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6 months after d-day, I walked out of my final exam (school) - and let myself finally FEEL.

And I looked at the truth that I had been denying from the start of our relationship - that this was HER problem, from day 1. She was STILL trying to blame it on me. But she cheated on her HS boyfriends, her 1st husband, me, even her APs.

I always entertained the hope that she'd see an IC, and they'd figure out what was "broken" in her head, and "fix" her.

But at that moment, when I saw how deep this problem was, she had been on AD's for years, IC for 3 months, and was still blaming me. Fuck that shit. I'm done.

Now: I guess she's got 4 years until our youngest turns 18, to get "fixed" - and convince me that I could spend the rest of my life with her, and not be emotionally tortured. But she's made zero effort in that direction so far.

When I'm 60, I'm going to look back at my life, and thank the Lord that I only wasted 20 years of my life suffering with her; and that I didn't let her ruin the rest of it.

When I got his positive paternity test results in the mail.

A week after OW exposed their affair. He told me he hadn't "decided" whether he would stay or go.

I told him that I had decided for him and to "get out of my f*cking house."

I would never settle for being someone's second choice.

D-minute.

He had been gaslighting me for probably 2 years -- in pretty clear EA with married fellow parishioner. But they were just friends. I sucked it up.

He had been distant and emotionally unavailable for maybe 16 months. Told me he was stressed out because of work. I sucked it up and supported him more.

He had been behaving horribly to me for 10 months. Really vile, angry, hostile behavior. I sucked it up. [With hindsight, I think this corresponded to when the EA became PA -- or maybe just when, as he told me, he started seeing sex workers]

Had been telling me that he had to leave the marriage because of *my* "anger issues" for five months. There was no one else!!! Just the ILYBNILWY. Didn't love me the way a husband should love a wife. Huge marital historiy rewrite -- now it seemed he had been unhappy for years -- again because of my "anger issues" -- can we say, way to silence and shut down a spouse? I sucked it up, begged him to stay and work it out, begged him to put our daughter first and think about her happiness -- to be told that she would be happy when he was happy.

On May 16, he finally admitted that he had become intimate with the woman I had been worried about two years ago, the woman whose husband reported to me that they wre having an inappropriate email correspondence (of course, I believed my XWH and MOW in their denials -- my X was my best friend!), the woman I had questioned him about for the last 8 months to his CONTINUAL DENIAL while I sucked up the hostility and the character-denigration and the pain and anxiety and sadness and loss and fear for my daughter and just tried to hold my marriage together.

In the *moment* of disclosure, I realized how totally he had been willing to see me broken in order to avoid being accountable for any wrongdoing.

And I knew in that moment that I was DONE.

[This message edited by seeking wisdom at 7:23 PM, March 18th (Thursday)]

May 22nd, 2006. The day after my 48th birthday. Approximately noon.

That is when the police officers arrived to serve me with a court order to leave the premises of my home. I never returned.

If there was any one thing in the whole shitty mess that sealed it for me, it was that. She also filed for D that same day.

Once I knew that she was capable of that, I knew there was never again going to be any chance. Ever.

I have been officially divorced since November of 2006.

-Defiance

Great question. I'm wondering what my breaking point will be..

No light bulb moment for me. Took months for the rest of me to get in sync with my gut.

That said, deep down I knew it was over when I discovered the true scope of her cheating. From that point on, I was just trying to come to terms with it as a whole person.

2 months after dDay and confrontation and what I know now to be false R, she told me she needed to move out to have space and think about things. Of course, I believed her, but 6 weeks after she moved out, while I was having dinner out with friends, she walked in with her boyfriend.......and he was not even the OM I caught her with originally. She saw me and did not even have the decency to leave. Instead she sat down with him right in front of me and proceeded to show me and the rest of the restaurant that she and this guy were in fact dating.

That is when my heart finally caught up with what my head was screaming at me for weeks: that we were done and that i deserved way better.

[This message edited by TheBod at 7:57 PM, March 18th (Thursday)]

We were S, but working toward R (I thought).

I opened his phone and found a pic of Skank in a motel room making fuck me eyes to him.

The date on the pic was my 40th birthday (that he didn't acknowledge). That date was before we separated.

Just thinking about it made me cry right now.

I haven't really started the D, but plan to.

I knew I was done, and was stopping false hope when he said he wanted to bring the 3 OC's here to the US for a few years and I asked what about OW, and he said she'd have to come too. He couldn't do that to them or to her.

Later, he said he couldn't and didn't want to give her up. She's young and pretty and would get married tomorrow if he left her. There was too much hurt between us to fix.

I said you don't get it, I can't put up with you having the two of us, and he said you don't get it, I'm leaving you. It was up to me to decide what kind of relationship we should have in the future.

I was in a very thick fog, having false R and false hope. I was hit with a ton of bricks to make me realize that I was not important. SHE was, or more appropiately, HE was.

Now, I'm not in the fog, but the pain is more intense, but I can see forward now.

The moment was...

when he came home during Law & Order. Told me he needed to talk. I asked him to wait till L&A was over. He then just said..

"I'm in love with Lxxxx."

Lxxxx was my best friend.

I muted the tv. I knew then he was out....

Never looked back.

Moment, hmm I think I kind of slowly slid into the realization all the while trying to claw my way towards any ray of hope I thought I detected from her, but maybe, I want to think it was around the four month mark, she texted me, wished me a happy anniversary, and I think that's when I finally started to let go and move on, to see how messed up she was, that she could even think it appropriate to wish me a happy anniversary, while she was off with OM having already said she wanted a D and there was not going to be any discussion on the matter.

I see now how much better off I am without her.

The moment was when my doctor told me that I needed to let go of whatever the hell I was holding onto or I would die a slow painful death. It was over 2 years after my last Dday. I just never got over it. I faked it to make it for 2 1/2 years and my body couldn't take it.

After a month of watching his behavior get worse and worse, falling into familiar patterns from before the (False) R, he woke me up in the morning, after staying all night at the house of a friend who just happened to have a prostitute living with him, and said,

"Hey, I figured out why I've been going to porn stores and strip clubs again! I was DEPRIVING MYSELF for all these months!"

That was such a sad sad sad sad day. I knew there was absolutely no hope. What happened to the guy who 9 months previously had said, "You were right- going to porn stores made me develop a separate sexual life and I should never go into one without you ever again."

I knew that he was lost to me forever, in the grip of some compulsive urge to have sex with strangers, prostitutes, and whoever, and to act out sexually whenever possible.

It still breaks my heart. Was he ever real? Is the real him underneath this monster?

I am not sure I am at the point yet to do it. but approaching.

However on DD1 I had this one thought flying through my head (before the pain hit in) - it is impossible - we will never survive this. this is the end.

and during the last year he has been working quite hard to prove to me I was right on that day just adding insults and injuries.

When he took OW to my favorate place, a place he would never go to with me. THAT hurt and then I knew I would divorce him.

After months of jerking me around I had a realization that he was making me question my own sanity and felt if I didn't put an end to it, I would likely have some type of breakdown.

The exact moment I found the chat records that showed he had never ended it after DDay 1 two and half months earlier.