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PlanC

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?

I was a little surprised.

PS. The folks on TAM were generally childish assholes.

Most of them seem quite decent to me, but some of them, yea.

jigga114

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.

I am not taking up for her, however, a lot has happened in the last few months. I am ready to talk to her. It may not go anywhere, but I am ready to talk. I have made peace with myself and come to terms with this new reality. I would have loved it if she had jumped at the chance to have coffee with me, but she passed.

I am going to give her what she has asked for from day one and go to therapy sessions with her. I know this makes me sound like a crème puff but, well, I am. I suppose.

DG,

I've said this before. I do believe she wants you back, but there were issues in the marriage that she wants to address prior to doing so. As we say here many times to a new BH, the issues in the marriage are in both of you, but the A is on her. Same here. I think she's owning her A. There have been significant consequences, to both of you. Now you're divorced. She needs to continue to work on herself, her reasons for the A, and ensuring she becomes a safe partner for whomever she's in a relationship with in the future. At the same time, because of your history together, she's saying she wants to address those issues in your marriage. This is smart IMO, because if you don't, then you rug sweep those issues and they remain, hiding in the background only to rear their ugly head yet again.

The caution to you is that at no time should you let her reframe her decision to cheat as being partly your fault due to these issues she wants you two to work on. It was and always will be on her and her alone. These are two separate things. The only connection I can see that makes sense is that she should explore why she chose to deal with these issues in such a horrible way as to betray her marriage. That's it.

So, she wants you back, but there's a great deal of work to be done to ensure that if you do get back together, it will be lasting and meaningful. It's a tall order and will take time. But you'll both have your eyes wide open going in.

For the record, I think she's handling herself well at TAM, although I do agree the place leaves a bad vibe. Overly hostile. There are a few posters there who used to be here, whom I miss, but I wasn't impressed with the others. I was, however, impressed with Wishes. I like the fact that she still has a backbone and hasn't turned into a quivering mess of self loathing.

Hang in there.

I am going to give her what she has asked for from day one and go to therapy sessions with her. I know this makes me sound like a crème puff but, well, I am. I suppose.

Not at all. It takes a man of strength and character to be action oriented and follow through. To stick to convictions. And also to empathize, still care for his now ex-wife, and to admit his mistakes. Cream puff is the opposite of the description that comes to mind.

Look, it was apparent from the outset that you still loved your wife, but you needed to divorce her. For some, they can R, like me. For others, they need to D first before entertaining the idea of getting back together. R would have failed for you. So you did what you needed to do for you. There's nothing wrong with that. Now that it's done, you can start entertaining whether you can get back together or not. And that's where you're at. You may or you may not, but IMO, the choice you made was the right one for you at the time.

God, I have so many thoughts here. First, my suggestion to you is to end the relationship that you are in right now. I'm sorry man, but if you entertaining the thought of getting back together with your wife, then it is not fair to the woman you are dating, regardless if she knows or not. Second, I agree with everything Brandon said. Its weird, when your wife first started posting, I thought to myself that this woman gets it. However, towards the end of her thread, her tone and mindset changed. C'mon. Bringing up the issue about how you told her to end the relationship with the coworker and how you went about it. I'm sorry, but thats bull sh*t to me. You did what any husband would do and don't think differently about it, because thats what I think is going on here. Listen, your wife had an inappropriate relationship, which you shot down and she retaliated by having an even more inappropriate relationship. She needs to own that and stop hiding behind the fact that he was "just a friend." Your wife still doesn't get it.

In terms of you getting back together, I also agree with Brandon in the sense that I do see a little codependency here. Don't get me wrong, you acted swiftly in divorcing your wife. However, you are essentially telling yourself "well I think she has suffered enough, its time to take her back." Not to mention, as the other poster stated, you should not be chasing her. And now your upset at the fact that she wouldn't have coffee with you. My man, from the get go, your wife wanted everything done on her terms. And now she wants this done on her terms. Personally, I think you need to be single for a bit. And by that I mean don't date anyone for a period of time. You essentially went from one relationship to the next and now you're in a semi-relationship. Let me retract that, I think you do need to date someone and that person is yourself. Focus on you for a bit and see what life is like without a woman in it.

Hopefully, this doesn't sound too harsh. I personally do like it when people get back together, but only if serious work has been done. And brother, both you and your wife still have a lot of work to do. Your wife IMO, still doesn't get it and you are still codependent on her. Your wife was right, you both need more time. And if the time comes for you two to get back together, then let her chase you. No more opening door on your part and seeing if she will come in. Your wife broke this and she needs to be big enough to initiate fixing it. And no, that does not happen on her terms, it happens on yours. Peace be the journey my friend.

Brandon808

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?

I did not see and rationalized away every one of her pleas, but I am ashamed to say that I do realize that certain behavior on my part broke her. I sincerely thought I was doing the right thing but what I was doing was breaking her spirit and will over a long period of time. I can look back now and see it as down right cruelty. I wasn't making her, I was breaking her. She betrayed me, yes. But I betrayed her first, not with infidelity, but I played on her weakness over a long period of time until she lost herself. I mistakenly thought my strength was good for both of us. I made a mistake. I will go into that if Wishes does not join this site but it will be a week from now and I'll tell you now, I could come out smelling like a rose, or stinking like a skunk. I only know my heart was in the right place but my brains were on hiatus. What was I thinking.

DoneGone,

You hated and loved her when you realized that she had been playing with your mind and trying to use your daughters to her advantage. Then you really wanted to hurt her and you were very cruel. You succeeded in hurting her, and she took it like a trooper. She knew she had lost you and once she lost the power she had over you, all she wanted was to have you back.

Now that you are becoming remorseful for your meanness, she is feeling the power again, and is rebuffing you.

IMO, she only wants you and appreciates you when she cannot have you. If you start dating her again, before she has some serious counselling, you are opening yourself up to being manipulated and messed around with again.

DG,

You can't be serious. Do not let your wife make you feel guilty about making her end an inappropriate relationship. C'mon man. You did not break your wife. Now you are taking blame for her decisions as a way to rationalize getting back together with her. Stop rationalizing her behavior. You never did it before, so why are you starting now?

jbrent890

God, I have so many thoughts here. First, my suggestion to you is to end the relationship that you are in right now. I'm sorry man, but if you entertaining the thought of getting back together with your wife, then it is not fair to the woman you are dating, regardless if she knows or not. Second, I agree with everything Brandon said. Its weird, when your wife first started posting, I thought to myself that this woman gets it. However, towards the end of her thread, her tone and mindset changed. C'mon. Bringing up the issue about how you told her to end the relationship with the coworker and how you went about it. I'm sorry, but thats bull sh*t to me. You did what any husband would do and don't think differently about it, because thats what I think is going on here. Listen, your wife had an inappropriate relationship, which you shot down and she retaliated by having an even more inappropriate relationship. She needs to own that and stop hiding behind the fact that he was "just a friend." Your wife still doesn't get it.

the relationship I am in right now is not exclusive. That is a non issue.

I would like to address the highlighted part of your post. It makes me look like shit, but Wishes was entirely correct in her post. It was my bad. I had been concerned on two separate occasions of her texting too much. The first time I put a stop to it. The second time, some weeks later, I discovered she was sexting and I assumed it was with the same individual from weeks prior. Of course I had a fit.

Wishes maintained that the two were not related. The first group of text messages were to her team leader in CA. and then the ones a few months later, she claimed to be to a neighborhood guy she had grown up with. I called bullshit and insisted it was the same guy in CA.

When I finally received the passwords I discovered that Wishes had been truthful. The first set of text messages were to her co-worker and the ones some months later were to the AP. This does not change the fact that she cheated but it does justify her being very upset with me when I was accusing her of cheating with the guy in CA.

This is when she was calling me crazy, jealous and off the deep end. I was. My part in this was terrible. The reason she told me I needed to see a therapist was because of my out of control anger, when she had done nothing wrong. I have the emails. I am ashamed of myself and I betrayed her. She has forgiven me.

But what I have just described to you is nothing compared to what I had put her through the previous months that led up to this. Some times, doing the right thing is not necessarily the right thing to do.

I do hope Wishes comes on here and contributes. That's about all I can say at this time.

[This message edited by DoneGone at 12:28 AM, March 21st (Monday)]

Again DG, what? You did nothing wrong. You called out an inappropriate relationship between her and her team leader. Even she admitted that they talked about things not work related. And she used that jealously and anger on your part not only to justify her cheating, but she used it as a mask to hide her affair by making you feel guilty. You need to stop apologizing to her for over doing what any husband would do. YOU DID NOTHING WRONG and its about time that you start telling yourself that. Again, you are trying to rationalize all of this as a means to take her back. You're better than that.

[This message edited by jbrent890 at 12:19 AM, March 21st (Monday)]

jbrent890

You can't be serious. Do not let your wife make you feel guilty about making her end an inappropriate relationship. C'mon man. You did not break your wife. Now you are taking blame for her decisions as a way to rationalize getting back together with her. Stop rationalizing her behavior. You never did it before, so why are you starting now?

It is not easy to admit and you are right, I did not rationalize. When my wife said, “I wasn’t myself when I cheated. I was broken. I am broken and I will do whatever I need to do to fix myself.” I agreed to use the term ‘broken’ as an explanation for her infidelity with the stipulation that it also encompasses the logic that she’s broken up our home, she’s broken up our family, she’s broken our plans and dreams; she’s broken all the great memories of our life together; she’s broken my trust; she’s broken my heart and she’s broken us. And she’d also broken me!

We talked about this in great detail and were in general agreement, however, that is as far as we agreed on this subject. Her argument was that her being broken was somehow the explanation for her “indiscretions.” In other words, according to her, she would never have cheated on me had she not been broken. She was broken, so she cheated. To me, this was pure, one hundred percent, psycho-babble blame shifting bull crap.

Here is the copy of the email I sent to her in response to that:

"You were not broken before you cheated, nor were you broken while you were cheating…so, when did you break? Let us affix a time of breakage here.

Simply stated, you are broken because you were busted cheating, and in fact, I will go so far as to say that you are only broken because you got busted cheating. Had you not been busted, you would not be broken. After all, isn’t that a natural progression…if something is broken, then, it must have been busted. You were busted cheating and now you are broken. Cause and effect. You were ‘unbroken’, then you got ‘busted’ and now you are ‘broken’. I do not question your claim that you are broken; I know you are, because I was there when you busted. I saw it happen right before my eyes. When I returned from the trip and I asked to see the receipts from your shopping trip…that’s when you broke. it was obvious. You said something like, “O God, it’s not what you think…” Lie, it was exactly what I thought.

You are sadly mistaken if you really believe, “Till death do us part,” means that our marriage came with a Lifetime Warranty. There are other clause and exceptions that can void that Warranty and make it of none effect, such as, “Forsaking all others.” Not only did you not “forsake all others,” but you deliberately chose to “love, honor and cherish another man.” Contract void.

You did not break as a result of normal wear and tear, you malfunctioned as a result of manufactures defect. Before we married, you never informed me that you were genetically flawed and that the physical environment in which you grew up was a breeding ground for losers, leeches and lunatics.

Yea, we made an oath, and signed some papers but they are subject to the lemon law. Am I expected to love, honor and cherish until death do us part if I get stuck with a lemon? I think not. Do I have to adapt to the taste of a pungent sour lemon? I think not. If I end up with a lemon, am I supposed to make lemonade? I do not like lemonade. I have never liked lemonade and I will not be trying to develop a taste for lemonade. I do not care how much sugar you add, you are sour. I refuse to spend the rest of my days trying to make the best out of a bad situation.

You can play with semantics all you want but I am only interested in the logistics. During the 26 year period of our marriage, you were not broken. In fact, you were anything but broken; the most “together” person I have ever known. You were secure, happy, optimistic, contented, well rounded and never any signs of psychosis. No visible breakage whatsoever. Not even any cracks. In fact, at the sight of a wrinkle you went into hyper alert…serums, creams, lasers and plastic surgeons. Bottom line? The 26 years pre-adultery, no sign of breakage, cracks, nor even any wrinkles.

So, how about the 9 month period of your adultery? You obviously were not broken then either. Everything was working properly. You were your same loving self; full of life, got it all together happy self that you always were. Even after you were busted texting OM, you exhibited zero signs of breakage. Even though repentant, you remained your cool, calm and collected self. Your concern was more for me than yourself. You diagnosed the development of discernible and concernable fissures in my emotional health and ascertained they were due to my insecurity, jealousy and delusionalism. As for yourself, nothing was wrong.

Now you want to come back and say you were broken. Hell no you were not broken. If anyone was broken, it was me; you said so yourself!

For 26 years you were perfect. No defects and your plastic surgeon took care of the normal wear and tear. During the 9 months of your affair you still had it all together. You were outgoing, exciting, vigorous, poised, self-possessed and healthy. You were anything but broken. So this brings me back to my original question, “Why are you broken and how did you break?” Easy answer. Simply stated: you are ‘BROKEN’ because you were ‘BUSTED.’ You were fine until I busted you for having sex with OM, and now suddenly, you are broken. Seems to me a simple case of cause and effect. You were ‘unbroken’, then you got ‘busted’ and now you are ‘broken’."

So no, I did not rationalize her behavior but I had been rationalizing my own. I hope for the opportunity to get into that and if Wishes agrees, I will do so immediately. I wish for two things at this point. Mostly, to lay the ground work for her coming here, should she choose to do so, and secondly, to get that cup of coffee with her

[This message edited by DoneGone at 12:32 AM, March 21st (Monday)]

I had been concerned on two separate occasions of her texting too much. The first time I put a stop to it. The second time, some weeks later, I discovered she was sexting and I assumed it was with the same individual from weeks prior. Of course I had a fit.

Wishes maintained that the two were not related. The first group of text messages were to her team leader in CA. and then the ones a few months later, she claimed to be to a neighborhood guy she had grown up with. I called bullshit and insisted it was the same guy in CA.

DG, if any rational person were in your shoes at that time, after expressing concern over the volume of texts, and then catching the sexting, they would not be crazy to assume it was all to the same person. Yeah, looking at it in hindsight you were wrong, but given the incomplete information you had at the time, was there any other sane course of action? You had to act, because suspected infidelity is not one of those let's wait and see how this plays out issues. If anyone is at fault, I would pin it on Wishes because she withheld verifiable info that could have led to a different outcome.

When I finally received the passwords I discovered that Wishes had been truthful. The first set of text messages were to her co-worker and the ones some months later were to the AP. This does not change the fact that she cheated but it does justify her being very upset with me when I was accusing her of cheating with the guy in CA.

How could you have known? Whatever happened to this other guy falls squarely on her shoulders. She had the evidence to show you that this guy was truly just a friend, yet she withheld it for whatever reason. You are beating yourself up over a chain of events that you did not set in motion.

This is when she was calling me crazy, jealous and off the deep end. I was. My part in this was terrible. The reason she told me I needed to see a therapist was because of my out of control anger, when she had done nothing wrong. I have the emails. I am ashamed of myself and I betrayed her. She has forgiven me.

I may be misunderstanding the flow of events here. Was she calling you crazy and stuff before or after you found out she was sexting?

Done gone,­

In have followed your thread since the ­beginning, also I have read the

Wishes threat at TAM.­

I would like to point out a couple of t­hings:

Infidelity is not a consequence is choi­ce, no matter what you have done

to Wishes before her affair, there is a­lways other ways…even Divorce.

As far as problems in your marriage bef­ore the Affair could explain what

she felt (resentment to you) it not jus­tify nothing what she did and the

way she did it. She choose have an affa­ir, even after being caught, she

chose to lie, she choose to humiliated ­you, she chose to use you

daughters as a shield, she chose to des­troy your home…it was not a

mistake, DO NOT LET HER BLAME YOU! Ask ­you self if next time she is

broken (for any reason) she may have an­ affair, would she be justified?

As you can read here at Ww part, even t­he cases when the BS had a Ram,

it is not justified by any means.­

Half-truth is lying. When you caught he­r sexting and she told you he was

a neighbor, did she say it was OM or an­ybody else? I am asking as, if I

am not mistaken, that after that is whe­n the footsy thing happened while

you were sitting with her and OM. I ass­umed (sorry if it is wrong) you

didn’t know this was the sexting guy, r­ight? She told you the sexting

guy was someone else. As you were wrong­ about the CA guy, she was lying

to your face anyway!!! How could she ex­pect you believed her???

Some people can R others cannot, this i­s totally up to you, everybody is

different, if you want to and you belie­ve you can do it then go for

it!!!!! Just remember that you cannot R­ with a WW that haven taken the

100% responsibility for her affair, tha­t haven accepted that being

broken is an excuse and not a justifica­tion, that is still blame

shifting or competing (you did this bef­ore, etc.), she needs to accept

that she did it because she wanted peri­od. No external or magical

explanations.­

IMO wishes needs to fix her before ever­ thinking in R, she needs to make

amends with your daughters, she needs t­o explain that what she did was

wrong not just justify it. You need to ­do that as well. Understands that

you have a responsibly with your daught­er to teach them to apology when

is required but also to stand up for th­eir rights and let no body cheat

on them.­

Last thing, before even thinking in R o­r date wishes, you should really

heal yourself fist, let her fix what sh­e has done. You can keep saving

her for everything except from her self­.

Look, just face the fact that for what ever reason you want to get back with her. Co-dependency, Familiarity, maybe you feel she has suffered enough, or for some reason you like the drama...whatever. Its your life.

BUT that does not mean you have to buy into some bullshit rationalization that you deserve blame for what is blameless behaviour.

Do you want to be back with her so bad that you are willing to live the lie? Live on her terms? Jump thru her hoops?

I would suggest listening to the previous poster who said break up with our girlfriend and be single for awhile. Build a self-identity apart from a relationship.

There are many posters on SI who have re-visited relationships after a long separation or even divorce. Some have been successful, some not. Why don't you try starting a new thread in general. There are some WSs who can't post in JFO who have experience with this issue that may be valuable for both you and Wishes.

BTW, I'm more than a little concerned by your XWWs blame shifting. You started this thread when you discovered your wife's infidelity. That is the story. It's not half way through, it's the start of your journey through Shit Mountain. Your wife had a multitude of options available to her that she didn't take. Instead, she chose the selfish route. You don't wear that, she does.

, wanting permission to tell our daughters the whole story and that it was only fair.

Bad idea.. and incredibly bad thing to teach your daughters.

DoneGone, the people in TAM (including myself) were relatively light on her. SHE IS 100% BLAMESHIFTING! Brandon, CanoeVA, Jigga all have it right! Listen to them.

I do like your post on her not being BROKEN but BUSTED - spot on! You really appear to know what she did in this post - and yet you then accept partial blame. Do not accept any blame for your assuming the texting was to the same guy - she put you in that situation as others have said - you behaved completely normally.

She needs to be chasing you not trying to rebuild her ego!!! Please, please, please stay away from this very toxic woman. The advice you get from the few to carry on trying to R with her is the worst advice you will get. The people on TAM are definitely not childish assholes but rather very experienced with dealing with this sort of thing effectively and quickly (to minimise your pain). So do not carry on being a cream puff (your own admission)!

Drop her and get on with your life. Then if she really wants, she will show real remorse and pursue you properly (not what she is doing now).

Mrhealed

Half-truth is lying. When you caught he­r sexting and she told you he was

a neighbor, did she say it was OM or an­ybody else? I am asking as, if I

am not mistaken, that after that is whe­n the footsy thing happened while

you were sitting with her and OM. I ass­umed (sorry if it is wrong) you

didn’t know this was the sexting guy, r­ight? She told you the sexting

guy was someone else. As you were wrong­ about the CA guy, she was lying

to your face anyway!!! How could she ex­pect you believed her???

She told me the first texting guy was a colleague in CA. I believed her, however, I had it in my mind that they were illicit texts. This was on me. Our relationship had been under much strain for the prior 6 months or so, and this was also on me. I had my head too far up my own ass to even take Wishes pleas seriously. My answers to her were macho. "Don't let them get to you," or "you're stronger than that," and my best one yet, "it's the right thing to do." I effectively forced her into a situation where she was deliberately, systematically, and wantonly the victim of physical, emotional and mental torture.

The colleague in CA did nothing wrong, nor did Wishes. Wishes had always trusted me 100% and tried her best to please me in every and any way possible. Many of Wishes friends were telling her to get away from me for awhile and when I discovered her texting this guy in CA, I suspected the worst and reacted with great anger and wrath. The emails backed up what she had been telling me. He was giving her moral support to hang in there with me and that I would come around. He had been a friend of my marriage all along.

This is first time Wishes had ever stood up to me in our marriage and she told me I was being foolish, and then later delusional and then that I needed therapy. Wishes was already in therapy and pleaded for me to come to therapy with her. I responded by firing our employee in CA, who by the way, was an integral part of our firm. This is when Wishes said I was crazy and had just cut off my right hand (or something like that).

These things I would have never brought to light had Wishes not began posting on the talkaboutmarriage web site. I have received no less than 50 emails and PM's concerning her activities there and mostly, I am shamed that she has not outed me there. She has basically kept what I did to her to herself and I am filled with shame that she would continue to protect me. She even called to ask me if she could make a certain statement concerning me. After all that I have posted here about her...and Mrhealed, she does have some artillery she could use against me, but she has not done so.

Do not be thinking, "Oh but, that still does not give her the right to cheat...," I think she had the right to kill me, beat the shit out of me, kick me to hell...she let me off easy. To this day, she is still suffering for the twisted bullshit I put her through and it was all because of my anger and pride and my demand to be respected. She is not the woman she was but that has little to do with the adultery, but everything to do with herself being betrayed by the person she loved most in this world and more than life itself.

Her refusing to have coffee with me is not manipulation on her part. It is self-preservation. I was blind with anger and I had built a case against her that became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I never mislead anybody on this forum but I was lying to myself. I have asked and received forgiveness from Wishes and I now apologize to this forum.

[This message edited by DoneGone at 8:52 AM, March 21st (Monday)]

Apology not needed.

I get it, you were an asshole in the M. Her response should have been marriage counseling or divorce. She chose to have an affair and rub it in your face. 100% on her. Your M was in a bad place, we get that. You were not perfect. We get that too.

You did NOT, in any way shape of form, have ANYTHING to do with her choice to have an affair. There were other options.

Strength

ok. Now that it appears that your self esteem is back in the dirt, because you just blamed yourself for all of your wife's infidelities and are making yourself out to sound like some monster. Is this your intent ?

Maybe you made mistakes but what she did was the wrong way to handle things.

It's plainly clear and evident that she wants to get back together with you. So if you were 'so bad' to her, then why are you dating others and not reconnecting with her ?

Your actions make no sense at this point. You last post reeks of someone who is facing depression. Treat those issues

Sorry if this sounds harsh but you seem weakened and manipulated by her at this point and you may make some mistakes because of it.