Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not rising to the challenges. I'm just curious about the fact that the WAWly Way can persist as long as it does. But IRL I'm still on the MNR Path (Minimum Necessary Response).
It's all a matter of perspective. It's only divorce. Just learned about half-an-hour ago that a good friend with whom I served in the Army for 6 years was killed yesterday in Afghanistan.
Sorry about your friend SP, and it really reinforces my idea about not waiting forever.
Seriously life is short enough as it is, most of it is spent working & sleeping, the few remaining hours we have left in the day go towards taking care of our familys: spouses, children, ourselves, etc.
My idea is this, limbo is a killer. You can't allow it to linger on, it's a horrible thing for your children as well, it becomes engrained in them that this is how normal relationships work.
There is alot to be said about walking power. Understand that when your spouse/partner assumes that no matter how poorly they behave, you will be there waiting for them, they will continue to push your boundaries until they collapse (ie. her telling she going to find some man to blow when she was out with her friend and she actually goes through with it). Having no boundaries makes you unattractive.
You need to be able to stand your ground and leave her, this would be the LRT, last resort technique. No ultimatums issued, just walk away, proceed with life, forget about the marriage, contact the lawyer, have them start the paperwork and don't include her in your life anymore.
Once she knows that you are able to stand your ground and walk away from her, she will always respect you and stop testing you (which is what she is doing with all these sexcapades with all these different "signore's").
You can't show her you're afraid to lose her, while she's screwing around, I would tell her that the marriage counselling sessions are ended as of now, don't wait for her to say so. You can tell her that you care about her, always will because she is the mother of your kids but she is in a place right now where you can't reach her or help her nor should you.
Losing her is not the end of the world, quite the opposite, you will gain alot of freedom by letting her go. No more thoughts of WAW on your mind, no more reactions to her actions, she does this, I do this. No more replying to her emails unless they have something to do specifically with the kids, seriously when she emails you, don't respond back at all. Get used to deleting emails that don't contain info about the kids because she is definitely displaying that she cares little about you & your feelings. Actively pursuing other men while you guys were going to marriage counselling was the last straw, kick her to the curb, you can tell her to live life else where, I AM DONE!
I am now ready to enjoy the opportunity to explore other women because I'm no longer interested in a relationship with you.
Life is finite and that's why it's so precious, we can't say how long we have to live so we really have to make the time we have count for something, wasting time waiting for a WAS to clear the fog in their head and come back to their senses is just a waste of time and it's disrespectful of your life, that's what she is doing right now, she is being disrespectful of your life and your time.
Indirectly or directly, it will also be a lesson to your children, when they have relationships of their own, they will have to learn when to walk away from someone who disrespects them so much.
If the situations were reversed and you were watching your children go through this exact same drama in their relatioships where they had a WAS that was cheating on them actively and disrespecting them this much, how would you feel? What would you tell them? Be honest, that protective person inside of you would tell them "WAKE UP! THIS PERSON IS DISRESPECTING YOU!!!", now turn that around and use it on yourself.
What are you thoughts on any of this? Anyone else care to chime in on this? Does any of this make sense to anyone? This was something I was personally dealing with for quite some time until I just said to myself: my life and the time I have is valuable, and I won't allow anyone to disrespect that. I can't control what they do with their lives but i can be sure that I'm in charge of what I do with my life and the time I have.
