Nothing new to update really. Continue to counsel seperately with Steve every couple of weeks. We did register DS in first grade this week for September. This is somewhat significant since there was a significant cost to securing the school spot and it means she/we are committed to living in the town where we live for another year (which means together).

We leave for a week to her mom's tomorrow, me, WW, kids. Will check in when we return.

Have a fun/safe family journey.

Ditto! Have fun.

This is encouraging to read. This is precisely the same idea Steve wants me to persuade my wife to accept.

Blackhawk, the similarities between our wives and their behaviors is uncanny.

I agree and completely see your logic on this. My questions are:

1) HOW do you surgically remove people (who were supportive of or contributed to the affair) from your WS's life?

2) WHEN do you do this? In my case, I have known all along that certain people in our lives MUST go for our marriage and family to survive. I have been extremely hesitant to communicate this or to enforce my boundaries related to these people for fear that this would be one of the fastest tickets to world war 3 and a certain divorce. At what point do you say "By the way WS, if you want to stay married, our family (and you) will never have any contact with (list of people) ever again?"

1) You cannot remove anyone from your WW's life. She has to be willing to do that herself. If she is serious about recovery and knows those friends/family are toxic to your marriage she will (without hesitation) will remove them (go NC) for life. If she is not serious about recovery, your pain will mean nothing to her.

2) You start today. If you have people in your life who are toxic, then simply sever the relationships. If they ask why, you simply tell them. I do not have friends who lie, cheat (support cheating), and are not morally sound in my life.

Your boundaries will become your strength. The more you remove people who are toxic the better you will feel.

As for your WW ... she has to be ready and willing to dramatically change her lifestyle and it is a very narrow path to recovery. Removing all adultery supporting people (family included) is ESSENTIAL to recovery.

Wouldn't it be true that all WS's fabricate a false image of their spouse? In my case, my WW's image of me has become hugely distorted. She practically reinvented me to her friends and family to justify her affair and desire to end our marriage.

It seems pretty clear that changing/eliminating/correcting this distorted image is not something that occurs overnight.

The million dollar question is, how do you treat your WS the same way you would treat anyone else who showed you such extreme disrespect? The solution you propose seems to be in conflict with the behaviors that are required to win back the WS.

I'm not disagreeing with your advice on this, I just don't see how one can take an extremely hard line and say, for example, "don't ever show me disrespect that way again" to someone who genuinely has no respect for you as a result of being in a "fog."

Herein lies the problem. As far as I'm concerned, I have already cut certain people out of my/our life. SHE, on the other hand, would never in a million years (so I predict) do the same with some specific people she considers to be "family."

Just because I would never call or speak to person X ever again doesn't mean that she won't -- unless this is discussed at some point and she agrees to cut this person out of her life.

Most of this problem is eliminated when the OP is removed from the scene. The demonization of the BS is necessary to justify the affair. When the affair is over, the demonization is no longer necessary.


You are correct, Driven. It is in conflict and is not effective. We don't treat our WS the same as anyone else because they are not anyone else. Doing so would be like shooting ourselves in the foot.

Blackhawk,

It took me a while, but I have now read your entire thread in detail. First I want to say that I am in awe of your tenacity and perseverance through this. The volatility and AO's you are dealing with are far greater than in my situation. The way you have been able to discipline yourself to NOT react to her every incident is truly inspiring and helps me to believe I can develop the skills to do the same. It's just so hard not to get sucked into the drama when my FWW behaves the way she does.

**edit**

One question I have for you that did not seem to come up in your thread concerns your FWW's overall mental health. Has she ever had issues with depression or anxiety in the past? Has she ever taken antidepressant meds? The reason I ask is that my read on her behavior in general is that she appears to have extreme volatility in her mood from day to day. You may know all of this already, but anxiety and depression are essentially different manifestations of the same underlying chemical imbalances. AO's, agitation, anger, screaming etc.. are one end of the scale whereas withdrawal, hopelessness, "you don't love me" etc.. are the opposite end of the spectrum. My point is that your entire affair recovery scenario may in fact be complicated by a completely separate, independent factor - an anxiety/depression problem.

Again, you may already know all this so I apologize if I'm preaching to the choir on this. There are many different medications but the majority of them work to eliminate a deficiency in the neurotransmitter serotonin. AD's don't eliminate depression or anxiety but significantly reduce the extremes at each end of the spectrum. They work to stabilize moods to be more centered towards the mean.

If she's not taking AD's currently, do you think you could persuade her to try them? If she is adamantly against taking prescription medication, there is an over the counter supplement that is very similar chemically to antidepressants called 5-HTP. It is a precursor to serotonin so it actually becomes serotonin when ingested.

In my case my FWW would definitely benefit from AD's but is adamantly against taking them. And thanks to the worthless, destructive marriage counselor we had who advised her NOT to take medication because it would be used against her in a custody battle, FWW is even more reluctant to do so.

My thoughts are with you. Keep fighting the good fight.

Driven2,

PMs are not allowed on the forum. **edit**

Driven,

All PMs are disabled on this site. **edit**

Driven2,

Thanks for your words of encouragement, they mean alot. I read recently a post by Pepperband on plan A where there is a discussion from some Board heavy-hitters about plan A, and I will say that for me plan A has made me a better husband, a much better father, and a better man. If nothing else, I do see the world differently now and I am a better person. I remember a Dr. Harley radio segment where he said he no longer gets angry because he retrained his mind in his youth to not get angry. In my mind, retraining ourselves to remove negative behaviors to make a better marriage possible is alot of what MB is about. Also, counseling with Steve has helped tremendously and is a big reason why I have gotten this far, so I applaud you for working with him.

On anxiety/depression, honestly it is not something I have noticed in her before late 2010 when this all started. She has always had issues with AOs and this has caused some drama, but not depression. In fact, the first time she had noticeable depression was in Spring last year when she started seeing a psychologist after she told me she was having thoughts of suicide. Little did I know that the depression was caused by guilt from her developing EA and that the psychologist was feeding into this, divorced herself, amd todlher to leave me for the OM for her happiness! I will bring this up with Steve though on our next call and let you know what he thinks.

Blackhawk

Blackhawk,

Little did I know that the depression was caused by guilt from her developing EA and that the psychologist was feeding into this, divorced herself, and told her to leave me for the OM for her happiness!

You have done a public service by posting this, it needs to be emphasized that we cannot trust persons in positions of trust without first doing our homework about who they are.

Didn't anyone at my Ws church think something was wrong with a married woman bringing a single man with her to service?

God Bless
Gamma

Indeed Gamma, how true what you write about trusting those in authority without learning about them. About this psychologist, she then went on to counsel my WW's friend on her M after WW recommended her, and this friend also was counseled to leave her husband (she did, but they reconciled, no A in the situation to throw things further off kilter)! At the time - this was last Oct/Nov right before we began counseling with Steve - I pointed this out and made a big deal about how this psychologist was a divorce advocate and that she herself was divorced. WW did not like that line of thought of course since it threw in doubt the validity of her decisions. This psychologist even agreed with WW that it seemed OM and WW were meant to be together. Not so apparently! I believe this "counseling" is one of the big reason my WW is still in the fog.

On your WW and the church service, that is unbelievable that no one said anything.

Blackhawk,

On your WW and the church service, that is unbelievable that no one said anything.

After I put an end to my W taking OM4 to church with her, and my W mentioned my objection to the ladies at the church, the ladies came up with the suggestion of sending one of the men to pick up OM4. Fortunately they never followed through as OM4 was some distance from town.

So they did say something offering to continue bringing OM4 to church, to my knowledge however nobody there saw it as a problem, or that I was going berserk.

I will say that since OM4 was 85 years old they likely saw it as innocent or assumed it could not be physical which I believe is true.

It was also a relatively unsophisticated church from a counseling standpoint, with the pastor having closed door sessions alone with some of the married ladies in troubled marriages.

God Bless
Gamma

BlackHawk,

What is the latest in your story? I saw in a recent post that she still refuses to talk to Steve and feels all is hopeless?

Driven2,

We are in a kind of limbo. We still live together, interact daily about kids and household stuff, usually have dinner together, do stuff as family often on week-ends, etc. but she rebuffs all attempts at care, affection, etc. She believes divorce is the answer, she can't imagine being in love again with me. I keep avoiding LBs and keep trying to show her care when I can, and I keep trying to put reconnecting with me as a possibility back on the table. She is closed to the idea and extremely resistant, so I keep chipping away as best I can. Ultimately she has to participate for this to work of course.

I also regularly and respectfully keep trying to persuade her to begin again with Steve. She wants nothing to do with that though.

It seems like a waiting game or like a seige, where one tries to persevere and outlast the other one before someone yields.

Steve helps me with tactics and we keep trying to get through her wall. But like I wrote above, ultimately she has to get onboard on her own for this to work and see value in saving our marriage. I can only do my part of it.

You are doing everything you can by following Steve's advise.

You're in the ring now, like Rocky Balboa. And you are throwing all the right punches and fighting for your marriage.

Whether you go down or are victorious you can take satisfaction knowing you gave it your best fight!

Keep up the Plan A work! Meet as many needs as you can! NO DJ or AO!