SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I am so indebted to the men and women on SI who have helped me over the 3 mo's since I found out my wife was having an affiar with our personal trainer. It seems like the course of events during and after the DD are very predictable. However, the decision on how to move forward is very personal. I am at the point where I realize there was a good amount of unhappiness in the marriage, 3 little kids under 5, and some very good times sprinkled in. Some folks say throw in the towel, others say stick in there and make it work no matter what. Here is what I have

A WW who is remorseful and still occassionally blames me/our relationship for what happened.

A WW who says that she was very unhappy over the past two years, that I am emotionally unavailable (maybe some truth to that) and that the affair was inevitable and her way of giving up on us.

A WW who know says I am throwing in the towel, not remembering all the good times, and not giving it enough time to heal (3 mo's since DD)

I feel like I am letting our kids down by not fighting for this. However, I also don't want our kids to bear witness to arguments and lack of respect between us over the next 15 or so years.

If this did not happen, I imagine we would have continued in a medicore and sometimes painful relationship. The best thing about DDay was that it blow that relationship up. However, I am left with someone that I am not sure I am in love with, and stuck in a no win situation where if I stay, I am probably going to be unhappy long term, and if I get a D, I feel like I didn't try hard enough and wasn't able to forgive her when I was less than perfect myself.

This is where it gets harder for you SI vets to give advice, but I appreciate being there to hear me vent!

Check out Mort Fertel's Telebootcamp program. It did wonders for me. It is a very personal decision to stay or go, you just need to get to a place where you are at peace with whatever choice you make and Mort's program helped me get to that place.

I read a helpful book titled Too Bad to Stay, Too Good to Leave. I think deep down I knew D was inevitable. However, I had to try to R, I had to try MC, I had to stay to the bitter, ugly end to make sure all hope was dead, there was no possibility to save the marriage. I had to be able to look my children in the eyes and honestly tell them I did everything I could to not D.

The interim/limbo time between DDay and the final DDay when I had my "I'm done" moment was hell. A necessary hell, but hell nevertheless.

Trying to reconcile with a "sometimes" remorseful spouse will definitely be a bigger mountain to climb. I remember my younger years when my H was only home to sleep. Even on weekends he found something that needed to be worked on. It was so bad that I took my children on vacations by ourselves because he could just never manage to away for a whole week. At the time, he said he was trying to support us but, now I know it was just the ground work for a much larger addiction. All the same, I resented him for never taking time to be with us so I get that part really well.

Did you ever made any changes regarding getting rid of the nanny & requiring your wife to be more involved in the care of the children? If she's not willing to be there for the kids, it could be said that she has been equally responsible for being neglectful of some very aspects of your lives together.

She needs to own that she chose to go outside the marriage instead of letting you in on how she was feeling. I hate to see any family break up but, until you have a plan for R that's agreeable for you both its gonna be a really tough row to hoe!

I think it was Aesir who said it here once "it is very difficult to NOT attempt R with what appears to be a remorseful WS".

Let me say this - there is no venom in True Remorse, whether you are in R or S/D.

I too was very unhappy in that M. I had numbed and dumbed myself down so much I didn't even realise how unhappy I was.

It affected the kind of mother, daughter and friend I was.

It took me several months after DD to accept that this was a dealbreaker for me. I didn't want it to be and raged against it. At that point I still loved him even though I knew I could no longer stay with him.

It was tortuous.

The fuckery and venom he spouted during this S/D cured me of those feelings that were torturing me.

Your kids don't need you to make this sacrifice for them. They need you to live. They need you to be healthy. They need you to be happy.

I started off trying to stay for the kids but ended up leaving because of them. I often wonder if there would have been so much damage had I not gone down the False R path and just stuck to 180/NC from DD. I suspect not - this monster has been underneath the man I thought I married the whole time. The mask was smashed on DD and ground down into dust when he realised he could no longer manipulate and control me.

I think this is a normal part of the process. The dreaded 'what ifs'. You want to do the 'right' thing and you're waiting for a sign - you're waiting for something to show you what the right thing to do is.

Unfortunately when it comes to infidelity you don't really see that you've done the right thing until AFTER you've done it. That part in between was hell for me. I thought I was blowing my girls life apart because of my ego.

No - he blew it apart and started trying to tear me apart emotionally too. I moved myself and my girls away from the minefield.

I know right were you are friend and I don't envy you. It is a lot more pleasant over here a year out from all of the craziness.

((joeinfl))

Joef - It's hard to know what is right, but I can tell you that real remorse, is not sometimes. It's all the time. When they get it they get it, and they quit blaming the M, the Spouse, and they really understand that there is something in them that caused/allowed them to make the decisions they made, to lie, and to cause emotional abuse to their spouse.

Staying in a marriage because you don't want to blow up your kids lives I understand, however try to think of what is really better for them. Seeing a loveless M, their Mom andDad being unhappy for the majority of their M? This isn't the example of a healthy happy M that they should grow up watching everyday. Why? because that will be their impression of what M is. It doesn't have to be that way. They can grow up with two happy, healthy parents.

(((and strength))))

However, I had to try to R, I had to try MC, I had to stay to the bitter, ugly end to make sure all hope was dead, there was no possibility to save the marriage. I had to be able to look my children in the eyes and honestly tell them I did everything I could to not D.

The interim/limbo time between DDay and the final DDay when I had my "I'm done" moment was hell. A necessary hell, but hell nevertheless.

Sorry Joe. I also see in hindsight that like Naturegirl fighting hard and long for my family was a necessary hell. Divorce was never my preference (to say the least) but I can always look back and know that I did everything, but the STBXWW's remorse simply was never there. "Regret," "feeling bad," but never hardcore remorse. And I knew I could not live with myself or with her without daily demonstrations of it spanning probably years.

And of course the kids--they must be shown, not told, how to love, how to fight for what is important, and when to walk away when deep respect is not demonstrated.

Again, I am sorry. Right there with you.

I started off trying to stay for the kids but ended up leaving because of them.

I say this exact thing all the time. It's a very powerful moment when you make that switch in your heart, when you know that you must do the exact opposite (divorce) of what you've been doing (trying to R) for the same reason (to protect the kids). I remember having this conversation with my IC. I remember her telling me flat out that all the protecting I'd tried to do was too late, the kids were already damaged, they'd already internalized the dysfuntion, there was no escaping the harm which had already happened. Lord, what a bitter session that was, lots of tears that physically hurt to cry out. Those tears burned like battery acid.

My IC was right. My kids were already damaged. I see them play out the dysfunctional dance that STBX & I used to play out. I'm working like mad to replace the dysfunction with healthy modeling & thought processes.

I don't know exactly what my point is. I guess just to make you aware that no matter what, your kids have already been damaged no matter how much you think you've been shielding them. No matter if you stay or go, you are about to be gutted over & over as you see & hear the dysfunction come out of your little ones.

Joe it's a very difficult decision both of you have to make. We all know that having an affair was never the way to fix it or cry out for help (if that's what she was looking for). I ask you this question...did she EVER say anything to you about not being happy?

I'm guessing probably not. With young children, mortgages, car payments, aging parents, college looming someday, etc we are all at probably THE most stressful times in our lives. Children alone are huge "need machines" and yes can suck a lot of fun out of a marriage. But it's not the easy times that make the marriage. Anyone can do easy. It's getting through the hard times that make the marriage.

My exWW did the same thing and I had no clue she was unhappy (so she says). The fact is she probably wasn't all that unhappy. She had the job she wanted, the money she wanted and the freedom to do things she wanted. I never told her "No you can't do that." Maybe I should have. She rewrote our marital history like a cheap novel and convinced herself she was unhappy all this time. I applaud you for recognizing that you could have done things better. Well...she should have also. I'm sorry to all the women on this forum but one thing I've realized is that women are very complicated creatures emotionally. They feel in 3D where men tend to be more black and white. That is our downfall. But we cannot help it as it's the way God created us. All we can do is recognize it and try to be more accommodating to our wives.

My feeling is you can't be remorseful only part time. Like my psychiatrist said..."If she really wanted you she would be on her knees begging you to stay." That was a simple but clear fact that cut through all the haze I was experiencing. Yes I didn't want a D. She made that decision for me. Everyday on this board I read about the BS's who get to make the R/D decision and complain about it. I would have given my left arm to have gotten to make that decision, not her. Frankly in my position I've always been very jealous of those BS's who got to make that decision to stay or walk. I'm not saying they have it easy, but just differently than I did. Talk about being thrown away and losing all your self esteem. No remorse from her...nothing. The embarrassment and humiliation sometimes is too hard to handle for me. I still think people look at me like I'm a loser and probably deserved being cheated on and left. It questions my existence many days. But not to have said something? That's what I can't seem to get past even 2.5 years later.

[This message edited by SeanFLA at 12:06 PM, August 19th (Monday)]

". . . the affair was inevitable and her way of giving up on us."

There is NO remorse in that kind of thinking!