Caitie,<P>Thanks for your thoughts. I need to remind myself more that I did what I did because it was the right thing to do. And even though I think the odds were stacked against me and I realize that now, if I think about it I don't regret having tried. Thanks for reminding me of that.<P>Nellie,<P>Every single divorced woman in this group and at the meeting where this was discussed there were 11 including me was divorced because of an OW and I don't remember exactly but I think eight or nine of them were married to the OW now. That is really part of the reason I stopped posting here. It really knocked me for a loop but it was also very uplifting. You see I had been struggling along assuming I was the part of some small minority of woman whose H left for the OW. It's not true! I know now I am not the minority. And just like me these women all know other women there age who had the same thing happen to them. Now when I go back and reread these boards I realize that it happens alot more than I thought or then I wanted to think. I think I grabbed onto the statistics I wanted to grab onto and there were some I read here that I really grabbed onto. This is where I am now. My husband has left me and is engaged to the OW and I am not alone or even some small percent in this and this is comforting to me. I believe it now. It happens alot more than people want to think.

Here are some more interesting facts about divorce. Only aprrox. 5% of marriages make it when reconciliation attempts are made after a long term affair. It is usually the BS who inititates the divorce. More times than not, the BS just can't forgive. Recently, our center offered a free workshop on forgiveness...we have a waiting list of over 100 people. Also, in respect to marriage counseling, believe it or not affairs are generally not the top problem; it is substance abuse. Those cases are truly sad because, in a way, the spouse with the problem can't find his or her way out. Many women stay in bad marriages not for love or spiritual convictions, but because of finances. <P>I disagree that most long term marriages end in divorce because of an OP. I, for one, am not one of them and I was married 16 years. I am clearly not saying it doesn't happen...but divorce happens for many more reasons than just affairs. You would think that the first ten years would be the most vulnerable to a couple, but most of the folks that see come to see me had been married between 11 and 19 years. I believe that is what makes it so hard and so sad.<P><p>[This message has been edited by Lonelysoul (edited February 17, 2001).]