I haven't posted in a while but I felt the need to do so today. So the downhill saga continues for me. I was served with the divorce papers today. Even though I want to see it as an opportunity to start a new life, I really feel sad. I guess the only thing that is left for me is to realize and convince myself that life goes on. To work on myself in order to understand why I am in this situation and become a better person. It is a painful process though. Well, things always happen for a reason. There will be someone else in the future that can give me what I need, can commit to me without being scared, can respect me, and cherish me. Someone that I can also give what she needs. In other words, someone that can make me happy and that I can make happy. I guess I just need some support.

Csad- Times like these, I think, the Good Lord gives us to grieve, find out how we contributed, forgive, and then find someone new.

It's weird. Even though deep inside I really, sincerely hope my situation improved, I read your post and thought, 'wish it were me' then deal with it, suffer for a bit longer and it's over rather than waiting for things to (likely never) improve.

Nase,

If you are having those feelings already, it might be an indication that you are considering divorce very seriously. Truly evaluate if you want to take the step forward or hang on a little more. Define your borders and make yourself strong. The most important thing is that you should not take the decision out of an impulse or take it lightly. It will change your life and it is very painful to endure it. The pain might take a really long time to go away but you cannot live aching on your wife's side forever if she is not even considering changing. I just posted this in the GQII board. Read it. It will give you a glimpse of how life might feels like if you decide to go forward with it.

Post:

"It might be that I had a really blue day since I was served today. But I've been reading many posts in this board and I just find it incredible how much pain is around. How did we get here? We felt those butterflies in the stomach when we met our wayward spouses and then overtime something went wrong. We might not were able to fully meet our spouse's emotional needs but why were they/we so coward not to talk before they/we began to do their/our deeds. When I met my wife, on her way to become ex, I thought she was the one. I saw myself growing up old with her and having kids. I never even thought about the possibility of enduring affairs and the possibility of divorce was completely out of the question. Today reality is different. The butterflies are gone and I just feel lots of pain. Before we used to get very excited every time we saw each other and now we just send cold emails to each other to handle the last businesses we have pending. I cried for a while after I went over the D paperwork. I just never imagined I was going to be in this situation 5 years later."

Hi casad,

I'm so sorry, casad. I, too, was served with D papers by my WS. I was taken by complete surprise at work and I had to deal with the humiliation of my co-workers witnessing the start to the biggest nightmare of my life. I burst into tears as I sat outside with a co-worker trying to make sense of the petition. Seeing my WS' handwritten responses to the divorce petition is still gut-wrenching to this very day. He was my prince charming. Now, we're ex-spouses. I still can't believe what he put me through, the A, the OW, the shock and embarassment. I'm so sorry. Hang in there. You will make it through this.

I am feeling much better now. The sadness and pain are fading away. I knew I was going to be served soon and was sort of ready but it was still painful. I continued working on myself with the resources I found at coping.org. The've been very helpful because this ordeal completely shattered my self esteem. Coping.org focuses on helping you understand the roots of low self esteem and ways to improve it. It also provides you with tools to learn how to control your emotions, forgive, and let go. Something striking is that while going through the different sections, I found out I had low-self esteem by the time I started dating my ex-wife. Thus, I was not healthy and I did not attract a very healthy person either. As a consequence, we ended up creating a co-dependant relationship where we hurt each other a lot. We both played the role of victims and victimizers in the relationship depending on the situation (Money, Affairs, Lack of commitment, etc.). Although you should completely follow the advice in this website, coping.org can help you understand aspects of yourself that might had prevented you from fulfilling your spouses' emotional needs. It can also help you on understanding how did you contribute to create the dynamics that led to the affairs or divorce. Just wanted to share that with you guys. I also posted this on the GQII board.

Hi ready2wait,

I totally understand your feelings. It has been the biggest nightmare of my life too. I am really sorry you had to receive the paperwork while you were at work. It really saddens me the fact that we once considered our ex-S's our soul mates and now they are simply gone. How have you been doing? What steps did you take/are taking to overcome the pain?