TR - I hear what your saying, but I don't know that I would call it hypocrisy.

Right or wrong, I think the underlying assumption when a BS is advised to stall on D talks is that the WS is not in their "right mind", i.e. foggy.

In this case, I think the underlying assumption is that Silverwind's BW is in her "right mind." I assume that is because people can relate to a person leaving their spouse if they were cheated on.

For me, I would not know how to advise because I really don't know enough to make an opinion on Silverwind's BW state of mind. On one hand, I can understand if a BS says I just can't get over the infidelity, and the WS then accepts the consequences and moves on. On the other hand, (at least from what I've read in this thread), Silverwind's BW doesn't appear to be making a "rational" decision. But, there could be a lot more history that I do not know about.

His BS zoya has had a thread on here for a long time, dealing with this. SW wasn't always the magnanimous kind soul he is today. No offense, SW, but even you would admit it. He has learned a lot. But she has been through a lot, too.

I understand. That's sort of my point. If you read only this thread, the advice being given could appear to be hypocritical.

I for one think that Zora's abrupt change from grieving BS who only wants her WH to see the light, to "healed" and sexually involved with SW's Xfriend, should give him a lot of hope.

I also think he has every right to fight for his marriage and fight the D if that's what he wants. It may not be the best tactical choice, but after the devastation he's caused, it's his privilege to try and restore his broken marriage.

Under the circumstances, his best option may be to allow the divorce and continue Plan A for a good 6 months or so, then Plan B just like any other FWS/BS. MANY folks on here have recovered from a double-affair, and many also from divorce.

If Zora's affair ends, and a while down the road from that she is still not interested in R with SW, that would be the time to let go. Right now it's too soon to tell what will happen. Once she's free of her wild new brain chemicals, that is the time to make a more permanent choice.

who is the WS and who is BS here? if zora was BS but now is WS, i think advice could be different.

SW had a fairly long A, during much of which Zora posted on here. She tried very hard to save the M during that time. I don't remember for sure, but I don't think she did Plan B. Maybe someone who followed it can confirm, correct, or elaborate on that.

The D is not final yet, and Zora is now involved sexually with SW's former best friend. In the space of about 2 weeks, according to SW, she went from still wanting to save the M, to wanting nothing to do with being M'd.

I could totally understand a BS being fed up and wanting a D after what SW did, and not being willing to reconcile. But the timing and circumstances (i.e. someone else suddenly in the mix) paint a more hopeful picture than that.

hi iam writing this to note that i facing a divorce to my wife of 14 years she has a live boyfriend in our home in our bed with our 5 children. i am meeting with her tonight to start to reconcilation of our marriage She was caught by leaving our children at home with no supervision one is 12,10, 5, 3,2
the younger 2 have medical needs if eaten the wrong things they were escorted out by police to custody of their Grandfather where i reside but i not sure she is broken enough to talk about reconciliation i know that she stills loves me but wont say it or show it because she is confused her hurt goes back to when she was a little girl her father and mother divorced and the conflict of other people were involved boyfriends girlfriends took over instead of her needs. she is fighting God on issuses as well as me this is been a long time coming and need some advice ihave the support of my pastor and parents, I want to see this marriage work out and I am Looking to find help in many avenues as possible

My self am not blameless i have faults of leadership, finances managing a home with wife and kidz and have dealt in the past with pornography - with God grace have put that to rest and truly repented of Hurtiong my wife these past years Butwanting forgiveness from her

Hey all,

I am the WH. I had a year long affair. She had a one night stand with my former friend and then followed up with another date. They stopped when I found out but would have continued. She had already given up on me ever returning at that point. I believe her when she says they are not doing anything more than chatting at this point. I guess he feels really guilty, which he should, so they talk about it. If she continues on that path after our D is final, she does not know.

No, there was no plan B.

She did grow more distant after that incident. Of that there is no doubt, we used to be friendly, shoulder rubs, things like that. All that stopped. This was only a week or two before I moved out.

I am signing the papers. I cannot cause her more pain regardless of anything else. I dont believe that is rolling over and playing dead, i believe its accepting the concenquences of my actions. Believe me, I wish I could fight longer, but it WOULD hurt her more and destroy the fragile cordial relationship we now have. I am not willing to do that.

I would admit that, I made many, many mistakes. But it took both of us to ignore each others needs over a long period of time to get to that. We both treated each other like dog poop. We never learned to communicate or take care of each other in the correct ways. We were both very emotionally abusive to each other in different ways.

Dont take that as an excuse for my A, there is no excuse. But I also cannot allow myself to accept all the blame for the breakdown of the marriage, when my A happened, the marriage was already in a very sad state and not for a short while, probably for 1.5 years I would guess.

I accept my share of the blame for the state the marriage was in, and 100 percent of the blame for the poor choice I made to deal with the issues by taking the easy way out and having an affair as opposed to fixing my marriage and myself. And I take all the blame for where we are today.

The PA maybe over but the EA is still going on full force.

Your BW/WW needs to go NC. She has posted here long enough to know that unless she goes through withdrawal for her OM she will not come out of her fog.

Thus with her being fogged she is not capable to think rational.
Regardless of what was done to her she is dating before divorced.

No motivation to reconcile when she has a replacement lined up.

Unfortunatly there is nothing I can do about her at this point. I can only focus on myself and the things I must do at this point.

Why is there nothing that you can do?

What did your WW do to get you out of the fog?

You can do what she did for starters.

Um, she had sex with his X-friend and had SW move out of their house.

Not such a good option for SW to try, IMO.

If I recall correctly, what zoya did was way after SW moving out. Was it not? Not to defend her going out with the guy, but from what I remember, they had been separated and moving toward divorce for quite a while before she went out with this guy. It's not like she 'did' this dude and then decided to give up on SW.

My memory could be faulty, and I'm too lazy to look it up, so if I'm wrong SW will have to correct me, but I'm pretty sure he came on here very frantically, his very first weekend out of their house.

By that time, Zora had already had sex with the other guy, and was sounding foggy rather than just distant.

Distant is much, much harder to recover from than foggy, or even distant and foggy both.

That is correct neak, it was before I moved out, after I bought a house but prior to moving. I bought the house at her request, she wanted me out. There was no divorce papers in the works or anything at that point, that all came within the past few weeks. We talked about it but there was no action yet. She may have started the paperwork on line, but just got papers delivered last week. I dont know when she started them online.

Honestly though, what does it really matter at this point. She has made her decisions, I have agreed to go along with them, and I can only focus on myself, strengthen my belief system about what it takes to make a relationship work, and keep working on becomming the person I want to be.

I do agree though about the not doing what she did part, not sure that would be in my best interest.

Silverwind...

On the bright side, getting lots of interest in my resume now that is has been out there for a bit. All recruiter calls, but they seems have some jobs they are excited about.

Ok. I wanted to make sure I wasn't being biased on this, so I went back and looked at zora's posts about how this came to be. From what I can tell, she's been separating/separated from him since last spring, or in the process. On one hand, she did get with the 'OM' while SW was still in their jointly owned house (which she was buying him out of and they were waiting for the paperwork/money to effect it); on the other hand, they had been going down this path for many, many months. It was not that she up and decided the same week she went out with 'OM' that she wanted nothing to do with SW.

SW, I'm not trying to rake you through the coals on this. I'm trying to point out (to everyone else, not you), that giving her a Scarlet Letter hardly takes into account what was really going on. Her posts:

3/11/08
So, I have come to the realization that my WH is never coming back. I know that I need to let go of this relationship but I am having such a hard time getting to where I can begin to let go.

Everytime I start to think that I will have a new life and be ok with my WH, the next day something upsets me and I regress to I can get him back, I can make it work. But now I know that it's just not possible.

I think the trouble I am having is that he was able to move on so easily compared to me. He seems to be livinghis life and getting out there, and here I am, stuck.... I want to get unstuck. I have so much anger and resentment toward him. He treated me so poorly for years and then just up and left. I am not innocent in all of this I know, but I am having such a hard time getting past all of the anger.

I still love my WH. I wish him well and I want him to be happy.

He has asked that we remain friends. We have 2 dogs that neither of us is willing to give up, so we need to communicate to exchange them from time to time. I'm not sure if I can ever be friends. I have never remained friends with any of my XBFs ever. It's just something I find hard to do.

I need to begin to heal and move on from this R. But I am still stuck on the letting go part. I am obviously also having some anger/resentment issues. Is there any help/advice anyone can provide?

7/28/08
Well, it's been a while, so I'm going to give an update.

We got a few offers on our house, but in the end, I'm deciding to by the WH out. We recently had a stock option exercise at work, so I sold some options and now have enough money to buy him out. My parents are also gifting me money to refinance and take the house our of his name. They are glad to see me make decisions to move foward. Things are really looking up in this aspect.

Otherwise, I went on vacation to the southwest US for 2 weeks. Did some backpacking on 'The Grand Circle'. A friend and I camped in Zion, Bryce, Capital Reef, Arches, National Monument and the grand canyon. It was a blast. Being away from the WH felt so good. It didn't feel like the life was being sucked out of me when I was out there. And no walking on egg shells!

Anyway, when I returned, the WH was pissed. He was angry at me that I went to Las Vegas on this trip and that I went to the Star Trek Experience without him because it's something that we had planned to do together. My friend and I invited him repeatedly before we left. He refused to come stating that it was inappropriate given our current situation. Then he got drunk and blew up at me! Unreal.

Anyway, I can clearly see now that I will be better without him. The time away really put it in perspective. I feel much better when I am away from him.

I don't know if I will end up friends with my WH. He is such a brooding and depressed individual and I can't stand it. Emo went out in high school and it's time to grow up!

I am currently seeking counsel with a mediator to get things going with the paperwork.

8/13/08
You know, every time I think I am getting somewhere with moving on with my life... WHAM... something hits me from behind.

STBXWH and I were discussing our home today because I am refinancing to get his name off the mortgage and the deed. I told him that I wanted to see a plan for the day he would move out, in short, I don't want him living here indefinitley after the refinance is complete.

Needless to say, that pissed him off. Go figure. So we started arguing, talking about this, that, and the other and even bringing up how my parents hate him even though he tried to do everything right when exiting this M. Hmmmm. Interesting. How do you do right things when existing a M?

Anyway, it basically ended with him saying that he really should try to hate me because of all the evil things that I did to make him miserable. I told him he should. It really wouldn't bother me.

Instead he told me today he still loves me and couldn't hate me. SLAP...

There is no going back for me. Things have gone too far. Why do they do this? It's been a year and he pulls this out now. He hasn't used those words in over a year. He ahas only said he cares for me.

Right now he is feeling sorry for himself because all of a sudden all of these great things are happening to me. Personally I think its his way of trying to make me hurt.

He always said I belonged in a mental institution. Needless to say he tried to put me there but didn't succeed in keeping me there.

After the last year I think they need to make one of those places solely to study cases of WS.

For all the BS out there, once you get your wits about you and start living through things like this, it makes it easier to let go....

9/15/08 (when the ‘affair’ happened)
I haven't visited here in a while, so here's an update.

Things are going as expected I suppose. I finally closed on the house so it's all mine now. WH moves out on the 26th.

I'm nervous and excited at the same time. I'm nervous that I'm not going to be able to do the upkeep the house on my own, but I'm also excited because I can do the things I wanted to it without any crap.

I'm pretty busy with projects around the house and my rowing. I've got plenty of friends to keep me busy too.

Though I know how unhealthy my M was, I'm still a bit sad that it's ending. Mostly sad because I really did like my WHs family. I also look at the whole thing and go what a waste. We were two decent successful people. Why did this have to happen?

I feel very little anger/resentment towards my WH anymore. It's mostly sadness. So I guess I've made some progress with letting go.

9/30/08
So my WH finally moved out. Thank goodness. I can't believe I lasted that long with him living in my house.

Now at the 11th hour he is asking me why I look so happy and why I glow. I don't understand this man. This misery has been going on since Feb 2007 and now he has regrets. Sadly, there is nothing he could do at this point to turn things around, so I don't know why he persists in dragging things out and reminding me of house I wouldn't have SF and how I wouldn't try with him.

WHY!?

I am not the one who had a ski bunny for a friend and spent weekends away with someone else.

For once in the last year I am sure of the path I am on. The big D is the only way for me to find peace away from this crazy person.

10/1/08
I thought I had reached a good place. Today my WH showed up and asked me for a second chance. He also sent me a long e-mail and has kept calling me nonstop all day.

I am miserable right now. Mostly because I feel guilty and I feel like I should give him a shot the way I wish he had given me. I still love this man, but I don't think I have the heart to give him a 2nd chance. There have so many more bad times than good.

The big D is the course of action that I need right now. I know that. I'm not sure how I will stay strong to move forward with this. I feel so bad for him.

Any advice on BS who ahve ended up where I am?

10/2/08
I'm having serious issues right now. My WH is begging me for another chance and I don't want to give it to him.

He won't stop calling, emailing, texting. etc. etc. He is desperate. The more he does this the more I want to get away from him.

I'm worried now that I myself am sounding like I'm in the FOG that has been talked about here that WS are typically in. The reasons I give my WH that I don't want to try again are that

-I love him but I'm not in love with him
-Too much has happened
-I would like to remain friends with you

Doesn't that sound like fog speak to you?

I feel like my WH is trying to manipulate me into giving him a chance. I feel terrible, but I know what I have been through and I have been at peace with te impending D for about 2 months or so. He even had each of his parents call me and try to talk to me. They tried to use the religious angle to get me to work out the M.

People that don't even know this man tell me I am making the right decision by getting a D. But I can't help think about all the things I learned here on MB. Basically it teaches you that most M can be fixed no matter how far they have gone.

My biggest problem is now I'm feeling like the bad guy because I have closed the door for reconciliation. I waited so long for my WH to turn around, this just doesn't seem fair....

Cat,

I do understand that, and I can point out many things that she did not post about to perhaps show you that she was not set on this course until very recently but I dont see the point.

At this point there is nothing I can do about it, She has made her decisions, I have agreed to go along with them. That leaves my only course of action being to focus on myself.

I have NOT in any of these posts in this thread said or done anything other than ask questions about my best course of action right now and answer peoples questions honestly. I got the advice on what to do about the D from people here, parents, priest, etc.. And I have made my decision to go along with it. Some agree, some disagree, but I believe I made the right choice.

I do not want to turn this into a is she or isn't she in a fog, did my scumbag ex friend play into this or not, because regardless of the answer, it changes nothing from where I sit today. That is an issue I can't do anything about.

I am trying to look forward now, not behind. There are many reasons things are the way they are, you only need to read her initial postings on this site to see how things got to the point they are at. She was very detailed and accurate on events leading up to my A, I would not dispute any of them. She did a very good job.

I relalized yesterday at therapy that that relationship we had is dead, and its a good thing. It was probably the most unhealthy of a relationship two people can have. I certainly dont want that back, it made me a loonatic. And it made her a loonatic. I would need to check myself into a laughing factory to want that back.

Would I love to forge a new healthy relationship? Yes, of course I would. That is why I am still posting here. But that is not going to happen now, or anytime soon, but regardless of when or IF it ever happens, my path remains the same.

Silver

Very true, SW.

Cat, what I was reading was a very withdrawn BS who had not gone to Plan B as she ought, so her LB was way down in the red. I also read a BS who was in NO WAY healed to start a new relationship.

And oddly enough, as soon as she did start one, she herself wondered if the things coming out of her mouth could be fog. For some reason, it sounded very familiar to her. As well it should.

If she were to come back on here thinking about saving her M, I would advise her to set the bar very high. But I also feel that SW has made huge progress setting his own bar very high, too.

Whether you call Zora's relationship with the OM an affair, or just a rebound relationship, it's doomed to fail.

Once it fails and not before, she will be able to rationally assess whether she wants to pursue recovery. Right now all she knows is that she's got a lot of happy juice from this other guy. It won't last.

This was the day SWs chances ended. Replace the negative emotions with the word love. The anger is gone (and the love) and now it is just sadness. She has let go (given up).