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Our marriage slowly wound-down. My WW would convince me that it was just a friendship and that I was just jealous, I would recant and then the OM would call, or text or whatever, and I'd feel violated again. We started arguing more often and things just kept getting worse.

The process was slow and I took a lot of the blame and I questioned myself often. Luckily, the MC/IC woke me up and I'm very grateful that she got me on solid footing, but that was also the beginning of the end. Ultimately, my wife wouldn't have me if she couldn't have the OM too. Apparently she chose the "happily married" OM and his family over me and our children. Wow!

Doodler,
I am so sorry about that!!
I do know that my H leaving is a possibility, but I am trying to have hope that he will wake up from this and realize what he is loosing out on.
Having said that, I do have my back up plan in case he does leave.
After the initial EB/DB, I researched and made sure I wasn't going to be caught off guard again.

My sitch was different as there was no EA, but I did have to learn to detach while still encouraging H to re-engage in the R. It is hard!

n2hcke,

Good for you for being prepared! I was like Gilligan (of Gilligan's Island fame); I screwed-up everything and I came out ok. But, I'd recommend being prepared rather than relying on dumb luck.

I have this habit of going onto instagram multiple times a day to see if the OW has posted anything new. I know I need to stop as it is just fueling my feelings.

Sometimes my H tells me where he's going and with who and then sometimes he doesn't. When he doesn't tell me, I invariably find posts on instragram from the OW, so I know that is what he was doing.

I guess the only good thing I can say is that he is now home most nights before our D goes to bed so he can give her a kiss goodnight. He wasn't doing that before. Improvement? Not sure.

n2hcke,

It's really difficult to tell if there's an improvement. The wayward spouses can be cunning and conniving. I was recently thinking about one time when the OM called my wife (using his wife's cell phone) because he'd dropped his cell phone in the toilet. He called to ask my wife what kind of smart phone he should get. (I remember that very well because I told my wife that he should get a stupid phone and my wife went ballistic because I was being so "mean.") Now that I think back to that, I suspect that they decided to use one of the messaging apps so that their text messages wouldn't show up on the phone bill. I don't think he "accidentally" dropped his phone in the toilet, I think he "on-purposed" it into the toilet. (And the toilet is a great metaphor.)

I currently feel like I have lost someone and am grieving. Which is true, in a sense. Hard not to think about the times before the DB as better than now. Even though things weren't great, they were better than now.
I go back and look at the R and think if there was anything I could have done that would have stopped this.
I really don't think so, though. I think this is about what is inside my H. I don't want to say I was a perfect W, but our differences didn't warrant this kind of blow out.

n2hcke,

I've had an odd mix of being totally p*ssed off and grieving, but that seems to be subsiding a bit. I'm starting to truly feel sorry for her because she's had a hard life and now she's in a new mess. I'm not going to try to fix her mess, I won't give her any money and I probably wouldn't take her back (too much damage has been done), but I do hope she gets her life back on track.

Doodler,
I know what you mean. It is hard to imagine being able to take him back. It would have to be a HUGE act of God for me to be able to get over the pain I feel.
Like you, I am one day angry and one day grieving. How long did the cycle last for you? I am so tired of feeling this way.

There are many of us, me included, who are doing "in-house separation" and wrestle with this question.

"Distancing" is probably not the right concept for you. The mantra you want is ... "detach" or "lighthouse". Both ideas are covered in the first response Cadet drops into every newbie's thread.

The sex question is a hard one. It seems like cake eating to me.