Another one joins the flock (III)

[Mike85]

I am glad that your reputation is more important then being able to weather her MLC.

There is a point at which one has to recognize that the person one once knew is gone. When W deliberately, repeatedly, and needlessly attacked the one thing that she knew was core to me, the thing that I was raised to protect and to cultivate, then I realized that she had become someone I didn't recognize and could never again trust.

Waving away her selfish, shallow, destructive actions as "MLC" doesn't adequately describe the pain she has caused me, our kids, our respective parents and extended families, the complete betrayal of promises made, the shattering of belief systems, etc. Labeling her adultery, her lying, and her scheming with an acronym may make great shorthand, but it dangerously seems to make it just another syndrome that someone gets over. A lot of people who do what she did NEVER come back, never "get over it," and go on to marry the OP and live their 2nd life. In the meantime, people like us get stuck with the wreckage and a lot of wasted time as we waited in vain.

I did a LOT of focusing inward, JTB. I was counseled by my priest and my therapist. I prayed a litany of prayers (including the Hedge of Thorns) every morning after waking up, and every night before going to sleep. I subscribed to the 'Charlyne Cares' e-mails and read them devoutly. I spent a lot of time thinking over the good times, the bad times, who we were when we met, the people we've become, and the things we said we wanted from life then and now.

Yes, I was supported by a lot of great friends, old and new. Many of them forced me to analyze my reasons for fighting SO hard to keep my W and my M.

I've realized that part of what fueled my fire for fighting for my M was nothing more than a desperate (but human) fear of being alone. It wasn't wrong to feel/fear as I did, it just wasn't the *right* reason to fight. Once that fear was confronted and gotten rid of, I was able to more rationally analyze the fight for my W.

The covenant we made? The one W callously broke in so many ways?
Our history together? The one that W now claims she "gave up so much of herself" to make and that she now repudiates?
Trust? Honor? Integrity? W has none of these now. She has lied TO me (and to our kids, our friends, and to acquaintances), lied ABOUT me and others.

As W again and again stabbed me in the back by her attacking my reputation, by her becoming more and more integrated into OM's life (she works with/for him now, they're buying a house together), by her being so obviously set in her decision to move on, I started to realize that I was clinging to a ghost. Many of her former friends have recently told me that she had her mind made up and plans set in motion MONTHS before she dropped the bomb. She wants a new life. She now has a new career (she declared business bankruptcy and shut down her salon), a new man, and a new upscale life that she loves. I've seen nothing to indicate that she would "settle" for being the middle class W of a high school teacher.

[quote=Jack_Three_Beans]And you bought into the move on BS. And you are justifying her bad choices as your reason to move on.

I don't believe that the "move on" bit *is* BS after a while. At what point SHOULD I finally give up? When she's engaged to her boyfriend? When she's married to him (that's the path they've openly told people they're taking)? I've read so many accounts of spouses who hung on for YEARS, even through their ex's marriages, and it doesn't come off as valiant or noble. It comes off as sad, pathetic, and deluded.

Yes, W made bad choices. But what is it that we tell even the youngest of children? Choices have consequences. The days of me being a doormat are over.

16 years man. No not happy, sad actually. Intellectually, your a power house Mike, but where is your inner steel?

My inner steel is what got me to take care of my kids on my own, my house and finances on my own, to stop focusing so much of my time and effort on someone who has made it perfectly clear that, were it not for the kids, she would have nothing to do with me anymore.

Sleeping with some other guy? Boo Fing Hoo, lying about you? Ditto.

I can't get past the fact that I would never be able to trust her again. Examining our pasts in therapy (the three times she bothered to come with me), it came out that she had cheated on EVERY boyfriend she had ever had. Now that she has done this to me, she showed that our relationship was no exception.

She used to frequently joke that she married the first time for love but would marry the second time for money. Joke's not so funny now.

Trust her ever again? Nope. What's that old expression? "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me."

Dissappointed. I still wish you the best, but I thought you had the ability to do this.

Thanks. I wish YOU the best also. Who knows how this all will shake out. I haven't started dating and may not for a while. I want to be comfortable with being a whole independent person again (and a great dad) before I contemplate another R. But whatever way my path winds, I have resolved to never again place myself in the position of believing that I *need* another person to complete me.

Your W may be worth the fight. Mine is not.