LBS dealing with WW (part 6)

[Joe2017]

Thanks joejoe.

I have not consciously made it my mission to punish her. I can see that it is the case though, whether it is subconscious or somehow purposely.

I am going to make a concerted effort to stop.

I plan on having one more conversation about OM where I tell her she needs to write something up to tell him to never contact her again. We did agree that if he ever contacts her, she will notify me immediately. He did text her this afternoon about the rental, and she did tell me within 2 minutes.

I think she is seriously trying. I need to give her more than I have been giving her. I know this is hard for her too.

I agree with everyone about counseling. I have been to A LOT of counseling, so I know the value in it. Lol, actually my last girlfriend asked me one time during an argument "How much counseling have you been to!!?" when I kept diffusing everything and validating her feelings. Lol. Huh... I miss her sometimes.

Anyhow. I have a lot work to do! But I'm more optimistic today than I have been all week.

[Ready2Change]

Sit down with her. Have her call him. Have her say:

"Please respect my wishes and do not contact me anymore. Goodbye" and then hang up.

[Joe2017]

Well. OM was notified to never contact her again and told that their relationship and the affair was the biggest mistake of XW’s life. XW agreed to ignore OM from now on. It created a really awful stream of hate from OM that I had to help XW deal with. It scared her, but it will go away eventually.

Coupled with the realization that my S is not happy that XW is in our lives again made the night very hard on her.

I’m going to have to back off quite a bit and give her some space to feel this out. She is close to giving up because of how much she has put into getting me back only to face obstacle after obstacle. I don’t know if she thought she could just walk back into my life with ease, but that’s definitely not the case.

She has had to face many emotionally charged days with me. It’s time for me to go back to the mindset of clearing the path so the road back is clear. I believe my XW is a good person at heart.

[Yail]

I hope you all slept well last night Joe, especially your XW. It's a new day.

I'm guessing that the phone call with XOM was very difficult for her, even though she sounds like she had no resistence in making that call. It probably dredged up a lot of old confusion and made her wonder why she ever made those past decisions. Also, being yelled at with hateful words is hard on anyone's emotional fortitude. Does she have any real fear of him? Would he ever find his way to your house or her house?

I hope the weekend allows you both some quiet time where she feels safe to "come down" (emotionally).

Giving her space sounds like a good idea. Be sure she understands (tell her with words) you're not leaving, just giving her and yourself some breathing room so you can both walk forward in a healthy way. Emotions block our abilities to read the room, and now is a time that silly misunderstandings could step in.

[Joe2017]

Hi Yail! I slept well with the help of some melatonin.

The call was difficult because he basically yelled and cursed at her the whole time, shifted blame, insulted her, and threatened to call me and tell me everything she has done. Which he is more than welcome to do, I guess. Whatever. He's definitely a power tripping controller type. She is very worried about what he will do to her, yeah. But she made the call anyways, and she did it without any hesitation. Like as soon as I brought up the idea, her phone was in her hand and she was calling.

I'm being very supportive of her and I'm settling more into the caring boyfriend role. I have to ditch the LBS mindset.

[Jim1234]

Joe, I'm glad she made the call without hesitation or equivocation. I'm sure the vitriol he was spewing made her think even more about "what the heck was I thinking leaving Joe for HIM?" That had to be very hard to hear. I'm glad you're giving her a little more space,

Be sure she understands (tell her with words) you're not leaving, just giving her and yourself some breathing room so you can both walk forward in a healthy way.

I think this ^^ is really good advice.

[Joe2017]

Well, I'm back as square one emotionally.

I don't know if I will be able to get over the fact that she had a girls gone wild phase and is now supposedly over it. I have reason to believe that she had sex with more guys than she has told me about. Which is fine, I guess. It is not unlike dating someone new who I don't have any history with, except I do. I think she is lying a bit to save face. Yes, I looked at her phone. Gotta validate, right?

I don't know how to approach her about this without destroying all the work we've put into this so far. I mean, really? How do you tell the woman you love that... You LOVE her but don't trust her NOT to become a promiscuous piece of garbage again?

You know, we put so much into wanting to save our marriages that we come to a place like this. A place that literally has all of the tools and advice we'd ever need to save our own lives and POSSIBLY save our marriages after D... the second-most traumatic experience besides death that could strike us. We hope beyond hope for a chance to reconcile with the person who has left US in the dust. We pray that there was not an affair, yet 95% of the time they were screwing OP behind our backs.

Still we wait, and we DB, and we recreate ourselves into amazing people. Seriously, this site is FULL of the most amazing people that I have ever never met. We recreate ourselves, we stand up a lighthouse. We pray. We evolve and grow. We continue. We detach. We do fantastic things and overcome insurmountable obstacles.

We hear that yes, many waywards end up coming back to the spouse they betrayed. Maybe in 6 months, maybe in a year or two or three. Sometimes they are even willing to do the work to reconcile.

So here I am. In the situation I prayed to God for SO MANY TIMES. My XW has come back and repented. She is remorseful. She is subservient. In SO MANY ways, she is now the wife I always wanted during our marriage, but never got, because she tells me that she knows she was deficient so she is working to fix it. My freaking XW is doing 180's to please ME now... the person she chose to betray in the worst way possible.

She's done so much work already to try to regain my trust... seriously, she has done almost all of the things Sandi writes of when she describes how the LBS should approach a wayward who is returning. But I am so far from trusting my XW that I feel distant. And the more I become attached, the harder I want to push her away. What is wrong with me? Probably nothing but I don't feel like this is nothing.

I don't think I'm strong enough to do this. I think that this may not be worth the effort. I think I might be better off without her. I don't want to hurt her, and I don't want to hurt our kids.

I am almost close to being... Scared right now. Wow, is that normal? I've been deployed to war. I wore armor every day, carried guns, been in combat, and never ever got PTSD from it... and my freaking XW is scaring me? AGAIN???

This sht is bananas.

[joejoe1]

Joe,

I have been blown up in Iraq. Was Medavac off the battlefield. Watch people and vehicles shot up in Iraq. Shot at with PKMs and rockets in Afghanistan. Watch my friends vehicle get blown up in Afghanistan, I watch as they all stumbled out the MATV. Fall to the grown and we pulled security until the Medavac arrived. I watch how the little girls and women are treated by the men and the smelled the horrible smells coming from little girls that made heat paddies (which was made out of doo doo and dry grass). Which, the smells is really the only thing that haunts me today. I live normal life, considering. I have a Purple Heart and a Combat Action Badge.

My mother drown in Hurricane Katrina. And right after the Hurricane I didn't hear from anybody in my family for almost a week. And I didn't find out my mother had drawn until November 10th or so. I had to go to Baton to give a DNA sample, I did that in October of 2005. My mother's body rotted in our house for over 2 months in the New Orleans Humidity. We had to have a closed casket funeral. I cried for 3 months straight after her funeral and wouldn't believe she was dead because I never got to see her body, we were advised not to view it.

None of that has been as hard as piecing and learning to trust again. This Sh!t is harder than DBing. While DBing we are freeing ourselves, moving on, dumping the craziness, once we are on that path we start to gain clarity amd freedom. In piecing we are opening up our old wounds becoming vurnable again. It's not fun, and we see all the risk with opening ourselves up again to the person that wounded us, we see all that pain we just shook off us coming back and it scares the living hell out of us. It's not easy brother and it takes time, you have to be patient. Also, it took me a while to realize but your wife is not your healer, you are. Her job is to heal herself and work on the M. Your happiness and healing is not your W responsibility, ITS YOURS!!!!

I posted in the piecing tread most of the beginning of my journey of reconnecting. Please read it. This Sh!t is a roller coaster. One day last FEB, I was holding my baby boy, out of nowhere I just look at my wife and started crying, I handed her my son and I just turned around and ran out the house. It was freezing outside, I didn't have a jacket and had shorts on. I just kept running for like 30 or 40 mins. I did sprints and everything. What made me cry was, I looked at my son, and then looked at my W and I almost yelled out I can't do this, I want a Divorce. When I came back, my W can running to the door and said are you ok. I just sat down with her and explained my feelings and thoughts. She understood.

So, yes your feelings are normal and so are your actions. Dealing with reconnecting brings on PTSD like symthoms. You are fragile right now.

Keep posting and keep going forward

Time, time, time, let time do it's work.

Oh and my W just left a 1:30 A.M to console one of her friends, her 17 year old son was shot in the head and they are pulling the plug in the morning. This world is ruthless. He was a good kid, was joining the Army when he graduate. I was at the Texans and Colts game, what a horrible game played by Houston. Driving back to SA and get that news from wife. I pulled up, she went out. Our trust of each other have gotten better. I'm a Whodat boy thou!

Please pray for my W friend. Parents shouldn't have to bury their children!!!!!

Onward and upward/forward

[Joe2017]

WARNING: This is going to sound very superficial but I can't shake it. It's eating away at me.

XW used to be really skinny. She's very attractive. She never got what I consider to be overweight at all. But she had a few pounds on her when we first met. No big deal. She was was the woman of my dreams.

She had body image issues. So I supported her going and getting fit. I supported her going to the gym as much as she wanted. Then she went wayward, lost the weight, screwed a bunch of dudes. In fact, the OM was her gddamn coach at her gym!!!!! So, me supporting her fitness goals backfired in my face.

She was seriously HOT after the divorce. During her girls gone wild sht... She was smoking hot.

Then she gained the weight back when she hit rock bottom. Now she comes back to me when she is less attractive, and she tells me she hates how she looks.

I don't care about her weight at all. I loved her the most when she was the heaviest she's ever been in her life. Our M was very fulfilling back then and I didn't care about her weight at all.

Now I feel like she only came back to me because she feels unattractive, yet knew I was someone who accepted her regardless of her body.

But it makes me feel like -- at least physically -- she gave her best to everyone else instead of me. And now I get leftovers?

Yeah, that's super shallow. Trust me I know. I am not actually that superficial, but I can't help this feeling that I'm settling for my XW. This is NOT about her appearance as much as it is the idea that she worked her ass off to give her ass to other dudes. And now she's probably never going to get to that level physically again.

I really just feel like I'm settling for XW... not only emotionally and relationally, but now physically as well. Judge me if you like, but I feel like I've gotten the short end of the stick throughout this entire relationship.

I have never ever thought this way about my wife before, but now I do. It worries me how shallow this feels. I feel like a damn male chauvinist pig for having these feelings,

I don't know what's wrong with me.

[Joe2017]

Joejoe, thank you for the candid response. I will write more tomorrow... I know I'm spiralling over here so I need to take a break.

I'm about to go to sleep, and you can bet that I will be praying for your wife and her friend's family. The world can most definitely be ruthless and cold.

Thank you again joejoe.