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Hey IU - Sorry you are hurting.

Listen this shit is hard, no matter what path you choose to travel. It can even more difficult when the choice is taken away from you.

I would strongly suggest that you find someplace else to stay for the time being. In house separation which is what you are essentially doing is tormenting for the BS. Nothing really changes for the WS, but they also get to continue with whatever behaviors they choose, because they have decided R isn't worth the time or energy.

You have heard more than once here that you have to be willing to lose the M to save it, and now you have to be willing to lose the M to save yourself. Time to focus 110% of your energy on you. Getting strong, learning how to be happy without her in your life. While this hurts and you need to grieve, you also need to accept that there is NOTHING you could have done to change her mind, and nothing you can do to prove your willingness to save your M now. The sooner you accept that all that falls directly on her shoulders the sooner you can start to get strong, and learn how to be happy just being IU.

If you are really struggling with sadness, depression, and pain, then get to your Dr, and talk about possible AD's, to help reset your chemical clock, you have basically been in fight/flight mode for months. It jacks with your system. Taking meds at this point is no different than taking medication for your BP. You need it to be healthy.

Start doing one nice thing for you every single day. Going for a run, playing xbox for 30 minutes, taking a long soak in the tub, putting your favorite tunes on and having a jam session. Self care is very important as you break away, and become an independent person again. Is there a hobby or past time that you have been interested in doing, start looking into it.

We got your back, but you have to make the steps to help yourself, on your own.

(((and strength)))

IUH

Tushnurse gave you the best advice. If it is proving too difficult to be around her, you might want to consider staying with friends if possible.

Up until now, i thought this wold be a bad idea because it would have given her more space to continue the A, but since she since she called him from the cell that you got records for every night, I do not think the A is still going on at least for now. i do not think she has a burner phone and if what she is saying is the truth, she really has no reason to hide it if she is talking to him again.

You probably do not need to be around her now, because as the D day gets closer, she may just decide to see some other M and that would hurt you more knowing that. If it would be easier for her to find somewhere to stay, you might also consider that.

i wold also see if your insurance at work will cover any IC for you to help you get through this.

It is good you did not waste any money on joint MC because if what you know is right, she really did not want to be married, which she basically said in early May.That IS consistant with her absolute refusal to give you any of the necessary steps to have a R.

The true catalyst was probably living the single life in Mexico for a few days so DO NOT blame yourself for agreeing to the trip. this would have surfaced eventually, possibly in an even more painful way like an full blown PA that went on for months or years before you caught on.

I think a lot of us in hindsight,if we had it to do over again knowing the result, would have told you initially to just hire a PI, catch her red handed at a hotel, and then you woild have been spared all the heartache of the last two months. But of course, it does no good to be a Monday morning quarterback.

remember what Tushnurse said. It will get better if you do the work.

IUH,

I agree with tushnurse 110%. I can tell you that from MY experience, moving out of our (former) marital home was THE BEST THING I did to begin my healing. Even though my WS wasn't living there, just being in that environment was torture. Memories, familiarity to the M, etc. was just too hard. Moving into another home was so incredibly cathartic; it put me on the road to healing my shattered heart. #1 best thing I did for ME.

Over the years, there have been many here that did "in-house separation" and ALL said it was extremely difficult. As long as you are still living together, your lives are intertwined. In today's housing market, who knows how long it will take your house to sell. Staying there will only delay your healing, IMO.

Hugs to you. I know this is incredibly hard.

[This message edited by Too_Trusting at 7:55 AM, July 7th (Monday)]

She is telling me she doesn't think she ever really "loved" me. She says she has always loved me, but doesn't think "love love".

There isn't much a person can say to a statement like that, since there is no definition of love love versus love.

Sounds like she wishes she was 16 all over again.

Hard to believe a kiss in Mexico and a few phone calls triggered all of this. But it does appear to be so.

If you want to stay married, MC would be the best bet now. Otherwise you could grow old quickly trying to figure out love love versus just love.

If this whole thing is just about her wanting to know if she wants to be single, than I don't know. How can trying to be single again, as in separation change love into love love.

IUHoosier

Your wife needed 9 years with you to figure that out.

She has issues my friend that no MC or IC is going to fix before your 78 days are up.

Focus on you. Do the 180 to prepare yourself for the divorce and start treating her like someone you used to know.

These feelings take time to settle down.

Tell her to sleep in the guest room or on the couch.

HM

I have been following your story, IU. I am sorry you are in the same club we didn't know we were joining. Like others I have a very difficult time thinking that all of this is a result of one weekend and one kiss. I suspect "love love" is the same as "in love" as in "I love you but I am not in love with you". Haven't we all heard that.

You have had some very good, solid, suggestions from people who have gained their knowledge in very painful ways. They are trying to spare you some of the anguish they have endured. I so wish that I had found out about SI back in 2002. Things might be so different for me now if I had. I did everything wrong and paid the price. I want a "do over" but I will not get one.

From the time I became very aware that something was terribly wrong and I immediately confronted until the adultery was ended 4 years later I did everything wrong. My WW denied and lied through many confrontations. I did not catch her. I spent so much time on the internet looking at how to catch a cheating spouse but failed. The lies continued for another 7 years until confession September 1, 2013. It was like it was still happening and totally devastating even though I was 80% sure she committed adultery.

Biggest mistake - not hiring a PI right up front. I explored GPS, tracking devices, monitored the phone (only used their work phones to communicate), followed her, semen detecting kits, etc., etc. A person we bought bulls had a son working for a local PI firm. There were 2 local firms and I didn't know which one he worked for so didn't want to use a local one. The next closest firms were 90 miles away and the travel cost was horrendous - however, it would have been worth it in hindsight.

What Badhurt said: (sorry, I don't know how to put this in a box like others do)

"I think a lot of us in hindsight,if we had it to do over again knowing the result, would have told you initially to just hire a PI, catch her red handed at a hotel, and then you woild have been spared all the heartache of the last two months."

This is so true. In hindsight I wish I would have done this immediately. I would probably be healed by now instead of only beginning to heal and very uncertain about the future. This is good advise, I think, for anyone desperately searching for guidance and suspect but can't get proof.

It may be time to physically separate your living arrangements. You are hurting, and I don't think she really is. She may be sad, but not anguished.

Curiously, the IC recommendation to,live apart now makes,some sense if she was telling him/her that she didn't think she really loved you any more. Absent the A, that would have made sense. Now I'm advising the same thing, but for your own mental health.

Divorces happen all the time without affairs. OM may have been a catalyst, but more likely simply an accelerant to her separation process. He is not the issue.

You may wish to have a final heart to heart before you separate. Tell her you are devastated by the decline and failure of your marriage., but absent some rational,reason for hope for the marriage, you cannot continue to live like this,not knowing how she feels. Tell her you wished she had brought up her concerns earlier before she decided the M was irretrievably broken. How long have her feelings for,you been in decline? You may get an apology or explanation from her, I am not optimistic that she wil change her mind, however, as once a wife checks out, she's pretty much gone.

Thus the suggestion for planning separation.

Your need is to focus on your future, not on the reasons for marital breakdown.

Oh, and as I've said before, you have to suck it up and discuss property division if that hasn't been done already. Last minute decisions get expensive and cause regret later on.

Hi IUH,

I am so sorry this is happening to you.

It may be time to physically separate your living arrangements. You are hurting, and I don't think she really is. She may be sad, but not anguished.

I just want to say that I don't know how you are living under the same roof. That is something that I could never do.

Re-read Tushnurse's post. It is spot on.

Sending you strength

This sounds like a revision she has created to make sense of her stupidity in Mexico. She's embarrassed that she felt so strongly for someone who offered absolutely nothing.

It's a shame that she can't find a way to save face and turn this around.

On the other hand, if she can't and is willing to put you through all this pain, then, long-run, you're better off.

Red Sox nation may be right, but I believe she jumped at the trip to Mexico because the husbands were not going, and that her and the girlfriend in open marriage had every intention of hooking up with guys.

She claims she was trapped or felt like it. i guess we will never know the truth of how all of this REALLY happened, but she has had a million chances to save face and start to try to R, especially if the affair is really over, which I do not believe.

if the Canadian wants to come down and bang her, i would bet dollars to donuts she will go for it. That is why he does need to get away from her. He does not need to see that first hand, and we are getting close to the point where he has no right to even ask. There is a lot more we do not know.

But it does not matter. She i believe has made up her mind, with the support of her girl network and family, to let this happen this way. if all of her peer group was telling her she was an idiot, she would by now making some efforts to get to MC with IUH.

before the week end IUH was posting she said she did not want D. It appears now she does. What i believe she WOULD go for is if he agreed to let her stay married to him, and explore her other options (translation go out with other guys) until she figured it out.

[This message edited by Badhurt at 1:39 PM, July 7th (Monday)]

Forget the Canadian. He is irrelevant if she was checking out of the M for a long time. The biggest "lie" of the whole marriage was W's silence about her feelings, at least from what I've read here to date. If she was truly dissatisfied, she could have spoken up in plain English to let IUH know there were problems. If she did so before all this shit hit the fan, IUH hasn't mentioned it.

In my last post, I rambled on about a final heart to heart. I meant that only if IUH wants some understanding or apology from her. She may be too far gone to care.

Would counseling have helped? Maybe. We'll never know. If it provided her a forum to speak the truth, maybe. If just to vent, no.

And her refusal to drop the A made counseling a moot point, anyway. Would she decline counseling now? Don't know, but I think this M is pretty far gone. The D could be postponed, but does anybody want to prolong the current agony? I doubt it.

RedSox Nation said:

It's a shame that she can't find a way to save face and turn this around.

I agree.

IUH

Just checking to see how you are.

Any thing changed from conversations or VAR?

Nothing additional has come from the VAR, but my wife has seemed to change her thoughts and wants yet again.

I have basically cut almost all communication with her and say very little to her when I see her at home. The last couple nights she has been coming into my room and begging me to stop the D process and that she doesn't know how this all happened, but she wants it all back. I've been telling her that I think it's too late and don't think it could ever get back to the way it use to be. Too many lies. But she keeps saying this stuff and how she wants to move somewhere new and start new from scratch.

I'm not even thinking about falling for this, because I feel like it's just another way for her to trick me.

Other than being sad and tearful, and suggesting some fantasy of moving away to start again, has she shown you any remorse for the mess she's caused in YOUR life? She's had time to figure that out now. If she's continued her IC, she should have been clued in on that by now.

She doesn't seem to understand that what she did didn't just make you mad enough to file for D, but also was horribly hurtful and causes continued pain. You may tell her that, but does she get it? What you've written shows a person concerned for herself and how she feels.

Unless and until she gets that her decision making caused YOU to realize that you need to get on with your life rather than wait for her to make up her mind, you are wise to look to your own interests rather than hers.

This suggested move is a new variation to me on what I'd warned you about. Some call it magical thinking, I guess.

I was never opposed to MC, but she isn't even asking for that now. Can she face the truth of what she did? Or is she just dreading having to live by herself ?

I wish only the best for you.

[This message edited by Schadenfreude at 12:33 PM, July 9th (Wednesday)]

IUH

If she is telling you that, just tell her that it would be so much easier for you to consider what she is asking if you could believe that she has told you the entire truth. The why at this point is not as important as the fact that you cannot heal as long as you do not feel you know the whole truth.

I wold also ask her how she expects you to want to re-consider when she has told you she does not feel she really loved you. Why would she want to R.

I would engage her in conversation but until you are in your heart sure she has come clean, it will forever eat at you.

Give her the opportunity to do SOMETHING to prove what she is saying has ANY meaning.

not saying to believe it unless you get some answers.

You heard what you heard on VAR and of course she does not know that. At some point, not sure if now is the time, you may want to confront her with what you have heard.

I'd keep talking as long as it is not too painful for you. In 70 days there will be no more talking.

She defintely has show way more remorse than ever before, but again, I'm not sure if it's just an act.

She was crying and telling me how she doesn't know how she could do something so horrible to me and that she knows I would never even think about something like that (so that makes her feel even worse). She is still sticking with what she has been saying happened, and I keep telling her that I really don't believe that.

I thought you did believe her that nothing else happened? There is one way to deal with that and that is to ask her to take a polygraph.

But she keeps saying this stuff and how she wants to move somewhere new and start new from scratch.

I don't understand how moving away and starting from scratch will fix anything considering the OM doesn't even live in the same city or town as you do.

Unless it is just starting life over with you without any memories of what happened.

I would engage her in conversation but until you are in your heart sure she has come clean, it will forever eat at you.

I just want to pull this out. Extremely important and easier than it seems.

When you have the whole truth, everything starts to make sense. If you don't feel like she's being honest, you can bet the farm she isn't.

At least those words refer to you, not her. And are the words of showing remorse. I suspect your have become immune to tears. But is she truly acting remorseful? Does she ask what she can do for you? Does she repeat her apologies, not just sayingmim sorry but telling you she knows you have been hurt by her far deeper than she can understand? Does she try to,tell you that her Mexico behavior and thereafter was the worst thing she'd done to you and that she did it out of selfish thinking? Does she tell you what she is doing to repair her thought processes? Has she admitted blabbing to gf's about how she wasn't sure what she wanted?

Earlier, you wrote,that she wanted you to forgive and stay together. Wisely, you didn't agree to,rugsweep the whole thing. That didn't work, so now she is remorseful? Have you confronted her as Badhurt suggested? If you do, give her the chance to speak truthfully first. If she denies or doesn't remember,you know is apparent change of heart is false,and based on selfish concerns. It didn't happen all that long ago so,that shed forget what she told others.

I've written why it is possible that she just made out with the Canadian guy. She used him to convince herself,that she didn't want to be married to you for whatever reason. She really has no great inventive to keep that secret if ther is one now knowing that you don't believe her. You are gone, checked out. Why lie?

Finally, is this an act? What is she doing different than before? Words are cheap. Is she even saying the right things? Is she truly humbled is the best way I can put it.