betrayed you for 4 years?

Not what I would call a "come to Jesus" type moment. She did apologize, and for the first time it wasn't followed immediately or shortly after by reminding me of the things I had done to push her away. The only time she's cried or been broken up about it in front of me is when I asked her how many lies does she think she can tell me before I begin to hate her? I told her that if our marriage doesn't survive this, we will still be in each others lives because of the kids until one of us dies. I told her I don't want to spend the rest of my life hating her, and that she needed to be honest with me about her intentions. She broke down and managed to say that she didn't want me to hate her...

She's just mad at OM. If he contacted her today and convinced her that he was forced to say/do those things but that his heart still belongs to her, yada, yada..........it would be hard for her not to buy into it, b/c she will be going into the very beginning of withdrawals of the affair addiction, and she needs a fix. Her bruised ego may carry her through a few days, but she will crave to have some type of contact, if it's nothing but seeing him like something on social media.

I started to try and explain this exact concept to her, but caught myself and stopped. She has admitted to the addictive nature of the relationship. Says she didn't see it that way until more recently when she was trying to steer clear of him, but still enjoyed the fact that he was pursuing her. Until I'm certain that she has started to break out of her wayward mindset, where everything I tell her is received like a spoiled teenager that is rebelling against her father. I need to let her do some of the heavy lifting to get started. So, I'm letting her do some of her own reading and trying not to get initiate any relationship conversations.

That's true, and that's why you need to require that she agrees to being transparent. The WW has to be held accountable throughout the period they are going through "withdrawals" from the affair/OM. She's been at this for 4 years, so I doubt it is going to be a breeze for her.

As the WW, she doesn't get to pick & choose about how much she will reveal. She doesn't get to claim he is invading her privacy. Only the wayward spouse has to be accountable for their whereabouts and activity. The faithful spouse shouldn't volunteer or agree to join the transparency club. This is not about the faithful spouse's atonement, it's about the wayward spouse who is not trustworthy. So, it's up to the H to decide what type of transparency he needs from his WW. She has to surrender all passwords, delete old texts from OM, block him, etc. It's the H's decision when he will take a look at her phone activity. BTW, she should not know when he looks at her phone, for reasons I can explain later, if necessary. He should not announce when he's going to look, nor have a scheduled time, nor even check every day.

We haven't had that discussion yet as I'm still waiting to see if she can manage "no contact" for a few days at least. I'm not confident that she can as she has proven she couldn't before. Only difference now is she no longer sees him everyday at work since he quit. I know that he will go to a neighboring district and get hired to the same job and there is a chance that they'll end up at the same location for an event for their respective schools. I know that is probably not likely in the next couple months, but next school year it could be a reality. Until then he is unemployed and has plenty of time to contact my ww.

As for the things I need from her, this is what I have currently:
1. Absolutely no contact. If she runs into him or he tries to contact her, she calls me immediately to let me know.
2. Transparency- Delete all texts, emails, pics, etc. Given all passwords for access to all social media and email accounts and possibly downloading a gps tracking app to her phone.
3. Gifts- any and all gifts/presents/etc need to be disposed of. I don't want her being triggered to think about him as she drinks coffee from the mug he bought her.
That's all I have settled on so far... any other suggestions here?

As for your decision about letting her remain the MBR, I'll add these thoughts. If you have not decided if you want to stay married or get a D, then I suppose you could sleep apart for a few nights. However, under no circumstances should you agree or even call it an in-house separation. Those are killers! It is ultimate cake-eating for a WW. Besides, if you think you will want to work on the MR, then she doesn't need to spending the night behind closed doors from you. While going through withdrawals, she'll be very vulnerable to temptation to contact OM. I know some may say that you can't watch her 24/7....and that is very true. If the WW is authentic about wanting to save her M, then transparency will help her to stay on the straight & narrow road. Sure, she can find a way around it if she wants to break the NC agreement, but if she wants free of those conflicting feelings toward OM, then she will need to get through the withdrawals. If her feelings were beginning to change toward OM before she saw his true colors, then hopefully, she can get through the process faster.....IDK.


Again, I caution you about just sitting back and watching her, b/c you do NOT want to appear passive. I don't mean you should pursue her! I think you are watching to see if she makes any attempt to approach you about working on the MR. Just speaking as a former WW, appearing passive would look similar to playing the role of Plan B. You have options. You are in the driver's seat. You get to call the shots. You get to state the requirements she has to meet in order for you to feel safe in a relationship with her. The last thing you need to do is let her back into the MR without doing the work.

When this all started, divorce wasn't an option. I didn't believe in divorce. After finding out that she lied about the timeline of the affair, then was lying to me about no contact, then finding out that there had been talks with the OM about selling his house so they could be together, all slowly started to erode my long held belief that divorce was wrong. I started to see that divorce is a way out of an abusive and destructive relationship. When the other spouse claims they want to work on the marriage, but in secret continue their secretive behavior the BS is left in a desperate position. I think that is when I started to realize that I was worth more. That I deserved to be happy. I still struggled with the effects of divorce on my kids, but realized she wasn't being a good wife or mom. She was so distracted by the OM, that she made all of us a secondary priority. My kids deserve better than that too. It was crazy how fast her attitude changed once she noticed me pulling away. I think her confusion over my obvious detachment, coupled with the discovery of this pic that she sent him (post discovery), him exposing to her boss and then quitting, all combined to finally get her attention. I have seen a different side to my ww the past couple days, but am still being very careful to make sure I don't make her return to the MR too easy. She claims she's willing to do the work, but we have yet to talk about what I need from her. Let's see what her attitude is once I explain the things I need from her to continue.