SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I do feel like I have a different head space today after making this shift.

Biggest part of recovery is finding that space, finding your value, drawing the boundaries line you need in order to figure out your next steps. If you are able to truly let go of the outcome, you will be fine no matter how the M turns out.

As I get to look back now, I am trying to understand your wife’s full retreat at the simplest request and compare to my situation.

My wife, for a long while, couldn’t see a path back to us being a happy couple again. She thought she would always be looked down on for her choices.

I think I helped a bit when I told her I will always hate what she did, but I can also allow her back into my heart based on what she does TODAY, without holding a lifetime vendetta for YESTERDAY.

Maybe, before your wife retreats forever to her shame spiral Hell, remind her of this place and that a lot of couple make it back. The odds are decent, but only if BOTH people are building back. If one person stays in their respective corner, the odds go from a chance to make to NO chance to make it.

Otherwise, I don’t get it. You’re not asking her to feel horrible about herself, you’re asking her to help repair the damage the infidelity caused.

I think this new headspace is the exact right place for you to be in right now InkHulk. YOU are going to do what it takes to recover and heal from this, no matter what. You hope that she will decide to do this with you but you are not going to sacrifice your recovery to allow her preserve her shame bubble.

Sometimes it takes real loss and change for someone to recognize and snap out of their behavioural patterns. You've heard of drug addicts needing to hit bottom before really being able to turn things around. This isn't that different.

Taking off the wedding ring is simply a manipulative tactic, plain and simple. Take your wedding ring off as well.

Do not go to her if she is sobbing. Who cheated on who? Who deserves comfort?Detach, detach, detach snd let go of the outcome. She either comes to the table or not. It’s your job to observe her behavior, take note, and makes decisions down the line.

Your job is not to direct her on the correct process to R. It’s not your job to drive R.

The sleeping in another room, the sobbing,and leaving her ring at home,are all manipulative tactics.

You told her what you NEED. She doesn't want to do it. So now she's throwing whatever she can at the wall,to see how you respond. She knows if you feel sorry for her, comfort her, come get her and try and have her come to the bed,or have a fit over the ring..she knows all she has to do is ride this out,and you will eventually back down.

Gray rock. 180.

Look..what you are asking for is the bare minimum. All you really want her to do is be honest, love you (love being an action), be empathetic, and remorseful. And work on herself. You're not asking for her to flay herself open and wear a Scarlett A.

If she can't be empathetic, remorseful, honest, and do the damn necessary work to heal the damage she has caused, that's on her.

She certainly managed to carry on a 3 year affair, and go to extreme lengths to do what she and OM wanted. If she can't muster some motivation to help you,and keep her marriage..that's on her.

[This message edited by HellFire at 12:18 AM, Saturday, December 10th]

Those tears are for her, not you, @InkHulk. To your entirely reasonable set of demands (too easy in fact) that give a path forward to R. After all she put your family through too.

I am glad that you are finally waking up and seeing clarity and separating yourself from her, OP.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 1:18 AM, Saturday, December 10th]

There's nothing wrong with wanting to R with an unremorseful WS. In fact, if you're in that sitch, it's important to know that's what you want, even though you can't get it.

That's the point - you can't get what you want, and it's yet another loss that you have to grieve to survive and thrive after being betrayed.

R works fine if both partners do what needs to be done. It doesn't work if only one partner will do the work.

It's important to separate what you want from what you know you can get. I'd like to win a mega-millions jackpot, and it's possible. I'm not counting on it, though, and I don't buy a ticket unless the odds are in my favor.

Multiple posters have said that the list I gave her of my needs is too light, bare minimum. What do you think I’m missing? No contact is already established and I think she knows a slip in that would be the end. OBS already knows. So all that stuff goes without saying. What am I not thinking of? I know this is a list of MY needs, but given the chaos of this, I welcome suggestions.

Complete transparency. You get full access to all accounts, and her phone. Passwords included.

She answers ALL of your questions, without anger,blame,and defensiveness, for as long as you need to ask them.

Std testing

She is accountable for her time when away from you.

She drops all friends who knew about the affair,but didn't tell you.

Full written timeline.

Polygraph.

She takes full responsibility for the affair. No blaming you,or the OM.

She understands she betrayed the kids,just as she's betrayed you.

Full honesty about all things.

A new IC that holds her accountable, and helps her work on her issues.

She works on why she did this. Not the surface reasons. This will require time and therapy.

She is proactive in healing the damage. She works on removing any potential triggers. She reads affair recovery books. She comes to you,and asks you if you want to talk about the affair,etc,etc.

She apologizes to your family for hurting you.

This is a start.

Complete transparency. You get full access to all accounts, and her phone. Passwords included.

Done

She answers ALL of your questions, without anger,blame,and defensiveness, for as long as you need to ask them.

This is on my list, full truth to my satisfaction

Std testing

Done, happened immediately post D-day, I even posted from the doctors office, great day.

She is accountable for her time when away from you.

I’m comfortable here. I can see where her phone is. Had a time where she went out with a friend and I couldn’t see her. I freaked out and she apologized, it was just a dead service area, she showed proof that she was where she said she was.

She drops all friends who knew about the affair,but didn't tell you.

She didn’t tell a soul is what she has told me. Her sister made a point to tell me she didn’t know and I’m quite certain her best friend was completely shocked. I don’t think she told anyone.

Full written timeline.

She provided one after her initial confession, and then added to it after I threatened polygraph. I have taken time to discern for myself how much I want to know, cause as is said you can’t unrinf that bell. I’ve decided I want more and she will have to deal with that.

Polygraph.

My choice to hold off on that. I may or may not request it. I think it could do real damage with her and her family with the humiliation of me insisting on it. I regard it as a measure of last resort. My choice on this.

She takes full responsibility for the affair. No blaming you,or the OM.

I believe she does. I’m very sensitive about this point, hence the counselor walk out.

She understands she betrayed the kids,just as she's betrayed you.

I believe she does, future discussion will explor this more as I’m still hot that she took the kids into that hobby.

Full honesty about all things.

This is a good candidate for addition. Radical honesty in all things going forward.

A new IC that holds her accountable, and helps her work on her issues.

I’m not certain her counselor is bad. I’d want to know more before I’d ask for a change.

She works on why she did this. Not the surface reasons. This will require time and therapy.

Deep answers to why. This is already on my list.

She is proactive in healing the damage. She works on removing any potential triggers. She reads affair recovery books. She comes to you,and asks you if you want to talk about the affair,etc,etc.

Another worthy addition.

She apologizes to your family for hurting you.

Not a key point to me.

Thank you for your thoughts, I really appreciate it.

I think telling one's family is an individual thing. My mom was in her 90s when W cheated; She had enough to deal with without hearing her DIL cheated. If we had D'ed, I'd have told her why, but I didn't tell her. I'm not close enough to my brother to bring it up with him, since we chose R.

But it works for other couples.

Your choice.

The other parts of the list are pretty universal - especially honesty/no more lies. If one doesn't lie, on may leave - but won't betray. I can't even see sliding far onto a slippery slope if one stays honest.

Question from a slow learner about holding boundaries: what does that look like in practice? I’m thinking of my WW’s defensive anger for example. It is like poison to my soul. So when it comes up, which it almost certainly will again even though I’ve told her it’s a hard boundary that she can’t do it, what do I do? Is it as simple as I say "you are violating my explicitly stated boundary and because of that I am removing myself from relationship with you. If you want to resume relationship with me, you will humbly apologize for violating my boundary, wait until I am in an appropriate state to re-engage with you, and then you will respond appropriately to the original conversation"?
It seems so simple, I must be a complete push over for that to seem revolutionary. I know it will piss her off, but I guess that’s the point, right? If her only reaction is to get mad, we are done. If she starts learning and respecting the boundary, it’s growth. Am I thinking about this right?
Just looking at what I just wrote, I don’t put myself first ever, that sounds so foreign to me.

Hey you have some pretty powerful supporters. Many of them have been here years and have the ability to get straight to the point. Pay attention to them they are wonderful to get advice from.

I’m going to go a little bit off behavior and talk about emotions. So much of what I read on here and read on other forms is that we white wash shame or guilt. Shame is inflicted on you by people you love and trust. It’s even worse if it’s done in early childhood but that is often the case. The reason it is so damaging is those memories are hidden so deeply in our psyche that we don’t even realize they are running our lives, but they are. Shame is always inflicted on us. Guilt we should have because it means we have somehow harmed, or scared, or mistreated another person and we should feel guilty about it. So don’t confuse the two. Look at what both of you brought from childhood and make decisions on how to proceed from that. One or both of you might be operating from a childish viewpoint emotionally because you were not allowed to grow up emotionally.

That is why individual therapy is so important because without finding the underlying cause of behaviors we will continue to have those behaviors.

[This message edited by Cooley2here at 7:49 PM, Wednesday, December 28th]

IH, I think your proposed approach is good. End the conversation if she does not calm down and apologize. Walk away. Make it crystal clear that you will no longer participate in conversations where she becomes angry and defensive in response to your pain and needs.

Your boundaries are about what you will do if she acts in certain ways, not about controlling her behavior.

So you'd be much better off if you said, 'Look, I won't deal with you when you're defensive, so I'm going to end this conversation. When you can talk about this without defensiveness, I'll be willing to discuss this topic.'

Even that is a little overboard, because it's generally impossible for WSes to be completely non-defensive until they've done a lot of healing.

Do you see the difference between this formula and what you're contemplating? It's an important difference, which can probably be seen more clearly in, 'If you cheat again, I'm gone.' IOW, she's free to cheat again, but you'll leave if she does. Your W is going to be defensiveness - and you get to decide how you'll respond. Nothing you can do can keep her from being defensive....

One of my boundaries was around my W's beating herself up. I told her I didn't want to hear that, and I suggested she call her IC. Eventually, she went straight to her IC. Now I think she just does a normal amount of beating herself up. Now I give her support.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 4:57 PM, Thursday, December 29th]

I think you need to understand the difference between boundaries and punishment first.

A boundary is when you decide something is unacceptable to you and you will not tolerate that behaviour/action.

So what you are trying to achieve by stating your boundaries is protecting and respecting yourself.

In the example you have given a good boundary is "I will not continue this conversation whilst tou display this level of anger". This isn’t to punish her and make her do something (show remorse), this is protecting yourself from her toxic behaviour.

Remember: boundaries are never about the other person, they’re not about controlling them. Boundaries are about you and protecting yourself.

Hi IH,

I'm a slow learner, so it takes me a while to understand and apply new dynamics designed to maintain healthy boundaries, even though other people find it so simple.

Perhaps this strategy is simple, but since an old dog like me can learn new tricks, then its worthwhile to try it and see what happens.
Your wife probably won't like it, but if you find that it succeeds in moving your healing forward, and helps her to further grasp and experience remorse, then it may well be worth the effort.

Hang in there, our prayers and thoughts are with you,
FAWH

WW’s defensive anger for example. It is like poison to my soul. So when it comes up, which it almost certainly will again even though I’ve told her it’s a hard boundary that she can’t do it, what do I do?

Brother based on what you posted your WW is not a good candidate for R by a very long shot, she gets angry, defensive and "pissed off" after her huge betrayal, she's not remorseful, no remorse no chance to R successfully. My suggestion is you focus on your own healing and if your WW doesn't come around and starts doing the heavylifting to help restore the M she destroy, then just file for D and have her served and if you haven't done it yet, expose her with all family and close friends without warning, D takes a long time and you can always stop the D if she comes around (that's a big if), if D papers and full exposure don't shock her back to reality, then nothing will, if so just let the D run its course and get out of infidelity.

[This message edited by Buster123 at 7:29 PM, Friday, December 30th]

Do people who fail to show empathy in life come around and learn it? She has failed to have it for me in all kinds of important situations when she should have, my father’s death being the most glaring, until now that is. Is this something she can learn, or am I just holding on to a fool’s hope?

Do people who fail to show empathy in life come around and learn it?

Does she ever show empathy for others at all? Or show understanding for any other struggles of other people?

I ask because after my wife chose infidelity, she had justified those choices at the time, and STOPPED showing any empathy for me. And that went on for years after the A and before her confession.

And then, she did re-learn empathy for the pain she had caused, once she truly owned all of her choices she made along the way.

However, she still showed empathy for her kids, she forgave her dysfunctional parents (alcoholic dad, selfish non-empathy mother) and showed them empathy over time as well.

As long as there is some amount of empathy somewhere in a WS life, there is certainly a chance for her to show you some.

I think your WS is still rationalizing her choices to some level, and defensiveness for the indefensible — and there is zero chance for empathy until a WS fully owns those decisions.

It is possible that someone can learn empathetic responses to situations. BUT they have to A. want to change and B. do the hard work of learning how to be empathetic usually in IC and with supplements like books. Does she acknowledge the problem as needing to be fixed and is she working hard in IC to change it?