Awww man GH, I am really sorry to hear about this for you....obviously as our sitchs are eerily close, this has really taken me aback. If I were closer to Fla I'd come down and take you out for a drink (well, you could be the Designated Driver and I'd drink )
In any event, I really feel that this is something that you will have to confront your W with for a variety of reasons....but I also beleive that you will need to have your emotions in check before doing so. Give it some time to settle and move forward from there...you don't want your negative emotions to run the conversation here...you need to be rational and sane. This is something that both you and her will have to come to grips with before moving forward.
Now, I could say that perhaps the test was for other reasons, but as AmyC said, given recent history, I don't seem to think so. This sucks in many ways for you, but you always sorta suspected it...
In the end, you will do what you believe is right for you and your R. I wish you luck in anything and just know that you will be in my thoughts today. Hang in there.
Best,
Rob
"Achieve success, but without vanity; Achieve success, but without aggression; Achieve success, but without gain; Achieve success, but without force." Lao Tzu
Thank you ALL for your support. Here is where I am after sleeping (not very well mind you) on this.
The main thing that I think this changes for me is that I think I will now need her to admit to this at some point, not now, but sometime. I have said in the past that I didn't need that from her to move on. Now I do. I STILL believe that she will have to admit it before she can move forward with "us" so I am going to hold out for that because I think if she admits it on her own it will be better for both of us than if I confront her with what I found and introduce the whole snooping thing into it. I will NOT wait forever on this though. If we do not make progress, and if she does not admit it, I will at some point, have to let her know what I know and how I feel.
So I am not going to talk to her right now about this. I agree with those of you that said this really doesn't change anything and so why do I need to confront her? I know more now, but I already knew this so bringing it up makes no sense. I could have insisted on talking about it before this.
Also, I just want to clear one thing up. My W does not miss periods, she just fluctuates a little as to when they come. I KNOW (unless she was going WAY out of her way to fake THAT too) she had one a few weeks ago so unless she somehow suspected she could still be pregnant from sex they had before her period, that means they slept togeter pretty recently.
The really interesting thing is I took a look back at the time line of my sitch from earlier in the week. Well, what do you know, the BIG R talk...it happened the night before she bought the test. All the anxiety/panic attacks...happened the day she bought it, and the day after. Today? Well, she's sick (not THAT kind of sick) but otherwise, the anxiety and panic are gone. I can't tell her mood because she's really sick but her general stress level seems to be way lower than a few days ago.
So this all tells me that there was a VERY good reason for her stress in the beginning of the week and that the test must have been negative. I don't know what the facts are and I understand I probably won't know them any more by stressing over this OR confronting her right now.
In any event, I am STILL feeling those old sick feelings that I really thought were behind me at this point. I am still shaking a bit and feel weak. I WILL get hold of this soon because I have a wedding to shoot tonight and I can't be this way for it.
I will post some specific replies after this. Thanks you all!
Quote: Conflict avoidance is the single biggest predictor of divorce--I read that somewhere, I think in DR.
Ok, so you are advocating that I confront her with this tonight? Why do I need to do that? Because I have evidence? Yes, I am avoiding conflict but I feel it's unncessary conflict at this point. Why conflict over something I have told her in the past I already knew and she KNOWS I know? Just to have her either lie or say the words? I don't see how that helps.
Quote: It seems to me that you are making a lot of ASSumptions. OK - so there was a receipt for a pregnancy test in her pants. Do you know it was her receipt? No. Do you know she bought the pregnancy test for herself? Could have been for a friend/sister/coworker? Maybe.
No. I highly doubt this. When I look back at the stress my W was under the day she bought this thing, I am pretty sure it was for her.
Quote:
You said she's irregular, well I for one know that irregularity breeds fear and if she has been under stress for some time, and you mentioned I think that she has a little bit of an eating disorder like PArob's wife she may have skipped a few periods and she's just making sure she's not pregnant to you or anyone else.
We have not had sex in 7 months. If it were me, she would probably be showing a bit by now. Also, as I said, I know she's had her period this month so...
Quote: For goodness sake - this changes very little - and there comes a point where it would be great to give her the benefit of the doubt.
Ok. While I find myself not agreeing totally with OT, I don't agree with this either. The changing little part, yes, the other about it being great to give her the benefit of the doubt...yes, it WOULD be great but I find it very hard to do that considering all that I know.
Quote: Imagine how scared she must be if she does think she is pregnant. Be a supportive and loving friend to your wife - she may need that now more than ever - yes?
I tend to agree with this. When put together with some of the other posts about the possible scenarios she's going through and what I THINK our situation to be, I feel you could be right. This is so hard. It's hard to know WHAT to think or do.
Quote: And another thing i was thinking about is ..How could she be so careless as to leave a receipt in her pocket?I know if it were me i would have burned the damn thing.Did she want you to find it?Did she think you would go through her pockets?
I don't know. I highly doubt she wanted me to find it. I don't normally do her laundary but she asked me to do a few things for her last night. She didn't ask me to do any jeans but I saw them with the other things she asked me to do and grabbed them anyway.
Quote: This is a tough one GH...You have already done better than most people...I surely would have blew up,said lots of things,left the house.....Than probably came back the next day to say im sorry.So you are doing very well,and sooner or later the truth has a way of coming out.
Thank you. I think I handled it best I could and I too think the truth WILL come out. I am just worried that I am being too passive somehow. OT seems to be suggesting that. I don't agree but it is a thought I have.
Not to be disrepectful in any way here, but I think you put too much into what OT thinks of you. While I think she is very straightforward and knowledgeable she is NOT you. In the end, only you know what is right for you and yor W. I know you value everyones opinoins and advice here but this must be a decision that you make on your own. You seem to be doing a very good job at handling it so far. Keep the faith!!
In a way I think this might actually be good for you. For some time you wanted to believe it was not a PA and this will force you to deal with your feelings instead of clinging to the possibility that it wasn't true.
I agree. That is what is affecting me as much as anything; the realization that I may have been in partial denial about this. I don't think I was but what I choose to do now will tell me.
Quote: Whether you discuss what you found with your W is really up to you. Sometimes we all walk around on eggshells for fear anything we do wrong will send our WAS even farther away.
This is one of the most important things for me. IF I can't deal with this and accept that I KNEW IT ALREADY so it changes nothing, then I have to talk to her about it. If I am going to be in a mood, walking on eggshells, etc, then this will NOT work for me. I don't know how it will go yet. I still have a lot to think about.
Quote: Remember, your W is probably under a lot of stress as well. It is possible that she was still sleeping with him even after her feelings changed. If he was violent toward her and is giving her grief about trying to repair your M, it's also likely that your W felt pressure to continue the physical side of things even after her heart wasn't in it anymore.
This is another VERY important thing in all this. I hate to bring this up but I feel it's necessary and I think many of you thought this too, reading some of what I posted about our R talk a few weeks ago. W kept saying that "If you knew the whole truth about this, and what he's done, you would be livid." She also made comments like "My dad would kill him." and other things like that. When I tried to get her to tell me what she meant, she refused, and later tried to minimize it and claim that she really didn't mean to say it was anything that bad. I suspected back then, and much more so now, that some kind of sexual assult may have occured and that brings a WHOLE new element to all this. I have no idea if that is what happened but it fits all the evidence. If that is the case, then she would be under terrible stress because she probably feels like she can't talk to anyone, especially me and dealing with that alone would be terrible.
Anyway, pure speculation. I don't know what happened but I do agree that whatever it was, either just a simple "I think I may be pregnant" or something more, my W is clearly going through something major.
Mama, I respect OT and she knows very well that I am capable of making up my own mind. I have disagreed with her in the past, and I will do so again, I'm sure.
I appreciate EVERYONE who tries to help me, even, or maybe especially when they don't agree with me.
I like your script. I still say I am not coddling her, I am allowing her to play this out. Isn't that what DB is all about? I KNOW there always comes a time when confrontation and "showing pain and anger" are necessary but isn't that more of a last resort than DB?
I know you are saying I need to talk to her much sooner than later. I hope you will respect my opinion that I don't think that is the right thing to do. I don't see it as coddling her nor do I see it as enabling her to "manage the emotions of OM." I see it as taking the same, relatively successful approach of detachment and not pressing "R" talks that I have been using. Why should I change that now?
I look at my situation and I see all kinds of points where I could have shown pain and anger to NO positive end. The shirts, the bear, the rings, her cell phone, hell, everything that I ever perceived as evidence. I never did that, and for that, I think I have had pretty positive results thus far. I am really leery of changing that way of being now over something that "doesn't change anything."
You yourself said that when the day comes that I find out the PA is a fact, that it didn't have to be that terrible thing that ends my life and causes utter turmoil, that it was up to me to decide how I was going to deal with that.
I think I am choosing to deal with it the best way I can and still maintain my sanity.
I still have not ruled out talking to her but I have to see some value in it other than just letting her know how I feel about snooping and finding out something that I think means she had a PA and was possible pregnant with him.
IF I never found that, would you still be advocating that I talk to her tonight? I think I hear YOU saying that this changes something more than I am and you have been the one most adamant all along that this was likely a PA so I needed to come to grips with that. I did, and so this is not a deal breaker for me. Not yet.
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