At a turning point

[WantToSaveIt]

Since my last post things have been going fairly well with my sitch. My W continues to express a desire to work through all of this and has made it known to me that being with me is where she wants to be.
Good. Take her word for it and dont' let doubt, fear and anger over betrayal cloud your actions or your changes or behavior like I did.

That feels really good in a lot of ways, but yet I don’t as though the ordeal is over, but has yet just begun.
Focus on the feeling good and let it show. Don't let the doubt and fear take over. That leads to the dark side.

I struggle with a mixed bag of emotions and really am not so sure what to make of some things.
Worry about what's going on with you. If you continually do reality-checks on your W or OM (which you really can't do anyway), you'll form your own reality of what the truth is in your head, and, if you're like me, that reality can be wrong. And even if it's right, it can cause you to do things that will perpetuate that reality, which may not if you just leave it alone. Do reality-checks on yourself, not them.

To now, I have paid lip-service to detachment, but haven’t really put those principles into action for the most part,
I screwed up here too. I plowed through the book in the first week of crisis and all I wanted was answers, solutions and a quick resolution to soothe my soul and make me feel safe and better. The advice I read ended up going in one eye and out the other.

PLEASE know that I love you so very much and I am so VERY sorry about everything, more than I can express. I want my life back. Please know I am trying to move on with all I got. I hope you can be patient and wait for me. This is where I want to be. Please know this. YOU are my life I KNOW THAT. I NEED to work out my emotions and I WILL. I LOVE YOU.
I recieve a very similiar email from my wife at work a few weeks after discovery and confrontation. Whether she was sincere or not is besides the point. Rather than have faith, I immediately tried to validate the truth and honesty by hacking into messages and found out that EA was continuing. Guess what I focused on?


Yet, despite my W’s intentions and expressed desire to be with me, I still question whether she has had the required “self-reflection” to determine whether this is who she really is or whether she is determined to make it work out of fear, guilt, etc.
I too tried to test her to find out what her motivations were. I dropped words like "divorce" and "seperation" and "why prolong this?" and "it will be better now instead of stringing me along for another 6 months to 2 years when you decided the time is right to make your move" just to see how she would react. And was she avoiding the notion of divorce or seperation because of guilt, or how she would be percieved in the eyes of family? Or because she was afraid of making a mistake? Or because her life would be living hell without me around to help with the kids, house, etc.? Or did she truly want to get back those loving feelings and save our marriage for US?

The point being, I wonder where I need to go from here. I still believe that I need to emotionally detach
I'm fairly new here and don't feel very qualified to give advice, but I think you answered your question.


I have been overly dependent upon my relationship with my W and as a result, still find my emotions and feelings reacting to her emotions, moods and feelings.
You just described me to a 'T' and how I reacted to my W's emotions, moods and feelings I now realize had a direct impact on this roller-coaster ride, which may well be over now for the better (I don't know that for a fact, just speculation), if I did things alot differently from the beginning.

Secondly, she still works with OM and has acknowledged to me that she has to deal with her emotions for him which leads me to believe that a backslide could occur at any moment.
Your wife has a choice. Make yourself the better choice. If she doesn't choose you, then she made the wrong choice, but at least you didn't.

I guess I’m really confused as to where I go from here.
I don't think you're confused. It sounds like you've picked up on alot of the things you need to do. Just don't make the mistakes I made and ignore them because of fear, anxiety, anger, jealousy, etc. etc.


I want to acknowledge that somewhere in our life prior to this, I wasn’t fulfilling her emotional needs and I want to find out what those needs where so I can address them now.
I don't know your situation, but in my case this got pointed out to me real quick. The only problem is I tried too hard to remedy this and tried so hard to fulfil these emotional needs that I came off as phony and insincere. I was also trying to "compete" with OM and my mind was running around frantically, feeling like I had to play catch-up to him and all it did was push her away, and probably towards him.

But I don’t know how to approach any of this.
Don't panic.
--Douglas Adams

How can I be detached and yet striving to fulfill her emotional needs at the same time?
Ah, the Catch-22! If I try to act the way I should have acted earlier in our marriage, it just pushes you away and turns you off, but if I "detach" and not get in your face, then aren't I just being the same lame inattentive bump-on-the-log husband that drove you to this in the first place?????

I know, I know. I don't know if that's your sitch, but that was what I have been faced with day in and day out. It's a tough tight-rope to walk.

The folks here have been providing some very good advice on these issues, just keep reading, and don't try to do too much too soon. Soak it in and even meditate on a sentence that some here writes or in Michelle's books before going "ah! I'm going to go out and try that sentence right now and my marriage will be saved"

(maybe not everybody needs instant gratification like I do, but that's one of the ways I screwed up.)