an excellent update but I will caution you in regards to the last paragraph
I am also an athiest, a logical thinker and man who views the world in many ways like you do. I also went through a stage where I thought I would be just fine and my reconciliation was not only with my wife but with myself as you point out.
It doesn't last
and I don't say this to make you feel bad after such a productive day, I am very happy you are making positive steps, you aren't rug-sweeping this, you are verifying your wife's words through her action, etc
but this sort of healing is a non-linear process
imagine a graph that has peaks and valleys but the general trend is a positive one. (two steps forward, one step back, 3 steps forward, 2 steps back, etc)
I just bring this up so you are prepared and don't dwell in the morass when you have a bad day and to approach it in a detached manner. You will have paranoid bouts, you will have further anger, you will have further depression, you will want to ask the same questions again for validation, you will hate OM, you will depise your wife's actions, you will hate yourself and wonder what you could have done to prevented it, etc etc
It's all "normal" and I bring it up not only for that reason but also to help prevent you from trying to bury it and rug-sweep again. When you have those bad days, you go to your wife and let her bear the brunt of the fall-out. You tell her what you need to feel better and if she is it for the long haul and wants that gift of R she will do it. Do not suppress those feelings, do not be afraid to "beat a dead horse" or chase her away. It's her onus to help you through this. It's exactly what we mean by saying the WS needs to do the heavy lifting.
But again, it's great to hear this update, I still implore you to expose the OM sooner than later.
an excellent update but I will caution you in regards to the last paragraph
I am also an athiest, a logical thinker and man who views the world in many ways like you do. I also went through a stage where I thought I would be just fine and my reconciliation was not only with my wife but with myself as you point out.
It doesn't last
and I don't say this to make you feel bad after such a productive day, I am very happy you are making positive steps, you aren't rug-sweeping this, you are verifying your wife's words through her action, etc
but this sort of healing is a non-linear process
imagine a graph that has peaks and valleys but the general trend is a positive one. (two steps forward, one step back, 3 steps forward, 2 steps back, etc)
I just bring this up so you are prepared and don't dwell in the morass when you have a bad day and to approach it in a detached manner. You will have paranoid bouts, you will have further anger, you will have further depression, you will want to ask the same questions again for validation, you will hate OM, you will depise your wife's actions, you will hate yourself and wonder what you could have done to prevented it, etc etc
It's all "normal" and I bring it up not only for that reason but also to help prevent you from trying to bury it and rug-sweep again. When you have those bad days, you go to your wife and let her bear the brunt of the fall-out. You tell her what you need to feel better and if she is it for the long haul and wants that gift of R she will do it. Do not suppress those feelings, do not be afraid to "beat a dead horse" or chase her away. It's her onus to help you through this. It's exactly what we mean by saying the WS needs to do the heavy lifting.
But again, it's great to hear this update, I still implore you to expose the OM sooner than later.
Agreed, and thank you for the advice. The biggest blow that I am dealing with at the moment is, as I mentioned in my last post, being forced to see my wife as a human being who does not exist only for me. I brought this up to her last night -- how I worry when I catch her staring off into space with a serious expression on her face that some part of her is mourning the loss of the affair, or if she is silently debating with herself that she really wants me and this marriage and not something else. She quickly responded with, "No! Today I have been thinking a lot about what we talked about, and about how I want to go about preparing the philosophy course with our child. I will always want you, and I feel so grateful and lucky that you haven't walked out on me. In fact, I feel worried that I will drive you away because I want to be joined at your hip all the time ... and I know how much you like your space."
Listening to her say that ... that **** about me liking my space ... let me know that I, too, have a long way to go to show her that I DO desire her in my life and want to be with her as well.
And I don't think I can possibly rug sweep any negative emotions I have. I wear them on my sleeve, and my wife notices every time I am having an issue, and many times she initiates a conversation herself -- despite knowing that it can result in me making her rehash the whole episode over and over and over. So, she's been a real trooper so far, and both of us realize that constant, open conversation is necessary for real healing.
Great update. I truly believe that many affairs, even a ONS, can benefit a marriage because it wakes us up from our 'first' stage of marriage, in which we take each other and the marriage for granted, and we move on to the 'second' stage, in which we thank our stars for what we have and work hard to make it better every single day.
Just make sure she DOES go to therapy, ok? I was like her in terms of early partners, and I'm here to tell you it does a HORRIBLE number on one's self esteem, self worth, and everything in between. At least for a girl.
As for buckets, may I suggest another analogy? Have you ever heard of the Love Bucket, or Love Bank? Think of a bucket, in which your partner invests in you. If she Love Busts (hurts) you, each LB she does to you pokes a hole in that bucket. If she does enough LBs, when she goes to meet your Emotional Needs (how she shows love to you), it won't matter. She's already done too much damage to your Love Bucket by poking all those holes in it. No matter how many ENs she tries to meet by filling your bucket, they'll all just flow right back out, through all the holes she punched. "There's a hole in my bucket, dear Lizah..."
Does that make sense? For instance, my husband uses Qtips every single day to clean out his ears, which grosses me out, but whatever. But he leaves the dirty ones lying all over the place, instead of throwing them away. Or he'll 'aim' for the trash can and miss, and guess who ends up having to pick them up? He KNOWS they upset me, I've told him many times. Yet he continues to do it, because he cares more for his own routine than he does for my happiness. That's a huge LB to me, because he chooses to still leave them all over the place. Something so small, such a tiny issue, and yet it leaves me feeling unloved. Now, say he were to bring me roses because he senses me upset. Would that EN-meeting (roses) make up for the LB (Qtips)? No, it wouldn't.
Bottom line, you can't meet your spouse's ENs and show them you love them, if you're still LBing them. So fix the LBs first. Here are some links to what I think I'm not doing a great job explaining. You can both fill out the LB questionnaire to find out how you LB each other, so you can work on eliminating the LBs from your life. I highly recommend it.
So the thing about atheism is there are no moral absolutes. You pick the parameters of your phiosophy like picking fruit. Any day/time you like you can just change them again.
So the thing about atheism is there are no moral absolutes. You pick the parameters of your phiosophy like picking fruit. Any day/time you like you can just change them again.
Essentially religious people do the same thing, they just pick and choose what they like out of the bible
But do you really want to derail this thread with this?
Your wife's story, as others have pointed out, is riddled with holes.
Now, you seem like a bright enough guy. So, take a look at this crap story.
First, co-workers do not, out of the blue, tell strange delivery guys that they can hook him up with a married woman. The co-worker had some reason to feel this was okay. You need to find out what that reason is.
Second, your wife is asking you to accept that she , essentailly, had no type of connection to this guy who resembles Howdy Doodie, but, in very short order consented to blow him and have intercourse.
So, are you buying that your wife would blow etc some guy that she had minimal contact with prior to the blowing? If that is true, you have one sleazy wife.
Rather, I would suggest that this blowing was a long time coming(pun intended).
Your wife and this guy have been hot for each other and cultivating this for a fairly long time, IMO. And, I doubt this is your wife's first rodeo, thus the co-worker feeling secure in the knowledge that he had the capability of "hooking her up."
The co-worker knows the real wife. You do not know who or what your wife really is.
Sorry for the pain your wife has brought you.
108Likes
Re: My fault?? 
