I was two months post D-Day. I hadn't found this website, and was, in hindsight, doing everything wrong. My kids were 11, 9 and 7, and I was in a panic, accepting blame for everything, and trying to be the perfect husband and father. Trying so hard to keep my sanity in the face of an unrepentant WW who was playing me like a violin.
I recall the night as if it were yesterday...I finished a job in the afternoon, and was a few hundred miles from home. I did a time/distance analysis, and determined I could still make Halloween trick or treating - if I averaged 80 mph on wintery roads for three solid hours of driving.
The reasonable me of a few months prior would have called the wife and advised I was delayed and to carry on without me. The desperate me gunned it....safety and reason be damned.
I made it just in time. Good news! - or so I thought. As I walked in the front door, I was greeted by my two youngest, as well as OM's two kids. Yup, they had been invited to come and trick or treat with my kids. Doing my best Neville Chamberlain impression, I caved and tried to be the peace-maker.
So there I was - my two youngest, the OMs two kids, freezing my arse off in sub-zero temperature trick-or-treating, while my WW spent the whole time I was gone on the phone with the OM. Following the trick-or-treating, she left to 'quickly' drop of OM's kids, and came back sometime after midnight. When I finally called her on it, she crapped all over me for being too controlling, and threatened that our marriage was over if I couldn't give her some 'freedom'. Pre D-Day, I never questioned her on her whereabouts... her 'ladies nights outs'...nothing. Now I was being described as a 'control freak'.
Anyhoo....7 years later we're still married. Affair ended after much, much more ugliness about three months later.....but never a true recovery. I have since grown a pair of balls, but sadly live in a civil but sexless marriage. The affair is never discussed and FWW has seemingly blocked it from her memory.
I still live with it every day.
I hope you will find peace. I'm sorry you're hurting.
I have since grown a pair of balls, but sadly live in a civil but sexless marriage. The affair is never discussed and FWW has seemingly blocked it from her memory.
This scares me even more than the thought of divorce. For the last year, I have had a roommate, not a wife. Thanks for telling this story. I had never considered that "a civil but sexless marriage" was even a possibility. I can see now how easy it would be to find myself in that situation. Thanks to your story, now I won't.
JustJim, I have read your story in your profile. Horrible, just horrible. Honestly, I questioned even a move 60 miles away. Many people drive that far every day for work, myself included. I'm wondering if she didn't want you out of town so she could do as she wanted.
If you are doing the 180, and your WW has not yet moved from your bedroom, then you should move. No need to discuss it, or have any dramatic discussions. Simply move your things from your bedroom to the guest room, and when bedtime comes that's where you go. She'll get the hint fast enough, and it will most likely really shock her, but so what. The less contact you have with your WS while she is actively cheating the better. The only thing she can offer right now is craziness and heartache.You've had enough of that.
In a calm, reasonable discussion, she once described how I was really nothing more than a re-bound relationship after she broke up with her old boyfriend; one that went on for far too long and she had just never had the guts to call off (this after 16 years of marriage). In another conversation, this one about our lack of a regular, healthy sex life, she calmly described how any non-procreative sex was for my benefit alone; that she would be quite happy to never have to have sex with me again. The list is long....
The killer is the court affidavit, done during the affair in an attempt to have me kicked out of our house. In it, her, her boyfriend's lawyer and her boyfriend, crafted a document that painted my as an unstable stalker with all sorts of 'issues'. The document was full of innuendo and contained numerous lies, and, to this day, remains a public document searchable for anyone to see (say, during a background check). She has done nothing to make it go away, or if that is not possible, perhaps even trying to attach another affidavit telling 'the rest of the story'. The kicker is, after she ended her affair, she convinced me to reimburse her boyfriend for his legal expenses (as he originally footed the bill). I paid over $4,000 to have my reputation destroyed. The icing on the cake was few years later, when during a discussion about the state of our marriage, I brought this issue up and said this was one of my major obstacles. FWW replied: "It's all about you and your feelings, isn't it".....well.....yes. In this case it kinda is.
Now, if she had made the effort to replace these many soul crushing memories and statements with positives, and made a real solid attempt at R, then perhaps I could move on. Instead, her approach to R was using a politicians apology: "I sincerely regret that my actions or statements may caused some distress. If that is the case, I apologize". In fact, if I could block out the A as she has, I dare say we could have what approaches a 'normal' marriage.
However, every time I have the desire to reach out....I stop. I carried the load for far too long, and out of principle, I refused to do so anymore. I am content, for the sake of the children, to carry on for a few more years in a soul-less marriage. It's not horrible: We talk, occasionally laugh; we are respectful of each other, and rarely argue - but there's no 'relationship'.
Now, in my mind, it could all turn around tomorrow, but for her lack of reaching out and making right what she broke.....for two years post-affair, I was amazing. I did it all and if there was such an award for Betrayed Husband of the Year, I'd have been a shoe-in. She, on the other hand, was a wet noodle, while she recovered from her crushed heart.
Eventually, around the time I organized a massively successful surprise 40th birthday party for her (flew in old friends and family....it was amazing)I reached a point where I determined that not only did any effort need to be at least 50/50, but she should be the one putting maximum effort into the marriage to fix the things she broke...and then, over time, we could turn back to normal. The effort required by her never materialized.
So....that's the story. Kind of a purgatory until the kids move on. After that...who knows?
