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The same thing I've feared since DDay: hurting my children.

This too was my greatest fear, but in reality it is your wife that hurt them by hurting you and the M through her A. Many a WS including mine weaponize this fear during D or post D as well. So should you venture that path do not be surprised if she blames you for "breaking up the family." What choice do you have? I was not a good mom during the last days of my M to xWS I was a shell of myself and headed for the psych ward again. At some point you have to take care of YOU.

From what you shared, you can take the financial hit of paying for a hotel you don't stay in. Or let her go alone. No cancellation hardly seems like a reason to go on a trip with your abusive wife, especially since you don't seem to be in dire straits.

I connected with the hotel again. I only lose the deposit (about $500), and even that can be deferred up to six months. I need to sort out the options with the airline next.

I was not insinuating rape. I was saying that unless you are not sharing something important, she deliberately and without hesitation broke your boundary. Full stop. She had no reason not to communicate her feelings to you and no reason to fear turning you down. She made the choice to be physical with you and she also made the choice to express disgust immediately after. She wanted you to FEEL like you forced her and know that she was disgusted. This is literally EXACTLY what you told her you would not tolerate. But you are considering tolerating it because you can't cancel the hotel? You are worth more than that.

Clear, concise and accurate.

I suppose my hesitation comes from wanting to be sure I'm not overreacting. I think in binary terms, it's as simple as you laid out. But I'm also emotionally untrustworthy on this topic and I don't want to make a mountain out of a molehill. I'm measured in my responses and I want to feel like I'm on solid ground.

This is why so many say you must be willing to lose the marriage to save it. And why everyone advises you set the boundaries and consequences ahead of time so you do not have to question what to do when your partner breaks them.

You set the boundary and consequence at a time that you were calm. Now you are not calm because you are hurt and scared. It doesn't change what you decided before and you should trust yourself and stick to it.

100% agreed. I want to feel assured it's as clear-cut as all of that, which is why I was deferring to MC. Both of us can explain what happened and I'll see if the MC challenges my position. I don't think she will. So that will be that.

Ultimately what is happening here is everyone has thus far noted it is clear-cut, so my personality is to examine and challenge the consensus to see if it's wrong. I suspect it's not. I could easily have imagine several WW's coming into this thread to tell me I'm overreacting and I'd be in a different position now. I'm just processing all of it right now.

You made a very clear boundary. You drew a hard line in the sand. You told her you would never tolerate her crossing it again.

She crossed it.

You are NOT overreacting.

I suppose my hesitation comes from wanting to be sure I'm not overreacting.

You are not overreacting. I guarantee your wife will try to make you believe you are just as she will if you separate and actually follow through with holding your boundary. She will want you to feel like your biggest fear has come true - separating and hurting your children.

HOWEVER, she made the choices that got you here. She made those choices willingly and with full knowledge of the consequences.

I know you don't agree with me but I have parents like her. She will do to the kids (likely when they're older) what she is doing to you unless she wants to change. You have to take steps to protect yourself and be the healthy, stable and mature parents and hope she wants to be that parent one day too.

If she doesn't, thats on her just like all the other choices she has made to get you here.

Again, I don't think anyone can emphasize this enough - NOT OVERREACTING.

You set a boundary when you were calm and lucid. You decided what would happen if she broke the boundary. Trust yourself and move forward out of infidelity and let her deal with the consequences of her own actions. She can still fix this if she wants to. But so far, she sure doesn't look like she wants to, which I know must be so tough to accept.

She is hell-bent on damaging your sense of self-worth. Don’t let her do it.

Your marriage is not a healthy one, honestly from my perspective (which doesn't count for much) its pretty toxic. What do think your kids are learning right now? And believe me, they are recording this toxic relationship. As much as we believe we are protecting them. Children are small and may not understand what is going on, but they are aware and learning. Soon, as they develop, they will start putting the pieces together. The damage of maintaining a toxic relationship will have very lasting effects on your children.

I think you need to shake your wife. You need to start with strong actions and not just words.

You committed to something, stick to it.

I believe you fear taking a strong stance because you think, at least in part, she will reject you. That's why I believe you took the I didn't love you stuff so hard. Now you are adjusting more to her then she is to you.

I know you don't believe you are sweeping this under the rug but really you are. You are afraid for her to face consequences, thus your desire to stay friendly with the OBS, thus you being ok with her maintaining friendships, thus you allowing her to trample your boundaries and then minimizing her having done so.

Back to your biggest fear...how exactly will you taking a strong stance hurt your children?

[This message edited by Dkt3 at 12:30 AM, Wednesday, August 24th]

I agree with HellFire about the denial. It's things like this:

I don't think she *puts me down*. She gets angry with me and doesn't know what to do with it. But her anger isn't really for me; it's anger with herself over a variety of things that she channels toward me.

I see this as minimizing. As I said before, it doesn't matter if she's taking her anger out on you maliciously or not. Taking her anger out on anyone is abusive in and of itself. It doesn't suddenly become not abusive because she couldn't control herself or had a valid reason for feeling the anger or didn't mean it that way. Those are excuses for inexcusable behavior. She needs to stop any and all passive aggressive behavior and trade it for something healthy and productive.

It was my fault for not making her abuse a clear boundary and allowing it to continue.

This is what I am talking about when it comes to accountability. It is not your fault. The accountability lies entirely on her. You may have a responsibility to set a boundary now that you are aware of it but it is not your fault that it happened because you did not stop it. This is what everyone means by control. You want control over every little aspect of your marriage and WW so when she does something bad, you feel responsible for it. It is seen as your failing to control your WW in order to ensure a healthy marriage instead of a failing by your WW to promote a healthy marriage. It is not healthy for you to take on responsibility for her behavior as a way to keep the marriage intact. It's counterproductive to R.

It was interesting to me that you expected the therapist to tell you how unhealthy it was for you to go NC with an ex while you got over her. Going NC was the best and healthiest option FOR YOU. I suspect you do not see it that way because your needs come last. From your point of view, it sounds like the needs of your exgirlfriend and the continuation of the relationship supersedes your own which is why you may think it is would have been better if you shoved those negative feelings down and continued the friendship. This completely goes against modern dating advice because YOU MATTER. Just like you may now need a separation in order to save your marriage, you needed a break back then to process your feelings separate from your exgirlfriend and salvage a friendship.

Here is a thought experiment - think of one of the hurtful things your WW has told you in the bedroom. How would you feel if this was said to your sister from your BIL? Would you suddenly have a litany of reasons why your BIL may have done that or would you be too busy breaking out the pitchforks? What about this being said to you daughter by her spouse? Or father/step father to your mother? And now to find out that it has been happening consistently for years. Would you still feel like this beloved family member should suck it up and deal with it some more because their partner has been working on it or would you feel like any slip up is unacceptable? If you are able to feel a sincere injustice and anger for this beloved family member, why can't you feel it when it comes to yourself? How are you different? You too are important. You too have needs that matter and they matter a hell of a lot more than your WW and the marriage. I'd think if this was someone close to you, you'd want to argue that not experiencing this injustice would constitute as a toxic situation worthy of separation even if children were involved. So why can't you extend that level of grace and understanding when it comes to yourself?

This may be difficult to digest but - people who are self absorbed and lack empathy respond to concessions for the sake of the relationship differently than those of us who don't have that personality type. Meaning your WW sees you working towards what is best for the marriage in a different light than you do. While you are wondering when she stopped respecting you and how to gain that back, I'm questioning - Did she ever respect you? The first time you conceded to her when she did not deserve it, did she see you as weak and lesser because of your amicable response? Did she then learn that she could get her way if she pushed you for it? If you're able to easily make someone feel responsible for your happiness, and they accept that responsibility if you push them to it, why would you respect them for not standing up to you? My guess is that she never respected you from the beginning and that is why she felt comfortable treating you the way that she has all of these years.

Doc - you remind me a bit of Neville Chamberlain. We all know how that turned out.

We had the talk. She knew what was coming. I plan on cancelling the trip and she’s looking at apartments with short leases in the area.

It feels surreal.

I feel like I gave this everything I had and failed. I loved her deeply.

She left it on the note that she’s going to do this separation and ultimately prove to me that she still loves me. Nothing she says makes much sense to me though. I suspect she doesn’t know how she feels.

I will likely try to take some time away from the site, though I don’t know if that will hold up. I feel like I’m in a fog. I’ve been sitting in the dark replaying my life; these last five months—it’s all so empty.

I feel like I gave this everything I had and failed. I loved her deeply.

You did give this everything you had. The failure is ALL on her.

Here's the thing. You love her deeply. And you've tried hard. It didn't work. Because YOU ARE NOT THE PROBLEM. She had to do the work. She had to make the changes. She didn't cheat because of anything you did or didn't do. You have never had any control over the outcome. You upheld your end. She failed to do her part. That IS NOT YOUR FAULT.

Its a bit soon to say it didn't work. I believe there is hope. I believe that his wife needs to get it. She needs to have to deal with the consequences of her actions and have that full weight fall on her.

As it stood its pretty clear she thought she could just outlast Dr and he would eventually get back to dancing on her piano.

I would check in with the OBS, her behavior is abit odd beyond being a confused WW. As someone said earlier it seems like she was pushing for the separation. I've always felt she was playing a role. Put it all together and there is a very real chance the affair is ongoing. If nowhere else but between her ears.

It sucks, you will question your entire relationship with the more time you spend apart, but it will slowly get better no matter the outcome.

We are here for you my man, don't give up hope just yet, its just time for her to carry the burden, to prove with actions that she wants the marriage.

I am about to have a majorly unpopular opinion. But, I have been a ww with sex as a requirement.

Let me preface this by saying:

-I am not suggesting a separation is not in order, none of us can decide that with what limited picture we can have from the internet

-my husbands sex requirements were slightly different. We didn’t have some of the history this couple obviously has with unhealthy sex dynamics.

I tried to talk you out of the sex requirement from the jump. However, it was going nowhere and I put that away in favor of being heard in other topics.

Hinging a big piece of whether you will reconcile on sex is a lot of pressure. Pressure and sex do not go well together. In fact, it almost always has the opposite effect in a woman’s desire.

So I am going to explain how this was for me because I really can’t speak to the dynamics of your situation without being there really. I don’t love doing it that way, because I do not want to cause a loss of focus. I am going to just ask you to take what resonates and leave the rest alone.

The bond between my husband and I was broken by my actions and thought processes. Without that bond, sex wasn’t flowing as it was our whole marriage, so at one point he put a requirement that I initiate more, be more enthusiastic,etc.

I was really not into it at all. Had nothing to do with him, it was that I was processing things so heavily, in my head a lot, experiencing shame around sex (that I obviously caused), and depressed. I just didn’t have the bandwidth to think about sex a lot through the day.

But obviously I wanted my marriage so I did what he asked. It was detrimental to me on so many levels. There were so many times things like what you describe happened, though I never expressed disgust, I kept it hidden.

And it was very hard later for us to reestablish an authentic sexual connection. The feeling of being required versus the feeling of being able to feel my natural desire was a switch that wasn’t easily flipped.

This goes beyond people pleasing. This is a requirement for staying married, for keeping a family together.

The way I am seeing it really stems from only my own experience so it could be off base, but here is what I am reading:

Your wife is up working, and wants to say no. But she is fearful of not meeting the requirement. On top of that there is a new requirement she is processing on what you may or may not consider abuse. She is on her last leg before a separation.

I honestly think her resentment because of this inner conflict she is having is natural. She then tried to bury that that immediately because she wants this marriage more.

She should have just said something like "I need to finish what I am doing, but can I get a rain check? I promise it will be worth the wait" and then followed through with that. But I also know how I would freeze and not be able to do that either.

Is it fucked up that she feels this way? Yes, but for more reasons than what might meet the eye.

You are dealing with an unhealed person who is trying to be compliant, but in exactly the opposite way that you want to see.

What you actually want to see is her grow into a person that is healthy and wants a healthy sex life with you.

What you are creating with the sexual requirement is making yourself a "to do" item. It’s coming up that way for her every single time as long as that requirement looms. Even when she IS into it, but especially when she isn’t.

I know your argument has been without it you would be done because of the past sexual wounds. But to heal those wounds it can only be from an authentic sexual connection and not one in which every time she says no she fears that is going to be the straw that ends her marriage.

Again, probably not your intention but that is how it’s being interpreted

I also know that not everyone changes, and that your wife is not in a healthy place. So, take this as me playing devils advocate to what you are hearing from others. Only you can know if any of what I said applies to your situation.

[This message edited by hikingout at 6:33 AM, Wednesday, August 24th]

There is a major difference....you said sex wasn't flowing like before, Dr and his wife never had a healthy sex life. So its not like it something that came with her infidelity.

In my opinion I think many have missed the boat on what he is saying is a sex requirement. What he is really looking for is being loved by his wife, and since most of thier difficulties surrounded sex, and her weaponizing it, I think he feels if she gives him sex it translate to being loved by her.

Its all about him needing to feel loved.

[This message edited by Dkt3 at 6:43 AM, Wednesday, August 24th]

HikingOut, you convinced me to revise the "sex requirement" months ago, and I did, to your suggestion of "more sex."

My WW was not obligated to give me a blowjob yesterday.

Her only obligation was not to intentionally hurt me or maliciously make me feel unloved—that was her commitment to me.

Hiking,it didn't have anything to do with sex. It was because of the cruel way in which she spoke to him,and treated him,during sex a few weeks ago. He told her he would never tolerate it again. And she did it again. He didn't expect her to perform. It wasn't an act. It was the words she said.

How are you doing today, Doc?

Dr, this is not a failure on your part. That is her responsibility to bear. However, this also doesn't mean that the marriage is over if you're both still willing to work on it. You need this boundary for your own safety and sanity. She needs to learn to uphold her agreements and experience the consequences of breaking them. It doesn't feel good now but it gets easier.

You both need a hug. If possible, go hug each other. If that's not possible, go hug your kids. Love, Marie

"Hugs feel good even when they come from strangers. Ergo, we should all be hugging more."
― Lena Dunham, Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned"

Her only obligation was not to intentionally hurt me or maliciously make me feel unloved—that was her commitment to me.

I agree that yours is not a sex requirement. It's a showing love with all actions requirement. Instead, she hurt you on purpose in a way that you already explained was unacceptable and most hurtful. You were vulnerable and she weaponized sex in that moment to hurt you. There is no excuse for it including how broken or not healed she is or isn't. We can't possibly know why, but she did it. Again. Now there is consequences that she knew about and probably didnt think would actually happen.

You did not fail. If anything you are succeeding in standing up for yourself and loving yourself enough to not stand for this treatment from anyone. It feels hard now but it will get better. It's time for her to sink or swim.

Keep making a plan when you're calm and stick to it when you're not. Be kind to yourself and put yourself first and then your kids. She is responsible for what she does next, not you.

Be prepared for those vulnerable moments where she tests your boundaries or makes you feel guilty. Decide now what you will do and say and stick to it even when you feel unsure. Trust yourself.

I agree with hikingout.

How are you doing today, Doc?

Miserable. We were both up all night, though we didn't talk.

We have MC tonight, so I suppose we can use it to sort through the logistics of what happens next.