I'm so not feeling things with her. I feeling like my emotions were wrapped up in the insane pick me game or something. I'm doing my best to just take my time but I so just want to take the 'option' off the table.
I talked to my wife a bit today - she was talking about my son. He had asked about divorce and - at a prior point - he apparently over heard us talking. She says that he knows that 'someone has someone else' or something to that effect.
I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but the affair partner apparently sent my wife flowers for Valentine's day. She threw them in the garbage, but my son saw them. She told him they were from my Aunt - he wanted to keep them, but she said no.
She says she ended it with the guy - recently. I have no evidence or proof. I find the flowers an in your face escalation - my wife is worried about them but thinks I'm over-reacting. She thinks he was 'just being stupid', which is bullshit. That it's 'just one thing and it's not indicative of a pattern or anything'. I told her that she was very poor at judging threats. I'm not talking about physical threats, to be clear, but I said that she didn't think talking to him in the beginning was a 'threat', even after I found out, she lied about it and went underground. I told her that she didn't think talking to her father was a 'threat'. She didn't like either of those examples but didn't argue.
I just don't care about reconciling anymore. I talked with some friends of mine last night and this morning. I took the infidelity out of it and really examined the situation. My wife is depressed and has been for a long time. She doesn't do shit about it on her own. I have to suggest/hand hold her. To be fair, she's been going to the IC on her own, but I prodded her into looking for one. She is different than who she was. I don't particularly like the 'new' her. I was rolling over it and over it in my head and through my friends. I know I don't have to make any sort of snap decisions. I have time, but I just feel so sad and over it, if that makes sense. Maybe it's just a new phase or whatever. I look at what I have to face - IF SHE is 100% committed - years (forever?) of not trusting her. Years of therapy. Years of not only bad romantic decisions but bad decisions period. Years of having mental pictures, of hearing her voice in my head, of the anguish that comes along with all of this. Years and years of this and what's my upside? I feel like we've grown apart ASIDE from the infidelity. History? Is that it? She's familiar? She's a warm body?
The kids tear me up but I know that I cannot stick it out for them. They already know something is up, that mommy and daddy aren't getting along. Imagine 5 more years of this? It would only get worse.
goalong
You should be concerned that she still tells you things you need to change in order for her to agree to everything. A cheater with such mind set is neither committed nor care about the BS. Such discussions should have happened before she decided to cheat.
I am very concerned about that. I'm concerned that her heart isn't in it for to really give 100%. I'm about 99% sure she's doing all this in order to keep the status quo. I've told her repeatedly that infidelity is the priority - she seems to agree...on the surface.
PassThis
This is an excellent point made by Goalong. Reflecting on Goalong's comments, if your WW makes demands of you to make any changes, she is simply providing herself with justification for her cheating. She believes that it was your fault that she cheated. If you had only been a better husband, more attentive, blah, blah, she would not have cheated. Actually, she thinks she was forced by your deficiencies to cheat. Pure, direct DARVO. Rather, she was 100% responsible for her own acts. You can consider her comments at some time in the future if you think they are relevant and sincere, but her remorse must be unconditional and she should be sensitive enough to know that her comments about you are inappropriate until she has earned your respect and become worthy of your attention.
I feel like if she didn't say anything she would still believe it, deep inside. Like, she wouldn't say that to me but she would believe it internally.
She should fix herself first. People who live in glass houses should not throw stones (as they say). She needs to spend all the energy she has to focus on her significant deficiencies that allowed herself to betray her husband and not worry about any of your petty faux pas.
She needs to fix herself first. The infidelity comes first - shit, she needs to fix herself period.
BeyondRage
As has been pointed out, it has been less than six weeks since you found out. So lets put aside all the extraneous shit and recap where you are at.
Has it? Damn, it feels like forever.
Here is what her actions have been
(1) told you she had feeling so strong for him that she did not think she could give him up
(2) Went out New Years and probably had sex with him
(3) refused multiple times No Contact
(4) Insists, and still insists on breaking it off on her terms, but still is lying and is in contact with him
(5) has probably been with him again
(6) has spoken to him about when and how she was going to dump you, all since D Day and you have heard that with your own ears
(7) wasted your time on an idiot therapist who basically told her to make a big sacrifice and not to contact him for a short time.
(8) refused total transparency
(9) refused polygraph
(10) lied to relatives
With regard to 2, she definitely had sex on New Years, I think you are thinking of later on when she 'had to see him face to face to break up'. Same difference though.
And lo and behold, three days before mediation wants to keep talking and STILL has not offered a damm thing.
Right, imagine that - suddenly she's on board. I don't buy it at all.
If anyone can find anything in her actions to reconcile with, please post it, especially with an OM a very short driving distance away.
This is in my opinion another situation where the behavior AFTER D Day actually did more to destroy a relationship than the actual cheating itself.
You will be on social security before you will ever feel safe again and not be looking over your shoulder. This OM obviously has not done anything but pursue her sexually because if he had she would have left.
Run my friend and do not look back. You have a plan to escape, have supportive parents, and you will come out on the other side whole again, but not with her.
Yes, I'm not stopping the mediation. Right now I'm not really considering reconciliation - I'm keeping the 'option' open. I guess, but I don't really feel I am.
Marz
See what is not what you want to see.
I'm trying to.
Stevesn
chamomileTea and BR have given you very good thoughts and I agree you should absorb them.
To add on to their field of thought I give you this.
The mistake many BS make is to think that at even the very HINT of remorse they all of a sudden have to stop everything they are doing that helps themselves and try and assist the WS to find that remorse. To me, that’s the absolute wrong thing to do.
Yes, I agree. I'm not stopping the mediation. I think you are right - trying to help her change or 'find remorse' is fruitless.
In almost every case we have seen here on SI of successful reconciliation the two spouses, after infidelity, need to work on themselves in order to recover from such a pain time in their relationship.
This could take months. With the only caveat being that while working on themselves it is the WS that needs to do the additional task of supporting the BS in their healing.
Your WW has done NONE of this. She is still at square one.
She is, yes.
Even if she became the highest functioning WW tomorrow, if she became Mrs Walloped or any of the experienced and understanding WS’s on Wayward Side, that would not mean one thing about you or your path on day one, or day 20 or day 50 of your plan right now.
She has so so so so much work to do. You don’t just stop everything at the hint that she may be realizing what she’s losing and what she has done? You don’t even stop if she does 10 things on your list. Continue what you are doing.
As I have said, the hardest thing she has to do is STOP LOVING HIM and BEGIN HATING HIM. That will take months or years by all indications. And so best to continue to tell her what we’ve been saying all along.
She doesn't hate him, I'm certain of that.
“I’m heartbroken, you love him and not me, I wish you well”.
And if you really feel the need to, you can add “when you’ve figured out what’s real and he’s out of your blood, brain and body, give me a call, and depending on where I am in my life, I’ll call back”.
That’s it. You don’t need to fear it LO. It’s not going to happen. Either not ever, or not for a very long time.
No changes now. Keep doing you.
I'm sitting here thinking that I should have kept my mouth shut the other day. That it doesn't matter what she says, feels, or wants. It really doesn't.
She can promise and deliver the world, I don't think I want it. I feel like I got briefly sucked into thinking I'd won the pick me game (I mean, I didn't, to be clear, just talking about a stupid feeling) and just went that direction - I've regretted it every since. I'm trying not to just react too quickly but the urge is overwhelming. I just want to end it. I CAN'T literally just end it quickly though, I have to go through this torture of mediation.
I need to keep my head. I don't even really want to talk to her anymore.
Edit: Maybe it's transitory or whatever, but all day and last night I haven't felt angry about the situation really. I've felt sad, foolish, but not really angry. It kind of feels like I want her to be someone else's problem.
[This message edited by TheLostOne2020 at 5:13 PM, February 15th (Saturday)]