Well, its 3am, I just had a dream about us, she was leaving me in it. I woke up crying and im now just sitting here. Great.

Yes I know ill have to face its over bwt us. But I know people get Divorces all the time and get back together, but I feel shes strong enough not to come back. Shes so plain when she speaks to me, no sadness is there, I know she left me months ago but she wasnt like this. She says 100% no way she can be with me and that really hurts. Now its time to be a man yes, but I wish I had that opportunity to be a good person for her. I want to make up all the horrible stuff ive done to her.


Like I said shes going to speak with the lawyer tomorrow about our credit cards and stuff and what her "options are" she said. We have a year to go through this divorce by law, I asked her if she would be looking for someone else during that year, she said "no I wont be looking for someone but that dont mean I wont find someone". Shes so beautiful and I know she will find a guy because of that. I feel im straight out of hope right now and theres no chance of her coming back. I mean if she just straight ignores me how could anything get better!?


In the morning should I call her and tell her goodmorning ect. like I usually do? Or should I just not speak with her at all at this point?



She says she Loves me but is not in love with me <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

Why would you want to call someone who is treating you so badly?

Instead of appearing weak (in her eyes), move forward. She may have left the M but that's not because you aren't trying to improve.

Show your improvements. Don't tell her show them. Show them by moving forward and do not put it in her face. Just live a productive normal life. Be happy!!! WS' don't like the BS t/b happy. Did you know this?

L.

Thanks Orchid.

I wasnt sure if I did that it would help her continue to move on or not.


Shes not really treating me badly, shes I guess "nice" about it in a way. She doesnt yell and she doesnt ignore me, shes just plain. She said she actually called the lawyer last week too, so shes been set on this for like a week now.

I guess staring today Ill leave her alone and get out of her life like she wants, and put this in gods will, but I really think she is done. She says she thinks we both will be happier starting over with someone else and not having all these memories.

She said she wants someone who treats her right from the beginning.

I mean as tough as it is I need to come to the fact its over between us. Im not going to stop going to church and doing things to better myself. I really thought in my mind if she was going to leave me she would have already done it.

It was like a week or so ago, I didnt call her that weekend and she got upset and worried about where I went? And now shes divorcing me. I mean I want to think its a phase or something but Its hard to come to the reality its over after 4 long years, shes the only person ive been with all my life since the sophomore year of highschool. I ruined my high school sweetharts life.


She tells me if it was a one night stand than she could get over it but she said I also had an Emotional affair and that kills her knowing the week she was begging for me back that I was sleeping with another woman with my arm around her at night. She says she cant get over that. I do deserve to be divorced and I know I cant change her mind, but given another chance I know I wont mess it up this time around.

Last night she didnt come home, she stayed at her friends house and I truley beleive that if that friend wasnt in this we would be working this out togehter, shes running to her friend!

Nope. Her friend is not responsible for the consequences you are experiencing.

And I completely agree with noodle...


THIS is where you have the opportunity to show whether or not your efforts are sincere and your remorse genuine. Were you putting forth effort and showing remorse because you didn't want to deal with consequences or because you genuinely felt remorseful and wanted to change course?

She has let go. You are receiving consequences. If you still continue to pursue changing course, it will tell me that you genuinely want to change and that you were not paying lip service to avoid the consequences.

Yes your right Frozen, Ive done this to myself and I have to deal with it.

It is because of your actions that you are receiving these consequences.

I know that it sucks, Zach.

You have the power to ensure that you won't pay consequences by changing your thinking and changing your choices.

Different input will get a different output.

You have learned some tools and have the ability to stick around here and learn more.

You can do it.

Thanks its going to be a rough road and by law we arent officially divorced till 1 year. So I guess theres still some hope bwt that one year. I mean 3 months ago she did tell me it was over then, and we started doing better till she found out I lied. But then she also didnt take any action like she is now.

Zach,

Your BW's friend is not why she says she wants out of the marriage. She says she wants out because you have betrayed her repeatedly. You have not be a husband to her. It is time to stop defocusing. You are the reason for the condition of your marriage. The sooner you own up to that and take FULL responsibility, the better your chances are of having an opportunity for your BW to SEE the changes you say are taking place.

It is time to stop wondering what she is thinking and wondering why she is doing what she is doing. It is time to stop lookiing for whether your changes are making an impact on her.

It is time to start focusing on Zach...and I don't mean Zach's pain. I mean working to be the best Zach you can be so that God can do with you what He wills, NOT so that your BW sees the changes. IF they are authentic changes, she will OVER TIME, notice. That is no guarantee that she will want you back though.

It appears to me that you have not had the conversion that my FWH has had. As I read your posts, I see you still thinking only of yourself. The pain YOU feel. The fact that YOU may have to live without her. That YOU can't survive without her. Blah, blah, blah.

I am still waiting for you to begin grieving over YOUR actions, not over your BW's responses to your "changes". Grieving over YOUR BW's pain and suffering...at your hands. Grieving over your BW having to have lived with this betrayal all these years,not you now having to live without her. Until I really hear that in your posts, you are not broken enough to be a real husband to your BW. And that kind of grief you cannot fake. It will come across in your posts because you will be overwhelmed with it. Your remorse will be pooring through every word you write. Then, and only then, will your BW SEE your changes.

Have you written a NC letter? IMHO, whether your wife comes back or not, this letter needs to be written. And have you changed your cell number?

It seems to me that you still want a door left open in case your BW means what she says. It is time to ditch the OW because it is the right thing to do, not because you think your BW wants you to.

You see, I HEAR a lot of manipulation and controlling in your posts. I don't hear any authentic and genuine compassion, love, and care for your BW.

I am not beating you up here, Zach. Well, maybe I am. But it is because you ARE here. The fact that you keep coming back and posting, and putting yourself out there to get hit with some 2X4s, give me hope that somewhere in there, you really do want to be the man you claim you want to be. We just have to help you strip away that wayward fog that I still see in your posts....entitlement, self-pity, manipulation, control, selfishness. It still seems to be all about you.

Keep posting. Focus on being a better person for GOD. You may have done so much damage that your wife just doesn't have love for you any longer. It certainly would be understandable, wouldn't it? Would you have stayed around with someone treating you this badly for so long? Your BW has every right to leave and move on.

BUT....
God makes a promise to us in this verse:

I know the plans I have for you, not to harm you, but to prosper you.

Become the man God designed you to be.

He will prosper you. Perhaps that means your wife will one day return. Perhaps He has other plans for your life. Regardless, He DOES have plans to prosper you. YOU just have to LET HIM mold you, which can hurt, and refine you in HIS fire, which can burn. But in the end, you will be beautiful in His sight. Isn't THAT worth the work and the pain?

It's time Zach. Look at you. Turn your BW over to God and let HIM do what HE will with both your lives.

It will AMAZE you what he will do, when you fall face down before him, broken and humble.

SMB,



I spent a good deal of time last night reading your H's thread. I have to say that I am impressed with the changes he is making.

Zach,

Continue to do the RIGHT things and focus on the RIGHT reasons.

1. Write the NC letter. Why? Because OW is a skank that should not be in your life ever.

2. Change cell phone number. Why? For the same reason as above.

3. Offer to your BW ALL, and I mean ALL, the details of your ENTIRE history together. Tell her you feel that she has the right to know the truth. Tell her you are committed to be radically honest with her, regardless of the consequences. Tell her you would like to meet with her and will answer any and all questions she asks. Why? BECAUSE SHE HAS A RIGHT TO KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT HER LIFE.

4. RESPECT your wife through your words and your actions. This means not controlling or manipulating her in any way. Why? Because all people deserve respect.

5. LOVE your wife through your words and actions. This means valuing HER needs. Why? Because that is how God commands a man to love his wife...a selfLESS love.

6. Honestly examine your actions over the past and begin to let the grief and guilt poor in. These are appropriate feelings for what you have done to your BW. And I don't mean self-pity and self-loathing. THAT is NOT authentic grief. Self-pity and self-loathing is still about about who??? Yourself. You will feel overwhelmed when the grief poors in. Turn to God and the people here to help you process it. You will get through it. Why do this? Because you must face you sin, just as Paul in the Bible faced the sin of persecuting the followers of Christ. When you think you cannot bear the pain of what you have done, remember Paul. Once he faced his grief, once he truly faced what he had done, God used him in mighty ways. He wants to use you, too.

7. Fully confess your sins to your minister and to at least 2 other men who are Godly men. Why? Because it will humble you.

8. Ask at least 2 Godly men (to whom you have totally confessed your history) to hold you accountable on a weekly basis. That means they check in with you, ask you the "tough" questions, and you are totally honest with your answers. Why do this? So that they can help you become Godly.

9. Confess the truth to your family and to your BW's family. DO NOT justify your behavior in ANY way. DO NOT rationalize your behavior. Why? Because your BW deserves to have her family know the truth about what she lived with. She deserves to have their support.

10. Write an authentic apology to your BW. Be specific. "I am sorry that I gave myself to other women when I belonged only to you. I am sorry that I betrayed your trust." If you really examine yourself and your past actions, there will be a long list of I'm sorry's. Why write this? Because your wife deserves this apology...not because you are trying to get her to come back to you.

This is a start to becoming a the man God wants to mold you into. You can do this! Are you ready?

Then make the calls. Set up the appointments. Write the letters. Change the number. Hop to it. There's no time like the present.

Then post here. Let us encourage you along the way. But you have to do the actions.

Zach, read Noodle's post over and over again until you really get it:

"Zach,

Ready for another redirect?

I think you need one but I don't want to give you the impression that I am kicking you while you are down...you can't see my face or hear my voice so you can't "hear" the gentleness behind the words.

You are being consumed once more with self pity and a lot of that grief has more to do with being DENIED than with the actual loss of the relationship.

The fact is that you treated the relationship with the UTMOST contempt for the majority of the time you were in it.

You treated it like a cheap and indestructable tool.

You tossed it in the garbage and rolled over it with your car and used it to unclog the toilette because it was convenient.

The relationship was dying when you were sleeping around, it was dying when you were clubbing, it was dying when you were lying, it was dying when she left you.

Now it is "mostly dead" to coin a phrase from the princess bride which is indeed different from "all dead" and here you stand at the turn of the tide about to recieve the very thing you need the most and not prepared to receive it because you are lost in self pity.

The war is upon you and you have laid down your weapon to cry in your beer without having fired a single shot.

This is where it gets REAL. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is where you grow up or fail to.

She has let go of you, no longer loves you, is no longer moved by your tears.

In order to regain her affections you will have to *actually* become a man she can admire and fall in love with and that goes much deeper than cards and balloons and txt messages.

She can't love you for the sake of boy she knew any longer...you have used up all of your credit and the account has been closed.

Open a new one.

Ready?"

NO WOMAN wants to settle for a man who will not fight for her, who will not put as much effort or risk into acquiring her as she's seen (or even suspects) him put into pursuing
an OW. Noodle is trying to tell you that the relationship you had with your wife is basically over. You have to start all over again with your wife. You have to give up any sense of entitlement you felt and stop assuming that just because you WANT her that you should have her. You are going to have to compete with all other men for her now as she is no longer willing to grant you any special status or head start just because (for a little while longer) you are her husband... In fact you are at a serious disadvantage compared to other men because you have unfortunately betrayed and failed her. With other men she can choose to at least give them the benefit of the doubt...

FIRST step is you have GOT TOO stop digging yourself deeper! Lay down that shovel of selfishness ASAP and never pick it up again.

As Noodle said, THIS is where the real battle begins. If you give her ANY indication that you believe it's too late, that you've already given it your best effort, that the efforts you made weren't worth it (and therefore not permanent or genuine), that you don't want her badly enough to compete with other men for her, that you won't risk fighting for her if the possibility of defeat is so great, that you feel entitled to self-pity... it will be over as far as she's concerned.

A little tip: A WS wallowing in self-pity is basically telling the BS that it is all the BS's fault and that the WS still feels entitled to the BS in spite of their cheating and lying. IMHO you can't honeslty acknowledge the worth of the BS and the damage you caused to the BS while simultaneously acting as if the BS owes you anything.

Zach,

Print out that list sexymamabear posted and start doing and checking off those items.

Seriously dude, even though my WXH was a serial cheater, divorced me, and has been stubbornly pretended he was the victim of my 'heatfulness' for years... even I woudl consider giving my WXH another chance if he woudl only DO the items on that list! Don't make the same mistakes my WXH made: claiming he did everything he could but I just refused to give him another chance... when in reality his false pride prevented him from really doing anything but expecting to get away with it all and somehow keep me too.

And here's the thing Zach, saying and doing the things you need to do to become a man of integrity may at first feel demeaning to you. You may wonder how you could possibly still feel like a man if you humbled yourself so much... It's one of life's paradoxes, Zach. The more you cling to trying to feel or appear manly, the less chance you have of actually becoming one.

Here's another question to think and pray about:
How much of your self-pity, sadness, and sense of hopelessness is defiant self-pride in disguise? Because one way to put off doing what needs to be done is to pretend it is futile anyway. Are you afraid you will feel like a fool if you do what needs to be done and your wife divorces you anyway? If so, then you are still putting yourself first before your wife and marriage.

PLEASE find yourself a copy of that book "Wild @ Heart" by John Eldridge! It is written by a man for men and deals really well with the male tendency to fight MORE to protect the image of being manly than actually being man enough to fight to protect their wife/marriage/family. The author is a Christian who admits struggling himself with temptation and with sacrificing his fake manhood in order to be his wife's hero. The author also uses contemporary song lyrics and movies to illustrate his points so IMHO he would be very effective at reaching young men.

Yes god does have a plan for us. I know whatever he does will make me happy in the end. Last night those posts were coming from me while I was sitting in front of the computer crying my eyes out. It seemed selfish yes, it was just the reaction I had at the time, I love her and I just want her to be happy. I miss my old wife, I want her to be happy, right now she isnt the person I married, but the person ive made her to be. She use to be so happy charming and caring and would do anything in the world for anyone.

Now she ignores her parents,smokes,drinks,angry, not caring, no emotion. I made her become someone she isnt, and it hurts me to see ive turned her into what she is now, cause its not her. I want her to be happy and see her as the woman I met 4 years ago.


What conversation did your huband have with you?
Ive wrote the letter just havent sent it. I dont think its as much as her anymore, its more betrayal. My wife told me she thinks ill do the same thing down the road. But she has every right to believe that.

But shes dead set on talking with the lawyer today. I spoke with my pastor/counsler and he was going to give her a call today.

Should I not call her or contact her at all at this point? Should I keep talking to her? Im not sure on this subject, of course my instinct is to beg her and talk with her but I know thats not the right thing to do.

"But shes dead set on talking with the lawyer today. I spoke with my pastor/counsler and he was going to give her a call today."

You need to just accept it that she most likely is going to talk to her lawyer today even if your pastor calls her today. Luckily where you live the divorce will take a year, right? (Where I live she would have grounds for a quick divorce but could instead opt for a year-long separation before the divorce is final. If this is the case where you live too then you would be wise to acknowledge and thank her for delaying the divorce for a year and thereby giving you a year to prove you have changed.) IMHO you need to give up on expecting quick results and prove to her, over the whole year, that you are genuine.

I think part of your problem of procrastinating on doing what you need to do Zach is that you place too much false hope in an immediate change in your wife's feelings. I remember having a similar problem myself, for a LONG time I'm ashamed to admit, where I would be trying to think of something to say or do that would make my WH come back RIGHT NOW. So I put off making the changes I needed to make and refused to accept that IF my WH returned it was not likely to happen anytime soon. I DO remember feeling that desparate that things HAD TO improve NOW! But what I failed to realize is that from the other person's POV that just came across as selfish (at a time when my WH was very immersed in his OWN selfishness BTW so of course he wasn't going to be receptive to my wanting MY way). And it didn't really matter that I had learned some new things in order to build a better marriage, that I was sincere in wanting to make permanent positive changes. Because my focus on RIGHT NOW and my false hope in fishing for immeidate positive results, was causing me to procrastinate, and therefore increasing my WH's doubts about my motives.

I worry that your attitudes of desperation and hopelessness will be interpretted by your BW as 'if it doesn't happen SOON then I'm not going to put any more effort in'.

Even if your wife does go talk to the lawyer today and that means the divorce can be final in one year, that give you a whole year before the divorce is final to prove to your wife that you will make permanent changes. That gives you a whole year to learn all about how to rebuild a marriage destroyed by adultery. Forget about your agenda du jour (trying to get your wife to NOT call her lawyer today) and get busy on doing those things sexymambear listed. BTW do NOT send the letter to the OW yourself, post it here first for our review, and then give it to your wife to send to the OW. AND do NOT give any indication whatsoever to your wife that you expect anything in return for having done this!!! If you make that mistake it will probably render that effort worthless (manipulative even) in your wife's eyes.

By focusing too much on not wanting your wife to talk to the lawyer today, by acting as if by doing so she's somehow preventing the possibility of future recovery, it just makes you look as if you never intended to fight for very long for your marriage, let alone make the right changes even if they don't pay off as you hoped.

Yes, living through the he(( of adultry changes us. But we have choices. You do not get to take credit for her choices, Zach. She can choose to turn to God, lean on God, and trust in God. Or she can choose to turn to to other things that will never give her what she needs to get through her hurt. BUT YOU don't get to take credit for how she chooses to live through her pain. She will have to live with that.


My FWH first sent me an apology letter. A very DETAILED apology letter....with no strings attached.

It listed several "I'm sorry for..." and he was specific. It was obvious he had put a lot of thought into the letter.

At the end, he asked if there was any possibility for reconciliation, and he acknowledged that I had every right to say no.

That was the beginning.

You can read it all on my thread.

A few days later, we spent hours talking...me asking anything that I wanted to and him answering me honestly. No one yelled, but I sobbed...I think he did too at times. This was a time of incredible pain. To listen to the answers. But it is what I NEEDED. Each BS has to determine what information she needs. It is different for each of us. But a truly remorseful spouse is WILLING to answer ANYTHING if asked.

I have been married for 19 years, and we dated for 4 years before that. We have been together since I was 17 and he was 18. We have a long history. I needed to know exactly what was truth about those 23 years. Your BW will probably need to know the truth about your ENTIRE history together. You must be willing to come face-to-face with her agony, her anger, her devastation.






OF COURSE, she thinks you'll do the same thing again, because YOU HAVE done it again. She would be stupid to think anything else. We humans SHOULD learn from the past. You have taught her that this is what you will do. Now it's time to BE a different man. Not for her, but for God.


Can't blame her much here. She SHOULD BE determining what her options are. That is her taking care of herself, respecting herself.

Just remember TALKING to a lawyer and having a divorce final are two different things.


Why??? To stop her from seeking a lawyer? Zach, she needs to see a lawyer. It is the right thing for her to do. If she were on this board, that is exactly the advice she would receive from the vets. She NEEDS to protect herself in this way.

Have you confessed fully your sins to this pastor? Is he aware of your entire marriage/dating history?

Begging will only disgust her. Calling her repeatedly and whining to her will drive her away.

All that matters is what you DO. I keep saying that, and you have yet to DO anything. Stop talking and start working.

Write the apology letter and POST IT HERE for feedback before you send it. Post your NC letter here for feedback.

You are wasting time by wondering whether to call her or not. Get to work. I gave you a list. Get on it. Then post those two letters here. Change your cell number TODAY.