Hello everyone. My ex-wife and I got divorced in April/2003. I did not want the divorce but realized there wasn't anything I could do because of her free will. She had an affair on me which played a large part in the divorce. A week before, she said she wanted to work it out and didn't think she would be happy without me and the girls. Told her I needed some time to think it over....mainly to make sure she was serious about coming back. She called a few hours later and said forget it. She was still with lover and said she loved him. The divorce took place. 2 months later, she said she would be marrying this guy at end of July. I was crushed. One week later, she changed her mind and set marrying someone else was too big a step. Then she broke up with her lover and wanted to work things out with me. I was on cloud 9 and joyous. I said okay. 3 weeks later she gave up saying she didn't have any feeling for me and was still in love with him. A couple of days later she changed her focus and started getting to know God again. She said she loved me but got scared when feelings for me didn't return after 3 weeks. She convinced me that she was for real this time in wanting it to work. Kept telling me we belong together, she didn't want the divorce and wanted to marry me again.

She broke all ties with her lover and invited me to move in. We started dating again and it went great. I moved in a couple of months later. Then in November, she said it wasn't going well and asked me to move out. She said she didn't feel secure enough with me to be in a relationship with me. She said she only wanted to work things out so she could be with the kids more, and that she didn't have any feelings left for me. Sex was a big issue. She had sex with me a few times, even initiated it several times, but in the end, she wasn't ready for it, said I knew she wasn't ready for it, and blamed me for wanting it, which she began resenting me for. So I moved out without much of a fight. I knew we were both hurt and needed some time away from one another. But instead of taking space and time, she jumped back into a relationship with her lover and now they are back together.

All 3 of us work at the same place and I either see them together or see her lover pretty regularly.....walking through buildings, etc.. It tears me up inside to see them together. We have 2 girls....4 and 2 yrs. old. We have joint custody. When I with my girls, the oldest talks about her lover sometimes. It drives me nuts but I just ignore it and deal with it after I put them to bed at night.

I just cry all of the time. Cry at work, cry at home. She's the most wonderful and incredible person I have ever met and I miss her and love her so much. But I'm afraid to talk to her or write her a letter telling her how I feel about her. I'm afraid she will not receive anything I have to say. At the same time, I have alot of bitterness and resentment towards her for breaking promise after promise and tearing my heart out for months and months. She has changed her mind so many times about working things out with me, and currently were divorced so there is not much I can do anyway. It kills me that she's back with her lover and chose the guy she had an affair with, over me, the man she promissed to spend the rest of her life with, and who is the father of her children.

She has completely disrespected me as a person, my feelings, and our daughters feelings. She is in this self-centered mode where only her feelings and well-being matter to her. She is being led by her feelings and emotions. She knew it would take a long time to rebuild comfort, security, trust, and to restore love but she gave it only 4 months and wanted out. And like always, instead of dealing with her feelings of pain, anger, etc...., she jumps back to her lover and camoflauges those feelings by being back with him. Part of me thinks she will be back, because several months after she makes these quick decisions, she steps out of the fog, and realizes who she has hurt and what she has done, and then her relationship with her lover goes bad.

Part of me wants to let go completely and just not worry about whether she's coming back anymore. My heart can only take so much pain but at the same time, I know that wonderful, smart, caring, loving person is still inside of her....it's just covered by alot of pain and denial right now. I want her back in my life but not sure what to do at this point.

I didn't find this site until a few weeks ago, after I had already moved out. Information on this site would have been so helpful while her and I were working on things but now it might be too late.

Does anyone have any advice? I want to write and send her a letter but not sure it will do any good right now.

kew,

She seems to have quite the hold on you, huh? This was a very unhealthy relationship for you while you were married and I think even moreso now. Is she an alcoholic?

She has you at her beckon call.

YOU ARE NOT BOUND TO HER YOU ARE CLINGING TO HER.

You're going on a year of this rollercoaster ride that is doing neither of you any good.
You can't change her. You can't dig though the pain and hurt to find the wonderful person inside. That is up to her and only her. What you can do is be a catalyst for her change. You two are obviously in a relationship of sorts. If you change then the relationship changes. She is forced to change or get left behind.

You cant save her from the hurt she caused has herself but you can protect yourself from the hurt she can cause you.

Just my $.02.

God Bless

d_rose, thanks for the input. I lost her once when we got a divorce and never thought she come back. But she eventually did and was committed to working things out. We had a great time going on dates, we began to enjoy each other's company again. I was wonderful. I enjoyed being with her so much again. But I found I couldn't let go of the affair she had and all of the lies. I knew this would take time but thought we would be stronger than ever in the long run. The problem is that we did everything ourselves without seeking counceling individually or together. We thought we could get through it on our own and learn from our past mistakes. I was so insecure with myself and our relationship. I was afraid she would eventually change her mind about wanting to works things out. She talked about missing her lover alot, not the relationship part of it, but the friendship. I wanted to be someone she could confide in so i just listened and offered my input where I thought appropiate. It killed me to hear her talk about him, and I grew more insecure with that. I started to get too clingy to her and didn't give her a whole lot of freedom or space. I didn't realize that at the time. Now, I see it clearly. Anyway, she said she didn't think she could ever be secure enough with me to be intimate with me. She said I hurt her again emotionally by us having sex too soon. She said I didn't give her the space she asked for. She blames me for everything. I believe she is totally in the fog again.

Now she's back with her lover without feeling guilt. In her eyes we're divorced so I don't think she feels any wrong doing being with him now. I think she got scared when feelings didn't come back for me and mean while, she had someone out there who she claims, worships her. She says I have always rejected her and brings up stuff that happened very early in our lives when we began dating, and throughout our marriage.

I don't know if there is anything I can do to let her know that I am still very in-love with her. I had the chance when we were together but I was afraid to open up to her, in fear of puttign pressure on her if she didn't have those same feelings for me. I feel I blew it again with her and now she's back with her lover.

If she was really committed to working things out with me, I feel she would have done everything to help make it work, no matter what. Towards the end I suggested we get counceling from our pastor. She said she didn't want to be forced into working things out with me. She was reluctant but agreed. Our Pastor wanted to see us individually. He talked to her and tried to gain her trust saying that she didn't have to be in a relationship where she feels this way. She respected his opinion, and asked me to move out after she met with him. From there, she continued to see him a couple of more times but started seeing her lover again. Now it's over and I've been crushed since I moved out 10 weeks ago. I can't seem to let go of her. I love her so much and miss her so much.

She goes about her business like she's happier than ever and like our marriage or reconcilliation never happened. She invited me back into her life, and into her home, only to cast me out again like yesterday's news. I feel so betrayed and so alone.

I believe you're right. I can only change myself and have no control over her choices.

Everyday without her is a huge struggle and seeing her and her lover walking around work is hurting me bad.

kew,

I didn't mean to come off as harsh. After rereading my post it does seem a little that way.

My lovely wife and I were heading towards a divorce too. All the years of ME not opening up had caused a lot of damage. Even though we had pretty much drifted as far apart as we could have been, when faced with a likely divorce it scared the hell out of me. I didn't really know what to do at first.

My cousnelor and others said that I needed to let go, not give up just let go. When I heard that I kept looking for some switch to flip and couldn't find it. I lost too much weight on the M&M diet (Marlboro & maxwell House), my work went to hell and I was depressed. What really got me through it was my church and the friends I had there. I kept seeing my therapist( my pastor's wife) about 3 times a month. I had to get myself right regardless if we stayed married or not and that was my focus. Get better for me and my daughter.

Do you think either of you were really trying to reconcile when you guys got back together? It seems you went a little overboard with attention to her (I did it to with the same result as your's). It is so hard not to try and make up for everything we did wrong or think we did wrong all at once. This is where counseling and this site helps so much. It adds an outside view point that we never really considered before.

When my lovely wife left I told her that I loved her and would be here for her for as long as I could. She was moving on with her life and I had to also, albeit reluctantly. Slowly things got better. I started going to the pool more often, got more involved in church and did things bymyself for myself. My therapy sessions gradually turned from focusing on my marriage to focusing on me.

I would like to write more but I am off to a volley ball game but I am sure other's will have more sage advice for you.

Stay strong and God Bless you

Doug

d_rose, you didn't come off harsh.

Yes, I do think we were both trying to reconcile and working hard at it in the beginning. Once I moved in, my feelings grew stronger and I wanted to get closer to her....which I know are natural tendencies. She wasn't ready for that and we clashed on that issue at times, although she would usually say something like...I have a headeahe, or stomach ache, or whatever, when she wasn't in the mood for sex. She didn't come out and tell me that she just wasn't ready. I wish she would have because I didn't know this. I wanted more sex and she wanted less. Anyway, this hurt her in the long run. Having sex with me when she wasn't ready hurt her emotionally and she couldnt' let that go.

Also, we didn't have any space from one another, and this greatly affected her. Later she told me she needed more personal space, but there i was going to bed with her every night. I didn't always goto bed with her when we were married, and this is something I wanted to improve on but she thought it was too much. However, she didn't tell me until it was too late.

I am still very much in-love with her, but in the end, she didn't think things were going well and wasn't committed enough to stay in the relationship with me. I think part of that was that she still had feelings for her ex-lover and chose to make that an option for herself instead of putting the work into our relationship.

Back in mid-July, she wrote me a letter that touched my heart and soul. She apologized for everything she had done to cause me pain, she admitted she was being lead by feelings and emotionshad a bad influence in her lover and was be led by socities' views instead of what was right in God's eyes. In the letter she told me she was also being led by her mind instead of her heart, that she loved me, and that she wanted to spend the rest of her life rebuilding with me. She said she wanted to share her love, joy, peace, happiness, and body with no one but me.

My heart is completely stuck on that letter.

Kew,

My heart is completely stuck on that letter.

All the things she said in that letter SOUND wonderful but what has she done to show you these things. The whole "show me, don't tell me" thing. I believe that the two of you could reconcile IF.......

You both turn this over to God and stop trying to fix things yourselves. Doing it yourselves got you to where you are today.

Let her go. Try and find yourself apart from being with her. Like baba said on your other thread, your ego has taken a major blow.

Stop worrying about what your EX wife is doing. The two of you are not together anymore.

Your wife sees you doing o.k. and then she wants to work things out again. She comes back, chaos ensues and then she bails leaving you a wreck while she just goes back to the OM. Next time she knocks on your door, don't let her in.

God Bless

Doug

dbl

<small>[ January 29, 2004, 02:22 PM: Message edited by: d_rose ]</small>

d_rose, that is excellent advice that alot of my christians friends have told me. I give it to God, and then keep taking it back. I haven't contacted her or tried to talk to her about our relationship since I moved out. But I find myself writing her a letter and debating on whether to send it to her. I have a lot of feelings bottled up and she is the one I want to share them with, but I know it probably won't do any good. And trying to pursuade her to leave the door for reconcilliation open wouldn't be putting things in God's hands. It would be me trying to get her back on my own. I know I need to totally let it go to God, my thoughts, my emotions, my will for it to work. My relation with her has gotten so complicated and messed up that He is the only one who can put it back together.

The problem is that she hasn't given it to God. Like you said, she leaves me in shambles and then jumps back into things with her lover. A very selfish and unhealthy route to take. Right now, all I can do is give this to God, work on myself, grow in Him, and allow Him to work on me. I have to move on and let Him lead me. She may fall flat on her face again after a while.

kew,

putting it in God's hand was easy for me to do. It was leaving it there that was tough.

You don't have to give up on reconcilliation you just need to get yourself in a position that you are ready for that and hope that she does the same. It seems like you are really moving in that direction.

Beyond that all you can do is take care of youself. Get healthy, mentally, physically and spiritually. When my lovely wife and I separated I read a book called "Hope for the Separated" and The Power of a Praying Husband.


You can only do what you can do. As you move through this, things will get easier and you will get stronger. Maybe things will work out with your ex-wife, maybe not. Either way you will be a better man for this.

Keep this in His hands. Check with your church to see if they have a small group for divorced folks like yourself. I attened a few at my church and it can really help.

This WILL work out for you.

God Bless

Doug