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[This message edited by SI Staff at 3:03 PM, April 6th (Monday)]

What do you do when your sweetheart, the mother of your children, the most perfect woman in the world, the woman you have treasured above all others, the pride and delight of your soul, has looked you right in the face and said you were crazy and that you don’t know what you are talking about and that maybe you need to get your facts right and head checked?

Congratulations. You have put your wife on such a pedestal that you are totally unable to deal with this situation.

I felt ashamed and repulsed that I could even imagine my wife being sexually interested in another man.

Again the pedestal. WHy are you ashamed? I understand being repulsed but if you have been on here for 6 months there is a lot worse going on in this section.

I am not really here for advice because I do not know of any advice that could help me.

I really think you need advice. More importantly you need some serious counseling. Otherwise your marriage will continue to implode and your family will be torn apart.

You also need to calm down and start listening to your wife to determine if she is being honest now and if she is truly remorseful.

I only know what is right for me and I do not expect that to change.

You are all over the place. So how can you be a good judge of what is right for you?????

Even though WW has confessed, taken full responsibility, begged for my forgiveness, sent NC letter to OM, exposed to OM's wife, began therapy, became accountable 24/7; none of this has been of any help to me.

Of course not. You are too busy waging wars in your head. You are fighting with yourself. You need counseling. You need a safe place to have honest conversations with your wife in front of a neutral third party to help settle your emotions and issues.

You have to start somewhere......

Not because I was trying to meet her emotional needs, but because I have always been totally in love with her and always felt so blessed to have someone like her for my wife. I worshipped her and could never get enough of her.

Congratulations again. All you did was spoil her, smother her and got her to the point of where a selfish person took you for granted.

How about asking her when she decided to become a selfish woman that decided her needs were greater than her responsibilities as a wife and mother????

I hate what she has done to me, done to us, done to our future. She is utterly devastated, admitted to everything (according to her) and cannot believe she was so foolish, selfish and stupid. I think that is bull crap. She says it had nothing to do with me, that it was all about her. She says she is terribly broken.

The only person that can spoil your future is you! The quicker you come to that realization the better you will feel. I understand feeling cheated and beaten. But if you accept defeat then you deserve what you get in life.

If you kill our marriage and deal the mortal wound to our love; you are not the one to fix it. You are not to be trusted.

One person can ruin a marriage. But it takes two to fix it. You get to decide if she is worthy of Reconciliation. But remember, it takes two to fix it.

I keep going off on tangents.

On some level I know my thinking is wrong and skewed.

It is. You are still hurt and feeling betrayed. It is good you realize your thinking is way off balance. Get some professional help.

I understand my emotions are raw and all over the place. I know (at least in theory) that I should have some serious discussions with her, but I do not trust myself.

Again I urge you to consider getting a good therapist to help you think straight. This person can also act as a moderator where you can have these open discussions with your wife.

You need to get your emotions under control before further damage is created.

Good Luck and get your wife off that pedestal for good.

HM

[This message edited by happyman64 at 2:07 PM, March 26th (Thursday)]

Welcome to SI DoneGone. Very sorry that you are here. From what you wrote, you have been very conflicted these past 6 months. Understandable. This...

I will only settle for the wife I had, not the wife I now have. I loved the wife I had and, God help me, I still love the wife I have. During the day I have this reflexive impulse to call her, because I always called her several times a day, just to hear her voice. Immediately I have this sick, empty, lost feeling. I can’t call her. It would make me sick to hear her nice, concerned, sympathetic, understanding voice. “She has no right to ask me how I feel, she has no right to speak to me so kind.”

...sounds like you are having a very tough time reconciling the fact that your WW is not who you thought she was. She is the love of your life, your confidante, the one you seek shelter from the pain. Yet at the same time your biggest trigger, your biggest cause of pain, the one that makes you want to go running in the other direction. I think everyone here knows this feeling well.

In order to stop this vicious cycle, and for you to stop being tortured, is for you to detach from your WW. I believe it was mentioned in this thread. You need to employ the 180 for you so that you can get into a better head space and make better decisions for yourself. You need to start with the 180 because this...

I do not want her to tell me one more time that she knows what she did. She DOES NOT know what she did. Somebody on this forum asked me the questions that “if I am sure I will not take her back, why not file for a divorce?” Because I can’t. I absolutely love her heart and soul. My entire identity is wrapped up in her. She has been my heart and soul and my highest inspiration; without her, what good am I? Yea, I know that’s a song, but that’s what it is.

...is extremely unhealthy for you. We get that you love her heart and soul. But if you don't take action to get out, you will be stuck in this limbo hell that you are currently in. You are NOT healing. You are spinning your wheels and torturing both of you. Start with baby steps. Contact an attorney and learn the laws of your state regarding S&D. As others have said this does not mean you have to file. You are simply educating yourself and learning what you can and cannot do as you move forward and start making decisions for either R or D.

Some nights I lay on the floor and just groan, wondering what I am, what have I done? I did not know that she had such power over me. I did not realize I was capable of feeling such unbearable anger, hurt, and love. The love part hurts every bit as much as the pain. I would pay any price to have this love surgically removed from my chest. It is what hurts me the most. The anger feels wonderful. The love hurts like hell.

You've been doing this for six months. You should be coming to the point where you know what you want to do. Listening to you, you seem to know that you cannot get over this but that you are too afraid to pull the trigger and move on. Why? What are you afraid of? Fear of the unknown? Fear of your future? Grab your future by the reigns and get out of this hell. You are the one that holds the power to your future and leading the way out of this hell.

But to be honest, maybe the uppermost reason I do not divorce her is because it would be too easy for her. Sorry, I think that is part of this horrible truth. If I divorce her she might start to move on and I want her to hurt. She is hurting but I want her to continue hurting. I want her to continue begging and pleading.

Again. More reinforcement in these words for the 180. I understand that your pain makes you think this way. You need to focus on YOU and what YOU want and need to start healing. What happens to your WW should not be a factor in your decision making.

This is not me. I have never been like that. I feel like I have become a Jeckyll and Hyde. I know this is wrong and I will probably pay for it someday.

If it's not you, detach and get back to you. 180. Contact lawyer asap and learn the rules.

http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/faq_bs.asp#FAQ11

And more 180 info under the target thread here:

http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=232785

Bottom line - Keep moving forward. Get yourself up off the ground and start taking action. The longer you are in limbo hell the more you will be tortured. This torture ends when you say it does.

DoneGone

Hell is hell.

The love hurts like hell.

Winston Churchill

If you're going through hell, keep going.

Pick yourself up. Take action. Get out of hell.

yop

(ShatteredKat) Thanks for the reply. I did go to the link (http://www.justiceschanfarber.com) and read the articles. Very informative. (HM) I agree with everything you said. Well written and WW is “off that pedestal for good.” I am guilty of everything you said, but I thought it was a good thing.

(yearsofpain25) I read your profile, all of it. I realize I am not alone in this world of pain; I also realize there are probably more constructive ways I could and should deal with my situation. You told me to “Get out of Hell,” would you happen to have a “Get Out Of Hell Free” card. Not that easy, I know. Right on with the Dr. Jekyll quote, I don’t even know how you came up with that. I am not going to debate you, not ever.

(stayedforthekids) Love your strength. I answered your post a couple days ago but I was ranting and raving so badly I think I deleted before I sent. What you went through is a tragedy. When I read your story, I realized again that my situation could be worse. My children are not part of this equation, but like you, I think I will always see my WW as tainted. I can’t live like that. I’ve been told that I had her on a pedestal. Never thought about it like that, but I think I did, however, I thought she belonged there. I worshipped her, and, I do not want to be with her if I cannot have her on that pedestal (sorry HM, that doesn’t mean you are not right), guess I am (was) a hopeless romantic. The world was much prettier with my rose colored glasses. You took some very positive actions, which I admire, but ultimately decided you deserved something better. When I read the part where you decided to end your marriage, I said “Yea man,” even though I do know I should not be rooting for someone’s marriage to end. I guess I was living vicariously through your actions. I cannot discount the fact that your decision was made after years of pain.

I did not know that so much of my ego was connected to WW. I think this has stunned me as much as WW’ “mistake." I had no idea I could be this weak and vacillating wimp swaying through lack of equilibrium. It is torture when your mind demands you do one thing and your heart pleads for you to do another. She came to my job yesterday to talk to me. She thinks that, over time, we can get past this. WE? I lost it. I asked her to never use the word we around me again. “We” has become a dirty word. I told her that “we” no longer referred to me and her. The word “we” now includes me, her and her POS scumbag boyfriend. Our ‘we’ is as broken and shattered as she claims to be.

I only confirmed her affair just under a month ago. I discovered she had been texting POS about two months ago but she made me feel stupid when I mentioned my concerns. As far as I know, and I do not know much, but as far as I know, she first talked to POS about 6 months ago when she “happened to run into him” at a fast food place.

Now, to tell you what an idiot I am. I happened to run into the both of them on that same day. Accidentially. I was in a part of town that I am never in. I had actually arrived there through a series or wrong turns, and saw her car parked outside a fast food place. Once I confirmed it was her car I was elated. I knew she was going to be happy to see me? Pathetic! I parked and ran in to steal a few moments with her. She was at a table with some guy. I walked right up with my smiley face as she introduced me to someone she happened to run into and hadn’t seen since high school. I sat down and talked with them and never had a clue. I was happy to meet him and glad she had reconnected with childhood friend. How pathetic I must have seemed to the both of them.

I have relived that moment a hundred times and it is embarrassing as well as humiliating. Just realizing she was probably sitting there feeling sorry for me and maybe annoyed. I thought I was stealing a few moments with her but was actually stealing a few moments from them. A real punch in the gut. I do love her with all my heart but I hate her even more.

DoneGone

Could you please clarify what your plan is and what your present situation is?

Are you two still living together?

Have you told her you are committed to ending your relationship?

Are you committed to ending your relationship?

Look – I see a lot of anger and ranting in your posts and that’s perfectly OK and understandable. But to guide you on we need a clearer picture of where you are and where you want to be.

would you happen to have a “Get Out Of Hell Free” card. Not that easy,

Yes. It starts with a step that you have to take. Bigger sees a lot of ranting and anger in your posts. I see a lot of fear.

Anger is good. That can be used to motivate yourself and has an energy that can be used to propel yourself forward. Fear has the opposite effect and is what's holding you down. Fear will cause you to hesitate and not make choices to help yourself.

Latch onto the anger and use that energy. There are a lot of us here that want to help you. But that starts with you helping yourself. We are extending a hand here to pick you up.

Bigger's questions:

Could you please clarify what your plan is and what your present situation is?

Are you two still living together?

Have you told her you are committed to ending your relationship?

Are you committed to ending your relationship?

Start here with these questions. What do you say? Ready to take your first step out of hell? You are not alone. You can do this.

yop

Hi Done

You might want to look up some threads posted last year from Swat70. His situation was in many ways similar to yours. A real stand up guy who got royally screwed over by his wife. Alot of ups and downs in his story the same ones you seem to be dealing with He also viewed his pre-affair wife the same way you did.

Anyway it might be something you can relate to and maybe glean some wisdom from.

Hope it helps, and I hope you are doing ok.

(Bigger) Got it. Yes, a lot of ranting and raving. I have typed so much and deleted so much, I don’t even know what I have posted. I will go back and read over tonight after work.

I kicked her out Feb 17. She is staying with her brother. I have told her we are over, done, finished; but I have not been able to come to terms with that. As for my anger, I love my anger. It is the only thing that sustains me.

My wife and I talk almost every day. Not my choice. She insists that she only saw OM twice and the inappropriate text only took place for three or four weeks. I love it when she uses the word ‘only’, minimalizing and lying.

I have three girls and she’s gotten them involved. Although they are very disappointed in their mother, she has convinced them that nothing physical happened and they have pressured me to keep the lines of communication open. They are not asking me to take her back, they are asking me to talk.

I have been able to speak calmly with her for several weeks but do not feel like I am getting the whole story. Once WW demonstrated that she was a very capable liar it has been hard to believe anything she says.

I am moving into my own apartment on Wednesday and she can have the house and everything in it. She has been very apologetic, very humble and accepted everything I have thrown at her. According to her she is in therapy and trying to find out what happened to her.

I probably did not answer your question but that is because I do not have the answers. It is day to day.

(ramius) how do I find Swat70’s post. Also, I have been advised to read Spaceghost’s post. I do not know how to find these. I deeply appreciate everything. I have been reading much. I think it helps.

(superchump) Your words have helped. I wish I had your handle, and strength.

DoneGone

Wow! Now I understand your anger and embarrassment.

I know this is wrong and I will probably pay for it someday.

A word of advice to you.

If you truly still love your wife that is ok. It is perfectly normal to love a cheater.

But if a BS wants to torture his wife by remaining married to her and reminding her everyday of her failure to her vows well you are kidding yourself. She will get fed up, accept the blame for making you an angry bastard for the rest of your life and ultimately divorce you.

When a BS is as angry as you are I think separation is necessary. So that you can clear your head, get your emotions under control and decide if you both love each other enough to attempt R.

You are codependent on your wife. It makes you angrier.

You caught them together without realizing they were cheating. You feel like a dumb@ss. It makes you even angrier.

Your wife ends the affair, becomes remorseful and asks how she can help you. You realize she was not the perfect person, women, wife & mother of your children you married.

You love her, hate her, curse her and cannot fathom how the women who broke your heart now wants to give you CPR to revive that same heart.

And sadly your heart is no longer the same one that gets put back in.

Welcome to your new reality. Get a good shrink. You need one as badly as your wife does.

And I will remind you, the loss of your wife leaving you may be greater than forgiving her someday and Reconciling with her.

That choice is all yours.

HM

[This message edited by happyman64 at 10:32 AM, March 27th (Friday)]

To find SpaceGhosts. Go to the JFO forum, scroll to the bottom and go to page 2. Towards the bottom you will find it under "Thought we had a good Marriage."

Swat70 is in the archives. You can google "survivinginfidelity.com Swat70"

His main threads are, in chronological order:

The revenge affair that wasn't

OM wins...I am done

I am going to be Ok

ah. So you have been moving forward. Have you consulted with an attorney re your separation? Your kids are old enough where child custody comes into play, but as far as assets and what you will be legally liable for you should consult with an attorney.

I checked and it looks like Swat70's first 2 threads have been archived so without direct links (which I do not have), you will not be able to access them.

However, here is SpaceGhosts if you would like to read his thread which is active here in JFO now:

http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=552588

Done,polygraph now! if she does not want to, you will know your answer.

In your first post, and then later...

my thinking is that I would have to become another person to get over it but I like who I am...

My entire identity is wrapped up in her.

This is the crux of it. For you to have a life going forward that isn't consumed by anger, whether R or D, you will have to change. More importantly, you will have to grow. Acknowledge that now. Change is on the horizon. Sorry, my friend. You were in an emotional car wreck.

Tying your self-worth to your choice of wife, and then her actions, was always fraught with peril. In so doing, you are farming out responsibility for who you are and how you view your own worth to a combination of lady luck in stumbling on to your wife from the mating pool that existed at the time, and then the actions of your WS, who is a card carrying member of The Crooked Timber of Humanity. Same as the rest of us.

Her affair revealed a lot about her. Did she cheat because she was emotionally broken or needy? Perhaps.

Your pain reveals a lot about you. A lot that you didn't realize, I'd guess. Are you suffering this terrible pain for the same base, deep-down, underlying reason that governed your wife's behavior? Consider that.

Consider this thought - your wife is not the source of your pain. That pain is something you create in response to her actions. Subtle point.

Tough place to be in, my friend. I agree with what everyone has posted, I am just trying offer some new thoughts. You are where you are. Believe it or not there is opportunity here. You own the path to relieve your own pain, ultimately. Not your wife, you. If and when you accept that and figure out how to move forward, you will be a much stronger person than you are now.

Strength, my friend. It took me time, but I started making progress when I shifted from rolling in my pain to putting my awareness on the pain and feelings themself. Where did they come from? Why? Thinking about that deweaponized them and gave me a path forward.

[This message edited by HouseOfPlane at 11:35 AM, March 27th (Friday)]

Happyman64

We are separated. Co-dependent? That is a new thought. I made lots of sacrifices for WW’s happiness, but I got much in return. I would have termed the state of our relationship to be one of interdependency. We were mutually reliant upon each other. I do not believe I was dependent on WW for my self-worth and identity, however, my sense of purpose did wrap around making extreme sacrifices to satisfy her needs. She never asked, but she didn’t have to.

It did not matter what her love language was, I had them all covered. Gifts, quality time, words of affirmation, acts of service and physical touch. No, I did not suffocate her or come across as needy. In fact, the other way around. She was verbally abused by her father while growing up and made to feel like she could never please him or never do anything good enough. She brought that into our marriage and was always seeking to please me without any concerns for herself. I could give you a hundred examples. The word that comes to mind is selfless.

I would not allow her to take my boots off when I came in from work. I would not allow her to give up her favorite seat when I entered into the room. I would not allow her to sacrifice something that was important and worthwhile to her because it happened to be on my day off, or it was going to cost a little money. Perhaps I combated her lack of confidence in herself by putting her up on a throne and constantly affirming her abilities and self-worth.

I am not arguing with the fact that I might be co-dependent. It would be sad for me if that is the case. I don’t know why. I guess, I know so many people who are co-dependent and I would never have considered my relationship with my wife as such. But, you are probably right, which makes my situation even worse.

HouseofPlane

There is wisdom in what you are saying. I can sense it but not see it.

[This message edited by DoneGone at 2:10 PM, March 27th (Friday)]

What do you do when your sweetheart, the mother of your children, the most perfect woman in the world, the woman you have treasured above all others, the pride and delight of your soul, has looked you right in the face and said you were crazy and that you don’t know what you are talking about and that maybe you need to get your facts right and head checked? 

Done, for most of us BS the lying and being told "your crazy" is the worst. Being gas lighted is being mentally and emotionally abused. This is the ultimate act of stomping on your blind trust with manure covered boots.

If from the beginning when you first raised suspicions and she truthfully told you what she was really up to, how she was really feeling at the time with POS, how would you have reacted? Would you still have been as devastated as you did on Dday?

I also think what you need most is to detach from your WW. You need to have the space and time to process and heal. Your WW needs to respect that. Definitely look into topics on codependency. Your first step toward feeling managing the pain is to detach. The goal is to find yourself, who you were before you met your WW. Gain strength in regaining your individuality away from who you were in the M. There you will rebuild from a new foundation of you.

Talk to a good lawyer before you move out of your house. It could hurt you in a divorce. Also, read http://survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=547220 and google "No more mr. nice guy pdf", it's a great book available online for free.

I also agree with the advice of others regarding the polygraph - if you'll ever decide to try to reconcile, have her pass a polygraph.

How old are your daughters (approximately)?

Best wishes

If your wife did have sex with the OM she will never admit it; the whole fate of her marriage lies on you not knowing whether she committed adultery or not. She thinks if she can convince you and her family that it was relatively 'harmless', you will eventually come to terms with the situation and this unfortunate affair will blow over.

I do think that you need to do more investigation to reveal the truth, or it will eat you alive. Her word is simply not good enough.

[This message edited by OK now at 7:28 AM, March 28th (Saturday)]

DoneGone, I especially resonate with your description of accidentally interrupting your WW and OM's lunch. Been there, done that.

Others have recommended the right books to read on dealing with infidelity directly. Here are some other readings more indirectly related to infidelity, but directly related to surviving and recovering, to help you ground yourself.

The Twelve Rules of Survival, from the book Deep Survival. You are in a survival situation, whether you know it or not. I listed the rules in this thread.

http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=548911

This follow-on book Surviving Survival, is equally good. You've already been through the process of stopping the immediate bleeding in your marriage. Now you need to survive that. Likely the harder part. You can read the first 10 pages or so on-line.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0393346633/

The next book is completely different, and you probably aren't ready to hear its message right now, caught as you are in an emotional firefight. But I offer it anyway, because it helped me in a deep sense. The questions it helps to ask and answer are also likely reachable through counseling, which you NEED to seek out. You are in a terrible place, and there is absolutely no reason to try to get yourself out alone. In fact, one of the prime survival mechanisms you will eventually learn is that helping others helps you. Which is why I am posting in your thread.

http://www.amazon.com/Pursuing-Consciousness-Book-Enlightenment-Transformation/dp/1583948724