I found this site a few weeks ago, and have been reading up on a few of your sitch's. Finally ready to join the discussion.
Amazing how my sitch mirrors so many others here. It's like all the WAW's got together for a meeting to plan strategies and work on their scripts.
Sorry in advance for the length of this post. I will try to be more brief in the future, I just have a lot to get off my chest.
W and I have been married since 1994, and I thought we had it pretty good. We waited a few years before we started to have kids, since we wanted to have a good few years together before we started adding little people to the mix. W would have liked to start a little sooner, but we were living several states away from our families, and wanted to move back first so we would have a support network. When S8 was born, she said she wanted to stop working and stay home to raise our family. She said she knew it would be challenging to be a one-income family, but she didn't want to be a part-time mom and let someone else raise our kids. She has always been a great mommy, and I have always said her job is MUCH harder than mine.
Our nightly routine didn't give us much together time. I would get home from work, go upstairs and change clothes and decompress for a few minutes before dinner. We would all eat together, and afterwards, I would clean up dinner, help S8 with homework, then work on bathtimes and bedtime for the kids while W had time for herself. Most nights, we would wind up in our bedroom on the couch watching TV, but some nights I would spend in the office playing on the computer or reading, and would occasionally fall asleep in there. She would come ask me to come to bed, but I don't wake up well, so sometimes she either had to ask several times or gave up and went to bed alone. She told me this bothered her. I told her I didn't fall asleep in there on purpose; I would try to change, but backslid.
She asked me to help out around the house more; not chores so much as home improvement stuff, but I never made it a high priority. On the weekends, we tended to go do family activities (shopping, amusement park, etc.), and I thought that was a better way to spend our time.
This spring, her BFF talked her into joining Facebook. She asked if I wanted to sign up as well, but I told her I wasn't as social as she was, and that I thought it was okay for her to have something that was all hers. I married her since she was my BFF, and never had a desire to keep in touch with old classmates and coworkers. She got involved in several of the games, and friended a lot of people to advance and unlock game achievements.
She started staying up later and later playing these games, and started taking her laptop downstairs at night, "so she wouldn't keep me up". When I went down to check on her, she would be chatting with someone, but she said it was either her aunt, who was a night owl, or her cousin, who worked third shift in a warehouse. My spider sense told me something was wrong, so one day when she went grocery shopping, I looked at the browsing history on her laptop and my world caved in. She had been spending a lot of time visiting OM's FB page and photo albums, and had been googling D resources, dates and destinations for a quickie M, and instructions on how to get our kids passports, take them out of the country and apply for dual citizenship in OM's home country (England).
I confronted her when she got home, and she told me he was "just a friend" who was having problems with his M, and they were working through things together. She said notihng had happened, since he was in another country, and the google searches were just a "what if" fantasy ("Wouldn't it be great if we could just leave all this behind us and run away together... ha ha...") She said she had been unhappy for a long time, and tried to tell me about it, but when nothing changed, she gave up on me and decided to move on with her life. I told her I was sorry I let her down, but that I was willing to do whatever it takes to save our M. She said she didn't know if she wanted to work on M, since she was done.
Once the bomb was dropped, her behavior changed overnight. We were always affectionate; not sickly sweet, but we would kiss, hug and cuddle on the couch, and at night we would spoon in bed. Once this happened, she turned everything off. No PDA, no ILY, and she didn't want me to touch her in bed. She kept staying up all night talking to OM, and refused to stop. She said he was a good friend to her when she needed one, and if she told him they couldn't talk any more, she would feel like she was giving in to me and surrendering. I am not FB friends with him; I found his wife on FB, but haven't contacted her or tried to bust the EA to her.
The same week of the bomb, I was laid off from my job of the last five years. I was home for over two months, and in that time, we lived like roommates, but shared a bed. She said she was trying to rekindle the sparks between us, but really needed distance and time alone to do that. Neither of us was willing to leave our house, kids or bedroom, so we just tried to avoid each other. During the day she stayed in the master bedroom suite, while I worked around the house.
For the first few months, I did everything wrong. Persuing, love notes, flowers, the works. I tried the Love Dare, but she found it around day 20 and told me to stop. I bought her a copy, but she said she wasn't interested, that she wanted to deal with this her own way. I started a FB account, thinking we would do things together, but that hasn't really happened. I have tried to do what she asked and give her space, but all it seems to have done is give her room to do whatever she wants with whoever she wants.
Since the bomb, she routinely stays up all night and sleeps all day, so I have taken over all of the household duties, as well as my full-time job.
For the last several months, things have calmed down, we don't fight as much or talk about the R, and we have ML a few times, but other than that, not much has changed. She is still not affectionate, and we share a bed, but our only PDA is occasionally ML, and even then, she still will not kiss me. She still talks to OM, and has started talking to several other men on FB as well, for hours at a time and overnights.
I thought stepping up and taking care of the house would be a show of strength, but I feel like an employee and am starting to resent her cake-eating. I can't go but so dark, since we still share a house, bed and kids. I can't imagine things staying the way they are forever. Where do I go from here?
Your sitch is so much like a ton of people here and not. FB, is exactly how my wife started, FB is the root of evil. Here comes a 2X4 to the head. BOUNDARIES!!! Lay down some boundaries, bust the affair, read up on what Puppy says with exposure, busting, etc. She must feel the consequences of her actions. Tough love is what is in order, you must man up, you are being used like a maid, you are being disrespected so much. How can you share your wife with another man? DB is about making yourself better regardless of the outcome, so get on with that.
I thought stepping up and taking care of the house would be a show of strength, but I feel like an employee and am starting to resent her cake-eating. I can't go but so dark, since we still share a house, bed and kids. I can't imagine things staying the way they are forever. Where do I go from here?
At the risk of sounding like a Seinfeld episode, "By doing everything the opposite of what you've done so far."
Get a job, and keep it.
Stop waiting on her hand and foot -- she doesn't respect you when you do that, and since women associate their feelings of love VERY closely with their feelings of respect, you can see your problem.
Lay a serious boundary of "I will not live in an open marriage," and "I will not live in the same home with a woman who communicates with another man, not her husband, from within her marital home."
Stop pursuing her. ("The Love Dare" VERY anti-DB -- the very definition of "pursuit" -- but if it IS to be followed, it is for couples who are trying to reconcile, not for one where one spouse is openly carrying on an affair under the other's nose).
Stop the ILYs and the sex.
AGREE with her --- "I have decided that this is no longer working for me." Looks up posts by Gucci Loafer and Robx and Gnosis for more specific scripts. BECOME THE WALKAWAY SPOUSE.
[edited by dbmod: references not recommended nor allowed]
I suggest you start with the texting OM from inside of your house, and I suggest you start tonite. Who pays for the internet connection?
Puppy[/i]
edited by dbmod to add: this advice may be dangerous to your marriage and is not in line with db principles, follow at your own risk.[i]
Oh, and SEE A LAWYER -- IMMEDIATELY. A good family law attorney; preferably one who specializes in "men's rights" and paternal custody issues. Your wife, while probably just fantasizing, has shown herself to be a flight risk with your kids. Take the threat seriously.
Really glad you decided to join our group. I can relate to what your W is doing b/c I did much of the same thing. I would encourage you to look up on the Internet information about women addicted to EA's. I think your W is certainly addicted.....and not to just that one OM but contacting other men and flirting. Take it seriously!
It's very important that you come back and post every chance you get. If you don't post almost daily, then people get discouraged and move on to others....so keep us updated. It's good for you to talk it out.
She needs to have something to do to keep her busy instead of laying up and sleeping all day and playing all night. Stop doing any of the household chores. Take care of your needs and force her to take care of the children and the home. Don't make anything easy for her. This is the time to be firm, strong, and tough. Don't be a jerk, but use tough love in everything you say & do with her.
Read the thread about boundaries b/c you must lay down boundaries and enforce consequences or she will continue to disrespect you and it will teach your children to do likewise.
Think things over carefully before you speak. Know what you cannot tolerate and what the boundaries will be. Be sure that you can enforce the consequences or it's a waste of time. A WAW has to suffer something or she will not come out of her fog. She has to be shocked (greatly) or experience a loss from her actions......and be put in a place where she has to respect boundaries or else she has to leave. That in itself can be a shock and/or loss to her!
There is much for you to grasp, so do your homework by reading as many threads as you can.
Take care, Sandi
It is not about what you feel should work in your M. It is about doing the work that gets the right results. Do what works!
Thanks, everybody! I appreciate everybody's time, and wish you all the best.
It looks like I've made a ton of mistakes so far. Hopefully, the 2x4's will go to good use!
A little more info:
I was out of work for about two months after the bomb. I found an IT contracting job that got me back in the workforce. I have always been a hard worker, and my self image has always been tied to my ability to provide for my family, so between the bomb and the layoff, I don't think I was much good to anybody for the first few weeks.
I thought once I started working again and we got back into some kind of normal routine, things would start to fall back into place... except they didn't. When I would get home from work, nothing had changed. She would say she wasn't feeling well, was depressed and couldn't find the energy to take care of the house. She has had issues with depression before, so I have been treating her like she's sick. I have always thought she was an amazing woman, a great best friend and partner, and a wonderful mommy, so to see her like this, it's been easier to act like she's unwell since this is a full 180 for her. I thought I was showing strength by helping her when she was down, but I think now I was just enabling her.
I have tried to set boundaries since the bomb, but since they don't have any weight behind them, nothing has changed. I told her I was not willing to be in an open marriage, and that I wasn't comfortable with her friendships with other men, and she responded by saying I was trying to control her and tell her what friends she was allowed to have, and didn't trust her not to let anything go too far. I do not want a S or D, and neither of us are willing to leave our kids or house, so we're kind of in limbo.
She said recently that she still talks to OM occasionally, just not as often. She hasn't told me much about him, except that he and his wife fight constantly and that she is also a SAHWAW. (Not sure how she feels she can help him with his sitch, since it seems similar to ours - his W was a SAHWAW as well, who spent all her time online and did nothing around the house. His response was to have an EA of his own with my W...) She said they were going to try to work on their M over the Christmas holiday, so that may have something to do with the cooldown. In the meantime, she has started talking to at least two other men; a D man in Australia and a man in town she went to HS with. Again, they are "just friends" and I shouldn't be worried. Her problems are with me, and they are just helping her get through them...
To add fuel to the fire, she has been taking racy pictures of herself. I noticed a block of pictures missing on the camera a few months ago, and when I ran an undelete program on the memory card, I found them. I confronted her, and she said she was trying to do something for me to help with all the times we weren't together. That would be great, except she never gave me the pics. She gave me a few recently, along with a racy video as a Christmas present, but she has taken several more sets that she doesn't know I know about. I'd like to think they were all for me, but I'm not sure.
I also accidentally found a webcam in the back of one of her drawers. She had floated the idea that we should get a pair so we could "play" together, but never let on that she already had one. I bought a pair last month to try to take her up on her offer, and the hidden cam disappeared from the drawer. I told her I was okay having them as long as we only used them for us and family, no members of the opposite sex. When I installed the software in my laptop and added her to my favorites, the software said she already had an account.
On top of everything else, my W has started drinking. I've never been a drinker, and she would have the occasional beer, but that was it. Lately, she has been asking me to bring home a bottle of wine or stop by the ABC store on a pretty regular basis. I've had a few sips with her, but it's really not my thing. I don't think she has a drinking problem, it's just another thing that is out of character for her.
A few final details:
- Since the bomb, she has password protected her laptop and her phone. She has full access to my accounts and computers. She said she isn't doing anything wrong, but doesn't trust me not to spy on her.
- She sleeps with her cell phone under her pillow, and her purse under her side of the bed. These are both new behaviors.
- She has been asking me to bring my laptop into our bedroom lately to hang out with her while she plays and chats, and we've been ML more, but she is still not affectionate the rest of the time. I'm not sure if this is progress, and I'm trying hard not to ask.
I will start to read some of the other threads and get a few of the books, and I will try to get on track. I'm afraid to rock the boat, because things could be a whole lot worse. As long as we're still living and sleeping together, I feel like we have a chance to turn this around. I love my W, and am trying to fight for her and our M.
Let us know when you're ready to take your balls back, so we can help you. Until you're stop willing to be cuckolded and disrespected, I'm afraid there's not much we can do for you.
I agree w/ Puppy- you know what's goping on- she need to leave the house if she's going to communicate that way w/ OM. If she does not, then you need to get out and GAL and be as distantly pleasant as you can be.
