I know, Still...I was there too for a long, long time too. I had all the self-pity and self-doubt you feel now. It takes time and actions on your part to slowly rebuild your self-esteem and get stronger. You will get there, a week at a time.




Dr. Frank Gunzberg has some good writings on this. The BS has to understand that the A is much more about the WS's character deficiencies, faulty boundaries, & poor choices in life than it is about the BS. Even though it hurts terribly and feels like a planned rejection of the BS for the OP, it really isn't...the A, no matter what mistakes were made in the M, is the result of the WS's insecurities, attention-seeking, and irrational fantasies.

I would bet you in the vast majority of cases that, if the WS had directed towards their marriage even a quarter of the vast emotional energy/efforts they expended in concealing, propogating, and rationalizing their affair, the outcome would have been VERY different.

Ultimately, affairs are relationships that never should have happenned and never would have if the WS was thinking/acting appropriately...even for them. Very, very few of them truly go on to "happily ever after till death do us part". Affairs are, in the end, acts of self-destruction for the WS and not the 'fault' of the BS.

Usually the weekends are slow here but this thread has been burning! Guess We BS have more time than most.

Thanks for the sharing. I am glad that some of you have found new love and new lives.

I was always very independent. My XH thought I did not need him and would be fine. I can take care of myself and have. I have no choice.

It scares me sometimes of the future and what it holds for me. I know God has a plan for me still. This has really changed me. I look at the world differently. I was very trusting and open and I feel more closed off. Made some amazing friends from MB and they have been like rocks and there when we need each other.

Dating? Is that part of truly moving on? Can't think about it. People ask me what is my type? I have no type...I had my husband. Feel very lonely but for my XH before he went into the fog. I read somewhere that you should wait one month for each year of your M. Well I was M 22 years so it looks like I have 20 more months to go. Right now NI -- totally Not Interested.

Am I cynical that I don't want to get to know another man, listen to their life, their problems? My D16 had a terrible time with XH leaving us. I live with it every day. She is finally beginning to recover. I know kids are resilient, but feel she needs stability from me.

I love XH. Will it ever go away? I don't know. Love is supposed to be a decision. Will I act on it. Absolutely not because right now it will do no good. XH is drinking himself into a coma with OW right by his side. He is missing a great life with us but I can't change him.

I am at the point where I have accepted being without my exWW. I still dearly miss what she was. My entire life revolved around her and the kids for so long and it gave me a purpose. The kids are my life now but my time with the kids feels so incomplete right now. When DS7 scored his first soccer goal last week, there was no one to celebrate it with. After so much work in the last year with DD4's speech, I miss out on her having a conversation with both of us.

I still feel like I'm drifting. But, I'm also starting to realize she may have never been marriage material due to family history. With so much divorce in her family, she was raised in an environment of constant blameshifting and no one taking a hard look at themselves. I always saw this in her identical twin sister. But, now I've realized my exWW is even worse than her sister when it comes to blameshifting and not looking at your self in the mirror as the first step in solving problems.

Hope,

I thought I would stand forever waiting for the restoration of my marriage. I had told my X that I was standing for our M. God does have a plan for all of us, sometimes we're looking so hard at the closed door that we don't see the one He has opened for us.
Two months after my divorce was final I was still struggling to get out of bed and survive, dating was the last thing on my mind. Hope you are one strong lady and God will lead you to the path he has in store for you. Whether that be finding love with someone else or your WH finding his way back to you. I don't know about you but when I was where you are now I needed to lick my wounds per se.
I won't lie dating is scary also... I had never kissed another man beside my xh since I was 18. Who would of thought that at 48 years of age I better start thinking about birth control just in case this leads to sex. (if I even remember how lol)

Still

This got my attention. We BS's have been forced to take a hard look at ourselves! Our WS's have not. They can continue to escape. For me it's been a really good thing. But what will ever cause my WH to do it? Maybe nothing. Losing his family doesn't seem to be enough.

PSU biker,drifting is the right emotion. Days pass sometimes and I wonder where the time goes. I am doing better and all I have is time.

Still, I take one day at a time. My self confidence is being restored. I don't hide in the shadows anymore. I can date I just don't. It is not a scary thing to me--just futile. Don't think I can ever feel like that again. Tired of friends/family saying I will meet someone. Like that is the end all. A replacement. The thought just depresses me.

Maybe in time I will be in a different place. Right now this is my time and my time with my girls. We need to heal.

Your right we as BS's had to look at ourselves and for me it was a good thing.

So far as the waywards looking at themselves, I truly believe that at some point in time be it 1 year or ten years later the ws comes to realize what they have done and the problem for them will be once they do no one will care anymore. More than likly the BS's will have moved on and be living a happy life. And if they are anything like my exws he will keep it to himself so he won't have to admit defeat and wrongdoing.



The wayward will have to look at themselves in the mirror everyday and see what they have become. A broken shell of someone who we used to love. At least we can look in the mirror and sleep at night knowing we did all we could do.

What goes around comes around... Just wait and see......

Luckily I had a pretty wild time prior to my M. Sowed my own oats! It's like riding a bike -- you never really forget how. Be safe though. Those times have changed.

Hope,

I plan on being safe... the last thing I want to do is tell my mother that I am pregnant and not married lol.
Looking back exwh was my first love and I was his. He never really dated before we got together. We were each others first if you know what I mean. Maybe if he would of dated more before we got together instead of after we were married we wouldn't be where we are now. Need to stop looking back and look forward again.
Got to pick up my house, D is coming over for some football and dinner :-) later today.

Still

Both Xh and myself dated and were on our own and it still made no difference.

When they turn wayward, they turn wayward.

I actually had that thought too - WH was only 22 when I met him and everything happened so fast between us - sometimes I think he just snapped and is now enjoying what I did before we got together - I guess I still have the hope it's only temporary but I might be wrong...

I am rooting for each and every one of you. This is becoming one of the most POSITIVE, yes I said positive and hopeful threads on this forum.

That is because I hear you guys talking positive about yourselves, not basing your view of your future on how your WH acts or has acted twords you.

bravo.

Okla,

My EXH was just the opposite. All of his friends and family rallied around him and have ignored me. It was the "as long as he is happy" theory.

His family never liked me anyway, so it really doesn't matter to me if I ever see them. I hear his family and friends absolutely LOVE OW.

How can people justify what he did?!

And yeah I do believe that however unhappy ExH may become with OW, he will never leave her. He has too much pride to admit he might have messed up again!

Not sure if I believe what goes around comes around. Seems like all the puzzle pieces are falling in place for him, and crumbling for me!


Cat

Mulan,

I like you, have no problems telling people that ExH cheated on me. My DD gets annoyed at me sometimes telling me that people really don't care about all that happened in my life, but I guess it makes me feel better when I say... I'm divorced, and insert the disclaimer...cuz he cheated on me with someone 17 years younger!

Cat

Still,

Although understandable, you are looking for "answers" as to why the A happenned and trying to apply a sane, rational reason for an intensely insane, irrational (and purely emotional) act. This is soooo tempting for us BSs to do, in an attempt to logically explain away our pain and loss, but it is a fool's errand.

The idea that "maybe if we both had had more dating experience prior to getting togther, this wouldn't have happenned" is nothing more then the flip-side of the WS affair-excuse/rationalization "we just got married too young" or "we just aren't compatible".

Tempting as it is, do not go there. Nobody has an affair & breaks up a marriage YEARS LATER because they logically "just want to date other people like they wish they had in the past".

Chai and SDWman,

I don't know if I agree with the statement that WS's put up a facade to make them seem happy and wish they could have gone back to their BS.

I gave ExH numerous opportunities to come back to me, wrote a very long letter pouring my heart out to him. He even said it was a very emotional read for him.

So if he really wanted to come back to me, why didn't he do it then? I basically told him to check his pride at the door, we all make mistakes, we can recover etc.

Cat

SDWman,

You wrote:

3) These feelings WILL NOT LAST. Sooner or later, the infatuation wears off, the fantasy dissipates, and the WS will have to confront the (usually ugly, step-down) reality of the situation & OP they have chosen to be with.


Do you think that applies to WS's that marry the OP? I mean in my case, my ExH lived with OW for 2 yrs. before they M'd. Don't you think the drudgery of day to day life would have given him a clue as to what M would be like?

He M'd her anyway. That was his choice. He could have kept living with her or left.

Cat

Stillhurtingnot,

I still have a VERY hard time telling people I am divorced and it's been 2 yrs. now. I feel like when I say the word DIVORCE people look at me like a failure. I absolutley hate saying it. I guess that's why I always make sure I say ...cuz ExH cheated on me. I guess I feel like I have to explain why, that it wasn't all my fault.

Yeah I know so many people are D'd now a days that it really is no big deal, but to me, it is.

I went to a high school reunion recently and was mortified I had to tell people I was D'd. I felt like scum.

I was looking in the paper today in the society page. They have marriage announcements with pictures and pictures of couples on their anniversaries.

There were many there celebrating their 50th anniversary and it made me very sad that my picture would never be there. Had ExH not had the A, we could have been there, but at my age, and no prospects out there at the moment, I doubt I'll make it to 50 years with anyone now, and that saddens me.

I guess in a way I feel that ExH took that away from me.

Cat

Stillhere8126,

I too feel like you do, very unlovable.

How could ExH have tossed me aside to fall in love with someone else. I guess if it was just an A and it ended, then it might be a bit easier, it was just lust or whatever. But he married her and had a baby with her, so he obviously must have feelings for her!

Why not me?

Cat

I am right there with you too, cat. IDK it just $uck$.