SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Oh, Hell, forget it - I'll just stay???

The relationship isn't "bad", in fact, cordial and friendly. The process of figuring out all the financial details, trying to figure out how I can move out of state, moving during a pandemic, having the emotional reality of ending a 50 year M - it all feels so overwhelming.

Did anyone feel this? Does everyone feel this??

How do I get past this?

It's a real pain in the ass to have to restart your life. There's no getting around that. It's irritating, exhausting, and annoying that you need to. Staying because leaving is hard is not going to make you happy in the long run, but you know that.

I expect that the best way to work through it is to envision the life you're heading towards once you're out and make it a goal you're working towards. Things don't have to be catastrophically bad for you to be unhappy in a marriage and need to leave it for your own mental health.

I left in a blaze of fury, so that helped tremendously with the tedious tasks, lol. That's not where you are, it doesn't sound like.

I certainly had a period of time where "white hot fury" applied, but now it's just getting through each day.

I've told myself all the reasons that staying wouldn't be bad, but every time, I come back to the clarity of the situation - it isn't going to change - and my resolution to leave.

I have a good idea of how I want my future to look and most of the time I can bring up that image in my mind. Just sometimes . . . .

Thanks, Dee

I hear your pain, tellmewhy.

I'm 67 and my XWH is 73 so we're in the same age range and that does make a difference. When you're younger and infidelity happens, you know you have time to meet someone and develop and nuture a new relationship.

When you're our age....not so much time, right?

But, is that really what we need? It's just so hard when you've spent so many years with someone. You just want things to be like they were. At our age, we have trouble adapting to change. We do get set in our ways, don't we?

My xwh had an affair with someone 41 years younger than him. I tried to stay and make it work but he couldn't or wouldn't break contact. What's a girl to do?

I packed up the downstairs of our beautiful home and moved back to the town where I grew up.

Our divorce was final this past March and my heart is still broken. But, I know being without him is the right thing for me personally. In my world, no one can treat me with such disrespect. I can't allow that and be true to myself.

I'm not as scared as I was, tellmewhy. But, I have to accept this "new normal" life for myself and I will embrace and celebrate the time I have left....even if it kills me!

I know all my blather means nothing and it probably isn't helpful in any way to you.

Just know that I feel your pain. You're stronger than you feel right now. Please believe that!!

[This message edited by Bingo at 11:36 AM, September 17th (Thursday)]

I have these thought occasionally. At night when I'm under the influence of my cocktail of sleep meds is when it tends to hit me. I suddenly feel like I could look the other way, enjoy the warm body next to me and just live my life. Then I remember the reality - the twisting up of my insides when I suspect he's sneaking out to cheat, when his timeline doesn't add up when he's secretive with his devices.

I know I can't live with a knife in my guy that he twists at will. It's a slow death.

I don't know if your husband has ended the affair, if you trust him now or what - I suppose depending on the particulars staying could be more or less worse.

Remind yourself of what he's done, how it made you feel and if you want to live with the possibility of more of the same pain. Staying, at least for me, guarantees stress, worry, and continued betrayals. Leaving eliminates infidelity and all of the pain it causes while giving me the possibility of real happiness again. It's not a slam dunk but I know I won't ever have the pain of being cheated on without him.

Starting over sucks. It's not what we should be doing in our 50s and 60s - at least it doesn't feel like what we should be doing. At the very least I expected a boring stable life by this point (57). I put up with a lot post dday to try to keep my life as it was, but that's the problem it continued to be as it was - he never stopped lying or cheating.

After 2 failed R's, I realized that my marriage (and/or my ww) wouldn't make me happy and I want some peace and joy in my life. So I left. In the end I am happy I did. It was hard at first to give up my 'life', but things just got better bit by bit as I stepped out and made my own happiness.

Oh, Hell, forget it - I'll just stay???

The relationship isn't "bad", in fact, cordial and friendly. The process of figuring out all the financial details, trying to figure out how I can move out of state, moving during a pandemic, having the emotional reality of ending a 50 year M - it all feels so overwhelming.

Did anyone feel this? Does everyone feel this??

How do I get past this?

I can't sign on to the first part, but I can the second: that the relationship is cordial and friendly. This is why I'm hoping and cautiously optimistic for a very mature amicable divorce.

In the case of the first sentiment, I think it's perhaps a version fo the sunk costs fallacy catching up with you.

Along with inertia.

You're making a very big huge change. That can feel paralyzing. I realized after telling my WW last month I definitively wanted a divorce that she would be passive about the whole thing and I would have do all the heavy lifting to get it done. It's a lot. A big to do list. It feels overwhelming. But I know I'm doing it for the right reasons.

Fear is also the mind killer here. We all have fears about divorce. A lot of them. The "fear vs. reality" thread is a very good antidote for this.

Big decisions like this are never as painful as you think they will be. I'm not minimizing the pain or saying it won't be hard. I'm saying we tend to make them more monumental than they end up being.

Life has a weird quality to it that doesn't line up with how our minds have been trained from cinema and novels. We think "this is going to be the big moment" and then it turns out not be. That's because life has both a linear and non-linear quality to it. We expect the linear narrative, but life doesn't work that way.

I think of some insight about the infamous monkey experiment in which some baby monkeys were given a comfortable cloth "mommy" surrogate and some monkeys were given a wire cage "mommy" surrogate. The wire cage mommy surrogate wasn't received with enthusiasm by the baby monkeys but they still went to it for nourishment -- because they just didn't know any better.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the cave in Plato's writings. The denizens of the cave are shackled facing the wall and can only see shadows cast by the true light. Eventually one of them frees his bonds, sees the true light outside the cave, sees that there's a whole world out there. But despite his attempts to convince the others that there's a big shining world out there beyond the cave, none will join him.

There are very good rational reasons for why you're getting divorced. Those reasons don't change because your WS has become a polite person.

I think journaling helps because you can work through the "logic model" for why you're getting divorced and remind yourself.

Lastly I'll say that I have a caveat: I'm not actually divorced yet. So we will see how I feel about all of this when I actually pull it off. But these are my thoughts right now, and I hope they are helpful to you.

[This message edited by Thumos at 3:40 PM, September 17th (Thursday)]

Yep! I decided to stay after DDay #1 to try and "fix" the marriage. Even agreed to move to another state thinking that we would start over.

Before I got to the new state with my kids xWH had already jumped into WW#2.

Had I not stayed initially, however, I wouldn't have moved to this state and been gifted with a wonderful relationship and countless dear friends. So when I thought that staying was wrong, I benefited in the end. Not with the marriage, and that was hell to get through with Divorce and 3 kids. But today, 11 years later, I'm good!

TMW, why haven't you left? You were about to 2 1/2 years ago because nothing changed and here you are today still wanting to leave because nothing changed. Do you want to be back here 1 year, 2 years, 5, or 10 still unhappy because nothing changed and yet you stayed?

You get past this by making a real decision and sticking with it. Are you okay looking the other way if/when he cheats again if he hasn't already? Will you regret staying if he leaves you for an OW in the future? Will you always resent him for putting so much energy into the OW when he can't even Google and book a couples retreat for you? You could have 10 or 20 more years left. Do you want to spend it quietly disappointed and resentful even if he doesn't do it again or do you want a chance for real peace and someone you can enjoy spending time with even if that's a good roommate or a dog?

If you can't be honest with yourself and make a choice you can live with, get an IC. You will only keep suffering in limbo if you choose to.

That’s why I am so glad that I moved out last June.

I was hoping to be Divorced by June 2020 but Covid hit...

STBXWH now wants a fresh start with me?!?!

My heart’s not in it... despite our relationship being Mostly cordial since Separation, we are NC now as WH still tries to pull at my heart strings.

Divorce has been held up until the Pandemic is over.

If nothing else, it is amusing watching a serial cheater eat humble pie while clutching at straws.

Sent you a PM.