I forgot to say how incredibly sorry I am to see that you are having an experience like mine, and all the rest of us here.
Now, back the the issue at hand. One thing you have to realize is that most men, according to my own experience, reading I have done and posts I have read here, are fixers by nature and as such, are often double distressed by things like what your W is going through. You are upset over what she's "doing to you" and what she's doing to herself. You worry about her because after all, it's your job to keep her safe, right?
Wrong. It's your job to help her when she asks you for help but to do otherwise is to interject yourself where you are not necessarily wanted. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus outlines many scenarios where men and women often try to help each other when help is not wanted. The male version of this is to try to "fix" a woman when she's simply venting about her problems. It sounds like you are learning the very valuable lesson of listening to her but your overt worrying I think stems from a feeling of helplessness. You feel like you should be helping her, saving her almost, from what she is clearly doing to hurt herself.
Acting from this position CAN be perceived by her as controlling and condescending. You are suggesting to her that her actions are not those of an adult woman, capable of taking care of herself. You are not her father after all, you're her estranged husband and as such you don't have an obligation to save her.
I know you love her but trying to protect her from the consequences of her actions, even as it pertains to your response to them, will likely not help the situation. By insulating her from the bad things that will happen if she continues this path of marital destruction, you may be inadvertently helping it continue.
You DON'T need to be an a$$. You don't even need to make any commentary. By the same token, you also don't need to sit there and be her "buddy" while she describes this guy and their relationship. If you don't want to hear about it, then simply tell her that in an even, calm tone. Don't be angry or upset. Just be honest.
Here is my response to some of the specific things you posted...
Quote: ight now, I'm as worried about my wife as I am about our marriage. She barely eats, has lost about 30 lbs, and works herself into the ground. She vehemently mistrusts psychological counselors of any stripe, partly, I believe, because she's had some poor or ineffective ones in her childhood, and partly because she is incredibly willful. I know that I can't control her, but I can suggest she get help and take care of herself. I'm afraid if I back away, I will lose that opportunity and she will get worse.
This is my W to a T, and if that goes deeper than this statement, I might assume that your "suggestion" that she get help and take care of herself would not be taken well. She would reject this and somehow defend all she is doing. Either that or say "I know" but never do anything about it other than trying to just do it all herself (the fixing that is). My W will not see a doctor and would NEVER see a therapist. That's the bottom line and nothing I ever say seems to make any difference. I suspect this is the case with your W too.
SO, take that into account when you are having these feelings of needing to help her. Would your help even work? Would saying something really get her to take action or just make you FEEL BETTER?
The bottom line is that you have to guard against things that just make you feel better rather than actually do something positive for your overall sitch.
Quote: She has no family relationships. She has a few friends, but it seems that they are more caught up in their own problems than anything else. She will rarely tell them much anything, and I think they will continue to respect the distance she's established. They won't convince her to look after her well-being.
Yep, my W too, or rather my W DOES have family but they don't know about some of her deeper issues so they don't know to tell her to stop or change. Her friends are equally ignorant or worthless in terms of actually offering HER help versus just dumping their stuff on her. I think, like your W, she chooses her friends for this reason. They won't push her and she gets to be the savior for them, helping them solve their problems. She is needed.
Quote: I don't know what this OP tells her. She describes him as being incredibly understanding, insightful, and (here's the very interesting point) like a beneficient father-figure.
Almost ALL OM's are described this way. It's crap and we know it but don't try to tell your W that. Imagine that he's actually GOOD at what he does, that is praying on weak women (not to say your W is weak, just that she's in a weak place in her life right now, ripe to be taken advantage of...or at least ripe to seek someone like OM out). He may be telling her "He'll try to tell you I am a bad guy because I am dating a married woman. You know the truth. I am just sensitive to your pain and know how much that marriage is hurting you. I want to be here for you, married or not. I love you in a way I don't think he can because I support your fully, through whatever you decide to do..."
My point is that he MAY, and I stress MAY be actively manipulating the situation so that it looks like you are falling into the predictable pattern of jealousy and despair, all of which he "predicted" to her along the way. That's why DB and it's techniques of detaching/GAL/self-improvement are wonderful tools to throw the WAS off their game. It's not the MAIN reason to do them, but a great side-effect never-the-less.
He's a textbook OM and as such, likely IS NOT all those wonderful things she describes but in her mind, because of the "love" feelings she may have that cloud her view of him, or things he's told her, he IS her knight in shining armor and going up against him only makes you look like the bad guy. That's why it's important not to see it as a competition between you and him. Instead, just refuse to even enter the battle field. Don't compare yourself to him, or his picture of him. Compare yourself to what you WANT to be based on some honest evaluation of who you are, have been versus the man you know you can be.
Quote: Insofar as it is supposedly a 'friendship' (even given the fact that she's told me he has been giving her advice about lawyers, offering to pay her expenses, etc.), anything I do that is in any way critical of this AH (my own acronym ) comes off as being unsupporting of her.
This is crap of a sort. You are not going to be supportive of OM, the affair, a divorce or anything else you don't want. You ARE going to be supportive of your W. There is a difference but the sad fact is that the WAS often can't see that so you just have to accept that some of your rejection of the affair, etc, will be viewed by her as lack of support.
REMEMBER THIS!!!! YOU DON'T WANT TO BE HER LIFE-LONG BUDDY, YOU WANT TO BE HER HUSBAND AND AS SUCH YOU ARE NOT OBLIGATED TO SUPPORT HER AS SHE TRIES TO DESTROY YOUR MARRIAGE.
Her assertion that you are not supporting her is based on the idea that you're her best friend, her confidant, and as such, are suppose to "be there for her". Well, if you want to be JUST those things to her and not her husband and lover, then I guess it's ok to support her in this. If you DO want more than that, you need to set some boundaries.
Let me be clear. I lived in the same house as my W while she had her affair. I KNEW she was going out with him. I never stopped her but then again, I never said I supported her doing it. I never made it easy for her, nor hard. I never talked to her about it, nor did she ask to. I simply just did my own thing and she did hers.
I am suggesting you do the same. It's NOT your job to save this woman from her own actions. It's your job NOW to be the best man you can be and if that means you can no longer be her sounding board, then so be it. If she gets angry at you for cutting her off from that. So be it. In the end, what's she going to do about it, start seeing another man? Threaten divorce? Isn't she already doing that?
Quote: I am just sick today, much worse than I've been for a long time. It is not simply the imagination of anything going on between them. I would not be surprised if that indeed took place or will take place. The emotional attachment she has to this OP causes me enough pain that an extra dollop or so would just shine it up a bit more.
I know. I've been there and I know that pain is worse than any I have ever felt in my life. Just know you are among people here who feel your pain and understand it. We also know that it can be overcome. You CAN get past this.
Quote: I'm physically nauseated with worry about her. Whenever I see her in pain I feel like I will collapse.
Since you bring this up again, I feel compelled to throw out that dirty word "codependency" that may apply to you. I know it did me. I could not get through the hour, let alone the day if I knew my W was sad, upset, in pain, etc. I HAD to fix her. She HAD to feel better or else I felt like crap. I somehow made her moods, feelings and physical pain my fault and thus my job to fix. If I came home from work and she was not in a good mood, it HAD to be because of me and I HAD to make it right or else I was in a bad mood too.
Break this cycle. Stop attaching YOUR feelings/moods to hers. Detach from her. See her pain and feel compassion but NOT the need to fix her. See her bad decisions and understand they are those of a woman trying to find herself but maybe getting lost along the way. See this whole thing as a POSSIBLE chance to grow as a human being and deal with the harsh reality that as connected as you feel to another person, it's ultimately up to you to maintain your own happiness no matter what that other person is going through. Not only that, but by doing so, you are actually better equipped to help them if the time comes they want it.
Recognize that by following her down into despair and poor decision making, you are not doing anything to help. IF she ever wants to reach up for help back to a "better" place in her life, who will be "up" there for her to reach for if you are wallowing down with her?
I know you can't just will yourself to feel better, or to start doing all this DB stuff overnight, but it IS a decision to be made and once you make it, it might start to get easier for you to handle all this. Decide to make choices that benefit YOU first and in the end, the should also benefit whatever relationship you and your W may have in the future. A marriage, IMHO, is much better off if both people involved in it are giving of themselves from love rather than taking from each other out of need.
Become a man that has something to give and out of love is willing to, rather than someone who gives more than he has simply because he perceives his W as needing it.
Cry, vent, rage, whatever, then start working to be better. We'll help any way we can.
