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Exactly correct. She is a child.

She is punishing you. She wants to win.

What some ww posts have described is the utopia or recovery for a wayward. It should give you a roadmap of what to look for but don't let it give you false hope. Look at what is in front of you. She is reading your thread, has the answers to the test and CHOOSES to be mean, vindictive, difficult, hurtful and not wear her wedding ring at an event with people who know of the affair. She will lie and say she's sorry and she made a mistake, just like she does for literally everything else. She completely expects that you will accept whatever she will dish out. She even knows pouting will get you to talk to her when you absolutely should not.

Meanwhile you're worried she will perceive the 180 as cold. She has had complete control of you and the situation this whole time. She isn't about to give up any of that control willingly and she will make you miserable in the process.

I hope this is all a wakeup call on why detach is what you need to do, no matter what her reaction might be. Detach detach detach. If you're not discussing logistics of running a household, pretend she is speaking Japanese and you can't understand. Just do not engage.

This is some passive-aggressive bullshit, right here. It's just another way for her to express her resentments and anger toward you. Same deal with becoming cold toward you when she perceives that her lovebombing isn't working (when you're trying to detach with the 180).

And that right there...that's the "real" her. That's her authentic self, currently. I've never known anyone with this kind of entrenched passive-aggressive victim behavior to be able to recognize it and grow out of it. I don't know why, but this particular mental pattern is extremely hard to fix. It's going to take years and years for her to be able to identify what she's doing and stop doing it, IMO.

Personally, I don't keep passive-aggressive people close to me in my life. It's dishonest, deceptive, destructive behavior. But it allows them to keep thinking they are the real victims, and that everything they do to purposefully hurt others is justified because "they hurt me first," or it's forgivable because they "didn't mean to do it."

She’s always been that way; I just have never let it bother me. I called out her BS when it affected me; she apologized; and I moved on with my life. She is by far the most passive aggressive person I have ever known and it’s strange to try to explain why I’ve tolerated it—but because she always backs off and apologizes, I never held it as a grudge.

Her instincts are always wrong and she apologizes for them afterward—and then she’s angry that I’m always right. But journaling my life in this thread has been eye-opening. At a time when she should be on her best behavior, she is fucking up multiple times every day. Reflecting back on what I’ve written is exhausting—so I can only imagine how you poor people feel reading it.

I’m living in a waking nightmare and oblivious to it. I need to detach from this hell ride.

I’m giving my sister an update on what’s happening this afternoon, then the concert. Then we have MC tomorrow morning, so that should be fun.

[This message edited by Drstrangelove at 6:04 PM, Thursday, June 16th]

180, when done properly, is cold. That's the point. It's going through the motions without emotion. Minimal motions at that. As you would with someone you dislike in a situation where you have to deal with them. It shouldn't be a surprise that waywards percieve it as you being distant and cold because the point is getting distance from them.

Just for the record, I don’t think what numb and dumb said about divorce is totally in conflict with what I said.

I said she doesn’t want a divorce now, basically that she is disoriented and confused about what path to take next. The reasons she doesn’t want a divorce are probably what numb and dumb is saying. Basically that there are a lot of advantages to being married and that decision to end it is a huge step.

The thing is 4 month after cheating the set up and justification in our brains are barely eradicated. In fact, the intensity of the relationship is exhausting for both the ws and bs during this time.

I disagree with your OC about the sex part only with the distinction that yes it should be that way in a normal healthy relationship. You know your wife is "deeply unwell", expecting her to be so open to sex all the time is a set up in failure.

I know it’s hard not to personalize it but our sex drive can be influenced by our partners but only by so much. Right now things are unstable that would have a negative effect on a lot of peoples sex drive. To keep seeing this as evidence of something relationship wise is to ignore a whole body of other evidence.

And of course your wife is using your thread as a cheat sheet. She doesn’t know the answers, but I will give her credit for seeking them at least. I would call months 1-6 for most ws as total emotional constipation. Everything is too big and two entangled.

It’s really a useless time to invest energy when the ws isn’t getting it. It does take practice but I think you can be kind to someone at the same time as you distance yourself to protect your emotions and well being.

Despite semantics it seems your ic and all of us are essentially in agreement. The success of getting to the point that you can look at reconciliation really lies in minimizing continued damage. That might be another way to frame the 180. You are protecting the possibility of reconciling later by minimizing your interactions with her while she is not healthy.

Even if you don’t reconcile you could be protecting a future coparenting relationship and also the damage you carry forward as you try to move on to the next chapter of your life.

I still say everything that is happening here is pretty normal and typical this far out. I don’t think trying to decide anything outside of how do we protect from continued damage is the only thing that makes sense. The pieces are not in place for anything else right now.

If she works on herself you aren’t going to need to worry about long term perception of you. Short term anything is through a damaged lens and neither of you have any control over that at this exact moment in time. It’s up to her to get control over that- you can’t be concerned with managing it for the both of you. You are trying too hard. Let down that reign and let her figure out how to pick it up. It’s sink or swim. Your power lies in finding your way of taking care of yourself.

I know it’s so much easier said than done.

[This message edited by hikingout at 8:00 PM, Thursday, June 16th]

It’s really a useless time to invest energy when the ws isn’t getting it.

That has clearly been true.

Regarding the ring, she claims she hasn’t worn it all week and it was entirely a slip of mind. I don’t believe anything she says—and that’s the larger issue anyway.

I’m done with all her emotional abuse and games.

This has been the most painful three months of my life and I need to get off the crazy train to protect myself from further harm.

Agree with hikingou, specifically about the timeframe. The 1-6 month period, for me and my WW was terrible, and I had a WW that was not combative, although continued to lie and gaslight at times.

Our R didn’t really begin, hate to say it, at the 1.5 - 2 year mark. This is when I believe my WW hit rock bottom and was pushed into dealing with her shit. We had and have marriage issues, like every couple, but we couldn’t begin to address the marriage issues until she dealt with her issues.

Someone said this was a marathon and not a sprint, couldn’t agree more. At nearly 7 years from dday, I would say we are in as good a place as we can be. We have both done work on ourselves and to the relationship, but it was a long struggle.

If I’m honest and if I had known the immense struggle that we would go through, I’m not sure I would have pressed on with R. My WW knows this.

The first 6 months was absolutely the worst period of my life, nothing that has happened to me comes close. I say this because, IMHO, your situation will get worse before it gets better. Are you willing to go through 6 months to a year and a half of hell? Only you can answer that. I wish you both well.

It takes practice but I think you can be kind to someone at the same time as you distance yourself to protect your emotions and well being.

^^^ This right here. You were probably projecting your feelings through your actions. That's normal. It takes practice but the 180 should be more cool and detached than cold and passive aggressive.

This next bit was more fitting about 8 pages back but ya'll write faster than I have time to read.

Regarding your sexual relationship, it appears you are in a way trying to use sex to repair the marriage. Rather, I think it is better to think of it this way: Sex is a thermometer, not a thermostat. It measures the temperature of the relationship. It doesn't change the temperature of the relationship. Expecting her to enthusiastically embrace all aspects of your sexual want list is expecting sex to be the thermostat.

All the best to you

[This message edited by CuriousObserver at 7:29 PM, Thursday, June 16th]

Our R didn’t really begin, hate to say it, at the 1.5 - 2 year mark.

So I understand, what did you do for those first two years then?

And it’s strange to think about at the start—I can’t imagine doing *this* for another day, but I know that can’t be avoided entirely.

I just broke the news to my dad and I feel my world opening back up a bit. My sister is next.

Not the person you asked for an answer from, but I gave it a good two years to see if R would be possible with my husband, before I decided that if he hadn't done the work at that point--he wasn't gonna.

While waiting, I: Focused on my career and business, dealt with the pandemic, supported my teen/young adult kids, worked with my betrayal coach, pursued hobbies when I could, and worked on my own healing a lot. And maintained a supportive but untrusting attitude towards my husband; loving, but skeptical. I watched and waited to see what he would do. (Which turned out to be almost nothing, and no change in him was forthcoming.)

Limbo ABSOLUTELY SUCKS. But it's part of the process. I discovered my husband's cheating in February 2020, the world locked down for the pandemic in March 2020, and that year was hands-down the WORST year of my life. 2021 was the second-worst year of my life. I'm hopeful that 2022 will only be the third-worst year of my life :)

I haven’t figured out what method is best in dealing with her. I am still going to focus on me and live my life, but I also recognize she reacts poorly when she feels shutout.

You seem confused somewhat on your obligation to your WW, her mental health, and the family's mental health. This is a boundary issue with your boundary around what your "job" is bending and moving rather than being clear and defined. Your job is to make decisions that are guided by personally healthy principles about what is good for you but not intentionally harmful to others. That is everyone's only job in life.

Here is where you get confused: you are NOT responsible for how she feels or handles your rational, personally healthy behaviors. She pouts? Oh well. Ignore and go about your business in a detached (not cold as ice) manner. She seems depressed? She's a big girl. She'll figure out what to do about her own feelings. That's her job, not yours. Do not ask how she is. Do not babysit her feelings. Do not worry about her interpretations. That is her job in life, to take care of herself and advocate for her own needs. This is what she needs to learn in IC. Free your mind to think about and meet your own needs separate from her.

I think you two have a parent/child relationship where you have felt responsible for her and she has bought into that idea that you cause her feelings. You are not her parent and you are not responsible for getting her mental health treatment or anything else. Call 911 if you are truly worried, but do not tiptoe around her because you feel you are causing anything. When she is suffering, she needs to reach out for more help like her IC said. Don't diagnose her or try to manage her issues. They are hers. If she is a danger to herself or others, call 911. If she is wallowing and living in an unhealthy manner, demand she get additional help or a divorce. She can pick herself. All adults get to pick, even when they make shitty choices. It's her life, not yours.

A parent/child dynamic is a toxic brew with one feeling competent but exhausted and the other feeling totally incompetent but unencumbered. You need to put down the overachieving so she can pick these responsibilities up for herself. (This is my own M. I am you, the overachiever who fixes everything--even coming on SI to get the answers. Many of us can relate. Put your own oxygen mask on and stop trying to save the whole damn plane. It's ok to just take care of you right now. She's a big girl who can and should be making all her own decisions right now. Let go.)

One last thing: you seem to continually open up conversations like, "What's wrong?" Or "How are you?" Like a good dad, you try to help out and unburden your poor, incompetent child. STOP.

No more asking about her feelings or her day. She uses you as a parental sounding board. She looks upset? Let her learn to manage her own feelings rather than believing you should "fix it" for her.

Not. Your. Job.

[This message edited by OwningItNow at 8:13 PM, Thursday, June 16th]

To echo Jameson…

I would also say that our r didn’t start really until month 11 when we ended our in bourse separation. I was very remorseful by then. It took me understanding and accepting some of my own behaviors to be able to begin dealing with the damage I did for him.

By this point h had given up and I was doing most of the work. This was a welcome relief to him but he really didn’t know how to deal with it all and he refused to go to IC.

While it’s hard to think about that and the time in between, it really does start getting better than it is now.

The answer what people did though- they focused on themselves. Other than that, we did work on our connection after about the first six months. Other than our brief in house separation we slept in the same bed, we still had sex. We spent some time together. What we didn’t do was sit and have him try and understand me when I didn’t understand me.

The point of this change in tides was he came to the same realization you have - that I was bat shit crazy at the moment (take that with a grain of salt - I was still running companies and still fine with our kids and all of that) but I didn’t know what end was up, what I wanted, because I was too busy self-loathing and not doing anything the right way.

It does get better, but the first 6 months I think are the worst. Some of that is in the bs too- that’s typically the shock stage. It probably seemingly gets better because what comes next is typically the anger stage and it feels good to be angry. Just remember anger is sads body guard. While it’s a normal and healthy part of the grieving process, you don’t want to pack your things and live there. It is however a relief because it starts making you feel like you are getting power back in the situation. I am not advising you to get angry, I am just telling you that is what is next. I can see you are on the cusp of that now.

[This message edited by hikingout at 8:18 PM, Thursday, June 16th]

She was spiralling, and called her IC. Good move.

Except she spent that time bitching about you.

So basically she just switched her family out for her IC.

No real change.

I just saw owning it now’s post and she did a better job at describing detachment. Read that when you get lost. I agree it’s more of defining the boundaries.

At some point we scheduled when we would sit down and talk about the affair, the rest of the time we went about our business. Probably a tad on the early side for it now.

Change takes time. It doesn’t happen in a day, and it won’t show up in the one thing we did right in that day. The things we are doing wrong should begin to lessen. That’s like what numb and dumb was describing - it’s not measered in days, it’s measured in months. It’s just hard to envision being in as much pain as you are in now for much longer. Practicing detachment is awkward but as you get better at it you will feel much better.

The only person we have control of is ourselves. That’s where our power is. The minute we start managing what is not ours is the minute we give away our power and any chance at having some peace of mind.

Dr., we spent hours and hours over the months and year going back and forth, long discussions, very, very emotionally charged period of time. Both my WW and I were flailing, didn’t know how to deal with this. Didn’t help that in my gut, I knew she wasn’t being truthful, even with her professing that I knew "everything". Well, turns out I didn’t know everything and my gut feel was nearly 100% accurate.

All this wasted time could have been avoided had my WW simply been open, honest and transparent. But she just couldn’t let go of her desire to control the outcome (or in her eyes, "save me more pain"). Total BS, and she has since admitted this. She was trying to control the situation, but she wasn’t able to convince me, so we spent this long period in purgatory!

It was a very low point for both of us. I couldn’t sleep, so I would wallow in self pity and drink to numb the pain. The drinking was bad and didn’t help anything, in fact it made things worse.

I finally had enough at one point and gave her an ultimatum, intensive IC to address her problems or we are done, last chance. She finally pulled her head out of her ass and did the work. Ironically, she fought me on this but after a couple years of IC, she actually thanked me for "forcing" her to address her issues. It was a positive outcome but getting to that point was maddening for me.

Also wanted to mention, and this is a personal thing and everyone would be different.

I have alway prided myself on not owing anyone anything (except for the bank!). I feel that if I don’t owe anyone anything, I can remove or cut people out of my life without any guilt or fallout and have done this many time in my life. Life it too short to have toxic people around you.

Now, I never felt this way about my WW. I did however feel this way about family members and did cut my WW’s father out of MY life for a long time, that’s another crazy story for another day!

My rigid stance on this has made R more difficult. My WW and I have been together for a long time (High School) and really did grow up together. She is all I know when it comes to real relationships (emotional and physical). I always said, if a partner cheated on me, I would be done, 100%, No coming back, just like I had on other occasions.

Wasn’t that simple as it turns out! I was torn and if I’m being honest, I still struggle with this. My WW and I recently discussed this after her and I discussed your thread (I’d be happy to provide my WW’s feelings on your situation).

I love my wife, I am and have always been 100% committed to her, but I have competing thoughts running through my head. I love her, but she betrayed me in the worst way possible, and I deal with people like that by cutting them out of my life, but then, I do love my wife and don’t want to D. Just a continual cycle that over time has gotten easier to manage, but it is always there.

A parent/child dynamic is a toxic brew with one feeling competent but exhausted and the other feeling totally incompetent but unencumbered. You need to put down the overachieving so she can pick these responsibilities up for herself. (This is my own M. I am you, the overachiever who fixes everything--even coming on SI to get the answers. Many of us can relate. Put your own oxygen mask on and stop trying to save the whole damn plane. It's ok to just take care of you right now. She's a big girl who can and should be making all her own decisions right now. Let go.)

I think you have the dynamic spot on.

Thank you for the all the informative messages today. I don’t have the time to respond to them all individually, but I’ve read most twice.

I spoke to my WW earlier tonight and made it clear I would no longer engage in any more of these dramatic conversations. I told her they weren’t helping her and they were hurting me. She was very upset and felt me getting distant—she asked if she could still hug me and be close to me. I said we would figure it out as we go, but I just need to stop the talks immediately.

She texted me later (I’m out for evening). She called her mom, paralyzed with fear. She doesn’t know what to do and feels like she has no control in her life. She recognizes she keeps having overly emotional outbreaks and doesn’t understand them.

I told her this will be for the best. MC in the morning should be interesting.

[This message edited by Drstrangelove at 12:41 AM, Friday, June 17th]

This is good, like an addict, she needs to hit rock bottom before she can begin to rebuild. Stick with this Dr., she is more than capable of figuring this out herself and this will help you heal in the long run.

These highly emotional discussions are really hard to take, day after day. They wear you down.

[This message edited by Jameson1977 at 12:20 AM, Friday, June 17th]

Hey Doc. I’ve been reading even when not posting. But it’s been a while and I thought I’d chime in here at this time.

I think we can all agree at this moment, what you and your W are trying and doing, is not working. I think you both need to re-evaluate how you are approaching recovery. You have both been trying to do this in a cocoon, keeping your issues away from your families and your kids.

Now I think it’s appropriate at this point that you opened up to your sister and dad. You NEED that support. And trying to hide your pain and issues from those that love you is not the answer.

Now as far as the kids, I am not advocating telling them what has occurred. But you’ve been trying to keep their lives the same and unchanged under these extremely stressful circumstances. And while you and your wife contort yourselves to ensure they don’t notice a thing, it’s making things worse.

But the truth is you are both pulling muscles left and right, and things are going to just come crashing down when instead you could have made their landing much easier even if you had already made some changes to ensure their parents get the help they need in a more appropriate way.

So what am I advocating you might wonder. A few things.

1) I think you are coming to realize this but in my opinion, it’s time to STOP working on the marriage. You’ve tried to do too much too soon. Your wife is not ready. She can’t handle it. The same issues that caused her to make a tragically awful decision to cheat still remain. She needs a lot of intense work to figure out what caused the damage that exists in her and if she can learn how to repair it and change how she Interacts not just with you but everyone else in her life.

So personally I think it’s time to say that you hope to work on the marriage down the road but it’s not time right now to do that. I recommend in MC tomorrow that you ask to put this on pause. I recommend for at least 3 months. Personally I think 6 months to a year. But if your more comfortable with 12-13 weeks then so be it. Tell them you need the break. And you just need to be for a while.

2) and here is the hard one. I think you need to separate for a while. Probably the same 3 months. You call tell her you want to be with her for the rest of your life and you feel strongly that the path you are on is making that less likely than more. That you want her to focus on her and you to focus on you.

So I suggest you each take turns in the house. You for a few days then back to her. I dont know what the kids are doing for the summer but if they are going to camp or some other day program you can share transportation responsibility but honestly it’s best to see each other as little as possible. Perhaps you can each have your own family help you on your days.

And I recommend cutting their activities to make them more manageable for you and your wife. She’ll say "they shouldn’t suffer" and of course the response should be "which is more important, their parents working on themselves so they can hopefully stay together long term or another soccer clinic?"

Come up with a schedule where you each get weekend time. Those here who have been in this situation can tell you what works best. And on the off days, stay with your own families. You need the time to reconnect with them as well.

Again set the timeframe. Again I suggest 2-3 months til the next checkpoint.

3) Drop MC and add more IC for you. Focus on you. As you have admitted, Affair aside, you have issues. Not just surface ones. Honestly you are no good to her either without working on them and in an Intense way. You have your own journey to take here and you cannot do it if you are always wondering what she’s doing or not doing to make you feel better. With the separation in place you will have time to breathe and reflect and heal on your own.

4) ok this is a tough one. And I dont know how you get there. But I agree, your wife needs greater help than she is getting. I’ve had family members in therapy, and the psychologist always worked in partnership with a psychiatrist. Honestly the Dr didn’t do more than read the therapists reports and decide on prescribing meds. But if needed they were there. They were monitoring.

I think you should insist that your wife have a psychiatrist included on her team.

Honestly that is the bare minimum you can ask for. Because quite honestly I think your wife is spiraling. She is awash in the ocean, trying to stay alive and keep breathing and no where near terra firma. That is not a position from where she can rebuild a marriage. She is not in control of her emotions. As I think I wrote to you last, she is months or a year or really probably years from being someone that can rebuild a marriage. If I had my druthers she would go to an in patient program for a while. But baby steps. Start by stating that at the very least she needs to include a psychiatrist on her team.

So I fully recommend you put that on hold as I wrote above so she can get that focus. She also needs time to breathe. Take away the pressure of having to do anything and everything right. Ask her to take a step back and only worry about her Introspection, working in therapy and of course, the kids.

4) Now how do you communicate this. I think you do it with the MC tomorrow. And I think you reinforce that your goal is still to find a way to build something new with her. But it cant be with who she is now. And honestly it can’t even be with who you are now.

You both need extended time to work on yourselves first. The experiment of the last 3 months has failed. You need to do something differently. You need to both admit you are currently on a path headed directly to D. What has happened between you for the extent of your marriage has not been good and the affair blew the whole already damaged house down.

She was already severely damaged. And you weren’t in great shape before the affair and her cheating put you on life support.

So stress that the path you are on together has put you far closer to D than DDay. That you ABSOLUTELY dont want that. That you need a different approach and that if you’re in it for the long haul, then a short to medium term separation is better than ending the marriage altogether right now or in the next few months, which is what’s going to happen if you keep each hitting yourself in the face under your current approach.

I hope you’ll consider it Doc. I know you’ve been hesitant to do anything like this in the past. But two broken people, one extremely so, and one still very hurt, can’t fix an what was already an unstable relationship.

Please think about it.

[This message edited by Stevesn at 11:57 AM, Friday, June 17th]