Well yesterday I sat my WW down and let her know that I will not put up with this emotional abuse any longer. I first asked her if she was intent on seperating to which she said "yes, 100%", so then I asked her to follow through with her plans now and not wait until after Christmas.

When I told her she couldn't take the kids or furniture she got upset and said she wouldn't leave.

Then she started saying things to make me feel guilty and started crying. She just has no feelings for me and she doesn't even want to try.

She said if I don't agree to 50/50 custody she will call in a mediator. If that happens I know she will win the dispute.

She said it was over between her and OM and that it was a mistake and asked why I keep holding it over her head. She said it wasn't about him to which I replied "then how could you give yourself to someone you don't care about". She didn't reply.

She told me she was sorry several times throughout the day and even as she lay down for bed. She said she can't see herself coming back, expecailly after it became a PA since she feels it will be held against her.

I told her there is always a way to make a marriage work. But she seems resigned to the fact that it is over.

She feels I blame her for all that is happening at which point I told her that I am aware of the things I did or didn't do pre-A to make the situation ripe for her A, but it does not excuse the A.

I think I LB'ed several times but I couldn't let certain things go without letting her know how I felt.

She then started bringing up the many "flaws" that I had.

It is just a really sad situation right now.

She doesn't want a D, but wants to be seperated and if her feelings change during that time she will "let me know".

She has just closed herself off from me that I can't even get close to her both emotionally and physically.

It really bothers me that she isn't bothered by all this aprart from when I confront her and she starts to cry.

She has been reading a seperation/divorce handbook and is obviously preparing for all of this.

Hope, again, she is still under the impresssion that you will just meet her demands without a fight and you are letting her believe that. She may end up with 50% custody but it will slow her down tremendously is she understands she will have to explain to a JUDGE why she wants to rip her children from their home. And yes, the judge will be told that it is due to an affair.

Make sure she understands that you will not help her, Hope. You will only protect your family and won't make it easy for her. That will not change between now and after Christmas. I would continue to urge her to move now because nothing will change. And remember, she has the disadvantage because she is in an adulterous affair and the courts will be told this. Make sure she knows this, ok?

HTW:

Your wife might be opening the door for you based on what she is saying. You must tell her you know it will be hard to ever forget the affair but you will make every effort to forgive the affair.

You must tell her that you are willing to work together to rebuild the marriage but it is absolutely crucial that all contact is severed with the OM. You must insist she give you the painful and truthful detail so she can clear the air for her and it will help you better understand. Tell her if she comes back to the marriage, you will not hold it over her head but you will accept her as a broken woman as your wife.

Tell her it will take a long time for you to understand the affair and you will need to asked hundreds of questions and the more she can explain to you now will be better for you both in the long run. Tell her you can set so much time a day to discuss the affair and you won't bother her about it 24/7. You must set your pride aside or it will be over for you. Coax her back and do not look for real remorse from her. She feels justified at this time. The remorse may come 4 to 6 months into recovery. It is your job to make it ok for her to come back to or to stay in her marriage because without your full encouragement, she may not do it.

You cannot win this battle but only survive and if you understand this, you will throw your pride away and accept her as a flawed sinner who you married too.

Open your arms completely without severe criticism of her. She will carry this for the rest of her life. Talk about the value of her being able to redeem herself and if she leaves, she will not be able to do so.

TS

TS...answer to your question is yes, I plan on marrying my XW in February. Are we nervous? Note I said we, certainly. We have come to understand what happened with our previous relationship, we learned. She doesn't look to anyone else but me for her EN's, not even her children (which rarely gets discussed in this forum). We have established boundries and we keep them. We are nothing but honest with each other. When she isn't honest with me (like when she doesn't tell me about something one of our kids have done) I get upset and she thinks I LB but I remain absolutely steadfast, HONEST ABOUT EVERYTHING. She then gets upset because "You'll never forgive me, I am a liar, etc." and my response is unapologetic. I have accepted our past and she is beyond ashamed about her past. We're doing OK and in all honesty never been happier with each other. I have more reasons to marry her now than I did in 1988 and vice versa...Does it hurt? Yes, I have begun questioning why I come here, why do I, after even almost 18 months still think of her PA every day? Do I love her? Like nothing else I know...Trust me when I say there are many who know us that will never understand, that look at us like we're crazy...that are A-holes with their comments...doesn't change how we feel about each other...

Hope..sorry for thread jack....

As I said...pack up her stuff and show her the door. Let her leave. In my state it is either a sep AGREEMENT or Divorce...no in between. I would not agree to her demands during sep agreement talks so she went for D...and I got what I wanted regarding money...custody?? Where I live it's a baseball game and the man walks up to the with the count 0 balls 2 strikes.....the burden of "bad parenting"..is on the male to prove...and being a bad wife doesn't make her a bad parent...I too told my XW to get out if she was not happy, to leave. No way...I came home to an order of protection cause she was "scared" of me...it lasted 5 days until judge said "he is not a threat to anyone"...but when that happened I was at whits end and I just wanted it over...and that is where you're headed. I know, too well, you can not make your W "want you"...so fouce on yourself. Make those changes that make you so "horrible"....focus on YOU. Plan B. Ignore her...she is killing you inside....

As far as you'll never let it go, her affair. She is the one who is not letting it go, she puts herself in your shoes and doesn't see how you can ever forgive her. Trust me...that IS a start....

I greatly appreciate everyone's edvice here and I truly don't know where I would be without it...probably long seperated by now.

But here is the thing...

Mel, you and others are saying that I should make her leave and not give her anything to help her. I am SO afraid to loose my kids. If I am not able to see them or loose the right to make desicions for them I will never forgive myself. She has already told my MIL that I asked her to leave and she is spinning it. When I ask her to leave she makes me feel like sh1t and starts harping that I am mean and it reinforces her negatie feelings towards me. When I say this to her she thinks "you see he really doesn't want this M he just wants the kids and to hurt me". I am struggling greatly with this since I do want my kids of course, but I wals want her. She has already said she won't leave so how do I make her leave without physically forcing her out?

TooSoon, you are saying to loose my pride and encourage her to come back to the marriage. How do I do this without seeming needy or clingy? I have already told her that I forgive her and that we can work through it, but she has no interest in trying.
BTW, she has already told me she will have to deal with this for the rest of her life.

My MIL and WW got into a scrap this morning because my WW refused my MIL's suggestiong to see a christian councelor.

My MIL is telling me not to give up and keep trying so if I make her leave she thinks I have given up and kicked her out. I may start to looose her support.

Hope..of COURSE she is spinning it. Of course "she must deal with this for the rest of her life"...so do thieves and murderers. It is funny how the WS has their own pity parties isn't it? Poor things must deal with their "mistakes"? Mistakes are accidents and sneaking around to cheat on your spouse is not an accident it is a plan.

Hope...you must accept that custody is not the issue here. I SAID the same thing. I won't give up my boys...well...in divorce....no one wins...and that is where you're headed....on her terms..unless you do something about it...Plan B...protect yourself and start looking out for yourself. Support from inlaws....? Forget it....My XIL's reamed my XW a new A-hole for her "divorce"...yet wen I demanded access to my home and my children UNTIL the divorce was heard made me an "instant A-hole" because of me putting myself in front of the boys (by making them stay with their mother Outside the house"...)problem was she got temp. custody until we went to court... SHE TOOK THEM OUT OF HOUSE, NOT ME!! How warped is that? ..

don't rationalize anything now hope...make a plan...and give her NOTHING!!

I say keep her home if you can but not without her stopping all contact. Contact does not allow for Recovery to begin. Once she leaves, it will be harder for her to come back. She will learn to not need you.

SENDME: Good luck on your remarriage to your FWS. You are both simply choosing to love each other and go forward and that cannot be all bad. We are all haunted by our spouse's betrayal.

TooSoon

What ARE you talking about? We are telling you to NOT give up the kids. You keep trying to give them up without a fight for some strange reason. It is likely that she will never make it to court, Hope, but if you just hand them over without a whimper, you are CERTAIN to lose them. Your fears do not make sense. You are insisting that you must hand them over now because she might go to court and make you hand them over. huh?

Explain to your MIL that urging her to move now is helpful to your marriage in that it gives here a huge dose of reality to see the consequences of her actions NOW, before Christmas. Lettng her stay for Christmas protects her from the guilt she should feel at tearing up her family. That guilt is your ALLY and should be exploited for the sake of your family. It is also time for you to go into Plan B because she is wearing you down. You may end up hatiing your WS and that is what Plan B prevents. Remember, Plan B is a tried and true MB method, your MIL is not the expert here.

So she has changed her mind about the seperation altogether? What is her plan now?

Tell your WW it's a long hard road to recovery, but bacause since she once believed (enough to marry and have two kids with you) that she could be happy with you forever it is still possible to get that back. How do you know until you try?

Another threadjack...my overall recovery is pretty good, but since we stopped MC and IC my FWW is backsliding into more frequent criticism of me, my job, our finances. I don't know what I'll get when I go home these days. NC is still in effect (I spy like crazy, so does OMW).

So there you have it, an imperfect recovery to an imperfect marriage between imperfect people with imperfect kids, dogs, and jobs. Lay that theme on your WW.

BTW, I still think she is full of it when she says it's over and not about the OM. Pure Barbara Streisand, I think.
If everyone's willing to forgive her, and she can have a shot at happiness with her family intact and her parents and siblings supporting her, then why won't she try? She's either a card-carrying looney or carrying on the A, that's why.

Mel, she hasn't changed her plan about the seperation, just that she won't leave if I ask that she leave without the kids and furniture.

I don't know what her plan is. Ideally she would like to seperate amicably, but if I refuse she has given me every indication that she will file for LS.

So if she doesn't want to leave I may just hold my ground with her and see what happens. I'm just fearful of me loosing all my love for her if she doesn't leave.

Then I take it she won't be leaving? She does understand that she can't leave with the children or the furniture, right?


Of course she wants it to be "amicable." She wants you to sit there quietly and even help her to destroy your family. That would make it much easier for her to destroy your family and lessen her guilt. Unfortunately, that won't be the best thing for your children as the seperation is only for her own selfish reasons. Your job, as a father, is to protect yourself and your children from her and to not "amicably" sit by while she destroys your family.


I am too. And this is why you might want to seriously consider alternatives.

However, if she wants to seperate, what is her plan if she refuses leave without the children and you won't give them up? I would persist in asking her to leave and ask what her plan is since you refuse to help her take the children and the furniture?

p.s. if you think being "amicable" and making this easy for her will buy you anything, you are dead wrong. Just expect that she will use anything you offer as an opportunity to EXPLOIT you and your children. You will not be rewarded in any way, shape or form for bending over and letting her put it to you. Your only reward will be an exposed hind end and a sore back, I promise ya. So while you shouldn't be vindictive or mean, you should protect your kids at ALL COSTS and not give up any ground when it comes to their best interests.

Maybe I'm dense...what's so tough about all this (besides the whole life being torn asunder bit)?

WW: "I'm leaving, with the kids and everything I want so I can be with OM and have my stuff and my kids when I want."

Hope: "No, you're not. Go see a judge if you want to start splitting kids/assets. Just remember no more me if you do that. No more two-parent holidays for our kids, or a normal grandparent structure for their kids. I'm sure DS and DD will thank you for that some day. Also no more me if you don't change jobs and stop seeing the other guy. Otherwise, stay home and work with me to rebuild our family."

Hope, you've let her have her way too long. The above isn't hard to do. Much easier than sitting around splitting hairs about "what's the plan?" all day. YOU make HER wonder what the plan is, or just keep getting crapped on.

Are you letting her pitiful little crying shows work on you? That's often female defense mechanism #1 when they don't want to face a crisis. If she's crying and apologizing to you and asking you to take her back and work on things, put your arms around her. Otherwise tell her to hit the road.

Come on, man. You're almost there.

mflake, when I told my WW she could leave but without the kids or furniture or selling the house, she said "where do you expect me to go without anything". The she said "why don't you leave" and when that didn't wash with me she said "then I'll just stay here".

I don't want to get stuck in this limbo state for too long of a period. I will restate what I said yesterday to her to let her know what I mean.

This is what I plan on telling her tonight:

"I can't agree to a seperation until we have examined all possible methods to recover our M. And since it is in the best interest of our kids to have two parents who are in love wtih each other and have a family that lives happily under one roof, I will not allow them to be broken up from their parents."

Something like that.

Hope, why are y'all acting like she needs your agreement to seperate? She doesn't. The door is wide open and she can go at anytime. Instead, I would encourage her to follow through on her plan to seperate if she has no interest in working on the marriage. Tell her how hard this is on you and the kids.

Melody's

Hope: I think Melody has hit this thing right on. Ask her to stop all contact or leave the house.

TS

HTW Thanks for your support. I'm really feeling for you and trying to reciprocate.
Is there a way to get more intel about what your WW is up to? E.g. to see if she in fact has plans with OM? Could the digital recorder trick work again?

Journaling..

No R-talk this weekend and things were pleasant between us. Our last R-talk was really draining on both of us so I just want to give it a break for a bit. I did get the occasional sarcastic comment from her, but that's common place now.

My kids asked to put up the Christmas tree so we did that as a family on Saturday afternoon. They got a kick out of it and my WW helped putting up the tree and setting up some of the decorations around the house.

In the past my WW was always the one who was realy into Christmas and decorating the house, so I think she got a little upset and resentful this year when I took the initiative. That's fine since it comes a part of my Plan A and the changes I have made in myself.

I got a kick out of seeing my kids have fun with the tree and helping with the ornaments.

In the evening, after putting the kids down, we watched some fun programs on TV together. There wasn't much conversation during this time, but it was nice just to relax and laugh a little while being in the same room together.

Yesterday I took the kids to my company's Christmas party. They received gifts and took part in some fun activities. Later when I got home my WW commented that she was lonely without the kids (I was only gone for 3 hours) and thought she could do a lot more stuff while we were gone, but only managed to shower and prepare for dinner.

Later she took the kids to a Christmas concert hosted by the Salvation Army. While she was gone I got a chance to do some work around the house and put up the Christmas lights (in the rain) at the front of our house. Then I just relaxed in my house by myself for the first time in a long time. I needed that.

While she was gone I received a call from my BIL (the younger one) and we had a long talk. He is the one who has managed to maintain a good relationship with my WW through all of this. He basically called me to let me know that he doesn't want me to think that her family has sided with my WW on the situation. He told me he is going to start investigating her where abouts to find out for himself if she is continuing the R with OM.

He told me that her R with OM will NEVER be accepted by him or her family and if she thinks she can shack up with him she will have to get a restraining order against my BIL and his family. I was glad to hear that and told him I appreciated his support.

My WW told him that she has no more feelings for me and states the incident in her car with OM was a mistake and there is no R with OM. I don't buy that and I don't think my BIL buys it either. That is why he wants to start snooping on her.

He had a two friends who left their wives, both of whom said there was no OP involved whe asked. Later, he found out that there defenitely was an OP in the picture in both cases, so he is very suspicious of my WW claims right now.

He was very clear to her in front of her family when he said that if he finds out that the R is continuing she will be abandoned by her family. My WW continues to deny that the R is ongoing. He asked me to come to him if I find out anything new. I know she doesn't want to loose her family so this pressure from her family will make her hard about what she is doing.

He asked me why I haven't left her yet since she had an A on me and he would have lefted his wife (they have no kids)to which I told him that I still love her very much and want to have her as my wife and part of my family. I also let him know that her actions have hurt me deeply and that this whole stituation has probably taken years off my life.

I get the impression that my WW wants me to do something to make her decision to leave easier. When I told her to leave now rather than after the holidays if that was her true intent, she made comments to me and her family that I wanted her out and that I really don't want to make it work.

Later, upon arriving home my WW commneted that my kids were excited to see the Christmas lights I had put up and I think she was pleased also.

I asked her how the concert went and she told me it was very nice and the kids got a little restless towards the end. It was christian based concert.

I took care of some of the things around the house so she wouldn't have to when she got home. I'm trying to finish up with a strong Plan A so that is what she remembers when I go to Plan B.

After putting the kids down for bed we just watched TV together for a couple of hours. Not much talking between us but it was a relaxing environment.

I feel a certain calmness today to which I haven't felt in a long time. I don't know how long this will last, but it I'll try to enjoy it for now.


Sendme, what kinds of changes did you make that your WW noticed and what made her re-engage with you and ultimately put you on the path to re-marry?

Mel, you are right and I have told her the door is open. I will not make it easier for her and agree to anything right now. If she decides to LS then she will have to do all the work and explain to everyone, including her kids that mommy left daddy and the family.

Hope this works,
I just read your last post and you sound like you are in the same place I was last year. My WH was in the midst of A still denying but was home. It was very difficult for me because it felt like every holiday would be the last we celebrated together as a family...I was very emotional. I tried to make each holiday memoriable. Recognizing family traditions that I knew were very important to him.

I use to work on the weekends. My H would always get the X-mas decorations out while I was at work and he and the kids would get started putting them up. When the holidays were over. He would start to put things away.This has pretty much gone on since we had kids...13years. Starting last year I no longer worked weekends I was around for the decorating and undecorating. I made a comment to him how much work it was...that I didn't realize how much of an effort it was for him to work all week and do that. I apologized for taking it for granted all those years. To him that was the first concrete example of my appreciation.

If its possible avoid R talk at this time. It is a very emotional time for both of you. I told the kids stories behind some of the decorations and ornaments, or why we had certain traditions passed down from late MIL. It made lovebank (+)without a lot of strain. Try not to OVER do she may not be able to accept it.

Good luck...sounds like you are on the right track. My
WH family has very supportive as well, especially my younger BIL.