SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I honestly have given him way more than i would have to and he deserves that. He doesn't really want the house and doesn't need it. I have 4 kids and a business here. He has 2 kids. I'm not touching a dime if his 401k and that's over 50k. We haven't had the spark for a long time and we chose to ignore it, then i made a choice to have an affair. He knows we have been drifting apart for years and he and i had a conversation about the fact we probably wouldn't be together if it weren't for the kids. We put so much into them it didn't matter that we were great friends, just not lovers. We have discussed all of this. I just wanted to be fair Is all.

Someday I’m going to do what you’re doing. I hope my H will be as fine with it as yours is. Good for you for having the guts. I as yet do not.

“Good for you for having the guts”

I don’t see guts here. I see a whole lot of hiding and avoidance. A divorce may well be what had to happen but nobody got their blood up and got honest and talked through something so important. It’s like you talk to him without really communicating. This is a story that gives me a vibe of neglect, resentment, and much passive aggression. I am an outsider internet lady and I don’t know your life, but this is how it comes off to me.

Honestly, I think this is all really icky. I am glad you are being fair to him, but it all still feels so weak.... This milquetoast marriage that nobody gave any love and care and feeding to. No, you took your energy elsewhere and then don’t have the guts to actually operate on a level playing field to clean up your mess. I’d talk about the facts. When it didn’t wet your whistle you just quietly make it fade out - no hard effort to fix it with MC, a year spent silently brooding about your A as you played along by his side, and then nudging him out with a pleasant bland smile for your H to make you feel better. Ugh.

[This message edited by Justsomelady at 10:42 PM, September 23rd (Monday)]

blahblah

I often ponder what a terrible person I was because of the way to chose to end my marriage.

I thank you and another poster here, you have made me realize that I'm not even in the running for the category. This is said without malice, just my simple truth from my perspective.

You know what they say, people in glass houses....

Justsomelady

Why is it so hard to believe that this simply was not a marriage made to last? Not every marriage works out with or without infidelity. Like DarknessFalls, I also applaud Lonelygirl for recognizing that the marriage isn't working and having the courage to end it rather than staying. She could have instead decided to pursue another affair and ate cake for years.

Not confessing. IMO you can't heal and change and still stay a manipulator and liar, even with divorce. At the end of the day, you are still a liar. The two don't go together to become healthy. You were deceitful. You divorced in a deceitful way with a lie as to why the marriage wasn't working out and you were emotionally distant from him. He was not informed of his own life. He might see divorce totally different if he knew the extent of your depravity towards him. There is no honor or integrity there. He doesn't know the extent of your deception and who you were and how you chose to treat him. I find nothing honorable in it at all. Why does it feel crazy? Because you can't change and be a liar at the same time. You are building on a huge huge negative. Further more the whole, "I don't want to hurt his self esteem thing is BS". This is your POV. It is a decision from your selfish stand. About what you think he needs and wants. It will always be the wrong decision because it is you making his decisions for him. From your POV as a cheater and manipulator. Ask him if he would want to know if someone cheated on him. There would be the truth and what he wants. Not what you want or think he wants or needs. You don't have the right to decide that for another human being you have chosen to hurt. You have taken away his free agency and his right to make an informed decision about his life. That can't possibly be good for you becoming a better a person.

[This message edited by Zugzwang at 6:14 AM, September 24th (Tuesday)]

Justsomelady,

The courage from my perspective is in acknowledging the marriage isn’t working and taking concrete steps to do something with that assertion. Her husband feels the same way, so to prolong the situation would be fruitless.

“Why is it so hard to believe that this simply was not a marriage made to last? Not every marriage works out with or without infidelity”

That may be true - but it never had a CHANCE because of the lies and the lies tell me she also avoided true confrontation. Because she is behaving without valor and honesty. Because she hadn’t answered questions about the counseling being more than just asking her husband to go to IC or to really stir shit up and talk to him about the true state of the marriage.she is like someone who observes a huge mess on the floor, kicks it out of the way a bit and walks on with a blithe “oh well.”

Yeah, she is better than most cake eaters, but she is hardly brave or admirable. Yes, I acknowledged in my post they sometimes divorce needs to happen and maybe it is the case here but if you don’t actually TRY you just get this bland sort of break up. It is a disservice to the marriage, the man, the kids, to not be truthful and have an actual conversation. Her year or so so of lying and “talking” doesn’t count because her H didn’t have all the facts. It’s such a lame and passive aggressive story to me.

Darkness - yes, it is good to acknowledge if it isn’t working. But a marriage deserves more than this. Her H feels the same way for sure - because she deprived him of her whole heart for years. She cane back for a year after the affair and never spoke up. To me it seems that all the talking they did was lip service and not real. So of course he will feel her indifference and want out. He will be better off for sure, since she has allowed it to get this far. If you’re going to end it don’t just give up, with blandness. They never even had a chance without actual truth and confrontation. It’s ridiculous to see this as a true, brave ending of a marriage in my mind. It is just more avoidance, passivity, and nothing brave about it to me.

[This message edited by Justsomelady at 8:04 AM, September 24th (Tuesday)]

Ff’s Comment about glass houses is rich - we are all waywards offering advice and critique from our own differing styles and depths of glass houses so....

[This message edited by Justsomelady at 7:52 AM, September 24th (Tuesday)]

JSL

Exactly my point in the comment I made. None of us WS are morally superior to the other.

[This message edited by ff4152 at 7:54 AM, September 24th (Tuesday)]

But you don’t have a point FF...you just said nobody can offer critique or advice because we all have glass houses. It’s an ad hominem attack on nothing of substance....so why are you even posting if you don’t think people in glass houses can comment...as you sit in your own. It’s an irrelevant comment. What is the point of this forum if we are not going to offer such perspectives... I thought we came to this forum for new ideas and to improve ourselves - to get out of the lies and manipulation and entitlement of being such wayeards that we are.

And I disagree about the morality comment.

[This message edited by Justsomelady at 8:03 AM, September 24th (Tuesday)]

Also - what Zugzwang said.

JSL actually that’s not what I said at all. I’m sorry if you’re having trouble interpreting that. My comment had nothing to do about people offering advice and everything to do with people acting morally superior to others.

I see. So, if I think someone is wrong and tell them so I am “acting superior.” Actually, I may be but is that bad? That isn’t my point in commenting, to act superior. My point is to help try to get her to see how she is doing something wrong - what the heck is wrong with that - and to try to fix it. Why else are we here? Is it just a circle jerk of applause where we hold no one else to moral account for fear of being “superior”? And the fact that she posted makes me think she is also looking for other perspectives and gut checking her choices too, deep down, she wouldn’t have shared it otherwise.

[This message edited by Justsomelady at 8:09 AM, September 24th (Tuesday)]

Respectfully i disagree with the fact that you say i was deceitful in my marriage and divorce (which that is true) and that i will still be. A lot of people lie to their parents, kids, boss ext.... and I'm not justifying it by any means, but that doesn't mean they continue to lie just because they want to. Some people are just plain liars and awful people they will lie about anything to anyone. I am going through IC and working on me and i don't believe that me not telling him will carry over into my life after the divorce. You make a choice not to do it. I know I've wronged him and I've carried that guilt for what seems like eternity. Who knows if the marriage would have even lasted another year without the infidelity. I would say not, because i put my kids above anyone and that's a problem for him. I told him i can't say im sorry about that or i regret it. Im gone 6 days a week with my kids doing something. Could be a ballgame, movie, swimming, or bike riding. He doesn't want to go all the time, cause he's an introvert and doesn't like the chaos. That's his choice. I love that stuff and I'll never be able to put him above the kids. I wouldn't be able to anyone for that matter. That will always be a point of contention that i won't budge on.

Ok. You have different interests. I get that. Still doesn’t mean you gave your marriage a fighting chance.

That year you spent after the affair was crucial. He had no idea he was on notice from his position as H. You weren’t willing to be honest and stir the pot - sometimes you have to stir it and get people angry to see if there is something worth saving. You never gave him the chance to reckon with the truth. To make a choice or to have a come to Jesus moment with you and remake a good marriage.... You say you did all this talking - but you know you didn’t really on a deep level because he is still totally in the dark because of your various manipulative and conflict avoidant reasons disguised as concern for him.

Your deceit in your marriage is a huge deal, it isn’t at all the same as what you were comparing it to or offering as analogy. It will follow you because it shows what you do when nobody is looking. We don’t count as we’re anonymous internet folks. It also shows how you deal with shit when it hits the fan. You avoid it! You bury it! And you run away. You are killing your marriage and breaking up hour kids’ home without truly trying to save the marriage in a meaningful way.

So, upshot - sure maybe divorce was always gonna happen. But you will never actually know because you never gave it your all.

(Ps - I think your IC may be an enabler of your avoidant behavior if this sort of push back was not given in that context)

[This message edited by Justsomelady at 9:32 AM, September 24th (Tuesday)]

I realize they aren't of the same caliber. My point was just that people lie about some things and not others for whatever reason, only they know. I don't believe that because i chose to lie about this i will continue to be a liar. I will carry the previous lie, but not continue to lie. I got very fortunate that i only had to lie by omission during the affair. I couldn't imagine doing it right to his face. Let me be clear i acknowledge i was lying by omission and that is a LIE. But the kids issue is a huge issue. I know that a lot of people use the spouse then kids theory and some of it makes sense to me and he isn't wrong for his POV. My kids will always come before me and my spouse. They preach in counseling that you take care of yourself first always, so you can pour from your cup into theirs (makes sense), but i only have my kids for such a short time that i can't even fathom not putting them first. That in theory makes it hard to even put anything into my marriage. A counseling analogy she uses is, you have 5 bars on a full battery you use 3 to focus on you maybe more if your dealing with depression. Kids get 2. Job gets 1. There aren't any left for a marriage.

I do not care how you do the prioritization of spouse, kids whatever - that seems like a side conversation. I am talking about how you are handling this situation with your spouse is wrong, you are avoiding, and you will continue to do so as that is how you operate with the most intimate relationships in your life. You never actually tired to fix it. And you blame him for not doing some form of counseling but give no illumination on the extent of your request, etc. chances are he would have engaged more if you’d been honest.

Interesting about putting oneself first being part of counseling. I get that you need to fill your cup and improve your bandwidth, but I think you need no help putting yourself first. You’ve already done a lot of that with the affair and choosing to make all these unilateral decisions without consulting your supposed life partner from a place of integrity. Yeah I deal with depression and shit too - it sucks and I am sorry you are going through that -but maybe part of it is you aren’t willing to be Frank and honest in life so how can you operate in a way that isn’t depressed. Your actions aren’t in alignment with your core values - I assume - in part because you are struggling with this.

Not sure if this helps explain how i see it - When I did something wrong to my brother, took something from him, I sat on it. Quietly I did what I thought made the situation right. Then one day he asked me to take charge of something important in his life/health. I came clean because I didn’t want him to put any more trust in me without knowing that fact. He still kept me around and we worked through it but I told him so he would have all the facts in his decision. I’d want to be treated that way too.

[This message edited by Justsomelady at 10:02 AM, September 24th (Tuesday)]

My original post was June of 2018, which is almost a year and a half, so a lot had changed since then. With the help of a counselor I've come to realize he is great and will make someone a great husband some day. We do not have the foundation to continue. We put all our energy into kids and didn't even notice we have nothing in common. The fact that we do not argue, nor have we ever is a huge red flag that my counselor brings up.

Your mind is made up, and I am not sure there is anything here to be offered, but I am going to at least give you my perspective on what you said here.

I could have written your post at one point in time. When we have an affair, it's a form of getting high. Those high feelings are manufactured and kind of a product of the illicitness of the relationship, not healthy and not sustainable. Not based on anything real.

But, in comparison, regular, long term love is quieter. It's multi-faceted, we share a real life with the other person. They see us flaws and all. There is less time reserved for the other person as you are juggling the balls that couples have to juggle with work, kids, home responsibilities, etc.

At the end of the affair, we can have a skewed sense of what we want out of a relationship. What it's supposed to feel like.

The grass is greener where you water it. H and I had to work very hard for reconnection. We had to put quality time up there in our priorities, and we had to put everything on the table and look at it together. We never fought either. We still don't (now that things have gotten a little more back to normal after the recovery time of my affair). But, I have grown to understand that some of our lack of fighting had to do with my inability to speak up when I didn't like something. The reason we don't fight now, is we have honest discussions. There is conflict, but there is no escalation of that conflict to where it would look like a fight to someone else. We negotiate, we are honest. We communicate effectively. That's an attribute to a relationship to be able to do that, not one that is a red flag.

Counseling is there to have you reflect back on what you want to do and that's based on the input that you are giving them. It's not an affirmation that you are really going in a correct direction, it's more you have resolved the conflict you feel towards that as your direction. But what that is based on may be more the comparison of the high feelings than what a long term relationship is really supposed to be. I am telling you this whether you decide to divorce or not, it's likely you have formed some unrealistic expectation that is going to possibly have a lot of implications and disappointments moving forward.

I confessed to my husband because I felt that we could not truly try and work through our issues together without having everything on the table for everyone to look at and dissect. You can't fix something the other person doesn't know is broken, and you can't be seen by that person if you are hiding who you are in such a large way.

I think that there is going to come a time down the road when you look back and regret these decisions you are making because at some point this fantasy of what a relationship should be is going to come crashing down on you. That's not my wish for you, just something that comes from a lot of experiences of my own.

Getting honest with yourself also means being honest with those around you. There is a lot at stake here that you are really just hiding from and avoiding. I am with justsomelady in that it's not brave, it's the opposite. Having guts means something different altogether to me.

If he is a good man, and you have a quiet calm relationship....and he is a good father and has a desire to be a good husband, there is a whole helluva lot you can do with that. But, maybe marriage is something you yourself are not cut out for and you can't give him the same at this time. I just think you need to reflect on that part of it for your own well being more than blaming the relationship. We can improve a relationship by improving ourselves (assuming a reasonable, non-abusive spouse).

I am not saying any of this to be judgmental, or thinking I am really going to change your mind. But, I am hopeful you will reflect on this moving forward or you are never going to find the destination that you think you are moving towards.

Oh and I will add, before we did this work it seemed we had little in common interest wise. But, when we worked on things it became apparent that wasn't true at all.

We have a lot of separate interests - that's true and from that it helps us complete the other in many ways. It brings interesting conversations to the forefront because we can share things we learned about our interests. When I tell H things I am learning about running, or books I am reading, he can relate that to his life in some way even though he is not a runner and he reads more non-fiction when I read more fiction.

And, there were things that brought us together interest-wise in the first place. We both like live music, so we started having more dates and weekends around that. We both like to go to the movies sometimes, or eat in different restaurants and experiment with different foods.

Common Interests really are pretty irrelevant in a marriage - as long as you enjoy time together. The weekend before last we made a whole trip around one of my H's interests and had a fabulous time. During our disconnection I had forgotten how funny he is, or attentive. Or how content we can be just taking a road trip, splitting a junk food splurge, listening to our own audio books while holding hands. Relationships are made on all things, hobbies and interests are often not shared passions.

I am really not trying to lecture you. Obviously you are going to do what you are going to do. I am just hopeful as I said that you will really evaluate what you think your goals are or what a healthy and happy relationship looks like. I really had a skewed sense of mine prior to the A, during the A, and after the A. It was really hard work to get our relationship to where it is today, but once we got there, we know what we want it to look like. We like how it feels. But, it wasn't that way for a really long time after the A. In fact, I would say you are getting out of the marriage about the timeline that ours started to improve.

At any rate, think about it.

I do appreciate your thoughts on this. I don't know how to come back from where i am in my marriage. When I'm honest with myself im not in love with him, i have love for him that's it. I don't want to be sexual or even affectionate with him. I can't connect with him emotionally either. All this started before the affair, i just wasn't aware of it, because i chose to ignore it. It has most definitely escalated because of the affair. I don't believe I'm not necessarily cut out for marriage, because i didn't have any of these issues and my husband and i had 12 years without any "big" issues whatsoever. But i do think having kids my priorities changed and i eked rather spend time and energy with them than i would my husband or any man for that matter. I'm def not cut out for marriage at this point in my life. I can't even do a weekend getaway and if i could i would rather take the kids.