One thing about my wife before you read the following, she's extremely moody and can change her views drastically at times. At times she can be very loving and then angry. For example, she has been very receptive to my overtures but today she did an about turn and is now wanting to split up. She has said stuff like "When we get divorced..." but has later said she didn't mean it. She wants me to be interested in her interests but only if I like them for myself and not because she mentioned it. So sometimes even if I do something she likes she'll accuse me of doing it because she told me even though I did it both because she likes it and because I want to do it.

Let me just start off by saying that I love my wife more than anything else in the world. We've had a rough start to our marriage and it's on the rocks now. We were introduced through family and fell in love. Initially unbeknownst to me she was already going out with a much older guy for 2 years but knew her family would never accept him and was resigned to that fact. I got to know about this bit by bit after I proposed to her and she said yes. I was so in love I said I will love her no matter what. After we got married she said she needed time to get over him and still went to see him from time to time (meetings in restaurants etc)...I tolerated this out of love for her but then got angry about it...I was very emotional about it all and was very very dowmcast (I moved countries for her on my own volition and didn't have much family or friends for support)...our honeymoon was a disaster...after we came back we discovered that she was pregnant...this to me was initially shocking...how can we be bringing in a child to this world when we're having such problems...at that point, with my joblessness wrecking my mood I angrily asked her to have an abortion...she was shocked, to her the pregnancy meant a new beginning for us, she would love me so so so much now...but I didn't see it that way at the time, I was still bitter about her still being in touch with her ex. I changed my mind about it later but she had heard my initial response and that was it in her mind. We ended up having the abortion (very early term) and then our relationship was on and off...she had to go overseas for a medical project (she's a final year med student) and that separation made me realize what a collosal mistake I had made (I also got a job just before she left). Now I am trying desperately to make amends...she's still angry at me because I did not respond the way her ideal husband would have when she was pregnant. If I could turn back time I would but I can't. She will probably change her mind again but I don't know. I don't want to give up, I know if I can help her get over this hurdle we can have a beautiful life together. I just want to know how to make her believe in me. I have since found out that she was in touch with the guy on and off all the time. She's overseas with family now (still on her project) and is making positive responses to my sincere expressions of love and reconciliation. However, I want to tell her in no uncertain terms to break this relationship off completely. Do I do it as soon as she comes back or do I do it after showing her for a month how I have changed and see my mistakes in our marriage and am correcting them? I don't want her to think I'm being nice just because I want to win her back. On the other hand I don't want to wait too long to confront her on this.

Ironbeast, you've got a difficult story and I'm very sad for you and your wife. You've had a very hard time already, and I'm sorry for the pain you have both been through.

My suggestions would be that first off, you can't "tell" your wife to break it off completely. You can only ask.

I think that you will have to face both the relationship with this old boyfriend and the abortion. And she will have to face them both as well. And then you will have to face them together.

I suspect that the abortion is a bigger deal for her than the old boyfriend, but I'm not sure of that. Either way, I would suggest that you need to focus tremendously on improving yourself as a spouse.

Learn not to LB (learn what that means, too).
Learn to meet her needs (learn what those are).
Learn to negotiate, rather than control.
Learn to spend the right kind of time with your wife.

She's overseas, so you have a wonderful opportunity to work on those things. Read up on them here and then practice saying and doing things differently as much as you possibly can while she's gone. You want her to come home to a new, improved, wonderfuller you.

And you want those changes to be permanent. (You might want to check out Cerri's SYMC Yahoo Group for regular daily pointers)

And then you can start to deal with the old boyfriend when you're actually in the same place again.

Thanks a lot J...yeah, she did say the abortion thing was a big big deal. I've read all the way through the marriagebuilders website and some other material as well and have been preparing myself for her return. You've confirmed my gut instincts. Thanks.