I'm trying this post again under a different title. Think the original title was too confusing. Didn't get much input.

I have a question regarding when it’s ok to start discussing "our" relationship, with my wife. I know that this is not normally recommended during plan A.

You can get the basic details of where my relationship is at this time from my signature line.

I would like to give my wife the EN questionaire and get her input on it. I have to admit that after 19 yrs together I couldn’t honestly tell you what her EN are. I could guess my way through it, but that approach has helped to put us where we are now.

At this time, I don’t know if she is as involved with OM as she once was. I stopped the spying and snooping about 2-3 weeks ago. It only served to hurt me at that time I had checked at our home during 3 different late nights (time frame when he used to come over) and haven’t seen him there. I know that this really doesn’t confirm anything other than he just wasn’t there then. When I last talked to my wife about her relationship with him, she said that they both cared about each other but there was nothing they could do about it. (He is married w/ children) That was about a month ago. My wife is working at two different places now to be able to make enough money to maintain paying the bills on our house. (She wanted to keep the house in the D, I agreed to let her have it.) One of the places she is working at happens to be a place that he is now working at also. For those who don’t know, my wife was a manager at last job and he was a subordinate. She was fired for her involvement with him. He quit and got another job at this place. She had actually tried to get a management position at this place and they want her to go through the ropes again. She is currently working there about 3-4 days a week for 3-5 hrs at a time in the middle of the day. WW and OM originally got involved with each other working together late night hours.

I am currently attending a Divorce Recovery class, having started in a Reconciliation course. I sat down with the pastor of the church a few weeks ago. At that time I was feeling very conflicted in my mind and heart, as to whether I really wanted reconciliation with my W. I had this fear of getting back together and looking at her 6 months, 2 yrs, or 10 yrs from now and wondering if she really loves me. I’m sure that is a pretty common fear here. He suggested that I may try to win my wife’s heart back. The theory being that the OM has won her heart and she may be unconsciously waiting for me to win it back.

At this time we haven’t had any relationship talks since shortly after she was served with D papers. We’ve had no LB since then. Talk just about every day. Almost like things were before D-day. Nothing about us reconciling though. I have no desire to go back to the way things were. I’ve learned so much here and from the books and a lot of thinking and self analyzing. I know that I took her and our marriage for granted for most of the life of the marriage. Certainly never really understood her EN, or what I needed to do to meet those needs. I believe that she has never known my EN or how to meet them either. I know that marriage is hard work and that anything worth having, you need to work for.

I know that if we start down the path to recovery I will need some definite commitments from her. Including, IC for her (I have been in counseling since D-day) MC for both of us and NC with OM, including leaving that place of employment.

I have my atty writing up the D agreement to meet with some date deadlines. W has a certain amt of time to respond to the original petition. We agreed on all of the logistics, so after we each sign off on the agreement my atty has told me that it would only take about a month to get a court date and make it all final. She has also told me that after we sign off on the agreement that she can hold onto it for an indefinite period.

I believe that my WW would have a hard time ever forgiving me if I had been the WS and therefore can’t see us reconciling. I feel like I need to sit down with her and let her know that I forgive her and want to give our marriage the chance that it deserves. I know that forgiveness on my part would be necessary for recovery. Something that I struggled with until I sat down with the pastor and he reminded me of the lines in the Lords prayer, “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us”. Something I think I needed to hear at that time. Gave me a kind of peace of mind. He also said that I would always have to be the one to carry the torch because of my knowledge of the involvement with OM.

Because of my wife’s history, I recently have thought that the last letters that I read from her to him may have never made it to his eyes. I know that in the past she has written things just to get them off of her chest and then thrown them away. The letters that I read were actually emails that she had printed out while he was out of town for a couple of weeks. Why would she feel the need to print these out rather than just send them? Doesn’t make sense, but then neither do most in the fog.

I’d like to explain, when I present the agreement to her that I’m not ready to give up on us and would still like a chance to really work on recovery.

When is it ok to start having discussions with a WS on possible reconciliation?

Thank you and God Bless

<small>[ September 30, 2002, 08:01 AM: Message edited by: Biscayne ]</small>

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