This isn't really in response to anything in particular, but to your sitch in general. Maybe Cobra prompted it a bit, but it's mostly just that you've gotten me to thinking. There is no pattern or point to this; it's just some random thoughts. You know that we have a lot in common, bit in my case, I was the one to have the A and to want out. In that respect, I guess I can identify with your W. If there is a point to this, I suppose it's to give you some insight into what's going on with her.
First of all, when I was at the point where your W seems to be, I seriously doubt that there was anything my W could have done to break up the A or to change my POV. Literally everything she said or did to oppose me in any way just made things worse. No matter how well-intentioned it might have been, I saw things from my own distorted perspective. By the time the A came out, my mind was made up that I was getting out. Anything opposing that goal was viewed as either spite or unwillingness to face up to the facts. Morals and boundaries fell into the same categories. I don't think I ever said it out loud, but when she tried the morals approach, my gut reaction was that it was a scam. She had never even made an effort to hold up her half of the M, yet when I had finally had enough, she was trying to pull out morals and fidelity to keep me in it. She, who had NEVER participated in the M, was actually berating ME for wanting to end it!?! It was laughable. It was like hiring a contractor to build your house and after 15 years, he still hasn't started. So you find another contractor and the first one starts yelling, "But we have a contract..." Laughable.
So reading about your W and remembering those feelings, I started thinking about what she could have done and what my reactions would have been. Sadly, I don't think there was anything she could have done. Obligation didn't work; I felt like the guy with the new contractor who had actually started work on the house. Morals didn't work; I didn't see that I was wrong to seek out a new life when my W had failed to even try to address my needs at any time during our 15-year M. Money held no sway; I would have paid any amount to just be free from the misery. D2 (then) didn't matter either. I had completely bought into the idea that kids are resilient and that staying in a bad M isn't doing them any good anyway. Even my own religious beliefs didn't sway me. I had convinced myself that God would see things my way. I knew that He wouldn't hold me to the M when it had never really even been more than cohabitation. He defined M as a partnership, and we had never had that.
The only thing that might have worked was for her to start trying to address some of my needs. Your sitch is a little different here though. If I remember correctly, you've been bending over backward trying to meet her needs. For me, just showing some concern for my needs and trying to address them, even unsuccessfully, might have done the trick. But that's because one of the big wedges between us was that I didn't think that W even cared what my needs might have been. So I'm tempted to tell you that, but I don't have a clue as to what needs you aren't meeting or what it is she's getting from the A that she isn't getting from you. But in all honesty, I don't know if that would have worked on me anyway. I say that it might have, but since she didn't try, I'll never know. There is the distinct possibility that I would have looked at it as either too little too late, or as just a desperate and insincere attempt to get me to come back. No real change, just doing what she had to do to get me to come back.
We did do MC while I was still actively involved with the OW. In fact, we were living together. I was going to C, not to save the M, but to help W to deal with the breakup. The C was pretty crafty though. He went along on the surface, but all the time he was working on me. I was just too blind to see it. I was seeing the OW when W and I had our 'talk'. I was living with the OW during the D. I was still living with the OW as W and I began getting back together. I still saw the OW several times after W and I got remarried. I even had sex with her two or three times. Weaning myself from her was hard. In retrospect, it was stupid. Cold turkey would have been much better. But like I said, I was seeing everything from a completely different perspective then. Now I can't even imagine what I could have seen in a woman who would mess around with another woman's H even while he was getting back together with his W. What could I have been thinking???
So I have no advice other than hang in there and do what you think is best. I told Mojo that just reading about her sitch has helped me to see things in my own. I just hope that maybe you can see something in my story that might help you.
