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Dr., like an addict, she needs to hit rock bottom. These passive aggressive behaviour is keeping you engaged. I agree with others, detach and keep taking the time away. This cycle will continue as long as you allow it.

It was so obviously passive aggressive and blatant it took me off guard.

How so? I'm truly puzzled here. Why is dinner out with a new friend considered an attack on you?

I cut off the conversation seeing she had no desire to have an honest conversation.

Do you?

She came back into your office to apologize and figured that since she hadn't run it by you, you were upset. Let's say that's bullshit and she knew exactly why you were upset (even though I'm not sure). Why not say it? Why not say, calmly', I feel your plans are because you are upset I haven't been available. I don't appreciate being manipulated."

Have a conversation from there. From your honest assessment and feelings of what is going on. Seems to me, you assumed her motive, treated her accordingly and never really put your cards on the table. Be direct. Be concise. Don't let the conversation devolve into 22 different topics, but have the conversation.

[This message edited by TheEnd at 4:51 AM, Saturday, June 25th]

This is not you letting go of the outcome. It didn't matter why she did it. She made plans, you should have let her. That would have helped with the detachment. Considering her thought processes is counter productive at this point. You need to work on the 180. If you can't get to that place, you're better off filing. Right now you're toxic to each other.

I agree. My mistake was showing her that her passive aggressive behavior affected me. She did exactly what I asked her to do and did it in a way I expected her too—I just keep having fleeting moments of hope that she’ll wake up and show some empathy.

**

As an aside, on my way to dinner last night, I stopped by the affair hotel—I’d never been there before. I walked around the property a bit and was overwhelmed by one feeling: what the hell am I still doing in this M?

This entire time, my gut has told me to D; my heart has told me to R; and my mind has just been trying to hold it all together in limbo until I can figure it out. The hotel visit was a real gut check.

We had a strange evening when I got back from dinner. I was looking for space, but she followed me to the bedroom. She apologized for her passive aggressive behavior and I apologized again for insinuating she was a whore.

Again she claims all her defensiveness and anxiety is coming from the uncertainty of our M. She still believes I’m going to wake up any day now and file for D, so the vulnerability is making her feel like she needs to protect herself—she said dinner with the friend to her was ultimately making sure she’d have someone in her life after I leave her.

She still doesn’t recognize how vulnerable I feel—she already left me during the A and I feel like she could do it again at any moment. She can’t empathize with that though—it’s all about how she feels now and how she would feel after a D.

The scope of destruction she has unleashed on me in the kids is only viewed by her through the prism of how she feels and will feel.

Anyway, the breakdown of the entire day was entirely on me—my WW is behaving the same as she has her entire life and I’m continuing to be caught off-guard by it. I need to be better; and I will.

Because dinner was scheduled with WW’s friend from the PTA. The organization WW had a leadership role in along with her AP — which helped mask their affair. WW & AP also arranged social events without spouses with members of the PTA to have access and excuses for seeing each other.

I’m assuming that no one on the PTA ‘knew’ about the affair officially. PTA members attended PTA events and more than likely picked up on cues. But maybe not. You consider this friend .....not a friend of marriage ...correct? And time scheduled with this person that was affair adjacent is a statement. And that the fact that she doesn’t get that it’s not productive to socialize or hope for couples outings with this PTA mom because WW poisoned the well.

And she either sees it and ignores it to needle you or doesn’t see it and therefore you have a much bigger problem to deal with.

You have to disengage when you can, even if it seems like fleeing. It does neither of you any good. I called my H plenty of names, so I get it. However, it’s not productive and just like her childish behavior is hers to own, so is yours. It may be accurate, in your mind, but it sure ain’t the 180.

I can’t believe I’m advocating for more communication. It seems like you both are operating under expectations that are confusing each other. Do you each understand the limbo parameters ? Because there seem to be mixed messages, which is typical as you both try to separate to concentrate on yourselves. I would not have been able to let the PTA dinner stand either., so while I do believe you have to disengage, that’s bait not many could ignore.

What are each of your expectations on communication, sex, family time, support & individual socialization going forward? I think a strong third party can help sort these topics.....maybe again. If you’ve really already been down that road and been clear, I apologize. It must be exhausting.

I must have been writing while Dr. was posting. Ignore the parts of my posts you addressed in yours.

Because dinner was scheduled with WW’s friend from the PTA. The organization WW had a leadership role in along with her AP — which helped mask their affair. WW & AP also arranged social events without spouses with members of the PTA to have access and excuses for seeing each other.

I’m assuming that no one on the PTA ‘knew’ about the affair officially. PTA members attended PTA events and more than likely picked up on cues. But maybe not. You consider this friend .....not a friend of marriage ...correct? And time scheduled with this person that was affair adjacent is a statement. And that the fact that she doesn’t get that it’s not productive to socialize or hope for couples outings with this PTA mom because WW poisoned the well.

And she either sees it and ignores it to needle you or doesn’t see it and therefore you have a much bigger problem to deal with.

You have to disengage when you can, even if it seems like fleeing. It does neither of you any good. I called my H plenty of names, so I get it. However, it’s not productive and just like her childish behavior is hers to own, so is yours. It may be accurate, in your mind, but it sure ain’t the 180.

I can’t believe I’m advocating for more communication. It seems like you both are operating under expectations that are confusing each other. Do you each understand the limbo parameters ? Because there seem to be mixed messages, which is typical as you both try to separate to concentrate on yourselves. I would not have been able to let the PTA dinner stand either., so while I do believe you have to disengage, that’s bait not many could ignore.

What are each of your expectations on communication, sex, family time, support & individual socialization going forward? I think a strong third party can help sort these topics.....maybe again. If you’ve really already been down that road and been clear, I apologize. It must be exhausting.

My WW was on a PTA committee with AP and this friend. I have no issue with the woman—she’s a sweetheart—and I have no way of knowing if she was aware of the affair. The issue is that my wife spent months badmouthing me to her and I can’t fathom sitting down for a couples dinner with her and her husband and not being massively triggered. Maybe one day, but not now.

From my WW’s perspective, she’s trying to make friends and she is the easiest acquaintance to do that with. And she is trying to repair my reputation with her so her and her husband can be friends of our M.

I don’t have an issue with her going to dinner with her; I just had an issue with her doing it to get under my skin. But again, that’s on me—I should have just let it go. She told me an hour before I was planning to go visit the affair hotel and I was in a bad headspace—it was weak of me and I recognize it.

As for our communication, we’re still communicating a lot—not like before, but still way more than pre-DDay. The problem is she doesn’t stick to anything we agree to and she does things like last night specifically to get a reaction out of me. It’s not like I can re-establish ground rules and she’ll magically start following them. She is very uncertain right now and acts erratic as her anxiety builds. She is constantly looking for me to validate and comfort her and not getting it.

Another example from last night is she went through some of the texts she sent me from her work trip and pointed out all the times I was being cold or not engaging with her.

She mentioned how nice her hotel was and suggested we go together; I responded by agreeing it was a nice room. She told me how carefully I chose that response and how it hurt her that I didn’t agree we could go there together. I told her future vacations with her aren’t on my mind; and at that point, she had just told me she read my thread again and I was disappointed in her.

She mentioned how she sent love to me and the kids before her flight home and I didn’t respond back with an "I love you"—I instead wrote "Have a safe flight!" Again, love wasn’t on my mind.

I told her that if she was going to keep looking for validation from me, she wasn’t going to find it—and that her key goal in IC should be to work to find internal validation instead. She told me she understood, but I know she didn’t.

I’m married to a teenage girl and I’m the parent who keeps trying to explain to her what it means to be an adult—the teenage girl just thinks her parents are jerks until she grows up though.

[This message edited by Drstrangelove at 1:23 PM, Saturday, June 25th]

I told her that if she was going to keep looking for validation from me, she wasn’t going to find it—and that her key goal in IC should be to work to find internal validation instead.

This realization will serve you well. In your posts today, you gave several examples of how she still has an external locus of control, and you’re exactly right that you can’t do a single thing about that. Her task is to figure that out for herself. Instead she is just resorting to the same stuff she has always done, and then gets upset when the old patterns still don’t work. You see it now, and you are making huge progress when you become fully aware of that old futile cycle, so you can pull back and get yourself out of it.

I'm sorry your wife cannot find any empathy for you. She is functioning like a bratty 13 year old and doesn't seem to want to change.

Your ability to see what's going on has improved and you can see how much you have to disengage. This is really good for you.

If she wanted to change and help you, she could. She doesn't want to. That is absolutely clear. She is only doing anything remotely positive to get you not to divorce her. She admits this. So, in summary, anything she does that is positive is to preserve her comfort, not yours or your kids.

I do think that if you don't take some space for you, she will torpedo any chance of reconciliation. She doesn't want you to have space because it would mean discomfort for her. She is fine with your discomfort, just not hers. I hope you are not planning to join her for the trip to see her family.

[This message edited by clouds777 at 2:16 PM, Saturday, June 25th]

She is only doing anything remotely positive to get you not to divorce her. She admits this. So, in summary, anything she does that is positive is to preserve her comfort, not yours or your kids.

OP, if you had a beloved brother or friend in a marriage like this, would you tell him to stay or leave?

I'm sorry your wife cannot find any empathy for you. She is functioning like a bratty 13 year old and doesn't seem to want to change.

Your ability to see what's going on has improved and you can see how much you have to disengage. This is really good for you.

If she wanted to change and help you, she could. She doesn't want to. That is absolutely clear. She is only doing anything remotely positive to get you not to divorce her. She admits this. So, in summary, anything she does that is positive is to preserve her comfort, not yours or your kids.

I do think that if you don't take some space for you, she will torpedo any chance of reconciliation. She doesn't want you to have space because it would mean discomfort for her. She is fine with your discomfort, just not hers. I hope you are not planning to join her for the trip to see her family.

Clouds, I think you’re spot on. She also clearly feels her positive efforts aren’t being rewarded or acknowledged. I try to acknowledge the positives and tell her I appreciate them, but if I don’t mention one, she get passive aggressive until she shows her entitlement. So in the instance of the "I love you," she let it fester for two days that it was bothering her and then pointed out how she said a nice thing to me and I didn’t reciprocate or show her I cared that she did.

It feels entirely insane to me—she’s so vulnerable and uncertain and she feels like she’s just waiting on me to make a decision on R or D and she’s walking on eggshells until I do. I can also feel the resentment at times from her because I’m the one keeping her in that position (in her mind). And when I tell her she can S, she just says she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t understand why I can’t make a decision on R or D and it’s like she thinks I’m doing in purposely to punish her.

As for her family vacation, I had her book it for her and the kids without me yesterday, so she is going from July 14-21. I do not plan on accompanying her.

Truthfully, I’m not entirely sure if she even wants me to go—she has told me she does and I do get the sense she’s hurt that I’m not, but I also feel like a part of her wants to see her family on her own so she can reclaim her home turf. The only downside for me is I miss a week long vacation with my kids.

I’m also supposed to take my son to his first MLB game on Wednesday and as of now my father and WW are supposed to come. I invited her initially last month and have thought about reneging, but feel like that would be escalatory—I’m hoping we can string together a few positive days before then.

[This message edited by Drstrangelove at 3:32 PM, Saturday, June 25th]

OP, if you had a beloved brother or friend in a marriage like this, would you tell him to stay or leave?

Truthfully, I’d play it straight and just try to give him sound advice—knowing me, I’d likely take devil’s advocate positions to help him understand his arguments.

I understand that’s not your point though lol. Objectively, I see this as a dumpster fire. But I’m also struggling not to rewrite the last 17 years of my life because of the A and her selfish behavior now. I was largely happy and I shared many of the best moments of my life with her. I need to feel confident I can’t get back to that with her before I bail. It’s not like I won’t have a host of new issues to deal with in a new partner—her FOO issues, her friends, her demons.

I’m taking this moment to dig in on myself and I know I need months to find my center; to get to a place where a joke about fucking a man’s wife doesn’t ruin my night. I need to get healthy. Once I’m there, if I’m still looking at the same WW, I think that I’ll know it’s time to go.

she’s so vulnerable and uncertain and she feels like she’s just waiting on me to make a decision on R or D and she’s walking on eggshells until I do. I can also feel the resentment at times from her because I’m the one keeping her in that position (in her mind). And when I tell her she can S, she just says she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t understand why I can’t make a decision on R or D and it’s like she thinks I’m doing in purposely to punish her.

Because she sees herself as the victim, like you said. When she blames you, she avoids being accountable, and until she gets that, she will not be self-directed.

The hardest thing for me to learn was that my husband was not going to just suddenly develop sound judgment and self-reliance, and I needed to stop trying to guide him in his personal growth: He is stuck in his victim role, and he is the only person who can get himself out of it.

When you offer her choices, you are still trying (with good intentions) to teach her about internal control, and she responds by default, keeping you firmly in the role of external control, and then she resents and punishes you for it. She won’t change until she realizes that doesn’t work.

“I need to get healthy.”

Your insight is excellent. Just over three months and you are making great strides. And it’s still gonna be rough sometimes, but man, your mindset is gonna serve you well.

[This message edited by PowerWithin at 3:57 PM, Saturday, June 25th]

My mistake was showing her that her passive aggressive behavior affected me. She did exactly what I asked her to do and did it in a way I expected her too—I just keep having fleeting moments of hope that she’ll wake up and show some empathy.

Your mistake was letting it bother you at all.To even go down the road of considering motive. That's not a sign of detachment. Instead you were pissed at her for doing something that in your view, probably correctly, a negative behavior and you let her get a reaction from you. A reaction, even to negative stimuli, is a sign of feeling which is what she desired most. It's kind of warped but she's that broken. The true sign that you are done with her won't be you getting pissed at her behavior but when you stop caring what she does outside of how it impacts the kids.

But I’m also struggling not to rewrite the last 17 years of my life because of the A and her selfish behavior now. I was largely happy and I shared many of the best moments of my life with her.

Doc- Do you think your WW shares the same view, in that she was largely happy and shared many of the best moments of her life with you pre A?

You’ve said many times over that your WW resented you over the past 17 years, reflected in her rejecting you sexually, culminating of course in her A. Thus, objectively it appears that she did not share the same view.

However, recently you said you’ve come to the realization that you weren’t necessarily happy over those last 17 years, basically just content enough, stemming from your WWs sexual rejection of you.

So my question to you is, which is it? You can’t have it both ways. Largely happy and sharing the best moments of your life with WW or just meh, basically content enough?

Until you figure out how you actually felt about your pre A marriage, it’s most definitely going to make figuring out whether you want to stay in your current M, or a marriage in which your WW improves enough to even consider starting a new marriage with her, quite challenging indeed.

Also, if your WW wasn’t happy with your M over the last 17 years, which certainly appears to be the case, why does she want to stay married to you now? You’ve asked her this before, snd she’s answered, but can you really ever know because of who she is?

If it’s not for love, but instead comfort and familiarity, how do you feel about this? Moreover, based on her track record, if she tells you she wants to stay married to you for love, how can you believe her?

The answer is you can’t, and really will never know the true answer to this question. Can you reconcile this uncertainty with remaining married to your WW?

Truthfully, I’m not entirely sure if she even wants me to go—she has told me she does and I do get the sense she’s hurt that I’m not, but I also feel like a part of her wants to see her family on her own so she can reclaim her home turf.

She might also use this vacation as an opportunity to privately discuss potential divorce scenarios with her family. To gauge (or leverage) how much emotional, practical and financial support she would receive from them if she took the initiative to get out of the marriage she is not committed to. To plant more seeds of negativity about you, to increase their level of support for her seeking independence.

Don't assume this won't be happening just because she claims to not want divorce. You admit yourself that her word isn't worth anything. Even if she doesn't come back and suggest divorce, it's highly likely that potential divorce will be a major topic of conversation on her vacation. She might get feedback from them that leads her to at least outwardly recommit to the marriage, but it could also go the other way. In the case of divorce, the assurance of her extended family's access to the children will be reliant on her relationship with them, so in the end they aren't going to want to alienate her, even if they like you and disapprove of some of her behavior. Blood is thicker than water.

[This message edited by morningglory at 8:46 PM, Saturday, June 25th]

I think the best thing you can do for both of you, is to sit her down,and tell her you are no longer working on the marriage. No more MC. No more sex. No more dates. No more vacations. That you are going to work on yourself, and your healing. And that, if she wants to eventually build a new marriage with you,there are things she can do to work towards that. She has an enormous amount of work to do on herself. She needs to be transparent. She needs to stay NC. She needs to do the work to become a safe partner. She needs to work on self validation. She also needs to get real comfortable with being uncomfortable. She very much expects to have conducted a months long affair,and things to just go back to normal,because NOW divorce worries her. Too bad. That is a very predictable, and preventable, consequence of an affair.

You can not possibly heal while trying to constantly deal with her tantrums her endless pit of need,and her using the one thing she feels is a secret weapon to get what she wants(sex).

And then you need to back that conversation up with actions. Coparent. Be kind. Be polite. But detach. And watch what she does. I believe I gave the same advice weeks ago, and you balked,saying if you did these things, she would fail. So here you are. Weeks later. And nothing has really changed with her. She says one thing,and does another. She has to do the work. Not you. If she fails, she fails.

But I’m also struggling not to rewrite the last 17 years of my life because of the A and her selfish behavior now. I was largely happy and I shared many of the best moments of my life with her.

Are you saying you want to go back to a marriage in which she's the child, you're the parent, and you have control, but with no more cheating?

*****

You can't 180 while you're considering R with any hope of getting the optimal decision. The 180 minimizes communications and limits it to finances and childcare. To decide whether or not to R, you need to discuss a lot more than that.

But to decide whether or not R is for you, you need to discuss it from your heart, without regard to how you think you'll look to your WS.

Do you want your W at the MLB game or not? If not, rescind the invitation. You need to be honest with yourself and with her. If she doesn't love the real you, she's just a bad fit for you. But you'll never know if she loves the real you unless you get and stay real.

Thank you everyone for the recent posts.

Are you saying you want to go back to a marriage in which she's the child, you're the parent, and you have control, but with no more cheating?

*****

You can't 180 while you're considering R with any hope of getting the optimal decision. The 180 minimizes communications and limits it to finances and childcare. To decide whether or not to R, you need to discuss a lot more than that.

But to decide whether or not R is for you, you need to discuss it from your heart, without regard to how you think you'll look to your WS.

Do you want your W at the MLB game or not? If not, rescind the invitation. You need to be honest with yourself and with her. If she doesn't love the real you, she's just a bad fit for you. But you'll never know if she loves the real you unless you get and stay real.

Sisoon, this post was very helpful for me.

I spoke with her last night about the parent-child dynamic and it really hit her hard. I gave her some examples of it as it seemed like even though we have been discussing it often in MC, it hadn’t really sunk in with her. It really affected her—she couldn’t believe elements of it went back to when we first got together.

Her reaction was largely confusion—she said "I hate being told what to do though!" So every example ran contrary to what she thought about herself. She not only wanted to be told what to do, it gave her a chance to rebel against it and not do what she was told at times.

I could tell it gave her a lot to think about and I told her this was an opportunity to figure out who we are, who we want to be, and who we want our partner to be; but we can’t R until we individually make progress on those things. I could tell for the first time she seemed to understand what I meant and what we are tying to do right now. She’ll have plenty to discuss in IC this week.

As for the baseball game, we came to a mutual decision for her not to come—so I’ll go with my dad and son. We are all going to go rafting on July 4 as a family though.

I also thought I’d address this:

She might also use this vacation as an opportunity to privately discuss potential divorce scenarios with her family. To gauge (or leverage) how much emotional, practical and financial support she would receive from them if she took the initiative to get out of the marriage she is not committed to. To plant more seeds of negativity about you, to increase their level of support for her seeking independence.

Don't assume this won't be happening just because she claims to not want divorce. You admit yourself that her word isn't worth anything. Even if she doesn't come back and suggest divorce, it's highly likely that potential divorce will be a major topic of conversation on her vacation. She might get feedback from them that leads her to at least outwardly recommit to the marriage, but it could also go the other way. In the case of divorce, the assurance of her extended family's access to the children will be reliant on her relationship with them, so in the end they aren't going to want to alienate her, even if they like you and disapprove of some of her behavior. Blood is thicker than water.

I have no allusions as to who’s side her family is on, despite their individual pleas of compassion to me. They were enemies of our marriage, so they’re certainly not my friends now. I’ve let go of most of my anger for them, but I still pity their amoral and weak existence.

Further, I have no doubt my WW is still seeking advice from them and they’re giving thoroughly poor feedback. Not for a second do I think they’re now enlightened and wise.

My primary reason for not wanting to go up to visit them is because I don’t feel comfortable around them—and none of their phony, welcoming behavior will persuade me otherwise.

However, I also firmly believe my WW wants to spend the rest of her life with me. She may plan for eventualities as she legitimately believes I may D her at any moment; but she won’t pull the trigger herself. Honestly, I don’t know that she would pull the trigger even if she wanted too—it would be far more likely that she would just ramp up her passive aggressive behavior until she *forced* me into it.

I have been thinking about the trip heavily though—the pros and cons of going. What is in *my* best interest. On the surface, it’s easy for me to decline because I’m emotionally fragile right now and I want to protect myself—but at some point I need to stop playing checkers and start thinking my decisions through more strategically. There are many layers to the decision and I’m considering all of them.

but at some point I need to stop playing checkers and start thinking my decisions through more strategically. There are many layers to the decision and I’m considering all of them.

Going on a trip to see her family would be the OPPOSITE of all the advice you have gotten on this thread recently. Going on a trip, and really going rafting "as a family", is quite the opposite of detaching. You know she is going to fuck up, because she doesn't currently have the skills not to. Your only hope of progress is space away from her and more focus on you only, not the marriage.

Why think strategically? Why is it such a big deal? Anyone with an ounce of empathy would NEVER expect you to go on such a trip at this point, only months after what she did.

I would think your dad may be more comfortable not hanging out with your wife at this stage too but maybe he is happy to do whatever you want to do.