Hi everyone,
Time to share my story. Been lurking around for a few months...
My BD was June 1 2016. I found out about the OM through texts on my W's phone the morning before she was leaving on an international business trip. I confronted her and she dropped the bomb. Like many, I was completely oblivious to where our relationship had gone and in complete shock on finding out.
I am 47, W is 46. We have three boys S6, S9, S11 and have been married 12 years, together 17. Since one month after bomb drop, we have been splitting time at our house with the other staying at a rented one bedroom apartment. We share custody 50% but she travels for work quite frequently and the one week on, one week off schedule has been subject to a lot of changes.
The OM is a work colleague of my W. He is a few years younger. The physical affair started in March and he ended it (AFAIK) when W told him that she had left me. It has since turned into an EA and is still ongoing. He is married with no kids. Interestingly, he is remarkably similar to me - similar racial persuasion, personality-wise, similar physical characteristics. He lives in another country - but they chat by text all day every day.
My wife has told me that she feels hurt, neglected, angry and frustrated by me not "being there for her" and not being an equal partner in the marriage. She feels that I put everything in our lives ahead of her. She feels that I didn't pull my weight around the house. She feels that I put a higher priority on our kids and playing sports than taking care of her. She feels that I didn't talk her love languages, even after we talked about how we could both do more. Many of her points are valid, and I've been working on the parts of it that I can that don't involve her. The one thing that she says that is tough for me to swallow is that she says that I "checked out" of our marriage and I understand how she had that perception, especially with her own state of mind.
Our current living arrangement will change in the spring when the lease for the apartment runs out. We haven't yet discussed what will happen at this point. I am considering asking her to find her own place and staying in our house full-time at that point, but can't talk to her about that yet. I'm also going to suggest that our boys spend slightly more time with me as I rarely travel for work during the week.
As far as I can tell, her behaviour is "text book" MLC. When the PA was ongoing, she started exercising, new clothes, new sexy underthings, etc. She also travelled constantly (many of the trips to meet up with OM) and pulled back emotionally from me. After BD, I got the ILYBINILY as well as typical behaviour for someone still in the midst of a PA. As I said, when W told the OM that she was leaving me, he ended the PA immediately. She has dedicated herself to her job since then prioritizing work over the kids on many occasions.
She has projected many issues on to me that are hers alone and has not really started any self work. She is firmly still in Replay (still deep in the EA) and I don't see any movement any time soon. She has monstered at me many times, accusing me of being a terrible father, of doing 2% of things around the house - which, although I didn't do enough, I certainly did more than that. She has also maintained the blaming game - all the hurt, anger and resentment that she has is my fault.
One interesting dynamic for us is that we have both travelled a lot over the 10+ years that we have kids, so we are both accustomed to being "single" parents on occasion. After BD, I looked at the schedule and realized that W had been on the road for over 60 days of the previous year. Did I mention that we have three boys under the age of 11?
Since the BD, she has forsaken her family and most of her/our friends. She has told very few people that she is separated and even some of her immediate work colleagues still don't know over 5 months later.
About two months after BD, she suggested that we "try" and be friends. She broke off the relationship with the OM and we went on a number of dates. She would monster on occasion but we were able to spend time together as a family, which the kids appreciated. She seemed happy on the surface and as I'm sure many can imagine, I was overly optimistic about what it meant. After about three weeks of this, I found out that she had started chatting with OM again. When I confronted her, she admitted it, no remorse or regrets. Being betrayed yet again, I was crushed.
I reset the boundary of her choosing between being friends with the OM or me, but not both. Since that time, she has tried to cake eat and I've tried different ways of dealing with it. I've run out of variations to try on my end and it's down to contact regarding the kids right now. I've finally accepted her decision and decided to be firm on that boundary from my point of view.
There hasn't been any legal action to date.
Immediately after BD, I was able to book some time with an IC. I saw her regularly during the first three months and intermittently over the last two. W started seeing the same IC about three weeks after BD and AFAIK continues to see her. We had two sessions of MC with her, but both were disasters.
Now, about five months in, I'm in a good spot. I'm standing (for now) and I understand that my W is deep in the tunnel and that the only way she can get out of it is on her own. The first two months were very dark for me and personally challenging. I was able to focus on my kids early on - W was gone for work travel 11 of the first 15 days after BD. And that helped me cope as it kept me very busy. Then, I was able to focus on setting up the shared apartment. Unfortunately, at that point, I was still thinking I was doing it "for her", but I also live there to, so it worked out fine. And I was able to initially detach and start GAL right before she came back to "try". That set me back quite a ways in terms of detachment, and my boundaries.
I've been surrounded and supported by great friends. I have a number of people who I can lean on and have provided support and sometimes guidance. Lots of them ask me the right questions instead of telling me what to do. My MIL and FIL are also very supportive. I feel bad for them, because, despite me trying to explain what their D is going through, they are challenged in understanding how she can make the awful decisions that she has made.
I've cycled many times through too high expectations (always followed by huge disappointment - I know shocking) and refocusing on myself. I chose StormChaser as my user name because I likened my W to a tornado and I kept jumping in front of it and getting spit out the back. I tried many things to speed up the process, even though I know intellectually that I can't speed up anything. I gave her the ultimatum of choosing between the OM/EA and friendship with me. I pointed out the financial realities of divorce and how it will affect her (not great for me, but disastrous for her). I have said to her many of the things I've read in other threads, both good and bad. I'm good at self work and that's helping me be resilient through this. I truly believe that I've tried everything I can on my end - of course realizing that the only thing I can do is work on me and nothing I do to my W or for my W will change her journey...
The first thing that I needed to work on was doing my share around the house. Well, as a single dad of three kids, I haven't had any choice but to deliver on that. The house is well kept, I'm making good meals and keeping the kids to their schedules for school, home life and sports. Another thing that I need to work on are praise where praise is due, gratitude and acknowledgement of effort over results. As I can't work on this with the W still in the fog, I'm trying to work on it at work (I run a company) and with my boys.
I'm struggling with detaching. I'm working on it, and sometimes I'm better than other times. I reread the content here on self work and detachment frequently to try and internalize it. My IC gave me some good tips for how to try and overcome bullying thoughts and work it through.
My W is a pleaser and an internalizer by nature and those are mainly the things that have brought her into this journey. She sought to make others happy by doing. She would rarely ask for help. She wouldn't share how she felt (and still isn't with me) with me or anyone else for that matter. She feels that she shared how she felt when she told me that she was frustrated I didn't help out more around the house or do the dishes or other tasks. She feels that I didn't listen to her - and she's right. I tuned out what I thought was nagging, thinking that I was doing my best and that was good enough. I didn't think about what was important to her. After feeling unappreciated and starting to ask herself why she wasn't happy, her transition began. It became a crisis when I didn't respond how she wanted. I wish I had known how she felt and I wish I had acted on what she gave me, but you don't know what you don't know. I thought we were happy...
I remember the first weeks, just trying to get by hour by hour. Getting to day by day was a big achievement. Then I got to week by week, but was derailed. I feel that I'm back to week by week and looking forward to month by month!
My main goals right now are to get better at detachment, to ensure that I'm a lighthouse and to be patient.
Looking forward to being a recipient and contributor to this amazing community.
Thx for listening...
A note from RCR - 2023
It's been requested that this thread be added to the list of reconciliation threads.
The moderators and I discussed it briefly and we felt I should add a little disclaimer that this situation may have been a milder crisis or a not-quite-crisis Midlife Transition. Reconciliation is something to be celebrated, but at the same time I don't want to falsely inflate hope with a situation that may be an outlyer. With that in mind I've just posted Was it a short Midlife Transition or an incomplete Midlife Crisis? at the blog, this article discusses how you might discern of a Midlife Transition is at crisis levels or not.