Question for anyone who has divorced their husband or wife.

How did you know when you were "done"?

What did you feel in your body and how did you "know" when it was over.

Thanks,

GH31

The minute I found out my wife slept with another man. The past 11 months of trying to recover were a waste of time. I knew the minute I found out that I didn't want to be married to her, but I tried to convince myself otherwise because of our kids. I can't wait to file and get away from this person.

After finding out the ExWW had lied to me again, and there was...wait for it...a FOURTH OM (that I know of), I knew what I had to do. I asked her to leave.

Within two days I handed her divorce papers. I was done. Knew I could not trust her ever again. She tried everything she could to give her just one more chance -- tears, begging, she even came to this site, rallied support, even talked with Dr. Harley. I was done.

There is life after divorce. There are a gazillion wonderful people out there who will treat you right, who will honor your relationship. Only you will know when it's time to serve the D-papers.

Taking this from your epilogue:

FWW back since 05/21/2008

1 son born in Dec 2009 - confirmed mine through DNA test
1 daughter born in Nov 2010

I see a disconnect. If by "back" you mean your FWW has been at home, faithful, and in no-contact since May 2008, you and she obviously cooperated well enough to conceive and deliver two children since then. Are you saying that NOW, since this is posted on the "SAA" board, the burden of her over three-year-old infidelity is raising questions in your mind about going on?

Hi NeverGuessed,

No, by back I mean physically back i.e. she and I living under the same roof.

She came back crying reconciliation and told me it was all over. I wasn't wise to the ways of waywards at the time and that affair was anything but over. In fact, the worst was to follow.

Yes.

In fact I've just read unhappybs's thread and I could have written it myself. The only differences are that my wife and I do a lot of fun things together and sex is relatively frequent, i.e. 2-3 times per week.

That affair persisted until July 2009 when OM got himself a new GF and the last known contact between "it" and my wife was May 2010. We live in Australia, 10,000 miles away from OM who lives in England. My parents live in England also and when we went there for a family visit last year, my wife disappeared for an afternoon and went to his house, "demanding an apology"(???). His GF answered and things were apparently ugly.

The only reason I didn't throw her on the garbage pile there and then is because our son was 5 months old and I love him completely. I also found out during that same visit that my wife and I were expecting another baby, our daughter. I'm very sure I wouldn't be married to my wife if it weren't for the babies.

Unlike unhappybs, my wife has not said "I love you" to me in over 3 years and I can't say with certainty nowadays that I still love her. I must have only said it once or twice to her in the last couple of years - but we do write it to each other in cards.

(I'm sorry to be the cause of your having to re-live those betrayals just to bring me up to speed.)

So, in just over a year, after being given the "bum's rush" by POSOM's new, improved GF, WW and you are not exactly lighting up the night's sky with passion and affection. She's not here to answer, so I'll put this to you:

Are you finding it difficult to "love" her again because of her infidelity, or because she is right now not "loving" you?

And "a combination of both" not being of any help at all, let me refine the question by asking:

If she were to resume a romantic and devoted attachment to you, could you find it within your being to generate the same for her?

I knew in my heart almost immediately after D-Day when my XWH told me he had no intention of giving up the OW but that he still wanted to stay married. Yeah, right. I had to make him move out and it took two months for him to go.

However, I did follow the recommendation to take no action toward divorce for at least 6 months. This is wise advice because the stages of grief are intense and numbing and no time to make life changing decisions. Plus I had no reason to rush the divorce. I just needed him out of the house which improved things considerably.

When I finally did file, in the fall of last year it was so we'd be divorced by the end of the year so I could take advantage of tax breaks.

My questions would parallel NG's:



I know everyone is different, but as a general question for the BS's who have responded, what, if anything, could your (F?)WS do differently, that may have changed your mind?

Within days of discovery, after he told me he would not give her up but wanted to stay married and after he told me he could still be a good husband to me, we agreed to see a marriage counselor. I thought this was a good sign that we could fix what was wrong between us.

I spoke first and shared the news of his affair. My XWH told the counselor that the OW had nothing to do with our issues and he didn't want to discuss her. The counselor asked him how we could work on our marriage without including the OW. He was adamant that the two were unrelated. Later in the session I asked him, based on what he had suggested, whether we would ever resume an intimate sexual relationship. He looked at me, shocked, and said, "No, never," as if he would be cheating on the OW if he slept with me again. That was it for me and probably the most hurful thing he had said yet.

So, in answer to your question ... if my XWH had been serious about repairing our marriage AND he had been willing to even consider breaking it off with the OW I probably would have tried hard to save our marriage. As it was, there was nothing left to save if he was only focused on her.

Reva,

I feel for you. I'm in a similar situation. WH and OW work together and WH refuses to leave his job or ask her to leave. He believes that he can forget her with time; I don't.

We've seen a friend a couple of times for counseling; she suggested we see a therapis whom neither of us knows to get a truly objective point of view. We went last Wednesday together, but neither of us is really interested in continuing with her.

WH leaves tomorrow on a 2-week trip to Alaska. While he's gone I'm seeing an individual therapist and I'm also meeting with a divorce attorney to determine what I need to do to prepare for legal separation and Plan B and the possibility of divorce.

I still love my husband, but I can't rebuild the marriage by myself. Unless he gets serious about it soon, I fear that it will be over.

For me, I'd had enough when I found out his 2nd ow skankho was pregnant.

I just could not do that anymore. and I didn't want to be around him or carry any more of his burdens anymore.

He was no longer the man I'd married, but a full-fledged alien from planet Skankonia.

My LB fell to negative zero, and i went after him with all my energy to protect my ds from his horrible selfish ways.

You might get more responses over in the divorced/divorcing forum. I'm sorry, but my response is really long.

For me, the marriage had been horrible for a very long time. My WXH had been in an EA with the OW for a couple of years. I had already figured out that he didn't love me.

He was emotionally and verbally abusive to me and the kids, which killed my love for him. On a couple of occasions he was excessively physical with the kids--slapping one of them across the face, hitting one on the top of her head.

We had gone on a very nice, very expensive family vacation to celebrate our 25th anniversary. A few days before we left town, he hit the youngest child hard enough to make him cry and then verbally harassed him. While on vacation he was mean to me and to the kids and they started avoiding him. On the flight home, he was offered an upgrade to 1st class and he leaped at the chance leaving me sitting next to a creepy stranger.

A couple of days after we got back from the vacation, I asked him to move out so I could have some space. He had moved out of the family home for a couple of months the previous year (to pursue the OW) and had family living nearby who could give him a place to sleep.

My WXH moved out. And then he promptly opened a new bank account and stopped putting his salary in the joint account. I had not worked outside the home since the first year of our marriage. Fortunately, we had some savings that I could use to pay for the rest of the expenses for the vacation. And the college tuition. And keep the lights on and food in the house.

I had access to his email and could see that he was asking the OW out on dates and this time she was accepting them.

I realized that my H had broken almost every one of his marriage vows.
I realized that my H was abusing me, even if he wasn't hitting me.
I realized that I didn't really have to stay married to him.
I was done.

I had asked my WH to move out of the house mid-August of '09. It took me a couple of months to decide to actually divorce him. The divorce was filed in November of '09 and final in March of '11.

I have not posted, nor read on the site for several weeks thinking maybe it was time for a break as maybe it was hindering my healing. I am not healing as I should. We are coming up on the 2 year mark for d-day and I feel as if things do not get better I just can't do this anymore.

This subject caught my eye as I to would like to know when others felt it was over, that they were done.

Sadly the post did not help. I feel so lost and totally alone. I was not ready for my FWH to go back to work after us being together 24/7 running our business. He has been back to work 7 months, is very happy and life has gone on. I on the other hand sit at home crying and wishing this would go away, which we all know it won't, this is my new life and I hate it.

I find no joy at all in anything and yes I am in therapy.

To let you know, he has NOT finished one book we have from MB, nor has he taking the time to do any of the questionnaires to help us heal.

Yet continually tells me I am the most important person in his life, "his everything", yet his actions say something totally different.

I'm close to being done.

HU

I am asking myself this question today. Today I am done because I love myself enough to know I deserve to have love and care reciprocated.

My husband is still wayward and wants me to jump through hoops to prove to him my love. Yet he was the one who cheated, stopped providing financial support, and now is not paying the mortgages.

I have four small children that deserve better. Today I finally realized I deserve better. I sit here all day praying to GOD because I know my husband has the potential to be great. I cannot make him want to be something that he isn't, and today he is a liar, cheat, and deplorable man.

If your wife is still wayward then you are taking abuse from her. I strongly encourage you to look at your small babies to decide what type of environment you want for them.

I love my husband. I don't love who he has become. That is enough for me to walk away and find someone who will love and care for me.

I think the best time to know you are done is when you have taken actions to protect yourself financially and spiritually and you have implemented all the marriage plans and reached the marriage builder recommended date set to move to plan D.

Some people are done immediately. Some are done after a while. Some are done after one heck of a run.

You are done when the dinger goes off. Not the emotional dinger (cause we have learned here that feelings are not smart to plan our lives). The dinger that says "Okay. I tried my best. I am a great spouse. I am not going to put any more rumination on this. I am fine."

D-Day began in early May of 09 (affair with co-worker) and I immediately filed for divorce and got residency of our home with our ds9. I filed for divorce before I even confronted him. He was out of our home in about 3 weeks. THAT is how sure I felt at first. In a couple of weeks he was saying things to make me think maybe I could fix it. I didn't tell anyone that I was waffling but I was....AND THEN...wow.....the keylogger that I still had on his computer (he didn't know of course) revealed that he was talking filth to my cousin (26, married with young baby) and in their conversations they confirmed that they had an affair 7 years earlier.

I will NEVER forget the day I read that report. I nearly fell to my knees thanking GOD for the gift of clarity I had just been given. I knew that instant I would NEVER take him back.

Most MB stories are that clear cut it seems.

I've noticed a few things over my years of being here. Most BSs want to save their marriage. The times that it will. not. work fall in to two categories.

1) WS who will not stop the affair

2) WS who stops but refuses full marriage recovery.

I was thinking last night about how my WH would have used the affair to try and get the upper hand on me if I had stayed. Just that he would do that lets you know what kind of 'man' he is....

He would have used the upheaval to force me to get a job, stop homeschooling our son and to do whatever he wanted sexually. And he would have demanded more time to do as he pleased. It makes me sick that I was married to someone who would use HIS sin to hurt me and control me.

He thought because he makes a lot of money that I would stay with him and just 'get over' the affair.

Boy was he wrong.

There are so many good people out there....I am still amazed at how wonderful my new husband is. He is so respectful of me and to me. Kind. Thoughtful. Thankful.

No one wants to see a family broken up. However, I endured a marriage of death by 1000 cuts...one of my biggest regrets is not divorcing him sooner.

I wanted to elaborate on the 'moment' I knew I was done since that was the OP's question. It was as if a switch was flipped in my brain. I couldn't tell anyone at first what I knew---not even my parents since the last info I got involved my cousin--I had to gather and copy evidence and make arrangements to meet with my cousin's BH. The ONLY person I felt I could talk to was the OW's BH (another OW--not my cousin). I called him and he said I sounded like a chipmonk on speed. LOL.

I had some bad times after that, but I never again questioned whether I was right to divorce him. I just knew.

GH31,

You've got two questions outstanding, and I HOPE the reason you haven't responded is because of the depth of the answers required.

Are you finding it difficult to "love" her again because of her infidelity, or because she is right now not "loving" you?

If she were to resume a romantic and devoted attachment to you, could you find it within your being to generate the same for her?

Look, when you come right down to it, the past (once you've isolated it to the past) ain't worth jack-shi+ when it comes to deciding what to do to provide the best life for yourself in the future.

You now have boths sides of the disrupted-marriage question (an FBH and an FWW) asking you to consider the same question. I'll let WPG speak for herself, but had I bailed on my FWW, I would have denied myself the joys we've lived together since the crisis. There can be no way that any alternative life could have been so rewarding.

Where modern couples fail is that they have alternatives, and think that because there IS an alternate path (and the current one is not apparently perfect) that alternate must be a better path. Nope! Fighting through the troubles, as a team is so much more the better choice.

I can't address Mrs. GH31 here, so I need to ask you if you want to be the first to agree to fight. How about it?

NeverGuessed, thanks for your responses, and to all the other posters who've posted here.

I will respond to your questions tomorrow when I have some time - just got back from a business trip to Western Australia and it's late.

The answers will be deep, if a little brief.

best,

GH31

hey GH31 if things work out for you and your wife or did you divorce after???

Hi NeverGuessed,

It has been nearly two years since you responded to me and I haven't replied until now. Slack I know.

Very sorry about that.

Mrs. GH31 and I are still married, raising our two children and love each other again. We have uttered the ILYs again, have sex on a regular basis, and she has once again become the woman I fell in love with.

We talk all the time, chit chat throughout the day and do virtually everything together.

I left my verbally abusive and immature ways behind me a long time ago now, 5 years ago, and there will never be any going back to that. I was 31 when all of this started and I think I�ve undergone well over 20 years of maturing in the last five years.

In 2008 I was an 8 year old boy in a 31 year old man�s body.

Nowadays I am a happy, energetic and life-loving 36 year old in a 36 year old�s body. I am actually really grateful for the passage of time.

I don�t in any way condone my wife�s behaviour during those 2� years. Her behaviour is and was 100% her responsibility. It really is true that waywardness induces a state of temporary insanity, especially when you did what I did and moved 10,000 miles away from wife and OM � makes it difficult for the WW to keep the H and OM plates spinning.

But .... for the first 8� years of our relationship I was verbally abusive, extremely selfish and rode roughshod over the Policy of Joint Agreement. My W has had to come to terms with that and somehow learn to trust me with her emotions again.

There were countless times when I wanted to be �done� with my wife but I don�t think I ever really was.