Yeah sick to my stomach too!!!!

[George]

First of all I would like to say thanks to everyone responsible for this site, I have been horribaly confused and sickenend by my situation and to be able to unload here it's just awesome...Here goes. I met my wife about seven years ago. Funny cause we met at a friends wedding, my best friend was marriang her best friend and so on, Anyway we met, and almost instantly attracted. I gave her my phone numbers she called me back, we went on a date and basically that was it. I learned that she had a 12 month old daughter and after meeting the daughter I fell instanyly in love with her to...they both moved in with me and all was wonderful we spent the better part of six years married. The marriage at best seemed wonderful but there was always a horrible sence of insecurities on her part.

 

I am no saint but I must admit that for the most part I am a pretty wonderful guy, I have never cheated on a woman and have never had a one night stand, I truly gave my wife everything financially, emotionaly etc...even she admits this now. After six years of being married I couldn't tolerate her insecurities any longer thay started to change me. I felt like I should be cheating on her...she started to change me...I actually started to believe that I was no good, one afternoon after weeks and weeks of pondering and alot of backround homework on her mental state I realized that I was the problem. Years of cheating boyfriends and heavy abandoment issues from her upbringing have left my wife with heavy scars towards men and I found myself just being the victim of alot of her psycological inadequecies. I sat her down and explained that we needed a break, that emotionaly I dont know what else it is I could do to get her to trust me and to just let go of all that madness in her head. We seperated and I assured her that for better or for worse I would try to take care of her and our daughter as best I could. I bought her a car and instantly started to give her money every week for our daughters expenses and so forth. I tried my best to just keep things neutrel between me and her in the event that maybe she would realize that I of coarse still love her and want to save our marriage. About ten days later she informs me that we will never be together again and that I should just move on two days after that she tells me she is seeing someone, and that someone is a friend of mine. (or so I thought). I am not a judgemental person by nature but this guy she started seeing was clearly not in her best interest and what I mean by that, and through her own admission now, he really is a scumbag but apparently a very smooth scumbag who knew exactly how to take advantage of my wife as she goes through this hard time.

 

Anyway she blindly starts to date and have sex with this guy for about three months and it destroys me, I immediately got myself into counseling and therapy because I very quickly realised there was definately something wrong with the way I was feeling, and discovered alot of self esteem and codependency issues. So I slowly but surely started feeling really good about myself and even a little vindicated about leaving her, her actions kind of validated the confusion I knew she was going through. So we would see each other in passing every weekend when I picked up our daughter and about three months later she starts to notice drastic changes in my self esteem and I even gave her my blessing with her new found romance and really (or so I thought) had moved on with my life.

 

As the weeks passed I noticed her demeanor towards me start changing I notice that she wants to talk more at our usual weekly meeting place until finally she just caves in all together and tells me she's made a mistake and has left that guy and all that stuff, she starts pleading with me to help her understand how and where I got the help I got to change so much. She begged me to please if anything to please give her the books I read and counsel with her about her phycological issues and so forth. Not thinking anything of it, I do. For the most part it starts to work, she starts growing up and eventually about two months of this and we slowly without me realizing it we were back together. We have started to spend whole weekends together having a wonderful time, I have seen some traces of my old wife but for the most part she is doing everything she should some patience issues but again she's trying.

 

Here is where the problem starts for me, I was as I said earlier very comfortably seated in the "Take it or leave it" mode, and now it seems that the more we are together the angrier and more insecure I'm getting. I feel like I allowed this woman to run me through the gutter without as much as a minute of hurt on her part and just let her back in to further take advantage of me, the memories and visuals of her with this other guy are now almost unbearable (worse cause I know what he looks like, disgusting). Why is this happening now. Shouldn't I be happy? That everything has worked out this way, I left cause she was mentaly abusing me, I get help for my codependant obsession I have with her, she goes off and mindlessly has sex with another guy, someone I know, knowing what this will do to me (together or not, not this soon) I grow up, she gets tired of this guy or wakes up or whatever, I let her back into my life, she's behaving exactly how I always invisioned her behaving like. Everything should be peachy....But it's not, I am consumed by visions of them two having sex, and I have read enough about, it's in the past and all that, I am very well educated in terms of forgiveness and I have forgiven her. I guess the pain is far out wheighing the love and respect I have for her...Is this hopeless??? Is it to late??? What the hell do I have to do or in what terms do I need to see this in. I can love this woman but how??? I know you guys are only getting my side of the story, and I wish I could convince you but I really am a good guy who has done I feel right by my wife practically every waking moment we were together. I left her to save our marriage instead she destroys me, then asks me to help her which I do, she helps herself, and now I feel nothing for her. Do we spend more time together and let time heal the wounds or do I just stay away and heal...I desperatly want to save this marriage but what kind of logic do I need to be convincing myself of here to get this madness out of my head?????

[HokeyReligions]

Whew!

 

What has your therapist said about all of this? He may have some sound advice for you - better then you will find here from people only reading the little bit you can write.

 

It sounds like you need to set some boundries with her. Tell her you want to back off a while because you don't want to fall back into old patterns. The do it. Back off. You can agree that neither of you will date anyone else and will instead both work on self-improvement and independence. You should not be her counselor. That is the wrong thing to do. If she wants to read the books, that is fine, but she should have her own licensed and trained therapist.

 

Your feelings are normal under the circumstances - get with your therapist to help you work with them.

[George]

Thanks yeah it's kind of the way I see it too, and have in fact already done so. I feel like she crept in right past my emotions and is somehow trying to hurry up and lock me down sort of speak so she doesn't have to deal with her issues. Thanks for the thoughts that really actually helped...