Had a nice talk with the W the other night. About an hour-and-a-half. We covered a lot of things. Actually, it appears that we covering too much! My W is still beating the drum on stuff that happened 7 years ago all the way through the present day! After she was done I was like, "
Damn, I sound like such piece of crap! Why do you even want to keep me around?" She said, "Because I Love You and I Realized That I Can't Leave You." "
Wow, I guess I should feel so honored that you went out, banged around with our friend, had a one-nighter, then decided you couldn't leave me and came back when I didn't even know you were gone in the first place!" She won't say it, but I am positive that she was convinced that either she was going to leave me or I was going to leave her and be out of the picture and she wouldn't have to deal with telling me about the A's. Both PA's offend and hurt me, but the real "kick in the balls" was when she told me about the friend of her family that she did in the garage in the middle of the night while I was home in bed sleeping! And that [censored] actually stayed with us for 2 weeks! I told her that unless she was tripping out on acid I do not see any excuse what-so-ever for that one! What an absolute insult to me! Zero, absolute zero respect! That one gets to me more than the 3 mo. A w/OM. Then I went on about how the OM won't be out of our lives. OM's daughter and her daughter are best friends, same school. OM is also art instructor for her other daughter. OM and W take turns w/pick-up and drop-offs of kids to and from school, etc. I said that she must have really thought I would not be around at all. I don't know. <p>I started off with a list of things that she has said since D-Day that concern me:
- "Did you think you got away with your crap for free? Did you really think nothing was going to happen because of it?"
- "I can forgive you for your mistake if you'll forgive me for mine."
- "Just because I made a mistake don't think I'm going to just sit here and take s**t from you for it."
- "I'll never do that again. (pause) I think."
RE: The One-Nighter - "I can probably go another 7-8 yrs w/o doing that again." RE: Have another affair.
- "I didn't tell you (about the A) because I feel guilty, I only told you to make things right with God and to make us change so we don't stay on the same treadmill that we're on."
- "I can't guarantee it won't happen again, but as long as we are ontrack the way I want us to be, it shouldn't happen again." (Wow, no pressure there!)
- "On the surface it only appears that what I did is worse than what you did, but actually what you did was worse and lasted longer and happened earlier in our marriage." RE: My 4 yr EA
I'm sure there is more, but you get the gist of it. Not very reassuring statements. And as we are talking and reviewing my "ugly" past, she asks me for details of all the calls I've made to the EA during that 4 yr time, or to my exiled daughter (another story in itself), and I think to myself, "
This kind of questioning and rehashing isn't going to be very productive at all!" <p>Now I ask what her emotional needs are. She asks for only one thing: Complete honesty and openess. This includes sharing every thought and feeling I have all day. If I find someone attractive and perhaps fantasize about that person, she wants to know about it. I say, "
Why do you need to know every thought? She says because if you share it with me you won't act on it. I say,
Well you shared your thoughts with me about wanting to have a 3 way w/mutual friend and I said no and you went off a couple weeks later and started your A anyway! So what good is sharing the thoughts? I am not the one "acting" on fantasies, you are! And I continue, "
And what was that speel you gave me about how good you felt that I did not want to participate in a threesome with the OM (before the A) and that you liked that I cared about you and was looking out for you? You went off and did what you wanted anyway!" She says, "I told a long time ago that when I stop talking to you, I stray." Then I say, "
Yeah, you stopped talking to me AFTER I SAID NO! You didn't like my answer so you shut-up about it and went off and did what you wanted! Why did you do it?" Reply: Because he has the same sensual touch that you do.
SO WHAT?! You're probably going to meet a lot of people that are like me in one way or another but you don't have to have sex with them! What would you do if I went after everyone that I was attracted to because they reminded me of you? Man, it's hard to drive the point home sometimes!<p>So we boiled it down to this. The most hurtful thing to her is loss of emotional intimacy and connection, for me it was the sexual involvement, and being that was purely a pleasure ride for her, not an emotional one, I can't help but to take what she did personally. After all these years of hearing how wonderful and special a lover I am and that I please her more than any other lover, she stills needs more adventure? I said, "
Okay, if my heart is more important than my body, what if I had sex with others just for the fun of it and told you it didn't matter because you still have my heart. Would you accept that?" (sarcastic reply), "I don't know, why don't you try it and we'll find out!" Sometimes it seems like an endless circle. Even she said at the end of the talk, "I don't know if this is repairable." <p>Perhaps this brought us to the end of the line. Maybe we are starting to see each other in reality now, as non-compatible partners, instead of just gliding along as we were on "auto-pilot" or on that "treadmill" as she calls it. In one way the talking calmed me down, but in another way it was even more disturbing in its revelation about her and I together, and as individuals. <p>She wants to work on doing things together, shared activites, shared interests, which we rarely do. That's a start, I guess, but will love come back again? The longer I stay the more I think she thinks that I am going to be around forever. I don't want her to feel that assured yet. I want the right to change my mind later, even if we do try to mend it. I told her that now that this happened I am going to be more my real self and she may not like me after all. I've kept my mouth shut for so long, or ignored or just accepted things nonchalantly. If I am going to stay, that cannot continue. I really will die inside if I don't come out of this a stronger individual and we will slide back to what we have now and she will stray again. I only hope to be brave enough to continue down the road and see where it leads us, together or apart. <p>Any advice on the next step in all this?
Thanks for your time and input.<p>[ April 29, 2002: Message edited by: Blind Sided ]<p>[ April 29, 2002: Message edited by: Blind Sided ]</p>
