Your answered surprised me Mojo. I guess I did not expect it from you. The idea of being single was the thing I feared LEAST during my breakup. I guess I have always known that I enjoy a certain amount of autonomy but I have been smart enough to make sure my relationships always allow for that aspect of my personality. (Hi Raven \:\) ) Of course I also enjoy being part of relationship which may be why I do not seem to be able to stay single!!

Anyway back to the idea of why stay when problems come up. My counselor asked why I let my XH push me away and develop his first EA without leaving. That first EA happened 3 years before his 2nd EA and eventual PA. So what besides love kept me from leaving in those 3 years? Definitely commitment to the marriage – I got married to stay married. The counselor told me once that probably the only other thing I could have done was to separate from XH when his first EA took off. We have had the discussion before that if I had been able to see separation as different from divorce, I probably would and could have separated from my XH to send a strong signal to him. Now how he would have handled a separation is an unknown. Maybe it would have been a wakeup call or maybe he would have seen it as an irrational jealous reaction to his new best friend and just let me leave. BUT that would have been his decision, right?







But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? ~Albert Camus