Well, I’m at another turning point in my saga/drama of transition. After 13 years, my employer terminated me. We couldn’t come to terms with the arbitrary and personally motivated transfer. What makes this painful is that this whole thing started b/c of the drama surrounding my xW’s A and our Dv.

I’m so tired of being lied about disrespected and discarded. Now I have to build a new career as well as a new personal life while I try to make ends meet. My sons are acting depressed and now both their college administrator dad and physician mom are broke and scrambling for their livelihood. ALL B/C TWO ADULTS WANTED TO PURSUE THE FANTASY OF AN AFFAIR.

WS’s out there take heed; affairs and divorces (especially this ‘no-fault’ crap) DEVASTATE LIVES. Don’t fool yourselves that just because you’ll be happy (you won’t) that your spouse and kids will be (they can’t). What blows my mind in my case is that the OM’s W left him and she, her OM and his xW ended losing everything. He could watch their lives unravel, tell my W about it and still they decide to pursue this madness. Now my kids are acting out and ALL of our lives are faced with unnecessary difficulties. I hate this. I just simply hate this.

I am so sorry! I know the devastation, fortunately, my work is more than understanding and is bending over backwards to accomodate my situtation. That support has been wonderful.

Hopefully you can turn it around and find the job of your dreams. Just being supported in such a big area of your life makes a big difference.

I think it is a crossroads. You now have a clean slate to remake your life. Maybe you don't stay in academia, but instead go into the private sector. Maybe you become a consultant and write a book about leadership. Or how to pick the best college for your child. While you're job searching, you'll be able to spend a lot of off time with your two sons, giving them the one gift that can never be replaced: time.

It seems one change leads to another. My separation led to my leaving my job. Both were voluntary in my case. But even if they hadn't been, I'd be better off. I bet you will be too.

Remember who you are! You do not have to let the devastation of your ex's affair continue into your life anymore. You've left that behind. Enough is enough.

Besides, once you find a new job with new people, it should be a little easier to rebuild a social life with X. Think of your self esteem when you make it without her, in spite of her.

It may be a crossroads, but there are huge tractor trailers coming from all four directions. Affairs and divorce do completely, irrevocably, destroy entire families and often multiple families. It will likely never be the same. My husband's affair and desertion led eventually to his spending 2 and a half years unemployed and eventually finding a low paying job. I know many people who have been laid off, whether related to divorce or not, and not one of them has fully recovered financially. Sometimes, perhaps most times, you don't ever get a second chance. It doesn't really matter what you do - I went back to get a second master's and the only result is that I am not just above the line where I could receive fuel assistance and reduced price lunches, etc., and I am worse off than I would be if I'd taken a job a a postal carrier.

You can not just tell someone who has been working in academia to go get a job in the private sector. It takes a completely different type of personality to be happy in the private sector. I have worked in government and in academia, both of which I enjoyed, but I HATED working in the private sector. The atmosphere in a for-profit organization is entirely different from that in an not-for-profit organization, even when the position is similar.

Two good points. I AM at a crossroads. I will have move beyond the shadow of the drama of the xW, but the ‘path of destruction’ scenario is true. Whoever sold Ws’s that Dv is ‘good for all parties’ must be high. I can rebuild. I must rebuild. But doing so in the midst of this pain is hard indeed.

I do believe it was a blessing in disguise. Does that mean that things will be easy. No. But you can and will rebuild, as you said. Stronger, wiser, and eventually happier.

dleightonc,

Sorry to hear of your sitch, and yes it does seem like it will never end.

Families are never the same... and yea, we go on and try to build from what was left... which is usually total devestation.

We go from day today wondering what suprises await me today?

But we still keep going on... we have to!

I say my prayers, thank God for the things he has given me... and then I work through another day. You can do it too.

As much as it really stinks to be in the position you are in... you will work through it... what other choices do you have?

We all have our days, and right now your having one... and there will be probably more to come... but you will get through them.

You don't have to like it while your doing it, and yes... sometimes you just want to go hide under a rock and never come out... I know that feeling well.

Take it one day at a time... and things will open up for you as you beat your way through it all... and yes... you will probably have to beat your way through it. Nothing comes easy that's worth having.

Well sorry for rambling.

Stay Strong!

Wallace