SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

You need to shit or get off the pot.

What is the point of MC at this junction in time? And why in the world would you include it as a requirement in a divorce document....other than to discuss how and when to tell the kids?

No. Don't sleep in the same bedroom as your WW. You're done with her, 'member? Kids ask? You tell them that your back hurts.....until you and WW have some sort of game plan -- which needs to happen sooner rather than later. UNLESS....you seem to work nights. I would think that it would be ok to sleep in your marital bed as long as WW isn't lying there next to you....

Thank you for that dose of reality. I think my pendulum was swinging back for a moment.

Kids asking questions about sleeping arrangements I can deal with, it's up to her to tell her mother and our guests what's up.

I do work nights but not every night, so I think it would get confusing if I was back and forth. Plus, she is still in bed when I get home for an hour or two.

Thank you gonnabe2016 for keeping me on track.

TR

Thinking about the sep agreement. I'm creating a pre-divorce finalization section for certain things. What do you think about putting in a requirement for continuing MC?

I would consult with an lawyer before presenting her with anything.

Anything that you do that has to be redone or modified by state and county law is going to be a further stall.

Disengage. Pay for not only the skill and advice, but for someone else to 'handle' it.

She is good at the power struggle with you, she has had years to figure you out. It will be much harder for her to linger and force continued contact when you have a representative working for you. Take yourself out of the equation and she will have to deal with someone who will treat her like an adult.

And by that I mean. No lingering. No worrying. No wading in the water where she can pretend the divorce is 'just talk'. Let the papers and the lawyer hit her right between the eyes and clear her vision a bit. Or not.

If you go the do it yourself method then you need to work very hard on maintaining the focus on results. This is business and if she wants to go off on a tangent, it is your job to pull her back or walk away.

Stay out of the marital bed if she is in it. And as you get firm, look for more panic and frenzied attempts to get you back in the fold. If she can get you in bed, into hour long talks.. that is one more moment, hour, day that she maintains the cake eat, the status quo. And know, if you participate, you are helping her perpetuate having the both of you. And that is her end game. Don't let yourself forget that.

If you do speak to her, make sure you have an exit plan. Stop rambling on the beach where you are both 'stuck' if the other decides to wander off. Limited contact on kids and finances. There are things you can control. Start doing so.

Consider heading down to D&S Forum. They have BTDT and can give you come concrete tools and options for dealing with the kid/tenant/MIL issues.

[This message edited by redrock at 8:46 AM, August 2nd (Friday)]

All of your advice is very much appreciated and I am taking it all into consideration. Please believe when I say that I am not discounting anything.

One way I look at things: She's been doing this stuff to me for years, manipulating me and deflecting and blame-shifting. Akin to a sniper having taken head shots at me for years and hitting every time. Now...I've chosen to stand behind bulletproof glass. Every time a bullet hits the glass I can wave and smile at the sniper.

I've smartened up, she can try to manipulate me but I've taken the power out of her attacks.

I have accepted that D and 180 is the only resolution unless she comes to her senses.

On that note. I feel that every relationship is different and while all(most?) WS do the same things we can take back control and turn their game back around on them while appearing confident and in control of ourselves. I'm at the point now where my strength has returned, my pity party is over.

I've weighed my options. D is proceeding.

I wish we could afford lawyers, unfortunately due to our economic situation we cannot. It would bankrupt us and I'm not ready to put my children's future at risk over something that I'm smart enough to figure out on my own. Even if it lengthens the process. I understand it's not ideal or advisable, however it is our only option. I make enough to not qualify for free counsel but barely enough to keep us going. Life in the middle class sucks.

I presented her with a draft sep agreement and D papers this morning and asked her to read them so we can discuss. She did read them and said there are a few things that she would like to talk about. We didn't have time to do a full review but I asked her for a few examples. Property her mother has in their home country and the proceeds from that if it sold/rental income. A requirement for living no more than 40 minutes away from each other once separate households are established. The property I let go, I thought it was in her name but it isn't. The distance I stood firm, she said well what if I want to return home and resume my career there. I told her that she would be going without the boys, that I needed and they needed me to be a part of their daily lives. That was non-negotiable and that if she wanted that we would have to get lawyers involved, though I don't think any judge would allow children to be taken to another country, especially one with no extradition treaty with the US. But as I said, no time to talk fully as I had to get ready for work so the conversation passed although I stood firm with her.

The sleeping situation. This morning when I got home I slept in our bed. She was there for an hour before she got up. Later when I spoke to her I let her know immediately that the only reason I was there is that we were not ready to tell the boys what is going on. On the mornings I come home from work I will go to our bed. On the nights that I'm home, I'll fall asleep on the couch watching TV and come to bed before the boys get up or they'll find me on the couch and it's an easy explanation.

Her: Well you fall asleep in our bed watching TV, why not just do it there?

Me: Because we are getting divorced and I don't want to sleep in the same bed as you, but as I explained, since we're not ready to tell the boys, that is how it will be.

She looked defeated and that was the end of the conversation.

We had an MC session scheduled for Monday, 08/05/13. When we had our conversation on the beach two nights ago, after I told her we'd be divorcing, she reminded me about it and told me to not forget to cancel it. At the time, I had told her that I needed to inform him of this development and that I'd go alone. She accepted that.

This afternoon after the conversations above, she said that she'd like to come with me to the session. I told her that it was her choice. Now that I have time before the session, I feel I can gather my thoughts and be prepared to stand up to any final onslaught she may give there.

A long road ahead, but one leading into a bright, green forest, not the deadly swamp I've been mired in for years.

TR

I've been unable to update as I've had vacation all week, but here's the story.

I had been set on proceeding with the D. We went to our last MC session on Monday. I started out right away by telling the doctor that we had reached an impasse and we had decided to file for divorce. He asked us a lot of questions and the session began getting very tense. She and I were firing off lots of information, some informative, some argumentative and some just plain insulting.

The doctor shut us up after 15 minutes and for the first time since we began seeing him he peeled back the layers of this affair and got to the root cause of why it happened, what in my wife allowed it to happen and what our options were.

Basically the whole past 4 years was rooted in my wife's lack of fulfillment in her life outside of marriage, home, kids. You've read about her past, she was career, in the arts and suddenly she's in another country stuck in a house with 2 kids, not much money and a husband who works long hours at night.

I got it. Even better, she got it. Exactly what she had been unable to put into words.

Our session ran over by a half an hour and we talked a lot. Our MC said goodbye and asked that we call him if we'd be continuing our sessions.

Now, neither of us had said anything about reconciliation in the session. In my head we were still on track for divorce. Outside I walked away from her and lit up a cigarette. For a minute she stayed away and then came over and burst into tears. She told me that she loved me and didn't want to lose me. She said she was sorry for the pain she had caused. She said she understood what HER problem was and was willing to fix it in a healthy way, no more seeking fulfillment outside the marriage from other men.

I held firm and told her I would no longer tolerate lying, cheating, etc. She agreed. She brought up her desire to teach yoga and I said we'd do anything we could to get her in a training program.

It was nice to finally get acknowledgment that what she did was wrong, for her to show remorse and at the same time come to an understanding of what the cause of the past four years was.

Moving forward now. Each day has been better and better. She had been coming back to me for the past couple months, showing more affection and intimacy. Now it's getting more fulfilling because I can enjoying knowing she is remorseful for her transgressions.

I'm still vigilant and somewhat wary, but it seems to me that this could be coming to a close in time.

Trust but verify. Forgive but do not forget. Party on, Wayne.

TR

so...

are you going to do ONGOING sessions with your pyscologist about strangling your wife?

I am surprised, very disappointed and quite frankly DISTURBED, that it has only been myself and StrongerOne that has brought this up. I saw you deflect before in response to StrongerOne's question.

So I ask you what are YOU going to do to ensure this doesn't happen again. I don't give a shit about the circumstances surrounding 'WHY' you did it. There is no excuse.

So what actions are you doing?

" Fact, I had never been in a violent confrontation in my entire life up until that point and have not been since. It has been discussed with my IC the day after it happened and we both understand it was a one time event."

You need to change IC then...

As for the leg thing, sorry, I was trying to bring the tone back up a little bit by sharing a story of a playful incident gone wrong and I would ask that you go back and re-read those sections of my post with this explanation in mind. "

Right...

You may not be a wayward in terms of infidelity, but that is breaching your wedding vows too.

This is the last and first time I am commenting on any of your posts

I am far too disturbed.

[This message edited by lauren123 at 7:11 PM, August 10th (Saturday)]

This is the last and first time I am commenting on any of your posts

Thank you lauren123 for not commenting on anymore of my posts, you are locking on to one point of my story and not seeing anything in my responses and explanations other than deflection. Not the remorse I felt for doing what I did or that I did speak to a counselor about it. Not the completely lack of any violence in my history.

The first incident was not a strangling, I put my hands around her neck, note, I never said I strangled her or applied pressure, I merely pushed her to the sand.

Thank you for taking one set of words and turning me into a wife abuser. Never did and never would again.

You may not be a wayward in terms of infidelity, but that is breaching your wedding vows too.

Breaching my wedding vows? WOW. For a playful punch on the leg?

As for that playful moment....my wife has punched me in the leg too, the arm as well, she's also smacked my ass pretty hard and I squealed. I'll make sure she seeks out professional help for her violent tendencies.

I am surprised, very disappointed and quite frankly DISTURBED, that it has only been myself and StrongerOne that has brought this up.

Maybe because other people can accept someone's remorse and explanation as valid instead of jumping to conclusions and berating them and labeling them an abuser. Sorry.

I also don't lump StrongerOne into that category because he/she didn't respond afterwards, which I hope was an acceptance of my explanation.

TR.

[This message edited by TemporalReset at 7:27 PM, August 10th (Saturday)]

Breaching my wedding vows? WOW. For a playful punch on the leg?

You being blase about leg punching and bruising is disturbing. Whatever way you put it, pushing, strangling etc. That IS abusive. And you're incredibly blase about it.

As for that playful moment....my wife has punched me in the leg too, the arm as well, she's also smacked my ass pretty hard and I squealed. I'll make sure she seeks out professional help for her violent tendencies.

Your 'humor' leaves a lot to be desired, that's not dark humor. Might be awkward humor but considering: the strangling, pushing or whatever you would like to call it, doesn't seem to be a good idea.... hey? Sounds pretty abusive to me. Also, you mustn't have a very good IC, from the way you have portrayed the 'conversation' about it.

So since I've been able to respond to your post so you can properly comprehend it. Hopefully that will be the last post.

Unless I need to explain it again.

Your missing the point, what are you going to do to ensure that it doesn't happen again? What are you going to do that when you are confronted in such emotional turmoil that you don't do that?

Seriously, it's a fight or flight response. You've shown you're a fighter, you use techniques so it doesn't happen again. What ACTIONS are you doing so it doesn't happen again?

You love to paint yourself as a good guy. I would be really really interested to hear your wife's interpretation of all of the events.

Have a good day.

---------------------------

ETA: since seeing your post...

Wow, you are really not remorseful, you can't reply with what you're doing about it. Becuase you're not doing anything, at SI we have Actions= remorse. You seem to be a very controlling person as well. Very sickening. I wish your wife all the best in the world and hope she remains safe.

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[This message edited by lauren123 at 7:58 PM, August 10th (Saturday)]

I'm actually not blase about it at all. Again, if you read and see my remorse for what I did and that it is not the type of person I am and that I discussed it with a counselor, you might see that.

You'd prefer to try to label me as something I'm not. See what you want to see, but please, stick to your guns and stop commenting on my posts. I came here for relationship advice, not to give advice on how to accept that some people actually do tell the truth and that they can be remorseful.

Thanks!

Sorry, dude, I have not responded because I was irritated by your response and did not want to go off without thinking first.

You're getting into semantics here. So, it wasn't strangling. You "just" out your hands around her neck and forced her to the ground. Doesn't make it better. If anyone had done that to me, I would have been terrified. And then I would have pressed charges.

Maybe you have addressed it in IC and will never do it again, are sorry, etc. My point was that you were joking about it, and my point now is that you don't seem to be getting why a couple of us think "this one point" is serious.

Regardless of what your wife has done or continues to do -- and you'll get no argument from me about her behavior, she's seriously f'd up and I think you would be wise to divorce her -- anyway, regardless, the hands around the neck and pushing incident is a bad one.

Playful leg punching -- ok, I get it, if you're both messing around like that, fine. But please stop being defensive about the other incident. You are in the wrong on that one.

[This message edited by StrongerOne at 8:14 PM, August 10th (Saturday)]

StrongerOne,

I wasn't joking about that incident. It was sandwiched between humor and that was inappropriate. I'm sorry it seemed that way. However, I thought by my responses that I had made it clear that:

I do not take what happened lightly.

It is not in my nature.

I spoke with a professional about it.

My wife, a woman who would not stand for physical abuse, understood the moment and has forgiven me for it.

I get why you think it's serious but it seems that you are trying to make it a pattern and a character fault rather than an isolated incident to which I am repentant.

By these admissions I'm not being defensive (with its connotations) but I am defending myself from someone trying to pigeonhole me into the role of an abuser. I shared a moment I wasn't proud of and have so far made amends for.

Sometimes you have to let people apologize and say they're sorry and show that they understand they did something wrong. I thought that people here would understand that.

TR.

abuser.. I don't believe you are.

you reacted to a trigger. Loads of people here have reacted to triggers.

I remember one woman who claimed she had pushed a bookcase over onto her WH.

I don't see what else you can do except what you have done: realize it has gone too far, detach and address why it happened.

You have a complicated situation and my own opinion is so what if your wife suddenly understands she is a cheater because she has enough wits to lie and cheat, but not enough wits to get a job in a new country, or to choose new friends with similar interests.

So are you going to re-engage or keep walking through the door?

Kalli,

Thank you for understanding my "hands on" situation.

As for the wife. It's not so cut and dry as "she couldn't get a job in a new country". Before the birth of DS1 she worked here and was active. Together we decided she would be a SAHM. We couldn't afford daycare and honestly, didn't want someone else raising our child. The isolation, depression and loss of her career dreams got to her and she went down an inappropriate path. I am not excusing her. She chose that path and now it seems as though she is understanding it. The wit to find friends with similar interests: Unfortunately this is how the EA started. She and the OM shared quite a bit of interests. It was her lack of fulfillment that led her to blur the boundaries. Same with the first OM, they offered her something she was so desperately lacking and she convinced herself it was okay. Again, I'm not excusing her or defending her, SHE made a mistake that segued into a 4 year nightmare and she is being held accountable for it.

Our situation has changed now. Her mother is permanently living with us. Our children are of school age. Even when she would be at work it's a family member and not a stranger with the boys. With the help of our doctor she has realized what she's done and why. Time to move forward. She will pursue a career that will fulfill her needs outside of the home.

With this in mind I can't, in good faith, walk away from someone who professes to want to get back on the right path. We'll work on it together. I have decided to re-engage. And just these past few days I have seen a real change. But please, trust me when I say, I am in this eyes wide open and the first sign of her old ways and the situation will be addressed. She was never good at hiding this stuff to begin with.

She told me what was going on with OM1 before it happened and I was so detached I ignored her warnings. It took me less than two months to figure out what was going on. OM2, I knew what was going on from the start, I/we just did everything wrong. Then, I was afraid of losing her and I gave in to her WS ways. Now, not so much. I have already committed to D as the solution if SHE can't fix herself.

So...yes, re-engaging and making damn sure she stays on the straight and narrow.

TR

It was her lack of fulfillment that led her to blur the boundaries.

No, it was a lack of boundaries that let her fuck around with someone else.

Lack of fulfillment, that doesn't mean jack shit. She could take up knitting.

Sorry, I disagree. Take someone who was extremely career oriented and who was extremely committed to a healthy relationship and take that external fulfillment away from them. Boundaries can be crossed. Literature shows that boundaries can be crossed before a person even knows they are doing it. You are trying to posit a "chicken or egg" argument to this when it's not that type of situation.

My wife was a very faithful woman, as I'm sure many WSs on this site were, and she had many opportunities to cross boundaries prior to the past 4 years and she handled them all well and remained faithful.

We are all unique individuals and while many, if not all WSs, follow a script for their infidelity, saying they are all lying, cheating bastards at heart is a disservice to them. No matter what 'evil' they've perpetuated.

I believe my wife traveled the road she did out of a lack of fulfillment and that it led her to cross boundaries.

Tell her to take up knitting and she'd laugh at you. Knitting doesn't replace a career or lifelong friends or family in a another country or a lifelong dream that she gave up to be here.

We are all fragile and we can all break. Some people cheat because they're miserable bastards without boundaries, some because they've become lost. You can't lump them all together. That would be like saying everyone who cheats is a sex addict or everyone who cheats is a porn addict.

My wife hurt me. She did the worst thing someone could do to their spouse. I cannot believe that she had it in her all along because that's not the woman I married. That woman got lost somewhere along the way.

TR.

[This message edited by TemporalReset at 11:20 PM, August 10th (Saturday)]

The phrase "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" sums it up, and you still end up in hell. I'm not trying to posit anything other than the fact that your wife did something wrong, and the idea that it was because of a lack of fulfillment rather than crap boundaries doesn't work IMO.

She'd laugh at knitting, but cheating on you isn't a bad idea to compensate for a lack of fulfillment? There are many people who'd laugh at that too - who'd try their hand at knitting and find meaning in it before embarking on whatever path of self destruction an affair might lead them down.

You seem to assume I have a certain perspective of waywards. Why is that? Are you worried that if your wife isn't all that wonderful stuff except this one time, then she's all those horrible things you said?

Nobody is a cheater until they cheat. Martin Luther King Jr. was a cheater. That doesn't make the work he did any less great, and it doesn't make his infidelity any less wretched. His boundaries with other women were crap, no matter how visionary he was when it came to civil rights.

Of course your wife had it in her all along, because otherwise it would not have happened. Everyone has it in them to cheat. There is some set of circumstances somewhere that will help anyone over that line. That's why good boundaries are always blurry because they are kept at a distance where they can't be crossed. If you're so close to them that they're blurry then you haven't been keeping good boundaries.

Your wife may have been unfulfilled, but she could have chosen any number of ways to find that fulfillment. She chose to cheat on you. Twice, right? I read a great phrase from one of the waywards around here awhile ago:

"It's not the waters fault the cup is broken."

I read your post a few days ago but have yet to comment. This whole situation is sad.

I agree with a few others on here that if it were just a lack of fulfillment then she could have gone about that in other ways. The fact that she had these affairs several times over leads me to believe that she does have more of a problem then you are willing to admit.

Serial cheaters have more than just fulfillment issues.

as for the hands on incident---I think it was just a reaction at the time. But I could be wrong only you would know that.

I am personally troubled by some of the statements and demands your wife has been making. Hopefully she has taken a sep back and no longer feels she should have romantic persuits while pretending they are freinds she can't live without.

Her actions of leaving your children in the care of her mother most of the time (?) while she wanders around doing as she likes, speaks worlds about who she is as a person. BPD/NARC.. I don't know.

I don't blame you for having enough hope to try and give it another go. Maybe you feel you need to do that in order to be sure. I hope you will stay detached from her enough this time that if she let's you down, you can simply say you had enough and walk away.

Guard your heart and I hope for you that it goes well, but if I were you, I would be expecting this to start up again in about 6 months.

Basically the whole past 4 years was rooted in my wife's lack of fulfillment in her life outside of marriage, home, kids.

From what I've read in your self-described lengthy posts brings me to a different "simplicity statement", if you will, from the one you have posited above. I'd go with something more like this.

"Due to her selfish nature, my wife found minimal joy in her children, me and our family. Unlike many people who after having children become less selfish, this was not and is not the case with my wife. Teaching Yoga will not solve this problem - a problem which is rooted not in her lack of personal fulfillment, but rather in selfishness. Her choice to act on her unhappiness by betraying me, unfairly blaming me and becoming a liar was arguably the worst of the available choices. I remain concerned that her selfishness will in the future cause a similar betrayal, not due to her lack of personal fulfillment but for some other equally invalid reason."

"Due to her selfish nature, my wife found minimal joy in her children, me and our family. Unlike many people who after having children become less selfish, this was not and is not the case with my wife. Teaching Yoga will not solve this problem - a problem which is rooted not in her lack of personal fulfillment, but rather

in selfishness. Her choice to act on her unhappiness by betraying me, unfairly blaming me and becoming a liar was arguably the worst of the available choices. I remain concerned that her selfishness will in the future cause a similar betrayal, not due to her lack of personal fulfillment but for some other equally invalid reason."

This is so eloquently written and also the way I would view it.

I'm sorry, I know that's not the way you see it. From all that you have written it is clear to me that you are a romantic at heart, and that's lovely, but I think you are romanticizing something that is at its core quite ugly - infidelity. At any point she had the option to make a different choice and she didn't.

I hope that I am mistaken and you and your wife are on the road to reconciliation.