My wife and I have been dating since she was 17 and I 20- now 23 and 25. We were married in August of last year, when we were living with friends. We moved into our first marital home together after a few months, and I thought everything was great. She finished her degree prior to our marriage and I had some school under my belt, but dropped out. After my sister graduated from college I renewed my desire to finish school, and we agreed that she would work full time while I quit my job to go back to college.
About three weeks into the semester, she moved out. In retrospect, I understand what caused this...I was having my emotional needs met, but hers weren't, and when she tentatively tried to address this with me, I responded from a place of denial. This led her to feel like I was "boxing her in", being happy with her if she acted within the box, but unhappy and upset if she was outside of it. I understand, admit and accept that I did act out these behaviors, and that that was not a loving way to act in a marriage. At the same time, though, I think that she was not making a sincere effort to communicate those problems to me. I felt like I didn't hear anything about most of it until she was leaving.
I was devastated, and went into deep denial. I was trying to get her back this week, or this month, etc. while still not really admitting to myself what my problems were. I have only really come to terms with the problems I brought to our marriage since D-Day, and haven't been able to discuss it with her, though we have our first couples therapy session on Thursday.
She became increasingly distant from me over the course of the separation, and now I know why: she was seeing a co-worker. I don't know the extent of their involvement, but strongly suspect that it was emotional and physical. I know that I was not meeting her emotional needs and that she responded by finding somebody who would; I also know that emotional connections lead to physical connections. We are going to be discussing the extent of her involvement with him on Thursday, but until then all I have is speculation.
I've read this board quite a bit since D-Day, which was on Friday (1/16/09). My suspicions had been growing for a while-- not only because of her increasing distance, but because of a few charges on our joint checking account clustered in a particular neighborhood that she hadn't previously been visiting much. A few weeks ago we were spending some time together and she was texting back and forth heavily-- when I gave her a look about it she told me that one of her close friends was texting her constantly. On D-Day she called me and asked me if I wanted to spend some time with her after work-- I thought this was really nice since we hadn't seen each other in 2 weeks. She came over and we had dinner, everything was going nicely (no intense emotional conversations that caused her to withdraw love units), but then she got a text and it just set me off. The friend who she claimed had been texting her previously is out of the country, so I knew it wasn't her. When she got up to leave the room, I looked at the text...it said, "did you get home ok beautiful?"
I confronted her about it, and she admitted to being involved with someone. He's an ex-coworker of hers (he recently got laid off). Again, I don't know what their level of involvement has been, so its hard for me to know how to approach this. Previously in our relationship I had been in a similar situation...problems perceived, needs not met, met someone at work, pursued them, then realized what a mistake I was making and went back to my wife (then girlfriend). She took me back and we were able to pick up where we left off. I explained this to her and told her that I understood the essential source of the affair, and how it unfolded. I told her that I accept her no matter what happened between them, and could forgive her because I really, truly love her and want to win her back.
We have therapy on Thursday as I mentioned, and I know she's indecisive about what to do. At this point I haven't talked to her since the day after d-day. I've realized a lot about the flaws I brought to our marriage since then, but haven't talked to her about it because when we talked on Saturday I told her that if she needed the time between then and Thursday to really think about things, I wouldn't call her.
I think she was with him last night, because there was a charge on the account from the area referenced above. I don't know what may have happened, and that's what really sucks about this...I've read so much on this site and others about how these affairs develop and play out, and while I want to make a sincere effort to reconcile, I feel two things may prevent this:
1) The fog.
2) I think she feels that I have emotionally manipulated her in the past. This is especially difficult because I feel like she may have a resistance to any sincere thoughts I share with her.
I have a therapy session for myself on Wednesday, but I need to know what to do/say on Thursday to get through to her. I need her to understand that I am truly sorry and that I understand that I betrayed her trust first, by not listening when she needed me to. I am committed to resolving these flaws no matter what happens, and I know that (at least as of our last conversation) she is still undecided about what to do, so I think I still have a chance.
How should I proceed? I know that I can't beg or plead, and that I should approach the situation thoughtfully and respectfully. I know that if we're going to reconcile she needs to cut off contact with him, but I'm afraid that the scales are tipped powerfully against me-- he is meeting most, if not all, of her emotional needs right now, and their love bank must be quite brimming, while ours is running on empty. I'm not sure she'll be willing to cut off contact with him as she's still in all likelihood still addicted...but I really don't know.
Help me...please.
