I really need help here...

My wife of 21 years said she wants space, she doesn't want to get divorced, doesn't want to take off wedding rings but doesn't know if she wants to go to counseling. She wants space to decide what she wants to do.

In our 21 years we've been thru hell and back.
- teenage step daughter that caused all kinds of problems
- family not accepting step daughter
- adultery (me)
- son addiction rehab, relapse and addition rehab again, currently doing well

And the list goes on. We have gone thru a lot but have made it through, I view this as positive, she views this as negative. Our youngest just turned 18, she has a job and shes doing well so I guess she just wants to move on...

Should I just sit tight and give her time? And I being played for a fool? I just don't know.

On one hand I want to believe her on the either she just seems to biding time, maybe softening the blow. Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thank you in advance!

Since you mention adultery I've asked the mods to move your thread to Surviving an Affair.
Have you read the Basic Concepts on this website?

I also encourage you to read His Needs Her Needs by Dr Bill Harley

Cap'n, I haven't been on this site for a while, but some things still ring true. "Wanting space" is a . You mentioned your own adultery, and now it appears your wife may be doing the same thing.

I agree with HDW - you should ask the mods to move this thread to the SAA forum; I think you'll get better help there.

Capt.

1. Did your marriage ever truly recover from your affair? Did you use MB?

2. It's possible she is now the one having an affair. Until you investigate you will never know...because she will not tell you herself.

I think you first need to rule out the possibility of an affair and then go from there. However, sitting back and doing nothing will only further the demise of your marriage.

We kinda recovered from my mistake, it was 12 years ago.

We spoke last night and she said she wants to stay married, that's an improvement.

I've been watching her pretty closely, phone records, etc. I haven't found anything that leads me to believe anything is going on other than her attitude toward me. But I am watched very, very closely.

Do women every just, have enough, and need space? She says she's just done, empty. We have been through a lot so I'm taking the pressure off and monitoring.

Has she moved out?

She's done and empty, but wants to stay married? That translates into CAKE. Can you hire a PI? My SIL (two of them, actually) wanted "space" and it turned out both of them were cheating. One got divorced pretty quickly, and is going through the second divorce right now from her marriage to her AP. The other doesn't want to get divorced, she just wants to live with her boyfriend instead of her H, but her H isn't giving her that option. Both gals were adamant that the marriage simply wasn't working and hadn't for a long time and needed space to figure out the future (ie, whether the thing with the boyfriend would work out).

She hasn't moved out.

She goes back and forth, she says shes done but we have some much invested she doesn't want to screw that up. She's back to she doesn't want a divorce, she doesn't want to separate, we should probably go talk to a counselor.

Her cell phone is pretty quiet these days, I check everything. I can see where she is via GPS and she has been where she's said she was, so... About the only thing I don't have covered is if there is something going on in her office.

I don't know if she's considering a fling with somebody in the office and isn't sure or she really is just done. I don't know I need to step up investigation but how can somebody find out if there is something going on in the office?

Can you afford a PI?

Can you afford the coaching center?

What 'mistake' did you commit 12 years ago? And why do you think you only 'kinda' recovered from that?

12 years ago I had an affair.

We had discussions over the weekend, in fact, she says she has gotten over the affair. She said point black that she's over it no issues, she's processed it and moved on.

However there are other issues she hasn't processed, we've had a number of very difficult situations raising our kids and she didn't like the way I handled them. She feels I always put everything above her and never had her back. While talking she rattled off 3 or 4 major issues. This was eye opening to me.

I just listened. Among the things listening she said that she has recovered from the affair. What she says is that she knows that she's recovered because thinking about that doesn't bother here in any way shape or form, she's moved on from that. These other things however she has not "processed" and she's very angry. At some point I'll point out to her she has to forgive me, for her sake not mine, but it wasn't the time. Even if she leaves she'd have to forgive and here life will be a train wreck...

Anyway, she's talking to me and telling me what's going on, that's a good thing, right? Prior to this I told her, we are married, it's a life long commitment, commit to this marriage and we'll work out anything, but without that commitment the dynamics change which just cause more issues.

She says she doesn't want to throw away the 21 year commitment and screw up everybody's lives but she's numb inside. My response is marriage, life, has peaks and valleys, right now we're in a deep valley, we'll climb out of it if we stick it out and work on it.

Capt. Read this: A Summary of Dr. Harley's Basic Concepts

It will point you in the right direction to "climb out of it" by teaching you how to care and protect for each other and rebuild the romantic love.


Are you sure there is not an emotional or physical affair here? Your wife is certainly saying all the right things to make me suspicious.

No, I'm not sure, she'd never admit that to me.

This isn't the first time she's said these things, we go through this every so often, she has unprocessed anger toward me. I've gathered a lot of evidence, of all the evidence I have the only possibility I see here is an EA in her workplace. But I have no way to verify that

Is there anyway you can stop by her workplace unexpectedly to take her out to lunch?

If you time it right, you'll see who she's lunching with. As well as making your presence known.

If she hisses and causes hell after you showing up to see her at work,... You'll know.

Have you read His Needs Her Needs as suggested earlier?

Read His Needs Her Needs years agoo

Well, looks like there may be an EA going on at work.... What should I do?

Get the proof so you can expose this? Can you hire a PI?

What "looks like there may be an EA?"

What spyware do you have in place? On her phone? Computer?

I agree with BH...

Tell us about the EA and your evidence / suspicions.

And snoop.

Well, I guess EA may be a little bit of a reacj but certainly,
risque chatting that goes way over the edge, All the info is on here work computer, I asked her it we could log into here work computer and look at her icq chats, and she adamantly refuses.

She adamantly refuses...

The person she's been chatting with is single, about 10 years younger than her and has an apartment not far from their work...

She may have seen this thread on my computer so I don't want to say too much, but like I mentioned some risque chatting, doesn't appear that anything physical occured.

I blew a gasket last night but didn't tell her what I know...

She will not budge, I have the persons cell phone number I don't think spokeo is accurate for address, thinking of sending a text to him and telling his to stay the **** away from my wife.

I have an appt with a counselor on Wed will discuss this further with him also.

I flipped things around and said, you know what if we can't look at your work icq then let's just pull the plug here and end things...

Now she says, "it's too complicated to pull the plug (split up) we have 20 years invested, it ruin the kids lives, ...".

She's not happy, she wants to stay, she wants to go.

I didn't show her any of the evidence,

chat's about free golf being better than sex and it being dependent on the partner.

going out for drinks and living in the moment and not thinking about the next day.

they were talking about playing darts but then joking about doing it lefty and blindfolded.

All sexual innuendeo chat...

Now she's going to quit her job, insists there's no physical contact...

I guess this thread should be moved to the SAA forum...

Yes. Hit notify and let the MODS know.

Capt. It is possible that she may have a secret phone. Also, if she knows about the GPS on her phone it would be easy for her to get around it by leaving it somewhere. Even though you know where she is...do you know beyond doubt WHO she is with?

You need to be in Plan A right now. No angry outbursts...that just gives her ammunition to paint you as the bad guy and justify her EA in her own mind. That is what we call foggy.

You need to be cool, calm, and in control...like James Bond.

Here.
Carrot and Stick of Plan A

Should I send an anonymous text to the person in her work? I have his cell phone number...

Anonymous! What, like 'The invisible man would like you to leave Mrs Crunch alone'?

No! You confront him as her husband. Her caring protective husband who is going to make his life a misery.

Do you have enough evidence/info to expose OM as well as WW?

I wouldnt tip your hand and confront before you have exposed. If he knows you know, he'll tell everyone his colleague has a crazy jealous H and pre-emptive strike your exposure.

Expose.
Plan A throughout.
Then confront him

This IS an EA. If not a PA. Colleagues dont joke about sex like that.

Can she read this thread? Tell the mods, if you think so by hitting notify.

I have a few chat texts from her work, here's one

WW: hey just tell me when and where
COWORKER: hahahahaha
COWORKER: you are like al bundy not me
COWORKER: married with children
WW: hahahha
COWORKER: you tell me when you are ready and all of that jazz
COWORKER: I'm flexible. i report to no one but 2 bulldogs
WW: why ... i dont think i've ever been called that before

and another
COWORKER: all i need?
WW: yea but i live in the moment
WW: so i dont think about the next day
COWORKER: i like that

I can't get much, she VPNs into work

These chats are from a few weeks ago (7/27-7-31) when she was saying she didn't know what she wanted to do, the lest few weeks have had less smutty oriented chats.

No sure if I dodged a bullet or what, but even if so, how long before it bubbles up again.

There was another text from here phone not like these but still I didn't like the tone of the text...

so no real smoking gun.... sheesh...

I've blown a gasket, she knows something is up and I'm watching everything...

It seems the more I press her the more she wants to stay but I think that may just be because she's kinda caught. That will wear off quick, once she gets through this she'll just move on. I think the only thing making her stay is I have the goods and she'd be totally embarrassed if the kids and family found out, of course at the same time, my wayward trip 12 years would probably be exposed as well to the family as well... So I big mess...

Hmm, it doesnt sound like you have MUCH in the way of evidence but that you are on the verge of getting the goods.

I'd Plan A her while snooping.

Do what you can to make her relax and think you are no longer suspicious. Remember she's addicted and she will screw up soon and you'll get your evidence.

Captain,

1. Who told you that OM is single?

2. Look for an affair phone.

As Indie said, you'll want to expose before you confront OM so that they (OM & WW) will not know what is coming.

When you expose them, calling (not texting!) OM that same day and giving him hell would give you more bang for the buck. You'll want everything coming down on them at once, not piecemeal. I really think that you have a chance of running this turd off--especially if he's married.

Also, how old are your children?

Capt, not sure how I wound up here, but here's my take.

What are you more concerned about? Your previous affair being FINALLY revealed, or preventing your wife from making the same/worst mistake of your/her life? Your betrayal to her should've been revealed years ago. All you guys did was sweep crap under the rug for years....no real healing, and no real plan. Frankly, I'm not surprised you're here. She's obviously been harboring resentment for a long time, and it would seem it's now spilling over.

Yeah, you erred in not outing yourself years ago, but that's neither here nor there right now. Get to snooping better, and I would highly suggest putting a GPS on her car. OM lives not far away from the office? Not good! If this EA hasn't gone full blown PA, then it's on the verge of it. You need to act now, before this gets to a point you REALLY don't want it to.

Seriously, click notify on the bottom of your post and have this thread moved to the SAA forum. You'll get a lot more help there. It's not a place you want to be, but it looks like a place you need to be.

Viper, you're confused,

Years ago I ended my affair myself, I then went to my wife and spilled my guts, begged forgiveness and did EVERYTHING I could to keep my family together. And have stayed 100% true to my word.

Not to overwhelm our cereal fan, but he'd be wise to expose himself (no, not like that) at the same time that he exposes his WW. I think we can all predict that that little gem will be the first thing that she trots out in her attempts to justify her affair.

Viper is probably, like me, under the assumption that no one else (your family, her family) knows about your affair from 12 years ago. Is that correct?

See, your WW will toss that card out quicker than anything when you expose her affair as her goal will be to DISTRACT everyone from what she is doing.

You see Capt, it's really not me that's confused here, but right now I think this is your biggest problem. You said it yourself:

Seems to me you're more concerned about outing yourself for what you have done than you are about stopping her for what she is about to do....assuming she hasn't already, of course.

Just how much of this is worth fixing? Oh yeah, it's going to cause you some 12 year old residual fall out and pain, but that's the price you pay when you screw around on your wife.

Tough.

Viper, How did you get that impression. I think you're confused.

Alright, point blank:

WHO in YOUR and HER family's and friends know about your adultery 12 years ago?

Don't get me wrong pal, I'm not making excuses for her actions right now, just asking a straight forward question.

NW8900, am I posting stupid stuff again? I'm a bit confused here.

Nope, seems a reasonable question and I think we were thinking the same thing.

I got that impression from this...


It was sounding like you were hesitant to expose lest your own dirty laundry be aired. You, though, have the benefit of twelve years of good conduct while she does not. It's not to brow beat you, just to make sure that your own end of the street is cleaned up in this mess. We don't want any pots yelling at kettles here.

Thanks, NW. I was beginning to believe Capt was right. Okay mmmm, no, not really.

What's your biggest concern RIGHT NOW Capt?

Capt,

Did I read that your wife has agreed to quit her job? How fast can that occur? Will she agree to never see or speak to this OM again? Will she send a NC letter?


BTW, this most certainly is a physical and emotional affair. Prepare yourself to deal with that.

AM

Your wife NEEDS to quit her job. M has no chance of recovery w/o it.

Don't be afraid of exposure, neither on you or her. Fight for your M, your kids will be glad for it, even if they're upset for a time because of the affairs. They'll get past that, they won't get past a broken M.

Get the goods on her, then expose...hire a PI if you need to, install a keylogger, and a VAR.

Holding back on exposure (particularly for your own secrets) is like holding a great big boulder above your head.

It just gets heavier and heavier. Feels like too big a deal to do anything about.

But things get much better, lighter and easier when you let the truth roll.

What's that little thing in your siggy again, indie? Yep, the truth does set you free.

Capt, I know you feel like you are between a rock and a hard place, but right now your wife is the hard place and you are that proverbial rock. You not exposing yourself when all your stuff happened 12 years ago is probably part of the reason for what's happening now. By not exposing yourself, and making yourself completely responsible and accountable for your actions, you essentially got away scot-free with marital murder. You suffered no real consequences for your terrible decisions and actions way back when. You see?

Now, what message did that send your wife when things got tough for her in marriage? Seems to me it sent the message what's good for the goose is good for the gander. What real incentive did she have for not taking the route she has? You suffered no consequences for this, so she probably feels whatever backlash she probably should receive for her transgressions are probably non-existent as well. All this may have been avoidable had you owned up to what happened back then fully and responsibly instead of just sweeping the whole thing under the rug.

Okay, all that being said, you are in no way responsible for her actions right now. She's a big girl, and she made her choices. She has a right to those choices, but she doesn't have the luxury of controlling the consequences of those choices.....but guess what, neither do you of yours 12 years ago. If you really want to repair your marriage the right way, it should be coming clear to you what you need to do to accomplish this.

It's time to remove that boulder that's hovering over both your heads.

I hope you come back and start to follow the plan. I do believe your sitch is fully fixable if you just follow the MB yellow brick road to a tee.

ETA: I'm not saying that this is exactly what happened, but a mere possibility, and certainly something to think about.

Viper, That all totally makes sense! I hope he continues to come here and work through this, I see this as totally fixable!

Right. I did my exposure of my ww while still of the popular belief that as long as nobody knew about my affair from 8 years prior, it was like it never happened. However, I was convinced after reading here and hearing all sorts of fun advice from posters that I was a hypocrite exposing her and not myself at the same time. So I went back out and explained to everyone that while my wife had been unfaithful, so had I, and in order to recover our marriage, I couldn't let that information stay locked up.

It was the only shot at recovering my M.

Turns out it was extremely important in my personal recovery from the mess that my marriage had become. The first step in really looking at myself and who I really was. In the full light of day.

No exposure would be very effective without an admission of the same trasgression, in fact it will be undermined by the ww. But with full honesty of the situation, there is hope that the ww will come on board with reconciliation.

Captain, I've checked out your thread since you started over there. I wish you luck and courage. Your history of infidelity will continue to rear it's ugly head; current or future relationships included. Radical Honesty is a principle you will want to employ from now on (as you've probably read by now), and so there it is in all it's glory; can't get around it.

Here's something to thing about. You probably revealed to your wife your infidelity in a.....non-MB way. I bet you would do it differently now; knowing what you know about MB. No?
hint: acknowleging any possible reasons, but not giving any credence to excuses...putting Extraordinary Precautions in place...giving Just Compensation.

opt

Has her affair been exposed to the kids?

Reply to:

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2666249#Post2666249


Don't debate it with her or tell her she brought this on herself. Just end the conversation or change it to something more pleasant. Be patient (but firm) while she decides what she is going to do.

Skip the counselor. Most counselors suck because they don't even believe in romantic love:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8118_real.html

Markos,

Skip the counselor. Most counselors suck because they don't even believe in romantic love:

Except with the affair partner, they just don't believe in it between spouses.

God Bless
Gamma

I don't know what to do.....

She's quitting her job, but keeps bouncing back and force about needing space to decide to continue the marriage. She had an EA cuz the marriage was in a bad place, right we all know the details....

She IS quitting her job because if she doesn't I told her the marriage is over, but whether or not to go to the counselor is another question. She needs to space to decide to continue with us. This is insane, is this the fog speaking?

I know we've always had problems but I've made a lot of changes over the years and I believe she refused to allow me to meet her needs. Not that I have been perfect and couldn't stand to make a few more changes but still...

I'm am totally baffled about what to do. I just want to go flip my wedding ring at her, tell her to rescind her resignation and then quit this marriage.

I figure have her keep her job, she makes pretty good money, my alimony payments will be smaller, I can just cut and run and not have to deal with this anymore....

Why are you following Plan let-the-wayward-call-the-shots? Even if you don't recover, do you want the mother of your kids left in an affair without a fight for money? Great stepdad material.

Just follow the plans. Waywards say stupid stuff. They vacillate. That's what waywards do.

You can't decide until action toward recovery has been taken. Push it through now. Decide later.



That is not why people have affairs.

My youngest is 18, they are all adults...

I just wanna squash my feelings for my spouse, just focus on all the bad things that have gone on and numb out... Eventually this just won't matter anymore. She'll be happy and I'll move on, she's told me repeatedly how she's wanted to leave over the years but hasn't because of the kids or whatever. I've heard it so many times so I'm just willing to accept it. This whole marriage should've ended years ago...

1. The affair is still active, that's why she isn't quitting the job.

2. The affair is still active, that's why she's back and forth about divorce.

3. The affair is still active and you are interfering with it. She needs space from you so that you'll let her be and allow the affair to continue uninterrupted.

4. You need to expose this to everyone, including, and especially, your children.

There, fixed that for you.

As someone else said, tell her to move into the garage, there's plenty of space there.

Northwood,
She's resigned from her job, she's in her last two weeks.

But did she quit because she wants to end it with OM or because you threatened her current way of life (cake eating)?

Ah good question,
I believe both, she's been trying to leave this job for a while. I also believe that she's been trying to leave this job to get away from this whole thing and not have me find out. It just so happens that when I found out the urgency was ratched up.

When I found out I told her to go in the next day and tell him I know what's going on and end it. She came home the next day and told me she had done so. She then told me that he did not show up at work for the next two days. Which I verified because I know where he lives and his car.

She says this EA has caused her to think that either our marriage has to change or end but the current EA was just wrong. So she's ending the EA but still unclear about whether the marriage can continue.

I would still expose this to your children and her employer. The letter to the employer and co-workers could be along the lines of...

my wife and OM had an affair, she is quitting as a result, you love your wife, want your marriage and family to thrive but must keep OM away for that happen. That you'd appreciate the recipient using their influence to make sure that OM stays away from you, your W and family, and that they can call you if they have any questions.

Clean it up, of course, but mail it to as many coworkers as you can.

Keep up on monitoring her via keylogger or cell software as well.

I wanted to quit a job once where some of my coworkers had become verbally abusive towards me for no particular reason, I didn't see an end to it in sight, and it was starting to affect my job performance.

I dropped off my ID badge and PDA with confidential company data with front desk security, notified my contracting agency I wouldn't be returning, and never entered the building again.

If your job is ruining your life, you don't need to give two weeks' notice. I've had plenty of employees quit on me for "personal reasons". Stuff happens.

Time to go expose, bub. Chances are her employer won't need two weeks' notice once they figure out what she's been choosing to do with her time at the office.

Problem is I'm scared, as I start to put the pieces together she's been using words like psychological abuse and violence sine the EA has been going on. I've never struck her or used psychological abuse.

I'm fearful that she's given this guy, and his friends who also work there, a sob story and their telling her to get away from me. I'm fearful she's taking surveilance and using it as an excuse to build an abuse case.

At this point I'm backing off because I'm scared of what might be happening behind the scenes... I'm looking over my shoulder and wondering if I'm going to be hit with a summons or something like that...

Well, yeah, she had to have told them that to justify the affair and make her look like the good guy or victim. See, saying "My husband is great and I have no complaints" lends people to ask "Then why are fooling around on him." Waywards really hate hearing that so it's best to stick with you being a monster so that she gets the "Oh, poor thing, we understand" instead.

Make sense?

Do your children know about her adultery? Haven't they asked why she is quitting? This is their mother, right?


What are you talking about? A summons for what? Jury Duty?

She's gotten pretty good, it seems, at getting you to back down by tossing out those "abuse" keywords. Your children are adults, so there'd be no custody issues to fight with. A divorce would just be a property settlement, so what, exactly, are you afraid of losing by standing up and refusing to put up with infidelity?

Your standards for staying married to her seem pretty low. Why?

If your spouse is threatening to make false accusations of domestic violence, I would go into immediate Plan B, with Plan D shortly thereafter.

Consider physical restraining orders so that she can't physically try to be around you.

If it's any comfort, the police are so accustomed to fake accusations of domestic violence (which they all have to take seriously) that you are probably not in much actual danger of serious repercussions.

This sounds like fodder for the stupid things that come out a wayward's piehole thread! My WH says I'm emotionally abusing him by asking that he actually be honest with me and stop screwing around on me! Just sayin...