tompetty781 wrote:

It might come down to her asking you, "What do you want me to do?" I encourage you strongly to not fall into this trap.

I got that question..   My response:    "you made vows when you married me..  live up to those vows!   If you can't, then leave."



 

There's quite a bit of truth in the saying to judge people more by their actions than by their words.

Well I will try and keep you all updating on my journey. 

​The wife and my 5 year old son went out of town today to see a close family friend who knows what has been going on. It will probably be a small reprieve for me the next few days since just being around her has been super difficult for me to cope at the moment. She pretty much walks around the house when she is home acting like nothing has ever happened and everything is normal. Obviously there is no intimacy at this point, but conversations, dinners, etc. are just about normal. I love you has been a difficult thing for her to say lately as well. 

​My wife's mother who happens to be my biggest supporter in all of this wants me to concentrate on myself, get back to doing things I enjoy like sports, gym, etc. and stop worrying about her. Nothing I can do or say at this point will be able to sway her mind in either direction and if anything I will just push her further away, but she is still " very confused " about what she wants or thinks she needs at this point. But then knowing she speaks to this other woman constantly leads me to believe she has already made her mind up and just doesn't want to make any moves right now simply for convenience factor and she wants to ride out the holidays when the other woman said she might leave her husband.. I don't know, its all so messed up and confusing for me to.  

​In my opinion that's bullshit, you either love me or you don't, its pretty cut in dry in my view, but again I guess I am not going through a sexuality crisis so it may be easy for me to say.

​Again, I may be holding on and hoping for nothing. I know that you all have been through this before and have probably seen this all before but I don't think I can throw the towel in on my marriage just yet. She did ask me for time on multiple occasions to seek out therapists and to try to figure out where her head is at and unfortunately me being not very patient I have pushed through out all of this and maybe driven her away more.. Or maybe that's just me over thinking it, I don't know.. So I am going to continue down this path a little longer, I am trying to come to terms with the fact that she is most likely going to leave me in the end but if I don't give it this one last go I think I will have regrets for the rest of my life if I did not. 

​So...... That is where I am at right now, stay tuned.

So I guess I will provide an update of sorts.. 

My wife and the other woman have decided to call it " quits ". 

​I have spoken to my wife and the other woman and they both assured me ( for whatever their word means at this point ) that their relationship is over in a " lovers " aspect and that they are both going to commit to marriage counseling and seeing if their marriages are salvageable after all the damage they have created.

Unfortunately ​I do kind of question their commitment especially since one of their main concerns is their ability to remain as just friends. Obviously I have my concerns about that and the fact that I think they will relapse but suppose I am willing to explore it a little further rather than just continuing in this floundering state. 

​Of course there are all sorts of things coming up from my wife's past now. Things that have to do  within our relationship and outside.. 

​One major aspect is that she now says she has always had anxiety towards me, especially when I am loving or intimate towards her. Kind of a hell of a thing to bring up after being in a relationship for eighteen years but I guess you have to start somewhere.. So we are going to seek out counseling separately and we have marriage counseling scheduled in a few days to see if we can work out things to continue with in our marriage.. 

​I know my wife's past was filled with quite a bit of relationship trauma, so I am going to try and have patience and let this play out just as long as they don't break my trust moving forwards.

Update on my situation.. 

​My wife and I had a talk on Friday about what her commitment levels where to our counseling and our path forwards together since I saw a change in her attitude towards me.

​Her response was " she cannot be committed to me and we are not going to work out, due to the fact that she is unable to forget about the feelings she has for this other woman and that she is willing to take the risk of sacrificing our relationship to potentially pursue one with the other woman ". 

​We spoke for about two hours, our relationship, my feelings, her feelings and so on. She says she still loves me, but only as a brother and there were no romantic feelings left. 

We ended up saying that we are going to separate, not exactly sure as to how we are going to do so just yet but she was supposed to move into the spare bedroom the next day and we were going to take things slow through the holidays for the kids.. 

​Well as you can imagine this news has pretty much crushed me. I woke up the next morning ( Saturday )  to see her leaving for work and of course she was wearing something that I liked seeing her in and sent me down the emotional rabbit hole. 

​I ended up deciding I can't take being around her and I will never be able to heal with her living here, so I told her that she needed to find a new place to stay. We have quite a few friends in the area and we can easily afford for her to rent an apartment some where while still maintaining our mortgage. 

​She agreed to do so but obviously needed to stop by and obtain some things. I only saw her briefly as she passed by as she stopped home to pick some things up and asked me to not to do anything rash like visiting a divorce lawyer or anything just yet.. 

​Its been a tough two days though. This has been someone I have cared deeply about since I was 16 years old, I don't know what to do with my self. Not knowing she is ok, or where she is,  is probably the hardest aspect of all of this.. We have lived together for 12 years and we probably only spend 5 days apart at most a year.. 

​I also took it upon myself to tell the other husband what was really going on. I gave the other woman an opportunity to tell him but she didn't take it. Telling me " he knows everything, you don't need to tell him. " Well him and I spoke for over an hour and he knew barely anything. I gave him the opportunity to tell me not to tell him, but I knew if i was in his shoes I would want to know the truth. 

​The other woman did call me after she had heard that I spoke with him and told him everything I knew and laid the guilt on pretty thick, asking me if I was proud to hurt him. Honestly I am not proud of hurting him, but  I couldn't stand knowing that he was continually being lied to, he deserved to know the truth so he can make the best decision moving forwards with his life and I know if I was in his shoes I would want to know the real truth.

​I will admit I have a small glimmer of hope, I keep thinking my wife may come back after being gone realizing she is making a mistake and that she wants to be here. I also realize that hope is irrational, its just so hard to let go. She has still yet to say the words " I am gay " to me as well.. She has told me though that being intimate with me has always given her anxiety and being with this other woman just feels so natural. So she might as well have told me she is gay..

​I am trying to move down the path of being happy again and healing, but it is very hard at the moment.

​We still have our group counseling meeting on Tuesday as well which we are both planning to attend, the use of it right now I am not to sure of.