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My hope but not my prediction This0Is0Fine, is that your WW is finally turning the corner. I am concerned that you are caving again though. But this is your life, and we all have to go at our own pace.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 10:58 AM, January 10th (Sunday)]

TIF,

Here we go again. One more puff on the H pipe. This is just another version of “The beatings will continue until morale improves”. Have you told her how YOU felt to be totally ignored on X-mas and your Birthday? If you did, what was her response? If not, you really need to be vulnerable enough to tell her how and why it hurts.

To get back to the subject of your original post on this thread...

Is marriage without reconciliation sustainable?

You tell us because you’re living that reality right now. How long can you live with the rollercoaster ride of hope and despair, romance and rejection?

How much smaller are you willing to make your needs and your expectations just to keep a ring on your finger?

There's 7 billion people in the world and we end up with these fuck ups. God help us.

This gave me a much needed chuckle.

TIF, you're not pathetic, I'm not pathetic, other BS's who have tried to save M in spite of derelict waywards are not pathetic. We may be patron saints for lost causes, but not pathetic to be on an emotional journey not of our choosing. How long we choose to be in certain stages of that journey is deeply personal.

Wish there was something comforting to say about your WW's asymmetric efforts and then the love bombing. There is a certain cruelty to the way WWs think it's acceptable to be erratic. I mean, really, if they are truly remorseful for what they've done you think they'd make a commitment to be....reliable. I suppose commitment is not waywards strong suit, or they wouldn't be waywards.

TIF, every time I had a thought about getting back with my Ex WWGF, I had a list prepared of all she did to me, so I stayed on course with the breakup.

1. Having an emotional affair.

2. Blake shifting like no other. When she held 50% of the relationship problem

3. Gaslighting. I thought I was paranoid for a good month.

4. Sleeping with the other man.

5. Trickle truth.

6. Tried to slander me by telling friends I cheated.

Don't give in to your wife's half-assed attempts.

I really only experienced the bold portions. That said, if all I do is focus on the negative, I can make a pretty solid argument against staying.

You are not pathetic you just want to believe she’s a good person but she’s not. Hopium set me back for years until my mental health took a dive.

Thanks.

Oy. Not the update I was hoping for. When you sober up come back and let us know what is going on.

Will do so after responding to each specific post. There is quite a bit to write.

Ok so today is a new day.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Drink q big glass of water or Gatorade.

Now with the love bombing is she actually making changes or just making you feel better?

How much are you willing to tolerate?

If the changes are real what next?

Don't beat yourself up. Remember the wrongs she has committed and if what she is doing now is just manipulation then remember that and start over on the good old 180. Not many people were able to just do it and didn't backside. This is a lifetime of habits that you are trying to unlearn.

I don't know if she is love bombing or making significant changes. The other day she was browsing job descriptions. Is it all for show? IDK.

She's very predictable. And so are. This has happened,several times. You say you are done,she love bombs, you decide she's getting it,and give it another chance. Lather,rinse,repeat.

But she's not getting it. She's laying it on thick. She is manipulating you.

Only you can stop this.

That's how it feels. I know I should stop it, but it is just so damn hard to flip my life upside down.

My hope but not my prediction This0Is0Fine, is that your WW is finally turning the corner. I am concerned that you are caving again though. But this is your life, and we all have to go at our own pace.

Well she seems to be making changes, and I wouldn't say I've caved on any of my "needs". She has been more receptive to them. The Christmas gift snub thing aside.

TIF,

Here we go again. One more puff on the H pipe. This is just another version of “The beatings will continue until morale improves”. Have you told her how YOU felt to be totally ignored on X-mas and your Birthday? If you did, what was her response? If not, you really need to be vulnerable enough to tell her how and why it hurts.

She immediately apologized and owned her mistake. If she had stopped there everything would have been great. But then she started giving excuses. "Gifts have never been a big deal between us. You are hard to buy gifts for. You never really cared if I got you much or not." Etc. This isn't factually incorrect. I told her, "yes but things are different now, and I need to get a little more reassurance than that." She did end up buying me something off my wishlist (which I pointed out after she said I'm hard to pick gifts for). She thought I would give her shit for just getting something "low effort" off my wish list. I don't see how that could possibly be worse than nothing.

To get back to the subject of your original post on this thread...

Is marriage without reconciliation sustainable?

You tell us because you’re living that reality right now. How long can you live with the rollercoaster ride of hope and despair, romance and rejection?

How much smaller are you willing to make your needs and your expectations just to keep a ring on your finger?

I don't know. Haha. I figured when we were talking logistics of divorce for two days straight we were on the way out. Once again onto the roller coaster.

So... onto a short factual updated from Christmas until today.

We didn't really get a chance to talk about the Christmas lack of gift situation until the 27th (the day after I posted). I said I felt extremely taken for granted and that she has to do better. I already gave a short recap of that fight. It shouldn't have been a fight though. It should have just been the apology. The next day, she says, unprompted, "I'm sorry I got defensive after apologizing yesterday. Next time I apologize, I'll do my best not to get defensive, and if I do, just call me out." This was a nice gesture, and it made me feel like she was doing at least some mental effort to change.

The next few days were nice, uneventful vacation days. But that lead up to the 30th, when my WW and her dad got in a big political spat, and argument about her father's mysoginy. He kept saying "life's a bitch and then you marry one". I did say he shouldn't say that, he has two daughters. He says, "sure not them, I raised them to be fine young women". He doesn't know both of them cheated on their husbands. I didn't break it to him either. I still have some sense of propriety. I know "expose expose expose" is the usual chorus here, but I really don't see a reason to do that. They fought some more and it ended very ugly. Her father implying my WW was responsible for the suicide of her mother, then taking a pain pill and saying "Sometimes I take pain pills to get high and I like how it feels. There is nothing wrong with me." They didn't speak again all the way up to when we left the next day.

Anyway, later that day, I tell my wife jokingly (to be fair overly harsh joke), "Well you know you could prove him wrong (implied about some of his other believes). You could tell him what you and your sister did to your husbands." E.g. not prove that "life's a bitch and then you marry one" is wrong, but that he didn't raise such fine upstanding daughters as he might think. This upset my WW a lot.

This is actually when we started discussing divorce.

"If you are never going to let it go, we just shouldn't be married."

"I can't promise I'm never going to bring it up. Yes it was a mean joke, I'm sorry and I shouldn't have said it. The factual underpinning of that roast is not my doing though."

So we went through the logistics of divorce in pretty heavy detail for that day and most of the next day. I almost posted an update here saying that it was going to be settled.

After figuring out a lot of shit. My WW says, "I don't want to overturn my whole life because of this." I say, "Well you should have thought about that before." She says, "Were you going to bring up divorce before I did?" I say, "I was thinking about it."

We talked more and more about how she didn't totally meet the needs I had written out. It's ok to make mistakes (not a new affair or anything) but I need her to think more as she makes her actions so that I'm not feeling like I am constantly forgiving her for her fuckups.

She apologized and apologized. The love bombing has since commenced. So we somehow averted divorce even though I had planned on it and she instigated the discussion.

We'll see how long that lasts one way or another.

@TIF

Not posted much in your threads but I do read them. So many similarities

Anyway just picking up on your last post and is struck me that we are doing the same thing and I don’t know why. I go through days, days of plucking up the courage (can’t think of a better word for it right now) to sit my WGF down and say I can’t do this anymore. Of course I don’t get round to it and then WGF has melt down, tears etc which culminates in a conversation started by her which usually ends with her saying “so what do you want” which is another way of saying “when will you get over this” or “will you bring this up for the rest of lives” and somehow, even with being gifted the perfect opportunity I somehow walk away from the conversations still in a relationship. And I don’t know why I do this, it’s happened at least 4 to 5 times since November. You just described the exact same thing, you want out, she gives you a chance to tell her and you somehow connect with her through that conversation and jump back on the coaster for another loop.

Just wanted to say you are not alone, I’m in the carriage behind you and I also have no idea how to get off this ride. There was a while when the initial shock subsided that I missed the extreme emotions, they had been omnipresent for so many months I didn’t know how to feel without them. I’m beyond that now but even in moments of pure clarity when I’ve been self taking myself for days about how to tell her I’m done, she offers me exactly what I “supposedly” want, I don’t bite.

I wish I knew the answer, if you figure it out before me, do let me know.

2D

After figuring out a lot of shit. My WW says, "I don't want to overturn my whole life because of this.”

One of my “favorite” things about my ex were the moments when he was accidentally honest. Those moments were always the most insightful, even though they were rare.

Your wife, on the other hand, is a treasure trove of these moments. If your next birthday card was a blank piece of paper that just said, “Happy birthday. Now leave me alone” I wouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised.

The portion I posted was the latest golden nugget from your posts. She doesn’t think what she did was a big deal. She doesn’t want to get divorced because it’s inconvenient HER life... meaning that she doesn’t see marriage as a shared union, but an arrangement that exists for her benefit.

That was what ultimately led to my divorce. I realized he would only ever do the bare minimum required to maintain the status quo; he wasn’t interested in rebuilding or remaking our union into something better for both of us.

So again, I’m going to take you back to your original question: Is this marriage without reconciliation sustainable?

In your case, as with my ex, “marriage” is defined as staying together on the WS’s terms, with only forced tokens of respect in return.

This0Is0Fine, what is your WW's take now about the fight you had before Christmas. The one where you pressed her about her friend's affair and she said that it was none of your business. Did she apologize and acknowledge that she was in the wrong?

This0Is0Fine, what is your WW's take now about the fight you had before Christmas. The one where you pressed her about her friend's affair and she said that it was none of your business. Did she apologize and acknowledge that she was in the wrong?

Yes. She has taken ownership of getting too defensive in this and other instances (on my list of needs to stop!). She apologized about it before and during MC. She promises to work more on not thinking that I am asking for than what I am actually asking for. I was looking to see that she was not condoning an ongoing affair and that she wouldn't. She says she isn't and she wouldn't. She thought I was trying to pry on personal information related to our friend's feelings/recovery/etc. Which I wasn't.

EDIT: Basically she was worried that I was trying to get extra information out of the friend and then backchannel it to her husband to sabotage their relationship. She still feels that the way I revealed the affair was lashing out, and that I could "lash out" again if I felt hurt. I told her that if I do find out someone is in an affair I will tell their partner, but that isn't "lashing out".

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 1:32 PM, January 11th (Monday)]

It does seem to me, This0Is0Fine, that your wife does have a strong drive for independence/control, in a way that isn't compatible w marriage. She asserted the right to have a close male friend a few months ago, and then last month, she got extremely defensive when you asked about her friend's affair. I wonder if she talks about that w her IC, and what is her IC advising her on this.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 2:16 PM, January 11th (Monday)]

It does seem to me, This0Is0Fine, that your wife does have a strong drive for independence/control, in a way that isn't compatible w marriage. She asserted the right to have a close male friend a few months ago, and then last month, she got extremely defensive when you asked about her friend's affair. I wonder if she talks about that w her IC, and what is her IC advising her on this.

We have always had some amount of independence from one another. It just never previously resulted in a violation of trust. Yes, she struggles with the fact that her breach of trust makes me not want to just give her the independence she used to have.

I don't know how much she talks about this with her IC. To be honest, I think she deserves to speak privately with her IC.

I don't want to overturn my whole life because of this.

Correct me if I'm wrong (english is not my native language), but this sentence shows that she has even no regrets for what she did, right?

If I thought I was doing wrong, I wouldn't make such a comparison between right and wrong. So, there are two rights for me and I choose the one that best suits my inference. I wanted the other thing too but not more than this.

Correct me if I'm wrong (english is not my native language), but this sentence shows that she has even no regrets for what she did, right?

If I thought I was doing wrong, I wouldn't make such a comparison between right and wrong. So, there are two rights for me and I choose the one that best suits my inference. I wanted the other thing too but not more than this.

I don't think it's quite so simple. She has regrets and she says what she did was wrong and that she wish she never did it. She wishes she could take it all back.

The implication at the time that she said it was that we weren't actually talking about the affair itself, but our multiple fights afterwards, and specifically about me giving her a hard time about what she did. That is, she doesn't want to end our relationship over me telling her (via inappropriate joke) she wasn't raised properly. And in my case, I would be ending it because she isn't willing to just do a few things for me and lead the repair efforts.

I told her something like, "You told me to give up. I gave up. I'm now here just trying to see if you can change my mind. If you want to give up too, that's fine. If that's the case, we shouldn't be married."

My hope, This0Is0Fine, is that this time she'll genuinely fight for the marriage, that her 'would not condone infidelity' represents a real shift in her thinking and not just a campaign promise to get elected, excuse me, keep the marriage. But I do have my doubts.

The attitude I am picking up is that she feels that you need to 'just get over it', instead of her recognizing what a piss-poor job she has done in helping to make you feel secure in the marriage.

Another challenge by the way, is that in monitoring her more closely this past year, you have also found out some things about her and her circle that are quite troubling--all the women in WW's circle who cheated and how tolerant WW seemed to be about it.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 6:09 PM, January 11th (Monday)]

Sorry for misunderstanding, I tought that it was about her affair.

Btw, your joke was inappropriate for someone who wants a R but very appropriate when viewed objectively.

I must admit that while I am wounded like this, it makes me feel better to hurt the other person just with my words calmly without getting rough.

My hope, This0Is0Fine, is that this time she'll genuinely fight for the marriage, that her 'would not condone infidelity' represents a real shift in her thinking and not just a campaign promise to get elected, excuse me, keep the marriage. But I do have my doubts.

The attitude I am picking up is that she feels that you need to 'just get over it', instead of her recognizing what a piss-poor job she has done in helping to make you feel secure in the marriage.

I feel like it all started sinking in when I handed her the divorce letter. Then when I handed her my list of needs with a quote saying she has been putting in a haphazard effort.

I told her, "I'm not going to 'get over it and just trust you'" Not something she ever directly said. I told her though, "I feel like you just want my to get over it and trust you. I'm over your initial EA. I'm not over the things you have done since them. I don't trust you, and we will see how long that takes." She is under no impression that waiting for me to "just get over it and trust her" with no action on her part is a viable path to success.

Another challenge by the way, is that in monitoring her more closely this past year, you have also found out some things about her and her circle that are quite troubling--all the women in WW's circle who cheated and how tolerant WW seemed to be about it.

Yes. I think MC has helped on this one quite a bit to be perfectly honest. I don't know why it takes that "unbiased" observer for it to get through my WW's thick skull that I took a massive betrayal followed by an avalanche of "WTF" is going on with her friends and the environmental factors that had to be corrected just to have an idea that trust could possibly be rebuilt.

At one point my WW asked me if I was "captain infidelity" out to stop all cheating. I said something along the lines of, "No, just the cheating around me so I can feel safe. And, by the way, if that is meant to be some kind of an insult in how I have handled things, I take it as the opposite. That I have been part of ending four affairs is something I'm quite happy with."

Well, my hope is that your WW is more revulsed by the filth now. For all this time she has seemed to be far too accepting of it.

The thing that has me concerned though, is that it was just last month where you and she had a blow out about her wayward friend. I hope that she not only apologized but that you and she came to an understanding on how these types of phone calls she has with her friends need to be handled moving forward.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 7:10 PM, January 11th (Monday)]

Revulsion would be nice. Would probably earn her fWW status.

EDIT: Yes, we have a mutual understanding about how such phone calls between her and ANY friend might be handled in the future. That if I'm looking for her to say, "They aren't cheating and if they were I were I wouldn't condone it." If it is a WS or fWS she will also provide specific reassurance about the topic of the conversation. "We were just commiserating that reconciliation is hard." Fine. "We were just talking about getting are hair done, it wasn't even about relationships." Great. She will simply say that. Not, "None of your business".

MC helped establish some rules related to these confrontations so that my startup isn't "too harsh" and she doesn't jump to defensiveness.

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 7:15 PM, January 11th (Monday)]

That could be a start ETA but I am still skeptical. I also trust that your WW understands that close friendships w other men, especially those in OM's circle, is verboten at least for the time being?

One thing I am hoping is that in the new year, she starts to really get it, not only why you feel the way you do, but also that your values are aligning. i.e., not 'Oh there's my husband TIF playing Capt'n Infidelity Cop again but these are the rules we agreed upon and that I am held accountable to so oh well' as if you are disciplining a teenager, but instead that SHE is disgusted w the filth too and realizes that she can't live with it anymore herself.

ETA: The1stWife did a good job helping to crystalize what I am trying to say. She may be going along with the new rules-well, sometimes going along with the new rules that is. BUT I am not yet seeing a desire on her part to truly become a better person and to live with integrity, and to be a safe partner for you. Until your values align it will continue to be tough goings.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 10:19 AM, January 12th (Tuesday)]