SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I was in a very similar situation to yours 2 years ago, married 3 years together 7, no kids, WXH cheating with a mcOW, she moved away. I remember how scary it was, leaving the marital home, limbo, trying to R, discussing D, moving back never felt right, 3 months after d-day I found out he had never gone NC, it was strangely relieving, knowing it was ok for me to file for D and that I wasn't making a mistake.

Starting all over again is scary, but you are doing so no matter what you decide. Give yourself time to work through things, trust your gut. Work on your issues and have faith in yourself. No matter what the future holds, life does get better. I'm happy in my NB, others find happiness in R. Whatever you decide, make sure you pick a path where you can treat yourself with love and respect

(((rw)))

Just to add, yeah, if he was remorseful for the cheating, then you could start working on the marital problems. But he is already talking about divorce, so fixing the marital problems does no good at this point until he is promising not to step outside the marriage again when things get tough..

He really has you caught up in a mind fuck right now, getting to do whatever he pleases and making it all your fault.. He has you so twisted around that you can't even complain about what HE did wrong in the marriage?? He has you thinking that you aren't allowed to complain about anything?? No one should have that much pressure put on them.. He shouldn't have this kind of power over you to control how you feel and behave..

Obviously I don't recommend bringing up past issues into current arguments, but it seems like those issues were never resolved.. Sounds to me like he wasn't supportive enough of you after the move.

But none of this matters until he says he wants to fight for this marriage, and he isn't there right now. If you want a healthy marriage in the future where he respects you and your feelings, start demanding that respect now. No one should have to walk on eggshells all the time, hoping they don't do the wrong thing for fear of abandonment..

More and more hugs..

I think standing up for myself is moving back to our home, without his permission. If he has a problem- he can leave!

I just don't want to do anything stupid. I have to travel this week out of another city (where my parents live, 3 hours away) and I have to travel next week as well. It was my plan to go back with all my stuff on 7/20 after travel. I have to travel again two weeks later but I think the week there will be a good test to see if we can even live together. His parents and sister are in town visiting this week, and then next week he will be all alone... I hope that shows him what D will be like.

Do you think that's okay? Shit- I can't believe I've let myself sink this low. I should have never left.

Well, I sure as hell don't think you need his permission for anything.

I am not sure what you mean by sinking so low. You are doing the best you can in a real crappy situation.

I don't mean to be an alarmist, but I would be wary about spending so much time away and then returning to give it a go again.

IDK the guy, but at some point I think you need to consider the danger of STD's.

Are you renting or do you own the home?

If renting I don't understand why you want to move back in.

I echo the others. I own the marriage problems 50% PRIOR to his betrayals. Who the hell knows at what point he actually started to cheat. I suspect it was within the first 5 years because that is when things started to change.

When things changed instead of complaining about them I worked on being MORE understanding, MORE tolerant, MORE forgiving. LESS me.

In False R I told him I thought that his crazy working hours attributed to the distance that grew between us. I did complain about this - I shouted, cried, begged, went silent... I tried everything to get him to plug back into our life. Instead he chose to work 24/7 then go out drinking on the only 5 afternoons he left work early during my eldest childs first 6m of life.

He told me he thought I was "cool with it" because I didn't put my foot down.

I told him he seemed to live by the adage that "forgiveness is easier to get than permission". He just did whatever the fuck he wanted - it didn't matter what it was doing to me, our M or our family.

Far better wives than me have still been cheated on. There is NOTHING you can do to STOP him cheating so it follows there is NOTHING you can do to MAKE him cheat.

Am I right that he has cheated in the first 2 years of your M?

In all honesty given there are no kids involved I'd cut and run - like yesterday. You could easily dodge a bullet here.

Of course *I* didn't cut and run before kids even though he cheated on me 6 weeks into our relationship, even though he was on that slippery slope for most of our relationship. I now see that he lives on that slippery slope. He was on it well before I came into the picture. I saw it but refused to 'see' it, IYKWIM. I was so focussed on being flexible and understanding that he saw it as permission to keep doing what he was doing.

As Dr Phil says: you teach people how to treat you. I taught him that this shit was OK.

I thought his love for me would stop him betraying me. I thought my love for him would stop him getting on that slippery slope.

The thing is he lives on that slippery slope.

IMO the only mistake you are making is that you are seeing things as you want them to be, not as they really are.

I made that mistake too - for almost a decade. I waited until after we had children before finally reaching my breaking point.

Please, step back and have a good look at this man, a good look at this M. Is there anything he could have done to make you cheat?

I don't see any remorse there so I don't see that you have an M to fight for.

ETA I posted this final S email exchange recently. Please look at how pretty his words were - then read in my words for how ugly his actions were.

http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=500928&HL=35229

[This message edited by StrongButBroken at 5:46 PM, July 8th (Monday)]