SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

The last few posts from Oldwounds, Sisoon, and Hiking are all really great - so great, I'm hesitant to post anything at all as I'm not sure that it adds to the conversation. But...

Actually giving myself permission to leave for those reasons FEELS strange. That is the point I’m making there.

Edit to add: that paints a pretty bleak picture of my marital history that I’ve grown used to those things. That sucks.

The fact that you're struggling with this is part of the reason I'm encouraging you to consider the previous marriage as over. I wonder if that framework is easier for you to operate within. If you had gotten a divorce and you were now dating your wife as a new potential partner, would what you're seeing now from her be enough? Would you expect more? It's one thing to decide to divorce someone because of X, Y, and Z, but is it another to decide not to marry them based on those same things? Like I know it feels artificial to imagine you are dating the person you have spent many years brushing your teeth next to but I think it's a useful mindset for you both. You both get to decide what you are willing to accept in a new marriage - her too. I'm sure she has her own requirements. This doesn't have to be one sided. It sounds like you don't think much of the old marriage, but if nothing changes, then nothing changes. But you have to be on the same page. You both have to want it.

I've said it a million times, but I continue to think that your hesitance to broach subjects with her for fear of her reaction is a giant glaring warning sign. Open communication/dialogue was just such a core part of R for me, and being able to discuss issues/concerns so that they don't fester into resentments just feels like a fundamental part of a healthy relationship on a base level. Like, in a lot of cases, that is what got you to this point - it obviously has to change. If you can't ask for what you want, how can you possibly expect to get it?

Finally, and I don't mean to rub salt in your open wound, but to perhaps give you some perspective (as you have indicated, you have become accustomed to dysfunction).... I know my husband and your wife are not the same person, but I don't think that my husband ever once accused me of trying to shame him. Like ...ever..... To be clear, I absolutely DID try to shame him on many occasions. But he never used that as an argument to invalidate my concerns. To be clear, he is/was in no way a perfect person and did and said other things that drove me bananas at various points, but this was not one of them.

I’m not trying to blackmail her into changing, I’m just trying to not be miserable every day and this happens to help. But I’m not sad that she is experiencing this.

You're describing the 180

I'm sorry Ink. Glad you are looking out for yourself.

I believe very strongly that if I attempted to compare and contrast the effort she made in the A to the effort she is making in attempted R, she would respond that she is making huge efforts, and I could not in good conscience really disagree with her. But as stated, she is working on her own shit, and I would say exclusively. And HikingOut is putting some pretty persuasive stuff out there that that may well be the right thing for her to do right now. But I’m tired, and things like work and kids and friends and siblings and hobbies just sound SO much better to me now.

I admit, I am afraid of having that conversation with her, I’m tired of being vulnerable and being rejected or at least met with wildly emotionally immature responses. Just Monday, a day after I announced my withdrawl, I did find a desire in my heart to share with her a list of things that were burdening me. Her response was distant and clinical. It might have been her last chance, I’m not sure.

And I am absolutely afraid of divorce. And I need to do something with that, it could trap me in misery for life. Seems like a good IC topic.

It just feels like there is something, not even a fear, something more embedded into my understanding of my own reality that just can’t accept that this marriage could end. Like I post all this stuff, I get distracted, and something in my mind goes back to the default of "I am married to her and always will be". That’s the best I can describe it.

I’ve told her that I have forgiven her for the infidelity. In retrospect, I think it was premature, but to the best of my ability I have forgiven (given your familiarity with scripture, I’m sure you can guess why I think that is so important)

Ink, have you conflated forgiveness with staying in this M? Yes, we are commanded to forgive, but we are also explicitly allowed to D over adultery/porneia, because the covenant has been broken and the damage immense. You would NOT be breaking your word to her that you forgave her should you D. You can absolutely both forgive and D. They are in no way mutually exclusive.

Could what makes this so difficult is that your word means something to you? You made a vow getting married and even though your wife made the same vow and threw it away, maybe you are holding onto that vows meaning to you.
I took my word seriously. I cant really remember the last time i told someone a deliberate falsehood. As a religious man maybe you view the vow you made as more important because it was made before God and God blessed you two as one. Im just throwing that out there.
You could feel that you are betraying the commitment that you made to love and support your wife and struggle with the decision to divorce because it really truly meant something to you.
You value(d?) your wife and she did not value you the same way. That was painful for me as well.
I would ask yourself. "Would I not provide for my wife if we divorced" by that I mean Spousal support or child support? I think you love your wife. She obviously didnt show that she loved you the same way.
I didnt have to pay spousal support, but i would have if i needed to. I wouldnt throw her on the street to manage for herself since she hurt me.
You talk about how you detached from your father due to his alcoholism. Im sure there is an aspect of feeling like you would be abandoning your wife.
You are adrift in the ocean and your wife threw you a life preserver but is unwilling or unable to reel you back into the boat.
My struggles with my wife prior to DDay, was when I would ask something of her that were important to me and she would say she would "try" and when I would bring up that nothing improved after she said she would "try" she would say she was unwilling. We argued heavily about that. I couldnt imagine saying that I would try to do something and not at least put effort into it. She wouldnt expand on why she was unwilling, she was just unwilling.
It could be that your wife is incapable of giving you what you want or need right now. Perhaps you can tell her that the current status quo is not enough for you and that you need to see what effort she is putting into creating a new marriage with you. Its nice that she is working on HER issues, but she is leaving you to fend for yourself. You not only have to deal with an injury, but you must mourn the losses of your marriage, and the wife you thought she was.

InkHulk, what changed (if anything) between November (when you wrote a very happy, optimistic post in R) and now? Was their a huge backslide or did the "big moments" she had in therapy not translate into any real, impactful improvements in your relationship?

Also, while I agree with HikingOut about the need to focus on the work she has to do on herself, from what you're describing in this post, that seems like yet another excuse (as "shame" was in the past) for her to avoid putting in the effort that's needed to improve her relationship with you and your marriage before.

I’m tired of being vulnerable and being rejected or at least met with wildly emotionally immature responses. Just Monday, a day after I announced my withdrawl, I did find a desire in my heart to share with her a list of things that were burdening me. Her response was distant and clinical. It might have been her last chance, I’m not sure.

This was pretty much the point that I was at when I decided to leave. But if you're going to stay married, then don't stop advocating and speaking up for yourself.

InkHulk, what changed (if anything) between November (when you wrote a very happy, optimistic post in R) and now? Was their a huge backslide or did the "big moments" she had in therapy not translate into any real, impactful improvements in your relationship?

The big moments were real, and my mood after then was good, as I described. Things were going great and then I slammed into a brick wall. Given the sexual dysfunction of our marriage, there are elements of "you did for him but not for me", I’ll spare the details. I couldn’t imagine that that would continue (I’m very aware of the complication of her sexual trauma, but that didn’t stop her from doing it with him). But she has decided to die on that hill, and it’s frankly just too painful for me. Disrespect around parenting has also been unbearable.

So I see now that she sees it and is working on it. But it’s like I married someone who didn’t speak the same language as me and now she’s just learning. Or I got a hockey teammate, and I played my whole life and she can’t even skate. Is it reasonable to expect that we will ever have a satisfactory partnership? You say you do. But I don’t know how to get there from here. I’ve been patient, and I’m out of patience. I’ve let go and it feels good. I don’t see a path.

Yes. Exactly. All of it.

My husband would tell me something, I would give the "that makes sense", but I didn’t have any words to fix it. I often needed to reflect and come back. It was excruciating for him.

Letting go is exactly what you should be doing. You can’t control it. You can only control uou. Anything you have done to this point was mostly a mirage that you could control or manage anything but your part of it.

In my situation, the sex thing wasn’t a thing. Not really. I mean yes he wanted me to initiate and to pursue him which I did diligently for a long time. But something that is not your nature will be unattainable long term. That would be her in ANY relationship. If she’d hitched her wagon to this man he would find the same thing out. It’s hard to explain but affair sex is often very fraught with manipulation and suspension of reality.

Yes. To address your question. We are happy. Both of us. And I read your posts and so much of it is recognizable to me. The pain and frustration you are feeling, the moments you are seeking comfort but sensing a disconnect. We were at all those points.I did get tips here on what to do and I utilized them but I was also having a tough time balancing for a period of time. That is not indicative of your results.

I know you aren’t trying to punish or black mail her, you are doing what you need to do for you. That’s exactly what you need to be doing. You don’t have to decide about a divorce today. You aren’t ready for that. But detachment is your only choice because you can’t be dragged around like that any longer. You have to focus on you being okay. And what your true responses should be. You will be doing the same thing she is to a certain extent, and honestly it’s so much easier when you realize you can’t steer the boat and you no longer want to.

I think she needs to feel where things are. To see the detachment. Never as a manipulation. It this so really isn’t. She won’t like it but she may see it’s her turn to steer the ship or it’s going to sink. I think you have done enough, you need to work on what you need to do independently of whatever it is she is or isn’t doing.

I am sorry you are struggling.

[This message edited by hikingout at 10:08 PM, Thursday, January 18th]

The fact that you're struggling with this is part of the reason I'm encouraging you to consider the previous marriage as over. I wonder if that framework is easier for you to operate within.

I think something like this could be helpful, like switching the default.
My mind seems to be settling into proposing two things to my wife: we either 1) take a 3-6 month in home seperation where we have no expectations as a couple and just focus on our separate lives and healing or 2) we divorce. I’m going to take some time to think/feel about that, but it seems like the path forward. If we choose 1), then we come back and see if we like each other, if we love each other, if we can work out a mutually satisfactory partnership (screw Bigger’s boilerplate! )

Ink, have you conflated forgiveness with staying in this M?

No, I have a reasonably good distinction between forgiveness and reconciliation in my mind, I don’t think that is where my block lays.

I had a thought, this one goes deep deep in to the weird workings of my mind. When my parents divorced, it really messed with my head. I have a clear memory of being around 15 and talking with my best friend at the time. I reasoned to him that if my parents were divorcing, that implied that they were never meant to be together and therefore I wasn’t supposed to exist. I think whatever is there blocking me from really looking divorce in the face is closer to that kind of irrational thought than any kind of mix up of semantics.

[This message edited by InkHulk at 4:09 AM, Friday, January 19th]

It’s hard to explain but affair sex is often very fraught with manipulation and suspension of reality.

HikingOut, it would be difficult for me to convey how much you’ve done for me today. You are poetic and articulate and so kind to invest your time and hard earned wisdom on me.
I just have to say to the comment above, it just doesn’t matter. And I know you will know that, but I just feel the need to say it. It’s too primal of an insult, at least for me.

You're describing the 180

And here I thought I’d stumbled on to some great new wisdom

One hell of a slow learner, this one. But the honest truth is I couldn’t have walked this journey much differently, I believe. There is just no way in hades that my mind and heart would have allowed me to do this until now, it would have torn me apart and I would have caved under any pressure. It makes me think of JFO, and how do we meet people where they are at?

Could what makes this so difficult is that your word means something to you? You made a vow getting married and even though your wife made the same vow and threw it away, maybe you are holding onto that vows meaning to you.

It’s an interesting thought, I’ll consider it. It doesn’t immediately hit me like EUREKA, but it sounds plausible. It’s been quite stark from the very beginning to me that the vows are broken, totally null and void. But there is some kind of intense permenancy to marriage in my mind, and the language of forever is certainly in the vows.
Thanks for the thoughts, I appreciate it.

Hi InkHulk, sorry I have not been around much lately. I was hoping that this was just gonna be a "nice" philosophical thread.

I am sad to say that my message here is pretty much the message in most of my other posts in your threads. Your WW wants to R with you on HER terms--for HER sake. It may not be 100% of it but it is at least 80% of it.

Your WW may indeed be putting in the work to fix her issues and so her capacity to love you may be limited. But, you have YOUR life to live too, and you are entitled to be thinking of what is best for YOU. My 2 cents.

Or I got a hockey teammate, and I played my whole life and she can’t even skate.

Maybe when you said 'hockey' you were thinking of the ice version, and she was thinking of the field version. No skating necessary.

Based on years of living, acting, and observing, I think each of us speaks a different language than everyone else. There's a lot of commonality. But the margins, at least, can be tricky. I name colors differently than my W does. We had different understanding of 'fidelity' for a long while. We were born in different years in one system and the same year in another.

Unfortunately, the differences don't make themselves known until a crisis. At that point, I think the only decent option available is to suck up the fact the different languages were in use and to resolve the ensuing issues.

*****

You ARE making a power play in your W's view. You're not adjusting to your W the same old way. I think you're betting the new way is better than the old, and I think you'd win that bet, but it's new and almost definitely uncomfortable for your W.

*****

Your W says she's starting to recover from possible CSA and from being raped. That's at leas one giant burden. The sooner she heals from rape and CSA, the better for her and for you, but it won't be quick. She's been on a painful, unhealthy path since being raped, and if CSA is in her background, she was knocked off a healthy path long, long ago.

You don't have to stick around for her recovery. It will be rocky, no matter what. The rewards for sticking around aren't trivial, though.

If you choose to stick around, you do have to forgo some of the engagement you want until she's ready, however.

*****

I'm posting only about R in general. I don't - probably can't - know enough about your sitch to say much of anything about benefits accruing to you in this case.

Nor can I advise you what to do. I can say that my reading of posts by probably 1,000s of BSes tells me you're probably within the normal range for someone as far out as you are. That says nothing about the future, though.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 4:48 PM, Friday, January 19th]

Based on years of living, acting, and observing, I think each of us speaks a different language than everyone else. There's a lot of commonality. But the margins, at least, can be tricky. I name colors differently than my W does. We had different understanding of 'fidelity' for a long while. We were born in different years in one system and the same year in another.

I did think of this as I wrote the analogy, as in who am I to expect her to learn to speak my language. But I think this is just a case of a model that is only minimally useful, and pretty wrong pretty quickly. I’m not willing to say that her level of emotional immaturity (which I believe she came by honestly of no fault of her own, I don’t blame her for it) is just a "different language" when compared to reasonable emotional maturity (with the implication that I believe I am more emotionally mature than her, and I do believe that). Learning a new language or a new skill isn’t "growth" in the sense we talk about what is needed for character development. It is not a moral flaw to not know how to skate (and even if it were a misunderstanding of the turf to be played on, she would likely never in a lifetime meet my proficiency in the sport).

Brings up an interesting point. I believe my wife has character defects. They are what led her to betray me. They are bad, and they are her, at least part of her. But I also believe that she acquired them largely thru things that are beyond her control, FOO, abuse. Seems to lead back to that paradox of quantum mechanics. And in the end, all I can do is make shaky predictions of what will make me happiest, and that is a foreign concept to me (thank you, codependency).

But there is some kind of intense permenancy to marriage in my mind

As one who, shall we say, shares your moral worldview, human marriage was *never* meant to be "permanent". It’s "until death do us part" OR D for reasons like adultery. Impermanent earthly marriage points forward to something future - eternal - and our faults in human marriage point to the need and ultimate fulfillment of something *truly* permanent and truly perfect.

As one who, shall we say, shares your moral worldview, human marriage was *never* meant to be "permanent". It’s "until death do us part" OR D for reasons like adultery.

Thanks, that’s helpful to me. I do believe I’ve got something mixed up there and this is a better understanding.

I gave my two options to my wife. She wants the work on ourselves separation. I think I do too.

But I think something that would represent growth for me is in that time I work with a lawyer to have a D plan. Don’t have to use it, but just to really face that fear/block if nothing else.