Wex, it's funny though that this time she's acting the way she did and you reacted differently to her? Why don't you ask her that since the two of you are so confused and this counsellor doesn't seem to be working so well that maybe you need a change to find out which way you are going?<BR>Also, both of you can't make a good decision in such a confused state, that gives you more time to work things out. I am praying for you! God Bless!<P>------------------<BR>Chick's <BR>Bren<P>You won't see things until your ready to not be blind!<P><BR>

chick's - What I'd really like to see is my W stop seeing the guy who's her personal therapist. I know from my tap on W's phone that HE'S the one advising her to leave. He's telling her things like that I'm psychotic. (This is the word he actually used - I could kill him for that! Only kidding! And the guy doesn't even know me, has never talked to me by phone or in person.) I also know that he has a thing for my W. (Two reasons. One is that heterosexual men ALWAYS end up having a thing for her after any extended contact with her - she is a world-class fox, believe me. And two is her descriptions of their sessions - nothing out of line but she can tell that he likes her and I believe her.) So my theory is that there's an ulterior motive behind him telling her she has to leave the marriage when I know that she doesn't want to and cries every time she thinks about it. Your post just gave me an idea. I'm going to tell her that I know he's advising her to leave and I'm going to tell her that I think he's wrong and she should follow her instincts and stay instead of listening to some @sshole who just wants to get into her pants!<P>--Wex

Wex - Your wife sounds as confused as my H. The tee shirt deal was very sweet. I'm sure the therapist is having some effect on her. My therapist advised me to leave for quite some time ... now that we are separated he asked me out for lunch. (No, I had no desire whatsoever to go). I haven't been to him in a while, so maybe it wasn't unethical. <P>My H told me last Friday he is transferring with his company (six hours away). I cried all weekend and felt once again like my world had come crashing in. I prayed really hard all weekend and you know what -- Monday I had turned a corner. I've pulled rental info, etc off the internet and gave him. He's coming over tonight to cook, as our son is coming home for the weekend. Told him I'd visit when I could/when he wanted me to. I'm going to let him cool his heels down there alone for awhile before I go. He saw some new party duds in my closet and wanted to know what in the hell I had that stuff for! Let him wonder.<P>Wex -- hang in there. Hope the in-house separation works for you if that's what you want.

Wex:<P>I'm sorry for the late response on this. I agree with those that say this is at least some degree of resolution. It is painful, but I think there's more hope of getting things resolved now. Even if she leaves, it's possible that will help the situation. From what I can see, Plan A with her living there and cheating were only achieving one result - causing you tremendous suffering.<P>Her behavior indicates tremendous reason to hope. She still cares and says love isn't the issue. Great news! It can be worked out.<P>I wish you the best.

Wex, looking through spiritual eyes and not worldly eyes, It is possible your wife is struggling with a spirit of deceit.<P>I think you ought to go to the prayer section, and post a request to have others agree with you that the spirit of deceit would leave, and the spirit of truth inhabit your home.<P>I just don't have any other suggestions for your situation. Sometimes God is the best help we can have, even though we sometimes use God as a last resort.<P>I'm sure your wife loves you, but just is soooo confused from all the lies she hears, says, and believes. <P>and R & B to you tooo.<P>TNT

Wex, seems I'm always a day late....hang in there and take care of yourself. I know Chris said lay off the drinking and thats a good idea. Can't think clearly and focus when you overdue it. But I'm going out tonite and I will have one for you. <BR><BR>Sending you hugs...ATW

Hi, Wex: I just had a thought, as I was reading your latest post. It seems to me that your W and my H are very similar in their attitude/confusion/guilt, etc. Normally, when I get upset, the first thing I used to do, was try to outscream my H, and I got totally nowhere. A couple of sessions ago, I tried a different approach. We had been discussing how he never opens up to me about how he is feeling, and instead of the usual high pitched voice, I took his hand, and calmly told him that it was not his fault that he can't open up to me. It is the way all mothers, myself included, raise their children to be "big boys" and not to cry, and how they are the man of the house when dad is away, etc. <P>As soon as he realized that I was not finding fault with him, but rather that I understood how he was feeling, he opened up to me for the first time in a long time. <P>Maybe you could try that approach with your W? Instead of putting down her therapsit, accusing him of him of trying to get into her pants, maybe you can calmly explain that it is very difficult, not to mention unethical for a therapist to treat a woman that by her own admission, has shown some attraction to.<P>If you let her know that it has nothing to do with jealousy, but the will to fight as hard as you possibly can to save this marriage, maybe she will consider another therapist> I can't figure out why she would want to go a man, as I chose ours, and the first thing I wanted was a woman, assuming that she would be able to understand MY feelings. (Sounds kind of underhanded, I know!) I think it just might work.<P>I guess she is fighting her own demons right now, and when you put her on the defensive, it doesn't endear you to her, far from it! <P>Cute story about the T shirts. It was a nice gesture on her part to try to make you happy. I probably am one of the few here, that doesn't believe that your wife will leave you. Geez, if I had a nickel for every time my H threatened to walk out the door and leave, I would be dictating this letter to my personal secretary. I think thae threat of her leaving, is to make you "cool it" for awhile. Just a speculation, of course.<P>Let's face it, at this point, you have tried everything else, so why not give it a shot? Good luck, and keep us posted. <BR>Sending more hugs to you (((((WEX)))))<P>------------------<BR><BR>SUCCESS STORY<P>

Wex,<BR>I'm sorry things are getting worse.<P>2 thoughts:<BR>1) I've done in the in-house separation and it is perhaps worth a try, but I found it far more difficult than an actual separation, because I knew when he was out and he refused to have any accountability as to where he went or when he might come back.<P>2) I have a male counselor and he has a female "sit-in" someone who is a counselor-in-training and is mostly just a physical presence, although if she has something to add, she may do so and of course what I say is confidental to her as well. If the sit-in isn't available, the door remains ajar. It gives me a lot of confidence in my counselor's willingness to safeguard me in a vulnerable time. And he can validate me as a beautiful, intelligent, wonderful woman without me feeling like he might be hitting on me. Just a thought for what other types of counselors ARE out there.<BR><P>------------------<BR>Lor<BR>"Do not get tired of doing what is right, for after awhile you will reap a harvest of blessings if you do not get discouraged and give up. (Gal 6:9)<P>

Wex,It sounds like you've pretty much come to terms with it. Good for you. You reach a point when you tell yourself " no more bullets, I'm outta here. Idiots are giving her bad advice and she is listening to it.<BR>Step back and ask yoursef if one bullet is worth it. <BR>I am awed by your perserverance thru all of this but you need to help yourself now.

Wex,<P>I hope you weren't serious about not interfering with her "personal time" refering to if she wants to spend time with the OM that its OK with you. <P>I love my W very much and really would have liked things to work out. I will damned in H@ll before I would condon her seeing the OM. I have most recently found deep love for her, that's a real breakthrough for me, and am very sorry for causing her any pain. I would rather let her go and she find the happiness that I could not give her as oppossed to watch her throw our marriage away.<P>Just my opinion for what it's worth. I woke up this week. <P>Wishing us all the Best.<P>Medic, yeah I'm still here<BR>

Hi Wex(my favorite PI)<P> Just a bizarre thought , you don't think she's having the affair with the therapist, do you? I'm suspicious of everyone , can you tell? Hang in there Wex.........Lu

Dear Wexwill:<BR>I am so sorry that it turned out this way. But, I am glad that you seem to have your head on straight. It sounds like you've been doing alot of thinking and preparation for what you knew would soon come to an end. I know you will probably have your highs and lows because this is not an easy thing to go through. Again, sorry for what has happenned, but glad that you are alright for now. Will you still be posting after this or not? Just wondering, since you have good insight and have alot of good responses to other members including myself.

Everyone - Another update. Tonight we're going to be sleeping together again. Truly amazing. My W says this is so that, "We can wake up together" and get her to the airport on time. Oh yes, she's going on a week-long trip to family in AZ. (Of course, I also suspect she's going to rendezvous with OM there too, because she set this trip up out of the blue about a month ago. Usually she travels for professional reasons, but this time no.) But we're getting along better now again and even having some sexual fun and games now and then (though no lovemaking - supposedly might be on the agenda tonight but I'll believe it when I see it. When she makes promises like this, she hardly ever performs.)<P>MEDIC - Yeah, that was what I meant. Guess I wimped out on that one, huh? But when it came down to it, I realized how much I didn't want her to leave physically and live at a separate location. So I decided to suggest this "in-house separation" if she really wanted to separate. Turns out, maybe she doesn't after all!<P>fighter - I thought I'd come to terms with it but maybe I haven't (see my reply to MEDIC). I guess what I've come to is that I might even be willing to try something like an open marriage if that's what she wants (she claims she doesn't). Now she seems to have backed down some from the idea of leaving and seems to be showing me a little more respect. I did tell her that she COULD leave if she wanted to and that I wouldn't try and talk her out of it. But then I told her I didn't want us to split (was that trying to talk her out of it?)<P>Lor - Thanks for the info on in-house separation. It would be tough because we'd be seeing each other all the time, I guess. As to therapists, I probably am overreacting a bit to what I heard hers say to her on the phone. But I'm not going to have somebody who doesn't even KNOW me dismiss me as a psycho and then advise my W that she's GOT to leave me. I'm telling you, for a while I thought about confirming his opinion of me by going after him!<P>why me - My W threatens to leave just about every time we have a serious fight. I used to do the same thing until our couples counselor suggested that I should stop doing this unless I really meant it, which I obviously didn't since I was still in the marriage. So I actually did stop making this threat. And the funny thing is, it wasn't till I stopped that my W started! (Marriage!) This time, though, she sounded more serious about it, I'm not sure why. I think partly because she did bring it up in our couples session and our counselor bought into it. Our fights the last few weeks have been over my drinking versus her affair. Every time she brings up my drinking (I'm ashamed to admit, because I know this isn't really fighting fair) I bring up her affair (well, it is the main CAUSE of my drinking, after all). I am going to stop doing this because it doesn't get us anywhere.<P>ATW - Thanks for the thoughts and hugs. Hope the one you had for me was a good one. I know I'll stop when this stuff gets resolved. Hard to do it until then, but I do try and drink responsibly, not drive and not get drunk.<P>TNT - You know, I may do that. I'll think about it. I certainly believe in prayer and the efficacy of prayer even though I am not what most people, I think, would call a practicing Christian. (I do believe in spirituality and the spiritual realm, I just have different ways of talking about it and accessing it.) And when people tell me they're praying for me, I know that means they have me in their thoughts and I feel supported.<P>Distressed - Yes, the way things have been going the last few days, there is hope. She hasn't packed her bags yet (except to go on her trip to AZ) anyway. Which reminds me. I've got to bring another suitcase up from the basement for her....<P>Janie - Now I'm even more paranoid about my W's therapist. It sure sounds like your guy might have been telling you to leave your marriage so he could have a chance. Do you feel this was really the case, since he did, after all, ask you out? (I think it IS unethical to advise someone to leave a marriage and then turn up asking them for a date after they've left! - Glad you turned him down.) Also, was your therapist's advice the main reason you left? This is interesting. Your situation sounds similar to my W's. Wonder if you could provide a little more info and backgound?<P>R & B to all,<P>--Wex<P>

Dear Wex,<P>I'm not very far behind you I fear. My wife is at the OM's right now and this time she took my daughter. Things must be getting pretty serious for her to do that.<P>Guess it's time for me to start packing things that belong to me.<P>Sorry to hear what you are going thru...I know how bad it feels...I'm there too.

Lu - Don't know how I missed you 1st time around! And you were at the top of this page! Yeah, I am too. Really don't think it's the therapist though, because I'm pretty sure her affair started quite a while before she started seeing him. I have a VERY strong sense that she's stayed with just this one guy who's the OM -- oh, great, at least she's being faithful to SOMEBODY -- from the time even before we got engaged until now. Just my feeling. No, I think it's her therapist's idea to separate her from me and THEN put his moves on. Much more "ethical." (Yeah, right! -- and he's married too, the dork!)<P>John - If my W actually left me, that would be it for me. She would have to make the move to reunite, I wouldn't. I went through the same thing with W #1 and once we split, it was sayonara. No looking back. She would have had to apolgize for all the pain she'd caused me and she just wasn't willing to. I guess I do sound cooler with this than I actually am, esp. w/ W #2, whom I love beyond belief and so tend to make concessions to that I never would have made w/ W #1. And, oh yeah, W #2 does take advantage of this. R & B,<P>--Wex <P>

Hey Wex,<P>You know what? You sound better, amazingly enough...<P>I will never forget how you describe your beautiful W, and continue to wish you loads of blessings...<P><P>------------------<BR>~Sheryl<P>Marriage: the most important contract you'll ever enter into, and the most sacred.<P><BR>

Wex,<BR> I'm pretty new here but have followed your posts. Question? Are you both Christians? Is the lameo counseler a "Christian" counseler? That may make a difference. If you can't get her to switch if need be, B'er I guess. What can you lose? Although, 4 months (from what I've read) isn't a long time for A.<BR> I used to date a girl (17 years ago) that traveled with me to Dart Tournaments around the US, I guess (?) I was using her for conveinent sex and her me because she had never traveled.<BR> Once the "high" of traveling wore off, we split. Our relationship never survived "the light of day" GOOD LUCK AND I'm praying for you. FRANK<P>------------------<BR>desperate<P>

HI wex, it sounds like you feel better about things! Sometimes a plan is good-takes you out of limbo for a little while to regroup. Might be nice to be alone for the week to think about just you? <BR>YOu are a ver7y patient man! cl

Hey Wex, <P>You certainly are on the rollercoaster ride aren't you? I'm glad you are feeling better.<P>I'm in AZ <P>SHA

Wex, glad you are feeling somewhat better. Your wife really sounds confused. I would bet she ISN'T ready to seperate. <P>No, I left because I was so tired. H would go days with this pained look on his face sitting in his chair in front of the tv. I just felt like a stranger in my own home. Also, felt like if we sold the house and got some of the debt load off it would help his attitude. Kids, college, etc, etc, had credit cards pretty used. He was pissed. For years I've tried to get him involved but he sat around not paying attention. We've got a handle on that now. He is transferring with his job and I feel like if the job works it will help his attitude. I also left because I knew our situation would go on for years if I didn't do something. He could be mean and emotionally sadistic to me at times. Mental illness sucks. We basically spend the weekends together (no overnights -- he lives with mommy). What would she think????? That's like the time my dad was helping us move and he found a condom wrapper under the bed!! He told my mom with a pissed off tone. My mom told him it was a shame the newspapers didn't get the flash that his virgin daughter had just had a baby. what's that about?? I'm rambling.<P>Anyway, I love my H and wish he could come to terms with what he perceives as past failures. Don't know if he'll ever come out of it. Hope your wife gets a clue soon. It sounds like she has a great man waiting for her.