Maybe she will pull her bottom lip over the top of her head..sure beats her dragging it around on the floor.

Pout pout pout.

Aren't you mean. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

justpeachy,

How long did you try to work things out before you realized it was time to hang it up?

Hiker, you will know my friend when your heart has had enough...you'll know.

otherwise, fight the good fight as your kids deserve it 100 percent...120 percent!

and different people grieve differently (eav are you listening?)...that is a FACT. I am NOT GRIEVING over the loss of my ws. I grieve over the loss of an intact famly...that's it now. he's destroyed any memories that I had of him. he did it well. i know 100 percent from my church family back home that I had reason and motive to divorce him. he never repented and really tried only a feeble try.

so many times we want to as BS BLAME OURSELVES for the affair or are eager to try to find some mental deficiency in our WS...FIND A MENTAL DEFICIENCY...we find it far too painful to believe they are just IMMORAL. NOT FIXABLE, JUST IMMORAL

it scares the hades outta people for me to say that...we want a quick fix for a problem. that is NOT THE CASE USUALLY. not at all.

while we want to repair marriages and families, I would be a total liar if I told you that I didn't feel better after I divorced.

Sure, finances are 100 percent tighter. but my self esteem is 100 percent higher too. and my ds is closer to me than ever before, despite having to have some time with his WS father. for about 3 years, my xh was damaging mentally to me...and to ds imho...ds hates the ow/wife..and hates the fact his dad did all he did...AND I NEVER SAID A WORD TO DS..and he was never around when I did either..my ds learned to dislike his dad from when his daddy lied to him about "why mommy fell down the stairs"...my ds saw me fall down the stairs at the hand of my now xh...I never knew he remembered it as he was so young. He even told my sis and bro in law the whole story...when he was four. I myself never wanted to believe my son saw him push me down a spiral staircase and crash. and was black and blue for days on end. I left immediately after that happened and took my child with me.

is it ever enough to really say here that I AM HAPPY AND OK WITH MY DIVORCE? IT IS ALMOST BLASPHEMY TO DO THAT...but i am here and will attest to it. was better than the alternative with an unrepentant and hedonistic spouse.

I've said it a dozen or more times on this forum. I can't understand how someone just tosses their family and a thousand great memories away for an unknown quantity. Yes, I know it's an addictive, fantasy relationship. But knowing that doesn't really help me understand it any better.

Look at all the people on this forum. Are we anachronisms who hold onto the idea of responsibility and commitment in a society that worships hedonism?

I held on for almost two years...from the first d day until I realized this man ain't gonna change...he got progressively WORSE...and his worse was reaaaaaallly bad ok?

he went from being just a ws...then he progressed to emotional cruelty...then the lies became so bad...I mean this guy is a master salesman...he could make you believe anything he told you...and he lied his [censored] off.

the end for me came after his emotional abuse and unrepentant adultery (had a few false times when he'd pretend to go NC...but it was all false..no real NC)actually morphed into physical cruelty...that very day when a specific event happened, I packed up all I could get into my suv, and packed up myself and ds and pets and left. that was a line I hoped and believed he'd never cross.

this was NOT the man I knew before the A began...the man I used to know? the man BEFORE THE FALL? we used to go walking together...he was so protective of me that he'd walk deliberately on the outside closest to the street so that *(in his words) "if a car was going to hit us, it would only hit him"...he was at one time the most respectful and kind and decent man I knew.

now? I dont know him at all. he is a total stranger to me..an alien behaving counter to ALL I HAD COME TO KNOW AND BELIEVE about him.

I think that definitely if there is unchecked/continued/incessant emotiuonal abuse and 100 percent after any and all physical abuse that is a deal breaker for a BS to deal with.

what alot of people here don't get is that affairs are forms of cruelty and emotional abuse. just not as some people today would define it.

each person has their own barometer...their own line to cross...and I think that when either the time limit a person sets in dealing with the adultery factor is not resolved/continues, or if they like my xh get progressively worse, that the BS will end up leaving the marriage. sadly.

I don't want people to get divorced...but then again, I see serial adulterers do this year in...false recovery after recovery and lose thier sense of self...and self worth...thankfully many WS here ARE NOT LIKE my xh...they do come around and eventually wake up from this horrid nightmare THEY THEMSELVES CREATED...

each person is different. each story unique. no textbook approach as NOBODY IS ONE <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Hiker - if you're looking for answers, and I was, read "Not Just Friends" by Shirly Glass. Not sure I've recommended it to you. Very scientific, analytical. And helpful.

It IS unfathomable the way that WSs trade gold for manure, treasure for trash. I too am hypersensitive to the ease at which marriages are entered into and cast off.

Quick story - one of the first people I talked to was a long-time friend that lives out on the east coast. We talk probably once a year. This is the kind of person that one can pick up after a year's time like the last conversation happened yesterday. Anyway, once I told my story, this person encouraged me to leave WW. Right away. "She's bad. Flawed. Get a new one. You're young." This was basically the message (repeated by others I've confided in).

I had not yet found MB but I was furious! WHY would I do that without trying! I'm not going to do the same thing that my W did when things got bad - run away - that's what I'm mad at HER about!! And give up my kids? Just like that??!!

I went on a rant about how LAZY people are when it comes to marriage and commitment. And that so few seem to respect the commitments they make to their families, god and spouse to love, honor, cherish. In the end the call was well timed because it really got me to dig into my commitment to rescue the M.

So yes. I believe we might be in the minority. How does that make you feel?

I call you out, MDC, on your belief of laziness causing this ditch and run lifestyle...

It is the fear. Fear keeps replacement as a choice in our beliefs...flawed, wrong, incompatible...an illfit. I believe it is this fear belief inside of us, from the era of broken and lost toys, which sabotage our marriages and feeds A's.

If we were taught truth--that people are irreplaceable...then we would not hold off in our minds, "I don't have to put up with this--it isn't me--I can get someone better," then our marriages would be held to reality.

MB brings that reality home...we can be in love with anyone meeting our needs...not draining our love banks...and they can be in love with us...why not the ones we vowed to? Why not stop judgment, insert discernment, inject respect...and thrive?

Takes not living from fear, but from choosing to love.

Not lazy, I believe...fearful. Reduce one, increase the other. By choice.

LA

I guess there are many reasons why marriage might not work after an affair. I think resentment and entitlement are two of the biggies.

Fear. That is big one.

I think many FWS think that if they return to the marriage that the A will always be there, that it will be brought up over and over again, you know, used as the ultimate weapon to win arguments. I guess some FWS just think that they are setting themselves up for a lifetime of punishment for a poor decision they have acknowledged, but cannot erase. I know that in my M, 4+ years past DD, the A is still dusted off, shined up, and used out of context whenever the moods strikes. It has happened so often it is losing its impact though.

I think that most FWS know that they damaged their marriage by having an affair. I think many, me included sometimes, wonder if recovery is really possible or just another Sisyphean task. Sometimes you just don’t want to push the rock anymore.

I’ve spoken for the FWS because that is my experience in this. I don’t know what motivates the FBS to reconcile. I never expected my FBS to want to stay married. She didn’t really give it much attention before my A and it didn’t appear that she was all that thrilled with being Mrs. Numb then (probably a DJ, but it is really what I think about the situation). I don’t really know why she did and she had to do a lot of early heavy lifting because I just wasn’t that interested then. I even kind of savored the idea of getting out, having my own place and being free of the conflict and bickering.

I think kids were the major factor in my wife’s decision to stay and try to work things out. Some others were probably: loss of income that would have resulted (#1 EN of my W by far), not wising to be a divorcee . . . she sees it a failure, loss of domestic support I provide (grocery shopping, cook, general handyman and grunt), not wanting to hear grief from her mom (this was a biggie too). I would like to say that it was endearing love for me that drove this, but somehow in my heart of hearts, I just know that isn’t the case. I also know that there is seething anger buried there, it is usually capped, but it is occasionally vented. And that is OK. It is welcome to be important enough to hate a little. It makes a nice change from our often mutual indifference.


I don’t know where this all came from today.

I'd like to add the total inability of either of the spouses to practice radical honesty to that list.

There was an interesting long-term study I read recently about marriage and divorce. I will have to look up the citation and post it here later, but the gist of it was this:

Several hundred couples were interviewed over a period of years. Some were in unhappy marriages and were divorced. Some were in unhappy marriages but did not divorce. It turns out that a majority of those who divorced were not happy five years later and were second guessing the divorce. Five years later, most of the couples who had not divorced but who had unhappy marriages were much happier than when interviewed previously.

Don't ask me how they determined anybody's level of happiness. I don't know. But I will find the study and post a link to it soon.

I read that article, too, Hiker...can't remember where.

MIM -

Not practicing radical honesty...fear of being honest...what do you think?

LA

Perhaps. I think some people are just incapable of doing it, because they've not had sufficient practice; they don't know HOW to be "radically honest".

For me Radical Honesty is the most important principle. I will not live a life where I have to worry about my chosen partner not being honest with me.

I will say that it goes both ways. I need to be honest as well. If I am not radically honest I should not expect it.

I will not allow my FWW tell me what she thinks is important and what is not important about her actions. You tell me your actions and I will decide what is important to me. I have realized that my FWW had a different idea of what is important depending which one of us is in the situation.

So I do not need a importance filter in my FWW. I need the truthe unfiltered. I will then decide the importance. If you keep telling me you didn't think something was important and I did it might lead me to believe you are not the person for me.

Funny thing about these unimportant details that they left out. They would think they were important if you did it to them. Which means they can't even practice radically honest about the way they would feel in your shoes.

You are correct, MIM. My W and I have talked about sharing the truth about our feelings... and agreed this was important. We didn't call it radical honesty as my W still won't read from MB... but it's the same principle.

I don't believe I am afraid of radical honesty anymore, but I had so many years of conflict avoidance... we both did... that my reaction is still a habit to withdraw or avoid. I have to consciously think about it and share. I have to learn to be radically honest. I'm not afraid of the outcome, it just still feels uncomfortable as a new behavior.

Shaden