DeepFeeler,
I sympathise very much with what you have been put through by your wife. Make no mistake, it is abusive behaviour. Anyone who brazenly continues activities that they know cause a loved one pain, as your wife knows she is doing, is an abuser.
There is a chance that you may be suffering from shock to some degree, so please do watch your health and well-being. If this is affecting your performance at work, please talk to your manager about it. Are you eating alright, and keeping yourself hydrated?
I'm a bit hesitant about the MC now
If the MC session plays out the way they have in other cases where the dynamic between the betrayed spouse and the cheating spouse is the same as yours, your wife will use the session to play the cruelly neglected, rejected partner of a cold, distant man who never listens to her, and forced her to seek a sensitive, caring, listener elsewhere. And YOU will come away with a load of work to do on yourself, while your wife comes home and switches the game back on to talk to Jean-Claude in Brussels. And if you don't do your work, she will tell you that you clearly don't want to save the marriage.
This grotesque turnaround has played out many, many times in this forum, when a cheating spouse decides to use MC to validate their behaviour. It was your wife who suggested MC, so you need to prepare yourself for her having an agenda for it. At the very least, I think you should be making a list of what your boundaries are, and a second list of the things your wife has done. Take them with you, and insist that they get discussed. If you are going to that session, you need to have your own agenda, and make it work for you.
As others have said, and as you are realising yourself, your wife needs to own what she has done, and have individual counselling to investigate why she thought it was an acceptable way to treat you, before MC can be effective. Otherwise, you are putting a band-aid on a broken leg.
After a discussion last night I told her that the D papers were already filled out...I could see the depth of this all fell on her and I think she is starting to come to grips with the depth of the whole situation.
I am saying this gently, but is there a chance that you are projecting what you want to see onto your wife? Most people, when told divorce papers have been drawn up, will have a strong reaction. It sounds like your wife barely reacted to it, leaving you to try and interpret a subtle change of expression as a change of heart. Did she beg you to reconsider? Did she say she will give up the game and fight for the marriage and family? If not, where were the signs that something as serious as breaking up the family had any meaningful impact on her?
Though she still denies any emotional or other type of attachment so her road is still a very long one.
If that is the case, why did she suggest MC? According to her, there is no problem, at least not with her behaviour. So where do you think she believes the problem lies? Prepare to be the scapegoat, DeepFeeler.
She jumped in game briefly last night to handle a couple of transactions for her land plot and later mentioned he was on but she didn't want anymore drama so she didn't talk to him.
Ah, this will be one of those telltale signs of how seriously she is taking the issue of divorce and the damage her participation in that game is doing to the family. She is clearly hugely anxious about it, isn't she? Sorry, I am not saying that to be hurtful; I just think you should not project any remorse or concern onto her where none exists, because it will prevent the full extent of the issues from being properly addressed. And unless the problems are full explored, addressed, and neutralised, a viable reconciliation will not be possible. And reconciliation is what you want.
I see this as a risk to her building resentment so I did remind her that she is free to do as she pleases, just not with me as her husband.
Bigger's "not as my wife/husband" response is a great approach to take, because it puts a clear separation between the actions of a cheating spouse, and the response of the betrayed spouse. The fact is, we cannot control what another person does, so saying, "You do what you like, and I will respond to it as I like" puts the responsibility very much where it belongs, with the cheating spouse. However, you should not let her resentment of you objecting to her inappropriate interactions with another man influence your actions. It is like worrying about one of your kids resenting you for objecting to them having a cigarette or a beer. Would you let that stop you from taking action?
Transparency with the phone was discussed but didn't and likely isn't going to happen
Well, that right there is an issue to bring up in MC. Your wife wants to hide the nature of her interactions with another man, and has not lived up to the promise she made to be transparent. How about making this a condition of reconciliation?
Your wife's tendency to have a childish tantrum if she is given an ultimatum is nothing more than crude manipulation and an attempt to get her own way, like a kid in a store screaming until their weary parent buys them what they want. And we all know what happens when you give in to that behaviour; you get a tantrum every time you go to the store, because the child has learnt how to get their own way. A wise parent soon learns to say, "You can scream all you want, I'm not giving in. And you know what? We were going to stop for ice cream on the way home, but because of your behaviour, we are going straight home."
They use snapchat both for voice and texting/messaging
As others have said, it is a classic cheaters' app, and another thing to bring up in MC. Ask why your wife is so desperate to hide her interactions with the other man. There is absolutely no reasonable justification for this behaviour, particularly when you have made it abundantly clear to your wife that it is causing you pain and damaging the marriage/family. If you do go to the MC session tomorrow, ask your wife to give a commitment to stop this secret communication, and tell the counsellor that if your wife continues with this behaviour, it is going to destroy the marriage.
while I want to support her if she is trying to quit, I'm not sure I can handle an addict trying to recover while I'm working on myself and trying to get myself pieced back together. I'm hoping she has the strength to do this, but sometimes it's hard to see that light and I don't know if she can do it alone.
DeepFeeler, she is not ill, she is deliberately betraying you. There is a difference. Your sympathies need to be with yourself and your children, and protecting the marriage and family from the damage your wife is doing. She is not suffering; you are. And she knows it, and she knows about the divorce papers, and she still gets onto that game. This is not a time for sympathy, it is a time for letting her know that her behaviour is unacceptable if the marriage is to continue.
Her job is incredibly stressful (abused kids, traffic'd people and all the atrocities that come with it.) Understand I am not making excuses, I have just always understood this is how she unwinds. This has always been a release for her to just kind of unplug and be someone else for awhile, it's just never gotten to this level of... before.
To want to unwind from a stressful job is legitimate. To do so by betraying a spouse and children is not. If your wife knows about the pain of abuse, she should not be abusing you. What gives me concern is that your wife seems to be part of the way along a classic 'arc' that begins with inappropriate discussions online and which culminates in a physical affair. She is crossing one boundary after another, and if her online boyfriend were not in Belgium, she might well already be meeting up with him 'to talk' face to face.
So, if reconciliation is to become a viable reality, escaping into online fantasy with other men has to cease being your wife's chosen vehicle for coping with stress. There's another item for your list of conditions of what you need to consider reconciling.
I would suggest that the two of you find an activity that you can share, whether it is exercise, or meditation, or talking and listening. Your wife should not be turning elsewhere, because there are many, many, many men out there who use being a sensitive listener as a way to hook a woman into a sexual relationship. And one thing that many wayward women say is that they traded sex for the emotional attention they got from a predatory man.
She is coming to grips with the mess she made and was apologetic prior to the drama comment.
Jumping on the game again is not 'coming to grips' with anything. Being apologetic is simply pacifying you; she has not stopped the game, nor has she given you transparency with her phone, nor has she ceased contact with the other man.
She did however noticed my exiting the room and followed shortly after me to make sure I was ok...I say this only to show she isn't a black hearted monster.
She may not be a "black hearted monster", but she is the person who gave you the pain and the panic attack in the first place, isn't she? Giving you a cuddle and then continuing contact with the other man is not true consideration, it is pacification. There is a difference.
Eventually I'm hoping she can admit what it was because as I know and many have mentioned, until she can face/acknowledge that there really is no moving forward with or without counseling.
Is there any kind of time-frame that you have attached to "Eventually"? If there isn't, you may be in limbo for as long as your wife wants to contact other men. What encouragement is there for her to remove her head from her behind in the foreseeable future, unless you set your own agenda for how long you are prepared to tolerate her infidelity?
Apologies if that sounds harsh, I am honestly saying that because I care about what this is doing to you, and because your wife is not doing anything significant that shows she is going to change her ways. If anything, her acts of pacification indicate that she is not taking this seriously at all, and that she believes she can drag this out for as long as she likes.
Planning to get out and enjoy the weekend and take the kids out, just up in the air on if I should include her if she wants to go or I if should just talk to the kids and see if she asks or wants to go with us.
As others have said, I think you should just take the kids and go without asking her. Independent action from you is the best way to make it clear that you are your own person. Does she ask you if it is okay for her to contact her friend in Belgium before she does it? There's your answer.
DeepFeeler, situations like yours can be salvaged, but not by indulging bad behaviour, and not by letting it drag on indefinitely while hoping that the perpetrator will somehow see the light. You may not be able to control her, but you can control your responses to her actions, and you can make it quite clear to her what is and is not acceptable to you. You have a few days left until the divorce papers are served, and I think you should use that time to really think about what you need her to do before you will consider reconciling with her.
Your wife said the other day that she and her Brussels sprout discussed their boundaries. It is time for you to figure out what yours are, and to stand by them. This gap before the divorce papers are served is the ideal time to do that. Do not waste it.
