I am in work at the moment, and haven't much time to post.
BUT
Careful of the resquing. whilst it makes economic/social/mature/marriage saving sense. she will see it as manipulation and feel like a caged animal.
Also
Do you really want her back on those terms, knowing that she is only back for financial security and not love.
I have put up with a loveless marriage for 2 years now in the attic, to give her space, while my wife lives in the splendor of the rest of the house. It is shite - and no more. She is now going to see and feel the repercussions of her actions.
I see a pattern here...LSS is living with a drug addict, is probably an addict himself, got the car repossed and is living on the scraps other people throw him.
Oh well
We can not save them.
Nick...I hear your anger and frustration and desperation. When LSS left, he cleared out our bank accounts and left me with 7 moths worth of unpaid bills, in a house that cost $800 a month when I made $600. With two little boys he swore he loved as his own. With 31 bats. With missing dishes (he tool random objects so I never had enough of anyting) tryingto find a babysitter for my two kids so I wouldn't lose the job I had. To pay for the sitter with negative money.
It sucks.
This is where the fight starts...the fight for you and your kids...where you can't really think of them or your marriage because you need to figure out your life and live it so your kids have a sense of stability and unconditional love...so your kids see what courage is...so your kids find their inner strength too.
You learn to be humble. You ask everyone you know for help. You swallow your pride and remember that your kids need you to do this. You find that your friends are more than willing to help you...in fact, they were waiting fo ryou to ask because that is what friends do...they help you. You learn to shop in dicey areas because things are cheaper and you learn to make do without a lot of stuff. You beg the utility companies to make differnt payment plans with you becuase you are in a really rough patch.
Almost a year later, I look back on that point in my life and cry...it was so hard but I was given so much. I learned who my friends were. I learned ho wmuch they valued me. I learned how strong I really am. I learned I am complete on my own. I learned that sometimes life really sucks and sometimes it is not even remotely how we planned it. I can find small things that we celebrated (like bagging ad tagging 31 bats) and that when you think things can't get worse, sometimes they can (like when I lost my meager paying job and was jobless for two weeks) I learned that courage is sometimes admitting how much you need something (like whenI literally walked into a job interview and begged for job...any job...pay didn't matter because any pay was more than the no pay I was making)
Today...I am able to see blessings every day because I made a conscious effort to see them even when it was bleak. What a gift that is!!!
I moved away from everyhting I knew (only 2 hours but still) started a new job...the perfect job for me. My children are happy. Of course they miss their "dad" but they are quite secure in the fact that I would move mountains for them. I am in a better financial situation than I ever was before (not oodles of money but I can pay all my bills) I am at peace.
You will get there. She may get there, but you can't do it for her...you can't make her SEE. SHe has to do it...all on her own. Silently root her on. Pray for her to find it. Speak kindly of her. Let her do it on her own.
Quote: Um Peaches! the above words, are um totally never going to get you in bed with your W again! So cut it out!
calm down honey!
No they are not and I have not uttered a harsh word or asked who he is since. I already know he is one of the parents at our sons school and to be honest I'm more angry about the fact he played my wife than anything else. Despite what she is going through she is the most beautiful wonderful geourgeous, sexy and funny human being in the whole wide world. Did I mention that she is seriously fit. I better calm down I'm getting hot under the old collar. The fact that he was only in it for the chase and the conquest and after he had 4 months of by weekly fun with her, screwing with her emotions and making her believe he loved her just so he could have her when he wanted. Thats what really pisses me off. That he could turn her world and as a by product mine and the kids worlds upside down and not give a dam about her feelings. To pretend his wife found out just so he could dump her. It didn't stop him going back for second helpings, just a couple more goes. She does not deserve that. She is wonderful and kind and is a lady under all the MLC rubbish floating around her head. That's what annoys me. Other than that I have no feelings for him. My wife does not want me to make a fuss or a scene and I can't blame her. She feels foolish enough without me beating him up not that I wouldn't love to but that is what she wants. I thought she was protecting him and to an extent before she realized he was making a fool out of her she did want to protect hin because she is grieving for him. I'm happy to do what ever she wants with regards to him. I even know who he is although I haven't told her that because I don't want to cause her anymore stress or push her away further. If she knew I knew who he was she would just get wound up about it.
I honestly and truthfully have no feelings positive or negative about the affair. It enraged me she seemed to want to protect him from a scene and a beating but now I've opened my ears and listened properly to her I can hear that she is saying no one at the school knows and she wants it kept that way. She does not want people in the school thinking she is easy or into affairs. So leave it. We discuss only what she wants to discus about it if it comes up. The only thing I have discussed with her is the holes in his story and how she has been played. She needed to hear that because she has feelings for him whilst he cares not a jot about her.
Anyway. I will not and have not been angry with her although we did have a heated talk this morning about her coming home, which she has to do otherwise we both face bankruptcy and she faces a life in bedsit or bed and breakfast for the next year or so before moving into a dingy little flat in the middle of a sink estate with no money to make it nice, buy carpets or anything. So unfortunately she has to come back already, which I know is gonna play havoc with her MLC and her journey through it.
But that is the little piece of the world my wife and I share. It runs totally opposite to what she needs to do to get through the MLC like leaving. I guess I'm gonna have to find some way to DB etc and help her through it in this difficult situation but her choice is live in poverty or live comfortably but work to find happiness in our marriage. Its a real tuffy but we absolutely have no choice.
Nick
me 41 her 40 kids (3) 19, 16 and 6 married 20 years, together 31 years since childhood
bomb Aug 06, affair started june 06 and still going on
Quote: Having been in an abusive marriage, I will tel lyo uthat I would agree to forgive you whatever you did becasue I learned before that you would smack me around if I didn't tell you what you wanted.
She forgives me thakfully because she knows I have never raised my hand to her before and that my shame in reacting the way I did almost crushed me. I have always been a gentleman and have grown up beleiving you open doors for women etc. I know she forgives me because she says things like its not as bad as what i did to you and i probably deserved it. I reply truthfully in that no one what ever they have done deserves to suffer that. So I know she believes me and she is not fearful of me. She certainly is not telling me what I want to know because she is scared I'll beat the crap out of her. She has told me several times over the last couple of days she does not want to tell me something I ask and I just have to respect that. Although she Is in MLC she also very sorry for betraying me. She hoped above everything else that I never found out. Thats not the behavior of some one who doesn't love you any more.
Unfortunately the situation we are in means she will have to come home if she likes it or not.
Nick
me 41 her 40 kids (3) 19, 16 and 6 married 20 years, together 31 years since childhood
bomb Aug 06, affair started june 06 and still going on
I really wish I could just let her go down hill and let her choose poverty for herself but its not just her its my son who she wants to take with her and us (me and the other 2 children) left at the family home that will also be subjected to a life of poverty. I had to go bankrupt when i was 22 or 23 and it followed me around for 10 years. I could not even open a bank account. I cannot go there again and I will not subject my kids to that but there is no other choice ohter than for her to come home.
I really really do wish she could just go and do what she wants to do and of course she does not want to come home. I said to her that because we have no other choice she needs to deal with the built up anger and resentment so she can find happiness in our marraige. If she is stuck in our house for the next 10 years whilst we clear off our depts and guide our children into adult life then she has to find a way to happiness.
I really wish things were different but they are not. I dont want her home if she doesn't want to be hear. I'm not doing this to keep hold of her. I understand she is on a journey and she needs to complete it. I've had 8 months of crap and as I'm writing now i'm starting to cry again. I cant cope with the hostility she has put me through. She was cheating on me and that wasn't enough to punish me for my supposed crimes of making her unhappy she had to treat me like crap as well. She has spent the last 8 months ignoring me and reducing me to what feels like a mere shell of what I was before. She has sucked so much joy from me in the last 8 months I sometimes wonder if there is anything left to give her. And all the while nick the gentleman who annoys her because i'm so reasonable and makes her sad because of what she is doing to me. Silly me perhaps I should just disappear into thin air and she can mope around in silence. She has spent the last 8 months making me feel useless, ugly, fat and inadequate and like an idiot I still love her just as much.
So i'm stuck. She has to come back but she's not willing to find some happiness. It doesn't matter what I say, as far as she is concerned I just want to control her but I haven;t done anything to warrant her feeling that. She probably thinks my reasonableness is a way of controlling her not me being a loving husband and wonderful caring person.
So there is my problem. She knows she has to come back and today was the first time in 8 months that I dared to tell her what she had to do as up to now I have given her free reign to make mistakes and I am only doing this for the kids. I finally told her what a self centered selfish woman she had become and that when you have kids you put there happiness first.
So hare we are. She does not want to come home as she says I DO NOT LOVE YOU AND I DONT KNOW HOW THE LOVE CAN COME BACK. And she says I am not going to work on our marriage not even for the children. What a selfish cow. But I still love her an no one else is a allowed to bad mouth her.
How am I going to DB. I'm going to be a gentle as I can regarding trying to get her to reconnect with me and we will probably have to go slowly but we have no choice. Its either that or living in misery until the depts and the kids are gone.
How am I going to go forward. I'm back to the original situation except now the affair's been exposed and she will be back home soon moping about refusing to get help for her depression of go to a counselor. She wants to be miserable.
What do I d next. How do I proceed. Help cause I'm stuck with her and I need to help steer her out of this mess.
Nick
me 41 her 40 kids (3) 19, 16 and 6 married 20 years, together 31 years since childhood
bomb Aug 06, affair started june 06 and still going on
I know what its like in a loveless marriage as well. I don't want her back on those terms and to be honest its not her i'm saving from ruin its me and the kids. They are our debts.
I have told her I do not want her to come back if she is not going to try and she says she isn't (MLC Really coming out there) but I have told her in no uncertain terms I expect her to try and I will be kissing her and holding her hand etc because I am not willing to put up with her infecting us all with her negativity. I don't have any other choice other than to tell her what is going to happen. I have to do the polor opposite of what I should be doing and am going to have to make her comply. She said "so when we have sex you want me to pretend I love you" Thats an amazing step in the right direction because instead of spurning me she is actually thinking that we are going to have to have sex at one point.
So really I don't know what to do. I think the best option is really for me to insists she trys and see where we get. She has accepted she's goto come home but she is refusing to find any happiness.
Nick
me 41 her 40 kids (3) 19, 16 and 6 married 20 years, together 31 years since childhood
bomb Aug 06, affair started june 06 and still going on
Maybe I'm just not getting it, but you keep saying the same thing over and over, and I'm thinking that YOU must think since you keep saying it, it is true.
Quote: but there is no other choice ohter than for her to come home.
Quote: So i'm stuck. She has to come back ...
Quote: So there is my problem. She knows she has to come back and today was the first time in 8 months that I dared to tell her what she had to do...
Quote: ...and she will be back home soon moping ...
We're assuming this is MLC, right?
Well, your MLC spouse must be drastically different from MY MLC spouse, because mine will NOT be told what she has to do, and mine DOES NOT CARE who will suffer for her decisions (INCLUDING her kids), and mine is DEFINITELY NOT going to listen to me tell her what she HAS to do.
Again, maybe yours is different...
And what's up with the attitude anyway? Your wife had an affair, didn't want to tell you who with, she's been mean to you and said hurtful things...and so your response is to give it right back?
A bit of a conflict inside, eh? In the same post you say these two things...
Quote: ...I still love her just as much.
and
Quote: What a selfish cow.
and
Quote: Help cause I'm stuck with her ...
So, to summarize...
1. You insist that your wife MUST come home as though she has no choice, something that a MLC spouse will NOT tolerate being told.
2. You are in love with your wife.
3. You can't stand your wife.
4. You've got a TON of pent up anger inside about all of this.
Hey, we all understand the conflict in 2 and 3 because I'm sure most of us have felt the same way. They drive us crazy, we'd like to beat them over the head, but we love them. And most of us have anger (4), but usually not to the point that we are physically aggressive with our spouse.
Nick, I think you have some reading to do. And maybe a little emotional preparation for when your wife tells you that she's not coming home, no matter what you say.
Again, maybe I just don't get it.
Blessings,
Bill
"Don't tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon."
Well she finally became a waw. Not only is she in mlc its also turns out she betrayed me as well. I told her I was not a fool and I know she was seeing someone, which she finally admits. She was seeing him when I took her on holiday to try and fix our marriage last october. She refuses point blank to tell me who he is.
She moved out Saturday morning with my little boy. I'm at home with the other 2 children.
I feel like my life has ended. I did all the dbstuff. Stopped talking about the relationship 180's etc but she still left. She left me 8 months ago really in spirit. The only thing I am to her is the father of her children. She says we never talked about us over the last 8 months but she never would and I stopped et al Dbing rules but hse's gone anyway. She was just waiting, biding her time.
I dont know what to do. I feel so helpless and alone. I've been with my wife for 31 years since we were kids. She is all I know. I'm 41 and I feel like the end of the world has come. IT has taken me all my strength to write this when all I feel like doing is laying down and going to sleep for a month but is will all still be here wont it.
What do I do now. Please help me. I just dont know what to do.
Nick.
Well Nick, I haven't read your whole sitch, but trust me buddy, your life has NOT ended!! My wife left Aug 6/06. Long story. I felt like you do now. But it gets better, buddy, believe me. It is a REALTIONSHIP, it is not your whole life. I know this might be hard to understand right now............but trust me..there is a LOT more to life than just her.
Nick... You asked for help from people on the board. PLease listen to them. You ahve some amazing advise here...you just need to hear and listen to it!!!
I also noticed some contradictions but can't figure out the whole quote thing
But you say that you forgive her for the affair but it is blatently obvious to me that you haven't. You can not old onto this anger and still detach...and detach you must.
Again...I am only adding one person's opinion here but...after my 1st husband hurt me for the 1st time...I told him the same thing...that I understood why he did it, totally forgave him, deserved it...
I understadn rage can be addicting to and it is especially so when you 1st allow yourself to feel it. Just becasue you only did it once doesn't make it excusable...at all...EVER. I am sorry if you feel I am being harsh here and le me tell you...I have felt that rage and wanted to punch windows out or smack my ex...but what you did was horrid and it should crush you that you can physically hurt your wife, call her a selfish cow and still proclaim your love.
You need to work on your rage and diverting your anger into something constructive...find a release, run or write or sing or something but what you are doing is abusive, physically, verbally and emotionally. You can not MAKE your wife come home. You might need to declare bankruptcy again...you can't make someone hold your hand and find love again.
Stop trying to control her. You can't. You are only successful in making yourself more ugly and distasteful to her.
