What a wonderful post. I certainly hope this is the turning point in your marriage, but I want to tell you that even if you have to go one or two or ten more rounds, you are the one who can! I am so, SO impressed with how you handled yourself in that conversation. I am praying every day that I can become so lovingly detached that I can support and love and respect my husband, no matter what he says to me about the OW or the A. I am in awe. So glad to be witnessing your process. It gives me much courage and hope. Thanks.
PositivelyListening ************************************** When one door of happiness closes, another one opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us. - Helen Keller
Thank you so much for the kind words and encouragment. You know that the people here have made whatever I achieve possible. Thank you again.
I'm sure there will be a fair amount of clarifying what happened last night for you. There is no way I can remember all that was said, or convey the tone in which it was said.
As for my W ending it with him only yesterday, that's not the impression she gave me. She said it had been over for some time now for HER but he wouldn't accept that it's truly over. She wouldn't put a time frame on it, but I did believe her. AT NO point in this VERY emotional conversation did she even come close to expressing anything like remorse that things with him were not working out, etc. She was talking like a woman who wanted NOTHING to do with this guy, and had felt that way for awhile now.
As for why she kept seeing him, she chalked it up to "people pleasing" again because she didn't want to totally destroy the guy and did think, mainly because she wanted to continue to go to that gym, that they could just be friends. It sounded like that was happening but that he started not accepting that arrangement and wanted more. Of course, since she has still not admitted a PA with him, I DID ask why he would want "more" from a married woman who, as she claims, never said she was leaving her husband. There are surely some important holes to fill in here. She went on to describe the affair as one where he fell hard early and pursued relentlessly.
As to those holes, I started realizing that the picture was pretty clear and I really didn't need to know much more unless she needed to tell me for some reason. She may do that some day. For the time being, at some point near the end of the night I told her "I just want you to know that I decided long ago to forgive you for this." She asked why I did that. "I told her that it was because I understood my role in the demise of the marriage and I was content to work on that, and part of shifting focus to myself was realizing that the affair was only a symptom, not a cause, at least back then. I decided that I had to forgive you so I could work on forgiving myself for what I had done to you."
She didn't say much but gave me a hug.
Again, PLEASE, ask anything you'd like. If something is not clear, I would love to clarify it. Actually the more you ask/comment, the more I will remember and I really do want to journal as much of this as possible, for my sake, and anyone else who may gain insight to their own sitch.
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edited in
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BTW, after all that, YES, I am going to be careful still. The fact that there was one of "those" shirts that still smelled of him around the house as late as last week makes me question the timing of all this but I am not going to read TOO much into it. Just enough to keep my eyes and ears open.
Posting to Don, I remembered something else my W said. She confessed to all the lies she has been telling me. She said that it was rare for her to EVER get to be alone over the past few months because this guy was always around. She said that she started wanting that to change long ago but he kept pursuing.
Anyway, I responded with probably the only real negative thing I said to her all night. I said "I guess if I am angry or truly disappointed in anything beyond the affair itself, it's that you seemed to think I was an idiot." I went on to tell her that I knew when she met him, etc and that I didn't even have to snoop to figure it out. She's just a bad liar. Luckily this was said at one of the lighter moments of the night and we both kinda laughed it off.
I think she really felt silly, embarrassed, etc, when she really understood how much I knew. I guess this is what they mean when they say you don't need to tell them what you know, save that for when you reconcile. I never understood that until now. It saved her a lot of explaining when I just told her what I knew but IF I had told her anytime before now it would have made things worse.
GH
P.S. Is the gatemaster away for the weekend. Seems like a lock should have been slapped up in here long ago. Maybe I'll set some kind of record here...
Wow, wonderful news. Sounds like you are handling everything very well. Here's three words of advice.
1) Share with your W. You have been saying all along that you are the one who is willing to talk, but W is not. In fact, you have not been sharing with W and she shared with you. So, you are wrong on this point. I suspect in your heart you feel more willing to share, but you have been afraid to take the emotional risk. You need to be willing to open up. What are your dreams for the future? How hurt and angry were you by the A? You need to share your feelings. They will keep coming out. And, your hurt and anger need to acknowledged, validated, and accepted for you to get beyond them. They will keep coming up in different ways, you both need to be prepared for that.
2) I would very strongly recommend setting a very firm boundary with respect to OM right now. It is inappropriate for HER to be the one trying to comfort and care for OM. She is continuing to keep a third party in your marriage. I'd say it is time to make clear that it is no longer acceptable for that to continue.
3) Look, to be very straight, she almost certainly had a PA, IMHO. Your suspicion is one very big clue, people are exceedingly rarely wrong. Also, what she said last night and her behavior with you physically suggest a PA. You need to express your fears about this and be very clear in what you need in terms of honesty from her (simple yes/no, details, etc...). And, she may think she has not participated in unsafe sex when she has (oral is not safe sex.)
She confessed to all the lies she has been telling me.
Um. No, she hasn't.
She confessed to all she can bear to face right now. There is more to come that she cannot face you or herself about...
If you are going to dogmatically believe that she has told you everything, then you are setting yourself up to feel enraged and betrayed when something else comes out.
There are things she simply cannot tell you yet and she will continue to lie about them until she can.
Quote: 1) Share with your W. You have been saying all along that you are the one who is willing to talk, but W is not. In fact, you have not been sharing with W and she shared with you. So, you are wrong on this point. I suspect in your heart you feel more willing to share, but you have been afraid to take the emotional risk. You need to be willing to open up. What are your dreams for the future? How hurt and angry were you by the A? You need to share your feelings. They will keep coming out. And, your hurt and anger need to acknowledged, validated, and accepted for you to get beyond them. They will keep coming up in different ways, you both need to be prepared for that.
OT, for the most part, and I understand my error now, I left out my part of the conversation over the last two days. I have expressed all kinds of things to my W, from hurt to anger to happiness. I even made it a point last night to tell her exactly what you said, that I knew I had not been nearly as open to her, even in the past two days, than I thought I was. I then shared some feelings with her like how happy I was to have her open up to me and how hurt I have been over the last few months. It's a start, one I already made.
Quote: 2) I would very strongly recommend setting a very firm boundary with respect to OM right now. It is inappropriate for HER to be the one trying to comfort and care for OM. She is continuing to keep a third party in your marriage. I'd say it is time to make clear that it is no longer acceptable for that to continue.
I don't think this is necessary. Maybe I am being short sighted but she said over and over again how she does NOT want to see this guy again, nor contact him. She said that it's really been that way for awhile now, and it's been him that has kept contacting her. She said that they only saw each other because of the mutual gym thing. The lunch the other day was just a "goodbye" thing... Now, do I believe all this? Not really but she said, and I affirmed, that she wants nothing to do with him anymore. She knows I need this to be and has accepted it. I think it is a boundary that we both want. Is she over him? I don't know, but it sounds like it.
One thing I want to make clear; I think the important thing is the fact that she's saying anything at all, not necessarily WHAT she's saying. Sure, I would LOVE to believe that she's telling the whole truth but by her own admission she is not. Right now, she is saying enough.
Quote: 3) Look, to be very straight, she almost certainly had a PA, IMHO. Your suspicion is one very big clue, people are exceedingly rarely wrong. Also, what she said last night and her behavior with you physically suggest a PA. You need to express your fears about this and be very clear in what you need in terms of honesty from her (simple yes/no, details, etc...). And, she may think she has not participated in unsafe sex when she has (oral is not safe sex.)
I don't need her to come out and tell me these things. She has as much as done so and I don't need details. I KNOW she had a PA. As for safe sex, we have NEVER had unsafe sex except when she was trying for kids. From day one my W has been insistent on that as much as I have been.
Even though I don't need details or confirmation of the PA, I suspect before we have a physical relationship she will need to confess to me. She has done that every step of the way. From the way she is still hesitant, even though she knows I "forgave" her for "whatever" happened, I think she will need to know that I KNOW about the PA and still forgive her before we can resume our relations. It's just a hunch and I think I am right on this.
Either way, we still seem far off from $ex these days and there will be time for all that.
As I said, the conversation over the past two nights (there was more last night I need to journal about today that may clear some things up) has been of a sort not seen in my M EVER. It was open, emotional and seemed to be somewhat honest. It was a step.
Quote: She confessed to all she can bear to face right now. There is more to come that she cannot face you or herself about...
If you are going to dogmatically believe that she has told you everything, then you are setting yourself up to feel enraged and betrayed when something else comes out.
There are things she simply cannot tell you yet and she will continue to lie about them until she can.
OT, I think somewhere buried in my detailed post I quoted her saying that there was more she wasn't telling me. She admitted as much, and I think I alluded to knowing that too. I would be a fool to think she confessed all.
What I guess I meant by that was she confessed about the lies in terms of where she was, who she was with, etc. As for details of the R with OM, her feelings, what they did, how long it lasted, etc, I KNOW she is holding back. Again, she said she was so at least in THAT she is being honest.
As I said, more convo happened last night that made things clearer. I will post more later. Gotta go to an Easter thing with the family now...
When I broke things off with OM, he actually threatened to come to my house (this is when H came home the first time). He also went to the house of a friend I worked with whom he had thought I must have started up ANOTHER affair with (which was not the case). He went through that guys garbage, called my husband and gave him the friend's name and address and then proceeded to get credit cards in my friends name and run up massive bills. He also contacted me and made me think my H was the one doing all of that. So it was total chaos and the only one I KNEW was innocent was the friend from work. The ex-om had also followed him and threatened him. We went to the police. An investigation was started. In the meantime, my friends mail was stopped, his insurance cancelled and I already mentioned the credit cards....it was insane. The ex-om also got into my friends checking account and stopped payments on all his checks. In addition, he was following me, taking pictures of me, calling me and threatening me and also sending nasty emails to my husband. By the time it was over, he was in jail and I had to testify in court about the whole damn mess, the affair, EVERYTHING. It was incredibly humiliating. One thing I still can't believe is that I thought my husband was doing it at one point. He never did anything. He was also a victim.
I shared all that so you will know to be careful. These guys are off their rocker and it is all about control. When they start losing it, they go crazy.
