SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Several weeks later update. Things are moving forward. Divorce is scheduled to be final right around December 22.

The darn furnace went out this week, so there goes $4,000, but it is turning cold and I'll get the money back when the house is sold. Hoodies and wool socks until Thursday.

Bike riding is more difficult during the week because of the shortness of days, but the gym is still open. My trainer is very supportive and encouraging. I don't want to lose the gains in fitness I found over the end of the summer by hitting the winter doldrums, so 3 nights per week will be at the gym.

STBXW's school is on a 2 week remote quarantine. I expect my school to follow suit in the next couple of weeks. It's hard to lesson plan for the unknown.

My sleep is shitty again, but fortunately, my diet is okay. Looking forward to the weekend and riding the bike or hiking to get myself good and tired and will also keep getting rid of stuff from the house. It is difficult to dispose of 32 years of crap that no one really ever needed. Realized that her hoarding tendencies seemed have been shared with me as I try to deal with the garage full of junk. My 17 year old thinks we should just box all of her crap and put it out on the curb with a "FREE" sign on it.

However, all in all, I'm feeling pretty good. The sad times get fewer and fewer and life can be pretty fun. Its always a shock when we lose daylight this time of year and then find myself stuck in a classroom with no natural light, so I've got to get outside again for a little more time under the weakening winter sun. Have a 28 mile small group ride planned for Sunday and possibly a hike on Saturday so that will help.

Taking a look at retirement reality. I can retire in 1 year and have a decent but not great pension. I would need to work 10 more years to make a real difference in it, so I think I will probably do just this - retire in December 2021 and have a transitional contract for 6 months and then move away from my beloved mountains for someplace less expensive and a fresh start. I will be 58 years old and can "double dip" by either teaching in another state or just working at Home Depot or the like.

Had the first of 2 divorce conferences yesterday (via phone) to get some clarification on paperwork we still need to file. 15 minutes and this thing gets more real every day. Looking forward to freedom for sure.

Glad to hear things are progressing for you sir.

STBXW asked what my Thanksgiving plans were. I told her that DS and I would travel to my parents and have turkey day with them and my siblings and their families and we would celebrate my parent's 60th anniversary. She said her and her girlfriend(I didn't ask) would have dinner in their new house since they couldn't go to the OW's family celebration - she's not welcome - and then hoped to have another day with our son. He's told his mother that he didn't want to ever see her girlfriend but she's hoping that he'll give in. I just shook my head at that one.

She did say that she felt I should have all the credit for her and DS having any sort of relationship at all. I've gone out of my way to encourage her to reach out to him and told my son that despite what she's done, she's still his mother.

I've been out with a new friend the past couple of nights. When STBXW and I talked last night, she wistfully commented, "You seem happy again," and something along the lines of "maybe this will actually be the best times of your life." I think it's stuns her that I'm actually actively moving on and really working on myself. She apologized again for becoming a lesbian. I sort of laughed and shook my head.

You know my little sister did something like that. She got involved with another girl and scandalized the family for two years. This was way back in the 90s. Anyway, her "girlfriend" commenced to cheat on her serially, with several other women, and then one day my sister announced to the family that she was no longer a lesbian and she broke up with this other gal.

She's married to her husband now and has two kids. She refers to her "lesbian years" now as a time of "experimentation".

As she continues to pack her horded shit up on the afternoons around here (she doesn't live here anymore) she spends time on the phone with her girlfriend. Of course she has to have it on speaker and right now is work from home time so I get the "pleasure" of overhearing some things plus STBXW has an inside voice appropriate for a helicopter with open doors.

It seems that the girlfriend's family is just not that thrilled with this. Imagine that? Girlfriend's father was a serial cheater who I just happened to know way back before I ever met STBXW and witnessed his cheating many times. Yep, STBXW is closer in age to girlfriend's parents than she is to girlfriend.

Having my trampy STBXW cheat on her husband and tear apart her family is a huge trigger for girlfriend's mother and sister. The big plans to move in together are being slowed down dramatically as girlfriend is starting to see what she is getting and momma and big sister are putting the pressure on her to not eff up her own life with this cheater.

I told STBXW this would happen way back and also told her that I envision her living alone, in poverty, in a ratty apartment that smells like cat piss. I think it will happen very soon.

Woke up this morning feeling a bit blue. My 57th birthday is coming up on Sunday and I realized I will likely be all alone on that day. My son will be with his girlfriend (who is a lovely young redhead and just as cute as a button), STBXW will be in her love nest and my new friend is out of town. Weather looks to be cold and snowy, so a long bike ride may be out of the plans. Our city has been restricted back to Orange so many businesses are limited in what they can do. I just read that our city has the 4th highest Covid infection rates in the country. My school is essentially shut down and I'm working my ass off to try and keep students engaged for a few more days. We were told to expect January school to start fully remote.

I'll have a week off for Thanksgiving and don't want to feel blue the whole time but the weather looks good, so ought to be able to ride the bike and burn off some stress.

My friend who is out of town texted me this morning - actually more like the middle of the night. She's got her own stress to deal with so she wasn't able to sleep. Chatting with her helped. And she sent me beach pictures and videos of waves she saw last night.

I do miss having that one person who just got me and I could talk to or sit quietly with, whatever was needed.

She came over to get another load of her stuff and decided she would bake pumpkin bread since she hoarded many cans of pumpkin. I remained upstairs. I smelled the baking bread and went to the kitchen. It seems like she used EVERY measuring cup and spoon and mixing bowl in the house and of course just laid all the dirty stuff in the sink and was back to packing. I went to MY sink and cleaned the mess she made. 20 minutes later she came upstairs and said, "thanks for cleaning up my mess."

I know that even I am re-writing some of our history, but it seems like I've been cleaning up her messes for years. Thank goodness that is getting more and more done.

She did tell me that her girlfriend wants to decorate their new house in all Harley stuff. I laughed out loud and in her face. Nice choice.

Just want to say that reading your journal (and that’s what this thread is turning into) it sounds like you are making good progress. It’s never easy, but it does sound like you are healing.

Thank you Bigger. I decided a few months ago that I could either be sad and wallow in misery or I could get out and do life and take care of what I could take care of. That was a great decision!

Of course I am sad and spend time every day moping, but I refuse to let it dominate my every waking hour. I have a couple of good friends who will listen to me moan and cry, but they encourage me to get out and do things in the sun.

I'm so lucky to live in a place that has fantastic weather. I loaded up my mountain bike today and hauled it out to our local reservoir trails and had a wonderful 15 mile ride off road and in and out of the trees and canyons. During the first 5 or 6 miles I saw around 20 mule deer. They didn't run away, much, instead they just looked at me with their pretty deer faces and big ears.

I stopped at the midpoint of the ride and just sat and looked at the lake down below, listened to the gulls, ducks, ravens, hawks and other birds making noise. My new lady friend called and we visited for about 20 minutes (she's on vacation in Cali). As I pedaled on I felt so fortunate to be alive and to be able to get out and be active and have very few real concerns about the pandemic being in the great outdoors.

I'm glad I chose to not stay in the fetal position.

[This message edited by countrydirt at 3:40 PM, November 20th (Friday)]

I asked her politely to not come by the house today on my birthday to gather more of her stuff. Her response, after a bit, was pretty snarky, but she agreed to not.

My youngest son made breakfast for me and then we video called my older two for about an hour. My new lady friend called me and sang happy birthday to me and we visited for about half an hour.

Youngest and I went for a walk around our city riverwalk, then came home and made burgers and ate cake and strawberries. Then he suggested that I could watch some episodes of the Mandalorian for my birthday. Snooze, but we did. Then he washed the dishes and is heading off to his girlfriend's house.

It was so peaceful to not have to deal with the ex or many of the normal ugly thoughts and feelings.

Happy birthday, Country!! Glad you are making the most of the day. You are going to have a lot to celebrate for the new year.

No contact is your best friend

Thank you. My youngest son just couldn't go off to his girlfriend's house right away. He came back in pretty weepy and so we just sat and hugged and cried and talked for about an hour. I think it just hit him what his mother actually did by throwing us away. He took care of me all day (well as much as a 17 year old can...) and was telling me that he was worried about me. I knew that he was really just transferring onto me.

He's such a quiet and compliant young man that it's always hard to really get a read on him. So, I've got to get the focus off of me and put it on him for a while. He's a great kid and smart as a whip (of course I might be a little biased). He's already received full ride scholarship offers from a couple of universities and has a bright future, but is thinking more along the lines of military so that he doesn't rack up debt for a questionable online education and could get the same or better training while getting paid.

Navigating through this situation is an ever evolving shitshow of emotions. Obviously I have experienced tremendous pain personally. But, I'm a father as well, so helping my grown sons and my teenager through it really has been eye-opening. I think God had to sort of slap me out of my self-isolation and self-pity and show me that I still have a role in taking care of my boys.

Last weekend, my 17 year old finally broke down with me and wept over it all. All I could do was hold him and assure him that we would get through this and that despite the fact that his mother was no longer my wife, she was still his mother, even if she acts like someone he doesn't know. He reached out to her and is being a man about it and is trying to keep some sort of relationship with her.

My second son is 26 and lives in northern Germany with his fiance. They've been together for about 10 years when she was an exchange student during their junior year in high school. He and I have talked at great length. I know he feels even more helpless than I do with the physical distance between us and the likelihood that it may be several years before we can actually see each other. His girl reached out to me over the past day or so and expressed her own grief over the whole thing,so we've been talking about it and how she can continue to just try and focus on her studies (1 semester left in medical school) and his studies (3 semesters remaining in computer science) and the power of prayer and taking care of each other.

Funny, when I get the focus off of my own pain and try to help my people, my own pain becomes less and I can see more clearly my path forward.

Had the final divorce conference today. All paperwork is now complete. So I take it to the justice center and submit the final file on Monday.

I found myself very sad today. She came over to my house to sign everything. 31 years of a very good marriage are completely gone. I did appreciate that she almost cried.

This sucks. I tried to get through it by going for a long bike ride and posting pictures, but it just didn't work. I'm crying. I don't want this, but it is happening.

I'll be fine soon.

Yes you will man. Yes you will. And very soon. Count on it.

Your ex will undoubtedly auger in with all engines on afterburner. Do not take her back when she suddenly decides she’s not gay after all.

She said she hoped we could get to a place to be friends. I told the best I hoped for was not despise her someday.

I filed the final paperwork today. If everything is copacetic with the judge, then in 14 days I should be divorced. Missed having it happen on the 32 anniversary by 5 days. Wouldn't that have been ironic?

Today was pretty anti-climatic after the bad day I had on Friday when we signed everything and the court person signed off on everything.

But in good news, my second son sent me a message that my daughter-in-law passed her final medical school exams and is now a medical doctor!!