Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums For Newcomers The unexamined life is not worth living

Denver,

I think you've been given an opportunity most other on this board would give anything to have.

What you do with it is up to you.

There is a fine line between her pursuing her own happiness and leaving because of your unhappiness.

Your unhappiness fed your failures and the demise of your M.

Right now you are not competing with other man as much as you are competing with this in her mind.

Denver at no other point in your journey is it more important than right now to be the man you desire to be.

This is not easy as you already know.

It is not pride you are swallowing, it is history.

She needs to see right now a man that has the courage to do that.

ACTIONS not words.

I am telling you Denver you have a great opportunity here and when you look at the man in the mirror

The man you have become and are still becoming. And let that guy make choices and live his life...

There is no way to fail here.

I am proud to know you and be witness to this endeavor you have decided to mount.

Now do it.

This is the third time that I have posted this, so I apologize. But there is like a 2 day lag from the time I submit my posts to the time that it can actually be seen on the forum. Frustrating. Hopefully it works this time...

Hi all. My wife left me the day after Thanksgiving. She had informed me that she was going to leave earlier in November. I responded with the typical begging and pleading. I started DBing almost immediately after she actually packed up her stuff and left. I suppose that I am in the LRT. It is very difficult. I am hurt and I miss her and my 11 yr stepson more than anything in the world.

I've been trying not to initiate contact and have been pretty successful. It seemed to be working a little better a couple of weeks ago than it is now. She only contacts me by text message every few days and those contacts are only for issues regarding bills and such. I do speak with my step son every other day or so. He misses me and wants to come home.

There is an EA I THINK. I know that she began talking to the guy friend of hers A LOT the last month that she was living in the house. I found his cell phone number on our bill with a lot of minutes being logged. I called and confronted him about affair. He denied and said that they were just friends. I confronted wife too. She said same thing, but that she wouldn't lie to me that she has questioned her feelings for this guy. I know from my BIL that she is spending a lot of time with him. The last time that I spoke to wife, she reiterated that he is just a friend and that he "hasn't even hit on me." I have stopped myself from discussing or asking about this relationship at all since that conversation which was 3 weeks ago.

My wife left bc we have been emotionally distant from one another for about a year. This resulted in me sleeping on the couch a lot and telling her that I was done with marriage in both January 2010 and August 2010. I refused counseling in February when she asked me. We did go to 4 sessions of counseling in October, but she says that it was too late by then, that she was already 'done'. In early November she told me that she loved me but was not in love with me and that she was leaving.

There have been a few positive signs since she moved out but not much. Her family believes that she is making a mistake, but I have backed off in my attempts to get them to help me. If we divorce, she will go back to being a single mother and having to support herself. I am a lawyer and make a very good salary. I have provided a very good life style for her that she will be giving up. We have accrued lots of debt over the past 3 years with our marriage, new house, engagement ring, furniture, and our house has no equity. She is very worried that she will have to take on part of that debt if we divorce. There is no way that her standard of living will be nearly as good if D happens.

I have read parts of both DB and DR. I have found DR more helpful and have been doing my best to implement LRT and do 180. My 180 so far has been hanging out with friends A LOT, going to church (which is very new for me), and learning everything that I possibly can about my actions during our marriage/relationship and how they landed our M here. In all sincerity, I am doing all of these things to make myself a better person and husband in the future. I just want it to be with my wife. Some days I am hopeful, others I feel like staying in bed and crying.

Any thoughts, advice, words of encouragement could really help me. I have a long way to go with this and am just trying to get through while I buy our M as much time as possible for her to come to her senses.

I am not going to be very nice in this post. I’m not going to be overtly mean.

Do you want to save face or your marriage?

Are you more worried about how you appear to others than your wife? Wasn’t that part of the underlying problem? The old Denver who’s wife was…secondary?

You LET your wife have a PA? This is what you think of other guys you know who’s wife had an affair? They let them?

So…I LET my wife have an affair? Because I took her back and we rebuilt our marriage?

I LET her?

I am not mad at you, just THAT is f-ed up thinking.

F them.

If you can forgive her, they sure as sure can. If they cannot? Seek a less judgmental social group, one who’s horses aren’t quite so high and who’s houses aren’t made of glass. Seems to me, based upon what you’re saying is they are going to talk about you no matter the outcome Denver.

In trying times, you discover exactly who your friends truly are.

Think like a husband who wants to be married, or isn’t sure and less about assigning a value and level of fault.

You both f-ed up, you both should apologize and do better. There is no score card for failure, there is no first place for doing LESS wrong.

Neither of you can defend or justify your failings, you can only own them.

Seems like you both are, but it seems like you expect her to accept yours and your apology and move forward. While she should own her failure a little more, apologize a little more, move forward a little less.

...hit a rocky patch...

You just trivialized all your past failings and all her hurt and pain, into something akin to an argument.

You marginalized everything you owned up to when you were brutally honest here earlier. And you did it to her.

What some of the older posters know is that I was a Walk Away Husband in my first marriage. And an LBS in my second.

That emotional divorce is true. When I left, I was done.
I cannot speak for your wife, but I’ll speak from what I remember.

I didn’t trust her anymore to commit to the changes I repeatedly told her I needed, changes she would make for a few weeks before falling back into old patterns.

Feeling that I was always secondary to her wants and needs. That I should change for her, but it was one sided.

When I left I was done, it was just a matter of waiting for the paperwork. All it took was one final straw. And it was not a hard choice to make, to live with? Yes, but to make, no.

Nothing I said mattered, nothing I did mattered, nothing had ANY affect, her temporary changes, I felt were to shut me up, to keep me around, tricks. Like giving peanut butter to a barking dog.

To be dismissive of this? To assume this is some sort of trick?

Shows a lack of empathy you are going to want to acquire.

Denver,

Stop pointing fingers are who is “wronger” realize you both were, and man up, owe up, and figure out from this point forward how to do better.

I think that I am finally recovery from Thursday

I would have given a testicle to be here