Final divorce hearing is on Monday the 18th and I haven't fooled myself about how painful this will be. Sometimes feel as if I've dodged a bullet by getting out of this marriage and other times feel as though I have given up on him, our marriage, and our family. Even now he doesn't come clean about his life, he won't tell me where he lives (probably still with the OW though he denies it), doesn't see our child regularly make plans with her and doesn't show, late with his child support, asks to have sex with me even though I am pretty sure the OW thinks she is the ONLY ONE etc etc. Knowing all these things, why does a part of me still want to be with him? This man is NO PRIZE and if I met him for the first time today as the man he has become I would never consider being friends with him much less dating him. The other day a distant friend who was unaware of our marital situation calls and lets me know she saw him in a grocery store acting inappropriately with another woman. THIS DEVASTATES ME EVEN AFTER ALL THIS TIME!! How long does it take to move the negative emotions of this from top priority to rarely even thought about? I need hope that I will recover from this.

JodyM
Together 9.5 years
1 child
D day feb 05

Hi Jody,

My DDay was about 8 months prior to yours. I can tell you that after you get through this all this divorce stuff and begin to focus on your own life these feelings will diminish.

I think the key is to focus on your own life and what you want to do rather than how he is messing up his own life. I sometimes felt as though I was obsessing about the A and my WW. Now I think I hardly ever obsess anymore <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Hang in there and focus on you and your child and things WILL get better!

Cheers,

Miker

PS. My paperwork was done in Feb 05 but my divorce should be filed finally within the next couple of weeks.

Jody,

I wish I could give you hope, I need some myself. It is very encouraging that we have a wonderful board here that knows how we are feeling and help us through the most difficult time in our lives.

My WXH disappeared. moved out to Nevada from New Jersey with the OW. He also is estranged from his family.

One of thing that hurts that I was unable to save my marriage. The OW made sure to get him as far away from me, so we could not work things out.

In a year and half since D-Day, I'm still struggling but I am looking forward. The day he walked out I couldn't imagine life without him and I didn't want to live. I'm still here.

Just be strong and do things for you. The loneliness is a killer but I gain strength from being a survivor and always taking the high road. We didn't do anything wrong, they did.

I still love my WXH, and today is especially hard since its my 15th wedding anniversary, but I'm going pamper myself today.

Stay strong and we will get through this together.

HD

Miker,
Thanks for responding. In thinking about what you posted you are right that focusing my attention away from him makes me feel a lot better. Just seems that lingering "issues" between us like visitation and child support and anniversary (THE WORST) bring my attention back around to him and our lost family. I think I will establish a "key word" to remind myself to break the negative obsessive type of thoughts when these things come up and refocus on my real priorities.

I have been divorced now for 1-1/2 yrs and during my separation, I was dreading every holiday...anniversary, birthdays, and Christmas (the day he proposed to me). Others who had been through affairs/separations/divorces encouraged me to do something for myself on those days to create new, happy memories. I gave this a try and it has worked. There were & are still days that I feel down, but if you focus on your life and building yourself up, each day you will get stronger and stronger and the down times will decrease.

It is hard to believe that 2-1/2 years ago I thought my life was over...now I am happy and feel better about myself than I have in years.

I pray the same for you!