SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Basically, you have robbed 2 years from this man's life. You may have felt like it was IHS, but he probably did not, or else that is one fucked up marriage. If you have compassion, you will end it and end it soon. Don't eventually want divorce, like you are easing him into it or some shit. It doesn't work that way.

The only way to help him heal is moving out. Trust me, I've been there in a very similar situation. My wife gave me some false hope along the way, and the next minute was ripping my guts out talking about life after divorce. At first I didn't want her to leave, but when she did, it was a giant relief. You know you want out of this marriage and you are only hurting him by pretending you can help him heal. You not being there will help him heal.

Let me play Devil's advocate with you.

So you wish to leave someone who is loyal to you and you alone, to be with someone who is willing to cheat with a married woman?

You do know that, once that boundary is crossed, you both are more likely to do it again and again, unless you find help. You will never be happy with anyone until you fix yourself.

The best way to help your BS heal if you don't want to reconcile is to leave. Don't give him false hope by sticking around, move out and let your BS get on with his life.

In divorce be fair. Just let him go and be fair about distribution of assets, visitation with children, and alimony.

Your BS will heal faster without you around to trigger him.

What does someone do to help when they don't want to R?

If you don't want to R then the solution is to leave. File for divorce and leave. Coming from a BH that isalmost exactly 6 years out from DDay,happily divorced, and healed my response is you should leave. Staying and trying to help him knowing you don't want to remain married just gives him false hope and keeps him on an emotional roller coaster even longer. You leaving now and filing for D now is akin to ripping the bandaid off now. Either way there will be much hurt but better for your BH to face the reality of his situation now than the mind games he will play on himself wondering if you might stay even if you tell him you want out.

Your actions will speak volumes when he is incapable of deciphering what your words mean. And believe me if you try to help and you are sure you want out it will be extremely confusing to both your BH and you.

So if you are done and you want to help then leave. I wish you both the best.

I think she ran away.

Thank you for all of your replies. I purposely left the stop sign off, because I wanted to hear both sides.

I don't know how to quote specific posts so I will just answer the questions here all at once.

Yes, truthfully, he was well aware of the in house separation. Separate rooms. And it was clearly communicated. We had begun already splitting things to a degree. Having said all that, I was likely letting him hang onto more hope than I should have. I do not think it was a pass to do whatever I wanted. Although, now I see that that's how I treated it.

As for some other points. Someone asked that I out everything to everyone. That is not what he wants. He's very against that. Not for my sake, at all. I doubt he'd care what they thought of me, rightfully so. He doesn't even want to tell a counselor, which I've suggested we do. I'm open to telling others if it will help. He's not.

Why don't I juse leave? Financial reasons are huge. He doesn't want us to be ruined financially and neither do I. But, I'm getting that we need to figure it out some way. You all have made some good points about just letting him go. Letting him move on, which he can't do with me there. And I agree. It's not fair to him.

And I totally own up to wanting to feel better. Who doesn't want to feel better? That's not my entire motivation for trying to do the right thing, now, for him. But it's definitely part of it. But I also do truly want him to feel better too. I hate that I hurt him. I know that what I did was not fair. I should have just ended it completely. Years ago.

I'll read more and say more in a bit.

To answer the question about when I joined, yes, I took a look back in 2013. But I ran away pretty fast aside from a pop in here or there when I was having doubts about what I was doing. Or trying to justify what I had done.

And I am not running away from this post. I am reading it all. And am very grateful for the advice and even the harsh words. Night time is the only time I have to respond. At least today. I'm going to let some of it soak in. I'll be back in the morning.

Have you and/or your husband checked with a lawyer to see what your divorce will be like? If you can't afford it and you are staying married for financial reasons, look into Retrouvaille. You might find there's hope for your marriage, after all.

My honest take on what you posted here ?

You do not want to be the one to D (feelings of failure, maybe). So you have done everything you can think of to "make" him D you.

My second guess is that you stayed M or in house separated because he provided a certain lifestyle for you that you know will change once the D is final. You wanted to be single while your H supported you in several ways. Even if it is just for "appearances."

Are you sure that "talking" to the OM did not have more to do with the in house separation and D. It seems to me you wanted the "fall back plan" in case OM did not work out. Most betrayed spouses on here will tell you that their spouses feelings for them changed once they started cheating. They scapegoat their spouse to make themselves feel better about doing something they know is morally wrong. It is called Cognitive Dissonance. Look it up.

What can you do now ? Accept responsibility for your affair and your contribution to the breakdown in the M. Also be fair to him in the D. Don't ask for Alimony or more than half and make it a clean break. No just friends, etc. Stay out of each others lives forever.

Numd&dumb:

I don't know that I wanted to make him D me, but I can see that I didn't want it to be me that did it. If that makes sense. I felt bad. I feel bad. Clearly, this was not the way to go. But, I didn't have the courage to do it. And I do believe that talking to OM and all that followed made everything happen faster or clouded me in some way. That's definitely true.

As for having BH as a fallback plan, I don't think so. I am not and never wanted to leave for OM. In all my stupidity here I do know that that relationship is a fantasy. I know that. It's not real. And I don't want it to be real. I just wanted to feel happy. To feel something. But I've always known the marriage wouldn't last.

I just didn't want to deal with it. And now I have to. Both BH and I are the same in that. We push it all aside and just ignore it. Even now. Even with it all laid out. We mostly ignore it. But it's there. And we can't live like this. I'm going to have to make it stop. I'm going to have to finally have the balls to do that.

As for your recommendation about how to split... I will never ask for alimony and I would never screw him out of what is his. We've even begun to talk about splitting things from what they were 2 years ago, to make it fair from before the cheating. And I'm totally ok with that , if he feels that's fair, then so do I.

But I've always known the marriage wouldn't last.

Then why did you take the vows?

I probably misspoke there. I didn't always know it. But maybe I should have. We were very young. When I say always though, I meant for many years now.

Troubledway - yours is a familiar story but my lengths of time and indecision are even longer!

Affair was four years - couldn't/wouldn't/didn't bite that ending it bullet.

IHS or limbo or R or whatever now almost 2 years - ugh - more not biting the bullet.

I'm not sure that our indecisiveness is any better than still being in the A - except no AP. I am moving on to divorce now - I was hopeful at different times for finding a new marriage but I think it less painful now to just move on.

Keep posting - no way around all of this just through it. Take care.

I haven't read the thread. Just wanted to throw out there that even if you don't stay in this marriage, you still need to do some work on you. If you don't, you are likely to repeat this pattern in your future relationships.

Was your marriage truly that bad? Most of the time, when a wayward spouse wants out of the marriage, they start rationalizing about how bad the marriage was.

He never paid me any attention. He was always working. He didn't fold his socks correctly. Any excuse to blow it out of the water not to face the real issue, yourself.

My wife tried this on me. I believed her for a while. I changed (for the better) but it didn't matter. She was looking for any reason to rationalize the affair. Once she started working on herself and reading here, she realized it was her demons all along.

I was never there because I was supporting my family of 4 while she did nothing but sit at home. I didn't pay her attention, because after 10 or 16 hour days, when i got home, I was exhausted and to just needed to unwind.

What's your real reason for wanting to break your vows again and leave your H? You do realize that no marriage is perfect right? It's not like dating or the first year of marriage. It usually just gets into a routine or comfortable phase. No affair is comparable. Both of you sugar coat anything you do. You want to look great and blow smoke up each other's ass. What happens when it gets real and you're the one being cheated on? Don't say it won't happen. Cheaters lie and liars cheat.

As a BS I would say let him go and let him heal. I don't think a WS can help the BS heal if they don't want to R at all. Just my opinion and I may be wrong.

If you want out, divorce him now and give him everything he wants. Give him a timeline with the entire truth so he can have no doubts or questions and begin his own healing process. What do you have to lose? You don't want him anymore. He will have to heal on his own but with access to what you did will help him along faster. You are stringing him along by still living there. Giving him false hope. I think (and if I'm wrong, I'm sorry),you think,by trying to help him,you won't be the bad guy, because it makes you feel guilty. The best thing for him is to admit you are the bad guy, take full responsibility, feel ALL THE GUILT and just leave.

If you want to divorce, the best thing to do is to exit the marriage gracefully and kindly—with compassion. Make the divorce as peaceful as possible.

Solus is always right IMHO.

Its best to bite the bullet and get it done. Don't prolong it. See a lawyer to see what the financial situation will be like.

Well I try to craft my responses in a civil manner, with empathy as someone who can no longer play the high ground card... but truthfully I really can’t tell from your post how much the marriage being bad contributed to your exit affair, vs how much your affair contributed to the marriage being bad.. and I’d be willing to bet your cheating certainly ruined what other wise might have been a salvageable marriage, or at the very least an amicable split based on respect, not disrespect and betrayal... so here it goes... you have tortured him for the last two years with your nonsense... if you wanted out you should have done it with some dignity and respect for the person you married even if you hated his guts, not the cowardly way that you probably realize now was exponentially more difficult and painful for the both of you.. but here’s what you should do. Profusely and humbly apologize for taking a bruised marriage and making it broken... explain that you are so terribly sorry for how you did it, and tell him it was cowardly, even though you knew you wanted out, that you will regret how you did it for the rest of your life. File for d immediately, and be generous in the D settlement.. don’t ask for more than you need to start over, no alimony, no cash etc etc don’t break his bank as well as his heart, and until the paperwork is signed, tell your OM that out of respect of your M, although it didn’t work out, your H deserves the little integrity you have left until the dovorce and don’t communicate with him until the D is final.. then get out of husbands life and let him heal... that’s the way you can most painlessly let him move on effectively without makin it worse. In the end you can have your OM and new life, but this shows him whatever respect you have left for him in a dignified manner and will let him heal the fastest