Everyone, thank you for your input. I appreciate it.
WAWed, I like your metaphor of hanging onto the ghost of a relationship. That's a good way of looking at it. The current situation is unbearable, not because I can't bear her infidelity, but, because of the incessant lying and because I'm stuck in limbo, unable to move forward.
HFF, I'm sorry that you had to go through this. Frankly, I'm past the pain and hurt and confirming evidence couldn't cause me any more pain than I've been through so far. You ask if I'm willing to continue trying to save the marriage. That is an excellent question.
John210, I've been following your thread since moving over to Separated. I really don't feel in a fragile position and I don't know that I'm in denial. Is her infidelity a deal breaker? That's another excellent question.
There is much more to the story. In July last year, my W the SAHM took a couple of days in the mountains for a break from the kids. Shortly after getting back, I suggested that she take Tuesday nights off and I'd watch the kids. Soon, she was going to the local dive bar where she met her new buddy. Things with her new buddy were high drama. He was a crack addict and being involved with him even as a friend resulted in W calling 911 after his threat to kill himself. That resulted in 3 jurisdictions of police and the swat team out to deal with him. W called the cops as he was breaking the restraining order put in place by buddy's cousin and when her self-proclaimed violent buddy getting out of jail with no money, no job, no place to stay, no truck and no Harley. W spent some nights in a hotel while I spent nights with the shotgun at hand.
Don't misunderstand, looking back I can see how screwed up my actions were in all of this. During this time, I was trying to negotiate acceptable limits to her bad behavior. She would agree to be home by 2300 and then would have a good reason why she wasn't or would get home at 2315. Pretty soon, we both gave up the pretense of her coming home before the bar closed and then sometimes it wouldn't be until 0400 and then there were a couple times she went to parties on a Tuesday night and didn't get home until 0600. Over St. Patrick's day weekend, she fell and broke her collar bone in two places because she was out walking someone's dog in the dark at 0300 and had been drinking. Then, in April the week before she moved out, I busted her on going over to some guy she met at the bar's house and making out with him. This being discovered via e-mails. Things have been very surreal.
Sitting up week after week wondering what she was up to and if she was going to be home finally started to force my growth. I put up with all of this because my self-worth was dependent upon her. That's why I put up with all that's happened and why I've put up with the current situation. It's only been a couple of weeks since I finally grew up and my self-worth is now in no way dependent upon her or what she does or what she thinks about me. But, until that change happened, I experienced all kinds of pain and hurt and I think I'm done with that. Now, I'm more pissed off than hurt and I'm mostly pissed off about her lying to my face, not having the guts to divorce me, not having the guts to tell me that my efforts at saving this marriage were a wasted effort, not respecting me enough to wait until a filing, not having the common decency to cut me loose so I can move on with life too. No, I'm not hurting much, I'm angry.
Now, is her infidelity a deal breaker and am I willing to work on this marriage? Her infidelity is not a deal breaker in the sense that if I had incontrovertible proof, I would feel forced to end our marriage. I could forgive her and learn to trust her again and live happily with her the rest of my days. I am willing to work on a new relationship with her. However, all of this is contingent upon her moving back into the family home, getting into IC that I am part of directing as she deludes herself about many things, MC, a new cell number, complete transparency to me and no further contact with anyone that she has met in the last year. If she is willing to do these things, then I can forgive her for everything and we could move forward in life together. I don't hold out much hope for that outcome. I'm not saying that it's impossible, just that I think that the probability of it happening is roughly the same as winning powerball.
I've been wanting to have a frank honest truthful conversation with her since I've been able to look at this information without twisting it around to be what it isn't, and I don't want to have a conversation where she sits there and denies what I know is true and tries to turn everything around and tell me that I'm crazy and wrong etc. I'm tired of being in limbo. Persistence has carried the day for me many times in life, and I'm willing to continue working on things. However, we've reached a crossroads. In the past, according to my W, the problem was me. I've changed and grown and become a new man and yet she still insists that the problem is me.
That's a lot of history there. Bottom line, I'm feeling the need to have a truthful heart to heart conversation and I'm afraid that I might need the hard proof to force such a conversation. Of course, there is still no assurance of an honest conversation even with proof which is yet one more uncertainty that I need to bring to a resolution.
I appreciate everyone's input. I will think on these things.
