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#2499181 10/21/14 06:32 PM
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Previous thread:
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Not sure what to title this one after what happened last night. WAW told me, among other things, that she wants to date other men.

Last edited by Card29; 10/21/14 06:33 PM.

Me 38, WAW 30
D11 (former marriage)
S2
T 8 years
M 3 years
BD 8/20/23
S 8/20/23
Card29 #2499185 10/21/14 06:37 PM
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Fear of the future was just triggered by a woman's perfume. A woman at my work wears the same perfume WAW wore for the first 3-5 years of our R. Reminds me of when she was crazy about me. Time will heal a lot of wounds but I am afraid of the fact that there will be pain from this for the rest of my life. If we didn't have D2, and we D, I would have wanted to move to a completely different part of the country. Everything in this city reminds me of something with her. Dates, visits to the park, looking for a house, jobs we've worked, places we met, kissed, got married, where D2 was born. There is nowhere to hide and nowhere to run.


Me 38, WAW 30
D11 (former marriage)
S2
T 8 years
M 3 years
BD 8/20/23
S 8/20/23
Card29 #2499187 10/21/14 06:39 PM
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for her either.


Me42, H40
D12, S8, S7
A revealed: 7/13
Sep 4/14; Agreed to D 1/15

She believed she could, so she did.
Maybell #2499188 10/21/14 06:41 PM
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It will pass, Card. Don't focus on all the things that remind you of her. Let her go and trust the universe to sort things out. The future might hold exciting things for you. You are still young!


M: 43 H: 39
D: 14
Married 15 Together 16
BD: 6/2014
S: 8/2014
OW revealed 10/2014
Instigated dissolution 12/2014, in progress
So over it!
Maybell #2499189 10/21/14 06:46 PM
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Originally Posted By: Maybell
for her either.

True.
Or do they even care?


Me 47 - W 35
M 9 - T 10
2 Daughters - 7 & 9
Discovery of EA- 8/4/14
S - 8/5/15
D mentioned - 9/11/14
R & Piecing - 3/17/15
Regard one another as more important than yourselves.
- Philippians 2:3
Jefe #2499192 10/21/14 06:51 PM
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Try and be thankful for the happy memories rather than sad for what you've lost.

I've got great memories from university but at no point do I feel sad that I'm not at uni anymore.


Both mid 30s, 2 young kids
BD 7sep14
XW moved on long ago, now living with OM1
D paperwork in progress
Card29 #2499194 10/21/14 06:55 PM
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Card, that's a lot of fear in your short post. A while back, I listed out all the things I was afraid of. What are you afraid of? Are you afraid of never loving again? Being loved again? Finances? Time with D2? I'll bet it's not as long of a list as you are imagining. And I'll bet that you can take care of some of them in a rational way.

One of my fears was finances. Two trips to the L's office took care of that.

My biggest hang up with S (and D) has always been the kids. Last session, my IC challenged me to tell her the ways my kids lives would be different if H and I didn't live together. The list wasn't as long as I thought, and not as disruptive as I thought. Obviously, I still believe that it's best for them to be raised by two loving parents in the same household, I'll always believe that, but I saw that two loving parents not in the same household isn't as terrible as I was imagining. That fear has lessened for me because I dealt with it head on.

Make a list. Post it. What are you afraid of?



"Don't look back, you aren't going that way"
SunnyB #2499223 10/21/14 07:54 PM
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- I fear lifelong pain. I know I won't hurt like this forever and it will become less and less frequent. But I feel like I will have regular flashbacks for the rest of my life. Just to put it in perspective, I've only had one other "steady" relationship, a 3-month fling in high school. I still have flashbacks about the day my GF broke up with me. They aren't that painful and not very frequent anymore. But 11 years after a 3-month R and it still slightly bothers me! There is a pool I drive past on the way to daycare. I was there with GF the day she broke up with me. It's not even where we were when we broke up. Yet EVERY time I see that pool I think of that day. Usually not in a painful way, but it's still there. I fear what BigD after a 7 year M and birth of a child will do to me 5, 10, 30 years from now, especially given that there is not a single neighborhood or area in the entire city I dont have some kind of memory (good or regrettable) about W.

- I do NOT a fear never being loved again. I think I am a great dad and good H (willing to improve anything I can). I also feel confident I know what I would want in a future W, or at least what I wouldn't focus on as much (physical beauty)

- I do fear everything that comes with a child split between two households. Step father. Split holidays. What if the step parents have kids too? It's a mess. I hate the fact that another man might take my place for half of D2's life. To put that in perspective, when I was looking for a new job before D was born, I turned down a $80,000 job in exchange for a $55,000 job in part because the higher paying job would have been an additional 8-10 hours of commuting and 8-10 hours of work every week, not to mention I would never be able to visit D2 during the day. I wanted those hours with my family. Now I don't see them for half of the week. Money is the least important thing in the world to me. I have no fear that WAW will try to screw me if it comes to BigD, although I will protect myself.

- my biggest fear since I was a child was the BigD. My parents withdrew into a miserable M. I was always afraid they would D. I swore since I was a kid that I would never get a D. Little did I know I was just repeating my parents' pattern of withdrawing into what I was content with, ignoring W's needs

- I fear my D2 blaming herself someday. I fear her repeating history like we did. I do feel like I can help this point by educating her and demonstrating to her a healthy M, either with WAW someday or another M, something none of our parents did for us (her dad cheated and left when she was 12, her mom remarried and did nothing to care for that M, either, eventually landing in BigD #2).

- I fear WAW dating someone (singular or plural) else. If it clicks, it will feel 100x's better to her than anything we've had in the last 7-8 years because of the nature of the beginning of an R and her fog making her believe our M was nothing but hell. That would be the nail in the coffin of a renewed M for us.

- even if her dating doesn't lead to anything, and even if it gives her time to process things, come out of her fog and decide she wants to try with me, I fear the process of getting over the fact that she openly dated and had sex outside of our M. At this point, I would take this option over any other one that is likely on the table. It's not my biggest fear on this list. But WAW had sex with 3-4 guys before I met her (I was a virgin), and it took me every bit of 5 years to let go of that (and it still bothers me occasionally, especially lately after BD). Not sure how that process would go, although if we fell back in love it would probably be easier than I fear.

- I fear the possibility that I will have had the biggest awakening of my life (to what is most important to me, to how to build and sustain a successful M) a few months after it was too late to use any of this newfound passion, skill or clarity. I know the timing is not a coincidence (I wasn't going to be awakened until the trauma hit, like a guy who suddenly realizes he wants to live after he jumps off of the bridge), but it still feels almost intentional due to my continued neglect and disrespect of my W and M. I know I wasn't the worst H in the world and I usually meant well. But I definitely deserve some of this pain. I don't think I deserve to be abandoned all at once. Even a serious statement from her ("I am not happy with our M and haven't been for a while") would have been enough to wake me up. The very first trickle of BD made my heart fall into my stomach. She had been in Paris for 2 weeks, I missed her tremendously, we had a mean exchange on a Monday morning, and an hour after I was at work, I got an IM from her that said, "I think I should visit my grandparents alone this weekend." I hadn't seen her for 2 weeks and she wanted even more space? I knew immediately that something was gravely wrong inside of her.


Me 38, WAW 30
D11 (former marriage)
S2
T 8 years
M 3 years
BD 8/20/23
S 8/20/23
Card29 #2499237 10/21/14 08:23 PM
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I also fear that a couple who is nearly perfect for each other, just uneducated in marriage/love building principles, will miss out on the chance for a truly wonderful marriage.


Me 38, WAW 30
D11 (former marriage)
S2
T 8 years
M 3 years
BD 8/20/23
S 8/20/23
Card29 #2499243 10/21/14 08:30 PM
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Posts: 1,091
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I need to find someone I can talk to in person. My mom is close by and loves me, but she can't help but tell her sister everything she knows. I don't want the possibility of my W dating being out in public. That would spiral out of control quickly, because I have some emotional, defensive, somewhat vengeful cousins that might harass WAW. That would be bad in every way, so they can't know this. Because of that, I can't tell any of my family, except maybe my sister who lives 1/2 of the country away. She has no issue keeping something to herself. My mom CAN, but it would almost be torture for her to not tell her sister/BFF. Once it goes there, it inevitably becomes public knowledge.


Me 38, WAW 30
D11 (former marriage)
S2
T 8 years
M 3 years
BD 8/20/23
S 8/20/23
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