Thanks. What you said reminded me of something. My family was an intact family. My parents were very against passing on any of that mess to us (my Mom's father and mother divorced). So my parent's were together over 30 years until my Dad died. I have four brothers. All are married. One of my brothers has been divorced, but that was after years of trying to save the marriage, while his wife got into one affair after another. He stayed committed though, and now has custody of his children and a new wife who is great. None of my brothers have run out on their wives, nor their families. None of them have been engaged in an affair.

Contrast this with my wife, who got into an affair. Her Mom and Dad both met at their job. She was his secretary. both of them were married to someone else at the time. So, they had an affair...and then divorced their spouses. And then they had my wife. She has several half-sisters and one half-brother. All of them have been involved in divorces and/or affairs. With her brother, it is sometimes difficult for me to remember which kid goes with which Mom. Now, take my wife. After we were married, she was adament about no divorce, about doing this right. but when things got bad in our lives (financial problems leading to problems between us), she fell right into the same trap as her family. While I was away at war in September 2001, she was approached by a guy in her gym...and the rest is history. She got caught up in the affair and wanted a divorce. Even today, after 4 years of the affair, false recoveries, and now a slow but steady recovery, she still has baggage, hurt and even some fog.

During my wife's affair, my kids went from straight A students to struggling. They acted out a lot and had trouble controlling their emotions. Compare that to now, when my kids are again maxing out Standards of Learning tests and again getting straight As. No more emotional explosions by my eldest son on the baseball field. He is much more laid back.

Is all of this coincidence? I think not. I believe that our actions as parents has consequences with our kids, and their kids. We must ALWAYS set the example, or we will damage them.

Divorce ALWAYS damages kids. ALWAYS! No matter what ages they are. I see it as a form of child abuse. We knwo it will hurt them. But due to our own selfish desires, we relegate them to "they're coping well."

When we said our vows, and then had children, those vows extended to them. We must protect them. Even if they are 45 years old and we are 65. We must always show them the right way to live...even if it is at our own discomfort.

So I agree with you. The village does not matter. it is the family that matters.

In His arms.

Wow, overnight I seem to have missed a lot!!

verveine, while I don't agree with many of your ideas, I still like to see people bringing in other perspectives.
...

In a more general sense, at times she would say "I'm unhappy" or "I want to leave" in our marriage, but that does me no good. I want to fix these problems, or at least try, but how can I if she doesn't know what's bothering her, or what I can do to help? She would always resist my ideas to seek counciling or read relationship books.

Also, I find your comment about "revenge" interesting. I've heard this accusation before. I never did any of this to try for revenge. If I'd wanted revenge, i would have gone and slept with someone else. I've had a chance, and I didn't do that...

So, verveine, I DON'T think my situation is just like yours, but thanks for the response anyway..

Mortarman, I know exactly what you are saying about commitment and honor, but WW does not seem to care about those things. TO her, she had been "living a lie" pretending to be happy, (instead of trying to fix things.) Maybe to her, pretending, was her way of being commited, but that does no good for her or me.

Gramn:

"TO her, she had been "living a lie" pretending to be happy, (instead of trying to fix things.) Maybe to her, pretending, was her way of being commited, but that does no good for her or me."

This, 2, is fog-induced thinking. It will pass.

-ol' 2long

GREAT question!!! If you are a Christian, then you know that your vow is also to God, which means even if your spouse dishonors their vows, you must still kepp yours to God.

But, even beyond that, we must consider at what point we can quit. General Robert E. Lee was an outstanding general for the United States. When it came time that the states seceded, he had vowed to stand by the flag and defend the U.S. To obey the lawful orders of the President and those appointed under him.

But General Lee had a higher vow. The vow to his beloved Commonwealth of Virginia...and to his family. Those superceded his oath and vows to the United States. Thus, he resigned his commission and went with his state. But even though he left his post, he did so with honor by resigning first.

We vowed in our marriages to do all the things we vowed, until DEATH do we part. That is the terms of the agreement. God does ALLOW divorce, but that is not what He prefers. As someone once told me while the affair was going on, if I was waiting for God to tell me to divorce my wife, that I would be waiting a long time because He never will. He never will! We are permitted to divorce due to infidelity of our spouse. But that is NOT His will.

Now, are we to love unconditionally a wayward spouse? Yes...that is agape...God's kind of love. Are we to accept their wayward and dishonorable beahvior? Nope. And there are ways to deal with that.

I can love my wife and not accept what she was doing. I can love my wife and also deal with her betrayal and disrespect. Lovign someone does not mean we do not set boundaries and do not enforce them. I love my kids, but I also discipline them and set boundaries for them. I do so precisely BECAUSE I love them.

I hope that helps!!

In His arms.

Zactly right 2Long.

Gramn, the lie she has been living is the one she is living now. Commitment isnt pretending. Commitment is seeing reality, and still chosing to do right.

No one, including God, promised happiness. If she is looking for someone to make her happy the rest of her life, she will be searching...the rest of her life. Happiness is not a prerequisite. It isnt even what we should be striving for. We should be striving for joy. Joy and happiness are quite different.

In His arms.

I don't think this is "Fog Talk"... It's just a bad way of dealing with problems. Keeping up appearances might be ok in public, but it is not OK in a relationship.
One time she was more concerned to HIDE our copy of "His Needs Her Needs" from visitors at our house, than to read it.
Or, more recently, she was mortified when I checked out "Surviving an Affair" from our local library. "What will the librarians think!?"

Heh... The cashier at Barnes and Noble asked me how I was doing while I plopped a big stack of affair books on the counter. I just laughed, pointed at the books, and said, "what do you think?" She was like, "oooh!" lol

I am rather amazed at Verveine. Why is she here? Why is her very first post an entire treatise justifying her sleazy affair in your thread? Is there any way this could be Mrs. Gramn or one of her friends? My Spidey-Senses are tingling.

I'm glad you realize that exposure is *not* revenge. You shined the light of day on their sleazy affair, and Y-slime was justifiably let go. Now the idea of "soulmates" has been shown to be the fantasy it is. Some "soulmate" Y-slime turned out to be, eh?

I think Verveine is more likely Y-slime. He'd be the one to attack Gramm's sexuality as WS usually tell OP how SF was never any good till OP came along. Plus Y-tool is bitter over losing his job, hence the empty revenge references. He's probably been lurking awhile and is secretely rooting against Gramn. Besides, if it was Mrs. Gramn I think Gramn would have caught on himself and the reasons/justifications for the affair would have been more parallel.

Also, to say "we are still crazy in love with each other as we were the day we first became lovers...blah...blah.."Soulmates"..yada, yada yada". I've heard this fogtalk before. It's affair fogtalk not someone justifying their affair 15 years later on an infidelity board to a BS they don't know.

Gramn, I bet you shared the MB resource with Y-guys wife? Or your wife knows your here and she told Y-slime.

Verve = Energy and enthusiasm in the expression of ideas and esp. in artistic performance or composition. So Verveine would be "of or pertaining to an enthusiastic artistic composition". Or, maybe the "ine" is from the word "bovine".

For a first time post it was too carefully written, too precise, to composed. Plus, maybe just me, but I think more likely a man wrote this as it is not ordinarily the case of a wife leaving her husband b/c of SF and then to go on and on about it 15 YEARS LATER. This sex hit was meant to specifically hurt Gramn and attack his masculinity. Sad thing is Y-guy doesn't know he was lied to by Mrs. Gramn. The A fantasy included Mrs. Gramn feeding Y-guys ego with all sorts of BS about Gramn which wasn't apparently true (as Gramn came back without even mentioning SF thing).
Finally, Verve's one-week affair with her current husband occurred 15 years ago, however, they have only been married for 10 years. Did they date for 5 years, or what? Some "soulmate".. and some legacy as MM mentioned.

If I'm right, it doesn't matter here nor there. Verveless can take a hike or lurk and watch Gramn win back his wife's heart applying MB principles.

Gramn - I'm still following you. I'm glad I didn't have to get as far along as you. You're doing great. Keep documenting in your journal your discussions regarding reasonable adjustments to custody arrangements. Remember, you want the judge to view you as the reasonable parent with whom he can place the best interests of the child. Careful what you put in emails to her --but encourage her to put her unreasonableness in email format. Keep assisting your attorney.

My wife and I are praying for you and for Mortmarman as you two (with others) battle on with your unfortunate saga.

Mr. WWWondering

Triple Dubya,

My "Crap-o-meter" was going off also. Verve might be a true poster. If so, she has a long way to go to understand marriage.

If not, if this is Former-Y-Dude-Because-I-Was-Fired-For-Boinking-A-Customer, he would best be served concentrating on his failing marriage and on his dishonor. He has a long way to go to become a real man. And if this is him posting, then this guy is even more of a "winner" (sarcasm) than I thought.

Gramn, in either case, stay on message. Stay on target.

In His arms.

Whoever Verveine is, it is kinda fishy...

If "She" has such a great marriage, then why is she reading this message board to begin with? Isn't there some other website that she could be looking at?

Either Verveine is someone involved and lying, or reading this stuff struck a chord somehow.

I think the only one who knows about this is YGuy's wife, but she obviously never looked in here in the past. (If she had, she would have tried to talk me out of sending those letters to the board.)

I agree. I think the (lame) sexual references point to y-guy bigtime.

Hey, y-guy, shouldn't you be out looking for a job?

Question: Why are you here? What lead you to this web page in the first place? What lead you to this post and only this post when you only registered on 8/8? How did you read all the posts in this thread in less than 1 hour? Something not right here.

Anyone here know how to track an IP address? Heheheh...

**Sniff, sniff**

Smells like a man that use to run a gym.

In His arms.

Oh yeah, someone once told me that any dog can bed a woman a few times.

It takes a man to bed one woman for a lifetime. Former-Y-Guy hasnt gotten that notion yet.

In His arms

You guys are too funny! I guess my crap-o-meter must not be working as well as some of the rest, but I did wonder why verv would log on, pick out poor Gramn of all people, and just trash on him. Why not some of the women? You would think there would be deeper associations with some of them...

Don't even bother responding to that drivel....Be a firm believer in , amongst other things:

What comes around.... goes around..and it will go around...even to this phantom poster...

I think if it is ignored then perhaps they won't come back?

To me it is a rather eloquent post from someone who has put a lot of thought into why they are the person that they are, yet they still sound so typical.

Gramn...fight the good fight...

The most beautiful aspect of trolls is that they seldom hang around for more than a day or 2 before they get bored and go elsewhere.

-ol' 2long

And vervy:

I was reluctant before, because of the censorship issues, 2 use Jack218's great term "@$$holemates" instead of soulmates, so I used "solemates" instead. It wasn't a misspelling (sp?). I think WAT came up with that one.

Care 2 start a new thread and tell us your story? Why you're here on an infidelity forum?

-ol' 2long

I agree with Send Me...

Let's get Gramn's thread back on track...supporting Gramn.

Verve, if we are off base here, then start your own thread and let's have a discussion.

Gramn...we return your thread to its regularly scheduled program.

In His arms.