Trying again ... but lost

My wife and I had been married for 17 years when we separated earlier this year. We had struggled through raising three kids, dealing with various mental and other health issues and a disastrous financial situation which we had just gotten fixed when in the heat of an argument she decided the we were done. We decided to separate, but almost immediately I felt it was wrong. She was adamant that it was for the best.

I hated the thought of being alone so I tried to move on and find someone else to be with. I started talking to a woman I met online, and when my wife heard about it she got upset and started talking about possibly getting back together. Since this was what I wanted, I stopped talking to the other woman. But my wife wasn't ready to try again yet.

Soon after, she started talking to a guy she met online. Despite me being upset, she started dating this guy saying she needed to figure out her feelings. I hated it and I was very disappointed in the way she acted. So I decided to move on again. I met another woman and started dating. Again, when my wife heard this she told me that it made her sick to her stomach to think of me with someone else. Knowing this, and still wanting my wife back I couldn't continue the other relationship. Meanwhile she continued dating this other guy ... who my kids made it very clear they did not like. She had even told me that sometimes when she was with him, she was thinking about me.

She suggested we try dating and we talked about it a bit but when the topic of breaking up with her guy came up, she suddenly got cold feet. I almost think she had been expecting to try dating me while she was still with him. There was no way in hell that was going to happen.

Let me tell you a bit about this guy. He's a long-haul truck driver and is on the road all week. He also lives in another province. They normally only saw each other on the weekends, and there is no likelihood that either one of them would move to where the other lived. It was clearly a rebound fling.

About 6 weeks ago, I met another woman and was getting ready for our first date when my wife called me from her car. She was crying her heart out saying she was afraid she was losing her chance to try again with me. At this point I had expected something like this so I said that the only way we would be able to try again would be for her to break up with this guy. He had to be completely out of the picture before I would even consider trying again.

She didn't know what to do so she visited a therapist to help her figure out her emotions. The therapist told her she had three options, she could tell me that she wanted to continue dating this guy for 2-3 months to see where it went, she could tell the other guy that she wanted to date me for 2-3 months to see where it went, or she could spend 2-3 months on her own with neither guy and try to sort out her feelings.

She decided she would date me. Personally, I think the therapist's advice was insane, but I was willing to give it a go.

We started spending time together and doing fun stuff. We even signed up for dance classes together. We were both having a lot of fun, but she told me she was having a hard time finding romantic feeling for me. I learned in the first week, that she had still be talking to the other guy, although she said it was mostly about me. I told her she had to stop talking to him, that I needed to know he was completely out of the picture. This was mostly for my own sanity, so I wouldn't be wondering if there was still something going on. She agreed to stop talking to him, but it took a week or more before she actually told him that.

Things continued to go pretty good. The kids were all happy that we were trying to work things out. We had an amazing Thanksgiving dinner together as a family that my wife and I prepared together. After the meal, we were cleaning up and I noticed a message notification on her iPad, and then another. The other guy had sent her a message and then a picture. I immediately asked her about it, and she said she had stopped talking to him, but that she couldn't control what he did. He had also been "liking" almost every post she made on Facebook and some of them he would tag with a heart. I told her this bothered me asked her to either ask him to stop or simply block him on FB. She told me I making a big deal out of nothing. She also told me that I had to trust her. However, I don't believe in automatic trust, it has to be built up over time and all of these little things were making it very hard for me to build trust in her. She told me she would ask him to stop.

A few weeks have gone by and I still see that he is liking her posts.

We have still been spending time together and doing dance classes and stuff, but she still says she's having a hard time finding feelings for me. I know it is because she hasn't let go of this fling. We got into a argument a few days ago when I told her how it made me feel to see this guy's name on her posts and that it made me wonder if she was still talking to him. Eventually she admitted that she had talked to him since she told me she wouldn't, but that it wasn't like I was thinking.

She says that she thinks her feelings for me are like those for a best friend ... well d'uh ... isn't that part of being a husband. And she's afraid that if things don't work out, that she'll lose me completely, and she doesn't want that. But, she seems like she has lost hope in finding her old feelings for me.

At this point ... I'm lost and confused! She's probably right. If things don't work out, she will lose me completely. If she gives up and goes back to this other guy, it will be extremely hard on our kids who have been happy about us trying again and who don't like this other guy. And I am certain that as soon as I start talking to someone else ... she's going to feel jealous and want to try again. I have suggested couples therapy, but she doesn't think we're ready for that. I think we're past due.

I don't want to move one. I don't want to give up. I think that she is just dealing with a lot of confusing emotions and that we can work through it.

Am I just fooling myself?

Any thoughts are appreciated.

Cheers,

Greg

Yeah, apparently having no feelings for you doesn't stop her from wanting to control and manipulate you. She's emotionally abusing you and she's cheating on you.

She's just playing a game. I understand the kids want to see their mother and father together, but this relationship is toxic. I don't see any chance of her straightening up. She doesn't love you anymore, and you should begin to make a separate life away from her. Contact a lawyer, work out who gets what, and make a custody agreement for the kids. It's time to make her your ex wife.

She wants to have her cake and eat it too. She wants you and she wants this other guy. She should date/see neither of you, she should go to a therapist and work with that person for as long as it takes for her to figure out who and what she truly wants, she seems to have no clue. Juggling you and another guy is completely unfair to you and to him and to your kids. I think you should stop contact with her for at least several months so she can get herself sorted out.

Thanks melancholy123, you are not the first person to use the "cake" analogy. Stopping contact is difficult because of the kids, but I think you are right.

Up to you if you stay with someone that can't give up her affair partner but please, stop dating when you're nowhere finished with your wife. It's certainly not fair to the women you've managed to pull to keep dumping them when your wife has a "I don't want him but no one else can have him" moment.

It likely that she'll never regain a romantic connection with you again as long as she's still so emotionally connected and in contact with, her "date."

Your wife is being very self absorbed. She's not thinking about anyone (not even her children) or anything other then herself and how this other guy has made her feel wanted and desirable once again...

I agree. I don't plan to date anyone else until the time is right for me. And what you said about her never regaining a romantic connection with me ... I have said the exact same thing to her.

Thanks.

Your whole plan to try dating each other again has been a farce, because she's refusing to let go of her other boyfriend.

I'm sorry OP, but I think your marriage is just about as good as over. She is not committed to the reconciliation process, but she doesn't want you to move on until she and her boyfriend are on more solid ground. Even if he wasn't in the picture, it would be some other man. Why? She sounds like she checked out of your marriage a while ago.

You need to stop allowing yourself to participate in this. The effort is one-sided, with you doing the heavy lifting. She isn't giving it a sincere try, so it's time for you to speak to a lawyer.

I agree with the other posters, I think that your wife doesn't really love you anymore/is not in love with you. I think her saying that she only cares about you as a best friend basically means she doesn't think of you romantically and sexually anymore. By the sounds of it your marriage had been going downhill and then she decided to go see who else is out there, except she didn't want YOU to find anyone else. She's being really selfish and manipulative because she's scared if you find someone else, she will end up alone. She wants to have you as a backup plan. She is so disrespectful, told you to dump those three women but yet she continues with that guy! Did someone say hypocrite??!! Also so disrespectful towards you, why on Earth do you allow her to have that guy on her Facebook?

If she was serious about reuniting with you, she would have cut off all contact with the trucker. Instead, she dishes out excuses. And introducing the children to the trucker was really inappropriate for her to do. They need to get used to the new state of their parents marriage ending without a man who's willing to date a married woman hanging around.

What would I do in your shoes? I'd tell her that your conversations would now solely be about the children. I'd file for divorce and I'd also file for primary custody of the children since her new lifestyle isn't good for the children to be exposed to. And I'd wait a full year after the divorce is final to date and concentrate on getting your children adjusted to their new life as children of divorced parents. You gave her a chance which she threw in the garbage. I wouldn't try again. Take care.

Are you living apart or separate? You both dated during this dispute, unfortunately and that makes a bad split even more complicated and worse. It adds insult to injury, so to speak. And now she's engaged this guy in an emotional affair. Also "think of you as a friend" means the romance is dead and the attraction is gone.

She checked out long long before this "fling" and you both know that. You checked out also, and inside, you know that as well. You did the right thing suggesting couples therapy. Often for women things are "a little too little a little too late" and while you may have thought things were calm, this was her retreating and rethinking.

Go to therapy yourself for help navigating this mess and eventually invite your wife to couples therapy. She needs to know that it's either marriage therapy and end the affair or divorce and she moves out. Stand up for this.

she still says she's having a hard time finding feelings for me. I know it is because she hasn't let go of this fling. She says that she thinks her feelings for me are like those for a best friend. I have suggested couples therapy, but she doesn't think we're ready for that.

We are living separately now, but we were sharing the family home for while after the decision to separate, and that's when all all of this started.

I know it's hard to hear, because you so want to make this work, but from what you've said she is simply incapable of giving you (or anyone, including herself) anything close to what's required to make a relationship work. If there is another chapter for you two, it's not going to come from this moment. It's going to come from walking away, moving on, healing from this, living your life, and reconnecting in a way that is totally unexpected.

I'm sure she has all sorts of great qualities, and obviously you two have shared a lot: early romance, a long marriage, childrearing. This moment here does not negate the reality or worth of any of that—that's forever, to be cherished.

But this dynamic? To be clear: it's pure toxicity. And the more you engage in it, the more poisonous it becomes, and the more tarnished the real, pure stuff you guys shared will become. Because right now it is not affection that is keeping you two tethered to each other; it's fear. Fear of loss, fear of the unknown, fear that a long haul trucker or online woman will be the final straw.

Just as a functional relationship takes two, so does a toxic one. Her contribution is chronic uncertainty/emotional boomeranging; yours is repeatedly bending to accommodate these pivots. Her you cannot control, at all, as you've discovered. She says one thing, does another. That is who she is right now, where she's at. She is not meaning to be lie and be malicious, but she is lying and being malicious. What you can control is yourself, extricating yourself from this, to protect your own heart and ensure that your children are raised in a non-toxic environment.

The qualities you're showing here—the willingness to step up, to make something work—are noble and awesome and will serve you well, in life, and in a different relationship. They too are real, and to be cherished. But they need to be applied to someone who can cherish them back. She is not that person, and to continue pouring yourself into this, in hopes that she'll "come around," will leave you drained and bitter.