Brotherskeeper
To preface: You sent me a PM and asked me to weigh in on your situation.
I went through your older posts…
To me it sounds like you and your WW avoid confrontations and allow things to reach the boil. Then when the pressure is too much you both lash out, threats about divorce and all that are made, you both sulk for a couple of days or weeks and then things go back to normal. Only things again reach the boil. Maybe a week, maybe a month maybe some months later. Its more like you two are distinctly separated individuals rather than a husband and wife.
This last post is no different. Despite your “I knew it” comment then I doubt much will change and frankly I expect you to next post 3-6 months from now when the pressure again builds up.
I think it might be a good idea for you to sit down alone and think really hard what you want.
Basically, it should be to reach a decision on if this is the woman that you want to grow old with.
Note I don’t say is this the marriage. This marriage is crap. It’s broken. To me it becomes an issue of do you want to create a NEW marriage with this woman or someone else?
Keep in mind YOU wanting something is not enough. Well… if you think this is not the woman for you then that’s totally in your hands. But if you still want to try… well… then you need her to be on the same course as you.
If you decide that despite the present situation then you want HER. Then your next step IMHO would be to ask her what she wants.
Be very clear here.
If it’s you and this marriage then a) this marriage is dead, whatever you two might have needs to be something new and b) you come with conditions. Not unreasonable conditions and not unilateral conditions: You plan on being monogamous just like you expect her to be monogamous. You are willing to commit and you expect her to commit.
Be clear that if she wants OM, pines for OM or whatever then she is totally free to go be with him. Make this very clear to her: NOTHING is holding her from OM or from reaching out to OM other than SHE HERSELF. You can’t and won’t stop it if that’s what she wants. All you can do is refuse to be in a sham of a marriage if she wants the OM. But it’s HER call on this issue. If she remains with you it’s because she DECIDED on her OWN free will to be there.
If either you don’t want this woman OR if she can’t commit to the marriage… well… accept it. It beats thinking things might be OK, letting the pressure mount up and then finding out she’s been googling OM or whatever.
The divorce? Well… frankly I think we tend to make too big an issue over the Big D. It’s definitely not a nice and enjoyable experience, but if both approach it with sense it’s not as bad as… say… discovering six months from now that she still thinks the OM is the White Knight. Make this too clear to her: Divorce is a better solution than remaining where you two have been for some time, and that the laws will ensure you both get a relatively fair deal in D. Fear of D is not a good reason to remain married.
But if you both want this marriage… Well… MAYBE start thinking you need to do something new. Something different.
I think that if you can both come to the table with honesty then it goes a long way. Where you simply look at each other and say, “our common goal is to make a marriage of the kind we both want”. Followed by “this is what we want” (where you place AND GET ACCEPTANCE for the demand of monogamy). Then you ask yourself how do WE as a team and WE as individuals get there? What changes do we need to make on how we interact? What changes do we need to do to ourselves? How do we reestablish mutual trust? What can WE do and where do WE need HELP?
Its not easy, and there isn’t any guarantee you two want the same thing or can make the changes, but for ME it beats the sh@it out of the present let’s let things build up and be dejected again path I think you two are following.
