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personally, I think the people on TAM have let up on her quite a bit. Also, she held her ground pretty well and fought back.

If you were even remotely interested in getting back together with her, then focus on that and stop playing the field. If you aren't, then keep playing the field and tell her it is over between you two forever. But this limbo stuff only hurts the both of you.

Donegone, after what she put you through, if there is any chasing to be done, it needs to be done by her.

And, no, there are not two sides to this story. Don't make excuses for her. She needs to own her shortcomings and try to fix them. You making excuses for her won't help her grow.

I can understand wanting to help her. I can understand trying to do this for the kids but never let her rewrite your history with her. Never let her blame you for her choice to cheat.

I have tried to go back and help my xW and honestly its never worked out for anyone. She is still so stuck on herself and how everything is always everyone else's fault.

Your xW needs to focus on working on herself. She can do that without dragging you through the mud.

C

PlanC

Donegone, after what she put you through, if there is any chasing to be done, it needs to be done by her.

And, no, there are not two sides to this story. Don't make excuses for her. She needs to own her shortcomings and try to fix them. You making excuses for her won't help her grow.

I agree but also have no problem with her coming here. In fact I have encouraged it from the beginning. I will stay or leave, whatever she chooses.

I agree but also have no problem with her coming here. In fact I have encouraged it from the beginning. I will stay or leave, whatever she chooses.

I agree that the Wayward Forum here would be more beneficial for her. And there is no reason for you to leave the forum unless you want to, because I have seen several threads where the BS was in JFO while the WS was posting in the Wayward Section.

As for dating her, I think you will find that a waste of time. Time has passed, you are healing and moving on. Don't make the mistake of looking at her and thinking she is the woman of years past. She is not. She is someone very different, and you would be opening a universe of bad memories, triggers, and emotions that you have worked so hard to get away from.

If you have found a nice woman to date, stick with her. Eventually you will find one that will make you happy, without all the triggers and baggage of your XW.

[This message edited by longforgotten at 1:52 PM, March 20th (Sunday)]

If you were even remotely interested in getting back together with her, then focus on that and stop playing the field. If you aren't, then keep playing the field and tell her it is over between you two forever. But this limbo stuff only hurts the both of you.

Agreed. So is Wishes going to be the AP in this situation? Is your current girlfriend aware of her?

If you do *date* Wishes, please, PLEASE don't let the kids know.

Sending you strength DG, glad you came back.

5454real

Agreed. So is Wishes going to be the AP in this situation? Is your current girlfriend aware of her?

If you do *date* Wishes, please, PLEASE don't let the kids know.

Sending you strength DG, glad you came back.

The lady I am now dating I told from the beginning there was the possibility I would be getting back together with my ex-wife. That has always been a possibility for me. I was a little surprised when Wishes didn't jump at the chance.

There is much to work through. I do not know if I want to be with Wishes, but I did want to date, start slowly and see where we are.

The kids know and encourage it. That relationship was patched over the Holidays.

I think mostly, she read this thread for the first time on Friday and Saturday and she was pretty angry with me. I told my side and invited her to come here and tell her side.

She was angry??? She was...

You talk about this anger, bitterness and hatred you had. Unless you committed an illegal act I absolutely cannot validate any blame placed on you. Your wife and mother of your three daughters betrayed, gaslighted you and made you jump through hoops to get facts she should have given from the start.

You said yourself you went dark on this thread when you got advice you didn't want to take. It's good that you can acknowledge it but that's half the journey. The rest of the way would be to accept that the reason you avoided it was because on some level you knew that advice resonated with you. Otherwise it wouldn't trigger such a response.

Taken by itself your xww's requirement that you both see IC before trying to date is reasonable. However, her anger at your posts, her "side" not being represented, the history of gaslighting you about your (which ironically could only serve to fuel more anger) makes me believe that true Remorse still eludes your xww.

Everything points to massive regret. However, a remorseful WS would have read your thread and seen the soul shattering pain. All she saw was that her side wasn't told. This thread isn't about her side. It was for you and only for you. This is JFO. WS aren't even allowed to post here and for good reason. This is for those who literally just found out. The pain, confusion and horror of it all is fresh. This is also where the advice is needed the most to help ground newbies. To learn from the mistakes (and sometimes good calls) made by others when they were newbies themselves.

Sorry but it seems you still have a twinge of codependency within you when it comes to your xww. You've shared your thread here. You invited her to join and even offered to leave SI yourself.

Maybe it's time you let her find her own healing.

It's understandable. You have a long history and she's the mother of your daughters so wanting her to heal is good. Please do this by letting her find her own full accountability for her actions, her well-being.

p.s. Back to the requirement you both do IC, this has my spider-sense going off. It strikes me as setting things on her terms when your terms are the ones that should matter more, especially since the last time you were in any conseling it became all about your anger. Your IC is just that. Yours. It's something you should do or not do as you're ready because if you not receptive to it then it won't do anything. Remember the MC that she complained you weren't open to before? Sounds like she's back to that.

For your own sake you need to detach from your xww and take a date from dating.

I think mostly, she read this thread for the first time on Friday and Saturday and she was pretty angry with me. I told my side and invited her to come here and tell her side.

She was angry??? She was...

You talk about this anger, bitterness and hatred you had. Unless you committed an illegal act I absolutely cannot validate any blame placed on you. Your wife and mother of your three daughters betrayed, gaslighted you and made you jump through hoops to get facts she should have given from the start.

You said yourself you went dark on this thread when you got advice you didn't want to take. It's good that you can acknowledge it but that's half the journey. The rest of the way would be to accept that the reason you avoided it was because on some level you knew that advice resonated with you. Otherwise it wouldn't trigger such a response.

Taken by itself your xww's requirement that you both see IC before trying to date is reasonable. However, her anger at your posts, her "side" not being represented, the history of gaslighting you about your anger (which ironically could only serve to fuel more anger) makes me believe that true Remorse still eludes your xww.

Everything points to massive regret. However, a remorseful WS would have read your thread and seen the soul shattering pain. All she saw was that her side wasn't told. This thread isn't about her side. It was for you and only for you. This is JFO. WS aren't even allowed to post here and for good reason. This is for those who literally just found out. The pain, confusion and horror of it all is fresh. This is also where the advice is needed the most to help ground newbies. To learn from the mistakes (and sometimes good calls) made by others when they were newbies themselves.

Sorry but it seems you still have a twinge of codependency within you when it comes to your xww. You've shared your thread here. You invited her to join and even offered to leave SI yourself.

Maybe it's time you let her find her own healing.

It's understandable. You have a long history and she's the mother of your daughters so wanting her to heal is good. Please do this by letting her find her own full accountability for her actions, her well-being.

p.s. Back to the requirement you both do IC, this has my spider-sense going off. It strikes me as setting things on her terms when your terms are the ones that should matter more, especially since the last time you were in any conseling it became all about your anger. Your IC is just that. Yours. It's something you should do or not do as you're ready because if you not receptive to it then it won't do anything. Remember the MC that she complained you weren't open to before? Sounds like she's back to that.

For your own sake you need to detach from your xww and take a break from dating.

[This message edited by Brandon808 at 2:34 PM, March 20th (Sunday)]

Western

personally, I think the people on TAM have let up on her quite a bit. Also, she held her ground pretty well and fought back.

If you were even remotely interested in getting back together with her, then focus on that and stop playing the field. If you aren't, then keep playing the field and tell her it is over between you two forever. But this limbo stuff only hurts the both of you.

I agree about the limbo stuff, however, it has always been limbo stuff. I told Wishes all along that I hoped we could get back together one day. I did not ask her to wait on me, just wanted her to know I had to get some things out of my system.

I have dated a total of six women in the last year and what I learned is that there is nobody like Wishes. What can I say?

Brandon808

She was angry??? She was...

She was angry that I started in the middle and that our daughters only read the part demonizing her.

I did start in the middle but I was angry with the infidelity and did not even realize the impact of previous problems on our marriage. She called, wanting permission to tell our daughters the whole story and that it was only fair.

Previously, we had agree not to tell them the former probs because it concerned family and thought it best not to, at least at the time. I do get her point and guess I do not disagree. Together we will tell the children next weekend.

DG my point still stands. She is still making your thread about your pain about her. It still smacks of blameshifting.

Your daughters are angry with her because of how she used them against you and then they read the emails between her and OM and found out the magnitude of her lies. You "demonized" her? She has a problem with you leaving out prior problems? You know what we call that on SI when the WS keeps wanting to bring up the BS prior behavior? Minimizing and blameshifting.

My point is that when she read your "demonizing" of her the reaction was "why did you leave out this and that?" when it should have been "My God what did I do to my BH to make him feel this way about me? All this anger must come from a lot of pain."

Previously, we had agree not to tell them the former probs because it concerned family and thought it best not to, at least at the time. I do get her point and guess I do not disagree. Together we will tell the children next weekend.

Please don't do that. It seems clearly designed to make you take some of the blame, to dilute her actions by saying "See your dad did this, this and that and that's why our M was not so great and that's why what I did wasn't so terrible." If that isn't the intent then what is?

Does your xww consider you a good husband that she is sorry for hurting or are you the bad guy who deserved to be cheated on?

Were these problems you allude to resolved?

I simply do not understand how you and your xww having that conversation can possibly help.

I am a child of a wayward parent (WP) myself. If the WP had a family meeting and said "We had these problems before the cheating. Your betrayed parent (BP) said some harsh things about me but left out this stuff." I'd freaking go off on both of them. First I'd have an enormous problem with the WP because nothing in the past ever justifies cheating. If the WP had such problems were they not resolved? If they were then bringing it up now is a load crap just to avoid looking as bad now. If past problems weren't fixed then don't cheat and bring me, your child, into the mix. Get a divorce. When are you (the WP) going to own you sh*t and stop this blameshifting? As for the BP what's up with this? You were cheated on. We (your Betrayed Children) were dragged into the WP's lies and gaslighting. We (the BC) have our betrayal by the WP. Bringing up the past issues of the M don't matter to me as the BC and trying to tell me they do is showing disregard for the betrayal the BC has suffered.

Bottom line it is still all about how your xww looks to others. It's still about keeping score on who was wronged in the M. She nuked your M and for good measure carpet bombed any rebuilding and used her own daughters to make that happen. Now she wants to enlist you in going over marital history that is unrelated to the cheating (because it can never justify it)in order to show your "demonizing" of her is not the whole story?

ETA: When I say she destroyed any rebuilding I mean that she wanted to avoid D but only on her terms and damn the additional pain it caused you and her children.

[This message edited by Brandon808 at 3:20 PM, March 20th (Sunday)]

I just skimmed through her thread.

I came away with a few thoughts.

I am so thankful for the mods here on SI.

I think your ww is remorseful.

I hope your ww posts here. I think she can be helped, and get help.

Edited to protect the privacy of a member. My apologies to this person.

[This message edited by confused615 at 9:56 AM, March 29th (Tuesday)]

I hope your wife figures out that her embarrassment of what is here has nothing to do with what you did or didn't do in the marriage prior. It stands alone as a shameful stage in her life, made worse by trying to involve your daughters in preventing you from finding out the full truth, and blaming you for breaking up their family.

Her actions. stand. alone. period.

If you throw all the dirt out in the open for your daughters to know ALL of the guts and damage of the marriage, it doesn't change the fact that anything that happened prior to her cheating and cover up could have been recovered from. I don't want to know all the gory details of my parents' marriage. I saw enough of it. I wasn't a dummy. But involving your daughters further beyond what OMW and your exwife did is just piling on the hurt on them - and is beyond damaging.

Your ex needs to let that part go.

Forever.

Let your daughters retain some innocence. Please!

confused615

I just skimmed through her thread.

I just finished reading. If you remember much from me, you will remember that I disappeared when the going got tough; she just plowed right in. I am proud of her.

I hope your ww posts here. I think she can be helped, and get help.

Hopefully, you are in a position to help and encourage her to do so.

Well...not if she only posts in the wayward forum.

I can't post there anymore.

Now..If you two decide to R..and she posts in the R forum...that would be different.

Western

personally, I think the people on TAM have let up on her quite a bit. Also, she held her ground pretty well and fought back.

Ha. Are we reading the same TAM? I just finished reading the entire episode.

Yeah. We are reading the same TAM. Your ex sounds like a completely self centered, manipulating, crackpot to me. But that may be a "me" issue.

I did start in the middle but I was angry with the infidelity and did not even realize the impact of previous problems on our marriage.

Hi DG. Did your marital problems prior to her A have any bearing on her choice to have an A? So what if you started in the "middle" of the story? Is there any part of the story (pre A) that will make any sane person say "ahhhh, now I get why she had and affair"? Of course not. Do not let her deflect any of the blame for her choices onto you or your M, especially not in front of your kids unchallenged. In my eyes at least, there are no marital problems on the face of this earth that lead a married person to have an A. If your exW does not believe this, then she is still blame shifting and not owning what she did.

If you want to date your exW, go for it. However, it is a little troubling that she feels she is in a position to make demands on you. Shouldn't that be the other way around? For someone who seemed so willing to do anything to get her H back, her demand sure was a curve ball. What will she do if you refuse her demand? I skimmed her thread, and honestly, I would have believed that she would have jumped at the opportunity to get back together again.

DoneGone, please don't take my earlier comment as suggesting you shouldn't reconcile. After all, I remarried my WW. I am just saying that it should be on your terms, with suitable protection (pre-nup, post-nup), with her chasing you.

I am very confused on how you reconcile her first post on TAM with her not eagerly accepting your outreach. Did she explain the basis?

PS. The folks on TAM were generally childish assholes.