Small update.. Recently since we have stopped all contact with my wifes mother due to her affair, she has been having her new church pastor call us up to throw scripture at us about forgivness etc. Says we should be phoning grandma and saying sorry and reconciling the relationship. This pastor argued for over 1.5 hours on the phone with my wife about this and it really tore up my wife. My wifes mother feels its all our fault and so does their pastor. He has called several times to get us to crack and let her back in our lives now that she is married to her new god sent husband after the breakdown of her other 20 year marriage and dragging us through the coals in the process.

What nerve of this pastor.. Who does he think he is? I'm pretty choked at this guy and my mother in laws attempt to covertly trick other people to do her bidding like this. How rude.

Grrrrrr

Other than that my wife and I are doing great. Infact we got a week off from our kids for the first time ever. Feels so weird to come home after work and not have to rush around and be responsible for 2 kids. We even went for a drive last night like teenagers up into the mountians to go 4x4ing and wait til the stars came out to watch the meteor shower last night. Seen one that lit up the sky pretty good and left a smoke trial behind it. My wife thought it was so romantic lol. Dr.harley was right. It gets easier as the kids get older. I can't wait for them to grow up and get out lol.


MNG

NMG,
great update. thank you.
I would like to have taken advantage of the meteor shower activity, but we live close to Boston, so would have to drive quite some time to really see anything well. As it is, when we go to New Hampshire the stars are incredible up there compared to this light-polluted sky. I'm glad you enjoyed it. It means a lot to your kids that you do stuff like that. Very important for their development.

It's remarkable that pastors, clergy, ministers, etc., adhere to such common, banal, pervading understanding of infidelity. But I suppose they are people too, and since it's not against the law to watch sit-coms and talk shows, they are subject to the same insidious poison that the rest of the world's influenes.

Unfortunate that MrsNG wrastled with this fellow for such a spell. She must have been exhausted! Perhaps from now on he can agree to disagree with you both; in the meantime, do you think he would be interested in coming here, or reading SAA? I know he was arguing forgiveness, but self-protection is a major component of that process; I wonder if he accepts that?

opt

I don't know how much you want to engage the pastor.

One and a half hours?

I think I would have told him, politely that you are aware of the scripture, and you would rather have him focus his efforts on ensuring the member of his flock knows how hurtful her affair was, instead of trying to spiritually bully and manipulate you into something you are not comfortable with.

One can forgive, and still not spend time with someone. You and your wife will heal on your timeline, not hers or the pastor's.

Thanks. Your right about it being important to get out and be a couple with my wife. My wife was very impressed with my driving ability as we took on some pretty rough roads that only a 4x4 could take on. Infact my wife wanted me to turn around as she was not sure if we would make it through some of the stuff we approached. I reassured her that I knew the trucks capablility and would not attempt to put our truck through if I felt I couldn't do it. We made it and she was so excited. Was very private too!

Yes my wife was exhausted after the convo with the pastor. She was in tears as she relived all the horrible moments and her horrible history with her mom to the pastor to try and get her point across to him that he was being manipulated by a master manipulator. Eventually I wrote a little note so my wife could read it that told her to tell the pastor that we are just not ready yet. My wife smiled and the pastor took that as an acceptable answer for now and that got my wife off the phone.

I don't think the pastor would come here. My wifes mom has slandered MB big time. Dispises it. So I'm sure she has expressed this to the pastor guy but its worth a mention next time he calls.

Yeah .. I agree. They talked in circles many times over as he could not take no for an answer. My wife felt compelled to express her concern about contact with grandma and her past history with her. The pastor was dead set we needed to contact grandma until I finally told my wife in a note (she had a face full of tears at that point) to tell the pastor we were not ready for contact YET. The pastor told us he feels that the demise of her marriage was grandpas fault but never listened to grandpas side since this new pastor only knows grandma and her affairage partner because they left the church we exposed too and moved far away to another town and got married in another church. The pastor too claims that they are happy now and their relationship was god sent. I almost puked when I heard that...

My poor wife... That phone call brought all her hurts to the forfront. Including her childhood abandonment hurts from her mom. I wish I could take her pains away when I see her like that.

You are my friend. By building this fantastic M your W has a great foundation to base her life on. And from that she gathers strength to endure some of life's horrible moments including things from the past.

So keep on keeping on.

MNG,
NG and I are reading "Boundaries" (I read it some time ago at the suggestion of someone here).
You know it's based on very Christian/Biblical principles and I believe it goes very much in line with MB concepts.

I kept thinking of this when you were talking about your wife's episode. Have you guys read it?

opt

If the pastor ever calls again, I personally would tell him that I'm not looking for any advice in my personal relationships, and hang up if he keeps talking.

Trying to educate him is probably futile, not to mention draining.

Update about myself and family.

Life is FANTASTIC. We are meeting eachothers needs often, spend copious amounts of ua time together (sometimes I feel bad for my kids because of it). We have cut out all the toxic people in our lives and trained the ones we wana keep around how to be more respectful towards us by being assertive towards them (if they make snide comments I will often agree and amplify the situation) and rewarding their behaviours by allowing them to visit when they talk right. Which is not often but they are learning haha.

Wifes mom is now out of our lives andm no longer an issue.

Kids are a lot more respectful and obedient now that their homelife is stable.

Haven't had an angry outburst or any Disrespectful judgements in almost a year. Neither of us. Wow.

Most of the time we can hardly keep our hands off eachother. Constant stream of affection/admiration and the "look".

What's changed though is my wife has asked that I take on a more leadership role in our family(was often passive and let her lead, which she never really wanted to begin with) and marriage and to be the badguy to outside influences when we don't want them and to step up and be more protective and be more of a positive source of energy but assertive when I need to be. In a way its like a captain and first officer roles, we both have the power she just wants me to do more steering of the ship and to make more decisions based on what I know of her and us. Part of this is to also help my wife by being the emotionally stable/lean on guy when things go amiss and handle her and the kids like any captain/leader would. Listen.. Be calm.. Make the rational decisions and plan dates for us to spend UA with etc.

Its been quite the process to get to this point but I don't think I have ever been happier in my life and reading back on it all seems so surreal. My wife can attest to that also. We are becoming the couple everyone hates haha.

This place has been a major blessing and helped us build a good foundation between my wife and I. Because of that I share it often. Infact, some I shared it with have come here and you guys helped them out too.

That said it didn't have everything I needed to fix me to be the man my wife needed me to be. It was a self discovery process of who I was and where I wanted to go in my marriage and in my own personal developement. Over a year of psycological counselling also helped me sort my head out and fix my anxiety issues along with my wifes which was also a large contributing factor in our differences and struggles. We are still learning (likely will forever) but it feels great to have this relationship momentum finally in the green... Finally feeling in love and feel loved.. Finally feeling like a happily married couple.

MNG

That's great Sir.