For those of you who don't know me I'll give a brief background. D-day for me was sometime around the first of the year. I tried everything to save my marriage. My WS wife moved out in May, divorced in July. Like so many others I thought I'd never find happiness again. I've struggled emotionally and financially for this entire year. <p>Baby step by baby step I began to discover myself not defined by marriage. I've always found extreme satisfaction and happiness with my three wonderful daughters but there seem to still be a piece missing.<p>Well a couple weeks ago my girls and I went to Wal-Mart and had a "FAMILY" picture taken. I just got those pictures back today. As soon as I opened them I started crying. First I thought it was just seeing my girls looking so pretty, because I'm very emotional and I do that a lot. But as a gazed upon the photo's I realized the reason for my tears. I looked at myself on paper and for the first time in a long time I saw a happy man looking back at me. I've got pictures here at work of us going back probably 5 or 6 years and not in a single one of those do I see the happiness that I see in the new picture.<p>I guess I'm saying to keep up whatever fight your fighting and there will be happiness in the end but it may take you looking in from the outside to see it for your heart may not allow you to see what is so clearly written on your face.<p>God Speed to all!!!

Way to go Dude.. Excellent..<p>Good Job.<p>Tex.

Bill,<p>I think you saw my "then and now" photos ...<p>There is such a huge difference between a "camera smile" and a truly happy face.<p>I can't wait to see the pictures taken yesterday at my family's Christmas party!!

HAPPY WIFE here says to the husband that is now happy after the divorce, hope my soon to be ex, can say the same. In fact, all the pictures taken
during our entire marriage show him, as being very
very unhappy! I was happy then and am even happier now! I agree with you the person and the marriage can finally become separate from each other. It does take a lot of little baby steps for it to happen! Good thot! Thanks for your encouragement!

LH,<p> [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img] <p>Glad your life is going so much better. Enjoy your girls and Happy Holidays!<p>Desiree

I'm glad to see that there is hope in the long run. I am almost to the "no going back" stage. Married 9 yrs. together 12. I had an affair about a year ago, she won't let it go and is carrying on w/ a 17 yr old. Says he's fun, makes her feel fun again. Says he's always happy, she likes that.I tell her he's 17 & he has no responsibilities, he has that luxury. Some of you who are already divorced...am I right to give up? She says she loves me and wants to work it out but refuses to follow plan A. Says part-time job where they work together is like 2nd family and that I would take "another piece of her happiness"if I "make" her quit. I love her and my kids (2 s 9&13, 2 d 8&9) but she has been lying about meetings w/him for 2 wks. now. Don't want a nervous breakdown but don't want to be alone either...How long does the emptiness remain afterwards?? Thanks for letting me spill

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Blane:
<strong>She says she loves me and wants to work it out but refuses to follow plan A. </strong><hr></blockquote><p>Blane - Plan A is about you - it isn't something 'she' refuses to follow. It's something YOU follow and hope it works to save your marriage. Go back to the instructions and read them again - you missed the point! <p>Jan

seekingjoy2...Thanks for showing me that I misrepresented my thought. What I should have said was she won't cooperate with me. Plan A, if I understand it correctly is when WS cuts all ties w/ L. She doesn't want to do that because she wants to maintain a friendship w/ him. She says that they just crossed the line but she has constantly lied about meetings w/him. I'm sorry, but I've read in some of the postings that say you can't make a WS stop. Some have even suggested that the affair should run its course. Why would anyone put themselves through that? I may be living in a vacuum but that just sounds pathetic. I do value opinions, even the ones that I don't agree with, so please respond to what I've said. Maybe I'm a neanderthal, if so let me know.

<p>[ January 20, 2002: Message edited by: MMMMM ]</p>

Hi Y'all - it's me - the 'Dead Thread Quicker-Picker-Upper' Dude. I was surfing back thru the old Posts and came across this one. I can identify with this cat - I was soooo unhappy the last 6 or 7 years of my first Marriage also - even my Parents said something to me about it a number of times. Ever since my re-marriage, they have told me many times that they haven't seen me this happy for 'a long time'. Now I'm not saying Divorce is the answer for everyone (this is supposed to be a MarriageBuilders site) but I know that when your 'other half' wants to be stoopit about things, 'in the fog', selfish, vindictive, 'it's all about me' attitude, abusive, then sometimes a CHANGE is necessary. For those who are in the midst of turmoil and pain caused by these persons we thought we knew but no longer do, I wanted to re-post this old Thread to encourage you - I have followed many of your stories and can identify with several of you. I will attest to the fact that - sure, it's hell at first, there's a lot of uncertainty, but it DOES get better, there IS light at the end of the tunnel, and you WILL come out so much better at the other end!!
Harold "Peace and may God bless in this Holiday Season"

i haven't been here in quite some time....gave up and started abusing myself for a long time....out of my own self induced fog for 30 days now and feeling.....maybe not better but still feeling...when all this crap began for me back in january i was 14 months sober, recently quit smoking cigarettes, and was dedicated to weight lifting four times a week....WS told me she was pregnant(i was fixed two years prior), and i went out and smoked crack and jumped right back into full blown self destruct mode.....struggled for a bit at first but when she made it clear she wanted D, i let the demons take over....i was sober six years previously in our marriage, she was curious and wouldn't accept my side of why i didn't drink, so i showed her why....on and off with recovery since then....last attempt made to save marriage....now it's for me....kicked out in may, new apartment lost in october after bills got too much and partying was not put in check, divorce still pending, lost my job in september too....christmas next week, unemployment not giving me a penny.....brother opened his home to me, even though his new marriage is but two months old(his third)......so grateful for the fact that i didn't kill myself through all of this, either by ODing or using one of the many guns i know is in this house.....STBXW lost the child she was with very early on, back in Feb. or Mar.-she is again with child, any tiny glimmer i may have had before is now completely gone. part of me is happy and the rest is in alot of pain. when i had my surgery we had very lengthy conversations about why wew were doing it...i didn't want anymore kids, even if our marriage was to fail, i felt four was more than enough. she agreed totally and we both stated that five kids in this day and age was just not finacially sound.....is it then that in her rebeling against all that we shared together she is going against her own beliefs...is it going to make her new relationship somehow overshadow her marriage if there is a child between them? how can this be happening? i fear that in the long run it'll result in chaos. how can anyone love a child that isn't conceived in love? and if i'm wrong how can two people be in love when what they share is based on deception and mutual dislike/hatred of another. this OM of hers has no reason to be angry towards me yet he displays alot of hoistility just the same. could it be she has painted me to be an abusive [censored], or maybe i was and never saw it for myself? all this has me doubting everything, myself, God's will, reality even. total loss of identity, with new revelations about who i am occuring every day.

been talking quite a bit with an old friend who went through this a long time back(she's actually my friends mother), i know she didn't do everything perfectly afterwards, but i'm not perfect either so i gravitate towards those i can learn from rather than those i see as full of ****. my parents were both perfect and thats why neither of them see their own part in why it failed for them. i don't want my kids to have the screwed up relationships with me and her that i have with my parents....is this another one of those ****ty things that i'll just have to accept for me to get through this....rather just have some small third world country start nuclear war. that way i'm not responsible for what happens and i get to die....problem solved.
only i believe that the Lord is not done with me yet, so i must carry on.
one thing helped alot during the worst of it for me.
READING

losing myself in a book never opened my eyes like that before.

<small>[ December 15, 2002, 05:46 PM: Message edited by: faust2112 ]</small>

<small>[ December 16, 2002, 01:58 PM: Message edited by: faust2112 ]</small>

from one LH to another,
It's amazing what shows in a photograph, isn't it? When stbx and I were still together, we'd go to social meetings once a month, and a friend from out of town would often come to visit and stay overnight. This friend took lots of pics. He tried his darndest to get a good pic of H and me together. In one pic of "us" my H was literally turning his back on me. It was a portrait of my marriage. I also noticed a very sad look on my face in many of the pics.

It's very encouraging to hear you report a happy face in your latest family portrait. I don't come around here much these days, but I've enjoyed the humor from your posts in the past. Wishing you and yours the very best.