Yes, in fact I did. Been out with friends on a few occasions, continued my workout routine, rented a couple of movies that I wanted to see and some shoe shopping. Also, I've been able to focus on my work which has been virtually impossible this past month.
Sleeping has been difficult and I miss my (former) family. Former meaning the way it was before this whole thing went down.
My situation had several similarities to yours. A few thoughts for you. First, regarding "getting played," I understand why that would be a source of anger for you. In reality it's usually not that black and white. I would be that your W really didn't believe she was over the line for a long time, and therefore she wasn't "playing you" because she truly felt her actions were fine. People who cheat usually don't just get a wild hair up their arse and decide to go a-cheatin', it's usually the result of thousands of micro-escalations, none of which are carefully considered, then they suddenly find themselves over the line.
Doesn't make it right, doesn't make it acceptable, but it's usually not as clear cut as "getting played".
Regarding my W, what she really got addicted to was the attention , the excitement of the shared secrecy, and the romance. These things were far more important than the person, and those feelings are truly addictive. I mean really, who wouldn't want to be the subject of admiration and attention from a member of the opposite sex? Of course that feels good. If you can keep that going over a long period of time it becomes your norm and something you feel you "need".
In reality that's not normal at all. Real relationships don't have extended periods of one-sided positive affirmation, real life gets in the way and relationships establish an equilibrium that really isn't all that exciting. It can be good or even great, but it's not exciting like a new romance for years on end!
When I got to where you are now with my W, I was relieved because I thought that OM being gone and NC being established meant that the threat to the marriage was over.
Although that guy did disappear and they did honor NC, my W went through a very real grieving process about the loss of those feelings, and subconsciously blamed me for it because I had "taken that away from her" and not replaced it, because she didn't feel the same way about me. I couldn't replace those feelings because she didn't want me to, nor could I, because our relationship was reality, not fantasy.
In any case, I took a real shot at reconciliation over the course of three years, but unfortunately, W never got over the void that was created in pursuing these exciting feelings, so she just started the cycle again with someone new. At that point I'd had it and we got divorced.
Believe me, now her life is very "real world" as dating in your 50's "for real" bears no similarities to having the security and stability of marriage plus pursuing excitement on the side. That option is no longer available to her, so she's needed to get over it because she hasn't had another choice.
The bottom line here is that making sure she's done with OM is only a small part of the process. She needs to grieve the loss of these feelings she got from their interactions, realize that those were not a realistic expectation for a long term marriage, and change her life to learn to live without them, without constantly seeking opportunities to get them again.
If she doesn't do that hard work on herself, the cycle *will* repeat, either with the same OM or with a new one. It's not about the guy, it's about how she feels about herself due to the attentions of the guy. She needs to learn to feel good about herself without that, and that's not something you can do for 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
Thanks so much for taking the time and writing a well broken down and intelligent response. Your absolutely correct.
My problem is, I feel like I'm battling two battles. The relationship, which includes reconciliation or not and the second my emotions. I haven't had this much difficulty with these feelings my whole life. Its a real struggle.
So, when you put the two battles together, I tend to lean on someone who has been there for me for close to 23 yrs for support and their not there. They can't be, their the cause. It become a real conflict within ones self.
I have thought through this a 1000x since this happened and know that the problems lies deep within the W. Ultimately she has to get fixed, right? Do I wait, help and support or just bail knowing in the back of my mind theres a good chance the circumstance can repeat itself.
My thinking is now, why should I fight for it and do the heavy lifting when she's at fault and why should I be obligate to have the patience when the odds aren't in my favor?
I hope soon I will find the answer and I know whatever direction I take is risky. A risk I did't ask for or deserved.
Exactly -- for most people you can think of your well being as a pie, for simple arguments sake say half of the pie is what you do for yourself, in terms of your emotional well being, and the other half is what you get from your relationship. Sometimes you get less from the relationship and your slice gets bigger by comparison, sometimes you need to lean on the relationship and your slice gets smaller by comparison.
For your W, she's had three slices, what she does for herself, what she gets from the relationship with you, and what she gets from her EA.
When everything goes south, here's what happens:
For her, the EA piece is completely missing, she feels guilty and bad about herself for what she's done (although usually she won't show you that), so she's incapable of picking herself up to make her slice bigger, plus her relationship with you has gone off the rails so that slice has shrunk as well -- it's a huge void. She has three choices to fill it: (1) entice you to lean back in and fawn all over her, (2) pick back up with the OM or a new substitute OM, or (3) do the hard work on herself to grow her own slice and make her feel better about herself by addressing her deep seated issues.
The last one is the most difficult and most painful, with no guarantees, so she's going to fight like hell against that until she hits bottom. Instead, she's going to try to manipulate you into #1, and do what she can to get #2 -- that *appears* to be her shortest path back to feeling good and requires the least amount of work.
Now let's look at your side. You had your two slice pie. Now the relationship slice is completely gone and you have nothing to fill it. That's completely destabilizing. It's the same challenge she's confronting but in a different way.
You either need to fill the relationship slice by stepping up what you do for yourself, *or* convince her to come back and fill it. Everyone here convinces themselves that this second path is the shortest path back to feeling good and requires the least amount of work, so people get obsessive about making it happen.
The worst case scenario is that you both end up rushing back together for no other reason than to fill a void, and you go forward no better off than you were before and with more scars and hurt to add to what is already undoubtedly a stack of resentments.
You each need to fill the void on your own, for yourselves. That WILL happen. You were single before you got married and you survived that, you can survive this, it just takes time for your slice to grow and to establish a new norm.
Once you both go through that painful process, you'll be on equal footing and can decide to come back together by choice, versus out of perceived necessity. That's the difficult path, but the one that's going to last.
Your description of your marriage sounds like you were in a perpetual "one down" scenario, where you were more committed than your W, and were trying to extract more from her than she was willing to give to the relationship, and she was trying to keep you at bay while spreading her attentions elsewhere. That's not an equilibrium you want to re-establish.
If you re-engage, you want it to be as equal partners where she is with you because she desperately wants to be, not because you're the easy and comfortable choice. To get there, you need to step away and give each other space "to be" on your own.
Ironically the shortest path back together is a straight line in the opposite direction. That requires a leap of faith, but it's really the only way it works long term.
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
Exactly -- for most people you can think of your well being as a pie, for simple arguments sake say half of the pie is what you do for yourself, in terms of your emotional well being, and the other half is what you get from your relationship. Sometimes you get less from the relationship and your slice gets bigger by comparison, sometimes you need to lean on the relationship and your slice gets smaller by comparison.
For your W, she's had three slices, what she does for herself, what she gets from the relationship with you, and what she gets from her EA.
When everything goes south, here's what happens:
For her, the EA piece is completely missing, she feels guilty and bad about herself for what she's done (although usually she won't show you that), so she's incapable of picking herself up to make her slice bigger, plus her relationship with you has gone off the rails so that slice has shrunk as well -- it's a huge void. She has three choices to fill it: (1) entice you to lean back in and fawn all over her, (2) pick back up with the OM or a new substitute OM, or (3) do the hard work on herself to grow her own slice and make her feel better about herself by addressing her deep seated issues.
The last one is the most difficult and most painful, with no guarantees, so she's going to fight like hell against that until she hits bottom. Instead, she's going to try to manipulate you into #1, and do what she can to get #2 -- that *appears* to be her shortest path back to feeling good and requires the least amount of work.
Now let's look at your side. You had your two slice pie. Now the relationship slice is completely gone and you have nothing to fill it. That's completely destabilizing. It's the same challenge she's confronting but in a different way.
You either need to fill the relationship slice by stepping up what you do for yourself, *or* convince her to come back and fill it. Everyone here convinces themselves that this second path is the shortest path back to feeling good and requires the least amount of work, so people get obsessive about making it happen.
The worst case scenario is that you both end up rushing back together for no other reason than to fill a void, and you go forward no better off than you were before and with more scars and hurt to add to what is already undoubtedly a stack of resentments.
You each need to fill the void on your own, for yourselves. That WILL happen. You were single before you got married and you survived that, you can survive this, it just takes time for your slice to grow and to establish a new norm.
Once you both go through that painful process, you'll be on equal footing and can decide to come back together by choice, versus out of perceived necessity. That's the difficult path, but the one that's going to last.
Your description of your marriage sounds like you were in a perpetual "one down" scenario, where you were more committed than your W, and were trying to extract more from her than she was willing to give to the relationship, and she was trying to keep you at bay while spreading her attentions elsewhere. That's not an equilibrium you want to re-establish.
If you re-engage, you want it to be as equal partners where she is with you because she desperately wants to be, not because you're the easy and comfortable choice. To get there, you need to step away and give each other space "to be" on your own.
Ironically the shortest path back together is a straight line in the opposite direction. That requires a leap of faith, but it's really the only way it works long term.
Acc
ALL OF THAT ABOVE!!! WOW!!!
This might be worthy of being put into the newbie required reading. Just an incredible way to think about this whole sitch we are in. Even though this is not my thread, I thank you for every word of that. I might read this daily.
M-42 W-40 S-12 D-10 Together-13 years Married-10 years Separated-6/2016 ILYBINILWY-7/2016 EA-4/2016 (best guess) PA-7/2016 (best guess)
Family came back from vacation last night. It was nice seeing my family, including my W. Missed them all.
W and I had R talk this morning, good conversation. She seems like she wants to try. My DB coach said for move slow and that ACTIONS are important not the words. IDK what actions I should be looking for. I guess they will jump out at me.
Does anyone have a good template for a NC letter? We talked about that being the first step. I just want to make sure it's good and effective.
Well..... tonight we are going to a good friends 50th birthday party and over the past week I have been thinking on how I want/should handle it with W. I was planning to try to have a nice evening with her with no R talks at all and I was really looking forward to it. Enjoy the evening together despite everything thats going on, right?
Its amazing what time does. I woke up this morning with a different attitude this morning. I felt like I didn't even want to go with her tonight. I'm still like why?
My emotions are really all over the place. I even burst out into tears writing my friends card. I never do that???? I know that it had nothing to do with my friend or his birthday and it was all to do with the crap that I'm living through right now. Now I really don't want to go with her.
I love her a lot but hate her a lot at the same time. Makes no sense!
As LBS's suffer and agonize over the departure of the WAS, we tend to only think of the good times. It's clouded thinking at best.
When the WAS returns to the LBS, all of a sudden we can start to feel the anger that we've pushed aside for so long as we did everything we could to save the M. We also start to dial in on all bad things the WAS did.
Sometimes the roles will reverse and you can become the WAS.
I would suggest going to the party with W and do not have any relationship talks. Try to enjoy each other's company.
You have plenty of time to work on the issues you have with W but, IMO, now is not the time to rock the boat.
What would be the harm in reading the books? You can decide later on if you want to be married or not. If you make this decision now out of anger, you may regret it later and not have another chance. I know you're hurting but it's kind of...unwise to refuse to even read the book that forms the basis of this site.
FYI We do NOT argue for people to save their marriages, at all cost. If you read a DB book, you won't be brainwashed.
Interestingly we have children almost exactly the same ages and sexes. I have been on this path a while. It is devastating to the children. Consider that before you proceed further.
I don't mean to make light of this in any way, but it sounds a lot like Lady Di and Prince Charles and how she said there were always three people in the marriage. It looks like yours has been that way as well. For some amount of time, your w has had some of her needs met by this man and some by you. It was wrong. I'm not a black & white poster here, but a long term affair like this one takes an enormous amount of cognitive dissonance on her part,
and your feelings about the past (what was real/fake??) are normal and damn hard. Believe me, we know. It's especially hard for longer marriages with kids and assets built b/c you feel a sense of achievement that feels yanked out from under you.
We get it.
I had a great DB coach and at one point I asked her about divorce or quitting, etc. She told me what I'd tell you...it's your personal choice and do not let anyone else tell you what will make you happy with yourself - it's not a small decision, it's not something to let anger direct.
Rather than thinking that walking away won't take work and restoring your marriage will, realize that either choice would be painful and require work to do in a healthy way.
There is no painless path ahead of you. And I'm so sorry.
I had many years of actions and red flags I ignored. One of the hardest things for me, and I suspect it will be for you, is forgiving yourself for not seeing it. For not wanting to believe. ^^^ yes...
I now realize I saw things that validated my choice to stay, and was blind to too much else. Probably fears, to be honest. And in some ways, possibly ashamed?
Had I faced the issues earlier, head on, I don't know...I went to T and IC and I feel like I was a better wife since the recon, I mean, I did some serious growing spiritually and emotionally ( h did not, btw. We went to a few mc's sessions and reconciled and I felt as if we were done, we had "Won" the stay married battle! When we began to piece, h's mother was diagnosed as terminally ill and we shelved the piecing and to this day I don't think H has ever seen a T about any of the damage he wrought on our family...)
In retrospect I DO see some deep unresolved childhood issues in my h, which he probably will never even look at, let alone with insight, let alone the motivation and wherewithal to change.
But H's childhood issues & incredible lack of self awareness, are not my problems now.
IF your w is willing to do real, brave, substantial honest work on herself, AND does it, it'd be a start to any kind of relationship with her. Not saying a restored m relationship, some type of cooperative r. As for what you decide, ultimately, only you will know what you can and cannot live with and what you have built
and what you can afford, and only you know how your children feel...
but a decent r with her, requires soul searching in her.
I am telling you this now and I hope you remember it. It does not meant that you are a sap or stupid. It meanst that you have a kind heart and a good soul and you projected onto your wife your own goodness and that caused you to silence that voice inside of you that said that things were not right. Forgive yourself, read the books, work the program, live as if you are moving on, but keep the door slightly ajar until you are strong enough to make that decision. Please do it for the benefit of your children, at least for now.
same advice here. And if you read my signature block and Own's, you can see that we do get your situation. Long marriages, with discoveries we do not enjoy making at all...require tools to get with an IC of your own, first of all.
Speaking for myself, DBing is a way of life, not a route to forgiving all... a life of integrity and openness and the sincere desire for self actualization, and to support our loved ones in doing the same.
Turn over your marriage to God or your higher power, and work on you.
When you become the best man you can become, truly, then you can be at peace. Meanwhile, hold your head high.
M: 57 H: 60 M: 35 yrs S30,D28,D19 H off to Alaska 2006 Recon 7/07- 8/08 *2016* X = "ALASKA 2.0" GROUND HOG DAY I File D 10/16 OW DIV 2/26/2018 X marries OW 5/2016
