Interesting points Zed Man. The whole emotional intimacy thing. I am thinking my H is in exactly the same place. He sure is giving physically - exhausting on some days however the emotional ties and bonds I feel are no where near there.
As I type I am watching Oprah- it's a Dr Phil day... what can I say... they are talking about affairs and sex and all that stuff. The revelation for me is that until our spouses acutally "hear" or understand and "feel" our pain and sense of betrayal they just don't "get it" and we still have a hard time closing the book or truly forgiving. I think that may be where I am at. H doesn't feel that his emotional fantasy EA was a betrayal... never mind he was headed for a lot worse - because he didn't actually "do" anything. It may be he will never acknowledge it as such, or understand my feelings at all. Perhaps your W is in a similar place.
It's figuring out how to get through it or deal with it in a way that brings the marriage truly back together in spite of their walls and barriers.
Sounds like you're doing a decent job of it.
I too have pretty much stopped snooping and hovering and all that stuff. It is rather liberating isn't it.
So, I checked in on Dr. Phil too, after reading you post. I never saw him before, and I tuned in too late. I've read so much about him that I've wanted to see him. Now I know that Tuesday is the day...
Man, do I understand the spouse not understanding our hurt and betrayal. Or, maybe they understand, but can't empathize, or can't express that empathy to us, out of their own cloud of pain. In my case, I'm sure she feels justified, based on the "pain" I caused her. I frequently wonder how I deserve this amount of payback tho. Funny, I recall from back when I was reading her email how she did show signs of discussing it with OM. She had once mentioned something about how I was depressed and how miserable she was making me. He responded that I may be depressed but that only I was capable of making myself miserable...
I guess it's all self preservation. The spouse has done the unspeakable, that which they have been taught is one of the greatest of wrongs, the mother of all sins, that which they always believed themselves to be better than. Once they "sink" to the level of being able to commit this behavior, they must justify it or go through denial that there is anything wrong with it. To admit the wrong and face their own fallibility is a hard blow to the ego. In your case the fact that it was a fantasy EA makes it even easier for him to deny it. He may never see the wrong, the hurt he's caused. "you're over reacting" "it was nothing" "you just don't understand" YOUR problem, cuz for him to admit his problem, and that his problem caused you pain and the marriage damage is too much for his fragile ego right now.
I've received all kinds of statements and actions from her when I've expressed my sense of pain and confusion... "life's not fair. Deal with it." "I just want a divorce. How can you be so cruel to hold me prisoner." "I want to be single." "I don't believe people were meant to be monogamous." "It's just time to change partners." Nothing like that for months, last summer at the latest, but that's the kind of thing she says out of there justification and denial.
Well, I'll just keep going. There does seem to be light at the end of the tunnel. I still need to have the "intimacy talk". I'm just chicken. And then, just when I really think we need to talk about it, she does something really nice and warm. It shows me that healing is going on and probably things will work out in their own time. Maybe I just still need to concentrate on patience. It's soooooo hard to be this patient.
Interesting stuff about how our spouses can’t understand our feelings. As always, I try to look at the flip side of the coin. Can we/do we empathize with them? I’m not condoning an A or EA, but we get frustrated when they “just don’t get it” It just makes me wonder if they’re thinking the same thing about us.
Tree knows that I’ve tortured myself a lot over that one. I don’t know how much figuring we can do without driving ourselves (to quote tree) nutbar.
This is getting to be a habit, my monthly checkin. I promise to try to do so more often.
I've been drifting again. I don't know how I feel. I'm starting to get mad where in the past I've just been scared, I think. I don't get mad at her, but mostly at me, and somewhat at the pace of all this. There, I said that. Now it's gone.
Things have been pretty good, actually. Lot's of fun, laughs, chuckles. We are really working (or maybe not "working" as in "work") on being friends. We get along pretty well, and we share thought, hopes, dreams. We are being friends. I've still bothered by her distance, and by lack of physical intimacy, but emotional intimacy is improving (more of the friendship thing). I'm bothered by her still having lawyer on retainer. I'm bothered by her continued social contact with OM. As far as he goes, I think the contact is more or less like picking at a scab -- as long as he is around in any form, the wound can't fully begin to heal. Patience is still a my biggest problem.
More on the positive note, I'm feeling optimistic about lots of stuff. We do talk a lot, and it appears that she is truly making an effort to be home more. I think she thinks I don't like her going out to play tennis so much, but I really don't mind. I just mind her being at the club when he's there. We talk about the future more. She even gladly co-signed a home equity line of credit to help out my business. That's a 3 year commitment (of course the contract can be broken, but it's a commitment, none the less). I've pretty much totally stopped snooping, and I really see how it was hurting my PMA. I still get a bit squirrelly about my suspicions, but I don't act to confirm them. It's interesting how often simple circumstances end up supporting that my suspicions were just that -- suspicions -- when I learn from third parties in passing conversation that things and meetings I feared where happening couldn't have. A big new thing that's happening is she seems to becoming weary of the whining of the SSW (for you who don't know the term, it was coined by IAC and means "the Sisterhood of Separated Women -- the WAW's main support group). She's seeing how shallow they are, and she's getting impatient with their lack of consideration regarding her responsibilities as a mother and wife. And I think she's really noticing how pathetic their little "single woman" dramas are. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I actually got her to watch Dr. Phil's show about "communication" with me. She liked it, and she likes Dr. Phil!!!
Well, as I said, just checking in. I'll try to post more often and be more on topic. It's just nice to come here from time to time.
Like you posted on tree's thread, we've been at it for awhile. I still can't figure out if that's good or bad
You say patience is still your biggest problem. I think that patience hit's it's lowest when we start trying to get our R back, and through a lot of effort and determination, we reach our "patience peak."
Then at some point, we say, "Will this ever end? I've been at this for "man o man, 16 months? "
Just gotta hang in there, eh?
And enjoy the good times. It really has got better in 15 ˝ months, hasn't it?
I don't know if this means anything, but I've noticed that the longer a couple hold on to the marriage the more likely they will reunite. I've noticed it here on the board, and in real life. I've seen couples run for the exits in anger and frustration, and then reunite. I've seen others cause each other so much pain on that exit that they can't get by it tho they make an attempt. I've seen here on the board people who thought it was totally over have them come back. I've seen others divorce and maintain a relationship at a level that it's still unclear whether the divorce will truly "take".
So, that said, I think it's good that we've been around so long. I always believed and believe even more now that time is my friend. I believe that if every attempt is made to work this out, we will all win, regardless of the outcome. But, I believe the chances of the outcome being the saving of the marriage is much higher the longer you can stick it out and work it out. I believe there will result a sense of common accomplishment from the joints efforts made to make it work, or to find out if it should work.
It's just so damn frustrating that it takes so long, and I believe it's because we both adjust to the possibility that it can be saved at different paces. I also believe that the WS has a much harder task to convince themselves that it's worth saving the marriage after they've convinced themselves that it's not, and shared and reinforced that conviction with whatever outside councel they've sought. There is a lot of ego issues to overcome to admit that maybe you made a mistake. I believe my wife is struggling with some of that.
What's 15 -- 16 months between friends, anyway? I've got more... It's only time, I've got more
I agree with you 100%, Z. I was just being a bit flippant.
I agree with your take on the difficulties that the WS has in changing their mindsets. In my case, my W never seriously considered walking away. It just wasn’t practical. Instead, she chose to walk away emotionally. She decided that I dominated OR so she’d just live her own life under the same roof as me. Sort of a parallel living arrangement. It still takes a leap of faith for her to backtrack on that. It still takes time.
I have a theory about your theory (i.e.: the longer a couple hold on to the marriage the more likely they will reunite). I believe that we all go through phases in our lives. Sometimes we’re out of phase with our SO. If you stick it out long enough, you’ll eventually get back in phase. The biggest barrier to this is – as you’ve stated – the ego issues, and the trust issues.
But, when you do get back in phase, I believe that you’ll have a better R than you ever imagined. You’ve worked out some issues that would have stained your R for the rest of your lives if you hadn’t reached this sort of crisis.
Hey, look, less that 2 weeks and I have more to say!!!
A few months ago, I mentioned the “ocean liner” analogy to a turning a R around --- how it’s impossible to stop and turn on a dime. Well, the divorce ship has finally drifted to a stop, and we’re making real moves to starting up in the direction of saving the marriage. We are kind of dead in the water right now, but active measures are being taken to start the engines and strike a course toward a new R.
This therapist we’ve been seeing is a woman we found when I was trying to do anything to keep W away from divorce attorneys. She’s actually a divorce mediator and communication therapist who occasionally handles couples therapy, with an SBT-type model. We actually had an initial mediation appointment arranged before W said she’d work on the marriage, and we called before we got there to ask her to change hats from divorce mediator to couples therapist. In her work with us, she’s mostly been working on communication, and hasn’t really taken a stand one way or the other regarding marriage. The has been “safe” for W. During our therapy, she gave us various communications exercises, and asked us to read a book called “LoveWorks” by a two couples therapists – Mary Ann Massey and Ronald W. Heilmann. From the start, W has had a tremendous aversion to reading any R books. And this book is particularly badly written (these folks are therapists, not writers). But it is loaded with incredible insight, and no nonsense observations of the dynamics of the shift from a new-love romantically charged relationship to a maturing, long-term relationship. For whatever reason, W read this book. And she was moved and found something in it that made her pause and reconsider. She also has been getting feedback from some of her closest friends that she owes it to herself to fully explore whether this marriage really needs to end before she goes to that end, and that she’s really not done that to the extent she needs to to be able to walk away with a clear conscience. This is all getting through to her. And, I guess, I’ve been sincerely being a nice enough person that she sees little to actually loose in trying.
So, anyway, the current C (mediator) feels we’ve reached a point in progress where she can’t really help us anymore. She feels her area is improving communication and solving disagreements, and she believes we’ve progressed to the point where we need more solid couples work, particularly work on intimacy. She’s recommending we see another therapist, who also follow a Brief model, who’s specialty is couples and intimacy. Before she did that, we had one last session yesterday, where she essentially asked if we were both willing to make this step forward in improving the marriage, or if either of us felt we were done and this should end. I had told her on the phone that I was not going anywhere, I was in this to save my marriage and my ideals had not changed. We were both unsure of what W would say. So C posed the question in the C session. W said that she has realized that she needs to give this all the best effort she can. She owes it to herself, to our daughter, to her family. She’s not totally convinced that staying together will be the best thing for our daughter, but she’s not willing to risk her well being without a final attempt. She’s become convinced that any divorce action will be horribly destructive and painful (thanks to advice from divorced friends, I think), and she no longer wants that if there is any chance of avoiding it. She also was clear that she wasn’t “coming back to me” but was exploring “coming back to the marriage”. She apologized to me for this.
A key point in “LoveWorks” is one about learning to make the “second-best” choice being one of the most important skills a couple needs to develop to endure through the transition and enter the long-term relationship happiness phase. “Second Best” means making choices and compromises that lead to an agreement on choices as a couple, even if those choices were not the first choice as an individual, while still respecting that the first choice for each individual was valid and proper for the individual, but that as a couple maybe you had to accept the second, or third best individual choice, because that was the best for the couple… the “second best” choice. W feels she understands this, an that it has opened her eyes to the possibilities of our future R. ( I hope I didn’t mangle that concept too badly).
I say Halleluiah! I believe that’s truly what it’s all about, that the secret of a long term R is to pursue you live and R together with you partner, not to make your R and life about your partner. I believe that understanding that distinction is the key to making the transition from infatuated romantic love to long-term commitment and companionship love. I believe it’s the failure of many couples to understand that that leads to the breakdown that causes divorce. I didn’t get it, and I made her miserable enough to look elsewhere and run. She didn’t get it, and looked to recover the romantic infatuation instead of move ahead to the long-term phase.
So, now we are moving slowly starting to move ahead. We are slowly starting to explore how the concept of “second best choices” works. I feel for the first time in the 16 months of this nightmare that I don’t risk having W throw in the towel at any given moment and walk out the door. I feel that for the first time in years she’s willing to be “present” and see what has to happen for both of us to make this work.
The ship of divorce has, for now, stopped. I’m feeling better than I have in a long, long time. Thanks to everyone here for all your love, support and help.
Now I've had a couple of days to let this sink in, and to notice her behavior, and notice a bit more objectively how I feel about it all...
I guess the thing now is that I feel for the first time since this started that I have my wife back. She's not become any warmer or come closer yet, but has definately stopped being cold and distanceing... at least so far. I believe she will to the work, and will see the value and logic of not ending the marriage. I believe she can allow her viewpoint to mature and accept that a true long term relationship is different than what she expected. I also believe that although right now she likely feels a little let down by life upon discovering the things she has about long term relationships, she will grow to understand that ultimately it can be more fulfilling and richer than a highly charged, smotheringly passionate and frantically romantic new love ever could be.
I'm not kidding my self. I know that at this point at least, she's not coming back to me, but she's reassessing the marriage. I understand that to mean that she's beginning to see that the whole of the marriage is greater than the sum of its parts. That no single element should be allowed to make or break it. That she's seeing the value of accepting some less than ideal things for her to allow the ideals of the whole to shine through. She's seeing the value and meaning of true partnership, of full development of each 'self' by it self while joining with each 'other' for companionship, respect and trust. To me, it seems the essence of growing old together.
I'm exhausted. After she said this all the other day, I felt a sense of deflation as my guard lowered and the nervous energy I've been functioning on for so long relaxed a little bit. I'm reminded about the part of DB where Michele asks us to consider what you would be doing with all that energy you put in to saving your marriage if you marriage was working. I've read that, processed it, but never really understood it till this moment. It takes a lot of mental, nervous and emotional energy to do what I've been doing for the past 16 months. Maybe I can learn to harness it as excess now and do something brilliant.
I'm not kidding myself into believing it's over. It's far from over and may never be over. I still don't know what it will look like when it IS over. I don't know if my marriage is saved, or if it's just now entering it's last phase before we both see that it shouldn't be saved. But I feel better about all of it and about myself than I have in a long time.
Great posts. One thing that you rightfully pointed out is the question - what would you be doing with all this energy if the marriage was fine. That makes a lot of sense to me. Merely by living as we should, the energy in productive things enriches our lives. Great reminder for all.
![[Roll Eyes]](images/icons/rolleyes.gif){kind=icon}
however the emotional ties and bonds I feel are no where near there. 
![[Wink]](images/icons/wink.gif){kind=icon}
![[Eek!]](images/icons/shocked.gif){kind=icon}
"![[Smile]](images/icons/smile.gif){kind=icon}
