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I already felt belittled, not good enough, insignificant and unloved from the first affair.

Her A was not about you. Her 'friendship' with her cow is not about you. Your sense of belittlement, etc. - that is your view of yourself, and there's nothing anyone but you can do about it.

It's possible you can change your self-talk without help, but I recommend working with a good IC to find your self-esteem and self-love.

Meanwhile, you say she attacks you verbally again and again. How can you expect to build a loving relationship with her? Why stay under these conditions?

I already felt belittled, not good enough, insignificant and unloved from the first affair.

Her A was not about you. Her 'friendship' with her cow is not about you. Your sense of belittlement, etc. - that is your view of yourself, and there's nothing anyone but you can do about it.

It's possible you can change your self-talk without help, but I recommend working with a good IC to find your self-esteem and self-love.

Meanwhile, you say she attacks you verbally again and again. How can you expect to build a loving relationship with her? Why stay under these conditions?

Staying seems to be the unreasonable action.

sorry you are going thru this mate. It is tough.

Have you asked her to show you these texts? Does she keep them or delete any of them? deleting any is a big red flag of course! Also, is he gay or bi? it can be a big difference.

But bottom line, no you are not being unreasonable at all.

Good luck!

[This message edited by techie49 at 8:47 PM, Thursday, March 28th]

BT5050: Your first step should be to get into IC with a good therapist who can stiffen your backbone. This is an absolute must. In the process of your therapy, you must investigate why you love someone who treats you poorly. Yes, the fact that she shows very little effort in R, and seems to have built up a resentment toward you, should affect your love for her. People who treat others like crap (she has already cheated on you) do not deserve love from the victim.

Her lack of respect for you is a clear signal that she will eventually cheat on you again. Maybe not with the gay guy, but with someone else. She just might leave you.

Your next step should be to consult with a family law attorney to investigate your options in a divorce. The attorney may provide you with advice on how to best protect your assets even if a divorce is not imminent.

You think your wife is bored with your relationship. She now threatens to leave if you don't leave her alone and allow her to do what she wants. Don't be the victim again. I speak from experience.

BT5050

I get the idea you are less than happy with your marital relationship. Yes? No? I think your answer would be a no.

So, what are you going to do different to bring about change? Folks have already posted many useful ideas.
It is up to you to execute an action to bring about a change.

3 years you say? There is a difference between patience and procrastination.

You have already received a lot of good advice in the prior responders posts.

She cheated on you.

She doesn't respect your wishes.

She doesn't have good boundaries.

She engages in blame transference.

She doesn't demonstrate true remorse.

She attacks you verbally.

She dismisses your concerns.

She has said I need to help myself.

She's right. Help yourself, let her go.

I had to get to this point with my FWS several years after D-Day, she fell back into old patterns of behaviors. I went for a drive with her, told her that I was not ok with the way things were going, that I was ready for it to all end. I told her that I wasn't going expend any more effort on this, etc. She had a choice to make, but I had already made mine. I laid out my boundaries, told her it was not negotiable. I also told her I no longer cared which choice she made, but I was done if my boundaries were crossed. She had put me through hell, on that morning I told her that I wasn't going anywhere near that hell again but she was welcome to as much of it as she wanted.

She pulled her head out of her ass and chose to stay.

Thank you to everyone that responded to my original post. Im sorry I have responded in a while but things started to get a little better and now just gone down hill again.

I understand what everyone is saying and really appreciate the advice. But I feel I want to stay and fight no matter how hard it is. I would have said she has felt the same over the past two years until now.

With regards to her text buddy. She says she has deleted his number. She tried to say she had removed it and blocked him. But now it turns out that she didn't remove his number or block him. SHe said I can look at her phone at any time, He has text her, but she hasn't replied. I think she has replied and removed the replies.

She keeps telling me how I'm stupid for thinking anything is going on with him.

and I’m going through a really hard time at the moment.

3 years ago yesterday my wife would have spent 3 hours of her day in bed with another man. To this exact day. The affair was half way through the two month period by now and I find this time of year so hard. My wife knows this and has been really sympathetic and supportive in the past. But it’s completely changed this year. She has completely changed. But yet says its me thats changed.

I have been feeling different towards my wife in the past few months. I feel like we are drifting apart and something isn’t right. That worries me. I have told her many times how I feel and she doesn’t seem to take it in. This all seemed to start about 6 months ago, just before we went on holiday at the end of last year. All this changed at the time she got a colleagues mobile number. Since then she has changed. We have changed. I tried to tell her last night how distant I was feeling and how she made me feel. I was talking calmly with compassion, but she went nuts. All I said was my feelings were changing and sometimes I feel like I don’t even know her anymore. She took that as me saying I don’t love her. Why would i say that? She said that she doesn’t think she is in love with me either anymore.

She then took it back and said she does. but she did sound unsure. She also said if she could she would walk away. Then took that back too.

Everything I do or say, she finds a way of turning it around and painting her in a good light and making me look like the bad guy. Like I should be over this by now. I shouldn’t be bringing it up. She took her rings off and told me that she feel like I’m miserable all the time. We don’t have a laugh. I don’t even talk to her unless it’s about this. I tried to explain it’s a hard time for me right now. She turned it around and said it’s a hard time for her too. She said I’m horrible at times. She keeps saying she is going through this to. She does it every day. She wakes up to me being miserable every single day.

Before leaving for work this morning I asked her to put her rings back on. I thought she would have said sorry and I would have apologised to and tried to move on, like we would have in the past. But instead she looked me in the eyes and put her rings back on and said, I don’t know why we are bothering putting these back on. It means nothing and it won’t change a thing our marriage is still sh!t.

We are three years on from the affair and it’s getting worse instead of better.

I feel lost, alone, unloved, but most of all stupid.

I always said I would look out for the signs and never be put in this position again. But here I am. All the signs that were there the first time are here again now. Signs I have noticed like, she has lost and is losing weight. She is on her phone. She has lost interest in doing anything with me. She has lost interest in the bed room and she puts me down all the time. I have heard so many times how her AP made her feel good, they had fun, they had a laugh. But me – I'm told I’m miserable, I don’t want to do anything, we don’t have a laugh. I said he is everything I am not and never will be to her. She even said I’m a jealous person. Of course I’m jealous.

But she keeps saying to me "yes I had an affair, yes I cheated, yes I slept with someone else" It’s like she is enjoying saying it.

It’s funny how for two years she understood and wouldn’t treat me this way. Now she doesn’t give a f*@k. She says she doesn’t like the way I treat her. But I’m not doing anything wrong or different. I’m just hurt and broken.

I just don’t know what to do anymore as she has said if she could walk away she would. But then later she says she doesn’t really mean it. But this time is different. I think she means every word.

I know people will say to leave. I know people will say its an un healthy relationship. But twenty odd years together, children, family and a whole lost of history its not that easy to walk away.

Im lost i just dont know how to fix this or even try

I'm very sorry you have to deal with this.

It's natural to think about being belittled in your sitch, because your W is belittling you. I think standinghere may have the best solution:

Help yourself, let her go.

Success is healing. To heal, you are virtually required to give up trying to control the outcome. Your W seems to have closed the door on your M. She has a right to do that. You can't control her. You can't change her. You control only yourself. You can change only yourself.

Your W has placed you in this sitch, but you're the only one who can get yourself out of it.

bt - you need to understand DARVO. Deny, attack, reverse victim and offender. This is a game your wife plays with you. And guess what? You cannot win this game!

Your only recourse is to not play the game.

If you get with a good counselor, that person can give you tools on how to deal with DARVO.

I urge you to contact a good attorney or solicitor to find out about divorce even if you don’t have present intentions to file. Knowledge is power.

Peace to you.

[This message edited by Absolution at 5:21 PM, Wednesday, April 24th]

But twenty odd years together, children, family and a whole lots of history its not that easy to walk away.

You should look up sunk cost fallacy. Sometimes it's better to cut your losses because you aren't reaping the benefits that you should.

To me, it sounds like she's having another A, or continuing the previous one. You realize she is abusing you, right? Do you really want to be in this same marriage in another 20-30 years? That's almost a whole other lifetime of experiences you could have without her belittling you and cheating on you.

I filed for D the week before our 34th anniversary. I'd been miserable for so long, and decided that D was the best option for me. You know what? The benefits of being away from my XWH far outweigh what would have happened had I stayed. I don't see my sister-in-law as much and I've had to move, but my relationship with my grown children is stronger and I'm able to go do things that I want to do.