Thank you baba2 and My Alias,

I find your words of support helpful. I am working this Saturday, but we have a date with another couple in our neighborhood to go golfing. I know that MB stresses alone time, but I think this will be good because we will have a babysitter for our S and will share some "adult" time. I think it will be less stressfull for her because there will be another couple. She will not have to wonder when I might bring up something about our relationship. I plan to just have fun. I need this too. Work has also become pretty stressful and makes life even more difficult.

Thanks again you two. - EL

So, you are not, for some reason, having any sex with her now either?

When was the last time you had a satisfactory sex life with her?

Hi EL,

Well I totally empasize with your situation. I think I was were you are 10 years ago when I felt uncomfortable about my wife's male friends that she would meet for lunch chats or even do recreation like x-country skiing or cycling with. She too did the email thing with 'Love' to non-family members that drove me crazy. At that time I convinced myself it was OK because she deserved my trust. I did speak with her about it and we had the 'I relate more to guys' discussion and the 'We are just friends' discussion. To make a long story short, I discovered from her emails (last month) that she had an emotional and physical affair with a person I thought was just a new male friend who was going through some issues.

I believe you are seeing warning bells now that need to be brought in check because one day your love bank with your wife may be down and she may be vulnerable to an affair and have a lot of opportunity via all these male friends and independence she has. My wife and I now have a pledge that friends of the opposite sex are our friends together and that the other person can decide who is our friend of the opposite sex or not based on what we learn by being with them together. This pledges requireout no private time with members of the opposite sex without the spouse there. Some may think this is extreme but now for us this is necessary. I suspect you will hear this and think 'I wish she would grant me that'. I am so relieved my wife is willing to let me have the ultimate say on who her male friends are and be there with her anytime announced or not. We agree that our needs need to be and can be met in the marriage and that dictates our ultimate happiness together.

At the end of the day, it sounds like you are not comfortable in your marriage right now. When she hears that (and it sounds like she should have heard that loud and clear) she should stop everything and tell you she is willing to do whatever it takes for you to be comfortable with your lives together. As you should for her.

As for you feeling guilty about looking at her emails, you should know I subscribe to the 'trust but validate' approach. It worked for me - I discovered her PA and EA early enough through computer sleuthing to give us a chance to save our marriage. I was doing that for years because I felt I needed to monitor her relationships with her guys friends because I was outside of them. She has thanked me for doing that many many times now and says I saved her from herself and sees me as a hero in a way for stopping it early enought to avoid it coming under our roof and into the lifes of our children.

I wish you well. I feel for your situation. Good luck EL.

Sincerely...swdad

baba2,

To answer your question I will try to give you a run down on the history. Basically, when we started dating, I was in a different state. We would get to see eachother every other weekend. The weekends we saw each other we were extremely passionate and more adventurous.

About 6 months after we started dating, she and I both moved to a new state into an apartment. She was 5 months pregnant and I was starting a new job. Our sex life was not as frequent at this point, probably because of the pregnancy, my heavy work schedule and our trying to get established in a new state where we did not really know anybody.

After our S was born, she was extremely concerned that sex would not feel as good for me anymore because of the trauma she had went through. We had sex once in a while and she was concerned with becoming pregnant. We went through different types of birth control to try and ease her mind.

For our S's first year my W was breast feeding and sex became less frequent (once every three months). After this sex deteriorated to once every 4 - 5 months. It seemed as though the sex was good even though the frequency dropped off.

We got married when my S was 2 and my wife tried to make our wedding night and honeymoon great. However, she felt I acted as it was not enough and this probably caused more withdrawl. The last time we have had sex was about 5 - 6 months ago. This last time was the first time I felt my W was just passifying me. This made me feel so horrible that I have not asked or tried to have sex since. Because I want to be with her only if she is interested in it as much as I am. It is all about the mental and physical connection between her and I. I do not wish to cause her to resent me any further.

Incidently, as the frequency drops off, my personal issues get worse because of the loss of this connection. This causes us to spiral downwards. I have hit bottom now and am working towards recovery, hoping this is possible. I know not saying anything for 5 months (to not put pressure on her) does not make things better. Finally, my frustrations got to be too much for me and caused me to really look inside and I ended up not liking what I saw. This is scary and encouraging at the same time because I am upset with myself for playing a big role in all of this without realizing it, but I am very happy that I have a direction that can only help make things better.

E L
I was thinking more about this and I wanted to add something. I do thinks it's ok to have friends of the opposite sex within M. I also believe that if that R is causing a problem then it needs to end. I realize your wife is in a tough spot and because you have over-reacted previously it wouldn't be so easy for her to do what's right for you or the marriage. My H has old female friends (some ex's) and I am fine with that. They have either taken the time to get to know me or shown that they are not a threat. My H has also been very O&H about his relationships with them.

There is one ex that I was uncomfortable with. My H tried to hide his contact from me because he knew she made me uncomfortable. It was really hard on me and just about drove me insane. Finally he cornered us into having a talk so we "could be friends". I was very O&H with her <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> about how I felt, how I percieved her actions towards me and my H and that I felt they had both been disrespectful. Contact stopped.

Since you don't know this guy and nothing has been done to make you dislike him aside from your W hiding it from you, you have a chance to see if you guys couldn't be friends after all. Baba is right, you have some idea of how you are both feeling and what you want to do but you have no concrete plan of action.

Would it be possible for you to talk to your wife first by letting her know that the purpose of you bringing it up AGAIN <img border="0" title="" alt="[Razz]" src="images/icons/tongue.gif" /> is because you want to make a plan so that she feels comfortable and that you won't over-react? Then explain again that you would like this issue to be resolved and you need a plan. You could let her know (if your willing) to meet this guy and your hope is to incorporate him into both your lives. You could let her know that you will try your best to not jump to conclusions and if you are feeling threatened you will first get outside help (maybe here) and also discuss it with her in an open respectful way.

You could also choose some sort of signal for when you are over-reacting so that she could let you know, you would stop and take some time to think it through and within a short timeframe would rejoin the conversation. That has worked really good for my H and I when I feel he is being judgemental or disrespecful to me.

Also, let her know that if this can't be successfully done that you would ask her to leave this friendship for the greater good of your marriage but you will try and want to work together with her on this because it's important to her.

What do you think?
Symphony

Edited to add: About the sex thing, it sounds like there has been a serious loss of connection. I do understand that you are steering clear of it because you sensed that you w was not comfortable with it the last time you were together. I want to remind you of the importance of letting your W know that you do think about it, you are concerned with the lack of sex in your marriage because of the loss of closeness and that you do desire her. From my perspective, I would love to here that from my H and it would open me up a little to being able to think about being with him.

<small>[ May 22, 2004, 06:26 AM: Message edited by: Symphony of Life ]</small>

Thank you Symphony,

I believe I have said all of this. I think my W is taking the action of not communicating with ANY old friends now. She tends to take things to the extreme when I say something like, "I am uncomfortable with your old guy friend because I never got to know him and you seem to not let me know a lot about him or your contact with him because you are afraid of how I will react. This secrecy is what hurts me the most. I am fine with you having old guy friends as long as I am always included in the future." From this she takes the approach that, I am pointing out things that "she is doing wrong." She says this causes her to feel like she needs to walk on egg shells and that she will just not have any contact at all with her old friends. She then throws in the kicker, "you let me know who, how and when I can talk to people." This statement obviously causes me great pain and is definitely not what I want. I do not want my W to live in a bubble for fear of my reactions. I just want her to be proud that she is married to me and feel that I am so wonderful to have in her life, that she wants anyone important to her to know me because she is in love with only me.

I think this can only happen with some time now as she is pretty defensive when I mention anything because she sees me as controling and jealous. It will take some time to let her feel like I am not this way and that I truly am her biggest fan. I do not wish for her to feel smothered by me. She is my everything and I cannot be happy if I am hurting my everything.

"You let me know who, how, and when I can talk to people."

This shows me she is trying to make you feel guilty and like it is all your fault. You do not want to stop her talking to people, juet her men friends and gossiping to the neighbor lady.

What do you do with a manipulative statement like this that shows she feels NO responsibility for changing in the marriage?????

HELP, WIFTY!

baba2,

You are right. I do not know what to do with a statement like that. It ends up always being the end of the argument, because I realize that at this point she is closed off from me getting anything through. She is in a defensive posture and feeling smothered and like I am trying to control her. I wish she could understand through my communications and actions that this is actually competely opposite to how I feel and wish to move forward. Unfortunately, I am up against my past behaviors and am hoping that the C might be able to help her and I understand eachother's words better. I just need her to accept a "do over" in our relationship. If I can have her allow me this opportunity, I know I will cherish and respect it forever. This does not mean I will not make a mistake and let my emotions get the better of me once in a while. I am only human.

YOU CANNOT CHANGE HER BECAUSE SHE WANTS TO BE DEFENSIVE AND KNOWS HOW TO CONTROL YOU THAT WAY.

Wifty will help here....but I am saying that "you could be as perfect as Jesus" and you won't get her to change. She wants YOU under her control man and is using every techique in her manipulative arsenal to keep you there.

Whats Wifty?

Baba,
I realize that E L's wife is not being very respectful but can we judge her whole character on a few statements that might have been said out of anger or frustration? It seems to me that E L has tried to control her behaviors and friends in the past which he admits to as a big mistake and it's somthing he is working on. She also would need time to "recover" from that kind of treatment. I have never been with someone who has been overly jealous but I can imagine that when someone comes at you that way it's not abnormal that you would put up some boundaries or walls to try to protect yourself. You could become pretty angry at the person who is making your life misserable because you have a some friends and he doesn't like them. Maybe even lose some trust becuase the jealous spouse is not looking out for your best interests or even considering your feelings in the matter.

What do you think? Does she have to be this mean, vengeful, contolling woman or could she be a woman who is needing some help in dealing with a situation that is confusing for her, a marriage that has by both parts spiraled down? I see E L as being a great person to help her figure out how they can overcome what has happened and create a new future for them. He needs the tools to reach his wife just like I do my H.
What do you think?
Symphony

E L,

You said that you have said all the stuff I recommended before. I do find that sometimes even though we have said it, it wasn't always clear or the tone was wrong so it may not have been accepted. Also if you are in the middle of a argument or it's a little heated then you may have not actually been heard. Think about that a little and see if you believe you w really heard those things.

You know your W best and know when it's a good time to bring stuff up so you have to go with that. I feel for you. I did answer your last post on my thread with some info for you about my withdrawl. You can reach her. It does take time and patience.

Best,
Symphony

Wifty is another poster at MB.

Symphony,

I thank you for your replies. I believe you are exactly right. Last week during that discussion, which spiraled out of control, I realized that my W does in fact has some deep rooted anger towards me. This really hurts, but what hurts more is the fact that I probably diserve it. My W really is a good person. I do not believe I am blinded anymore. I think my eyes are wide open and I am finally seeing things for how they truly are. My W has to be a good person to have stuck around and is willing to work on things. So far she has only said verbally that she is willing to work on things and has made some very small steps (but I noticed and thanked her for these small steps). She is not reading the MB books even though I gave them to her a month ago. She is not ready to go to counseling yet, even though she says she understands that it will be necessary.

I really think its human nature that she may feel like "punishing me" for the past a little to hurt me as I have hurt her. I can even understand and almost accept this because it is human nature. I just do not know how long this will go on and when she will start to rebuild with me. I guess in a way she already has started.

This week we spent some one on one and went golfing. I mentioned that we should spend more one on one time to fall further in love with eachother. She did not disagree with this, but mentioned how hard and difficult it is with our four year old son. I understand this, but stressed that we have to do some things for us.

I am sure my Wife's comments during the arguments are out lash brought on by boundaries she has setup to protect herself. I need to break through those boundaries. After that last discussion, I spent the next day writting out a two page letter that explained what I was trying to say and how I felt. I was very explicit and did not LB during the letter. I brought it home and was worried that she would feel that I cannot let things drop. I gave it to her anyway and said that "I wrote this letter because I did not feel I explained how I felt properly. There is no pressure to read this letter. You can read it whenever you would like. You can take comfort in the fact that it is only two pages and does have an end. It will not go on and on."

She read the letter and then said that she understood all of this from the argument. I said, how could you understand what I meant, but then say that I would pick who you can speak too? She did not have a response for this. This leads me to believe that she probably does not realize she is using these boundaries. I see my past reactions and how I would quickly forget that I had said something or used a boundary once I was satisfied my boundary was not being crossed. Sometimes we can forget that our words still are left to affect the other. So I am thinking that this may be what has happened.

I also mentioned in my letter that counseling is something she needs to decide to go to. We cannot work on the marriage through counseling with only one of us going to a counselor. You cannot go to a counselor under protest because counseling will not work. Counseling must be given a proper chance to work. Therefore, I will continue to go to counseling and you can join in when you are comfortable, as long as you are aware that you will need to join in eventually. Her response is that I should go to counseling to work on my issues first and then she will go to work on our issues. The only problem with this is that my issues are intertwined with our marriage problems. I do not think one can be solved without the other.

Thanks again Symphony. - EL

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">The only problem with this is that my issues are intertwined with our marriage problems. I do not think one can be solved without the other.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">EL,

I don't think this is necessarily true. Aren't there some things you will just have to live without or deal with until you two get your R back on track?

Your W may be trying to punish you yet really she just may be protecting herself. She has trust issues with you. You may have to be the better person for a while in the relationship, show her how you can be trusted by demonstrating your changes, and then hopefully she will begin to soften and work on the R.

Don't get hung up on feeling like you are the only one who's working on the R. Treat it like you are doing what it takes to prove you've changed. If you push her, she'll probably take it the wrong way and that will only push her away. Watch out for small signs of change from her. Acknowledge them like you say you have so far and keep building the R.

If she sees and then believes she can trust you then she'll come around. If not then you at least know that you've made a valiant effort.

Thanks MyAlias,

I think you are right. For example we actually spent some rare one on one time together yesterday. We went golfing. After the first nine, I said to her I am really having a great time spending time with you today. Her response was, "thanks." Not "me too" or "I am having a great time with you to." This hurt quite a bit. I gritted my teeth and we finished the second nine. She played a little better and when we got to our car I said "thanks for the wonderful time I really enjoyed spending today with you." This time she said, "Thanks. I enjoyed spending the day with you too." This made me feel better. So I guess I have to look for the small positive changes.

Today I sent her some flowers because I know she loves flowers and I thought it would make her feel nice. The card said, "Thanks for the wonderful day yesterday." She called me at work and said "thanks for the flowers." She sounded unhappy. However, after talking with her she sounded like she perked up a little bit.

It is just so hard to keep working on a positive note when the other person is being so guarded. You almost start smothering them by accident because you want a positive reaction to show you you are doing something right. I suppose I should allow her some room and time to get the "punishment period" over with if this is what she really is going through. It would all be soo much easier if I actually knew in my heart that we would eventually be back to intimacy again down the road.

E L,
I agree with MyAlias.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Your W may be trying to punish you yet really she just may be protecting herself. She has trust issues with you. You may have to be the better person for a while in the relationship, show her how you can be trusted by demonstrating your changes, and then hopefully she will begin to soften and work on the R. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">This is what worked for me. Even though your W's situation and mine are completely different I do believe that feelings can be the same. I do think you need to work on yourself and make some changes. In doing so, you W will see the positive changes and if you keep it up she will at some point soften a little. She will know that she can respond differently because you are different. You will have created a safe place for her.

I admire your strength and resolve and have no doubt that you will reach your wife.
Symphony

<small>[ May 24, 2004, 03:11 PM: Message edited by: Symphony of Life ]</small>

Hey guys,

Went to the C today. It has been my third visit. She asked me something today that has caused me to have another revelation. Bare with me.

She asked if I have ever trusted my W. If I have ever given her complete emotional trust. This got me thinking and I do truly believe that I had. She asked me to try and dig deep into figuring out when I stopped trusting her. What was the actual moment that I stopped. During the session I could not come up with when this moment was. However, five minutes after the session I figured it out.

Basically, my W and I dated long distance for a very short time. It was during this time that I did give her my complete emotional trust. However, very early on, after our first intimate weekend together, my W called me to tell me she was pregnant. She said that she had screwed up her birth control pills and was very sorry. We were both very emotional and I said that this did not scare me and I was in love with her.

In an earlier relationship (think I mentioned this in an old thread), I dated a girl who became pregnant int the beginning of the relationship. We went through a ton of stuff for two years. She forced the issue of an abortion and then I took care of her for two years. She shutdown completely on the physical side etc.. She basically ended up cheating on me and I broke up with her. When I broke up with her, I found out that the baby never was mine.

Back to my marriage. I obviously had my questions as to if my baby was truly mine because of how this mirror a past relationship of mine. However, I also knew the damage this would cause between my W and I if I were to even question this. So I never questioned it. Even when my W gave birth at the hospital she offered a paternity test. I felt that if she was willing to offer one, then she must know that the baby was mine.

Our son is now four years old and he has a birth mark on a finger in the same place that I do. I take this as uncontestable proof that he is my son.

But, I believe that my trust issues all started with the original phone call from my W that she was pregnant and somehow screwed up her birth control. The first thing that stuck in my mind was how smart and organized she is. I did not understand how she could have messed up the pills. The second thing that came to mind is the thought that maybe she was not being honest with me. I think it is from this moment on that I brought everything into question because I never directly came out and questioned the original pregnancy.

From that moment on, I accepted our pregnancy, but constantly questioned my W on other things. Maybe this was my way of testing her to see if she is honest with me in other ways. Then I guess I thought I could reflect any honesty from these things onto her being honest about the pregnancy. This ended up bringing out mistrust issues, jealousy and controlling behavior. All of which would turn off any woman. Meanwhile I was doing all of this to save her the pain of my questioning her original honesty. Looking back, if I had questioned her original honesty, we probably would be far better off.

I think this was a big break through for me. The only thing that sucks is that I do not have another C appointment until next week to know what to do.

Thanks for reading. - EL

EL,

You sound so much like me. When I was at the C the initial exercise she had me partake in didn't turn on any bulbs. Yet later during our discussion I was flooded by a past experience and everything we had discussed sort of fell into place.

Oh, and another similarity. I questioned whether my first son was actually mine as my W and I had had a pretty rough run at it for a while and I thought there may have been an A. After he was a little older 1 or 2 I noticed how he had my nose and my little spock bump on his left ear. He was mine alright. Big relief. Oh and 5 years later I asked her if she ever had an A and she said no. I still question whether that is the truth or not. Still bothers me some.

Congratulations on having an small epiphany. I know how those feel. I had one a little over a week ago and shared it with everyone here.
A small Revelation

I did want to comment on your thought about confronting and being Open and Honest back when. You felt she was being untrustworthy because she forgot to take her pills yet she was so diligent about other things. Accept the fact that she stated it was a mistake. You have to believe this. (Look at me giving you advice when I can't even put my thoughts into practice). If you were O&H back then it could have be very detrimental to your M. It would have come off as a DJ and a LB.

You developed a mistrust and were controlling because of a past experience. You are now aware that you developed this mistrust and it is/was unfounded.

Instead of thinking you should have been more O&H back then, be O&H now and share this revelation with your W. Apologize for developing a bad habit because of something that was not of her fault. Let her know you are now aware of how you developed these behaviors and that is helping you make some necessary changes. Tell her you know she isn't to blame for your 1st bad encounter and you let that experience scar you in your R with her. Even if she isn't all that thrilled with your revelation it has got to hit home to her that you are digging deep to find what it is that makes/made you behave so improperly.

Just my 2 cents.

Thanks for the comments My Alias,

I do wish to share this with my W and I will tell here at some point. I am just concerned that I do not have the proper communication skiils in place yet to accomplish this without discussing it further in C. I think if I told my W tonight about what I figured out, it will do more harm than good right now. I think she will not take it as a good thing and put further blame on herself and cause herself to withdrawl further because she will put further blame on herself. She will also probably drudge up that this is just more of me not trusting her and that I am re-examining the past to find more things to not trust her on. Maybe she will not be like this, but I will not know until we talk about it; but, I do not think she has the communications skills yet either to properly understand or use this as a stepping stool. It has taken me such a long time to figure something out that I do not want to ruin or minimize what I have figured out. Does this make sense?

I love her so much and I do not want her to start taking things wrong and reacting to things that are not true. I would feel much better at discussing this with her with the C as a coach. This would mean her comming to counseling. This in itself is an issue. We have been to two other ineffective counselors in the past and she is put off by counselors. She also is feeling pressured by me to go to counseling just because I brought it up. I am trying to walk a tight rope here and I probably should not.

I am truly happy about figuring out what I have figured out today. I understand that it is only the beginning to the path of recovery. I feel lucky because there is atleast a chance of recovery. My W and I are still living together and she says she wants us to work. How we begin our recovery process is extremely important in setting the over all tone of recovery.

This is all making sense to me know because it was only a couple of months ago that my son's birthmark on the same finger and spot as me became noticeable. With in these last few months is when I started seeing what my W has been trying to tell me over the last four years. Maybe with the undeniable proof of my son being mine, it allowed some space in my mind (that was being taken up with clouded judgement) to be used for seeing reality a bit. Maybe this is what has lead me towards recovery.

Thanks for the support. I am happy because I have started to fix myself. For my W and I to fix our M it will need to be a concious choice on both our parts, followed up with actions. I am scared about this part because as I fix myself, I move closer to the answer of if my W is still willing or wanting to fix us, and if we can fix us. Its kind of like that book "flowers for Algenon." This is where a mentally retarded person is given a miracle drug. This drug raises this person's IQ and he becomes more aware of people and things around him. Only he finds out that who he thought were his friends were actually people making fun of him and taking advantage of him. He became miserable. In the end the drug wore off and he became unaware of his surroundings and was happy again.

Sorry for the rambling,

EL

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I think if I told my W tonight about what I figured out, it will do more harm than good right now. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">EL,

I think it would do harm if you let her in on your mistrust of her and the issue of your son. So don't bring that up. Instead let her know how you had a revelation and that this revelation has given you some guidance on how and why (not an excuse) you developed mistrust, jealousy and control.

In fact you could phrase it to her in such a way that you actually realized the truth. That you mistrusted her all these years and your mistrust WAS UNFOUNDED and brought on by a bad behavior created by a painful, hurtful experience you went through before you and her were together. A sort of non-direct apology for your past actions towards her. I know you've communicated to her that you are doing your best to change your controlling and jealousy but maybe she thinks your still judging her like she's not trustworthy or needs to be controlled. I think this conversation may shed some light for her on your realization that you don't mistrust her and aren't judging her and her decisions.

The reasons you have these bad behaviors aren't because she forgot to take her pills. They are there because you were hurt by this other woman. IMHO. Because of that hurt you developed a coping or defense mechanism.

Don't bring this up to your W but, as soon as your W did something that was questionable, in your mind, you automatically assumed she was guilty of something. You behaved in a way that didn't WORK for you or your W. You now recognize that that doesn't WORK and your working to change the mechanism.

It doesn't mean she has to forgive you for what you did, but it does show her your willingness to be open and to change your behaviors.

I agree your best bet in reassuring her of your love and behavior changes is to use your actions. But if she is unwilling to put herself in a position to allow you to ACT then maybe these little conversations about your revelations will help her soften her wall. Maybe she'll start providing you with little opportunities for you to shine in her eyes.

Does this make sense?

I guess I'm pushing this because I feel it's important that you be as O&H with her as you can without doing anything that sounds like a DJ or a LB. I think this revelation may be one of those defining moments you should share.