Hi everyone. Newbie here. Let me just give you the chronology of my situation:

I've been with my wife for 3.5 years, including one year of marriage. I am an emotionally healthy person, well educated, financially stable, in good shape, very loving and compassionate. She comes from a dysfunctional home, was sexually abused as a child and beyond, has been in numerous abusive relationships. I consider her to be emotionally crippled.

June 04: my dad, who I was best friends with, dies after an illness, devastating me.

June 04: my W fails to make much of an effort to help me deal with my loss, and we begin to drift apart

August 04: W begins an affair with a co-worker and the alienation between us obviously gets worse and worse

October 16: W and I have a long argument and she basically tells me she thinks we should at least get separated, if not divorced

October 17, 2004: I find out about the affair by listening to her cellphone voicemails. I kick her out of my house and file for divorce the same day

October 22 or so: W gets back in touch with me and asks me to meet her for lunch. At lunch she tells me she made a terrible mistake and wants to come back into my life.

October 29: W tells me that she and the OM had moved in together into a rental house in a crappy neighborhood somewhere, on October 19.

October 30: W and I meet for dinner, unbeknownst to the OM, and I demand she end the A and kick him out of their rental house immediately if she has any hope of being with me. She doesn't want to confront him.

November 1: W kicks the OM out. He reacts quasi-violently and hurts her dog on the way out. W calls me over. She promises from that point forward to be truthful, and disclose all contacts with the OM no matter how minor to me. She said that OM all but strong-armed her as soon as he found out she was alone back on Oct 17 and basically took control of her life from that point forward. He's a probable alcoholic, has a possible criminal history, and himself comes from a home where his alcoholic father abused his mother. All this I know from my W.

November 1 to December 18: we "try" and work on reconciliation. I try and get W to go to marital counseling but she fails to follow through. She goes only once and misses a second appointment because she "slept in". I go through major ups and downs, sometimes demanding that we go forward with the divorce, other times telling her I want things to work. She asks me to move back into my house, and I say no.

December 19: I catch her lying about a phone call to the OM. She then admits that he had regularly been leaving her voicemails for weeks, that she didn't tell me about. And about 2-3 weeks earlier, she called him back. Then she saw him, on at least two occasions, both of which involved her lying to me to see him. I told her I needed a committment from her, then and there, to either me or him. She couldn't do it. I asked her if she wanted me to leave her life and not come back. She said no. I then walk out and demand that she sign the remaining divorce papers, which will trigger the final, 2-month waiting period before our divorce can become final.

December 23: She signs the divorce papers, which she had previously refused to do for weeks.

I have avoided contact with her since then. My view until now has been that if she loves me and wants me back, she has to fight for me, else I am on my way out of her life forever. But the truth is that I love her deeply. If she will commit herself to dealing with her numerous emotional problems, I will be there for her for the rest of her life. I am not prepared to give her up to this other jerk yet.

I need a game plan. Please help. I am emotionally distraught and totally unable to make logical, strategic decisions to save this marriage.

Cbreitel,

Sorry about the situation you are in as it is the hardest thing you can got through. Have you read the site, Plan A/B. Alot of great advice in here from some great people.

Keep you're head up and read the plans, find one that works for you and go with it. Plan A is a great place to start if you want to save what you have.

All the best

I think what you are doing makes sense.
You judge a person by their actions and not by their words. Your wife's actions indicate she has no intention of breaking it off with the OM and constantly lies and cheats on you. Nevertheless, she wants you as some sort of safety net just in case.
I would have you ask yourself why would you love a person who continually emotionally abuses you, cheats on you, lies to you and puts your health at great risk. If you had a son, would you want him to be in a marriage with someone like this?

You deserve to have a future with somebody who loves and respect you. Your wife clearly is not that type of person. Why would you settle for somebody who inflicts so much pain and disrespect toward you? She overslept for a counseling session? I think you deserve more in life than this. Don't you? I wish you luck.

cbreitel,

I am sorry that you find yourself in this situation but you've come to the right place. Read Basic Concepts and ask for help here in how to deal with this painful situation. There are a lot of good people here that have had to deal with what you are going through.

alank is giving you good advice. He's going through a similar situation and making good progress.

My take on your situation; I think that people who come from dysfunctional, unloving families have a difficult time in marriage. It's hard for them, though not impossible, to get "well" and accept and give love. It's very hard for them many times to go to counseling since that will mean digging up a lot of painful memeories and such. I would reccomend gently encouraging your wife to seek counseling with someone whom she connects with; that is essential. There has to be trust in the counselor.

I would also advise not issuing any ultimatums as reagards counselling. If they go only because they are giving in to pressure then they end up only going through the motions. They have to want to get well.

Good luck and come back here to let us know how it's going.

As far as a game plan, how does she feel about divorce?