Praying For Us Every Day!

[sunshinelewis]

my xh says it has nothing to do with attraction. He says he tried to work it out But couldnt, he says he had been unhappy for awhile. I think our marriage got OLD to him. Not in the bedroom, he will tell you that anytime. He says he was just tired of being responsibile and people expecting so much of him.
I believe he is telling the truth, I probably demanded alot of him and he just got tired. I can understand that. BUT, what I dont understand is he is dating 25 to 30 year old women and not women his own age. He says they are no fun. (I always did what he asked, fishing, parties with friends anything, so I dont understand that part). The one thing I dont understand is this...he was seeing the 30 year old with 2 young kids and started really liking her and making plans for the summer at the lake. That to me is committment! Our son is 18, not 2 and 5. Why would he do this if he was tired of committment?
Maybe you can shed some light on this for me. He even told the lady he would never hurt her and that he would be good to her.

[still hopeful]

sunshine,

I believe that you're here, like the rest of us, to continue working on reconciling your marriage, even after your D. You appear to want to believe your XH's avoidance of offering any real answer about his feelings. Whether he was unhappy for a long time or not is really irrelevant to your goal of reconciling your M into a happy and fulfilling part of you and your life. He may not have spent the time to delve deep into his own psyche to determine what happened to himself with regard to his belief that D was the best and only answer for resolving his unhappiness. And again, if he hasn't been mature enough to dig deep enough to feel his true emotion, that is irrelevant also.

You and I share a deep love for and attachment to our EXes. I have finally come the painful realization that I have been wasting my time with the erroneous belief that I have the ability to fix my 'old' and broken XW and my non-existent M. Finally coming to this realization is painful because )1) I wasted so much time and energy on my ill-advised plan to 'fix' my XW, which would allow me to fix my M with my, now 'fixed' XW, and (2)feeling the crushing wave of sadness that I wasted that much wasted time trying to 'fix' my XW, instead of devoting that time on my own personal growth, self improvement, my children, and GAL.

With my newly acknowledged clarity, the emotions of sadness are receding and I am moving further away from the emotional 'pull' that my XW had on me. This is a strange feeling for me. My emotional distancing from my XW that I need is occurring within me. I am growing stronger in my determination to let go of her and move forward in my journey to become a happier, healthier, and whole divorced man. I offer much to my children and to the world by actually living MY life, instead of wasting my most precious, non-renewable resource, my time.

All of the DB tenets that I have learned feel so alive inside of me. From the beginning, I've pushed my (head) knowledge down with my feelings (heart) for my XW. My friend, frank_D, was right on the money when he told me recently that I haven't let go of my XW because I didn't want to let go. I was under the false delusion that I couldn'tlet go. The truth is that I wouldn't.

Ever since my recent trip to Lake Tahoe with my XW and my children and the resulting intimacy blame game aftermath, I have seen myself in my sitch as misguided, needy, and emotionally stuck...oh alright, a wuss! With my new clarity towards my XW and my sitch, I have less anxiety. I understand that my sitch will only change, if and when XW has her own epiphany that her way of living her life isn't working for her any more. I also realize that she may never have an epiphany, and without XW seeing her need to change she won't work to change.

I'm not saying that XW won't ever change. I just know that it's unlikely. phoenixdeux put it this way to me:

Letting go doesn't mean it's over...it just means you quit pining away and start to look at her as your EX wife. I've been where you are. I'm remarried to her, so I know there is hope...but it was just being open to possibility of reconciliation, without actually expecting it, that was more helpful.

That's where I finally reached, internalizing all of the advice/direction so kindly given to me by my brothers and sisters here. I don't know if I would do things differently if I had to do it all over again, because I know that what I have done up 'til now has at least kept me in the 'game' of reconciliation and I can't win the game of reconciliation with my XW if I am not invited to play. With all that said, knowing what I know now, I would have disengaged much earlier and probably reached my ultimate resolution much sooner than I am going to. Who knows, I can't go back anyway plus, I have been told my many others here that my XW has been challenging in her own special way.

Your XH is challenging in his hown special way, as well. Focus on you. Improve you. GAL. Develop new interests and hobbies. Read anything that interests you. Expand your circle of friends. Be with family. Connect with fellow church members. Be active. Be happy. The sooner you do this, the fewer regrets you'll have looking back, irregardless of which way your sitch turns out. Be giving to yourself.

Good luck.