Oh, and just in case I was unclear, I think your reaction is the normal and healthy one. I'm trying to figure out what's wrong with me.

Ax,

Justthe3ofus has an interesting post-divorce reconciliation story. But yeah, it just depends on if you would actually entertain reconciliation at all.

It's not that crazy. I still think about stuff like that at least once a day. It just helps me to think, "in this moment he doesn't care about me. He is choosing OW/job/weightlifting team over his marriage and family."

I also know that the person that WH cares most about is himself. It got back to me recently that he is treating OW badly. It was hearsay, and I told this person I didn't want to know what he was doing, but it did make me realize how messed up their relationship and how he is now just taking out his problems on HER. So, unless he got some sort of character transplant, he isn't worth taking back ( not that he wants to be taken back anyway).

I don't think anything is wrong with you. You're just holding on a little longer than I have. I'm sure it would be harder for me if I'd been married 16 years rather than 7.

I don't know why I've been able to personally recover/move on as well and quickly as I have. I credit the people who have helped me here and also grace.

Thanks, PW. I never hear anything, and there's nobody to ask, so I have no idea what's going on in affair land. Probably the best thing for me is to assume everything is peachy.

Yes, I've read it. He helped me a lot here with my Plan A after my ex left.

I've thought of his story since I've heard about my ex moving out of state, since his also moved far away. I have wondered a few times if the move will accelerate her fog lifting but I don't know enough about the circumstances to know if she was following an opportunity or desperate in some way.

Anyhow...his story (and others like it) are part of the reason I decides to wait till next year before moving on for good.

It's never actually peachy. But that's not your concern. She's made her bed. Plus, I've seen pics of the OW. Just like the OW in my case, she has to be a total downgrade. If I were going to switch teams, it wouldn't be for her (I'm being silly--but it's also true!).

LOL. If you heard my show, I told Joyce that if you slapped lipstick on me I'd be prettier than the OW. My nickname for the OW is "the linebacker."

What was the date of your show? I think it was before I was a listener. Lol.

Sunny, if I remember right, your spouse did commit adultery, so I'm not sure why you put yourself through this. Didn't he molest a teen? Or have I got you mixed up with someone else?

You have that right, markos.

The molestation stopped short of penetration and I thought (wondered if?) for many years that since that was the case it didn't qualify Biblically as adultery.

When I was seeking counsel from the church regarding how to proceed within the strictures of church discipline and order just before the divorce, I described this incident and the pastor immediately assured me that it absolutely qualified under the church's interpretation of (and allowance for in church order) adultery.

Additionally, for all those years I felt I could not expose that act for the sake of the kids. At the time I sought counsel from these MB boards as well and did NOT receive advice to expose (as you know things were different then) or really any helpful information at all. My username at the time was whistlewhileyouwork, but then I couldn't access it again in 2006 when I asked for help regarding my xH's anger so restarted as Sunnytimes.

Finally, although falsly thinking I was still stuck in the marriage Biblically after the teen incident, I felt the more honest reason I NOW needed to separate was the anger and abuse which had been pervasive our entire marriage but which I could no longer take. So I thought the more honest exit for me hung on whether I had grounds for divorce based on him no longer being pleased to live with me (1 Cor 7). There are a lot of conflicting positions on this passage within the churches, but eventually I personally realized there MUST be a remedy in the Bible for unrelenting abuse.... enter the encounter with Isaiah 28.

IF I could do anything over again, I'd expose/divorce after the teen incident and save all of those miserable years of abusive anger and pure selfishness. My xH even expressly stated (knowing I didn't leave him over child molestation incident) that he treat me any way he wanted to and my faith still wouldn't allow me divorce him.

He also came home with 2 VDs during the course of our marriage and because he wouldn't admit infidelity I felt I was trapped in the EXTREMELY remote possibility that he had had them all along (one was discovered after 8 years of marriage!).

A very harmful, narrow mindset. I truly thought I was acting as limited by the Bible. I was very wrong and spent many miserable years being wrong.

However, 2 weeks after my divorce was final and entered into court records, I met a wonderful, Godfearing, humble and precious man who God seems to have designed just for me. We are breathtakingly perfect for each other in so many ways and have a lot of the same odd quirks. It would be an interesting probability study on how likely it is to find so many of the same oddities in two conservative Christian middle age people (him 51, me 47) who are free to date and from within a 100 mile radius.

I wonder if God was allowing this timing so I could meet this man. Who knows. I'm deliriously happy and I love him more every time we work out a conflict (there are very few) because he engages in resolutions so productively, humbly and beautifully, or when he shows his consideration of me in 100 little ways, or just when I melt upon seeing him....

I've learned a lot, just sitting on the sidelines reading what you guys have written, and this rings very true to me. ***EDIT***

All that stuff qualifies as the Greek word "porneia." I don't think there's any question in the Biblical writers' minds that it qualifies as adultery.

I am so glad you moved past that!! I can't imagine feeling that a person could engage in activities that cause STDs and that not being adultery and not being a Biblical reason out of the marriage! There are non-penetrative things that can obtain diseases and get a girl pregnant!! - there's nothing in the Bible that gets so explicit as to say adultery is only penetration!

If you want to be in Plan B then you need to send the Plan B letter. (it can be mailed or sent by your IM)

What would be the benefit of Plan B in a situation where the wayward has basically disappeared?

Yes, I had a lot to learn; unfortunately it took me a looooong time to do so at a very high personal cost.

To let her know that you are still open and willing to take her back under certain conditions. But only do it if that's true.

Wouldn't Plan A have conveyed that message? I thought Plan B was primarily to protect the betrayed spouse from a cake-eating wayward.

I can mail it to her parents and hope they know her address. Short of skip tracing her, I have no idea what her address is.