Hope- thanks for including me on the angels list! I feel a bit guilty because my situation is working out to me so much easier than yours (so far).

Really you're to the point now where there are only 2 likely outcomes:

Your wife leaves and you get divorced, OR;

Your wife wakes up, sees what a stud you are and how much of a man you've been during this time. She apologizes her a** off and you just say "I forgive you" and that makes you even more of a stud. Now you're the knight in shining armor and your marriage is more fun and passionate than ever. (My wife, who "didn't really love" me in April, introduced me as "my wonderful husband" to a group of parents at school today. Wow!)

Doesn't the latter sound great?

Furthermore, this is likely to be the first or second worst thing you ever have to deal with in your whole life, so no matter how it resolves you'll be past it at a young age. Plus you'll have your kids, job, friends, family, and health no matter what. Keep fighting.

I got reply # 500! I'm so cool!

mflake,

I am really happy for how your situation turned out. You are very lucky and what I wouldn't give to be in your situation right now. That is what keeps me going right now...the dream of a better marriage with my lovely wife.

I am fully aware of the possible outcomes, but I try to focus on the positive right now. My wife did say she was sorry the day after d-day #2 but I didn't forgive her at that time and haven't as of yet.

I feel like I want to forgive, but I know if she continues I can't forgive that. I will someday have to forgive to move on and I know I can reach that point. But right now, I'm dealing with a WW and I don't think she will truly comprehend my forgiveness.

If she gets out of the fog and starts acting more rationally, then I will be more inclined to forgive. My heart is saying forgive, but my head say not just yet.

It would be nice if she felt complete remorse and offered to re-engage fully into our marriage, but I don't see that happening.

She will have to come out of this slowly, if ever...

Thanks for that terrific note htw. I'm no angel, but I agree with the rest of your list though; it's amazing and inspiring how many beautiful people there are here!

This is really cool mflake, I hope HTW gets this intro too down the road a bit:

This doesn't look promising.

Last night we had MC and the C focused on my W again and what she needs to feel better about the M. I was getting so frustrated and after the session I told my W I will not be going back.

The MC told my WW to consider seperation as a way of sorting through her feelings. She didn't really condem my WW indiscretion with OM. It makes me sick.

My WW is still very resentful and angry towards me and how unaffectionate I was in our M. She remembers all the little things that I did or didn't do that made her feel unloved. She can't stop focusing on the negatives.

She has NO romantic feelings for me. She doesn't think they will ever come back. She says she worries about me if we seperate because I have lost weight and feel stressed. Oh that makes me feel better.

She said she feels no remorse for her infidelity even though she should. She wanted to hurt me for the things I did to her.

She then started sobbing and said "I miss the kindness he gave to me", refering to OM. So I interpret that as NC is ongoing. I didn't know what to say to her. OM revolts me and she is pining over him. what do I say?

So things do not look good right now and to be honest I really don't think this is going to work out. She just has too much baggage and won't let it go.

I even offered to live in the basement to give her some space, but she said "it's not that I can't stand the sight of you, I just need time and space". So I asked her to define space and she told me she will think about it.

She also said that she wants to move far away with the kids so she can get away from everything. She just wants to spend time with the kids and not have to worry about making a meal on a weekend or cleaning up. She also said she wants to see if she will miss me and the things I do for her.

I don't know what to do. It is killing me every day having to continue trying while she has not interest at all in saving this M. I want our M to work out so bad, but she wants out it seems.

Right now I feel so hurt and in so much pain. I really don't see this getting better.

What should I do now? Continue with Plan A for a while. Prepare for Plan B (which I really think will be futile). Or any other suggestions?

Thanks and sorry for the pity party guys!

Hope, first off, LOSE THE COUNSELOR. Instead, do your marriage some good and STAY HOME. Your counselor is useless and I suspect is not only anti-marriage, but anti-MALE, which is very common. She has caused enormous harm by fueling your W's sense of entitlement and rationalizing her affair.

Your W is manufacturing grievances about you in order to rationalize her actions. Stick with your Plan A but don't take her so seriously. Once she gets through withdrawal, this will start to change. Don't despair just when you are at the point where real recovery can take place. You just have to be patient.

If your W wants to seperate "to sort her feelings" <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> then she can move out of the house all on her own, all by herself. That was an incredibly stupid suggestion on the part of your MC that will only push the affair to a new level. Don't agree to any schemes for an in-house "seperation" unless you want to literally hand her permission to carry on her affair and watch it up front and close.

If she wants some "space" clean her a corner in the garage and give her a chair. She can go out there and have "space."

Just calm down, ok? This will get better once contact really ends.

p.s. be sure and let her know that if she wants to leave, it won't be with the children. The children will not be snatched from their home to accommodate her affair. Tell her this.

When we go for our MC sessions, she only says hi to my WW and never to me. Last night she classified something that I did as a "male thing". My WW has an IC session with her in a month and I can't change that but I will not go to any further MC sesison with her.


It is very hard not to take seriously since she says all these things in a rational voice. That fact that she cried about OM kindness' gave me some hope that she is in the fog.


How should I respond to the following:
1) I want to seperate
2) I need this, this and this for space
3) I will file for seperation if you do this



I really don't think she appreciates all that I do for her and the family. I know I have been lacking in meeting her most important EN, but I have always provided for her and been good to her.


I hope you are right. I just feel hopeless at times, especially after days like yesterday. It seems like the longer this goes the worse it is getting. I have to keep in mind that I dicovered the PA less than 2 weeks ago and NC has only been for 6 days (I believe).

The only way she will leave is if we sell our house and then she gets to have her own place or we rent a place for her. I don't know what my legal right are in regards to my kids. If she leaves can she take them or can she seek custody?

"I'm sorry you feel you need to seperate. I don't want you to go, but there is nothing I can do to stop you."

You won't be selling the house and you won't be helping her financially to get an apartment. Make this clear.

And don't allow her the luxury of a pretend seperation by moving in the basement. Many WS play this game thinking that moving into the guest room and calling themselves "seperated" entitles them to a swinging single life. Tell her that seperation means SHE MOVES and nothing less. As long as she lives in the house, you are not seperated and you expect her to behave like your wife.

Be sure and let her know that if she wants to leave, she will have to figure out how to pay for it and how to move herself all by herself. And tell her she won't be taking the kids, that you will get an attorney and that a judge won't look kindly on a woman who wants to remove her children from their home for an affair.

Dump the counselor. She is obviously not pro-marriage. Many people in the field have no formal training in marriage counseling. They have training in psychotherapy. It isn't the same thing.

Get yourself to an attorney pronto. Find out what your rights really are. Find out if your wife can remove the kids from the home. The sad fact that you are going to have to deal with is that Fathers rarely get primary custody of their children. I think it is close to 80% of the time the Mothers receives primary custody if joint custody isn't granted. You may have a strong change at getting joint custody though.

Try not to pay too much attention to what your W says right now. She is missing the OM. Well, she is probably really missing the way she felt when she was with him . . . him as a person doesn't really matter. It is the feelings that she is missing. Remember that. OP are seldom fabulous human beings. If he was so great, why was he shagging a married W? What kind a great person does that?

I agree with Mel, don't make it easy for her. Even like saying you would move into the basement for her, don't do that. Stay strong. It's your house, your kids, your marriage...keep fighting for it. Don't give up the battle yet. You are getting weary, but the battle isn't over. You are just starting to win.

You've told me this before HTW; it will take time and patience. Don't move out, don't agree to her moving out with the kids, don't agree to a separation, don't agree to anything just hang in there. Seems pretty sure to me that in a couple of weeks your W will be somewhat more rational if she's in NC - although she may not show her rational side to you until even further down the road.

Mel makes a good point about in-house separation. Seems like you'd need NC for it to be workable. Anyway in our case in-house separation worked. We just didn't talk with each other/used brief notes to communicate when necessary. It was difficult. Took about 4 weeks before my own WW was ready to be more open to me.

Good grief what's up with that MC? I second Mel; MC has gone too far. Since your wife agreed to counseling in the first place, she surely understands that to be effective MC has to be one that works for both of you. Quitting counseling may be justified, but instead maybe you want to consider suggesting to your wife a different counselor?

Also: Call current MC and require her to justify how her counseling is helpful to the M. She is accountable to you, her customer. Even if your W continues IC with her, the counselor may feel pressured to be more helpful to your M.

If you search for a new MC you will no doubt explain to the interviewees why you dumped the last MC. I think MB has guidelines on what to look for in a MC?

We 'sorta' did an in-house seperation thing in my situation. When the wife was in the worst of her withdrawl and the A was in it's death throes, we were sleeping in seperate rooms. I'd bought another TV for my room as well, but it was almost impossible to seperate otherwise...we had four kids at home at the time...so still making one meal for all of us and such.

It worked out good for us tho...lasted about a month before we started to reconcile.

Neither of us wanted to see the other, so avoiding each other just kind of automatically happened. Half the days we didn't even see each other.

You know his name, but not in phone book. ( I think thats what you said) Do you have access to electoral roles or shire records in your country? Could you pay someone to find out for you? All I had was a phone number and first name, and I payed sixty dollars to an investigator who gave me her name, address and husbands phone number within two minutes. Could you phone her work and find out anything about him? Follow him home? Or expose it at work. That would soon stop it.

As far as how to deal with it, not sure? I went through this "just a friend" thing three times before I found love letters and had all I needed to confront. I told him that he couldn't have both of us and asked him to leave until he decided that he wanted me exclusively. He moved out. He's not coming back until he is willing to accept responsibility for his actions and talk about his Affair. It may not seem like a positive move, but it gives you freedom from the stress and lets you get healthy and move on with your life. I will survive with or without him, but will not live in the middle of an affair. Let her know what you wont put up with and mean it.

I don't know if it is the 'fog' or a case of really bad judgement on my part, but I never expected him to treat me so bad. Sounds like what I read from so many others on this site. I hope your wife wakes up soon.

Good luck

Thanks guys for the input. I don't want the in house seperation, but I am willing to give her some time and space. That doesn't give her the go ahead to continue A, just breathe a little and hopefully get us reconnected a little. She is going to tell me what her defenition of "space" is tongight.

When you WS were going through withdrawl, what were some of the symptoms or things that they were doing.

HTW ..

I just got done reading most of your posts, I know it doesn't help your situation any, but I am learning alot from your posts.

Me 26
H 28
married 7 almost 8 yrs
DD 6 yrs old

I have had two types of withdrawals, one where I withdrew from the affair because of guilt and the other where the affairs ended because I was broken.

When I withdrew from the guilt I felt moody, quiet, dispondent, withdrawn and my wife detected there was something wrong with me although she didn't know what. So I think you are seeing some of those symptoms, but because the affair is out in the open she is being vocal about them.

When I was broken, I was humble, understanding, repentant, willing to do whatever was needed, desired to be healed and counseled. Your wife is defintely not at the broken stage. She has not seen the harm caused by her actions. If only her eyes could be opened to see.

What were the timelines. Did you withdraw because of guilt first then broken later? How soon after NC did this happen?

How long did both last? Just trying to get as much info as possible. Thanks again