SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

A strat thru an ac15 is a great combo. Music therapy will go a long way for you. Keep at it. If you are not in a band or jamming, get at it!

Btw, my D 18 is older than most of the people on here.

I have no doubt in my mind that I will find someone new that I will be perfectly happy to be with. Someone who will bring loyalty, commitment, and stability. However they won’t have some of the things that she brought to the table - things that are important to me. This is what I’m sad about.

What if you meet someone who is all that AND more? This is a very real possibility again for you.

I thought much the same before I met the man who became my husband. He has brought opportunities, strengths, skills, and experiences to my life that I could never have imagined. I'm so incredibly happy with him, and him with me. I consider him to be my perfect partner, and I would never have been able to describe someone like him before meeting and coming to love him. I didn't even know that what we have was a possibility, and could not have imagined that what initially seemed like a loss was actually a wrong turn being righted.

Seek out more.

If she was pregnant with the OM’s child or got an STD from him, would you still marry her? Is she that great?

If she was pregnant with the OM’s child or got an STD from him, would you still marry her? Is she that great?

Wocket is just mourning what he thought he had. It seems that he actually knows well the true reality of his former fiancee. I still find myself missing terribly what I thought I had too. The illusion of what I thought my stbxw was... In truth, that loving, faithful wife, keeping the hearthfires burning during my many deployments and other duty related absences might never have existed. I wish "A" had fucked another man five months before our wedding (did she?) and I had learned about it so I could've done what Wocket has done.

Wocket, don't believe she was one-of-a-kind. Women with similar characteristics abound, and are faithful to boot.

It's unfortunate, but your ex will become another man's problem. You dodged a bullet.

Agree with LtCL, I thank god I didn't marry my ex. He showed me who he was, and I believed him. Bullet dodged. I do mourn the person I thought he was. In my mind, that person is dead.

...Japanese Fender Jazzmaster...I also have a Martin 000-28 and a D-18.

Btw, my D 18 is older than most of the people on here.

I hate you both

Just kidding. I'm happy with my Telecaster + Blues Jr. I'll never part with the Tele, but would love to add a Jazzmaster.

I sorely need a better acoustic, though. If I'm being honest my Seagull S6, though modest, is still a better guitar than I am a player. But when it comes to guitars, "want" and "need" are the exact same thing.

Threadjack over

For the record, we are broken up. I could see thinking otherwise if you didn’t read the whole thread and just saw what I had written the past few pages.

I also have not made any representations regarding reconciliation. So that’s not on the table right now. I don’t know if I would take her back even if she perfectly executed whatever waywards are supposed to do.

Finalizing some logistics and we will be going NC. Should be in about 7-10 days. I am expecting her to test boundaries with that one - just mentally prepared and have a plan to handle it when she does. She does not have a forwarding address for me st this time.

I sorely need a better acoustic, though. If I'm being honest my Seagull S6

Those are very good guitars. Definitely the best bang for your buck. I’ve wanted one for alt and open tunings for a while, but generally try to keep things simple. I really just don’t need it.

She and I would have been a good team, had talented kids, and pushed each other to be our best.

Honestly, pal, you don't know any of that and you speak like that with a certainty that isn't really there.

I understand where you're coming from here, but the truth is that you're just making that up. I don't think to imagine this kind of stuff and adding certainty to it isn't helpful.

Try sticking with clarity and reality. Maybe that would have been true, but nobody knows.

Honestly, pal, you don't know any of that and you speak like that with a certainty that isn't really there.

I understand where you're coming from here, but the truth is that you're just making that up. I don't think to imagine this kind of stuff and adding certainty to it isn't helpful.

Try sticking with clarity and reality. Maybe that would have been true, but nobody knows.

Didn’t I give examples which formed the basis of my “good team” statement? How is that making stuff up?

Looks like I didn’t, but I talked about those things in other posts on this thread. We talk to each other about our jobs and give each other feedback. Her feedback has been very helpful with respect to my professional development in terms of

getting promotions and increasing my value to my employer. Some of my feedback has diffused difficult workplace social dynamics for her. These are just two examples of many.

I can get depressed and isolate - she makes sure I stay busy and connected with friends. She can be a workaholic - I make sure she properly prioritizes tasks and makes time to take care of herself.

My point is that we complement each other very well. So I say we make a good team. I’m not making stuff up. These are real,

concrete aspects of our relationship. They’re still not enough to keep me in this relationship. But they do make me sad that it’s over.

[This message edited by wocket at 3:17 PM, June 11th (Monday)]

Ya...kind of weird how self respect out weights all the rest of that team mate stuff.

Your on the right track and ya it's sad but in the long run you are taking care of this now rather then later when you got a couple of kids and a mortgage to deal with.

Everything you described is normal in a healthy relationship. She is bringing nothing special or unique to the relationship that could outweigh what she did.

Hi Wocket.

I’m about 30 years past where you are now, but I still remember it so well.

I had the ring but hadn’t yet given it to her. Was planning on it though.

When I found out about the 2nd guy that was it for me. Over and done.

As you can see from my tag line it worked out well for me and the wonderful woman I met almost a year later. She’s my soulmate.

Of course who knows what will happen between you and your WF. Seems like you have a good head on your shoulders.

If you ever do decide to try again with her, start at the ground floor. The relationship will be a new one so it starts at the beginning. And this time she will have to be the one to do the pursuing more than last time.

So after therapy this week I’m now thinking to myself “you know, that relationship really wasnt as good as you thought it was.”

At this stage of the game I don’t think I would think that without a counselor. I would have gotten there eventually, but who knows how long it would have taken for that kernel to take root.

I’m sure I’ll go back and forth between this and pining. But this feels good because it makes me feel like I’m on the right track and where I need to be.

[This message edited by wocket at 12:02 PM, June 13th (Wednesday)]

When we fall in love we seem to be wearing rose colored glasses. When we take those off we can start to see reality. Sometimes it isn't that much different, oftentimes though the reality is vastly different.

I agree that going to an IC can help you in your healing if you find the right IC for you. Glad to hear that you feel like you are on the right path for yourself.

I really thought XWH was a great teammate. I really believed it. Ying/yang, complementary, etc. Turns out that was what I wanted to believe. Talk to your therapist about projection. We all do it. We put our own characteristics and notions on others and ignore when the other person shows us things that don't match our IDEA of who they are.

XWH was a liar and a fraud. He showed to me that he was the sort of person I wanted him to be, and hid from me the parts of his person that were abhorrent. And kept it up for YEARS. I never knew. I had hints but it never occurred to me to really follow up on them, I didn't identify them as yellow flags, never mind red flags. I was fully head in the sand, he's so wonderful, I can't see his faults, lalalalala I can't hear you.

When you are "in love" with somebody you can overlook all kinds of things to keep them up on the pedestal. It feels great to love a great person. It feels all kinds of shitty to love a shitty person so we do a lot of mental gymnastics to try to convince ourselves that the other person isn't shitty, in order to justify our feelings of being in love.

When reality smacks you in the face the cognitive dissonance can be awful.

I mean, it’s not to say she was a bad partner. For, say, the 1000 days we were together, she was pretty good for 999 of them.

But here is the bad.

Fundamentally she does not like herself and who she is. I’ve been there before, so I can relate. This is something that I have come to realize after getting some distance.

She is not kind or gracious to herself. She can be very self critical. It’s one of those things that has helped her be successful, but she takes it too far. Worse, she treats other people like she treats herself. Mostly at her work or with her family. I did not tolerate it and told her it was a problem - even if she rarely treated me like that. She did actually make some progress there.

Funny enough, after dday but before we broke up which spanned 4-5 days, she would complain constantly about a coworker who was disloyal, dishonest, and took actions that hurt their customer. I was just stunned by the lack of self awareness it would take to be able to say that, especially at that time. Especially since she is normally pretty self aware. I think it was her attempt at diverting attention away from the damage and destruction she caused towards something more “tolerable”, but that one set me off. Her complaining about this was actually the straw that broke the camels back.

She is not empathetic at all.

She actually made a lot of progress here, but she lied a lot about stupid inconsequential shit. Oddly enough she never lied about big and important things. This was a FOO thing that is common with family members of alcoholics - need to lie to preserve the family secret.

Moving forward, I think I’m going to place kindness and empathy up there towards the top of the list of priorities for the next woman.

[This message edited by wocket at 1:27 PM, June 13th (Wednesday)]

Wocket, you are on point: "I think it was her attempt at diverting attention away from the damage and destruction she caused towards something more “tolerable.”

[This message edited by MidnightRun at 3:50 PM, June 13th (Wednesday)]