No more denial, time to get to work

[Vanilla]

Lovely to read your update, thank you too many posters just go NC on us and we love to know.

Great insight, didn't post to you much but am relieved you have reached the land of Meh!

V

[MRay]

It's been awhile, so I thought I'd post an update just in case anybody cares and it's probably good for me to write some of this down. I've been doing great. Went backpacking for a week with my friends and I'm continuing to workout and get a life! My kids are doing far better than I ever thought they would. They are such wonderful, resilient little things.

STBXW and I remain good friends. We talk about everything except significant others. We had trouble setting healthy boundaries for awhile, but it's getting better. We still have meals together every so often, which is great for the kids. She's been with OM for a couple months now, and I'm starting to see some cracks there. First, they haven't told anybody. Only each of their best friends and I know. They went on a vacation together and she asked me not to tell her parents she was out of town. I had to know because it meant I would have the kids on her normal days. I think it's pretty amusing. The best part is knowing they were sleeping in the same bed together and I didn't care one bit.

The second thing that amused me was the other day I dropped S3 off with her, and she was painting her bedroom and bathroom new colors. She had to bring me back there and show me and she was all excited. I only have two triggers that I know of at the moment, and the house is one of them. The other is seeing her put so much effort into having a good life now when she put in so little effort before. So both of these triggers were hit, and I got a little emotional. I tried to hide it, but after 16 years you know each others looks. So I took D6 to run some errands and get her everything she needed for her new dance classes. STBXW texted me asking if I was okay. I responded telling her that I was doing very good. I told her about my triggers, and that I'm sure eventually they wouldn't bother me either. I told her I was actually very proud of her for finally doing things to make herself happy, which is the truth. She responded with only "I really am very sorry." I told her not to be sorry. This is all a good thing, and I talked about finding myself and living a life that I am proud of.

When I returned to drop off D6, she had the look. You know that look they get when you've done something to really upset them. I told her I know that look, what's wrong? But I got the classic, "nothing." So out of habit I said something like I know something is wrong. If I did something to upset you just say so. Then she said, "Yes, I'm upset. You did nothing wrong. This isn't about you. I have a lot going on in my life right now, and you don't need to know about it." She was right! I didn't! I know she's been unhappy with her mom lately, and I said something along the lines of her mom would calm down and everything will be alright. She was very short with me and said, "I haven't talked to her in over a week." So I just wished her good luck with everything and left. The only thing I could think of is that she's angry with OM about something. School is starting back up, and my guess is one of them wants to tell their friends/coworkers and the other doesn't. I don't really know. I don't really care. I am just so amused at seeing her so angry with somebody else. I've never seen her have that look and it not be about me! I don't know why I find it so amusing. I just do.

I've tried dating, and wow is it complicated. There's lots of interest there, but I've realized I'm just not ready, and it's not because of STBXW. I fell pretty hard for a girl, lets call her Anna, that I've known about 8 months now and she fell for me too. The problem is she's 25 and wants to get married and start a family soon, and my marriage won't legally end until January. That really scared her, and she didn't like the timing of everything. We didn't talk for a month or so, but then STBXW brought up dance lessons for D6. Well, Anna is a dance teacher, and the studio STBXW chose is the one Anna works at. Fantastic right? I figured there are like 15 teachers at the school, what's the chance the class they choose is one of hers? Well, of course D6 chose a class that Anna happens to teach. I texted Anna and asked her if she would be comfortable with this. I wanted to give her a heads up, and let her know that I was not responsible for choosing the studio/class, and I am not stalking her. She laughed about that and said she doesn't think I'm stalking her. I asked a few more questions about what I would need to get for D6, and she answered them. When I tried to end the conversation, she started asking about me and what I've been up to. Since then we've been talking some, so we'll see what comes of that. I know that me still being legally married really bothered her, so I don't plan to pursue her until after my divorce is final. I definitely plan to pursue something at that point though. I have gone on some dates with other women since we stopped talking, but I just don't feel like it anymore. I had set up one of the dates, and was really excited for it. Then after I talked with Anna I just didn't care about the date at all. I realized I'm definitely not over her, so now I'm not trying to date anymore. What is meant to be will be.

Basically, I'm enjoying life. Catching up with old friends, making new friends, having fun experiences, doing things that I want to do. I enjoy my kids when I have them, and STBXW is a much better mom now, so I know they enjoy their time with her as well. To end, life is good.

[STH17]

Hi MRay, I don't think I've read your thread before but I see a lot of similarities between our sitches. You seem to be two or three months ahead of me. There is a calmness in your writing that is comforting. It's also jawdropping to me that you can maintain such calm having gone through such a similar experience. My W is the only woman I've kissed too. I read about the 4 months of no sex after your first daughter was born; it was at least one year for me after my son was born. Sometimes I wonder if I remember that correctly, but all I can remember is at one time thinking to myself "it's been a year already!"

I was waaay more scared and anxious than you to talk to my wife about divorce or her moving out. My fears still hold me back now.

The friendliness b/t you and your W is very unusual to see on these boards, and is what got me to stop and take a closer look at your thread. I thought that's the way my sitch might turn out too, but my W pursuing a PA (a couple months after telling me she would never be able to have sex again in her life) took the wind out of my sails. I have basically told her I can't be friends with her unless we talk about that choice she made while I was working hard to repair our relationship. Now that is just another impasse. I'm trying to figure out what to do with my own life now.

Anyway thanks for being here.

[NicoleR]

MRay, that's good news you and your wife are cordial and able to communicate openly. At least for the kids' sake that is good. You have a lot of maturity and diplomacy to be able to do what you're doing.

I hope you and Anna can re-connect. How do you feel about starting a new family in the near future?

[MRay]

Hi STH17, thanks for reading. Believe me, when this all started I was a mess. I look back at my response to discovering the affair and I'm disgusted with myself. The begging, the pleading, the self pity. I wish I had reacted in a total different way, but I can't change the past. So a few months ago I wasn't nearly this calm. You'll get there. It's possible!

I guess I'm okay with being friends because we'd basically been living as friends for 6 years with the occasional pity sex thrown in there. I'm also very forgiving, and I can see her side. Do I agree with her actions? No. Does it make me respect her less? Yes, but I still think she is a good person that has issues she's working on. We both still love each other. Just more like brother/sister than husband/wife. I truly want her to be happy. One of the boundaries we have trouble with is that we both joke about things when in uncomfortable situations. This is why our mediation lawyer loves us so much. We are constantly cracking jokes, laughing, and smiling during our meetings. Probably very different than the typical divorce proceedings. We are just too comfortable with each other. How do you force yourself to be uncomfortable?

I definitely understand the feeling like you are working so hard to work on the relationship and she isn't doing anything. That's why one of my triggers is seeing how hard she is working on herself now. She put it so little effort to us for so long. I had been asking her to go out with our friends and do stuff, and get a babysitter and go out just the two of us, or going on vacation without the kids and she always had excuses. Usually she didn't want to deal with getting a babysitter. So now I see her doing all these things, including getting a babysitter for our kids when she only has them half the time anyways, can definitely upset me still. But I guess I just deal with it. What else can I do? Her life does not concern me anymore. She is responsible for her own happiness. I'm responsible for mine. So that's what I focus on. I guess what I'm saying is if you can't be friends with her and be happy, then don't be friends with her.

Hi Nicole! Thanks for the compliments. It's definitely difficult at times, but it gets easier. I certainly hope so too with Anna, but I'm not sure how to go about it. I had planned to wait until January to contact her again as that's when my divorce is final as the last thing she had said to me was along the lines of that it's just not a good time for her and she was hesitant to pursue anything because of my situation for the next 6 months (this was in June). Now with us talking again, and we'll be seeing each other when I pick up D6 from her class, I'm not so sure anymore. One of my friends is getting married in a month, and he was encouraging me to try to be friends with her and see if she wants to watch a baseball game or something (we're both big fans of the same team). It worked for him. He and his fiance were friends for months before finally going out even though he pursued her from the start.

The starting a new family thing is something I've put a lot of thought into, and this is independent of Anna. At first I didn't think I wanted any more children, but I always wanted three (I'm a third child that came along 10 years after my youngest sister, so maybe that's where it comes from). STBXW only wanted two, so we were done. Now I think if I found the right person I could totally have another child. And I don't think I would want just one. Probably two. I'm big into symmetry I guess. I never saw myself as a father of four (dear God, that's scary), but I'm kind of excited about the possibility now. I love my kids, and enjoy being a dad so much. I also wouldn't want to be in my 40's and starting a new family, so it would have to be fairly soon. So, I guess I'm very open to the idea.

[MRay]

Just a bit of an update and some journaling. I turned 33 last week, and a couple days after my birthday I had STBXW and the kids over for a family dinner night. She and the kids got me a couple picture frames with pictures of me and the kids. She had asked for those pictures about a month ago saying she wanted to put them up in the kids rooms at her place. She admitted to lying about why she wanted the pictures, but said she wanted to get me something nice for my birthday. I thanked her and she said, "I really did put thought into that even though it appears like I didn't. I've not put thought into you for a long time. I wanted to this year." Just a strange thing to say while getting divorced.

I still think she and OM did not work out based on many things she has said and done recently. Her relationship with her family has become pretty strained, but they still text me all the time. Her aunt and uncle, whom I grew up with and am very close to as well, asked me what happened. I told them, and they said I shouldn't blame myself. That she has issues from before I was ever around. It just confirmed things that I already knew, but it's nice to have confirmation. When it comes to us, we are very friendly. We don't talk all that much, but when we do it's like we're best friends. She was very excited to come over to see me after my birthday, and things went very well. She's been very critical of her role in our marriage lately. Things along the lines of her quote above are common. I don't see reconciliation happening any time soon, and at this point she'd have to do a whole lot to convince me to give it a shot anyways, but you never know what the future holds. The kids are still doing very well. Not much to report there.

My GAL is still going great. I'm inching towards my goals in terms of being in the best shape of my life. It's hard to beat 16 year old me, but maybe in a few months I'll be there. I have a lot of plans for 2019, and crossing things off my bucket list.

I am now officially building a new house. It should be done in 5-6 months, so just after the divorce is final. I'm very excited for this, and look forward to making it my own! I'm afraid of taking on so much debt all alone, but I've done all the calculations and what if's in my head and it just makes too much sense not to do it now.

I've been in contact with Anna quite a bit. Most of it just friendly banter, but some more serious conversation happened last week along with some information that one of her friends passed along to me. I'm more convinced than ever that she is interested in pursuing something in the future. I've had a few women try to pursue me lately, and I just have to tell them I'm not interested. I had to ask myself if everything worked out with one of them, would I regret not finding out if there was something between Anna and I? The answer was yes. Then I asked if I let these women walk without pursuing anything, and nothing ever happened with Anna, would I regret that? The answer was no. So that made my actions pretty easy.

To sum up, life is going great!

[MRay]

A bit of an update. Anna got engaged about a week ago. Apparently she has been in an on again/off again relationship for a number of years and the other guy found out about me and decided he needed to get serious. This is why she got weird with me a couple months ago. At first I was disappointed, but now I find it amusing. So it's time to see if I am really okay and not just using thoughts about another woman to cover everything up. So far so good though.

[MRay]

Backsliding is real people! It's been awhile, but journaling may help so here I am. I was doing very well until just before Christmas. I hadn't thought about the ex in a romantic way in about 7 months. Of course the holidays are a rough time, and it was just after Christmas when the bomb was dropped, so I guess it's expected to backslide a bit. I was starting to become intimate with another woman, and then one night I dreamt about my ex. It wasn't a sexual dream, I just had a dream about living a normal life and it was back in my old house with my ex and we were happy. I woke up thinking wtf was that and went about my day as usual. Since then I feel like I'm back at the begining. I keep thinking about her. I'm angry again. I feel like I'm starting all over to a degree.

I'm happy with where I'm at in life, and I'm trying to figure out why this happening so I can get over it again. I've continued GAL like a mad man, and I'm just trying to keep myself busy. I'll give the reasons I think why this happened. The holidays are all about family, so that's an obvious one. The night before the dream I was with a woman, whom I broke it off with because I felt it wasn't fair to either of us if I was feeling this way, and we took a big intimate step in the relationship. My ex started sending me a lot of texts that were not related to the kids. She would send things like a screenshot of her computer playing a song she hadn't heard in years that reminded her of a time from our past. She also texted me from the movie theatre about a movie she was watching and said there was a scene that I just had to go see. Things like that that showed she was obviously still thinking about me. I wasn't quite sure how to respond.

One day I dropped the kids off with her at her parents, and her mom mentioned the basketball team for the high school they work at was going to be on tv later that day. OM is one of the coaches, and I just said I didn't care to watch them play. Ex gave me a strange look and said, "I don't care to watch them either" in a bit of an angry voice. So of course this made me think there were problems with them. A couple weeks later we were having dinner together as a family, and when she went to leave she noticed I had rented a movie for the night. She asked if she could stay and watch, so me being an idiot, said sure why not? While she was tucking in our son, her phone rang as I was walking past and it was OM. When she came out of the bedroom she looked at the phone and put it away without a word. I heard her phone vibrate at least three times while we watched the movie and she completely ignored it. This was not normal, as in the past she's been at my place talking to him on the phone or texting and I was completely okay with it. So of course the reading into everything too much had started again along with becoming attached.

When I say for 7 months I hadn't wanted her I meant it. I felt a healthy detachment, and just wanted to co-parent and do the best thing for our kids. It was actually starting to become pretty easy until this happened. I'm slowly working my way back to detachment (I hope). It's not an overnight process, but I'm just working on me. I'm considering putting up some boundaries, but I know I'm going to have to deal with this for the rest of my life. I do want to be as friendly as possible for the kids, and I was able to do this for 7 months, so I'm sure I can get there again and be better this time. I think I should limit the texting to just about the kids like it was before. There was always playful banter in these texts, but it never involved things like hey remember this nice memory from our past that I shat all over while we were breaking up? So in my opinion it's a bunch of things all coming together to make me backslide. Maybe I'm wrong and that's what I'm here for. One can always make more accurate observations from the outside, so let me have it!

[SteveLW]

Hang in there. When the vets here say "this is a marathon NOT a sprint, they mean it is a marathon!" S and D are not the end. Cycling can happen for a long time.

A friend of my passed away in October. One of the memories I have of him is one year he and his W invited my W and I over to their house for NYE. Several others were there that night, only one person I had never met. My friend's BiL, his W's brother. Apparently, his W had left him for another guy. The D was finalized just weeks prior. So that means he was weeks past D, probably at least a year and half since she had left. The guy was a total mess. Very sad, quiet, stayed to himself. About 11:30pm he said his goodbyes and left for the night. He wanted to be alone for NYs because he was just so sad not to be celebrating it with his W.

I think of that a lot. My friend never mentioned how his BiL was doing over the years. I never asked. But he profound sadness stuck with me. I would imagine it was months or years before he was over it.

So dig in. It takes a while. I am in piecing since last March and still cycle. Just went through a period last month where I almost became the walkaway. This stuff is difficult.

[DejaVu6]

Hi MRay.

I haven't read all of your thread so I don't really know the history. I will check it out though. Where your head was at for the past seven months sounds like where my H is at now with his constant need to tell me he likes me as a friend. I think he hadn't been so deceitful (fake medical treatments (mostly) for four years with a bit of a break in the third year), he and I would have been like you and your W.

Personally, I think that the best marriages have a solid foundation of friendship and if you can find a way to keep the romance alive, you've got it made. I think the romance part is really about making the effort to show the other person they are special and wanted. Too often when people get married, they just stop making the effort and then five or six years of neglecting the relationship go by and they find themselves wondering if they married the right person. It's more about being the right person than finding the right person and that takes consistent effort and care. I am certainly guilty of relationship neglect as I'm sure most people on this board are as well. Hopefully we have all learned from it.

Re: your STBXW. We have a saying in my field which is "all behaviour has meaning" and that you should always pay more attention to what people do than what they say. Sounds to me like your STBXW may be having some of the same feelings you are having and is doing some temperature checking. I don't think you necessarily have to do anything right now other than continue with self improvement. You can put up boundaries if you are sure that is what you want or you can take some time to see if she starts to temp check more and then decide. You could also even just say to her at some point... "Hey, I notice that you are around more than usual. Is everything okay with you?" Kind of a casual, caring, non-committal question that opens the door for her to tell you if she is having second thoughts. She might go there or she may be too scared of being rejected. Who knows? The question is... do you want to know?

Look... I don't think this is a backslide on your part. To me, it is just an indication that you are human, that you loved your W deeply once and that you are still able to see her and remember all of the good things about her. Dreams are interesting. Sometimes I think they are just dreams but sometimes I think they are our subconscious thoughts trying to get our attention.

Also...all of us came to this board and stayed here because we are the type of people who believe in marriage and honour our commitments and recognize that nothing worth having comes easily. We all, at some point, wanted to save our marriages and most of us would take a second chance to R if it was offered to us. Just because you aren't feeling desperate and overwhelmingly sad like you were in the beginning, doesn't mean you have completely shut the door on R if the opportunity is there and your W is willing to do the work. If I were you, I would take some time and step back from dating for a bit until I had this part figured out. But that's me... you have to do what is right for you.