2 1/2 years later and on the mend...

[peaceful_spirit]

Wow... so many responses. I'm sorry that all of you are going through this. It is so hard. Living through it is pure he!!. And I really felt that mine was worse than most.

Treese, you've been hit with a few bombs. I'm so sorry.

My H said all sorts of stuff to me. Here are a few:
"I have a connection with OW"
"We have nothing in common anymore"
"Too much damage has been done"
"I'll never come home again"
"I don't love you anymore"

I believe my H was running to a more fun, carefree life. He didn't know how to take responsibility for the choices he had made. During this whole time, he didn't even seem to miss the kids. He would go days, even a week sometimes without calling the kids.

The key for me was to let go... to let him go. I guess I considered myself a stander. But I wasn not waiting. I didn't file for D, but I didn't sit and wait for him to come home, either. I actually had given myself a few deadlines. Each time he came home and said he couldn't live without me, he'd end up leaving saying that he wasn't happy, blah, blah.

In the beginning, I tried to convince him that we belonged together and that marriage is full of ups and downs. And it wasn't until I finally just let him go and accepted the situation for what it was, that I finally got some peace. And it was then that I think he started to respect me more. I was no longer the clingy W who was begging for him to stay.

But I did that for me. I did that because it was the only way I knew how to cope. I remember, one of the times he left it was right after Thanksgiving, when I found a TM from OW and he blatently lied about it to my face. I couldn't take it anymore (again) and told him he needed to take his dark self away from me and the boys. And so he did... willingly. He would say things like, "we tried, but we couldn't make it work".

Anyway, i was headed into Christmas without H. I walked into Target a few days later and saw all the Christmas decorations. I cried and left the store. The next day, I went back in and decided to buy all new Christmas decorations and start new traditions with my kids. This was how I dealt with the sadness of going into Christmas without my H. I formed new traditions with my kids. And it really worked. I really detached. I really found happiness on my own.

Again, my story is a very crazy one. My was so back and forth, I couldn't tell which end was up. The key is to not "wait" for your spose to come home. You can stand. You don't have to file for D. But you DO need to find happiness in your own self and in your own life. Find things that make YOU happy, in the absence of your spouse.

This board was a lifesaver to me. Yellowrose and I were going through similar stuff at the same time. I got SO much inspiration and strength from teh folks here. I got some 2x4s also.

I shoudl also say that most of the people in my life told me to divorce his @ss. And that is easy to say when you're not going through it.

Anyway, i have seen first hand how our spouse can go crazy for a bit and recover. But I don't bank on anything either. I know that we are not divorce-proof. I know that we need to work every day, hard, at keeping our M strong. And it is so easy to let that go. I also know that the most important think you can bring to a M is a strong sense of self. That is something I was lacking in the first 6 years of my M.

I'mstillhopefull,
Stay hopeful. Nobody thinks they have the stamina to go the distance. And you have to listen to yourself when it comes to that. When and if you're ready to throw in the towel, then you'll know. I remember asking my C, "how will I know when to give up for good". She said, "you'll just know".

If someone said to me three years ago that my H was going to have an A, then come back and forth making and breaking promises over the next few years, i would have said that I would never be able to live through that. Yet, I did. We all do and we all will. Whether we end in D or with restored Ms, we survive. And in more cases than not, we don't just survive, we thrive. We come out stronger.

I thank God for what i went through. I learned some really important things about myself. Things I never would have learned had I not been through such a difficult time.


Anyway, I'm glad I could provide hope for some of you.

Mrs, I keep up with your sitch, but don't post much. You get such great advice already.

YR, you, too. You're still the mother hen of the board! Love ya!