[doc_martin]

looking for advice, or at least some comments...

First of all, why didn't I find this group when this all began??? I think things would have been VERY different now if that had been the case.

I think I am at a point where I know deep down what I need to do, but that just isn't going over very well for what I would like to happen (life is funny that way).

I will make the back ground for this as short as possible to let readers know how I came to be here.

My DDay was 9/2/10...yes, two years ago. After finding out, I went through the usual depression, rage, sadness, blah, blah, blah. I thought we were slowly working things out and going to MC and really "working" on the marriage when six months after the initial discovery I found that they had just merely taken their affair underground.

So, DDay #2 wasn't any better than Dday #1, and really set us back. What I did differently on DDay #2 was expose the OM to his wife, and to move out. There is a long explanation about why I chose not to expose them to his wife on DDay #1. Some reasons good, and some of them just wanting the whole thing to disappear. I honestly feel was trying my best to protect our children (his and ours) from a town (and group of friends) known for being pretty harsh on cheaters (call it a cop out, which it very well may be given how things turned out)

On 9/26/11 (shortly after moving back into the house) I found that they had had a few short conversations since DDay#2 (by phone so she pretty much knew I would find them when I moved back in the house), but I don't doubt that they hadn't "done anything" since DDay#2 since they both were on pretty close lockdown and I had been doing the whole GPS, etc., etc. But who knows really...

My problem now is this. After moving back in and discovering she had had a few conversations with her lover, I made all my demands front and center. I also took life in six month blocks to allow myself time to reflect to see if she was indeed improving on things or not. I did the 180 when I had originally moved from the house and I would say it worked for what it was supposed to do. When I moved back in, I continued to use the 180 but I have these as my following issues:

First, the 180 I feel is a game. And two people cannot play this game for very long. I know it works by getting them focused and back to chasing you. So once that has happened, when do you get to go back to living a life where your lives are integrated again? If marriage is supposed to be a compromise, how do I go on living as if I am the only one who matters and that MY concerns will always come first. I mention this for the following reasons. I just don't see the 180 as the way an integrated realtionship with the person you love is supposed to work.

When I have sad days or am just "off" my wife sees this as a sign that I will never get over her affair and that things will never be as good again as they once were (I call this a "duh" but she can choose to believe as she pleases). Second, when I am all about the 180 and acting happy and content (or really am happy and content), she actually feels like everything is all great and good and that we no longer need to do anything with the marriage.

The first six months I was back in the house things were certainly better than they are now. I just feel as if we have truly and irreparably grown apart. I am fully willing to talk about my shortcomings, issues she has with me and resentment issues about me, etc. But she never does...she suppresses them and they only come out as a flood when she is mad.

But with her shortcomings? I am still made to feel like I am controlling her, won't get over her affair, etc., etc. I have told her I don't know how many times that she really doesn't owe me anything...well, nothing but the truth. We can part ways and that can be that. We have been married 16 years now, and have two kids.

The analogy I used the other day in MC was that her affair kicked our fire of love, scattering all the wood around. Her continued lies and trickle truth about everything has merely furthered the distance. I feel for the last year I have been merely watching the embers cool and fade to nearly nothing. I still love her greatly and have no thoughts of leaving the marriage in hopes of finding "something better". I would be lying if I said it wouldn't hurt me to have our marriage finally "over". I agree that she is the one who was supposed to do the "heavy lifting" here.

She states she has "done" everything I have asked of her. But honestly, I feel as though everything she has "done" to help this marriage has been begrudgingly. I still feel there is likely more truth to be had but realize I will likely never get that truth out of her, but feel her harboring it, is killing her as well. In short, I feel like she is still a young girl and really just still holding onto the hope that she can ignore things and that things will eventually get back to normal.

I am sorry for the rambling post. I guess I just don't know when to end things... posts or marriages! Ha!

 

[warlock07]

Does she want to be married ? Or is she obligated by the kids, like you are ?

She never came clean completely, she is still lying by omission, resents you for not getting over her quick enough(especially after having 2 D-days), thinks you are controlling.

What did she actually do to help you ?

 

[TDSC60]

It seems that your gut is telling you that she is not 100% committed to the marriage. She is going through the motions but you do not feel it is real. You are probably correct.

Do not feel obligated to continue a marriage that she killed by having an affair. There is no shame in ending it. You gave it all you had and it simply did not work. Happens all the time.

A BS decides to reconcile for whatever reason. They give it time and effort, but they just can not get over what the WS did. Despite all the effort and all the trying they can not get the marriage back on track. It really is a common scenario.

End it, if that is what you need to heal yourself.

Edit: Do not try to protect her from anything. She made her choice to have an affair. Why would you feel obligated to protect that. It is her mess, she has to deal with the consequences of her actions. It is called being an adult.

 

[doc_martin]

well, she says she wants to be married. And I truly believe she enjoys being married. For 16 years we were best friends and felt we could tell each other everything. At least I could. Even during her affair, I never got the sense that things were really bad. And I do think we have flushed out a LOT of reasons how this all came about. And I don't have any reason to believe she has been untruthful about anything else in our marriage (but I obviously don't posses a keen sense of when I'm being lied to! LOL!)

She never came clean, this is true (at least in my mind). When we had our whole "truth day" which she was adamant had to occur in front of our MC, I really didn't get any more details than I had gotten piecemeal over the course of a year. And I have told her as much. But, I don't see how that affects ME and MY recovery much. If it was twice (as she claims) or 100 times or more, I would still be forgiving the "affair". And for the most part, I have moved on from that. I honestly believe that this may be part of HER issue in that her guilt over not being totally honest is eating her from the inside like a cancer. For me, it just means that I won't ever truly trust in her again (which I doubt I would even if I TOTALLY believed her story).

As for the "what did she do for me?", I guess I still don't know. Maybe that is the crux of what I am trying to piece together.

Did she write a "no contact" letter to the OM? Yes, but after much arguing back and forth about how that may or may not be a great idea (fantastic idea, BTW). Did she agree to change her phone number? Yes, and as far as I have been following it, I haven't seen anything amiss...but again, there is only so much effective spying you can do. she has given me passwords to her emails, bank account, etc. (all with much resistance, but I didn't really find anything in them). Could she have new emails? A throw away phone she keeps at work? ways to take this REALLY, REALLY underground? Sure. I am not interested in replacing my full time job with one that revolves around seeing what she is up to.

I have come a LOOOONG way on my own forgiveness journey, and if she is still at it, I just want to know for the only reason of getting out. She doesn't owe me anything, and I won't force her, beg her, etc., etc., to behave. I have kids to raise, not a wife to raise.

I wonder if I'm just being really hard of heart. I really would have expected her to WANT to do all of these things to help our marriage. Not expect me, and the affair to "just take care of themselves". And where I am right now, I don't know if I am willing to pull it out of her. Just not worth it...

 

[doc_martin]

TDSC60, I agree this is her mess. I don't need to protect her from it. But I am not going to go out of my way to punish her with it. She already knows that if we divorce, I will not hide the reason we are split. But I am not about to go blabbing my business all over town. regardless, I don't need that headache, and my kids don't need it either. Honestly, If we divorce, I am moving to another community altogether.

 

[Will_Kane]

I think you've done OK so far.

The 180 is for when you are NOT working on your marriage, you are detaching from her, and getting ready for divorce. It seems to me that you both ARE working on your marriage, it's just that you're stuck and she is not doing the right things. However, she did quit the affair and commit to the marriage, so I think the 180 is not what you should be doing.

It seems that the truth matters to you. What part of the truth do you think you are not getting?

"Her continued lies and trickle truth about everything has merely furthered the distance. ... I still feel there is likely more truth to be had but realize I will likely never get that truth out of her, but feel her harboring it." - What do you mean by this. She is continuing to lie to you and trickle truth you even now? Yes, that can kill a reconciliation. I think the lies and trickle truth afterward can be even more damaging to the marriage than the affair itself. If this is still going on, can you give some examples?

You also imply that it is you who is doing the "heavy lifting" and you state that whatever she has "done" has been done "begrudgingly." Can you give some examples? What has she done? What consequences has she had for cheating on you?

 

[Count of Monte Cristo]

First, the 180 I feel is a game. And two people cannot play this game for very long. I know it works by getting them focused and back to chasing you.

The 180 is for YOUR benefit. It's not a tool to manipulate the WW spouse so that they chase after you (although this is sometimes a byproduct.)

If you're working on the marriage then there should be no reason to be utilizing the 180 - Unless you're preparing yourself for divorce.

 

[Will_Kane]

Your mistake has been in discussing or arguing about what you need from your wife. That still seems to be your problem.

You had to discuss and argue about her writing a no contact letter. Your conversation should have been, "write it or we're done." Everything she's done, she's done with much resistance. She gave you a "truth" day, but only in front of the MC. And then didn't tell you the truth.

First, ask her to write out the details of the affair for you. Tell her whatever particular details you specifically want to know about or that you think she has lied about. Ask her if she could do it within a week. Don't demand it, ask nicely and tell her you think it would help you a lot to heal from the affair.

Next, tell her that you are sick and tired of her begrudging compliance with your demands. Go over a few of the begrudging examples that you posted here, keep it that brief, don't dwell on them. Tell her that, because you are sick of her begrudgingly giving you what you need to heal, you are withdrawing all of your demands. She is free to act however she wants, she is free to password protect her phone, she is free to contact the other man - whatever she wants. If she doesn't want to write you a timeline, fine, she doesn't have to.

Tell her you cannot control her, you can only control yourself and what you are willing to accept in a marriage and what you are not. Tell her you are not interested in the type of marriage where one partner cheats on the other, then begrudgingly commits to do the minimum amount necessary to satisfy the betrayed.

No matter what, don't argue with her to get her to go along with what you need to heal. You've tried that and it doesn't work. Tell her what you need and give her the choice. No arguments. Either she loves you and wants to help you get past her betrayal or she doesn't and you should move on.

 

[Will_Kane]

By the way, I hope it goes without saying, that in regards to my previous post, if you see that your wife has password protected her phone or other behaviors that she knows are hurtful to you, you should just take that as a signal that she really does NOT love you and you should seriously consider divorce. Otherwise, it seems you will be stuck in the role of "parent" or "warden" for the rest of your life. You want someone who is going to do loving things for you because she loves you.

 

[doc_martin]

It continues to bother me that the extent of her story is the story I already knew. And she has actually stated "I have given you, your whole story, thing. Why do we need to talk about the affair at all anymore? That was two years ago!" I feel like she is really telling me "I have given you the story you are supposed to hear, don't ask me questions to confuse me about the "truth" I gave you."

As a for instance, She told me that she met him for sex only twice. Both at different hotels. One was down the street from his work and the day after she had to write her "no contact letter" the GPS I had on her put her going to the parking lot of a restaurant across the street from this hotel. She was only there for 1/2 hour so if they were doing stuff, it was pretty quick. She states she was losing her mind and sat in that restaurant staring at that hotel mad at herself for how she had destroyed our marriage. Now, the problem I see in this is that my wife is HORRIBLE with directions. There is NO way she could have found this hotel without plugging it into her GPS in the car that day (she didn't) but she would certainly know the way if she had been there more than once as she proclaims. Stuff like this.

As for me doing the heavy lifting. If I were to come to the marriage and say "all is forgiven" act happy and carry on in a loving fashion, she is going to say "great!" and that will be that. She has a lot of resentment issues against me, that really I don't believe I deserve. She is harboring a lot of issues about the fact that she has to have a job, and that she cannot spend with wanton abandon, stuff like that. She won't talk about this stuff at all.

The begrudging part comes about because the changes she has made are all with a zinger as an overtone.

"I'm leaving work early and going to the store. If you must know."

"I told you all about my affair, so NOW what do you want to know?"

"We always talk about MY issues, but we can't talk about you cause you are PERFECT!" I'm not perfect and am willing to talk about anything she doesn't like about me or relationships I have with women (although I HAVE learned she is insanely jealous of me and other women and has projected a LOT of her affair feelings onto me as if I were the one having affairs...go figure)

As for consequences. Well, She lost her white picket fence illusion of a life. There is no one here to swoop in and make everything magically better. She has lost the respect of her family and especially her brother who all but doesn't speak to her any longer, and they were so close, he practically lived with us as a fifth family member (he's not married). She has had to face some of our friends with this and because we knew her AP through our circle of friends, we have had to shift many of our couples friends, cannot attend certain outings without the threat of the other couple being there. This usually means we don't attend anything where they may be, as it gets REALLY uncomfortable. And for someone social like my wife, this is a killer!

 

[doc_martin]

Your mistake has been in discussing or arguing about what you need from your wife. That still seems to be your problem.

Touche.

Thank you for your post. precisely what I needed...

 

[Will_Kane]

Yes, stop playing that game. You don't have to. If that's how she feels, I don't see why you would want to continue. Let her go find another man with whom she can quit her job, stay at home, and spend with wanton abandon.

 

[walkonmars]

Wow - resentment and entitlement are gushing from her every pore.

"Yeah it WAS two years ago and I have yet to hear ONE SINGLE detail I didnt already know. You want me to get over it. If you dont mind - and even if you do - I NEED know the extent of things i have to get over. And it better not take two more years to do so. Think about it, roll it over in your mind, sleep on it then I better hear the WHOLE story. I better hear honest answers, and I better believe every word"

Read will kane's posts. You're a good guy, a strong guy and deserve a good strong wife. Help her become one or set her and yourslf free.

 

[doc_martin]

Letting her go. That is where my mind has been going more and more. I think she is settling deeper and deeper in depression over time. I seem to be getting stronger and stronger. I read a post, or sticky, or something on here where it talks about true remorse. I think about the behaviors that one would display, and I find that I am trying to be all those things (and I didn't have the affair! LOL!) Asking her is there is anything I need to address, how we can resolve these resentments she has towards me, my level of transparency she has about things I have done, etc.

I did read Kane's post. I am really already moving in that direction.

 

[Juicer]

Here is a little tip for you:

Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.

Translation:
I love you enough, to try and see if I can love you again even though you broke our marital vows.
You cheated on me again? Wow. I must be an idiot at judging character for giving you a second chance.

A cheater that is resenting of what the BS feels, is not a cheater that you should reconcile with. That is a cheater that wants you to move on, so they can cheat again.

I would say you need to divorce, simply because your wife can't seem to understand:
She needs to realize you need time to heal
She needs to be the one trying to save the marriage, and working to garner your affection, not the other way around
And she needs to be the one giving YOU the reason to stay married. Not the other way around.

And getting slapped with divorce papers will probably drill that into her.

 

[Count of Monte Cristo]

I can think of few things worse than a remorseless wayward spouse.

Let her go and find a woman that will love you and not cheat on you.

 

[warlock07]

"I have given you, your whole story, thing. Why do we need to talk about the affair at all anymore? That was two years ago!"

Try this."You need to tell me the details as many times as I ask you to. This is all on you. You will do anything I need to heal because this was your doing. I am not doing this to punish you, it is just a way I heal from your continuous lies. If you cannot even do this, I cannot trust you. If I cannot trust you, I cannot remain married to you..If you want to remain married, I need you to answer these questions as many times as I need "

There are a few posters here that are reconciling after years of betrayal.One consistent theme is that the cheating spouse gives him every detail of the affair the BS needs.

There is a different poster. You already posted in his thread. He is where you are because he does not have the complete truth..I can see similarities in the situation. The common point being a lying minimizing cheating spouse

 

[Bricko]

Warlock has got it down

 

[tom67]

"I have given you, your whole story, thing. Why do we need to talk about the affair at all anymore? That was two years ago!"

Try this."You need to tell me the details as many times as I ask you to. This is all on you. You will do anything I need to heal because this was your doing. I am not doing this to punish you, it is just a way I heal from your continuous lies. If you cannot even do this, I cannot trust you. If I cannot trust you, I cannot remain married to you..If you want to remain married, I need you to answer these questions as many times as I need "

There are a few posters here that are reconciling after years of betrayal.One consistent theme is that the cheating spouse gives him every detail of the affair the BS needs.

There is a different poster. You already posted in his thread. He is where you are because he does not have the complete truth..I can see similarities in the situation. The common point being a lying minimizing cheating spouse

I go back to cts thread with all the trickle and the just get over it crap

 

[doc_martin]

Yes, I have seen MANY similarities to CTS post. Which is why I joined, and why I posted.

I told her the other day that her affair is what broke our marriage, but her lies are what destroyed our marriage.

I really appreciate everyone's feedback. Unfortunately, it really does feed you back what you probably already have known for some time.

I do think somewhere deep inside her she is remorseful. I just think her walls are now so high she cannot break them down and come to the table. It is sad to say, that her position has made me the better person, and more stable in who I am. Oddly, it doesn't make me less sad...