After a decade plus, an update - 10/09/20 06:33 PM
I doubt that anyone remembers me, but I thought I'd post a note to give people an update (as well as some hope). When I showed up at MB 23 years ago, I had just discovered that my wife was having an affair. We had two young children (7,3) and like everyone else, I was completely devastated. Heartbroken. Confused. I'm a scientist by training, and I searched the internet looking for help (and back then, it was dial-up, baby!). I found this site. Read the articles. It made sense. And in a moment of hopeless desperation, called the counseling line (after 5), expecting to leave a sad message. But no, Steve Harley picked up. We spoke for a bit, set up a session, and he helped talk me off of the ledge.
What a ride that was. My wife and I ended up separated after Plan A/B, but that ended when she got pregnant by the OM. I moved back, the affair broke up, and I worked to try to mend my wife's broken heart (which wasn't particularly easy). The child was born, and he's been a joy and blessing to me--soon to be 22 years old! Our marriage never recovered as it should have—lots of reasons for that, but in the end we got better for a few years, but never regained the state of intimacy that we had. She had a minor stroke a couple years after giving birth which didn't help. Another several years passed and I realized that I wouldn't ever have the marriage that I wanted, but I was OK with staying in a benign friendship and raising the kids. However, the marriage deteriorated further. At times, I sensed the old 'affair' patterns that my wife exhibited with the first one, and I would 'politely' ask her if she were having an affair—that we had agreed to let each other know before that [censored] occurred—but she would deny it. My daughter and wife were huge into dog showing, and during a summer circuit my daughter became suspicious that my wife was cheating, so she did the investigative work to confirm her suspicions. When she had confirmation, she asked me to visit (she lived about an hour away). She broke the news to me in person, and I had to let her know the history between her mom and I—why I wasn't surprised—and what I would do about it. We discovered two serial affairs, and the last one was probably still 'active'. Based on my wife's behavior over the years, I doubt that she had others, but she has been known to surprise me!
So, the short version is that I asked my wife to leave (we had a mutual friend that she could stay with). I asked her to get into counseling, try to decide if she wanted to stay marriage, and if so, I would do joint counseling with her to work on the marriage. I also told her that I would not settle for our current or old marriage—it was going to be great, romantic, fulfilling for the both of us, or I wasn't going to stay with her. She went off and didn't do anything for a couple months; I had the house and kids and animals. I eventually prodded her into the individual counseling, but it didn't appear to go anywhere. At this point, I told her that I was going to file for divorce, and that I thought it would be best if we could hash out a settlement between the two of us rather than throwing expensive lawyers at each other. At this point, she said she wanted to do marriage counseling, so I asked her to find a counselor. She put that back on me, so I got the owner of the clinic where she was doing individual therapy, and we started there. Did about 3 months of this knowing that it was 99.9995% sure that it was not going to work. It didn't. On our 30th anniversary I had to make an emergency trip to visit daughter (who had moved) and return (about a 12 hour drive). The day after, she went to spend the rest of the summer with her boyfriend. We divorced that December (I kept her on my insurance as long as possible, but we got in before the IRS rules switched). As I would say, she got much more than she deserved in the settlement, but less than she might have gotten with a lawyer.
So, after a 30 year marriage (with the last 22 or so sex-free), I was divorce. That's the sad/happy news.
The neat this about this was that fall (before divorce), I was trying to decide whether I wanted to date again. If anyone would be interested in an 'old man' (57 at the time). I had last dated in the 80's, fer christsake... I had an awesome support group at work through this whole ordeal: friends and coworkers from their late 20's to their 50's. I asked a few trusted friends if they could think of anyone in their circle who would be interested, but nothing really materialized. Because I live in a relatively rural area, I wasn't gonna attempt to hit up people at church or anything like that. I also wasn't going to try to date coworkers. So, after asking my STBX if she was OK with me trying online dating (see, I'm polite...), I put up a profile on Match.com, and started communicating with women. I'm sure several people have had absolutely horrid experiences with online dating (I've heard them), but I found a handful of women who I thought were interesting and would be decent potential dating partners. I actually had phone calls with two of these women, and one asked me out on a date. That date happened 6 days from me putting up the profile... so I was crazy anxious, excited, etc. I went out to my Friday 'divorce support therapy' happy hour before going on the date—my crew was excited for me but told me to have reasonable expectations.
And then I met her. She was fantastic. Smart (a major newspaper reporter for nearly 20 years turned to the tech field), funny, flirty, beautiful, independent, and an incredible sense of humor. Two hours into the date, and I'm thinking "she's the one,,, she can't be the one, you idiot! ... but she's incredible ... she's probably an axe murderer..." We decided that evening to get off of Match, commit to exclusive dating, and do a thorough vetting process to get to know each other. That worked so incredibly well that we were engaged in another few months, and I'm in the process of selling my home and we're buying another home to move in together. The relationship is far beyond anything that I could have even imagined—in fact, if you had asked me to describe my perfect 'partner', that description would pale in comparison to my fiancee. I thank God every day for her, and we're so tremendously happy that it's really somewhere between disgusting and revolting!
It was also so much fun to give my 20-something support crew [censored] about online dating... "That took me like less than a week... I don't know why you guys are doing it for years!"
So, I'm not going to hang around here much--but I thought that I'd say thanks again to the Harley's for putting this material out, for building the site and support forum, and a special shout-out to Steve for all the work we did nearly a quarter century ago. It didn't let me solve the puzzle of my old marriage, but it did help me be a better father, a more patient friend (and boss), and it set me up to recognize an amazing woman when I got the opportunity, and to use these principles to forge a beautiful new love. So 'yay'—and to those of you in the dregs of an affair, have hope. (I also hope it won't take you 20+ years... )
What a ride that was. My wife and I ended up separated after Plan A/B, but that ended when she got pregnant by the OM. I moved back, the affair broke up, and I worked to try to mend my wife's broken heart (which wasn't particularly easy). The child was born, and he's been a joy and blessing to me--soon to be 22 years old! Our marriage never recovered as it should have—lots of reasons for that, but in the end we got better for a few years, but never regained the state of intimacy that we had. She had a minor stroke a couple years after giving birth which didn't help. Another several years passed and I realized that I wouldn't ever have the marriage that I wanted, but I was OK with staying in a benign friendship and raising the kids. However, the marriage deteriorated further. At times, I sensed the old 'affair' patterns that my wife exhibited with the first one, and I would 'politely' ask her if she were having an affair—that we had agreed to let each other know before that [censored] occurred—but she would deny it. My daughter and wife were huge into dog showing, and during a summer circuit my daughter became suspicious that my wife was cheating, so she did the investigative work to confirm her suspicions. When she had confirmation, she asked me to visit (she lived about an hour away). She broke the news to me in person, and I had to let her know the history between her mom and I—why I wasn't surprised—and what I would do about it. We discovered two serial affairs, and the last one was probably still 'active'. Based on my wife's behavior over the years, I doubt that she had others, but she has been known to surprise me!
So, the short version is that I asked my wife to leave (we had a mutual friend that she could stay with). I asked her to get into counseling, try to decide if she wanted to stay marriage, and if so, I would do joint counseling with her to work on the marriage. I also told her that I would not settle for our current or old marriage—it was going to be great, romantic, fulfilling for the both of us, or I wasn't going to stay with her. She went off and didn't do anything for a couple months; I had the house and kids and animals. I eventually prodded her into the individual counseling, but it didn't appear to go anywhere. At this point, I told her that I was going to file for divorce, and that I thought it would be best if we could hash out a settlement between the two of us rather than throwing expensive lawyers at each other. At this point, she said she wanted to do marriage counseling, so I asked her to find a counselor. She put that back on me, so I got the owner of the clinic where she was doing individual therapy, and we started there. Did about 3 months of this knowing that it was 99.9995% sure that it was not going to work. It didn't. On our 30th anniversary I had to make an emergency trip to visit daughter (who had moved) and return (about a 12 hour drive). The day after, she went to spend the rest of the summer with her boyfriend. We divorced that December (I kept her on my insurance as long as possible, but we got in before the IRS rules switched). As I would say, she got much more than she deserved in the settlement, but less than she might have gotten with a lawyer.
So, after a 30 year marriage (with the last 22 or so sex-free), I was divorce. That's the sad/happy news.
The neat this about this was that fall (before divorce), I was trying to decide whether I wanted to date again. If anyone would be interested in an 'old man' (57 at the time). I had last dated in the 80's, fer christsake... I had an awesome support group at work through this whole ordeal: friends and coworkers from their late 20's to their 50's. I asked a few trusted friends if they could think of anyone in their circle who would be interested, but nothing really materialized. Because I live in a relatively rural area, I wasn't gonna attempt to hit up people at church or anything like that. I also wasn't going to try to date coworkers. So, after asking my STBX if she was OK with me trying online dating (see, I'm polite...), I put up a profile on Match.com, and started communicating with women. I'm sure several people have had absolutely horrid experiences with online dating (I've heard them), but I found a handful of women who I thought were interesting and would be decent potential dating partners. I actually had phone calls with two of these women, and one asked me out on a date. That date happened 6 days from me putting up the profile... so I was crazy anxious, excited, etc. I went out to my Friday 'divorce support therapy' happy hour before going on the date—my crew was excited for me but told me to have reasonable expectations.
And then I met her. She was fantastic. Smart (a major newspaper reporter for nearly 20 years turned to the tech field), funny, flirty, beautiful, independent, and an incredible sense of humor. Two hours into the date, and I'm thinking "she's the one,,, she can't be the one, you idiot! ... but she's incredible ... she's probably an axe murderer..." We decided that evening to get off of Match, commit to exclusive dating, and do a thorough vetting process to get to know each other. That worked so incredibly well that we were engaged in another few months, and I'm in the process of selling my home and we're buying another home to move in together. The relationship is far beyond anything that I could have even imagined—in fact, if you had asked me to describe my perfect 'partner', that description would pale in comparison to my fiancee. I thank God every day for her, and we're so tremendously happy that it's really somewhere between disgusting and revolting!
It was also so much fun to give my 20-something support crew [censored] about online dating... "That took me like less than a week... I don't know why you guys are doing it for years!"
So, I'm not going to hang around here much--but I thought that I'd say thanks again to the Harley's for putting this material out, for building the site and support forum, and a special shout-out to Steve for all the work we did nearly a quarter century ago. It didn't let me solve the puzzle of my old marriage, but it did help me be a better father, a more patient friend (and boss), and it set me up to recognize an amazing woman when I got the opportunity, and to use these principles to forge a beautiful new love. So 'yay'—and to those of you in the dregs of an affair, have hope. (I also hope it won't take you 20+ years... )