Busted Hopes here. I am new to this side of the board, but I don't know if I am headed towards divorce or reconciliation. We have had nine months of recovery and I thought we were on a second honeymoon. I found out last Thurs. that contact never stopped, even though we live 7 hours away now. E-mails and phone calls and a few visits. When confronted, I flew off and told him I wanted a divorce as soon as I am healed. (story on Sheba's background) Now that I have calmed, I am wondering if I should follow through and be done with this mess, or give it another chance. I don't want to wake up 10 years from now and wish I had just gotten on with my life. (I am 44) You who are divorcing, how many chances did it take for you to realize it wasn't going to work?

For me, It was after 1 1/2 yrs after discovery, 3 months of counseling (he didn't waat any more)three times of him moving out and then coming back, all the time he was still in contact with the OW. He was making plans to be with her. All the time, telling me he loved me and wanted to stay married. When confronted with the knowledge that I knew they were still talking, he would always say it was over, but I found out otherwise.<BR>I just completely lost my love for him. I hit a wall, I just knew that I would never be able to trust again, or love again. That is when I knew..... <P>------------------<BR>Susan

I was ready to do something drastic after 10 months of bizarre behaviour and talking to him about this and getting so much nonsensensical answers "I want to travel every weekend, go to bars with single people...he never went to bars anyway!, eat out every night, do not like our friends, do not like the kids etc," but adamant lying that there was someone else. Finally admitted affair when crunch came 10 months into this (had been ongoing already 16 months)<BR>After d.day he promised he would have no contact..his behaviour to me and kids got worse and after 1 week after 6 weeks, final separation 3 months later, wih attempts to reconcile, marriage counsellor etc for another 4 months. He continued to lie re OW, only saw me at marriage counsellor and had no other contact and "charmed marriage counsellor that he was working so hard" BUT seen with OW by friends of mine.<P>I realized that while he stated to marriage counsellor that he wanted reconciliation, this was a lie...he wanted me to put the divorce on the table as needed to be the "good guy" and in the 7 months the hurdles for me to jump to make marriage work got higher and higher until I realized that I could no longer hope for anything from him. <P>If I stayed in the marriage, there would be un uncaring narcissistic person whosae love for himself would always be paramount (as it probably had been throughout our marriage, but that this had been ok for me until his new value system, which he did not want to change..ow and what was in it for him)<BR>So in total about 17 months.....I knew I had to take charge and get out of a major mess for myself and my children.<P>Had he even attempted a small gesture at any time, I might have been able to look at all this differently, but there was nothing but threats,emotional abuse and hurdles.