Next steps?

[Mz. Pixie]

Great update-you sound so positive. How was the trip?

[Kidd]

Nearly two weeks with my family was a bit much. Two of my brothers and my mother were aware of the A so it was a bit tough to relax. Rough on my W, too, although everyone took everything in stride. Huge step on W's part to even go as far as I'm concerned. Takes a lot of courage to keep doing the right thing. Fortunately, no one is judgmental...just supportive. You wouldn't have known anything and that was kind of exactly what we needed. Looking forward more to the beach this weekend.

 

We had some very touching moments this week. We had a few conversations that were difficult (to say the least) but as usual, they landed with us closer to one another. We reinforced our commitment to one another "for life" in the last few days and again this morning in MC. Trying not to be overly enthusiastic but it's a huge step for both of us and I'm very encouraged. I've been trying to find confidence in our long germ prospects and she's needed the same. In some way, we both got to that point of safety and security with one another. She's been much more open with her thoughts and feelings recently; her honesty allows me to relax, and that allows her to not feel so judged all the time and to come closer to me. We're going to make it thru this because we're doing it together. I'm the most confident now about our prospects than at any time since dday and we've done it in a healthy way. Compared to so many others, I feel very fortunate.

 

On a side note, just got confirmation that the xOM is changing jobs very soon. Looks like they might have 3 overlapping shifts remaining (although they see each other very little) and then we'll have firm NC thereafter. Be nice to put this chapter behind us. Need to talk to W about this transition; suspect it is going to be very tempting to break NC for some kind of goodbye. She won't do that but she could probably use some reinforcement on the boudaries and some support for sticking with it. She knows it has to happen and she has done amazingly well at basically eliminating any contact already and I want to in some way reward her for her new loyalty to her M. I'm sure others would be skeptical of this thought process; good for them.

[Kidd]

No, we're separated by quite a distance. But I see where you're going with this. I'm sure she slept with both of them when I was just in the other room.

[analystfromhell]

Hi Kidd! Welcome to LS.

That being said, the counselors we visited always focused on me and tip-toed initially around my WS. Why? I can only conclude that the cheater is the weaker of the two partners and they do not want to alienate them too soon in the process or they will lose them and consequently, the marriage too.

 

Could you amplify on that- am about to start counseling with my SO who's wrapped up in what is at the very least an EMO affair and am very nervous about the counseling and interested to hear how this progression goes so I'm better able to understand what's going to happen.

[Kidd]

I think all of them are probably different but I feel very similar to Spark in my experience. Our MC has focused much more on me and my reaction to the A rather than on her. It threw me off at first. But there is some wisdom there. I had a lot of paranoia. While perhaps justified, much of it was still simply paranoia and not based in fact on what was actually happening. When our view of the world is destroyed, we simply fill in any blanks with the worst possible scenario and run with it. I got very frustrated with essentially being told to look at things differently. But I also needed to start looking more at what was really happening in the present, not always focusing on the past nor at the doom and gloom of the future. I see wisdom in the approach now. Ultimately, there is no denying that the A was wrong in every possible way. But there is little benefit in the MC addressing it. The MC has focused on my healing, and our recovery. My focus on the past and a gloomy future was hindering our recovery. Continuing to beat up on the WS serves little purpose.

 

All that said, I've been very fortunate to have a WW that has been VERY open and remorseful and was taking every step possible to fix the situation she created. It doesn't sound like your situation is the same. Your SO needs to open fully, be transparent, and be willing to do whatever is necessary to repair the damage that has been done. If they won't, you need a counselor that has great experience in infidelity to get the WS to a place where you can begin to recover. In my book, our success relies completely on my W's level of commitment to owning the mess. I got very lucky in my situation and I make a point to recognize her for her efforts. If you don't get what you need to heal (which begins with honestly answering ANY questions you want answered), the continued deception (which they call privacy) will stop any efforts to recover. If your counselor doesn't go over those basics first, get another. My two cents, anyway.

[Mz. Pixie]

Everything sounds good.

 

Give her some support and acknowledge her efforts to maintain NC. It is hard. Even though I know she chose you she may still feel some type of strange friendship for this person in a strange way. It's hard to explain but it is hard.

 

I am very proud for the progress you both have made.

[Where To]

Could you amplify on that- am about to start counseling with my SO who's wrapped up in what is at the very least an EMO affair and am very nervous about the counseling and interested to hear how this progression goes so I'm better able to understand what's going to happen.

 

In my own experience with the MC, both my wife and I concluded that she was the weaker of the two of us. Perhaps one of the factors that lead to her affair was that I was the more dominant one in the relationship, while she remained mostly passive. My wife thinks that it may have played a part. We focused mostly on her possible personal problems, as well as the emotional walls that I had placed up, soon after d-day.

 

What I would suggest for you, afh, is that you keep an extremely open mind about what both your counsellor and your wife have to say. Be completely honest with what you are feeling, else the sessions are a waste of time and money. But don't be afraid to call a counsellor out if you think that they are speaking bullsh*t. Our first one was incredibly incompetent. I think that he was new.

 

Wish you well Kidd.

[Kidd]

Had a long talk last night. One of the subjects was how difficult it was going to be for her to maintain NC with the OM. She really opened up on their relationship. None of it makes much logical sense but when does it? I haven't found many WS that can really rationalize their decisions during the A. Thus the term, fog. I appreciate all of the cautious concerns, I really do. But I can tell she has moved past this and never really had that "soulmate" kind of experience that so many others seem to have; they knew it wasn't meant to last. She has missed him as a friend and confidant. But she says with conviction that she completely gets that it had to end, that she struggled not texting him during the first few weeks, but that she's been past it for a while now and ultimately sees his move in jobs as the best thing for all four of us (she's including OMW). This kind of openness over a long period as we lie with one another is what keeps me with her. Without any prompting or request, she made a real point to ask if I understood that there truly was zero chance of her ever reigniting any kind of personal relationship with him. I said I certainly didn't understand that and thus the long conversation. She cried, apologized wholeheatedly (yet again) and said how much she wished she had made so many decisions differently. The last few days have been an amazing recommitment to our M for both of us and yes, I've really made a point to create a safe environment for her to talk openly (since the beginning) and she sees the value in that honesty, how much it means to me, and how much I value her for it. Wish there was a Reconciliation subforum on here. It's time we were moved to it. But I'm glad to stay here and to visit daily; the people on here helped me through the worst period in my life when things were seemingly hopeless. I got some terrible advice but I also got challenged by some wise posters to do things I doubt I ever would have done otherwise (such as expose to the OMW) and that counsel made the difference for me when it came to keeping my head in the game. I made one well-advised decision after another about how to move through this and almost all of it came from BS's (and some very remorseful and introspective fWS's). I'm grateful and plan on paying it forward for quite a while.

[drifter777]

So it's been how long since d-day? 4 - 5 months? While things seem to be going swimmingly with regard to reconciliation you should know that recovering this quickly is not typical. Thinking that everything is ok, wanting everything to be ok, pretending everything is ok - all of that is typical but very rarely is it actually the case.

 

I've been with you & this thread since the beginning and I haven't read any evidence that suggests to me that you have faced reality and even begun to work through your emotions. There have been "spurts" of anger and resentment but then you rationalize and go on and on about how hard your wife is working to restore trust & repair your relationship. My guess is that you have compartmentalized your feelings and tucked them safely away in the back of your mind. It probably feels like the right thing to do so you can face this situation logically and make decisions based on what you think you should do. As I think I've said before, I hope this works for you. I hope you never have to face those emotions you have tucked away because when you do your life is going to change dramatically.

 

I know nothing I say will convince you that what I say is true. You are not ready to hear this now because you are not ready to face your emotions now. My only point in this post is to implore you to seek counseling immediately when your emotions finally boil over. The day is coming and I hope you will remember these words.

[Kidd]

Thanks Drifter. Interesting timing. The last 3 weeks have been that emotional time for me. I think safety and security set in and then that freed me to release my anger. I have said and done things that I didn't think I could do. I found that once I was safe, I started increasing my expectations of my W, mostly so that she could fail, I could make her feel horrendous, hear what I needed yet again, and then calm down. It became a pretty clear pattern and it got a bit brutal. To the point where it was happening in front of people with a lot of volume and a lot of intense language.

 

Fortunately, my W continued to carry the burden of her actions, find reasons to apologize, etc.. I finally made sense of it when it got so rude that it wasn't even things I truly felt. I was just hurting her.

 

Our MC is a good one. I couldn't understand why it was now ms that was sabotaging our reconciliation. I was hurting my W to the point where she was finally developing resentment. No matter what anyone says, it's hard to love someone with so much anger and hatred.

 

I came to realize that quite frankly, she had done enough. Call it what you like but she has learned a very hard lesson, has punished herself immensely, and was taking my punishment, too.

 

Yesterday I granted her forgiveness. I will no longer punish or otherwise hold her accountable for what transpired over that year. She will not remain in debtors prison. What she did wasn't ok. But 3 months of anguish is enough.

 

I get that nobody else reconciles this quickly. It gives me pause as it should. But I don't see others in my same situation. I haven't had all the nonsense that other WS dish out afterwards. There was a fog that cleared.

 

Her mental state is pretty devastated right now. If I love her, how long is appropriate to continue making her pay. I'm no going to instill one more artificial "consequence" just to satisfy my need to get even or punish her. The conventional 2-5 year crap is exactly that. If you want to reconcile and have a rare WS with the right amount of remorse and effort, then do it NOW. Or you can go like the other poster I read today with 20 years and no forgiveness. No thanks. You know what? I took my own path and none of the doom and gloom crap happened. Is it hard? Hell yeah. Still have a few mental movies, occassional anger, grief, etc? Sure. But it is diminishing because I am not going to follow the self-fulfilling prophecy that says this has to take years. It doesn't. At least not for everyone. You can hold on to your justifiable misery as long as you like. I guess we'll see. But for those that want an update, I have found no more lies, no trickle-truth, no new ddays, she no longer works with the xOM and my W and I continue to love each other. We both have counselors (I did start going regularly to my own IC again when the anger set in) and a MC but we are doing well. I'm proud to have forgiven her and released the nonsense. We have a long road ahead to heal us both and reconnect as much as we'd like but honestly, we're going to be fine. I respect the skeptics (and your timely comments about anger - you were right) but we have crossed a bridge. I'm very much looking forward and that's what makes her grateful to me and it's what repairs us. While it WAS her responsibility to "fix" this, it eventually came to me to end it. Don't mean to be argumentative. I'm grateful for your insight actually. I hadn't fully dealt with my anger and I paid for it for a few weeks. It set us back. My W says it had to happen. She gets it.

[RepairMinded]

She has missed him as a friend and confidant.

 

The OM was neither, and until your spouse internalizes that her only thoughts of OM and what her "relationship" with him should evoke nothing but shudders of disgust in her, then no--you haven't reconciled.

[Mz. Pixie]

Kidd- I applaud your choice to give your wife the gift of forgiveness. Althought I know she will punish herself for a long long time to come internally. It's a hard road to travel-one she chose herself too which makes it worse in some way.

 

Still have high hopes for you two!

[RepairMinded]

Thanks Drifter. Interesting timing. The last 3 weeks have been that emotional time for me. I think safety and security set in and then that freed me to release my anger.

 

No you were angry because your wife cheated and you had previously been suppressing that anger just like drifter said. It had to come out sooner or later.

 

It's interesting how you still don't want to call a spade a spade. You're trying to equate a supposed feeling of "safety and security" with your anger which doesn't make a lick of sense.

 

 

I have said and done things that I didn't think I could do.

 

This just sounds like more denial. You really didn't think you were capable of getting extremely angry, sooner or later, as a reaction to your wife's cheating on you? That's a typical reaction that happens to people. I don't understand why you think your emotions in reaction to what happened to you, would be so different from the average person's.

 

 

I found that once I was safe,

 

You weren't safe and you're not safe. It's way too early to make that determination. You've even acknowledged that you are well aware that long term affairs like your wife had, if the marriage is recoverable, take anywhere from two to five years to recover from. In fact that's not simply "book learning," all you have to do is read some of the threads on Love Shack. I haven't seen any others where people in your situation have successfully recovered only three months out. None.

 

Your attitude is "yeah I know about the two to five years but that doesn't apply to US." Why? What makes you so "special"? Nothing really.

 

 

I started increasing my expectations of my W, mostly so that she could fail, I could make her feel horrendous, hear what I needed yet again, and then calm down. It became a pretty clear pattern and it got a bit brutal. To the point where it was happening in front of people with a lot of volume and a lot of intense language.

 

Because you were in denial and you were trying to deny yourself your true feelings of anger at your wife they started emerging in an uncontrollable manner. Again this is pretty typical and not limited to the infidelity situation.

 

Fortunately, my W continued to carry the burden of her actions, find reasons to apologize, etc.. I finally made sense of it when it got so rude that it wasn't even things I truly felt. I was just hurting her.

 

It actually sounds like your insistence that you are in total control of the situation is your way of trying to protect yourself from the fact that whether your marriage does or does not recover is still very much up in the air and to a large extent entirely out of your control.

 

Yes you were hurting her, but it was her fault, because she had the affair which caused you to act the way you did in response to it. By trying to take the blame for hurting her, what you are really doing is trying to assume control of events. But the actual situation you've described is one in which you have very little control at all--over events, over your own emotions, and certainly not over hers. Busting out in inappropriate anger is not a sign that you are very much in control of anything. Again this is not unusual but if you really want to recover your marriage you have to acknowledge that the level of control you have over what is going on is pretty slight.

 

 

 

 

Our MC is a good one. I couldn't understand why it was now ms that was sabotaging our reconciliation.

 

Your expression of anger was not sabotaging your reconciliation. It was a natural consequence of what your wife did. It did not signify your control over events in your marriage but rather was your response to your lack of control of events.

 

You really need to get comfortable with the fact that your wife will do exactly as she pleases and has little if any regard for your feelings. Yes that degree of selfishness can change in a person (rarely) but it takes years. That's one of the reasons for the "two to five years" mantra. In order for true reconciliation to occur your wife has to be willing to undergo, and actually undergo, a complete revamp of that part of her personality which said it was OK for her to cheat on you. That takes years, if ever.She may not have ever cheated on you in the past, but for her to work up to the point of being able to cheat on you took years.

 

 

I was hurting my W to the point where she was finally developing resentment.

 

False. In your very first post in this thread, you said that your wife came to you before you even found out about the affair and basically said she resented/didn't want to be married to you any longer.

 

 

No matter what anyone says, it's hard to love someone with so much anger and hatred.

 

She doesn't love you. If she loved you she wouldn't have had a long term affair with another man. She may grow to love you (again) in the future. But you can't force her to love you if she doesn't, which she obviously doesn't. What you can and should insist on, is that she respect you.

 

 

 

 

I came to realize that quite frankly, she had done enough.

 

She hasn't done much of anything. So she went to a few counseling sessions? Put up with a few of your angry outbursts/temper tantrums? Big whoop.

 

 

 

Call it what you like but she has learned a very hard lesson, has punished herself immensely, and was taking my punishment, too.

 

She is only doing just as much as she thinks she needs to do to keep you manipulated. She hasn't even gotten to the point where she recognizes that OM was NOT her "friend." You even stated in a very recent post--a week ago--she felt she was going to have a hard time maintaining NC with the OM. She still obviously feels like giving up her OM/affair was a big sacrifice on her part.

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday I granted her forgiveness.

 

Forgiveness which has not been earned by the recipient, is not respected as valuable by the recipient. You want this process to be over easy and quick not for her sake, but for your own sake. She understands that and is deftly allowing you to continue to con yourself.

 

 

I will no longer punish or otherwise hold her accountable for what transpired over that year.

 

I can understand not "punishing" her (whatever that means?--did you spank her like a child or something?) but not to hold her accountable??? There is no time limit on accountability. That's just absurd.

 

She will not remain in debtors prison. What she did wasn't ok. But 3 months of anguish is enough.

 

It has nothing to do with how long she is in anguish. It has to do with her ability to understand herself and why she did what she did enough to actually want to do the hard work involved in changing. Since that typically involves the cheater doing work on themselves, and generally takes years of therapy, it really has nothing to do with what you declare by arbitrary fiat just because you wish it to be so.

 

I get that nobody else reconciles this quickly.

 

Including you and your spouse. You're not reconciled, and nothing you've posted indicates that you have any objective reason to believe you're reconciled.

 

Simply declaring "Presto! Change-O! We are successfully reconciled!" doesn't actually mean you are.

 

 

 

It gives me pause as it should. But I don't see others in my same situation. I haven't had all the nonsense that other WS dish out afterwards. There was a fog that cleared.

 

I have read plenty of the threads here and your situation is not atypical. You just refuse to acknowledge that. Your WS has dished out plenty, such as refusing to quit her job immediately and actually NEVER going NC with her OM. Even if she's recently transferred (or he has) they still have ample ability to continue contact, and will continue contact, for "work purposes."

 

 

 

 

 

Her mental state is pretty devastated right now.

 

Maybe but you are probably the least objective person to be able to judge what is going on with her. She knows that if she acts all hurt and devastated she will get a desired reaction from you. She is an expert at deception and manipulating you, emotionally and every other way, and you have no reason to believe she's not still doing it. Many women are very good at using tears to get what they want.

 

 

 

If I love her, how long is appropriate to continue making her pay.

 

It has nothing to do with making her pay. Typically a married woman who has a long term affair has left the marriage emotionally long before the affair actually happened. The process takes years as the marriage disintegrates even if the husband is clueless because the woman never honestly expresses her concerns.

 

In order to rebuild herself and the marriage, the process takes years, years of individual therapy for her, possibly also for you, and possibly of marital counseling as well.

 

 

 

I'm no going to instill one more artificial "consequence" just to satisfy my need to get even or punish her. The conventional 2-5 year crap is exactly that.

 

....says the genius whose wife was f*cking her boss for over a year and him without any clue.

 

 

 

 

If you want to reconcile and have a rare WS with the right amount of remorse and effort, then do it NOW.

 

You don't have that rare WS based on your objective description of her behavior and attitudes in this thread.

 

 

Or you can go like the other poster I read today with 20 years and no forgiveness. No thanks. You know what? I took my own path and none of the doom and gloom crap happened.

 

No you are on exactly the same path that drifter took. He shoved it all down way back when, just like you are doing. That's what drifter is trying to tell you. Give you the benefit of his 20 years and you think you're too smart to listen.

 

Just remember this: If your wife was cheating under your nose for over a year then you have no basis to think your judgment is any good at all when it comes to this kind of stuff.

 

 

Is it hard? Hell yeah. Still have a few mental movies, occassional anger, grief, etc? Sure. But it is diminishing because I am not going to follow the self-fulfilling prophecy that says this has to take years. It doesn't.

 

It does and you are in 100% denial. And you can be assured your wife is taking full advantage of that denial because she knows how to manipulate her to her advantage. You actually feel sorry for her. And you don't even understand that the reason you feel sorry for her is because she's been manipulating you all the way along.

 

Your wife is not some meek little flower. She is a fortune 100 executive. When you had your inappropriate screaming fit or public outburst or whatever you think you did that was so awesome, guaranteed she was laughing inside because you were playing right into her hands. So she acted like a scared little mouse or cried or whatever she knew to do that would push your buttons and make you feel sorry for her, and obviously it's working beautifully.

 

 

 

At least not for everyone. You can hold on to your justifiable misery as long as you like. I guess we'll see.

 

No, if you maintain your denial attitude in the face of all objective facts the ending of this story has already been written and just needs some more time to play out. She will continue cheating with the same OM, maybe after a lapse of time til things cool off. Or maybe some other OM. She will continue to manipulate, deceive, and disrespect you. And then when you least expect it, when she feels the time is ripe, she will walk out on you.

 

But for those that want an update, I have found no more lies, no trickle-truth, no new ddays, she no longer works with the xOM and my W and I continue to love each other.

 

They still work at the same company and therefore have continued access to each other through work. Most likely all that has happened since D Day is that the affair has gone under deep cover/underground.

 

You need to face up to the fact that she is stronger than you and smarter than you not the other way around as your ego wants to believe. She is the fortune 100 executive not you.

 

 

We both have counselors (I did start going regularly to my own IC again when the anger set in) and a MC but we are doing well. I'm proud to have forgiven her and released the nonsense. We have a long road ahead to heal us both and reconnect as much as we'd like but honestly, we're going to be fine.

 

The fact that you would assume your desired conclusion--things will be "fine"--is proof that your reasoning is completely circular, self-fulfilling, and illogical.

 

 

I respect the skeptics (and your timely comments about anger - you were right) but we have crossed a bridge.

 

Metaphors are nice. Cross as many bridges as you want.

 

 

I'm very much looking forward and that's what makes her grateful to me and it's what repairs us. While it WAS her responsibility to "fix" this, it eventually came to me to end it. Don't mean to be argumentative. I'm grateful for your insight actually. I hadn't fully dealt with my anger and I paid for it for a few weeks. It set us back. My W says it had to happen. She gets it.

 

The anger didn't set you back, it moved you forward, because it was a genuine expression by you of a real emotion that was justified based on her behavior towards you.

 

You will never recover or reconcile a marriage worth squat if you persist in the belief that you are not entitled to your own feelings.

[Kidd]

RM, as usual, your approach of quote>attack alienates you from any hope of true influence. You begin to communicate a rational, reasonable alternate view but then by swinging at every pitch with such fervor, you strike out early. I tire of trying to find the gem amongst the vitriol. You had some good points about why this might take years. But then you can't avoid your worst-case scenario assumptions and then you add insults. How's that working out for you? Get some control over yourself and you might get somewhere and do someone some good.

 

In the future, I will make a point to ensure that I login prior to viewing my thread so that my ignore list saves me from wasting time with you. I gave you a second chance and you wasted it.

[Kidd]

So, I request other opinions...Drifter, this includes you as it was your original subject.

 

How do you process the emotions associated with this without either repressing them or precluding R? I agree I have been analytical, logical, and task-oriented about this. I guess I don't expect to feel good about any of it. I don't feel like I've been in denial about my emotions. I experience the whole gambit...grief over what was lost (probably the worst), anger, betrayal, hopelessness, frustration, mental movies. Hell, I think I've cried everyday for 3 months when I probably hadn't cried in 10 years. I guess what I have found is that reacting in an emotional way doesn't solve anything. Reacting in anger hasn't fixed anything, nor has the crying. So I try to focus instead on what action to take. I "could" be wrong but I feel it has resulted in progress. My strength in this regard has prevented the angry outbursts and disrespectful judgments that I think the average person just lets out. If they are not reconciling, and those that do are taking years, why continue that approach?

 

So, again, how do I process the emotions, fears, etc in a healthy way? I have an IC and MC and my W will discuss anything as much as I need (which is like, daily). What else? Looking for legitimate feedback to a serious question that I don't have resolved.

[Spark1111]

Step up any exercise or physical activity when you feel the demons rising.

 

Give yourself time to process negative feelings until you can understand the core of it and then talk of it in a calm manner to your spouse.

 

I found triggers of the affair stirred up some early childhood fears that I would then project onto my spouse. Unfair, and unproductive.

 

But it was wonderful to realize what the TRUE source of crazy was coming from.

 

Another thing: I questioned some of the motivations of the OW at times, but I never spoke ill of her, ever. I felt she was just as needy and vulnerable as he was at that time.

 

He eventually realized for him, with no prompting from me, how destructive they were together; what they DID not discuss or communicate during the affair; and that in reality, he BECAME what she needed, and SHE BECAME what he needed. Total projection.

 

Was that who they really are? Of course not. But it took a while for the fantasy to vanish.

 

Be patient. There were many questions he could not answer simply because it was not relevant to the way she made him feel.

 

And that was ALL he cared about. Not the person, the feeling.

[RepairMinded]

RM, as usual, your approach of quote>attack alienates you from any hope of true influence.

 

You were quoted and your words responded to. They are my responses based on my opinions not yours.

 

 

 

You begin to communicate a rational, reasonable alternate view but then by swinging at every pitch with such fervor, you strike out early.

 

Everything I posted is rational and supportable objectively. Not just the "beginning" part. This isn't a whiffle ball game, it's your life.

 

 

 

I tire of trying to find the gem amongst the vitriol

 

There is no vitriol. You insist that your situation is unique and different and that you can declare your marriage recovered in a uniquely abrupt time frame without any objective basis to be able to distinguish your wife's affair and your marital situation from hundreds/thousands of others posted on Love Shack and elsewhere for that matter.

 

The best thing anyone can do to try to help you is to point out that this sort of thought process is wish fulfillment and not based on objectivity. You cannot make good decisions for yourself or your marriage unless you recognize that you are not being objective.

 

 

You had some good points about why this might take years.

 

Please don't personalize this as these are not really "my" points, as if RepairMinded was the one who decided that long term affairs, if they can be recovered from, easily take 2-5 years of reconciliation process, often quite longer. There are quite a few people who would tell you that it's impossible. I'm not one of those people. I think it's possible. But ONLY if both the betrayed spouse and the wayward spouse are completely honest with themselves and with each other.

 

I didn't make up "2-5 years" and you know that.

 

You are not being honest with yourself in my opinion.

 

 

But then you can't avoid your worst-case scenario assumptions and then you add insults.

 

No one "insulted" you. And it's not a "worst case" scenario, it's a "very common" scenario. The problem is you want to believe your own case is not only the "best case" scenario, it's unrealistically the "best case" scenario.

 

And the objective facts prove that you're wrong. On July 16, only a week ago, you posted that you believe your wife will have difficulties maintaining NC (actually low contact or LC since they will still be working for the same corporation) and you also said she still regards her OM as a "friend and confidant."

 

"Friends" don't cause their "friends" to cheat on their spouses. So the OM is not and never was a "friend" to your wife. Since she doesn't yet grasp that very simple fact you are nowhere near being reconciled, and as a matter of fact, she will not be able to reconcile with you until she can change her mind-set.

 

 

 

How's that working out for you? Get some control over yourself and you might get somewhere and do someone some good.

 

I have complete self-control and we all have free will. It's up to you as to whether you are willing to do the very hard work of actually trying to reconcile rather than simply wish it to be so.

 

 

 

In the future, I will make a point to ensure that I login prior to viewing my thread so that my ignore list saves me from wasting time with you. I gave you a second chance and you wasted it.

 

You don't control me or what I post any more than you control your wife, but you want to pretend that you do.

 

Confirming one of my prior points that you are not being objective about any of this.

[RepairMinded]

Step up any exercise or physical activity when you feel the demons rising.

 

Kidd claims they are now fully recovered so there are no demons there to be rising.

 

 

Give yourself time to process negative feelings until you can understand the core of it and then talk of it in a calm manner to your spouse.

 

Kidd claims he has forgiven and no longer will hold her accountable for her affair. The negative feelings are gone.

 

 

 

I found triggers of the affair stirred up some early childhood fears that I would then project onto my spouse. Unfair, and unproductive.

 

But still a consequence of your spouse's bad behavior.

 

 

 

 

But it was wonderful to realize what the TRUE source of crazy was coming from.

 

It might be wonderful to think we know but believing that we have all the answers in these situations is never a good strategy.

 

Anyone who takes the risk of reconciling with a cheater better be well aware that it IS a huge risk, and will remain so for the entire term of the relationship. No cheaters don't always cheat again. But they do so frequently enough, or act in non-cheating but other ways which are not remorseful, that it's impossible to say that reconciliation will be "forever."

 

No betrayed spouse who takes back a cheater can honestly say that they will ever know what makes their cheater tick as well as they might want to. The cheater might not be keeping some inner part of themselves hidden but if they are there's no way of knowing until it again manifests itself in a bad way.

 

 

 

Another thing: I questioned some of the motivations of the OW at times, but I never spoke ill of her, ever.

 

That doesn't mean if you had spoken ill of her you would have been out of line. Obviously what she did by cheating with your spouse was wrong (unless she truly had no idea he was married). Part of "recovery" is the ability to be totally honest so yes that means you should feel free to speak ill of the person who cheated with your spouse. Because they did ill to you and your marriage.

 

 

 

I felt she was just as needy and vulnerable as he was at that time.

 

It's not very healthy to make excuses for adults, exercising free will, who choose to do things which hurt other people. You are talking about two people who did you harm. Their excuses for it are largely irrelevant.

 

 

He eventually realized for him, with no prompting from me, how destructive they were together;

 

Not true at all. You certainly "prompted" your spouse by throwing him out. Several times IIRC.

 

 

what they DID not discuss or communicate during the affair;

 

You don't know and you never will really know everything that they discussed. We can speculate based on what you do know and what people typically do in affairs.

 

 

 

 

and that in reality, he BECAME what she needed, and SHE BECAME what he needed. Total projection.

 

He was the exact same person that you married and she was whatever she was before the affair too. They didn't "became" anything.

 

Your husband like all cheaters was able to successfully hide that part of himself from you. Had he told you prior to marriage that he believed himself capable of cheating on you, that he had it in him, you most likely would never have married him. But events prove that he did have it in him.

 

 

 

 

Was that who they really are? Of course not.

 

Of course "yes" it was a part of who they really were.

 

 

 

But it took a while for the fantasy to vanish.

 

It wasn't a "fantasy." It was a "reality." Your h's affair actually happened which takes it out of the realm of fantasy into the realm of reality. He wanted it and he made it happen. It never "vanished." You made him stop it by imposing real-world consequences (kicking him out). He carefully weighed the pluses and minuses and decided it would be in his own best interests to stay with you. So he stayed with you. Eventually.

 

Be patient. There were many questions he could not answer simply because it was not relevant to the way she made him feel.

 

Any questions he did not answer was because he didn't think any answer he could give you would improve his situation with you. If for example he likes large breasted women and his affair partner had larger breasts than you and that was his reason for cheating on you, that might not be something he thinks it would be wise to be honest about.

 

 

And that was ALL he cared about. Not the person, the feeling.

 

He cared about having sex with someone other than you, and he did.

[Tech_E]

Spark1111 you've given some great advice there. Very useful techniques.

 

Kidd, the only option to dealing with people like this particular poster is the ignore feature, which you have thankfully discovered as have I.

[RepairMinded]

Spark1111 you've given some great advice there. Very useful techniques.

 

The technique that actually worked for Spark was throwing her cheating spouse out. This had to be repeated several times before he decided he didn't want to be thrown out.

 

Yet in her post in this thread she claims her h saw the light with no prompting from herself.

 

If throwing him out wasn't a form of "prompting" then what is?

 

Kidd, the only option to dealing with people like this particular poster is the ignore feature, which you have thankfully discovered as have I.

 

The other option is to actually be mature enough to accept that other people have opinions different from yours.

[KathyM]

Not sure where to start.

 

About 2 months ago, my wife told me that she was considering separation. We've been together 17 years, married 11, two kids who are 8 and 4. She said she had been unhappy for about 2 years and put a lot of blame on me being unhappy in my job, complacent at home, etc.. The hardest part was that she needed some time to figure out if it was just too late. Devastated doesn't begin to express what a mess I was inside. I spent three weeks in limbo, pulled a good 180, and got her to recommit to the marriage and marriage counseling. But things didn't add up and I reluctantly bought a GPS tracker, put it in her car and caught her going to a hotel during work hours. With some creative snooping, I found she had stayed at this hotel 17 times in the previous 11 months or so. I started documenting for a divorce and had a consult with an attorney but within a few days ended up confronting her when she was talking about how much she was "trying." I found myself in the odd position of comforting her while she broke down and apologized. That was about 5-6 weeks ago.

We've been working on reconciliation ever since. She has had an IC, I have one now, too and we have a third for MC. She has answered any and all questions and thus I know the affair was more like 30 times over a 13 month period and that it was with her boss. My wife is very successful at work, soon likely to move into an executive level position after nearly 20 years with a Fortune 100 company. I gave her 3 days to commit to no physical contact of any kind with the OM, no emotional contact either (just business related discussions), 3 months to no longer work together, and no contact of any kind thereafter. By the end of the day, she agreed to all these terms but was scared that if she had to quit her job or take a demotion that she might be too resentful. This is complete crap, of course, and I said the terms were not altering (and she said she wasn't trying to alter them) but at the time I accepted that she had agreed to the terms. I decided to handle the rest later.

Within a week, I also confronted the OM when he agreed to meet with me. He's married, too, of course. While my wife had broken things off with him and said that he agreed and wanted to move forward and work on his own marriage, I needed to hear his intentions for myself. Long story short, he committed to everything I needed to hear.

I guess I should back up for a second. When I gave my wife my list of demands to avoid immediate divorce, she also made a request that I not tell OM's wife so that he could work on his own marriage. I hated that I felt I was negotiating with her to restore our marriage and her terms were focused on protecting her lover. Ugh. My solution at the time was that I wasn't negotiating this item but that I would just give it to her freely. I didn't know the OMW and was focused on my own problems. I wanted this out of the way and if she were going to reconcile with me, that was going to have nothing to do with protecting him.

Since that time she has done about everything possible to reconcile. She has been remorseful, apologized, avoided any further justification of the affair or blame on me (not even once), has been super affectionate and appreciative, has answered all questions (including a marathon 3 hours where I gave her about 30 tough questions in advance). She gave me permission to snoop and provided passwords that I requested but got very paranoid thinking investigators were tailing her and the few things I've found where I had questions for her were old things from during the affair. In my mind, people can hide his crap, especially since they don't need electronics to communicate or hook up.

I don't have much time to write at the moment so...where I am struggling is with waiting until Aug 1st to change jobs. She can't realistically transfer away from him until probably January. I know how things operate there. And in he meantime, I'm not snooping but it's still too early to trust. Feel like I'm doing it blindly (not healthy). She is truly doing everything possible otherwise and we've been doing remarkably well. While I still think about it all 24/7, the devastation is gone and most of the anger, too. Could use some counsel.

Trust is extremely hard to restore, and takes a long time. Personally, I would not be able to get past the betrayal and rebuild a life with someone who did what you described, but I commend you for trying. You are right to demand that she leave that job. To be in daily contact with her lover is just too big of a temptation. It will be a long process to rebuild the trust. It takes years, and is never completely restored. Set firm boundaries and expectations of behavior with your wife, and don't accept anything less than full compliance. Work on improving your marriage and building back the feelings you once had for each other. Only time will bring back the trust. There will be many days that you are overwhelmed with thoughts of the betrayal and doubts about your wife. Over time, it will get better if she continues with behavior that is trustworthy. You've chosen a very difficult path in trying to reconcile. I'm sorry you had to experience this.

[silktricks]

So, I request other opinions...Drifter, this includes you as it was your original subject.

 

How do you process the emotions associated with this without either repressing them or precluding R? I agree I have been analytical, logical, and task-oriented about this. I guess I don't expect to feel good about any of it. I don't feel like I've been in denial about my emotions. I experience the whole gambit...grief over what was lost (probably the worst), anger, betrayal, hopelessness, frustration, mental movies. Hell, I think I've cried everyday for 3 months when I probably hadn't cried in 10 years. I guess what I have found is that reacting in an emotional way doesn't solve anything. Reacting in anger hasn't fixed anything, nor has the crying. So I try to focus instead on what action to take. I "could" be wrong but I feel it has resulted in progress. My strength in this regard has prevented the angry outbursts and disrespectful judgments that I think the average person just lets out. If they are not reconciling, and those that do are taking years, why continue that approach?

 

So, again, how do I process the emotions, fears, etc in a healthy way? I have an IC and MC and my W will discuss anything as much as I need (which is like, daily). What else? Looking for legitimate feedback to a serious question that I don't have resolved.

 

I think you are doing well. Sparks suggestion of exercise to work the demons out is a truly excellent one.

 

Different people are different (thank, God!!!) . The fact that you can apparently come to such realizations as quickly as you have is not a bad thing at all. The only thing I would ask, is do you have a history of being able to forgive easily? If so, then I would believe that you are on track. If not - if in your past you have tended more to harbor resentment and pain, then possibly you've moved a little fast and will get a kick in the rear again in the future. But you know yourself.

 

I would tend to caution you somewhat on making a "decision" to not deal with this emotionally any longer. If you are truly done with dealing with the emotional outfall, then that's good and it's time to move on. If, however, you've decided to quash the feelings, then that's not so good. Feelings will out over time. The heart rules the head much more than the head the heart. Be sure to work your way through the pain, rather than try to detour it. It really does sound like you've done very well, though.

 

The fact that your wife would choose to bring up the subject to ease your mind is so good. That type of conversation is usually the last thing the WS wants to have - and that makes it only harder for the BS. It sounds like the two of you are working things out together.

[nyrias]

 

The other option is to actually be mature enough to accept that other people have opinions different from yours.

 

And you must be a shining beacon of doing that?

[reboot]

And you must be a shining beacon of doing that?

 

That's actually pretty damn funny coming from him isn't it?

[Kidd]

Silktricks,

 

Seriously...thank you. I truly tire of the absolutes, consequences, ultimatums, and so forth. If there had been a second dday or any lies discovered, etc then I would get the whole scene about everyone trying to get me to wake up. I am cautiously optimistic and feel I am one of the few lucky BSs that can get their WS out of this mess.

 

To answer your questions...yes, I am a very forgiving person. I have had a lot of tragedy in my life (most of it years ago) but I've always exercised patience and not to hold a grudge. This is not a new approach or philiosophy for me. I am certainly now questioning how much this permits me to be treated as a doormat. But I rarely allow emotions to drive my decisions. This has been a rare situation for me where I haven't always been able to control them. I've experienced them. And I still do daily. I'm a bit tired of the crying. I still grieve the loss of what we were, at least at one point. And I hate the unavoidable mistrust now.

 

And yes, I'm proud of my wife that she doesn't at all avoid the difficult conversations, questions, fights, and so on. She read a good book shortly after Dday that spoke to owning what she created and that has helped us the most. I've not once heard about this being my fault since then and many of these conversations are at 3am. A WS still in the affair would have run out of patience for this long ago.

 

I will be careful not to stifle my emotions. I'm trying to learn how to control the release of them. I always try to process it but then use the energy to determine what to do about it. I try to determine what action to take.

 

I appreciate the support.