A short update today and probably nothing for a week.
We had an MC session recently. We hadn't had one since before she broke NC. In this meeting I basically repeated everything she has done wrong since the previous meeting. Broke NC, ignored my anxiety related to being friends with AP's friend, etc. She felt attacked. I apologized for not letting her know about all my complaints sooner. She shouldn't have really learned that information that way but it was the results of her actions that made me feel like shit. Sure she isn't responsible for my happiness, but she is definitely responsible for the pain she has inflicted on me. She agreed that everything would have been easier if she had just left her job in January. She put in the "extra effort" of maintaining boundaries daily because the job is important to her. She knew it would be a hard path but she was committed to it. She didn't go through with the coffee date, so she says she ultimately "made the right choice". She reminded me that the "modified no contact" was OK in "Not Just Friends". I pointed out it came with hard boundaries. The MC agreed. The MC was 100% backing me and my feelings. Saying that everything I asked for was reasonable, that it wasn't about power and control. It was about desperately searching for safety.
Immediately following MC, she was visibly upset and stonewalled until the next day. She clearly thought she had something that was going to change my mind and make me back down from what we agreed to just the week before. Instead it resulted in a more detailed blow-by-blow takedown of everything she did wrong and that I'm not just in a mood and I'm not backing down. This went on for a couple hours eventually ending with her having a panic attack (she has anxiety disorder, she wasn't faking it) and me helping her through it. After she got through the attack, I told her specifically that nothing had changed between us just because we fought and she had the panic attack. My goals, needs, and willingness to D have not changed.
We called a temporary truce to get through Thanksgiving. Once our (COVID appropriate number of) guests leave, it will basically be back to shape up or ship out.
If they are all like at an AA meeting, supporting each other's recovery and keeping it real when one of them elects to try to stray, well that's one thing. Do you really think your WW's friends are like that?
Or is it all still a little bit of a droll discussion among girls over rose wine?
I mean you've read text exchanges where they told your WW she was playing with fire with the OM, but how hard did they really try to dissuade her and what's been the follow up?
She complained about what a lost puppy you were to at least one of them. Did they tell her what a shitty thing this was to say about a faithful and strong man she was betraying, or did they kind of laugh along and give her smile emojis?
Do you think of these friends as continuing waywards, or as truly remorseful spouses trying to really get it and heal their marriages?
You guys are way too focused on the "lost puppy" thing. It's really not so insulting, and honestly it's factually accurate. She would open up to me about her mom's death and how she was hurting and I would just look at her silently. So "like a lost puppy" isn't so wrong. As for her friend in that conversation, no, she didn't defend me. They were both complaining about how their husbands weren't meeting their needs.
Ok, part 2. Yes, I think they are kind of like AA. In this respect, all the other WSs seem to understand the damage they have caused. They understand how fucked up they were and their actions were. My WW, being the ultimate minimizer, probably thinks she never even really joined their ranks, but instead is above it because she didn't fuck her AP.
Without getting into too much detail, I know that she was advised against breaking NC. I know she has been advised by multiple friends to just find a new job. I know that she was advised against making a friendship with APs friend. My WW ignored that advice because she doesn't think she did as much harm as the people giving her that advice. She really thinks that the hard boundaries make sense for people that fucked their AP, but she didn't, and things are over.
My WW's whole story is wrapped around her mother's death, and her own resulting identity crisis. She is trying to save her M, but she feels like quitting this job is sacrificing herself to her husband, which her mom did, which ultimately led to divorce and suicide. She very much fears becoming her mother. I know this just sounds like BS to many here, but I really don't think it is. If we consider that she thinks sacrificing something important to her for me will ultimately lead to her feeling worthless and killing herself, we can understand why she wouldn't want to do that. No AP necessary.
You may not be in a Mr Nice Guy trap. You are still not yet providing the needed-for leadership in this situation. And so your wife is the one taking the wheel and she is gonna drive you both into a ditch.You said that you changed the way you are behaving, but truth be told, you still need to go much further. The car is already careening off the road.
Everything you and she are doing now, basically you were already doing back in March it seems. There really doesn't seem to be progress here. I mean really...what is different here?
Her reading, promising to come up with a detailed plan, etc., all that is really window-dressing on your WW's part. If she really were serious she wouldn't be giving you just a plan--you know, the same plan she was giving you 6 months ago, she would have already been taking ACTION, such as quitting her job. And if you were showing the right leadership, you would take anything short of her quitting her job as "nothing".
As far as what is different this time, it's what I'm willing to accept to move forward. Like you say, before I would take what she gave me. Now, I simply say, "No not good enough." Which I've said maybe three or four times since giving her the D letter.
What I had from her in January, was a pretty good plan and verbal agreement. The walk backs started from there. I caved and caved. We had a big confrontation in April (following the massive discovery of our mutual friend's LTA and other information) where I asked for a D and she talked me out of it. She convinced me at that point that it wasn't an exit affair and that she wasn't looking to leave, which was still important to me. I accepted far too vague a plan from that point forward because both quitting the job during the fight and not quitting the job were both dealbreakers (I told her this at the time).
At some point I decided I would time the D for August because she was continuing to push boundaries. She then broke NC in late July, which SHOULD have pushed me over the edge. I was extremely busy with work and some deadlines for some projects. I was working 60-80 hours a week, and she was very kind and caring. She picked up slack with the kids and around the house and never complained I was working too much. I couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger. I wrote the D letter then, but I didn't give it to her. That was when "Not forgiven and not reconciled" began.
As has been, and continues to be the case, I want her to line up another job before leaving her current job. I have several pragmatic reasons for preferring this.
What is different here, is that the first time I asked for a plan, I had no real intention of D. I talked to the lawyer and it sounded shitty. It was a cudgel that I picked up on advice here that if I didn't make it clear that I would at least consider it, she wouldn't take me seriously.
The first time I asked for D, I didn't think it was actually the best option, but I didn't see how we would get to R. It was a D out of resignation. By the time we talked it all out, she had at least convinced me this wasn't an exit affair and I'm not a utility to her.
Now, I think that D is the best option unless proven otherwise. The problem isn't the A itself at this point. It's her ignoring the pain she puts me through in the aftermath.
