Children are a huge investment, both financially and most assuredly emotionally. If family really is that important to OM or Sparrow - they can't deny what they're doing to those children. You can't hide from those realities forever - no matter how much they may try. Unfortunatly more energy is probably spent trying to justify and deny - than they'd ever put in to repairing and rebuilding.

H4F, I do believe the most likely scenario is sparrow and OM fall apart, OM maybe tries to reconcile with car4love, and sparrow and I remain apart.

But that speculation is pointless, really. The sparrow is banned from my world, and unless she surprises me one day, I have to judge her as too weak and cowardly to do what it would take to be welcomed back.

Give your thoughts to car4love and her new child. She says she has a name for him, but hasn't told what it is. She's such a tease...

GC

Oh I am so happy for car4love. I hope these days can now be filled with happiness, instead of pain.

These men who have affairs and even leave their wives during a pregnancy have no idea how fragile an unborn baby and mother are. He threatened his own sons life, and the welfare of his little girl with his selfishness. Not to mention the sanity of the one who carried these children, whom he promised to love and protect. How blind.

I hope you are doing okay Gray, I mean really. It's hard to tell with you sometimes, just how bad you might be feeling vs what you write which might be underplaying the depth of your pain.

Accepting that it is over is one thing, feeling joy and true happiness is quite another.

Gray, for me I think I am there, finally. I don't think I would take him back now. Don't want him back at all. All I feel now is pity and a kind of sadness that I had so much love for someone and now it is gone. Just gone.

Too many times I believed the lies, and too many times I turned a blind eye...now there is nothing left.

But I'm pretty much happy now, more than not! Yeah! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

Hee hee - I could give car4love more than just my thoughts. No one prepared me for what lay in store for having a baby boy! I had to learn the hard way! Especially since all my sis-in-laws have girls! We all learned together :-D But definatly - my congratulations to Car4love.

I have to wonder if you aren't right - GC. Your wife might just be stubborn and prideful enough to continue to keep up the cherade that she was right about the two of you not being right for each other - that way she can continue to overshadow the wrongness of what she did - even if he does prove to have been a wrong choice as well. Like you said, though - you just can never know. It's best to focus on the present - and let the future take care of itself.

...so I'm left trying to make sense of the past. This has solely to do with my own recovery, but I wonder if I'll ever remember my M without those memories being spoiled by how it ended. Those years used to be a time I thought was very happy, a time we were building a life together, and doing a good job of it. Now those years feel like a big hole in my past.

Weaver, I've thought lots about the threat to that baby boy's life, and how his own father endangered him. Incredible.

WS don't seem to realize the scale of the pain they create. The fact that it's off the charts - that it is a very big deal - seems perfectly lost on them.

Weaver, I think the resignation you may sense in what I write is real. I'm still fun to be around, most of the time, but I bob and weave from one feeling to another. This is stuff a fella has to chew on for one hell of a long time before it's ready to be swallowed.

GC

Did you ever have a bad breakup? One where you're left completely heartbroken, or one where you totally hate the person?? If you look back on those times now - do they seem nearly as tragic? Or how about people who go through tramatic experiences - or lose loved ones in tramatic ways? Are they ever able to heal enough to remember those people without the pain? It takes time - but yes, even if your marriage ends, there will be a time when you'll be able to look back and remember it without all the ugliness. It won't feel sentimental and warm and fuzzy - but it won't send shearing pain through you either.

I can't emphasize enough - trying to make sense of this is futile. There IS no sense to be made. She has lost control of herself - she's lost in a sea of her own emotions - and that steers her down whatever path feels the least painful at the time. That's it. There's no good answer as to why - other than the fact that she's human and therefore subject to making irrational choices with no logical basis.

You know what ELSE doesn't make sense? Getting lost with her. You have other choices. Don't let yourself be dragged down by trying to figure out her mindset, or the future, or what the 'right' move is to make everything allright again. Your marriage has been torn down to the ground - and with it, a large piece of your life. So it's time to start rebuilding your life - and leave the unknowns alone. IF she ever does come back - the two of you will still have so much to work through before you can even start to rebuild your marriage. And you'll have to rebuild it almost as if it's a whole new relationship.

H4F, I have accepted that my old life, at least a very important piece of it, has passed away, and no longer exists. I've started to let go of it.

Know what else?

This relationship is the only serious one I've ever been in.

In order to move forward, I think it's necessary to analyze the events that have taken place, and to do my best to understand them. My wife chose to have an affair, and she chooses to defend it. This was not an act of god, and there are reasons she's made the decisions she's made, some of which do have something to do with me.

But it's too late for her to fix the damage she's done. She's bonded and created some kind of intimacy with another man. She has spent time with his child and his family, who have apparently welcomed her. I'm losing my ability to see myself overcoming the rejection represented by all that. I deserve someone with principle and courage, not this chickens**t woman who somehow manages to sleep at night, even though I cannot.

Whoops, my IC would use that ugly word "rageful" to describe my attitude just then. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

GC

Okay, now I'm angry.

I understand, without any details, that OM is being nasty to car4love. The sparrow and OM do what they've done to this child's mother, then when the child, thank heaven, is born healthy, OM continues being nasty to a woman he promised to love forever, the mother of his children, who is recovering from giving birth three days ago. I'm not surprised, but I am very P.O.ed.

I recognize that I'm in my "anger" stage right now. I feel the same sensation of grief - a sort of tightness that goes from my guts up through my chest and around my ears to the top of my head - but instead of feeling sad and wanting to crawl in a hole, I want to go find OM and pound him. I've actually considered it. I've thought about going to jail, and how it would be worth it.

I won't do anything like this, but holy crap, I suddenly want to go after this dude, and push my wife down while I'm at it if she shows up. Bah!

Calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean...

GC

Calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean...

Laughed out loud when I read this Gray. Too funny.

Listened to this song this a.m. and thought of you -

Seagull by Bad Company

Seagull you fly across the horizon
Into the misty morning sun
Nobody asked you where you are going
Nobody knows where you're from

Here is a man asking the question
Is this really the end of the world
Seagull you must have known for a long time
The shape of things to come
Now you fly through the sky
Never asking why, and you fly
All around til somebody shoots you down

Dadadada da da da down mm mm mm mm mm mm

Now you seasgull you fly, seagull you fly away
And you'll fly away today
And you'll fly away tomorrow
And you'll fly away, leave me to my sorrow


Does anyone remember Jonathon Livingston Seagull? Loved that book!

Weaver, <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> . That book was popular a little before my time, but I loved the song.

Amazing what a little relaxation, lots of sleep, and some good music can do for a fella.

Get this - yesterday I got a notice from my credit union, saying I'm deliquent on my wife's car loan. She's missed a car payment. I wonder if she's doing it on purpose to rattle me, or if she's just being dumb about her bills. Surprising - we never missed a payment on any debt in all the years we were together. Our credit rating was A+.

Of course, the loan is in my name, so I'll take the brunt of the consequence for this one.

GC

gc:

I'm glad you're calm 2day, because my response 2 "calm blue ocean" was going 2 be something like "The Titanic is at the bottom of a calm blue ocean". <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" />

Johnathan Livingston Seagull was a very inspirational book 2 me and several of my teenage friends when it came out.

I'm old.

-ol' 2long

I'm trying not to be too excited...

I was approved this morning for my auto loan.

I just called my retirement fund to see if I can unevenly split my retirement money with the sparrow.

Short story - I can buy her out of the house using my retirement money, free of any taxes or penalties, as long as she agrees to the conditions on the account that would be created in her name.

She'd be stupid to refuse.

I have to meet with my attorney, but I think this is looking okay. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

GC

GC, All I can say is about time something went your way! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

And in other news...

One of the sparrow's friends invited me to her house for dinner on Friday. This is an old high school friend of the sparrow's, I've known her for years, and she has indicated to me several times that she isn't supportive of the sparrow's shenanigans.

I agreed enthusiastically to go.

Now I'm a little paranoid. Should I be? I was thinking of having somebody watch my house while I'm gone...

GC

GC

I doubt it regarding the threat to your property... an outsider looking in might suspect she's after something for herself.

Staying the high road in spite of such horrible treatment where most men would react with spiteful vengeance does not go unnoticed by your acquaintances I suspect.

Don't let her feed you too much wine.

Binder, she's in a LTR - has lived with her BF for years.

That was probably dumb, worrying about the house. If she wanted to bust in, she could do it in the daytime or when I'm at band rehearsal. Though this way, it will be dark and she would know for sure that I'm not there.

I'm more paranoid that the friend, let's call her Mary, has some weird scheme cooked up involving my wife. I am probably making too much of it, but I'm crazy preoccupied with paranoid fantasies now...

GC

The B and E to your house scenario, though not impossible,.....highly improbable. Lock up your house and accept the hand of kindness that has been extended to you. Hate to see you put any walls up; they have the bad habit of occasionally becoming one's prison.

hey GC, just now getting back to the boards after my vacation. but honestly I cannot say anything that has been said since the 14th (when I went out of town) and there has been some very good insight and advice. the only thing that really surprised me was the fact that at this point you have still have no idea what the OM looks like. for some reason i found that strange.

anyway....you know where i stand. it's not that we don't love the WS anymore or even that we can't love them and as much it grates the nerve to say, WE are not in love with them anymore. have you ever heard the saying "love the sinner not the sin." it's a similar thing, you love AND care for her because of the way things once were but as it is appearing to be, the current path she is on is HER path and she will realize one day, maybe on her death bed, the full extent and consequences of the path that she CHOSE.

once i realized that my h was someone that i really could not go to the grave trusting, and i knew there was someone out there that i could have that with, it was easier for me to let go. like someone else said above, if reconciliation did happen it would be starting all over essentially and why would i want to "date" someone that I knew had an A amongst other things. let alone the fact that he never told me, i found out. like the sparrow, he just lacked courage and lied to me and even lied to me afterwards. i think not having children made a huge difference in my situation and now i'm very thankful that i did not have children with him.

well, gotta go still lots of emails to catch up after my leave and i'm not getting any younger (i turned 30 on the 19th). as always continued prayers to you, RR

In a snowstorm, I went to the sparrow's old friend's house tonight.

Of course my suspicions were unfounded.

She and her BF were so nice to me. They had met OM and said he was a [censored] (for my benefit?). We talked and drank wine and had fun. I told them a few things, but tried not to dominate the shindig with gory details.

It's very disturbing to hear how the sparrow has lied about events, downplayed the affair, and tried to make people think she and OM didn't get together 'til she'd already decided to leave me.

By the way, last night I went to the neighborhood bistro and chatted up one of the waitresses for a couple of hours. A beautiful, smart, interesting girl. Another "tag and release". I hope that doesn't come across as crass.

GC