I'll tell you what bothers me. What bothers me is how varied are personal standards of integrity. I'm not talking about my wife here, because I know her so well, I can almost understand how she has ended up here.
It's the other men that I don't understand. Are they so hard up and their integrity so low that it doesn't bother them at all to be involved with a married woman? I just don't understand it at all.
Not much to report so far today except the continued wishing that I had some real tangible proof instead of all these individual bits of information that can each be explained away. Taken together, they tell a story, but, individually, they can all be explained away with a harmless explanation.
I had parent teacher conferences tonight. My oldest daughter is doing very well in school. She is liking her new school and her teachers all had good things to say about her. That was nice. As I start to do things like this without my W, I'm starting to feel more like I've gotten a life or that I've at least expanded my life to be bigger than just obsessing about my marriage and my wife. That's a very good thing.
I'll tell you what bothers me. What bothers me is how varied are personal standards of integrity. I'm not talking about my wife here, because I know her so well, I can almost understand how she has ended up here.
It's the other men that I don't understand. Are they so hard up and their integrity so low that it doesn't bother them at all to be involved with a married woman? I just don't understand it at all.
Bugs me to Dan, not just people that get involved with a married person, but it's hard finding anyone who isn't ready to tell you to throw your marriage in the trash the first instant anything goes wrong (sure it might be a different story if it were their own marriage). I think it comes down to people thinking the marriage is the relationship, leading to the idea that if the relationship goes wrong then marriage is by default over (which I'm pretty sure is the rational that OMs and OWs would provide). If that were the case there would be no point in get married at all, it must be something more and it is. It says you will make every effort to make that relationship the best it can be. I think you can walk away at peace if you have made every effort, but it seems there are few that do, but thankfully these boards are full of those few.
I think taking a tougher stance shows you value marriage highly and to you isn't something cheap and throw away.
I tend to think of the other men that pursue married women as dishonorable scumbags. It is hard for me to put myself in their shoes if I was a single guy.
I've been thinking a lot about the need for proof and an honest conversation. Do I need proof for some other reason? What if I had the proof and still couldn't get an honest conversation what would I do then? I don't think I need any more proof. What I need to do is to stop waiting because it's scary and take the next step.
I'm going to make an appointment with my IC for early next week and an appointment with the lawyer for Thursday 1500 which is an hour or so after she has to be at work. Then, I'll take the day off and call her a little bit before she takes the littlest one to school.
I could use some input on where to have this discussion. I was thinking at the family home, but, we could go to the park or sit in the car or even at a restaurant over lunch.
I am there...I have proof (witnesses) and still W can not have an honest conversation. Probably because she does not want to step on me but more likely because she is totally embarassed and guilt ridden.
I have a hunch your W will also not admit to anything. i don't know where that will leave you....back to square one. you and I probably both need to take the bull by the horns...let's face it even if our W's fess up....will we immediatelly feel better?
Thanks John. Actually, I'll feel better for having taken action instead of just sitting around hoping that my DBing efforts will pay dividends. I will feel better in that I will have gotten a reference point back to a place where I can trust myself. I'll know that she was lying and I can quiet the little voice that wants it to not be happening.
I often wonder if the unfaithful spouses ever think about what their kids are going to think of them when they are older or if they somehow think that the kids will never find out. I think that surely my wife can't be that deluded. Everyone knows about her Dad's affairs when he was married to her Mother. Perhaps that too is a reason that she doesn't want to admit it. Then I wonder, does she think that if we get divorced that I'm going to agree to some nice sanitary story about why? I'm no saint, but, I was working my butt off trying and there are things that I'm not proud of, they don't begin to compare to what she's doing. So, I'm not going to run around telling the whole world, and I'm certainly not going to say anything to my kids right now, they are too young, but, I'm not going to hide the truth from them when they are older.
Maybe I should sit down and put to paper a nice long narrative about the last year and even about the things I've done over the years and include with it things like transcripts of her text messages etc. and keep it for when the kids are older and want to know why I divorced their Mom and destroyed their world.
OK, I had a suggestion from a friend of mine that the discussion is really something of an ultimatum. Either choose me and we work on this marriage or choose them and we get a divorce. His suggestion was that we have this conversation with the MC present to help keep us on track. I'm not very confident that my W will admit to what she doing if it's just the two of us, and I'm almost certain that she won't admit to it to someone else. So, I was thinking about confronting her on Thursday and having a MC appointment on Friday with of course the lawyer thrown in Thursday afternoon.
Or, maybe I'm still finding excuses to avoid the conversation.
I have had the same thoughts of the future of how the kids, when they are grown, will look back on it all. Stop this thinking. They will come to their own conclusions on their own based upon how everything turns out over the years. You cant predict the future, but you can live your life with strength and honor which will rub off much more on your kids than any verbal or written narrative. Your priorities are helping your kids cope and doing all you can to provide a safe and consistent environment for them. Dont hide your emotions from them.
