SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

.. Her remorse is awful and painful to see. I love her too much to enjoy or endure her pain. I would never take WW up on her offers because I only desire her...

Little sentences like these in your posts show me your real intentions. After all the details of your WW's betrayal, 100% of the people here, and 100% of your offspring, literally shouts at you to leave this person, get well mentally (selfesteem, codependency) find someone who has at least minimum level of respect for you.

While actually, all the time in your heart and mind she is the one person that completes you. You can not live without her, no matter what she did, thought and thinks of you and treats you. This is plausible, because of the history and the dynamic of your relationship with her. I think your brain is wired in such a way for this illusion to stand. What your daughters and the people here are saying doesn't fit in this illusion. This illusion is your comfort zone and I, regretfully, think that you are not strong enough yet, to leave your comfort zone.

Then again, it's your life. Only you are responsible for the choices you make towards what you perceive as a happy and fulfilled life. I hope you choose wisely.

I agree with wolprut. I believe his views to be very accurate.

Nothing is written in stone. The only thing for certain, at this point, is that you get to decide where to go from here. Many BHs don't even get the opportunity to reconcile. Not saying that is what you want, but there are many here who would have liked to have had that chance.

You do what is best for you. Hell, maybe reconciliation AFTER divorce is possible. Maybe that is something that your children would see as not tolerating what your WW has done, but also showing the possibility of forgiveness without signs of weakness.

Who knows, I am just spitballing.

The bottom line is, this will take a long time to process. You have options. As long as those options are executed with a clear mind, then it won't be a wrong choice.

Sending you bro-hugs. Did your daughters share anything about what they've been talking about in therapy? I'm worried that even though you have the best intentions, that your attempts at a "normal" communication with your STBXWW is hurting your relationship with your daughters. If so, I think she's not worth it... But I am very critical of people who manipulate and hurt their children, so perhaps my opinion is very skewed.

Best wishes

wolprut

I have some answers and some I don't, but I hear what you are saying and appreciate your interest.

I do have a plan and I will follow through.

To say I do not love her would be a lie. The only constant through this entire ordeal has been my love for WW. For me to say I do not love her now would mean I never really loved her at all. We do not get to decide when love starts or when it ends. We just know it when we feel it. Wouldn't it be great if we could turn it on and off?

I used to tell my wife that my love for her was unconditional and that she was incapable of saying or doing anything that would change that. Many say that unconditional love is the only true kind of love while others call it impossible. Guess what? It is possible! True love does exist and it can be unconditional.

I love her too much to enjoy or endure her pain.

The same love that makes life heaven when your marriage is good, makes it hell after your marriage has fallen apart. Indeed, "I love her too much to enjoy or endure her pain," and I also love her too much to enjoy or endure her, period.

100% of the people here, and 100% of your offspring, literally shouts at you to leave this person, get well mentally (selfesteem, codependency)

I have left this person. You are addressing the fact that I allow WW to visit my home. Am I doing it because I love her, YES! But I am also doing it because I love my family and right now we are not healthy. I would love to be selfish, this is very difficult, but I do love my children and I do love my wife and I do want my family to be healed. I cannot leave it in a shambles. Despite all the anger my girls are spewing, they do need their mom, and she needs them and I need them all to be healthy.

I have read all your concerns about my kids and believe me I get it. It stuns me a little when I read your concerns because I so much want to do the right thing. I am listening and weighing everything carefully and I am rethinking a lot of my decisions. Let me assure you I have their best interest at the forefront of all I do.

All I ask is that you hear me with regards to my strategy for helping my family get better . I am open to suggestion. In fact, I have been told I would be an excellent candidate for an hypnotist.

I am out of town on a work project at present and will be able to address this in a more comprehensive manner tomorrow evening.

I can not tell you what strength I have derived from you guys and I think you should know what good you do. It also touches me deeply when I read the concern you have for not only myself, but my family (even WW). How can I say thanks!

[This message edited by DoneGone at 11:02 AM, August 16th (Sunday)]

We do not get to decide when love starts or when it ends.

False.

There are many, many people here at SI that have had to make a concerted effort to stop loving someone because that person is unhealthy for us to be around.

It's like an addiction. The addict loves the drug, but when reality hits via rock bottom, they have to face the fact that the drug isn't healthy for them and they have to force themselves to end the addiction - the LOVE - for the drug.

For codependents, very often our spouse/SO is our drug of choice.

3. True remorse like I never knew was possible. She has always been insecure and jealous but now tells me to have revenge affair(s) if that is what I need. She is very concerned with OMW and has great fear that I may be interested in her but has told me she would be waiting.

I could go on.

I don't see remorse.

1. She has always been insecure and jealous but now tells me to have revenge affair(s) if that is what I need.

3. I could go on.

Do you think her willingness to "let you" have an affair, giving you "her permission," thinking that is remorse?

I do want my family to be healed. I cannot leave it in a shambles. Despite all the anger my girls are spewing, they do need their mom, and she needs them and I need them all to be healthy.

How can you need them all to be healthy?

What would a hypnotist be able to do?

From the movie “The Matrix”

“This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember: all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more.”

The terms blue pill and red pill, popularized in science fiction culture, are derived from the 1999 film The Matrix. In the film, the main character Neo is offered the choice between a red pill and a blue pill. The blue pill would allow him to remain in the fabricated reality of the Matrix, therefore living the "ignorance of illusion", while the red pill would lead to his escape from the Matrix and into the real world, therefore living the "truth of reality" even though it is a harsher, more difficult life.

You are hopelessly in love with who you thought your wife was. That woman couldn’t have done what she did so she’s not that women.

You wrote about how EVERYONE thought your wife was great. How her daughters believed her over you.

I think your wife is an actress. Many great Hollywood actors are a little off in real life. I think that’s part of the reason they can become someone else and play a character so well. They also know how to act normal.

I think your wife played the part of an outstanding woman and got a great deal of positive reinforcement from it. When the OM showed up she could have some fun playing another part.

When that blew up she went back to playing her regular role. There is an old saying: “When all you have is a hammer all the world looks like a nail.”

Your wife hammer was her acting ability playing the part that always worked for her. That’s why she kept it up in spite of knowing that facts (i.e. the texts and emails) where on the way that would expose her. It was all she knew how to do.

[This message edited by Graywolf at 1:30 PM, August 16th (Sunday)]

DG,

IMO the only advise I cn affor you is Brutal Honesty.

Your goirls after have been manipulated are hyper sensitive to lies or half truths.

Sit them down and talk to them, explain how you feel about mom, about eachone of them, an what are you doing and why.

The thing is that you need to tell them taht you are expecting brutal honesty from them. This could be a thing because if one of your girls ask you to stop talkin o WW need to expían her that you will be talking to anyine you want, and she will talk back by saying that she as well. That she is not going to talk to WW becasue you say so, or try to arrange meetings.

You will need to accept that your WW is the one that needs to fix her relation with your girls and that you need to respect they ways as your girls are grown ups nw.

Good luck

WW wants everything ‘to be back the way it was’ but it can never be the way it was. My complaint is, “How can everything be like it was?” “How can anything be like it was?’ We were both virgins when we met. She was the only woman I had ever slept with. I was the only man she had ever been with. That is gone. How can she restore that? How could we possibly make everything like it was? She might be able to make like it never happened, but I can’t. She has stated that it was a totally meaningless and forgettable experience. Not for me!

Well put. That paragraph just speaks the volumes of how a WS is so self-centered. How out of touch with reality they truly are. How immature and shallow to just believe that you can go back to the way things were or just start where things were left off.

With a statement like that, there is no empathy or remorse. If there were, her statement would have been "I don't know how you could do it. I don't deserve it. I wouldn't want to be with someone like me either. I have messed up big time and it will never be the way it used to be and I am so sorry for that and what I have done to destroy it all." It isn't just self pity, but remorse and humility.

The thing that has really bothered me about your posts was how manipulative your wife has been. She caused this horrible mess with the A... but she took it to such another level with they lies to your children and you and other family in an effort to keep it a secret. Add to that the manipulation of framing you as the cause or bad guy to her own daughters and the lies that took.

I guess I'm too close to this because my Mom did something similar to me (different situation). What I can say 10 years after the "event" is that while we are "friends" I still don't fully trust her to have my back. Yes I call her on a regular basis, and bring my kids for visits, send cards on appropriate dates... but we couldn't talk about what happened so it got swept under the rug. I say couldn't because Mom needs a "my side" and "your side" to talk and she will employ lies to get her side (people) together. This isn't about my Dad or my Aunt or my sisters brother... I don't want to argue with them about it.

Just be careful that building a "team" with your wife might appear less like you are "helping" their mother and more that she is manipulating you just like she did them. They will forgive her in their own time but she needs to figure out how to sort out this mess alone. I'm guessing bringing you in only causes them more pain or anger...they see what a loving husband you are and can only thing of how she betrayed you and them.

DG,

Great posts. You are helping many.

Have you ever told your WW that having sex with her in attempted reconciliation could backfire? Instead post coital reunification, you might both feel an even more permanent disconnection?

Your current relationship is now perfect. She longs to have you back and you ambivilant about her fruitless pursuit. There is a sort of stability. You don't dread the eventual prospect of her falling out if love with you, do you?

She has undermined her her own character. Do you feel that has succeeded in rebuilding herself? Is she now rudderless?

DoneGone,

I am pro R but the level of what your WW and OM said about you is to the extreme.

I usually never condone a revenge affair, but your daughters have said you should Hook-up with OM's wife, and even your wife have given you a hall pass to be with another, albeit is probably to alleviate her guilt.

At this point I would not see it as a Revenge affair or to get back at WW but maybe as therapeutic.

you say your old marriage is dead, so why not divorce and maybe later try and start over after you have dated some others.

I don't know maybe I am way off hear, it was just a thought.

[This message edited by convert at 10:04 AM, August 17th (Monday)]

Don't get involved with anyone else until after the divorce. Your girls deep down look up to you and hope that at least one parent has the integrity and honesty they thought both had.

How have you been feeling today? Where are your thoughts at?

Best wishes

Mrhealed

“the only advise I can offer you is Brutal Honesty”

I appreciate that. That is why I am here. The people that I am closest to are incapable of being brutally honest with me, especially when it might hurt my feelings. One of the most difficult things to do in this world is to “speak truth in love” even to those we love. You have this amazing way of offering Honesty with compassion and I appreciate and respect that.

“Your goirls after have been manipulated are hyper sensitive to lies or half truths.”

They have been manipulated, and yes, they are sensitive to lies, and also, welcome to the real world. This is not the first time nor will it be the last time in which they are victimized by someone they love and care for. The question is, “How should they respond ?”

“Sit them down and talk to them, explain how you feel about mom, about each one of them, an what are you doing and why.”

I was honest, I told my daughters that I did not want to forgive their mom either. My desire was to harbor resentment, nurse my grudge and allow the roots of bitterness to grow and choke out every last kind and decent thought I ever had of her. Sounded good on paper but I soon discovered the toxic nature of unforgiveness. It was like a tumor with ugly tendrils growing into every aspect of my life. I had to give up all claims to revenge, anger and resentment.

“The thing is that you need to tell them taht you are expecting brutal honesty from them. This could be a thing because if one of your girls ask you to stop talkin o WW need to expían her that you will be talking to anyine you want,”

Exactly what I have done, and I’ve told them they could talk to anyone they want. I have not asked them to speak with their mom. I have not even asked them to be in the same room with her. I wish I could do what I did when they were kids.

Growing up, when they would get into a squabble, I would make them go sit on the couch. They would usually start off sitting at opposite ends, as far apart as possible. That was fine because it was always up to them how long they had to sit there. I did not specify a certain amount of time, this would always be up to them. My instructions were simple: they had to sit there until they were friends again. A truce or temporary cease fire was not good enough. They had to bury the hatchet. They were compelled to sit there until they were again enjoying each other’s presence. Instead of them being at enmity with each other, this gave them a common enemy, me. And it worked pretty well.

“That she is not going to talk to WW because you say so, or try to arrange meetings.”

I am not going to ask their mom to sit on one side of the couch and them the other until they are behaving again. I am not asking them to speak or communicate with her in any way. They can go to their rooms when she arrives or they can leave for a while but they cannot vanquish their mother from my home.

“You will need to accept that your WW is the one that needs to fix her relation with your girls and that you need to respect they ways as your girls are grown ups nw.”

You are mighty right, however, I have requested that they forgive her. They need not talk to her or see her, but for their own sake, they do need to forgive her. One time, someone told me this: Not forgiving someone and holding onto your grudge is like drinking poison in the hopes that it will make the other person die.

DG, you are a frigging amazing dad. I wish to the gods my father had been like you.

Now I have to go get tissues....

DG,

The path you chose to deal with your WW is what is keeping your girls away from WW.

I believe this was the only path that allows you to sutvive, the anger!! the coat of it is beibg in pain, the pain that your girks can see everyday and doesnt let them forgive their mother.

IMO you need to heal your selt in orther to let your girls find their way back to your WW.

As long as you are in pain and anger, your girls eont allowd their selfs to forgive thrir motjer. It is not possible to forgive a damage that continues to be inflicted, that haven stoped yet.

The opossite of love is not anger or hate, is indiference.

DG you really need to detach from WW to set your girls, and you, free from this odreal.

IMO you really need to stop seeing her. talking to her and comunicating to her in any form to allowd your self to become again thr father that your girls need and deserve.

Ask your WW to give you space to let you heal.

you need to let your WW go...

good luck

Mrhealed

The path you chose to deal with your WW is what is keeping your girls away from WW.

I respectfully, but definitely and emphatically disagree. Children were not present to see my temper tantrums. Once they were introduced to the mix I immediately sucked it up and modeled appropriate behavior. As an involved and observant parent I do recognize the difference between being harmful and helpful to my family. I have always talked much to the girls; that has not changed; there are no secrets when it comes to our respective relationships to WW.

Freeme

“Just be careful that building a "team" with your wife might appear less like you are "helping" their mother and more that she is manipulating you just like she did them. They will forgive her in their own time but she needs to figure out how to sort out this mess alone. I'm guessing bringing you in only causes them more pain or anger...they see what a loving husband you are and can only thing of how she betrayed you and them”

I know it appears as if I am teaming up with WW and perhaps I have not explained myself well.

LongWalk

“Have you ever told your WW that having sex with her in attempted reconciliation could backfire”

I am in no danger of having sex with her. There is a wall of hurt so thick between us that ‘attempted reconciliation’ could never happen.

“Your current relationship is now perfect. She longs to have you back and you ambivilant about her fruitless pursuit”

Ambivalence is a good word. I do have conflicting feelings with both positive and negative components. Overall, I wish for her to move on; get past this hurt and live a happy, healthy life. She is capable of doing that.

“Do you feel that has succeeded in rebuilding herself?”

She says she is broken. We have discussed that much and are not in agreement. She insists she cheated because she was ‘broken’, I say she is broken because she was ‘caught’ cheating. We are on opposite ends of the spectrum on that one.

[This message edited by DoneGone at 6:48 PM, August 17th (Monday)]

Valentinessucks

Thank-you. Much appreciated. Forgive me if I wrenched, I was expecting a 2x4.

they cannot vanquish their mother from my home

They can from theirs and based on their ages that is not far from now.

You are doing amazing I admire your resolve, but I think this stuff with your daughters should not be dismissed or overlooked and as more important in the long run.

Igotthis

You are doing amazing I admire your resolve, but I think this stuff with your daughters should not be dismissed or overlooked and as more important in the long run.

Thank-you.

Dismissing would be easy. I could simply ignore this entire situation and go on a cruise. But I cannot dismiss. And I will not side with the kids against their mom, just I would not allow them to side with me against her.