So it is not uncommon for her to change the way she thinks about something from day to day? The one thing I worry about and the question I keep asking is would she ever consider being with OM again. The other day she said "100% Not!!" She says she could never trust him after all he has done? Before that her answer was "I don't think I ever would, but I would listen to what he had to say". Whatever the hell that means.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I am supposed to act during this "limbo phase". I mean do I act like a husband or what? I am confused as hell. We still sleep in the same bed, we snuggle at bed time and in the morning (which is more than we used to do). And when we are together and at home, it is almost like nothing ever happened, until we decide to talk about it.

I also have not given her a single chance to miss me at all since this came about a month ago. I have hounded her and smothered her with texts every day. I left her alone this morning and she texted me that she will miss me the next four nights (I work a second job usually 2 or 3 nights a week, but covering for some people on vacation).

I wish there was an instruction manual? I got one with my TV? Just kidding.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I am supposed to act during this "limbo phase". I mean do I act like a husband or what? Yep you sure do. In fact you act like the Best Husband you can find. You slowly get better at meeting her EN's every day.
For now quit talking about IT If you have all the information you need IT needs to quit being a topic.
Lead by example. She thinks intuition should be able to drive a M and it come naturally. We all did. Thats what got out intuitive smart selves into this mess. Your situation and her talk is really quite common on here. Her with fogbabble and your confusion on her fogbabble while riding the emotional rollercoaster.
Roll up your sleeves and quit trying to fix her. Fix yourself. She is telling you what to do in code.
1)She needs you to be open and honest and to make sure you never have another A yourself.Your first mistake was when SHE let you get away with your A. It can never be swept away and should have changed your lives then. Nows the chance to do that.
2) She needs affection. Nothing unusual there, Non-sexual affection is a need for her. One of womens top needs. That means you have to learn to meet that need.
3) Intimate conversation. Not about fixing anything just talking to her.We as men try to use conversation differently than women do. We are fixers they are vent-ors. Let her vent to you and do something you probably weren't. Listen! Ask questions but dont try and fix it.
I would suggest some AD medication to help with your anxiety. Quickly.
You must administer emotional release to her to have access to her body. And for most men, she must administer her body to have access to your emotions. Meeting Needs.
You are climbing out of a pit do it one hand over the other. Its going to take time. Maybe as long as a few years before it really starts to fade some.

Great advice Hils

Thanks everyone for all the great advice! It has definitely helped alot.

Hils-that was what I was planning on doing...being the best husband possible. Talk is cheap, so I need to show her that I mean it and that I am in this for the long haul.

Told her a little while ago that we need to start having date night, just the two of us, at least once a week. We did that for awhile, and then got away from it.

Thanks again for the advice.

LOL It helps me to do it by telling you to do it. You effectively help me more than I help you.
Im work in progress and my FWW has resisted and tugged the whole way. I know where you are. You are not alone.
Rule of Time is one of the most important rules of MB. Drop below 20 hours UA time and you will "feel it". Dates are a must do. Me and my FWW spend 20 hours per weekend easy and at least 15 during the week. I discount 40% of it as just Family Time or time wasted. So I make 20 hours just for "us".
Try a massage night after a bubbly bath. It does wonders for the soul and the mind. Repeated actions become habits. Repeat.

Jack,

You said

Why don't you give her some honesty. The answer to that quote seems to be "you are absolutely right, I did not love you as I should have. Partly because I was selfish, I had an affair DUH! and partly did not know what I was doing, how to do it, or when to do it." That is honesty, and I suspect it is really the truth as you two have separated before. You had no clue how to handle your dissatisfaction with your marriage so you had an affair. She had no clue how to handle her dissatisfaction so she had an affair.

Ask her why she had the affair, and she will/or did say it was because she wanted to feel loved. Let me ask you when you had your affair did you want to feel loved? My bet is yes.

You two are looking for the same things why not learn how to give each other what you need? Mention that to her.

You are willing to work with her to make her happy, if she will work with you to make you happy. Oddly, you won't be happy unless she is happy and she won't be happy unless you are happy.

Sit down and discuss this with her. No BS (not betray spouse), honesty. You two separated, you had an affair, she had affair, not because you loved on another but because you were looking for love, that each of you is capable of giving the other. Time for straight up honesty, that is what she is looking for right now.

Please read Harley's articles on the policy of radical honesty and the Policy of Joint Agreement, POJA. You will start to see how to rebuild your marriage. You MUST be honest with yourself and with her. She must be honest with herself and with you, which it seems she is trying to be.

Once that is done, then as you know that are steps each of you can take to recover this marriage. You and she can rebuild the love you had, but it takes time, and you both will ride the emotional rollercoaster for months to come.

She is still a little foggy, but hang in there Jack.

God Bless,

JL

We sat in bed and talked for a few hours last night. Some days I feel like we are moving ahead and making progress, and others I don't...but I guess that should be expected. It has only been five weeks since D Day.

Anyway, one of the main points I got out of last night's conversation is that my A three years ago was never really addressed properly, and alot of those feelings of betrayal and anger are still right there like it just happened.

Any suggestions on what the best course of action is to deal with this after three years? I want us to get past this since we did not address it properly three years ago. I want her to be able to start to heal adn rebuild trust.

I have had NC with the OW since it happened three years ago, I told my wife everything she wanted to know about it, which was not alot because it only lasted about two or three weeks. I am sure I need to make sure EP's are established on my end. I have been clean and honest for three years and realize every day that they was the biggest mistake I ever made in my life.

She also made the comment last night that if she were me that she would not stay with her after what she has done, because they "had such strong feelings for each other and even discussed a future together". I wanted to tell her that is fogbabble and whe will probably feel totally different in anothter month or two. But i did not...I just said that I have seen a lot of people on MB that have been through just as much of more than this and that have managed to recover.

Not alot of activity here today? Thought I would bump this up.

Any suggestions on what the best course of action is to deal with this after three years? I want us to get past this since we did not address it properly three years ago. Always Ideas. Give her a list of YOUR EP's. Do a list of things you will make sure to do that will protect you from having another affair. Think back to what should you have done? Once your satisfied with it make a few copy's. Give her one. Email her one. Put a copy in you wallet and save to your PDA if you have one. When you give it to her just give it. No discussions unless she asks questions.
Have you two ever discussed the details and you answered all of her questions about your A? If not its high time to give her the satisfaction as well. PORH applies to history as well as the future. Dr H may would say to expose depending on the circumstances. Was your OW married?
Her last statement yep is fog babble.

Hils-thanks for the advice. I did disclose everything to my wife that she asked about my A three years ago. The OW was not married. There were not a whole lot of details as we were only together twice over a period of about 2 or 3 weeks...not making light of it, just that there was not much to it. As for her A, I have heard lots of details, which in the beginning I found tough and thought I would regret it, but it was actually helpful because now I don't dwell on it and have to assume the worst (although it could not have gotten much worse).

I will make a list of EP's, although I am not sure if she is ready at this point for me to even give her those yet. She is still in a fog over her A and dealing with that.

Translation: She's trying to decide between you and OM.


Translation: She's trying to decide between you and OM (even if he isn't available, it doesn't matter) but realizes that you offer certain things that she needs in life. Fence sitting. Cake eating, whatever you want to call it.


Translation: Leave me alone while I figure out which way I want to go--with OM or you. You're bugging me and making me feel guilty, so I'll just try to blame it all on your affair from the past and push it onto you. I'll tell you that you're the problem, and that I'm insecure about how YOU are going to do with the marriage. Too, I'm having trouble telling whether you are being sincere with all these changes and didn't have such a hard time figuring out OM.

As my wife said all these things to me (though I never had an affair), I thought I'd ask if you are watching what she is doing online and via cell? If you haven't done so already, get a keylogger (www.eblaster.com is a good one) for the computer and spyware to capture cell phone calls and texts.

I'm worried for you that she will try to reconnect with this loser. Remember, rationality doesn't exist with a wayward, so you cannot rely on what "makes sense" when dealing with them.


So there's opportunity and this crap she's giving you is either big wayward fog or she's still in contact. And her fussing about your texting? It could very well be that your texts are arriving when she is talking with OM and causing her to feel guilty.

I hope I'm wrong, but you'd be surprised at how well they can lie. I'm sure you remember from your own experience.

Well said, stretch.

Where's that "Why it's too hard for a wayward to forgive" list that you wrote a while back? I never can find it, but it might help jack get a grasp on some of what his wife is spouting.

Your opening post gave us this:

Found out a few weeks ago that wife has been having an affair for about a year and a half. The OM is married and the OW is aware. There is no more contact between my wife and the OM.

NC is good. Your keeping contact with OMW is your best assurance that this affair will completely die. A specific NC letter from your WW to OM will also put an end to it.

She is still in a fog over her A and dealing with that.

Give us what you mean by "fog", to be sure we have the same definition.

• Are you implying that she still yearns for the times she and OM were together, re-casting the tawdry events as some kind of tragically romantic interlude? That would be what we usually refer to as "the fog".
• Is she instead not yet accepting EN's from YOU, that she previously accepted from OM? This would be more accurately called "withdrawal".
• Or is she slowly realizing the mess she caused, and the size of the "cleanup" that now faces both of you? This would be most likely "remorse".

in most cases, the three stages follow one another in the order listed, although it's easy to understand why some WS's slip back to the prior state when the current one gets very tough.

Okay...here we go. I can see all ot the activity on her cell phone, and i am going to install a keylogger on her laptop. I think she is between the first stage of fog and withdrawal. I think she might miss the phone calls as much as anything. They would talk for two or three hours at a time...this guy is like a girlfriend and will sit and talk to anyone for hours...about nothing. When we first met them i talked to him on the phone a couple of times and i have NEVER talked to anyone like thag in my life...he just talks and talks and talks.

Next, although neither he nor my wife work, his wife will be off for the summer after this week, and when she is off from work she is with him all the time.

As far as the texting goes, not.to make excuses, but i know i have.been impatient and beat some of these topics to death...if there is something she does not want to answer, i keep on hounding her until she gets pissed. She has actually been pretty open with me...too open and honest sometimes...because i dont always get the answersbi want to hear.

I believe she has been NC because of the way she is acting, not because of what she says. She seems depressed and kind of down at times, which i guess is expected.

Once (while W's affair was in full swing) our Sunday School teacher suggested that the marrieds in our class send random "I Love You" texts, etc. to each other during the day. I did, and my wife did a little, until she decided that I was smothering her.

The thing is, she was feeling guilty about what she was doing, and my routine texts were a bad reminder of where she was. Too, I wasn't fitting the "bad guy" role that she had invented to justify her affair.

Us poor BS's just sometimes don't know how to play by the wayward's rules! So, if you want to text an ILY to your wife, then do it. If that's the worst that she can find to complain about, then that's too bad

As far as her being depressed, yes, that's a good thing. But watch out that her "being down" doesn't end up with her calling OM just to see how he's doing. The trick is to be that person that she laments to instead of OM, the hard part is becoming that person.

So, hang in there and keep an eye open, it sounds like you're on the right track. Once the feelings for OM fade, you'll then be able to have "normal" conversations and get things moving. In the meantime, it's kind of rough sometimes.

Thanks North...if i send her texts like ILY she is great and replies right back with am i love you too...but no...i can't just leave it at that. I end up sending texts asking questions and such...usually the same questions...when i look back at them afterwards, i kick myself because it looks kind of ridiculous...but i am getting better.

And i am definitely keeping my guard up...especially since OM lives pretty close to us. My wife actually has been in contact with OMW about our kids getting together, because the kids have.asked about it...and i said no way....absolutely not.

Good call on the kids. I hope your wife thinks the same thing.

Yeah, try to think twice before sending off texts/emails that may start something (been there, done that!). It's hard to do that and not let things get swept under the rug, though. A good (read: good) marriage counselor can often act as a referee and manage those conversations that the two of you would normally escalate into a conflict.

As far as the kids, my wife realizes that this is not a good idea. I know she feels bad (which she should) that her and POSOM caused this, and now the kids have to suffer.

But today I have another question - something I have been obsessing over and it is driving me nuts.

When I ask her if she would ever consider being with OM, she says she could never trust him and she probably would not...but she would listen to what he had to say IF something like that ever came about. I then tell her that she is not closing the door on OM and is still leaving that possibility open, and she tells me no that is not true. Her stance has changed on this from day to day over the last five weeks...as some days she hates him, others feels bad for what she caused, blah blah blah...

She says I am obsessing over this...I tell her that we can't move on as long as she is leaving the door open. My biggest question - IS THIS FOGBABBLE from her, and is that why I get a slightly different answer from time to time. It drives me nuts. Plus, I don't think OM would ever be with her as he blames her for ruining his life by telling his wife everything, and now his kids know, blah blah blah...that POS made the decisions he made now he can live with them. But I have known him for about 4 years and I know he is one of those people that holds a grudge for life...as most of his business relationships have ended like this, as well as alot of friendships.

So should I be getting obsessed and worked up each day over her saying that "she would listen to what he had to say"? Or should I just kind of leave that topic be for a little while. It has been five weeks since D Day.

Thanks.

Jack,

I think you made a couple of mistakes here. First, never ask a question that you don't want to know the answer to.

Yes, the affair is still very much in the forefront of her mind. Yes, she would still consider going with OM. This whole process has been about her fence-sitting and not wanting to choose, so of course you already knew the answer.

Secondly, is she truely in no-contact? Can you verify this?

There is no moving forward unless there is 100% no contact. If there is iron clad no contact, then there will never be an opportunity for her to "listen to what he has to say".

No contact is the key here. Maintain no contact for life and you don't even have to ask this "what if" question.

Another thing,

From how you describe your texts to the conversations you have relayed here, you are not in your best plan A.

Plan A is about SHOWING her your changes and making yourself the most attractive option. That means keep the relationship talk to a minimum. Asking her multiple times a day how she feels about you and the OM and where the relationship stands is extremely counter productive. SHOW HER the best possible Jack and let her attitude change gradually without a lot of inquisition. And don't try to counter her fog babble, waywards cannot be reasoned with or be made to see the light.

Plan A is also about NO EXPECTATIONS. You have to stop analyzing every word or gesture to see if she is responding how you want her to. Just do you best plan A withou expecting anything in return right now.