WAW w/Exit Affair or WW? - Divorced Anyway (6)

[Traveler]

@kml, the night before your wedding?! I didn’t catch that before. How horrible.

@BL42 - As for other thoughts, it’s natural to hurt on an anniversary and we’ve all experienced that. Each anniversary you’ll feel it less. The dream that was, the nightmare after. You are building a new life that can be amazing, too. Note, your continuing anger towards OM2 hurts you not him. Whatever karma or justice is due to him, for continuing with your ex-wife once he realized she had recently broken her wedding vows to you, will happen whether or not you get upset when you’re talking with your daughter over FaceTime and he appears.

[kml]

Yeah - she was a girl he had been friends with in college, never slept with, and one of many college friends he invited to our wedding. My H and all his friends all slept in the family home, while I slept with my family in the lake house where the reception would be, a half hour away.

Apparently they all were drinking together, then they went to bed, then she crept into his bedroom and they had sex. HIS story was that he regretted it instantly. I put it down to last minute jitters.

6 months later I found the journal where he was mooning over her. I tried to throw him out then but he begged and pleaded. It wasn't until a few years later when I was 9 months pregnant with our second child that I discovered that she had gotten pregnant from that encounter and had had an abortion while we were on our 6 week honeymoon. Ugh

[mvg]

I'll skip the long personal details, but I can relate 100% to what you're experiencing. I'm 7 1/2 years into it. Based on your summary, you are doing everything right, that's awesome! Keep up the great work and don't quit, ever.

[BL42]

It's really not just the cheating, is it? It's the lying to your face, the selfishness and lack of concern for the effect on your children etc. It really shows you something about your spouse's character.

kml - Absolutely. Most definitely. It's interesting...since BD/D I've heard stories from people, even those close to her, about her always having those traits but it wasn't my experience of her when we were together so it's hard to wrap my head around it. Was she that way all along and I missed red flags or did she keep it hidden only to have them surface, but then how do you hide that for 7-9 years? It's a bit of a mystery to me and my family.

Fair enough BL. It's interesting that although there is no going back you still want her her and OM to fall apart. I am not saying you are wrong for having these feelings it just runs into the whole forgiveness and unconditional love conversations.

LH - I do have feelings of revenge and karma at times, and those feelings do run counter to forgiveness and unconditional love. I admit it. Hopefully over time I can work through my pain and process those feelings and get to a better place for my own sake so I don't have the anger and pain inside. I'm assuming time helps as well.

@kml, the night before your wedding?! I didn’t catch that before. How horrible.

It wasn't until a few years later when I was 9 months pregnant with our second child that I discovered that she had gotten pregnant from that encounter and had had an abortion while we were on our 6 week honeymoon. Ugh

kml - That's despicable. I'm not even sure what to say. Sorry you had to go through that.

@BL42 - As for other thoughts, it’s natural to hurt on an anniversary and we’ve all experienced that. Each anniversary you’ll feel it less. The dream that was, the nightmare after. You are building a new life that can be amazing, too. Note, your continuing anger towards OM2 hurts you not him. Whatever karma or justice is due to him, for continuing with your ex-wife once he realized she had recently broken her wedding vows to you, will happen whether or not you get upset when you’re talking with your daughter over FaceTime and he appears.

Thanks Traveler. Excellent point when you say "your continuing anger towards OM2 hurts you not him." You're of course correct. I feel my anger and OM2 isn't even aware of it. I need to ponder that and work on it for myself. Don't give ExW and OM2 headspace and allow them to negatively impact my outlook.

I'll skip the long personal details, but I can relate 100% to what you're experiencing. I'm 7 1/2 years into it. Based on your summary, you are doing everything right, that's awesome! Keep up the great work and don't quit, ever.

mvg - Really appreciate you chiming in, and the words of encouragement. I just read through your latest thread and plan to respond and read through all your threads when I get a chance. Sounds like your 5 years ahead of me with very similar situations (we both had a 4yo & 1yo when the affair/BD/divorce happened).

[BL42]

Pretty good week with the kids. We met up w/my sister, BIL, and niece at a lake house last weekend and the cousins had a great time playing together. Even though it's ExW's week I got to spend all day Monday (holiday), Wednesday (after school/dinner) and all day yesterday (snow day) with S6 and D3 because ExW had to work. We played in the snow, did dominoes, a pretty extensive puzzle, watched shows, read books...etc. Lots of good bonding time. My fear of losing out on their lives is not as bad as I initially thought, as I'm spending quality time with them the majority of days on my off weeks as well. I did sign up to coach S6's baseball team again this year and lined up one of his buddies to be on the team (whose dad will help out) and I'm still coaching soccer so the Spring will be busy! But it's fun and give me an extra special connection w/my son.

This weekend w/o the kids I did a golf sim league and food & drinks last night w/a buddy who's also going through a D, hit the gym with two other buddies this morning, going ice skating this afternoon by myself, and tomorrow meeting a group of friends for brunch to celebrate one of their birthdays. So trying to have fun and stay active and social when I don't have the kids.

ExW did notify me last week about her new employer/job/salary. She got a 17-18% increase over from her previous income listed in the divorce agreement just 9 months ago, which hits the threshold for opening up the possibility of renegotiating child support. She seems to be under the impression she's required to formally review in family court for some reason, which I don't think is the case, and asked how I wanted to approach - either go to court or figure it out between the two of us - to which I replied the latter to avoid lawyers costs and court appearances (plus the math is fairly simple) but she responded saying she changed her mind and wants a judge to review any financial issues. So unfortunately less than a year into the D I may need to deal with court again, but on the bright side ExW was transparent about it (as she's required to be under the agreement) and if anything I should benefit financially.

[OnlyBent]

My fear of losing out on their lives is not as bad as I initially thought

In hindsight do you think this fear, initially, is somewhat based on trying to make the WS the bad guy or blame them?

BL, you seem like you are doing pretty well re family, job, social life. I know dating is a bit hard in your small town, have you thought about how you'll attack this or do you even care right now?

[BL42]

OnlyBent,

My fear of losing out on their lives is not as bad as I initially thought

In hindsight do you think this fear, initially, is somewhat based on trying to make the WS the bad guy or blame them?

I really don't think so. To me the two are separate. Many people going through a D are concerned about losing half (or more) of their children's lives whether or not they're stuck on blaming the other spouse.

BL, you seem like you are doing pretty well re family, job, social life. I know dating is a bit hard in your small town, have you thought about how you'll attack this or do you even care right now?

Dating's been low on my priority list - I've mostly been focusing on the kids and also my own self improvement - but I am interested in exploring it more at this point.

In terms of a strategy, I did sign up for OLD a few months after the D finalized. I swipe through but have gotten very little response for some reason. One factor I think hurts me is although I have a very good career, I work at home / virtually with people from all over country and have no chance to interact with anyone in person during the majority of my day like those in another field interacting in-person regularly. Coaching S6's sports teams has led me to meeting a lot of parents and kids and expanded my network so maybe something will surface there. Some of my other activities like adult soccer league and golf league are male-dominated, so not sure if other more coed activities would help.

To your question about whether I even care...there's certainly part of me that's lonely at times and misses the interaction with a significant other, no doubt. So I care in that regard. There's also another part of me that might be a little apathetic though. The other night D3 was having a very hard time with the transition and I had to console her for a long time and I thought how can I possibly date while this is going on in their lives (both because they deserve the focus, and also because what woman would want to jump into a situation like that). There's also a friend of a friend who was at brunch with us Sunday who I can tell (and have been told by my friends) is very interested in me. She's very nice and cute but not sure why I'm not overly enthusiastic, either I'm not feeling it with her specifically or maybe dating in general.

[LH19]

I'm not overly enthusiastic, either I'm not feeling it with her specifically or maybe dating in general.

Take your time. I would wait a year if I were you. You have young kids and I think you still need time to process the end of your marriage.

[kml]

She's very nice and cute but not sure why I'm not overly enthusiastic, either I'm not feeling it with her specifically or maybe dating in general.

Could be you're not ready to add the complication of dating - or could just be the pheromones are wrong. Sometimes someone looks great for us on paper but the attraction just isn't there. Maybe just give it time, if you see her in more settings with friends your feelings might change - or you might pick up more obvious red flags.

Although I'm at a completely different stage of life than you (65, adult children, boyfriend recently died) I imagine we both would be happy right now with someone who we saw occasionally but weren't in a full time relationship with. That's probably WAY easier for me to find than for you in your age bracket. But who knows - another woman whose custody schedule matches up with yours and whose children are her primary focus, might be available for the occsional night out or weekend without kids?

Hopefully as the pandemic lifts, those soccer parents will start having parties you could attend where you might meet single women.

[OnlyBent]

Take your time. I would wait a year if I were you. You have young kids and I think you still need time to process the end of your marriage.

This is the question BL, do you think you have fully processed the end of your marriage yet?

We are on basically the same timeline so curious as to where you are at. Everyone is different of course. I think I have, but then perhaps maybe I didn't love my W as much as I think I did.