Well, in this case, I actually did wait to have him served until the end of this trip because he was with my DD. I was afraid of what he might do or say if I had him served at the beginning of the trip.

I don't really see anything to wait for either Indie, although it will probably be two years from D-day when my divorce is final anyway (1.5 years in plan B). We had a very playful, loving relationship and he was a good dad. I would say that we had close to an MB marriage before my daughter was born--but still too much IB on his part and too many AOs from me. I guess I am in the "this is such a waste mode," because now I KNOW how to fix it.

You've offered to fix it. If he's too dumb to take up a good offer that's his too bad. You're too busy planning a good life to bemoan his stupidity.

You and I have both seen WH on this forum who are completely hat in hand remorseful in spite of having slid down the same slippery slope. There isn't anything those men wouldn't do to undo their mistakes. That's the only kind of man worth taking on the recovery mountain for.

Anything less is... meh. Keep walkin'.

YES!!!

Exactly!

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink it, PW.

I was thinking tonight of all of the mental hoops an abandoned BS jumps through, and this one is very tough. You want to take responsibility for things and improve because the experience is so terrible and you want to prevent it ever happening again, but in your heart you eventually realize the other person never had the same handle on the whole marriage deal that you did, thus their boundary issues.

So what do you do with that? What's the conclusion?

I feel the way you do about things being a waste. Every other conclusion seems like trying to sort out the gaslighting from the reality about the problems in the M. Not a fun process.

I asked him. He basically said it was up to me, but not to wait longer than two years. I don't think Dr. Harley thinks this is redeemable, and I think he is probably right. The great advantage of moving is that it really put into light what he was willing and wasn't willing to do for his family. I really thought that at first he would move for our daughter because he wouldn't be able to stand being away from her. I thought that once he was away from the addiction, things would get better. But, no. He won't even move to be near his kid. Instead, he is choosing to drive 500 miles every 2-4 weeks. We will see how long that lasts. I can't imagine OW will put up with that indefinitely.

So now that I've filed for divorce, I actually feel...pretty good. I really feel--at least now--like I don't want him back at all. Is this normal?

I mean, up until a few weeks ago, I had great anxiety about filing for divorce, but now I kind of don't care what he does. He's did so many terrible things during the time I was in contact with him, that I really cannot imagine ever taking him back under any circumstances.

He very boldly made the choice to cheat, rubbed my face in it, knew how much it hurt me and then...continued to do it. I mean, who would ever want that back? I'd feel so unsafe for the rest of my life.

I very much loved my husband and for the most part, felt loved by him before the affair. But I am starting to realize that he was never a buyer and would punish me by threatening to divorce me whenever I had a problem with his IB (or major incidents of IB). It's not normal to open up a secret credit card and then threaten to leave when your wife finds out and calls you on it. All while she is 8 months pregnant. It's not acceptable behavior.

I also wonder if he has NPD or some other kind of character disorder. I know it's bad to be an armchair psych, but it's hard not to think that.

I still had bad days and downslides after I reached this stage but on the whole it was a good corner to turn and I felt much better.

Don't try to consider character disorders.

Who cares? He did what he did and of course he dwindled his account in your Love Bank.

You can move onward knowing you tried to save and recover the relationship.

If he ever seems to get himself together and wants you to be his mate again....think it all over and decide then what you choose to do.

It is all a moot point currently.

I suppose you are right about the character disorder stuff, but it does explain a lot of things (which is what all betrayed spouses need, right? to make sense out of nonsense).

It also explains why waywards only respond to consequences (they feel entitled to their affairs, so why stop?) and boundaries. It also explains why so many of them are messes in other ways (like financially and with their careers). But yeah, it doesn't matter what it stems from.

Glad you are feeling better.

I did a bunch of reading on character disorders too. It was good to a point, but after a while it just kept me stuck thinking about it. And him. And that is not good for self-care.

I'm doing much better concentrating on myself and doing positive things, and talking positively about myself at every opportunity. And letting go those in my life that don't add to it in a significant way. Yay! It feels so freeing.

The bad days are still there, but a lot less frequent. For a while there it seems like every 27 days on the nose I'd struggle. Please, no hormone jokes. I think it was more like an addict wanting a fix.

I found that every step seems so hard and painful to take, but then once you do it, you feel so much better. Maybe not right away, but still, better. The trick apparently is to not wait for it to feel right, but to act and then the feelings will come.

Thanks Luna,

Yeah, I have been getting better, but still feel bad sometimes. Letting go of who I thought he was is difficult. How could I have been such a terrible judge of character?

In any case, I read a funny blog recently that supported no contact in the case of adultery and it said "don't be the hypotenuse" in the love triangle. It mass me laugh. Very plan B.

I wonder if we really were poor judges of character...My WW was a sweet woman. I never saw anything that would have suggested she'd be capable of such betrayal. Everyone who knows her is shocked, too. At least in my case, I think the scenario that Dr. Harley described wherein my WW just woke up one day and realized she was in "love" after allowing the AP to make love bank deposits is probably what happened. I don't think there's anything you or I could have done to prevent our spouses' affairs...well, unless we had psychic abilities.

I can see now that my WH was very entitled. He was unemployed or underemployed for 4 years. He is also a big spender, etc.

Of course there was nothing we could have done. You can't stop someone with poor boundaries from doing what they are going to do, no matter how well you meet their needs. You can do what you can and then you just have to throw in the towel if they refuse to do anything about their behavior.

But you didn't see that behavior prior to marriage, did you? I think we both got duped...

No, I did. He had a crappy job after grad school and I had second thoughts while dating. However, he got a good job about 9 months prior to asking me to marry him, so I thought those days were over. But he moved for the marriage, so he let go of that job and never found another good one for 4 years. Then he eventually landed the CrossFit gig with put him into proximity of an unlimited supply of young women and the rest is history.

Also, he spent too much even when we were dating. He would also ask him parents to cover for him when he was in his late 20's. I paid off 8K in his credit card debt days before marrying him so we'd have a "clean slate."

I am not sure what I was thinking, honestly. My brother, who introduced us, said they were always worried about his employment issues, but never said anything.

Never again.

Never again. Yep, we live and learn. I still think you're being too hard on yourself. I don't think you're a poor judge of character, you were just too trusting. I'm sure he had redeeming qualities that made you overlook the red flags. Those red flags in my opinion were not enough for a normal person to realize serious problems were ahead.

For most women, the job thing sets off alarm bells ( and they did for me too). But I had the big career and honestly, a totally unrealistic feminist attitude about what my needs would actually be in a marriage. Now I know better to listen to those alarm bells.

Haha, that is frickin' awesome!

A no, no hypotenuses here, just us primes waiting for our good matches.

I, too, didn't realize how much supporting a man would wear on me. Never again.

I don't know if you've "met" Neak on MB. If you have, I'm her mom. Technically, I'm also her mom if you HAVEN'T met her, too...She has 3 siblings. Her dad and I produced the 4 of them in 6 years and not quite 3 months. He was a student, then a teacher, then a car repair shop owner, then a technical engineer for a place that designed, made, and marketed trailer hitches built for specific makes and models of vehicles. I was a nurse. That was it.

My husband always worked at one job or another over the years of their childhood. I was a nurse...which, almost 100% of the time, paid better than whatever job he had at the moment. Some of the time, a LOT better. My most productive shift ever was a double time and a half shift on New Year's Eve for the registry. I got paid $1000 for that 12 hour shift. I know he never liked me making more money than he did, but he didn't make more money and I wanted to have enough for the kids and us to enjoy our family life, so I went where the pay was the best and worked and brought home a LOT of (vegetarian) bacon, and more or less paid for everything.

43 years down the pike and this lifestyle has left its mark on the people and the marriage. We don't talk about the subject, but I know he has resentments about my money and how I've handled it and I have resentments about how my money was the money that mostly got handled. For us, what is, is. We're not going to go back to our youth and reinvent the financial wheel! But for you younger ladies, I would advise that you do your best to avoid too great of a disparity in the amount of income you bring to the budget when compared with what he brings to the budget. It's very easy for something like that to become a marital sore spot.

tl