My WW is meeting with the OM tonight. After spending so much time with her the last couple of days I know she knows this relationship with him isn't going anywhere and he's really not that great of a person. She is so weak emotionally right now that I think if he says all the right things to her she'll be right back with him. I've made such good progress with her the last few days it's hard to think like that.

I need some straight opinions from anyone that has followed my story. Do you think that she can go back into this as deeply as she was before? It doesn't seem like someone could get lost COMPLETELY back into the fog once they start to come out of it but I don't know. It would feel like starting all over again and I don't know if I could do that. She's supposed to call me later, I'm just a little stressed out right now.

<small>[ April 09, 2003, 05:24 PM: Message edited by: starman ]</small>

Strman .... I am just pulling a April 1st goof on my other thread.

I am so sorry you are feeling this deep and strange hurt casued by your W's infidelity.

Is there someone you can go spend time with in real life tonight? A family member? A pastor? A buddy?

Please try to hold on during this awful time.

Pepper

I know exactly how you feel. My H was back home for a month and just went back to the OW on Monday. It hurts so much, I have not gotten any sleep in the past couple of days.

My wife didn't go to OM house last night. He was supposed to call her and tell her when it would be okay to come pick up her mail but he never did. He's really blown her off up to this point. I feel very bad for her because she's in such bad shape emotionally but maybe this can turn out to be a good thing. My wife is a very physically attractive person and has never been dumped in her whole life. She has apologized to me about a hundred times since this happened like she can't believe I'm still around now that she knows what it feels like.

I feel much better this morning. I am accepting of whatever happens between us because I know I'll be alright. Sometimes I have a little relapse in the evenings when I start to get tired but for the most part I'm good with where things are at for me and my kids.

starman,

I can't really give you any pointers as to what your W may do, but I can offer this:

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> I am accepting of whatever happens between us because I know I'll be alright. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">This is a signifcant moment for you. From my experience(which is not much:)) this feeling will grow and you will get stronger and stronger. You will be more than alright. Hang in there.

-Luki

Okay here's what happened. My WW came over today and said that she doesn't know what to do. She can't decide which one of us to choose. Her feelings are stronger for the OM but she doesn't want to make a mistake if she can get her passion back for me. She is a basketcase because she is feeling a lot of pressure from the OM. She was talking all over the place about the kids too.

She wants to know if I will allow the kids over to the OM house again. Again they will be seen as just friends at first. She wants to try it a couple of times to see how hard it would be on them. Just take it slow to see how it feels to her. I asked her what she hopes to accomplish by this and she talked in circles. She thinks maybe something will give one way or the other if she does this and help her make a decision. She feels guilty because the kids watch her leave everyday and she wants them to be able to spend the night with her sometimes. I told her that I would have a really hard time with that because I don't see how it could be good for them. We talked for a while longer and I threw out this compromise: If she does a couple of counseling sessions and reads SAA that I will look into how all this might effect the kids and we will discuss it again this weekend. I said I couldn't make her any promises because I have yet to find anything that doesn't say it's best for children if the parents wait about six months after their DIVORCE is final before they start bringing other people around them. I told her I would look into it a lot more and see what I could find out. I really need some help with this one. For the life of me I can't see what this is going to accomplish. I believe that she thinks that if the kids spend some time like this with the OM that they will like him and it will be easy to make the break for her. That's all I can figure. I don't know what to do.

Once again I am back in control. I have decided that I am going to let my WW read the book and do the counseling even though I have already decided that I am not going to let the kids go with her over to the OM house. Is that REALLY bad? I find that I don't care if it is, I'm doing it anyway!

Kids are a good place to set your boundaries. Good luck in laying that out - not sure how wise it was to appear that open minded about kids/OM in the first place.

<small>[ April 02, 2003, 10:24 PM: Message edited by: est ]</small>

Starman, plan A isn't about allowing the WS to do anything they want...it's about being loving and caring and showing them you can fulfill their needs. I think standing up for yourself and especially your children is NECESSARY! You KNOW this is all fog and she's obviously still confused...so why on earth confuse and hurt the kids at this point!!

Of COURSE she has stronger feelings for him, that's completely normal. If she'll just cut off all contact completely and let the withdrawl pass she'll find that's not still the case. That doesn't mean for a month, it doesn't mean for 3 months...it means to simply make the committment to cut off all ties forever.

It isn't "IF" she can get feelings and passion back for you...that definatly can happen, but it's not dependant upon YOU...it's completely dependant upon HER! Take it from someone who was absolutely sure I could never love my husband again...then sure I could probly love him, but I could never forgive him (no, he never cheated on me, but I was hurt and angry because of how he never even tried to meet my needs no matter how I begged and tried)...then I was sure I had forgiven him, knew I actually still loved him but was SURE we could never have passion because we never had before. Well, here we are today, years after all that mess, and I not only undeniably and completely love my husband and being a FAMILY again...he's also become my best friend and LIFE PARTNER, and with that newfound closeness came passion we'd never had before. Go figure. Now I'll admit...the passion isn't there continually...you have to WORK at it by working on the relationship, and sometimes life just comes first. But I GUARANTEE that comes in EVERY relationship. The passion never lasts forever without work.

So there's my "been in her shoes" speech. I hope you print it off or copy and paste it in an email to her. She's textbook and I know it nags at her concience that she's probably doing the wrong thing...it's just a difficult transition to make...but it's SO WORTH IT!

Good luck starman.

Thanks everyone. My WW obviously got some conditions put on her by the OM and she is trying to figure out a way to satisfy those and keep me hanging around too. I decided that it wouldn't be right to have her do the counseling since I knew my mind was made up (I didn't want to start acting like a WS) so I told her that I couldn't stop her from taking the kids over to his house if she felt she had to but that we were going to have to tell them the truth about what was going on. She thought I was being selfish and only thinking of myself, of course.

This morning she tried a different approach. She told me very matter of factly that she was going to go very slow and just start bringing the baby over there during the days a couple of times a week. I said well let me know before you start doing that because we will have to tell the kids what's going on beforehand. She couldn't believe I was being such an a**! I said sorry but there is no way I could let any of my kids into the middle of something that I think is bad for them and at least not let them know where I stood on it. She just can't understand what the big deal is as long as we lie to them and act like there just roommates.

I really wanted to say to her if it's not such a big deal and nothings wrong with it then why are you getting so upset about telling them? I kept my cool though and handled it calmly but was very clear that I would not change my mind about this. She said she would think about it some more and let me know.

Well I just came on here to ask some opinions on what I was going to do and I saw your reply Jazzey Girl. Now I'm not sure what to do but here was my idea.

I talked to my counselor and when I told her what was going on she said it was WAY past time for plan B. My WW is very confused but wants to try this with OM. If I do the separation agreement first then I can't stop her from having visitation anywhere she wants. So I thought I would tell her that she needs to just move in with OM completely and we will work out the visitation. This would involve telling the kids what's going on since they will be spending time with the both of them. This will be very hard but I don't see any other way to do it. I don't want to be negative to them about there Mom but I can't let this happen without them knowing how wrong I think it is. How do I do this?

Starman, i really feel sorry for you,cause once you get into something like that it's very hard to get out of.The only thing that's helping me is that i'm leaning towards God for strength to get me out of it,i was a WS and so was he.i've had no contact for over a year now, but it seems like yesterday cause i truly had love him.i don't care what no one says about that, cause i know who i loved, and it's hurting so bad because i know this is the right thing to do to stay away from him for everyone sake...but it's so very hard not to be able to talk or even see him..

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by starman:
<strong> If I do the separation agreement first then I can't stop her from having visitation anywhere she wants.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">But you can stipulate restrictions in a separation agreement. In mine I stipulated that neither me nor my WS could have overnight quests of the opposite sex with my son present until divorce was final.

Something else to consider would be to obtain the opinion of a real child counselor attesting to the negative effects of such activities on your kids.

Why did your counselor think it was WAY past time for Plan B?

WAT

<small>[ April 03, 2003, 06:13 PM: Message edited by: worthatry ]</small>

She is more agressive with the plan B then SH is and she thought that if my wife was at the point that she wanted to do this that it was not going to do me any good to stay in plan A. I will look into what I can include in a separation agreement along those lines, thanks.

Thank you Jazzey Girl. The kids are the biggest reason why I'm trying as hard as I am to make this work. I already feel like I've given it my best and will be able to look them in the eye no matter what happens.

My wife came back and I told her that since this seems to be something she's set on trying that she should just move in completely with the OM. I then said we should tell the kids what's going on now so they can have some time to adjust to what's going on before she starts bringing them over there. She got upset and said that she would drop the idea for now and if I could please just give her another month to try and figure out what she wants to do. She told me that she would finish reading SAA and go to at least a couple of counseling sessions in that time because she wants to try and do what's right. I will be watching closely to see if she follows through because I have just about had all I can take with this whole thing. At first I told her that I would really have to think about waiting another month, I didn't see what that would accomplish. She said that I didn't have to wait but we've been together for thirteen years can't you please just give me one more month? So I said alright. I suppose all hope is not lost.

My wife woke up again crying just like she has for the last five days now. I was honest with her last night and told her that when all this first started I went looking for answers. I said that I found out our problems were not very different from SO many others and I knew we could make this work. So I decided that I was going to do everything I could to save our marriage. I thought I owed that to us and just as much to our kids. I told her that we could do this but that I knew that she had to want it too. Then I said that I felt okay about what I had been doing and thought that I had done all I could do. I said probably more than anything I wanted to be able to look my children in the eyes and know that I had tried as hard as I could for them. I feel like I have done that.

I don't know if that was a LB or not but I felt I owed it to her to be honest about my feelings. It really seemed to have an effect on her and I think it was one of the reasons she said she wanted to try counseling before she made any decisions.

She was crying this morning because her and the OM had another fight last night. She said that sometimes she doesn't feel like she owes him the time of day but she just can't seem to shake her feelings for him. She is very torn right now and I can't help but feel sorry for her. I have never seen a person so emotionally wiped out before. She went to the doctor today and got some anti-d and something to help her sleep. She's lost about ten pounds in the last five days and has eaten absolutely nothing. I spend time with her when she's here but I feel so helpless because I don't know what to do for her. Hopefully the OM will keep on pressuring and fighting with her and she will fall out of love with him before too long. Is there anything else I should be doing?

starman:

I think you're doing a fine job with a very difficult situation.

You are a terrific man, starman. Your W will appreciate it someday soon!

-Qfwfq