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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2018 23:08:42 GMT -5
Here's some irony.
I had "written the book" here on outsourcing without being caught - but I didn't follow all my own advice.
In the days when this thread started, after I couldn't stop myself from saying the D word during a fight, my wife found a phone I had recently upgraded from...and I had not yet wiped it.
It turns out that on a couple of occasions, when about to meet my overseas AP (once in London and once in NYC) when one of us did not have Internet, we communicated using text messages. I didn't delete the messages. Wife read them. (Nothing sexual, but a lot about how anxious I was to see my AP.)
So when my wife asked me on three occasions after I said I wanted a divorce, whether I had cheated, at that point she knew I had. (see initial post of this thread)
I denied it the first three times, and admitted it the fourth time. I was sick of the lies and the deception, I wanted to live an authentic life.
She admitted to me a few days ago that she knew about the affair, and today said that my coming clean is one of the reasons she has had the recent turnaround - she appreciates that I told the truth, that I am no longer hiding from her, not afraid of her, and telling her everything now. And she understands that for me to have cheated things must have been pretty bad from my perspective.
The recent turnaround is still happening. We are still enjoying each others' company. We're still having regular sex, maybe 5 times this week, that we are both really enjoying. I'm still blown away. There is no way I could have imagined this a month ago, let alone predicted it. We've had some disagreements but we worked through them. I feel like I'm in an alternative universe. 31 years married and we are only now discovering each other. I hope this isn't an act or a reset, but I am not seeing any evidence of it - and I'm looking. She's really seeming like she is into me, for the first time.
I'm letting myself fantasize that we are becoming one of the unicorns that turned a long-term SM around.
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Post by baza on Aug 18, 2018 23:20:32 GMT -5
Well, adopting a policy of being honest with her was a pretty sound choice to make irrespective of any other factors. If, as a sidebar, it also provoked a difference in her responses to you then that's a bonus. It's like Brother csl says. If you start doing something different, it invariably provokes a different response from your spouse, and that may kick start the situation into motion and get it moving toward a truth based resolution. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2018 0:09:53 GMT -5
Well, adopting a policy of being honest with her was a pretty sound choice to make irrespective of any other factors. If, as a sidebar, it also provoked a difference in her responses to you then that's a bonus. It's like Brother csl says. If you start doing something different, it invariably provokes a different response from your spouse, and that may kick start the situation into motion and get it moving toward a truth based resolution. We both actually thought we were being honest with each other beforehand! But while we weren't lying, we were avoiding issues and saying how we really felt. She felt she was being judged by me and she didn't want to talk about sex at all; I felt I was not being heard about my issues and that when I would bring them up it would turn into a fight, so I avoided taking a stand. Now, as soon as anything feels a little off, both of us are telling the other (nicely, of course) what is bothering us. We're being honest about our fears for the future and whether the current situation will blow up somehow. We are still very, very different people but that little change of assuming the best instead of the worst, a lot of kissing and some nice lovemaking, seems to make all the difference. So far. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2018 20:38:49 GMT -5
baza wrote in the Is It Possible thread.... I have no idea if that is true, but maybe. I just searched out some articles on marriages that were saved by the revelation of affairs. It happens...sometimes. It seems rare enough that the people who write these articles often go into the business of telling couples how to act. The stories generally did seem to have an underlying theme of love between the partners that could be rekindled. My wife and I have been friends at best, but I don't know how much love we have had. We now have respect for each other than we didn't have in years, and we have a bit more empathy than we had. We're working on trust (on both sides.) I am still very worried that this is a reset. She's done it before - about 20 years ago, a six month reset. I know that sex improved markedly during that time but I don't recall the tears, the pain at causing the other pain, the seeming honesty we are having now. If I find out that this is all an act, I will be extremely pissed. But I've spent a great deal of time with my wife over the past month and I have not been able to see any real indication of this being fake (unless I make some leaps of imagination.) The next two weeks will be the biggest challenge. For the next ten days, we are having unwitting zipcode therapy as wife is flying halfway across the country to take care of some family stuff. I have time to actually think and reflect on the craziness of the past couple of weeks. Then, as I have mentioned, I'm flying out to meet her and we will spend four days in a very difficult environment - mostly in a rental car driving back, with a couple of stopovers in places neither of us are comfortable. I'm very curious if old negative patterns emerge in this pressured and unnatural environment - or if we'll have fun anyway. Only a few hours after the wife flew out today I am lonely - but I can't tell if my loneliness is for her, or for anyone. I am still mourning not being able to talk to my ex-AP, who was my best friend, my support system and who I told everything to. I need more friends! But no one can give me the time and support she did. I am already tempted to contact her, purely for platonic purposes; the only thing stopping me is that it would hurt her, I suspect a great deal. I've hurt her too much already. I can email a couple of other friends but it is not the same thing. So the drama continues. If this story is helpful for anyone, I'm more than happy to keep updating.
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Post by baza on Aug 19, 2018 21:00:24 GMT -5
It's going to play out in one of two ways I reckon Brother @shynjdude .
#1 - it will end up as a tale of a sustained turnaround.
#2 - it will end up as a salutary lesson on the theme of re-set sex.
Now, and fortuitously, you get a chance of short term zipcode therapy, and then a crack at handling a bit of extra pressure from a 4 day road trip.
That should be interesting.
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Post by choosinghappy on Aug 20, 2018 5:49:33 GMT -5
I would suspect keeping your “story” updated periodically would be helpful to others because what you have right now is what many hope for.
...As long as it’s not a reset.
Pulling for you!
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Post by shamwow on Aug 20, 2018 17:03:24 GMT -5
I would suspect keeping your “story” updated periodically would be helpful to others because what you have right now is what many hope for. ...As long as it’s not a reset. Pulling for you! I agree. A bit like my T-minus thread but with a turnaround. A bit like tracking a rare and endangered species through the brush. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2018 3:35:51 GMT -5
I would suspect keeping your “story” updated periodically would be helpful to others because what you have right now is what many hope for. ...As long as it’s not a reset. Pulling for you! I agree. A bit like my T-minus thread but with a turnaround. A bit like tracking a rare and endangered species through the brush. A species whose actions are completely unpredictable and where previous behaviors have little to do with current behavior! |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2018 3:48:15 GMT -5
I'm trying to fight my natural tendency to sit back and observe. If this is to be a real turnaround, I need to do my part to maximize the chances for success. So for example, instead of waiting to see how my wife and I act during our upcoming road trip, I'm trying to find interesting and fun places to stop on the way. Like a kitschy fire-breathing dragon www.kaskaskiadragon.com/. Wife's actions also continue to be out of (her former?) character. She has a problem with constant infections, and she uses her hsCRP score (that usually tracks inflammation which can indicate infections) to track how her treatments are doing. For reasons unknown, my own hsCRP is very high, although I don't feel sick. I found an article yesterday about how bad marriages can cause inflammation, so she wrote back to me that this means I need to have more sex. I then responded with another article on how sex specifically reduces inflammation as well. She found all this amusing, when in the past she would have been very irritated. Similarly, while on video chat last night I made a lame joke as if I was to start a striptease, and she laughed harder than I have heard her laugh in a long time. So completely unlike the woman I've been with for decades. She also genuinely seems to miss me on only day 1 of her trip. So, life continues to be an adventure. But it is not an unpleasant one at least. |
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Post by jamesbonding on Aug 21, 2018 4:15:47 GMT -5
Congratulations shynjdude on your apparent turnaround, not only with the physical intimacy, but also with the more free and open communication (which is really important, too). I hope it lasts!
Since you have that open communication, and the question of whether the turnaround will last is on your mind, maybe you could express your concern and have a discussion about how to keep it going.
On another website (which I won't point to here because people might accuse me of "shilling", ahem!) I have seen at least three recommendations to schedule sex. I think it makes sense, and could be one safeguard against backsliding into sexlessness. If, for example, you schedule sex for every other day, and automatically schedule the following day if an appointment is missed, then, if an appointment is missed several times in a row, it would create an opportunity to ask "Hey, why are we missing so many appointments? Are we backsliding?" and have a discussion about it.
Here is one of those recommendations, in response to my question "how to turn around a sexless marriage?", quoted from the above un-mentioned website:
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Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2018 4:28:49 GMT -5
Congratulations shynjdude on your apparent turnaround, not only with the physical intimacy, but also with the more free and open communication (which is really important, too). I hope it lasts! Since you have that open communication, and the question of whether the turnaround will last is on your mind, maybe you could express your concern and have a discussion about how to keep it going. We have already mentioned our fears as to whether this will last to each other. At this moment of our new "honeymoon" the idea of scheduling is premature - both of us want to hold each other every night and morning (so far often ending up with sex but not always). I'm staying in my separate bedroom and don't plan to move back into the master bedroom any time soon. (I also feel that "congratulations" is way premature, but thanks.) |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2018 19:08:07 GMT -5
Three Lists
I have shared two lists, and mentioned another, while on this board with respect to my deal. The most recent one was this manifesto, posted in April, when I was seriously thinking about divorce for the first time: The person who my wife has seemingly become in the past few weeks is the opposite of what she was in every respect that I am aware of (I can't know for sure that I'm not being gaslighted but it doesn't feel that way at this time.) There was the "marriage scorecard" that I published in November that I think I had mentioned earlier in this thread, where I could "score" how my marriage was doing against the things I would expect in a healthy relationship. In this one the jury is still out on what the score is, but it is definitely higher than it was before. I see potential in each area. The most devastating list, though, was one I mentioned but didn't enumerate. It was a lengthy list that I stumbled upon that my wife made of my bad attributes in her opinion, written about two years ago. It was enormously vicious. I have asked her, even during the most recent weeks, "do you still think I am X?" and she has avoided answering it for the most part. She gave a reason for making the list that, if true, would mean that she no longer believes much of it. I am not convinced at this time. This, I think, will be the key. If she has changed her opinion of me - and she is acting as if she has, but I don't know if she feels it deep down - then we have a chance. If she still thinks of me as being overly selfish, lazy, sabotaging, etc., even if she tries to cover that up, then my cautious optimism about our future will evaporate. I'm not going to let this one go until I get answers that sound honest and still allow the possibility of growing together.
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Post by northstarmom on Aug 23, 2018 7:21:13 GMT -5
“The most devastating list, though, was one I mentioned but didn't enumerate. It was a lengthy list that I stumbled upon that my wife made of my bad attributes in her opinion, written about two years ago. It was enormously vicious. I have asked her, even during the most recent weeks, "do you still think I am X?" and she has avoided answering it for the most part.”
An important exception to the recent brutal honesty you have been describing. Are there other exceptions in either of your parts?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2018 10:10:50 GMT -5
northstarmom, if she told me that her opinion of me on all 30+ items changed, i wouldn't believe that either. I can understand her trying to avoid answering so as not to lie. But I will need to know whether she can ever respect me. That's the key. The person she described was so loathesome that I need to know how she can square that circle. So I have to ask in a way that is not confrontational and not meant to corner her but where I can believe the answer.
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Post by ihadalove on Aug 23, 2018 22:57:00 GMT -5
Great to hear you are still having a turnaround @shynjdude! Beware of the good feelings making everything else seem much better than they are. It's so easy to fall into. But I hope that's not the case for you.
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