SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Everyone has their own path to walk as well as their own breaking point. You don't owe anyone any explanation for your decisions. I didn't always follow "conventional SI wisdom" either. You know the risks. Just remember we are here should you need us.

I wish you the best.

Idk if we remove reasons like irrationality and self-sabotage, it sounds to me like you've realize you haven't quite crossed your breaking point quite yet and are willing to gamble that last bit of space on a potential miracle. If crossing the breaking point and not quite crossing the breaking point both result in the same thing, Divorce, then it probably feels like you're gambling with house money. If that makes sense. I don't think it's necessarily irrational, depending on how you wanna define the word, but it's definitely unhealthy. Stress and sad hormones do a number on a person physiologically.

TiF, the point I was making is not that you're rugsweeping the A. It's that moments of normalcy are seeming better than they really are and are tricking you into accepting complacency. It's like eating a piece of luke warm microwaved pizza after months of nothing but shit sandwiches. It is by no means a good meal. In fact, a lot of people just would not eat it but it tastes great if all you've been eating most of the time has been so much worse. You start to think that maybe eating shit sandwiches all the time might be tolerable if you get a crappy piece of pizza every now and then especially if the road to eating in a healthy manner is long and difficult or just something you are resisting doing for whatever reason.

What I also found from my own foray is that I often bottled my emotions during this time and they came out in the form of horrendous and sudden panic attacks that disappeared with the ending of the toxic relationship and never came back again. Just because I wasn't acknowledging or feeling the damage that was being done to me from the stress and denial doesn't mean it wasn't happening. I have to wonder if you are experiencing something similar by the fact that you're able to calmly acknowledge the dust as if it's a shame you ran out of coffee that morning as opposed to the life-changing, PTSD inducing event that it is for most people. It's only a matter of time before those bottled emotions come out in ways that you're not prepared for which is why I don't believe this is any kind of improvement or even a real occurrence of stagnation. It's the calm before the storm.

One way or another, this marriage will end simply because your WW does not want to do the work for R. Either you will have a new DDay, she will choose to leave the marriage because of the broken environment it has become, or you will decide you're ready to take the next step. There's no real pressing reason why you should hurry it along other than there's a strong chance that you will come to regret wasting your time and sanity in the future especially if you find continued contact with OM. It would take close to a miracle for that to change as your WW is quietly accepting the end, isn't working to change your mind, and has a long history of disappointing you when it comes to making an effort to prove that she wants to R with you.

It's telling to me that you know that this will end badly for you as evident by how irrational and idiotic you think waiting is because you could naively believe that your situation might improve somehow with out either you or your WW actively working to improve it. That seems to be a common motivation seen around here. It seems to me that you think there is going to be negative consequences of some sort for not D'ing right now. That is the part that strikes me as unhealthy and problematic. You're willing to hold off on doing something unpleasant if it's not bothering you too badly today even though it may drop you to your knees again in the near future. Isn't that the same mindset that allows people to find themselves in serious trouble whether it's putting off a concerning medical problem, ignoring a debt, or not handling legal issues? Do you find yourself struggling to handle other unpleasant things in your life unless you are absolutely forced to or is this only something you are facing now with your WW and if so, why?

nekonamida,
My therapist brought up something similar.
He sometimes refers to the affair is a bit of a "blind spot" or aberration relative to other things and issues in my life and my marriage.
He plunged in and looked for parallels. Like, what other issues and disagreements do we have. How do we resolve them, is there a pattern here that has gotten out of hand. The answer to that is no.
I don't have a hard time dealing with other difficult things in my life. My WW and I do not have a hard time working out finances, parenting strategies, or have diverging goals in life. When we disagree, we discuss, make a decision together, recognizing each other's position if it differs but respecting the decision we make together (I don't have a pattern of capitulating generally, overall I get "my way" more than her, but not by an unhealthy margin).
I generally meet my unpleasantness head on, figure it out, and am done with it.
It is frustrating that the affair is not resolved in a similar manner.

[This message restored by Webmaster at 4:28 PM, Wednesday, May 19th]

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 6:12 PM, Wednesday, September 16th]

I told her I worry about her repeating. She said she couldn't promise it wouldn't happen again. As though she is not completely in control of herself. I told her I could easily promise that I would never cheat on her. She says I can't know the future with certainty.

My STBXWW said the same thing to me, and that was the lynchpin for me. I filed that week. Look bro, if you cannot bring yourself to pull the trigger on D, then that is your decision. It is your life. I cannot sit and judge you. I just don't see how you can move forwards with any semblance of a marriage with a woman who has basically told you she does not value you or the marriage.

Again, it is your life, your decision. I wish you luck.

I should clarify that since that post and the breaking of NC she has sworn up and down that she will not cheat on me with him or anyone else. I asked her why she couldn't tell me that without feeling backed into a corner (i.e. earlier when we were discussing things rationally instead of having a massive fight about her breaking NC). She said that she "gets it" now but I don't really think she does.
Basically the answer there is that she isn't a safe partner (can't trust a proven liars), but she is no longer actively sabotaging by failing to at least promise to be faithful.

[This message restored by Webmaster at 4:28 PM, Wednesday, May 19th]

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 6:12 PM, Wednesday, September 16th]

Not really sure where to put any significant updates to my situation since I don't really plan on getting divorced right now.

SIL has been trickle truthing BIL. I never knew the extent of her affair, and honestly I don't care to know the extent of it. What I do know is that part of the reason my WW is such a damn minimizer is that WF had a serious LTA and her sister had what is certainly more than an EA.

She was sitting on her phone reading the news in bed and says, "really, come on". I say "really come on what?" She says, it's a text from her sister about SIL/BIL and that I shouldn't get involved. I didn't ask to see the message, because honestly, I don't WANT to be involved. I did confirm it was a text from her sister on phone bill data. I told my WW, look, you should tell your sister that BIL deserves the whole truth now, she can't keep doing this shit to him, it's not fair. She says she will.

I'm beginning to think the environmental factors of SIL and WF are too much for my WW to ever grasp that not fucking a guy you went on secret dates with doesn't make you a saint.

I told her I worry about her repeating. She said she couldn't promise it wouldn't happen again. As though she is not completely in control of herself. I told her I could easily promise that I would never cheat on her. She says I can't know the future with certainty.

My WW said pretty much the same thing early on after DDAY.

Now of course she says the opposite, "oh no, I was just in the fog. Of course I'll never cheat on you again. I know it with certainty."

Too little, too late.

Your WW's girls' club supports female adultery. They still do. I'm sure they offered up the quasi-faux feminist justification she tried to float with you early on. I have to hand it to your WW - that was fresh and original compared to usual bullshit spouted by WW's.

They are more than likely enabling each other even now and offering up fresh excuses for why they shouldn't have to be accountable in a marriage.

I'm pretty confident you will find yourself at some point in the near future where you'll no longer want to accept the beatings about the head and shoulders.

[This message edited by Thumos at 1:53 PM, September 10th (Thursday)]

She was sitting on her phone reading the news in bed and says, "really, come on". I say "really come on what?" She says, it's a text from her sister about SIL/BIL and that I shouldn't get involved. I didn't ask to see the message

Reading between the lines I'm sure it was your SIL commiserating with her via text about some "unreasonable" request your BIL made regarding your SIL's proclivity for boyfriends outside the marriage. Your WW finds monogamous boundaries generally too constraining, so she found that an eye-roller.

My WW has had plenty of conversations with me about our marriage. She understands what is expected of monogamy, and she says she is happy to be with me and only me. Actions haven't been quite so good, as noted above.
Based on her historical period of better behavior before doing something stupid, selfish, and hurtful to me, I should be in the clear until October.

[This message restored by Webmaster at 4:28 PM, Wednesday, May 19th]

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 6:12 PM, Wednesday, September 16th]