WAW - We are in a "Hang Loose" mode for now

[sandi2]

I meant to say that I had an EA, but not with a married man. However, I am married. The EA is over now and my H and I are still together.

[smith18]

Maybe I really dont have my feelings together regarding affairs.

I see my WAW as having some confusion in her mind which could cause her to make a bad decision in going into a possible A. I dont condone this, but I can understand her mindset somewhat. However, the single person that is taking advantage of a married person who is in a vulnerable state is scum in my current thinking. To me there are many other single people out there so why cant they leave the married ones alone. To me they are predators in taking advantage of someone in a vulnerable situation. I just try to put myself in the single persons place and there is no way in my mind that I could ever consider dating a married woman.

If my wife gets to the point where she can reconcile with me, I plan to do all I can to understand how to recover following an affair. However, I cant let myself be down worrying too much about her in the arms of another man. I need to be happy now and GAL if I have any chance of my wife coming back to me.

I still am not convinced that my wife has had a PA. I want to give her the benefit of the doubt. It is just me, but I currently feel that I could more easily forgive the one night stand far easier than I could the longer term EA.

[smith18]

So far so good on myself not pursuing and talking about relationship with my W. Emotionally I have my ups and downs during this detaching. For instance, last night I woke around 4:00 am from a marriage nightmare dream. I lay in bed by myself shedding some tears with worry until the kids got up around 7:30. I find myself thinking about my marriage future often and it can really get me down at times. I have had a few innocent discussions with D5 about how much we all love W, my missing of the love of W and that I hope we can all have a future together. I make it a point to never say anyting bad about my W in front of my kids. I so very much want to continue in raising our kids under the guidance of a loving mother and father. Up until the last couple of months, I thought we had a near perfect family.

If I can keep myself busy running, working out, playing with the kids, doing house chores, cub scouts, golf lessons, I feel inspired. However, because my work consists of computer programming, it is when I need to be really creative that my work is lacking. It is just so hard for me to focus at work right now. Fortunately, my boss of the last 20 years understands my situation has told me that work takes a backseat to my relationship problem.

Thurs night before W was to leave to Vegas for her friend's wedding, she told me to not tell her brother about her friend getting married for fear of her friend's mother finding out about it in Thailand. I could still detect some hostility in her tone the way she put this like she was still angry about me having cooresponded with her brother. I just told her I understand that her friend wants to keep her quick marriage a secret from her mother (cultural reason I dont understand).

When I left for work on Friday I told my wife to say Choke Dee (Good Luck in Thai) to her friend and to have a wonderful time in Vegas. I prevented myself all weekend from calling W and it was finally she that called me Sunday afternoon. Her voice was pleasant and I told her of some of the things I did this weekend with the kids.

I look forward to seeing her tomorrow morning and she hopefully will have some time to herself tomorrow as she does not have to work. I have no idea what her emotional state is right now towards our marriage since she exploded from finding out about me contacting her brother/mother.

I am going to talk with my counselor this week about ways for me to detach a bit more emotionally while waiting for W to walk back into my life.

I am glad that we still live in the same house as I think this will allow her to see over time that I really am able to change myself.

[soul_mate]

Keep up the good work don't let her see your emotions right now. I know it is hard I struggle with it daily and having kids gives a whole new level of emotions. DO NOT let her see you as weak make sure she sees you as strong and not desparate. Let your emotions out here or with your C. You are still very early in the game and things take time don't expect any results quickly. Even if you do see positives don't jump all over them be cautious. Good luck.

[smith18]

Thanks for the support, however, last night we both decided to have a major change in our marriage.

We had a nice talk last night. I threw out my theory to her that she got genital herpes from having sex and I believed her hostility towards our relationship was due to guilt that she could never re-find love because of a PA she had done. She really expressed to me that she has not had sex and really believes that she got it from her infected best friends libstick and she scratch her genitals which were itching that night. She said that she had asked her nurse man friend if this was possible and he said it could happen. I tend to believe my W as it is not in her character to do quick sex while out on the town.

She then expressed her high desire to get some freedom from our marriage so that she could date other men without feeling like it is something she would need to hide. We agreed to a separation and she would move into an apartment nearby. She would still come in the mornings and evenings to help out with the kids. I told her I am giving her freedom to find what she wants in life and that I will remain faithful to her and be here for her if she eventually decides that our marriage is what she wants. I did tell her that it is up to her to decide when she would want a divorce, and when that occurs, I will be ready to continue with my life. I understand that she will most likely be in the arms of another man, but I will wait until she is absolutely positive that she would never want to continue in our marriage.

She says there are personality differences with me along with some of the guys she has met and talked with at the night clubs that she has problems with. I told her that she really needs to find happiness in herself, because she will never find anyone that will do it all for her.

I talked candidly about my DB'ing and how I was working on myself for myself. I told her the reason being that if our marrige is to end, I want to be confident and happy with myself so as to ease myself into a new life following. I also told her that by myself improving could also have the side benefit of her seeing me as a new man but that is not my intention of detaching and getting a life for myself.

I told her that for my whole life I have always stongly desired to be in a loving relationship and that I will continue to read relationship and self help books so as to better myself in case I need to find someone else. I told her that when I met her that I had done a lot of dating before I found her and that she was the one for me.

I have looked at match.com and there are some nice ladies my age, but yet I am hit with reality that now at 47 years old, a lot of the ladies my age appear quite old. I think that I have more the appearance of someone in his early thirties. My friend that got divorced a couple years ago told me that there are alot of nice single ladies our age out there. I am very confident that if my wife does end up divorcing me that I will be happy in my next relationship because I am doing all I can to better myself now and understand women.

[smith18]

I wrote my W a strongly worded letter yesterday telling her that she is wanting it both ways - to date other men while married, but not have other people or our children know. I told her that she is fooling herself if she thinks a divorce would not dramatically affect our children. I pointed out that my mom had an affair and divorced my father when I was 17 and both my brother and myself still hold resentment, dishonor and shame against our mother (and step father) for this. Does she want our children to have this same feelings as they get older. I let her know for the first time that her behavior in all this makes me angry in addtion to being hurt and sorrowful. I get the feeling that she has not considered the consequences of her actions.

Later that evening, I talked to her and wrote another letter that spelled out what I think she needs to decide upon. I said that if there is any doubt in her mind that our marriage can be repaired, that she should definitely do the separation and that I want to wait on her to find her direction in life and decide during this time. However, if she is positive that she feels we are really done, then a quick uncontested divorce is best so that we both can continue on with our lives. I then listed what I think is fair if we go the route of an uncontested divorce.

This morning I asked her if she thought it was a fair list and she agreed. She did seem to think I was asking for a divorce and I had to repeat that the decision is all hers. I want nothing more than to have her love back in my life. She told me that even her supportive teacher friend has told her that she is making a huge mistake. W said that instead of moving to an apartment now, she is going to stay for 10 days starting next week at her teacher friends house while she is away.

I ended up giving her the photo album so that while she is separated from me, she can reflect back on our good memories. I put a note on the outside that said "You say you dont want to look at this, but ask yourself why". I know this goes against DB'ing, but I showed it to both my father and my boss and they both got tears in the eyes. They cannot believe that my W could ever want to leave such a beautiful and happy family life. My boss really feels my wife is going through a MLC and said that she really needs to see this photo album as it cant hurt.

I told her that she cannot destroy my happiness and outlook on life. I restated a tenet of her religion (buddhism) that I now can relate to - "Suffering has a purpose". I am somewhat thankful that she has awoken me by this as I am now changing my life for what I feel will make me happy. I feel good that I have stood up for myself and dont want to be someone she can abuse emotionally.

Time will tell where her thoughts go, but she is well aware that I still want her to be my wife, companion and lover for my life.

[soul_mate]

Try to give her space I know what you are saying about the photo album and everything she is leaving. We have all though these things. Also don't push her towards the divorce if it is not what you want. The though of a quick D runs through my head a lot mainly I guess because I am hurt and want the pain to end. In the end the D will not make me feel any better though. It has only been a month try to keep your emotions in check think about something for 2 days before you do anything. By showing her the photo album and telling her about how the kids will resent her like you did your mom is trying to guilt her into coming back. You don't want her to come back out of guilt she needs to have an awakening on her own this is the only outcome that will make both of you happy in the end. She must do all of this they only thing you can do is be a good father take care of youself and be someone that she will desire. Be confident, strong and in good spirits this is what women are attracted too. I know it is especailly hard to be in good spirits, but fake it if you have to.

[smith18]

Thanks soul mate for pointing this out. I believe what you say is true. To me this DB'ing really makes sense but it is taking me a while to get its practice down correct. I went all last week just fine and then go and blow it by backsliding. I think it is that when I see something broken, I just feel compelled to fix it. I have thought about this hard tonight and realize that I just need to leave my W alone and put my trust that she will have an awakening. I love and respect her so much and know she is going through a phase that hopefully she will come out of.

My biggest fear is she wants to date the other guys while she is separated and it is that which is scaring me that she will fall in love with one of them. I need to detach from this and let her do whatever she desires. She at least has some Buddhist values and probably realizes that breaking ones marriage promises is bad karma.

[smith18]

My W was gone both Fri/Sat night and said she was staying at her teacher friends house. She showed up a little bit each day to be with the kids. Last night we all went out to a restauant and she stayed at our house.

I am starting to see a pattern where I spend at least 90% of the time with the kids on the weekend and the other 10% is with all of us together. I cant think of any time where she does anything with the kids without me except after school when I am still at work. We used to do stuff a lot as a family on the weekends.

Her teacher friend will be leaving for 10 days vacation this Wed and my W will be starting her separation by house sitting while her friend is gone. I suspect this will be the time when she really starts experimenting with dating the other man.

I saw her last night browsing the apartment listings in the paper. I mentioned that she does not need to move out and I also suggested if it would be better if I moved out. She said she did not want to discuss it and I backed off. I later asked if she needed help in finding a place.

Meanwhile, I will be taking the kids on train (for fun) up to the Emerald City (Seattle) during Thanksgiving. We dont know anyone up there and just plan to have fun as a father, son and daughter in a different city. I plan on taking them to the children museum, science center, zoo and whatever fun things I can find to do with kids in Seattle. We will probably spend some good quality time in the hotel pool.

I still am trying to detach more and not let this overwhelm my emotions so much. I have put a hold on seeing a counselor and have cut down on how much talking I do to friends, my father and co-workers. I have decided to concentrate on my feelings myself and not let others get crazy thoughts in my head. I highly value what I read on this forum though.

[soul_mate]

Don't be overly giving and do not be the one to move out you offered this only because you are trying to help her, you feel bad for her. She is the one that has taken this path let her figure things out don't help her find a place and don't offer to move out. Start letting her see what its like with you out of the picture. Be nice to her, but stop babying her.