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The "why" (problem) she needs to be addressing has absolutely NOTHING to do with you. She has q coping skill problem. Even if you were a bad husband and didn't deserve to be married to her then she still should have confronted you and left. This would be the best approach for her. Instead, she lied to you, she slept with another person, she attempted to covered it up, and she still fails to recognize this as her problem. Her response to whatever problem she thought she had was incorrect.

DONT let yourself be sucked into her immature pass-the-blame whys. It's not uncommon for an immature person to blame others for their problems. It's a second grader response.

She is responsible for her actions. Her actions were completely wrong. She is not the Almighty she thinks she is. She well below average. It's time for her world view to be crushed or she should find another sucker to take the blame.

She has truly mentally damaged the relationship beyond repair.

She may seem remorseful to a degree but what actions has she taken? She knows you're still hurting, has she increased the frequency of counseling sessions, independent of you prodding her?

She she completely support you journaling your thoughts here and encourage you to continue to bear your soul in the same fashion that a drowning man grasps for the lifeline?

I can pretty much guess the answer. Most of our friends here who end up having long sagas (you, IcanOvercome, UnlovedAndBroken) end up having long sagas because they are matched up with narcissists. Not only does this make it easy to root for, but it makes for a messy process.

Over time, my WS's various answers were:

--I thought you didn't need me any more since you got tenure

--she listened to me and you didn't

--it was because of the terrible way you treated me in the marriage

--it was because of my low self esteem

--it was for revenge

--I wanted something for me

--I don't know. I have no idea.

I think he's close to incapable of serious introspection. He has a PD which precludes any serious attempts at either digging into the why's or considering R, for that matter.

Is it possible that Edith has a PD? Did she change after she got her degree and became more successful?

My WS is a vulnerable NPD, which essentially manifests as him feeling like a victim, with very low self esteem, and felt VERY resentful of me (without ever saying so). If ever he becomes successful, there's a good chance he will flip into the more traditional entitled, arrogant NPD, which your postings about Edith seem to fit. My WS is seeing an IC who specializes in PDs.

At this point, my marriage is not safe and I continue to try staying focused on myself until the time to D feels right, my patience runs out, or his IC manages to do some serious magic.

[This message edited by hpv50 at 9:21 AM, August 5th (Wednesday)]

And please create a different post-it for your mirror! Write down as many positive things that you can about yourself and stick it up there.

HPV,

I know the sticky note was over the top for me.

I define myself as a great dad 1,000,000 times more that as a cuckold. Just as you think of yourself in many different ways than a carrier of HPV. But it is a way of expressing disgust at your spouse for their betrayal and admitting what has happened.

The point there was that it is a truth in which I need to accept. It is a true statement. I cannot deny what my wife did to me any more. I need to view my reality with as clear a lens as possible. For me to come out of Limbo, I need to:

1) know the full truth (all that is relevant for my decision)

2) I have come to accept the full truth

While Edith has put me through hell trying to get the truth (beyond the realities of the affair), it is I who needs to stop blameshifting to me, or our lifes, or her health, etc. etc. I am an over the top optimist. I forgive too easily. My boundaries used to suck (if I had any) and I am a middle child pleaser. This perpetuated my pain.

So now I will know the truth. I will accept the truth, whatever that may be and face it, in all it's ugliness or beauty. And I will make my decisions on the reality, as best I can understand it.

So knowing my tendencies and my weaknesses, I am working to address them. I have denied in my mind my wife could ever do this to me. She was the "Class Saint", she had high morals, she was meek and amiable when I married her. She changed. I acknowledge that now. She is trying to change back and fix her anger issues, fix her resentment, fix her moral compass. I need to remove these rose colored glasses and see things for how they are, not how they were or how I hope they were.

Edith put a sticky in it's place. It says:

"I Love You With All My Heart."

As best I can tell, that is now true. As best I can tell, the influence and fog is fading. As best I can tell, she is working on herself. It certainly isn't perfect, but she's doing it in her own convoluted, painful way. She, like me, sometimes needs to take, as one SI'er put it, "The Long Messy Way Around".

Yesterday was my 8/4 anniversary. It snuck up on me and I didn't realize it until I was about to leave for work. I was an utter mess. Neither Edith or I were ready for it and I pounced on her with a accusatory "This Time Last Year!!" email and she tried to make the evening somewhat special / about me after I got home. We muddled through it.

Edith and I are in IC, MC, reading books and trying to put to practice the advise of them all while both working and rearing 5 children. It is overwhelming to say the least, but every day gets further away from her having sex with the OM. Every day gets us further from their "I have completely fallen for you". Every day the resentment for me fades, her love for me grows, and the thoughts of the OM have dropped to nil. Every day she tells me how sorry she is and how much she loves me. She has told me several times that I was right all along. That what I told her was the truth and she just couldn't bring herself to admit it. We have our backsliding but we have our progress too.

Although Edith has retired from posting on SI for the foreseeable future, she does read my threads and those of many others. She is learning a lot and working on herself. She's frustrated by the things many of you say and how you say it, but that's our life right now. A lot of frustration and a lot of work and a lot of change.

HPV, I have no trouble thinking highly of myself. That's never been a problem for me.

Thank you all for your comments. We are heading out of the country for a week or so with DD1 and DD2. It should be nice. You all take care.

NP5