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Ok..but WHY did she confess? And what was the outcome she wanted,from that confession?

It seems that you know why YOU would confess, if you were the WS. And you know what you would hope would happen after that confession...and you are projecting all of that onto your WS.

Maybe this was an exit affair, and she was hoping you would divorce her,so she confessed.

Maybe she and OM had an argument, he ended it,and said he was recommitting to his wife.

There are many,many reasons that a WS confesses,that have nothing to do with wanting to rebuild a new,better marriage.

At this point, I'm sure she has said she confessed because she was sorry.

Yet, she isn't remorseful, and instead actually defends OM.

It really doesn't matter that she "thinks she's doing all she can." Waywards also believe they're loving their BS while they're betraying them. Her way of thinking isn't based on reality.

The list you gave her was very basic. The bare minimum. And she has a problem with it. So there's your answer.

180. Stop MC. Take care of you. Stop acting like her husband. Become her roomate. She will either reach start doing her work,or she won't.

Yes, it sometimes takes a WS to get it,and BS have hung in there. Often to their detriment.

However, even if a WS doesn't get it yet, there is NO EXCUSE for continuing to verbally and emotionally abuse their BS. They can stop lying. They can work on themselves. They can stop being defensive.

She can..she's choosing not to.

Sometimes it's really hard for a BS to accept their WS isn't R material.

[This message edited by HellFire at 9:10 PM, Wednesday, December 7th]

Look man, I know you mean well, but I am trying here. I don’t know how to do this.

Hey, InkHulk. I'm really sorry you've had to find us here. Welcome to the greatest club that no one ever wanted to join.

My son was four years old on d-day. Within two months I was calling lawyers and seriously contemplating a divorce. Infidelity is a deal-breaker for me, pure and simple. And yet I stayed. I stayed because of him (and perhaps a bit of my own selfishness). I still loved my wife. I believed (hoped, rather) that reconciliation would be possible. I came here to find out how to go about it.

Let's start with a simple rule: before you say reconcile, recover. I'm sure you've read that before. For most folks, the discovery of infidelity is a profound shock and a severe emotional and psychological trauma. It hits hard and it hits deep. It can take a year just to recover from the shock of it all. It takes years longer, my friend, to heal. It takes time to adjust to the new and radically altered reality in which we've all suddenly found ourselves. It's a mind-fuck of epic proportions.

Focus on you, your recovery and healing.

Forget about Gottman, marriage counseling, reconciliation and your marriage for a while. From what you've written, your WW does not seem like a good candidate for reconciliation. That may change in the future, of course, which is entirely up to her. In the meantime, you'll do yourself a tremendous favor by simply letting go of the outcome. Reconciliation is never a forgone conclusion. When treated as such, it can set up a betrayed spouse for years of continued infidelity and abuse.

I know. It sucks. It's unfair to the nth degree. It's heart-breaking, infuriating, and down-right fucking incomprehensible. You want answers to questions that your WW can't or won't even ask of herself, let alone answer for you. Until she's willing and able to do what it takes to own and fix her shit, she will continue to be an unsafe partner and all of your efforts to reconcile will be for naught. You cannot reconcile alone.

Focus on you, brother, your recovery and healing.

Take some time and figure out what life divorced would look like. Consult a lawyer, even if only to educate yourself. Go through the financials. Contemplate it all, brother. Create a plan and file it away, ready to be pulled out at a moment's notice. There have been countless studies, books, and papers and even threads on these vary boards regarding whether children fare better coming from a broken home rather than continuing to live in one. My own personal experience, both from my FOO and XWW and son, I'd say it's true. That's just me, of course.

I honestly believe that every betrayed spouse has to find their own peace of mind with either reconciliation or divorce because it's the only way to make the best possible choice for ourselves, our families and future. That best way to do that, is to recover and educate yourself.

Be kinds to yourself, man. Surviving infidelity is likely going to be the most difficult and painful time of your life. None of this is easy.

Keep on posting and reading.

Focus on you.

I’m having the worst time in a long time, guys. Please cut me some slack if I’m coming across sarcastic or defensive.

I rarely got the answers I needed early on either - from SI, MC or the Universe.

I think you are doing all you can with the information you have, and working with a spouse so trapped in shame, she can’t move in either direction.

Which doesn’t help you a bit. At seven months in I was lost. Completely lost.

So, be as sarcastic and defensive as you NEED to be in order to stay as sane as possible.

You can’t vent at home, may as well vent here early and often.

I screamed into the void here a lot the first couple years.

BPD, if that’s the case, that makes it a lot tougher for sure. I didn’t have that to work with, but one of my real good friends (not on SI), never was able to build the bridge back with his BPD wife.

But we’re all guessing from afar, be it NPD or BPD and ain’t none of us in here walking around with a license to practice mental health. We can only relate our own experiences, all in hopes of finding you a safe path to where you need to go.

My two cents worth is that you need an MC that can calmly hold your wife accountable, just to get something to work with.

A little detachment and some distance could help both of you until such an MC is found.

Maybe pick one hour after dinner here and there to connect and discuss the issues and the rest of the day being kind. I did a lot of those days until we figured some shit out.

My take, from what you have been posting, it appears that your WW has lingering wayward thinking.

What I mean by this, is one behaviour that waywards have is 'control'. They find it hard to cede control to someone else.

In their A, they feel like they are in control, and TT, self-pity, DARVO, defensiveness are some forms of control waywards have in their arsenal. They use these tools (and others) to maintain control of the outcome. To manipulate it to what they want.

So, fundamentally, by trying soft approach to R, you are letting your WW wrest control from you.

YOU are the aggrieved party. YOU are the betrayed. YOU are the victim. If y WW were truly remorseful, she would be ceding control of the outcome of the relationship to you, but she is still defensive as she does not want to give you that control.

I agree with Oldwounds, I need some kind of mediator to even try to communicate with her effectively right now. I’m talking to you guys, I’m talking to friends, I’m reading, I’m talking with my IC, I’m looking at myself and all those agree, she needs to step up, hear my anger and hurt, fix herself and tell me about that process, and do my whole list. But she right now can’t. She is showing concern for me, but telling me that I need to heal from my trauma in counseling, not with her. I’m telling her that she holds the key to my healing and that most of what I need is in her. And then she gets defensive and flooded and overwhelmed. And that is where we are.

I told her this morning that I care about her well being but I can’t sacrifice mine either and that if we have to somehow choose to sacrifice one of us in the name of attempting to recover that we need to separate. I sent that over text, she responded saying she was trying to not freak out.

Ink,

Sorry your wife continues to struggle owning up to her role in helping you heal.

Id I recall correctly from your JFO thread, your wife embedded herself into the POS's family. She used your children to create a hobby ruse to spend time with the POS. The affair was 3 years and I know at sometime your children stopped attending the hobby but your wife continued on with the hobby\affair until she confessed.

She had to have a huge emotional attachment the POS and his family. Do you think she is still pining for this relationship, thus Her attitudes and actions since? And she just won't admit it?

Again sorry for the shit storm she created for you and your family. Pulling for you!

I’m telling her that she holds the key to my healing and that most of what I need is in her.

Lots of BS's get sidetracked thinking that they need their WS to heal, but that's just not true. You need her for R if that's what you've decided to do, but NOT for healing. Your healing is inside you.

Whether you separate or stay together, you've still got your own work to do. Intimate betrayal challenges nearly everything we thought we knew about love, commitment, compassion, boundaries, and even God. The list seems to be inexhaustible.

There's kind of an internal break where we've been forced to deal with our innate Fear of Abandonment because the emotional dependence we've had our primary source is severed so suddenly. The Fear of Abandonment is a reflex from birth. It's the reason babies cry when separated from their mothers. We don't realize we've been carrying that around all this time until our primary relationship is yanked away. The key here isn't to find a new way to rejuvenate that dependence though. It's to realize that we no longer need it and that we ARE ENOUGH.

Achieving emotional independence doesn't mean we can't experience full, rich relationships. It just means that we're no longer enmeshed. We can let go of fear and simply enjoy.

You need her for R if that's what you've decided to do, but NOT for healing. Your healing is inside you.

Thanks, CT, I think that was exactly what I needed to hear this morning. I just ugly cried on the treadmill, add that to new life experiences. I’ve been holding so tightly to R that I’ve co-mingled my personal healing and the marriage. But the marriage is dead, so that’s a real problem.
I admit, as I said, I’m terrified of D. It think will break my heart in a new and deep way, rip open old scars, traumatize my children, destroy my dreams, and scandalize my entire social circle. I’m sure I’m not supposed to care, but I do, and I think it will ruin her life. That’s a hell of an outcome to come to peace letting go of.

She had to have a huge emotional attachment the POS and his family. Do you think she is still pining for this relationship, thus Her attitudes and actions since? And she just won't admit it?

You remember the story correctly and yes, she must have had an immense connection to him and even them (so fucked up). But I don’t think she is pinning for him. I could be wrong. But the single biggest reason I’d say that is because she got a tattoo recently that symbolizes her escaping sin and coming back to me and the kids. It is in line with her answer when I asked her if she missed him and she said no, that she feels free. That was one of the most moving things she has said to me. So unless she is willing to get a really big tattoo to manipulate me into believing that when it’s not real, I think she is glad to be done with him.

I just want to say thank you again. Thanks to those who created and maintain this place. Thank you to a group who care to share their painfully earned wisdom with a stranger you will never meet, even a slow learner who pushes back sometimes. Thank you, deeply, from this broken heart.

It think will break my heart in a new and deep way, rip open old scars, traumatize my children, destroy my dreams, and scandalize my entire social circle. I’m sure I’m not supposed to care, but I do, and I think it will ruin her life.

Not exactly.

But I suspect that staying in an M with an unremorseful WS will be even worse for you and for your kids.

Here are some things: The old scars have been ripped open. Your kids are traumatized. Almost all of us care about our social appearance, whether we should or not.

But: D will ruin your W's life only if she lets it.

I urge you to reread the posts by Unhinged and CT. Both have always made a lot of sense, even when unhinged. (FI don't always agree with them, but I most definitely agree with them in those posts. [Agreement is not an SI requirement. ])

*****

BPD - is that bi-polar or borderline?

*****

In any case, it's best for you to see D as viable, because that way you get to choose between 2 desirable outcomes. D really is a way to a good life, for most of us.

But don't ever think the choice is easy. I'm happy I chose R. For me it was easier than D, but it wasn't all that easy. I had my plan for D, though, and it was going to be pleasant, just not as pleasant as successful R. But my W was a good candidate for R from the moment she confessed onward. Your W is not yet a good candidate and may never become one.

You've mixed recovery and R together. As you separate them, your W may respond differently and become a good candidate - no guarantee, but it is possible.

*****

A good MC can help you here. 'Good' means 'addresses the A first'. In all likelihood, your W hears what you say through dysfunctional filters. You can't clean them up for her, but a good MC can confront her filtering.

A good MC can and will say things like, 'If you want to stay together, you need to accept his anger,' or, 'If you want to stay together, you need to answer his questions honestly and fully now.'

*****

If you separate your recovery from R, you can observe your W with some objectivity. If she steps up, great - R proceeds. If she doesn't, great - you take the D road. But you recover no matter what the outcome is - and that allows you to live a good life and to parent your kids when you have them.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 5:23 PM, Thursday, December 8th]

I’m telling her that she holds the key to my healing and that most of what I need is in her.

As some other wise souls have already noted, you are in charge of healing you. And honestly, I didn't understand that advice and I didn't really figure it out until I was fully back on my feet. There is SO much shock and awe with every reveal, and again, you are still really early in the 2-5 years of recovery it takes to find a way through.

Once I did find my value and my footing, that sense of strength communicates itself and really helped heal the M too.

That said, you cannot HEAL the M without her. That's the healing she isn't helping you with, and she really needs to (at some point).

I have a radical thought, because I did this myself when my wife was stuck. I know this is your private place, but you may want to consider having her read this thread to "hear" you or other threads in the forum that aren't yours but could enlighten her as to some steps she needs to take.

It was very hard for my wife to read threads here, she never joined SI but she learned a lot from members here simply by reading. Neither of you may be ready for this, it is just a thought. Based on your wife's current responses, sounds like she needs more time before she sees the harsh reality of what her choices have done to you.

Forgive me I did not read the whole string l. I was the original ws in my situation, just stating that for clarity.

I am assuming that your dday was close to your join date.

You can not help your wife with her individual work. The reason she gets so overwhelmed is she doesn’t yet fully understand her behavior and combine that with the knowledge that everything she is saying could have an impact on staying married to you or not.

I commend you for wanting to look at the relationship and improve it. We did the same thing, erroneously. In fact, at six months out we went to one of the gottman workshops for a weekend.

The problem is that your wife didn’t cheat for external reasons. She didn’t cheat because of your relationship, no matter what the state of it was of it was. You want to work on those things out of fear that if you don’t she will do it again.

In recovery the best formula is ws heals ws, bs heals bs ( with the ws providing a good environment in which you can do that work ) and then together you heal the relationship.

Focusing on the relationship after an affair is a natural inclination. But a relationship is comprised of parts of a whole. Her part is broken, and as she does her work and sees a different way to think or be the relationship work is going to be almost impossible.

After the work is further down the road the work should become easier- when she can come to you with full remorse and accountability over her actions you won’t have to beg,prod, or coach her to get there.

While I think it’s natural you want insight, it takes a while for the ws to get there in order to provide it. For us we started to see it was best just to try and let the relationship tread water and the focus to be more individual for a while. I don’t mean don’t talk about the affair, I just mean don’t worry about pre-affair marital issues. I would not twist yourself into a pretzel trying to save the marriage. It can be your intent to do so and you can hold that space for it.

I think it’s more rare for a ws to be truly remorseful and understand why they had the affair this early on. From what I have experienced, watched happen in this site for going on six years, read, etc- remorse usually shows up after some of the shame has been boiled down.

Shame is what a ws feels about what they did. It’s overwhelming. Add that to the fears they now suddenly have over losing the marriage it compounds it.

There isn’t room for remorse because remorse requires us to truly be curious and fully understand what we have done to the bs. We have to put the shame away. I recommend the book Rising strong by brene brown because it did give me a road map to letting the shame go and understanding myself a bit better with some self compassion. It explained to me that by making myself more vulnerable rather than throwing all these big unhelpful emotions up as blockers that I could start to rebuild the emotional intimacy in our relationship.

[This message edited by hikingout at 6:25 PM, Thursday, December 8th]

Brother, aside from the specifics of your own unique situation and whatnot, most of what you've written is SSDD. For the most part, the stories I read on these pages, year after year, don't change all that much. Betrayed spouses often feeling terribly lost, confused, bewildered, in a world of agony they could have never imagined before. Wayward spouses more often than not go straight into damage control mode, minimizing what they've done and who they've allowed themselves to become, not just to their betrayed spouses, but to themselves as well. Most, or so it would seem to me, want nothing more to put it all in the past and move on. And that, of course, creates on hell of a conflict.

Communication was also a problem for my XWW and I in those early months after d-day (okay, well, throughout most of our marriage). With a little insight and encouragement from the kind folks in our little community here, I learned to slightly alter, just enough, the relationship dynamics that existed between us. And the only way I could effectively do that, was to change the way in which I communicated.

Consciously and subconsciously, we all develop relationship dynamics with the people in our lives, especially with those to whom we are most close. It's just natural, you know? Given enough time, those dynamics become so ingrained that we learn, even subconsciously, how to manipulate a conversation and the people involved. By changing your approach to the dynamic, you give your WW the opportunity to make her own adjustments. That's when communication starts to open up and become more effective.

For instance, the next time she gets defensive you might ask her why she's feeling so defensive. If that doesn't work, disengage. Walk away. Tell her that when she's feeling less defensive, you can talk. When she says things that provoke a response in you, think about that response for a while before you say anything. Remember, you can choose how to respond.

Read what ChamomileTea wrote to you, again. And again. Wise words. Healing is a choice. Your WW, if she so chooses, can help you to heal. But it's just that; it's only help. The bulk of the work is up to you.

The reason she gets so overwhelmed is she doesn’t yet fully understand her behavior and combine that with the knowledge that everything she is saying could have an impact on staying married to you or not.

Speaking objectively, my wife has always gotten overwhelmed easily. And she has always struggled/failed to be empathetic to me (my depression early in marriage, my father’s sudden death, a cancer scare). What she is doing here isn’t an anomaly, it’s the worn path. I had hoped that she couldn’t possibly go back to that playbook of DARVO and shame storms and defensiveness once she has wronged me this severely. And I was wrong. Someone posted about hopium on my earlier thread. Call me a junkie.

Had an IC session yesterday, his message was very in line with the conversation here, that I needed to create space to heal individually. I told her yesterday in some messages that I had to separate out my healing from trying to work on the relationship, that things are very broken and that I need to acknowledge in my own mind that divorce is a very real possibility. That in order to avoid it, we need to both heal and then she needs to bring to the table what I need for R. And then after that we need to deal with other hurts and the relationship dynamics. She barely talked. She slept in the living room and sobbed. I briefly came to tell her that I care about her pain, she asked me to leave and continued crying. She left her wedding ring at home today.
So that is where we are. I am going to try to live the life I want to live. I am going to try to pull my attention from this disaster and put my heart back into my work, and into my kids, and find the hobbies that I’ve loved and lost over the years. I think she might give up. She might not even bother to talk with me, to have the meaningful dialog to understand the nuances here, her black and white view of the world may just lead her to throw in the towel. But that would be better than a life chained to this festering mess. I love her, but I can’t control her. Thank you all for your time and words.

While a BS heals themselves, the WS plays a huge part in that.

It is very difficult for a BS to heal,when they're wanting R, but their WS is unremorseful, defensive, unempathetic,and refuses to do the necessary work.

So,again,while the BS is in charge of their own healing,the Ws can be a huge hindrance in accomplishing that. Or,they can be a great help,depending on their actions.

I briefly came to tell her that I care about her pain, she asked me to leave and continued crying.

Conflict avoidance is one of the traits that most, if not all, WSes display. I mean think about it, they tell themselves this story where cheating is the better action over discussing whatever issue they may have with their spouse.

I remember on dday my WH providing this list of things that I NEVER did for him (most of them laughable) as a justification for the A. I listened to him, it was the first time I was hearing this, and at the end I said "and you decided to CHEAT instead of talking to me about this?" He suddenly realised how that looked. Imagine a world where your spouse, instead of saying "stop leaving breadcrumbs on the table" goes and sleeps with a stranger each time something is frustrating them.

Your wife prefers to cry alone rather than deal with conflict, that is really sad and trust me, you will never feel safe next to someone who isn’t addressing their avoidance of conflict.

No WH gets it over night. She may still have a long think and decide that conflict avoidance is not the route.

Keep in mind that healing yourself separately from your wife does not mean accepting her rug sweeping. What it means, at least what it meant for me, is realising that you can create the life I want without your WS. She can decide if she wants to be part of your healing and facilitate the right environment or get out, but you will ultimately be ok.

[This message edited by Luna10 at 6:45 PM, Friday, December 9th]

My wife is the most conflict avoidant person I have ever met. If I asked her to please not leave bread crumbs on the table, she would take offense to it and say I was criticizing her.

Early on after D-day I asked her if she and POS ever had a conflict during their fucked up love fest (they had an enormous blow up at the end of the "extended family" trip that I described in my original thread). She said no, that he was even more conflict avoidant than her! She said that when we told him she wanted to end the illicit element of their relationship that he wouldn’t engage in the conversation. What a pair.

I do feel like I have a different head space today after making this shift. I have a lot of questions about what this looks like in practice (sleep in same bed, same room, same house, should someone move out?) How long does this last? What signals a new phase? What if this all goes cold and I stop caring? I guess that just means the marriage is over. What has this looked like for you all?

It is very difficult for a BS to heal,when they're wanting R, but their WS is unremorseful, defensive, unempathetic,and refuses to do the necessary work.

I re-read this, Hellfire, and when I did I thought "why would anyone want to reconsile under those conditions in the first place?" Then I went, oh…..