Ending the A, for starters...and going NC. Don't the Harleys say that's the first, and biggest, act of "compensation" they can do?

Blocking him on FB, deleting any mutual friends, and letting me block his number from both our phones.

We've talked about IB and she has acknowledged that IB is bad and has agreed it doesn't have a place in our marriage--especially things like going out to bars or dancing without me. She will no longer do these things.

We *still* need to talk about some of the other conditions I need, which include strengthening boundaries (no male friends, namely).

She's been reading every article, MB and otherwise, that I send her. She has apologized several times, though I still want more. She has agreed to MC. She has said things like "I will work to make sure I never, ever hurt you this way again." Obviously words need to be followed by action.

So, she's agreeing to some of the conditions that would affairproof our marriage, but I know there is still a long way to go.

Today is one of those "I just can't do this" days. I'm having a hard time healing.

She's doing everything I ask of her...mostly. We've been spending ALL our time together over the past week. Great UA, very little LB (though we had a little episode Saturday night, which we got over pretty quickly).

The only thing I want more of, is sensitivity and an understanding of the depth of my wound. She said she was surprised I reacted so strongly to her A, because "I knew how unhappy she had been." It's true, I did. But it blows my mind that she expected me to be "more understanding" of her A. That alone tells me she doesn't quite grasp how badly she hurt me.

In our episode on Saturday, I had been melancholy all day... which sucks, plain and simple. I know if I'm too down all the time, I'm no fun to be around and she won't want to be with me. This was the point of plan A--being strong and confident, which makes you desirable. But somehow, I couldn't shake the mental images and depression on Saturday, it came out, and she complained that I'd been like that all day, and was "ruining our Saturday." I wanted to say "Do you know how many days you ruined for ME?" but I didn't, I just acknowledged it wasn't good for our M for me to be so emotional.

So I guess now I'm struggling to shake off the resentment, hurt, and anger, so I can build my M. I can't be such a downer all the time. Do I need antidepressants? Wouldn't that have SF side effects (I have SF confidence issues already, thanks OM!). How do others shake off the negativity so you can actually enjoy your time together? I get that SHE needs to help me heal (she's trying) but I do need to help myself too, and I'm a little frustrated. It feels like I'm in the same place I was a month ago, or worse.

It was good that you acknowledged.

It was bad that you did not "Do you know how many days you ruined for ME?" in a calm manner.

Then in the same calm manner ask WW, with her affair is over and does looking at her past actions during the affair make her sad.

Trickle truth.

Turns out there was OM #2. She just came clean. I knew there was a close call, and I reamed her for it back in December or whenever. She got mad, said I couldn't control her, because we weren't "together" anyway (duh, because she'd left me).

The "close call" was closer than I thought. It was making out, some groping--with a friend of a friend that was at our house. All kinds of bad decisions. So, no true "one night stand" kind of thing, but this still counts as OM#2 in my eyes.

She felt we weren't "together" so it shouldn't count as cheating even though it hurt me. In fact, she felt guilty for "leading him on" but... apparently didn't feel guilty about hurting me??

I am reeling. Not quite sure what I'm supposed to do now.

SW,

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20035363-10391704.html

64% of head, neck and oral cavity cancers are now caused by HPV!

While the statistics might be questionable, I would say that kissing is no longer trivial.

God Bless
Gamma

I am so sorry Stuck, try to stay strong.

You know they went all the way, right? They're not teenage virgins. They had sex. Your WW is trying to minimize it for you.

Sorry....

I don't know. I got a lot of detail on the entire night, and read a series of text messages between her and her friend who was also there that night. Based on that, I don't THINK they had sex, but then I can't really KNOW that, can I?

I'm really not sure what to do now. Give up? This was something that happened several months ago. There is nothing to expose (some mid-20s kid trying to get with my wife, who was claiming she was getting a divorce and could do what she wanted). "Exposing" this next act to her family or my family doesn't seem like it would do any good. I'm a little stuck.

She was, in fact, extremely remorseful when I pried her for details about everything. Which is a departure from the norm. I got a lot of "I was so stupid, I will never do anything like this again" and "I hate myself for hurting you, and hate everything that I've done" talk.

No matter how many people say "trickle truth is BAD, get it all out NOW," waywards rarely seem to get it.

I feel a bit like I'm back at day 1.

You are in a tough spot. You have already realized, from the beginning, it will be VERY difficult for you to get over the resentment. And your W is working in a field that lends itself to A's. What if she becomes more famous than she is now? A rock star? What of the temptations then?

Does your M have a strong enough foundation to heal? Does your WW value family and M enough to make the tough decisions?

It is hard to make these decisions when you are recovering from an A. She is fogged and not thinking clearly, and you are hurting.

My suggestion would be to get yourself to a place of healing, a place of forgiveness and then take an inventory your M, say in a year, determine if the threat still exists, are you set up for more betrayal, or are you fully recovered.

If you are not confident in your recovery, I would say it is time to let that wild filly loose, otherwise, continue to work on your M, it's a keeper.

So, like you wrote before, put in the work you know your M needs, do what you can to be proud of working for your M. But set a date you can look back at how much work there still is to do and make a decision about staying in or going.

My instinct about the situation is she is a renter, and you can't have a happy M with a renter. She may have always been a renter, or she may have been a buyer at one time and she is just a renter short time.

Look for the book, "Buyers, renters, freeloaders" (I think that is the title) and I think it has a new name now.

I've certainly thought of this. We both have. My inclination is that, in this place, her career will coast for a while without trending up or down. But we'll see. We, and others, jokingly call her a rock star already. This is the commitment stuff we really need to nail down before I can feel safe and secure--or leave...

My WW always had a very strong commitment to family, and I THOUGHT M. But I was wrong about her M commitment, clearly. Exposing to her family is the biggest reason her A ended the way it did (she values family very highly) but they provided terrible FOO examples of marriage commitment, so... I guess time will have to tell on this one too.


Funny you use this analogy. In the days after D-Day and before separation, she began weeping when the song "Wild Horses" came on the radio. She wanted to be "free" then.

Well... I think I will be taking your advice... and continuing with the MB program for a while. The last few days HAVE brought breakthroughs (remorse, agreeing to cut out male friends, agreement on boundaries), it's just a horrible shame that it had to come with the revelation of another possible A while I was out of the house.

Note to others: Do not leave your marital home. Lesson learned.

I always thought she was a buyer, but now I see she had a lot of renter tendencies. I'm going to have to watch those and see if I can help migrate them to buyer tendencies.

Killing the A is the easy part, isn't it. Recovery is the real challenge.

It's tough, you can't make a buyer out of a renter. there is only so much you can do, and the rest is on her. Do not make excuses for her, she knows what she did and what the consequences were.

So there is hope for change, but not much you can do about her. The part you can work on is you. So you become the best H you can be and after time if she is still renting, then you have your answer...

Do you have a time in mind? Some say it takes 2 years to fully recover from an A. Is that too long or too little?

True, all I can do is work on myself--I can't change her status as renter or buyer. I am working on being the best H I can be... seeing an IC, adhering to MB principles and working HARD to get away from Plan Doormat forever and be a strong, in(ter?)dependent, healthy H.

As for a timeframe--if things revert back to how our M was before the A, I don't think I could make it 6 months.

Assuming she holds up her part of the bargain the way she has the past few weeks, I could make it a year in this state.

But I do think that within a year, I'll need to see lasting change. 2 years is too long to wait, for me. I understand in 2 years I might still be feeling the pain... in 1 year, I will for sure. But I'm too young and unattached (no kids) to accept a marriage where I'm constantly worried about my W who can't keep her promises. If she is still backpedaling in a year, if she's still renting and trying to put the burden of our M entirely on myself, I'll have to throw in the towel.

I absolutely have hope right now, since she's shown so much progress in the last week or two. But... I'm too young to waste 2 years of my life *hoping* I'll be able to feel safe and secure afterwards.

Another reason trickle truth is bad... now, I find myself wondering and doubting if I know the truth about everything that happened during the period I was out of the house.

I guess I was naive to assume there was only the 1 OM, the man she left me for.

In my heart, I want to believe there is nothing else for me to know. But I can't wonder forever.

It's a shame this new OM came out when we were moving so well toward recovery. It feels like another D-Day. I had a great evening with her yesterday, but today am wracked by doubt again... which means I'll need to dredge up more gory details, which removes from $LB instead of depositing into it. I guess I can't feel bad about having to have more "affair talk" because it's her own trickle-truth that's dragging it out.

There's no hurry Stuck, I agree with taking your time and setting a date to check progress.

Even if you want to take a week or two now and just try to enjoy each other. You can wrestle with the demons about OM2 a little later.

Hang in there brother.

Love Busters attack. I've been reading Mortarman's threads from the past and have been getting tons of good information from them.... and now I see that Dr. Harley really is right, the BS is the one who poses the greatest risk to recovery.

I'd been good at avoiding LB's lately, but failed yesterday.

We've addressed OM2 to an extent--I believe she's telling me the truth about everything that happened... we've had some good nights, and visit #1 to a MC who proved frustratingly unhelpful. I'm not looking forward to our next visit on Monday. I'm really going to lay it all out there and say "can you help with XXX XXX and XXX?" instead of leaving the MC to smile fondly and say "looks like you guys are doing great!" which is all she did. No, we're not doing great, it's been 2 months since my wife ended her affair and I'm a wreck.

Anyway. Yesterday, she was talking about how her IC and her came to the conclusion that alcohol was bad. The first time OM and her really got physical, alcohol was involved. She went off on this for 15 minutes, and I finally interrupted by saying sharply "you didn't bother to listen to me during the last 2 years when I told you alcohol was dangerous for you?" It was a mix of AO and DJ. Yup, she hated that, and it was bad. She, in turn, AOed me. Our takers were out in full force. I felt like she was blaming her A on alcohol and not taking responsibility, thus the AO I had... not good.

We eventually recovered, but she has really strong IB... saying she needed to come to the conclusion that she shouldn't drink without me on her own, that my trying to tell her that would make her rebel. These IB's are going to be the biggest killer for our M, more than anything else.

She's still not on board with MB... some ideas, yes, but POJA and LBs, no. She doesn't see why IBs are bad. And doesn't want to talk to the Harleys because it's too much $$$, and think they'll just tell her what a bad person she is without blaming me for any of our problems.

It's still a rollercoaster. There are definitely times when I wonder, "Why should I keep trying?"

Stuck - I think I understand your frustration, but you should keep trying, because YOU care. If you don't care anymore about the ultimate prize, then I think you take a breather, make sure that's your 'final answer' and file for a D. Done! But be sure before you pull that ripcord though - that you've made peace with that decision. Can you look yourself in the mirror and say, 'I, Stuck, did all I could to save my marriage.'?

You're young and you have a lot of 'tomorrows' ahead of you, so take that into consideration as well. My first wife changed her mind about having kids, after we got married, and I was in my mid-30s at the time. That was a deal breaker for me, so be sure to reflect on ALL your hopes and dreams when approaching this decision. Don't be afraid to share those with your WW, with no pressure or expectations from WW. You need to do all you can to have a happy life and this decision is a fork in the road of life!

Stuck,

Is not really IB, it is childish thinking and represents a bigger threat to your marriage than her affairs.

A spouse that won't listen to another one, who won't accept that the spouse has her best in his heart, is not good marriage material. This isn't about love or no love, this about someone who has not matured enough to stop the childish rebellion. Rebellion to advice as a first reaction, is not a person capable of being a good spouse.

I think her telling you about OM #2 is a good thing, but I think that her basic philosophy of life is that of a child and frankly children don't make good wives, not to mention that pedophilia is really disgusting thing.

You have some serious decisions to make, and frankly you keep waiting for your W to make them for you. She will not, she should not, she cannot. Only YOU can make the decision but you really need to start looking at the data. You are both very young, and clearly she is even younger than her age.

Think about this.

God Bless,

JL

"she's agreeing to some of the conditions that would affair proof our marriage." SOME? You need a cold shower to wake up from your fantasy, bud.