Am I just being paranoid due to the mistrust of the affair? In the end, does it matter that the ending of the affair was not her decision?
If this was an affair with a man, and she came to me with remorse about saving our marriage, I would feel much differently right now. Due to the nature of the sexual orientation confusion, I worry that W will see OW as her emotional support when she needs it most and will only hide contact deeper while this goes on.
Me - 33 W - 33 S - 9 months M - 3 years T - 5.5 years Bomb - 12/14/10 ILYBNILWY PA discovered - 1/18/11 PA began - 3/22/10 Separated
That is awesome that you got to spend some alone time with the baby!!!
You have to stop... you HAVE TO stop asking about the OW. I know where you are coming from and I know that you need reassurance, but you can't get it from her right now. And the more you ask, appear vulnerable, insecure, etc., the more you will push her straight out the door. Period. You have to stop. It's time for you to be tough. You can come here and let us know all of your feelings about insecurity and distrust, but you cannot do that in front of her. This is your safe zone. She is not at the moment. You need to play this smart.
Also, do not show her your book. OK? Don't. Your wife has help for herself. Showing her that book is going to do nothing more than make her feel guilty and that is not an emotion you want to evoke under any circumstance. I, myself, try my best to avoid people who evoke negative feelings in me at all costs.
With that said, your ace in the hole is your support of your wife. A lot of people would have reacted differently and you didn't. So, you are starting way ahead of most. Give yourself the best possible chance you can because you deserve it.
In the end, does it matter that the ending of the affair was not her decision?
How was it not her decision?
The choice was hers, unless I misread this. Yeah you wrote a letter and her C suggested she do it, but in the end the choice was hers.
It being her choice is actually a good thing.
Quote:
Am I just being paranoid due to the mistrust of the affair?
Oh yeah.
Almost anyone suriving a spouses affair is. You are going to need her reassurances, but do not be so needy that you push her away either.
Do not jump to conclusions, do not accuse without proof, but keep an eye, affairs are insidious things. Outright trust of her, is foolish, it needs to be rebuilt. But so is accusing her every waking moment of continuing the affair based soley on your paranoia.
Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn. My God, do you learn. - C.S. Lewis
Life is usually all about how you handle Plan B. - Jack3Beans
Listen without defending; Speak without offending - FaithinAK
That is awesome that you got to spend some alone time with the baby!!!
You have to stop... you HAVE TO stop asking about the OW. I know where you are coming from and I know that you need reassurance, but you can't get it from her right now. And the more you ask, appear vulnerable, insecure, etc., the more you will push her straight out the door. Period. You have to stop. It's time for you to be tough. You can come here and let us know all of your feelings about insecurity and distrust, but you cannot do that in front of her. This is your safe zone. She is not at the moment. You need to play this smart.
Also, do not show her your book. OK? Don't. Your wife has help for herself. Showing her that book is going to do nothing more than make her feel guilty and that is not an emotion you want to evoke under any circumstance. I, myself, try my best to avoid people who evoke negative feelings in me at all costs.
With that said, your ace in the hole is your support of your wife. A lot of people would have reacted differently and you didn't. So, you are starting way ahead of most. Give yourself the best possible chance you can because you deserve it.
Hang in there. We're on your side!!!
LIS
Thanks, LIS. My wife and I are actually very good about putting the baby first. Neither of us want to prevent access and care for the baby which is awesome. Like I said before, co-parenting is W's primary focus right now. We are trying to split care as close to the middle as possible right now. Our couples therapist even recommended we write out an agreement and get it notarized. Works for me. W is also open to spend time together with baby during bedtime routine, etc. I welcome this, but in my heart, I just wish she would understand that this is our home and come back to it.
I will stop asking about the OW. Made me look very vulnerable last night. To me, I just want to her to understand the ramifications. It has been made clear, that divorce is looming if affair continues. I guess I just have to leave it with that message. Plus, what benefit of reassurance do I get if she is simply lying to my face?
I will avoid the book. She is just not sure what the reconciliation / forgiveness / trust rebuild process entitles. I just wish I could have somebody besides myself show her the wonderful knowledge presented in that book. Plus, my W worships Oprah. The fact that Michelle appeared on Oprah would validate her in my wife's mind as a authoritative resource.
I will keep supporting my wife with everything I have, but I also need to be strong and stand my ground if she begins treating me like a doormat.
Thanks for hanging in there with me.
Me - 33 W - 33 S - 9 months M - 3 years T - 5.5 years Bomb - 12/14/10 ILYBNILWY PA discovered - 1/18/11 PA began - 3/22/10 Separated
Thanks, Jack. She may not tell me that it was her choice to end the affair. She makes it sound like it was made for her as an ultimatum, but in the end, she did make the decision. She could have just as easily said to heck with it all and continued.
I will also have to tone down the asking of reassurance without proof. I can see how this would push her away. It was just a weak moment for me, since it was her first night alone.
Me - 33 W - 33 S - 9 months M - 3 years T - 5.5 years Bomb - 12/14/10 ILYBNILWY PA discovered - 1/18/11 PA began - 3/22/10 Separated
So I originally caught my wife's affair with OW through email. The night I told her that knew (1/26), she changed her password. I imagine she did it to cover her tracks, so I could not use them against her (too late).
I have never had access to her iphone, because she keeps it password locked, but she is on that thing more than anything.
After asking my wife last night if she has had contact with OW. She said that she has not talked to her or had contact. This is still heavy on my mind today. I know I should just blow it off and stop talking to her about OW.
I found myself curious and realized that our online cell phone bill is shared, and I am the main account holder. I was able to see every time a text was sent or received with phone number and also every call with phone number and minutes. How could I or her have missed this?
Before I outed her affair on 1/26 around 8:00 pm, there were thousands of texts and calls to OW. I knew about that for a long time, but I made nothing of it until PA was discovered.
So with my new discovery, I started looking for contact between the two of them since 1/26 at 8:00 pm. I'll be honest, there has not been one text message where there were thousands (a relief). However, I did find two outbound calls. One on 1/28 at 10 pm for 1 minute. The next on 1/29 at 4:27 pm for 5 minutes.
My wife had told me that she had not contacted OW at all since 1/26 at the request of her therapist. She told me that her brother sent OW an email stating those intentions. So these two calls mean that she did in fact lie to me.
Were these calls to say be patient with me, and I will be there for you soon? Calls to say goodbye? This kind of stuff is going to eat me up inside.
Should I be bothered now that these two calls were made to OW after W told me no contact has been made whatsoever? Should I be happy that there has not been more? Should I approach these to my wife in our next therapy session or simple ignore them but keep track for more in the future?
It seems so dumb for her to think that I would not be able to find this stuff out. Now I want to get access to her new email account and check it as well.
UGH! How frustrating!
Me - 33 W - 33 S - 9 months M - 3 years T - 5.5 years Bomb - 12/14/10 ILYBNILWY PA discovered - 1/18/11 PA began - 3/22/10 Separated
Sparks, DETACH NOW. Seriously, you need to stop snooping right now. I think what you found was very good news. Not much is going to happen in a 1 or 5 minute phone call. So let it go. I wouldn't mention it to your W.
It sounds to me like your W is doing the best she can do at the moment. Please remember that she is going through mourning right now and is probably not thinking clearly. And keep in mind that most of these WAS's lie. I don't think they lie necessarily to help themselves. Sometimes I think they do it to help us too. I don't think they want to inflict more hurt. I probably wouldn't have always thought that, but there are some WAS's on this site and it's incredibly insightful. They are good people. Some of them admit that they were good people, who made mistakes. We all do.
So... you need to stop obsessing, stop snooping and start detaching. Let's talk about how you can do these things. How can you pull this off??? MWD's books are about being solution focused. So let's start brainstorming some solutions to this issue...
