Hello R friends,
Since you seem to be more level-headed than I am at this time, I have another odd question for today, so thank you for letting me bounce it off of you!
So in my mind, I want to shut the door on the "first marriage" and have a start fresh with WS. I am not handling the grey area very well. For a couple of weeks, I have been contemplating that we divorce so he can work on himself and I can focus on me. After we are in better spots, we can see if can reinvent our relationship. We may not even need to get married and just stay as partners. I know it seems strange, but I just want to chew off my leg that is caught in the trap and move on, so I can stop focusing on the trap.
Here are some of my (quite possibly insane) reasons:
Reasons for:
- If we divorce then try to R, I don't have anything to lose. Let me try to explain, right now I am hanging in there for the kids. Having kids in the mix, puts this pressure on me to make it work. Since I am thinking we would R after D, we can figure out the finances, custody while we are in this mind set verses a really bad mind set. I would have a safety net already in place.
- In my mind, it is the appropriate consequence for cheating on your marriage. He decided to cheat on me and our marriage, so technically, I feel he already broke our contract and our marriage is currently null and void. I would feel like I took some action and protected myself verses keeping it quiet and suffering.
- If he wasn't here, it wouldn't be a daily reminder of the pain he created. I wouldn't see his hands and think where they have been. I wouldn't see his wedding ring and cry. When he leaves for work wonder what time his meeting with the OW is today. He is planning to change his job, but it is still going to take some time. I don't want to R, while they are working together. This gives me a break from the daily reminder that they are together during the day. If I can't even start R until 2014, why go through this everyday?
- Bouncing off the above point, maybe I would heal faster. I would have taken action, taken time away, and if we R, I will know that it was my choice to do it. I wouldn't have any pressure to make it work.
- If we part, then I can tell my family and friends. My mom, dad, brother, and best friend know the story, but I still feel alone. I can't tell my mom and dad everything and my best friend just found out she was pregnant and they had been trying for a long time, so I am now the Debbie Downer of our conversations. "Oh, the baby is the size of a pomegranate, that's great! Did I tell you that he texted her standing right next to me!?!?"
- I can be honest and tell other people what he did and what she did. I don't have to act like I am holding it together every place we go. And if you have seen my earlier post, maybe she will move...
- Along the same lines, maybe I would feel sympathetic for him. Right now, I see him as getting his cake and eating it too while I am the one that is supposed to "suck it up" and keep trudging forward. Maybe I would view him differently if he took the heat, maybe I would even defend him?!?
- Hope for the best, but plan for the worst....Just maybe, after some time apart, he becomes the man I deserve, I will be a better partner, and he will sweep me off my feet. I will feel in love again and we will rebuild our family. If not, I am already settled into the "worst"
Cons.
- Our kids. This is HUGE - How would this impact them? Their parents' are together, aren't together, and trying to get back together and then possible don't stay together. Pinball machine.
- I could stay at our home, but he would need a second place to live, so our kids will have two homes.
- Glue is gone. Anyone could change their minds at any point and there isn't anything that forces us to stay together.
- Divorce could be really messy and change all of our plans for R.
I told WS spouse my idea, he thinks D will take any chance of R away because we are adding more stress, appointments, & discussion topics and that we will be overloaded and get into a darker place. Maybe I am naive, but I am thinking we could draw up and agreement for the divorce and then another document that would be active a year out from the divorce if there are additional custody or finance changes depending what we decide.
On as side note, we are in IC and MC. He has been transparent and remorseful and I think he realizes that he does have a lot to work on. He has been telling me everything and answers my questions. The A was short-lived and I think I have all the details I need to know and probably some I didn't want to know. Now I get to hear the stories about how well he did to keep it work-related when she needed to be in his office for 5 minutes today to hammer out details of such-and-such. I do think he's over it, but it is hard when they truly have to pair-up on certain items and knowing it won't probably change until January 1, 2014.
Has anyone thought about doing this or has done this? Am I just crazy? Could it work? Is there a happy medium?