My wife and I have been separated for over a year now. I have betrayed my wife to the point that she has filed for a divorce (I'll get aquainted with nomenclature) and it should be final any day now.

My feelings for my wife have subsided during this time of separation, however I still love her but just not IN LOVE with her. My question is this...I have an opportunity to 'date' an other woman, I realize this is more a subjective matter and less substantive, however when do you know it's time to move on? Time to enter the dating scene? I feel great about where my life is at this point...to include my 'friednship' with this other woman. We have never been on an official date. I feel as though I could reach out without emotional hinderance whereby I can offer myself unconditionally without feeling the need for reciprocation.

Is it time to MOVE ON!?!
Any questions or advice would be appreciated.

Thank-
S

Hi Shakespear,

Welcome to MB.

If you still love your W, then why are you willing to settle for a D??? The "feelings" of love come and go in any M... it's the committment that must be constant.

If you've decided that you aren't willing to try and rebuild your M, then I would strongly recommend trying to find out WHY you betrayed your W BEFORE you start another relationship with this OW... or else you will most probably repeat the same things that you did in your M with this OW. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="images/icons/rolleyes.gif" />

Is this OW the same one that caused the betrayal with your W?

Semper Fi,
RIF90

Thanks for the response Rebuilding.

If defendant doesn't respond within a certain period of time, I think 30 days in my state, then the process defaults to divorce!!

I have been and continue to work on the issues that placed me where I am in life. I continue with individual counseling, every other week in in group sessions, spend 1x/week with my pastor and have several accountability partners...I am a sex addict. My addiction has been under arrest for several months now, all to the thanks of God and the network of people he has provided me. As an avid reader and writer, I have taken the necessary liberty to pursue many self help books to boot. I'm not purporting my recovery as a self indulging endeavor, rather it is for the building a new creature in God and doing his works.

Throughout my marriage I was anything but serving God...I was serving self and self alone! I was a selfish narcissist! Although time and behavior ahs changed my W doesen't care to hear it. For that matter my W doesn't desire to be around me to SEE it, witness any changes in my life. That is the quandry surrounding my situation.

I wish to re-emphasize that my love has changed for her...I love her but NOT IN love with her! This may well be the result of scales being dropped from my eyes, a new creature born that no longer believes the value of what was is worth the same in my spiritual economy today...sad but that's the case.

thanks for the input, Sir!

You asked:

When do you know it's time to move on?

When you have confronted yourself with painful honesty about the nature and degree of your weaknesses, and where you understand and take responsibility for your past mistakes.

When you have become better able to distinguish between the "feeling" of being "in love" ... which is actually a self-serving love, a love used to make a person feel good about themselves .... and "mature love" ... which is love that has the best interests of the beloved at it's core.

When you have gone through the grieving process .... acknowledging emotionally the losses inherent with a failed marriage.

YOU EARN YOUR WAY by mature reflection and soul searching!

Pepper <img border="0" title="" alt="[Cool]" src="images/icons/cool.gif" />

By the sounds and degree of the nature of my situation I have not only understood my shortcomings and taken responsibility for my actions but have resided in them through ownership!

I have made amends with W and my W has accepted fully as she said she has forgiven and holds me not accountable for my past behavior! She has further stated that she knew and felt I was a much different person but one whom she could never ever trust again.

My pursuit is not to gain her trust but to establish a healthy groundwork for a freindship.

Pepper your description of "mature Love" is profound and I believe attainable! I have found immature love to be "I love You because I need YOU" whereas mature love is "I need you because I love YOU"...Furthermore mature love is to exist in each others presence of silence!

Most importantly as I read my first thought was "Agape"...God's unconditional, parental love he has for us. Ahhhhh, thoughts of Utopia!

We all face failure daily and perhaps I've become desensitized and calous over my M but I know my W's sense of failure in our M far supercedes my sense of its' failure. Perhaps time and others will tell if maturity has become me.

For now, I may just continue friendship and see what course my ship takes!

Thank You,
S