SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I 'think' I decided on Dday to be honest. But I was in shock and busy smashing things up. I think it was confirmed to me a week later when I was crying and she shouted 'You are taking this way too seriously' at me. She was actually angry! But it's really taken about 10 months to really feel a sense of detachment and know what I want. It was actually a moment where all doubt faded away and I knew that for all I have to lose, I can't be with her and I will never forgive the cheating.

There is also an element of thinking of the children and also untangling 30 years of financial entanglement. It's not simple and there is no rule book. Getting to the point of being civil is hard enough.

I knew I was headed for D within a couple of days. He continued to lie to me that there was no A but willingly moved out to stay in a friend's weekend home to give me space. A few weeks later when he continued to lie I told him that I knew he was lying and read his text messages with OW. He said "oh" and we started talking about D. He never asked to R.

D-Day was Friday 03 July 1981 - I bluffed a confession to what I had suspected for months.

I think I knew D was inevitable within a week - however the admissions she made (and there was a lot she did not admit to) were so indicative of a severe mental disorder that I never considered exposing our kids (then 3 and 5) to the lifestyle she would have pursued had we parted.

The plan was to dump her when younger reached university - the reality was that there was no benefit (in terms of protecting the kids/finance/my sanity[such as it is]) in maintaining the fiction once younger was 16. Yes - XW continued to cheat and lie - I've since come to understand that she is technically psychopathic - a condition she, and her brother, probably inherited from her father.

She moved out in December 1993 and, despite some difficult situations along the way I'm in a very good place and have never - genuinely not for one fleeting moment - either doubted that I did what was morally right in my particular situation or regretted removing her from my life.

The original cheating was discovered in October 2016 and I thought we were in reconciliation. The final straw for me was in July 2017, I found out he had signed up on a dating site that he had been single for far too long.

Honestly looking back now I think it was just a matter of time because the cheating was always there in my mind and the trust was gone. I just always felt like I had to be a detective in my relationship and I know in the long run that was never going to work for me. I just couldn’t live like that.

I'm going the divorce route because my WW just hit strike 3 with sexting. That's enough chances. She even admits that she doesn't feel guilt or remorse doing those actions and she can't be trusted.

Now she has mental issues for sure, but those don't give her a free pass. I suspect she'll go off the deep end when things are finalized.

D-Day was Friday 03 July 1981 -

...

She moved out in December 1993 and, despite some difficult situations along the way I'm in a very good place and have never - genuinely not for one fleeting moment - either doubted that I did what was morally right in my particular situation or regretted removing her from my life.

Am I interpreting this right ... that you stayed with her for 12 years after D-day?

This question spurred an epiphany for me... I literally lost my mind after DDay...I was just trying to function...running on Remote for so long...my only decision was to stay for my last child to graduate....then???? R was offered...but abused..

During childs jr year, H became very ill...brain issues.... so I stayed longer then originally anticipated...I was not sure if he would live, or live quality...

Now I have learned, and realized WH is NPD...and I look back and see the mind games he was playing. After Dday...the triangulation, the remorselessness, the punishing....while I was trying to catch him...he was keeping OW as a threat to me, lying chronically...typical NPD...I had not really revisited this... I was unaware of NPD at that time...and only recently realized this is what WH does... I have seen it at other times, but had not really replayed DDay...and the 8 months of gas lighting afterward... I keep learning, that he is worse then I realized.

Child graduated....WH health, is holding steady...with no diagnosis still.....and D is in process....for all the above reasons...and alcoholic H is drinking again....the real reason for all the above.

Epiphanies will surface for years...its strange...you keep learning. This was all a game. I have spent most of my time, trying to figure out what was what...while H spent his time, tricking me...keeping things confused.

[This message edited by cancuncrushed at 7:46 PM, July 23rd (Monday)]

@Ripped62 I have felt abandoned.

3 years out and I have had a lot of ups and downs. The fact that my WH only regrets it happening and hasn’t done the work to look deep inside of himself and not blameshift has been huge reason for such a rollercoaster ride. And me sitting on the fence of limbo.

The most recents events has me asking a lot of questions and making it clear what I have to demand and if I don’t get it my life will be much more peaceful by myself.

The anxiety this realationship has caused me is not worth it.

[This message edited by Emotionalhell at 9:19 PM, July 23rd (Monday)]

13 years out, simply stated:

1. Kids

2. Finances

The end.

Your sharing has been beneficial to me and I hope others as well.

Given the immense pain and trauma infidelity produces, it was helpful to see how others dealt with remaining in the marriage or not and there reasoning or key factors.

I understand the decisions are personal and depend upon individual make up and situations. However, there seems to be some commonality concerning the devastation of the betrayal and methods for surviving infidelity.

Thank you for your response and help.

coolcats

Am I interpreting this right ... that you stayed with her for 12 years after D-day?

Stayed with in the sense of living under the same roof with our kids - yes.

Stayed with in terms of being married (other than in law) - no.

When caught XW, a science-subject teacher, volunteered, no pressure applied and no emotion displayed, that she had exposed our kids to a real risk of abduction when they were 3 and 4 in order to spend ten minutes on her back with her best friend's husband, a relationship she initiated; a man who never kissed her, used her as an occasional c*md*mp (along with at least two other women), whom she claimed raped her when she tried to dump him, humiliated her in front of his friends, verbally and physically abused her when dumping her - yet I got the leverage to force a confession some months later - when they decided to recommence. She's a psychopath - in their mind you don't dump a psychopath - they dump you - even if it means submitting to repeated mistreatment. I imagine she presented my eventual kicking her out as me being manipulated into doing what she wanted - though in twenty+ years she never suggested divorce or even a temporary separation.

She admitted to a prior brief holiday affair - she was one of several in charge of school children and another married female colleague took up with a crew member so "she had to have one as well". That was it - no emotion, no attraction just competitive need - and no apology.

She told me, again unforced, out of the blue and without discernible emotion, that she was "almost glad" that I'd caught her because she felt she was getting to the stage where she would have had sex with any man.

Later she violently assaulted the (her) child she scapegoated, aged 8, because "HE SAID NO!" (I intervened robustly), ran up substantial debt and hid the evidence etc. etc..

She was desperate for me to be unfaithful - that "would even the score". She even put in writing that she "wouldn't make problems" if I had an affair - but that I should tell her once it was over or, if ongoing, after a year!

She was incapable of understanding that you can't break something that someone else has already destroyed. Psychopaths are unable to feel love, they know about it but they can't "do" it - love is having physical sex - that's all it ever is for them.

Twice during that dozen years XW's then best friends offered me sex - I've no doubt the second was at XW's behest! At XW's instigation we went to a dinner party with a married colleague and her husband - turned out it was four couples and swapping/group sex/whatever was planned for the after-dinner entertainment - as the saying goes I made my excuses and we left.

She is a pathological liar - even when telling the truth would be better for her. She'd lie and then expose the lie a little later because whatever she says NOW is true. She turns situations round so that she emerges with glory she doesn't deserve - even the one time she had to admit to me that she had lied she made out that it was a noble lie - a lie told to protect her best friend; one of those who had offered me sex and had, I knew, absolutely nothing to do with the situation she was lying about. I was told, I didn't ask, that once I'd dumped her "nothing in trousers was safe"

AIUI - When she retired she persuaded her dyslexic child to go with her to start new lives in a non-english speaking country (thus guaranteeing dependancy upon her) and then stole the money which was meant to provide them with their own property.

She knows that the things she does are considered evil by others - she doesn't(cannot) care - if she wants she must have it - often in order to gain what she perceives as revenge on someone. She's a classic psychopath - the part of her brain (the amygdala) which allows remorse, conscience, caring, impulse-restraint etc. doesn't work. Actually very predictable once you learn to think like them - just don't get stuck like it.

I was fortunate enough to have had a gorgeous friend (think [if you're too young - google] Angie Dickenson as Pepper Anderson) who had been through the equivalent - also had young children and good reasons for not immediately splitting up. I suppose these days it might be considered FWB - laughing/crying, cuddling etc. with her probably kept me sane throughout those dozen years.

Was I right to stay as long as I did? - I'll never know - both my kids are alive and reasonably OK - the elder told me they never suspected anything was wrong with the marriage until we split, I've never asked the younger. There's no way to go back and try an alternative.

I was raised religious (saw through it at 12) but I've got a clear conscience about the way I looked out for my kids - they didn't ask to be born and they were deliberately conceived though, in hindsight, my XW's motivation was probably not the same as mine. They had a safer life than had I walked, probably a financially better provided life-style and they were loved. There are very good reasons for believing that my X would have lurched from one desperate relationship to another were I not there, exposing my kids to all sorts of moral and physical dangers.

And it worked out pretty well for me. Successful in business, financially stable and enjoying a comfortable lifestyle with a very attractive partner of twenty years who appears to no more want to trade me in than I her.

When DD1 hit, I knew I was only going to make it until DS was 18. DD2, thought maybe I can hang on until he’s 11 or 15. DS3, I was done that second. I filed yesterday. It sucks, but WH will NEVER be a SAFE partner for me. Maybe someone else, if he can get his shiz together, but not for me. I’d much rather be single and living honestly than married and playing PI.

I decided to R quickly and I don't regret that decision but I do regret not giving myself more time and space to breathe. My number one advice to those who have JFO now is to get out of infidelity quickly but to then take all the time needed once that is done.

My DD was actually 18 months after a year-long EA turned PA turned back to EA had ended (and I had plenty of evidence to see it was over). At the time of discovery we were getting on really well and some earlier M issues had largely been resolved, so I was in a happy place! It made the discovery all the more incongruous.

Our three kids were also a massive part of my initial decision making.

And like most, I would have thought previously that an A would be a dealbreaker.

I guess, put simply, in the end I made the decision that my W is a good but flawed person who did a terrible thing, was genuinely remorseful, and that I felt confident would never do it again (with the caveat that I don't deal in certainties any longer).

I decided I could work with that and now we're 3+ years down the line.

Of course it's not been plain sailing but she's never led me to believe that was a mistake and if I did ever discover another A or that she'd broken NC, I would D instantly.

We did the D or R dance, but it all came down to my cheater deciding that he couldn't deal with my emotions and having to be transparent. I initially confronted him and he denied it, and then i pushed and rather than answer me he said he wanted D. I was fine with it because it was a deal breaker in my mind. About a week later he asked for a chance to R and came "clean" about a 5 year LTA with a coworker- he still works with.

We tried MC and he did IC begrudginly- i had to push to find a counselor, push to make appointments...i did all the work. He didn't read the books or follow thru on doing the homework.

We went away on vacation and i felt he wasn't really interested. When we got back i asked for a tracking app because he still worked with this woman. He took it off his phone, bought a blocking gadget, and wouldn't answer questions about his whearabouts, but was happy to tell me i was not innocent. Said my emotional roller coaster caused by his affair was something he couldn't deal with if i wanted it to work i needed to get that under control....that was it, no empathy- whoa is me attitude about himself. So i said i wanted D. unfortunately stuck in IHS hell!

And que up the Clash "Should I Stay or Should I Go"

**pause while Chaos sings and dances**

For me an A was always a deal-breaker. Therefore, no one was more surprised than I when I didn't throw his cheating a** out on DDay. If any of my friends came to me with a similar story I'd have told them to throw him out and I'd help them pack.

I did tell WH if he ran away to a friend's house [like he was planning] he could stay there and never return. If he stayed he'd better be prepared to take it like a man. He didn't go.

Fast forward a few days until I talked to [troubled] teen DD IC and an EAP crisis hotline through work. Both advised me the same variation on a theme: "If teen DD was under 5 or over 18 they'd sure as shootin' know what they'd tell me. But with an already troubled teen....and they just shook their heads". I got teen DD in with hers within 72 hours. Her IC repeated herself, made sure I was practicing self care and made me promise to set myself up something - I did a few weeks later. My IC said up to me BUT with everything else going on, it was OK if I let dust settle and rode things out [along with mutterings about losing faith in humanity].

So...after a few weeks of hysterics [me] and anger [him] and erratic behavior [teen] and our history as a couple [24 years] we decided to ATTEMPT R and see where it went. That surprised me. Really surprised me. Still does.

Fast forward to 1 year post DDay. Things are better. Teen is leveling out. WH is many months out of his fog and I reclaimed myself and got my BASGU [bad a** sparkly goddess unicorn] back. For the most part WH is doing his work. I am healing myself,b we are healing as a family and WH and I are healing as a couple.

Biggest hurdle for me - it was a 3 year LTA. Three F***ing Years. That one may be too much for me in the end. I am willing to take the time and figure it out though.

Now, with all that being said it will be an interesting next few years. We are willing to do the work. We are willing to ride the roller coaster. We are willing to traverse the PLOF.

I don't know the ending, even though R is the goal. I know that's the path we've chosen. Time will tell.

When I do know - it will be for certain. Beyond the shadow of a doubt. And I'll be able to look in the mirror and say to myself wherever we end up that I did every single thing possible.

An A was never a deal breaker for us. We always thought R would be a possibility.

As I've said before, I wanted R from the start, but I didn't commit to R until I saw my W doing the work and looking like she'd never stop. I watched for 90 days and saw total consistency, so I committed to R.