Quote: My wife says she wants to stay married to me.
That's a really good sign. She WANTS to stay married to you but maybe isn't finding the desire to do what she needs to do to make that happen. As I say all the time to different people here, and this is mainly based on MY personal experience so take it for what it's worth, your W probably wants to be moved by you. She wants to FEEL like she should stay, not just THINK she should. That's where DB comes in, and where your work on yourself is paramount. In order to stir feelings in her that OM is probably/did probably stir, you have to learn to be yourself in her presence, something I think many of us forgot along the way, instead becoming something we think we need to be to make the marriage work. The catch 22 is that in becoming that person we THINK will make the marriage work, i.e. the man who goes to work every day to make ends meet, plays with the kids, mows the lawn, etc, etc, etc, we forget the most important, well the TWO most important things in a marriage; ourselves and our wife.
Learn to satisfy both your desires and then those of your wife and you'll learn to move her towards FEELING like she wants to be married to you.
Quote: I think she is still talking to OM. She says she is not and I catch her lying alot. It is hard for me to gain trust in her.
Elaborate on this. Do you just THINK she is talking to OM or have you got proof that she is? You say you catch her lying a lot. Are you SURE she is lying or do you just suspect she is just because things she says don't add up? I know for the longest time I felt that just about everything my W said to me about what she did when she was away from the house sounded like a lie. It sounded like a lie because it didn't include that 2 hour phone call I was SURE she had (she had to have, right?) with OM, or the secret meeting I knew they had when I couldn't get her on her cell phone for those 45 minutes around lunch time (I mean how could she NOT have been with him).
Well, turns out that more than a few times I thought I caught her lying, she was not. She simply (or not so simply) just didn't understand the depth of my paranoia and how easy it was for her to help with that. It took one conversation a few weeks into what I consider our "real" reconciliation time where I expressed what I needed from her in order to feel "safe" about things, that she finally started "getting it" and from that point on, she made more calls to me, was MUCH more descriptive about where she went and who she was with and the best part about it was that she wasn't angry about having to do it. She finally understood.
I am not saying to have this convo with your W today. I just think you really need to realize that you DON'T know all you think you know, and do know more than you realize. The lies you think she's telling are out of context. You don't know WHY she lied, if she even did.
Quote: I don't know if I should be closing my eyes about the OM conversations and just move forward with her hoping this will go away or if I should stay separated from her until the OM is completely out of the picture and I know it for sure.
First off, you're paying WAY too much attention to what MAY be going on, or not. IT'S NOT ABOUT WHAT'S GOING ON with her & him, it's what's going on with you.
The sooner you put OM out of your mind, the better off you'll be. You don't just close your eyes to the conversations (of which you know nothing about other than they MAY be happening), you learn to deal with the fact that they have little to do with your overall sitch.
IF she is going to be with him, then she'll be with him. Your actions CAN have an effect on that but I suspect the effect would be greater if you showed her love, compassion, kindness and passion rather than paranoia, fear and resentment.
Finally on this note, you'll probably NEVER be 100% sure OM, or some other OM is not in the picture until you are back in a committed R with her and even then, because of all this you may have that twinge of doubt creep in every now and then.
I know for me it's been a few months now since we truly reconciled and I have to say I hardly ever think about OM. I think it's easy to see in hindsight that what I have said about putting OM out of your mind is the right thing to do because I know in my sitch, my inability to focus on me and my issues, instead focusing on OM some of the time, set me back and built unnecessary resentment on both our parts.
When I found out my W talked to OM recently, it didn't surprise me, nor particularly worry me. Reason being that I don't believe he has power over her. Just talking to him can't make her jump in the sack with him. She is more of a person than that. I truly see that now. She can make up her own mind and it's my job to continue to make sure the marriage is as healthy/great an option as I can make it...as it is her responsibility too.
Quote: She tells me they never had a PA, but I know they had been talking on phone for a least 4 months and had some run ins from what my kids tell me. I don't believe she did not have a PA because she continues to lie to me on other things. Do I over look these lies and act like everything is fine?
Now I will get a little more forceful. Stop assuming that just because you suspect she's lying, that she is. It's foolish and counterproductive. Concentrate on what you CAN control, i.e. YOUR actions, YOUR words and stop trying to figure all this out.
The fact is that there is going to come a point where you'll have to take a HUGE risk in starting to trust her, probably in the face of some things that LOOK like lies but you will just have to realize that your mind has been conditioned to expect that from her. DROP ALL EXPECTATIONS.
Yes, there is a chance, maybe a good one, that trusting her, even a little bit will backfire on you and you'll get hurt again, maybe not as badly as before, but hurt never-the-less. Trust me, it's a risk you'll have to take because I don't think it's possible to learn to trust from the outside looking in, which is what we'd all like to do in sitches like ours. We want to stand on the outside of the R and somehow get 100% assurance that all is well when deep down we know that the only way we'll ever know that is to really have it be well, something it can't be with all the mistrust, resentment and anger we harbor.
Let go of your anger. Learn to trust yourself enough to take the risks you need to take. Let her in your heart enough to see what lives there.
In any conflict, one side usually has to put down their weapons first, has to tear down the walls. In this case, it may need to be you.
Just remember, if something happens (and I mean something REAL, not just something your paranoia THINKS happened) this time it won't be like last time. You are FULLY aware of the potential for pain and you WILL deal better with that pain if it should ever come again.
SO, yes, as the books say, "act as if" and learn to just "be" again. Stop living in your head, center yourself and move forward (there, I used every cliché in the book).
I think things are going well from what I can see but this is the point where it's essential for you to stand up and be who you want to be, not just a man reduced to fear and suspicion.
