Am having a bad day today (DD+4). Have realised most people here seem to be american, based on time zones - am in uk. Have just got to work and trying not to cry. Am still wearing my wedding ring - I don't want anyone to know.
What I didn't tell you before about this story
About a month ago, before the start of the A, she went to a funeral some distance away and stayed a counple of nights in a hotel. She was only recently on the high dose of meds. She also got very drunk and upset. An ex of hers was there as well, and he had no room, so she let him have the other bed in her hotel room. She got ready for bed - for some reason I can't fathom, in exactly the same way she'd get ready at home - taking her clothes off. He came and comforted her also "ready for bed". She admitted it was stupid doing that. Then he raped her. She was pretty confused because she says she didn't stop him, even though it hurt, she just lay there and let him.
She told me about this a couple of days after it happened (the day she was coming home). We had been trying to work things out from that point, but I thought we were making progress - she said she thought we were as well. She also told one other person - the soon to be OM. And then (if her timeline is to be believed) the A started.
This leads me to have super feelings of betrayel, because a few weeks after the incedent, I had made some advances towards making love, and she got angry with me and told me she wasn't ready after that incident. And yet she had been with the OM already by then!
Also this meant that I misunderstood Sat night when it happened.
She has spoken to a MC (over the phone on her own, I did the same) and said it had helped her a lot. And then I ruined it.
She said that they'd talked a lot about her work, and some of her issues with me (feeling threatened by my career etc). They also talked about the NC, but the woman told her that sorting out her issues and depression had to come first, and that she couldn't be expected to make important decisions in her conditions.
I reacted by assuming this meant she couldn't choose between me and the OM, and also that she was going to ask for us to split for a while while she sorted things out. Clearly that left me pretty devestated, but eventually we figured out we had our lines crossed. She said that was never on her radar as a suggestion.
She has NC with the OM for now, but the agreement is to MC next week, then we review it. She meant she couldn't make a long term decision about cutting her friends out of her life.
This is still pretty hard though. She had an A, and I'm the one doing the waiting for her, I feel a little in limbo. I understand we can't fix our M until her problems are sorted, but I'm scared what could happen in the mean time. When I voiced this concern though she just started crying and said "I don't believe it was the depression and the medicine" and accused me of thinking she was a tart.
What do I do?
We also have a wedding to go to this weekend. I'm scarred what affect watching a wedding is going to have on me.
I just want to curl up into a ball and wake up in a year.
I'm in the UK too, so have been able to pick up your message sooner than our American friends.
Just wanted to say how sorry I am for the situation you find yourself in, it's no wonder you're so upset as your world is being turned upside down and it's all out of your control.
I also wanted to say that while it is very important that you and your W attend MC (are you going through Relate?) I would also urge you both to look at having independant counselling through a trained therapist. Your W, to help her deal with her depression and relationship issues and you, to help you cope with the trauma you are going through.
In my case I found out accidently about my H's four A's about 19 months ago, which was two years years after he had finished the last one. In our case my H had already decided to re-commit to our relationship but I still found it very hard to deal with the awful sense of betrayal and hurt. I was able to find an excellent therapist through a scheme we have at work but there is also the British Assoc of Counsellors (BACP) that are on the web and you can find a trained therapist through them.
You are doing the right thing coming to this site Adam, it's a great place to vent and get some wonderful advice from people who really understand what you're going through as unless you've suffered something like this most people don't.
Otherwise I would say try to keep the lines of communication open between you and your W but in as non confrontational way as possible (probably easier said than done when you are hurting so much I know). It's really important that you talk to each other and even more importantly listen to each other.
I wish you all the best and say hang on in there for the time being until you can get to MC, I really hope you and your W can work things out.
Goodness, you and your wife have been through an awful lot of pain. I'm sorry.
FYI, Jerry and Dave are both in the UK (both are BS), as well as a few other folks, but I mentioned them specifically, as they are men.
Personally, I don't care what the IC says. I believe your wife must maintain NC with OM because if she doesn't, you will feel the twisting of the knife in your heart every time she has any kind of contact at all.
I am sorry you are hurting. This is most decidedly a journey of a thousand miles that slogs on step by step.
fairyfriend
edited to correct a typo
This message has been edited by fairyfriend on Jun 15, 2007 11:26 AM
The rape that occured very much complicates things for your wife. You didn't say, but given the circuimstances and the subsequent affair, you might even be questioning the veracity of her claims. If so, she unfortunately wouldn't be the first woman to claim rape to explain her own bad behavior.
Although my wife would never call the sex in her affair rape, she did claim that it was against her wishes, but she was manipulated into compling. However, as the truth came out it became more clear that she was a reluctant but willing participant. She says that she made those claims to divert responsibility to the OM, to maintain self-image, and to save face with me.
From your post it sounds like your wife has emotional issues that she needs to resolve before you will be able to reconcile the marriage. However, you'll still need to work both at the same time. I believe it's imperitive that she end the relationship with the OM completely. Not only for your sake, but also for her sake. If the OM was aware of this rape, then he effectively took advantage of your wife in a damaged emotional state. She might have stood up to you because she trusted you enough to respect her wishes, while she didn't reject the OM because of less trust, or a warp sense of obligation. It's hard for anyone here to know, but those are feelings that my wife talked about in her experience.
As FF said, we do have several members who are in the UK. Hopefully they will be able to provide more immediate responses to your posts.
I wanted to firstly say that I am in the UK also, so you are not alone. There are parallels also with your story (waiting for other issues to be fixed before working on M, having to work while going through this, etc).
Read all you can, look after yourself. From your posts it may be you have much more than an A to deal with. That's okay, you don't deserve it and don't know what to do with it but you can survive it.
Keep reading, keep posting, good luck. Believe me, time helps!
What you said echo'd something she said to me as well. At one stage I was quizzing her on what the sex was like with the OM (not the R obviously - although she told me all about that in painful detail) she did say she felt "obliged" or as though she owed it to him.
I can't understand that at all for all the obvious reasons but also one horrible one - if she should have felt obliged to ANYONE (not that anyone ever should feel obliged) surely it should have been me? As in why did his opinion matter more than mine? Or was it as you hint that she knew that not sleeping with me would not change my opinion of her, but if she turned him down he might reject her completely?
I'm going to be gone from this bored for a few days now (i've got about an hour left to check this if any1 replies). I honestly do not know what state I will be in when I return (Sunday night maybe - most likely monday morning). I am going to a wedding. I am absolutely dreading listening to their vows, but also being smiley and couply in front of my family with her.
We all know how hard it is putting on a happy face when we are dying inside.
My last IC taught me to do deep belly breathing to help control anxiety. It really does help (probably because we focus on the breathing itself instead of other things and because we get more oxygen in our systems).
The technique, if you are interested, is to breathe in deeply through your nose until your belly actually expands outward; then breathe out slowly through your mouth. Repeat for a total of ten breaths. She also told me to do this breathing once an hour.
Perhaps if you try this, you can keep your focus on the breathing, when you need to do the breathing next, etc. That way you may be able to shift your attention away from your pain at a time you don't want to focus on it.
Good luck. Please let us know next week how you are doing.
Hopefully I'm not sending this too late for you...
I think logic you described in rejecting you is fairly close to what I was told. It's not right, and it's messed up thinking, but it what was explained to me. I understand how it works, but it's thinking with the wrong set of priorities and it's not valuing & protecting the one relationship that that you are most comfortable in.
I went to a wedding about 3 weeks after D-day. It was one in my family as well (my nephew). People there (my brothers & sisters) knew we were dealing with something, they could see it in our faces. They asked and we gave an excuse. You'll get through it.
I was just thinking that your story has some similarity to Dave(Shoozul). He lives in the UK and his wife has been dealing with mental health issues too before and after her A. I don't know often he is on the board now. He is pretty far in recovery now and I think he stops by less often. If we could get his attention I think you might find someone who understands better.
I know you are dealing with huge issues; just wanted to say that my H also said he felt "obliged" to have sex with OW. During the time of the A (18 months physical) he had constant headaches, panic attacks, lost a huge amount of weight and had to take Cialis (a Viagra stype drug) to have sex with OW but not with me. I said, "You body and your brain were telling you this was wrong: why didn't you stop?" and he said he felt obliged to keep it going and that the sex was more important to her than to him. So your wife saying something the same is not at all unusual. The affair is a fantasy time where the usual rules don't hold and breaking them is justified with some sort of twisted contorted logic. There may be the "I'm so awful I can't get any worse so I may just as well continue with it" logic and the "well I don't really care what happens to me" logic and the "at least this way I feel something, even if I feel bad". These are all explanations which my H gave me; what they all say is that he was deep in clinical depression and thought the A would help when in fact it just made things worse.
You and your wife have so many issues - I hope you can find counsel here and with professionals, and I hope the wedding wasn't too bad for you both.
Hi Adam, sorry I am only chiming in now, but I haven't checked the boards since Wednesday (I usually check almost daily, just not posting much at the moment). Right, what can I add that everyone else hasn't already said one way or another...? Well, for a start, you are still in the initial shock of the immediate aftermath of D-Day. It can take weeks or months to start to regain some true perspective. What you have to do right now is keep taking one day, one hour at a time, until you can start to make internal sense of things. I empathise totally with wanting to curl up into a ball instead of going to work. My D-day was 5 days before I started a brand new job. I used to go into work like a zombie, stare at my PC screen (I'm in IT) and do nothing. At first I would go and sit in the toilet and cry about 5 or 6 times a day. I cried on the drive to work (1 hour) and on the way back. It was like my world had been completely ripped apart. I blamed myself. I desperately tried to bare every innermost recess of my soul to my W because she had obviously made a mistake and just needed to realise that I really did love her. I made some wild and frankly self-defeating decisions about letting her bring her OW home to stay over on weekends. In short, I was a BS in the throes of extreme emotional shock. To some degree, this is where you probably are (almost definitely, from your posts). If you grasp anything, grasp this - THINGS WILL GET BETTER. It may not seem like it now, but this is the truth. What you have to do is concentrate on hanging on as best you can. If you have good friends (and I mean good ones) or family, or someone who can offer you moral support; a sounding board; a cigarette and a glass of brandy (my mate Nick's reaction when he realised my W was having an A); whatever - then lean on them. Good friends are people who are good friends to you both as a couple, these are the people who will support you both!
Your W is suffering from depression. This can make things hard. It seems from your posts that she is at least on medication for her condition. Has this been reviewed recently? Are you both happy that it is meeting her needs? If it isn't, then you need to schedule a review with your W's psychiatrist. We struggled, as my W was not taken seriously by our local mental health trust, and it took a confrontation between the psych and I to get them to treat her. There is another important aspect to this as well, and that is YOUR mental health. I would suggest that you make an appointment with your GP, have a frank chat to them about the upheaval you have just undergone, and see whether they suggest a course of anti-depressants for you. You may not want them, or need them (I did), but a professional opinion from a doctor is not a bad idea regardless.
Your situation is complicated by the rape issue. If she hasn't talked to someone about this (a trauma counsellor, her IC, a psychiatrist) then she must. It is critical to her recovery. Are you likely to lay a complaint? Did she say no? It is a minefield unfortunately, and I can't presume to offer good advice, but she really needs to talk to a professional about what happened to her.
MC is good. I moved heaven and earth to get us counselling with Relate, but it was heartbreaking as my W didn't want to end her A, and was resistant to the counsellor's suggestions. Once again, regardless of our initial setbacks, going was a good thing. The MC brings a third experienced person with an unbiased perspective into the picture. I think that you can only benefit as a couple, especially if your W has undertaken to work on the marriage.
No Contact is a completely non-negotiable condition which underpins ANY further progress. As long as she is in contact with her OM, you will spin your wheels as a couple, and your reconciliation efforts will be thwarted.
Hmmm, the extended group of friends that she has access to through the OM is a ticklish problem. How good a group of friends are they? I experienced something similar, in that my W and I are actually fairly new to the UK (from South Africa). When we got here, W was already depressed. She buried herself in an online UK goths chat community, ostensibly to make friends who were like us. I got shut out of this 'new' circle of friends she made. Ultimately, she got very friendly with one of them, announced to me that she was ending our marriage, and promptly launched into her A with her new best girlfriend. The circle of friends tacitly supported, condoned or accepted the relationship, and I felt very much the outsider. When W finally came out of the fog, one of the things I let her know in no uncertain terms was that I felt that her online friends were a threat to our relationship, and were a bad influence. The OW was also still a permanent fixture in that particular community. As part of her commitment to rebuilding our M, my W has dropped all of them. I don't know the dynamic at work with regards to your W's circle of friends, and how her OM fits in, but I would take a long, hard look at them, and their dynamic as a group. Draw her into this as well, and talk about it.
This is turning into a real essay, but a lot of what you are going through touches a raw nerve inside me, as it is soooooo familiar. If I am bombarding you with do's and don'ts, and theories and suggestions, then don't feel that you have to take it all on board at once, or even formulate an opinion about it yet. Right now, you need to breathe. Look after your health - physical and mental. Take one day at a time. GIVE it time. Talk to your W. In private, and at MC.
Realise that you are NOT alone. There are more of us here in the UK than you might imagine. And the others on this board are a phenomenal group of people with an almost imcomparable groundswell of experience, knowledge, and wisdom.
You will get through this. It might not be pretty sometimes, and you may feel it is all hopeless, but the dips on the emotional rollercoaster start to get less violent, and you will be okay.
While I'd never wish this on anyone else in the world, its good that someone else has been there - and more importantly survived!
In the early days of this chaos the only way I could find to deal with the NC was a short term fix. She said she couldn't make a big decision right now about the friends because of her depression (posts *passim*) but we agreed NC until Weds this week when we go to MC. I'm hoping for backup/solution from the MC as to what happens next.
I also think I need to work out my "reserve bid" for this, in that what is the minimum I can possibly accept. I'm thinking along the lines of completely open contact (i see everything she sends to him) and no meetings without me present? Oh and no touching.
Reasonable?
As far as comparing the friends groups I'm afraid its a tab different here. The bulk of the friends are nice - I get on well with some of them and have been out with them without Kate (although that day she chose to go for a picnic with the OM while I was out of the way). I've tried to encourage her to strengthen ties with other members of the group, and she is meeting up with one of the female members. Hopefully this will make her less reliant on the OM.
Thanks again for your help - you are an inspiration.
Hmmmmm - I am very, very sceptical about "open contact".
ANY contact with the OM is going to maintain the relationship in some way. There is NO SUCH THING as going back to "just being friends". Once they crossed the line of friendship to adultery, they destroyed that particular type of relationship forever. They will now ALWAYS have committed adultery together.
I have quite strong feelings about this. When I discovered my W's A, and she refused to end it (claiming that she had already ended our M, so it WASN'T an A), I agreed to allowing my boundaries to be completely walked all over. She wanted to continue to live at home, and still go and spend weekends with the OW - I felt I had no option but to allow it. She wanted to bring her OW home to stay over on weekends - I allowed it, so that I and our daughter could still see her. She wanted to continue her A, and still have us all "be friends" because this was her big decision in her life so that she could "rediscover happiness and how to love".
Two words...
BULL
SH1T
My W wanted to have her depression-and-BPD-induced cake and eat it. And initially I let her, until I woke up and realised that I was allowing her to completely abuse me in the name of keeping the door open to her.
I think you will be opening the door to her maintaining her extramarital relationship in one form or another, and this is not good either for you or for her or for your relationship. I agree that you need to lay down your limits - a "bottom line" that you can accept. BUT, don't sell yourself short, and take what you think you can live with. You deserve a level of commitment from your life partner equal to what you yourself are prepared to give, and I don't think you are doing yourself any favours if you let her have her cake.
I also realise that this is difficult, especially at first. One of the reasons I didn't just wade into my wife's behaviour with the proverbial big stick is that I was of the opinion (I still am) that too extreme a reaction would damage our future chance of reconciliation once she had come out of her depressive state, and was on the "upswing". You are not just dealing with someone who is having an A here, you are also dealing with someone who has mental illness. It requires patience, some subtlety (and sometimes firm action), and understanding. I know that many other members of this board have WS's who are either addicted to something, or suffer from some form of personality disorder or other mental illness. They will, I am sure, agree that it isn't all black and white.
BUT, it is also about YOU, and your self-worth and dignity as a human being. You have to decide for yourself what you are entitled to, and what you are worth, and draw your boundaries accordingly.
It is very difficult. You have to be firm with yourself as much as with your WS. This is a hellish, and sometimes damn-well-nigh impossible line to tread.
I feel I might have got of a little lightly compared to your situation, since she does seem to want me back and isn't even suggesting anything so extreme. The "battleground" appears to be over whether she is allowed to be in the same room as him, and if so can she say hello, be civil, but also (where I'm edgy) over non face to face contact, such as txt, in order to be invited to gatherings and outings. These would perhaps be the areas where "open" contact could work, but I'd rather not.
I think I could be comfortable with her still seeing the group of friends, just so long as I was there when he was, and she was merely "civil" with him. At the moment though that isn't being offered by her. We'll see what MC brings.
Having said that about being lucky, I was very misled before (and totally walked all over). If you want to read something... painful (ish - for me anyway), then here is a link to a question I posted while the A was going on. On the night she told me about it, I showed her this and all the answers. (I was also rather nasty I am ashamed to say and said "I reported one answer as abuse because it simply said 'You're wife is a whore', but turns out he was right!!". I am a bad husband.)
You're not a bad husband, your extreme trust was taken advantage of. You've learned something though, right? Blind trust is never an acceptable practice in any relationship, because everyone is prone to failure. Your wife took advantage of you, not the other way around.
What would you do differently now? How can you apply this going forward in recovery?
Adam,
You are NOT a bad husband just because you had serious doubts about the nature of your W and OM's relationship. You are not a bad husband because you posted a question when you were looking for validation that you were right to be concerned. You are not a bad husband for telling her that she was a whore. Yes, I am sure your saying what you did to her hurt her, and no, I don't advocate deliberately hurting your wife, but you were hurting so much because of her actions that you responded in a pretty normal way for the circumstances. You can apologize to her for saying what you did, but believe me, your transgression is minor compared to hers, and I'm sure both of you are aware of that.
I'm also sure that nothing you could say to her would be any worse than what she will say to herself as she comes more and more out of the fog. It can be quite challenging for us BS to show our pain without lashing out. I know from experience, having done both. However, when we lash out, we end up putting our WS on the defensive when what we really want is to be reassured that we are loved and that they screwed up because of THEIR problems.
I'm sorry you are hurting. Just give the whole situation time. Personally, I feel the only answer is NO CONTACT. Any contact she has with him, however innocent it may seem (like an invitation to a group event) will still stab you. Why does she have to get an invite/text message from him? Why can't someone else send it to her?
Perhaps she will need to give up the group of friends or he will, or they just can't both be around the group at the same time, but her refusal to give up her association with him regardless of the circumstances will only hurt you and make you feel rejected and second-best.
I would SUGGEST trying to find any way possible of avoiding situations where he was present. If you do run into him, be civil, sure, but leave it at the very basics, and remove yourselves to either another part of the gathering, or leave if you feel uncomfortable. In short, there's no reason to act like a barbarian (even if you want to - grrrr), but you don't have to tolerate being around someone you find objectionable.
As for texts, if he texts her with a general invitation or something, then maybe she has a different friend in the group who she could get hold of to pass her acceptance or queries through, thus deflecting contact with him, to contact with the group. As much as possible, there should be NC with HIM!
You are NOT a bad husband! You are a BETRAYED husband. The shock and turmoil of what you are going through can sometimes boil over. If your haven't got to the raw anger part of this rollercoaster yet, then I suspect that sooner or later you will, so be prepared for it. I called my wife some choice things in the course of her A, and I had to work hard on my anger management.
There are definite stages in the reaction of a BS to the discovery of an A - they include disbelief, shock, anger, self-deprecation, despondence, and ongoing feelings of futility, betrayal, lack of self-worth, hopelessness, etc. etc. Not a nice litany, but most BS go through some or most of them. You, I surmise, are still in initial shock. It was over a month before I got REALLY angry. It will be different for you, as it is for all of us.
Whatever course you take to deal with contact with the OM, do it together, be firm, and hold to the boundaries you have set both as an individual, and as a couple.
The upside to this, of course, is that you have your W's co-operation in this. That greatly improves your likelihood of making it work!
I have the apparent desire from her to fix this, but she has told me she doesn't have anything to give.
All these stages are all very well but if I go through any of them they could well destroy my M. Right now we aren't talking about the A, just carrying on as though nothing happened, except for the occaissional trust issue and zero sex life (which is making me frustrated in a far more basic way).
If I talk about the A then it just triggers her. She's asked me not to talk about it, and told me she can't get better if I keep bringing her back down. She has told me "I can't rely on her for my happiness - she doesn't feel strong enough to give me anything".
In a way I feel very alone.
I don't know if this is a stage others have felt, but I'm pretty close to feeling that it can ONLY get better - in that even if she had another A or ONS it would be better because it would all be over. At least if it was all over I could scream and shout and cry and get drunk and curl up in a ball. At least then it could just be about me me me me me
I will also say you are not a bad H...you are as the rest have said are a betrayed H...very different than a bad H.
Adam I am years older than you... in my experience life has taught me to stay away from toxic situations..letting your W be friends with OM is toxic...you have said OM loves your wife... why would you want to socialize with a man who is going , trying to undermine your relationship with your wife?
I love corn...but corn doesn't love me... when I have corn I can be sick for days on end...why do I want to subject my body to something that will hurt me? same with OM....
The situation is that OM and your wife crossed the line... when invited to a party you ask if OM will be there... then decide on that information if you will attend. If the friends choose to tell you OM will not be there...friends will slowly figure out that you are uncomfortable with him around and they will either invite you or him to a function, If they choose to invite you both then you need to make the decision. You begin to seek out those people who are friends of the marriage... look for activities that you both enjoy and seek people who have similar interest.
Your wife thru her actions has closed the door on seeing the OM at parties. Walking on eggshells for you is unhealthy , she hurt you but you are letting her set the rules if she wants to see OM at parties, not healthy, you need to be open in your communication...NICE but open tell her you are hurting... if she needs to see OM and say hello...then you need to be gone .. her depression or not she understands what you need.
Setting boundaries you are comfortable with, you can live with is the way you begin to heal.
take care,
Pat
"Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time."
Have you read any of the materials on the Helpful Links here? If not, I strongly urge you to. Share the materials with your W. She needs to see that your pain is real and huge, and that she doesn't have the right to ask you to swallow this unswallowable pain.
She caused this mess, and if she wants you, herself, and your marriage to heal, she must step up to the plate and take responsibility for her choices.
She is in the fog. She will NOT get better until she comes out of the fog.
It is fair enough saying all these things, but can someone help me sort this out.
"She doesn't appear to be trying very hard to hold on to me"
I.e. She's not grovelling on her knees, or trying to be perfect, or just doing anything I want to make things better. She's actually being quite abrasive.
But... She is also suffering from depression.
Which can make people self destructive, lacking motivation or energy, and not caring about things they really should care about.
So which is it? Is she (as she claims) depressed and can't give me much of anything until she is better, or is she just a total B**CH?
Answers on a post card to Flat 17, Emotional Hell, Despair.
Collectively we BS who have been dealing with our spouse's A longer than you have can tell you we have heard and seen all kinds of behaviors from our spouses.
Do I believe from what you have written that your wife is a total B? No. Do I believe she is a troubled woman with personal issues she needs to address if she is to be happy and heal and help you and your marriage heal? Yes.
Is it possible that she is terrified of losing you? Yes. Is it possible that she has shut down because of the combination of depression and inability or unwillingness to face the huge devastation that her poor choices have caused? Certainly. Is it possible that she could love you and cause you such tremendous pain? Absolutely.
Can I read her mind? Nope. Can you? Nope. All you can do is be open and honest with her and ask the same of her. Don't be surprised if you get one version of events now and different versions later. That is very normal behavior for a WS.
Sometimes they are so terrified of pushing us away that they shut down emotionally, which, of course, just exacerbates the situation and makes us feel even more rejected.
I truly believe that if most people knew just how bleak, how devastating, how traumatic A really are, they would do everything in their power to avoid them. It is possible that your wife would have too; she just doesn't yet comprehend the utter destruction you are feeling.
If she is not getting help for her depression, I urge you to get her help--maybe in the form of just IC, possibly IC with meds. But she NEEDS help.
Dave (Shuzul) can tell you lots about dealing with a depressed wife.
Sorry you are hurting. We understand. We really do. You are NOT alone.
I don't think there's anyway for me to "diagnose" what is going on with your wife, but I can offer a few insights from the things you've written...
For whatever reason, it looks like you've allowed your wife to demand things in the relationship that were not good for it. This doesn't make you a bad husband and it's something you can learn from so that you can start holding her accountable for behavior that doesn't edify your marriage. In your question on Yahoo, you described a situation that sounded as if your wife was demanding (even if it was through a subtle guilt trip) that you allow her engage in inappropriate public displays of affection with her boyfriend. She tried to make YOU feel guilty for asking her to behave appropriately with her male friend. It's not wrong for you to confront her on things like this. It might be uncomfortable for you, because if it's been a pattern (there's no way for me to know if it has been a pattern), then she's used to pushing your guilt buttons and you'll have to learn to identify them, to see what's happening in your interactions with her, then change how you behave to prevent her from doing this. If this is going on, then she's manipulating you, maybe without even being conscious of it, and you're allow her also without knowing it.
It's not unlike the parent who is manipulated by a child with tantrums our guilt. It really doesn't matter whose fault it is, but just that one person start by recognizing it and taking steps to stop it. Doing so is necessary for fixing the relationship, but it's also required for you, because if you're doing this then it's something you want to address for your own maturation and growth.
This is something that I needed to work through. I needed to identify the means and methods that I had allowed and my wife had learned to use to manipulate me. Much of them were things that were relatively innocent, on her part as well as mine. But as I learned them, then called her out on them as they occurred, it helped both of us, because I was making sure the relationship stay in a healthy chord, I was appropriately defending those things that I had identified as important issues, and I was helping my wife by preventing her from using avoidance and manipulation tactics to get out of doing what was necessary and right.
I think there's a good chance this is something you need to explore for yourself in your relationship. It's not something I really was able to address in depth during the first part of my recovery, but I started "collecting information" on this subject very early in the process.
Right now you will want to focus on understanding that you did not cause, and there is nothing you could have done to prevent the affair. The fact that she did this is not a reflection on how desirable you are romantically or sexually. The reason(s) she had this affair are imbedded in her, in her values, in her personal integrity, and in her ways of coping with difficult situations and circumstances.
Total accountability from a WS can't happen until they are distant from the A and its devastation and NC is in place.
The time distance is critical for perspective. Right now you're W probably wants you to "get over it" because anything short of that is a reminder of her wayward actions and her overbearing guilt.
NC is simply a must. We learned the hard way. There's no wavering on this point. NC insures the WS emerges from the fog and restores clear thinking.
I feel that in some ways because I was "nice" and believed my H when he said nothing was happening while he and OW worked together (he would BRAG about his ability to control the situation), I enabled d-days #2 and 3.
Peace is not just the absence of war; it's an exercise in compassion. -Dalai Lama
Coming to you from JJ
She has previously got to the point of screaming in tears at me that I'm not assertive, and that I let her walk all over me and that that makes her feel like my mother.
That must be what caused the affair.
The OM would have been assertive.
I'm not.
Maybe she'd be better with him. I should stay alone. I'd only push any wife to that. I've let myself down so badly. I only ever wanted to be a good husband, to care for her, give her what she needed, look after her. And in the end I was the exact opposite of what I wanted to be. I was a failure. I couldn't even keep a wife to the second anniversay.
It's common to fantasize about what it would be like to have whatever we think is currently missing in our lives. For instance, in the book/movie "Bridges of Madison County," the woman married to a simple homebody husband had an affair with the world-roving reporter. (And it was implied that the reporter was her soul mate.) However, you can be sure that had the housewife been married to the world-roving reporter all those years, she would have jumped at the chance to fulfill what was missing in her life (which would have been the quiet, caring, constant attention of a simple man who stayed at home like the husband in this movie).
YOU DID NOT CAUSE THE AFFAIR! You may have caused some unhappiness - but the AFFAIR WAS HER CHOICE! A very BAD way to solve any problem!!!! You CANNOT control another person's bad choices!! And that includes straying!
She CHOSE to go OUTSIDE your marital vows. The ones SHE said. She made poor choices because SHE has issues. If she was UNHAPPY, then she needed to TALK to YOU! NOT have an affair.
Peace is not just the absence of war; it's an exercise in compassion. -Dalai Lama
Coming to you from JJ
"She has previously got to the point of screaming in tears at me that I'm not assertive, and that I let her walk all over me and that that makes her feel like my mother.
That must be what caused the affair.
The OM would have been assertive."
NO, NO, and NO! Oh, and did I mention NO?
You can NOT control her behavior or feelings anymore than she can control yours. She is blameshifting. If she were really bothered by what she sees as your lack of assertiveness (and we don't know that you are; perhaps you are egaltarian and her model of a husband is a man who bosses around his wife--talk about control freaking!), then why doesn't she work on her reaction to your behavior instead of blaming you for HER behavior?
You don't know that the OM is assertive. You are making assumptions.
I will tell you that very often WS are OVERBENEFITTED and BS are UNDERBENEFITTED in the marriage. That was certainly the case with my H and me, and with a number of others here.
Perhaps she needs to start doing more for herself and for the marriage and stop expecting you to do so much. Just a thought . . .
And then there is this comment:
"Maybe she'd be better with him. I should stay alone. I'd only push any wife to that. I've let myself down so badly. I only ever wanted to be a good husband, to care for her, give her what she needed, look after her. And in the end I was the exact opposite of what I wanted to be. I was a failure. I couldn't even keep a wife to the second anniversay."
Adam, that is so classic BS. It is pretty much how most of us feel after Dday. We believe the myth that we didn't "make" our WS happy, so it is OUR fault the WS strayed. Bulls**t and poppycock!!! Shy of holding a gun to someone's head, NO ONE can make another person cheat. Period. End of discussion.
You were not a failure. You did not cheat. She did. You kept your vows, so who is the failure here?
Are you feeling totally rejected, useless, worthless, like something the cat threw up, or something nasty we scrap off the bottom of a shoe? Likely. Have all or almost all of us BS felt that exact way. Yep. So rest assured that you are normal.
Unfortunately, knowing you are normal isn't much consolation, I know. Sorry about that. But hang in there, Adam. You did nothing wrong. You are hurting. Be gentle with yourself.
This is like Deja Vu in so many ways. Adam, your posts are a bit like reading my own from nearly two years ago.
Wiser and more informed members have said good things above, so I am not going to labour the points, except to state the following.
YOU did not cause the affair. Your W CHOSE to have it. Now whether this is partly because her sense of perspective is skewed by her illness (as my W's was), or not, the bottom line is YOU ARE NOT THE CAUSE OF THE AFFAIR. We all understand that you will be casting around for a reason, and will blame yourself. I think all BS's do that.
There is really no way around the fact that ANY contact with the OM is damaging. NO CONTACT should be your goal!
Your W may indeed not have anything to give. If she is extremely depressed and desperate, then it will all be about her. You, as the closest, safest person to her, are the most readily available repository for her fears, regrets and demons. With the correct care and patience, she will cycle out of this. The only thing that you have to eventually decide is whether you have the reserves of emotional strength to hang on until she does. The chances are very good that, when she does, she will be horrified by what she has done. In my case, my W didn't believe there was any way I would allow her back. The depression/bipolar/borderline personality spectrum disorders invariably cycle.
It sounds like she needs help. MC is good. IC for her is good. A sympathetic and switched on psychiatrist who is prepared to take a long hard look at her medication and symptoms is even better!
You are in a fight, Adam. It's you against the demons in your wife's head (and dare I say it, the NHS). YOU are NOT going to lose. CHOOSE TO WIN!
Dave
P.S. No-one else seems to have asked this... Do you have any children?
This message has been edited by shoozul on Jun 18, 2007 6:12 PM
I would say "to be fair", but rather just "to be accurate".
It wasn't the OM who raped her. It was another "friend" of hers, (who she has definately gone for full NC now and realises he is total scum). The OM is also scum because she chose to confide in him about the rape, and then he started an affair with her. Feels to me a little bit like she was taken advantage of in an emotional state.
