Just found out that OW has a kid!!

[Ophelia]

Sorry its been so long since my last post.

I have continued to follow your posts and I still sense a lot of anger on your part. Not that you don't have a right to be angry, but I just don't think that it's helping your well-being. I know how you feel...I know how it feels to be rejected, betrayed, and lied to. I've been there too.

I'm most definitely still angry, at a whole lotta people for a whole lotta different things. I'm even angry at society in general for divorce having been accepted as an inevitablity, and marriage vows becomming a joke as a result.

One of the people I'm most angry at is myself. Angry for not noticing that H wanted out sooner. Angry for reacting in completely the wrong way when he left. Funnily enough, I've forgiven H for much of what he's done, but can't forgive myself for the role I've played in it all, and I think one of the reasons I can't forgive myself is because I feel that he hasn't forgiven me. I feel like he must be angry with me, because he's avoided me for the last year.

I ended up sending that email where I repeated that I wanted to see him, and jokingly threatened to show up at his work to give him the hug I want to give him for having climbed Kilimanajro. I suggested that he could come over for dinner one night, but knowing he probably wouldn't want to come to the house, I also suggested that we could meet up for lunch one day in a park or something. I said that basically, I'd like it to be somewhere where he could bring his laptop so he could show me all his photos and tell me all about Africa from beginning to end.

I sent that email about 3 weeks ago, and haven't gotten a reply.

I know it was shocking DBing, but I figured I didn't exactly have much to lose, and if I didn't force the issue then it was guaranteed that he'd just continue dodging the subject of seeing me. Now I'm left wondering if he hasn't replied because:
a) He's testing me to see if I actually will show up at his work, (something so bold would be totally out of character for me)
or b) He doesn't know how to tell me "No, I just don't want to see you," so is giving me the silent treatment in the hopes that I'll get the message.

Now, assuming it's the latter, is he doing that because:
a) He's just being nasty.
or b) He genuinely doesn't know how to say it. I think I may have mentioned before that at our last C session he said that he was now able to be more straightforward with people and just say what he's thinking, but he still couldn't do it with me. The only reason I can fathom that it would be so hard for him is if he does still care at least a little bit about hurting my feelings.

I know way back when I first posted to you, you had mentioned that you didn't know if you would ever re-marry if you got divorced because you can't fathom loving someone else. Is this still the case?

Yes, that is still the case.

Here's the hard question....are you still in love with your H or do you just not want to be divorced? I think that is a question that we all ask ourselves. No one wants to be divorced period especially at 28 or 29, but I can honestly tell you that sitting on the other side divorced can be a whole lot better than living in hell.

I've asked myself that question before. Wondering if I'm purely standing for my M on principle, or if I do still have genuine feelings for my H. I do still love him despite all he's put me through. I would still dearly love for us to have another chance. I'm not under any illusions that it'd be a simple thing, and know that we'd basically be starting from scratch, and we'd both have a helluva lot to make up for, but it's still what I want.

Honestly tho', I think the real issue is that, because of some of OUR issues, we probably selected people who were due to 'break' at some point. Perhaps, we should take 100% of the blame for choosing the wrong person to marry?

I think that perhaps I should have been less naive in believing that just because H married me, he believed 100% that he was always gonna stay with me. I took it for granted because that's the kind of family I grew up in. The kind where people get married and stay that way. It didn't occur to me that H might not feel the same, but it should have occured to me because both of his parents are divorced, and he's got a sister who is divorced as well. He grew up with D in his life, so I do feel kinda stupid for not seeing that he would still view it as an option. Then again, when you're young and crazy in love, the D word doesn't even enter your head.

The final result is that we should choose to abandon fault, guilt and resentment. Focus on growth and change and learn how to cope with the loss of our beloved spouse...grieve..and move on if reconciliation is not possible.

Which is of course much easier said than done.

First of all Ophelia, I posted here because we have one thing in common, we both wanted kids but couldn't get around it. The woman who my husband encouraged to an emotional affair also has a kid.

Sorry to hear you're in a similar boat, hurtandlost. Doesn't it drive you mad, thinking of your H playing daddy to a child that isn't yours?

People's background are hidden and we can only see their responses when they go through stuff, also they can change through their experiences on a Pavlovian way, we cannot anticipate what we will become.

One of the things the C said during one of our sessions was that people and relationships are constantly changing. My reponse to that was that a relationship doesn't break up every single time a person changes. It was like she was trying to console me that us changing as people is why this happened, but I still see it a pretty weak excuse for breaking up a 10 year relationship.

There are some reasons I can understand a relationship breaking up over. Like if one person becomes physically abusive and the other is actually in danger. In my book, "I love you, but I'm not in love with you," is not a reason you break up a releationship, it's a bullsh!t excuse for one party to put their tail between their legs and run away because it's the easy option.

I agree that what they have done shows lack of integrity. But one thing I have learned here and by all the information I gathered is that there is a huge spectrum of cheater's types so I do not know if the lack of integrity is part of their character or situational insanity. Perhaps that will come with time case by case.

I'm still going with "situational insanity" (love that!) in my case. Oddly enough, I think that H did his utmost to keep some of his integrity intact by not bedding anyone else until after he'd moved out of the house. He didn't want to "have an A" because that's what his father did, and he hated his father for that for a very long time. The problem is, I don't believe a M ends when living situations change, whereas H decided that once we weren't under the same roof anymore, all bets were off.

Anyway, I'm gonna put up the Christmas decorations this weekend in the hopes it might cheer me up a bit, but to be honest I'm looking forward to this Christmas about as much as I was last Christmas: ie, not much. This Christmas Eve will be the one year anniversary of the last time I saw and spoke to my H.