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She just sent me another message saying that she will not "talk about this 24/7."

Means "I cannot creatively lie fast enough while you make me confront the truth. I'll give you many TT's and and additional Dday's during our false R while I try and figure out how to gain back control of the situation because I REALLY like that cake!"

She says she needs time to herself and to spend time with me doing something else.

Means "I'm going find a way to meet with the OM and coordinate how to push this A further underground. Meantime, I need you to go away so you can't be aware of what I'm doing."

Regardless of translations, stick to your requirements. She's the one blowing up your phone right now because YOU are laying down the law and sticking to it!

YOU are in the driver's seat right now. Don't let her get back in there and drive again.

Why don't you just call a time-out and stop all this negotiating. Give yourself some space to think about the situation without this pointless bargaining, when its likely she will take this affair underground the moment you reach 'agreement'.

She just wants an ignorant BH who will be happy with some sex thrown his way while she continues with her affair. You deserve better than this.

I purchased the book "Not Just Friends" per the recommendations here and started reading it. I'm finding that the advice given by the author is somewhat different than what I'm hearing from many of you. The author states that ambivalence by the WS is very common and no necessarily a sign that she won't commit to the marriage. The author says that the WS is conflicted and hurt and has a significant decision to make, and it may take some time for her thoughts to become clear. The author urges both BS and WS to defer making the decision to leave the marriage for 6 to 12 weeks. She also mentions that it is good for the BS to tell WS what is and isn't acceptable going forward, but not to go berserk when expectations are violated. I'm struggling with how to deal with the conflicting advice.

You are not going berserk. That book assumes you have two people who want to keep their marriage alive. Your wife wanted to keep her affair alive.

If you had been reading that book when you first posted you know where you would be. Nowhere. She would have still been lying to you and still in her active affair.

You are looking for a way to backtrack.

That is up to you.

If you want to keep reading while she stays on the job, keeps her privacy, and heals her relationship with OM, that is your choice. I would put the book away until you have a partner to read it with whose goal is the same as yours.

You do NoT have that now.

PS. I am sure if you keep looking you can find a book that says give her plenty of space to grieve for her OM.

You can also go there if you want to

[This message edited by Badhurt at 3:59 PM, July 5th (Saturday)]

Arggg, reading the posts about your WW's behavior have me angry for you...

My WS also refused to give me any passwords or to unlock his electronics..I knew full well that he could get new accounts and go underground, but I wanted his token effort at paying me a respect that I deserved...

So I withdrew the gift of R...We still live in an in house separation, but WH no longer has the best parts of me or a marriage at all..

He just has another body living in the house, a body that he knows can't wait to get the hell away from him...

So in addition to filing, just withdraw from your WW..No more discussion unless they pertain to living arrangements, money and such...She can learn that you are caring less and less about what is happening in her life or future ..

She should have caught on early after D-day that changing jobs was a must and that that having the A was a life changing and stupid selfish decision..

Instead she seems to think she deserves a get out of jail free card, even though she decimated several people's lives...

[This message edited by doggiediva at 4:13 PM, July 5th (Saturday)]

Badhurt is right. You don't have a wife who appears to have any significant interest in your marriage, except on her specific terms which may or may not include continuation of the PA underground. The book presumes a situation where both spouses have an interest in preserving the marriage and will earnestly talk to each other. WW here wants to speak her terms, have you click your heels and say "yes ma'am, anything you want". She isn't ambivalent at all. She's dictatorial. Constant contact with OM, no access to her electronic media, and her insistence on agreeing to her conditions are not hallmarks of a WW with any remorse for endangering the marriage and deeply wounding you as a husband and as a man.

Sure, walking out and filing for D because of the A may seem extreme where both want to save the marriage. Do you really think she wants to save the marriage, or some warped version of it that lets her cake eat?

I'm not trying to be harsh, but if you are conflict adverse by nature, you'll find many cites you can use to "prove" that pliability, not backbone, is the best course.

Read some threads here, especially the Wayward ones. Many female posters there admit they had more respect for their BH when he stood his ground. They admit that women admire strong men, not weak men. Don't be weak and get overly concerned about how she feels about herself and her carefully crafted image.

PBST, right now you have a power struggle going on and your WW is trying to gain leverage on you to dictate the terms and direction of your relationship from this point on. The only thing she is going to look for in the book "Not Just Friends" is a chapter on "How to keep Cake-Eating", which doesn't exist. Don't get me wrong, it is a very good book, but not for the moment when she is only expressing regret and is in full CYA self-preservation mode. Hold off on any of the recommended books for now as they are mostly for situations after WS complies to terms, is receptive to owning their shit, and are willing to stay in the marriage and work on it. For now, worry about the fight you have in front of you right now, which is the "Battle of meeting my 5 non-negotiable terms". Don't give ground. If there is a chance at R, it needs to be built from a solid foundation of honest effort, not false intentions. The only way you are going to flesh that out is sticking with your terms.

PBST,

I'll tell you what I told my wife when I laid down my conditions and she balked at first.

"I'm not asking for any more from you than I freely give to you".

In other words your "conditions" are easily complied with by a faithful wife. If she is 100% faithful, they aren't even a stretch.

I'd plant my flag and stand by it. It's an all or nothing game now.

I purchased the book "Not Just Friends" per the recommendations here and started reading it. I'm finding that the advice given by the author is somewhat different than what I'm hearing from many of you. The author states that ambivalence by the WS is very common and no necessarily a sign that she won't commit to the marriage. The author says that the WS is conflicted and hurt and has a significant decision to make, and it may take some time for her thoughts to become clear. The author urges both BS and WS to defer making the decision to leave the marriage for 6 to 12 weeks. She also mentions that it is good for the BS to tell WS what is and isn't acceptable going forward, but not to go berserk when expectations are violated. I'm struggling with how to deal with the conflicting advice.

PBST, I've been reading this thread; this will be only my third post in eighteen months since my D-Day. I believe your feelings are akin to what mine were, and that your wife's comments and attempts were similar. My wife was an strong personality, and I gave her all sorts of credence when she was angry. I, too, read "Not Just Friends," as a guide. And I got IC.

The bottom line is that YOU are the one taking a stand for your marriage right now, and I believe YOUR being strong for it is the only hope there is to save it.

Why do I say this? Because I DID what you constantly seem to want to do--"nice" yourself back into your wife's good graces. I believed that if i were simply wonderful and supportive of her enough--that if she knew how much I just plain loved her in spite of this betrayal--she'd come back to me. It was a COMPLETE and UTTER failure.

Oh, how I wish I'd faced the flack and took a stronger stand for my marriage. I WISH I'd laid down my requirements to stay in the marriage AND STUCK TO THEM. You've done the former; I applaud you for that. I believe your best hope is that you keep doing the latter.

I was so terrified of her leaving me, that I put up with ANYTHING in hopes she'd love me back and stay. Didn't work. Actually, it allowed her to stay in her fog and fantasy, and convince me that the entirety of our 30-year marriage was a total, unmitigated failure--ALL OF IT. I bought it because I gave her too much credence, when she was the one more dedicated to destroying the marriage.

SHE was the one who went, "berserk."

If you really want to get into the mind of a WS, read "Sexual Detours," by Holly Hein. Your WW's affair isn't a run TO intimacy, it's a run AWAY from it. "Sexual detours" are often a cry for help. In our culture, infidelity is the breaking of a mutual agreed upon contract… but it’s also a betrayal of the self. A self that is too frightened to confront what needs to be faced.

Here's the completion of the detour: Evil MUST be justified by the perpetrator, or their mind will implode. This is why your WW is fighting you so hard to cling to her narrative. As long as you permit that narrative to stand, she won't have to face her demons; she doesn't have face WHY she's made such pernicious choices and been so destructive to you, her, and your marriage.

I SO wish I'd seen taken the wonderful advice you've been getting here, and even more so wish that I'd have been able to follow through on it. Then maybe--just maybe--my marriage might have had a chance. But I didn't, and her narrative--to which she so tenaciously and vociferously clung--won the day. So, OUR MARRIAGE LOST.

Would my marriage have survived if I had been able to act on the advice you're getting here, and stuck to it? I cannot know. But I know now that it was the ONLY hope it had, and I was too scared and ignorant to stand up for it in the face of such an intimate and deadly onslaught.

I'm not beating myself up. I was in the deepest trauma of my life and had had no experience with this. It's how my ordeal went down and I didn't know any better. (That's why experience is the toughest teacher--you get the test first, and the lesson afterwards.)

You, however, still have a choice. You can do what I did, or--based on all the powerful, loving, and supportive advice you are getting here--give your marriage a chance by taking and committing to a strong stand for it.

If you want another book to help you stay strong, try also "Love Must Be Tough" by James Dobson.

I pray you have the strength to hang in there; to keep doing what you're doing. I admire you for that, and for searching so hard to do the right right thing amidst your shock and trauma.

Blessings, livinganew

[This message edited by livinganew at 12:43 AM, July 6th (Sunday)]

One more thing... My XWW also--literally and figuratively--often ran home to Moma and Papa for consolation and advice. Which is horribly ironic, since the FOO issues my XWW never faced drove her to her "sexual detour."

Their advice?... "The less said about 'it,' the better." "Just forgive and forget." As if that would help my healing and our marriage!

They were and are champion "rug sweepers," which is how my XWW learned to hide, lie, and avoid facing her damaged self--AT ALL COSTS--in first place.

[This message edited by livinganew at 9:04 AM, July 6th (Sunday)]

PBST2

Read the thread that says "l2Days" . You will see what you find out when you do not take control. No two situations are exactly the same, but your wife is behaving just like his is.

Once you read that I think you might decide to put down the book for now and decide not to waver out of fear.

The book was not written in response to your situation. At this point if your WW said ok to your conditions I would still be skeptical. Why? Because it would not be motivated by remorse for your pain or her actions. It would be about meeting what she views as a condition set by you that she doesn't agree with.

She knows you want R. She thinks she can use that to leverage you. She isn't approaching this like a M that she wants to save but a deal to close.

PBST2, How are you today?

PBST2,

Shut down. Move on. 180. Focus on yourself for a while. She's made her choice. Start to file if you have to (the process can take more than 6 months but definitely sends a message)..Negotiating while three people are in the marriage just doesn't work.

Good luck my friend.

My wife has agreed to the conditions and I believe we are on the right track. She seems to finally grasp just how bad this has hurt me and that she will need to demonstrate with actions that she is willing to work hard to rebuild my trust. I truly believe she wants to R and recognizes that it has to be completely over with AP at this point. I let her know that I am still skeptical and we have a long road ahead of us. I'm fully aware that I risk another betrayal and more heartache by letting her back in, but I believe it's a risk I need to take. This whole situation has made me realize that I WOULD be fine without her if it comes to that, but that I'm not ready to give up yet.

She is aware that I retained a lawyer. It was not my intent to tell her so soon, but I got caught in an awkward situation and decided to come clean. It seemed to shock and hurt her deeply. I explained to her my state-of-mind when I took those actions, and I think it really did send a message to her that I'm not putting up with this shit. In fact, that's what I told her. I said that through her actions, she had demonstrated to me that she thought she could do whatever the hell she wanted and I would stick around. She now knows I'm not fucking around, which I think is a good thing. Unfortunately, it took a large sum of money to send that message. The papers will not be filed. I believe she never had any intention of doing anything crazy like stealing money or filing for D.

From what I can gather, her AP's life is in shambles right now and they both know they can't continue things if they hope to get their lives back on track. I plan to be vigilant in making sure it stays that way.

I will update this thread with any new developments.

Repeat after me: watch actions instead of listening to words.

This may start a very long journey. She need to find out why she seeks external validation. You need to find out if you can live with the betrayal.

Do you think she still sees this as a negotiation where she's agreed to your demands and thus has you in a position to agree to hers for "fairness"?

Thanks for the update, PBST2. I like the energy and commitment you are building for yourself. I hope you see that only your strength in taking a stand for your marriage has made even this much possible. You must continue to stay strong.

I want to echo and highlight Schadenfreude's thought:

This may start a very long journey. She need to find out why she seeks external validation. You need to find out if you can live with the betrayal.

Her words now mean little; her ACTIONS mean everything. Whether her AP's life is in a shambles also means little. Unless she does the work to find out why she made such pernicious choices, her demons WILL lead to some future crisis.

Faithful WORDS were uttered at your marriage ceremony, right? What words now are more powerful than those?

If she really wants to reconcile, she will now do the long, hard, and painful work of learning WHY she so thoroughly both debased herself and savaged you. She has demons to face (as do we all); rug-sweeping them (for a "fresh start") enables them to thrive and do their work in the future.

It may indeed be a long road for you now, and impossible to know whether your marriage will survive. You cannot control the outcome--only your decision as to whether the A is a deal breaker for you; what your conditions are if you choose R; and, and your adherence to those conditions. The rest is up to your WW.

Blessings

[This message edited by livinganew at 1:06 PM, July 7th (Monday)]

PBST2

First, i want to congratulate you for staying strong in a very difficult situation. I know it was not easy.

If you marriage does indeed survive, I think you can give a lot of the credit to TWO decision that you made under duress

(1) TELLING THE WIFE OF AP . If his life is in shambles, and I hope you can verify that and do not just take your wife's word for that, think of where you would be if you did NOT do that. You would have had her continue to lie to you and keep this affair alive

(2) GOING TO AN ATTORNEY. That is the BEST money you will have ever spent because now that she knows that she is fully aware of the stakes of the game she is now in. Don8t let her forget it.

All of the celebrating aside now, there are still some major unanswered issues for you. The first is do you believe that you are not Plan B because you blew up her affair. Until that happened, she was absolutely determined on getting her way and keeping her AP safe and her A going. She has to prove that to you that she wants to commit to you because she wants your marriage to survive not because her affair was blown up.

And I hope you are insisting that she looks for another job and gives you total transparency as you go down this journey. If you think it is impossible for them to cool it until the dust settles and then restart it you are mistaken, especially since you know how strong her feelings were to protect him.

Lastly, I know you were not me. But if I were in your shoes, and had the power to do it, I would give this AP a little going away present of trying to getting his ass fired from his job by still going to their HR Department. At the worst, he will be called in and told he has had a complaint on his record, and he might just get fired. Either way, it might make him think twice before trying to fuck another man's wife.

Once you are done with him, you need to make sure you do not get lulled to sleep. You wife is the bad guy here. until she agreed to spread her legs there was no physical affair. You do not want to go down this road again.

I urge you to stay on this forum. You I believe have been helped greatly here by the people who took in interest in trying to help you, and you certainly are in a position from very recent experience to help others.

Stay strong

It seemed to shock and hurt her deeply.

That is maybe the one thing that is a constant in all affairs.

The WS never ever expects the hurt to be like it is. They never ever expect their spouse to be hurt. I really wonder how they can think that what they are doing will not hurt their spouse.

I know they don't expect to get caught in the first place, but then they are so shocked at the hurt.

When the WS finally shows their shock and hurt, it almost makes you want to grin and say, welcome back to reality.

Don't disappear. There are other topics here including General which is where you may migrate to now given the situation when other issues arise (and they WILL arise), or someday Reconciled (but not now, you AREN'T reconciled -- you've just heard her say she wants to start).

The posters here are smart (well, maybe not me) and have had many years of collective experience. You aren't the first one down this path and won't be the last. Save yourself doubt and agony by reading here and applying the appropriate lessons. Worked with the "stand firm" suggestions so far, hasn't it?