[color:"red"]!! FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS PIO !! [/color]
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[color:"blue"] My impression is that you are having a hard time expressing your desires and your needs and accepting G's desires and needs.
She said she missed her family of origin, FO, and you understood that as if you and the DD's were not enough for her and as she wanted and opportunity to meet OM.

Considering how far you live and the diffentent cultural and social conditions of AS (SA?) I could imagine any woman or man living there as expat wanting some time out. I can imagine G getting sad when she was in Houston, knowing how easy it could be to spend some time with her family in Mx and facing having to go back to very far away SA. I don't think it was a matter of with or without her family, you and DD's. Because of the consecuences post affair I undertstand that she could not took DD's with her and I have the impression that she understands that.

If you two had had better comunications skills post affair, instead of considering she going to Mx to think, you could have talked to her about the NC letter and the compromise to work on the marriage, follow SAA guidelines or other of your choice and toss in the trip to US some days for G alone or all the family to go to MX, maybe instead of ten days in DW, five and five.

I have the total subjetive impression that you sister is very against G, maybe is only something post affair, dunno. I feel she influenced you in your reactions there, of course if she did you could have not let yourself be influenced by her, lol.

As far as I understand, G had never expend time far away from you since you two got married. She has had very limited time with her family, except for the years her mom were with you in Dubai. To me is not unreasonable that she has some time to herself and her family, not in the context of and ongoing affair of course, and not in withdrawl.

When you say you expected her or wouldn't mind if she had appeared in Miami, makes me wonder why you didn't say exactly that to her. You could have told her how you felt and turned the page to recovery if she had agreed and if at any point she had broken her compromise you could have taken other mesures.

What I see is that you remain in the same page post affair. Not recovery, not divorce. Althought you say it's because of G that things are not defined I think you need the plan of recovery and guide her through it.

I read what you wrote about your childhood and teen years. I beg your forgiveness if I overstep in my next comments. I and my SXBF (soon to be ex boyfriend) had verbal and physical abuse in our childhoods. His stepfather was very violent towards him. We had worked before we met our own issues with pysis help and one thing we find we have in commun related to past abuse is that we find some times difficult to resolve conflict or difference of opinions. We want to 'make the other happy' and we both go to great lenghts to please the other. Sometimes I ask him to do something in a certain way and he tries to agree, he tries to be reasonable but then he builts a resentment, it's very easy that he feels rejected. So, once I feel this hiden resentment or disapointment I have to go back and ask him again how does he feels about what I'm asking him. Once the resentment is there he's able to tell me why he didn't agree with me, even when he had agreed and he tells me what he excepected and why my request disappointed him. Once I know how he feels I try to ponder for whom is more important to do or not do something. The ideal negotiation would be the POJA, Policy of Joint Agreement, that as far as I understand should be made having the best interest of the other in mind. (I know you know about POJA I just wanted to mention the part about where it should be supported, in the thought of each other having the best interest of the other in mind.)

If I had expressed more clearly the feelings and the needs that made me want to do something and he had expressed his feelings and needs instead of jumping to agree to do something, he wouldn't have resented to do something that caused him some disappointment or I wouldn't have asked him to do something that would make him feel disappointed.

People like me, that had some roughness in their childhood are not very good at feeling other peoples emotional needs, it's either my taker, pleaser or my giver who's in charge and I find it very helpfull to know how people feels, what are they expectations, their needs.

I really think you have to cut G some slack and soft the way you deal with her. Let her see the man, not the ruler or the provider. I have the sensation that you feel she has taken advantage so badly of you that at each step of your interactions with her you are trying to prove that you are nobody fool, dealing with someone in that frame of mind gets tiring after a while.

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What do you think?

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[color:"green"] The third star is mine and I hope it remains in its place, you can take away the first and second. [/color]

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Hola Todd,

I have to add to Kiwi's wise observation, the fact that you are having too late dinners.

Your poor body crowls through night trying to digest all.

JMHO

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I am not sure I understand what you are trying to say? Do I leave her in Mexico indefinitely?



Can you try this part again? It starts out okay but I get lost.

Sorry I shouldn't attempt to write in English at this hour of the day. Lol. I corrected some spelling mistakes already.

I think you should talk to her and talk and talk and talk.

First you have to know if she's ready to compromise to NC for life and write the NC letter. Then you talk about what you expect of her, and you hear what she expects from you.

I don't know if you should leave her there or no. I think it should be a POJA decision. No threats on either side.
If she compromises to NC for life, you compromise to not to talk about it. You can have time for radical honesty but outside of planned talks about the relationship and the affair you don't mention OM.

You sound, to me, almost rude or unnecesary 'cut and dry' on your recent comunications with G and her family of origin.

Well I think for now I just need to go back to pretending she doesn't exist. Reliving all that airport stuff for my post to lemonman obviously got me angry again. I am much better off not thinking about gemela at all. It only makes me unhappy when I do. The thing is, I just can't imagine ever being happy with her again. She is nothing but dishonest. I can only hope she stays away for a good long while.

Rude to gemela? Do you think she deserves kindness? I don't intend to be rude. She just needs things spelled out very clearly. She is very good at selective hearing. She probably also sugar coats a lot of this with her family. I doubt she has told FIL about the affair to this day.

Anyway, no more about gemela but I would like to hear lemonman's thoughts and then I will let it all die. It just galls me that even after all this time she could even think I would give her permission to go on a week-long vacation with OM. That just isn't normal that she could even believe that is a moral thing to do. What kind of mother do my children have?

I just thought you had been smoking too much epazote.

Okay larousse, I took away the first star only so yours is the second star to the right and straight on till morning.

Pio, I don't know why it seems you have also selective hearing, sorry, and selective editing, too.
You fixates in one part and don't move from there.

I feel your anger and your pain, I keep feeling it, you have not worked it.

The whole theory of MB, or marriage recovery is that relationships are restored with effort and time and that experience has shown that a family is better to rise children. You think it would take a lot of effort to restor your marriage? Now think about of more than one decade of your life dealing with exchanging DD's. Divorce is harder than recovery.

You have to work through your pain, G can help you but the main part has to be done by you.

I think she has been dishonest during one period of your relationship. I don't think she has been dishonest all the time. I think we all deserve kidness or at least not rudeness. What rude people shows, to me, is that they have anger issues and frustrations issues.

You don't have to forgive her but you could. You could take the highway but I don't think you would be happy because you have your own issues, not affair related but issues nevertheless. I don't think you deserved the affair. Nobody would blame you if you divorce.

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Now stop being rude and give me my third star back that is not fun.

Sorry but I don't see gemela making any effort at all. She keeps love letters, asks for permission to go visit OM. How exactly is she helping me again? I am missing something. I told her before that I cannot get over the A until she does. That only seems fair.

I forgot to mention it this morning but I discovered that St. Ives is my patron saint.

Just to add some information, what is considered abuse in MB theory.

Demands

Disrespect

Anger


Every one is capable of becoming abusive, temporarely or permanently and we tend to be blind to our own misgivins.

BS that have been abused can become abusive themselves trying to control the WS and the marital situation.

I have had anger issues in the past and that's how I got to MB. I discovered in my case that anger was a coping mechanism for me. I felt people had taken advantage of me in the past and that I needed to be very defensive and 'nononsense'. It was also born in the feeling that I had not control over my life, my problem was that I put the control of my life in the hands and decisions of other people instead of concentrating on the only person I could control, myself.

for dog lovers


Okay larousse but how exactly is gemela trying to help me? I see the opposite. If that is the case, I am better off on my own am I not? How is gemela trying to protect my feelings?

Did I say G was trying to help you?

I don't know if she's trying to protect your feelings. Maybe a little, I don't know. Maybe she has tried to protect them in the way WW do, keeping information.

I think you should tell her very simple, with out anger or demands what do you need from her.

You have seen here that for most XWW it has been a process to realize to which extend they had to change their behavior and their ideas about relationships. It tooks them a while.

My opinion about G is that she doesn't have the knowlege that you have about affairs. She doesn't have a solid, constant, religious practice and she doesn't have a theory formation or therapy that had shown her what we know. She follows the partern of the culture that's outside, the culture of follow your heart and your desires and all that about love infatuation. You have to tell her thing by thing what you need from her. No friendship with males, no male teachers for outside activities for DD's. No secrets and nothing related to the affair kept by her.

I think you believe in Regreted pain and remorse, yet she looked for the song that she had listened with OM. Regreted is getting to the point of realizing that she can't indulge in thoughts about OM. Kiwi, being so in love to SuperRob, had a coffe with XOM some months ago. She didn't want to reconect the affair but she talked to him.

I'm telling you this so you see that it's not something isolated of bad G. It's the whole dynamic of affairs. G needs the theory too to change her ideas, her sentimental education and that is a process.

So then, if we can just recap your advice, what I understand you are suggesting is:

1) I take this vacation from gemela to my personal advantage
2) I do NOT tell her to stay away forever
3) I let her come back and see what happens
4) When she comes back, I am respectful and open

Is that it in a nutshell?

This is in a tamale leaf:

1)She compromises to NC, write letter with your help and advice from here and you send it.

2) She compromises to work through the guidelines of SAA

-15 hrs weekly of undivided attention
During this 15 hrs you give each other:
1 Affection
2 Comunication, talk
3 Entretainment companionship
4 SF

-You two agree two resolve conflict using the 4 tools of MB and POJS.
-You too agree to the Policy of Radical Honesty and practice it also during the time both of you set aside to work to anything affair related.
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What do you do in the shor term? I don't know. I would say you start to talk, but not before you take hold of your anger and you talk to her openly, without assumptions.

Once you start to talk you ask her openly the simple question, I need you to have no contact with OM forever.

You can explain her why there is no chance of recovery unless she compromises to that.

If she agrees to that and to work on the marriage, then it's going to be up to the logistic of the two of you when she can go back to SA.

That's corn husk to us gringos.

Larousse,

I agree with everything you say but what I am saying is that something very important has to happen first. That thing is gemela needs to decide she really wants it. If she takes that first step, I'll walk with her. She has always known that. She just hasn't wanted to give up her fantasy life.

I don't know why I'm talking to you.
You stole my star.
You must be one of those pluton's thieves.

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I see the situation a little bit as what was first the chicken or the egg.

You say you need G to decide if she really wants it.
She has told you in the past that she wants to remain married and she has made several efforts days after day to keep the family together.
But...
She kept the cards, the pics, and she hasn't open completely to you.
Yet...
She has made attempts to talk to you about the affair, at least in two ocasions and you haven't let her.

I think things in the marriage progressed some and then frozen because the trial separation kept in the middle of your discussions for months. Because there was NC declaration and you didn't have a recovery plan in place.

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I'm not sure I understand your conflict or your position.
The ideas I have tried to share with you are my interpretation of MB, because I'm not therapist and I don't have psy formation at all.

MB says that the only condition to recover a marriage is NC and the disposition to work on the marriage.

From my point of view both of you had that but it was not clear stablished. I think G got to a point of NC with OM and she has tried to work on the marriage.

What the BS can't do is to leave to the good will of the WW the time and the way in which she stablished no contact, he has to be persitant in that and you were and you got it.

The emotional part, the withdrawl and the rejection of everything that has to do with an affair is differnt for each XWW.

I don't think that to work on the marriage you have to have the complete security that G won't think anymore on OM. It's a process and with time XWW's get to realize that it was only infatuation.

You seem to need something that at some points in the pasts months G has tried to show you. For G keeping the cards was not a betrayal. Why? Because for her as for millions of persons, there was not malice in keeping some mementos. We know diffent but she doesn't. We know that any love thought given to another person outside the marriage it's infidelity.

So the very important thing that you think has to happen in your marriage has happend in less visible ways but because you have understandable resentments and your own withdrawl you haven't being able to give a consistent follow up to the improvements in the marriage.

Happy belated Birthday Piojitos! I wish you peace.

Todd must be sleeping in after his festive night of music & drink.

Larousse: you're spending lots of time here for a woman with her BF visiting from far a way.

Here's my LONG tale of future employment woe.

My educational background is in education & art. I cobbled together a bachelor's degree over the last couple of years of the two which is referred to as independent studies. I didn't stick with education because I didn't think I wanted to teach. I discovered my artistic leanings & went in that direction.

A zillion years later here I am divorced & needing to make a living. I have 5 years of a decent settlement (closer to 4 now) which will allow me time to get myself together. I still need to work but I can afford to work part time & go back to school for my master's if need be. My 3 boys are 15, 12 & 11.

I've substitued over this past school year & have taught adults pottery for 3 or 4 years. I also make & sell my work but it's no where near being able to provide a living. I love teaching adults & like teaching grade school kids.

The choices I've considered so far are going back to school for my master's in elementary education or art education or not going back at all but finding something I can without further education. What, I don't have a clue, but working with adults in an artistic capacity has a lot of appeal.

Two schools in my area offer internships for elementary ed. This means I intern at a school for one school year, go to school at night & my master's gets paid for. One school wants me to take 4 additional undergrad classes. I'm in the process of finding out the requirements of the other school. The first school is very close 15 min. the other about 45 min. The whole process taking about one year, more if I have to take the 4 undergrad classes.

If I do decide to teach I'd prefer to teach art. For this I'd have to go to a school about 1 hour 20 min. away or lookinto the neighboring state which might be closer but won't allow me to teach in my own state. I looked into this last winter but put it aside for two reasons. Distance & the practicality of finding a job. Instead I focused on the elementary ed. due to the practicality & the internship possibility.

I love school so I don't mind going back but it needs to benefit me in terms of future employment. It would be nice if it were something I really enjoy not just theories of education.

Phew! Any takers?

Something very important in cases of infidelity which I think often gets overlooked is love for the WW spouse. I'm not talking about the verb love but the feeling. The desire to WANT to be the the WW spouse.

Intellectually we know the best place for the children is within a HEALTHY HAPPY family. Intellectually we know tossing a marriage doesn't mean guaranteed happiness in the future. Sometimes a place in your heart just does not exist for the person who betrayed you. Certainly there are people who get past it & go on to live in healthy happy marriages. I don't think it's a shortcoming that some simply don't have a place in their heart for the betrayer.

For me there would have always been a seed of doubt, an inability to fully trust & give myself again. No matter how hard I would have worked at the machanics of healing the marriage (given the opportunity) those factors would have still been there.

Okay. When did gemela try to talk about the A and I wouldn't let her? She has NEVER EVER wanted to talk about the A.