Jen-

I saw that you made the decision to divorce your husband. I am sorry. Like you and Hopeful...you both are great people that made a bad mistake. However, you have been the FWS that 98% of us BS dream about!

My Ex-WW only justified...pushed me away, kept lieing etc...Which is why I filed for legal seperation. She did change it to divorce after about 3 million false recoveries and attempts to "date me" which was her attempt to let me down easy.

Well to make a long story short. I am really bitter and angry (Don't want to stay that way) and I wouldn't have been IF she would have done the nessecarry things to change like you have and the nessecarry things to improve our marriage.

Cheating just devesstates a marriage, not being truly sorry for it makes it worse, not working on the marriage after hurts worse yet.

You were sorry & you wanted to improve the marriage had 98% of us had spouses that offered the same kind of kindness after a mistake...probably 98% of would still be married or not seperated or not divorced etc...

You are a good person Jen

Thanks for the encouragement rlyhurtn! I just hope that my H doesn't use the same sig line as you....it will soon describe him too I guess.

Funny thing is though my H still doesn't think I'm truly sorry (or is it sorry enough?) for cheating on him since I still harbour resentment for his friendships with those 2 females. I don't hold them responsible for my affair by any means, it was 100% my choice to sleep with OM, no one held a gun to my head. But his friendships with those women DID bother me and still do and I won't deny that.

Maybe I communicate better in writing, and that's why you folks see me as remorseful and sorry. But my H generally refuses to respond to a single thing I write (and I've written him several letters and emails pouring my heart out, telling him how sorry I am too for that matter).

He thinks I just don't get it, I think he just doesn't get it. We're stuck. So divorce it is, I think. I've still got a couple of days to decide.

Jen

What prompted you to have this affair, especially with his best friend. One of my dearest friend is a woman who I have known before I met my W, she was always jealous of her becuase of her beauty, height and built. My W thought that my friend and i were so compatible. It took her many years to feel at ease with my female friend. I don't think I wanted to have an affair with her but I did have thoughts about it, but never reacted to it. I knew the consequences and I knew it was not worth ruining my marriage. Unfortunately, my W ruin ours instead.

What prompted it, and why his BF? Well, number one, my H's BF and I worked together. Last year, we even took worked together one night a week at a really quiet phone-in tutoring help hotline. Oddly enough, my H had even requested that the administrator in charge put me and his BF on the same evening so I'd have someone to talk to. My H worked this phone line on a different night, because his subject area expertise differed. My point is that OM and I spent 4 or 5 hours a week together that we never had before. Before we had usually only hung out if my H was around too. We became pretty good friends ourselves.

My H had had one close female friend for about 4 years, and then last year he added another one. He was a full-on KISA (do you know that term from GQII? It's a "knight in shining armour" - someone who LOVES to help out young or single women, much to the chagrin of their wife). I was very sad about how much time he spent with those women, doing things for them, etc. I made this clear to him, but he pretty much told me, tough, deal with it, it's just a friendship, so stop being psycho.

When my H and I and our group of friends would go out (to the bar) on the weekends, he'd spend the better part of the evening alongside the new female friend, and I started spending more time alongside his BF. That new female friend would invariably finish up a night out drinking crying and bawling and depressed because her brother had passed away about a year ago. My H usually ended up comforting her for quite some time, and I'd end up hanging out with OM then too.

So there later was one drunken night when OM made advances to me, and my H was with crying bimbo #2 again, and I made the wrong choice and slept with OM. Sick thing, my H listened outside the door the whole time and did not stop us. I slept with OM again a few weeks later, after my H insisted I share a tent with OM while camping, and he let bimbo #2 sleep in my bed "because she was just too whiny to sleep in a tent." The sicko listened outside the tent that time too. A week after that was D-day. I was mad at him for not wanting to go out and do something on our 12th anniversary since we began dating. He revealed what he knew. We separated at his request. He spent all his time with the 2 females. I moved out a couple months later. The rest is history.

It feels a little like ancient history now.

Whether my H never did anything physical with his female friends or not, it didn't make me happy to have to allow them in our lives. I guess I'm just a jealous woman. Some would say I cheated on him out of a fear he was going to do the same to me.

I've come to believe that if you're married you should NOT have a close friendship with someone of the opposite sex. At least, not if you are me or anyone I become romantically linked to. I just can't deal with it.

Does that answer your question?

Jen

<small>[ June 13, 2003, 07:58 PM: Message edited by: Jen Brown ]</small>

Firstly, yes I have heard the term knight in shinning armour. In fact my WW mentioned it and it was like she became a teenager again.
I am sorry to hear about your situation, like I mention your situation sounds similar to mine, as well as my WW. She too began talking to OM at workplace and the more she talked to him the more she wanted to be with him.
unfortunately, I wish I could give some insight advice, but I am still reading and learning about MB.
Hang in there Jen.

Jen, I totally applaud you being upfront and honest with us. I'm a BS who is trying to understand the whole A thing, and I appreciate your sharing your story.

I completely agree with you about the opposite sex "friend" thing in a marriage. that is exactly what i had to deal with for 2 years. My H and a coworker started spending time with each other at a local YMCA (2 - 3 nights a week, 2-3 hours at a time). Then it went on to spending time at the lake together (my family's place, no less) and going shopping together (they even bought my sister's wedding present on one excursion). Like you, I was told to like it or lump it, he wasn't doing anything wrong and that I would have to deal with it if I wanted to stay married because he was going to have his friends. he told me there was nothing wrong with us spending time apart doing things with our own friends. Well, After dealing with this friendship for almost 2 years, I found emails professing love between the 2 of them back in September. She was married, too, and has since left her H. We have signed papers, and it has been the hardest thing on me, but I will contend from now on that it isn't right to have friends of the opposite sex (without including spouses, that is) because I know that was how this started. Now my 2 kids and her one daughter will grow up in split homes.

thanks for letting me express my opinions, but I wanted to tell you my story as I TOTALLY agree that opposite sex friendships in a marriage are off limits.

Kim