My BS (NOT betrayed spouse) meter is going off the scale here... Can I give you some real life examples? 2 brothers of mine have broken marriages because of adultery. Their girls are majorly dorked up. So are the boys. My two sisters have both had multiple affairs... All their kids are dorked up. Each of them divorced their spouses because they or their spouses cheated. My dad cheated when we were adults and it tore our family apart. There is at best a nervous tension when we all gather for get togethers.

Let me tell you that staying together, three years later my kids (who were older) still suffer the effects of my W's affairs.

Here's a secret about marriage. When you get married you often lay aside what you "want out of life" because you have made a promise. You lay aside your desires of what you want out of life for your kids.

You can overcome it if you want to. If you put the work into it. If your H is that good a dad and man, why not grab onto him and make something greater?

It seems like really what you want to do is just run around.

Well we all wont give up will we? Sure some of us, well maybe all of us would like to see SA acually avoid messing up her life. But because she doesn't beleive she belongs to the human race, (Shes so different and above all of us ya know), we will settle for at least trying to help her children.

WPG was right, and NGs analysis of her getting her jollys by coming here and starting trouble is also true. But like the little kid who continues to insist that they know so much more than thier parents and flaunts rebelious selfish actions in thier face, this board continues to reach out and help this woman. Such is the fighting spirit and coolheaded voice of reason of people who have full confidance in the truth, and are not afraid to share it for the benifet of others.

SA whatever you want to hitch your wagon to the truth will not change. You will crash and burn,(if you are so lucky), or become another mental case that will have less and less as time goes on and lose so much in life that is really valuable. You probably haven't even read this far down the page because you stopped after the first two lines? You are not interested in wisdom or knowledge, you are going to make the rules up as you go along.

Seriuosly though please get some help from a good private therapist, even a bad one can tell you that running away is a mistake, but your problems are deep and all the mental gymnastics and pie in the sky notions of accountability to your H and children will continue to hurt the ones you "think" you care about.

Worried about you really, get some real help.

Struggling, your thread is one of several that helped me get out of my fog. The situation you created is not "too much for you to overcome". I used to think that way too.. but it's not. Nothing's "too much" for your kids, for your family. Have you tried everything? Can you walk away saying that you did?

This is a very sad update.

WHY is Pep laughing?
Because she looked at your age ....



29 !

Girl, you are so young.
You have not a single clue about what life is like as you grow older.
One day, you will need someone in your corner, to have your back, to nurse you back to health.

I know you think you've got this all figured out, but you are so far away from really knowing about life, and what really matters, that if it were not for your CHILDREN, it would be comic.
Instead, it's tragic.



And, I must say something else.
About YOU.
What I "see" is laziness.
Yes.


Marriage fixing is just more work, something that you refuse to do.
There is not much instant gratification in marriage work.
But, as a woman in her 60's who just celebrated our 30th anniversary I say to you, lazy girl, that the benefits of working it out with the father of your children is a type of bliss and grace that you will never get any other way.

Marriage and family are very maturing activities.
When a 29 year old woman runs away from this huge responsibility ( one that she volunteered for ) she is both lazy and immature.

This is not about you "finding" yourself.
It is about you losing yourself to your own personality defects.

"Too much has happened" .... really means "I'm too lazy to do the work."

Annnnnnnnd, the fog continues.

Quoted For Truth.

Getting good things out of life always takes maturity and hard work. For example, you could have a great marriage with InnerStrength, but you are not willing to do it. You'll tell yourself you've made a mess that you can't put right, but the truth is that you learned from Steve Harley and from here how it could be put right, and you just didn't want to do it.

If you ever figure out what it is you want out of life, you'll have to to put in at least that much effort to get it.

Here is a sample of some *EDIT* you gave us earlier. I guess it made you feel better about things, but the truth is that the sessions with Steve helped you string along InnerStrength longer and hurt him more.

And so I ask again, are you going to compensate him for the misery you caused him by putting him through the ridiculous charade of counseling with Steve?

Does what you want out of life entail hurting people and tricking people into doing what you want at their expense and never making amends to them for it?



When is the last time you reread this entire thread, from the beginning?

He deserves that from you. You could give it to him, and you choose not to.

Yes you did. You accepted it all, and are walking off with it.


If you walk away from responsibilities and hurt people without remorse, what life has in store for you will not be pleasant.

Your story is not unique and has played out many, many times before. You can pick from a handful of different endings.

My thoughts exactly.

strugglingaz, all you're doing right now is quitting. And losing out on the biggest blessing of your life.

strugglin ~ Read this wonderful post by Pep over and over. It's part of what I was thinking when I said to you: "if you only knew"

I was also thinking:

If you only knew the depth of the damage you are WILLINGLY inflicting on your children.

If you only knew that NO ONE will ever love you the way that InnerStrength does.

If you only knew how much you will crave that kind of love in the future.

If you only knew how deeply you will one day regret the decisions you are making now.

If you only knew the pure JOY of an intimate MB marriage.

And so many, many more "if you only knews"...

At 29, you don't have the first clue -- REALLY.

And I'm only 41 myself -- yet it seems almost daily I have new reasons to say: "Dear God, I don't know why you spared me from destroying my life and the lives of my husband and child, but I humbly bow before you thanking you for your amazing grace and mercy. Thank you for taking away my blindness before it was too late."

I also say thanks for Mr. W's grace and mercy --
And I thank myself a tiny amount too -- because I was WILLING to learn and do and not give up. I was willing to believe in the possibility that I heard here -- that I could love my husband -- and the reality is even better than what I was first told here -- I love him more than I could ever have imagined. It takes my breath away at times.

And I know that as I age and make even more wonderful memories with my dear family I will be even more awed -- even more grateful.

strugglin -- PLEASE LISTEN.

Mrs. W

Out of curiosity, strugglin -- What made you decide to post here again?

Mrs. W

You know, at this point I am just venting, because she seems set on her destructive course, and I feel like venting today.

You need to listen to this song, and think about InnerStrength, and the people here who have tried to help you.



Pay particular attention to this line right here:

I�ll give you something can cry about
One thing you should try it out
Hold a mirror shoulder high
When you�re older look you in the eye

So...if my H would have been killed in an accident two years ago, would you still sit here and tell me that I will never find someone who loved me as much as he did? Or are you just telling me that because I committed adultery and you want me to think that he is the only man on this entire earth that could ever love me???

strugglin~

I don't deal in hypotheticals -- there is no point to that.

Let's look at the facts:

You had an affair -- one of THE most cruel, controlling and horrible things you can do to another person.

You crushed your husband's heart by having the affair.

And yet there he stood -- still willing to love you -- still with his hand outstretched to you.

Willing to offer you grace and mercy.

Willing to do the VERY HARD work of recovery with you.

With YOU -- You who betrayed him. You who hurt him beyond measure. And there he still stood -- available to you.

My God, strugglin -- Can't you see what a strong man that takes? The gentle strength it displays. The amazing grace he was willing to extend to you -- The way he was willing to spend TIME, EFFORT and big MONEY to fix the two of you.

Do you really think that comes along twice in a lifetime?

It doesn't.

You are throwing away something so priceless -- I KNOW you don't see it -- can't see it -- won't see it -- but I am just on my knees BEGGING you -- because I DO see it -- And I want for you what you don't even yet realize that you will someday want -- someday need very desperately...

Mrs. W

Oh Dear Lord!

Strugglingaz, you really didn't say Dear lady there are plenty of me that could love you, and for sure one man that used you while you were married to your H. You will find plenty of them as well.

But, the immaturity of your statement is reflected in the following FACTS:

1. Your H is the one you vowed to be with for the rest of your life. Meaning you vowed to not go looking for his replacement, that makes him unique. In all the world of us guys, your H is unique because you married him.

2. Of all of the men you could find in the future, none of them will have fathered your children. None of them will be emotionally and biologically connected to them as your H and you are hurting him and by definition hurting your children. Just as they are part of you, they are part of them and your rejection of him and your marriage, means you are rejecting a very large part of who they are.

Young lady, those are FACTS. Loving someone is easy, making love to someone is even easier, loving and sharing a lifetime with someone is a challenge so strong that it requires VOWS, and acts of kindness, love, contrition, and sacrifice far beyond what is required when someone just loves you.

I realize you are still a child, and I realize that to you finding ANYONE who professes to love you seems enough, but it is not. Not when you realize that love is not a feeling but an action that we can and promise to visit only on our spouse.

Please see someone in the clergy, someone old enough to understand life and really talk about life, not just about what feels good at the time. Having children doesn't "feel" good during the delivery but ask anyone of us who have been married many decades and you will find that children are a great blessing in ones life.

Please think about this carefully.

God Bless,

JL

Something that got through to me when I was foggy.

Mr. W said to me: [paraphrased] "Mrs. W our shared history will be GONE if we don't remain together -- there will be no one who "knew you when" in the way that I do."

And I thought about that. A LOT.

There were things that would be lost forever. Our incredible wedding and honeymoon. The birthing experience of our DD -- All of our dating memories -- All of the shared inside jokes, knowing looks, silly nicknames and jokes. So many, many memories -- far too many to list...Shared memories are priceless entities.

And then I thought about the future -- about all of our DD's activities -- her eventual high school and college graduations -- her wedding -- the birth of our future grandchildren -- how none of that would mean nearly as much to ANYONE on the planet as it would mean to us TOGETHER. I thought about what a deep loss that would be -- Not just for us, but of how our splitting up would rob our precious daughter of some of her joy on those happy occasions.

I thought about our Holidays and her holidays and how much joy would be lost without all of us together...

And I thought back to our wedding day again...

How during our courtship there was a time when we were long distance -- and I was afraid that "we" would end due to that -- On the day Mr. W moved I ripped a dollar bill in half -- I kept one half and gave him the other -- I bet him that I would not ever move to Michigan [his home state] to be with him -- that he would forget me...That the dollar bill would remain separated and worthless...

Fast forward 5 years later on our wedding day -- the minister told our story and worked that tattered dollar bill into our ceremony -- He said, "Mr. and Mrs. W become two halves of a whole today. They are now and forever will be worth more together than apart."

That dollar bill is in our bedroom - framed along with a plaque that reads:

"Time is the most valuable thing one can spend."

So we don't forget.

Think about these things, strugglin.

Mrs. W

stugglinaz,

Your kids will be screwed up under this scenario also. The only difference is that you would not have to make up rationalizations for why YOU broke up their lives.

strugglinaz,

Please, sit down and think about the impact your actions will permanently have on those around you.

Do the right thing. You are MOM. Your kids learn from watching you and how you deal with your issues and that means that it is no longer just about you.