You and your wife are at a point in your marriage where you are resenting each other breathing air, let alone, picking apart every word and action you each make. It's a normal progression of a marriage. There's a few choices to make -- fix the marriage and move on; get a divorce; take on a lover.
Note: There's some variations on this theme in the prior posting.
Fixing the marriage is probably too ambitious of a goal because there isn't consensus on how it's broken, and it's becoming increasingly clear that not only does she reject my viewpoint, she doesn't want to offer up a coherent viewpoint of her own. Without that, there really can't be talk of a compromise. The closest thing to a "fix", I think, would be for me to give up what I want altogether. I've developed too much of a backbone to settle for that anymore.
So that leaves divorce or EMR. Discovery of an EMR would not be well received, I believe. If the mere thought of me having erotic phone conversations with anonymous women twelve years ago made her sick to her stomach, just imagine what an IRL situation would do?
Further bolstering my case against an EMR would be the remark she made to me earlier this year when she found out one of her best friends had busted her husband in an EMR of his own. She told me that if I ever wanted to do something like that, I should just tell her right away so she could leave me then.
For as much anxiety and shame as it brings about, seeking a divorce seems to be the least awful of the list.
Now... the question I posed to you is exactly what I asked... Is it possible that SHE has a lover?
Before you close your eyes, shake your head voraciously and shout No, No, not her!! Just think about it. Don't get angry about it, just think about it.
When a person is unhappy with another, they close this emotional door to them slowly. However, most times, we'll open that door to someone else and are vulnerable to having feelings for someone that acts just a little bit more happy to see us.
Now please, I have no idea about you or your wife, I'm just talking out of my ass here.. but I'm talking about my life, as a woman who had severe marital trouble, an affair (or two) and somehow figured out what happened. I can tell you I have not had an emr in many years. Not for lack of suitors ;p... just hasn't happened.
What I'm saying, is I've been there where I was unhappy at home, but had a great lover, so I didn't mind being home, and I didn't care whether I was nice to the H or not. He, his opinions, and his bullshit really had no effect on me whatsoever. He just needed to be home to babysit and take out the garbage, as far as I was concerned.
I was getting my emotional needs met elsewhere (and physical).
soooooo.... is that a possibility?
(pauses to reflect)
OK, now I understand what you were trying to say.
Given the circumstances, I would have to say "yes, it is a possibility." The only thing that made me discount it was a matter of timing. She gets out of the house a lot, but I've never been the type to demand a full accounting of where she's been or what she's done.
But she has a few friends who might be able to help her (wittingly or unwittingly) with the logistics of having a lover while being a mostly SAHM. But on further reflection, there have been a lot of weekends where she takes shopping trips that she says will take x amount of hours and it winds up being sometimes as much as twice as long.
If she is getting her needs met elsewhere, that's fine with me. I would just be grateful if she could level with me that this is how she wants it to be, because then I could make my choices with concrete information. I don't think I would go off on the paths of overanalysis had I had a clearer understanding of what was going on.
Thank you for offering your comments. This blog has thickened my skin and thinned my skull, so I can handle blunter remarks better than I used to. I have learned a lot from my readers.
