SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

WW had an EA possible PA in 2014. For our whole 20 year marriage I had told her an A would never be tolerated and would end in a D. I swallowed my pride, folded to the pressure of friends and church and stayed. To her credit after the fog lifted she has done everything I have asked of her and has been a model wife. Our youngest graduates HS in May and I will be filing papers for D. I let the xww know my intentions o Monday. We are good financially and are going to do our best to be adults and work out an equitable settlement without bankrupting ourselves with lawyer fees.

I have never been able to be at peace with her A and it has slowly eaten me alive. I have come to hate myself for being weak and not doing what I knew should have been done 4+ years ago. This self hatred has become a huge weight on my shoulders and the stress is crippling. It has also caused me to fight with my W and rehash her A with every fight we have. The pain from her A is as fresh now as it was 4 years ago. It is has become evident that, while I may have tried to appease everyone else, I am truly unable to stay married to a woman that has an affair while married to me. I contemplated whether I was having some sort of midlife crisis and it's not that. I have no illusions that the grass will be greener after D. There is no other woman of even a person I envision a relationship with. I just can't be married to a cheater.

We are going to cohabitate until we have a solid plan in place. We both understand the hurdles that will pop up during the D process and we have pledged that we will be accountable to each other as husband and wife until the D is final. She is holding out hope that I will have a change of heart but that isn't in the cards.

It is really sad that a 20+ year marriage is coming to an end because of a self admitted bout of short term insanity. She was warned our whole marriage and she chose to do what she did. Now it is just too much and it is time to start a new chapter.

[This message edited by shellshocked14 at 10:02 PM, January 2nd (Wednesday)]

Gentle wake up call. She has been a model. But after 4 years you don't know if it was a pa? You do see the disconnect right?

Maybe that's why you feel so without hope.

She has admitted that the only reason it wasn't a full blown PA is because I caught it before she had a chance to be alone with him to see where it lead them. So to me the intention is as bad as the act itself.

So whether or not I can prove the PA doesn't matter. She had every intention of exploring the relationship up to and including sex. To me there is no difference in intending to have a PA and getting busted and actually committing the act. They are one and the same.

^^^^ what he said. No wonder you are still in pain. 100% is the only way to R. Those festering seeds have being doing their evil work on you.

Glad you joined us herein the S/D forum - great group of folks with lots of good advise on the logistics, mechanics, and emotional hurdles of D.

I hope you are finding peace.

[This message edited by BearlyBreathing at 10:28 PM, January 2nd, 2019 (Wednesday)]

I’m stuck right now in the pressure from family and friends and kids. . It’s really hard. I feel like I’m disappointing everyone. It doesn’t seem to matter what all he did. I can’t seem to get over it. No one else seems to care about that

shellshocked and Jesusismyanchor - I stayed in my M way longer than I should have because I was being guided by our families.

Bottomline is if it is a dealbreaker for you, then it is.

Part of me always thinks I should have cut my loses way sooner but I am consoled by the fact that I hung in there longer so I know without a doubt anything really changed.

shellshocked - have you done some IC to help you navigate?

Yes I did do IC and my counselor told me at the end that ultimately I had to make a decision about whether the A was a show stopper or something I could live with. We also did MC with 2 separate people a couple of years apart. After dday I just never could get rid of the feeling that this was something that I could ever live with in my marriage. My dad cheated on my mom their entire marriage and I saw the damage that comes from infidelity. I told my wife from the time we came exclusive until a week before I busted her that an A was something I would not tolerate and would mean the end of our marriage. I have struggled for 4 years shoving my hatred and anger deep down in my soul and now I just cannot live the lie any longer. I still love my wife and only hope for the best for her but it will have to be without me.

For those that are clinging to the whole PA or not a PA thing, as I said earlier she was ok with continuing with an EA knowing that it would turn into a PA eventually and she has admitted that she would not have stopped except for the fact that I found out and killed the relationship she was having. If her OM had kept persuing her she would have continued by hiding it better. Luckily the OM had been lied to about our maritial status and had nothing to do with her after I confronted him. So I was left to figure out how to navigate a mostly destroyed marrige with 2 teenage kids and a wife that took a while to see the error of her ways. 4 years later I have become a very apathetic spouse that when angry only sees his spouse as a cheater. It is not fair to her or me to live this type of life.

Does your kids know about your WW's infidelity? How will they take the D? What about your WW? Was she surprised at all or was she expecting it all along?

I am glad to hear you had the opportunity to explore it all via IC. That does help tremendously.

While the D process still sucks, I found a certain peace came once I made that decision.

Hotdog- My kids are aware of my wifes A. They found out via a third party but know pretty much what happened. The kids are older 17-19 and they are not aware that we plan to D. It will not be a surprise and with college starting for one and the other one already attending they are so busy I don’t believe it will be too big of a thing but I will be watching for anything weird.

My wife has seen this comimg for a while but is still holding out hope that I will change my mind. We are still in the same house sharing a bed and doing the normal married people stuff. We plan to discuss specifics in February and then we will see how it goes. We both say we need to stay friendly when it is over but splitting up 25 years of assets may negate what we say now. We will see.

Ultimately it is up to you. If it is a deal breaker it doesn't matter how many years have past, whether it was an EA or PA or how model of a wife she is now. When you know the marriage no longer makes you happy, then it's only fair that you cut your losses and move on to a life that will make you happier. There is nothing wrong with that. Some people can R and some just can't and that's OK. BS's are often pressured to stay married by family and friends and for the sake of the kids, but if it's something you can't reconcile in your own mind then it's time to move on. Sitting in limbo is hell.

You don't owe anyone any justification. If an A is a deakbreaker for you, it's perfectly okay. For some, it is a line in the sand that couples don't cross. You do what you need to do to heal from the betrayal. If that means D, so be it.

I was one of those as well. I told Xhole time after time during our marriage that an A would result in dire consequences. Little did I know he was cheating the whole time. However, after the first Dday, I knew I was going to D. I tried to stick it out until my youngest graduated, but another Dday was the final straw.

I make no apologies for not wanting to R and going immediately to D. Like you, I could not be married to a cheater. After four years, my resentment had built up so much, I couldn't stand to be in his presence at that point.

So be true to yourself, and you will (hopefully) find peace.

One word of caution. Go into the D process with eyes wide open. It is a business transaction, and should be treated as such. I hope yours remains amicable, but we have seen many that started out that way go downhill quickly. Stay alert.

Shellshocked - do not underestimate your children's pain just because they're older.

My WH's infidelity hit my son so hard; he was devote in his religious studies, had never so much as uttered a profane word in his life, but his dad's disrespect of his marriage vows brought this returned missionary to scream profanities at his father, then suffer a spiritual and emotional breakdown that has devastated the last 5 years of his life so far; he has not yet recovered.

We reconciled after a lengthy separation, but to this day, my WH grieves the damage to our son more than the damage he did to me. I was the more resilient of the two of us.

[This message edited by k8la at 10:19 PM, January 3rd (Thursday)]

My X knew I had two deal breakers our entire M(30 years)

You lay a hand on me in anger-done.

You cheat on me-done.

He knew that. He cheated.

There was never a thought to R.

It was over.

shellshocked14,

Your decision to divorce your wayward wife because of the destruction caused by her infidelity is a worthy response.

Infidelity is a deal breaker for many of us.

Please treat the divorce as a business negotiation. Try to avoid drama. Please keep your eyes open as you proceed forward as suggested by Phoenix1.

Many times individuals have started amicably only to see things spiral into absurdity.

[This message edited by Ripped62 at 5:26 AM, January 4th (Friday)]

Family and friends can put pressure on you, but they don’t know what it’s like to be in your relationship. It’s okay to be done. If you feel relief afterwards, you know you’ve made the right decision. Only you can ultimately take care of you.

The grass is greener on the other side is a saying for waywards imo.

Just practice self love everyday. Stay committed to the act of self love and stay committed to this commitment. The grass Ain't gonna be green it's gonne be dark green!!!!

Not all women have a wayward mentality.

Sorry to hear you've been struggling with this, but sometimes a deal breaker is just that - a deal breaker.

I hope divorcing allows you to find some peace and move on from this.

I made the same decision after trying R for 2 years. It was a false R as STBXWH never lived up to the promises he made me (counseling, reading, etc.) and never really could face what he had done.

I've been separated for 7 mos and haven't regretted it one day. You'll be fine and she will be too.

Time for a clean slate. My only advice is to be very careful how you tell your kids. They are still very young. My youngest was 20 on Dday and he was very upset.

I wish you all the best..

I can echo the kids sentiment as well. My WH's father had a 5-year A that resulted in D right after my WH graduated from high school. He graduated, went to boot camp, and came "home" to find that the house was sold and the D was almost final. It has been a very hush-hush don't ask don't tell situation and honestly I think a lot of his troubles with communicating and allowing himself to feel his feelings and let them out to someone comes from this stifled childhood.

I can also say as a child who lived through an Affair relationship (my mother was the OW who got pregnant and ended up marrying the cheating husband) we really had a great upbringing and the A impacted my life very minorly. All the adults involved - my mom/the OW, my dad who was divorced from my mom long before her A, the WH/my step father and the BS his ex-wife, were all very careful to make sure we understood what had happened in a very PG rated way, but did NOT bad mouth the other parents. Me and my step-siblings never knew the pain of the BS or the problems that were inevitably going on between the BS, her H and my mom the OW. My half-sister (the child from the affair) who has 4 half siblings, was invited to the BS's home with her 2 half siblings for events and holidays, as she was invited to join my sister and I at my Dad's. The BS and my father always got all of us kids a gift at christmastime and totally grasped the concept that the A was none of our faults and we shouldn't be made to pay for it.

Basically they left the adult issues to the adults and made sure we all felt okay with our lives as much as children of divorced parents do. Make sure to give your kids the opportunity to understand what happened and try to still keep their love for the other parent. It's really for the best in the long run for them.