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These things are going to make me a better partner for WW or for someone else.

I remember after we were in R my W called me her soulmate.

Me: no such thing
Her: why would you say that?
Me: Because I never found her
Her: that’s an awful thing to say
Me: soulmates stop looking

I still believe that today, even on a good R path.

It's very heady stuff for the ego, I expect.

I've been thinking about ego a lot lately. The other day on Reddit there was a thread about waywards insulting their AP during R and in the comments someone brought up the term "affair down," which is when the AP is decidedly less attractive than the BS.

My WW had previously said something to the effect of "it's not that he was bigger or better looking than you, if anything it's the opposite, but he was nice to me and paid attention to me."

The first time I hear that I heard a reassurance for me, the word "but," and then a justification for her shit choice. But in the context of the affair down idea, the whole thing is justification. She picked a guy that was more than a decade older than us, who was less attractive than me, who made less money than me (or her for that matter). A guy for whom my WW was probably the hottest chick he'd ever managed to land. It's no wonder that he fawned over her; if you get a goose that lays golden eggs you keep that bird happy as fuck. What an ego trip that must be.

It made me think about me at the beginning of our relationship, an insecure guy who couldn't believe his luck at landing a lady like her, who didn't think he deserved a lady like her.

Now I'm much more confident, I have a very good job, I know my worth. I'm a catch, too. I think that swung the balance of power in our relationship and she didn't like that, though probably only at a subconscious level.

But it also doesn't make me feel good that I sort stopped feeling like the luckiest guy in the world and took her for granted. Well, now I'm definitely not the luckiest guy in the world but I do want to try and recapture some of that energy.

soulmate

I'm right there with you, Tanner. Like most religiospiritual gobbledygook I bet it's very comforting to believe in that kind of thing. Unfortunately, I think we're simply a big pile of instinctive behaviors running on an operating system we call "consciousness." In the same way that I think being morally good without the promise of an eternal paradise after death is more significant than doing it expecting that reward, the lack of belief in something like soulmates makes the decision to be a remain in a committed and monogamous relationship all the more meaningful and courageous. There are billions of people in the world, any number of whom would make me equally or more happy. But I made a vow to one woman and she was supposed to be my ride or die.

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We continued talking by text messages when she had some free time at work. We told each other we things we appreciated about talking today and continued discussing what having some space means for us. She made it clear that she really didn't want to sleep separately in general only when one of us needed it and that having a bed in the other room was only part of it. She wanted us to make it somewhere where we could go any time to get the space, the breathing room we need.

I'm sad to admit it but I think that was the longest conversation we've had in year that wasn't a fight, about a fight, about the affair, or about the kid. It was just us, making plans for something that was for us. It felt like we were a team again.

I never believed in the soulmate nonsense. Nor the theory that my H “completes me”.

I despise that crap.

It’s just some insecure nonsense people say to try and justify their relationship. And if you need to do that then IMO you are trying to convince others (and maybe yourself) if something that doesn’t exist.

Two emotionally connected confident people come together to form a team — not some codependent entity that gives one person all the power.

[This message edited by The1stWife at 8:13 AM, Wednesday, April 26th]

To be completely honest, I do not believe R will work out for you. You’re trying to forcefully commit her to an R which to me she simply isn’t interested in.

You need to take your kids out of the equation. If that’s your main reason to R, why isn’t your WW as committed to R as you, assuming she’s putting her kids and the family first? The answer - she’s not!

My suggesting is to stop everything you’re doing immediately. Start the hard 180 and consult with a lawyer. If, according to your lawyer, it’s an optimal time to move to D then I would do so.

The D is for you. If by chance it happens to finally move your WW towards wanting snd pursuing R, then that’s great and you can see how that goes if you desire.

Your pursuit of your WW is completely counter productive to your goals. You cannot convince her to R, nor should you have to. That’s her job, not yours. You may want R, and that’s fine, but it’s her job to convince you that she wants R, and then show you actions that confirm this.

In chasing after her, you come off as looking weak snd desperate. Instead of recognizing this, you’re using the word "optimistic."

Hi Bob

Can’t remember if I have posted on your thread before, but either way, sorry you are here and sorry for your pain.

Im writing to encourage you to stop working so hard to try and do anything right now to recover and rebuild the relationship. As others have said here, with her current attitude about it all, it’s just not going to work. I’ve said it here before, that if you have to pull your WS through reconciliation, to any degree, then what happens is you end up reconciling with yourself, not her.

So I encourage you to just stop for now. Focus on you. If she were still in a mode of trying to fix what she broke, she’d be actively researching and implementing what she needs to do to take the lead on these things. She’s just not. Just the fact that she went back to the casino is a prime example. She just doesn’t care enough to help you heal. She’s inward focused still, not outward.

If she does stop doing these things and becomes proactive that’s one thing. But if she half-asses it and you just let it go then you just doom yourself to a life of ‘’meh". Don’t let that happen.

What I do encourage you to do is state honestly and simply what you need to see to even consider trying to rebuild and then stop discussing it with her. Just say it and move on. Start the ball rolling on separating and eventually divorcing.

Look, I’m pro reconciliation. But not with someone who is "just not into it". I will even go as far as saying I believe that reconciliation and divorce are NOT mutually exclusive. I’ve thought long and hard about this and honestly I believe if ever faced with the same circumstances I would tell my partner "you ended the marriage when you broke your vows and cheated. I no longer consider us married because of that and will work to legally end the relationship your choices officially ended the day you were emotionally and physically intimate with the other man. ".

Then I would tell her, “if you decide I am worth trying to build a new relationship with, then I will see that through your actions. I cannot promise marriage ever again is possible or that I can ever feel emotionally attached enough to have a relationship with you in the future, but right now I dont even see you trying, so the point is moot."

I’d honestly tell her things like that. And I’d be perfectly Frank with her about the future, "I wish you well in figuring out what you want. In the meantime I promise to be the best coparent I can be. Until you have figured out how to take the lead on rebuilding what you broke, ensuring that the AP is completely out of your and my lives forever and out of your heart completely, and an approach that selflessly understands the pain you have inflicted on me, then coparenting is all I will discuss with you going forward."

With that said Bob, stop rehashing things only setting yourself up for disappointment over and over again when she doesn’t do what a truly remorseful WS is supposed to do after DDay. Focus on you. Get an IC. Work with them thru the trauma.

She’ll either realize what’s important and start taking the lead or she won’t. Either way, you won’t have wasted anymore time trying to drag her unsuccessfully through the process.

I hope you’ll try this approach.

I wish you well.

[This message edited by Stevesn at 5:43 PM, Sunday, April 23rd]

Hi Bob, If you want a better and stronger marriage make sure it is a marriage of equals, both of you feeling you won the jackpot marrying each other. There is a problem if you have to feel lesser of the the two to keep her interested in the marriage. She needs to work on her insecurities if she constantly needs the ego feeding.
I am a "poor" BS with a husband that found other women more interesting. As much as it is painful, I know my worth and no one needs to make me feel like a queen.
At this point with the cheating, if anything she needs to work to make you feel special. But you don’t need that, you know your worth. Secure people don’t cheat, it’s the insecure idiots that need the ego kibbles.

Work on the foundation, a temporary fix isn’t going to help the marriage. Don’t accept her 50% efforts to save the marriage. Don’t settle for anything less than 100%.

I'd like to open this post with some main points of clarity without my usual snark or narrative fluff. I'm doing this because I think some people might see the title I used a week ago and be replying based on that and skimming everything since which I know I can be guilty of, as well. If that's not the case, I'll at least know that further responses are based on current circumstances. I've also put an update on the first post.

1. My WW accepted my conditions for beginning to reestablish trust. Electronic transparency, no visits to the casino where they met unless I go with her (which isn't going to happen for a while), and demonstrated remorse.

2. We didn't get here because I had any super convincing rational argument that changed her mind. The 180 and showing that I was serious about ending the marriage if she didn't start acting like she wanted it changed her mind.

3. I'm still not initiating conversation unless it's about our house, our finances, or our daughter. But on Saturday night she called me on her way to work. She texted me when she had some downtime at work. She called me on her way home. She's trying to reconnect and driving that attempt.

4. She is starting IC with a new therapist who focuses on motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioral therapy in a couple days. This is in addition to the psychiatrist she's been seeing who is primarily focused on her ADHD diagnosis.

5. I'm starting IC in a week. Soonest I could get an appointment.

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On to replies!

Dude67, I hope the five points above alleviate your concerns some. I don't know what you're referring to exactly when you talk about my optimism but if you're talking about my post about Saturday's conversation I think you missed the part where I explained to WW that she had misidentified what she thought was optimism.

My optimism, I explained to her, is not actually optimism. It's a hope, absolutely, but it's also rational self-interest. Getting divorced will change my situation but it won't change me; I'll take my problems with me just as she will hers. Trying reconciliation now will give me the opportunity to not just learn tools but to practice using tools to evaluate the status of my relationships, to communicate better, to listen better, to solution better, to execute those solutions better. These things are going to make me a better partner for WW or for someone else.

Stevesn, I think it's your first time here. Glad to have you. I believe she's putting in the work. She's been present for me in a way that has been lacking since even before her A started. I hope IC will really help her but that's because I think she needs help if she's going to be the best mom she can be, the best partner she can be for whoever. I've let go of the outcome; I can still see it in the distance and I'd be thrilled if that's where the path I'm walking ends up but the path I'm walking is my focus.

Abolone, "ego kibbles" cracked me all the way up. God, that's good. I believe I'm getting her full effort but I know there will be ups and downs. I'm watching and waiting, ready to encourage good behaviors and making note of the bad ones. On that topic, phycology and neurology research for decades has repeatedly shown that humans respond to positive reinforcement better than negative reinforcement in terms of both immediate response and creating lasting change.

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Things aren't all sunshine and roses. When WW called me on Sunday morning, the first thing we talked about was the fact that her AP texted her overnight. She didn't handle it perfectly. First, the fact that she responded at all to him, even though that response was to tell him not to contact her was not what I would have advised her to do. Second, she panicked and deleted the texts so even though I believe her, I'll never be sure that her response was just "don't contact me again." On the plus side, she brought it up herself, researched how he was able to text her despite having his number blocked (Android thing, can confirm), and without prompting said that if he managed to contact her again she would not delete it until I had seen it. I wish she had handled it better, she would have handled it better if she had read Healing From Infidelity.

I've been looking into various resources for me and it's been interesting and even fun.

Ester Perel kind of sucks but she isn't entirely without insight. I've only listened to her TED Talk and the two episodes of her podcast about the polyamorous couple because it came up in another thread but I jotted down a few notes. Taking what I need and leaving the rest (thanks again, Tanner).

What I've really liked though was digging into the neuroscience of love and sex and relationships and just general mental health. I got really into neuroscience after reading the very excellent science fiction novel

Blindsight

by Peter Watts almost ten years ago. I've never combined that with much self-examination, though, and I'm finding a fresh passion for it all over again with this new angle.

I'd highly recommend anyone else who was interested to hit YouTube and watch Dr. Robert Sapolsky's Human Behavioral Biology class at Stanford. It's on YouTube because he believes that anyone can benefit from learning about how our biology affects our behavior. It's meant to be appropriate for any undergrad in any major. There are videos that cover the hard science stuff in a novice friendly way but if you're not interested in that you can just watch the ones with topics that interest you.

You should also look up him talking about stress, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, or read the book of the same name.

Dr. Andrew Huberman is a neuroscientist also and his Huberman Labs podcast is great (also on YouTube if you prefer).

BTB,

Well very good sign that she’s volunteering information about AP contacting her.

Wondering if the ADHD makes reading books seem daunting.

This is the biggest gripe I have with my WH , he refuses to read ( no ADHD though). There are audiobooks, excerpts from books on you tube and honestly no reason why one cannot access information if they want to. I would move heaven and earth to save my marriage and this person can’t open a f*****g book. Yes there will be ups and downs and I realize I have to be very consistent in what I expect from him. So yes appreciate the efforts but make your expectations clear.

On a positive note, look at you having come a long way and now recommending books to us ! ! I am glad things are looking optimistic for you.

[This message edited by Abalone123 at 4:36 PM, Tuesday, April 25th]

I am sorry BobTheBuilder, but you are still sleepwalking.

No signs of remorse on your WW's part, hardly even any sign of regret. Your WW gives you bits of attention--after cheating on you--and because she deigned to text you a few times one day, you are acting like an 8th grade boy getting positive attention from his crush whom he views as out of his league: 'She said Hi to me in the hall! She even used my name! She knows who I am!!'

This, towards a woman who cheated on you unapologetically and still blames you for it. Not such a respectable look I must say. This is instead a situation that calls upon you being ANGRY at your WW. Please, WAKE UP!

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 11:16 PM, Tuesday, April 25th]

Hi BobtheBuilder,

I’m going to say this not to be mean spirited but to give you the benefit of my experience.

Just a bit of a backstory, my H’s second affair was your typical mid life crisis affair. During this affair he planned to D me. Kick me to the curb for the much younger OW.

After dday2 occurred I told him I was D him. He left me no other choice. For 6 months I did everything possible — he did nothing to help our marriage except lie and cheat. He was cruel and mean (totally out of character for him) during his affair.

The turn around from my H was astounding. He finally got the message I wasn’t playing. I did the hard 180 except when children were around. He Was begging me to R and I refused.

For the first time he showed true remorse. He stepped away from his selfish ego driven mindset and saw reality. He saw the trauma he inflicted. He saw the damage to me and our marriage and the damage coming to our children.

And he got his act together. In 30 days he managed to get me to hold off on the D. Not by his words but by his actions. I reluctantly went along but I did not help him R in any way. He was completely on his own.

The point is your wife is throwing you a bone. She’s trying to connect (your words). She’s taking baby steps to make the marriage survive this mess. Meanwhile you are allowing it.

IMO your wife should be all in and doing EVERYTHING possible. Instead she’s doing the bare minimum.

If she needs encouragement from you to do what is needed, you are in for the long haul and it’s going to be hard for you. I say this b/c if you are not willing to be her silent cheerleader your marriage won’t survive. There are times when YOUR needs come first — and you may not be cheering her on. And it may cause her to want to quit trying.

Case in point - the AP contact. She deleted everything. Not the right move IMO. My H’s OW contacted him a few weeks into R. He immediately came to me and showed me the email. He had nothing to hide and was completely transparent. See the difference?

There are times I raged at my H b/c of his affair. He took it — all the anger and fury I had. Sometimes it was years later (into R). But he understood it. And never blamed me for it.

Your wife "choosing to text you" is a positive BUT it’s a bone. She doesn’t appear all in at the most critical moment of your marriage. She doesn’t appear to have much remorse either. Guilt — maybe. Remorse doesn’t appear evident.

I hope this helps you. The reason I say this was b/c my H had a previous affair. It ended. He had no remorse. No guilt. Never even admitted to the affair. And that is why it was so easy to have a second affair.

There were no consequences or fall out from the first one. Lesson learned!

[This message edited by The1stWife at 8:40 AM, Wednesday, April 26th]

There is no reconciliation until she answers WHY she did it. Not the cheaters WHY but the remorseful partners WHY. What I mean by this is cheaters' answer to WHY is always bad marriage or bad partner or even alcohol. But, remorseful partners' answers to WHY are always inward. They look inward and find the flaw inside them that led to their affair. So far, she has shown no inclination towards looking inward and make an attempt to answer this WHY.

That text thing is really a cause of concern. If there was nothing to hide, then there was no point in deleting those texts. That was her opportunity to score points and gain trust by showing those texts to you. So, obviously, there's more to it than what she is letting out. My point is that she is still in the fog, which doesn't allow her to have empathy towards you because, at this moment, you are not her priority. Your pain isn't her priority. She is in survival mode. She is doing everything that will protect her interests and save herself from pain, shame, and embarrassment.

She agreed to your conditions (this is a good step from her) because this way, she can protect her interests. She is not doing them to protect you but to protect herself. The day she stops blaming you for her affair. The day she stops being defensive against your legitimate anger. The day she stops TT. The day she starts looking inward. The day she starts showing true empathy towards your pain and suffering. The day she starts taking initiatives to ease your pain is the day she achieved true remorse and became a good candidate for reconciliation.

My advice is to continue 180 until she digs deeper and finds answers to this WHY. I feel you are struggling in following 180 and maintaining emotional distance from her, which is understandable considering how recent your dday was. I don't think you have hit the rock bottom it.

[This message edited by Lurkingsoul12 at 9:54 AM, Wednesday, April 26th]

Abalone123, yes it's bonkers! It's such a little thing! You know what you should do? When you're both at home, whenever he goes to take a shit, make him trade you his phone for the book. Then he'll read it.

WontBeFooledAgai, The1stWife, and Lurkingsoul12 I'll reply to all of you since you're saying much the same thing.

You're all absolutely correct. There were real positive steps this weekend and I was, for a couple days, pretty enthused with the way she's engaging in the process. But I know it's not enough. I knew it wasn't enough when late on Monday the thought popped into my head and wouldn't go away, "You're letting her off the hook." I had let things normalize too much and it made me feel really shite.

That feeling only got worse on Tuesday. WW's mother is a widow and has struggled with alcohol abuse. She had been cancelling visits, ducking phone calls, and not responding to texts. WW got in touch with one of her mom's friends and was able to confirm that she was getting real drunk, was dating an old boyfriend from 25 years ago who'd been a big fan of cocaine at the time, and was generally on dating apps. All that background to say, my wife says to me "It hurts that my mom has this whole other life that she's not shared with me. It hurts that she's lying and ignoring me." Low level panic attack during this.

I say, "you should play back that conversation in your head but swap you for your mother and me for you." She got immediately defensive because her mom is a definite source of pain and past trauma for her. Panic attack intensifies. But, to her credit, she calmed herself and apologized. I picked up our dog to help ground me and he licked my mouth which was gross but surprisingly effective at stopping the panic attack. It still took me a bit to get normal as the adrenaline cleared my system. WW lay down on the couch next to where I was sitting and just leaned against me without saying anything. That helped, too. I know it shouldn't but I can't help that I have twenty years of neurological conditioning that throws dopamine, oxytocin, and vasopressin at me when I'm with her.

Basically, things are fucked. They're going to be fucked for a while. For the moment, I'm going to try to be supportive because my MIL is also my daughter's grandmother and I don't want her to drive drunk or off herself or whatever. WW's IC appointment is tomorrow. Taking it step by step.

I'm going to a happy hour tonight with some work friends and playing D&D (Pathfinder actually but most people only know the name "D&D" so it's basically shorthand like Kleenex or velcro) tomorrow.

Getting through infidelity is so hard, and it is f'd up. Sorry that you have so much on your plate.

I'm glad you're able to get out and have some time to connect with friends through your game.

All of us have spoken rules to live by. Many we heard as children. Don’t run with scissors. Take a buddy when you go swimming. Obey the speed limit. The reality is we have thousands of unspoken rules which we bring into adulthood. People who come from chaos and toxicity bring very unhealthy ones and they keep tripping us up because our spouse brought their own. One is to never let your guard down because the adults in your life can not be trusted. We don’t know it is an unspoken rule because it is buried so deeply in our brains.
When a new BS comes here in pain we concentrate on that but the WS has his/her own unknown rules. One of the most common ones is "Don’t treat me like a child" when that is exactly what they are acting like. On the other hand the newbie has followed his/her rules so power struggles start at the beginning of the relationship. Many newbies own bad behaviors because they want to save the marriage. The cheating is on the cheater, period. If you are a douchbad she had the option of a divorce. You did not cause it, you can’t make her change. Your power is to recognize how much you will tolerate and hers is if she can change from being angry at your pain. It is up to her.

This is why I can't feel hopeful.

Yesterday I talked to my daughter's IC and told him that things weren't great in the marriage, hadn't been for a while. I didn't go into specifics though I mentioned that WW had been out of the house frequently last year. He was (obviously) glad I told him especially because coincidentally the next phase in his treatment plan was talking to my daughter about being open and honest with her parents.

When I get home daughter and I are eating dinner, working on the outline for a school project and talking and she tells me that last week she went to a nice tea luncheon with WW because she felt like she and WW had not done things together much.

So later I tell WW about this and she says she's been trying but daughter is always busy or too tired or whatever. I said

You spent the first half of last year trying to avoid me which meant being away from the house where daughter is. You spent the second half of last year doing something incredibly selfish. And this year hasn't been much better. To whatever extent our daughter's mental health issues are affected by our marriage and your absences, it took over a year to get to this place and it's not going to get fixed in a couple weeks.

To which she responded that her IC thinks we should get divorced and that the boundaries I set (NC, electronic transparency, etc) were outlandish and uncalled for.

Those two things have nothing to do with each other! You're lashing out because you heard something hard to hear! Jesus Christ on fucking pogo stick.

I feel more and more like she's just trying to run out the clock on one of us being in a financial position to buy the other out of the house so that the divorce settlement is easier. I've started a second journal just of shit that shows how unworkable this is. I don't want to lose hope but I do want to put it in a box for a little while.

I'm glad you spoke with your DD's IC. Knowing what's going on in the home will help them with treatment planning.

Your assessment of your WW's reactions seems to be spot-on. My XWH is a pro at hearing the words and twisting them to mean what he wants them to mean. She has either twisted what the IC said, or is just saying it so she can blameshift to the IC.

NC, electronic transparency and our usual spiel aren't outrageous or out of control. It's bare minimum until some sort of trust is rebuilt.

Hang in there.

I suspect your wife is planning her exit and most likely still in contact with the AP. You need to be prepared too. She isn’t giving you much to work with in R, not even for her daughter.
I know it’s tough, this journey is unpredictable .
I promise you it gets better once you are clear what your path ahead will be and not at the mercy of someone whose head is in the clouds.
Take care Bob!

Hi BTB,
So sorry you find yourself here.
A book I think could help you is "The Dead Bedroom Fix" by DSO.
He has walked in your shoes and will call you on your problematic behaviors that led you to this point and will help you adopt the mindset that will help you break those behaviors. All the best to you.

Hey Bob, sounds like she is still in La La Land. You are never going to get through to her so stop having any conversations. Leave the house and don’t tell her where you are going. Become independent of her, she has separated from you, let her start acting like it.

Bob, you have incredible patience and forgiveness. From what I gather though, your wife sounds like she checked out from you, like the toothpaste is out of the tube. You are earnestly trying to get some back in but little progress. Is she treating you like a utility, not a person with feelings and needed?

I suggest you start reminding her that as a man I you will only take so much and if she doesn’t love you you need to move on. You will not be married to someone with no true love and commitment for you?

I wonder if your daughter knows there are family issues going on.

I hope ww starts to see the light.