OK - yesterday was bad. My wife came home livid and not wanting to talk to me.

In the midst of the time since D-day (9/28), I've wanted to confront OM. I've wanted to both beat the snot out of him and also reason w/ him. Considering the fact that he apparently has 30 lbs. on me and is a black belt - beating the snot out of him would be difficult. But despite the anger I have, my desire to confront has been steady even in moments of clarity. I guess throughout all the BS that I've gone through - and that I've seen my WW go through - I felt it was my right to stop and say something.

So I elected to write a letter to him. And I delivered it over a week ago.

When my WW came home - it was due to the fact that she found out about it. She says she was told not by him, (she has maintained NC for 2 months) - but by a common friend (which I don't regard as a very good one - but she does).

She felt betrayed. If radical honesty entailed my telling her about this immediately - then I guess I failed. But I felt this was a communication - a "voice" that I wanted to be heard to someone involved in this whole struggle. My intention was to tell her - but only after she seemingly was emerging from the fog. Was this wrong of me?

IN the ensuing discussion - which got heated due to the fact that she felt it was a slap in her face vs. an effort on my part to voice my pain to him.........she felt I had set her and us back big time. I told her - and this is honest - that I was going to tell her eventually......but that I didn't even think she'd know about it........and that I was telling her later. She doesn't believe me.

Later in the day I started to get upset about the manner in which she found out. This "friend" she has - has unfortunately been one that's friendship has been damaging and I'm threatened by........whether it's understandable or my own paranoia - ?? - I don't know. This friend is who she met OM through. This friend is someone that's marriage just ended. This friend is when during my WW's "support" during her early days of "newly singlehood" - she met OM through. This friend knew of my WW's A. This friend has been kept somewhat "removed" from me. This friend has brought up in the past the OM to my WW and upset her.

I have had little contact with this friend - other than a few e-mails asking support......but this friend I believe doesn't feel comfortable with me contacting her.........and niether does my WW. My W feels that I'm "going around her" and being secretive and therefore my contact with "this friend" of hers stopped over 2 months ago. However - in one of my communications with her friend - I asked her to never mention OM.......that it upset my W greatly and it was extremely counterproductive. To please not do that.

So - when I found out about this friend telling her about the letter I delivered and the resulting chaos.......I was mad and wanted to say something to her. My W flipped. She did not want me to - that I was trying to end their friendship.

I was upset. My voice was elevated. I was telling her that she was not letting me be rightfully angry and telling her that she was negating my feelings. I was upset at her friend doing the complete opposite of what I asked - and for no reason other than to shake things up (my opinion anyway). Our 5 year old came in - and got upset because we were arguing. My wife started getting physical w/ me and threatening me because our daughter was upset and blamed me for it. She was getting mean and spouting off all kinds of things to hurt me.

I'm I LB'ing here? Am I doing something wrong? She has calmed down somewhat here.......but offers no apologies for the vicious things she said. She acts like she doesn't even like me. When I asked her what her reaction would have been if I had done what she had when she was irate - her answer was "you'd be in jail".

What am I doing wrong here?

OK this was not good. You should not have sent the letter. However this friend of hers is not a friend to the M. This friendship must end. The fact that this woman is tellingt your WW about OM is very bad. You boht LB'd here but we are all human. Your wife is still in the fog -especially with getting reports of him from her friend. I am not very good at this plus I have not had my coffee -hopefully others here will help.

Maybe your wife doesn't want you to contact her friend because she wasn't the one that told her. Are you sure about NC?

I agree with Lealas. Seems like a huge red flag to me.

This friend of your wife, did she help enable her affiar?

And lastly, why should your wife care a wit about OM? She should care about you, and your feelings. OM's feelings can go to heck. What kind of scum pursues married women?

Her level of discomfort sounds like she wants to protect OM from anything you have to say or share.

Often times WS lie to OP's as much as they lie to thier spouses. He may have no idea about what you sent to him. She may have told him something completely different than what you told him, and now she looks like a liar to OM. (OM already knows she lies, they were having an affair, unless he is so naive to think he's different)

I had a red flag like this also. Turned out my wife had never stopped her contact. We're getting divorced now, she's made her choices.

I would start looking for evidence of contact, without alerting your wife. If she thinks you suspect she will start hiding it better.

I hope I'm wrong. It is still early in your recovery effort, but ... I just doesn't sound right.

Well, she will get over it. They are always angry when exposed, or the affair is thwarted.

However, I'm concerned that your wife got physical. You do not need to tolerate that. Please speak to her calmly about it.

She makes no apologies for it.

I apologized later in the evening for getting vocal - but not for getting mad.

I waited and asked her if she meant everything she said to me. Only response was "some I did - some I didn't". When I asked which ones she didn't - she couldn't/wouldn't tell me.

I then later asked why it was that whenever she was mean and cruel and tongue lashing - she never apologized later.....even when she knows she hurt me and said awful stuff. No answer.

I do believe that contacting the OM via the letter may have been wrong in some ways - but my thinking was that this is one "connection" in the A "triangle" that hasn't been heard. She knows how he feels. He knows what she feels and/or has been said. She knows how I feel. He's heard nothing from me. To say something is a right I felt I had. To say nothing to me speaks volumes about me. I spoke my peace - I have nothing else to say to OM.

As for her feelings about it - I'm sure that she has portrayed me in a much different light to OM........heck - she portrays me as awful to ME!

I agree about the "friend" - but she thinks it's a controlling gesture on my part to talk about the damage this friendship has. It is damaging - and always has been.......but she see's it as a close friendship that has value. I to this date haven't seen it. There has been little that I've seen in it that has been positive - for her or for us. But again - I am not the most important person in my W's life right now.........so my thoughts on this are not that important to her. And if they are - she feels that my position on the friendship speaks about my trust and belief in her - not the friend. I can't win on this one - not anytime soon though.

As for the physical part - she thinks I'm being a baby by saying anything concerning it - even tho she readily admits that if I did it - it would be grounds for D in her eyes.

Going to a MC session today - not expecting it to go very well. Wish me luck.

Mike - how did your wife establish the NC originally?

I'm with Tom and lealas - NC looks like it has been violated, if was ever established at all.

AND - NC means NC from both of you. You're letting OM be a carbuncle on yer a$$. Focus on your marriage and forget about him - once NC is really established.

Which time? Not sure when last NC was - other than 11/10 via phone.

1st NC was supposedly D-Day via phone. Then later on 10/15 when I was out of time face-to-face. She doesn't buy into the NC "letter" that is advocated here.

As for me - if I screwed up - then I screwed up. I explained my motives to her - which for the most part fell on deaf ears. It was nothing but a LB to her.

As for allowing him to be a barnacle on my A** - not really........least that's not what I think about it. I just wanted one conversation - one time for my voice to be heard.

As for whether it was truly her friend or OM - no way for me to know without contacting her friend.......which she made me promise not to do. I keep my promises - even if they are not fair sometimes. What about this is anyway?

Translation: "I don't accept NC and I'll just fake it to get Mike off my butt."


Right from the script. The best WS defense is a vile offense.

Tell us about the MC you're involved in and what guidance the counselor has provided already.

WAT

Not much.

When we first went - I was taking all the blame for past transgressions. We then started on that. I was confused as to why the affair wasn't discussed. I finally said to MC (I speak in metaphors ALL the time)......."we as a couple are like a car wreck that you've stumbled on. The passengers have injuries - and you're treating a broken leg when the victims have slashed throats". Translation - the biggest hurdle for both of us at this moment is her fog/withdrawal and my shock over A.

We then got to communication skills stuff.......but no direct talk about the affair. Possibly this is my fault - because I've said that I'm not ready to hear about all of it......i.e., her feelings for OM, all details about A........that I wanted us to get stronger first and then finalize the details.

So right now - we after probably 8 sessions seem to be lacking direction - which I've read is not good.

I gotta go to MC.........I will update later.

This is freaking me out - I think I'm on another planet and the only friendly natives are the ones on this site.

All others are forbidden for me to talk to or cause LB's to wife.

I need to learn WW language.

Sorry - lame excuse for humor in the face of fear...

MC with an alien abductee is a waste of $$.

What kind of MC is this?

WAT

What Kind?

One that charges $100/hour.......

Not a Christian counselor - which I discussed with her along the way. The thought of that w/ her was like having a pastor beat her on the head w/ the Bible. I agreed to not pick one like that in the beginning - now I'm not so sure it was a good idea.

Now - it seems like a "do over" to go to another MC. But I'm thinking that's what we need to do. It's confusing - do you blame the MC or yourself? I try to avoid the later so I've stuck w/ it........but we do seem to be swimming in a never-ending circle.

That was the right choice, in my opinion. Unless a sectarian counselor is a REAL counselor, i.e., has education and training to wear two hats, they do way more harm than good based on the anecdotal evidence on this forum. Can't remember who it was, but someone actually went to his/her Catholic priest for MC. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> Duh! How much sense does that make?

Don't take legal advice from a counselor nor marriage advice from a lawyer. Don't go to church in a counselor's office nor get relationship advice from a preacher.

I think all here will agree that you're into counseling too soon to include your wife effectively. She's not ready. That doesn't mean that you should stop it - just that it's usually a waste of $$ until the WS is committed to rebuild. Stories abound here telling how "active" WSs use MC as a kangaroo court to build their case for why their decisions are justified.

One thing for sure that I give you 100% certainty on that NO ONE can refute: half of all counselors out there are below average. Make sure yours is focused on saving the mariage, not simply with "processing" a divorce.

A good way to spend a little more $$ is to make sure you're well versed on MB principles and then have an individual session with on of the MB counselors just to relate what your local MC is saying.

Mike,

IMO, the first thing you need to do it's to find out about the NC, whether it's in place or not. This is VERY IMPORTANT. You can not start recovery until NC has been established, and you are wasting your money in MC.

I don't think there is NC, so prove me wrong. Install a keylogger program in the computer, go through her phone records, bank records, place a voice recorder in her car, a GPS, look in her clothes, purse, hire a private detective, do whatever you need to. Give her some room, so she won't suspect anything. Go away for dinner, or for the weekend while the PI follows her.

I hope I am wrong, but there is something fishy in the way she is acting. Do not trust her.

Bob

H and I saw several Relate counsellors, and none were remotely pushing a divorce. I didn't mention MB, as I think there's no point trying to get a therapist to work a system they're unfamiliar with, and I did find the Relate people to understand the dynamics of a marriage. Our main counsellor was very effective in helping us to work out the 'story' of our marriage in a non-judgemental way, and in pushing H gently towards IC.

But the most useful thing for me was personal IC. I knew that I'd done the 'wonderful-wife' bit to Olympic standards, but I also knew that a healthier person would have detected the unhealthy state that the marriage must have drifted into, and would have done something about it. I had known for a long time that something wasn't right, but I was blind to most of the signs, and perhaps I was 'blind' because I simply had no idea what to do about it.

I was clueless about boundaries, or the respect I should have expected as a wife. What I learned in IC was that I had been trained since birth to support the entitlement and self-centredness of another, and that I had simply transferred that from my mother to H.

There are some BS's who recognise that they have treated their partner poorly, but I think the majority who come here have had the opposite problem - they have allowed their boundaries to be defined by their WS, and are shocked when that vunerability is exploited by a dishonest spouse. For BS's of our type, the 'work' is to define who we are, what we are entitled to, and how we require our spouses to respect those boundaries. If we hand power back to the WS, in the hope that they will be more honest this time, we will remain resentful, disempowered and bitter.

Of course, working out who we are - who we really are, as opposed to the sense of ourselves we have as defined by our relationships with others - is very, very difficult. And painful. If you look back at JavaPrincess's posts on the old board (I think she's always had the same registration number, although her title has changed a few times), you can see the story of a courageous voyage of self-exploration, and great insight, in a multiple-affair pile-up. Inspirational and recommended.

Ah...I realise that I'm threadjacking here, so will stop.

TA

I must trust her - she's my W.

As for NC - she says none - so I believe her.

I got my head handed to me in MC for delivering the letter.

I am very confused...........very confused.

No she's not. She's an imposter. She may look like her, but she's been taken over by the aliens. Trust me on this. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

And you MUST not trust her.

You trusted her before her affair, right? Why trust her now?

Do not believe her claim of NC. If you do, why not believe everything else - including any claims that your marriage is "over."

Confused? Good. This means you're probably normal. Re-read Rule #1.

Trust needs to start somewhere - why not with me?

I've lied to her in the past - why should she trust me?

It has to start somewhere - my choosing to trust shouldn't be seen as a negative.

OK, Mike - the choice is yours, of course.

No, I see it as foolish to award trust before its been earned in a case like infidelity.

We've seen it all before over and over and over and over and your sitch regarding NC is very, very, very, very typical.

So, work on rebuilding her trust in you.

What kind of lies did you tell in the past?

WAT