SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

DepressedDaddy

Thank you for this post.

Your title pulled me in, I too miss my best friend.

We are still in house separated until I find another house, my choice.

He is being very nice now most times and I can almost see my best friend, he has changed too much to be the the original best friend of mine.

He has lulled me into this before and it didn't last. I struggle to remember that.

It is so sad to see so many others struggle with this, but somehow comforting to know I am not the only one.

(((((((((everyone missing a best friend)))))))))

I find myself coming up with excuses to call her to discuss "business." I probably could go without the call, or wait until we have our "divorce meetings," but sometimes it is good to remember what our life was like so long ago. That happens when I hear her voice.

I will admit that my STBXWW and I will never be what we once were. Life throws us curveballs and sometimes we strike out. She took herself away from our marriage. However, she will never take away our memories, our struggles, our experiences, our triumphs or any of our past love. Her and I will always share firsts, but I am looking forward to so many more first in my life with a new special woman.

I am glad you are ready to move on even though you still miss the memories.

Hopefully you will find someone that will override those old memories and fill your mind with new happier ones.

I am not even thinking of looking for anyone else. I want to find myself again and enjoy being with her.

I agree Deena. I too am just trying to learn to be with myself. Once I find that, I will be ready for someone else.

My WW is hopping from me to the OM. I wish she would find herself first, but that is not my problem anymore. It's sad to see.

Oh yeah,

I get it. I miss him too. I miss having someone to parent with and share in the joy of our children's accomplishments. I miss having someone to cook for. I miss having a family. I miss having someone to deal with the joys and harships of homeownership. I miss all of it. But whenever I get these feelings about missing "him" I have to ask myself, What is it about *him* that I miss? The lying?, the cheating?, the emotional neglect?, the gasllighting? the using? Because when you boil it all down to it's core, this is what *he* is. So what I am feeling is that I miss being married and all the benefits that come with that but I don't miss *him* Best friends don't do these things to each other. Hell, even aquaintences with any degree of decency don't treat others like this. Know what I mean?

You are grieving. You are grieving what once was and what could have been. But she is not your friend now unfortunately. Friends treat each other with respect, they don't tear each other down.

[This message edited by ruinedandbroken at 7:42 PM, April 19th (Saturday)]

One thing that I have come to realize is this...I think one of things right now that is hurt a lot is my pride.

Part of my story that I have talked about on this site has been that my wife and I were drifting apart for sometime prior to her A. We should have probably done a lot of MC prior to when the A ever was a thought in my WW's mind, but we didn't.

My wife was an incredible woman. I miss the pre-A person. She has decided to leave me for the OM. That hurts. My pride hurts, because of that dangerous "what-if" game.

What if we would have done something to strengthen our relationship back then? What if things were different? I should have been different back then. My WW should have been different as well. It is just sad.

Sure it hurts your pride. Not to mention your confidence and your self-esteem. Infidelity is the cruelest thing you can do to your spouse, except murder I guess. But I think you need to keep reminding yourself that these are her choices and not yours. You cannot put yourself in her mind. This is the way her coping mechanisms work. I think to move on you need to get her off this pedestal you have her on still. It's clearly coming through in your posts. All it does is continuously make you blame yourself for her decisions.

[This message edited by SeanFLA at 10:45 PM, April 19th (Saturday)]

@SeanFLA - You're right. I still do have her on a pedestal. The pedestal is much lower now than it was 2 weeks ago. I am getting closer to getting rid of that though. I am just continuing to mourn who I thought was going to be my life partner.

SI is helping me get there. I have a number of "mile markers" that I will be passing this upcoming week with meetings with my L, other meetings, continued IC and getting my house in order. The more I accomplish in those areas, the sooner I get to a point where my relationship and mourning for my WW becomes more final.

I know I will look back on this in the future and see how much I have grown.

After reading your regretful posts I'm betting that if your wife left the OM and asked to come back you would gladly reconcile. Trouble is your WW knows this, which gives her the confidence and security to try out the OM and plumb the depths of their relationship, for how ever long it takes.

Thats why it is important to get her to understand that her decision has consequences; once she leaves, the marriage is over. That way she would need to fully analyze her relationship with OM to make sure 'he is the one'.

So now she gets to enjoy her new affair and she has you in her back pocket as a fall back option; in her mind you deserve this because you were not a good husband and therefore will have to wait to see if you get a second chance. A very humbling situation for any man with pride.

Sometimes I think I miss him as my best friend even more than I miss him as my husband. The loss has so many layers and the ache is so deep.

One time in the early days after D Day my ex put his head in his hands and sobbed he couldn't believe he had done this to his best friend. His grief was as profound as mine, except he brought in on himself. For those of you who have ex's in the fog, I assure you there will come a time when they realize what they threw away. You may not get the satisfaction of seeing it, but those waywards have to live with what they did.

You're absolutely right OK Now. I think once I get a few of those things done that I listed before, I can start to separate myself from the man I am, from the man I thought I was.

Once those D papers get drafted, it will be real. I know I am going to get past all this, but it is just disheartening.

I am ultimately regretting chances I had in the past. Again, I will never take ownership of her A. That was all her. I didn't deserve that. However, she did come to me numerous times and tell me she was not happy in the past few years, but we never did anything about it. That's not completely my fault, but the what ifs still hit me sometimes. If at the beginning of all this over 5 months ago, the what ifs were at 100%, I would say they are down to 5-10% now.

I am really starting to distance myself from the idea of us and over time that will get easier. She doesn't deserve me now, I just miss what she used to be.

I'm making good progress with IC, 180 and focusing on my DD. I know I am getting there.

I should also mention that my WW has our DD this weekend. That makes all this a bit more hard as well. If my DD was home, I know I would not be missing my WW as much. However, I get to spend Easter with my DD, so I know my day is about to get a whole lot better!

This is the first major holiday we are not spending still being a family. Once I get this first out of the way, everything gets just a little bit easier.

Thanks for the support and 2x4s. I need them.

Yup. U lose everything. Sucks. Those selfish selfish WS

In the sprit of trying to be helpful let me list what I would do in your situation.

1] Be nice and friendly to the WW. No hostility or arguments; just present a very agreeable image with no criticism of her actions. See her/talk to her as much as possible without imposing.

2] Wish her the best of luck in her new relationship and be there for your daughter.

3] Make sure the divorce goes through with no conflicts or serious disagreements.

4] Wait.

Right now the OM is on his best behavior and everything is peaches and cream. Your wife is fueled by resentment from your marriage, but that will fade over the next few months as a consequence of your very friendly attitude. If the affair starts to fray at the edges as they mostly do, she will think of her family and her daughter, and her daughters father. Remember the OM is a guy who broke up a family for his own selfish desires. She will bear that in mind.

If she starts making overtures to return then she has to take her chances; it goes both ways. You may have moved on by then and all that will be left is regret at her poor choices.

She may have told you she was unhappy before the A but what did *she* do about it? Did she go to counseling? Did she try to find ways to make it better? Her happiness was not your responsibility. We are all responsible for our own happiness. If she wasn't happy should should have been proactive about it. Instead she chose to take the coward's way out. We all have choices on how we handle things in life. Infidelity is a selfish, crappy, choice. You say she was an incredible woman but she obviously had it within her character to cheat and walk out. That is not a good trait.

I'm not trying to be critical, just trying to help you stop romanticising the past and to take off the rose-colored glasses when it comes to her.

I'm only saying this from a guy's perspective but I'm curious how it is she said she was unhappy? In my experience with my WW women tend sometimes to be subtle in ways they try to tell you. Was it more in passing? Or did she sit you down and say..."Look, we really need to talk because my feelings toward you may be changing and I've got this other guy on my mind. And if we don't start addressing things, there's a possibility I may go down a slippery slope here."

You see there's a difference there right? Fact is there probably really wasn't much wrong with your marriage that a serious 20 minute conversation wouldn't have begun solving. Maybe this other guy is her exit affair because she didn't want to look at what work she had to do to correct it, but easily blame it back on you. This happens more than you know.

I agree with OK, except for the waiting. Don't present yourself to her, or yourself, like you are waiting. Move forward with everything. Don't believe she's coming back, may really not ever happen. Let her have her POS and let her live with her choices. If she really wants to come back one day I guaranty there will br begging and pleading from her.

[This message edited by SeanFLA at 9:27 PM, April 20th (Sunday)]

I agree with you Sean. DD should be actively moving on with his life, dating etc. The wait term just refers to an attitude where DD is saying I have done my best - lets see what happens. It would definitely serve her right if the right lady came along and WW ended up with nobody. Or a nobody.

DD shouldn't count on her coming around. If she does then maybe R is on the table, or maybe not. Either way I would stay divorced; she had her chance at being your wife and opted out.

Hey DD

I'm a little late to the party. You've gotten a ton of good advice and it reads like you have a very good head on your shoulders despite the pain you are feeling. I know exactly where you're coming from. Your best friend is gone because, at some point, she stopped being your best friend before you knew it. I am lucky to have 2 best friends that I've known since elementary school. As we've grown older and built lives of our own, there have been some conflicts between us. Like SeanFLA said, we, as true friends, talk it out whenever a rift occurs. Sometimes a 20 minute conversation is all that is needed to work it out, and we always do. We know each other inside and out, and we are real with each other. Nothing can come between us that we can't work out as we've done for almost 30 years.

I expected the same from my wife. Thats all I know - faithfulness and trust. Everything won't be great all the time, and conflict sucks. But good people are worth the effort to fix it. She caused many of those conflicts with my 2 best buddies. I saw her as my best friend above them. I now know what true friendship really means. They stand with me when they had every reason to tell me to fuck off. Good people just don't do that to good people.

While we've never met, consider me your new best friend and lean on me, anything you need. I know many others here will offer the same. Stay strong brother.

Hey everyone. Sorry for the delay. I was able to spend most of today with my DD, which was fantastic.

In reply to some of the things posted on here. My WW did try and talk with me a number of times. She tried different methods of communicating (talking, letters, etc). She admits she could have done more, but she didn't. When looking back on some of those things, I should have done more too. I will not take full blame, nor will I ever, but I do recognize times when I even thought, get your head out of your ass. You need to be more present in this relationship. I never listened to her. I never listened to myself. I just didn't do what I needed to do to keep myself happy or contribute to her happiness to the fullest I could/should.

With all that being said, I have come to a point that I do not want her back. I know that the heartache I am having is based on missing who she used to be and not the person she is now. I need to learn to be alone. I need to learn who I am again.

Apart from my pride, I am struggling tremendously with forgiving myself for not being the husband I should have been. Don't get me wrong, I was never abusive to her, I never treated her with disrespect, I just was emotionally absent for a couple of years. For most of our relationship, I was emotionally there, but unfortunately life got in the way and I escaped into my own mind. I need to get to a point to forgive myself. I did not cause the failure of our marriage, I just contributed to it. I have learned things from this experience that give me a PhD in relationships now. I know what I need to do to be more successful in relationships...I just wish I would have figured this out before it was too late. Sometimes the biggest lessons are ones born from the most painful experiences we face.

I do appreciate the support from this group. It has helped tremendously. I need to figure out how to forgive myself.

[This message edited by DepressedDaddy at 7:21 PM, April 20th (Sunday)]

I think it is also what she is doing. It is almost as if she is doing her own 180 and it is getting to me.

I need to continue to fight strong and be with myself. I need to be okay with failing. I need to let her go. I need to have the confidence that I know is inside me. I know that I need to be patient. I need to show her that I am just fine. I need to move on with my life. I need to be here for my DD. I need to relax and invest in myself.

Everyday I grow an inch...I'll get the mile eventually!