Weird Limbo
Hello again. It's been a bit since I posted last, and it's been a little over 6 months since D-day for me. I find myself in a strange kind of limbo that I'm trying to figure out. Maybe you guys can shed some light on things for me.
On D-day I immediately decided that I wanted to reconcile. I told her but had some conditions. The first being the affair must end fully and completely, and the second is she needs to start being 100% honest with me. In retrospect I think that was a mistake. I was in shock and the seriousness of the situation hadn't really sunk in yet. I should have probably waited to see if she was up for the task. But thats where we are at.
I immediately went into marriage repair mode (probably hysterical bonding actually). I spent a lot of energy trying to give her the things she said she was missing from our relationship. Things like opening doors, going on dates, spending time together, etc. I am a pretty nice person, and was generally VERY nice to her. I also spent a lot of energy trying to prevent contact with her affair partner, and get her to break it off fully. It took two and a half months for her to really break it off, and that only after I left (only overnight) and threatened divorce.
I have since come to the realization that I was trying to "fix" a marriage that she had already destroyed. I was trying to fix a memory. That and the realization that problems in the marriage DID NOT cause her to choose to have an affair. But thats a topic for another day.
In that two month period everything I asked her to do to help me trust her again she heavily resisted, and anything she did was only after me asking many times, and still with a lot of feet dragging.
After she officially broke it off with him, she started doing more of the things I wanted, still with resistance but not as much as before. Eventually she would do them though.
She is doing and saying a lot in support of our relationship. But the things she is not doing, or things she resists me on, are causing me to pause and reconsider if she is really as committed as she says she is.
First the good:
- She took, and passed, a lie detector test that I requested
- She has read a couple of books I suggested
- She is kind to me and leaves me little love notes or apology notes
- She wants to be close to me physically, and also makes it a point to include me in her plans, and also plans dates
- She says she loves me often
- She is still doing normal things around the house like she used to. Making dinner, cleaning things up, running the kids around etc. I do this stuff when I'm off work, but it often falls on her because I work all day
- She is planning long term things with me - showing that she views us as being together long term
- We spend a lot of time together. I really enjoy her company, and it's been nice getting back to that
- She installed a gps tracker app
- She gave me permission to look at her phone and read her messages or emails, to get on her computers, etc.
- She got rid of some physical reminders of the affair.
- She willingly suggested and is going to IC, and we were going to MC for a while (until I nixed that because I didn't like the way the therapist was handling it)
Now the not so good:
- Everything I can think of that I have asked her to do for me she has put up significant resistance on before doing it.
* It was two months before she took the lie detector test and that was with much stress and many objections.
* It also took me two months to convince her to read "The Courage to Stay", which I feel is a really appropriate book for us at that time.
* The next book was "How to Help your Spouse Heal from Your Affair", which she listened to on Audible right away and REALLY didn't like. I suggested that maybe it rubbed her the wrong way listening to it. I said I agree with like 98% of the book, and I bought her a physical copy, and asked her to read it and underline which parts specifically she didn't agree with. She absolutely refused to do that, handing the book back to me. 
* The tracking app only took 3 or 4 weeks to convince her to install.
* It took her 6 months to get rid of the physical reminders of the affair. And that only after I asked nearly a dozen times in that period with her finally promising to do it in October. She didn't do it in October, so I brought it up again complaining that she promised and didn't uphold her promise. Then she reluctantly gave them to me for disposal. I asked her to get rid of anything at all that reminded her of the affair, but she only gave me the things I explicitly knew about already. Nothing else. She semi-defiantly says "most of the things are in my head anyway, not physical"
- She is constantly complaining of feeling like she is barely able to keep her head above water, and is on the edge of breaking down anytime we have a discussion.
- She continues to bring up past grievances when ever we have difficult discussions. Even after we have discussed them at length, I have explained my side, apologized for anything I feel I can, and promised to do better. Yet they continue to come up with the same or greater emotional intensity.
- She maintains the view that our marriage had a "rift" that I was partially responsible for and that contributed to her affair. I resist her a lot here because I feel like it's blame shifting, marriages don't cause affairs, and also most of her complaints she never discussed until after the affair was revealed. I am willing to do things she need me to do, I was before the affair as well, but she never talked to me about this stuff before.
- She says she is "sorry she hurt me", but has never said "the affair was wrong, and I will never do it again". The closest I have gotten from her is "I will never have another affair because it has been so painful leaving my affair partner and seeing you in pain" 
- Most of the things to address the affair I have come up with. She doesn't usually come up with things on her own.
It seems like she just wants the affair to go away, and to be swept under the rug. This is something cannot do under any circumstances.
Anyway theres probably more I could write, but this is getting rather long.
The thing I'm trying to figure out is if these are bad signs that I should be more concerned about, or if she is on the path and I should be patient and let her make progress? Is this just me being nice again and ignoring bad signs? Or am I just being impatient and I should let things continue unfolding? My therapist says people need time to change, but I'm concerned that I just don't see a lot of change happening, and she is still resisting me on things.
I definitely don't see contrition, only remorse. But again that could simply be because this sucks and she regrets having to end the affair. Who knows.
6 comments posted: Thursday, November 14th, 2024
Reconciliation questions
It's coming up on the 6 month anniversary of D-day for me, and I've been thinking a lot about reconciliation and what I would like to see happen in our relationship.
A few questions are bouncing around in my head of late:
1. Even if WW does all the things I need, will I ever really be able to trust her again? Am I just wasting both of our time trying to reconcile?
Q: Those who have reconciled, how did you decide that you could trust your partner again? What questions did you ask yourself that helped give you clarity?
2. As I have said in a previous post, our couples therapist is not addressing the affair at all (going to find someone else), and my wife is doing a lot of the things recommended in the affair recovery books, not all, but a lot. I see her efforts, and appreciate them, but in the back of my mind I wonder if she is really digging deep to change, or if she is doing the superficial things in order to say she "gave it a good try".
Q: What did you need to see to convince you that your spouse really did change into a person that would never cheat on you again?
3. Based on our conversations, the affair for her was a very positive time. She has many fond memories of it. She has said many times that she is sorry she hurt me, and that if she could go back in time she would not do it again. She assures me that she would never cheat on me again because letting go of that relationship was so painful for her, and seeing my pain was so painful for her. However saying those things is not the same as saying "the affair was wrong, and I will never cheat on you again".
Q: Should I be concerned about these positive emotions, and the fact that she seems upset by the fallout of the affair not the affair itself? Or is this generally expected behavior from wayward spouses, and part of the recovery process?
4. I love my wife, and really want to reconcile. The last few weeks I've been having a difficult time though. Every time I think positive things about her, the "she intentionally betrayed me" thoughts creep in and ruin my good mood. I'm having a difficult time getting past the idea that she intentionally had an affair, and that this affair really for all intents and purposes destroyed the part of our marriage that mattered - our vows to each other. Without vows we might as well just be friends with benefits.
Q: Is this a normal place to be 6 months out, and how did you move past these thoughts in order to really reconcile?
Thanks in advance for any advice.
7 comments posted: Wednesday, October 16th, 2024
Couples Therapy
I am trying to decide if my wife (WS) and I (BS) need a new couples therapist or if I'm just making a big deal of nothing.
Back story:
My wife told me about her affair the end of April 2024. It was a year long emotional and physical affair, where they both said they loved the other. They had unprotected sex hundreds of times, which eventually resulted in a pregnancy and she had an abortion. Really difficult for me.
From the start I wanted to reconcile. For the first 6 weeks she had a really hard time breaking contact off with him, and he kept reaching out to her. It has really been hell for me, and only recently have I been able to think about other things some of the time.
She is also suffering a lot with her own issues and emotions surrounding the affair. Feeling lots of guilt for what she has done, mourning the loss of her relationship with him, mourning the loss of the baby she aborted, etc.
We both have triggers.
It makes for a lot of volatility when we have discussions. But also she has been really good to help me through my issues, and put my needs and the needs of our kids first. She is doing many of the steps that people recommend to reconcile.
Since the affair, my wife has continually said the affair is 100% her fault. But she also has been bringing up all sorts of things she is blaming me for not doing before the affair, or things that contributed to her having an affair, etc. Things that were almost never communicated prior to the affair. It seems like she is saying something like this for every thing she blames me for: "the affair is 100% my fault, however there were things you weren't doing that I was able to get from the affair, and are part of the reason it happened."
On the one hand I'm glad she is trying to explain why it happened to me. I do really want to understand that. On the other it seems like blame shifting her affair onto me. It's hard to tell which is which.
In the period from then to now we have tried three different couples therapists. The first one was horrible, the second one I liked because she seemed to be able to empathize with my predicament. My wife wanted to go with someone else though; the therapist we are currently seeing every two weeks.
My concerns:
This therapist is very knowledgeable and competent. I don't have any issues with that. But in our last three sessions he has pretty much skipped over the affair completely and wen't straight into using the Gottman methods of repairing relationships. We asked for Gottman techniques, and to get started repairing our relationship ASAP, so I'm glad to learn these skills, and maybe I just need to communicate what I want.
It just seems strange that a couples therapist seeing a couple because of infidelity hasn't yet addressed the issue directly. He's talked about trust in general and what it means to each of us. He's recommended some books, which we are reading. We worked on how we communicate better, which is a good thing.
However focussing only on marital issues we have, or had before the affair, feels to me very much like blaming the affair on our marital issues, and not on the decisions my wife made. Or maybe I'm just focussing too much on that and the way to repair our marriage is actually to fix those issues?
I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he's not addressing it directly because we are months into this process. We have had many discussions already, we have had full disclosure already, backed up with a lie detector test which I requested she take.
I expected that a couples therapist would work through and address the affair first, and then proceed on to things that strengthen the marriage.
However I've never been here before and thats why I'm seeking advice from everyone here.
Does it sound like we need a new therapist?
Should I bring up my concerns in couples therapy? (I also considered writing a letter to him alone to avoid stressing my wife out)
Am I focussing too much on the affair, and should really be focussed on repairing issues we had in our marriage instead?
23 comments posted: Thursday, September 26th, 2024
