I am scheduled to meet with my attorney today to sign the divorce papers. I find it difficult to do this, because my wife will not "come clean" about her recent contact. There is the smallest of chances that I misunderstood what I heard. For some reason it feels wrong to make such a important decision when there is some doubt.

If (and that's a big if) she is lying, obviously she is ashamed and scared that it will end the marriage, so that would imply that she isn't ready to leave. On the other hand, she doesn't seem willing to make any sacrifices in order to save our marriage. She simple wants to be able to continue doing what she is doing. That's not working either. It feels like we are playing a game of chicken.

Am I wrong to go through with this? How do you make such a huge decision with so much on the line without knowing the full extent of what is going on?

My wife doesn't respect me or our vows. She claims she's not "in love" with me anymore and is staying because of our daughter and the hope that she might fall in love with me again.

How did you handle this type of situation. I need some advice here from those of you who have been through this (Even if it is a repeat of what has already been said. I was hoping for a little more direct advise to match the situation). I'm really confused and scared that I am doing the wrong thing here.

She's holding out to see if you're bluffing.

You know what you heard. You know.

It's easier to buy into the lie, but don't. If you ever hope to win her back, you must stand up and say what you mean and follow through with action. Otherwise, she can lie lie lie and know you'll buy buy buy! At least eventually - if she can hold out longer than you.

Here's what you do know:
She's not marriage rebuilding.
She's not even begun to be remorseful and grateful.
She still works with him.
She thinks so little of you as to continue her track of unwillingness to be open and honest.
She still behaves independently and thinking less of the needs of the marriage and of you, than maintaining the status quo with the least amount of effort possible.

Stand up now, or forever hold your peace!

grove...

I agree with what kayla is saying. I am another one that thinks your decision should be based on substance over form. Your W is not working on your M. She is disrespectful as they come.

However, your decision to sign those papers is not based on this one act now is it? This one lie? No, it is based on her actions over a period of time. This decision is one based on what you will accept from her as a wife. Do not fool yourself into self doubt about this one subject. You know what you heard, she lies and continues to have contact. As far as making the decision as to what is going on is concerned I think that you have apretty good idea as to what is going on. She wants her "freedom"...a freedom that has come at your expense. It appears that you're no longer willing to accept that price. I, for one, understand....you do what you feel you must....

She will respect you even less if you cave on yet another promise to divorce her over her dishonesty. You are not divorcing her over this one incident, you are divorcing her because she doesn't love you, lies to you, cheats on you and then bullies you into submission when you object to her abusive, piggish behavior. You are divorcing her over a long of pattern of abuse and disrespect. And then you continually wonder why she doesn't respect you.

GT, I know its hard, but your marriage is done if you keep doing the same thing. If you can live a life of cruelty and disrespect then you should stay. But, if you can't, then you should move forward here. It may just be the thing that will wake her up. Your actions in the past sure have not.

grove, I've not been following your story to know what's lead up to today's "signing," but if the ONLY reason is supposed contact and NOT an active affair, then I would come down on the side of "no divorce at this time."

This lack of "in love" stuff is common fare and part of the process. What? You think that someone is "in love" with AND seeking something elsewhere?

Feelings of "in love" come well AFTER the decision to act in loving ways is made and ACTED upon over time. The feelings grow. That's "part and parcel" of the "Love Bank" idea, as well as being Scripturally correct. Husbands are COMMANDED to love their wives, wives are never "commanded" to love their husbands. It is the husband who "sets the tone" for love in a marriage, by God's design and command.

But, I could be "offbase" here, since I'm only reacting to your post on this thread that seems to indicate that "contact" is the only issue, not an actual, ongoing, affair.

Having endured 3.5 years of "on and off" contact, the latest being this past Friday, I KNOW the emotional reactions that contact engenders in the BS. But NEVER make life changing decisions when you a swimming around in a sea of powerful emotions. Put the decisions on "hold" until you can reach solid ground and think rationally despite emotional "tugs."

God bless.

Grove

I guess I am speaking from the other side of the coin here , being the FWW not a BS.

I know that it is not unusual to feel ‘out of love’ with your spouse after an affair of any sort of intensity. It seems to be a ‘regular’ comment from the FWW especially.
If you are making a decision just on that or putting a lot of weight on that comment then don’t act.
It is possible and has been done over & over – to fall back in love with your spouse though guilt is a barrier to quick results. I would be wary of quick results for such a thing.

Did you fall in love with your WW RIGHT AWAY? OF COURSE NOT - you went out, got to know each other, romanced each other etc. To a degree that needs to happen again.

As to what you recorded and heard her say in her own voice? Don’t fool yourself it was the Alien speaking again.
She IS holding you in contempt, she is cheating by EA at the least – hate to say it but maybe even PA because she does not tell you ANYTHING I’m afraid you need to be prepared for the worst until shown otherwise.

But lets ASSUME there is no PA and just go by what she SAID. That was simply she is still talking affair type stuff with OM, insulting you behind your back, displaying no commitment to working on the M at all, willing to meet and intimated she has been meeting the OM after work. That is from her own mouth grove. Don't be fooled here.

Her counter is that she was referring not to OM but someone else? Well easy enough to prove …. lets go meet him!!! I bet you get no offers if you give her no time to organize.

To be honest grove I think one of the big problems here is that you consistently try over and over the same things that did not work the first time & then feel surprised when you get no results. For instance how many times in the past have you said the papers are ready to be signed or I’m going to sign the papers and have not done so?

NO ONE REALLY REACTS WELL TO THREATS grove ok? Especially a WW.
A WW will call you on it just because! I know I would have! And then would have laughed at you. It hurts to think this way now, that I would be so callous if given the opportunity, but I guess I would have. Just as she is treating you.
However, clearly informing her of the consequences is NOT a threat though do expect her to react that way.

In one way I think you are right…she does not want a dv .. but she wants both the OM & the M on HER terms. She may even have no intentions to have ‘sex’ again with OM, however she wants some contact with him regardless of what you say.

Her insistence on not telling you the details of the past, present relationship with OM may also partly be FEAR. That you will call her a $lut etc etc etc and then DEFINITELY divorce her and use it against her. It probably does form part of her mixed up thinking process right now…it did mine.
I was scared $hitless to be frank.

If you insist you cannot do a Plan A followed by a Plan B ..then Plan D or a open M are the only options left! I don’t think you’d go for a open M or am I mistaken?
Didn’t think so.

Therefore if it is the way you feel you must go, but still wish to save the M if possible, then when she is served give her a letter stating in CLEAR, SIMPLE terms what you need for the M to continue ..that you cannot accept its over now get over it from her.
If you want info set out item by item what info you want.
Set ut item by item what steps are required for the M to be saved if it can....what both of you would have to do.
In other words a Plan B love letter is what we call it here.

Put the onus BACK on her to START the work on saving or flush the M down the drain.
Be blunt but not rude. Tell her you aren't prepared to live in loveless M accepting what dregs she is willing to give you. But also tell her you believe you both could have a wonderful life together is you worked on it.

Because your kids do deserve better than what she is giving right now.

Grove, I have been following your story for quite a while. There is no way any of us can make your wife honest. There is no way any of us can make her love you either.

There is a consistent pattern to your posts. You try and find evidence and your wife always denies and then you make idle threats. You seem to hope you can threaten her into honesty and love but it doesn't work that way.

She lies because she can and there are no consequences. She knows your threats are idle and she can manipulate you very easily. It is the same story time after time. She plays you like a violin and like you my wife was much better at it than I could ever hope to be.

Look what happened when you gave her the recording device. When ML asked you why you would give up your method to check on her you said that you can go buy another one. Again another gesture to her that you are thru but if you are not really thru you can just go buy another recording device. Again, just an idle threat.

When people are innocent they don't ask how you know let me see the evidence. If they were innocent they would say there is no evidence. And it is kind of sad that you would say well she was not talking about the OM she was talking about another guy with the same name. It makes you seem pathetic when you know the truth but want to wait til the next time. She does not respect you because she knows she can lie and you won't do anything.

My wife denied everything until I showed her my evidence. I had every kind of evidence including email, phone calls, video of them in my home of all places. When I caught on to what she was doing I got all of the evidence I needed but the whole time I asked her to be honest with me and she just denied and asked me what evidence I had. I waited until they met in my home when I was gone for my work trip I have every month to the home office.

I booted her out and filed for divorce. At least now I do get honesty from her. She has told me a lot of what I wanted to know. The reason she has done this is to try and get me to change my mind. You see I booted her out and I wanted her to be with the OM. She was a horrible wife and this was more than I was willing to put up with. Why live with someone that holds you in contempt and can lie and cheat on you while you provide a good comfortable life for them? She never told the truth on her own in this.

You want a gaurantee but there are no gaurantees. Is this the kind of treatment you want in your marriage? Is this how you want the rest of your marriage to be? She still works at the same place with the OM? She still has feelings for him and she lies to you. I am guessing that if you actually do file that maybe it will be something that is needed to wake her up. On the other hand maybe it won't. But I do know one thing, if you continue to do what you have been doing I could come back here in a year and you will still have the same problem

Good luck to you!

grovetucky,

Two points if I may.

First like most men on this forum, the final breach in your marital vows was not the infidelity, it was and is the lying. Lying is not only a powerful technique used to give the liar an advantage over another but it is also the epitome of disrespect to both parties of the lie equation. This is what sinks 90% of M's here, IMHO. We men always talk as if the vision of your W in the arms of another is the most painful act, but it pales in comparison to the continued, unabated lying.

Secondly, the point from ihadenough is very powerful and the one most WS's almost never acknowledge.

Quote:She was a horrible wife and this was more than I was willing to put up with

When you can accept that point and acknowledge that very few , VERY FEW, WS's actually are out of character when destroying their marital vows, lucidity will prevail. In Dr Dobson's book, he acknowledges that phenomenon when he states that frequently the cuckold spouse, after praying and agonizing over the destruction of their M, often is the person that finally permanently walks away from that M. He calls it a quirk of human nature but I feel that once the challenge of bringing back a wayward spouse has been completed, that psychological " I need to win " over the OP, loses it's hypnotic force. Now for the first time since Dday, the BS can OBJECTIVELY look at ALL the qualities of the WS.

To borrow my friend Lemon's tag line....That is just my opinion and I am probably wrong.

Best of luck Grove, but your appeasing tactics, like my own I may add, will only drive your WW away and along with it, your sense of self respect.

Reaquisition of self respect is the greatest impediment to psychological health that will hound all parties, often times years after the physical D has taken place.

You are in my prayers

Cymanca,

I disagree with you on the point that once the BS wins the WS back from the OP the thrill of the chase loses it's magnetism and you analyze what you really have in a FWS.

I can not imagine anyone going through all the he!l of Plan A, Plan B, DDay, and Recovery unless they thought about all that from the get go.

I see the average BS is on the fence for a few days or weeks but sometime between the shock of everything and picking their life back up off the ground they have got to analyze exactly what it is they are fighting for.

If your point is that the WS probably is just magnifying characteristics that already exist to enable/justify their A, I would agree with that.

I don't think that is the situation in every case though.

There are truly good people out there that make bad choices.

Your views on dishonesty are dead on IMHO. Just as honesty is the ultimate enabler of a great M and the soul's food for intimacy, conversely dishonesty is the ultimate enabler of an A. It's just the ying and yang of A's.

The A is the manifestation of some far more serious problems. I'm not as easy on people as Dr. Harley is.

Just my two cents.
Plank.

Plank,

There is no "thrill of the chase" as you describe it. I feel it is the true remnants of self respect talking to the BS.

I think that is much more accurately portrayed in the thought process " How could you choose this person over me? You know me and the qualities and history that I stand for". Once that smidgen of self respect returns via the WS's attempt to return to the M, so often these very powerful and opposite emotions arise.

Sorry to threadjack grovetucky.

I have to agree on the lying part vs the actual infidelity.

With my DD's dad, the lies were what almost destroyed my very sanity. I had nothing to guage reality with, the lies threatened my very perception of reality. I doubted myself and everyone else, not him...him I wanted to believe with every ounce of my being because the realization that he would allow me to question my own sanity was more than I could accept at the time, and I was pregnant through most of it.

When our daughter was born something snapped in me, and I woke up... and he wanted to stay together now that she was born, but I couldn't bare to look at him, let alone love him again.

It took another relationship filled with lies before I finally figured out that nothing and nobody is worth losing your sanity, your perception of reality, or your self-respect for. And when you get to a point where you have to question what is true and what is not true, you have already been in it too long for your mental health.

However, in long term marriages where the partner was a good partner/parent for years before the affair and lies, I can certainly understand and support wanting to reconcile and rebuild what once was there.

And I have huge hope for affairs which end on DD, but most of what we see on this board seems to be lifelong lifestyle, character issues...unfortunately.

Don’t base your decision on a lie. Base it on what is best for YOU. Not your relationship or your marriage but what would be best for YOU at this point in time.

Right now your wife is not showing you any respect and she hasn’t shown any serious commitment to recovery. Maybe she doesn’t realize the gravity of her actions or that although a WS can possibly sweep this under the rug then for a BS it’s a longer healing process. Maybe she does think it’s over and you should move on but the fact is you can’t at this point. Well – let me reword that – moving on is not the hard part here – moving on together in the same direction is the hard part.

Although there is no justification for an affair very often the cause is due to distance between the partners. MB is all about ensuring that distance is removed. What your wife seems to want is the same situation as was before the affair and she is not in any way willing to move with you.

Look – there is this rule I often use. When you plan a journey you need to know three things: (1) Where you are going (2) How to get there and (3) Where you are starting from. A lot of people forget the last point. But that’s the most important one. At the moment you and your wife have some sort of common destination: stay in the marriage but you neither have the same idea on how to get there and I think you have no idea where you are right now. At least not the same place as WW. Find your place and then decide where you want to go. You will then find a clear path.

BTW – file. If she really wants to reconcile when faced with tough decisions you will not be the first person to halt a divorce proceeding or remarry.

Grove, you MUST sign and file your petition for a divorce. At this point, you have got to regain your wife's respect and eliminate the contempt she undoubtedly feels for you. After all, why shouldn't she feel that way? You've not followed through with anything you've threatened so far, have you?

Besides, guess what? Filing for a divorce is not the final action. It's just the first step. You can withdraw the papers at any time after your wife starts to work on the marriage. Let her be surprised when she's served by a cold-faced constable (or whatever is the norm where you live) who has no interest in softening the blow. Coming up against the implacable wall of officialdom and the court system may just be what is needed to shake her up and see the error of her ways.

But maybe not. Maybe you have to divorce her in order to go on with a real life. Maybe a divorce is what she needs to get her attention. For sure, you don't have a marriage right now and you've said you will not live this way. Make it stick, pardner.

ForeverHers: My best guess from what I overheard her saying, my wife seems to be back in an EA with the OM. They are talking and bad mouthing me and his girlfriend, sharing their misery, etc . . .

I agree with everyone that I need to follow through this time. I have no plans to back down now. I understand that my inability to go through with my "threats" have allowed this to keep going.

I will consider giving my WW a letter stating my intentions and what it will take for me to stay married to her. I knew this day would come if she continued to work with the OM. I knew her behavior implied that she was not through with the relationship, yet I did nothing. I'm not blameless with how this has worked out. I was hoping and praying for a miracle, but sometimes they just don't happen.

I almost forgot. My wife called today to see if I would like to go snowskiing with her on Thursday. I told her that I would let her know tonight.

I have two views on this.
1. It's a chance to have a good time with her and make a deposit in her lovebank.
2. I should stop allowing her to enjoy being married and having me around.

If this is true, and the Emotional Affair is ongoing, then you MUST stand for "no 3rd party in the marriage." It IS an ultimatum that could result in her digging in her heels and moving to divorce, but unless you are willing to live with an "affair partner" in your marriage, you have no choice but "run the risk." Actually, though, it is not much of a risk because if she is in an emotional affair and is "running you down" with the OM, the marriage already IS over, it's just awaiting the "formality.

It's still going to be tough, emotionally, on you. So keep posting for support, and even just to vent if you need to.

"Standing" for monogomous marriage is NOT easy, but it is RIGHT.

God bless.

Grove-

Sorry about your sitch, I'm pretty much in the same boat, actually. I was feeling pretty bad about my situation today, but then I read this post, and read what KaylaAndy said "Here's what you do know:
She's not marriage rebuilding.
She's not even begun to be remorseful and grateful.
She still works with him.
She thinks so little of you as to continue her track of unwillingness to be open and honest.
She still behaves independently and thinking less of the needs of the marriage and of you, than maintaining the status quo with the least amount of effort possible.

Stand up now, or forever hold your peace!"

And I actually feel a little better about my impending Plan B......My WH fits every one of these descriptors as well, but until I hear it out loud I don't realize it.

Thanks Kayla.....Thanks Grove <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

God Bless

-Caren

I'd like you to THINK for a moment and STOP "feeling" the "love" you THOUGHT your WW had for you...what has she DONE that would help the M? Nothing from what I have read....

MB is great...to a point. You have NO indication (as shown by action) that she cares one WHIT about you or your M!

Why would you even CONSIDER spending ANY time with her when she hasn't even stopped SEEING OM?

Take off the rose colored glasses...it would seem that your M is in its death throes, but you refuse to see it...

The below extendo-quote is what helped me immensely...perhaps it can do the saem for you...

Good luck,

WNB

[color:"red"] Think, don't "feel."

Always ask yourself, "How can I use this information to improve my situation?" Never ask yourself, "How does this information make me feel?" Those who are enslaved by their emotions and "feelings" are perpetual losers. They are universally regarded as weaklings, and are thus consistently selected for victimization. They only care about "feeling good," and they are deathly afraid of "feeling bad." They therefore always act exclusively according to that interest.

At every turn of a card, you have a choice. You can deal with the new information rationally and use it logically to plan your next move, or, like the British in Africa, you can "feel" your way to calamity. You have a choice: You can use the information to improve your play, or you can use
it to alter your mood. You can think your way to victory, or you can wallow in a fantasyland where everything that makes you feel bad is displayed on an imaginary scoreboard, labeled "How I feel right now!"

"Feeling good about yourself" is something which must be earned; earned over the long haul. Instant "good feelings" are fleeting. If you chase them, the way an addict chases his next fix, you're blunder into one disaster after another. Runaway emotions are like fire. If you don't put it out, it will burn itself out!

[/color]

I thought you should know that he spoke to Dr. Harley and he told grovetuckohio to get a divorce.

Quote:

I thought you should know that he spoke to Dr. Harley and he told grovetuckohio to get a divorce.

Mel,

I spoke to SH the following week and he said he wasn't sure that we were ready for divorce. He didn't think that my wife was still having an affair, but he obviously wasn't positive. That's why they recommend NC of any kind.

Oh well, I am moving forward as best I can. I can't say that I want a divorce, but I can say that I don't want to stay in this marriage as it is.