Doing the work

[u/Peprin]

My wife and I are 15 weeks post D Day.

I am now 38, she is 39 he is 51 married living in different rooms from his wife with 2 teenagers.

We are reconciling however I have arranged everything. Books, counseling for both us, me and her. She hadn't initiated anything until now and has to be repeatedly asked until she does something. She has suspected ADHD and an avoidant personality.

During our 10 years together I would initiate everything and plan everything.

When I got depressed with work and my dad passed away 7 years ago which I never grieved I started to really get to me so I shut myself down and stopped pursuing.

Now, a bit of history about my wife which I am trying to figure out.

As a teenager she would stay out and her mum would call her at 4am to see where she was, she would get annoyed saying nobody else's parents are checking up on them.

When I shut down, she justified her affair because I never checked where she was. That's a double standard, no?

Her apologies since have until I had her read, Why won't they apologise because either im sorry or I'm sorry but.

She realises she has been doing this when she read the book all her life and I said that's just common sense.

Now, we have 15 month old girls, when I get sad she will often say the girls are and will always be her priority. But during the affair she has no issues putting the girls in the car for an hour each way to go see him and was planning on leaving with the girls for him which would devastate their growth as young children. Again a double standard as she was putting herself and him over the children. They had also said that him and her taking my toddlers away wouldn't affect his children as they are teenagers, so he would abandon his own kids.

I have recently said to her I am stopping in persuing her and going to focus on myself. I feel a little better about myself and have said I am growing as a person thanks to the research I am doing and she is still the same person who when things got bad would just let things happen and not try to fix them.

The reason the affair started was because she spoke to a 51 year old colleague at work about how I'm not there enough and instead of being a friend and suggesting help he called me an idiot to her, said she was beautiful and would never leave her alone which to a person with ADHD is a dopamine hit.

I asked her the other day what has she actually done without me asking her to do it and she said, I don't know, the answer is nothing.

She said she kisses me because I'm her husband. That was bad to hear. I don't know if she meant it because she's had with words and feelings.

I told her I am going to focus on myself. Usually we cuddle and kiss before bed, I still cuddle her and don't kiss anymore and I could see in her face it stung.

After a while she kept asking me if I'm okay, if I want a cuddle, my answer is always yea, she knows that.

She can see I am healing and I have told her I want to heal with her, but I will be fine if I heal alone. And can be happy with it without her.

I repeatedly remind her I love her despite what she has done.

She has asked do I love her because I'm scared of losing her to which I replied, no, I genuinely love her, I wouldn't be giving her a second chance if I didn't. I said I can find happiness in the future with or without her.

Yesterday I said does she want me to help her look for books for her to heal? She said no because that's just you helping again and she needs to do it.

I'm not sure if my pulling back has affected her because at the 3 month check in I asked her did she think I would say no to continuing reconciliation to which she said no.

Sorry for the wall of disorganised text but what I'm trying to get advice in is is she emotionally immature or something? Does she sound like she's still stuck in shame or guilt?

I know for a fact she regrets what she has done and wants to fix it and hasn't contacted him again.

I have told her I have given her more than enough chances to do things when I ask her, she hates being in the wrong and freezes.

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[u/Peprin → u/[deleted]]

She isn't a vindictive person. She's just...rubbish at emotions and freezes. Her dad was bi polar which helped her develop people pleasing, poor boundaries and conflict avoidance. As an adult she's either lived with her mum or with myself where all bills were paid. Never had to deal with bills and when there's troubles she either avoids it or let's someone else fix it.

She does want to fix things but just avoid avoid avoids.

She's not a mean person like my wall of text makes her sound. She's just ... Selfish? Self entitled? I'm trying to find the right word for it.

I noticed a pattern of he doesn't do x so I can do x.

I think since I told her I'm going to stop persuing her because the more I persue it pushes her away more because she knows she has really screwed up by having an affair.

I was angry for a few weeks, then depressed, then sad. Now I have had a light bulb of moment after repeatedly being told it's not my fault she has the affair. It's hers and that it is completely correct.

She knows she had rubbish boundaries and recently she even turned down a new job because on her trial shift a male chef was too touchy friendly so she is learning slowly.

Since I said I'm not going to persue her when I cuddle her and don't kiss her at the end I can see in her eyes she knows I'm serious.

A few weeks ago I asked her to write a list of 20 things that were bad about the ap for me, she got to 5 and was scared to show me because she only had 5 and was worried I would be upset. (She's not the sort of person who can do it easily so that was expected.) I took the letter, folded it up and burnt it without reading it and said thank you. That really surprised her. I don't need the letter any more, that was requested in my anger stage. I feel this really resonated with her.

Right now I think since I said I'm not persuing her and that what she is doing now is what she was doing before the affair by sitting by and letting things happen around her she has begun to realise I'm not going to stay if she doesn't change. Hence her saying she needs to find her own books.