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How much interaction was there between her and him and how long did it go on for?

I really don’t know, I’ve pretty much shared everything I know. That, combined with her continuing to avoid me, it is enough to act.

I don’t even know if this was texting (which was a heavy A medium) or in person. I just know enough and I’m so fucking sick of my mind trying to make sense of her and her stupid secrets.

[This message edited by InkHulk at 9:12 PM, Friday, March 15th]

Get the facts. Lay them out.

Make the best decision you can based on them.

Valid, but not in this situation. I was firm, but controlled. No where near where a conversation like that should stop. This was 24 hours after initial telling. I’ve even checked my intensity levels with my IC. I get to have my emotions in this, and I get to be pissed about this shit. I’m not asking to get to spit-yell in her face, but I get to fucking be firm. Period. Like this. Valid, but not in this situation. I was firm, but controlled. No where near where a conversation like that should stop. This was 24 hours after initial telling. I’ve even checked my intensity levels with my IC. I get to have my emotions in this, and I get to be pissed about this shit. I’m not asking to get to spit-yell in her face, but I get to fucking be firm. Period. Like this.

This is kind of what I mean though. I never said that you shouldn’t or couldn’t be pissed or angry. I am just saying that she does have a right to end a conversation if she feels you are too angry to have it. Her IC Is telling her to do that while you are asking yours about intensity.

However, I also said it was a poor time to put that boundary up. She absolutely should have pushed through and made you understand. This was more urgent and needed addressed immediately. I said that too.

What maybe I didn’t make clear is it’s a straw man in this case, I honestly think there wasn’t a good answer. She maybe has gotten burned by discussing things she doesn’t understand about herself while she knew you were angry (which I will say for the third time now is valid that you would be angry). I don’t know any ws who hasn’t found not knowing the answer to go badly.

I am not taking up for her, I am just always balanced in my answers. I tend to look at everything in life in a 360 degree way, I wasn’t trying to stifle you. It just happens I have been to IC as a ws and know this is what they teach to people who have an aversion to conflict and people pleasing tendencies. I sometimes delayed because he was too emotional and it was unproductive, and I sometimes delayed because I didn’t know the answers. But she should be transparent of which one it is and not gaslight you to stall for time. In the other hand she probably knew the answer she didn’t know would probably escalate the situation too. I think a lot of things she does largely goes unexamined until she is pressed. This is likely a pattern that has always been there.

[This message edited by hikingout at 9:32 PM, Friday, March 15th]

Get the facts. Lay them out.

Make the best decision you can based on them.

You and your damned reasonableness.

I’ll do my best, friend. I’ve been traveling for business, so dealing with all this on the road, distracted and sleep deprived while I’m supposed to be making significant contributions. I’m just getting home, we’ll see if she will disclose. I have to imagine that you anticipate arguments people will make. Got any hypothetical situations in that powerful brain of yours that could make any sense of these known facts?

You've tied yourself up in knots trying to understand her, why she does what she does, how she thinks, and how you should respond to her.

And she can't even be present when you're trying to process yet another wound she's inflicted.

She just can't stop hurting you.

I'm so sorry, InkHulk.

It’s truly baffling. She is her own worst enemy, it’s hard to understand why.

Yes this. Outrageous - sure. But like, more than that, its just legitimately confounding. I know in the past you have described her as being like a new fawn trying to test out her legs, but like, this is like chapter 1 of Not Just Friends level stuff. I know you have described her as naïve, but like....I have to assume she's not an idiot. Sorry, I'm not trying to be denigratory, it's just so utterly illogical that I just truly don't get it. I know you don't either.

I’ve been filling in explanations for her all this time and maybe somehow she is just missing something in her decision making. I don’t know, but it is fucking ruining my life.

I hear you on this. I agree that you matter. You cannot do this for her. You have been more patient than most, with your broken heart wide fucking open, and I have no doubt that you would do your best to continue in this vein if she was giving you something - anything - to work with in terms of progress.

I truly know you don't need to hear it, and I'm not trying to twist any knives, but the sticking point for me is that she shut you down (again) when trying to discuss it. I just don't know how you work with that.

Got any hypothetical situations in that powerful brain of yours that could make any sense of these known facts?

She is still thinking in wayward terms. She is fishing for a second relationship while maintaining the relationship with you. I'm not suggesting that you are lacking anything. I'm suggesting she still hasn't really come around to thinking in more classical monogamous terms.

The thing that's hard about wayward thinking is that the framing is that it is hard to grasp for a faithful person (by way of thinking rather than by way of acting, being as faithful as your options isn't really "faithful").

I think we talked about the whole wave-particle duality thing when Oppenheimer came out. While I don't know that it's a useful metaphor in itself, the struggle in understanding wave-particle duality to someone that has only learned classical physics up to that point is very hard. You have to reframe how you think about the world in order to understand it.

A typical faithful spouse has a hard time understanding the motivation to cheat, because their framework doesn't allow for "duality". You wouldn't cheat on a person if you loved them, so you think "I would leave before I would cheat", or some other similar cliche. You'll see this repeated all over the place. This type of person is maintaining what is essentially a standard ethical and monogamous frame. (For those of you that are in to ethical non-monogamy, I'm not taking a jab at you). You have a single romantic partner at a time and you want to put your effort into that. Then if it doesn't work, you could go find another. The wayward is creating two or more relationships intentionally with no desire to end any of them. The degree to which one relationship or another is kept secret has to do with maximizing personal benefit in this instantaneous moment. You have all sort of options for how the compartmentalization takes place. It's very close to Cyrenaic hedonism. It's not compatible with long term rational thinking and forethought.

HikingOut
I agree with all that, I was hasty in my words, I will try to be better going forward. All I was really trying to communicate is what you also said, the communication was urgent, it needed to happen, and barring me being out of control or dangerous, it was not in her best interest to not talk to me. I think we all agree on that.
Her sensitivity to anger has been such a barrier to solving any of this, it definitely hits a sensitive spot in me. I’m sorry for letting that come out at you.

She is still thinking in wayward terms. She is fishing for a second relationship while maintaining the relationship with you.

I don’t want to believe this is the explanation. I don’t. I much prefer to believe she is just unbelievably compulsively people pleasing that she can’t but help to respond to someone like that. It still makes for a terrible wife, but my mind can’t recognize that she is inherently non-monogamous.

I think we talked about the whole wave-particle duality thing when Oppenheimer came out. While I don't know that it's a useful metaphor in itself, the struggle in understanding wave-particle duality to someone that has only learned classical physics up to that point is very hard. You have to reframe how you think about the world in order to understand it.

You know I’m a sucker for a good quantum mechanics metaphor. I’m just going to remind you that you were not into my duality play last time But I do very much relate to this. When I was in graduate school learning QM, I was advised to stop trying to think about what was actually happening in real life and just solve the equations, the complete opposite of how I learned classical physics. Yup, I never really got an intuition for entanglement and waveforms like I have for gears and volts. And there is clearly something I just can’t grasp about her.

I don't recall if I ever mentioned this on your threads before, InkHulk, but this kind of self-destructive, unconscious crap decision-making has the hallmarks of someone whose personality may well be "borderline" - as in Borderline Personality Disorder. They do things that are designed to f things up, are truly illogical, and bring a ton of misery to those who try to love them. That you think she may self-harm goes right along with that diagnosis.

Harsh to hear, but my professor of Abnormal Psychology, an experienced forensic psychologist (criminal behavior specialist who vetted law enforcement officer candidates) warned us students that if/when we went into practice as Licensed Counselors, to NEVER HAVE MORE THAN 1 client with BPD, simply due to the stress and drama/trauma they tend to inflict on others, especially on the Counselor! Things like calling the Counselor at home at night to let them know they're feeling suicidal, etc., pulling on the sympathies of the Counselor, causing families to take sides, etc. to the point the professor said "You just have to get to the point with them that you no longer CARE what happens. You need to DETACH...despite the fact they won't like it or will fight with you." Wow, coming from a Counselor-Teacher, that's pretty damning.

So what you are feeling is correct: your life is being made unmanageable and perhaps too, as Grubs mentioned, there could be low self-esteem thinking she'd better screw things up to keep from ever re-connecting with YOU. There is a well-known book titled "I Hate You Don't Leave Me." Did you ever hear of that? So sorry and I wish you peace and calm as you detach from this madness.

Most of this sounds like unconscious re-enactment of unresolved early-early childhood issues. Not something YOU can play a part in "fixing." I'm a fixer and I bought into that thinking so much so I went back to school in my 50's to get a freakin' degree in psychology, specializing in mental illness, due to my SAWH's childhood issues. In the end, nothing I learned helped him gain insight that stuck with him, and all it did for me is give me a pretty diploma on the wall. If I can share anything I learned in school with fellow SI'rs, that is the only benefit it gave me.

[This message edited by Superesse at 10:25 PM, Friday, March 15th]

I truly know you don't need to hear it, and I'm not trying to twist any knives, but the sticking point for me is that she shut you down (again) when trying to discuss it. I just don't know how you work with that.

A consistent and correct message, it took me a long time to figure out just how messed up this lack of communication truly is. Thank you for gently reminding me of this regularly.

No worries at all ink, we are good. I probably shouldn’t have led the post with that anyway.

If you are like me, you developed an uncanny ability to tell when your father had snuck a drink, before he was in the full blows of addiction. You might have tried to steer the situation, redirect, cover. In my case that was my mother, who went that way after my Dad’s affair. I was a 12 year old kid pouring out liquor bottles and going through my Mum’s purse to remove vanilla essence. It mixed badly with benzos.

I have almost as good a sense of when my wife is being wayward / cagey.

I find it a little harder to discern when that is specifically infidelity brand caginess or garden variety caginess.

So I guess I would like you to know enough to get whether your wife’s engagement with mechanic guy bears that addictive affair chasing quality or not. It looks like it from what you have written but you may as well know.

There are then a whole host of why questions touching on insight and judgement. The fact she knew he liked her is a problem for me, but if there was very little contact over a very short time, and the content was vanilla, I would consider that relevant, if it could be verified or I was convinced about it.

InkHulk:

I don’t want to believe this is the explanation. I don’t. I much prefer to believe she is just unbelievably compulsively people pleasing that she can’t but help to respond to someone like that. It still makes for a terrible wife, but my mind can’t recognize that she is inherently non-monogamous.

How "people-pleasing" can she be. You know, she had no problem shutting down *you* when it came to *your* need for answers. Where you *you* fit in to her scheme.

I am not trying to twist what is already quite a painful knife, I just don't want to see you giving her yet another pass she does not deserve i.e., a characterization of her behaviour that makes her seem more sympathetic, which historically at least, ends up prolonging your efforts and thus your hurt. But I do not think "people-pleasing" really describes your WW's behaviour. I do wonder if she does not feel deserving of you so she sabotages by going after these flawed men. You'd completely lose yourself trying to rescue your WW from that behaviour if it is even possible that is, God knows how much you have tried for two years to change that dynamic.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 2:21 AM, Saturday, March 16th]

I don't think it's that bad. Yes, she displayed poor judgement in the beginning, but when she realised she was putting herself in a situation that was similar to the one that preluded her affair, she cut off her contact with him and informed you immediately. I see this as growth. She is learning. I know you are angry now, and that is colluding with your judgement, but soon you will cool off, and then things will be more clear to you. She has done far worse things, and you didn't D her over them. I don't think you will go D route over this. That doesn't fit your pattern. 

So, two important lessons here.

1. She is learning to strengthen her boundaries. 

2. She hasn't yet learned how to communicate with you, especially when she has disappointed you.

Good luck to you.

Lurking
It’s been a long time, happy to see you.

I’ll just say that I hear you, and people change.

IH

Lurkingsoul, it’s not like she ran into this guy by chance and revealed more than she should.

She initiated contact with him, even though she knew he was a cheating POS and was interested in her. It was supposedly just about the car, which again, she didn’t really need his "expertise," and then got personal enough with him to complain about her marriage with InkHulk. This is almost a play-by-play of the beginning stages of her affair with the OM.

And no she doesn’t get credit for being honest and forthcoming if she’s unwilling to be accountable for her actions, which means actually sitting with InkHulk as he processes this information instead of icing him out the minute he winces with pain.

You might say she’s done worse things, but there’s only so much that one person can be expected to take. Usually, a pebble can’t break someone’s back, but it just might if they’ve already been buried under boulders.

I agree with WBFA that this whole "people pleasing" excuse is nonsense. Yes, she does seem to like making people happy… everyone except her husband.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 2:01 AM, Saturday, March 16th]

Yeah, I’ve been processing this multiple ways with multiple sources for multiple days. There is no explaining this. This is like my recovering alcoholic analogy, only I forgot to add that she was driving drunk, crashed, and I was badly injured and needing years of painful treatment in response. And she still fucking ends up at the bar. This is all the way fucked up, it is a red flag of the highest order that she cannot be trusted to not re-offend over the course of a lifetime, which is exactly the choice at hand. So no, this is not business as usual.

One of my favorite quotes is "The first rule of holes: When you're in one, stop digging." Your W knew that she was already in deep and she just can't seem to put down the shovel. It's true that fessing up is a good thing, but shutting down communication is chickenshit. You can't reconcile with a coward. It takes guts to R.

I think it's time for you to turn the focus off of trying to figure her out and turn it onto getting yourself out of infidelity. It sounds like it's time for some peace.

One of my favorite quotes is "The first rule of holes: When you're in one, stop digging." Your W knew that she was already in deep and she just can't seem to put down the shovel. It's true that fessing up is a good thing, but shutting down communication is chickenshit. You can't reconcile with a coward. It takes guts to R.

The last time she "confessed" something to me and got a good reaction was a memory of a past event that was triggered by us passing by a park. Her telling of that old detail that came to her mind WAS trust building. Now, her doing new wildly inappropriate things for absolutely no rational reason after two years of hellish reconciliation attempts marred by lies and TT and more lies, her confessing that is NOT FUCKING TRUST BUILDING. If something happened that she wasn’t 99% responsible for, like she got hit on or even if she was feeling attracted to someone, and she told me before anything happened, THAT would be trust building. This is her getting as close to the fire as humanly possible without fully jumping in. Fair to say, I am not sufficiently impressed by her honesty.

I think it's time for you to turn the focus off of trying to figure her out and turn it onto getting yourself out of infidelity. It sounds like it's time for some peace.

I thought I WAS out of it, guess I never was.

Ps I love you new signature, and I miss your old one.

[This message edited by InkHulk at 6:09 AM, Saturday, March 16th]