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I don’t have any personal experience of a real reconciliation attempt. I initially agreed to reconcile with my exWW, but at the time it was based on the lies she told me about it mostly being a EA except for grade school touching and making out. It also had to do with the fact that I was in the middle of some seriously stressful stuff at work. Well,a few weeks later the original lies my ex-WW told me fail apart after the OBS cracked “the code.” After that the exWW and her AP tried to double down and move into together to make themselves feel better about what they did. Well, that failed horribly. Anyway, two years out my ex-WW is always trying to reconcile now. She’d love more than anything for me to just give her one chance. But here is the thing, I have read on the other forums here some stories that make me want to try (see Ms Wallop over on the WW side) and some stuff that makes me think it’d be really a terrible move (see CaptainRogers on the Reconciliation thread). I’m not expert on it at all but I have to say I think you only can do it if not only you, but your wife want to do it. I mean really want to do it. It’s much harder to make it work - I mean real reconciliation. Because the next trickle truth or next affair can really destroy the “kind sweet” man that you are.

Something that keeps popping up in your post that you might want to think about. You have a few times brought up having wanting to have sex with her post DDay. I get the whole hysterical bonding thing after a couple “decides” to stay together. But man, you have exactly zero evidence that she ever wants to be a safe partner. You haven’t actually said much about why you are so obsessed about staying with her at all. In fact, you’ve brought up several facts about her that make her sound like a really bad spouse material. For example, the things about her hating the kids. Sure, the infidelity and feelings of hate about the kids might just be symptoms of depression. But most people never realy cure depression. They treat it and suppress it sure. But generally suffer from it and the symptoms intermentinetly pop up. So, a big problem for you is that she has a really bad way of self medicating it. And she is likely to chase the happiness she got from this affair again at some point. And what you seem to be doing is not creating any negative consequences for this affair. So she will eventually just associate it with the happiness once you are back to tomorrow. And it sounds like all you reallly want is sex to get back to where you were before all of this. I’ve seen you say several times that your kids are your primary concern. I just want you to really think about what’s in their best interest as you were prior to her return.

Anon, this is the time to be very angry and upset, not the time to be nice and be accommodating her pity party. You are questioning yourself more than you question her, that tells me something is not right here.

This is what I know from being a mom for 30 years, and hanging out in mom groups for that long as well.

Women with good hearts love their children and want to do what they can for them. They'd lay down their lives for them if they had to. Period. This does not mean that they don't have issues or character flaws or that they never mess up.

Women that don't love or want their children (neglect/indifference/ abuse)...usually are narcissists and/or sociopaths. There is little hope for them.

What are you trying to save?

She doesn't love you (you can't do what she's doing and claim you love your spouse)

And she doesn't want her children.

Gently, you are in a BS fog of denial and fantasy thinking. Yes, you have taken great forward steps but you are still in denial.

You said you are going to do MC? WHY? She has so much shit to fix it won't do any good. It's like giving anti-cancer drugs before the tumor is cut out (and it needs to be cut out!).

Hi Anon,

I have a big problem with measured response. I will go from nicely denying a patient pain medication to screaming at them loud enough for the whole hospital to hear. I often avoid conflict so that I’ll avoid losing my temper.

I have had to learn to take action or speak up as soon as something bothers me, because for years I would let things slide and say nothing until things built up and I felt like I was pushed to the extreme end of my tolerance. At which point I would blow up and lose it. This was not good for anyone, but it took me a while to figure out what I was doing, why I was doing it, and how I take action earlier, in a less extreme way, to prevent problems from escalating. And that is the thing; if you catch things early, you often don’t have to have a big conflict about them.

There is a huge amount of material online about conflict resolution, and how to be assertive in a positive way. We had a few little workshops on the subject at work, and I tried some of the simple little techniques, and they worked. What I found was that it is hardly ever a case of a person being ‘spineless’; it is more likely that they have not had good examples in their life of how to intervene positively and speak up for themselves in the ‘right’ way, so they have nothing to learn from. Believe me, you can be very assertive without ever having to shout or be aggressive. That is where a lot of people get confused, and feel that if they are assertive, they are being aggressive, or even a bully.

One very simple technique is to just explain the impact of somebody’s actions on you. It really is as basic as saying to someone, “When you do X, I feel Y”. If you have thought about the situation before the discussion – and who won’t have done that? – you may have some alternative options that you can suggest. Thus, you expand on the theme: “When you do X, I feel Y. I think it would be better if we do Z in future”. Or, “When you do X, I feel Y. Please will you stop it?” Focus on the behaviours or actions, not the person. That helps to prevent anger from entering the discussion.

What struck me when this technique was played out in a workshop was how obvious it was, but how crazy it was that I never dealt with problems in such an open, honest way. If someone annoyed or upset me, the last thing I wanted to do was open up about it, but not being open about my feelings meant that after a while I became a pressure cooker, heading for an inevitable blow up. So I could never give a measured response, because by the time I finally did speak up, there was way too much pressure behind it.

I really think that going on an assertiveness course would help you to learn how to express your feelings, or misgivings, early on in the development of problems, thereby preventing them from escalating to the point where you suddenly snap, and a blow-up occurs. This is in no way a criticism of you. I did not have great examples of calm, neutral problem-solving in my life to learn from, and I am still learning how to do it now, at the age of 52. It is a very common problem for lots of people, which is why there are so many books and courses about the subject. Seriously, what have you go to lose by signing up for an assertiveness course, learning some techniques, doing a bit of role-playing to get used to using the techniques face-to-face with people, etc?

I think something like that is essential if you are going to try and co-habit with your wife rather than going your separate ways, because it is clear that letting her do what she wants has been disastrous for both of you. Your wife lacks direction, and she does not make good decisions. Do you think that what she needs is someone to put her on the right track and keep her there, because when she is left to steer her own way in life, she will end up in another train wreck like the present one?

What I am wondering is whether you are achieving anything positive by withdrawing, but remaining in the marriage and the household. I am not referring to any of the practical or logistical factors like money, the kids, etc, but rather to your mind-set, and how you are positioning yourself in relation to your wife. In effect, you are not making a break and ending the relationship (divorce), but by withdrawing, it is like you are not staying in the marriage in a meaningful way either. I totally understand why staying for the kids may be a factor, and I also understand why you would want to disengage from your wife and implement the 180. Where I see the potential for problems to arise is that your wife is not the kind of person who you can disengage from with any confidence that she will not start working on the next great self-made disaster that she will then claim to be a victim of. If you are going to remain in proximity to her, physically and emotionally, you have no option but to take a more proactive role in ‘fixing’ her.

By all means, implement parts of the 180 to limit the control and influence that your wife has over your emotions, and the level of any emotional dependence on her that you may have. However, at the same time as you do that, you need to increase your involvement in breaking down and neutralising the mechanisms she has established that have enabled her to become her own worst enemy, and to drive the marriage, the family, and herself to the verge of destruction.

To put it bluntly, without a more rational, logical, and sensible person taking an active role in her life, and setting firm boundaries for her own good, she is likely to continue making bad decisions and ruining the quality of life for herself and everyone close to her. These trips to Australia and New Zealand are a case in point. They have given you a solid justification for washing your hands of her, thereby limiting her potential for causing further damage to your life, but what possible benefits did these costly misadventures bring to your wife? She seems to be caught in a very negative cycle. It appears that she does nothing to help herself, and she makes one bad decision after another, until the situation she has created is so bad that she has to run away from it by forming pointless relationships with men who do not care about her, thereby damaging her relationship with a man who does genuinely care for her, which makes her life even worse than it was before.

That is why I think that if you are going to remain in the marriage and in proximity to her, you need to actively intervene to break the cycle that your wife is stuck in, and to pull apart and disable the constituent parts of it that have made it such an engine of destruction. Staying, but not intervening, is not going to break that cycle. It will only lead to further problems. That is why I suggested learning how to become more assertive, because that skill will help to change the dynamic between you and your wife, and it will enable you to have more influence in the direction of all of your lives, which can only be positive and beneficial for you, your wife, and your kids. You are an intelligent and compassionate man, and with more confidence and some fresh techniques and approaches, you can have a very positive impact on the situation. And it could be argued that if you are going to stay together within the marriage, then there needs to be some purpose to your choice to do that.

Staying, but in a withdrawn, disengaged, and non-interventionist role is not going to improve anything, and is basically a waste of your time. All you will be doing is biding your time until the next disaster. Your wife clearly does not understand how to avert that, does she? That is why it needs somebody else to take the reins and set the agenda. You have had a wealth of good advice in this thread about steps that you can take to improve things, and I must add my voice to the chorus that is endorsing the solid and sensible suggestions that stevesn recently provided. There has to be a change to the dynamic that allowed this situation to reach the point that it has.

There may be some resistance or histrionics from your wife, maybe some attempts at manipulation, but in light of the disaster she has created for herself and everyone around her, she does not have a leg to stand on. This is a moment for saying metaphorically, and maybe literally, “Do you want things to get better, or do you want to continue f*cking things up until absolutely everything is destroyed? If you want them to get better, you need to start listening to me.” That is the approach that you need to absorb and have confidence in as you move forward. Of course, that means you need to have something to say, but Stevesn has provided you with an excellent template for improvement, so you have a ready-made plan already available to you. If the approach that you have taken so far has not been successful, why not try a fresh one?

As far as the things she has said about the trip overseas go, I think that you should treat everything with healthy scepticism, which should only change when her actions prove that she has remorse and sees how damaging, immoral, and counter-productive her infidelity has been. And that will take time. There are elements of what she said that do not really stand up to close scrutiny.

Apologized many times and *seemed* to mean it.

It is hard to believe that there is any real heart behind such apologies, because you made it crystal clear on the trip to the airport that you knew that she had organised the trip to cheat with at least one other man, and she still went. So how much did she care about your feelings at the point where it was an exciting adventure that had yet to happen? Not very much, and not enough to cancel the trip. Now that she has had her grand adventure, and she is faced with the reality of settling back into the life and the marriage that she briefly abandoned, suddenly she is full of apologies for a set of actions that she took in full knowledge of the pain they would cause you. For me, that has all the sincerity of punching someone in the face several times and then apologising. If you know it is wrong to do it, don’t do it and apologise; just don’t do it. And a fully grown married mother knows full well that abandoning her family to blatantly go and cheat with another woman’s husband is nothing but 100% wrong. And yet she still did it. So what sudden insight into the wrongness of her actions after she has cheated did she not have before she went on the trip?

Told me it was all her fault and did not blame me. It started because she felt hopeless in life and that she was nothing. She has achieved nothing and feels inferior to me in intelligence and social stature. Kids don’t make her feel accomplished and she acknowledged it was stupid but she couldn’t help he way she felt.

Those are good reasons to talk to her husband and get into counselling. What part of flying around the world to have sex with another woman’s husband was supposed to improve any of those problems? Does transcontinental infidelity count as an achievement? The feelings that she describes may be genuine, but they are totally and utterly unrelated to her decision to start cheating. She is trying to make a connection to justify something that is unjustifiable, and I think you should make it quite clear that cheating was in no way, shape, or form a natural product of the feelings she describes, because – as I have said – there is no part of having a tawdry affair that was going to improve them.

Now the parts of her story I doubt. WW told me they could not have intercourse because he had erectile dysfunction. Admitted to groping, heavy petting, kissing, etc. This *might* be true because the sexting messages... how shall I say? He seemed clinically disappointing. Also, I hadn’t figured out why she texted him that she had bought him a vibrator/dildo.

Perhaps ED is a major problem, but there seems to be remarkable number of stories in these forums where wayward wives claim their affair partners could not get an erection. Which rather begs the question of why a man with such a problem worked so hard to get another man’s wife to fly halfway around the world to witness the spectacle of his flaccid, floppy member, or why she would make all that effort for the privilege. Why would a man with performance issues go to all that time and trouble to demonstrate his inability to have sex? And this also seems to ignore the potential for Viagra to be used. And in a way, it is almost irrelevant, because your wife flew out there hoping that he would be able to have sex with her, and she was fully willing to do that. Is there really any virtue in intercourse not happening in those circumstances?

She also told me that she called him while away during this trip and said she could never see him again. She said she did not meet him this trip. I find that nearly unbelievable, am I to believe she went to Sydney by herself? Our friend said she didn’t want her to come along while WW said she invited our friend. Hmmm...

I think you should treat that for what it appears to be, which is bullsh*t. The fact that her friend says your WW did not want her to go along sounds more convincing, because the friend has nothing to gain through saying that if it is a lie, does she? Whereas, your wife does have plenty to gain by claiming the friend was with her, thereby justifying the trip, and also making it appear that meeting another man for sex would have been awkward. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure that out!

She agreed to write a no contact letter (and have no contact) and would give me a timeline. She is going to IC on Tuesday and will schedule marriage counselling. She also agreed to start looking for a job and will get a primary care doctor and STD testing. I told her that I had informed her family she had expressed suicidal ideation and was traveling secretly to NZ.

That is good stuff for the immediate future, but please, Anon, use the list that stevesn has provided for you. Much more needs to be done to get this show back on the rails.

I didn’t tell her I had implied what she was really doing but never told them outright.

Anon, why imply? Why hint? Why be coy? Just tell these people exactly what you are having to deal with. It may spur them into doing something to support you, and it will make it harder for your wife to lie to them in future. Seriously, where is the harm in telling them, in plain English, what has happened? You have nothing to be ashamed of.

I felt the urge to have sex with her (not sure why) and I think she would have. I resisted, not sure when the right time for this would be, but I didn’t want to cloud my judgement (more than it already is).

They call it ‘hysterical bonding’, and there are many psychological reasons for it. Resisting and keeping a clear head certainly cannot hurt.

I hope that what has been said in this thread will continue to sink in, Anon, because everyone here is rooting for you, and their suggestions are made with the best intentions, and in hopes that your situation can be changed for the better.

[This message edited by M1965 at 4:14 PM, March 19th (Monday)]

Im jumping in late to this thread, but Anon I feel for you as does everyone here. This forum has helped me more issues Than I can count, and in many ways saved my life and health.

I know how painful this is, if you can believe her you can make things right again, she was great we had good times, we can get that back.

No you can't, not with her in the reigns. Let her choose the life she wants? She has been living the life she wants, it's your goddamn turn.

Make the life that you want, if she wants to come along and be a loving part of, you can consider that..it's up to you.

She will never stop lying to you or manipulating. Just madam is right. Im the "kind Sweet guy", but I almost literally died following the steps you are proposing. The abuse will only go on and get worse. I am in intense personal counseling and on meds to cope with range of abuse, the gaslighting,lies,betrayal. If I didn't check myself into the hospital for treatment I may have killed myself. And the now ex's response to me seeking help? anger That I left her alone to take care of the house and deal with HER daughter's psych issues on her own for 1 week, plus judgment and ridicule about how weak I was.

Memories are just that, memories. You can't relive them, just cherish the good ones and try and make more. You don't know what drives her. in my last exes case (which she admitted to in therapy...prob the only thing she has ever admitted to) she is addicted to the chase. The emptiness in her lack of self worth can only be filled by conquering men, the more unavailable the better. I believe I know the latest has a newborn child at home, a total scumbag, the one bfore newly married for 8 months. They always affair down, remember that. . Once she has them interest is lost, our relationship followed the exact pattern, she chased me an I was barely interested. It took 2 years before I let her in, and within weeks she was different. sex stopped, attitude changed. I walked out after a year of this but gave into the tears and excuses,blah blah blah. Then came the blame game, it was all my fault, just like you. Bullshit.The greatness of the first few years can not be repeated because it is not the same situation and she has not grown.

Your past with her will not predict your future

In the end I do have my issues, but they weren't what ended the relationship, They were what kept a dead relationship with a toxic woman alive for another 8 wasted years .

Do not let this woman run your life or she will run it into the ground and god forbid take the kids with her.

It's more important to get yourself into private counseling than MC.

Don't be me, i'm begging you

[This message edited by ivan65 at 12:32 PM, March 19th (Monday)]

WW told me they could not have intercourse because he had erectile dysfunction.

I am sure that she tried to get him up after flying 16 hours.

There are other things than intercourse that I would not be acceptable for a wife to do.

So even if he does have ED (yeah right) that's a technicality.

She had the gun in her hand, ready to kill the marriage, just because it wasn't loaded didn't make it any better than if he did fuck her.

[This message edited by MickeyBill2016 at 12:53 PM, March 19th (Monday)]

IMHO emotional infidelity is worse than the deed.

This is one of the few areas where the intent and attempt and lies are what really kills the relationship.

My ex flew to one of her A's towns for a Business meeting at the height of their online affair, he tweeted from the same meeting. to this day she swears "on my childs life" that not only did she not meet him there, but they never even met face to face, ever. it was all online. If I had produced a photo of them together, it would be, We just posed for a photo, I forgot. If she was remorseful the first time and spilled everything, we may have had a shot. But its not only the lies, it's thatthe type person that would say these things is not stable or sane and has no respect for you or your relationship.

even now in my other post about walking in on my ex, the hurt would def be lessened if I knew this was just a physical act, needing comfort and companionship or something. The thought that she is more intimately emotionally connected to this stranger than has been to me in a long time is infinitely worse. don't accept her excuses or attempts to minimize and certainly don't make those excuses for her

So whether ED is true or not, you'll never know but it doesn't matter

[This message edited by ivan65 at 1:36 PM, March 19th (Monday)]

She travelled across the world to spend time with a man who had ED. Say that aloud. What kind of respect does she have for you?

You’re a paycheck to her, nothing more.

You have received a ton of good advice going forward. On the narrow issue of whether you are going to pursue getting more honesty concerning what took place with the OM on her most recent trip, you are most probably going to have to raise questions and compare her version to her dirty texts and messages. You have these saved on a flash drive. As someone mentioned you can disclose you have seen the messages without revealing your source. If you are trying to get more (almost certainly TT) there is no need to play games in questioning her. And about those text messages: even though he is a despicable character, I can’t help feel a twinge of empathy for the OM who was breathlessly waiting with his balls crossed for your WW’s plane to arrive, only ( according to your WW’s version) to be ultimately denied the long anticipated heavy petting. Good luck on your journey.

She knows his name in case you were wondering

She does have good qualities and reasons our marriage has been good, but I only need people to keep me in check so I don’t think those things are salient. I need to keep thinking she is looking at me as a mere paycheck if I want to move forward.

When I get home I will send her Stevesn’s list and tell her if she loves me at all she will go through it and comply. I will let her know I don’t believe the ED story and the no contact on last visit. I want to see her messages. Contacted the lawyer today, he recommended getting into counseling... I have been in IC for 4 months, she goes tomorrow. It may be too soon for productive MC but it could help to at least set boundaries and call her on the bullshit.

Anon. Glad you will start to take some action. Please ensure you edit that list and the suggested email so it makes sense to your situation. Read thru it before you send.

I’m not sure about your lawyer. Sounds like you are taking the same passive path with him/her as you are with WW. Your lawyer works for you. You should tell them you want D papers drawn up to be served at your notice. It’s not them that should decide if you need to start counseling.

If they won’t do it for you, then tell them you’ll go looking for new attorneys. Have D papers ready to be served is part of the process to get out of infidelity. Even if you end up R, right now she needs to know you are serious.

You can even ask your Lawyer for some sample ones to look at while they draw yours up. Maybe leave them sticking out of your briefcase so that your WW knows you are seriously talking to attorneys. Yes you have to pay for the real ones. But if it will save your M isn’t it worth it?

It’s time to tell her that you need each and every item in your list addresses if she wants to save her marriage. A truly Remorseful WW will want to do those things. If you get a chance, go read the wayward side forum at this site and see what truly Remorseful spouses look like. So far yours does not resemble them.

Are your phones in your name. Next time she puts it down pick it up. If it’s locked ask her to unlock it then and there. Tell her she’ll get it back when you are done with it. Also add your finger print to unlock it in the settings if that’s a method used to open it.

I know you have this in you. If you care enough about her still to try and R, then you need to do it in a way with the best odds of succeeding. Taking control gives you that chance. Rug sweeping will doom you to unhappiness and future pain like you've already experienced.

I wouldn't recommend MC yet. Unless the MC is very familiar with adultery this could be very detrimental to the BS. In MC the marriage is the patient. MCs want to save the marriage. In many cases the BS is re-victimized. Marriage issues (every marriage has them) are used to justify and minimize the adultery.

Forcing or urging someone to go to counseling is a low return option. Until someone understands that they need some help it's like pearls before swine.

My xWW often thought that she was the smartest person in the room, especially during our MC sessions. It was a waste, it was too late, she had already moved on. She went to the sessions partially out of curiosity about the process - she was an engineer.

Until SHE wants to go there is little value.

Anon, Everyone has good qualities, and on some level by different standards they may be good people. The question is does she have the qualities needed to sustain a loving, honest and intimate relationship and fill your needs as her spouse?

Don't necessarily think in terms of is she good/bad? does she need to be punished or just understood? Those are not pertinent to your relationship or your future. You are not her doctor or therapist and not even her judge. You can only be the judge of what is best for you and what you want and need, and whether she can provide that to you or not. Only you can answer that, all we can do is point out the flaws in your reasoning so you are aware of exactly what you are doing.

Remember the Fenyman quote about Science and the need for multiple opinions and trials:

"Science is about not being fooled, and the easiest person to fool is yourself"

Its hard not to fool yourself with someone you love, especially when the easy and less painful..in the short run...path is usually reconciliation

[This message edited by ivan65 at 3:06 PM, March 19th (Monday)]

It may be too soon for productive MC but it could help to at least set boundaries and call her on the bullshit.

I'm a licensed therapist and I wouldn't recommend MC yet. Your WW needs to "own" her problems in order to figure out what caused her to seek attention intimacy outside of your marriage as well as her feelings about being a mother. You've identified family of origin issues and self esteem issues that might have contributed to her having an affair, but remember, the majority of people with similar histories don't have affairs...

Time and time again in my practice I have seen WSs rush to blame the marriage for their own issues. Time and time again I have seen desperate BSs join in the game of "let's fix this marriage" before the WS has truly become remorseful and understanding of the terrible impact their behavior has had on the life of their loved ones. Unfortunately too many therapists out there buy into the school of thought that bad marriages cause infidelity. (The "find a local counselor" tab is a good first step to help identify a good therapist of infidelity issues in your area)

You should absolutely accompany her to her first individual therapy session and tell the therapist what brings her to therapy from your perspective. That will help "call her on her bullshit".

It was helpful to me to keep referring to the list of what I had discovered when my WH wanted to play nice and minimize and gaslight about his A. Reviewing your pictures and texts might help you remember just how much apologizing and "owning of her issues" your WW needs to do in order for you to give her the gift of reconciliation. And it is a gift she needs to earn...

Anon....

I want you to read your story on here from beginning to end. But I want for you to do this: every time you see your name in front of your post, I want you to put Thor best friend's name there, or your brother's name. Read it all the way through.

What would you tell him after reading it?

Your lawyer isn’t interested in what happens to omyiu. He’s looking to maximize the optimal legal end result. The two are often not exactly the same.

I have a big problem with measured response. I will go from nicely denying a patient pain medication to screaming at them loud enough for the whole hospital to hear.

I'm a hopelessly sweet guy

?????????????

If there is one thing SI has taught me it is always go with your gut feeling. My H was away when I caught him and I will never forget seeing him for the first time after DDay. His body language was tragic and I had no doubt he was totally remorseful. Six months later it’s not easy but R is on track against so many odds. Go with you gut feeling it is always right!!!!!!!!!!!!