I fought so hard for my M only to have lost this battle. My WH has gotten what he wanted- a D and the OW. The D is pending the judge's signature which means I'll be officially D'd any day now. I'm numb.

After reading the Harley's book and studying this site, I was praying my WH would emerge from the fog before the D became final. Unfortunately, this isn't the case with him. My WH has made all the decisions along the way as I've endured the heartache and pain of a broken M and a broken heart.

My question is to you all is: Do all wayward spouses emerge from the fog at some point? Even when the D has been final, does the WS "wake up" and realize how destructive the A was to the M?

Yes, they do. It might take some time though. In the end, one day they will realize that they only have each other, and neither one can trust the other.

Often the problems begin when the marriage ends. My WH and OW went 3 and a half years living together. They broke up the month after our D was final.

So take this time to heal. Don't date for awhile, until you are quite comfortable with your status. Besides, he may STILL come running back to you.

You know--sometimes the speed with which they emerge from the fog is directly proportional to how mentally ill they are.

My exH has bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and is a sex addict. He did not emerge from the fog for almost a decade. That's because he did not think *HE* had a problem, so he never worked on himself. Nearly a decade later, now that he has begun to do some personal work, it has dawned on him that he treated me like dirt. Nearly a decade later, he is beginning to see that he left a wife, family and successful business so he could be alone at night and chase skirts...not very fulfilling.

So...yep they usually do come out of the fog at some point, but for some, especially those who have a personality disorder or those who are VERY proud, it may take a decade.

Your faithful friend,



CJ

I think some do, but that overall some WS's have self-indoctrinated themselves so extensively with rationalizations, justifications, etc. to have an A or otherwise be untrue to their vows that to level with themselves in any kind of objective manner would bring the whole facade down.

I ask myself that question EVERY day.

When will WS wake up? He still has yet to even admit to me he's in an A. Just roomies, he says...

Our D will be final soon and he seems O.K. with everything.

If the A ever does end, I think his pride will keep him from coming back anyway.

He blames me for everything as it is. He told me the OW, or "roomie", is not even a factor here. Our M was in trouble before he met her...

Can we all say DENIAL????

[color:"red"] CJ[/color]



right

and how you can TELL which sort of WS you are dealing with ... step BACK and look at the WS .... just observe the WS's historical behavior as well as current behavior .... ask yourself if this affair is an aberration of a previous stable life style/person ... or does this AFFAIR represent the most recent step continuing a life style which is selfish/addicted/abusive/entitled

making a decision to attempt to heal/stay in and recover from an affair that happends within the context of a historically crappy marriage might seem noble and brave ... but I see it as the opposite ... choosing to stay sick is not noble in my mind

peP backwards

i also believe that for some, the D itself is what brings the WS out of the fog and into the land of reality. this is also stated in "Private Lies" by Pittman. Pittman says that it may take the D itself for the guilt to hit the A partners....until then, they don't really see all of the damage they have done...because it's not "done"


many people say it will happen when the WS hits rock bottem and for some, that's exactly what the D is.

(that is a BIG possibility in my situation because i've been doing everything to stall the D and may in turn be stalling the end of the A)

the thing is, you just don't know WHAT it will take!

and how you can TELL which sort of WS you are dealing with ... step BACK and look at the WS .... just observe the WS's historical behavior as well as current behavior .... ask yourself if this affair is an aberration of a previous stable life style/person ... or does this AFFAIR represent the most recent step continuing a life style which is selfish/addicted/abusive/entitled

making a decision to attempt to heal/stay in and recover from an affair that happends within the context of a historically crappy marriage might seem noble and brave ... but I see it as the opposite ... choosing to stay sick is not noble in my mind


Pepperband,

I consider you one of the masters of this web site. That post above scared the he// out of me. That decribes my WW to the T. The only reason she stayed married for more than a year is because she married me. I am a South Lousiana alter boy that tries to make everybody happy. All I do is give, give, give. All she has ever done is take, take, take. She isn't well respected are liked by very many people.

The only reason any of my family and friends are willing to accept her back is because I have asked them to. We are talking about a very devout Catholic family that believes in marriage at all costs and I had to ask them to accept her if she came back.

I did have plenty of faults in leading up to the A, but I still treated her like a queen. My faults were the major LBing I did in the final year before the A when I noticed her starting to pull away from the family. Some childhood trauma had resurfaced in that year and really messed her mind up. She started running and still hasn't stopped. I got her to go to an IC for about 10 weeks, but nothing has seemed to change.

I won't change course just yet, but at some point I'm going to have to face the facts. We did have some very happy years together and those memories are all that keep me going.

I feel like I need to give her more time, but there is a big part of me that thinks I am beating a dead horse.

Any thoughts?

I believe that some WS's will NEVER come out of the fog.

You know, some drug addicts never hit bottom, die young, and that's that. Some go along in a drug-induced fog for a lifetime, and die. Some have a level of understanding but never truly ""get their part"" in the addiction...

It is the same, I'm sure, with WS's.

I know this doesn't bring hope to those of you waiting to see the WS 'snap out of it.'

But bottom line: "Usually" isn't "Always"...

Now you may ask why I even bother to post. It's because I believe you need ALL the information to make informed choices.

If you choose to wait... even for a lifetime... because it's what YOU must do... I respect that. My hope is that YOUR WS will become a FWS... and your marriage will totally recover.

But if you choose to let go, because it's what YOU must do, even if your spouse pulls their head out ten years from now, I also respect you, and wish for a recovered YOU.

Either way the choice is yours...

I wouldn't say that all WS's CLEAR up. Some WS's marry their affair partner and never look back, never really working on the problems that caused the A in the first place (within themselves). Some may find partners that more suit the WS lifestyle, no worries, no responsibilities, no REALITY. Who knows. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

I saw a glimpse of the man that I married for about a week, upon which time he descended back into the depths of despair, oh-whoa-is-meing, I'm unhappy hereing, etc. and on and on... <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

I'm not grasping at straws anymore, to figure out whether I should wait or not. I'm not really asking that question anymore. I'm actually considering filing for D myself, under the grounds of adultery, and moving this thing along. I don't want this current form of man back in my life. He is destructive. I'd rather move on.

For me, this has been two years of on again off again, all the time doing Plan A, then Plan B. It's taken it's toll. I accepted back a repentant spouse for him only to turn on a dime when the pain of withdrawal hit. I will need him to do it on his own next time, and, as HE said himself, he's weak, so he may not be able to. Sometimes..., fog or not..., you gotta take a man by his word. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

From what I know, my WH has justified every detail of his A. It's definitely a romantic A where the OW is the center of his sick universe. He didn't think twice about filing for D. It was as if I was the roadblock to his happiness. How dare, I, his loyal wife, get in the way of his A?!! He needed to rid of me as fast as he could. The last straw was when I found out they were going to church together. It just seems like the more he is justifying his behavior, the less of a chance my WH will ever come out of this fog. I have also dealt with the reality that he may never come out of this fog due to his stubbornness and pride.

We were together for a total of 6 years and never once did I see any behaviorial problems with him. No one did. He was always shocked at his friends who cheated on their spouses. He always said he'd never do such a thing. I definitely think he is suffering from something mental/ behaviorial. Perhaps he was a completely different person before I met him and now he's just retreating back to who he was.

If your WH never showed any signs of problems prior to this, then I would say that the likelihood of him 'emerging' is higher.

My WH, well, i dunno, from my perspective, he was happy with his life. He has had it rough, in terms of family stability as a young'un. His natural mother couldn't handle raising him, gave him to her parents, then she proceeded to have another family, half brother, stayed in that R/M until her death (cirrhosis due to alcoholism)--probably fostered a sense of worthlessness in my WH, THEN his adoptive mother -his grandmother - proceeded to have an affair and took WH along to justify the time out. My WH had to be the one to 'tell' on her, at a very young age.

My WH doesn't want to be STUCK in a loveless R/M, so he leaves, and comes back over and over again. I'm beginning to think he may be right, and he WILL not be happy here. Meh, his loss...

R2W: Exact same thing here...Mr. Upstanding, Mr. Contempt for anyone who cheated, Golden Boy.

Now he's this creepy guy with no morals. Everyone is shocked. I'm just the barrier to his happiness, and the Brady Bunch will have nothing on both sets of kids when all is said and done, after both families are destroyed and WH and RT can be together as "God" intended.

Still: YES...HIS LOSS.

SL, don't do anything until you've let your Plan B sink in for a few more days. You sound a lot better than yesterday, but I'm sure there's still a lot of pain. Give it some more time.

My W and I were great together before we drifted apart. She is a totally different person now (except that she rationalizes and justifies it well enough to hide it on the surface). NO ONE could believe that she was doing this. Everyone wants to just shake her to help wake her up. The dramatic personality change and lack of identifiable significant problems in the marriage is what makes me think that she will wake up at some point.

Excellent summary, I would agree with the above wholeheartedly. It really depends on the criteria above - and you may be better served by asking someone truly objective (but close enough to your situation) what they see in your WS.

I saw my best friend/best man's divorce from the sidelines, his wife had a six month A that resulted in their divorce and her shacking up with OM. She hasn't married OM, but they have been shacked up for 4 yrs now. I have seen the regret from her, I think it's possible that they may not come out of the fog but they will exhibit/suffer regret at some point. Or, they may come out of the fog and be so damn stubborn/proud to ever admit it - a "forced" fog if you will. In this case, my best friend's wife was definitely one I would categorize as taking just another step down the path of selfishness she had walked her entire life.

I've seen other affairs hit people close to me, and I've seen one stubborn WS divorce, eventually break up with the A partner, and continue looking for something more - it seemed more out of pride than anything. I think that sometimes a WS will be so stubborn that when their A dies they will "think" they know what they want/need, and they are bound and determined to keep searching til they find it from someone other than their BS.

This question seems to be something you can't linger on during Plan B, or you may set yourself up to be sorely disappointed. As a matter of "personal satisfaction", I would say you will most likely get a glimpse of regret from the WS at some point in the future. Be sure to catch it when it happens...

sdguy, you are right, my anger fluctuates here and there. I'm not sure what I will do, but I'm doing nothing for now.

My friends and family were AGHAST with what my WH was doing. NOT ONE person that I know could believe that he was this kind of person. That is one guage that I try to remember, how other people saw him. No one pegged him for an adulterer!

I think it takes a great amount of time to distinguish between wayward behavior and the reality of what your WS's behavior was prior to the A. It all gets so muddled when you are angry and begin to use revisionist history. This is why Plan B is so integral for me. My own fog vanishes and I am able to look back without all of the pain, and see more clearly what we had.

Jay, I have seen that regret and, well, it really doesn't mean much or change anything. It's just regret. *I*, however, really don't have any regrets. Lucky me...

Amidst all the heartache and utter frustration, I am comforted by everyone's stories because I really believed I was the only person on earth with a WH who is acting like a complete moron. Like many of your stories, no one would have ever predicted that my WH would be a adulterer. In fact, I received a call yesterday from a mutual friend of ours who just happened to call my office. I haven't spoke to him in awhile but I knew WH still talked to him. When I told him about our D and WH's behavior, he was speechless. It was as if WH portrayed himself as being a certain way for years and years only to turn his back on all of us. Of course, WH wasn't going to admit to his friends about the A. He cut off all his "old" friends and made "new" ones out of his co-workers. OW was his co-worker. I want nothing to do with these "new" friends of his because they have supported his behavior.

He used to watch that TV show, "Cheaters," mocking the characters that got caught with the OP. It's almost as if the more extreme my WH became with his high and mighty righteousness, the more he fell further away from our marriage and his values. Bizarre. No matter how close our D is, I still don't have much closure because WH's alien behavior has been so foreign. I'm still trying to work on achieving closure in my own way so that I can move on.

I agree. Everyone whom I've told had been totally shocked that my WS would have an affair, and a lesbian affair at that. Everyone would say "But you guys always seemed to be so loving and ppl always remarked how loving you two were!!"

And she tells me she only remembers all the bad things about our marriage and none of the good ones. Go figure

Yep. I hear that WW is telling people she has never been happy in our marriage.

Just typical fog speak so they can feel good about themselves and make us WS out to be the bad people.

hmmmmm

i posted this on page 1





just read another story where 2 weeks AFTER the D the H realized his mistake
(it's on lilsis't thread in a post by schoolbus talking about her Son in law)