Steve, that's great you were able to have that conversation and stay so controlled. Sounds like you've mastered the technique! I also find myself doing better in this regard. Yesterday I was telling my husband about a beach we went to yesterday morning for Easter church service and I said to my husband "it was so beautiful, you should take your girlfriend there." I don't feel so affected now by my husband's girlfriend (I don't know their status either). I guess we all master detachment sooner or later when we really work hard at it.
By the way it must be so great to sleep in the same bed as your wife. Some of us here don't have that option at all! You and your wife seem to be on track towards a full reconciliation. I hope you will keep us posted on your success!
Nicole, thanks! Will do.
As far as my sitch with my wife and sleeping in our bed, yes that was one of the "mistakes" I made on bomb day. I said, "please do just one thing I ask, don't leave our bed". About a month after bomb day she did suggest she might want to sleep separately, but by then I was using the "give her space" approach and she never followed through.
I think two things prevented her from actually leaving our bedroom:
1 - Our 14 year-old daughter would have questioned it and not been happy about it. A lot of the reason my wife tried to keep things that were going on between us quiet was for fear of what our daughter would say, think and do.
2 - Our Christian faith. She knew that leaving our bedroom was a bridge too far. Something that would have taken our marital problems to a whole other level. She never could get her self in the right emotional and mental place to actually take a big step like that. So instead she did as AnotherStander talked about in another thread and did the magical hover where she is so far to the edge of the bed you don't know how she is still in it.
BTW, to show how far she has come, she is now back towards the middle of our queen bed! Showing further progress and how far we've come from BD.
Obviously, everyone's sitch is different. And while I mixed a lot of DBing with what many of our experts would call "pursuing", I think for our situation much of what I did after BD was right. Obviously, my begging, pleading, logical arguments etc on BD itself were the wrong thing. The moping, and outwards sadness I showed in the 2 days following bomb day were the wrong things.
But the things I feel worked in my sitch were:
1 - Signing up for MC, and inviting her to the initial session. Our counselor suggested she come to the first session, even if I continued with IC only. This would set the precedent so that if she did start attending later she wouldn't feel it was the counselor and I against her, since she too would have a report with the counselor. Once she went that first week, my W was the one that suggested moving to every week from every other week. (Due to our progress we are back down to every other week, and have our next session tonight.)
2 - Getting invited to a marriage retreat in Pigeon Forge, TN from some friends at church. Several couples from church were going, and one of the couples urged us to attend too. I didn't think my W would be open to it, so when she was I was stunned. God works in mysterious ways, and the invite came at exactly the perfect time. Further, while we had one really bad incident there (where it appeared my wife was clearly rebelling against our MR and the information we were receiving at the retreat), we eventually bonded on the way home, and seems to have been the last act of defiance towards the MR since.
3 - On the second day after BD, I came across a marriage saving advice site that taught me that the only way I could save my marriage was by taking all of the pressure off of her and "letting her go to get her back". It even coached on what to say: "It takes two people to make a marriage but only one to divorce. Since I can't control you, and you are going to do what you are going to do, I can't stop you. But I am opposed to this D, and will not do anything to progress it." There were other suggestions too, and employed several of them.
4 - I've mentioned Mort Fertel before, and sandi has rightfully pointed out that his methods are more pursuing than DBing. However, in my sitch, his suggestions of: touch charges (non-sexual touching throughout the day), talk charges (short, fun, conversations that you start and end), and date night (in our case I started taking her to lunch every Friday which is my work from home day). Those suggestions seemed to be exactly what my sitch needed since we had no emotional connection going into BD.
5 - DBing. And while I didn't do it in its purest form, and though I slipped a lot in the first 2 months related to snooping, spying, and initiating R talks, I did start detaching emotionally (differentiating), and giving her space to be herself. I did this in a plugged in, present, and supportive way.
All 5 of those steps seemed to pay dividends, here were the results:
1) While initially resistant to MC, she softened significantly after the first session. The MC concentrated a lot on me, and my shortcomings and the changes I was trying to institute. My wife seemed to get behind supporting me in those changes. There was one brutal session when the counselor got my wife into a very deep, emotional place. We even took a week off after that session it was so rough on her. But it seemed to let her start opening back up to me emotionally. As if the in session baring of emotion made her feel safe again in that regard. I know DBing says not to do MC with a resistant spouse, but in my sitch it actually worked out.
2) The retreat, while I think she agreed to it mainly to be able to have another "effort" under her belt when she eventually left, really started to reinforce a lot of the Biblical teachings she already knew. As I said, above, at lunch on Saturday she rebelled against those teachings. I think I documented it here in one of my threads, but basically she suggested she would have no problem with me "finding someone else". It kicked off a long R talk, that got more heated than any other talk since BD. We did go back to the retreat sessions and seemed to heal from it (held hands, she even put her hand on my knee) during the sessions. And then that night and on the way home the next day we bonded. Mainly by a lot of frivolous, fun discussion. We laughed, we discussed the future, we just kept it light. As mentioned, she hasn't rebelled against the MR since that day at lunch.
3) Letting go of her on the second day after BD was huge. Immediately she started hedging. Saying things like "I was hoping my mind about leaving would change after the holidays." "Once I start looking for a job and apartment I hope I'll lose interest." As I continued over time to reiterate that it was her decision, she made less and less effort to move forward with her "I don't want to be married, and want my own place". By the of January she wasn't looking for jobs or apartments anymore.
4) The small pursuing I engaged in seemed to work to help us start to reconnect emotionally. Mort is clear not to pressure your spouse. But to find creative ways to incorporate at least the touching and talking in your specific sitch. I did a lot of things like putting my hand on the small of her back as I passed behind her in the kitchen. I would call every morning from work and tell her something exciting or fun. Mort is clear that date night may not be an option for everyone. And in my sitch if I said to my W in the first 6-8 weeks after BD "lets start doing date night" she would have resisted. The "lets go to lunch on my WFH day" worked! It was very little pressure, and we both needed to eat lunch. It wasn't until it was brought up at MC that she even realized there was more to it than eating lunch. And by then she was ok with the idea.
5) Detachment/differentiation is money. It wasn't until I really concentrated on emotional detachment/differentiation that things started to really take off. Sandi had mentioned the nice guy book to another poster. I bought it and read it. I realized that a lot of what I did had strings attached. "Maybe if I do this for her she'll like me!" Instead of "I am going to do this because I love her." Women especially are very good and knowing the difference between something being done genuinely out of love, and things being done with ulterior motives. Differentiating means you are fine with yourself. That you can calm yourself. That no matter what your spouse does or says, you are emotionally stable and ok. It took me weeks of concentrating on detaching and differentiating before I started to have success with it. It is still a struggle, but as I mentioned in a previous post, it is starting to come easier and more naturally.
So I believe everyone sitch is different and what might work for one sitch may not for another. The experts around here have a common saying: keep doing what works, stop doing what doesn't. That is what 180s are about. If you were like me and emotionally distant and not present in the home (physically and mentally!) than the 180 is to become more present and emotionally close. If you were critical, angry, grumpy, and miserable, do a 180 and become supportive, happy, and upbeat! STOP doing what doesn't work, START doing something different. If it works, keep doing it! If not, stop.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
One other thing I feel I should mention again, though I've mentioned it before: I feel I also caught my situation very early. Remember, BD came for us when I confronted her about the messages I found between her and and EA OM1. She immediately went to "I don't want to be married anymore."
When I look back at it, I think there is a big difference between confronting your spouse and then them dropping the bomb. And in them just dropping the bomb out of the blue. In the first, it as if you made them drop the bomb before they were ready to. They may not have mentally gone all the way to wanting to deep down, without a doubt, dissolve their marriage. In the second, I feel that the WAS has already gone much further down the road mentally to where they are in a much darker place in relation to the MR.
Obviously it depends on when the LBS catches it, and confronts it. Maybe the WAS was almost to the point of dropping the bomb anyway. In my case, based on browser and message history, I caught it really early. I think my wife was just getting used to the romantic idea of being free of the MR, and being on her own. It was such a new fantasy that as time went out from bomb day, reality started to pop the fantasy balloon in her mind.
I've documented on this board how I used reality to start shattering her illusions related to D. But it shows you the level of delusion WAS/WSs will go to romanticize D and As in their mind. The point of limbo, as much as it [censored] for the LBS, is to allow the WS/WAS to work through their delusions and start to, hopefully, see the reality of their situation and actions. I believe it is well within the LBS's right, and doesn't fall under "pursuit", to help them see that reality. In fact, that is what detachment/differentiating is all about! Dispelling their illusion of Plan B (this person will always be here for me to fall back on!). As Plan A starts to unravel (and in 99% of the cases it will), it leaves them in a very scary place and most WASs/WSs will come running back to the LBS for safety and security.
So my sitch, I think steps 1-5 above worked because she was still early in her delusion forming. And also because Plan A was not very solidified yet.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
MC last night. C really concentrated on me and trying to get to the root of my deeply embedded "my way is right and anyone that doesn't differently is wrong" thinking. My siblings all have it to varying degrees. Many in my extended family (both on my mom and dad's side) have it too.
The C is thinking this is what has caused a lot of the problems in our MR. It has been one of my wife's chief complaints. It is also the root of what I begin to harp on when the rest of the MR isn't healthy. It makes me a negative, angry, grumpy person. Someone that is not pleasant to be around.
It is the biggest 180 that I have made since BD, but the C is rightfully trying to get underneath it so it can be solved long term. And can give my wife confidence that the changes are permanent.
One thing that has been bothering me is she still isn't kissing me passionately. When her and I met she was kind of seeing another guy, though he was leaning on going back to his previous GF. Her and I struck up a friendship. I would lean in to kiss her goodnight and she would give me a peck and transition to a hug.
I stood up in my cousin's wedding about 6 weeks after starting this friendship. That night when I went to kiss her goodnight, she grabbed me, pulled me in, and laid a very passionate kiss on me. The other guy was out of the picture by then and she was very clear that he feelings for me had changed.
That keeps coming back to me as she continues to not kiss me passionately. I know, we are only 3 1/2 months past bomb day, and this is a marathon not a sprint. And maybe I am just growing impatient. We show affection. We flirt and are playful. We even have sex. But I won't feel we are back to where we should be until we can kiss passionately.
I was going to bring it up at MC last night but then the C got onto my selfish way of looking at the world and that chewed up all of the time.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
No Maika, we are still exploring its Genesis. In the meantime, I am still working on the 180 from that. I am sure it will be a topic again at the next MC session.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
Steve85, just the fact that you and your wife are physically affectionate seems like a great sign that everything is moving in the positive direction. Maybe the ice hasn't completely melted yet. I'd love to be in your shoes. Hopefully you can just keep focusing on what's going well and have patience a bit longer.
Well, just had a really bad morning. Suspected OM2 came up again this morning, this time I brought him up. I asked my wife some questions about the nature of their messaging, and her answers were troubling.
- He spoke frequently about the affair he was having with a married woman (I think I mentioned her a few days ago). - He talked about being into threesomes and other sexually deviant activity with his current girlfriend. - Also, he was sending suggestive messages to my W about himself.
I have no reason to believe she was reciprocating on any of this but I did ask her if she discussed our marriage with him. She defaulted to her "I don't know, I don't remember" avoiding answer. When I pressed she said if so it was months ago.
The words "months ago" continued to ring in my ears. Admittedly, I reacted poorly. I then asked why he felt the need to talk about these kinds of things with another man's wife, and she proclaimed rather proudly "Because he calls me his "Bestie". As in best-friend. I went into a stonewalling, silent thing. She even followed me into the kitchen to ask me what was wrong, and wanting me to talk. She was trying to insist I read their messages back and forth on the singing app to "ease my concern". I stonewalled her to the point that she went back into the master bathroom to get ready to take my daughter to school.
So much for being differentiated, eh? Two things hit me as I prepared my coffee and green smoothie:
1) Just because she shows me the singing app messages doesn't mean she isn't in contact with him by other means. 2) How would she feel if I were having these kinds of discussions with another woman?
I went into the bathroom and told her 1, and asked her 2. Her reaction to #1 was hard to read. I added that the messages I had found between them several weeks ago wasn't even on the singing app, but on an online game app. It looked to me like she felt caught, as if I was onto her "clean messaging" for show. Obviously hard to read, but she wasn't forthcoming with insisting that she wasn't in contact with him by other means.
Her answer to 2 was strange as well. "I wouldn't care as long as you weren't having a relationship with her." Huh? Wouldn't exchanging messages of a personal, even emotional, nature be a "relationship" of sorts?
She was quiet and distant for the rest of the morning as I prepared to and left for work.
I am in a bad place. I thought about things all the way to work. I feel right at this moment like giving up. Just going home tonight and telling her that I can't do it anymore, that the "I am going to do whatever I want secretly and then live a separate life with my family" thing isn't what I want in a wife. That I am ready to move forward with her plan of her getting a job, getting her own place and divorcing.
Maybe this is just because things were going so well, and this feels like a setback. I know that I am only 3 1/2 months removed from BD, which is a relatively short period of time. And that it is expected that there will be up and downs. But it felt like we had turned a corner, and this kind of hit hard.
I don't understand why she feels the need to still be in contact with this idiot. When I asked her what her and he were getting out of this she couldn't answer. But to me that is profound. Why would a guy continue to be in contact with a woman unless he was getting something out of that contact? She claims she has lectured him about his partying and dope smoking (he is 42, come on grow up already). And that she shuts him down when he starts talking about the sexual things he and his girlfriend do.
Why would a guy continue to put energy into an online only friendship where the other person constantly chastises you? It doesn't add up. It doesn't make sense.
We are supposed to go look at 3 houses tonight after work. The steam has gone completely out of that for me. I am so not at a point right now where I want to consider buying a new house together.
On top of all this, my D14 has been extremely rude and disrespectful to me the last few days. I am not sure what is up with that but she got herself grounded for 2 weeks yesterday for raising her voice unnecessarily, and then acting out disrespectfully at Bible study last night. I am at my wit's end with her right now.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
Steve, I was reading down through your recent posts catching up, and I looked at your timeline in your sig and thought to myself "things are moving way too quickly for someone that was just BD'd barely 3 months ago". And then I read your comment about her not kissing you passionately and that was another red flag. Then I got to your latest post and I wasn't at all surprised at what I read. Piecing is a long, slow process. You don't just flip a switch and things go "back to normal". Your W is going to feel the pull of OM, and you are going to feel jealous and angry and resentful. You'll have good days and bad days and amazing days and terrible days. That's all part of the process. Take these latest concerns and bring them up in IC and MC. You need professional help in working through these issues and establishing boundaries.
Originally Posted By: Steve85
The words "months ago" continued to ring in my ears. Admittedly, I reacted poorly. I then asked why he felt the need to talk about these kinds of things with another man's wife, and she proclaimed rather proudly "Because he calls me his "Bestie". As in best-friend.
I suspect like you do that he's trying to draw her into a PA. But he's using manipulative tactics that she doesn't recognize. What she is doing is very dangerous for your M, no question about it. The problem is she doesn't realize it. That's why you need MC help with this, a 3rd party will be able to get through to her better than you.
Quote:
I went into a stonewalling, silent thing.
Very passive/aggressive response, and yet another reason to seek out MC help.
Quote:
Her answer to 2 was strange as well. "I wouldn't care as long as you weren't having a relationship with her." Huh? Wouldn't exchanging messages of a personal, even emotional, nature be a "relationship" of sorts?
She's clearly trying to give herself permission to continue this behavior. Her point is that they're not having a PA, so an EA is just fine and dandy. Of course we know otherwise, and so does your MC. So again, bring them in on this. This is exactly what they are for, to help you resolve issues you can't resolve on your own.
Quote:
I feel right at this moment like giving up. Just going home tonight and telling her that I can't do it anymore, that the "I am going to do whatever I want secretly and then live a separate life with my family" thing isn't what I want in a wife. That I am ready to move forward with her plan of her getting a job, getting her own place and divorcing.
That's very passive/aggressive as well. Just take a deep breath, this is a setback but it's nothing you can't work through. You and your W are not on the same page yet as far as expectations for recon. That's OK, it's normal. You've got to work it out. Be patient!
Quote:
We are supposed to go look at 3 houses tonight after work. The steam has gone completely out of that for me. I am so not at a point right now where I want to consider buying a new house together.
I think we've said to you before that you need to put all that on hold until your sitch resolves itself. I would say at least a year before you consider any big purchases like that.
