I think you did fine Jon. Now that yopu know how she feels you can work with that. She threw some hard knocks at you and you didn' freak

Considering how you have been feeling you did good.

Yes its all Wayward babble and she doesn't know what she is going to do yet

BOND James bond.. think ...Cool..Calm..Collective..

What could I have done different or better? The things I said were 100% truthful and that is part of plan A. It was only an argument on her side, I was not arguing just simply stating how I feel. She wanted a full blown argument and I think she is mad I didn't give her one. Did you see me commit any LB's from the things I said? I still need ALOT of help. I am a step by step instruction kind of guy, i can't read between the lines and figure things out.

Do you all think she will file when this month is out? She said she is focusing on work because they told her she would be fired if she doesn't meet quota this month. what do you mean I am running out of time? Is there a link to the pocket responses I could use? and I may need the Reverse fog babble one too.

I thought I have been doing plan A the best she will allow me to.

Hi Jon,

I am no expert so take my opinion with a grain of salt. IMO, your recount of the conversation sounded like you're trying to educate your WW. My friend, that's a LB and it isn't going to help your cause. I know very well how hard it is to walk away from such arguments. Don't try to reason or argue with a WS - it will further alienate her and will cause you great frustration.

Whenever you find yourself in a verbal ping-pong match you need to choose to stop the game. You may reverse babble a little to confuse her but do not try to educate or try to explain anything to her.

Additionally, your arguments sounded a little too clingy IMO. You're pleading which is not making you attractive to her.

I suggest that when you have to say something, you just state your truth and move on quickly. That strategy will help you avoid LBs. For example, Jon: "Honey, I'd love if we could go out with the kids tonight.". WW: Nope, I've plans to go out with my friends". Jon: "It hurts me that you don't want to go with us. We're going to be at the pizzeria, if you change your mind you'll find us there. BTW, did you hear about that guy the rescue in Haiti after 28 days. That's amazing". END OF CONVERSATION.

I don't mean to criticize you. What I'm trying to say is that you may want to re-evaluate your plan A execution and step it up a notch. You can do it.

--ElCamino72

Jon, the reason I asked for a description of you and OM was to make sure there was no MAJOR differences in your appearance. Looks like, other than him being bald, there is not.

Thats a good thing.

A part of plan-A for me was trying to look as physically attractive as I can. I never really concentrated on my looks before. I kept my hair cut, clean shaved (Except the Stash/Goat) and started dressing in nicer, less baggy cloth's. Actually started color coordinating my wardrobe, and wearing nice shoes/boots. I also started lifting weights again.

Everyone, including WW noticed. I think it made a big difference in my Plan-A. Looking good made me feel more confident and confidence is attractive.

No.
If she was going to file she would have done it last month.

I was trying to figure out how to explain what I meant and then I saw El's post. That pretty much summed it up.

I also think that you interrupting her and saying the word "No" would constitute arguing. You got caught up in her fog-babble and let her drag you in. The prisoner thing and the valentine's day movie were her way of trying to goad you. You didn't do what you normally would do and that is an improvement.

Okay, let's see if I can explain this a bit. The carrot part of Plan A should be like when you first started dating. Were you an insecure person who would gripe about what she would do? There are times for the stick part of Plan A as well or else ot turns into Plan Doormat.

You two have a lot of history together and you know each other very well, just go back to that confident, self-assured man who your WW would WANT to be with. When you started dating, if you asked her to go out and she said "No" what did you say?

YEPPERS. I dyed my hair back to brown and started wearing the perfume WH liked. My fellow employees would comment about how good I looked and it helped with my confidence. That helped me do a STELLAR Plan A and helped with the trasition into Plan B as well.

This doesn't matter anyways. Do you have an idea what you would do if she were to file? If you do, then who cares. I just found out yesterday that WH was told by someone to go to a lawyer. My response was, "It doesn't matter to me." I can still live if he does. I will still be okay. You will get there but just lose the fear that she will file because that clouds you decisions and you keep reacting to her D words, that's why she keeps doing it. For her, it is FUN to see how you recoil from that word. Get over the fear. Don't worry about it. If she files(which she won't any time soon if ever), what will that change? What is the worst thing that will happen? Get it out there and let it go.

My man, can you go back to the start of this thread and count how many times you've been advised to avoid worrying so much about her actions? In specific the D thing is somethings that has been discussed many times here.

Your choices are to either preempt her by filing first, prepare legally IF the moment comes when she files, let her know that you don't talk about D and that you are fighting to save your marriage. That's it. So why are you still worrying about what she'll do. Just commit to the option(s) of YOUR choice and stick to it.

I just feel you are going in circles here. Please let me know if think that my comments are out of line. Maybe the vets as Mark can chime in.

--ElCamino72

I was told to play a game in my head whenever I would touch my WH and he would pull away. I give you the same advice.

Make a kissing game with your kids(kind of like a drinking game).
Every time that your WW says the D word, you owe your kids a kiss each. Turns her negative into a positive for you and your kids. If the kids aren't around, just keep a tally in your head.

El, I don't think they are out of line. I need straight to the point answers. I do think I should have avoided the argument you all are right, but SINCE I didn't I guess i handled it the best I could and MUCH better than i would have before.
I don't beg, I don't plead, it just got under my skin that she goes out EVERY night she gets the chance and I felt the need to get the things i said off my chest. i actually feel much better now that she knows how I feel about everything though I could have told her differently.

I have to keep telling myself, there are only 2 outcomes to this situation A:we stay together and have a stronger, happier marriage then ever before or B:We get D, life goes on i found someone else and have a stronger happier marriage than ever before. At the moment I don't want anyone else or can't even think about having someone else, I have a wife and thats the woman I love. I will get her back, and if i don't She WILL regret losing me.

Should i apologize to her for arguing or let it go?

NO don't apologize.

Would a confident, self-assured man apologize for telling the truth? I didn't disagree with the things you said, it was just the timing and some of the ways you said them.

Remember, act like you are first dating. If she was a person whom you were interested in romantically and you were trying to develop a relationship with her, what would you do? You would listen to her and talk to her when she wanted. You would tell her how attractive she is. How grateful you were for the things she did(don't become obnoxious though that would drain LB$). If she turned down an invite to go out with you, you would be a little sad but you would just do that or something else instead.

Learn from what you have done, gain confidence from the positive changes you have made, change the things you need to to make yourself better. Keep it up.

I'm going to take the kids somewhere, maybe out for icecream and to the store, I will invite my WS along. She just sent me a text because she could hear us in the other room that said "I love hearing daughter talk she sounds so precious. I love it when she tries to read"

Jon,

You are begging and pleading.

Have you had one of these conversations where you begin down the road of discussing commitment, love, security, what is right and wrong etc ever go the way you wanted it to go? Has she ever at any time heard you say, "Well, the way I see it is ____" and had the light bulb go on and she suddenly bursts into tears and falls at your feet begging you to forgive her?

Why do you keep going down that road?

It's like you are driving along the interstate highway on the way to work and every single day you get off at the same exit only to figure out later that it wasn't the one that takes you to work but the one that takes you to the place you got mugged. If you keep taking that road, then you will keep getting mugged! Stop going there and start going where you can get something done that counts.

The way to win this will not be by scoring more points than her in a game of logic and debating skills. You can only win this by getting her to fall in love with you. You won't talk her into that because she didn't do it the first time because you talked her into it. She fell in love with you because you did things that made her happy, not because you pointed out every flaw in her logic or brought up the things she did wrong or any of the other myriad types of things you keep going back to over and over.

Stop trying to get her to commit to saving your marriage and start saving it. You can't fix it into saving it and unless you save it you won't get to fix it.

If I come across a traffic accident where a drunk driver has run off the road, wrapped his car around a light pole and is bleeding to death, I can't help him by pointing out the horrors of driving drunk, giving him a card belonging to the guy I know who is in AA or even by suggesting that unless he turns his life around he is going to hurt a lot of innocent people.

For ANY of that stuff to matter one tiny little single minute minuscule bit is for me to prevent him from bleeding to death! I can't do that by talking to him about his lifestyle or the fact that this is his own fault.

Your marriage is bleeding to death. Stop trying to fix the broken pieces and stop the bleeding!

She will not stay and will eventually file for divorce unless she finds herself wanting to be with you. You can't talk her into being with you but must show her that being with you is fun, good, pleasant, better than being away from you and that by giving back to you she will get even more benefit from the relationship. What you are doing is making all the time you have together turn into talks about affairs, broken relationships, what she has done wrong, how much it hurts...

Even if you aren't shouting at her that isn't making her want to be with you. It's making her want to get away as fast as possible.

Just freakin' stop doing that stuff!

Learn about Plan A and DO IT!Read the freakin' manual (SAA) and follow the directions.

WAY more of this and less of trying to win an argument with her!

Mark !

I realize that my old thread was wrong.

I AM a grouchy old man.