Pio is fine.



You're right. You could eat Raccoon feces and go blind.



Thank God for Sally's quick advice. I have always let my kids just go ahead and eat it.

LOL - I was thinking of being forced to have to go live with my parents because I couldn't afford a separate home after the D .

It's pretty hard to fall in love when this is gnawing at your heels.

MiM,

I only really know of you from following the 'JFO' forum.
Reading your post I could feel how sad and lonely you are. I'm sorry for that.
I agree with the MB online program, as Mrs. W suggested. It puts the whole plan into much more perspective. It made my H and I more enthused about the principles and the fact that a great M can unfold even after adultery.

It sounds too that your W needs more EP's to make you feel safe.

Do you know what is the bit more you are looking for ?
What is preventing you from demanding it ?
What is preventing her from giving it ?

Maybe that is a good sign. Raising the bar could indicate that she wants a better marriage and is no longer interested in settling as she did when she was with OM. I think that it is better to raise the bar and ask for what you want than to go elsewhere to get your needs met.

I usually feel the best on Sundays after we have spent the weekend together. Are you doing better today?

What would it take to feel safe again?


For those of us that have our spouses home trying to recover the marriage, don't we all feel like that? Did anyone here ever think that they would stay after an affair? I know that I didn't. We had always told each other that if either of us ever cheated, just go ahead and leave because the marriage would be over. Our minds know that adultery is the ultimate betrayal. It is hard to imagine being able to get over it. Some do. Some don't. I am still in love with my husband. I think you are in love with your wife. I want to be one of the ones that gets over it. I also want to make sure this never happens again. Who wouldn't be scared after experiencing this kind of pain? If you had been brutally attacked walking down a dark alley, would it be unreasonable that you would be apprehensive walking down dark alleys in the future? Wouldn't you feel better with some extra protection? Would you even walk the dark alley without protection ever again? Why is this different?

MiM,

What is telling about your posts is that you have about 10 times as many as your wife, I'm not sure what the ratio means.

You also wrote.
she says she only had sex with OM1 twice, even though she previously told me on that very first DD that it was more than five times. Of course, when she then told me the last time we

Could have been three times the first meeting and two time the second time. As her memory fades it is only the larger details she remembers. Some of the more painful thing my wife did to me she has no recollection of at all.

NJ

Did you guys do the Marital Recovery Agreement in the back of SAA? Maybe you could revisit it...

Some sign from her that our history is NOT going to be adamantly rewritten again to "excuse" her choice to have an A. I don't want to be faced with another "Twilight Zone" episode years down the road of recovery, where she adamantly denies that certain things didn't happen (which did) and vigorously states that certain things did happen (which didn't). She's already started doing that, by negating what I write in my journal as being my perception only, and not necessarily what's actually happening now. Yeah, like her telling me that they boinked in our bedroom for the first time can be construed as "my perception only".

I need something, anything that shows that she is more concerned about restoring our M than she is about the details of the A being made public - because that's exactly what is preventing her from actively seeking the professional help that I think she needs to find out why she made those horrible choices with apparently very little guilt involved, and how she can protect me from making those choices again.



If I have to actually demand that my FWW do these things, four years after DD, then to me that's a good sign that perhaps our M was not meant to be.




I would say Privacy and Pride would be the biggest contributing factors.

Could be. Or it could be that she simply wants more.



Well, she was "raising the bar" on me while involved with the OM as well.



Interestingly enough, this Sunday was one of our better Sundays. Usually she feels worse about me on Sundays, typically because she feels I'm not contributing enough around the home.

A big red RESET button .

Seriously, I'm not sure at this point. I do know that if I see a definite willingness on her part to do whatever it takes to recover our M, then that might work. However, I'm not seeing that. I do get quite a bit of lip-service at times, particularly when I make suggestions, but no follow through. I no longer make suggestions.



At times, I have examined my options, yes. I'm not driven to D though. What I have now is better then D.

Trying to reason with my FWW "Tangled" is sometimes a bit like trying to dance with a bramble-bush, with about as successful an outcome as expected in that circumstance. She says one thing and means something else, and her answers can come across as evasive many times. Some of the regulars started asking some more difficult questions, and a few started to get on her case. So she gathered up her marbles and left.

She now frowns upon me spending time here in her own way (e.g. if she sees me on, she'll remind me of something she asked me to do, but I haven't done yet - but I'll receive no such reminders from her if I'm doing something else on the computer).

I think we did it (was some time ago and my memory's failing me), but I'll revisit.

It seems to me that 4 years ie time alone cannot fix problems and help you reach a R. Time perhaps minimises the intensity of the initial pain but there does nothing to help the M.
All the MB steps need to be done and no matter how far you are out from D day.
If exposure is whats needed in order to get the ball moving then IMHO you are hindering your own progress by enabling her to continue to ignore the traits and behaviour and not seek any help in changing them.

IMHO its sign that your FWW is perhaps not clear on how big a roadblock this is to your recovery and may be is under the impression that things are going better than they are.

Sorry if I sound harsh but those are her issues and not yours. Its pretty clear from your posts that inspite of the good that you have acheived in this R there is some basic fundamental healing still remaining.
From a female perspectie I see you playing the male role of trying to "HELP FIX and DEFEND" the one you love which is admirable and yet it comes at the cost of fixing your R.
One of the things that I take away from my own stich is its better to speak up about what hurts and let my H know so then he has the option of doing something about it. And from personal experince I can tell you that so many times he is not even aware of how a big that issue has been to me and was not even on his radar. Of course it helps even more that he is willing to respond and work out and acceptable solution
If in your mind been there, done that and nothing is forthcoming then I am sorry you find yorself at this point and I feel your pain.

Well, first of all, you'd be making a request, not a demand. Demands are LBs

Secondly, it is your responsibility to spell out exactly what you need. It's unfair to expect your wife to read your mind or pick up on hints or patterns in tea leaves. If you've told her before, tell her again.

The thing is, if you're as unhappy as you seem, then chances are very high she's unhappy as well. Why waste more years of your life in an unhappy marriage? You both can do better. Someone has to start the ball rolling and it may as well be you.

You're afraid of her being in another affair. I think you're BOTH at risk, allowing things to totter along in the current state.

I think I read that you're staying with her until the kids graduate. What are you teaching them about what is acceptable in a marriage? Do you think you're really sparing them any grief by waiting? I had a girlfriend whose parents D'd her freshman year at college. She was a total wreck. She was coping with college, and being away from home, and on her own... and her parents splitting up. Lots of folks stay together "until the kids are grown" but having seen her go through that I think honesty during the high school years might have been better.

Okay, if she wants more, what does she want? Can you give it to her if meeting that need will help her fall back in love with you?


Well that just sucks!



Glad you had a good day. Sounds like you know what she needs around the house.

It sounds like your wife is troubled and the problems are not just her affair.

She seems unstable
She seems manipulative
She seems closed emotionally
She seems untrustworthy in words and actions
She seems controlling
She seems cold
She seems, frankly, scary
She seems to have a cold hard personality
She seems irrational at times
She seems to dislike you
She seems quite selfish
She seems almost abusive in ways.

I would divorce her for these reasons. You are right in thinking you cannot trust this selfish and cold woman. Look at her character and actions and words. Would you tell your son to ever marry a woman like her? I doubt it.

Well, selfish ones are

In any case, I generally try to stay away from making demands, lest they be interpeted as selfish demands. And when I do make demands, it's usually to do with a personal boundary of mine.



Oh, I agree. It's just that sometimes I'm not *exactly* sure of what I need to see. If I'm to put a finger on it, I think what I'm looking for is initiative on her part, something that definitively demonstrates her interest in holding on to our M with both hands and doing whatever's necessary to make it work.



LOL, Turtlehead, I've been rolling this ball for the past four years . Really, I'm not UNHAPPY. We've good days as well as bad days. It's just that when I've got some time to reflect on what's happened and what's happening, it all seems a bit overwhelming.



I'm not afraid. I know exactly what to do if I ever discover another A. Immediate nuclear exposure and filing for D on the basis of adultery, and basically going for everything I can get. Yes, we can still do that here.



That's not quite true. The kids graduating is sort of a milestone, at which time I intend to seriously reflect on our M and decide whether or not its worthwhile continuing. At the moment, apart from the children, we don't seem to have that much in common, so if we're not that happy while the children are around, we're probably going to be even less so when they're gone. In the interim however, I'm not going to stop trying to make things better between us.

Only when she loses her temper. Otherwise she's the picture of practicality.

She might be, but certainly not on the scale of some of the WWs that have passed through or been mentioned here.

Closed to me, yes.

This is one I've got trouble with. She only slipped up once, ONCE, during her 2-year long A, otherwise she comes across as very dependable and trustworthy... until you delve a bit deeper and find out the reasons behind some of her actions. When I think that she managed to invite the OM up for sex only a few days after we did that ring ceremony, then act as if nothing had happened when I returned home a few hours later, I realise that I'm dealing with someone who can easily hide the truth from me if she really wanted to, and I can't help but feel very concerned about that.


A bit .

None of those really describe my FWW. Well, except for the irrational part. But doesn't that describe most women? (GD&R!)

It does seem like she dislikes me at times. At this point in our recovery, I wouldn't describe her as selfish. Just a bit more self-centered than she used to be prior to the A. But she still finds time for the kids (mostly) and me.

MiM,
Reading your thread I do you feel your WW is manipulative (and has been all along). I agree with PIO about the fear thing. One thing I committed to as the BS was not to hold back - to put my all into the M and R. If you are in a state of fear of the future based on the past then you are really not in the present. Should your WW do something stupid again, how do you want to walk away? Do you want to walk away knowing that you held back in the M and R?

GG


GG