An affair is escapism for sure, and its usually the result of a chance opportunity, or a thousand micro-escalations that happened without any forethought. What it's really a symptom of, however, is conflict avoidance.
In a way. Affairs aren't spur of the moment, that is unless she is a ho... They are well-thought out and planned. Maybe it start quick, maybe not. Maybe she sees someone she's attracted to...whatever, its not an overnight decision.
There are moments in this life when you are so confident in the rightness of your actions, that not even for a second do you consider the option that you might be wrong.
Then the LBS has to walk on eggshells and form strategies and plans to try to win back a person who has hurt them so deeply without, at least at the time, any remorse whatsoever. That we have to look for subtle meaning in a text message, or an email, or something said in passing for some kind of sign that our former loving spouses haven't turned into a totally heartless stranger.
The thing is you don't *have* to do any of that. In fact you shouldn't. That's the key.
Prepare yourself for the fact that you're unlikely to ever get any remorse or any type of apology.
You are right that it [censored], and I'm glad you're angry about it, that's part of processing all of this. Allow yourself to feel all of it and don't worry about it for a minute.
Realistically someone having an affair like this is usually a "last straw" versus a spur of the moment decision. In most relationships needs don't get met, resentments build up, and just pile up over time. When you're living in the same space there's a lot of motivation to compromise and keep the peace, but usually under the surface there's stuff brewing that isn't getting discussed, usually because both people convince themselves that it's just a temporary issue and will go away on its own.
I read somewhere that for people in a relationship to characterize it as "happy", positive interactions need to outweigh negative ones by a ratio of 7:1. For every one time you come away from an exchange annoyed, you have to come away from seven others feeling good. That's a pretty difficult thing to achieve for most people. If you're shy of that, the resentment snowball is growing.
An affair is escapism for sure, and its usually the result of a chance opportunity, or a thousand micro-escalations that happened without any forethought. What it's really a symptom of, however, is conflict avoidance.
For a relationship to be successful both people need to be willing to blow it up on occasion, argue it out and be prepared to walk if a compromise can't be reached. That takes a lot of strength and self-confidence. For more often people stuff it down and pave over it and eventually you're sitting on a volcano that's ready to blow.
Point is, regardless of the affair one or both of you weren't happy. Usually its just a matter of timing in terms of who pulls the rip cord first.
That's why it's now important to separate the desire for the person, from the desire for resumption of control, stability, and positive validation. Your brain is telling you that getting W back will restore these things, but it won't.
So ask yourself, what do you want and why do you want it?
Acc
^^^Wisdom! Wow, describes my situation exactly.
Gordie 40s W 40s M20+ kids 2016 BD W fantasy affair w OM1 I do everything wrong 2017 I start to DB W says TLTL files for D PA w OM2 2018 I do LRT W drops filing and OM2 situation slowly improving
I desire the person, too. But then it's complicated because I desire the person who would never hurt or betray me.
Often times we love people for who we want them to be versus who they are
Originally Posted By: brizz
I'd have an unstoppable motivation to improve the MR for that person. Right now I really don't have that motivation for the cold-hearted person she's become. And motivation has never been her thing so I can't imagine her putting in the hard work of chipping away at the damage to where I'd really want to put in the work too.
You're right. If you "pursue her back" she won't have any motivation to do anything because she'll be there begrudgingly, or to do you a favor, or because she didn't have a better option, and there is no motivation in that.
Often we think that the wayward spouse returning is the finish line and from there everything gets better.
Realistically if she came back tomorrow it would kick off a cycle of you being suspicious of what she was doing every minute you're not with her, seeking an apology or admission of wrongdoing which you wouldn't get, and then slowly building anger within you about the whole mess you endured -- not a very romantic place to rekindle a romance.
If you get back together, you need to come back together as equals, which means that she wants you at least as much as you want her, and you each see each other as the best option.
How do you do that? You have to be happy and fulfilled on your own first. No one can love you if you don't love yourself first right? Sounds simple but that's what it comes down to. The shortest path back is beeline in the opposite direction.
Originally Posted By: brizz
I almost got the impression she was wanting me to invite her over to work on it together. If she can't even come out and say that then there's really no hope for her to be honest and put in the hard work on a R.
Danger, don't drink the poison water. Don't read into what she secretly wants but isn't telling you, you're just torturing yourself with that. I know it's incredibly difficult to know how to act around her right now.
The best thing you can do is the "friendly coworker standard" -- how would you treat a coworker you are friendly with but who is not a friend of yours? You'd be civil and polite, but you wouldn't go out of your way to do them any favors, and you certainly wouldn't share anything personal or intimate in terms of how you're feeling.
Visualize her as someone from the office who you kind of know but aren't friends with. You wouldn't be rude, but you wouldn't be overly accommodating either, just accommodating enough to be genuinely polite.
Question for you brizz -- how do you think she'll feel if you are polite but indifferent to her?
Acc
Married 18, Together 20, Now Divorced M: 48, W: 50, D: 18, S: 16, D: 12 Bomb Dropped (EA, D): 7/13/11 Start Reconcile: 8/15/11 Bomb Dropped (EA, D): 5/1/2014 (Divorced) In a New Relationship: 3/2015
I've done very well with detaching and not pursuing. Not texting her, not responding to any texts from her if I don't have to, being short and ambivalent when I do respond, not taking any bait by her to get me to pursue.
I've done OK with being indifferent the times she's been by the house recently. But I need to be better. It's so easy to get sucked in and suddenly find myself talking about how I feel. I think I'll be better the next time. I really just need to keep the "friendly coworker" idea in my head the whole time, pause before I speak, and not let her pull me into any relationship conversation or at the very least just give short, indifferent responses to what she says and not get emotional. It's getting easier because the conversations we have had, she still bashes me, still rewrites history, and still refutes any opinions or feelings I discuss as if they're facts she has disproven. Not hard to remove motivation to have those types of conversations.
If I was polite and completely indifferent to her, which is my goal, she'd probably think I moved on and am in a better place. Maybe that I'm more mysterious. That she doesn't matter as much and I've got other things going on in my life that she isn't part of. And also maybe guilty about how she's treated me.
I've done very well with detaching and not pursuing.
Please be careful as these are two VERY different things. And they are both very important!
Could you elaborate? I see detaching as not letting my thoughts or wants regarding my W impact what I do. That I'll be OK no matter what happens. Just focus on myself, my life, what I want to do, and whatever happens regarding her will sort itself out. I can't control it.
Not pursuing I see as not reaching out. Going dark, basically. Regarding the taxes I could have offered her to come over to the house to do them together like I had mentioned a couple weeks ago, but I didn't. And when she does next come to the house, no talks on R or the MR or anything of the sort. Really just nothing from me at all except friendly courtesy. Our anniversary is next week -- not planning on acknowledging it with her.
You mainly have it right -- detachment is an emotional state where whatever your WAS does evokes no emotional reaction from you any more than a complete stranger would.
Not pursuing is just that -- resisting the urge to engage. Not pursuing is in many ways "fake it until you make it" as you're training yourself to get to the point of detachment and you're trying to give the impression of actually being detached to take pressure and focus off your WAS.
IMO another difference is that you can will yourself not to pursue but you can't really will yourself to detach, that just happens over time.
I look at it this way -- if a person who lived down the street bought an unremarkable used car, you'd be detached -- you don't know them, you don't care about the car and you weren't involved in the transaction.
If, on the other hand you watched the transaction through binoculars, stayed up all night wondering why they chose that specific car and who they bought it from, then spent the next day convincing yourself they bought it to make you feel bad about your own car, but you resisted confronting them about it, that would be "not pursuing" if you see the difference there.
Another key difference is that a WAS typically sees through "not pursuing" and doesn't trust it. When you detach they know and in many cases it freaks them out.
I remember the moment I realized I was detached. If XW rode through town on a horse naked, had sex on my front lawn, or got abducted by aliens it just pretty much wouldn't register. She became "someone I happen to know" versus someone who occupies any of my thoughts unless they're standing right in front of me.
Keep working on non-pursuit, be polite and happy when you interact with her, and live your own life to the fullest. Go out and do and be.
Acc
Married 18, Together 20, Now Divorced M: 48, W: 50, D: 18, S: 16, D: 12 Bomb Dropped (EA, D): 7/13/11 Start Reconcile: 8/15/11 Bomb Dropped (EA, D): 5/1/2014 (Divorced) In a New Relationship: 3/2015
W texted saying she was thinking about taking the dog for a night and asking if this weekend would work. I don't want this at all. I will not be giving up the dog in a D or even doing shared custody and the sooner she realizes that the better. Don't want any precedent established on this. Plus I resent that while her affair was still going on she couldn't care less about seeing the dog.
I'm thinking of waiting a while before just replying, "I don't think that's a good idea." and ignoring the inevitable "Why not?" response from her as well as anything else she'd say on it. But are there any better ideas?
Well I think you need to examine your motivations -- do you not want her to have the dog because you're trying to punish her? I don't think any type of precedent is going to matter in a divorce proceeding regarding the dog, that's just something that would need to be negotiated along with everything else. Was it your dog prior to getting together, or did you get the dog together?
To your point rather than saying "I don't think that's a good idea" which invites a question, you could say "I'm not comfortable with that right now" which is more definitive and let it go at that. I would do a bit of soul-searching first however.
Acc
Married 18, Together 20, Now Divorced M: 48, W: 50, D: 18, S: 16, D: 12 Bomb Dropped (EA, D): 7/13/11 Start Reconcile: 8/15/11 Bomb Dropped (EA, D): 5/1/2014 (Divorced) In a New Relationship: 3/2015
No, not to punish her at all. But I've been the one taking care of the dog for 3 months now when she had no interest in even seeing her -- I pretty much consider her MY dog now, not ours. I want my dog to stay in her home and not be taken off to wherever my W is staying. It just isn't worth it. I also want to establish that I'm going to keep the dog and I'm not interested in any shared custody. It wouldn't be healthy for the dog to be shuttled about or for myself to continue having W in my life if we get divorced. We got the dog together. I knew the dog could potentially be the one "big" issue in a divorce but I didn't anticipate it becoming an issue already like this...
