Unsure in Seattle

Thor, do you have it in you to be a warden? Not saying you're in the wrong here- quite the opposite, in fact. But the fact that you have to have this conversation with her in the first place must be galling.

bandit.45

Typical cheaterspeak: gaslighting, stalling and obfuscation. This would be almost laughable if it weren't so pathetic.

Beowulf

First of all take the word controlling out of your vocabulary right now. This is something that WS use to vilify and gaslight BS. It has no place in this context. You cannot control anyone else. Period.

You are not overreacting at all. If you feel this person is going to have a negative influence on your wife at such a critical time in your R then your wife IF SHE IS REALLY REMORSEFUL, will not object to ending contact with her. Remember this, a friend that is not a friend of the marriage is an enemy of the marriage. Case closed.

Thorburn

I am not going to the rest of my life. But please tell me if I am wrong, at this stage to check things. I think most people at the time line I am at do.

She deleted texts because her phone was full. She deleted her youngest brother's texts. She told me that she talks to him about me. I don't care and in fact I encourage her to do so. He is the only one in her family that talks to her. Her two older brothers don't and have not since she called them and told them she had sex with the OM back in November. Her brothers talk to me. Her two sisters talked to her at a bridal shower two weeks ago and that is the only time they talked since the A.

The only deleted text I am upset about is the ones from her friend and that set me off on Friday.

Man, I have never controlled her, been angry with her, cursed her, never been paranoid, never. I told her that she has done this.

If she wants out, fine. Then she better tell me, because so far she says she wants to work it out.

But like I said, if she lets a friend who she had nothing to do with for over 30 years get between us, then I am done.

She says she needs a friend. I get that. But there are many people who I would not have a problem with that we both know and who have reached out to her in many ways over the past two years and she is not interested. In fact, over the past year several of her friends from the antique business have asked her to go out with them and she has not. I would be fine with that.

__________________
This kind of cosmic dumbassery occupies a temporal plane of ineptitude and lack of reason so profound a Zen master could spend a lifetime meditating upon its philosophical consequences.”

Thorburn

i protected this country for over 37 years. Served in combat, bronze star and combat action badge. I can be a dam* warden and a badas* if I need to be. But with my wife I have not had to go into that mode until now. 12 years ago she convinced her family that I was abusing her. She was having internet sex affairs with four guys around the world. She told them that being in the military had caused me to be abusive. I was never abusive to her. This was her cover. Her family, every one of them had lived with us over the years for months at a time. Finally her oldest brother said, this does not make sense. My wife had convinced them not to contact me. He did. Finally her family crumbled and when it was found out what was really going on her dad cursed her out and smashed the phone (he never said a mean word to her). Her oldest brother told me today that if his dad was alive today he would have killed her and the OM.

__________________
This kind of cosmic dumbassery occupies a temporal plane of ineptitude and lack of reason so profound a Zen master could spend a lifetime meditating upon its philosophical consequences.”

Beowulf

Ok, you are not being controlling. You are trusting her but verifying. You are communicating to her about your feelings. You are trying to reconcile with a cheater. Being angry with someone that betrayed you is ok as long as it doesn't pass into abuse. And if it does you will know. Cursing her is also not unexpected. You are dealing with PTSD symptoms that she caused. You also will not have to do this forever. Your wife is not liking the aftermath of her betrayal. Well boo f'ing hoo. You are alpha-ing up and that is EXACTLY what you need to do.

Unsure in Seattle

I just mean to say that it's unfair to yourself to expect to police her bad behavior for the rest of your natural. You've a life to live.

bandit.45

But why is she acting this way with this particular friend? I cannot believe this old GF is her only friend on earth. No way. Is your wife that isolated?

She deleted that text for a reason. You may have to call your cell provider and see if they can dredge it up for you to look at.

Thorburn

Can't unless I get a court order and I can't get a court order for this.

She just hung up on me all upset. She said this is the only friend she has. It is bullsh**. She named a bunch of friends at the beginning of her conversation with me and I told her that I would have no problem with any of the ones she named.

She mentioned Carrie. Her childhood friend. A very rich liberal friend who we have met over the years and who got insulted with my wife when abortion was mentioned. She rarely talked to her on FB. Once in the last year about a song her and her husband posted on Youtube. My wife said it was sweet (it was). That was it.

Her college friend Sonia. Sonia has been in contact with me during this not my wife. My wife had her visit last year and my wife could not wait for her to leave because of her hyper Christianity. Sonia is a sweet Puerto Rican girl. My wife smokes and will not smoke around Sonia. My wife says she has to be fake around her. In the Christian world my wife is convicted around her "Christian" friends and does not want to be too close to them. My wife calls them judgemental. Believe me, they are not. They have always been understanding of my wife.

Her GF's from when she worked FT in the antique business. There are at least 1/2 dozen or more from all stripes of life who would love to be around my wife. My wife can be fun to be around. But she has avoided each and everyone of them. We went out for dinner a few months ago with one and you can see that they connect and have fun together. Lydia is fun to be with. She is a Christian and had an abortion early in life and has no judgemental spirit in her. She gets it. Yet my wife will not open up to her for whatever reason. Lydia and her husband Bob are very wealthy but they are down to earth folk. They understand people. When we had the Amish killed in the Nickle Mine school, Bob and Lydia reached out to the killer's wife and kids and hid them for months at their expense, on one of their farms.

i could go on and on. My wife isolated herself because she did not want her secret to be out there. She knew that these people would be suspicious of her behavior.

We have non-Christian friends. I could go through this list and yet my wife has not reached out to them at all.

So my wife is now in tears, hung up on me over a GF from 30 years ago. Saying this is the only friend she has and I am controlling her and says I have to stop this.

She says I have lied to her about painting the shed, or going to the gym. Ok, I have not painted the shed or have gone to the gym. I am the world's biggest liar.

Yet, she goes on anti-depressives in early Dec. It takes away her sex drive. She says she does not like it and will see her doctor about it. She keeps telling me in Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar that she will see her doctor about it and has not. She says she will go in for counseling for as long as it takes and she stops going for a month. I get mad. She goes and the counselor announces that she does not need to be seen anymore because her depression in under control. Depression. My wife said she was going for counseling to figure out why she did what she did, to prevent it from happening again, why she is so attractive to men in public, and why she falls in love with strangers in a few days. She has not addressed any of this.

She tells me now that she is going next week to see why I have looked at porn. Porn. She says that I have looked at porn and this bothers her. I have looked. When I came home from Iraq I looked at porn maybe a few times, I did not hide it from her. While in Iraq I looked at porn a few times. When ever she asked I told her. She is now saying that is why she cheated on me.

I have not hid this from anyone. Her oldest brother told me again today that it does not make sense. A lot of guys look at it and it is not the same as what she has done.

My wife told me on the phone that she was going to give me an ultimatum years ago that I need to retire from the Army because she suspected that i looked at porn when I was away. But she never did.

Everytime we went in for MC porn was brought up (3 times since 1995). Everytime the MC ended the session after a few visits. Each and every one of them said, I am not addicted, but said that a lot of guys look at it and if I am not denying my wife of sex, and if it did not replace her (I can say it never, ever did) then she needs to stop coersing me about it. I was open about it in MC. I never hid it. From the time I got back from Iraq till her A I looked at porn a few times and never once got off on my own, with the exception when she was in the hospital for a week with seven broken ribs. I was accused by her doctor of doing it (he said I just got back from Iraq and went off on her). The fact is she has brittle bones from her chemo for treating her arthritis and she coughed so severly that her bones broke. Social workers came every day to get it out of her that I beat her. My wife could not believe it and told them that I never lifted a finger against her. She told them to call her doctors and they will tell them that she has brittle bones. Last month our dog sat on her when they were playing and broke a rib.

In 2000 she looked at porn thousands of times. I know, I had a keylogger on our computer and she was in the midst of sexual online affairs with 4 guys. I did not care about the porn. I cared about the sexual affairs and that is what I gave to her family, all the sexual text.

Last month she said she cheated because her mother died and I was not there for her. Yet, my former boss would give me all the time off I needed. My wife said, she does not need me to come home that talking to her on the phone was enough.

She told me she cheated because when I came back from Iraq I had E.D. Hel* i just got back from combat. On the first night in the hotel I had E.D. I got severe pain went to the E.R. got viagra and she had to tell me to stop, all within hours of my problem.

She told me she cheated because her sister told everyone last March that she had internet sex in 2010.

She told me she cheated because she wanted fun and excitement in her life.

I could go on since D-day on why she said she cheated. It has changed so many times.

In counseling if a guy brings up porn I do a quick assessment. Did you ever deny your wife sex because of porn? Does porn control you? Has it affected your sleep where you stay up late and can't walk away from it? Has it affected your work? Is it excessive and controlling your life? If the general answer is no, I move on to other things.

My wife is now blameshifting, IMO. And it does us no good. I said I will talk about porn but I will not let her blame me for her behavior.

__________________
This kind of cosmic dumbassery occupies a temporal plane of ineptitude and lack of reason so profound a Zen master could spend a lifetime meditating upon its philosophical consequences.”

NotLikeYou

Thorburn, I think you are caught between the real you and your self-image of (you).

Your self image is a man of strong boundaries, tough love, and reasonable expectations.

The real you has tolerated multiple online sexual affairs from your wife, at least one real in-the-flesh PA, and the kind of crap your wife is pulling now, where by her words and deeds she shows no respect for you or your feelings.

There seems to be a pretty serious disconnect between these two guys, and your wife is not healing the breach.

She should be.

I think you know that based on your wife's past behavior, you are not being unreasonable here, much less controlling.

You are having to negotiate with your wife for things (fidelity and devotion) that she should be giving you voluntarily. Your negotiation is taking the form of arguments with her, but it is negotiating nonetheless.

And the problem you are going to run into again and again is the one you are running into now. You're going to have to argue and fight and negotiate and spy and eavesdrop to get the things out of your marriage that you're SUPPOSED to get out of a marriage.

I don't envy you that. I will say that in reading your posts, you have always struck me as a decent and honorable man making the best of a pretty lousy situation. You've given your wife a lot more chances than she deserves.

Stick to your guns and you'll be okay through this situation.

bandit.45

NotLikeYou nailed it. Well said.

Beowulf

If infidelity weren't involved I would say that all these things are sh!t tests and to either ignore them. However she is blameshifting and that is evident. Do not argue with her. When she says any of this just say NO!

Do not argue with her. Simply give her an ultimatum. If she is not going to show true remorse and work on R then it ends. None of this should be tolerated from you at all. I think you are incredibly strong for trying to save your marriage but from what you've written it seems to me that the work is all coming from your end. You need to decide if this is all worth it.

Thorburn

She says I am twisting things and embellishing the truth. She says everyone she has talked to has told her I am wrong. She has only talked to her youngest brother and sister in law. And they are telling her that I am wrong. She says she is telling them the truth. And that she is going in for counseling because I looked at porn and that will get to the bottom of why she cheated on me.

I told her that she had un protected sex with a stranger the first time she met him and she drove him to a motel. She said I have said this five times today. She says I am not showing her love that I am putting her down.

She said she is not going to contact her friend but she does not like it. I told her what Beowulf said and she said, let me talk to him and I will tell him the truth. I refused. This is one of my safe spots. I told her what I wrote and she said, I am embellishing.

I asked her again why she is so upset over a GF from 30 years ago. She said it is normal for people to reconnect. She said I did. And she mentioned two guys and the only two guys that I reconnected with over the years. OK, Brad was my best man in my wedding and we lost contact. Around 1995 I met with Brad at a Burger King for about an hour and then I went to his house around 2001 when I was stationed in the Army in the town he lived in and he lived about 1 mile from my duty station. I met with his wife and kids for about an hour. Brad and his wife Judy had no interest in me and that was apparent and when I left I never had contact with him again. Brad and Judy are church going folks. Around 1995 my wife had no interest in meeting with Brad. The Burger King is a mile from our home and my wife said she did not want to go meet him. That was fine with me. Then there was Bob, my college roommate. He and I had a falling out over his sister in law and brother in law. It was a messy church thing where I relieved her of her church duties for almost having an affair and it became gossip. This woman told my roommate that I was evil and she did not want Bob to have anything to do with me. To keep peace in the family Bob stopped contacting me. That was around 1992. Bob called me December of 2008 to patch things up. We stayed in contact during my time in Iraq. Bob was a Messianic Jewish pastor and now is a banker. A good guy. After 2009 there has been no further contact, we drifted apart. My wife brought this up tonight and I told her if you had a problem with Brad or Bob I would have dropped them in a minute, but the reality is they did not represent things from the past that were bad. Brad or Bob do not drink. In college we were straight laced guys and did not drink. Neither Bob nor I were the partying type and we did everything together until I met my wife. Bob got mad and told my future wife that she ruined our friendship. I told Bob, laughingly, that I could never marry him and he got it. My wife and I did not party. In fact I rarely drank alcohol throughout our marriage from 1987 until 2000. That is when my wife was doing the internet sex thing and was going out with a guy drinking beer in his pick up truck (yea, she still says there was no sex). She went out with this guy several times and my boys would tell me that mom smelled liked cigarettes and alcohol (they were around 11 and 12 at the time). After her dad got involved and straighted her out we started to drink more and that in 2001 I started smoking because my wife did. Up until this time my wife would not drink.

We talked again about 40 minutes ago and she said that I am bringing stuff up on a day that she has worked hard and been on her feet. That this is not right.

She said I am looking for perfection (this has been a common theme), in her and that nothing will be right in my eyes. That I have her under a microscope. That I am nitpicking everything. I said, maybe I am but you have caused this. She says I keep bringing this stuff up everyday. I don't. There have been days where I don't bring it up (once for four days). ANd there have been times where 3 or 4 days have gone by and we talked about the A for an hour and that is it.

This last issue about her GF has bugged me and yes we argued about it Friday and today. I did not discuss the affair yesterday, if my thinking is correct, nor Saturday, nor Sunday (I think).

So no I am not a saint. But the ultimatum stands. No contact with this former GF.

She says i have friends that I can talk to and I do. She says she does not. When I brought up her friends she gave me every excuse in the book why she can't or how wrong I am about these girls. I wish I could record our conversations. She tells me about her friends at the beginning of the conversation then she tells me she never said that and that she has no friends or the friends that I bring up are not her friends.

She is now crying,, telling me that this makes me offensive to her, and that she is taking a bath and going to bed.

__________________
This kind of cosmic dumbassery occupies a temporal plane of ineptitude and lack of reason so profound a Zen master could spend a lifetime meditating upon its philosophical consequences.”

Beowulf

Hell, I'll PM you my private email address if she wants to talk to me. I'll have Morrigan talk to her as well. Frankly she won't like what I have to tell her though. I'm going to guess that Morrigan will be even more harsh than I.

She doesn't like the fallout from her affair. The restrictions are closing in on her and she is trying to make a stand. Hold your ground soldier.

Thorburn

Yes, I would welcome that. I am not sure if she will talk. I do not want her to know about TAM though. It has been my safety net.

She has gotten more bold. I know that this is a power struggle and she is trying to regain hers. I know in the future that things will have to shift more in her direction but right now she has shifted to fighting mode and now is not the time to divide power. I still think she is hiding stuff. She said they were together five times, had sex four times and I busted up their fifth. I know seven for a fact. Two dates she swears they did not meet. September 27 is one. We came home from Disney on September 24th and the OM left with his family to go to Disney around Oct. 1st, exactly a week after we got back. This is significant because they would have talked about Disney. She claims they did not meet on this date and she only text him about Disney. I know that she text her brother in the morning till about 11 A.M. It was his birthday. All phone activity stopped till around 3 (it stopped because she was doing her hair and showering around noon till about 1 or 2 and then she would drive to his work place and get there around 3). This was the pattern on most occasions, the phone would show her at his work place around 3 and then at another location (a town where they always had sex) and then around 6 it would show that they were near his home and then a little later back near our home. The OM got off at that time, would shower and my wife would pick him up at his work site. They then drove off in her car. I have the phone records and her phone show these times and locations. I contacted the phone company and know where she was. She denies this date. I could go through the other date and times. Times past 9 P.M. She says she was never out that late. I know for a fact that on a particular date she dropped him off near his house at 10:45 P.M. and one time at around 10:30 P.M. She says she does not remember.

I don't believe her and still think she is hiding stuff. She says she never had sex with the guy in 2000. Yet she drove around with him several times and drank beer with him in his pick up truck. Then she came home, packed up her stuff and moved in with him. Left me with the kids (ages around 11 and 12). She said she was so upset when she got to his house that she went upstairs the guy slept on his couch and she showered and slept on his bed. Her dad called her the next morning cursed her out and busted up his phone. There was a blizzard and her dad called me and told me that she is coming home and that I am to love her and forgive her and accept her.

I like some on TAM want her to come clean and she says she has.

She told me tonight that when I made her call her brothers and sisters at the beginning of December that I humiliated her. That I forced her to do it. She told me she would do anything to make this marriage work and keep me from leaving. Yet she lied to me and her brothers telling me and them that she only had sex once. On December 13th with lots of threats she "told me the whole story". I wish I had the phone records then because I believe at that point she would have told me everything. The sex part does not make sense either. She said they did it once each time. Heck, my wife and I had sex four or five times already in one day, with her getting off and she is saying that they were together naked in our car and in hotel rooms and they only had sex once each time. I do not believe it.

My doctor friend today told me that I am a strong guy, that he would have left my wife.

I do love her. But I will not be a doormat. Some will say that I am already but all I want is the truth, remorse, and her willingness to work this out and stop pretending that everything is OK. I know she thinks I am now the problem and I want her to realize that it is not me.

She has tried to turn this on it's head and say I am the bad guy and that I caused her to do it. I will not allow her to do it. I honestly believe she thinks she can get away with it, at least I think that is why she is fighting me. I will not allow that. IF she wants out then she can file and we will loose the house and everything we have worked towards and right now if she does, I will quit my job and live as a homeless vet, Because I will not give her a penny of support. We can divide up the assets and I will buy a Harley and she will not hear from me again. The VA will take care of me and I will be OK. Hel* I know my combat crap will get me a cot and three hots for at least a few years in a VA shelter.

__________________
This kind of cosmic dumbassery occupies a temporal plane of ineptitude and lack of reason so profound a Zen master could spend a lifetime meditating upon its philosophical consequences.”