SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Good morning all,

As the title suggests I encouraged my WW to join so she could have some support from other waywards. I wanted her to know she is not alone in the journey and feel like it could help her on her path. She has posted and I want to read it but I feel like that may be breaking some form of privacy.

How do others feel about both WW and BH using these forums together? And should I read and respond to some of her posts? It feels dirty like reading a journal, though she told me that some things she read in response were rough. Not sure if I just leave her to her journey and fight the urge to look or not.

BS here.

I personally find SI to be my safe spot. After 42 yrs of being lied to, I would have a hard time not believing that I was being managed again.

Gemmy

The one to ask is your wife.
You should agree on ballpark rules for SI. For example: you can read her threads on WW that don’t have Stop Marks, you can read her responses in any forum and so on. While she can’t read your posts in JFO or General but is allowed to here in the R forum.

Thank you bigger. That's really helpful and I am a little embarrassed I didn't just do this preemptively

I read your WW's post and recognized the story immediately. Generally speaking, I do not recommend sharing SI. Sometimes it works out well enough. Sometimes it's an absolute train wreck.

Let's be honest here. You can both do your best to respect each other's boundaries about reading each other's posts. But! There's a good chance that at some point the temptation to violate those boundaries will be too tempting to resist. I'd suggest that you both recognize this simple truth and agree to be perfectly open and honest about it all. If you're going to share SI, then share it, completely.

As for replying on each other's threads, I think you might both agree that having personal conversations about any issues that arise would be far more productive. There's an inherent danger that one or both of you will be tempted to "set the record straight" whenever an issue arises, causing more harm. I've seen this happen enough to understand the pitfalls of sharing SI.

There's another pernicious element to sharing the site. There might easily be times when one or both of you will use replies by members to "win" an argument. I might write something to you or to her and then later you argue about what Unhinged wrote (or anyone else). Depending upon the issue, where each of you are in this journey, how either of you might be feeling on any given day, can have either a beneficial or detrimental affect on your efforts to reconcile.

IOW, as I said above, if you're going to share SI, then share it as a couple. Be clear that you want us to treat you two as a couple rather than individual members and remain a team throughout all of your interactions here.

You two should come to an agreement on how you would like to handle both being on the board. There’s no right or wrong answer to that question.
Whichever way you two think it would serve healing best.

BTDT.

I think you need to work out boundaries with your W, and fast. Better late than never.

Personally, I would hope you agree not to post on each other's threads and not to respond to each other's posts. I've never seen that work well. SI works best, IMO< when you use it for your work and your W uses it for hers. It's a lousy venue for communicating with each other about differences between you

Many posts/threads on SI are 'works in progress'. You've both got to be able to write thoughts as they occur without regard to how your partner will respond. If you read your W's doubts about R, how will you feel? What will you do? If she reads your doubts, how will she feel? What will she do?

IOW, I recommend strongly that you stay off each other's threads and not read each other's posts.

I understand wanting your W to get emotional support, but IMO, taking action on her behalf is intruding - it's up to your W to figure out what she wants and to go for it - you can't do her work for her. She has to do her own work for R to have a chance.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 6:54 PM, Tuesday, April 28th]

I think it is useful as to find help in your own healing.

Before reading her posts though, since is no secret, ask her.

She can make use of here if she feels completely free to be open, possibly about things she can't or does not want to confront you with just yet.

If she is afraid you read it, she might refrain from and that could be counterproductive.

You should agree on your own rules, and obviously it is also a test of trust, renewed.

Ther eis the risk of curiosity, but you know what is the goal, not to investigate, but to find both of yourself so you may find you again later down the road.

Right?

PS
I suggested my wife she could come here to find support for her in the wayward forum and the others. She can also freely read whatever I do write even if it is about her. What I write here, including the harshest things, she knows, there is full transparency from my end.

She is terrified of this forums and I think she only checks it rarely if at all.

I speculate she is afraid of telling something that I might read and face the consequences. Is not like that, because I already know and what blanks are not yet filled I likely imagine already much worse than it likely is, but you can not talk the other person out of their fears.

So depending what stage your wife is she might have few obstacles to overcome, and you likely have too.

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 1:27 PM, Wednesday, April 29th]

That's the dilemma. If you don't both feel comfortable that what you write here is private, you can't make use of SI to work things out. You've got to be able to say, 'I'm thinking seriously about ____,' without fear of your partner's reading your words and reacting prematurely.

One can't use SI as a sounding board about issues one is not ready to raise with one's partner unless one has reasonable assurance that your partner won't intrude by reading one's posts.

Thank you all for your input. I talked to her last night and we agreed it has to be a safe place for both of us. We agreed to not read posts from each other unless requested by one of us. We are treating this as a safe place because I believe she and I would be censoring ourselves with the knowledge that the other may read.