I just received this via email. Any advice? Any thoughts? Anything i can do except sit back and go for the ride? This is killing me...
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I hope that our not talking since the end of May and email only when needed communication plan has helped you move on and that I have done nothing in the past 9 months that would keep you from healing and finding hapiness. I love my too brief visits with the pack and don't mind helping you out with needs around the house. However it has been difficult not talking to or seeing one of the greatest friends I've ever known. It is my hope that someday in the not too distant future you will be in a place that allows me to be part of your life.

I am having my lawyer draft up the attached documents so that we can have some closure. It is my wish that you will support this motion. The minimum 91 day waiting period from the date you filed the decree of legal separation, November 1, 2004 is January 29, 2005. She can have them ready for you to sign by the time you get back from Mexico.

I'm so very sorry. Fog spew. ((hug))

I'm sorry that I don't have any advice, I'm facing the same thing myself.

I don't have any advice either, just hugs {{{{{Getting_Stronger}}}}} and to you too {{{{{cyllanlisa}}}}}

I am divorcing my WW even though I don't want a D. She just wont give up her boyfriend and I can't be married to a woman who has a boyfriend.

<img border="0" alt="[Teary]" title="" src="graemlins/teary.gif" />

It's ironic - 10 years seems to be a common thread around these parts. We were together for 10 years as well... all of the while I was told how great it was. My H used to ask me what did he ever do to be so lucky. That was, of course, until he met her. Now I have to ask what happened. I'm not naive or clueless but I don't know what hit me. The best description is that the aliens took over. It doesn't help my heart knowing that, however. I can hardly wait to see what my life holds in store. This had to have happened for a reason, after all...

I could imagine my H writing that exact letter to me. He too wants to be friends, and does not understand why I don't want to share my new house with him. It's a boundary thing and a control thing - he wants to write the script for how we can relate in the future... whether it works for me or not. Whether it steps on my toes or not.

Why do men always want to remain friends? What is with that? It seems to be a universal male thing! Is it a way of absolving themselves of guilt? Makes me CRAZY!

Deja,

Men want to remain friends so that they can play our female emotions. That way they think we won't be strong enough to do the hard things - insist they be responsible, make them pay CS, file for divorce when they are too whimpy. And they say women are the weaker sex...I don't think so!

I think men want to remain friends because somewhere in the back of their minds they see marriage as a contest. When it breaks down and they leave with another woman, they want it to be viewed as 'no harm, no foul.'

Yes, they DO want to remain friends. It's a continuation of 'cake eating.' They want to have their cake (new woman) and eat it too (old woman).

My STBXH continues to 'idolize' his OW, even though he no longer sees her because she wouldn't leave her H for him. Talks about how they could have had a wonderful relationship if only she'd had the courage to leave her H. He also expects he and I to 'remain good friends' after the D. I tell him, if we were good friends we wouldn't be getting divorced!

He also continues to deflect responsibility for his A, stating it was the marriage's fault that he had the A (he doesn't DARE say it's my fault anymore because I've hammered him about that). As if our M was a separate entity that could be blamed for his A. Doesn't he realize HE was at least HALF the marriage?

Deny, Deflect, Defend. That seems to be his strategy. And remaining 'good friends' enable him to feel like it wasn't his fault, it was just something that 'happened to him,' almost like beign caught in a hurricane or a tsunami for that matter.
<img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" />

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Rosiepiesix:
<strong> I think men want to remain friends because somewhere in the back of their minds they see marriage as a contest. When it breaks down and they leave with another woman, they want it to be viewed as 'no harm, no foul.'
</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Sorry...
but i'm beginning to believe you just described my situation with my wife (excepting the various gender switches).

it's not just men who seem to play this game

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by TexaninTrouble:
<strong> it's not just men who seem to play this game </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">You're right. It's not just men.

Sometimes I picture my 2 sons who played Little Leagus baseball when they were young. After the game the two teams would line up and move past each other slapping each others hands. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> 'Game's over and we're still pals'they are saying to each other.

That's what I think of when I hear 'We're still going to be friends aren't we?' from my STBXH.

In my younger days I ran into this same thing. One boyfriend I had been with for 5 years ended up having an A and getting the girl pregnant. I left when I found out (there was a lot of other stuff too needless to say). He wanted to be friends after all the dust settled. In fact, when he heard I was getting married (much later when I met my current H) he somehow managed to get my unlisted phone number (after I had dropped out of sight not wanting to 'remain friends' with him) and called me to congratulate me and to tell me how much he missed me and how sorry he was the way things had worked out.

At times the world is just too complicated to contemplate.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by TexaninTrouble:
<strong> [QUOTE]
it's not just men who seem to play this game </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Probably not - but I've heard this being reported over and over from men, and rarely from women. Most women I know have a harder time separating intimacy from friendship, because (I think) the two are more intertwined for women than for men.

As an aside, my H never made "friends" with anyone during our M, so I'm not even sure what he thinks a "friend" is.

I believe that the Betraying Spouses who want to remain "best friends" are trying to justify their behavior and absolve themselves of guilt. After all, if he and I were meant to be friends from the beginning, he can say that our M was a big mistake. He was meant to be good friends with me and married to Her. Geez. By staying in the dark, he can live his new life with her and her kids, dig himself a deeper hole emotionally and financially, begin to catch her in her many lies, and remember what he walked away from with a longing and fondness. By staying dark, I can live my new life in peace. Leaving the door open for whatever comes.... but not waiting in front of it.