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TC,
Are you really willing to fight for your wife? Does she know that you will fight for her?
Rolling over and accepting her continued affair is NOT fighting for her it is accepting whatever comes along. It places control of your future in the hands of OM who will eventually end the affair with your wife and move on to his next conquest. You can save her from that TC. But you have to FIGHT for her.
Right now she has no respect for your boundaries because you don't enforce them. Having a boundary and protecting it are two separate issues. You can state that you will not accept a marriage with OM in it all you want but until you demonstrate that you will not accept it you are not making the boundary something that defines you at all. And that is all a boundary can do is define YOU and what YOU will and will not do and what you will and will not allow in your life. It will be your enforcement of the boundary that will have an effect on your WW not drawing a line in the sand.
Your position is that you want a marriage without OM involved in it. Her position is that she wants to keep you for the safety, for the stability and for the support she needs but she wants OM for the fun, the feelings and the excitement....
Oh, and for the sex...
She is willing to accept things as they are because that is how she wants them to be. You have gained nothing by sitting pat.
If you want to try to enforce the boundary without throwing her out as the only recourse then find other consequences for its violation that can make ending the affair better than continuing it. Unless she feels that married with no OM along for the ride is better than what she is doing she will stay just like she is for years! You have to provide the impetus to change, TC. That is what fighting for her means.
Unless you like living like this enforcement will eventually come down to throwing her out. Unless you are willing to lose you can't play and if you don't play you can't win. In order to win you must be willing to risk losing.
Make not ending the affair less comfortable than maintaining the status quo and things will change...one way or the other, but at least you will know what you are going to do. Make married to you better than boinking OM or she will continue to boink OM and make not boinking OM harder than boinking him or she will still be boinking him till HE decides the affair is over. If that happens she will be destroyed, you will no longer have the will to fight and recover and you will not have done anything to help her and protect her at all. You can be her hero but not if you sit by and watch this unfold.
If you want to watch, buy tickets...
If you want to fight, start swinging...
Do something, TC, even if it's wrong...
Mark
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All of you are right, I need to do something. But the fear of doing the wrong thing, the fear of driving her away, is crippling right now.
I have a session with Steve Harley tomorrow, and am putting together a list of questions and topics I want to discuss. #1 on that list is the issue of setting boundaries and enforcing them.
Many of you have been surprised, and have not agreed with Steve's recommendation from my previous 2 sessions with him. Maybe that is due to the fact that I only have an hour with him, and it is near impossible to give him all the details that I have posted on this forum concerning my sitch. So, I am looking for suggestions from all of you. From your point of view, what are the most critical things you think Steve needs to know to better understand where I am in this process. Given that we only have an hour tomorrow, I want to make sure I don't waste any of it.
So far, here is my list:
1) I need to set boundaries and enforce them. So far Steve has recommended not kicking her out or going to plan B. So, how can boundaries be enforced without plan B.
2) As far as I can tell, via email and GPS, she still tries to contact him, but there has been no response from OM. She knows I have access to email, yet does not try to hide her emails to him. The emails are not the type of emails that went on before d-day, but they are definitely unnecessary, almost like they are probing him for a response. Still seems to think they can still be friends.
3) has not responded to attempts to get her to read MB basic concepts or participate in counseling.
4) Tells me I make her feel like a kid in trouble with her father. She says she feels like I am always checking up on what she is doing.
That you all for taking the time to attempt to help me. Everything you have recommended makes sense, and I wish I had the courage to go through with it. However, when much of your advice conflicts with Steve Harley's it adds to my hesitation. hopefully tomorrow's session will go well. thanks everyone.
Me, BH - 26
WW - 27
d-day - 10/28/08
d-day 2 - 12/15/08
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I think you need to tell Steve what you want. If you want to save your marriage at all costs, he is going to give you different advice, than if you say you just want her affair to be over, and if she chooses her job and OM, then you are okay with that.
She continues to treat you like sh1t, and has no respect for your marital boundaries. She has shown little commitment to you, but rather just appears to favor the status quo.
She continues to be in contact w/ OM on a near daily basis, communicating with him at work for non-related items. The contact continues to get worse lately.
She has lessened the sex.
Oh, and another thing, the next time she tells you that she feels like a child in trouble with her dad tell her that she's got it wrong. She's a wife in trouble with her husband for cheating on him. She is not like a child in that she can leave whenever she wants to. If she doesn't like the "rule" of marriage, she can let the door hit her in the [censored] on the way out, but you won't continue to allow yourself to be mistreated by her. The only reason she is being watched is because she has proven herself to be untrustworthy. Grow a pair.
Jim BS - 32 (me) FWW - 33 Married 8/31/03 No kids (but 3 cats) D-Days - 8/25/06 (EA), 11/3/06 (PA) NC agreed to - 11/8/06 NC broken - 11/28/06, 12/16/06, 1/18/07, 1/26/07, 1/27/07 Status - In Recovery Jim's Story
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I don't think you should tell Steve about boundaries and stuff. He is a pro.
He will want to know:
1. What you are doing in Plan A.
2. Whether your W shows any sign of getting on board with recovery.
3. How much gas you have in your lovebank.
Frankly, it sort of sounds to me like your WW got dumped. After d-day mine did too, OM wanted his W not mine.
So, she's hurting and in withdrawal, maybe. She is only going to give you so much opportunity to Plan a and make lovebank deposits...attempts beyond that make just become annoying Behaviour, which seems to be what she is telling you.
Maybe you just have to wait it out now.
Anyway, layman's opinion see what Steve says.
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Mike, you pretty much summed up Steve opinion of the situation. Frankly, it sort of sounds to me like your WW got dumped. After d-day mine did too, OM wanted his W not mine. This was Steve's conclusion too. He said that while her attempts to contact him are not good, the fact that he isn't replying indicates the affair is dying a natural death.
Me, BH - 26
WW - 27
d-day - 10/28/08
d-day 2 - 12/15/08
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That doesn't mean that she won't move on to OM#2.
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That doesn't mean that she won't move on to OM#2. Which I've seen happen on these boards. TC, how much abuse are you willing to take?
D-Day 28 Feb 06
Plan D (Not by choice) - 24 March 06
DD6
DS4(Twin1)
DS4(Twin2)
She moved away with the kids April 08. I contested it and got a lot more time with my kids. She's unhappy that I want to stay involved in their lives and don't settle for being an "every other weekend" dad.
Never going to happen.
Ongoing personal recovery through the help of friends, family, and DC United Soccer!
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That doesn't mean that she won't move on to OM#2. Which I've seen happen on these boards. TC, how much abuse are you willing to take? She basically got off scott free with having an affair and suffered no consequences. She has not changed her poor marital boundaries and has no committment to your marriage. Also, who cares if she got dumped. Okay, the affair is off for today. What about tomorrow? They still see each other at work everyday. It will just lay dormant until something happens in OM's marriage again. And she will still be fixated on OM and will treat TC like crap.
Jim BS - 32 (me) FWW - 33 Married 8/31/03 No kids (but 3 cats) D-Days - 8/25/06 (EA), 11/3/06 (PA) NC agreed to - 11/8/06 NC broken - 11/28/06, 12/16/06, 1/18/07, 1/26/07, 1/27/07 Status - In Recovery Jim's Story
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I'm just saying she's seems awfully open to someone else meeting her EN's since she won't let TC.
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Totallyconfused, I am going to start this post off by ripping you a new one.  Under what model is it correct to be dishonest with your W? Under what model is it correct to ambush your W? Under what model is it correct to throw your W under the bus that is your Vengeful mother? I can go on, but I will stop with these questions. You have FAILED your W big time. I know she is the WS, but YOU have decied to recover this marriage and apparently she has agreed to do so as well. IF this is the case YOU are supposed to support and protect your W as you would expect her to do with you. You have failed. Your mother has an agenda. It is normal. She wants to protect her child. She feels you incapable of protecting yourself or that you are so weak you cannot handle what life has thrown at you. It is time you stood up for yourself and your W. 1. Tell your W that your folks know of the affair. 2. Tell your mother that she can forget a discussion or an apology from your W during Thanksgiving. It is a time for family and it is a time to giving thanks and deep discussions with your WS about her decisions and I am sure the associated guilt trip are not part of this celebration. 3. Your mother and W should talk, but YOU should control the agenda and the discussion. These women are important in your life and it is your job as the son and the husband to make sure both understand where they stand in your life. 4. I would STRONGLY recommend you read Harley's four rules for a good marriage, and one of them is protection. I would also strongly recommend that you read about "radical honesty" and the concept of the Policy of Joint Agreement, POJA. You should NOT be going to your folks unless it is POJA'd before hand. 5. It is time you stood up and become a man that both women can respect and that just may mean that neither is happy with you. You can acknowledge your mothers need to protect and possibly need for revenge, but you MUST understand that you must protect your W from that very thing. It is time you got honest, you took control, and you decide what is important in your life, and I would urge you to consider integrity in your dealings with both women to be the starting point. Your mother needs to know that you don't have your head where the sun don't shine, but she also needs to know that you value your vows to your W, you value your marriage, and you are and will fight to preserve this marriage as long as your W is willing to do her part. You need to express to your W that at sometime, SOON, she and your mother need to talk and lay down the weapons, you may have to mediate this discussion. These are the two most important women in your life, it is time they KNOW you understand this and you will in fact stand up to both of them because of it. Now get to work being the son and husband you are supposed to be. God Bless, JL so wish someone would say this to my H. mummy or me dear?
Me WW: 34
BH/WH: 36
Married 3 years
Together 9 years
DDay: 3/10
NC: 7/100
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