My wife of 9 years wants to go to a mediator to work out a divorce. I have a D11, D8, S4. I have known W for 13 years. After birth of our son, W started a series of affairs, 4 that I know about. Over this time, she has spent more and more time at the bars, billiards halls and bowling alleys. I started to get the love you, not in love with you about year to year and a half ago. She has followed script with asking for divorce/separation 6 months ago. I think she hit a low a few months when she was fired from her job and went to family planning for a pregnancy that wasn't mine. She is 33, I am 35 and she has just met her savior, a 51 year old man who in the past was a victim of a WAW after a 12 year relationship. Now she wants out fast. She considers us separated. We live in the same house but sleep in different rooms. I work away from home M-Th. She now stays at home with the kids. One weekend she has the kids and I am allowed to do whatever I want. Next weekend she leaves to go live with the OM. I made all the mistakes everyone else in this situation ie pursuing, reasoning etc. Now I have read DB and DR and am trying to apply GAL, detachment and working on friendship. This has been very difficult for me as she is not only my wife but also my BF. Early in the marriage I was not there fully emotionally. I never strayed and have worked on my problems ever since with IC. MC was a disaster. By the third session the counselor basically gave up. She said that I was doing everything right and my W needed IC. My wife blew her off.
Has your wife mentioned any complaints about your marriage, specific thinggs that bother her or needs that aren't met? If she were here telling the story, what would she say? You went to an individual counselor for your problems, were those problems related to her complaints? what specific improvements have you made?
Being a stay at home wife with 3 kids might not feel as exciting or fulfilling for her. You said you are best friends, so I'll bet you have a clue to her heart.
I would start there, but I would go dark. That isn't easy since you live in the same house. The problem is, you do not want to be cold or aloof. Is your work out of town or are you just working in an office m-th, and then working at home on friday?
I imagine in time, this affair is going to fall apart. Your improvements and care of your childrent and the interactions you will continue to have can help bring you closer together.
First your wife has to go on a journey, actually she has already started.....it is a journey of pain and suffering.....believe it or not I have compassion for her.
That is the same mindset that is going to get you through this, she is suffering right now and is seeking to medicate her pain.
The thing that sucks is that her medication of choice causes you and your family pain too.
dbmod is right....the affair with the 51 year old will fall apart and guess what?????
He is in pain too. they are two sick and broken people trying to get the other to help them....they will only prolong their misery........
BUT
there is nothing you can do to stop it or prevent it......the best thing you can do is look away....don't watch it is painful to watch what she is going through.
What can you do????
Focus on you and your kids.....be the best damn father there ever was....they need you right now and need you to be strong for them. Remember to take care of yourself. Eat right, exercise, try to focus at work (that one was hard for me). Come here for support and guidance.
This is the most amazing place....you will find understanding here.
What you don't know is that you are about to start a journey of your own.....if you are willing to look at yourself with brutal honesty and face some of your deepest fears you will come out of this a new person with a new outlook on life.
Oh yeah.....you will be HAPPY too.....I promise you that.
Hang in there, tomorrow is Little Friday, everything is okay on Little Friday!!!! Come back here tomorrow and you will find out just what Little Friday is!!!! You will like it!!
Cheers!
Formerly "missherlove"
Me49 XW49 M17 T19 S16 D20
Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.
My wife has made a number of complaints about the marriage over the years. She has told me that I do not meet her emotional needs. This was very much the case in the beginning of the marriage. She has flip flopped on whether I meet her physical needs. Sometimes she has said that I do and other times that I don't. One complaint that has persisted is that she had more partners before marriage and was definitely more experienced. She has gained partners over the marriage through affairs while I have not. She even told the MC I need to sleep with more women!
I have been to an IC on and off for years dealing with depression and anxiety that I have dealt with since being a teenager. Ironically, through IC and medication I have recently gotten to a point where I feel that I am the best person I have ever been. My wife would say that she tried to make it work but is done trying. My W only recently became a stay at home mom after she was fired. Until then she worked full time by her choice. I supported her either way.
Your wife appears to be asking you to gain more sexual knowledge. I am editing this because in an attempt to be funny and generate a conversation that lets you kind of open up and explore your options, I did a poor job of achieving that goal.
I personally do not think sex outside of marriage is a good idea, nor is that a DB tenet, and I seem to have made the statement that it's ok. My point in trying to be funny is that I know that some folks do agree to an open marriage, and I think it usually goes poorly, but it if was your choice, I was trying to help you be creative with a solution. I apologize.
There are ways of obtaining more expertise without having sex outside marriage.
The two I was able to think of are in the post that follow.
Michele has two books, SexStarvedMarriage, and SexStarvedWife. Why not check them out for ideas. The forum for SexStarvedMarriage is on this site. The SexStarvedWife is a separate site. You can read to get ideas. Men posting doesn't seem to work too well there, but you can get an idea of women's needs.
Going dark is the board lingo for the Last Resort Technique in Divorce Busting and Divorce Remedy.
It means to stop the pursuit (initiating any contact: calls, emails, making up a reason or finding a reason to talk), at the minimum, and avoiding contact at pitch black.
