It has been a while since I have posted a thread here. Looking back at my prior threads, I realize what a complete mess I was. I never did post alot, but I do come here often to read and gain knowledge from others who have gone through the same things as I have.

There is nothing more life changing then when a spouse commits adultry.
A recap: My WH has been gone now for 9 months. I had suspected he was having an affair off and on with the same OW for the last year that he was here. I had even caught him at her house on a few occations and confronted both of them during these times. It was the usual "we are just friends" excuse. They work together, but he agreed that he would not talk to her again unless work related. He would not write a NC letter, and refused to quit his job. He did say that he called her and told her that he could not have any more contact. I was not a witness to this phone call.

I was so niave. Things where going from bad to worse during this time. I tried doing the best plan A that I could. But still things kept getting worst. He started comming home later and later. Smelling like OW perfume. Telling me that he didn't love me anymore. My heart was being stomped on everyday. He was slipping from me and there was little I could do about. Every day, little by little, he was changing into a complete stranger.

I tried talking to him, but there was a huge concrete wall built all around him. He was in our house, but yet he wasn't there. He always denied that he was seeing other OW. Towards the end, I started getting phone calls from people telling me that my H was seeing OW. He continued to deny. I called an old friend who is OW neighbor, and she confirmed to me that my WH has been at OW house several times.
Again, I tried talking to my H, I asked him for the truth. I was so angry at him. I did alot of things wrong in confronting him. He moved out the next day and in with his boss. Soon after, he moved in with OW.

I did so many things wrong. Sometimes I am such a weak person. When he moved out, I cried, begged, and pleaded with him. It was so bad, that I was litterally down on my knees, grabbing his pant legs like a little puppy, begging him not to leave me. All of my pride, and dignity was flushed down the drain. He blaimed me for everything, and was good at making me believe it. Again I responded by begging for his forgiveness. I am sure I pushed him away even further by showing him just what a weak and desperate womam I was.

Me and WH have been married for over 8 years. We have been together for 13. I am 30 and WH is also 30. We have two girls age 7 and 4.
OW is 41, divored, and has a son that is 9.

Since WH moved in with OW, contact between us has been very little. Plan A was near impossible then.

Three months after he moved out, I filed for D. He had made it quite clear to me that that is what he wanted. He stopped giving me support for the kids. I had to get help financially from him, and he would not agree to a LS. He said either a D or nothing.

Well, like I said, it has been 9 months now. And the D is close to being final. In these 9 months, I must say that I have become a better person, I am stronger now, and like to think that I am a better mother to my girls. But still, I cry at least once a day for what has been lost. And still, there are times when focus is taken off of my girls, and my mind wonders into that darkness and the pain of what we have gone through.

He is continueing on in the A with OW. Living life as if this is a completely normal thing. He has the girls every other weekend, and of course they are there with her too, during those times. It seems as if life is just moving on. I did expose the A after he moved out. I don't know what effect that did to the A.

I guess my question is, is this really it? Do I need another plan? Once D is final, is there no other hope. Or should I just go on with my life.

I feel sadness tonight. My in-laws are visiting from out of town. And I went into town tonight to get some groceries, and I happended to see all of them getting out of thier van going into a restuarant. WH, OW, our girls and in-laws. All laughing and carrying on as if nothing happend. I feel I have been replaced by OW. I was once told by mother-in-law that she loved me like a daughter. I couldn't help but sit there and stare, and look at OW and think that that used to be me. What did I do to deserve this?

I will give some more details about our marriage, stuff that I haven't told hardly anybody. Thinking back, my WH has had some serious anger issues. He was abusive towards me, both physcially and verbally. He would always apologize, and tell me he wouldn't do it again. I loved him, so I believed him each and every time. We got married, and of course it continued. It was not an everyday occurance, but it happened often enough. It continued up until our first daughter was born, and then it slowed up. From then on he resorted to pushing and slapping. He never felt bad about those because he didn't consider pushing and slapping abuse. One time he pushed me into a window, and it busted the window out, and another time he pushed me across the kitchen, and I think I may have broken a bone on the top of my foot. I never went to the doctor. If I got hurt from him pushing me, he would call me clumbsy. He would also look at porn on the computer on a daily basis.
I stayed because I wanted us to be a family. He wasn't always this mean person. We had some fantastic times together. I loved him. I would have done and gone through anything to keep us a family.

When he was a kid, his mother cheated on his dad. They ended up getting divorced because of it. His mother is now married to the man she had an affiar with. He does not have a close relationship with his dad. But looking at the picture now that I have gone through infidelity issues, I seen that his mom still tries to justify the affair after all these years, and still tries to make his dad look like the bad guy. When I told her about her sons A, she made excuses about how he never got to sow his wild oats. Or maybe he was just going though an early mid life crisis. (Whatever).

Anyway, I found out from my daughter, that WH and OW fight and cuss at each other. And that she had seen WH push OW on one occation. My guess is that the abuse will continue with OW.

How could I want him back?
On the few occations that I get to see him, I truly see a blank look in his eyes, a darkness.

Now, I was not perfect during our marriage. I started resenting him because of the abuse, and because of the lack of help I received from him in raising our girls. When he would show affection towards me, I started pushing him away. And this I am sure, is one of the contributing factors towards the A.

I have made some very stupid choices since he had been gone. I have read here about how BS are vulnerable, and yes it did happen to me. I met a man who made me believe that I was great woman. I felt attractive and wanted. I fell into the trap, and I slept with this man. How could I want to save my marriage, but yet sleep with another man?

Maybe I am not the strong woman I thought I had become because of WH, but instead, maybe I continue being the weak woman I was when WH left.

Again, I ask you, is there anything left?

Show your daughter your dignity in the face of what your husband has done to you.

My husband was abusive and had an affair. He started attending anger management and he told me one of the guys there said that affairs are just another form of abuse.

What you should have done when he was abusive you now must do that he is actively in an affair. Plan B. It's up to him to decide to return to you.

Cherishing

Your story sounds a bit like mine, but you seem farther down the road from me. If you ask me, you should just move on. My STBX since I left her, and basically took the kids with me, has done nothing but party party party, and god only knows been with how many men. I don't care how she lives her life. I follow enough of her to know whether or not MY kids are being cared for when she has them.

My D will be final real soon, and I am anxious to get this chapter of my life behind me. Leave the cheating SOB behind you and live a good life, a life when you look behind you 50 years from now, you know you did what you had to do.

I am not quite sure what to say about how you acted when he left... except to just learn from it, and by understanding it you move on and not repeat it. If you can indeed learn from your past, you are stronger for it. I left her shortly after filing for the D because I learned she was still lying to me after she said there was no contact any more. Leaving hurt, like admitting it was over. She told me her A was my fault, but I just fail to see how my doing all the work around the house, all the cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids, made her get naked with another guy. Maybe some day years down the road will finally make me chuckle when I finally get it.

If it makes you feel better, do what I did. I sat down the day after I moved out, and hand wrote a letter to each of my kids, telling them what happened,and why I did what i did. Maybe some day when they turn 30 or so, I will give it to them, but I suspect by then, they will understand. There is something theraputic to writing a letter to your kids, telling them exactly what you want to say to them now, but cannot because they are just too young.

Hang in there, someone once told me, you are stronger than you think, you just don't realize it yet. In the last few months, I am starting to believe them.

I know that in a lot of ways I have become a stronger person. Looking back to my reaction when he left, I realize that fear had consumed me. I didn't know how to be on my own. And the look on my little girls faces, when he walked out the door, will be forever in my mind. There little hearts where breaking just as much as mine, and all WH did was turn around, look at them with no emotion in his face, and continue walking out the door.

Since them I now know that I CAN make it on my own. That things do have a way of working out.

I have a tendency to remember alot of the good times we have had together. The abuse issues where always pushed aside, because I wanted to believe it wasn't a big deal, but it WAS a big deal. I let myself be treated like that, the issue was never addressed. Sure there were times when we would talk about it, and he knew it was wrong. He said he just could not control himself at those moments.

Even through it all, and before OW came into the picture, I knew he loved me, I felt it.
OW was in an abusive marriage and her H also cheated on her. After her D, she started seeing married men. She was the cause of another D, almost caused yet another one, and now it seems she has succeeded at the distruction of my own marriage.

There was one instance after my WH left, that he asked me how I could want him back after all he had done to me.
Why? Because I loved him, and felt that our marriage and family was worth it. I asked him to go to Angry management and marriage couseling for which he refused. I did go to a few sessions of IC, only to be told to go on with my life without him.

I just feel that maybe there is something else that I should be doing to help save this marriage.

I know that it is ultimately up to him whether he wants back, and is willing to make the changes. It will take alot of strength on his part, to step up and be willing to enforce those changes within himself. Strength that I don't know he will ever have.

Do I have the strength needed to endure all the hard work that would be needed to help save this marriage should he ever want to be a part of this family again?
I would like to think that I would. I think I know that all I can do at this point is wait.
Like I said I know I made alot of stupid mistakes since the A began, and as for me right now, as painful as it is, I'm starting to plan my future without him.