# Questioning the fine line of reconciliation or separation



## jn-sjc

8 months ago I found out my wife was having an affair. I was crushed. There was so much pain, depression, guilt, and anxiety during the first three months that I could do anything. I started slipping at work. I just couldn't do anything but wondering what when wrong. 

About 2 months before I found out about the affair my wife and I started MC. I quickly realized how bad things were. It was so bad that I almosted quit work so I would have more time to focus on us. Luckily, she wouldn't let me. Then I found out about the affair the next day when she told me.

I got the story of I love you but I am not unloved with you. After 21 yrs of marriage I wondered what was on the other side. I didn't think you loved me. You were ignoring me. 

I will admit things were pretty bad but I asked her to give me some time to understand what when wrong. 21 yrs is a long time to just toss away. She agreed and we started to try to understand what happened from both points of views. We continue MC and I decided to start PC for me. I was not doing well at all. Over time I started to get better and things improved between my wife and I.

Now, 8 months later we have made some progress. Very little but still some. The proble right now is she tells me she loves me but doesn't commit to a thought of a marriage. She things we should be friends and then I also thing she stays cause she wants me to break up the marriage instead of her. I have made very good movement with PC. I no longer experience the pains or stress levels as before.

On the flip side my wife has made much progress. She is still not committed to the marriage all the time. She said she is trying but that is all she can do. She did stop seeing the OM but refuses to share with me. As I explain my needs to her she listens and I have noticed she try's to take my needs into account. When I ask her her needs she doesnt have any.

Every once in a while her feelings change and she wants to move on and end our marriage. This is where I have a problem. I want some sort of commitment and I am tired of the yo-yp effect. Some weeks she loves me ands then it's BAMB. When is enough enough? I love her more the she will know. I am just tired of the game.

Am I being too unrealistic? It has only been 8 months or so.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Shaggy

I don't think she really stopped seeing the.OM, they sound like they are still in contact and that is holding her back.

Do not believe her when she claims to have stopped cheating unless you can verify it.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## keko

Are you monitoring her whereabouts? texts/emails?

If she is waiting for you to pull the plug, it doesn't seem she is willing to work it out with you. Very likely she is in contact with her lover or another one.


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## 2xloser

Sorry you're here and in this position... you love her, which clouds you from seeing how much she's just not into you anymore. Whether she's actually still with OM, or another OM is not the issue. The issue is, she's NOT with you, emotionally or really.

Actions, my friend, speak volumes more than any words... and she's not even giving you the words to elicit the hope you seem to feel you are entitled to. Open your eyes to the reality. It sucks, but so does allowing yourself to be fooled. She has no needs from you? That's because she is either getting them from someone else, or simple doesn't want them from you. But everyone has needs... everyone.

Re-read your own post, with the expectation that it would be followed by another post that said "I'm devastated -- she told me she was still in love with the OM and is leaving today." you would see the handwriting on the wall from your first post the same way we already do.


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## Nicole R

There are a lot of couples struggling with possible separation. It can be difficult to imagine reconciling when your relationship is in crisis. Becoming aware of the way you think and behave and then replacing it with more productive thoughts and behaviours takes effort, but it can drastically improve the state of your relationship and help you to overcome a great deal of relationship challenges. This practice involves using your brain's plasticity to strengthen connections with certain (preferred) behaviour patterns, and the more it is practiced, the stronger the connections get. 
There is something The NEXT Program offers, a Program for Couples & Families, that uses your brain's plastic functions to guide you and your partner to having a happy, fulfilled relationship, in 24 weeks, if you choose reconciliation. If you choose separation, the program will guide you to do so amicably, using your brain's plasticity as well as a foundation in collaborative law. It offers something traditional therapy doesn't--results, whether you stay together or separate.
Check out the website, it's definitely worth a look.
The NEXT Program - Beyond Marriage Counseling & Couples Therapy


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## iheartlife

jn-sjc said:


> She is still not committed to the marriage all the time. She said she is trying but that is all she can do. She did stop seeing the OM but refuses to share with me. As I explain my needs to her she listens and I have noticed she try's to take my needs into account. *When I ask her her needs she doesnt have any*._Posted via Mobile Device_


She is almost surely still in contact with the OM--or perhaps she's met a new one. Do you truly think that your wife "doesn't have any needs" for you to meet? Of course not. You know in your heart that is a big, fat lie. She is getting (at a bare minimum) her emotional needs met elsewhere. She is sharing her hopes, dreams, and fears with someone else. The huge tipoff that you are in "false R" is the chasm of distance between you. I wish I had recognized this in my own marriage.

My husband was in an emotional affair for over a year. I discovered the affair when I found a secret email account open on our home computer. That was DD#1. He swore he had broken off contact. I didn't make him send an official NC letter and I didn't expose it to our family because I knew nothing about infidelity.

Affairs are highly compulsive actvities. That means, the person engaging in them gets enormous fun and satisfaction from them. The fact that they are so harmful to their spouses means NOTHING to them. The compulsion is too powerful for you to break all by yourself. If YOU were enough, they would never have entered into the affair in the first place. Some outside forces have to bring to bear to wake them up: huge disapproval from people they care about; divorce papers, demonstrating that there is life without them for you; doing the 180 (i.e., showing that you are a healthy, self-confident person) who is moving on whether they want to be in the marriage, or not.

However, the main issue is no contact. As long as they continue to be in contact, all the marriage counseling in the world is for NOTHING. They are keeping their options open, they are not divulging their innermost selves to you or the counselor when you're there, and this behavior is convincing them with every passing day not to recommit to the marriage at all, because MC "isn't working"--just another lie they tell themselves to have their cake and eat it too.

After our DD#1, my husband waited a couple of weeks. Then he sent a fishing email to the OW via his work email (not that it matters, because I didn't monitor anything--never even occurred to me!). She responded. Maybe another week went by, and then they were off to the races. The emails I found about 8 weeks ago from that time period show that they were right back where they started with NO evidence of a break at least 4 to 6 weeks after DD#1 and ostensible NC.

That happens to coincide with our first MC appointment. We kept going, nearly every week, for at least 6 months or more. We stopped going eventually because it didn't seem to do much good. Well, now I know--he was very much in his affair all of that time, with me none the wiser.

Fast forward TWO AND A HALF YEARS LATER. All that time, my husband was distant, would pick fights, wilfully misunderstand me and bicker, I found his behavior so puzzling at times but never dreamed the worst could be true. And then one day, he texted me instead of her....

Now my husband is fully back and engaged in the marriage. We are entirely recommitted and reconciling. He is his old self. But I still verified multiple times a day for weeks before my anxiety started to subside.

So lay it out for us--how do you KNOW they aren't in contact? How do you know there isn't another OM?


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