Need advice: wife of 10 years wants out

[may22]

Hi Peter,

Few disconnected thoughts from me in response (sorry, don't feel like quoting right now, so this may be hard to follow):

- I do love my H. FWIW he says he never stopped loving me either. Loving him as a person is separate from me still being really quite angry over his behavior. I'm not quite at forgiveness yet.

- He was not himself during the A. He was a weak and sad shell of a man. I think the lying and cheating was actually really hard on him to reconcile his behaviors with his own self-image. Once it ended (I kept telling him-- if you don't want to be a liar, it's easy-- DON'T LIE) and he was able to live his life more in keeping with his own values, he really changed back into the H I knew and loved.

- With time and space he's also stopped defining how he felt about the AP as love but he really did go all-in during the A, told me it was True Love, etc. I think he needed to convince himself it was True Love in order to justify his actions like it was all beyond his control.

- If you've decided that if her affair has gone physical that you'll divorce her, as others have said-- prepare yourself for the high likelihood that it already has. (Also, what do you mean by physical? Would a kiss count or just going all the way?) Saying you will D if you find out it is a PA vs actually doing it is pretty different, so I would recommend preparing yourself for this path. Talk to an L. Understand your rights. How would you want to manage custody of your child? I talked to several attorneys and actually did all the worksheets so that I could see what the financials implications would look like and had a proposal for custody split. This was really necessary for me to get rid of the fear of D and be prepared. I highly recommend this.

- In terms of S, I agree if you don't want to leave the house or the MBR, don't. Depending on home ownership or who is on the lease, you may not be able to force her to leave either-- so be prepared for that. I asked my H to leave and he refused which was now a blessing in disguise but at the time I was really angry and frustrated and felt powerless-- but at the same time it was more important to me to stay in the house with the kids and let him be the one to take the step of walking out the door if that is what he chose to do. I made that choice with open eyes though and realize it isn't for everyone. If your boundary is I won't live with someone who is in an affair, then you might need to be prepared to move out yourself if she won't go.

- In/re validating WS BS, I would say that sometimes it can be helpful to listen and validate/empathize, but what you hear can be hard and frankly gross. I eventually set a boundary of not listening to anything about my H's feelings for AP. I just put up a stop sign hand and would walk away. You are not required to listen to or validate anything. Non-response or an Mmm-hmmm with a quick change of subject or escaping the convo is all okay too. I think the main issue is to NOT respond with defensiveness, arguing, or invalidating her.

- I don't necessarily agree that all changes are temporary. For many people, there are big life changes like parenthood that force big change into your life, some good, some maybe not so good. For me, when we had children I completely sank into the identity of motherhood and let a lot of other parts of my life wither. I stopped seeing myself as a sexual being (leading to the SSM) and every single decision I made was with the children at the middle. I stopped thinking of my H as a human being in our marriage and just as a dad and business partner. I stopped thinking of myself too and stopped doing things that i loved because I felt guilty. This whole situation forced me to look at this and realize that there is more to me than being a mom. I started reconnecting with friends, self-care practices, etc etc. I took a job last year as the CEO of an organization and am getting a lot of fulfillment from my work. I did this all for me, not for my H. Side benefit to him is that we no longer have an SSM and we both take time to do things for ourselves without any guilt (me guilting myself or me guilt tripping him). I think 180s are great ways to try out different ways of being and see what works for you. If you're just doing it to try to keep your S around, then I agree with LH-- it will go away. But, you might find your own benefits to how you feel from some of those 180s. For instance, maybe not getting annoyed at her for little things can be really freeing and personally rewarding to you, and something you'd like to keep regardless of your R with her. But if you're internally rolling your eyes and super annoyed and just acting like it doesn't bother you-- that's not a 180 you're likely to be able to keep up, I would guess.

My final piece of advice to you is that I'd really focus on the boundaries vs. attempted control distinction. I had a really hard time with this. Bring your boundaries here and posters can help you parse out what is a boundary for you vs what is a "boundary" that you're setting to really try to control her.