Finding the Balance then Tipping the Scale (3)

[Adam04]

Updating,

Ovrrnbw, patience feels like one of those things where no matter how much you practice or have, you will need more of and I am always trying to be more patient. I haven’t spoken to anyone else really about my sitch other than coming here. No clergy. I am not Catholic and haven’t converted over. Thought has crossed my mind to convert since we go every Sunday now.

D, thank you ... Let me say that this is an uphill battle with an unknown outcome. All I can do is try to be the best me day by day trying to be a good person and ultimately her decision to come back is her own.

So I have been away for a while trying to DB this thing. I been at the house living there. The apartment just sits there with some of my clothes and I’ve gone back and forth sometimes to get space and take care of bills etc. Where I last left off my W wanted me to move in and I did.

In June we took the kids to Legoland in California and my youngest son overcame his fear of flying. We were all so happy for him. The place was beautiful and we all had a great time.

W and I have said we enjoyed this last month being together. She said she likes being with me alone doing our thing. She said she is excited to plan for our anniversary in a few months. She said it was easier to talk to me about anything and she didn’t feel like she was on pins and needles or that I would judge her. We’ve gone on a couple of date nights. So everything seemed to be going okay. I was being patient and didn’t push for immediate marriage counseling. She doesn’t seem ready like taking the bull by the horns type ready doing the searching and basically doing the work. So I haven’t been controlling or forceful, I still have my guard up. W and I have slowly started to open up more about our feelings...

I did bring up to my W there was more to that day of BD than she admitted and I needed to get over that hurdle. So yesterday, she has a Snapchat coming in from a close friend when we were standing close together at a restaurant and she didn’t check it then on her watch, I turned around to do something and turned back and she was in Snapchat on her phone with another lady. She told me what the lady was doing and showed me a picture. I asked about the other person who is her friend and asked what did she send. She said she already looked at it and couldnt retrieve the picture because as you know, that’s how it works if it isn’t a story , I guess... I am not a SSM person. Later she noticed I was kinda quiet and asked me about it and if I was okay. I expressed to her at home that I felt like when the snapchat came in on the watch , that she waited to view it until later, which immediately made me think she was being secretive. She said she didn’t mean to be secretive. As she was leaving the room I asked for her phone passcode and she gave it to me so I decided to look at a couple of numbers. She left the room and later came back. She realized I had a copy of a phone record of the time she said she texted her other friend on BD to say our marriage is over. So I was matching the number she texted to the number of the lady friend on her phone directory and no match. The phone number wasn’t even in her phone so I called it in front of her and she asked me to hang up and she would tell me the truth...

It turns out day of BD she had lunch with a guy, a client who has been picking her up several times throughout a few months to go to lunch and ask for business which she said she gave. I asked questions on if there was an EA or PA and she denied that saying they no longer talk and it has always been about business. She said she knew it would look bad and panicked that day so covered up with the lie and she said she came close to telling me the truth several times but it didn’t happen. I packed up my clothes and said I was going to the apartment and told her I was disappointed that she kept this lie going on this long and I was hurt and angry that it was only when I was going to bust her in a lie that she decided to come clean and it wasn’t on her own free will. So I left and I told her I would need to think about this whole thing and do a reset with the kids with her this week and next week they be with me. I had her tell my older son what happened and she told him and said she was the reason why our family was breaking apart because she lied to daddy about being somewhere and she was with a guy.

A lot of thoughts were flooding in. Is the house my home, am I doing the right thing or am I being punitive? It’s hard to tell sometimes. Later that night when I was in the apartment we talked more on the phone.

A few take aways was she said she finally felt good to get it off her chest because she felt guilty for lying to me but she was scared of what I would do. I hated the way I found out and it feels like I can not trust her with anything but I love her and think I make it too easy to forgive her. She is sad and angry at herself and has said she doesn’t know how we can bounce back from this because now I have a name and would always think she wanted out because of this guy

My W didn’t want me to unload my clothes to the new apartment. She also said she wasn’t sure what would happen with us mostly because she felt like I was using the kids and she didn’t want to see me get angry one week and say I’m taking the kids back to the apartment and the next week I am back at the house, she didn’t want to do that with the kids.

Was late last night and she didn’t want me back at the house that night because she didn’t like herself and she was feeling some sort of way at me about the kids, but I told her since she said this was OUR home and I had been there a month, I was going back that night and if she didn’t like it she could sleep in anther room. I told her I was not leaving to quit the family.

So I went home and slept in the MBR next to my wife and we woke up and she laid in my arms. We got up and talked more. She knows she can’t reassure me that no EA or PA happened but she said she is relieved now to tell me what actually happened that day. She got ready to go to church and asked me to go. I went and she later said she was thankful I went to church because it meant a lot to go as a family, where we could work this out as a family.

And here I am...

Any advice is appreciated.

I don’t know if I mentioned it above but I asked my W about the find me app and she said when she tried to turn it on there was an error but she will try again. Told her with all this going on it’s a little disappointing. Also I asked her to write a no contact letter to this guy and do a no contact call. Told her to google it. She said she will do it but she hasn’t communicate with this guy in a long while. Would the no contact letter/ call be best in this scenario ?

I am thinking about going thru the call logs to confirm she hasn’t contacted or been contacted by his number after that day or from any number from his company that’s on his LinkedIn account.

If I find something and we go thru this again with her lying, do I go back to the apartment and resume the 50/50 split or do I stay in the MBR in the new house?

Btw, we are together a lot more. On weekdays, we text throughout the day. She tells me her work schedule and if she will be out to lunch and with who. She said like a week or two ago she was meeting with two people from another company. A lot of the current stuff, there aren’t red flags except how she is handling the past up to BD.

Am I making this too easy for her and what could I be doing differently? Always open to advice. Thanks again.