WAW - Very confused and devastated - pt 11

[sandi2]

Thanks for all the support Sandi. I am sorry I let you down in not busting this divorce with all the guidance and wisdom you had taken the time to share with me.

Please don't say that. You have not let me down. You were doing the best that you could and it is easy for me to sit on this end of things and say what you "should do" or "shouldn't", but it is your life and you are the one in so much pain. I can't tell you how much I had hoped your M would be added to the DB Success Stories, but I certainly have not given up on "you"! I know you will be a success!

I wished I could make the pain go away for you. I've sit here wondering what to say to a man who feels as though his heart has been torn from his chest, and I realize there is nothing I can say that will make you feel any better at all. You loved so deeply and it is going to take a long time to heal and I think you will experience several emotions before you have reached the finish line.

It is okay to be mad. I would wonder if you were human if you weren't angry over this. Expect to feel a lot of different ways. I still think you should do something to release all the anger in you and not try to keep it bottled up. There will probaby be days that you will be depressed and then you will mourn over the loss of your M. All those feelings are normal and don't be too hard on yourself if it takes a while to get through this. As much as we wish you could get up in the morning and it would all be over and you could move on to the next chapter...it just isn't that easy. Being a human is complicated! And, at times it really sucks...but other times it is pretty nice and I want you to keep in mind that you will have those nice days again.

So, come here and talk as much as you need to talk about how you feel, your W, or whatever you need to talk about. I hope you will be careful to take eat well and exercise and sleep as much as you can. You are exhausted and it would not take much to get sick at this point.

You will be a member of this community as long as you want to be here, so I hope you will not think you need to stop posting. Besides, we never know waht tomorrow holds.

[Dia]

For the record, I filed in the heat of hurt and anger over my H's affair. If I had it to do over, I'd have waited at least 3 months before I filed, and while I might have gone to my mother's for awhile to clear my head, I wouldn't have up and left for good.

That said - I feel where you're at. Been there, done that and sometimes, even 2 yrs later, it still hurts.

[confusedinpa]

has she tried to contact you since the confrontation?

Yes - she emailed asking what my schedule was for the boys. I told her what my planned schedule was. Very tactical, non descript response. Her inquiry and responses was very friendly and polite. Lots of thanks, please etc.

So it goes another day.

[confusedinpa]

I completely understand....I just don't want CIPA to do anything while incredibly mad that he'll regret later.

Stronger,

It was great chatting with you today. I appreciate you taking the time and caring enough sharing your experiences. I do wish you the best in your situation and pray that we all get through this experience as better spouses.

All the best

[Deep]

Ah CIPA, where do I start? Trust me when I say I understand at least some of your pain. And I apologise if I am re-hashing any of my sitch that may already be familiar to some. I vented alot in my thread.

I had around 2 months of being treated like utter dogcrap as she spun into WAW mode. Where nothing I did was right. I was ignorant of what to do then, pursued like mad, panicked like crazy. Ignored the classic signs, did not want to face up to my suspicions of OM, who by the way, was sick enough to get W to actually invite me out to join them for social activities like drinks.

OM was/is a client of hers who offered her part ownership and a job in one of the companies he owned. W was about to go off on a 2 week trip with him through Europe "for work" (that in her own words after I busted her would have been the end of our M if she had gone). I was always uncomfortable with the trip and caught something suspicious during one of the drink sessions. Anyway, 4 days before I busted her and 10 days before the trip, I dated her, held her hands, and asked her to just tell me if something was going on. The usual heartfelt denials. I then held her hands and asked her to respect the M and not betray me and gave her my blessings to go. The way she looked in my eyes convinced me.

Like you said, the emotions in the email was pure hell. Actually she was having online chats that she pasted into word documents and stored in their shared email as a love diary. I caught the last series of exchange. They had it while I was in Church with the kids and our domestic helper and W was "tired". It wasn't just that "I missed you"s, it was the "I SO miss you"s. One of the more delightful parts was her recounting our most private talks, including THAT talk and how I had asked her to respect the M. Every single detail. They actually had a laugh about it, both of them. OM talked about how paranoid and pathetic a man I was, and how he would never sink that low.

Ugh. Have to say that still gets to me today. It was one of the 2 most hurtful memomries from the A. And there have been many of them.

There were a few things that made it different from your sitch. 1, W insists till this day that it was EA not PA. While I don't say it 100% doesn't matter, it really does not make the betrayal one iota less. 2, as miserable as she felt with me, she immediately agreed to stop the A (of course it's impossible, but the point is she agreed), and wanted to stay for the kids. 3, she did go into attack mode and blamed me, but she also said "sorry", and over time, her remorse was very plain to see.

So yeah, for the better part of a year, we went through the "I'm in love with OM but will stay for the kids" sitch, which has its own particular hell although there are positives. I went through some parts detaching (not that I knew what DB was then), some just wanting to walk myself, it sucked big time.

Somewhere along the way, she woke up. Retrouvaille helped a lot, but it took months more after that. Today, things aren't perfect. I still deal with the aftermath, we both do. But in a million small ways, the woman I love is back, has been for some time. It feels right when we connect, when she tells me she loves me, is in love with me, in the haunted look in her eyes when she remembers. The M is changed in many ways, but some of it perhaps for the better.

She played her part (over time) in trying to win back my trust. Forgiving her initially was not so much forgiveness per se as trying to move on with sanity. Then it was forgiving for me. For me, forgiving was a decision as well as a (long) process.

It's different in some ways for you. You are hurting badly from fresh wounds now. Take time to let time do what time does best, and heal yourself as best you can along the way. Many here are praying for you I'm sure.

[sandi2]

1, W insists till this day that it was EA not PA. While I don't say it 100% doesn't matter, it really does not make the betrayal one iota less.

Not trying to pick a fight or anything, but are you saying that a WAS might as well have a PA as an EA b/c of the betrayal involved?

[Deep]

Hi Sandi, no that is not my meaning. I think to most people, and especially for men, it does matter. An EA spinning into a PA DOES make it worse. Perhaps I put it badly, what I meant was that I knew they had physical contact / kissing even if not full on sex. But it would have been pointless belaboring that point and trying to get all details, particularly in the first few months when things were bad enough as it was.

Mentally, I decided to treat it as an A period, and to just accept that the worst happened. The choice was to move on together or to leave. If ever the day came when the facts of a PA appears, I'm not saying I would like it, but I'm less likely to be affected. Yes, I feel the betrayal itself is already complete with an EA. W is not a slut, and she was not doing it for sex, emotional connection is big for her. A big hurt was the thought she had found a better man to invest herself in, a soulmate that she yearned for more than me. If she had slept with this soulmate, it would have made me feel worse, but in the bigger picture it would have been where he would be in her heart to make it happen to begin with that is painful. And no, I did not feel like this at the start ...

Hope I put it across better somewhat, or at least did not sound more confusing . Sorry for the hijack CIPA.

[sandi2]

Okay, that clears it up better. I never met up with the OM and had an EA...long distance by using the computer, webcam, phone, emails, that sory of thing. But I don't know if it would have hurt my H any more if I had been in a PA. The pain of my betrayal was so bad and the sad thing about it was I couldn't even see what I was doing to him. I had blocked my H out of my life and thoughts until I was engrossed in my fantasy with OM. It sounds so cheap and sick.......and was! But, when I had been on the board for a while, that was how I began to see how deeply I had hurt my own H. It was reading posts from LBH's who talked about their pain and it begin to hit me how much I had hurt him. I think my mind tried to block that out, but I believe I should face it, so I try to allow it to hit me between the eyes. I am so ashamed b/c I hurt a wonderful person who loved me more than life. I messed that up, Deep. I don't think I allow myslef to really ponder how much pain I have caused.

Got to close out, cause I'm not making much sense and I'm getting all teary eyed.

[confusedinpa]

Sandi,

Thanks again for your heartfelt words and support. This community has made a heart crushing experience livable because of people like you.

Right now, it still really hurts. It is really bad nite for me. The only thing that I know that I want is that I want primary custody of the kids with relocation to NY. That is what my lawyer will tell her lawyer on Monday morning.

He will also tell him that I want to file a counter claim of infidelity but is trying to talk me out of the insanity of it (waste of time and money is his legal counsel). He said that if what I want is primary custody of the kids, I should focus my time, energy and resources to that end.

He said it will be a fight and I will have a less than 1 in 4 chance in wining, but he said he would do it if I really wanted to. He recommended trying to just get every weekend, the entire summer (except for 2 weeks) and every holiday (except for alternating Thanksgiving and Xmas)

I do not want the marriage to die but feel that it must. I just do not have the energy anymore to continue the fight. I do not want to sign tomorrow, but will stop asking her to try.

I still get sick and disgusted thinking about the things that she has done with other men that she used to do with me. It also hurts to think of the feelings that she used to share with me are now for others.

I am hurt. Angry. Sad. Disappointed. Regretful. In pain. Resentful. Violated. So much stuff.

Thanks so much for all you have done to try and help me.

[confusedinpa]

There were a few things that made it different from your sitch. 1, W insists till this day that it was EA not PA. While I don't say it 100% doesn't matter, it really does not make the betrayal one iota less. 2, as miserable as she felt with me, she immediately agreed to stop the A (of course it's impossible, but the point is she agreed), and wanted to stay for the kids. 3, she did go into attack mode and blamed me, but she also said "sorry", and over time, her remorse was very plain to see.

So yeah, for the better part of a year, we went through the "I'm in love with OM but will stay for the kids" sitch, which has its own particular hell although there are positives.

I guess that is some key differences of a physical affair and the fact that she has shown no remorse. Plus she has already made the decision of not willing to try even for the kids.

I am really hurting and I honestly think she does not care...