SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Copious,

That is the most awful thing I've heard. He made plans with the OW and deceived you for years just to pay no CS and stay with the kids. What a POS. I hope his kids hate him.

I hope my WH feels the STICKER SHOCK, like you said. He will be paying $$$ too for 10 minor kids still with me, and leaving with nothing.

Sorry that you suffered the loss of child too.

No one should have to deal with that much pain in one lifetime. Big Hugs

My H had affair in 2006. 3.5 years into our M. We went through R and I thought he did the work. Turns out, as soon as I was okay again, he thought he was okay again and slid right back into old behaviors. In 2009/2010, he started flirting with co-workers. Had ONS with female co-worker in parking lot at work. Said he felt bad immediately, but buried it in his head. He almost started affair with another co-worker that kissed him, but that got thwarted because she got engaged the next week.

In 2016, he started a 1 year A with a girl 15 years younger than him. The relationship was immature, which he loved. From reading their texts, I think they are both mentally stuck somewhere around age 14. I thought we were happy and had successfully R. My kids were 1 and 2 the first time. If I had left him, they probably would have had minimal trauma from D. When everything came to light and he left us last year, my kids were 11 and 13. The devastation and fallout from this on me and my children was immense. My kids will be permanently scarred and I’m convinced their future relationships will be impacted by this. I’m still fence sitting. Not sure if I want to stay or D. I regret not leaving him 11 years ago. If I knew now what I know today, I would of left back then and never turned back.

Total time wasted in this relationship so far is 15+ years. We’ll see in the next few months if I attempt R or not. I’m waiting and watching.

If we do R again, I will never give him my whole heart. I will NEVER trust him again. I will always have a backup plan. I will check up on him forever. We will do polygraph tests. If I think for a second that he started cheating again, I will leave without a second thought and never look back. Do I want to live like that? No, but we’ll see what happens. I want to be able to look my kids and myself in the eye and be able to say I tried my hardest and gave it my all before D. Maybe, if he actually does the work this time, he will be a better man, a better husband, and a better father. If I’m still unhappy a year from now, I plan to call it quits.

I read this a long time ago. It really resonated for me and my husband.

If the marriage ends, it is easy to be definitive, IT IS OVER, no more definitive than that. But, it doesn’t work that way with reconciliation, does it? That is the thing with reconciling. Successful reconciliation is a marriage long process, not a line in the sand. While progress can be seen over the years, you cannot really declare success in the middle of the journey. Well, I suppose you could, but I wouldn’t suggest it. Declare progress, recognize progress, of course. Declare success, not until the end of our life together can I make that evaluation.

I keep thinking of President Bush standing on the aircraft carrier declaring success, “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED” after getting Sadaam Hussein. It led many of us to believe that now we could relax, the major battles had been fought and won. Yet, nothing could have been further from the truth. If you choose to go into something like that, success is just not that finite, clear and easy. I mean we may say look at Germany and Japan, these are our success stories after WWII. But, don’t forget we have a huge presence in those countries still. It wasn’t like, win a battle, declare victory, all is good now, time to move on.

And, then out in the reconciliation world, especially out in the forums, I would see things from people declaring “we are happily reconciled,” “we are living our happily ever after” or “I know he has learned his lesson and will never ever do this again.” You don’t know, you cannot know. You can see progress, you can have proof along the way that all is going in a good direction, but start declaring finite “success” and what happens, both parties take their eye off the ball and it is exactly these folks who end up exactly back where they started wondering where their second chance at a fantasy went wrong.

The fantasy is gone for me forever, I want it gone, I don’t want a life based on fantasy. It’s a path, it’s a journey, we need to keep our eye on the path, on the journey. That doesn’t mean I want to be bleeding from gaping wounds along the path. I don’t. I can’t. That would make the journey impossible to continue upon. I suppose this all sounds so depressing to some, but to me it is the point. No more fantasy, no more rose-colored glasses, not gray either, just clear and real and forward.

I found out my boyfriend was cheating when he gave me a disease and my ectopic pregnancy ruptured. I lost my left Fallopian tube and almost died (emergency surgery and two week hospital stay). Reason... he'd given me Chlymidia and HPV. I had precancerous cells for about 2 years. Obviously, we broke up immediately. He tried off and on for 10 years to win me back. Finally, I gave him another chance. We dated for 2 years, then married. It was like I was dating a whole new person. He was so kind, loving, and giving the entire 2 years. When we got married, it was little things, small acts of selfishness that started to manifest. However, he didn't show his old self again until he was well into his next affair years later. He had me convinced that I never had to worry about that damn cheating again. And...he cheated again. We were together the first time for about a year and a half. Then 10 years where I'd gone on with my life. We were dating the second time for 2 years, and married for just over 8 years. We'd been through so much together, the loss of a child, etc. I thought we were stronger than that. He came back from Afghanistan and told me that evening that he was leaving me in the morning. I had seen the writing on the wall and had been getting my ducks in a row. The next morning, while he was packing to leave me, the doorbell rang and he was served with LS papers (my biggest mistake listening to well meaning advice to hold off on D papers to see if he would pull his head out of his ass). After he was served, I helped him finish packing his clothes and handed him the keys (that I'd had for almost 2 months prior to his return Stateside) to the storage facility with most of his things that had been in the garage and the bedroom set we'd had in the spare bedroom. 😂😂😂

Talk about knocking the wind out of his sails.

I used to believe love could conquer all. Now I know if both parties don't have integrity, love be damned. I also learned that while it takes two to make a marriage work, one person alone could blow a marriage up all by him/herself.

[This message edited by StillLivin at 11:33 AM, December 1st (Friday)]