So much for God wanting her to be with OM.

She's apparently misreading the "signs".

Clearly God's gone to great lengths to see that she stays with you....WHERE SHE BELONGS.

If she needs "space" clear her a corner in the garage or basement.

Mr. W

p.s. - I'm glad she "trusts you financially" right now but YOU shouldn't trust her. One visit to an attorney and she'll be cleaning out any and all accounts. It's the very FIRST thing attorney's will advise her because THEY want to be paid and they also know the party with the most money WINS. Be proactive to protect yourself and your children. At the very least, open an individual account and transfer a substantial portion of any and all FAMILY savings into it (for protection only). You have 2 kids so you can safely withdraw 75% (25% per person) - JUST TO BE SAFE. If you have retirement accounts you MAY choose to "borrow" money from them and hold them in CASH. If you have joint money back in the states...switch it too. Change your direct deposit too...so you control the account that receives it otherwise she'll just happen to clean you out within the hour your paycheck is electronically deposited that particular week leaving you nearly penniless. Sure...it doesn't happen EVERY time...but it happens enough. You've been warned.

p.p.s. - You'd probably like the thread "The Art of War". You've done a good job of SEEMINGLY being her friend...just don't get caught up in the role. However, she is really NOT your friend and if you ever do divorce continuing a friendship with her is a terrible example to set for you children (that one MUST maintain relationships/friendship with people that abuse us) You ARE her husband and the father of those kids...she needs a HUSBAND to stand up and fight for her.

Dr Harley, clinical psychologist and founder of Marriage Builders, speaks to man whose counselor tells him to: "sit on the sidelines while his wife has an affair." Dr Harley tells him might have waited too long and has lost his marriage because of this approach.

Dr Harley addresses the differences between a proactive approach and a passive approach:
part one

Part Two

In short, a complacent approach gives the impression you don't care very much.

In this clip, Dr Harley tells a betrayed husband to expose his wife's affair and do not offer forgiveness. [this man saved his marriage] click here

MrWondering,

Thanks for the advice. I have read many of your other posts and you are always spot on. I do also feel she is misreading the signs and God wants us to be together. it is hard for me to explain what has happened otherwise and this gives me hope.

I am having trouble finding The Art of War thread. can you point me in the right direction?

BH

MelodyLane,

I am unable to play the radio links you provided (page loads but never plays). Is this something others have had trouble with?

BH

Understood maritalbliss.

BH

Sorry, blackhawk! Go to this page, http://www.marriagebuilders.com/radio_program/

click on search archives, and then select the date May 28, 2010. Play the 3rd clip, BTintrouble. It should work for you. And I will try and find the others too.

I bumped it for you.

Thanks, saw it, great stuff! I remember reading Sun Tzu alot when younger, but never thought it would apply to my marriage. It is sometimes funny how life prepares you for something and you do not realize the importance at the time.

Got it all Melodylane, thanks again.

So OM died from an appedectomy?<sp> Had two wifes and was having an affair..I smell medical issues that also led to his death. Maybe drugs or alcohol, but not being disrespectful for the dead, we don't want to talk about that now anyways.

The metaphisical crap is what I wonder about. How can you compete with a ghost? You can't, and your not supposed to. Neak did well telling you about the living God, and it is the breathe of life that matters, as we strive to live in the truth and life.

Yeah sounds like the crazy rantings of the other friends, add to her confusion. But just like any other fantasy affair that is based on running away from what we have to face in our relationships, the people on this site have given you the real deal and the way to bring this marriage back into the real world.

Romans 13:11
And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.

If she can be shown back into the reality of life, and be brought out of the dream world she is embracing, she has a chance of recovering.

Follow the advice from these sage people and DR H, and wake her up.

God Bless

All,

Again, thanks for all the advice. I am currently on a business trip outside of the country and want to get those last credit cards away from her when I return this next week-end before affair exposure to mom (I want to be there for kids in case she loses it), and then talk with her on what she needs to do to stay in the marriage and how she can earn forgiveness. Our contact now on my trip is when I Skype her to read to our kids. She responds with minimal words and is sometimes rude. I do not take the bait though and let this go without being angry and focus on the kids. We had some pretty open communication the night before I left, where i told her our problems are solvable and she said no, that she does not love me anymore, it is too late, etc., but she got up later to see bye to me. While I am away, should I be trying to speak with her?

A couple of questions:

1. Before I left I wrote her a brief letter telling her how I do not deserve to only have my mistakes remembered (she has built up all of this resentment/emotional wall, I think during her psycholgist sessions pre-EA, on all the things I have done wrong in the marriage, things like in her eyes neglect, not being emotionally supportive, etc.), said what about what I do well, and closed it with words that I would be thinking things through on this trip with the implication that I will not stay in a marriage as described (and I was planning on telling her this directly when I returned regardless). My goal on that was to try and retake control by planting seed and then telling her that I will leave if she does not change. When I landed I did not text her as I normally do, so she Skyped me later asking why I did not text? I just said I was busy unpacking. Thoughts?
2. Plan implemetation: (1) call her mom, ask for support in saving the marriage; (2) sit her down and explain what I need to continue in marriage and explain the reality in black and white terms of what it will mean if we begin divorce. What reaction can I expect/plan for do you think? Breakdown? Grab kids and run?

Am I over analyzing this? I am worried about timing, when to do what, how much time to elapse between exposure and "the talk", or begin same day in parallel.

Blackhawk

My suggestion would be to expose to your MIL in the morning and ask her to contact your wife and try and talk some sense into her. Then when you get home that night, your wife will be screaming and ranting and raving. [is there anyone else you can enlist? Any close family or friends? pastor? if so, have them call her that day too.] That is when you set her down and have a TALK with her. Tell her how it is going to be. That you will not cooperate with any divorce schemes but you will not stay in a loveless marriage. Then lay it on thick about how she can't support herself and the kids and that you will not agree to let her take the kids. Paint a very ugly picture. And be sure and tell her that the kids will be told she broke up their family over her selfishness.

Just expect her to be furious and to make all sorts of threats. I suspect your wife is somewhat of a drama queen, so just expect some drama. When she sees it is not scaring you, she will back off] It is no more meaningful that the rantings of a drunk who just got his booze taken away. You might want to also carry a pocket recorder in case she goes bonkers and calls the police. That is rare, but it is best to be prepared.

And no, you ARE NOT overanalyzing this, blackhawk!! You are clearly thinking out your strategy and that is good! These are good questions.

Also, that night when you tell her all this, you can expect her to tell you to go to hell. She won't believe you are serious at first. She will first try and beat you down and scare you. It might take a couple of days of seeing you CALM and in control and RESOLVED in your plan to believe you.

Plan on reiterating your plan several plans. BE A BROKEN RECORD. Just tell her, this is the least I will accept, otherwise this is headed for divorce.

She will try and negotiate with you and you just tell her, sorry, this is not negotiable.

I am trying to plan against her possible reactions:

1. She rants, bragains, then she goes into waiting mode thinking. In this case I would continue with my 180s: be best father and husband I can be, 'as if' attitude.
2. She grabs kids and runs for another city. No support from me. My assumption is this would be temporary as how can she support herself medium term beyond a month or so? But I am doubtful she would do this, as she did not do it when this OM was in the hospital. Her mom will help against this also.
3. Push seperate apartments in the city where we live now. Again, no support from me.

I really start to think, hopefully not too optimistically, that we are in a holding pattern with the OM's death on 30 Sept and if I push a bit her fantasy house of cards may collapse. Anyway, this is what I am hoping for. I cannot discount the possibility of some drama though, because she is so emotional right now, in the affair fog still, and has reacted with drama in the past at me.

Another question: when I present what I want, should I try something like give it 12 months as a bargaining chip to get her to committ, or for her to at least feel comfortable committing? For example, "let's committ to making the marriage work and going through counseling 12 months, and if no success, then I will be more amicable"? Or would this be counter-productive? I am just thinking that if we get into counseling and work on this and 12 month that it will work regardless and 12 months is way in the future.

I want to make a compelling vision for her so she will make the rational choice and committ to working it out and going through the effort/pain.

Thank ConstantProcess for your post. When they did the autopsy on the OM, she said they found his organs were those of an old man. She interpeted this as "he is on a different timeline than us and had an old soul" and some other metaphsyical garbage. I was thinking alcoholic and health issues, but I did not argue with her as she was not rational.

I think the other friends and also her psychologist are telling her to follow her happiness and this is what has let this all develop. This guy began to meet her emotional needs, the secret of the blooming EA was enticing, and then she found all of her old divorced friends from 15 years ago on-line and sees how they have rebuilt their lives and/or remarried and rationalized that she wanted to do this also and that divorce is a good option. She also thinks she will get kids full time, and I think assumed I would not even try. I am almost 100% certain she has not even spoken to a lawyer, but just done alot of internet surfing and spoken to her friends.

First off, you should be recording her rants for evidence of imbalance. Get a VAR and keep it on while having conversations with her. Next, whats with 12 months? Its not the fact of whether she can stand to live with you. Is that your goal? What you need to do is remove any financial support. Simply tell her that you will not be investing family money in her effort to destroy this family. Grabbing the CCs are good. If she needs something, tell her to make a list. You can order anything on line.

Well, the rants were all pre-OM death, when I was resisting all of this and telling her we had to take the children's interest frist place. Now with the death and removal of the OM, she is more depressed/down than anything and I guess suffering withdrawal from her addiction. Her man in the wings is gone, but it seems she now is on auto-pilot, has some of her divorced friends as support, and I guess has made this wall inside her that blames me for all that is wrong in our marriage. She even told me before I left on my business trip out of the country that she would abide by my decision on financial support and it was "up to my heart." That same night she came upstairs and broke down crying and saying "let me go, have mercy, please let me go." She later calmed down and we had a good open talk where she said she can no longer love me.

Her psychologist, who she does not speak to any longer except irregularly, has also played her part in getting to where we are now.

On 12 months, I was thinking this could give her an excuse to try to make the marriage work.

And of course though the rants will start up after I tell my MIL. That will be huge as it is the first real affair exposure except for a few of her enabling friends.

By the fact she now tries to deny the cheating, I know she is scared by my threat to try and legally take the kids and sue for custody in the US. She thinks she has a better shot in our current country, and she does, but I have all of the resources of course. This is my trump card.

Personally I don't think it's a good idea to kind of promise her a free ticket out in twelve months. Of course chances are, if she really works with you during that time she will not want to get away.

But that is exactly the problem. At this point, she does not want to invest in your marriage. She wants to keep the fantasy of her spiritual connection with this other man alive. And if she knows, she only has to wait 12 months, chances are, she won't have her heart in it, but will sabotage things in her mind and use the 12 months to prepare for her life of freedom after that.

I don't know if you have read about buyers, renters and freeloaders on this website? But there is a huge difference in the amount of energy you invest in a relationship if you look at it as just an option among others opposed to as the only option.

You know, in World War II in the battle of Stalingrad the Russians refused to let the civilians of the city flee to safer areas, as the were convinced, that the soldiers would be motivated knowing how many lives depended directly on them - there was no turning back. They won. (I am not hailing this from a humanitarian view).
Don't you think you would work harder to save the sinking ship, if you knew you had no lifeboats or other source of resque and it was your only chance?

It should be clear to her, that God didn't condone her adultery and showed her in the directest possible way that OM was of limits and she was not meant to be with him. Apart from a voice directly out of heaven, what more signs could she want. It is obvious that the highest spiritual being wants her to take her responsibility and invest her time and energy to grow into a responsible wife and mother to lead the children to adulthood in an intact family.

That is what you should make clear to her. That her place is with you, and that with God's help you can make a strong marriage. She didn't love you when she first met you, but she loved you when you got together, got engaged, married and professed your love for all of the family and friends.
If she fell in love with you then, she can also fall in love with you now, if the two of you do the right things.

After all, you are not an axe-killer. (And even Ted Bundy had hoards of women fall in love with him, so...) Please realize that she is deep in the fog and that her words cannot be taken serously. Look at it from the bright side, you spare yourself the NC letter...

You can do it. Educate yourself here and lead her out of the fog.

Good luck,

Happyheart

Thank you happyheart for your words. I know the battle of Stalingrad well, and have had the opportunity to see the only remaining buildings there that are a monument to the losses. That rings a bell with me. I get your point. I just find myself analyzing this from every angle. It is like some chess game from hell.

Can you explain what a NC letter is? I am not familiar with that term.

When I explain to her what I want and the only way I will stay in the marriage, i.e. a loving, romantic, safe marriage, should I mention the death and connect this to God's will? I am unsure if it will be the right time.

Let me tell you a story about us, that makes me cry when I write it but also gives me hope and meaning. It is important I think and may have a connection. My wife has always had an interest in understanding religion and her sprituality. Before we were married when we were dating, she traveled to Israel with her job and placed a note in the Wailing Wall there as a wish to God. She told that she had made a wish there, but she never would tell me what her wish was for all these years until last week after the death of the OM when we had a talk. She wrote a wish to God that we would marry. This was over 12 years ago. We did marry eventually of course and have two beautiful children now.