The only thing that is still bothering me is this idea that at every turn in your marriage your W seems to be suggesting a D. There is something wrong there that will have to be addressed at some point. I know you love her but as much as you need to address YOUR issues, she does too. I am not suggesting YOU address her issues right now but be aware that true reconciliation will likely have to involve her changing her overall attitude towards your marriage and putting some REAL value in it. It seems like she's somehow thought of it as a disposable thing to this point. Again, that worries me.
GH
P.S. DMW, do you have a thread? You thanked me, so I thought I posted to you before but I can't seem to find you. If you have not started a thread, why don't you so we can help you directly if possible.
Ah, well I do remember that thread. You don't seem to want to post anything about your sitch so it's really hard to offer you help beyond the generic DB stuff you can get by reading countless threads around the site. If you are concerned about someone recognizing you and don't want to post, then I would suggest just picking a thread (this one maybe) that you relate to and trying to get something out of it. If you aren't getting enough help that way, then maybe you ought to post your details and take your chances. Sorry I can't offer you more.
I really wish I had more advice to offer you here other than what's been stated by others before me, but I would emphasize that it is YOU that needs to throw yourself back into your M. I guess my real concern, which was also expressed by GH, is that it seems everytime things get rough, your W has thrown around the idea of a D. This is definitely an issue that must be addressed in the context of a continuing relationship, but let's not put the cart before the horse. You must do whatever it is that you can do to win back trust and the heart of your W. This doesn't mean that you have to be a martyr...it seems that you have owned up to your decision and have been making amends, but it does mean that you have to be open and honest with her.
"Achieve success, but without vanity; Achieve success, but without aggression; Achieve success, but without gain; Achieve success, but without force." Lao Tzu
Ok Rob and Amy. Lets put what I said about all the DB stuff with the things YOU are saying about not being a doormat together and then put THAT into his sitch. I am just worried that it will be VERY difficult for HH to "win back the trust" of his W without basically dropping to his knees and begging for weeks on end. It seems like she is SO quick to throw around the D thing that it is some kind of weapon she uses to keep him in line. Now that she has a REAL reason to divorce the man, well, I guess it just bothers me.
I do agree with you both, and HH, you need to understand that many of the changes you will make in DB will be for YOU and YOU only. You may not be able to save your marriage (and I am NOT saying you won't) but you will be able to save yourself, and starting to find REAL value in yourself apart from your marriage and W is a huge step in all this.
At some point, should you have begun to get this "self worth" thing growing in you before the A, your response to one of her threats would have been (assuming the A never happened) "Well honey, I think you are right, and a D is the right thing to do. I will go to the lawyer's office tomorrow and you will be served by week's end. See you later."
What I mean is that I really want you to take a HARD look at your marriage and your wife and understand as much as you can about them...then stop thinking about it for awhile (ok, maybe one minute) and focus exclusively on yourself and the things you want to change about YOU. You HAVE to make sure that you are being true to what you want in all this and NOT what she wants from you. If what you want and what she wants from you are one in the same, then great. If, when you reconcile you are filling many more of her needs/wants out of love, then great, but for now, you need to be clear about why you are doing all this, and that needs to be because YOU want to. Whew...that was tough to get out...lol.
Right now, you can't change the fact that your W seems to be trying to control you via divorce threats so you can't dwell on that. You have already decided that you love your W and want to work on your marriage. Now take the next step and decide that the only way that marriage will work is if you are a STRONG, EQUAL partner in it and willing to do whatever it takes to be that, including insisting (much later on, mind you) that she FULLY commit to the marriage and stop making these threats.
Quote: My affair was with a woman with loose lips and word leaked out to an acquaintance of my mother-in-law. My MIL confronted me and told me, "I don't know if this is true and I don't care, but if it is, it needs to stop NOW. I don't want my daughter hurt." It had already stopped, so that was not an issue. My mother-in-law then took it upon herself to inform my W's sister and brother of my mistake. My brother-in-law is an addict and is extremely unstable. He got drunk in February and came over to "kick my a**." So that's how my W found out about my horrible mistake. IMHO my MIL knew her son would behave in the way that he did. To make matters worse, my MIL has been the captain of the USS Infidelity herself. So much for expecting honor amongst those who betray their spouses. I know I didn't deserve any breaks in concealing my disaster. Bad judgement all around, especially ME.
I had a feeling she found out in a very dramatic way. So you can add humiliation to the pot of things she feels. UGH.
Okay, so you already know you have to show this guilty complex the way to the door. I am not trying to minimize what you have done at all. I definitely know what you are feeling. Been there, done that. But you will sit there and the wounds will fester and your marriage will die in the meantime. Stand up. TELL her you are sorry and all the reasons why. Tell her what you will be doing differently and then be prepared for the long walk it's going to be to prove yourself.
So where do things stand right now? Did you say if she'd seen a lawyer?
The only thing nagging at me HH, is that it seems like you feel she has always just been looking for a reason to divorce you. As if her heart was never in it in the first place. This can be a problem. But it is NOT on the table yet. You picking up your dignity is. So how's that working out today?
Quote: The only thing nagging at me HH, is that it seems like you feel she has always just been looking for a reason to divorce you. As if her heart was never in it in the first place. This can be a problem.
This part of your original post (although I've used Amy's words here) really struck me. In fact the whole of your post really hit home - you could have been my H writing about me. I constantly threatened my H that I was leaving; but I never meant it. I wanted my H to 'see' me. I often felt invisible in my marriage. My threat to leave were the only times I really had his attention. Maybe your wife's threats to leave are a sympton of something you need to work on or it may be an issue she needs to deal with.
And here is where I also want to apologize if my first post came off as too harsh. It wasnt intended as an attack. It was perhaps intended to protect your wife or rather a spouse who has been betrayed and wasnt here to defend herself.
Anyways, have you made some goals for yourself. What are the areas you are working on?
Quote: My threat to leave were the only times I really had his attention. Maybe your wife's threats to leave are a sympton of something you need to work on or it may be an issue she needs to deal with.
Sophie,
I am REALLY glad you posted this because I think it is a great point and if I look at HH's sitch from THAT angle, then it is a whole different story.
HH, does what Sophie says ring true? Could your W have been trying to get your attention instead of control you?
HH, I am not saying I know what is going on in your W's head, nor is Sophie, but I do think it may be important to consider this angle, if only to give yourself something more hopeful to think about. I say hopeful because IF your W was trying to get your attention, then this is a really good thing to understand because it gives you a clue as to her love language(s) and something you may need to address farther down the line.
Quote: ...but it does mean that you have to be open and honest with her.
I know.
However, my W has regularly accused me of having a girlfriend and of having hickeys on my neck. I tell her I do not have a GF and that hickeys would be not be possible on me (no intimate relationships).
Vernetta, during our DB session today, told me to stop denying, engaging, and defending myself from my W's accusations. Vernetta also said that, if my W asked what I was doing when not with her, to be cagey; not forthcoming. Vernetta said it would make her think about who she was giving up. I don't know, perhaps I misunderstood what V was trying to tell me.
I do know that my doing "more of the same" just seems to be digging a deeper hole for me to lose myself and my M in. I know my W expects a direct answer to her direct questions. I am not too certain about being mysterious, plus I know I have caused/earned her lack of trust in and lack of respect for me.
BTW, my wife is out dating several differnt people these days regularly. I have stopped asking any questions because knowing any specifics would just hurt worse. The hardest part is that I do not have my own place yet (staying with my sister a 1/2 hour away) so I must go to the house to see our children on T & TH evenings because I am staying too far away to get them in bed at bedtime, so I am stuck watching her very disrespectful displays of going out on dates when I am in the house with our children and we haven't even filed for D yet. She knows she is not hiding it. She seems to be enjoying rubbing my nose in my inability to do anything about what she is doing. I do believe I will be getting served with D papers in the VERY near future. That makes me so sad.
The good news is that I will be getting my own place soon and separating our finances. The next step is to set the schedule with our children so that it works for ALL of us, including me. The current set up is out of necessity and it's incredibly painful to watch my W act so cavalier about our M and towards me, but every day I am getting stronger. I will stop sending 100% of my pay to the house this next pay period for self preservation and to begin taking care of myself and our children on my own. I am still hopeful that she will soften and take a look at US as a viable life option, and perhaps give us a chance at reconciling. I also know that reconciliation is a three-legged stool: 1. forgiveness- is the easiest part, only takes 1 person; 2. respect- much more difficult, needs to be rebuilt & takes 2 people actively working on it. 3. trust- much more difficult, needs to be rebuilt & takes 2 people actively working on it.
Plus, I can only work on me and she must work on her to save our M. Either one of us failing to step up to do our own portion of the reconciling/rebuilding work is a recipe for disaster/failure not redemption. Additionally, our focus needs to be on solutions, especially in the beginning so that we will have the possibility of getting on stable marital ground.
In closing, I know I screwed up badly. However, despite what my W says, I am NOT 99% of the problem in our marriage. I will, however, readily accept 50% of the blame for making our M as difficult as it has been.
Still, I am hanging on by a thread. I desperately wish to save my M and preserve my family. I am trying to do it alone at this point, but I haven't given up. I have hope, but I am not optimistic. I need any encouragement/cheerleading you all can offer. Please help me.
Despite all of this, clearly we were both in our M with a woefully inadequate set of marital tools to make our M what we both envisioned, wanted and deserved. That all makes me so sad. I feel an incredible amount of guilt for my A and I feel like such a failure. I am fighting this incredibly tough uphill battle for my M and I understand the bulk of that work is on ME not our M. The same is true for repairing my pitiful self esteem. I have spent an incredible amount of time doing the wrong things to improve my M's chances for survival. V told me that my Love Language is doing for my S. V told me to stop doing for my W and see what happens. I am having a hard time saying no and also not doing things for her despite the fact that she has been consistent in saying she wants a D. The sad thing is that I don't know what the hell I am afraid of, she has already made it clear she wants a D and is out dating right under my nose. Ugh.
