OK, as briefly as possible, here goes...my wife and I have been separated since July. In all honesty, she has emotional issues that go beyond our marriage. I have tried to be patient, but while she says she wants her life back (she is the one that moved out), her actions do not match her words. In particular, she has continued to see the man that I originally caught her with. She claims that nothing is happening. My response was that she simply cannot say she is working on things with me if she is spending time with this other guy and have asked her to put him aside and for a couple of months work on trying to meet each other's emotional needs. In fact, I even gave her the His Needs, Her Needs book and read to her the part about how I needed to understand why she felt she needed to seek out another man. Her response to all of this continues to be "I don't know". Now, she is not even returning calls. Like I said before, even she admits that she has emotional problems. Any thoughts on when enough is enough and when "I don't know" means "no" and how to communicate this to her when we are not talking? Thanks.

Wow youre wife sounds a lot like mine. She just came in 1 day and said she needed time to think and was getting her own place. I cried like a baby and begged her not to go, but eventually saw that nothing was going to change her mind and told her that if thats what she needed then fine, I understand.

After a week she became severely depressed and after being lonely and alone after 6 years of marriage got involved with another man.

For a while she just said he was a friend but after checking around and eventually she confessed to sleeping with him. It took her a while to tell me the truth she said its because she was afraid of losing me.

She regreted what she had done and wanted her old life back but still wanted to be friends with this guy and his friends and wanted me to be his friend too, not gonna happen I'm sorry but if she wants me back she will have to end it with him totally.

My wife has also had emotional problems that she cant even desribe to me all. Through our marriage she had horrific nightmares almost daily. SAD

My wife was also emotionally, physically, verbally , and sexually abused when younger I did not know this until we were married and she opened up about it.

Sometimes I ask her WHY she wanted the other man and she says, "I don't know because I was the only thing in her life that made her happy."

I'm not saying at all that this is youre wife I'm just giving you my experience because it's similar to yours. My wife has since been very depressed to the point of losing her job and totally losing direction in life she not the same person at all 360 turn around but still wants the marriage to work out. Unless we can reach an understanding our divorce will be final on 4/25/05

To be honest with you I have no idea about how long one should wait before you have to make a decision, I did because she just refuses to change and time is precious and she seems to be moving on already.

There was once a post on this board awhile back and the quote was "Some people spend years in the valley of indecision" I guess this is saying you dont want to be in the same position 5 years from now, lifes too short and you have to be reasonably happy.

This is the worst thing I ever went through in my life. Hope this helps

Thanks for the reply and I am so sorry for your situation as well. About the only thing I can think of to do is to give her a little time to initiate contact and, if not, then tell her that I am going to move forward with a divorce. If she would only be honest, a lot of understanding on both sides could occur. Divorcing her is not what I want, but it is becoming what I need.

Am I correct in assuming that you are in Plan A?

It's advised for a betrayed husband to try Plan A for 6 months. During that time you can't really EXPECT her to get it, let alone make any changes. If at the end of Plan A (6 months of you trying to meet her needs, not starting arguments with her, not taking her bait when she tries to start arguments, etc.) she will not end contact with OM, THEN you go to Plan B.

In Plan B you do not start dating or file for divorce.

You give her a letter telling her she will have to end all contact with the OM in order to have contact with you.

If Plan B does not result in her ending contact with the OM and wanting to return to work on the marriage, then you divorce and start a new life without her, in that order.