I've been re-reading a few posts and re-discovered this one, which I thought I would respond to. Here's how the dinner and/or movie scenario has gone for years:

Scenario 1:
WW: What movie/food do you want to see/eat?
Me: What movie/food do you want to see/eat?
WW: Why do I always have to pick everything?! Just tell me what you want to see/eat!

Scenario 2:
WW: Where do you want to go for dinner?
Me: How about Restaurant 1?
WW: No, it'll be too crowded
Me: How about Restaurant 2?
WW: I'm not hungry enough for their portions.
Me: How about Restaurant 3?
WW: Didn't we just go there?
Me: Where do you want to go for dinner?
WW: Why do I always have to pick everything?!

So basically I feel like I'm in a lose/lose scenario. She specifically noted on the EN questionnaire that I need to be more willing to suggest things. But if I run out of things to suggest due to her not liking them, then I'm guilty of forcing her to make all the decisions.

One time when we were debating where to go, she insisted I tell her where I wanted to go, so I did. She said she didn't want to go there, but we would because I wanted to. Then she didn't eat her food because 'I didn't want to come here anyway.' Needless to say we've never gone back there.

How about you get to know your W and figure out where to go. She has a place in mind, but she wants you to suggest it. Don't suggest places you want to go, suggest places that you think she would want to go. Keep trying until you find something.

Thank you so much for the advice, Schoolbus. I agree that my conversation skills need to be improved, especially when conversing with WW. I had read a little about repeating what WW says back to her and it seemed totally ridiculous to me. If someone simply repeated what I said back to me, I would say 'Why are you doing that? It's weird and annoying!' so I assumed WW would do exactly the same thing. BUT I tried it out Friday night during our dinner out and constantly kept repeating back to her what she was saying to me. She didn't once give me a questioning look or even seem to notice it, she just kept right on going. It weirded me out that she didn't even notice that I was merely repeating her own words right back to her. But I think it was a very successful evening of conversation for her.

Also in her top 5 ENs are Honesty and Openness and she specified that she wanted me to talk more about my past. So I talked about how I had only recently realized that some of my parents' attributes had been passed down to me unknowingly and talked about what I thought they were and asked what she felt they were.

However it was tough to follow your advice on reacting to her sharing of feelings because WW rarely says 'I feel,' and instead just starts in with the issue. For instance, instead of saying 'I feel like you're trapping me in my own home and cutting me off from all my friends,' she says 'You're trapping me in my own home and cutting me off from all my friends.' How do I move forward with this type of accusatory statement? 'What you said is that you feel I'm trapping you in your home and cutting you off from all your friends'? My fear is that repeating false accusations legitimizes them and sends a message that I agree.

The other question I have is about 'venting'. She talks about work, pretty much exclusively. Almost the entire Friday evening conversation we had was her venting about work. This is in addition to the afternoon phone conversations I have with her and the weekday evening conversations. In the past, my mistake was to try and solve her frustrations with work by offering up ideas and solutions ('Why don't you tell manager X about this problem?'). Also, I wanted her to be happy and in a good mood and talking about work would always put her in a bad mood. So I would try not to engage in it in the hopes she would stop focusing on work. I guess this was wrong, too. But I did not get to use the 4 Questions you listed because generally all she talked about was how everybody at her workplace sucks.

I put in a really good Plan A on Friday night after work, trying to meet her top ENs by taking her out to dinner and having an Honest and Open Conversation with no LBs and then noticed on Saturday that she was being depressed and super-negative again. She begged off all my weekend plans of getting away to a nearby city and getting a fancy dessert. So I thought I'd check her cell phone log and just now discovered she made a call to OM's cell on Friday night while I was working out at the gym. Not only that, but it was 17 minutes long! All her other calls have been 1-5 minutes in length, and she's said he wouldn't answer so she'd just leave a message. But there's no way a 17-minute message could be left, right? OM must've talked to her, right?

So now what? Should I re-contact OMGF to inform her of this? Should I contact OM? Tell him that I love my WW, am trying to save our M, and any contact with her is unacceptable? Expose to his friends or family? (His father works at same building as my WW) It could be that he finally told her it was over and he can't see her ever again because he wants to be with GF. So I don't want to be rash.

I don't think I should inform WW that I know about this, because it'll probably tip my hand and just drive her efforts deeper underground. She knows that I get the cell phone bill every month and that I look at it, but apparently doesn't know I can check it online on a daily basis.

Argh! I'm so frustrated with her doing this! Especially after she keeps telling me that she has a lot of trust issues with me due to my snooping and that I just need to trust her and not spy on her. Argh!

Expose to OMGF and OM's family, call OM and tell him to leave you and your WW the [censored] alone, delete his number from her phone (if it is stored there), expose again to WW's family, tell your WW that you will not continue to be disrespected by her. Then....walk away and drop the subject. Do it all in a calm, firm tone. I had to deal with this on several occasions until NC finally took.

Some might recommend plan B at this point, but if you want to get through this and save your marriage, I think it would be risky. She probably wouldn't move out and then since you don't have an extremely long history together or children, she will probably just look for another OM and run away from her problems. Her affair is pretty much dead, so you just have to fight through the breaches of NC and withdrawal until your meeting her ENs will finally start to break through to her.

Bguy,

She doesn't have to say the exact words "I FEEL" to tell you what she's feeling.

When she's venting, that's telling you feelings. Take it from there.

Ask the questions. You need to become in tune with the feelings that underlie what she is saying.

For example, when she vents that another person at the office is doing something that annoys her, you should recognize her feelings of:

frustration
annoyance
irritation
aggravation

When she vents that she feels someone is talking behind her back at the office:

betrayal
being teamed up against by others


You get the idea. Then, you can say something like, "I hear you saying that you might be feeling like the others are teaming up against you - is that right?" And let her tell you what she's feeling. If you have it wrong, she will tell you. Then, if you have it wrong, and she says something like, "No, I feel irritated and angry that they think I'm stupid." You can say, "I understand your being irritated and angry....." Let her take the lead. Support her venting - because she needs to have a place to vent ----------

and YOU are the safe place in Plan A.


YOU want to be seen as the man to go to for safety and understanding.

Work on understanding the underlying feelings that she is conveying, and take the time to try to state them back to her. Don't worry if you are wrong about it - if you think you are wrong, then ask her! Say, "I think I hear you saying you feel ________ about that. Am I right? Can you tell me more about your feelings on this? I want to understand your thoughts more clearly."

And LISTEN to her answer.

It isn't weird or strange to have someone tell you what they heard you say - what might be strange is that for the first time, you are now offering her a mirror and a listening ear. You are beginning to take the time to hear her emotions and process them back. It is a different kind of listening than you have done before - not weird, just different.

But it does make for intimacy, because you will begin to get more of a sense of what she MEANS by what she says

and THAT is what will make the difference in your conversations.


As for the question "where do we go to dinner"......

I have been in this situation with a passive-aggressive person before. What an annoyance.

Here's a neutral zone solution. Both of you write down five restaurants you like and put them on little slips of paper in a cup. YOU MAKE THE EFFORT TO WRITE DOWN FIVE YOU KNOW SHE LIKES - this is Plan A at its best. When the decision to go out to dinner is "up in the air" you agree that this will be the solution:

She can draw from the cup and choose the restaurant from the slip, or veto that restaurant and make the choice herself.

That way, if the slip doesn't cover the choice, she ends up making her own choice, and YOU are out of the loop entirely.

Because you have pre-loaded the slips with her choices anyway, the chances are higher that you end up somewhere she will like.

Your job is to smile, and LIKE every single place she chooses. Because you are in Plan A, and the restaurant really doesn't matter - it's all about the conversation right now.


As for situations like this, where the choices are forced and you feel cornered, think of a way that puts it onto neutral ground. Decisions are hardly ever binary choices in real life - there are often ways to place alternatives that make for better choices. You just need to think about ways to make that happen.

Yeah, I think this definitely ought to be brought to OMGF's attention and it also necessitates contacting OM (for the first time since discovery). *Sigh* I really wasn't looking forward to having to contact her again (and him for the first time).

I don't think I'm going to confront WW with the information just yet because I'd like to see what she writes to BFF about it. She never agreed to NC, but I made it very clear just a week prior that contacting him wasn't OK with me and if she DID contact him that I expected her to tell me about it right after the fact. She's always told me eventually and I'm curious to see how long she'll try and hide this contact.

WW's family knows nothing, but this may be the contact straw that broke the camel's back. Her family lives hundreds of miles away and she hasn't been in contact with her parents since Christmas. I think I will wait to see what she writes BFF about it (and what her response will be).

I'm definitely not ready for Plan B yet. I still have energy for Plan A (brought her breakfast in bed with fresh flowers this morning; gave her a backrub in the evening); my Plan A hasn't gone long enough (6 weeks); and I don't have B ready to implement yet. Doesn't Exposure to families come before Plan B anyway?

Jesus, just tell her family already. Why are you shielding her from the consequences of her actions?

I'm sure you know the general reason of why (fear of WW's reaction, WW family's reaction, etc.) but here's some more specifics:

Exposure can't be taken back and I only get one chance to make a first impression. So if I'm going to do it, I want to do it PERFECT.

Also, the general reason to expose is to put pressure on the WS to end the A. Because her family lives hundreds of miles away and has very little communication with her (Father didn't even call on her 30th B-Day last year) I have a low expectation of how effective their pressure can be.

I would like to find out what was discussed during Friday's phone call because that would give me more evidence to convince WW's family that the A is ongoing. Waiting until WW writes to BFF should give me that evidence. Because WW and OM have not seen each other for three months, I think WW could easily snow family with that point and simply spin the situation that I'm overreacting and being controlling.

BUT... I did call OM today three times from two different numbers (not surprisingly, he didn't answer). I left a message to call me but also said he needed to have no more contact with WW... forever.

I will try and contact OMGF today/tonight.

I gave captain some advice about Plan A seeing that he will be shipped off somewhere for army or navy duty. (sorry captain if i got this wrong) He said he would be home 6 months out of 2 years...let me find out what i told him and see if you can use it some how for your situation......

Ok these are ideas I gave when Plan A have to be implemented due to different locations of the spouses.
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/sho...e=0#Post3288888

I called OMGF's cell after I got off work and got no answer. I left a message that she should call me back because I had new information I had to share with her. She didn't call me back. I called again late in the evening and left a message that WW and OM had a 17-minute conversation last Friday night and it was not okay with me. I told her that OM and WW should not have any contact with each other ever again. Based on my original conversation with OMGF (she said OM didn't do anything and my WW was deluded), I don't know what she will do (if anything) with that info. I've now left messages for both OM and OMGF but if I don't hear back from either of them I will consider exposing to OM's father.

she's gonna be pissed, you should just expose at one big blow instead of here and there....exposing will be a LB...and might as well do it once and out of the way. That way she can't keep being mad at you and you withdrawing love units with each exposure.

Yep if there's anyone who needs to be in knowledge...(from you) do it all in the same day or weekend.

My exposure, I told maybe 10-15 people (family and friends), and then they told people who told people who told people.....lol....it was great because my H was mad but whenever it got back to him it was never anyone I told myself....ROTFLMAO. So he would still be mad but would calm down after I said..."Oh, you know how people talk but I never told suchasuch."

Don't consider exposing to OM's father, EXPOSE to OM's father. How will putting it off help you?

If you read my first thread (Affair over for OP but not for WS), you might remember that after I informed my WW in late June that I had exposed to OMGF, WW became very angry with me and lashed out verbally. This took place prior to my discovery of this site and I committed a lot of LBs that night, including AOs and DJs. It didn't help that we were both drunk (really regret that). I slept on the couch that night for the first time during our marriage. The next day I moved into our spare bedroom and have spent the past two months there. LovingAnyway had advised me to move back into our bedroom and last night I finally did. Although I didn't think she'd be happy about it, I didn't think she'd take it as badly as she did.

She refused to even come near the bed and asked me why I was there. I told her I didn't want to sleep in the other room anymore and couldn't think of a reason why I should. She reminded me that sleeping alone was helping her, so I reminded her that she had told me nothing had changed and she was still stuck in the exact same place. Thus, if nothing had changed in two months of me sleeping elsewhere, how was it helping her? Of course, this was logic and she had no defense against it other than to say that feelings and emotions aren't logical and don't work like that. She said my sleeping in the other room seemed like a good solution because it was either that or she would leave the apartment. I told her that sounded like a threat, she said it was not.

She said she preferred to sleep alone and I told her if she wanted to sleep alone, she could do so. 'Oh! So because I'm the bad person, I have to sleep on the couch, is that it?' I told her that I didn't think she was a bad person and she was welcome to sleep in the bed with me and invited her to join me. She said 'it's things like this that are pushing me away from you, your tricks and stunts like when you called OMGF.' I tried to assure her that my love for her was no trick. 'I'm supposed to believe you're just going to lay there and not try and snuggle up?' (Yes, god forbid I do that...) She said I needed to understand that she was not in the same place as me, not moving forward at the same pace as me, and I was pushing her too fast.

She reiterated a few times that this move was an example of how I don't listen to what she says and don't validate her feelings. I told her that I heard and understood that she doesn't want to sleep in the same bed with me, but don't agree that means I should sleep elswhere. 'Fine, I hope you're happy,' she said, before going to sleep elsewhere.

I felt like I did pretty well in standing up for myself without performing any LBs, except maybe Individual Behavior. But doesn't most of Plan A fall within IB?

She makes these kinds of comments..."'it's things like this that are pushing me away from you, your tricks and stunts like when you called OMGF"...

Tell her that none of these are 'tricks'. That everything you're doing is intended to IMPROVE your marriage. For example, telling OMGF was done intentionally...she deserved to know that he was cheating on her just like you deserved to know that your WW was cheating on you. And...moving into the bedroom was intentional. Sleeping on the couch wasn't helping, it was hurting. Moving back into the bedroom has made it clear that its your WIFE'S choice to sleep seperately...not yours. You WANT to sleep with her...SHE's choosing not to.

Tell her that you're doing everything that you're doing to SAVE your marriage...you actually do know what you're doing. Ask her what HER plan is. Ask her to explain how all that she's doing is intended to HELP the situation. Ask her to sit down and explain it all to her, and you'll gladly do the same with what YOU are doing as well.

Make it clear that you will sit down and LISTEN to how she suggests that you can improve/fix the situation. Tell her that you WANT to hear her ideas, and if they make sense, you'll gladly help her implement them. And at the same time, you'll ask the same thing from her.

That'll shut her up for a while. She doesn't have a plan, and she resents that you do. She can't defend her undefendable actions and behavior. So she'll either shut up about the whole thing, or maybe she'll even try that sit down with you...which is a great plan A opportunity for you!

jmwc95 you guys are the same age of me and my WH...dont know what happened to my signature.

You did a pretty good job. She'll be back in the bedroom eventually.

I had thought I'd give OM a chance to enforce NC, considering he had seemingly done so for 10 weeks.

BUT... I reconsidered and just sent an e-mail to OM's father. My hope is that he will do as I requested and impress on his son that he should have no further contact with my WW. My fear is that he will confront my WW at work, which will lead to WW confronting me and the revealing of my information source.

What, is she going to strap a car battery to your nipples? You don't have to tell her your source. Stop fearing her. SHE NEEDS TO FEAR WHAT YOU WILL DO IF SHE BREAKS NC!