Not sure if this is yet another mood swing but swing I must...<P>I have been lurking for a week or so again reading posts...and while I sometimes have moments of hope, moments of anger, moments of sadness...sometimes all simultaneously...I do know that I cannot go back to this marriage. <P>This divorce is for me. I am the one who filed, who cried in the lawyers office, who cried filling out the papers, who slowly moves his things into the closet then needs to "take a momment" My H is not the same man I married. Oh yes physically he may resemble the man I met and fell in love with 9 years ago...but today I think that man is buried somewhere in this new shell of a person he has become. <BR>A year after D-day and a year and a half after the A started, I do not believe this man is capable of loving me the way he once did and after his indifference and repeated affair and unwillingness to give other women up I need to walk away.<P>This divorce is for me...it is not easy but it is liberating at the same time. He won't even come home and pack his things...he wouldn't file for divorce...he has just left...and I get e-mails and occasional phone calls. I know down deep I must move on. He will suck me dry if I keep hoping that he will come around. <BR>I didn't see the demise of the marriage...I loved him more than I ever thought I could love anyone, cherished our time, looked forward to our rituals. I have to believe that there is a different path I am to take...and it is time I listen. <P>So again...may be another mood swing...but it just doesn't feel like it....<P>

Maybe not another <I>mood swing</I>. Probably they're damping down to just <I>shifts</I> now. <P>Maybe one of those phone calls should have one of the Harleys on the line so that you and STBXH can say some things to each other that you are obviously having trouble either saying or having heard. Get some answers, ask some questions, get some more answers. Even if the divorce <I>is</I> for you, it's better if the both of you are left with fewer questions.

You know at this point, does it really matter if my questions aren't answered. He is a pathological liar. He can't tell the truth to save his life...I felt like I was dealing with a child...even to this day. I called and left him a message about mail that was returned to the house that I know he was expecting where he lives now...the next morning he sends an e-mail explaining his whereabouts... he doesn't get it...<BR>He left me...I ask nothing of him.<P>He says he will be coming out next week, he talked about it a week or so ago...I have heard nothing about dates/times confirmation....words words words are all I can say...I am tired of the lip service....<BR>

People usually don't lie when they feel comfortable telling the truth. <P>You know you can't trust him to tell you the truth--don't you wonder why he feels he can't trust you with the truth (even if you don't care what the truth is)? <I>You</I> can't escape having played a role in this. And it probably didn't happen overnight. More likely it snowballed. When Jack Nicholson's general in <I>A Few Good Men</I> thunders <B>"You can't handle the truth!"</B> he is completely wrong, yet he feels completely justified. He has sound logic, but is reasoning from false premises (his premises are that the Cubans over the hill are <I>so dangerous</I> that a single weak link must be hazed out of his forces, and that if that goes wrong and kills someone, he and his people's importance to his mission is so great that it must be covered up--neither is actually the case, but you can see where he's coming from and his distortion becomes more understandable). <P>Maybe your next man will be stronger--but maybe you'll be doing the same troubling behaviors more intensely (if there are indeed any that you do). <P>The point is: when you get an outcome you didn't want, you need to do a full investigation so it doesn't happen again. When a plane goes down, the NTSB goes in and looks at <I>everything</I>--weather, the plane, the maintenance, the pilots, the loading, the instructions from the tower, etc. For purposes of the investigation, there are no preconceptions (although the people on the scene may have a pretty good idea already)--they turn over every stone. Sometimes they find out they're wrong, or in the course of their investigation they discover things wrong that <I>didn't</I> contribute to the crash but that still need fixing. <P>On something of this importance, can you afford to do less?<P>

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Sisyphus:<BR><B>People usually don't lie when they feel comfortable telling the truth. <BR></B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>For the most part, I agree with Sisyphus. If you haven't already, you might want to find out if there is anything in your personality or approach with him that would make him feel threatened and therefore lie.<P><B>However</B>, when people do lie, it doesn't mean that it was the other person's "fault." Of course he doesn't feel comfortable with telling her the truth.....but that's not necessarily because of her! It sounds like it's because he is trying to assuage his guilt in what he did to her and saying things that sound "good" but doesn't follow thru. He wants to be the good guy in all of this.<P>I could have written your first post, cpickel, word for word, as I'm about ready to file for divorce too. It's been a year and a half since the affair started/D-day and 1 year since he moved out (9 months since he moved in with OW). I Plan A'd the whole year. (We've been married 12 years). He hasn't moved any stuff out (I finally packed it and moved it to the garage), he hasn't done anything legally or financially to separate (I did all that, but for me, not for him necessarily), he won't file for divorce because he hates paperwork....so I will have to be the one if it's ever to occur. I didn't want it, I fought against it, I begged and pleaded for him to give it one more chance, etc., etc. <P>In Nov. '01, I moved to Plan B and now I've pretty much lost any good feelings I had left for him and basically don't really see any need for us to be involved at this point, except for finances (no kids).<P>I have been thinking and thinking....would I take him back at this point if he expressed that he wanted to try again? I just really don't know....but there are things about him I now know that I wouldn't consciously choose in a mate. When I married him, I didn't know about these things. But now that I know about them, I would have a tough time having him back. <P>On the other hand, I do still love him at some level and wish we could have stayed together forever....would I turn that chance down, even if it meant lots of really hard work? I just don't know. And I know the man I feel in love with is still in there, it's just that there other crud piled on top too and what's really him and what's really crud?<P>Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I think I understand where you are coming from and support you in whatever you think is best. There just comes a point.....<P>Aloha,<BR>Mrs.O<BR>