FYR:

It's sooo great to hear from you.

You have been on my mind FOR MONTHS and I was so concerned that we would never hear from you again.

I was sincerely touched by your posts back then.

You really, really helped me to understand my FWH's thinking and feelings.

Again, you and I are definitely on the same page and share the similar perspectives and thoughts regarding Georgia's situation.

Speaking as a FWW, you, of course, can empathize with his situation better. Hopefully, he will take heart and listen to what you have so eloquently stated.

You are one of those special people that I mentioned yesterday.

You touched my heart even though I have never actually met you and never will....

I will forever be grateful to you.

Thanks so much for posting again.

Very well thought out and expressed post, FYR.

FGG,

I have been pondering what to say to you. YellowRose, said so many of them soooo much better than I can or will.

I am not surprised at this revelation of yours. A bit dissappointed but not surprised. It is often said here that the BS is very very vulnerable to an A. This is particularly true as the time between attempt at ending the A for their partner, and the time of divorce stretches into years, not a year but years. That is/was your case.

You come across as basically a good man, flawed like the rest but basically a good man. You also come across as a man that many woman would like to have as a partner, thus I am not surprised that the events that have transpired have in fact occured.

Here is the part that I have trouble with...offering advice.

What you have done is placed yourself in a position where you are going to and have hurt yourself. Your decision to divorce your W hurt her (I will get back to this in a moment). You are now hurting your GF. If you decide that this relationship must end, you hurt her. If you decide it will continue you hurt yourself and her, because it really did NOT start in the proper way, and because of that compromised both of your moral standards and the standards upon which a good marriage should be built.

I realize it is easy to say drop her, but you are in fact divorced now right? If not, then you MUST drop her in my opinion. But, this decision must be reached by you and her based on your best counsel with clergy and people you truely trust. I don't envy you this decision at all.

I will also say that your decision to divorce your W was justified and well earned. I stated a long time ago that I felt that she had some sort of medical, pscych problem that would NOT be ameanable to MB tools. I think this has been proven to be the case. You really HAD no choice but to divorce her, so unlike some I feel that your decision was not influenced by your current GF.

If what I have read on your thread all of these years is accurate, and only you know, you have roughly 10 years with on break in it when your W was focused on another man, and NOT you. That is a long time to be neglected by someone you love, hence my lack of surprise that there was another woman in your life.

But, all of this is water over the damn. The issue is what are you going to do TODAY, and what do you plan to do TOMORROW? I think you need to plan to do the "right" thing and that must square with YOUR religious beliefs and your internal boundaries. You have to live with yourself and YOU must be accountable to God.

I am NOT your conscience and neither is anyone else here. We can discuss things with you, offer perspectives that may differ from yours. But, ultimately you must live with your decisions.

I don't know if anything I have said has helped. I think I posted this more for my own good than yours actually. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> But, I wish you the very best and I think right now that is that you find the clarity of thought and purpose to make decisions that fit your moral beliefs and your personal boundaries, if you go counter to them, the cost will be high.

God Bless,

JL

Good afternoon -

I just wanted to say that I am not ignoring you today, I'm just terribly busy with real work.

I've saved these posts and will be reading them tonight.

FYR - I haven't read yours yet, but it is sure nice to see you back...

Georgia

All -

I will be back after I do what I must do.

FYR - I've read and re-read your post. Thank you.

Let me leave you all with this until I return. This is an excerpt from the preface to "The Great Divorce" by C.S. Lewis:

"I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot ‘develop’ into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound, bit by bit, ‘with backward mutters of dissevering power’ – or else not. It is still ‘either-or’. If we insist on keeping H*ll (or even Earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of H*ll."

Hoping to hear from you soon. So much seems to be going on!

Oh Georgia!

I wish you could keep her.

-AD

FGG,

What's up man?

JL

Okay, the deed is done....

Glad you are back. I hope MB and your friends here can provide a safe haven for this difficult moment

Thank you, cc.

That was very, very difficult indeed.

It's like I'm having to start all over from scratch (again). I'm getting too old for this sort of thing.

welcome back! sorry you did indeed join the subset known as the "d'd" club here...but once you're here, funny thing, life gets usually easier. breathing happens more frequently too <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Will you let us know what happened, what you have decided...

We care

Okay....coming up.

As you may recall, I met with SH last Thursday morning, then Thursday afternoon I met with a local Christian counselor (this was while I was still in Illinois). I really, really got a lot out of the session with the counselor, I wish she was here in GA. I laid the whole thing out on the table for her (as well as SH). Anyway, their views were similar but not exact, and I don't want to go into detail with who said what as I would probably misrepresent someone. Let's just say that I am not in 100% compliance with either, but probably 90% in agreement with the suggestions of both.

Anyway, this was heavily on my mind for days, as you can imagine. Jeb and I took our time getting home, we stopped Friday night and spent the night in Kentucky. We drove all back roads through middle Kentucky and Tennessee, it was absolutely beautiful. I loved the drive.

I got home late Saturday night. Lynn was really ill this weekend and yesterday. I told her last night that we needed to talk, and I invited her over for dinner tonight. We had spaghetti out by the pond, a very peaceful evening to talk.

I told her about my conversation with SH (she knew we were meeting Thursday morning), and I told her about the other IC that I saw as well.

I told her that I understood where my kids were coming from in their view of our relationship, because they are only acting on the type of moral and ethical behavior that I had taught them as children. I told them that I felt as though I had not been the type of example that I wanted to be to them, and I also had not been the type of role model that I wanted to be to her. I told her that I had done things that I knew were wrong, and that I didn't blame her for any of it, it was entirely my decisions that were at fault. I also told her that I thought physical aspects of a relationship were intended by God to be within the confines of marriage only, and she said she also agreed with that.

She said that she knew that something had been bothering me a lot lately, and she understood how much this had been concerning me.

I told her that I felt our relationship had gotten off wrong, and that continuing as it was would only make it worse as time went by. I told her that I needed time to heal from the divorce and get myself back together, and that I needed time to work through the relationship with my kids.

I told her that I needed to completely separate from her. There may be a point in time when we would want to sit down and discuss whether or not either of us thinks we have a future together, but it needs to be under the right conditions. We didn't even discuss how long that might be..

We both cried A LOT. She gathered up some stuff that she had left her at my house and packed them in her car. We sat on the couch and prayed together, then she left.

And here I sit going through boxes of stuff I recently brought from the other house. Included are large quantities of cards I've saved over the years from xW, #1S, #2S, and others. This is probably not the night to be doing this.

It is such a bittersweet reminder of the kind and loving cards (anniversary, birthday, whatever) that xW used to give me. But the newest one I had was 1999, that was like when they all ended;when she was first taken by aliens and they inserted one of those "things" into her neck (any X-files fans?). They apparently told her to stop giving me any cards after she met up with OM#1 (apparently he also has one of those "things" in his neck).

Whew...my fingers are tired.

Georgia

Georgia, thank you for the update. I will continue praying that you find peace in yourself. Recently I have started to get the daily readings from the Bible (in spanish). Today's is about Peace (St. John 14, 27-31. And the comment that came with it today was particularly moving. Let me try to translate it for you:

Father Pio of Pietrelcina (1887-1968) AdFP, 549

God's Spirit is a Spirit of Peace; even when we sin seriously, we feel a peaceful, humble and confident pain, because of His mercy. On the contrary, the bad spirit, excites, exasperates and when we sin makes us feel anger against ourselves; and yet, it's towards ourselves that we should bring to bear the first of the charities. Because, when you are tormented by certain thoughts, that restlessness does not come from God, but from Satan; because God, because he is the Spirit of Peace, gives you serenity.

Hummm...

I just looked at my post, I wrote it in Word then copied it over.

I don't know why all the strange graphics...I'll try to fix it.

There...that's better.

Thank you, cc, for sticking with me through this mess. I know that I've done the right thing, and it is that confidence that I know will ultimately lead to the "peace" in my life that I continue to long for.

BTW - What is "cahritties" ?

I corrected it: charities

Oh, that makes sense.

I'm going to bed, I'm tired.

I'm taking this week off (vacation). I've begun my bedroom remodeling project (I do my best home remodeling when under stress).

Georgia