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Originally Posted by Bunches
I’m not sure about my previous changes. She has referred to me as too codependent so maybe it’s that’s I’m too focused on her and not enough on myself and being on my own at times.
Okay. So take that as truth. STOP doing anything for her. Unless is has to do with the kids - let her figure everything out on her own. This would be a 180 for you.


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Survived one physical affair and an emotional affair both just after one year of marriage.

Wait a minute! She had two affairs in the first year of marriage, AND was hiding a serious drug addiction, and you chose staying with her over moving out with your autistic son?????

Choose your son and get out of there. Really. Make a home where he can spend more time with you. Don't keep holding on to her.

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Bunches, I sense that you already know what you must do (focus off her, on you. GAL, self-improvements, detachment) but that you are fighting that at the moment.

Your WAS has given you the gift of being honest about how she feels about your right now. Yet you are pushing back against it. "I don't want to be around you", so you go out and schedule marriage counseling? Can you look back at that and realize just how illogical that is? She's essentially told you she wants less of you, and your reaction is to try to give her more of you!

Time and space is the only thing that will resolve this, one way or the other. Unfortunately, the eventual outcome is out of your hands. There is NOTHING you can do to make it come out the way you would like it to. But there are LOTS of behaviors that will result in you ended up D'd, and much more quickly than it would naturally take, if you aren't careful. You've been here before. You know the drill. So stop fighting what you know you need to do and just start putting the actions into place!

You've already got a good start with the gym and men's group, just double-down on things like that and leave her alone to try to figure out her own stuff. Be a father first, go out and GAL, and give her the time and space she is so desperately begging for! She may just decide that she misses you when you suddenly you aren't there anymore. But for sure you cannot get her to that point by hounding her.

I'll go back and read your first situation.


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Bunches, your first thread just seemed to end with no resolution, though in this thread you said you ended up Ding your first W and this is your second W.

So what did you do to work on yourself after your 1st marriage to improve and become a better future spouse for your next marriage? How did this relationship begin? Were you D'd, and did some time pass before you met your current W, or did you just jump into the next relationship right away?

You may be wondering why these questions are important, but they are because a lot of LBSs struggle with letting the end of a marriage make them better people before jumping into another R. And you need to learn from all of his yourself, so that IF you end up Ding again, you do not set yourself up for the same thing to happen for a third time.


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Bunches Offline OP
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So after first W I spent three years alone actually and then dated here and there but nothing much. Current W and I spent years chatting online but didn't date or even get together. Just that person you could talk to about your troubles. Before we got together I had a surplus of time on my hands and spent it being out with kids and was in better shape than now. Spent a lot more time on being a better version of me. I can see your point there. Over these years my time has become more and more invested in working and responsibilities. Less to be attracted to and now my few days off I'm not really that motivated anymore to get up and do anything of value. Our schedules these days are so opposite and she is full time school while working nights at a hospital.


M: 43 W: 43
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T: 7 yrs.
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Originally Posted by Bunches
So after first W I spent three years alone actually and then dated here and there but nothing much. Current W and I spent years chatting online but didn't date or even get together. Just that person you could talk to about your troubles. Before we got together I had a surplus of time on my hands and spent it being out with kids and was in better shape than now. Spent a lot more time on being a better version of me. I can see your point there. Over these years my time has become more and more invested in working and responsibilities. Less to be attracted to and now my few days off I'm not really that motivated anymore to get up and do anything of value. Our schedules these days are so opposite and she is full time school while working nights at a hospital.

Bunches, thanks for the additional insight. You spent 3 years alone after your first marriage, so you know that if you have to do that again, you will survive. Early on in these situations we think that our MR is life and death, and it really is not. You know this more than most.

Another thought ran through my head reading your thread from 8 years ago. I didn't really see you DBing. I see you updating on interactions with your then W (no Ex) and then you went dark and didn't come back until your new thread about marriage #2. Have you read Divorce Busting and/or Divorce Remedy? Do you want to put the principles in place to see where things go? It is a lot of work. More work than most of us LBSs had put into our marriage for the years leading up to our problems. But all of the advice you got in the first thread 8 years ago remains. You cannot control her. You cannot snap your fingers and fix this. You cannot nice her back, or treat her like a new girlfriend to woo her back. You have to change your behavior and approach to change your dynamics. Focus off of her, remove all pressure and pursuit, go out and GAL, work on self-improvements (active on this forum, get into IC, read DB/DR and other books, etc), and work on emotionally detaching from her. Concentrating on those things might make a difference. Learn from the failure of 8 years ago to become the best version of yourself you can be. Become a man only a fool would leave!

So, what are your plans for tonight? Tomorrow? Thursday? Friday? and Saturday? Be a father first, but when you aren't being a father be out leaving a fun, fulfilled, exciting life!


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Still - why did you stay after she cheated twice in the first year of marriage?

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Originally Posted by kml
Still - why did you stay after she cheated twice in the first year of marriage?

I don’t know that I can give a reason that would make sense to anyone. Her emotional affair, if that’s all it was, seemed to make no sense. She seemed so broken that it had happened. There was so much regret. I didn’t know what to do.

Then the physical affair. It broke me. I seriously thought about leaving but I simply asked her what she wanted after the dust settled and considered my role. I believe that being a husband requires a forgiving heart without judgement of regret and want to change is there. The problem is that she isn’t very good at setting her sights past her emotions. And maybe I had grown too dependent upon her to leave. I didn’t realize in the beginning she lavished loving behavior so much on me that I needed it for being happy. I should have realized then that I needed some safety net and safer boundaries.


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Bunches,

Read up on attachment styles. My guess is that you are in an anxious/avoidant relationship.

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Yeah, you might want to read up on love bombing. A good therapist might be helpful for working through this stuff.

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