SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I'm still here.

For those unfamiliar with my growing saga, here are the previous threads:

Part I: https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/topics/656164/my-wife-had-an-intense-highly-deceptive-affair/

Part II: https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/topics/656633/my-wife-had-an-intense-highly-deceptive-affair-part-ii/?ap=1

I'll kick off the new thread with this post from the end of the last one from Farsidejunky:

Dr. S:

I am going to suggest (again) you read the parable of the scorpion and the frog...as you continue to twist yourself into a pretzel trying to understand why she can't stop stinging you...

That's a parable I know well and it is very relatable to my situation. My WW is the scorpion that keeps stinging me. And both of us seem confused by it every time--perhaps it's just in her nature. And that's what she's tying to change. The day I see her stop fighting to change, will be an easy point to walk, but I'm not there just yet. Let's hope it doesn't take another 50 pages to figure out though.

I don't think it matters if this is 100 pages or 10 pages - if it helps you get through your thoughts, keep using it.

Personally, I have the completely opposite POV and it is on point for this particular set of circumstances.

From my perspective, whenever a BH thread reaches 10+ pages with no meaningful improvement, then it indicates another BH that is perfectly content with remaining in perpetual limbo rather than stand up to his WW. This one is now 100+ pages and nothing has measurably improved or changed. OP has neither established, much less defended, any firm boundaries and consequently his WW still treats him with contempt and disrespect. He won't even take the basic and necessary stance to cut contact with his conspiring and backstabbing in-laws.

Yes, they have been to counselling out the whazoo, both IC and MC, and nothing material has come of it, which in my experiences is to be expected, especially when one spouse doesn't feel they have a problem. In effect, these threads have been little more than the OP's diary, where he shares his thoughts and wishes and perversions, and then either ignores or argues against the very good advice he has been so graciously given.

I'm sure the usual suspects will be by to defend OP's inaction and disagree with my observations, but I have never been one to shy away from conflict, and have a hard time understanding those who refuse to stand up for themselves and continue to let others abuse and disrespect them.

I work within a construct of family systems and if you have not looked that up you should because it explains a lot about how families operate. The interesting thing about human beings is that we lie. It’s the lies that we tell the others and even more so with the ones we tell ourselves. Your wife does not recognize what is running her but I do because it’s something I work with in other people all the time. Somewhere in her childhood, and I don’t know how young she was, she found out that being too loud got her in trouble. She also resented being told what to do so she learned how to sit on the job until someone else did it or they stopped telling her to do it. Passive aggressiveness is in all of us to a certain extent but when it becomes a way of life it is the most nerve-racking thing to deal with. How are you going to get a calm conversation going when you have nothing to grab onto. A passive aggressive person is a slippery as an eel. This is why you keep looking back at yourself as being abrasive and aggressive. What you probably were doing is reacting to her but it made it look like you were the bad guy because you were the loud one. I can’t help you with that. I can only point it out to you because after 101 pages it seems very obvious to me what’s going on. I thought for a long time you were kind of the loud pushy bossy guy and it sounds more and more like you were just reacting to what was obviously a manipulation going on. It is a very common way people act with each other but it stinks because no one ever relaxes with the other. There is always "What does he/she mean". It is hamster in the wheel living and it is very tiring. The next time you get a knot in your stomach stop whatever is happening and get to the bottom of it right then. You have to read your body’s cues. It will tell you when she is manipulation you. Once you do you can stop things immediately.

My gosh, I forgot about this……please, please read Games People Play. It is an old book about mind games people play on us and how hard they are to recognize. Great book that has been in print for years

I am sorry, I didn’t mean to say fake orgasm =lie means the end of R. I don’t ever think of you in R anyway. I am telling you more where I am at. So I wasn’t sugggesting that was a dealbreaker in the here and now for you.

At the same time I was understanding that sometimes women feel like they need to fake the orgasm for deeper reasons. In order for her not to want to choose that behavior it may take a different verbal agreement. She needs to dissect why she does it and whether that requires a relationship adjustment or an individual one.

I was really meaning to point at the inauthenticity. At some point that will become a black and white. You are not wrong to keep some things shades of grey for now. But down the line when there has been time you will not accept inauthentic behaviors as meaningless.

However, I also recognize it takes some time for authenticity to return after you blow up your life. It left the building before her affair started and snow balled from there. The thing about rock bottom is that you don’t remember what it was like above ground. Also, you realize that you have been headed in this direction for so long that most of what you would consider authentic in recent years was all being done on questionable foundation.and you are now in a position of fear that adds to the pressure. So a WS flails around and tries to get a handle on things but we can’t absorb and integrate them as quickly as we can logically understand them.

So, the mask so to speak can sometimes be the difference between who we are and who we are working towards being. It can also be the thing we wear just to get our way.

So the reason I asked what I did is sometimes the reasons someone is working on themselves or the reasons they want to stay married can tell you a little bit about intentions and progress. Some women or men can not get a divorce for financial reasons, while others want to preserve the family. Maybe the relationship was good before and they just aren’t ready to let it go. I think the reasons evolve as the person and relationship does or the whole thing falls on it’s face.

The reason I wanted to work it out early was I didn’t like uncertainty. Which is hypocritical since that’s what I just gave him in spades. But as I worked on myself it became about seeing if we could build something different. Today, it’s because I can’t imagine being with anyone else, he is the love of my life.

I don’t think any ws or bs have to have the highest reasons early on but as people work on themselves it has to evolve. I know for a fact no ws changes in 2 months or even 6. The symptom of cheating has many root issues that have been part of that person for most of their life.

As for the badmouthing, that stings. And it’s a hard thing to get over. One thing you will come to see in time if you both keep moving forward is that it too is inauthentic. It has less to do with who you actually are and moreso about her need to justify her own bad behaviors. Any of the blame that I put on my husband and resentment I had to realize was caused by me. Even if it’s for not speaking up or working on the relationship. Always letting him believe things were hunky dory when it wasn’t. I am not saying all this to say look at me. I am far from perfect and I still work on myself. I tell you so you have some idea of what it might look like.

Expressing themselves and communicating in a healthy way is also a learning curve for many ws.

Getting to the last thing I wanted to mention. Her parents not being able to visit is a consequence that she needs to accept. They can go to a hotel as easily as you all can put you in one. It’s your home you should not have to go to the hotel. I can tell you her people pleasing likely started as a girl with her parents so she has had a long term pattern of not wanting to disappoint them. Because they are the source of that behavior she is putting pleasing them ahead of pleasing you. But the trigger is more in her patterns with them rather than it being an unreasonable request from you.

[This message edited by hikingout at 11:15 PM, Friday, August 5th]

Personally, I have the completely opposite POV and it is on point for this particular set of circumstances.

From my perspective, whenever a BH thread reaches 10+ pages with no meaningful improvement, then it indicates another BH that is perfectly content with remaining in perpetual limbo rather than stand up to his WW. This one is now 100+ pages and nothing has measurably improved or changed. OP has neither established, much less defended, any firm boundaries and consequently his WW still treats him with contempt and disrespect. He won't even take the basic and necessary stance to cut contact with his conspiring and backstabbing in-laws.

Yes, they have been to counselling out the whazoo, both IC and MC, and nothing material has come of it, which in my experiences is to be expected, especially when one spouse doesn't feel they have a problem. In effect, these threads have been little more than the OP's diary, where he shares his thoughts and wishes and perversions, and then either ignores or argues against the very good advice he has been so graciously given.

I'm sure the usual suspects will be by to defend OP's inaction and disagree with my observations, but I have never been one to shy away from conflict, and have a hard time understanding those who refuse to stand up for themselves and continue to let others abuse and disrespect them.

To read through 100 pages and not think I've had any further clarity and there has been no progress doesn't feel like a good faith assessment, but I'll respond.

Boundaries have been an interesting topic for me these last few months. As have consequences. I've explored both and still struggle drawing a distinction between productive and punitive. I do think I've been better at recognizing the responses from my WW; being able to disengage as soon as I know we're off the rails. That has helped my mental health.

I also just went through two weeks of no conflict--things felt largely good between us. Hell, things were so good, I was knit picking about kinks just to have something to write about.

I feel closer to R than ever before, but last night was a good slap in the face as it reminded me that my path forward is not linear. I also now have a clear boundary to impose: the negative/passive aggressive bull shit woven into our sex life ends today--and if it happens again, R gets buried. I feel strength in that conviction and see no acceptable reason for her to fail.

Overall, I'm inspired by her progress and I've seen enough flashes of the woman she can potentially be to not pull the rip cord yet.

Don’t get me wrong, I think you two should stay together, although I think a reconciliation is not likely.

You both are just broken. Staying together keeps your family together and prevents you all from damaging potential future spouses should you D.

Somewhere in her childhood, and I don’t know how young she was, she found out that being too loud got her in trouble. She also resented being told what to do so she learned how to sit on the job until someone else did it or they stopped telling her to do it.

Entirely true.

The next time you get a knot in your stomach stop whatever is happening and get to the bottom of it right then. You have to read your body’s cues. It will tell you when she is manipulation you. Once you do you can stop things immediately.

I'm getting a bit better at recognizing those moments and disengaging--and then feeling ok about disengaging. That's always been an issue for me: if I recognize there's a problem, I want to resolve it. Having to sit on this mess for four months and find comfort while being uncomfortable has been a great challenge. But I think I'm becoming fairly good at it.

My gosh, I forgot about this……please, please read Games People Play. It is an old book about mind games people play on us and how hard they are to recognize. Great book that has been in print for years

I just ordered it. Thank you.

At the same time I was understanding that sometimes women feel like they need to fake the orgasm for deeper reasons. In order for her not to want to choose that behavior it may take a different verbal agreement. She needs to dissect why she does it and whether that requires a relationship adjustment or an individual one.

I was really meaning to point at the inauthenticity. At some point that will become a black and white. You are not wrong to keep some things shades of grey for now. But down the line when there has been time you will not accept inauthentic behaviors as meaningless.

I love binary, but if I understand you correctly, I disagree with you here--don't we all need to be a bit inauthentic at times in all relationships? If my wife is wearing a dress I don't find attractive, I won't tell her she looks hideous even if that's how I feel. I'm being inauthentic for her benefit. I imagine plenty of women--as you suggest--fake orgasms for that same purpose: they do it for the benefit of their partner--it's selfless. In my WW's case though, it's the opposite--she faked her orgasm entirely for her benefit. In that moment, she wasn't really interested in pleasing me, even though she was interested in my orgasm because it would benefit her.

So the reason I asked what I did is sometimes the reasons someone is working on themselves or the reasons they want to stay married can tell you a little bit about intentions and progress. Some women or men can not get a divorce for financial reasons, while others want to preserve the family. Maybe the relationship was good before and they just aren’t ready to let it go. I think the reasons evolve as the person and relationship does or the whole thing falls on it’s face.

The reason I wanted to work it out early was I didn’t like uncertainty. Which is hypocritical since that’s what I just gave him in spades. But as I worked on myself it became about seeing if we could build something different. Today, it’s because I can’t imagine being with anyone else, he is the love of my life.

I do think that's entirely possible for her now: she can't imagine being with anyone else. But there's certainly no clarity to that. Though I also wonder--is not imagining yourself with someone else all that abnormal? I'd think most married individuals feel that way--it's hard for me to imagine myself with someone else as well; It took me close to two months post-DDay to really get around to the idea of it being plausible.

As for the badmouthing, that stings. And it’s a hard thing to get over. One thing you will come to see in time if you both keep moving forward is that it too is inauthentic. It has less to do with who you actually are and moreso about her need to justify her own bad behaviors. Any of the blame that I put on my husband and resentment I had to realize was caused by me. Even if it’s for not speaking up or working on the relationship. Always letting him believe things were hunky dory when it wasn’t. I am not saying all this to say look at me. I am far from perfect and I still work on myself. I tell you so you have some idea of what it might look like.

I'm over the sting of the badmouthing--that's not my issue with it at all. My issue is that it's a clear indication she wasn't interested in protecting me and the marriage. If she really wasn't looking for an exit, then the badmouthing to her mom was an incredibly toxic and harmful thing for her to do to herself. She was actively poisoning her own marriage and ignorant of the consequences. She should have been painting me out to the be the best husband on the planet--at least that's how I feel married couples should operate: it should be them against the world. One team.

And her badmouthing me to AP is even worse--again, not because it matters what she told him--he certainly didn't care anyway. It matters because it was a man she knew for only a few months and she valued him over her husband of a decade. That's a high level of disregard and disrespect for her own marriage and it shows her incredibly low character.

Getting to the last thing I wanted to mention. Her parents not being able to visit is a consequence that she needs to accept. They can go to a hotel as easily as you all can put you in one. It’s your home you should not have to go to the hotel. I can tell you her people pleasing likely started as a girl with her parents so she has had a long term pattern of not wanting to disappoint them. Because they are the source of that behavior she is putting pleasing them ahead of pleasing you. But the trigger is more in her patterns with them rather than it being an unreasonable request from you.

Interestingly, I don’t have much anger for them. I used to think of them as family, but that was on me and it has been corrected—they’re now just in-laws I’ll have to deal with.

I didn’t want to go up to their lake house this summer because I didn’t want to be on enemy turf if anything negative happened with my wife—seemed like I was risking a bad situation.

Now, with them potentially coming here, I feel similar—I don’t want them in the house if things go negative with my wife.

The last few weeks things have opened up a bit with my wife and I was gaining comfort as we rebonded, but last night was a reminder that I’m not out of the woods. If something like last night happened with them in the house, it would be uncomfortable and I’m hesitant to take on that risk.

Truthfully, I’d think she would be on her best behavior if they were in the house, not wanting to risk anything going wrong. The issue though is she is oblivious to the issues—she doesn’t yet have the self-awareness for me to feel things can’t go sideways.

Their annual Christmas trip has been in the back of my mind for some time—with them wanting to come in Sept, the timetable accelerated. My IC is on vacation the month of August, so I may wait to talk this through in MC first.

And to your point about her accepting this issue as a consequence of her actions; I'm not sure she can. This is precisely the type of thing that she would turn into long-term resentment.

I'm not sure she can. This is precisely the type of thing that she would turn into long-term resentment.

In your first sentence, you use present tense. Then,in the second sentence, you use past tense.

If she cant..then she will continue.

You say she just can't imagine herself with anyone else. Doc, that's not true. She very much imagined herself with OM.

A lot of the time,you respond in a way that makes it clear that you are projecting what you would feel,if you were in her shoes,rather than how SHE actually feels and thinks. It's happened over and over in your threads.

Also, you continue to believe what she says to you,even though she keeps lying. Maybe you should be a bit more sceptical,at this point.

You have a wife who tells you what she thinks you want to hear,because you believing her benefits her. Remember that.

In your first sentence, you use present tense. Then,in the second sentence, you use past tense.

If she cant..then she will continue.

You say she just can't imagine herself with anyone else. Doc, that's not true. She very much imagined herself with OM.

A lot of the time,you respond in a way that makes it clear that you are projecting what you would feel,if you were in her shoes,rather than how SHE actually feels and thinks. It's happened over and over in your threads.

Also, you continue to believe what she says to you,even though she keeps lying. Maybe you should be a bit more sceptical,at this point.

You have a wife who tells you what she thinks you want to hear,because you believing her benefits her. Remember that.

I love your posts; perhaps because I do often agree with them. But it’s not just that I agree with them—it’s that they echo my feeling so well while also seemingly mirroring the advice I’d be giving to me from afar.

I’m in *constant* conflict over trusting my eyes and being skeptical of them. It haunts me daily. And you’re right, in absence of my understanding of what she is thinking, I replace it with projections of what I’d be thinking if I was her.

Today though, what I saw was a devastated woman. She spent the day in a shame spiral over how poorly she treated me last night. We discussed her frequent childish behavior in MC yesterday and she was angered at being labeled a child—so today she was twice as angry because in her attempt to prove she wasn’t a child, she doubled down on it instead.

Is that all an act? I don’t think it is, so I have to trust my gut.

Because I’m on here a lot if I’m going to give suggestions I want them to come from a place of knowledge so I consult often with a friend of mine who is a therapist. She says almost everything we do as adults comes from a combination of genetics and childhood. If you’ve had a reasonably healthy childhood you’re going to be a reasonably healthy adult. There is a Ted talk by Dr Nadine Burke Harris that stopped me in my tracks. She said childhood traumas shorten life. The more traumas the shorter the life. Please take time to view it. She set up a clinic in a rundown part of the city and she knows what she is talking about. Anyway if someone is stuck in a self defeating cycle chances are they have arrested emotional growth so that their default reaction to anything is as a child. That is why some serious therapy like EMDR is necessary. I call it the old shooting yourself in the foot existence. The gun never makes it out of the holster.

It wouldn’t hurt you to find out why you have lived this way with her for so long. "Dr it hurts when I raise my arm!" Then stop raising your arm.

[This message edited by Cooley2here at 2:31 AM, Saturday, August 6th]

I'm not getting shame. I'm getting a woman trying to play the part. I've said this to you repeatedly throughout your journey.

I have to echo the theory that you two are not really making much progress, I honestly believe that's because you refuse to let her hand go, and you're teaching her how to continue to deceive you. She isn't committed for the right reasons.

When I was going through this I knew my wife had turned the corner when she caught herself midway through one of her tirades. If she isn't recognizing her poor behavior until she can see your reaction then there is no growth...she is simply adjusting her behavior in an effort to "MANAGE" you and recovery.

The fact that you're wife doesn't recognize her mother as being an enemy of your marriage and trying to force feed you a healthy serving this early, just expecting you to a be ok without a second thought there is very little progress on her part. I think you should mention that to her.

she said it would be fine if I preferred they stay in a hotel. I said that seemed silly, but I just need time to process it-she quickly responded that it wouldn’t be silly at all and she would understand.

I’m not sure if you or anybody here wrote about this, but it appears this was a big lie too. In the end, she didn’t understand did she. Not sure how you can trust what she tells you at all unfortunately.

Now, do I think her faking an orgasm should end a path to R for us? No, I can't say I do.

I wish there were a way to count how many times you’ve said something like this over your two threads. I’d think it might be quite a lot.

Now I’m not saying I disagree what you said there. But I do think it’s possible the concept of the death by a thousand cuts or the similar one about frogs dying by water temp being turned up to boiling very slowly come to mind.

All the little things add up. These seem like more than just little setbacks. We have a relative who always says "I had to learn the hard way". It’s become a joke in our family, because honestly, she never learns. She just makes the same mistakes over and over again.

I’m hoping that your wife is more self aware than that. It’s unclear to me if she is. She says things the morning after, but over time, that becomes less and less helpful.

[This message edited by Stevesn at 1:00 PM, Saturday, August 6th]

When I was going through this I knew my wife had turned the corner when she caught herself midway through one of her tirades. If she isn't recognizing her poor behavior until she can see your reaction then there is no growth...she is simply adjusting her behavior in an effort to "MANAGE" you and recovery.

If your WW was midway through a tirade, wouldn’t she have already seen a reaction from you?

But yes, the time it takes her to recognize she’s acting like a child is concerning for me, but the time is also shortening. A couple of months ago it was taking her days/weeks, now it’s happening less frequently and it only took her a few hours.

That seems like progress in a literal sense.

I also understand that much of the advice here is often binary in opposing directions: it’s either I’m a fool for allowing her to keep hurting me or I’m an asshole for having such high expectations for her this early. It forces me to argue against the middle constantly.

The fact that you're wife doesn't recognize her mother as being an enemy of your marriage and trying to force feed you a healthy serving this early, just expecting you to a be ok without a second thought there is very little progress on her part. I think you should mention that to her.

There’s a lot to unpack there.

I don’t think my MIL is an enemy to our marriage; I think she is a weak, foolish old woman suffering from early dementia. My wife was the enemy to our marriage.

I no longer consider any of my WW’s family as my own, but I also think that’s more a reflection of my foolishness to ever consider them family—I’d imagine most married individuals never consider their in-laws as highly as I did.

That noted, I agree with you. I found her reaction very selfish and insensitive—a mirror back to her desire to have the dinner with the affair-adjacent friend.

She struggles with taking on blame and looks to blame others for her mistakes—so rationally, she knows the current issues with my relationship with her parents are her fault, but there’s a part of her that seeks to blameshift that off of her.

In this instance—and we discussed it last night—her justification was that because I sent a friendly text to her parents last month, it wasn’t fair that I was still upset with them.

So two things: one, I let her read the friendly text and it was not contradictory to my current feelings; and two, even if it was, it wouldn’t matter. She recognizes her position didn’t make sense and that this is all 100% a consequence of her actions. She is ingrained to have the perspective of a spoiled child—things aren’t "fair" and she pouts about them.

So yes, it’s frustrating that she was ever even slightly mad at me for any of this; and yes it’s frustrating that she bottled that invalid anger inside and then unleashed it at me passive aggressively during an intimate moment—but it’s also seemingly progress that she can process all of this and recognize it for what it is.

Again, a few months ago she was fighting with me for weeks over even more absurd situations. I have to be honest with what I’m seeing. I went through four months of seemingly daily blowups over nonsense. I then go three weeks without one and need to have the clarity to look at that as progress.

I also see, as I noted, her time dug in on a crazy position is way shorter—in this instance, I didn’t even have an opportunity to explain how fucked up everything she did and said was before she came to me and apologized for it. If this happened last month, it would have been many more hours of her being obstinate in conversations.

[This message edited by Drstrangelove at 1:59 PM, Saturday, August 6th]

I’m not sure if you or anybody here wrote about this, but it appears this was a big lie too. In the end, she didn’t understand did she. Not sure how you can trust what she tells you at all unfortunately.

We spoke about this last night as well. I’m placing this in the category of faking it until she figures it out. She knew from the start that the correct answer was that she should offer they stay in a hotel unless I was the one that offered for them to stay here. However, that’s not how she felt—she *felt* angry with me. She was struggling to square what she knew was right vs. how she felt.

So in that conversation, she said the "right" thing, but hadn’t completed the necessary introspection to be full-throated about it. Is that lying? Because it’s better than her just blindly following how she feels—it seems she’s starting to recognize that she can’t trust her gut initially and that her feelings require examination.

I wish there were a way to count how many times you’ve said something like this over your two threads. I’d think it might be quite a lot.

Now I’m not saying I disagree what you said there. But I do think it’s possible the concept of the death by a thousand cuts or the similar one about frogs dying by water temp being turned up to boiling very slowly come to mind.

All the little things add up. These seem like more than just little setbacks. We have a relative who always says "I had to learn the hard way". It’s become a joke in our family, because honestly, she never learns. She just makes the same mistakes over and over again.

I’m hoping that your wife is more self aware than that. It’s unclear to me if she is. She says things the morning after, but over time, that becomes less and less helpful.

We never discussed her faking an orgasm these last few months—largely because it’s something she’s only done a few times over the 100+ sex sessions we’ve had in this tight timeframe.

Generally speaking, I don’t care about a fake orgasm—as I explained in my response to HikingOut. I do now recognize her faking an orgasm can be problematic for us and last night I asked her to stop doing it—she said she would.

Doc. Are you addressing your personal issues surrounding sex in your IC? If not, I think you should. I’m not sure if you should see a sex therapist separately.

Your issues surrounding sex to me is a huge issue. It significantly affects your life, as well as your pre snd post A marriage. I personally think that your kink is a net negative all way around.

Until you work through this on your own, sex will continue to be weaponized on both sides. Your WW wielded this weapon throughout your M, snd it’s being wielded now. I think she’s still manipulating you through sex.

You, on the other hand, are basing a major proportion of R on whether your sex life is much improved post A. Your WW of course understands this all too well. However, to me, that’s not even the most important fact in all of this.

Your sex life with WW should improve organically as she makes personal progress in IC, and your overall relationship improves. However, she can fix herself to the ends of the earth, but as long as your kink remains front snd center in your brain, and it remains your primary litmus test regarding successful R and M, issues in your M will continue. Sex is extremely important, don’t get me wrong - healthy sex is…

Your line of thought that you loved your wife and M prior to the A, except for sex, I think is thus fundamentally flawed. Your WW needs to own snd fix her crap and you need to own snd fix your crap - your crap being how you handle your issues surrounding sex.

Doc

I no longer consider any of my WW’s family as my own, but I also think that’s more a reflection of my foolishness to ever consider them family—I’d imagine most married individuals never consider their in-laws as highly as I did.

I don't think that is being fair to yourself. I don't believe it is uncommon at all to consider your in-laws as family. In many cultures around the world, when you marry a person, their family is your family. Perhaps not as much so in the West, but it still happens to an extent.

The fact they failed you as family is not a reflection on you of anything other than you having what I would consider a fair expectation of familial trust, love, and respect. That is their failure, not yours.

It hurts, but don't beat yourself up over it.

I'm getting a woman trying to play the part.

THIS.

** Posting as a member **

** 2 X 4 Warning **

1) There is no contradiction between agreeing - thinking - that her parents should stay in a hotel and being angry about it.

*****

2)

...[D]on't we all need to be a bit inauthentic at times in all relationships? If my wife is wearing a dress I don't find attractive, I won't tell her she looks hideous even if that's how I feel. I'm being inauthentic for her benefit.

BULLSHIT.

You're lying to protect yourself from a possible conflict.

If your relationship can't thrive even though you have different opinions, it really may not be a relationship worth keeping.

There's nothing wrong with your W liking to wear clothes that you don't like to see her in. Raise the issue, for crying out loud. The resolution is easy - either she continues to wear those clothes and you decide whether to stick around (if you just don't like the outfit) or leave (for example, if you think she's using clothes to seduce other people into an A).

Avoiding conflict with one's W guarantees a shitty life, IMO.

I'd be angry and fearful if my W faked an orgasm. Women are responsible for their own orgasms. If my W is unhappy with sex, I damn well want her to let me know. It's usually not that difficult to make sex satisfying, but it takes honesty. As does R.

*****

Games People Play is available for free downloads. I mention this as a way of getting the book more quickly than waiting for it to arrive by mail.

You might also read the brilliant Born to Win by James and Jonggeward followed by I'm OK, You're OK by the Harrises. Reading Born to Win is more beneficial.

If you feel intellectual, Berne's What Do You Say After You Say Hello is a good read.

*****

WRT your progress, I don't see much. I don't expect much this quickly - you're still close to d-day.

But despite a LOT of advice to pay attention to yourself, you're not getting it. You put up barrier after barrier. You place responsibility for yourself on your W, but that responsibility belongs with you.

You have set yourself up as an invulnerable fortress in which you pretend to protect your W for as long as you choose to do so. In fact, however, you are vulnerable, and you can't heal if you don't own it and realize it's a strength.

You can't R unless you heal. You can't heal unless you own your own shit and flush it away. I'm not at all sure you've evn begun to do that.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 4:21 PM, Saturday, August 6th]