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Some random thoughts ...

This was when she is suppose to be no contact with any male coworkers, unless its work related. I know I might be crazy, since the coworker is gay, but as my therapist said, "my wound is still open" and WS should be more sensitive to my needs at the moment.

She needs to stay NC with men except for business because it's a boundary she (presumably) agreed to, not because the wound is still open. Cheating is lying - violating boundaries is tantamount to lying - and there's no R without honesty.

Most people are at least slightly able to get turned on my people of multiple genders. I think your fear of the gay COW - do you know he's really gay? - is well-founded.

You can't change for both of you, except by rug-sweeping and letting your W do whatever she wants. She may or may not stop cheating sometime in the future. But is that what you want for yourself?

Gently, you seem to bury issues/avoid conflict. IMO, you're stifling yourself. Is that what you want for yourself? TBH, if you make a mindful choice to stay with your W despite her cheating, so be it. The great Olivier made that choice. But I really hope you don't doom yourself to a life of self-stifling.

[This message edited by sisoon at 10:17 AM, May 26th (Sunday)]

The bottom line is that your wife doesn’t consider sex to be a big deal. The analogy I use is someone that grew up in a culture where everyone ate pork.

Then they converted to a religion where it’s a sin. They know that eating pork will get them in trouble and hurt the people around them. But they will never feel guilty about enjoying some bacon if no one catches them.

Why? Because there is nothing wrong with bacon and the people who think there is are wrong.

Any consequences for her are unreasonable because what she did was only technically wrong. You need to get over it.

[This message edited by Michigan at 11:07 AM, May 26th (Sunday)]

RC

I really wonder what you’re trying to save? Your wife makes promises she doesn’t keep which says to me that she has zero respect for you. She should be moving heaven and earth trying to prove to you that she’s worthy of R. But every time you set a boundary, she violates it or argues with you and you acquiesce.

I’m sorry sir but you keep doing the same things expecting different results. All you are doing is setting yourself up for multiple days in the future.

This thread makes me so sad. You seem to have a WW who does not care if you are happy or feel peace or feel loved. At all. The fact that she won't follow any transparency directives or needs from you shows she just doesn't care enough to want to. The sheer selfishness she displays is so ugly.

The only thing sadder than her selfish behavior is watching you continue to want her when she behaves so rudely and ignores your feelings entirely. It is terrible to watch unfold. She does not deserve you; she does not deserve anyone.

RC,

You are keeping yourself in this loop. You have decided that you WANT to R, and want to do it ASAP.

With your destination predetermined, you have then made changes to yourself to suit that end-point.

Problem is, your WW who is supposed to be your co-pilot, is not on the same flight plan. She is supposed to be the co-pilot, but want to be captain instead. She wants you to change, but she does not have to change.

it might be a good idea to step-back, look at your M dispassionately, and ask yourself if this is the way you want things to go. The demolition of boundaries you have set, the blatant disrespect she has of you, is that all according to your plan, or are you ceding control over to your WW because you desperately want to R?

So, even though you desperately want to R, does it look like you are on a path to R at the moment?

In another thread, you said:

So my WW told me one time last year that she "does not hurt the people she loves".

I sat on it a couple days thinking I just heard it wrong or she meant something else. I then confronted her in regards to the statement. She said she recognized what she had said, but never explained or apologized for the bad statement. She did eventually apologize for the statement, but never gave me any clarity in regards to what she meant by that. I just unfortunately trying to rugsweep that particular conversation.

Dude, wtf. The only logical conclusion is that she is telling you she doesn't love you.

So we had some conversation yesterday and didn't really help the situation. If anything it demonstrates she doesn't have a clue to what is going on.

She said she is tired of the conversation with this gay coworker. And if he had a vagina, it would be a non issue. I was taken back by that in the sense...WTF. Of course it would not have been an issue, just like if OM2 had a vagina, that we would not be going through this!! Essentially trying to rationalize how she is right and how her justifications are right. The other night she conceded, again, no contact with males, besides work. But only because she was tired of the discussion. Not in the interest to make me feel safe.

She is also working with different heterosexual, married, male coworker with whom she is friends with. I said no friendly conversation, only work. She disagreed because she believes she would never have an affair with this individual. She sees him like a brother. There were only 2 male coworkers invited to our wedding. OM2 and this particular coworker. So of course I have to wonder. Would my wife had said that OM2 was just like a brother before any attraction started or right before the affair started?

Her family had a cookout yesterday after our chat that was essentially interrupted because our kids wanted my attention. So things were left off with no closure. She went to the cookout with the kids, I opted to stay home since I am not particularly a fan that most her family minimized our issues. An inlaw actually tried to minimize and refused to believe that WS did anything horrible that lead to an argument via text one time, just a minor mistake is I believe how that person perceives it. That believes that WS is doing EVERYTHING, moving heaven and earth, to bring us to R. Clearly a biased opinion.

But I attended the 2nd cookout we planned to go together. I felt like she was giving me the big F.U. at this party. Made me think that she complained about me to that one in law, and in law probably said you're doing everything right, don't let BH boss you around. So she essentially paid no mind at all to the NC with men at this party. I am not sure if she was doing it deliberately to tell me F.U. for telling WS no NC with men, or if she was just do dense that she didn't realize that she was doing it. I tried to stay away from her the rest of the party knowing she wasn't complying.

Literally, no point in setting up boundaries with this person. Our discussion before any of the cookouts was boundaries are set. It is black and white. No exceptions or gray areas. Any exceptions and gray areas are to be discussed. WS does not take liberties in establishing what is correct to do with exceptions and gray areas. But our conversation was mostly just me talking at this point.

She continues to perceive EVERYTHING I say that relates to her indiscretions as an attack. SO I said then we only need to talk in the presence of our MC. Then she complains that we can't just wait for MC to talk. Yet she makes no effort to talk to me about our issues. More importantly, she makes no effort in understanding my stance and viewpoint. All conversations establish that only how she views the world is correct. I try to constantly explain things, use metaphors, blunt explanation, I've even drawn out literal pictures for her. And she is unable to understand. I have some coworkers I do discuss my matters with to try to get an understanding if my views can be valid or completely BS. I also reuse the metaphors or blunt statements to see if its makes sense to other people, not just myself.

And she is unable to understand.

I think this is where you are tripping yourself up. You keep trying to find the perfect way to explain to her just how she hurt you and just what you expect going forward, and you think if you could just find the right words, everything will click for her and she’ll be the wife you want her to be. But here’s the hard truth:

She does understand. She just doesn’t care.

When you accept this, everything will become much clearer for you. I too was married to a cheater who just couldn’t seem to understand. When I realized he could and he just didn’t care - about me, about our marriage, or about our family - the decision to divorce him became much easier.

She has shown you who she is. Repeatedly. Start believing her.

You are having a very difficult time accepting the reality of her not caring. You desperately want her to, but your level of desperation and 'want' is evident to her.

And because of this she knows you're not going anywhere! She may even see you as a whiny little brat who needs to go in the corner and play with his toys quietly, knowing in due time you'll come around.

Her obnoxiousness, arrogance and narcissistic tendencies that fostered her unfaithfulness remain intact and sadly you are collateral damage.

I'd even go as far to say she's closer to being a repeat cheater than being a reconciliation candidate. Hell, she's not even close to being a safe partner, let alone a remorseful and reconciling one.

[This message edited by Jorge at 12:59 PM, May 27th (Monday)]

I have lived a similar situation as you--in long term Rs and in marriage. I kept wanting to argue and fight my way to happiness in the R. Looking back on it, it was because people had not treated me well growing up, so explaining my hurt feelings and being upset with people--but keeping the relationship--was normal to me. People mess up and you get mad at them and you keep trying to make things work, be it sister or dad or friend or spouse.

No.

Turns out that is a dysfunctional upbringing teaching me that being upset at how I am treated is normal. It's not. Healthy people don't live this way, and you don't have to live this way. I now spend very little time with family members that disrespect me, and my H only remains as long as he treats me like gold. And I treat him like gold in return.

Stop explaining.

She already knows exactly what is happening.

Save your energy.

You insult yourself when you explain what she already knows.

Stop standing on your head while she casually ignores you.

Be strong.

For you.

If you are not ready to D, then 180.

Detach.

Check out of her life.

Check into your own.

Cook for you.

Make your own plans.

Journal.

Go for walks.

Ride your bike.

Meet friends out.

Give her short answers.

Ask no questions.

Gray rock.

Do not engage.

You can detach from the belief that relationships require work, work, work (while the other person does little). They don't.

RC...

File for D already. If that doesn't get her head out of her ass, nothing will and you're better off without her.

So I went ahead and purchased the "How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair" by Linda MacDonald. It was a recommended short read for WS's from this thread or another. I read the reviews and liked what I read from it as it hit certain key points.

I got it today and paged through it since some reviews said it would be wise to know what MacDonald is recommending and if I believe it is what is needed. I paged through it to ensure that I am in agreement with its content.

I left it on WS dresser. She has a stack of other post affair books on her nightstand. She didn't read through it and left it on my bed. I approached and said that the book was for her. Her response was "don't you think I have been doing all that stuff". Not word for word, but you get the tone. I said "I think you are doing some of it, but not a lot/all of it." I mentioned I paged through it to ensure I agreed with it. She continued to show no interest. So I took the book back and said I'll completely read it and take notes to see if I can get an understanding of what she is lacking then.

She recently said it feels like we are drifting apart. I feel like she is pushing me away and I am merely reacting to it.

[This message edited by ReceivedChaos at 5:22 PM, May 27th (Monday)]

So I took the book back and said I'll completely read it and take notes to see if I can get an understanding of what she is lacking then.

I can save you some time: shes lacking remorse.

Why do you continue to do the work for her? That's counter-productive and helps your marriage not at all.

Ugh. She could not be more clear in her desire to do what she wants, and what she wants is to not read your dumb affair books. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that she is horrible, and I'm sorry that you seem unable to handle the truth. It means she will continue to hurt you.

Imagine this scenario. For years, you wake up with inexplicable bloody lips, bloody nose, black eyes, etc. You're a very heavy sleeper and have no idea why this keep happening. Then one day through happenstance you find out that your WW has been punching you hard in the fact at night while you sleep.

You approach her with the evidence. She doesn't deny it, but she doesn't apologize for it, nor does she do any work to figure out why she does this or how she can stop.

So, naturally, your response is to twist yourself into pretzel trying to pretend you have a decent marriage worth salvaging? My friend, your thread is among the worst I've read here on SI. Everybody heals differently, I realize, and has his own level of pain tolerance, but unless you are one of those guys who is into pain, all of us wonder why you are not running screaming from this psycho you are married to. Seriously.

RC,

You are still doing the chasing. Please stop that.

As a BS, YOU are the prize that the WS has to win back, not the other way around. The WS has shown you what she thinks of you, by not respecting your wishes/requests/boundaries.

Why do you feel the need to pander to her whims and fancies? Why do you chase her so much? As a general rule, the WS MUST be putting in the majority of effort into the recovery process. The BS also needs to put in the effort, but the WS must be the one to change, or the same thing will happen again.

Your WW seems to be very willful, and is unwilling to change, as she sees YOU as the problem, not her (she has no problems).

She has expressed shame in her thread, but wants to bury her head in the sand, and hope that everything changes without her having to do anything about it. This is your biggest hurdle to a good R.

It would be good if you stand back, and look at your M as a whole. What does she bring to the table? Is it constructive, or destructive?

It has been made very clear by you and your WW that D is not to be considered. Why? Religious reasons? Legal reasons (some countries do not allow D)?

Look man. I am big believer in R, but you can't do that by yourself. You are not doing anyone any favors here. It is admirable that you want it to work, but based on the everything you've shared here . . .your W doesn't want to be M'd to you in that the way you want to be M'd to her. You need a different approach.

She wants to rugsweep this whole thing.

Is she still in contact with her "friend" that encouraged and helped her cover up the affair?

There is nothing wrong with pursuing other options. At some point doing everything and receiving nothing in return is going to kill your sense of self even further.

Her ? She doesn't seem to care enough to do any heavy lifting herself or anything that slightly inconveniences her. You don't earn someone's respect by being this accommodating. Plus your kill your self esteem in the process.

What is the pay off here ? I get some people think martyrdom is admirable, but martyrs aren't usually around to see the benefit of their deeds.

I am trying not to be harsh here. I really do think you need to be spending all this energy working on yourself. If your W wants to join you on that journey, fine, but it needs to be on your terms.

You both might be drowning, but your W can swim just fine on her own. She doesn't see the benefit in doing so. Time to swim to shore alone.

[This message edited by numb&dumb at 8:51 AM, May 29th (Wednesday)]

She does understand. She just doesn’t care.

I'd like to emphasize this because it's true. Does your WW have a hearing problem? Is she mentally challenged? No? Then she understands perfectly well what you are requesting of her. In fact, she understands it so well that she argues with you about it. There is nothing that you can say to change her mind.

So she's not doing what you need to be a safe partner. She doesn't want to do any more work on R because according to her, she's doing everything. You know, aside from all of the specific and reasonable things you have requested. Basically, this is as good as it gets in R for you and there's a high chance that she will backslide even further because she believes your boundaries can be argued against and talked down.

One of the reasons why she is acting this way is because she knows that you won't leave her. I remember that you had posted a bunch of things that you wanted from her before when you first joined. Granted some of them were controversial like a sanctioned RA and asking her to get a tattoo for you. I'm guessing those never materialized, did they? So she knows if she refuses your requests and argues with you enough, there's no consequences. You may complain and get upset but you never made any moves to leave. Never 180'd, never filed, never really did much other than accept her unacceptable behavior. So why do you believe she will magically change and do something different when she is doing exactly what you have shown her works?

You have to be willing to lose your marriage in order to save it. Until you can stand up to her and let her know that you will be making moves to end the marriage if she refuses to meet your requirements for R, this will continue. And there may even be another DDay in the future. What will not happen is R.

She is not remorseful in the least. She is not anywhere near a candidate for R. You know it. You just don’t want to face the reality of what it will take to get out.

If you decide to stay and keep dancing for her that’s fine. You are a grown man.

So at this point it’s all on you. But whatever route you choose, “R” or D. Own it.

Rant for today.

For the record, I base how WS interacts with other males by how she would have interacted with them before I found out. It is the baseline I use to make comparison on how she "performs". In mu opinion, she continues to treat every male as is there are no issues between us and we are not having an issues. Though her response/rebuttal is "I treat males the same way I treat females". Which I believe should not be the case. It has been an ongoing disagreement for 1+ months. Using previously stated situations, she continues to socialize with men as if we are not going through this hell right now.

We just had a conversation about "perspectives". She is so focused on only her perspective. She believes that I should trust her completely because she has said so. I tried to explain, using multiple analogies, to show tell her how important my perspective is in this particular situation. My perspective is I have a WS who has a long standing history of cheating on at least 2 separate occasions, did not establish hard stops/limitations (such as not messing around at work) etc. I do concede that there is the possibility that she could be doing the right thing, but I can not negate the idea that she is also doing the wrong thing.

I am suspecting the MC is trying to convince me to rugsweep the situation at this point. the MC wants me to "feel better", but offering no real solutions to get there. Just that I need to "let it go". I have brought up the situations on her socialization with men with the MC a 2nd time. The 1st time she was on board with me. The 2nd time it appeared that nothing changed from my WS end, so it appears she is pushing the responsibility of me to "let it go". Which is frustrating that our MC is only criticizing my techniques and saying that I need to change. But offer not advice that my WS needs to change. The last session was essentially that I need to do the work first. I need to change, I need to let it go. I need to stop having the negative outlooks or seeing negative possibilities. So I am quite frustrated with my MC. She says that we both needed to change, but only focused on what I need to change. The MC made a comment that my WS is not defensive. Yet I explained that WS acts completely different when it is just she and I having the conversations. That she is passing judgement on an hr session with us, 1 or 2 times a month. WS is very reserved when it comes to MC. I wish I could say the same when we are by ourselves.

I get the feeling my WS, still "does not get it". She does not see the damage and how I could possibly be so protective of myself at this particular moment. WS does not see the steps I am trying to take to guard myself from future situations.

When we text with each other she is extremely combative and defensive.

The conversations we have after those intense texts, WS essentially does not want to say anything. Then I get lectured on how I need to talk to her. Then when I talk to her, she clams up or I feel like she just wants to argue with me just for the sake of arguing. I starting to talk about an example of the importance of my perspective on a particular situation and she JUST HAD to interject/interrupt what I was saying to get her 2cents in. I stopped because its frustrating when I am only partially through my explanation to be interrupted. I told her to just say what she had to say at that point. Her point turned out to be irrelevant to my explanation if she had taken the time to hear it out before wanting to just argue about it. I got a lot of "I don't knows" after our texting fight with our in person conversation. Very frustrating considering she had a lot of say when we were texting. I wish sometimes that I was the WH (instead of my WS being the WW) because I feel confident that I would have handle the situation better. I would have been upfront at Dday. I would avhe showed her the effort that I have been seeking that my wife is worth holding onto. I would have been trying to make a noticeable difference in my lifestyle in demonstrating my remorse and that I was working on myself. I know I am capable of immense self reflection and self criticisms.

With that said I am not looking forward to next weeks MC. I have a feeling I am going to end up arguing my points with the MC. I had called her out on some of the statements she made, and she quickly had to change topics to avoid realizing she had put her foot in her mouth. Or when I called her out on how she is only focusing on how only I need to change. She quickly deflected and accused me of saying that is just how I perceive things as being all things negative. I recognize that we both need work, but don't sit there and just tell me how I need to do x, y, z without offering criticisms to WS on what WS can be doing or doing better.

End of rant. It has been a frustrating couple of weeks.

[This message edited by ReceivedChaos at 9:22 PM, June 10th (Monday)]