SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

part of me wishes that i had never met him in the first place, for all the hurt and pain i am going through!

good god, when i read the above post i thought, "oh, i hadn't remembered that i posted to this thread before."

yes, that's exactly it. i wish i had never even met him. that's pretty extreme for me, but it's the truth.

Yeh the truth sucks doesn't it? I am shocked at myself, 6 mths ago I was spending the rest of my happy life with this man! I never understood how parents were not together with their children but now I see why......

This is really good stuff..BUT, could some of you print your lists here for us..the minimums...and HOW did you VERIFY there was no contact w/ any other women or hookers or whatever skanks in order to R.?

Did you polygraph? that makes sense to me since they lie so frickin much!!!!

Anyone?

[This message edited by ScribblingMum at 7:06 PM, July 7th (Monday)]

???

ANYONE???

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And I don't understand about "minimums," by the way.

Reconciling was out of the picture within three months, it was clear. I held out hope for months thereafter. Hope was the last thing in that marriage to die, I think, and I was the hope-holder, not the WS, who simply turned away and moved on to his new life.

I didn't read all million pages, but personally, I wish I wouldn't have been a doormat for the past 2 months.

If they're (WS) not ready to 'try' right away (like within the first couple of weeks I'd say) than they're cake eaters and us BS are enabling them when we let them hang around.

I don't know where my sitch is gonna end up, but in hindsight, I am pissed that I put up with it for that long. When you're going through it, it seems to make sense.

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bumping

Scribblingmom,

I dintt have the chance to find out. But IMHO, if you have to polygraph, why bother?

My H just disappeared. If he ever came back now I would never trust nor love him again. I am sorry tht you ar3e going thru this tho.

[This message edited by total idiot at 11:50 AM, July 17th (Thursday)]

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((scribblingMum))

Nope - there has not been a polygraph

My best suggestion - be in a place where you are emotionally and financially self sufficient. That way it really doesn't matter what your spouse does. That way you can truly choose to stay or leave.

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still confounded,

You wrote

And I don't understand about "minimums," by the way.

Katherine21 in her original post describes what her 'minimum's' were.

5. Define your minimum standards and stick to them sooner rather than later.

Minimum standards? These are the MUST-HAVES for your marriage to continue. YOUR must-haves. Think hard. We BS's will have a lot of wants. Pare away the wants. Get down to the core. If these core issues can't be met, the rest is pie-in-the-sky anyway.

My minimums were: NC with OW; firing cover upper; honesty, especially financial, and MC.

My wants were many, including apologizing to my parents, curtailing "guys' nights" out, getting rid of some loser friends, more intertwined activities, . . . and so on. I found my core by working really hard and honestly, "If he doesn't do XXX am I willing to stay married?" The "wants" would have made my marriage a helluva lot better, but I was truthfully willing to stay with much less.

I needed my "minimum standards" because I twisted in the wind so much. When I finally defined my minimum, well, it was a lot easier to gage when stbxh was bullshitting.

For example, stbxh offered to move to a new town and "start over." Sounds great, right? But when I said, "yes, but first you have to fire cover upper," he wouldn't do it. He wanted to take me on vacations. "Yes, but come to MC this week." He wouldn't do it. Or the times he wanted to move home. "First send all the bills to our home address and give me your passwords." [The honesty issue]. He wouldn't do it.

There are so many things I wish I had done......not walked into the bar that night I met WF; not been as trusting as I was; been a little more suspicious of girls who were just friends; never gotten engaged to him; left him when things weren't going well in the past, etc, etc, etc.....

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I gave my WW 30 days! She did not change. I am divorced and moving on. It is all about ME now!

2. How quickly?

In retrospect, I wish I'd given my foggy WH ONE MONTH and no more. Yes, there are stories on SI of WS's de-fogging months and months later. I read those stories and held out too much hope for my own WS. Some WS's never de-fog. And if they are still gaslighting and justifying over a month later, folks, I'm sorry, but it's not looking hopeful.

3. What do you mean by consistently remorseful?

Some WS's act real sorry in brief spurts. Or they get a dose of de-fogging (usually by an outside source) and promise everything. For a few days. Or sometimes even a week or two.

My hindsight rule of thumb? Before a BS should believe that R is happening, a good solid month of remorse, without lapses of justification and gaslighting, needs to pass. I often leapt at the "opportunity" to R with stbxh on the barest of efforts on his part.

My WH started ended all contact at the 1 month mark. Which was my maximum before filing. We almost made it to a month in R, when I found out that she had called and he didn't tell me. Not only did he not tell me, but he lied about it.

I guess this brings us back to square 1.

Thank you, it actually puts into words what I have been feeling in my gut. That if he truly wanted to R, he would do the things I asked immediately and not on his timeline.