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I think the most natural question after realization like that would be "why". Why was a dynamic like that established in the first place? And before we plunge into the forest of FOO issues, I think it's a good idea to look at the most straightforward answer: It truly worked and was most natural for both of you. I think this answer is essential because it predicts how tough it will be to change. More challenging than most habits. And also why both of you will fight that change with strategies you've developed over the years.

That's the answer I've arrived at these last few days. We both have a giant hill to climb to change behavior that has come to feel very authentic. I need to focus on my behavior though--and hope that in limiting my parental responses, her child-like ones will stop.

I think it's worth noting too that it's not just in our dynamic with each other--my parent is dominant in my other relationships as well I think--and her child is 100% dominant in virtually all the relationships of hers that I observe (I think it's central to her victim-mentality).

On my end, I've been aware of my critical, disagreeable nature, but I had never really analyzed its origins before now.

I'd also like to take a quick look at the issue HellFire pointed:

You say you're smarter than your wife.

You may be more competent, but I wouldn't be so sure if you were more intelligent. When I look at the woman you've painted till now, I certainly don't see a simple person.

Edit: I was trying to say that part of the price for changing parent/child dynamics may be the feeling that you are smarter.

I am sure, but I don't see a reason to discuss this further. I do understand your point though; it's just not relevant in this specific dynamic.

Thank you, HikingOut. I agree that if my goal is really for her to find remorse, I need to stop adding to her resentments. I can make this easier on her; and I will.

I hear you. I still caution you to not do any of this for her specifically. This is for you. Having controlling or dominant behavior is natural for a lot of people. You own that dynamic wherever you go, you seem to understand it’s like that in most of your relationships relationships so I am not assuming this is lost on you.

The difference is when you do something for yourself you don’t resent the hard parts. Your goal is never tied to her, your goal is to tie your thoughts and behavior to what is healthiest for you.

I do think that growth can have a positive impact on any relationship, but relationships are the culmination of what both people put into them. It may or may not effect her remorse. It does create more space for it. She still has a big hill to climb to get past her shame and residual resentment.

Looking at yourself is a great step. However, I could see a future post saying " I have been doing x, y, z" and she is still doing a,b,c. And that is not helpful for the type of changes you are looking to make for the long term.

I am happy for your potential growth and for you to see the impact it can have on your life. If it effects the marriage, great. If not it will effect everything else and can be a great gift. Just don’t set it up tied together as you begin that journey.

This is also is not about suppressing yourself. This is about thought and behavioral changes that do not lead to having those feelings at all because they are unhelpful to you. It’s going to be a bit like you have described your wife, a little fake it until you make it at first.

This is the mask thing people comment on about your wife. I don’t see it as a mask, I see it as suppressing unhelpful behavior until you have time to make genuine change. Not holding things in until you burst. That is definitely what has been happening with your wife. It’s not negative or manipulative to hold back behaviors you know are hurtful as long as you are genuinely trying to fix it in a more permanent way.

Good luck, it’s an uphill battle to work on yourself so deliberately. Perhaps it will help you both have a greater understanding of what the other is doing. That can become collaborative layer and be an be helpful if you start to work on R.

You asked me if my husbands cheating made me respect him in some way, and I explained why it didn’t. But the collaboration and mutual understanding we gained when he did begin working on himself was helpful.

In both of our cases we could have done that with no affair whatsoever, but I am convinced it would have been a different crisis that would have had to precipitate it. People don’t often change until it’s too painful not to.

[This message edited by hikingout at 9:59 PM, Tuesday, August 30th]

I hear you. I still caution you to not do any of this for her specifically. This is for you. Having controlling or dominant behavior is natural for a lot of people. You own that dynamic wherever you go, you seem to understand it’s like that in most of your relationships relationships so I am not assuming this is lost on you.

The difference is when you do something for yourself you don’t resent the hard parts. Your goal is never tied to her, your goal is to tie your thoughts and behavior to what is healthiest for you.

I do think that growth can have a positive impact on any relationship, but relationships are the culmination of what both people put into them. It may or may not effect her remorse. It does create more space for it. She still has a big hill to climb to get past her shame and residual resentment.

Looking at yourself is a great step. However, I could see a future post saying " I have been doing x, y, z" and she is still doing a,b,c. And that is not helpful for the type of changes you are looking to make for the long term.

I am happy for your potential growth and for you to see the impact it can have on your life. If it effects the marriage, great. If not it will effect everything else and can be a great gift. Just don’t set it up tied together as you begin that journey.

This is also is not about suppressing yourself. This is about thought and behavioral changes that do not lead to having those feelings at all because they are unhelpful to you. It’s going to be a bit like you have described your wife, a little fake it until you make it at first.

This is the mask thing people comment on about your wife. I don’t see it as a mask, I see it as suppressing unhelpful behavior until you have time to make genuine change. Not holding things in until you burst. That is definitely what has been happening with your wife. It’s not negative or manipulative to hold back behaviors you know are hurtful as long as you are genuinely trying to fix it in a more permanent way.

Good luck, it’s an uphill battle to work on yourself so deliberately. Perhaps it will help you both have a greater understanding of what the other is doing. That can become collaborative layer and be an be helpful if you start to work on R.

I recognize that. I've been aware of my critical and disagreeable nature for a long time and it's something I've been working on (and failing at) for years. I want to change regardless of her.

I do think your hypothetical is accurate--it's very hard for me to envision my WW changing. I look back on our relationship and she never viewed this as a marriage: hiding debt, hiding drinking, badmouthing me, the affair, lack of empathy afterward, etc. I still see the scared child that was capable of all of that every time I look at her. And I understand my personality was overwhelming for her, but I'm not sure that changes anything.

Reading the strawberry responses here, as a collective, are more humorous than anything. I suspect I've painted myself as some emotionally abusive monster. I'm not.

I said to her: "We already have a basket of strawberries."

She replied, "Oh, sorry about that."

I said, "No problem."

That was it. The entirety of the conversation. Now, analyzing it in retrospect, I question why I even pointed out that we already had strawberries. I want to fix that. But I'm working on margin errors; she's working on becoming almost an entirely new person.

You asked me if my husbands cheating made me respect him in some way, and I explained why it didn’t. But the collaboration and mutual understanding we gained when he did begin working on himself was helpful.

In both of our cases we could have done that with no affair whatsoever, but I am convinced it would have been a different crisis that would have had to precipitate it. People don’t often change until it’s too painful not to.

I can relate to that. We needed a disrupter for anything to happen. I still don't know that anything will though.

[This message edited by Drstrangelove at 12:59 PM, Wednesday, August 31st]

I thought I'd write a bit about where things are this morning. I'm feeling down, so this won't be a happy update, but writing it out typically helps.

My WW had a really rough week--I'd say in total, it was the worst week at the end of the worst month throughout this entire ordeal for her. By Monday she seemed completely broken emotionally--the shame of the affair has overwhelmed her. She described sitting in her office on Monday and feeling like she was going to be sucked out the window; she had to move her work station away from the window.

I've done my best to give her space or support based on what felt right in the moment. I've felt largely ok though. I've had a cold, so with the kids out of the house for a few days, I spent the time watching TV or playing video games--just decompressing.

The kids came home from their vacation with my mom last night and I spent a few hours making one of their favorite dinners--my four-year-old daughter helped. It felt great. Much like writing, cooking has been therapeutic for me--it allows me to focus on a task and keep my mind from wandering. And having the kids back in the house just refilled my heart.

Things were going well until story time last night. Those family moments, with all four of us, have been really hard for me post-DDay. I can't stay focused on the present--my mind is just consumed with how easily my WW was willing to destroy it all. My repulsion for her becomes overwhelming.

I have dealt with waves of repulsion for her for months--I'll sometimes have to leave our bed for a bit to give myself some space--but it's a very consistent feeling during family bonding time. It's just a strong feeling of wanting to be nowhere near her.

I haven't really slept the last two nights, so that's probably not helping. I just can't escape the feeling that R may not be possible. As I've noted many times, I've been looking for proof of life from my WW--some might think desperately so--and I haven't found it. She's usually very pleasant and seemingly trying to be compassionate and supportive, but the moments she fails are hard to understand. And each day I feel more foolish. I recognize I was a joke to her all this time, so without seeing the change I'm looking for, I'm still that joke to her.

I think I'm sometimes overwhelmed by all the horrible things all at once--it shuts my brain down and I can't process them. But when I think of just one thing, it's insidious--I spiral down endlessly.

An example is the debt I wrote about yesterday--it's not new information for this week, but even thinking about just that is impossible to rationalize. I can't imagine being in a marriage and doing that--it's unrelatable.

Another easy spiral for me is recalling her making out with AP, swallowing his orgasm, then returning home to give me a kiss hello as I finish up dinner. I think about the type of person who could do that to her spouse and I'm left lost. So, in my brain, I label it things like "disrespect" and try to move on--but how do you move on from that? It's seemingly inhuman. I can't imagine a person doing that to a random guy at a bar, let alone a husband. To do it to anyone would be criminally disrespectful, but to a husband of a decade is a form of contempt I simply can't understand.

But it's probably not contempt--I suspect it's just narcissism. I don't think she cares about me enough to be capable of contempt. Her inward thinking constantly on display now is on display everywhere I look. Can she change that? It sure doesn't seem so. She's just stuck wallowing in shame.

Resentment is powerful, Dr. S.

Please understand I am not shaming you when I say this, rather I am trying to give you insight as to where she is coming from. I will also say that, in your shoes, I will repeat that I would not reconcile, if for nothing more than the explanation I am about to write. Lastly, what I see is behavior patterns, so this is obviously an educated guess.

We know your wife is a people pleaser, followed by her outbursts over allowing herself to do something she didn't actually want to do. Her immature (or disordered, as it were) mind can't possibly accept that she allowed that to happen to herself, so she shifts the blame to someone or something external...projection.

With that in mind, imagine just how deep her level of resentment ran, Dr. S...miles deep. For years, she said yes to you over countless things...sex...grocery shopping...and on, and on... Imagine every decision made where she maybe advocated for a decision that you decided to overrule. Over that many years of marriage, you are talking about countless decisions. Now imagine how many decisions you have made over which she gave zero input, even if she may have wanted to. MILES DEEP, Dr. S.

So when she came home after her BJTC with the AP, kissing you probably felt liberating to her passive aggressive, resentment filled self. After all, YOU were the problem...the source of all of her ills. You deserved it. Combine that with the fact that (emotionally) she likely viewed you as the only thing standing between her and a happy life with the AP, and that resentment was likely compounded.

People have no idea just how much the disordered can justify with their resentment.

Now on to you. I think intuitively you know the above. But I also think that you are unwilling to acknowledge it, because to do so, it would lead to an undesired outcome, which would be divorce. I don't have any answers for you in that because you are going to do what you want rather than what you should. All I can say is that you need to practice radical acceptance of who your wife is.

I don’t read it as you are emotionally abusive. I read it as you have somewhat a critical personality and some control issues. It’s not an uncommon combo, it’s not like I didn’t see it far before the strawberries. It comes out in many of your posts over time. However, you have never been open to talking about your behaviors with any real depth.

It makes sense it’s that way. She cheated, that is ultimately one of the worst things you can do to someone, so I am sure it felt more like nitpicking if someone pointed out something that seemed to just be a nuance of your personality.

It’s also not uncommon for someone with those characteristics to align themselves with a people pleaser. (Ask me how I know, lol) we also had the parent child dynamic in many ways. It manifested a bit differently for us.

You are feeling down because your weather is tied to hers. Can you see that? This is the deeper part of the dynamic that needs worked on from your end.

Hopelessness is unfortunately something that can’t be avoided in these situations. Especially when you finally see that both people are going to have to change and then you have to create a new relationship from that healthier dynamic.it is a miracle when people reconcile. It sounds like you are coming to terms with the things you are up against.

There is a lot of resentment on both sides, years and years of it. A people pleaser will hold on to it more strongly because they never work on things that feel like conflict. You vent about the dynamic but don’t see the ways you can move away from enabling it. Then things like strawberries get emotionally charged because it’s not about the strawberries. You feel you have expressed yourself and been ignored. She feels like every little thing she does is being criticized. Both of these viewpoints are a bit of an illusion, a distorted interpretation because both of you need to clean the lens in which you see things.

You are right, your wife may never change. But these things you will work on will make you more trusting of yourself. That’s the mindfuck here. An affair makes a bs lose trust in themselves and the only way some can deal with that is to be hyper vigilant over their ws. The process is really going to require you to trust yourself again. Your self protectiveness only kicks in situationally, when it should be on on continuously.. You can’t trust yourself because you make yourself vulnerable to her when everything points to you shouldn’t. There is an unformed relationship with yourself that she can’t have with you until you have it with you.

Same in reverse. This is part of that lack of boundaries we keep talking about both of you having your entire marriage. That’s why you have to learn to detach, focus on what you can control. I think observe and wait aligns with your principles right now but the assessment should not be week to week, the progress is distorted when it’s looked like in that way.

That is part of what I was saying about my husband. Once he say how hard change was for him he immediately recognized his expectations of me were not realistic and let go of the resentments that he had of how slowly I got better. Things he interpreted as a waste of my time in my own recovery he learned was actually the only path I could take when the shoe was on the other foot.

He didn’t do IC at all until he had an affair and found that my staying was tied to that requirement. The IC will work with you towards whatever goal. If your goal is just to cope with your wife’s affair that’s what they will focus on. It’s good to see you are getting goals more related to things that will actually help you recover.

So when she came home after her BJTC with the AP, kissing you probably felt liberating to her passive aggressive, resentment filled self. After all, YOU were the problem...the source of all of her ills. You deserved it. Combine that with the fact that (emotionally) she likely viewed you as the only thing standing between her and a happy life with the AP, and that resentment was likely compounded.

People have no idea just how much the disordered can justify with their resentment.

Farside, I don't know that any of that is true. It seems like a narrative that's possible, but unlikely.

I've seen no indication from her, or a slip, that would indicate that her cruelty to me was intentional. I have witnessed plenty of her inward thinking. It's everywhere all the time. So what you're suggesting as revenge on the man she hated, I see as indifference for rest of the world, including her husband. Everything about the affair was self-absorbed. So when she tells me she wasn't thinking about the cruelty to me at all, I have no reason not to believe her.

Her version of events seems similar to other waywards--she wanted it all: to be the best wife, mom and lover all at once. She didn't look at what she was taking away from others to accomplish that because she *never* looks at how her actions effect others. She is the star of the only show on Earth. And now she sees that plain as day and is deeply ashamed--not because it feels wrong, but because she knows it is wrong.

It's precisely like the example I provided over the weekend when she requested we institute a boundary in the near future to stop talking about the affair. As she was saying it, she *knew* immediately that what she was asking was wrong--it was hurtful and insensitive to me. But that doesn't concern her--in the moment all she *felt* was that she was uncomfortable and wanted the conversations to permanently end. My feelings were irrelevant to her. She looks out for herself first--and then when she is happy or comfortable, she looks outward. So for awhile now, she hasn't been happy or comfortable, so she's been locked into this inward thinking. The dial can't move--she's paralyzed.

Essentially what on the surface seems like contempt, I suspect is more likely indifference. That would be constant with all of her other behavior; your narrative feels a bit forced to me now. It's certainly possible though--and if you go back to my March and April posts, that was the narrative I was propagating. I suspect for the same reason you are now: it's logical.

Now on to you. I think intuitively you know the above. But I also think that you are unwilling to acknowledge it, because to do so, it would lead to an undesired outcome, which would be divorce. I don't have any answers for you in that because you are going to do what you want rather than what you should. All I can say is that you need to practice radical acceptance of who your wife is.

I'm seeking the truth. If her psychologist confirmed she's an irredeemable narcissist, perhaps that's the justification I'd need to shift the entire framing on all of this. Right now, my repulsion has me wanting to run, but I'm pulled back to center through my desire to keep my children's home in-tact. None of the arguments I've heard here--or anywhere else--have swayed me from feeling that's the right thing to do. But it assumes my wife is redeemable. I could be framing all of this wrong though.

I understand many posters feel they know how I'm thinking--and perhaps you do and I'm too foolish to see it--but I often come away feeling strongly that I don't feel the way I' described. So you can write that my wife is X, I know she is X, but don't want to admit it because I don't want to divorce--but none of that rings true to me. I suppose that would involve a level of pride I don't feel while writing on this board; it would mean I feel as though I need to convince the community that my actions are correct. I don't feel that way at all.

I'm looking to layout the facts and understand the truth--then make the best decision for me and my family. The percentage of posters that will ultimately agree with the decision I make doesn't even register as relevant. And I hope that doesn't sound ungrateful or insensitive as I appreciate all the feedback--but that's what I'm looking for: feedback, not approval. So if I decide to R, I'm not interested in painting a more positive picture of my WW so some will think we have a happy ending; or vice-versa, if I D, I'm not looking to paint a picture of my WW as evil so some will think I'm justified. None of that registers in my thinking--when I sit down to write, I share my truth looking for feedback that will either confirm or challenge my mindset.

I wasn't clear enough in my post, Dr. S. Intentional was not the word I would have chosen, nor would I say it was deliberate or malicious. More likely it was/is "okay" or "acceptable" because you have been (in her mind) overruling her for years.

There is a lot of distance between intentional/deliberate/malicious and acceptable. The former indicated an intent to do those things. The latter is a rationalization to make the unacceptable okay.

Again, this is meant as observation, not criticism.

I agree that if my goal is really for her to find remorse, I need to stop adding to her resentments.

Two thoughts.

First, I see no healthy point in you having a goal for her. Having a goal for her might be just about totally dysfunctional. The only way it may have some healthy attribute is if you've discussed it openly and she has freely set that as a goal for herself, and she can't do much of anything freely when she is a child in a child-parent relationship.

Setting a goal for her has virtually nothing in common with wanting her to be remorseful. My guess is that you want her to become remorseful, and you have lots of feelings that stem from her unremorseful behavior. If that's right, you need to deal with those feelings - and it will help in the future if you learn to separate wht you're responsible for and what she is.

Second, you can't add to her resentments.

Each of us chooses our resentments. Each of us needs to recognize when we're angry and make conscious decisions about what issues we'll raise and what issues we'll let go.

If your W doesn't like your tone of voice, she can confront you and ask you to change. She can also decide to let it go. Either one of those are usually authentic and healthy. She can also store up her anger and use it as justification for doing something she knows hurts both/all of you. She might use her stored up anger - resentment - to build up secret debt, for example.

In any case, your W chooses to build up resentment. All she has to do is start confronting stuff you do that she doesn't like. It's very hard to start, and it's hard to sustain at first, too - but confronting issues early is very rewarding.

An example: my W does a lot of spending on health stuff that seems like quackery to me. I don't like it, and I'm not sure we can afford it long term (though we've been OK with the spending for decades). But her health stuff is her responsibility. Her views on health are part of her. We've discussed it at length, even in MC. After d-day, there were some expenses I insisted she forego, but not this stuff. I've tried to influence her, and I've failed. She gets to choose for herself. I have to choose between D and accepting this part of her. I made my choice. I don't get angry, because I know I make a conscious decision to accept this part of her.

*****

You have to be open, too. My W said for decades something like, 'When you use that tone of voice, I freeze.' I could not comprehend what she was talking about, so we got into an impasse whenever I used that TOV.

It was only when our MC commented on it that I began to get a handle on when I used it. I trained myself not to use that TOV. W now listens instead of freezes, and we can actually address the issue I raise. But it took the 3rd observer, an objective one, to get me to know the internal signals that I was using that TOV.

You have written about your anger, in essence, about the spending she does that doesn't meet your standards. You've apparently decided she won't stop, and you don't want to D over it. You may resent it in part, but it looks to me like you actually know you're angry. What are your thoughts on this, if you care to share them?

I don’t think it was revenge either. I believe those resentments she was holding was a long slow disconnection from you and the marriage. That disconnection allows all sorts of things, blaming the other person for our unhappiness becomes almost automatic in someone who doesn’t examine their thoughts or what they have done to contribute to that disconnection.

Everyone thought my husbands affair was revenge. I don’t think that even today. I think my affair caused him to disconnect from me and the marriage and over time I was not a consideration. He wanted to feel better, he wasn’t getting that from me so he tried to get that from her. The whole time he was the only one with keys to that door.

It’s confusing when someone does that but then insists they want to save the marriage. I think many waywards, maybe including your wife, realize that they ruined a good thing for themselves. I find my affair to have been not just a betrayal of him, but I betrayed myself by doing things that were against my best interests.

Slowly understanding that there is no way to rectify that for our spouse or ourselves creates anger, shame, and desolation in ourselves. It sounds like the almost separation has proven to her this is bigger than she has comprehended thus far. Hopelessness is normal but somewhere she can’t camp out and live.

I don’t read it as you are emotionally abusive. I read it as you have somewhat a critical personality and some control issues. It’s not an uncommon combo, it’s not like I didn’t see it far before the strawberries. It comes out in many of your posts over time. However, you have never been open to talking about your behaviors with any real depth.

It makes sense it’s that way. She cheated, that is ultimately one of the worst things you can do to someone, so I am sure it felt more like nitpicking if someone pointed out something that seemed to just be a nuance of your personality.

It’s also not uncommon for someone with those characteristics to align themselves with a people pleaser. (Ask me how I know, lol) we also had the parent child dynamic in many ways. It manifested a bit differently for us.

I should clarify--the strawberries happened early in the year, during the affair (maybe late-February). I only brought them up because it was an early example my WW used in MC (and I'm a big fan of The Caine Mutiny ).

I'm not opposed to talking about my behaviors, but I suppose I'm just not sure of what to do with the conversations. I went through a long explanation of my critical nature the last few days--now what? I need to work to address it. I wish there was more you all could do to help, but it's on me.

You are feeling down because your weather is tied to hers. Can you see that? This is the deeper part of the dynamic that needs worked on from your end.

I don't see that. I do see her weather is tied to mine--that's clear as day. But I'm not sure her weather affects mine all that much. She was down the last few days and I was fine; she was up yesterday and I was fine. Seemingly, it was my kids returning home that changed my weather.

Hopelessness is unfortunately something that can’t be avoided in these situations. Especially when you finally see that both people are going to have to change and then you have to create a new relationship from that healthier dynamic.it is a miracle when people reconcile. It sounds like you are coming to terms with the things you are up against.

Very well articulated.

There is a lot of resentment on both sides, years and years of it. A people pleaser will hold on to it more strongly because they never work on things that feel like conflict. You vent about the dynamic but don’t see the ways you can move away from enabling it. Then things like strawberries get emotionally charged because it’s not about the strawberries. You feel you have expressed yourself and been ignored. She feels like every little thing she does is being criticized. Both of these viewpoints are a bit of an illusion, a distorted interpretation because both of you need to clean the lens in which you see things.

That's exactly how I feel, so I'll try to dig into it a bit. As you point out, it's not about the strawberries, so let me try to explain how we got to the strawberries.

For a decade we've discussed our differing financial behaviors. She agrees to something--but does not agree to it. She "ignores" me, which is well framed by you. I identify the problem and address it with her; we agree on a solution, but she reneges. So now what do I do? I have a conflict I can't resolve--I have no issue facing the conflict and confronting her on it and she has no issue lying to get herself out of the conflict.

I feel I have the moral high-ground on multiple levels: I'm trying to not spend money frivolously and I'm discussing it with her face to face. She wants to spend money frivolously and then she wants to lie to me and say she won't to avoid a prolonged conflict. I look at it and it seems clear as day: I'm the good guy; she's the villain.

From her perspective, she wants to spend money however she wants and doesn't want to be told not to. Me telling her not to just emboldens her; makes her feel defiant. She sees herself as the victim of a controlling husband.

It's not that I don't understand her perspective; it's that I think she is very *wrong*. Everything about her viewpoint is shit. Not only is it shit to waste money on a closet full of clothing she doesn't wear while she has two children, it's also shit to smile and lie to your husband's face when we agree upon a course forward. I don't respect her perspective at all.

The result is my resentment for her. I'm being ignored and I have no reasonable option to resolve the conflict. I can D (which I'm opposed to because we have children), I can ignore her behavior, or I can keep talking with her so she can keep agreeing to things she doesn't agree with. I chose the latter.

So it's only then we get to the strawberries, which are a small slap in the face in a long line of slaps in my face. My resentment for her childish behavior is at capacity. I'm married to a women who spends money like a drunken sailor and won't give me sex without making me feel awful, but I feel trapped to do anything about it because I believe in my bones that I should stay with her for the kids--that was my commitment.

And then, a few weeks after the strawberries, I learn that my wife was blowing a former drug-addict in a dirty parking garage and bringing it all home to me and my children. So what do you do when you're already at capacity and nuclear bomb goes off? I don't know the answer to that--it's a genuine question.

Ultimately, I'm still up against an absolute truth: I will do what is best for my children. The stack of madness I'm up against doesn't change the absolute.

So my question back to you is what lens am I meant to be cleaning? What am I missing? What have I distorted?

Because to me it feels like I'm just between a rock and a hard place. If I had better boundaries, the relationship would have ended the first time she broke her promise to me on finances. But I feel I can't do that because of my kids. There's no good answer. It doesn't seem to me the issue is a lack of clarity, but instead an impossible question. So I'd like to change the question, but I'm struggling with that as well.

You are right, your wife may never change. But these things you will work on will make you more trusting of yourself. That’s the mindfuck here. An affair makes a bs lose trust in themselves and the only way some can deal with that is to be hyper vigilant over their ws. The process is really going to require you to trust yourself again. Your self protectiveness only kicks in situationally, when it should be on on continuously.. You can’t trust yourself because you make yourself vulnerable to her when everything points to you shouldn’t. There is an unformed relationship with yourself that she can’t have with you until you have it with you.

Same in reverse. This is part of that lack of boundaries we keep talking about both of you having your entire marriage. That’s why you have to learn to detach, focus on what you can control. I think observe and wait aligns with your principles right now but the assessment should not be week to week, the progress is distorted when it’s looked like in that way.

Agreed. I'm struggling with developing boundaries with her because she isn't an honest broker. Her people pleasing prevents a boundary from being a boundary. So if we flip that to me, it's my willingness to allow her to break the boundaries as the problem. I don't know how to solve that.

That is part of what I was saying about my husband. Once he say how hard change was for him he immediately recognized his expectations of me were not realistic and let go of the resentments that he had of how slowly I got better. Things he interpreted as a waste of my time in my own recovery he learned was actually the only path I could take when the shoe was on the other foot.

He didn’t do IC at all until he had an affair and found that my staying was tied to that requirement. The IC will work with you towards whatever goal. If your goal is just to cope with your wife’s affair that’s what they will focus on. It’s good to see you are getting goals more related to things that will actually help you recover.

I wonder if your husband was able to let those things go because of the shame and guilt he had over his own affair. It made it impossible for him to stake any moral high ground. You both started at ground zero. That's not how I feel about my WW now.

I wasn't clear enough in my post, Dr. S. Intentional was not the word I would have chosen, nor would I say it was deliberate or malicious. More likely it was/is "okay" or "acceptable" because you have been (in her mind) overruling her for years.

There is a lot of distance between intentional/deliberate/malicious and acceptable. The former indicated an intent to do those things. The latter is a rationalization to make the unacceptable okay.

Got it. That's then certainly a reasonable explanation.

I suppose the question then is was her acceptance--and in turn her rationalization--something that was a result of her relatively recent unhappiness that she blamed on me or was she always capable of justifying such an action regardless of my behavior? I imagine a true narcissist can always justify an action that they determine is in their best interest. So even if I was *perfect*--however she defines that--she'd have found a way to justify her affair.

That is what concerns me.

If we start at a place where an affair is *always* wrong, it invalidates all justifications for it anyway, regardless of a spouse's behavior. So if you're right and her resentments for me enabled it in her mind, then my behavior had a direct influence on her willingness to have the affair. That seems reasonable; I'm just wondering if it's true.

I suppose the question then is was her acceptance--and in turn her rationalization--something that was a result of her relatively recent unhappiness that she blamed on me or was she always capable of justifying such an action regardless of my behavior? I imagine a true narcissist can always justify an action that they determine is in their best interest. So even if I was *perfect*--however she defines that--she'd have found a way to justify her affair.

That is what concerns me.

If we start at a place where an affair is *always* wrong, it invalidates all justifications for it anyway, regardless of a spouse's behavior. So if you're right and her resentments for me enabled it in her mind, then my behavior had a direct influence on her willingness to have the affair. That seems reasonable; I'm just wondering if it's true.

Can a spouse’s behavior, wear out the connection of an M and increase the divide in a relationship? I think so. I think some things I did and our M’s lousy communication certainly opened a door to make both of us more vulnerable to outside influences.

But I’m certainly of the mindset mentioned above, that an affair is always wrong and invalidates all justifications, and the only way R can even start is if both partners UNDERSTAND that marriage can’t make a person cheat.

Determining the odds of a repeat are at the heart of any decision to attempt R (in addition to the healing work, and changes each person makes to be a better partner). The changes I made to me are changes I needed and wanted to make ANYWAY, regardless if my M stayed together. Infidelity pushed up my self-improvments up on the schedule quite a bit.

My wife had a laundry list of resentments. Most of them were real. Some of them were imagined. She cheated because she craved validation she didn’t think she was getting from me or anyone else in the world (FOO issues too). The difference in our situations is my wife wasn’t caught, she didn’t confess until years later, after she understood she needed to love herself first and didn’t need external validation from ANYONE. Then she started to see how her rationalizations damaged her, me and are family and she then craved authenticity. That said, she only thought she knew the level of damage, but once I knew, she saw the horror show she caused for me specifically.

Anyway, remorse only arrives once a person understands there are no good reasons to cheat.

At the end of the day, humanity is a messy thing. We fuck up and either we can then learn and change or move on and try again, or my favorite altnernative if my M doesn’t work out is living alone in a cave near a well stocked lake.

In your case, if you decide to stay, you may have to discover a level of kindness and patience well beyond any normal capacity for such things.

If we start at a place where an affair is *always* wrong, it invalidates all justifications for it anyway, regardless of a spouse's behavior. So if you're right and her resentments for me enabled it in her mind, then my behavior had a direct influence on her willingness to have the affair. That seems reasonable; I'm just wondering if it's true.

I don't think so. Generally a person who wants to cheat will create the reasons. The justifications come after the decision. I've been in bad relationships before him and never contemplated cheating. I just left. My marriage with my XWH was pretty good from what I could tell. He couldn't resent me for nagging or lack of sex or even financial disagreements. There just wasn't any of the typical stuff. So he decided to resent me for him choosing to marry me. I wasn't concerned about whether or not we got married. He proposed, he even worked harder on planning the wedding than I did, he was all excited and had all these dreams. Yet somehow the resentment was that he felt that he had to marry me to keep me. I never have been able to make sense of that particular rationalization. His other big rationalization was that I fixed things myself instead of asking him to do it and therefore he felt unneeded. He needed to create justifications in his mind and he did a good job of it.

My first husband was very critical about nearly everything and I'm a blunt person who has no time for that so we fought often. Screaming yelling fights. Neither of us ever even contemplated cheating. Had he cheated, he could have come up with some rationalizations, but that isn't who he is. I had a ton of rationalizations I could have used, but I didn't consider it either. I just divorced him.

I did cheat back within a couple of hours of finding out my XWH was a serial cheater and I really don't think that I'd have ever cheated under any other circumstances. That was basically a mental breakdown. Not even that was excusable, but the reasons were pretty obvious there.

ut I’m certainly of the mindset mentioned above, that an affair is always wrong and invalidates all justifications, and the only way R can even start is if both partners UNDERSTAND that marriage can’t make a person cheat.

No to clarify this isn’t the reason for her affair. I am sorry if it sounded that way. It’s just part of how a ws kills their emotions and uses it to justify.

I don’t have much time to answer but dr Strangelove, the short answer is your lens is distorted if you paint her a villain for doing things differently than you would ( other than the cheating and I agree financial infidelity is a similar behavior to the cheating)

That there is a right way and that is your way.

Look I am not trying to minimize her terrible behaviors but you do need to understand everyone has a lens. A narrative. It all has to be challenged.

[This message edited by hikingout at 6:11 PM, Wednesday, August 31st]

Again, this is meant as observation, not criticism.

You don't need to always write that. I suspect by now you know it won't change how I respond anyway.

Two thoughts.

First, I see no healthy point in you having a goal for her. Having a goal for her might be just about totally dysfunctional. The only way it may have some healthy attribute is if you've discussed it openly and she has freely set that as a goal for herself, and she can't do much of anything freely when she is a child in a child-parent relationship.

Setting a goal for her has virtually nothing in common with wanting her to be remorseful. My guess is that you want her to become remorseful, and you have lots of feelings that stem from her unremorseful behavior. If that's right, you need to deal with those feelings - and it will help in the future if you learn to separate wht you're responsible for and what she is.

You're right--that is not my goal, it's a desire.

And I'd very much like to parse out the responsibility for it. I admit that's a struggle for me.

Again, use the example of her wanting to shutdown conversation about the affair this passed weekend. I found it unremorseful. I don't know that it was hurtful, but I attribute it not being hurtful to it being a part of a pattern of her unempathetic behavior. I'm getting calloused on the topic I suspect.

But whose responsibility is that? I dump it at her feet--I expect her to be sensitive to my needs. Should I not think that way? Instead should that jut be a boundary on what I need? Meaning, I need for her to talk about the affair at the times we've designated to discuss it. So it either happens or it doesn't happen. And then her attitude during the discussion doesn't matter. Because to me, her attitude matters very much. Her being contrite is what I'm looking for. So by trying to shutdown the conversation she is neither giving me what I need nor showing me remorse.

Second, you can't add to her resentments.

Each of us chooses our resentments. Each of us needs to recognize when we're angry and make conscious decisions about what issues we'll raise and what issues we'll let go.

If your W doesn't like your tone of voice, she can confront you and ask you to change. She can also decide to let it go. Either one of those are usually authentic and healthy. She can also store up her anger and use it as justification for doing something she knows hurts both/all of you. She might use her stored up anger - resentment - to build up secret debt, for example.

In any case, your W chooses to build up resentment. All she has to do is start confronting stuff you do that she doesn't like. It's very hard to start, and it's hard to sustain at first, too - but confronting issues early is very rewarding.

Ok, so let's assume she can't do that. I can't force her to confront me. I *can* be less critical, preventing her from getting upset, preventing her from developing resentments. I think it's an objectively good choice for me regardless of that outcome. As I mentioned to Farside above, I'm not sure limiting her resentments matters all that much in terms of her behavior anyway though.

An example: my W does a lot of spending on health stuff that seems like quackery to me. I don't like it, and I'm not sure we can afford it long term (though we've been OK with the spending for decades). But her health stuff is her responsibility. Her views on health are part of her. We've discussed it at length, even in MC. After d-day, there were some expenses I insisted she forego, but not this stuff. I've tried to influence her, and I've failed. She gets to choose for herself. I have to choose between D and accepting this part of her. I made my choice. I don't get angry, because I know I make a conscious decision to accept this part of her.

I can relate to that. I feel like I've made that choice as well. I didn't get angry with my wife over the strawberries, but I did criticize her by pointing out her mistake. My criticisms aren't sourced from anger, they're sourced from wanting to be more efficient. If I bought the extra strawberries I'd be critical of myself and I'd sort through a solution to prevent it going forward.

In my mind it's simple: it was not ideal for her to buy the strawberries, so I'm alerting my wife to that so she can correct whatever process led to her buying them. Does that make sense? The only way she ever buys extra strawberries is if something goes wrong. We aren't perfect and mistakes will happen, but that type of carelessness from her happens all the time. So I don't get angry over it--I married a carefree person--but a part of me feels like not acknowledging it at all is acceptance of an objectively bad habit. So is it a genuine psychological issue that she has where she can't process the bad behavior or is it that she doesn't value money or food?

There were lots of responses from people in this thread that related to my wife in that situation--that I should be kinder and more accepting of her mistakes. I don't look at it from a framing of mean and nice. If you were running a grocery store and every month you threw away strawberries, you'd work to correct it or the business would fail. We're running a household and I'd argue groceries are a key responsibility in the partnership we have. So I agree I shouldn't be hurtful in my communication, but I'd suggest her being hurt by my reaction was on her. Still, I accept that even though I wasn't *wrong*, I can certainly soften my behavior because the strawberries really don't matter all that much. To Fareside's point, it's jut a matter of all this residual anger of hers building up over (in her view) constant criticism while living in the child-parent dynamic. I want to stop adding gas to the fire regardless.

You have to be open, too. My W said for decades something like, 'When you use that tone of voice, I freeze.' I could not comprehend what she was talking about, so we got into an impasse whenever I used that TOV.

It was only when our MC commented on it that I began to get a handle on when I used it. I trained myself not to use that TOV. W now listens instead of freezes, and we can actually address the issue I raise. But it took the 3rd observer, an objective one, to get me to know the internal signals that I was using that TOV.

I think it would be very valuable to get such feedback from our MC; however, seemingly 95% of the feedback the MC gives is directed at my wife. I do see that I find flaws in virtually everything. I'm always looking to find a problem to solve. It's never done with malice; it how my brain functions. My WW doesn't think like that--to her everything is whatever it is and she just deals with it as is. I could construct a pillar in the middle of the kitchen and she'd happily spend the rest of her life walking around it.

You have written about your anger, in essence, about the spending she does that doesn't meet your standards. You've apparently decided she won't stop, and you don't want to D over it. You may resent it in part, but it looks to me like you actually know you're angry. What are your thoughts on this, if you care to share them?

I wrote about this a bit above to HikingOut. It's a frustration because it's a problem I can't solve because I have no leverage. I raise it as an issue and my wife agrees with me that it's an issue. But does she actually agree it's an issue? It sure doesn't seem so. But she tells me she agrees--so what do I do? I either move forward in good faith hoping she actually agrees or stop under the premise that nothing she says is authentic. And if I go forward, and it turns out to not be authentic, then what?

So I suppose the resentment I think I feel is tied to my inability to resolve conflict with my wife. But perhaps it's a wider issue--I'm certain my WW isn't the only people pleaser I encounter in my days. So undoubtedly others have agreed to things they don't agree with and gone on their way. It's just with my WW, it's thrown in my face constantly because we share a life together.

Is there anything that will will cause you to separate from her? Anything she could say,or do?

I don’t think it was revenge either. I believe those resentments she was holding was a long slow disconnection from you and the marriage. That disconnection allows all sorts of things, blaming the other person for our unhappiness becomes almost automatic in someone who doesn’t examine their thoughts or what they have done to contribute to that disconnection.

Yes, that's my view too. Overtime, the marriage was less valuable to her, so an affair was more acceptable. Perhaps we're all writing the same thing.

Everyone thought my husbands affair was revenge. I don’t think that even today. I think my affair caused him to disconnect from me and the marriage and over time I was not a consideration. He wanted to feel better, he wasn’t getting that from me so he tried to get that from her. The whole time he was the only one with keys to that door.

It’s confusing when someone does that but then insists they want to save the marriage. I think many waywards, maybe including your wife, realize that they ruined a good thing for themselves. I find my affair to have been not just a betrayal of him, but I betrayed myself by doing things that were against my best interests.

Exactly. I can relate to that. I think I'm more capable of an affair today than I was in the previous months. It has nothing to do with revenge, I just value my marriage less each day as I watch my WW struggle to show remorse. It's the feeling that having an affair won't cost me as much because losing the marriage isn't as big of a deal to me as it was before

Of course, an affair would cause countless other issues that I'm still guarding against. And at this point, it'd be less complicated to just leave--but I do relate to what you're describing.

And yes, that was my WW's first realization post-DDay--the self-destruction of it all. Looking back, it's also another example of her inward thinking.

Slowly understanding that there is no way to rectify that for our spouse or ourselves creates anger, shame, and desolation in ourselves. It sounds like the almost separation has proven to her this is bigger than she has comprehended thus far. Hopelessness is normal but somewhere she can’t camp out and live.

Well articulated.

I don’t have much time to answer but dr Strangelove, the short answer is your lens is distorted if you paint her a villain for doing things differently than you would ( other than the cheating and I agree financial infidelity is a similar behavior to the cheating)

That there is a right way and that is your way.

Look I am not trying to minimize her terrible behaviors but you do need to understand everyone has a lens. A narrative. It all has to be challenged.

I can't get anywhere close to accepting that premise. The idea that a view opposite of mine can't be villainous is obviously absurd. And it extends far beyond cheating and financial infidelity (those are just two bad things you've decided to list). I could fill a thread listing objectively bad views. "Different" doesn't mean bad, but it certainly *can* mean bad. I'd list her agreeing to things she doesn't agree with as bad, objectively. If she was a racist, I'd list that as bad too, etc.

I'm open to playing out the exercise though. If her behavior in my example isn't bad, I just need to understand that viewpoint.

Can a spouse’s behavior, wear out the connection of an M and increase the divide in a relationship? I think so. I think some things I did and our M’s lousy communication certainly opened a door to make both of us more vulnerable to outside influences.

I agree with that.

A concept I held firm to early in our relationship was: people are as faithful as their options. I applied that to the idea that anyone can be faithful, but you increase your odds by controlling your environment. If I spend my nights out partying at strip clubs, I'm more likely to cheat than if I sit home watching old movies.

My WW and I weakened our bond over years--regardless of fault--and then she went out and began an entirely new social life. It was setting a match to dry wood. So the first guy who pursued her seemed like a very attractive option for her. But she *wanted* that option. She wanted to go out, meet new people and drink at bars with them. I wanted to stay home and watch old movies. She made herself vulnerable--she made our marriage vulnerable.

But I’m certainly of the mindset mentioned above, that an affair is always wrong and invalidates all justifications, and the only way R can even start is if both partners UNDERSTAND that marriage can’t make a person cheat.

She might understand that, but I really don't know. For me to know that, I'd have to trust she's being authentic--and that's impossible for me right now.

Determining the odds of a repeat are at the heart of any decision to attempt R (in addition to the healing work, and changes each person makes to be a better partner).

A repeat is not a priority concern for me. If I knew 100% that she'd never cheat again, I'd still be stuck in limbo. I'm looking to see remorse so that I know we can build a functional, healthy partnership going forward.

The changes I made to me are changes I needed and wanted to make ANYWAY, regardless if my M stayed together. Infidelity pushed up my self-improvments up on the schedule quite a bit.

If anything, that's a benefit to the affair. I'm ok with that.

Anyway, remorse only arrives once a person understands there are no good reasons to cheat.

That's a powerful sentence. And under that logic, she hasn't arrived at that conclusion yet.