I am so sorry, blindsided. It is absolutely outrageous that you don't have your kids at this point. I hope that as time goes by you will be able to continue to be in their life and hopefully eventually be with them more often (or all the time). I was able in my parents' divorce to eventually swing things so I was just with my father and not with my wayward mother at all, and I understand now just how fortunate I was.

I came here to find out how I could save my marriage. My friend who used these resources seems to think that my WxW will still come around. I think he is out of his mind because I don't see it happening. But he went through it and seems to think that he knows more than me on the subject. I don't know what to think any more and nothing is helping. I just hope the POS OM screws up pretty soon and she wakes up.

Have you read Dr. Harley's Surviving an Affair?

I am about 3/4 through it. It takes two to survive an affair. She's still having the affair.

Exactly.

Marriage Builders is 100% successful when both parties are doing the work. MB, if followed, will recover yourself also. If you truly apply the principles you will recover yourself, but you must do the work.

In SAA, Dr. Harley says that most affairs die a natural death. A very minimal make it past 5 years.

So what better for you then to work on yourself? Be the best dad you can be? When is the next time you will see your kids? What can you do when you have them to be the best dad you can be?

You continue to make excuses about why you can't do anything.
If there is treatment available for your depression and you choose to not get treatment then you will never feel better.

Doctor visit aren't free. Lab tests aren't free - colonoscopies and all that fun stuff are very expensive. I don't have health insurance, and I have so little free time. How much work do I take off to get all this stuff done? This is a new job, I can't just get sick and knock off a bunch of days to go to doctors' appointments. I have been unemployed since 2009. It's called "sucking it up" like everything else I've been told to do about everything that I'm going though.

Well, if you were jack-knifed in the middle of the road and had 2 broken limbs, you'd be in the hosptial. How would you pay for that? What would your employer say? Come on...stop with the "I can't" statements and internal dialogue. You can, and you will.

Let me repeat...you CAN, and you WILL. There is no alternative. You get up and get going. Cry through it, but you get up and keep moving. I am tiring of this pity-party.

You are better than this crap sandwich you are eating. Spit it out.

I have 20 years experience with this condition. I know what a doctor can and cannot do. There are things I know about this disease that some of my past doctors didn't know. The meds I am on some of those doctors have never heard of. So when I tell you that I am wasting my time, believe it. I am not feeling sorry for myself. I have priorities, and wasting an entire day at a clinic is not high on the list. it is what it is and it sucks. If I DID have insurance, I would be aiming much higher, like having surgery.

I have a life long, chronic disease and I managed it at free clinics and health department assistance for a while. Was it optimal care? No. Was it my usual standard of ivy league medical school clinic care? Not by a long shot. Did it keep me moderately healthy so I didn't do any long term damage? Yep! Did I stay on the drugs I prefer that work best and cost $$$$? No, I was on the minimum standards of treatment, generic drugs, and I survived.

FWIW, I have Lupus with spinal and brain involvement, kidney, heart, lungs, and liver issues, RA, Bechets, Migraines, and Trigimenal Nueralgia. I'm not an easy case.

I did order another round of meds from an online pharmacy I have used before. I was wishing I had ordered some hydrocodone the other day, too.

More medical problems, maybe? My 4 year old was running and jumping, and I'd catch her in mid-air. She went into the other room and started doing something else, and I was looking down when she assumed I was going to catch her again. I never saw her coming, and her knee plowed into my eye. It felt like I took a fastball to the face. I was on the floor for 5 minutes at least. Well, I have some vision loss in that eye in the periphery. I thought maybe it was temporary but I just got up this morning and it is still there. It is one of the symptoms of a detached retina. Super. I do have a followup eye doctor appointment this week, so I think I'll have him take a look at it with his contraption.

Otherwise, the xWW's affair is still going strong as far as I know. Oh, sorry, it's not an "affair" any more since she's not married now.

Took the girls back to the POS xWW. Had them two nights and two days. Depressed as hell, as usual. I can't keep doing this to myself. xW looked all happy as usual. I'm sure she is convinced she did the right thing. I wish I'd do a James Gandolfini or something and wake up.

So when does the OM bail, exactly? Still waiting for that. Am I supposed to be doing anything to sabotage their relationship?

Why are you expecting him to bail? Are you expecting him to suddenly have a change of mind so that your WW has no choice but to return to you? I wouldn't count on that.

Blindsided, I would suggest you begin the process of building your life sans your wife. It would be wonderful if everything in their adulterous relationship fell apart, but it isn't healthy for you to build your life around the hope of that.

I'm sorry.

I thought this was "Marriage Builders" Not "Accept Your Fate". I need to know what I should be doing to get her back. It has been 5 1/2 months since discovery, and she had been seeing him for at least 6 months before then. I didn't come here to get all this "Just deal with it" advice - I can get that from absolutely everyone around me.

This morning my 4 year announced that they had stayed at OM's house last night, as is their routine. So obviously that is still going strong. I also noticed that the xW left her phone on the front desk of 'our' business while she was outside pulling the car seats for me to use. I took a little peek and she had a picture of a bible verse open that someone had sent her. It was Philippians, didn't have time to see what verse. Interesting that someone is sending her bible verses since she obviously doesn't believe in God at the moment. I'm wondering if one of her enablers is twisting verses to help her justify her actions.

Time heals all wounds - that is baloney. I still feel all the pain I always have. It would be so easy if we didn't have kids, but I can't prune her from my life because we DO. I am a very black-and-white kinda thinker. All or nothing, ya know? I'm not one if these shallow people who can remain 'friends' with their ex, especially if they've done something like she has. I made a commitment, even though she apparently did not. I meant all those things, and she did not. This is not something I can just "get over". There are not enough years left in my life for this to get better. She has stolen my family from me, continues to steal my daughters' childhood from me (and me from them), and it is not something that I can forgive if things don't change.

I am not friends with my stbx and never will be.

Adultery and the fallout has been a horrible thing to live through. I have chosen not the live in the anger or bitterness. It will not change the past, it will only make my present and future miserable for myself only.

Have you looked to see if there is IC in your area on a sliding scale? There are many that are non-profit and are willing to work with patients. Contact a local clinic and ask them.

I will be praying for you.

The problem is that I have to see her cheating POS face every time I pick up my kids. I can't even look at her, and she always avoids eye contact with me and never speaks to me. I am not angry, but bitter.. probably. I have nothing except a job that uses every ounce of energy I have so that when I do see my girls, I am half asleep and sick all the time. Then my 4 year old has to open her mouth and inform me that they were all at OM's last night and oh what a fun time that was. It's a continual thing that I can't escape. I am never going to get over this having to see her and hear about all that.

How's it going?

I don't know. I am working all the time and have so little free time during the week that it seems like an eternity since I've seen my girls. I still think about having my family back together all the time. I don't know how people get past these things. I did talk to my FIL the other day. xW's mother came to visit and I heard that she did not get introduced to the OM, so I don't know if that is good or not. Her mother is as tight-lipped as she is about everything.

Health-wise I am doing better. Meds finally got here Monday and I was back to work Tuesday. That stuff is like freaking magic.

Still miss my kids all the time. I had a woman tell me something today after I told her about what happened. She said "When a woman tells you she is done, it means that she was done a year ago." Not exactly a morale booster. I do know that the xW is having serious financial trouble, as I told her she would. She has been asking me for help, but I just started working. When I say "help", I mean she has been telling me that I need to pay for half of preschool and other stuff. She also booted my cell phone out of the company plan so I had to get my own account. I need to save a bunch of money to rent a house and buy all new furniture and kitchen gear. I wonder if she even thought of any of that before she decided to cheat. Maybe she expects me to live in a cardboard box.

I'm beginning to think that there is no recovery from divorce. I guess Dr. Harley doesn't address that, right? It's gone too far and there is no recovery. I guess I'm done here.