WPG,

It's been awhile, but I've been following your thread. Looks like you've done all you can do for just compensation, but it just wasn't enough. I'm struggling with the same thing now. I have good days and then some really low days, and she knows. She can see it on my face, but I just don't know how to describe my feelings to her. I just feel no sense of loyalty anymore. I don't know how to explain it.
You're going to be ok, it sounds like your daughters are getting the attention and affection and love they need,

Good luck,
I'll be keeping up with your story

WPG,

I've been out of the country a lot lately and will be for a while still. I have not kept up with your thread, but I see by a speed read your betrayed husband now needs his own lawyer. Please tell him to get a good one asap. If you still care about him at all, that is.

In fact, it will be to your advantage too. If he does not have his own lawyer now he can, in NC, legally challenge anything he agreed to in the D later, when his head finally clears.

Aph, I'm kinda posting in response to you, but I am going to write this to broken...and he can decide 1.) what he wants to do about getting a lawyer and 2.) whether or not he thinks I still care about him at all. As a point of reference, I haven't "lawyered up" myself. Hell, Aph, we've got no assets to speak of. Nothing in the bank. A house that is owned by the bank, with little to no equity to speak of. He's got 3 cars and a tractor to my one. I am a government employee and don't have a great salary. That leaves the kids. And I'd never shut him out of their lives. Never. I, of all people, know how important a father is to a daughter. Maybe I learned that a little late to have given me another reason to keep from destroying my family, but trust me, I know it now.

Anyway, here goes:

I know you read here. As soon as I posted about you being friends with A** on FB, you hid your profile from me. Maybe you�re trying to make me wonder what you�re up to and who with. Regardless, it confirmed that you do still have at least some passing interest in the things I have to say about you/me/�us�, but whether it�s just morbid curiosity or something else, I can�t say.

I do care about you. Very much. The truth is that I could fall in love with you again with probably very little effort on your part. The insinuation of some that I don�t care about you is offensive�although I certainly can understand how someone could believe that, as I was an adulteress. It is unfair to paint every former wayward with such a broad brush. It reminds me of the arguments that rehabilitation (in the criminal justice system) does not work. Perhaps not, on a grand scale. I think it is entirely plausible that a majority of adulterers never reform. They may never cheat again, but they never own up to it. But does that mean you throw everyone into the same barrel as damned forever? Flawed, yes. Human, yes. But I am not defined by my past. I am defined by my present. People can change. People do change. I was not always an adulterer. Then, I was an adulterer. Now, I am not an adulterer. I know why I was an adulterer, and how to address my failings and weaknesses. I know how to avoid being an adulterer for the remainder of my life. I also know what makes a good marriage, and while I am nowhere near perfect at the application of MB, I have a desire to learn, and apply, to love and be loved in return.

I told you this week, I am the one who f�ed it up, and I can accept that. What I can�t accept is the current state of our �relationship.� I don�t know why I held onto hope for so long a miracle that was never going to happen. I remember a conversation we had after you knew the truth about what I did � it was one of the times you went with me to Charlotte for work - where you said you were afraid you would never be able to meet my needs, and that I would have to let you go.

Now, finally, I believe you. I�m sorry that I tried to hold you � apparently against your will � for so long.

Yes, I feel like you treat me like I am a second-class citizen because I cheated on you. And that is fine � really, it is, it�s your choice � as long as you do not expect me to continue to be a part of your life. You should know one thing, though. If you truly did want me as part of your life, I would have walked on hot coals to make you happy you made that decision. I tried to show that to you over the past 2+ years, but it wasn�t enough. I can accept that it wasn�t enough. I don�t blame you for wanting a divorce � I understand it and deserve it for what I�ve done. What hurts is feeling like I have been stuck in limbo, where you�ve given me a little bit of hope, and then taken it away again.

I have resisted Plan B because I honestly don�t know how to do it. I�m scared. I am afraid of causing you any more hurt and discomfort. I don�t want you to suffer anymore because of what I did, and no matter what anyone says to the contrary, I care about what happens to you.

But I also care about me. And I also do not want to suffer anymore because of what I did.

I keep saying the word �accept.� What I mean is that I have accepted that our marriage is over. I am ready to move on with my life, to be responsible for myself, and my own decisions. My problem is that I feel responsible for everything, right down to you losing your job�I think that my adultery caused it, at least indirectly, because you were an exemplary employee and I think dealing with my adultery consumed you, and then you had the added burden of losing your father. But that doesn�t mean I accept our current situation, relationship, or living arrangements, nor will I come to accept it. There is no in-between.

There is only married�or not.

There are many who would disagree with my assessment of the current �fairness� of the
situation. After all, I created this mess. I�m working two, sometimes three jobs between my full time job and teaching jobs. Yes, my part-time income is variable and unpredictable, but I think it would kill me to find an additional job to work on the weekends. I�m sorry for complaining about money this week. I admit to not dealing with the financial situation well, but it is difficult for me to place earnings and financial responsibilities within our current framework as �mine,� �yours,� or �ours.�

Yes, I appreciate all that you have done and are doing with the girls, and the things you do around the house. I am truly grateful for those things, especially after what I did to you. But I can�t pretend things are �normal� between us. If this separated existence is what you want, then right now I am your soon-to-be-ex-wife. After we divorce, I am not going to be a friend, nor am I going to be a f-buddy. If you�ve decided that divorce is truly what you want, I cannot be those things now. I want to be able to share my life with someone. I want to love someone, and I want someone to love me. I want that for you, too. I want you to be happy. You say you don�t believe there is happiness, but there has to be, my love. There has to be. You just have to find it, and when you do, you hold onto it, and you never let it go. I want you to find your happiness�and I want to find mine, too.

Have a good weekend, y'all.

PS - Hopeful, I did notify the mods to give you my email addy. I head out your way every once in a while - got a friend who's been doing the K'ville Indie Flea the past couple of weekends, and one of these Saturdays I am going to get up there to see her!

WPG, I admire you sincerely and deeply. You are willing to love and cherish and for that I believe you deserve to BE loved and cherished.

(Here's where NG loses another friend.)

Where is page two, Wulffie? This, page one, was a heartfelt and honest assessment of where you two are, your beliefs in how you got there, and your acceptance of responsibility for a great deal of the tragic portions of that story, in short, a combination of the past, and the present.

Page two will be your evaluation of how you plan to move out of the landscape of ennui and apathy, with or without him. This would involve steps to be taken (with alternatives) and a timeline of that plan. MB calls that difficult and often painful construction of planned wants, and needs (and solutions to them), Radical Honesty. You owe your husband that, if you have formulated such a plan. You owe yourself and your children that, if you have not. In short your page two must define your vision of the future.

Oh my gosh NG, I hope your post affects WG the same as myself, you just turned on the lightbulb for me!! Thank you...

I'm glad my words helped you, Workit. I just went back over your posts, and cannot easily link my contribution to your most recent writings, but one never knows exactly how nor where the last piece of a solution will be found.

Hi all...long time, no post.

I feel very strange saying that, after struggling to save our marriage for so long, I'm finally ready to quit. I want a divorce.

So, I found an attorney in our state that will handle a simple, no contest divorce for about $400. At the beginning of October, broken and I together filled out an interview form online with the attorney and I received the papers back within hours. Divorce itself here is fairly simple; any property/custody issues have to be decided with a separation agreement, which can be incorporated into the D judgement, but doesn't have to be. We're not disagreeing over any property or custody issues so figured we could resolve those on our own. After sitting on the papers for almost all of October, trying to ascertain for sure that a D was what broken really wanted (me: "Are you sure this is what you want?" broken: "Yeah, I guess.") - because I still wasn't sure myself - I signed them, wrote a check, and put them in a stamped envelope. Carried them around with me for 2 days, and finally just handed the envelope to broken and said, "If you want this, then you mail it."

You all can probably guess how this is playing out. He has not mailed it yet. Still lives in his little studio apartment but I see him daily, he picks the girls up from school while I'm at work, cooks dinner, and stays with them while I work another PT job (he's still unemployed, think it runs out at the end of the year, and I took a job as a seasonal sales associate working an extra 20-25 hours a week outside the home, which is much harder than my PT teaching stuff, which lately has dried up).

He will not engage in any discussion about anything related to divorce, selling the house (which is my desire - I can't afford it and tend to agree with NG's assessment that I need a fresh start/new environment), or finances. I cannot afford to pay all our joint expenses on my own when the unemployment runs out. Even with the unemployment, we're struggling.

I sent him an email last week after he walked out of the house and would not talk to me about money issues - I'd just read an article in the paper that the emergency unemployment compensation program ends for everybody on Dec. 29, asked if this affected him, and he said "I don't know." His response upset me, and I admit that I didn't handle things well from there. I can no longer stand this inertia, can't understand why he wants to remain in this limbo and just wait for things to happen, ignoring the very real problems that are not only affecting broken and myself, but our daughters.

I copied the last post I made here on this board, and to that I added:

For the love of God, I don't understand why he won't either mail them or give them back to me. I never should have given them to him, I should have just gone ahead and mailed them myself, but I just couldn't act on his "I guess." It all seems so passive-aggressive to me. I am sick of twisting myself into knots trying to figure him out. I did not cause all the problems in our pre-A M. We were both at fault, we didn't care for each other the way we should have, we did not meet each other's most important ENs, we avoided conflict, and I get that. Maybe we would have continued on that way, indefinitely, if I hadn't committed adultery, b/c I probably never would have found MB. I get that, too.

I know. There's no real advice, since I'm still pretty much resisting Plan B. I simply don't have the energy to affect a good Plan B right now. We're meeting each other's needs for DS and FS, I suppose, which were never in my top 5 but are in his, so I suppose I am the perfect wife since I don't expect any of my intimate ENs to be met anymore - he doesn't have to talk to me, be affectionate towards me, or have sex with me.

Sorry for venting. It's been a long road. I regret many, many things, but I don't regret fighting to save our marriage. I wonder if it would have been easier if he'd just kicked me to the curb when he found out that I cheated. Maybe he should have...maybe we'd both be further along in healing ourselves.

Chin up Wulfie

I'm hesitant to say anything because so many others have been helping you here, but I was just thinking that you may have to make a decision yourself. It seems he has shown all that he's willing to offer and the question is: can you live with that? He seems to neither move to go nor move to any better relationship with you. I bet you could get another copy of the papers and sign again if you have to.

What kind of life do YOU want WPG? Regardless of your past, you still have a right to grow in happiness, not stagnate in limbo.

We all feel at times that avoiding conflict is the best way to love, but as you have learned conflict is with us, all the days of our lives, and avoiding it is just covering many things up, where they can fester and become monsters, that can come out to bite us.

You have done all that you can it seems, and still walk around with the label internally, of the adultress, which you do not run from, to your credit..You don't make excuses for it, but he cannot forgive you.

It was said that divorce was given to us as a way to deal with the hardness of our own hearts, in the Mosiac Law. In my opinion, it has always been meant giving up on the grace we must live by, in order to have peace in our lives, because we all fall short, of being or acting perfect.

You have repented and suffered, and it is a good thing that you move on, out of this place you have put yourself. If you are willing, and he is not, then you are stuck, and need to move on..

Don't be a stranger ok? God bless

Why would you plan B? I thought the primary purpose of plan B was when a spouse was having an affair?
Is he having an affair?
He sounds depressed.
If you want to plan B just mail The divorce paperwork in and then divorce can be plan b.

Kiddo,
Are you asking for advice? If "No", close the window and read no further. If "Yes", page down below the picture.



Get a new form, fill it out again, write another check (cancel the other if you want), put it in an envelope, and mail it yourself, certified.

Do you remember my analogy of the dying relative, my friend? You have to let go.

BTW: That is a picture of a sunRISE, not a sunset. Your new life is awaiting your action.

Admittedly Im more foregiving of my wife than your BH is of you. Maybe its because your husband sees a well thought out individual in you that all of us see in your posts? And that you betrayed him goes beyond a comprehension of who you were and/or are?

With all due respect to my wife and she has many, many great qualities, she does have some self-worth issues and a selfishness that Ive always known (but never dreamed they lead her to where they led her).

Regardless of the above, thought not mired in a continual malaise that your husband seems to be, I do have my moments of doubt and I have asked her on several occasions if my lows and subsequent moodiness are worth it. Would she be happier without me so she can begin a life of renewal? Afterall, like you, she has been nothing but the image of remorse and regret and hope that Id let the past go. She told me once that she'll handle my moments because they will end someday. I said OK.

Your H's moments dont end. Life is too short.

A friend of mine once asked me, 'Did you stay just to make him pay?' The answer was...yes. I would rather at that moment stay and make him wallow in the mess he made, even if it made me miserable, than to walk away and let it go. Your BH sounds like he has stayed just to make you pay.

Fortunately, the good folks here made me see the err of my ways. I don't want to punish anymore. Nobody deserves that, certainly not you. Many a BS on here would give life and limb to have a WS be as remorseful and work as hard as you have.

Peace to you WPG.

You could have, you didn't want to. Stop saying you're done and then flinging crap his way and going back to why you can't won't do this or that, WPG. You are falling into blaming him for what YOU don't want to do. Knock it off.

Wulffie,

How, and where, are you, friend?

Well who can say what his motives are? Only he can.


The Song of Solomon asks the question: Can a person touch fire and not be burned?
I hope this couple is able to reconcile because they have a child.
And wolf pack, it's not over until the judge signs the paperwork.
There is always hope until that day

That's not WPG's husband.

I don't get this. You don't have the energy for peace and quiet? You don't have the energy to go to hospital and rest your wounded limbs?

But you have the energy to continually take this neglect, this casual abusiveness? Puzzling.


This is so true. I chose to heal myself but I would not have turned down medicine from the best source, my husband. He could have healed me quicker and better.

You are not the WS, you are the FORMER WS and you have tried so hard to be married in a way that honours you both. He won't even discuss it.

You know that Plan B is not reserved for unrepentant adulterers. Dr H also recommends it when a spouse simply refuses to be a spouse. The cruellest cut of all.

Why do you act as though you are not worthy of picking up these simple tools yourself? It is not passive aggressive to draw a line in the sand. It is assertive.

Plan B simply states: "I will not be treated this way another day. Let me know when you are willing to offer care instead of neglect".

It is the most honest, active, unaggressive thing that can be done.