I feel a lot of sadness in your posts that your W is in an A, but I'm not hearing any anger. Anger isn't a healthy emotion to spend too much time in, but it has its place and right now, you deserve to feel angry. She has lied to you and cheated on you for more than a year. She gaslit you and got your MC to do the same.
May, I am incredibly sad and just as equally angry but I have a great deal of difficulty dealing with the anger. Anger is an alien emotion for me. It takes a great deal to get me angry and I am usually just able to work through it and let it go. This time the anger is incredibly overwhelming and I have no idea how to process it. It has turned me into a person I do not recognize. I have used it to strike out at my wife on too many occasions recently. I have thrown a lot of daggers at her that have resulted in some nasty arguments. All of which have just made our situation worse.
Originally Posted by may22
What are you seeing in her behavior that makes you think she's in any way worthy of you as her W?
Nothing, and this just makes me angry with myself because despite her behaviors (EA with OW, denial of EA, insistence that she is just friends with OW, gaslighting, hours and hours of telephone conversation with OW, ILYBIANILWY, request for S, etc) I still do not want to let her go. What the hell is wrong with me that I still want to save my M despite everything that she is doing?
Originally Posted by Valeska19
Pulling back is about setting a boundary on yourself because you know... it's going to be painful and so out of emotional safety - you take care of yourself.
Valeska, thank you for this. You are absolutely right I do need to start setting boundaries on myself.
Originally Posted by Valeska19
This is mind reading. The bigger question is what do you need to do. Obviously the want is to be married - but that's not on the table now. So what do you want/need? Try to tell us and leave out your wife if that makes sense. For example:
"I need emotional safety" "I need emotional support" "I need to feel good about myself"
And then ask yourself? How do I go about getting these things that I need.
I need all of these things. I am working on it. My first step will be to physically distance myself from my W. I cannot do this in-house separation. I just cannot handle it emotionally. I keep confronting and attacking her. As a result, I have decided to leave the first week in November. I am going to go home to my family (sister & parents).
I will need support and advice from all of you on how to handle the physical S. I have no idea how I will be able to manage it.
