SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Read the entire thread and TBH was really worried for a bit that you were going to try to R.

Glad to see that you are getting out now rather than trying to fix her.

DO NOT tell her about the promotion. Hell, don't tell ANYONE in your circle if you haven't already. Only your lawyer needs to know.

Keep posting.

My two cents (sorry you are here and getting a D but sometimes you have no choice).

You will date. You won’t readily commit to anyone. That will be best for awhile. Don’t bring your baggage to the next relationship and don’t commit to a relationship until you are ready.

My brother was widowed rather young and women would suggest coffee or casual things. He declined. Wasn’t ready. Finally he says yes about 5 years after being widowed and the woman says on the first date “we should get married”.

He almost ran out the door. But the point is he knew he wasn’t ready for anything serious. And this woman was looking for a H (she reeked of desperation) Immediately. Not for him. Stay away from crazy and don’t commit to anyone until YOU are ready.

Meet people. Take your time. When you meet the right person and you are ready for a relationship you will know. Don’t rush into anything.

And get a pre-nup the next time if you ever decide to marry. Protect yourself.

[This message edited by The1stWife at 4:15 PM, September 20th (Friday)]

With time and separation from stbxww things will get better for you. Next GF you will have some worry and concern initially but it hopefully wont be too bad. You can use it to be more vigilant of boundaries-- which is good--- but avoid being crazy possesive.

All will work out for you!

Having a really tough day. She's been texting me a bit over last few days, we met to sign initial divorce papers, which was very tough on both of us. When me meet we talked a lot and that connection is still there and very strong. She has been begging me too let her show me she can be the person I need her to be. I've had others tell me to give it time as well but just trying to open up to that idea has caused me so much pain over the last few days.

I don't see how someone who could do this to anyone could be a good life partner. Some are telling me we should try therapy and couples therapy first. I just don't want to keep feeling this drained and like I'm not taking care of myself or working towards moving on. They say don't rush it, don't get divorced yet, you need to give this a shot together or not at all. But as I see it.. She needs to decide who she wants to be on her own, not with me directing her. I want out for now. And sure if she can turn her shit around in 6mo, a yr whatever AND I feel like I'd be open to dating her again? Maybe. Chances of that happening are slim to none but I'm pretty against working together on this until she shows she is taking serious action to fix this.

She is seeing therapist a few times a week, I have another meeting soon where I'll bring this up and work through how to deal with it all.

You know your mind and your what you can stand in a relationship better than anyone. You and you alone know what will happen years down the line of you take her back. Ask you self is it worth the risk? Then make the best choice for yourself. Because you and you alone will have to live with that choice. Those people telling you these things, Can tell you this because the don't have to live with your choice. Something to think about....

Stay strong and stay the course. You need to avoid contact in order to grow stronger and heal as well as to protect yourself from her manipulating behavior and empty promises.

Consider moving to another city.

When it is all said and done..... the only person you have to answer to is YOURSELF. You feel as if you need to D, then D. If she proves over time to of changed and may become a safe partner, then you can date her as a new relationship. Let her proof herself to you. All.the people saying that you have to do this and do that are not living your life. Been living with the hurt your dealing with. So as kindly as you can, say F that. Keep strong. You have one life to live. Live it under your terms.

Thanks. That is helpful. The difficulty is I believe she is telling the truth when she says she is ready and willing to do anything. And truly does care for me. And that's nice. If I knew she would change and be faithful in the future then I would take her back. But I just don't know how long that attitude will last for, or how disciplined and faithful she can really truly be. I fear a light breeze is all it would take to put me right back where I am today.

Again, more reason for me to stick to my beliefs and cut this thing off. I know it may sound strange to some but to me the marriage was ruined anyway, I don't want it anymore. If she truly changes and wants to keep trying to win me back after a divorce then I won't shut that down yet, but Ill need some time and space and I may need to see what else is out there too.

The issue here is she was sober and planned out a night of adultery. That was a conscious choice.

Usually, I would say the alcoholism, should be addressed.

In your case, she makes bad choices sober and drunk.

I personally refuse to be the marriage police. If my fWH was making bad choices sober and drunk, the door wouldn’t hit me in the butt.

Who does this? Plans to cheat sober. Maybe the reason the family is supportive of divorce, are becaus they have seen other things in her drunken behavior.

You deserve better than what she offers. When is the divorce final?

As another poster often states, your WW needs consequences for her actions. You feel that its important to D so D. If she proves to you she is save you can date her. Live with her. But not as your wife. She lost that distinction through her actions and devaluing your vows to each other.

If she strays again, you will lose nothing since your already D. She wont be able to take anything else of yours. Be smart, follow your feelings. They will not stir you wrong.

First off I'm really sorry this has happened. From someone that never did the hard 180 it made my recovery 10x worse so my suggestion is the hard 180....only thing that works in my book. Your doing great. I wrote a longer response but wouldn't let me post. I believe that it will take more time for your WS to understand the depth of her actions as she begins to 'sober' up in more ways then one. I think given my experience I had I wouldn't trust anything they say for a good few months and then some. Only then can you begin to ascertain what the reality of the situation is...hang in there:)

No children between you. You’re young. Just RUN. Many of us BS would divorce our WS if we didn’t have children. We give R a chance because we don’t want to break up the family unit. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I told my WW if we didn’t have 3 kids I would have divorced her in a heartbeat. But I’m giving her the R opportunity and see how it goes. Divorcing her doesn’t mean you will stop loving her. It means you can’t continue being their partner.

[This message edited by Mene at 7:59 PM, September 23rd (Monday)]

That "connection" you are feeling... you would not feel this with a good person.

A good person would be unsure, ashamed... they could not cry the tears, put everything into all the pleading. Ironically, the person who knows they will never follow through can put 100% into the histrionics because they have nothing left for reality. You need to ignore the "connection."

The difficulty is I believe she is telling the truth when she says she is ready and willing to do anything. And truly does care for me.

I’m sure this is true. But she is a deeply disordered person who needs to figure so many things and that will require many years of work. You are NOT required to shackle yourself to pain. I know I keep saying this, but I want to make sure it sticks. BH’s and BW’s are good people; not perfect people but instinctually we seem to have really good hearts. That doesn’t make us better than everyone, but it probably does mean we tend to be more empathetic people with somewhat higher EQ’s. As such we are going to naturally feel we need to stick around and be heroes and help damaged people. But here’s the thing: We don’t need to do this, and in fact, we can live richer and better lives and probably be of more service to more people if we don’t tolerate outright abuse.

I’m sorry to say that your situation is abuse, abuse and more abuse. Your WW doesn’t really get it. My heart breaks for her in one sense, because she may actually mean what she is saying now. Unfortunately she may be so disordered that a few months from now it won’t stick (a light breeze, like you said). That doesn’t make her an evil person; it just makes her a disordered crazymaker. Look up Julia Cameron’s writings on Crazymakers.

Your WW is a crazymaker:

-Crazymakers spend your TIME and money - they suck your time dry.

-Crazymakers break deals and destroy schedules

-Crazymakers expect special treatment

-Crazymakers discount your reality

-Crazymakers triangulate those they deal with.

-Crazymakers are expert blamers

-Crazymakers create drama, but seldom where it belongs

-Crazymakers hate schedules-- except their own. (They will in fact, shit all over your schedule or plans or goals, like dropping adultery into the middle of a relationship to sidetrack you).

-Crazymakers hate order (You clear a place in the house so you can work, and your crazymaker comes along and messes it up before you can begin.)

-Crazymakers deny that they are Crazymakers.

Sound like your alcoholic adulteress WW? Think about it.

Get crazymakers out of your life — especially if, as Mene says, you haven’t had kids with a crazymaker or entangled yourself further.

Divorcing her doesn’t mean you will stop loving her. It means you can’t continue being their partner.

This is such an important distinction. I’ve said it, Mene has said it, others have said it. People get confused on this point. Divorce is not an unloving act. It need not be “revenge.” It can simply be removing yourself from a toxic, radioactive situation. You don’t have to stop loving the person. But you don’t need to be shackled to pain.

You can tell her what you just told us. But still stay separated and move forward toward divorce. If you have a change of heart after being separated for multiple months waiting for divorce you can deal with that "if" it happens.

That time apart will let you know how you really feel. Odds are you will feel better apart and will grow used to the idea of moving on. If the opposite occurs you can look at her actions during those months and see if she is making serious progress or not.

Thanks again all, I really do need the encouragement and reminders more than I thought. Another long one sorry yall.

Some interesting developments..for me I'm just going to put it out there, I'd like an honest less biased opinion from anyone willing to read. I'm trying to be fair to the situation but realize I'm biased by nature as well so try to take that into considerstion.

Here's the Spark notes version: She has been meeting with her therapist and she has recently told me that I had very high standards and treated her like she was never and couldn't ever be good enough for me. She says she would have weeks where she would cry about this at work every morning. Call her mom and cry about it. It tore her up. She felt that I hated her and she would never be good enough. Now I am just learning the magnitude of her feelings around this and I feel absolutely terrible about this. I would never want to treat my wife in such a way that it made her feel like this, so I'm sad to learn that this is what she was going through. She says this caused her to have negative feelings about the relationship. She does still admit that this is no excuse for what she did, nothing could ever excuse that.

So after I broached the divorce and maybe date topic, she responds that she does not want to divorce. She feels we both have things to work on in order for this relationship to work and she wants us to seek couples therapy while married to try to work through each of our problems. She is not sure this will work from her end because of the above mentioned issues she had but still wants to try. If we divorce she feels I'm not committing to working through my problems.

Now..

1. During the relationship she did mention she felt like I treated her like she wasnt good enough a few times, but in passing, never in a 'wake up dude, we have serious problems' kind of way. Certainly not a let's talk now because 'pretty soon I'm going to plan an affair with my coworker' way.

2. She keeps bringing up that during a tiff we had a while back, she asked to go to therapy together and I said I that she needs to work on her stuff first.

3. I feel like I've been very supportive and would have gone to therapy with her if we had that conversation again or in a calmer serious setting. And I feel I had primarily been asking for reasonable behavior like not getting wasted when going out without me or asking her to check in more often etc. To be fair it's likely it was worse though at times - getting mad about half done tasks that sat for a week, the dishes had piled up or that the laundry was started and never put away (we shared equally in the chores). And saying some legitimately mean things like 'I need you to grow up', 'stop being immature' 'you're acting like a child' rather than being a team, supportive and working together.

Now I think that to her this was a legitimate issue, and maybe didn't directly lead to her affair but probably contributed. For me this new info just makes this look more bleak. If she had legitimate problems with me, she did not communicate these to me in a healthy way that could sufficiently get my attention. Another red flag.

How should I take this? On one hand I'm concerned she is manipulating me and her friends by telling herself and others this and blowing the reality out of proportion. But I also want to improve for my next partner. And I recognize that it could be a total blind spot for me and a really big problem that I need to address asap.

Is this a typical approach taken by cheaters to call things out manipulate and pass blame? are there patterns you notice here? Or is this a serious problem that I have that I need a lot of therapy to address before getting into a new relationship?

I'm sure there is truth to it. However it feels like a somewhat standard problem couples might have with each other that stronger couples would work through healthily together. Am I taking this too lightly? I'm going to handle it in therapy either way but would like to get any insight.

[This message edited by Awfulawfulday at 1:02 AM, September 24th (Tuesday)]

This is total blame shifting, don’t accept one syllable of it, it’s all psycho babble.

You been together six years, married three, and she has major issues she wants to blame on you???

Run, fast, otherwise the rest of your life will be one blame shifted problem after another.

If you want to date after D and extensive therapy, great, but I would recommend never putting a ring on her finger again, or having kids with her, ever.

You do have standards, like honesty and fidelity, which she has failed to maintain, so you may just be out of her league.

[This message edited by OrdinaryDude at 3:47 AM, September 24th (Tuesday)]

Awfulawfulday,

What your STBXWW is describing is garden variety marital problems. Every relationships have them. Your next love interest might say that you are not neat enough...

The most important part is to recognize that we are all different and to make a relationship work, one needs to communicate, listen and compromise.

I think your WW is grasping at any concepts to avoid the divorce. She’s like a drowning woman looking for anything to hang on to.