First off, my therapist likes to say there is no Hallmark card or guide for my situation.
Truth is I probably should just separate from my wife, but that is working out to be harder than it should be.
So, here's the deal in as short a story as I can put it.
I'm 42 and my wife is 39. We have been married 12 years, and we do not have children of our own because my wife was diagnosed with severe kidney disease during our 4th year of marriage. We tried to adopt kids and to that end we became foster adopt parents in 2007 for a couple of months. My wife couldn't handle it. She had a mental breakdown and bit one of the kids in an irrational fit of frustration and rage. The kids we were trying to adopt were taken away, she was arrested and we were blacklisted from all adoptive avenues.
Thankfully she was no-billed by a grand jury for the felony injury to a child, but our relationship was broken and I was so shell shocked I shut down for several years and just survived. We stayed married as I helped her with all the legal fall out and her new diagnosis of Bi Polar Type 2 disorder.
To add to the complexity, after the arrest, my wife started new job and made a friend with a female co-worker and we all became friends with her and her family. The co-worker was in a very poor marriage and about a year ago while my wife was on a bad combination of drugs to treat her condition she convinced myself and the friend to participate in a threesome.
My wife has various reasons why she pushed it from she wanted to ignite our failing sex life, she didn't want to work on her sex drive and brought in the friend, she wanted the friend to experience the love/compassion her husband didn't give, and she was just crazy. I fought the idea as bad for several months, but my own depression and lack of sex from my wife eventually wore me down and when we finally had sex (not really in a threesome but me doing each one and the other watching) it was pretty kinky and awesome.
However, it didn't go so well and the threesome didn't happen again.... but the friend and I wound up having a short lived affair that neither of us felt great about and the friend and I cooled the affair while she got the nerve to divorce her husband.
This spring my wife started stalking our old friend and she contacted me to talk about her behavior. Well things weren't truly cooled off between us, because she made an overt sexual pass at me one day. Though we didn't have sex, it didn't feel right to me. Come to find out she had a boyfriend that she found right after she filed for divorce, and though she came on to me, she didn't want to mess up the thing with her new boyfriend.
I was getting really anxious about being around her....I know now it was because I was horribly unhappy at home, I had a deep unresolved resentment for my wife over the loss of the kids, and I felt manipulated for being set up for an affair of her design, that I couldn't have then, and especially not now.
I've been trying to work it out with my wife for a few months now, but she is focusing on the affair I had as her place of hurting to heal from. Though, at times when we talk about it she seems to indicate that the affair could have grown and kept going if myself and her friend had just kept her in the loop and in control of our actions.
I've done a lot of work with my counselor on the layers and layers of relationship hurt and issues, and I've done some weird coping stuff like looking up and chatting up a divorced lover from before I was married. I've cut off the friend I had the actual physical affair with that my wife orchestrated, but that has been hard. Part of me wants to hook up with my old lover just to have an actual affair of my own design.
I'm not really working that hard on the old lover angle because the wife and I are in this euphoria sexual state because of all the tension, which is awesome. However, after several weeks that is starting to crack and the sex is still hot, but tapering off.
I'm coming to realize that the disappointment, hurt and problems in our past that I am finally dealing with may be too large and what should have happened almost 5 years ago is about to happen now.
I have yet to find a book or any advice where the affair was started and orchestrated by the wife. Now she is trying to act like the hurt spouse.
Just looking for some advice because several months of therapy and lots of relaxation and stress relief work still leaves me obsessing about all these problems.
Why are you working on the marriage? You said a lot about what happened - but not why you want to work it out with the wife. Is it your commitment?
You also seem to be blame-shifting the affair from yourself to your wife. Yes, your wife arranged a threesome with the woman and badgered you into it. That is on your wife. What happened after that is on you and the OW. You will have to accept that at some point, because that's the reality of the situation.
Your wife has a right to be upset that you took things behind her back, and you also have to accept that.
But the most important thing out of all of this at the end is: What is it that you want? Why are you in MC now? Your post sounds like you are done with your wife but don't know how to cut ties.
If you do not love her or want to be with her, you should let her go.
It is highly likely that the problems you are focusing on have to do with her mental state.
With her diagnosis of being bi-polar you can expect powerful and varied emotional impulses. She acts on these impulses and the result over time can be confusing. She loves and hates at times and everything in between.
It was under an emotional impulse that she pushed for the threesome and given the major issues in your relationship became highly jealous of it. Simply put she pushed for it at the time, she had no idea what she was getting into and now she is indeed hurt and jealous.
Now as you mentioned the issues within your relationship are complex, they have been going on for a long time and at great intensity. Both positive and negative. Partly that is the reason you are still in the relationship. The positive parts.
Given the nature of the issues you are facing the place for advice would be a specialist. Here on the forum you can find solace and support.
I guess I am still with my wife because of my commitment and the positives (which have been decreasing for years). My wife's Bi Polarism was not diagnosed until late 2007 and we were married in 2000. My wife had rages in our first year of marriage (including brandishing a kitchen knife at me), and exhibited mild forms of what I now understand is her Bi Polarism. There was a lot of emotional bonding, support, social interaction as a couple, family connections and frankly great and desirous sex.
She was diagnosed as having Kidney disease in 2004 as a result of tests to figure out why we were not conceiving as we tried for children. There were several surgeries to prepare her for dialysis (which she has yet to need) and I slipped into the supporting spouse role.
I was content to properly grieve not having kids and support my wife in her very serious illness, but my wife felt compelled (the bi polarism again) to push to adopt kids. The drive and determination and euphoria of getting the kids evaporated and she changed within one week. From wanting to be a stay at home mom, to wanting to work, to obsessively cleaning the house, but letting me do bath times and reading to the kids. Though I was slow to want them because of my grieving not having my own, once I had them I was doing well with them and bonding with them...and she was not. We had them for three months before she cracked.
I stayed after the kids were taken away because, well, she was sick again, with a new diagnosis. And due to the arrest, her professional license was put on probation.
I realize that the threesome was the result of her podiatrist prescribing a medicine for neuropathy in her feet that amplified the three psychotropics she was already on. She failed to tell her psychiatrist and counselors about the new drugs she was taking and the way she was feeling sexually. This went on for almost 9 months. Before, during and after the threesome/affair.
I cut off the affair this spring when the friend made the pass at me. It freaked me out. I didn't want it and couldn't have it. So it isn't that simple as I had an affair.
The deal is, and I have expressed this in marriage counseling is that I don't want to put up with another Bi Polar emotional cycle like the ones I have already been through and I don't want to put up with my wife not being honest with her therapists and psychiatrists and taking care of her own treatment.
to tell you how messed up all this is, my wife has asked me to leave twice in the last two weeks and as I pack a few things and talk to her about some financial logistics, she says, "Don't Leave"
I'm trying to figure out why I'm staying, because mentally I'm ready to go....and I thought I was comfortable with staying, but I'm having a hard time holding on to the peace I had about that side of the "whatever the day brings" coin.
It is highly likely that the problems you are focusing on have to do with her mental state.
With her diagnosis of being bi-polar you can expect powerful and varied emotional impulses. She acts on these impulses and the result over time can be confusing. She loves and hates at times and everything in between.
It was under an emotional impulse that she pushed for the threesome and given the major issues in your relationship became highly jealous of it. Simply put she pushed for it at the time, she had no idea what she was getting into and now she is indeed hurt and jealous.
Now as you mentioned the issues within your relationship are complex, they have been going on for a long time and at great intensity. Both positive and negative. Partly that is the reason you are still in the relationship. The positive parts.
Given the nature of the issues you are facing the place for advice would be a specialist. Here on the forum you can find solace and support.
I guess finding a specialist that can help me is my issue more than anything. Which makes me wonder how you find these kind of people that deal with stuff like this.
I feel our marriage counselor is not quite up to speed with all of the issues in play here and may not be equipped to deal with the Bi Polar component. In our first session she suggested we read "His Needs Her Needs" and when I left the session I just about laughed. I had to schedule a solo appointment with her to go over the history and the two intensive psychologist evaluations of my wife. She still seems to be working the standard "affair resolution" model of therapy in many cases.
My personal counselor is a bit better because he has worked with me through most of this other stuff, but he no longer lives in my town and we do it via telephone now. It works, and I am feeling better about myself and what I have done, but that doesn't deal with the relationship.
Run, do not walk to read this book. Even if you don't divorce you will gain so much.
Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder (Paperback)
Randi Kreger, Bill Eddy, William A. Eddy
*(18)
Also get yourself to bpdcentral.
Sometimes bipolar and borderline overlap. She sounds borderline to me. Either way this things are very useful regardless of the diagnosis of the year that the clinicians slap on her. Posted via Mobile Device
Run, do not walk to read this book. Even if you don't divorce you will gain so much.
Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder (Paperback)
Randi Kreger, Bill Eddy, William A. Eddy
*(18)
Also get yourself to bpdcentral.
Sometimes bipolar and borderline overlap. She sounds borderline to me. Either way this things are very useful regardless of the diagnosis of the year that the clinicians slap on her. Posted via Mobile Device
Thanks, I'll see if my bookstore has it at lunch.
I have been getting some good support from my cousin and his wife over all of this. My cousin's wife has a sister that is Bi Polar and their adoptive daughter has RAD and is starting to exhibit Bi Polar tendencies.
My wife's diagnosis of the year is Bi Polar II. My counselor suggested BPD, so who knows. She has responded well to a combination of Lamictil, Wellbutrin and LexaPro. That plus intensive job counseling has kept her in her job for almost 5 years. (previous to that she went through 4~5 jobs per year.. from Registered Nurse to Minimum Wage clerk at Card shop and back again). The downside is she is lethargic in the relationship and indifferent.
The threesome happened when she added a pretty big dose of Neurontin to her existing drug therapy.
Too many meds affecting the mind creating chemicalimbalances and abnormalities for the brain to function, I'm sure even a scan could show that. These drugs are killers, literally. All the massacres from littleton colorado, santee california, red lake, etc started with anti depressents, leading these people to be on psychotropic drugs. Why do people always go to doctors seeking a pill for the solution, when the problem lies in their lifestyles. These people get put into prescriptions, innocently enough as they are, they are ignorant because they do not use the power of todays easily obtainable knowledge and expect the doctor to know everything and solve everything. What do we want next? Pills to wake us up at 6 am, pills for breakfast, pills for headaches, then pills for the ulcers that all thesep ills cause, then a pill to solve ED which was caused by all the stress these other pills caused.
For your solution, I believe you need a path of naturopathy. Leave the meds and doctors, leave these mind affecting drugs. It is like trying to cure alcoholism with a pill three times a day, and you take that pill with a shot of vodka. Its like curing cancer with a pill while you are still eating all the cancer inducing foods and chemicals(artificial flavors).
I have been getting some good support from my cousin and his wife over all of this. My cousin's wife has a sister that is Bi Polar and their adoptive daughter has RAD and is starting to exhibit Bi Polar tendencies.
My wife's diagnosis of the year is Bi Polar II. My counselor suggested BPD, so who knows. She has responded well to a combination of Lamictil, Wellbutrin and LexaPro. That plus intensive job counseling has kept her in her job for almost 5 years. (previous to that she went through 4~5 jobs per year.. from Registered Nurse to Minimum Wage clerk at Card shop and back again). The downside is she is lethargic in the relationship and indifferent.
The threesome happened when she added a pretty big dose of Neurontin to her existing drug therapy.
Its good that you are there to support your wife through this but you are not helping by letting her test and take every pill for bi polarity. This seems to be a problem. These pharmaceutical companies put profits before safety. Doctors hand out prescriptions like candy. It is how doctors are trained, to have faith in the greatmedical research we have and the availability of these powerful drugs. No.
Neurontin is a more powerful version of lyrica, the FDA approved them even though it had no idea what they did. The FDA is a joke, does that kill my credibility probably but I do not care, these words aren't enough to remove a practicing license. Neurontin was for originally epilepsy (which can be controlled through diet, already been tested and proven with EMPIRICAL evidence) a subsidiary of pfizer, the guys who make the BLUE pill (another crazy pill marketed for unhealthy people, low on testosterone with blood pressure issues and cardiovascular problems), the researchers downplay (just like cheaters) that this drug does not cause many new synapses wow really, not many, thanks.
These anti depressents react badly, some can cause violence, and they don't solve problems. Since this is revolved around drugs its too big to go over in one sitting, I'll end up turning this thread into some kind of history of research and scandal that has been in progress for a while on our newborns today, while their immune systems are still immature we shoot them up with all these vaccines and heaven forbid that these are not harmful but they do deposit approximately 66 viral and bacterial antigens and a dozen different chemicals into a six month old infant which is measurable. If you see what we do to our newborns, what do we do to the adults. When it comes to meds, I don't play around and neither should you, trying out these drugs is no benefit, but even worse than the bi polarity itself to begin with.
The benefits do not outweigh the consequences (symptoms). Think about it before you decide to leave her and move on, or work with her and help her.
I think you need to step back and go take some time off of work and take a vaction. Get away (alone) from the day to day and clear your head.
As far as your wife goes you lied to her. The deciet your created was not of her own design, it was your choice to go behind her back and bang her friend....all the while you could have banged her in front of your wife.....so bad on you bro...stop blaming your chick for "designing" the affair.
Guilts a b**ch, now you want to go off and find some old fling to make it worse. Dude you need to get away and figure your own crap out before you can figure out this messed up marriage.
I suggest some time away from everything and clear your head.
As far as your wife goes you lied to her. The deciet your created was not of her own design, it was your choice to go behind her back and bang her friend.... all the while you could have banged her in front of your wife... so bad on you bro...stop blaming your chick for "designing" the affair
Ditto x 1000. Own your stuff, man. Anger is sometime useful, often the worse advicer. Anger fueled you actions, anger helps you to deflect responsability.
Your wife knows she's a big burden. You can't expect she'd drop your failure, it's unrealistic. Don't defend yourself. Clean your side.
Exactly, these things never help to improve the sex life between a man and a wife. They exploit themselves to perversion leading to so many escalating features of cheating, resent, anger.
I have owned it. The affair is done. The contact with the OW is cut and I have confessed everything and expressed my regret. Hell, I've apologized to my mother-in-law about my part in all of this.
I hid it because the friend asked me to at the time and it was so messed up. When she made the pass at me this spring when contact got restored I freaked and did not want that to happen again. I knew I had to come clean. And I have.
That was two months ago. She is still a problem for my wife. They still work in the same place and my wife went up to her yesterday and told her she loves her and wishes we were still friends all after she has been telling other coworkers about the affair. My wife is changing departments in a week but it is still nerve wracking.
I've taken a vacation and was a lot better. It only took me a week with her to get back to anxious and freaked out. Posted via Mobile Device
They still work in the same place and my wife went up to her yesterday and told her she loves her and wishes we were still friends all after she has been telling other coworkers about the affair. My wife is changing departments in a week but it is still nerve wracking.
Well this bit adds a spin to the whole thing. First it was a double betrayal, she opened the marriage but was always forthcoming. OW was a friend who also betrayed her while she was trying to help her. Beyond her normal ups and downs as BP now she flip flops between forgiving, pusnighing , loving and hating her (predictable). Also work is a huge trigger, being near this former friend everyday is hurting her, preventing her healing. I hope quitting that job helps her. I also suggest for her also total NC (forgiving two betrayers demands too much energy, in cases like this normaly the former friend is dropped in order to focus in forgiving the WS) but she's the one to decide, it's their relationship as friends. You stay away of OW forever anyway.
Ok let's just take that spin and turn it I to a big whirlwind.
Before the threesome my wife confessed to me that she was falling in love with the OW and wanted to kiss her and be with her. I was pretty crushed considering my wife had pretty much stopped sleeping with me. So after a few months the OW is fast friends with my wife and flirty but not really responsive to my wife's advances though she is hyper sexual and has a swinging past with her husband. By this time the OW had got to know me and liked me more than my wife, but I would never do anything or respond to her. I was devoted. Sometime later my wife brings up threesome as a way to be with her friend or help her out. I resist and the friend resists too because she knows what it will do to me and that she can't have me though she wants me.
But another month or two and going back to our place after margaritas made stuff happen.
My wife was upset that the OW just barely kissed her and I was confused why my wife didn't get in on the action with the OW.
I was caught in the middle of all this stuff. The two times I was with the OW The first was a day it two after threesome and it was to deal with a relaxation problem I had and get more comfortable for what we thought would be a next time. The second and last time was a couple of months later when the OW was tipsy and I was driving her home from a party and she came on to me and I couldn't seem to stop myself.
Add to that once I confessed to the extras and that the OW came on to me again and I snapped into reality of not wanting that to happen again my wife confessed to a trip the OW and her took before the threesome where they went wild and picked up a waiter and took him out to a sex shop / peep show place and fondled him as they watched other people having sex. My wife almost invited him up to their hotel room but the OW cut that off bc she didn't feel safe. Neither my wife
Or the OW say anything happened between them just them sexing up another guy.
It is not a conventional affair and I own my part but I am in the middle of a maelstrom Posted via Mobile Device
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Complex Circumstances 
wow really, not many, thanks.
