Mea Maxima culpa!

[Neos_wife]

Oh doggone! I've been lurking for a week+ and devouring Michele's books and all-y'alls astonishing and oh-so-welcome advice and discussion! Yesterday, I managed to make the whole day being "light and breezy" but then this morning, as I sat down at my computer (across the room from his) with my coffee, he started out saying that "he doesn't yet know where he will be staying next week" -- and I just LOST IT!!

He flies Monday to England, to "commence" his PA with the OW (the EA started -- in front of me -- this past January, and the first physical meeting was in February when he and I flew her here to a week to meet and get to know each other better.. (She was originally MY email friend / counselee. We were advising her on getting free of an unacceptable boyfriend...)

In Feb. , he intended still, (he said, and I mostly believe him) , to work with her to find a suitable mate for her, despite having already professed his love for her multiple times (in email messages to her, copy to me, and in our multiple three-way phone conversations) But, in person, she turned out to be "WAY more wonderful than he could ever have imagined," and he has thrown himself head-long, completely, and, he swore, permanently, in love with her -- his "future wife" as he calls her.

(Although, he ALSO has come to realize, in the month+ since she went home, that it will NOT work "permanently" with her. She has many of the same "flaws" I have that ended his love for me (yes, I've had the ILYNILWY speech, a couple times...) and he acknowledges that it will NOT work out -- but he HAS to have her...

So, anyway... he said this a.m. that he does not know where he will be staying and yet I KNOW already that he is staying with her in her place! I am trying to learn from Michele and y'all to keep my mouth shut and stop fretting and worrying (and yes, snooping!) -- but I already knew this was a bold-faced lie (and, of course, he had sworn a solemn oath to me that he'd tell me the truth... {eye roll}) So I ended up blowing all my success of the day before, and cried and harangued him (again) about being a liar... Funny thing, he's very disturbed by being called a liar, and yet he's lying to me day in and day out... And yes, I know I need to quit trying to appeal to the alien to become truthful like my husband was when HE was here! {sob}

Yes, he's deep deep deep in MLC -- he's 56, I'm 50; we've been married 8 years, together 9. I absolutely and freely stipulate that I was MORE than half of what damaged our relationship. (My weight, which I had committed to ameliorating before we married, and my aggressive and sometimes masculine-seeming way if interacting with him... It's much deeper than that, and I'm not being self-deprecating when I admit to being more than half the problem -- HE met all his commitments to me, was a wonderful husband -- albeit he kept from me his growing disaffection and unhappiness until he dropped the bomb!

I have SUCH an amazing blessing, in that we will be living together for the next two years, SHE is outside the country and has no money to fly here -- and HE has no way to give her money to fly here except with my knowledge -- he and I are trying to increase "our" income (I'm a kept wife and must re-create my career, if I can, before we divorce in two years) to allow him to set me up successfully on my own when he divorces me and still have enough money to marry OW -- except he already KNOWS it won't work with her (so he says, and yet he also believes it will. Can anyone say MLC?!)

I'm lucky (this far; I pray the alien doesn't make him forget...) that he is absolutely committed to not cutting me off without making sure I can get by... We have not yet negotiated anything seriously (except the two years); but he knows I'm reading pretty much every book written on divorce, and was preparing madly (and he feels too soon) for my future alone... (I have appts with two financial planners and a lawyer next week while he's gone. He knows about the financial planners.)

But, since I've found DB and DR (I also have another book of Michele's) I am mostly committed to trying to save this marriage... I had told him all along, when he was swearing he would not betray me with her -- and SHE was swearing she would never ever betray me -- that I want to be ten years hence looking BACK on this as "that rough patch that strengthened our marriage"! (He is willing to ... that is... he SAYS he is not averse to that -- that I must "seduce" him back , away from her -- which at my present weight and emotional state I can't yet. (He says I 'feel' to him like an aunt... not womanly but matronly; quite unattractive!) But as she becomes less and less "right" (or rather, as it becomes clearer and clearer that as wonderful as she appears, and as completely obsessed as he is (and he even admits it's an obsession!) it becomes clearer that it will not last with her either), and as he and I are more able to talk and interact gently and openly with each other... I 'm hoping he is seeing that I'm not the devil he has felt recently.

However... I'm struggling a LOT with holding my tongue... I've been snooping from the beginning (well I didn' t much HAVE to snoop early on -- he and she were falling in love and cooing to each other in front of me!) But because she was getting paranoid and jealous (and I understand because, of course, so am I!) and he and she are getting more and more involved, they have entered --as HE puts it -- the secretive part of the affair...

Anyway... I am trying to DB, to stay upbeat and friendly, and keep my pain from him... I just was SO ambushed this morning (lack of sleep is making me testy too...) and am feeling really stressed...I wanted these last few days before he permanently changes his and my relationship, to be unemotional and friendly, and yet I just keep imagining him arriving there, and finally "belonging" to her as he wishes... That's a REAL heart-breaker for me! (Yeah, I know, for most everyone here!!)

I guess I'm mostly just pouring out my bleeding heart: I'm filled with such joy and hope when I read here, and then also with such despair and pain when I look at how far I have to go... I have made clear, and he understands completely and agrees, that OF COURSE I'm not emotionally stable yet -- this has only just happened. I did NOT know that for the last several years he was holding on by his fingernails... He saw no escape but suicide, and was gearing up to it (he's often been suicidal in his life... it's a fundamental part of his personality that I have always known about). He was gearing up with his previous wife when I "became his reason for living." (As, he says, "OW is now.") He even recognizes that it's a false hope that she will save him any better that I did -- and indeed, since he now knows I didn't, it won't even last as long with her as it did with me.

Anyway... I'm trying to figure out how I will feel when he comes back... And maybe I can't figure it out from before it happens...

What I read of the insanity of MLC gives me SUCH hope, because he's a classic case! And maybe I can figure out how to DB and 180 and so on so I DON'T end up snarling and crying and arguing with him... I KNOW I can't talk him out of MLC! I KNOW I can't call back my beloved, trusted, husband when the alien is in control (what a USEFUL metaphor!!) But I also don' t know how to get through this next ten days when he's off with her!

I'm joining the new YMCA that just opened near the house; I'll be keeping his business running while he's gone; as I said, seeing the planners, and the lawyer; -- and I've got the counselor (solution-focused, even!) to call for an appt next week too...

I will be seeing friends on Tuesday, reading books and this amazing forum; continuing to gather the financial info I'll need to prepare for an eventual/possible divorce; doing the exercises in DR (I'm up to Step 7 reading the whole book, then will go back and do the exercises completely.); and just trying to make it through! I have to work up a list of 180s -- I can't quit doing the dishes -- cause he has always done \them (yes, I HAVE started doing them nearly all the time -- sometimes he beats me to them). I am not comfortable stopping cooking, because he takes such good care of me -- even as he's planning this affair, he's taking really good care of me. (And then there's the plotting with her on the phone to make me think they've broken up (did I mention I've been snooping?) That plotting was in early April, he SAYS he forgot it was even discussed, was just going along with her cause she tends a bit toward hysteria and irrationality. He SAYS he intended and has participated in no plot -- except every single thing he discussed with her has come to pass... Am I paranoid, or is he lying... (Bets either way anyone?!)

How do I keep my pain and fear and desperation under control? HOW do I make it through ten days with him off with her? ( I guess, just as I have bent and accommodated every other thing that's happened in the last several months... I've gone from swearing that I would never accept a cheating husband, to working diligently to keep just such a man... Amazing how flexible we can become when we really want to!

Sadly, confusedly, doggedly,
Neo's Wife