Hoosjim's back... and maybe his WW, too (?)

[hoosjim]

Sandi2, artista... thanks for responding. You two were always stalwarts in sticking by me and supporting me through my darkest periods... even when i wasn't always receptive or otherwise very pleasant to deal with so i appreciate the continued follow up.

artista, so, so sorry to hear about your loss! I know we are all dealing with or have dealt with loss of some type at some point on this site, but you have been hit with so much in a very short period of time! My thoughts and prayers are with you... hang in there!

Sandi:

I call it b.s. I think she was playing with time, hoping that the subject never had to come up. However, when you pulled back and was cool to her for a few days, she ran out of time. Did she have a guilty conscience based on her moral/spiritual values? Was she disappointed in herself (and don't be surprised to hear her use this one), considering she had worked hard the past few months to build trust back into the MR..........and then carelessly through it away?

Sandi, we ended up having a long talk about this Thursday, and have had a couple of smaller talks since. My take, based mostly on what my W has said, but some on my own "read" of her, is that it was something very much like this. She went along with the girls, didn't want to fight the crowd and bff (who has a very strong personality and can be a bit of a bully), thought she could get in touch with me, then got scared to but still wanted to go along with her friends, then after it was past and things were okay with us just figured (hoped?) it would either a) never come up or b) not be an issue with me if it did.

Her story is that she tried to text me but got no response (true, my phone had died by the time they came out of dinner restaurant) and that had she gotten a response she wanted to talk by phone, but she didn't just want to drop a text on me of "I am going to the old bar where I used to hang out with OM"... she wanted to talk by voice. So she went along with bff and other gf who wanted to go Karaoke. She had been drinking less so she was the driver for all three. She searched for karaoke in town (also true-- she offered up her google search history to me and showed me) and they also drove around the old town downtown area past a couple of other pubs to see if they looked active and or had karaoke (also supported by some evidence-- we went back over her location track on her phone and did show them drive past those two other places, slightly out of the way, first). She tried texting me again when they got to the bar before they went in (she did), and then again once in bar from bathroom "because it was loud in bar from the music and if she got through to me she wanted to talk" (though my take is that there was probably an element of not wanting to get jeered by the other girls for calling her husband-- the other two are single/separated). She says they didn't anticipate seeing OM or that crowd since he is now living out of state, had previously had a falling out with owner, and that plan was to not go in or immediately leave if they saw any sign of that crowd in bar (and she shared tidbit with me that bff had also briefly dated someone from that crowd that she did NOT want to see again-- which jives with some of my old intel from two years back that i had not shared with her). They stayed a little over an hour, not many people there, and saw none of the "old crowd" (OM's crowd.) The bar has changed locations, and is more modern and less of a dive... she says it appears to be a different sort of clientelle now.

This story did not, of course, satisfy me or make things "all better"-- simply because the issue was NOT that she had gone there, but that she had done so in secret and that she had either deceived me or knowingly done something that could hurt me and our MR badly... But she granted she should either have told me ahead of time or not gone at all, and she apologized continually and profusely.

She was very contrite, tearful... sorry she had "disappointed me" and "hurt the trust we had rebuilt".She said she understood that it hurt me to have found out the way that i did... that she kept wanting to tell me but never found the right moment with issues with the kids coming up and then we had had a little spat about something else, and then it kept getting farther and farther in the past and she thought it might be better just to let it go. She'd made a "bad decision" and hoped i could forgive her but she knew it might take time. She also never once objected to me "snooping" or "spying", as she had in the bad old days, and we both agreed that keeping our location trackers and phones on was a good idea. We talked about the importance of putting each other and the MR first... in front of all our other relationships. At one point i said "I know bff is your best friend.." and she interrupted me and said, again through tears "No, your'e my best friend... dont you know that by now?" We also talked about the importance of protecting ourselves and the marriage, recommitted to being open about EVERYTHING, even things we thought might anger or hurt the other one, since concealing things of that nature had, in the past, been a big contributor to the downfall of our MR.

I again talked about my concerns about bff and her influence, and W said "I know she's not perfect and she's done a lot of bad things, but she has also had a really hard life (she has-- rape, a second near-rape, molested for years by her stepbrother, both her mothers are trainwrecks as is much of her family), i'm her only real friend, and I can't just abandon her... I don't agree with some of the things she's done, but that doesn't mean i cant be friends with her... but i do know i need to be careful and that i need to put us first always and im not going to make this kind of mistake again. If you want me to not see her i won't see her. (We agreed to talk more about this.)

I found her believable. I can read her pretty well, and while I think there may have been a little more of "I think i can get away with this with my friends" than she let on, I think the situation (MY phone being off as well and me being unreachable after her phone being out of range earlier when I was up and running, her long lost bff being in town and out with girls) contributed to enabling what happened, and that she would have told me had we talked that evening. She did, after all, fess up on her own after i had shut her out for three days and I asked her "Is there any reason you can think of that i should be mad at you?" I absolutely do NOT think she had any sort of liaison with OM or any other man.

We have mostly made up... had a couple of good dates, have been intimate again (she basically raped me last night in the kitchen while i was fixing the dishwasher)... though this obviously has created a new wound (or torn the scar tissue on the old one, which will take time to heal.) We are going to check in with MC when we are down there in a couple of weeks.

I don't understand why she would resent it, unless she felt someone was trying to force her to believe or practice in a way she's doesn't welcome. If that's the case, I would resent it, also. IDK, but based on past discussions with you, your W seems to tie religion to guilt, so she might see you as trying to use faith-based beliefs as a way of controlling.

Some of our awkwardness WRT religion dates back to when the kids were younger (and in the bad old days when we were more at odds than we were "partners") and I started having issues with the RCC and some of its teachings. This translated into me actively resisting some of the teachings wrt our kids and NOT backing up my W on some things... which just became another thing that i "doubted" about her and her values and that i "disagreed with" her on. Of course, now, as i said above, my views on religion and faith and how people come to God/Christ has softened somewhat, and I am much less dogmatic that my own understanding/revelation has to be the model for anyone else. Still, there's some uncertainty there for both of us... it is the one area where i wish more than anything i knew how to strengthen our relationship.

Artista:

i have been in these situations, and sometimes it was me really being deceitful, and sometimes it was me being in a situation that i had not planned, but was not brave enough to tell my husband... and i did behave the same way your wife has... overly affectionate, etc... once when this happened, and my husband was suspicious for maybe a day or two, he finally confronted me, and this pretty much what he said: "artista, you have tell-tale signs when you are hiding something... i gave you a chance to be open and honest with me, but so far you have not taken that opportunity..." i want to say that this happened twice after our reconciliation... the other time, while i was having lunch by myself at a sushi restaurant, he called me and asked me, "is our marriage over?" boom! i said, "no... why???" and he said he knew i was hiding something... and both times i came clean... both times it was silly of me to not be upfront with my husband... i had not done anything wrong, until i kept things to myself... perhaps you can tell her that she has tell-tale signs when she is hiding something...

Artisa, oh my gosh, YES!!! This is exactly the dyamic with me and my W!! She has major tells! She would be a horrible poker player! I told her often even during the depths of her WW period that she was a terrible (i.e. ineffective) liar, and it had been a running joke with us even before that that she was terrible at keeping secrets or hiding things even as simple as surprise parties or gifts. She just is not at all good at deceiving people. Not that she hasn't tried-- obviously the whole affair thing WAS deception, but she's just... bad at it. She'd do things like leave birthday cards to OM (and clearly for him) lying in plain sight on front seat of her car. And obviously her tells, which i levelled with her about this time--- mainly that she becomes EXTRA affectionate and solicitous after she has screwed up or done something wrong.. It's not as obvious now because we are so often affectionate... but you can still tell, plus I just have a very attuned and accurate sixth sense about people... I always have. I even had such about my ex-friend the OM, though i could never quite put my finger on it and my senses had become dulled due to the pit i was in but... i still had little alarm bells (which obviously should have been bigger, lol) Problem is with this (and she noted it) is that now she's "going to worry about being affectionate with me because I'm going to think she's upf to something". I told her it was more than just the being nice/affectionate, that it's the effusiveness/excessiveness of it given the situation and that, in addition to that, I just have a good "feel" for her... At any rate, this must have satisfied her objections given her behavior in the kitchen last night...

Anyway, we seem to be on the right track.

Interesting post script concerning our other issue, which is the female bartender at my (now our) other watering hole. W showed up to meet me there after work on Thursday... this was prior to our climactic thursday night talk on all of this... and we stayed and talked for a while, meeting two other friends plus one of the other regulars there. Our bartender was the attractive young lady-- the phd candidate-- i've previously discussed here. Wife has very fun, talkative. She found out my fellow "regular" was a classmate one year removed of hers at college, and also a basketball player like her... they knew alot of the same people. She kept reaching over and grabbing/groping me while she was talking to him, which is a bit out of character for her (At least in public, lol) and she later told me she was worried i would be hurt/worried about her talking to one of my friends at a bar, since that was how things with OM got started. At any rate, during our in depth talk later, I asked her"so, is there anything else i need to know that i don't know, that might come out later.. anything." She said no... no contact from OM, nothing. Then she asked "What about you". And I said "No, nothing... why?" Her: "Well, I see how bartender looks at you, and how you look at her..." at which point i object "Me look at her?"-- because I really don't "look" at her...or at least if I do it's not consciously, and i DEFINTELY make efforts to look ANYWHERE else when W is there... And W says "No, it's all good, im not worried, but i do see those things." Then she asks me "where did you stay that week and a half you were away last year" (meaning after i walked out)... "I know you were over there at the bar a few nights, and when i asked you last week where you stayed, jokingly, you were kind of evasive." (And i was, but i thought it was in a playful kind of mysterious way, but she apparently took it otherwise.) So I told her "I only stayed at hotels... not with anyone else. I'll be honest, i was so upset and "done" with you at that point that if an opportunity had arisen with someone i might very well have taken it... but it never arose.... and bartender was never at the bar on any of those nights when i was there during that period" [she had been out of country on a medical mission, apparently]...I continued: "IT;s actually one of those things that makes me think God was looking out for us... that and the way we got back together in the following weeks even though i was convinced we were done... until i saw you in town the night we first met to see if there was any hope."

At any rate, W seems comfortable being there and does not seem intimidated at all by this quite beautiful younger woman (with whom she actually shares a whole, whole lot in common). She even said in my ear during thursday happy hour at one point, "If she tries to hug you I'm going to take her down." (We later agreed that that or any other kind of touch with a member of the opposite sex for either of us has to be off limits).

I think we have appropriate limits in place... Like i said i don't go there without her any more, but i am curious from the women here: How good is y'all's "sixth sense" about such things, or does jealousy tend to render it over-active? At this point, despite the veiled overture (which may not even have been one) a few months back, I don't think there's anything there... and remember this is coming from me, a very typical male, who is hard-wired to think that most women do, in fact, "want" him, lol. I just think she's seeing things that arent there... though i did not say that to her... mostly joked and said things like "Well of course she's going to be interested... You've obviously got great taste in men, right?" But I do worry about her self-esteem issues coming back to haunt us... constantly worrying about WON I am going to stray, etc. She hasn't made any comments like she used to in the past, but if she's starting to see things that arent' there, maybe that's a concern.