Hello everyone,<P>Here is Chapter 16 for the saga called my life. I received a few responses to my older posts wondering where I disappeared too. Lots has happened, some bad and some good.<P>My wife went to see a councellor early last week. Upon making the appointment she told me she wanted me to sit in on the session. Moments before arriving at the councellor she had a change of heart. She wanted to speak to him herself. That scared me because I figured she was going to bend the truth. Well, she didn't. After the session my teary-eyed wife returned to the waiting room and we left together.<P>Two things were discovered. My wife's affair was the result of low self esteem, and alcohol. That is what this councellor determined. Hmmmmm!<P>Let me explain.....and please don't take this as a defense to my wife's actions. In no way am I condoning the affair she engaged in.<P>Anyways....<P>I agree with the low self esteem fact. It is true. As I read the books and the web-stories, I began to see that my wife had a low self esteem problem. <P>You see my wife is a domestic engineer, as she likes to call herself. The problem she ran into was that all day she would stay home watching our kids, while I went to work. Now even though I was at work, I was still out of the house. I got to talk to other adults, get away from the kids, get away from her, etc. She didn't have that luxery. She was home all day acting as a mother, referee, and disiplinary. Once I got home from work I was usually tired and never wanted to do anything. She would ask if I wanted to do this or that and I would always b*tch and complain that I was too tired or we didn't have the money, etc. Something I realize now was a contributing factor in the creation of the environment for the affair.<P>Another factor toward her low self esteem was her mother. Her mother did not like my wife's contact with the other man. Her mother is a Christian woman from the old school and did not believe in a married woman having male friend outside of her marriage to her husband. I disagreed at the time. I didn't have a problem with my wife's friendship with this man when things started way back when. We were all friends. Her mother called her down, stopped focusing on the positives, something I never saw her do before.<P>My mother-in-law would see my wife and blurt out comments like,<P>"Your way to fat for that dress!"<BR>or<BR>"Gosh, you look awful, today."<BR>another of my favorites<BR>"You look grey today, are you on drugs?"<P>For awhile there my mother-in-law was convinced my wife was on drugs. It was false though. All this badgering just made my wife feel like garbage. What hurt even more was that I was too afraid to stand up to my mother-in-law and defend my wife. My opinion was why confront her on her wrong opinions, she is set in her ways you can change the way she thinks. Therefore, I never challenged my mother-in-law. Ultimately, I never defended my wife's honor.<P>In my wife's eyes, her world revolved around everyone else, but herself. Our second child was just over a year and, as I said, she was still carring the weight of the pregnancy. So here she was feeling low, unwanted, and unattractive when all of a sudden someone else, the parasite known as the other man, comes along and sweeps her off her feet.<P>I can now understand why the affair happened. But as you may or may not know the affair they engaged in was an emotional affair for six months or so before it turned physical. The physical only started this past March.<P>For her the other man found her attractive, showed her a good time, took her out in the evenings, and defended her to some degree. I see now that he was feeding her everything she was lacking at home.<P>The second contributing factor was alcohol. This one I have a problem with, I can understand it, but I have a hard time accepting it for what it is.<P>My wife has supplied me with different stories. At first when all things came out she said they had had intercourse 4 times from mid March to the end of May. After the meeting with the councellor she claimed it was only twice and both incidents involved both of them being completely intoxicated.<P>Still no excuse however, in my books.<P>After each incident she was very upset that she had betrayed me and that she did what she did. She claimed it physically made her sick to her stomach. She often wept in another room at his place for hours afterward. Later she spoke to a close friend of hers who only recently told me that she kept asking her if she was going to hell for what she did to me.<P>I have begun to see that my wife has regreted that this has happened, and I am starting to believe that she is truely sorry.<P>My worst fear came true, however. That is that the councellor did not have a problem with her maintaining contact with the other man. For those of you who don't know, the other man is a collegue of mine at work and, for me, was a close friend before all of this. The councellor told her her focus should be on me and our relationship, but that contact with the other man can still occur. It would have to be minimal because I need to begin to trust again. I was mad. My councellor said that no contact was required and here were the reasons. Her councellor says our relationship should be the priority, but continued contact can be maintained in small amounts so I may learn how to trust again.<P>Excuse me.....where the [censored] did he get his degree?<P>My anger festered within me for a few days. I said nothing to anyone. Just kept things to myself. My wife was happy. She felt she truely could have her cake and eat it too. Live and be with me, yet still see the other man occationally, for a quick picker upper, and all of this was backed by a professional councellor.<P>Late last week the company golf tournament took place. It was an all day event. I returned home from the tourny at around 9pm. I was having a great day until then. Came home to find my mother-in-law at our house. My wife was in tears she had just had a major fight with her mother again.<P>I confronted my mother-in-law who, can barely walk because of two bad knees, was stubornly sweeping our car port for some reason. I grabbed the broom from her and told her to leave. We also began to argue verbally over her treatment toward my wife. My mother-in-law pushed my buttons however, all of my anger from what the councellor told my wife earlier in the week came out. I took the broom and cracked it over the head of my mother in law. Yes, you read it right! I hit her with the broom. She has seven internal souchers and 20 stitches on her forehead.<P>The cops were involved, but no charges were laid. I took her to the hospital. I continued to b*tch her out while I drove her there. I was enraged.<P>Together we sat in the waiting room for at least three hours. It was there that I began to have a heart to heart conversation with her. She told me she was playing the tough love thing with my wife, and that she too is suffering for what my wife did not only to me as her husband, but what she did to God. Her mother wondered where she had gone wrong. She thought she raised her with the word of God and here she goes and does this.<P>I told my mother-in-law that I only acted out because of frustration. Anything could have set me off, she just happened to be it. I was a walking time bomb.<P>We left the hospital with a mutual understanding for what happened and we both knew where we had gone wrong and, I believe, anyways that we both know what we have to do to change things.<P>My mother-in-law is giving us a paid vacation for just my wife and I. She feels we need the time away, to just be by ourselves away from the kids, away from work, away from the other problems in our lives, and away from the other man. Who would have thought I would receive an all expenses paid trip somewhere for wacking my mother-in-law over the head with a broom?<P>When I returned home from the hospital it was there that my wife agreed to have no more contact with the other man. So far she has stuck to it. She called him one last time and said it was over. I am proud of her. We have finally been intimate again. I think we are moving forward. We still have a long way to go. I will still continue with my therapy. <P>Tonight I am bringing road maps home. My wife and I would like to drive out to the west coast of Canada to visit her brother. It is the perfect plan. No kids, just her and I to rediscover each other. She told me sincerely yesterday that she is truely looking forward to the experience. We plan on camping most of the time to save on hotel bills, etc.<P>My wife needs to talk to her brother. She is very close to him. He too has his problems and needs someone to be a shoulder to cry on. My wife needs that as well. My hope is that he will stress the importance of no contact with the other man. If there is anyone on this Earth whom my wife will listen too, it is her brother.<P>So for all of you who care. I'm not in jail. Things, today, aren't really that bad. Who knows what tommorrow will bring. I'm just taking things day by day.<P>------------------<BR>Blue Rodeo Boy<BR><-- Trust Yourself, and don't believe in any more lies. --><p>[This message has been edited by bluerodeoboy (edited June 25, 2001).]

This is a PS to everyone.<P>Just because I wacked my mother-in-law over the head with a broom doesn't mean I am violent. Never in my entire marriage to my wife have I lashed out like this. I have never hit her and she will be the first to defend me.<P>My behavior, should never be condoned, and today I feel terrible that it happened. For a moment there I didn't know who I was because my actions where totally out of my character.<P>My actions though, may have opened my wife's eyes. I don't know why she agreed to no contact finally, maybe it was because I finally defended her honor, I don't know. At this point I don't care.<P>------------------<BR>Blue Rodeo Boy<BR><-- Trust Yourself, and don't believe in any more lies. -->

The only thing I can say is that this post disgusted me! All i can see is you hitting a defenseless old woman due to your anger at your wife. You need anger management, just in case that TIME BOMB that you blame comes out again. And you should be in jail, just like your W is in the fog you most certainly are in the fog for such a violent attack. Jail should have been a perfect FOG LIFTER for you attitude towards beating your MIL. This is truly disgusting.

As I said. I am very embarrassed about my actions. Yah, I probably do deserve a jail sentence. I have apologized to my mother in law and continue to assist her in her recovery.<P>------------------<BR>Blue Rodeo Boy<BR><-- Trust Yourself, and don't believe in any more lies. -->

Blue,<P>Saw in another post that "the OM didn't promise to be faithful, love, honor or cherish etc. Your wife did."<P>You are in an unbelievably stressful situation and the anger is misdirected. Get help or you will be in jail. Remember, anger is very seductive because you are always right when angry. Consider confronting the OM instead with the knowledge that you have every intention of working to rebuild your marriage. Force the issue with management if need be to get him away from your immediate work area. People die when anger gets this bottled up. Also, counselor or no, your wife, at some point, needs to respect your feelings as well with no contact. Your obligation is to fulfill her emotional needs that OM did. Make everything else second to that priority and no contact will be necessary.<P>You got damn lucky on that MIL incident dude. You deserved much worse. You have to work that anger out anyway anyhow you can.<P>

Blue,<BR>Good to hear back from you. This MIL thing does sound really out of charactor for you. I know it is impossible to completely describe all the emotions that go into an incident like this & it sounds like your MIL has been a big cause for your W's condition of low self esteem -- I would only caution you to not take these reasons for the A after one session as being the whole story.<BR>I am not satisfied from the little I hear about my W & her counseling, that they are always objective. I think sometimes they are interested in building an alliance of sorts with the patient in order t build a long term relationship -- They want person to keep coming back & coming back, so to some extent they're going to have an incentive to tell the patient what they want to hear to some degree. It may be unfair to lay all the blame on the MIL. Ultimately we have to accept the responsibility of our own actions -- I know the feeling though in that I have strong feeling about my FIL and how he treated my W in her formative years & his general self absorbed attitude.<BR>Just my opinion.<BR>The vaction thing sounds tremendous -- I tend to agree with you that the unfortunate thing with the MIL may have been big incentive for your W to agree with no contact.<P>I don't know how this Counselling things works in different senerios, but I feel pretty confident my W has not been honest with hers. I am told I cannot interfear there because that's like her time -- I guess the joint C is when we each give our views.<BR>Best Of luck!<BR>HH

In the case of our councelling I seriously doubt that the councellor is trying to establish a long term relationship. We are both seeking councelling through a provider from a program offered by the company I work for. All sessions are paid by the company up to a maximum of 12 per year. If the patient requires more sessions they are then refered to another councellor where the patient is responsible for payment of each additional session.<P>------------------<BR>Blue Rodeo Boy<BR><-- Trust Yourself, and don't believe in any more lies. -->

I'n not one to condone violence either, guys, but-- if MIL can forgive BRB, so can you. His actions were wrong, he knows that-- we all do. That broom shoulda been cracked over OM's head, not MIL's. <P>BRB- you've shown tremedous restraint so far, with this one little exception. Thank goodness MIL is ok. I wish you all the best in your upcoming trip.<P>Feel good about the positive things that are happening, but watch over your shoulder when you get back for signs of "slippage".<P>Keep us posted... <P>--The hat