Yes, my IC told me that as they grow and mature they will ocassionally revisit the "sitch" and will be able to see it according to their new maturity level. It will affect them the rest of their lives.....

Yeah, I guess I was gonna plan B until April of next year, that will be the two year mark of my Plan B....I just dont know when I will be ready for the divorce cr@p....but I know Ill have to do it...Its like I am just settling down from this affair stuff and WH movin out and now I just dont even want to think about goin thru a divorce....

Very,

I always said it's the kids that will suffer forever. I know quite a few families where the parents D'd a long time ago and the kids are still messed up into adulthood.

The adults can somehow move on, but the kids will carry the pain and it affects them either consciously or subconsciously for the rest of their lives.

That was an issue when I filed for D as well. I felt so guilty that I was imposing that pain on my kids forever.

Cat

Yeah, Catgirl, but your not the one who really wanted the divorce ya know? Your Exh is the one that didnt give you another choice....

Add me to this thread. And yes, I have all of the same feelings that the rest of you have. Sadness, jealousy, bitterness, anger, and on and on. Everything I have worked so hard for during the last 36 years has just disappeared.

I've lurked here for years but never posted before as my marriage was long over and I didn't feel as if I had much to contribute.

But Catgirl I can soooo relate to your story. My husband left me for OW nearly 20 years ago and I STILL feel like you do. They've gone on to become multi millionaires living a wonderful life with first class travel to every point in the world you can imagine and I have to struggle along watching every penny I spend. We too had a comfortable life together. I really always thought the karma bus would come and run them over but it never has. At least I can sleep at night.

I wish I had known of MB way back then, I did everything wrong, handed him to her on a silver platter by not exposing, thinking it would drive him away (well d'uh, he went anyway) and totally enabling the whole disgusting affair. I didn't have one clue what to do it was such a shock. If I had known of MB then and practised the plan, I know I could have saved the marriage. Hindsight is 20/20!!!

I too have been on some dates but have never met anyone I really wanted to be with. I only started to Plan B him about 3 years ago (after finding this site) as he wanted to stay in touch as "friends", so although married to OW, kept in regular contact with me. Now of course I realise after being here that that was just to assuage his guilt from what he did. How stupid was I?

Everyone told me I deserved someone better but here I am 20 years on, still alone and getting older. It's not that bad but I thought I signed up to be married for life - too bad he didn't.

Pretty,

I'm so sorry you had to go through this so many years ago and it still is affecting your life today.

Funny, but I see myself in your shoes 20 years from now. I can't let go of the pain he caused me and am very jealous of the life he has...$$, family etc.

I too don't think the karma bus will ever make a stop at his house. Everyone told me the A wouldn't last they were too far apart in age etc. Well they M'd and now have a baby. Looks like the M isn't going anywhere.

ExW will stay M'd anyway, no matter how miserable he is this time. He's too proud to admit he would have messed up again! But from what some people have told me that have seen them out and about, they say they look extremely happy!

They say living well is the best revenge. I am trying to do that. Put on a happy face whenever I happen to see ExH. I truly think he has thought I moved on with someone else. If he only knew...

Why is it that a good person who does mostly everything right...goes to church, voluntees, honors wedding vows, etc. etc. always ends up with the short end of the stick, and then the person who does it all wrong, gets it all!

Something is definitley wrong with that picture.

Some day your son will grow up and thank you for being there for him, when his father abandoned him. It is hard to parent, especially when you have an irresponsible WAYWARD who just wants to be "liked." What a bum. My dad did the same thing to me as a kid and believe me, when I grew up and realized that he neglected me so badly, I did not remember him fondly at all. He was a horrible parent and while my mother had some serious issues, she always tried to do the right thing instead of being liked.

For some parents, it is more important to be liked than to be good parents. They are horrible parents.

Oh boy, I feel everything all of you feel! Sometimes it doesn't even make sense. I mean, I didn't have the greatest marriage anyway and I knew this even on d-day. Some people actually thought that this was a good thing for me because it gave me a free pass out of it. And in real life, I have lived well since he left. I have a lot more money than I did without him to throw it away on crap. I have taken more and better vacations in teh past 2 years than I did in the entire 17 years I was with him. I live in a much nicer house and I've bought a new car. Outwardly, I appear to have thrived.

But I still feel the same inside. And trust me, it doesn't make a lot of difference that my life is, at least materialistically, better than his. He traded my professional salary for her minimum wage but didn't adjust his wasteful lifestyle to accomodate it and is now in debt beyond his eyeballs. He can't afford to replace his old truck but it still costs him a fortune to keep it together enough to run. Though the materialistic stuff can sting, it's not the core of what gets you. It's the fact that he's living a life that HE chose for himself, yet I'm scrambling around trying to adapt to circumstances thrown at me.

So how do we really let go of this stuff? I mean really - if he walked back into my life today I'd tell him to shove off - I honestly don't want him back. So why does everything that happened STILL eat at me? How do I stop it??

Yeah, ML, I guess you are right...and I am not raising him to like me, per se...I am raising him to be a happy, healthy, God loving and moral human being.

Tabby, You know, we dont know if they are doing as good as we think they are, I guess...someone thinks they have a lot of money and seem happy on the outside, and someone whos WxH is poor and seems happy....we can live with no regrets...They have to live with that burden...and I am sure in some way they do, even if we dont outwardly see it...

I mean look at Pretty's Xwh, he tried to stay friends with her, so he does have guilt....

I feel it will always hurt, just like when someone you love dies..It will always be a part of us...

Did I sound convincing, cuz I dont even know if I beleive it myself?

For still and catgirl:

The greatest gift you can give your children, divorced or not, is to be a PARENT to them. The kids might complain about being made to go to school, do their homework and eat their vegetables, but deep down they know that you care enough about them to insist they do the right things and will stand up to them even if they throw a fit.

They know that you are looking out for them and give a damn about what they do, no matter what. This gives them a deep-down sense of love and security that they will never have from a Disneyland Dad. They know this, even if they are not able to articulate it yet.

And when they are older, they will look back and realize that you were the one who was there for them through good times and bad - not just in the good times, like dear old Disneyland Dad who can't be bothered with the icky "do your homework" stuff and only shows up for the fun stuff. Even kids know a fair-weather friend when they see one.

It's the minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, day-by-day stuff that makes a parent. Don't ever feel bad about standing up to your kids and insisting they do the right things. Don't ever be put off by any tantrums or sulking. That's what kids do. Your payoff will come later and you will be very, very, very glad you hung in there and were a PARENT to your children when they desperately needed one.
Mulan

Thanks, Mulan, I needed to hear that right now...

A few more thoughts:

A while back I saw an episode of *Intervention*, the A&E cable show that looks at the lives of drug addicts and alcoholics and then helps a family stage an intervention, where the addict is told in no uncertain terms that they must leave NOW for a treatment program or they will no longer be allowed in the home or supported in any way.

At one point, with the very emotional family gathered together, the counselor said something like, "Do you think (addict) is happy? Or do you think they are suffering?"

The family was baffled and said, "Well, he must be suffering. He looks horrible. His life is a complete mess."

And the counselor said, "No, he's not suffering nearly as much as you might think. Whenever there is pain in his life, he has the luxury of using (his drug) and escaping the pain and suffering. YOU are the ones who are suffering, since you are not using and you have to experience every minute of the pain every day."

It seems to me that the WS who have left us behind are still "using" and so are escaping any suffering they might have. If there is any sort of pain or guilt, they'll just go find a new affair partner, or hit the wine bottle, or spend a few days devouring porn and sitting in strip bars, or all of the above. This masks their pain and they can keep going and tell themselves and the world that they are happy.

The rest of us are left picking up the pieces of our lives like shards of broken glass and are constantly getting our fingers cut. As the counselor said, we are not using and we get the pain full force every day.

So, is your WS/XWS really as happy and free of guilt as they seem, or are they just continuing to use?

My fingers get cut every day, but at least I am not using.
Mulan

Here's what I struggle to deal with....our M was not good for probably 10+ years. My WH says he "tried" to be emotionally intimate w/me sometime in the beginning and I "rebuffed" him. That may very well have happened, but I don't recall it and he didn't do anything more to bring it to my attention. He says he just gave up and said "oh well this is all it will ever be". My downfall was that I didn't have any idea how to have a healthy relationship nor did he for that matter. So, he proceeded to become emotionally if not physically involved with another female co-worker and someone that he also brought into our lives, along with her H and child, as "friends" (very same senerio as this A). At that point, there was no chance of any emotional intimacy. I was shut out. I subconsciously knew this but had no idea how to handle it so I proceeded to handle it very badly. I pushed, he withdrew. I wanted a real M but I didn't know how to get one at that point. I told him I was not happy and that I wanted to do MC to change things and he brushed me off. I see now that he did this because he was getting what he needed and didn't see the reason to bother with trying to fix us. It would have been too much trouble. Pure selfishness! I, in the meantime, lived in misery. I just kept hoping something would change but I didn't know it needed to be me. I wanted him to DO something and oh he did something alright. We had moved away from OW#1 so he didn't have the same access to her so he just replaced her with another convenient POSOW. So again I was left with no chance.....

How do I deal with anger toward myself regarding all the years I let go by? I had no boundaries and it resulted in me wasting a big portion of my life!

Having said all this I can still say that I want to be in love with my H again (yes we were in the beginning...as dysfunctional as it might has been). I believe he can be in love with me again as well. I'd prefer to have that with him and not someone new. I don't feel this way because it would be easier (ha ha we know that's not true!) but because I still have love for him and love for our family as a whole. But, unless he comes out of his fog, and his is "extra" thick, this will never happen.

So, I'm living in limbo...and trying to not focus on the fact that I'm living in limbo. And trying to come to terms with how I feel about all the above....

Thank Mulan....I didn't see your post before I posted mine. That explains EXACTLY what I lived.

And here I am. I'm the betrayed yet felt guilt beyond belief for leaving and going plan D. I also see the families in the park/stores. I never wanted to be divorced. I was the Disney Land dad, but I was not the one who cheated(inititally, I know). Its really screwed up on my side. I have all the new cars, nice house, boat, RV, land, dirt bike, etc. My friends think I have it made, yet I'm MBing trying to put it all back together, cuz I love my family. Now, fwxw just said she lost her mind. Can't even blameshift or make "excuses" for the A. Said she only ever loved me. It might sound good to get that option(wayward begging for your return), but its still difficult to give up my "new life"...DUDE

Vst, I had the same sort of thing slowly happen in my M, I had Depression and didnt deal with it (didnt know) and WH got his needs from a coworker (who is still OW)..I struggle with this too....I also wasnt happy...

But you know how I think of it....Yeah I screwed up my M, but so did he...He didnt tell me that he was gonna leave if things didnt change, He just found someone else and lied and cheated until I accidentally found out...

My needs were not being met either, but I didnt cheat, didnt even think about it...We were together for a long time before my depression got this bad, he knew it wasnt the same old me and did nothing to salvage our M....We had a beautiful little boy, that I had a very hard time taking care of...he was too busy cheating to notice...

What I am trying to say is that, yeah we screwed up our M...but so did they...and we never stopped loving them...we never abandoned them for another person by lying and cheating....I want to see these people that have been together for so long and have a perfect relationship, if there is such thing it is because they work at it, not abandoned ship when things get hard...

Thanks Still, I was depressed too during that time. I'm sure he just came to believe that how I acted was just how I was and not a response to what was going on. Did he expect me to be kind and loving while he was ripping my heart out? It's like they expect something from us that we cannot possibly give them. But, I knew nothing about Plan A either so that could have been a big help....maybe I could have won him back but I had no idea how. When I caught a "moment" between he and OW and said something about it, he treated me like I was this HORRIBLE person! The emotional abuse I endured.....OMG.

Yup, the more I was pushed away the more i retreated, in a way I think he purposely did this to continue his A...didnt care at all that he was feeding my Depression...WH said to my mother after that she should have done something to help me, it wasnt his responsibility.....Yeah, I was only home taking care of our DS...but my mother who didnt live here should have known and helped me with my depression...

Instead of talking to me about my depression, he talked to OW every day at work about me...and she told him that he deserved better than me...It just seems like a bad mix of a lot of things, one thing was an uncaring selfish spouse...God, at least help me a little, before you dump my sorry a$$...I would have done that for him.