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JM72

I think most people are saying file for divorce because it sends a clear message to your WW that you are not willing to accept her continuing the A. you can cancel the divorce anytime before its court date, so its not a final stage. bit like shock and awe to get her to know your serious, and may be wake her from the Fog.

Concentrate on doing the 180 to get yourself into a good mental state, keep seeing your AA group / councillors.

Right now your health is the most important thing. Its a long and hard road you're on and you will often doubt you are going in the right direction, but keep going. Good Luck brother

look JM. Please don't go onto this 'self blame' stuff.

What she's doing is plain wrong and you need to end the bullshit now. 180, file for divorce and see if that rocks her world or if yo can find happier days ahead. You said you are no plan B Then prove it.

And BTW a dry alcoholic for 15 years is better than a current alcoholic for 15 years. That is not even a factor in this right now

Let's say that one day your wife, a mother of four who was previously quite reliable, started hanging out with a new gal friend at work. This new friend was heavily into methamphetamine. One day your wife confides that she tried snorting meth, loved the feeling, and wanted to keep doing it. Soon she was hanging out with a group of bikers who made and sold meth, gone for days at a time while you tended the kids and home.

Would you (A) allow her addiction to continue and grow, reasoning that she would one day snap out of it and could try to pick up the pieces of her life then?

Or would you (B) intervene by immediately starving her of all resources and financial support to allow her to hit rock bottom, all the while extending love and emotional support to her if she decides to get help?

Two bad choices. But tough love has a better track record of helping people than enablement. Tough love is harder at first but easier and better over the long run. Enablement makes things better today but makes them much worse in the long run.

By doing nothing but taking care of her responsibilities, you are enabling her craziness, and allowing her to go deeper into her delusion.

By telling her that you love her, but cannot tolerate infidelity, and that you are going to divorce her because she won't choose the marriage, you snap her to reality faster. You can divorce her and tell her that you love her at the exact same time.

Your counselors are incompetent.

Look JM, you seem to be missing one very important point here:

She has NO RESPECT for you. For many reasons …

She is the breadwinner and earns more than you. Whatever you say and no matter how modern she is, this never goes down well with women or society in general. A man that relies on his wife to make the main money is never respected and with time, wives act out on it. Not all but most.

You were an alcoholic.

You quit smoking and then started over again, blaming her. This does not suggest a very strong willed man.

Now you can diagnose her neuroses etc till the cows come home but she doesn't respect you. Now couple this with a bad moral structure and you have what you have.

I understand the bedroom fantasy with a black man thing but it definitely backfired on you due to her lack of morals.

I look at her as a sick person, not a bad person.

Just wanted to point this out.

A sick person with a weapon in her hand can still kill people.

If you take serious damage, it doesn;t matter if it was made by a bad person or sick person

Just because she is sick shouldn't stop you from protecting yourself of being ruthless when you have to.

It seems my friend, the psychologist, thinks this will fizzle out, just as the other therapist said. I can forgive her, and would forgive her, but we would both have to put the work in to heal.

Don't go with this friend's advice. While you can decide upon the merits of filing for divorce or not, her implication that you can forgive her or would forgive her while your wife is still in the affair is revealing Some therapists side with the woman no matter what the situation. Some therapists think that women are entitled to affairs and you can always reconcile after it ends. these opinions are usually agenda driven. Going into details might derail the discussion into un-necessary topics. So be very careful of receiving advice from this psychologist friend even in the future.

[This message edited by kimichi at 3:14 AM, March 22nd (Tuesday)]

It seems my friend, the psychologist, thinks this will fizzle out, just as the other therapist said. I can forgive her, and would forgive her, but we would both have to put the work in to heal.

What your psychologist friend is advocating seems to be something along the same lines as 'The Hero's Spouse' website. You are 'standing' for your marriage and will wait for your WW to go through her mid-life crisis before she comes back to you.

Whilst I understand and have an admiration for BS who are willing and able to put their lives on hold, potentially for years and years, living in limbo, not knowing when or indeed if their WS will ever return to the marriage, you have to ask yourself whether you are able to live in that state indefinitely in the hope that your WW may eventually remove her head from her ass.

We are all different and I may well be completely wrong but I'd guess (I have no evidence) that taking that approach 8 times out of 10 eventually results in catastrophic failure of the marriage due to the relationship dynamics.

Maybe have a look at that website and see what you think? If it helps you come to a decision either way then it will have been a positive in your journey.

Good luck JM72.

She is the breadwinner and earns more than you. Whatever you say and no matter how modern she is, this never goes down well with women or society in general. A man that relies on his wife to make the main money is never respected and with time, wives act out on it. Not all but most.

I actually agree with a lot of what's been said, but the above is nonsense. I have friends whose wives make more then them and the entire community respects them as does their wives. Why? Because while their wives work in an office as an accountant or something, they are policemen and firefighters and EMT's. Putting their lives on the line every day to help people. Running into burning houses, or facing whatever's on the streets. Buddies who responded to 9/11 and were there helping people when the towers collapsed. Friends who lost friends as a result. Respect? They have it in spades. And their wives gush over who they are and what they do. How much money they make never comes into the equation.

[This message edited by Walloped at 6:55 AM, March 22nd (Tuesday)]

I have an anecdotal example in support of Walloped's views. A partner at the firm where I work is smart, beautiful and succesful. She makes 6 times what her husband makes. He is a graphic designer. He also does the cooking. And she is very much in love with him. But he is very masculine in demeanor. He is confident, smooth, decisive. I don't think the difference in earning is a factor for her. She still views him as a man.

The wait and see if it fizzles out is what many BHs have done in the past and they wait and they wait.

Yes, affairs do fizzle out and the wife comes back, and many times the wife looks back at what they did as if they are looking at someone else.

But every single time, during the waiting time, the affair continues, and it continues right in your face. Many times these affairs can last for years, unless YOU put a stop to it.

At some point, your wife is going to stay gone too long, she is going to say too much and she is going to do too much for you to ever get over.

Right now you are getting advice to wait this out and not to file for divorce. At what point do you say enough is enough.

Waiting for it to fizzle out and she comes back to you, then what. You start the miserable process of R, hearing the lies, hearing the truths, hearing the blame shifting by her and then trying to get over it all.

Years and years of getting through this after the affair fizzles out. Where is the line in the sand for you, when will she have done enough and said enough for you to never be able to get over it.

You should think through each scenario carefully.

And no, living with a former alcoholic did not drive her to have an affair. If life was so miserable with you, she had the choice to tell you before having an affair, she had the choice to file for a divorce before having an affair.

Her affair has absolutely nothing at all to do with you, it is all her.

You need to protect yourself at this time. If your wife runs up huge bills. Your wife is smoking pot, what happens if that escalates to stronger drugs. What happens if she is arrested for doing drugs.

You should find a way to protect yourself and money.

What caused me some confusion is, it seems the concensus on here is to file for divorce, to try to shake some sense into her. Bring her back to reality. And then I have our therapist saying, "maybe the best thing to do is let her go, fall flat on her face, and let her realize the mistakes she's making", basically, stay out of it and take care of myself.

Some shrinks adhere to the idea that most affairs will die in time....

I do have a question, ..... is your wife still actively involved with her BF ?

I do hope you have read the healing library ...its in the yellow box on the left side of this screen......please do ....yeah ...the whole thing ....it contains a lot of good information on the dynamics of affairs...

Bufffalo

All this, "she's a cheating, lying whore bitch, dump her" I can do without. I look at her as a sick person, not a bad person. I don't know how this ends, I really don't, but that's how I feel and where I'm at.

I like your mindset on this. I chose to look at my case similarly.

Keep posting and stay with us, JM, you are getting good advice here. I did not file for D on my WW (now an fWW) either. But she was almost immediately remorseful. This can be done w/o a D filing; though a D filing is often useful in fog-breaking. I really (really!) don't like what I think your IC is saying (to just ride it out!?!?). Uh, no.

Action is required. Getting out of infidelity is active, not a passive process at all. Your heart & soul are being fed arsenic right now (infidelity). You don't keep eating the laced berries, and simply hope the poisoning process just stops. No.

Get out of infidelity. Now.

That means taking some of the actions already detailed above, earlier in the thread.

JM,

Please do not have sex with your WW until she has STD tests done on her.

Do you seriously believe the OM is only having sex with her?????????

Protect yourself.

k9

Up to this day, my wife still doesn't even admit to being unfaithful. She's denied everything, and I have no actual proof other then some text messages, and some semi-revealing stuff from her.

I agree with canoe in that filing for D isn't always the best rout to take IMO . I didn't , but only because my wife was immediately remorseful and the fog blew out upon my discovering her affair. I made it clear though another Dday and I will file before she knows I found out.

Whether she is sick or a bad person really doesn't matter , it's just semantics as the result is still the same. JM in your case you have to think waiting it out is lousy advice. Your wife needs to feel some kind of consequences .

Up to this day, my wife still doesn't even admit to being unfaithful. She's denied everything, and I have no actual proof other then some text messages, and some semi-revealing stuff from her.

She needs to understand what being unfaithful is and she doesn't have a clue.

She leaves home for days and nights to spend with some other guy, and she doesn't think that is not unfaithful.

She lies and denies and seems to be an expert at blame shifting and she doesn't think that is not being unfaithful.

She knows damn good and well what she is doing is totally being unfaithful.

You can analyze this until your blue in the face about codependency and she is sick, etc, but the bottom line is how long are you going to wait for her to get help for being...as you say, sick.

Your wife needs to somehow understand just what being unfaithful is all about and many times that doesn't happen until there are some serious consequences for being unfaithful.

Up to this day, my wife still doesn't even admit to being unfaithful. She's denied everything, and I have no actual proof other then some text messages, and some semi-revealing stuff from her.

JM72

You have no actual proof and your wife hasn’t confessed you say. Then let your wife have her fun until she has her fill or until the OM dumps her. You will be there waiting as if nothing happened. Just buy a box of condoms. Problem solved.

Well, the 180 didn't work. I haven't spoken to her in over 2 weeks, since she took her wedding rings off and started going out. She was pissed at me ignoring her. Woke up today, and all the wedding pictures and pictures of us throughout the house were taken down.

So I detach, do the 180, and she moves further away from me.

How do you get out of infidelity, then?

Her not admitting to it does not matter a bit. Not one bit. You know that you know

Okay

So what is the game plan?

You need action

[This message edited by CanoeVA at 10:20 AM, March 22nd (Tuesday)]

Up to this day, my wife still doesn't even admit to being unfaithful. She's denied everything...

I don't get it. In your first post you said

He texted her - "Can't wait to see you again. Love that ass! Miss you" - she replied - "I feel so strange walking back into the building with you. I feel like everyone can see right through me. I'm such a horrible liar!"

and

She wants to date other people, including him (she told me this Feb 1, I found out she's been seeing him since Nov).

and then

She took her wedding rings off and went to a club with him in Philly 2 weeks ago. He spends his weekends in clubs in South Jersey and Philadelphia promoting his rap label. She got home at 7:30 the next morning.

What exactly has she denied? That she took her wedding rings off? That she wants a divorce? That she wants to see other people? That she was out all night with another man until 7:30 in the morning?

So has she started seeing other men? Doe she still want a divorce?

Look, your wife at this stage is nowhere close to being a candidate for any kind of reconciliation. All the nonsense above must stop before you even consider staying with her.