Need advice on OP visit! Crisis point?

[SRTogacihC]

I feel your pain. Thanks for your post in my thread.

That has been the hardest thing for me...the constant back and forth...the constant confusion. They don't know which way is up...they are in so much turmoil it puts your life in turmoil. What can you do to fix them? Nothing I have found...they are living in their own hell...they have probably felt they have been missing something for awhile and this OP fills a void...once that void starts getting filled and satisfied and they start feeling good about something again it seems nearly impossible to pull them away from it. They want more and more...

Good luck in you situation...you have a lot of work in front of you...take care of yourself.

[cat03]

anything I do that is in any way critical of this AH (my own acronym ) comes off as being unsupportive of her.

Unsupportive of what?? her having a sugar daddy? well, heck, then unsupportive you should be! I would never enable my H and accept he needs OP to feel good.

My H also was working himself to the bone, no friends, 2 family members he alianated, he was alone on the mess HE made for himself. I too hurt to see him miserable and on the brink of the abyss, but at the time i could nothing, he had to come out of it on his own. Yes, I offered my support and was there to talk if he needed to, but I didnt' support any destructive behavior.

She put herself in this position, as bad as you feel for her you need to detach because she needs to hit rock bottom on her own THEN she will the truth. When my H was on his lowest point I could be saying the same thing over and over again to no avail, it didn't sink in, he had to come to his senses on his own.

She is doing what we call here "cake eating", detach detach and detach and ask yourself what YOU want and dont' settle for less.

GO OUR and get a life, do things you wished a while ago you could do, work out, join a karate class, something, ANYthing, you need to clear your mind, you need to work on yourself.

[grasshopper]

Ok, I have a little more time now.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

GH

[mepicurus]

Thank you SRT, cat03, and grasshopper. I think I need your support as much as I need your advice right now.

It is true that I've tied up a great deal of my own happiness with hers. Whatever you want to call it, you're right when you point out that now the syndrome has come back to bite me you know where.

It seems that her complaints about my 'control' have a root in that as well.

I'm going to take some time to think about what you've said. Right now I feel too tapped out to write.

[grasshopper]

No problem. I think most all of us were taken by surprise by all this, and not just the affair or our spouse's unhappiness. The worst part is realizing YOUR part in all of it, especially when you think that all this time you were just trying to be helpful and loving but it was being seen as controlling and manipulative. It cuts deep. I know.

Take your time and start to process all this. I will be out of town until Sunday night so I wish you well the next few days.

GH

[mepicurus]

Although I don't think I have any more insights into what is happening, I thought I should write something about what has gone on since the OP visit.

When I spoke to my wife last night, she said something to the effect that she expected to be served with papers that day. She had seen me early in the morning and had noticed what she described as a 'really pissed off' look on my face.

Well, of course.

But I thought this was odd. The way she mentioned the idea of her getting divorce papers seemed as if she dreaded it, but was simply resigned to the absolute worst.

I reiterated that I'm not interested in divorce. I said something like, "I can be angry without wanting to chuck everything, etc." This went down with a sort of rueful recognition, but no comment I can remember.

The same weird, half-fatalistic way of talking has come up before. She very definitely has things to say about me 'finding someone else,' and the general tone is a kind of sadness, but one I can't really put my finger on. She's had what she describes as nightmares about this too.

I know that this is a topic of conversation among her 'friends' (I really shouldn't be so dismissive of them, but they don't seem to be helpful to her) and the OP. I think it's used as a way to lessen her guilt - that I'll be OK and happily remarried within a year is the general assumption. Perhaps they're just waiting for the world to beat a path to my door.

This plays into a very pernicious feeling in my wife, however: playing up my supposed 'togetherness' at whatever level always seems to reflect to her an occulted statement about her lack thereof.

In other words, what they say to make her feel better (less guilty) ends up feeding some delusions of inadequacy or inferiority.

(It galls to consider how much this 'understanding' she gets ends up making her feel worse.)

Anyway, the strangeness in the way she talks about our split leaves me at a loss.

She's confused, to be sure, but that doesn't seem to introduce any ambiguity into her belief that our marriage is kaputt - or at least none she explicitly expresses.

The few semi-indications she has given that there could be hope are all of the order of things like: "I just can't see how it could work" or "I don't know how to come back"

Given all this, and given her deteriorating state of health and mind, I once more suggested she look into getting some professional help. She seemed slightly more amenable to that, but I've seen many times where she's backpedaled before.

(For instance, there was a point where in a crisis she confided things about the OP to me and stated she was going to break things off.)

Something about my continuing struggle:

I just don't know exactly how to take the advice to 'detach' while remaining internally committed to being there for her out of love. I'm working on not allowing her or this situation to spiral me down to hell. But the idea of her hitting 'rock bottom' terrifies me.

In fact, I'm not sure that we should think that such a thing is necessary. What is 'rock bottom'? Does one need to end up living on the streets, or as a drunk, or bankrupted, or institutionalized to reach a point where you gain insight? There are some things you don't come back from.

I know that this would be different for everyone. And I know that neither I nor anyone else has anything to say about where that point is for another person. But I'm hoping that somehow something that I do (or some way that I behave, as in DB-ing) serves as a catalyst for healthy insight in her.

Perhaps I'm hoping that the way I express my love for her (differently from what didn't work) ends up as a signpost for something better in her own life and state of being.

As elevated as that undoubtedly sounds. To bring it down to earth: my own wish that our marriage is part of that 'better state of being'.

Wishful thinking?

[cat03]

...I'm not sure that we should think that such a thing is necessary. What is 'rock bottom'? Does one need to end up living on the streets, or as a drunk, or bankrupted, or institutionalized to reach a point where you gain insight? There are some things you don't come back from

By reaching rock bottom we mean mentally, not physically. Rock bottom is when a person finally sees that the distractions they used to cover up their hurt (affairs, drinking,drugs, etc) are useless, when they actually turn around and see the wake of the disaster they've created, when the stuff they used to numb their minds leads them nowhere good and they realize "what have I been doing?"

Unless that happens the WAS are still in the "happy" fog, where their lies and bandaids (OP, crazy life style) don't let them see the truth of the sitch, the hurt they are creating, the idiocy of their means.

I just don't know exactly how to take the advice to 'detach' while remaining internally committed to being there for her out of love.

By detaching we don't mean abandon all hope and effort, we mean detach from the poisonous behavior of the WAS, to not let their detrimental and negative mental attitude drag us down, to become observants and not get hung up on everything the WAS says, to understand that they have to come out of it on their own and that we can't carry their burdens for them as much as we'd like to .

It means as you said:

...not allowing her or this situation to spiral me down to hell

[toughlover]

Detachment means you don't allow your own well-being to be influenced or determined by the behavior of your WAS or the fact that she doesn't care about your needs. You cease investing there emotionally unless or until WAS wants to invest in you and the marriage again.

Think about it like this: you're not going to invest your life savings into a stock that's guaranteed to lose it all unless you're just intentionally self-destructive. That's what pursuing a WAS or being emotionally invested in one is: pounding sand down a rat hole. There's just no point.

Detaching is hard to do, I know, especially the longer you've been married, cause we really do become one...that's not just poetic garbage. But at this point, you have to go back to a mindset similar to what you had when you were dating, when you didn't pour on the attention or get too heavily wrapped up in the other person unless they seemed to reciprocate or appreciate/accept it.

Think about what it was like when you were single and asked someone out several times, only to be turned down every time. You didn't pour it on even thicker; you got the message, or ended up having a stalking complaint filed against you :-). Point is, until someone wants to let you in, pounding on the door just bothers everyone and frustrates you.

Right now you know WAS won't reciprocate. So you have to get back to the mindset where, yes, you're ready and willing to rebuild the marriage when WAS decides to. Until then, you have to go back to square one: show her you can be respectful and considerate of her wishes even if her wishes are wrong (there are limits, of course, you have to set boundaries to keep kids and everyone safe, etc.).

That's why you have to refrain from pursuing and be available for true reconciliation while being mentally and emotionally prepared to go it alone.

Because lemme tell ya, if WAS does come back and want to rebuild, you're going to need to be have your act together to be able to handle that, cause it ain't easy, but the process is more likely to be successful if at least one of you has their head on straight. Heck, I'm doing that now, and my W has a tremendously constructive attitude about it, is doing everything "right" herself, and it's still difficult (but gets easier with time so long as you don't do things to mess it up).

The point is, it pays off one way or another.

[grasshopper]

Look, you can stay "attached" to her negative stuff as long as you'd like, and as you say, it COULD help but in all likelihood, it will not. What we are trying to say is that you are acting like your marriage is in-tact, just waiting for this crisis to end.

I think what a LOT of WAS's resent about us as LBS's, especially ones who don't ever read DB/DR or similar advice, is the fact that we refuse to hear them when they say the marriage is over. We cling to what was and deny what the reality is. The reality is that your W gave up your marriage in her mind long ago and you need to do the same thing. Of course, this is not literal but in a very real way necessary. You have to let go of your "old" marriage and decide to rebuild from the ground up.

Detaching, learning to be whole ALONE and to love from an individual perspective is all part of starting to build something new rather than cling to what obviously didn't work.

You seem to be a very intelligent guy with a strong attraction to logic. A lot of this stuff is counter-intuitive and surely not all that logical. If you are like me, you will think, re-think and then think about all this some more, constantly questioning your actions, or lack thereof as it may be. Don't do that. Just realize, as we are all telling you in our own way, that you do NOT owe your W your happiness or well-being because you are her husband.

If you choose to ride this out, and you decide you still love her after all is said and done, you only owe her being the best man you can be so that when she decides to try, and I mean REALLY try again with you, you are better able to foster a strong marriage than you would be if you just kept on pining for what once was.

I hope this makes sense to you. I know you want to save her but sometimes people don't really learn anything from being saved, ESPECIALLY if they don't want to be.

GH

[mepicurus]

I've been away from this board for a while, and while things have changed in some ways, mostly everything has stayed pretty much the same.

Thank you, by the way, to everyone who has contributed advice and support over the last week or so. It has done a lot to keep me at an even keel.

My wife contines to see-saw between a kind of blithe involvement with the OP (who, it is maintained as of yet, is simply a "friend"...) and what appears to be sadness and regret. Maybe guilt as well; it is hard to tell exactly what is going on with her. Without prying (and thus making myself look overly concerned) I can't really get a fix on her mental state. Since it sometimes varies hour by hour, it probably would be a useless exercise anyway. Perhaps it is the general tone over time that is indicative of the important things. That really doesn't seem to have changed.

Besides, I'm certainly not sure how much, if any, of her mood differences have to do with me or with the problems between us. I will assume the minimum - there's no need to imagine myself to be more important to her than I am.

However, some things have happened that might be meaningful.

After a cool period earlier this week (following a clear statement that I won't countenance her affair), there's been a kind of rebound: now I'm getting invitations to spend the holidays with her (before a very open question), more visits, more communications, etc.

Is this a guilt-effect? I'm not sure what has animated this change, if anything at all. It might all reverse tomorrow.

But I can say that I have been trying very hard to take the advice I've been given seriously and to implement it in my behaviour, especially around my wife. I'm trying not to be overly solicitous while remaining friendly, for instance.

I don't believe that her actions should be interpreted as a 'response' to my comportment, especially given the fact that I'm not really doing anything radically different than before.

But perhaps something of my 'detachment' is coming through. I am certainly weaning myself from talking too much when any mention of relationship issues come up. These usually draw me into saying things I don't want to say - I undoubtably come off as the "waiting" partner and not the "active" one when I reiterate that I want to work things out. Now I say very little.

Anyway, that's it for now. Thanks again for the support.