Get real. The best predictor of future behavior is relevant past behavior. What do you predict? If your partner has cheated on you repeatedly and now swears he/she will stop, what are the chances that this is true? You can't change what you don't acknowledge. Isn't there a point at which you say, "I deserve better. My children deserve better. He/She may not have any boundaries, but I do. And my boundaries say, 'You either treat me with integrity, dignity and respect or you don't treat me at all'?" Stand up for yourself and for your children. You've given your power away and you've got to get it back.
This is not your fault. Stop beating yourself up about this. You have got to know that this has nothing to do with you. You are not the one who made the decision to break your commitment to your partner and cheat. You have nothing to do with your partner making the immature, inappropriate, self-destructive choice to turn away from you to someone else.
What is your payoff? Do you want to get past this? Or is there a payoff you receive from the situation? Do you enjoy playing the victim or subjecting your partner to a life sentence? Do you fear that if you forgive a partner who truly is remorseful and has changed his/her behavior that you are "letting them get away with it?"
Assess your commitment level. You can either handle being vulnerable with your partner again or you can't. And if you can't, you need to get out of this relationship and move on. And if you can, then you need to let him/her earn the trust back and start putting this relationship together again.
Consider the consequences. If you have children, your decision will affect them as well. You do have responsibility here for what you do next. You have to make a decision about whether or not justice is best served by allowing your partner to re-earn your trust, or if it's better not to subject your family any longer to the current situation.
Decide if you can choose to forgive. Forgiveness is a choice. It doesn't mean what your partner did is OK. How much you trust your partner is in part about what your partner does, and in part a function of whether you have confidence to handle it if he/she disappoints you. If you find out that he/she strays again, can you handle that?
If you can't forgive, let go. When you choose the behavior, you choose the consequences. If you continue to throw this in your partner's face, you will eventually run him/her off. Ask yourself if this is going to be a life sentence for your partner. Can you heal from this and forgive? If not, don't continue to live in anger and/or be with someone who causes you pain.
I meant when she is away (which is now through last week) should I ignore him when he contacts ME or allow him to be in contact with me (answer if he calls/emails). He claims he "can't stop" being in contact with her because he is "enchanted." Yes I've said repeatedly that I'm tired of hearing him talk so casually about her or telling me her "attributes" but it's like he's trying to make a case to my why she is "better" for him. Frankly she is better only because there is no drama with her right now. It's all clandestine. It's exciting. Addictive. He wants the rush of that because everything is so screwed up with us because of HIS infidelity. He keeps saying that if she had only rejected him, he would be willing to try to work it out with me, because he'd have nowhere else to go, but since she did not, he thinks he has to take a chance with her now even at my expense or the marriage's expense or he may lose it forever. I told him the stat on affairs and how like 99% plus of them fail, and he said "and it very well might, but that doesnt' mean I'd go back to you be default." Well what makes NO SENSE about this is that 3 days before he left, he said, in front of our mutual friends, that he and I should think about RENEWING OUR VOWS. Is that not sick? And I've asked him WHY he'd say such a thing and then 3 days later say that he doesn't want anything to do with me, and he can only say that that is because at the time, he didn't really think anything would come of being with her, and so he said it because he really wanted to make it work with ME. Then, when she left her bf and told him, he decided to leave me as well, and then she said a day later "I'm not going back to my bf" and then he told me "I'm going to try with her, the heck with you." It's like she has this stranglehold on him that makes no sense because I've had 23 years with him and only the last year was problematic, where she's had but a few months talking to him. He is acting completely bipolar, which he's never done in his life, and everyone says "this is not the X I know when I hear what he's saying or thinking." It's like he lost his mind.
Tonight I talked to him about counseling, saying can you not give us just ONE try at an appt where we both state the issues, and let a 3rd party make a suggestion to split or work on it, and he actually said "I can't decide that without talking to HER first." How can a person who lived with me the past year in an apparent perfect harmony just overnight become so different, and place this practical stranger on SUCH a pedestal and give her SO much weight?
M45 Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11 Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy "Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying
What are you hoping to accomplish arguing with him like this?
Are you aware you can't reason, educate, or negotiate with an addict?
Intervene on his behaviuor with friends and family and then SHUT HIM OUT until he grows up.. THAT's a far more effective approach... That affair info was for you, it wasn't to throw at your H.. he's not going to listen to any of that.. I could have told you that and so can everyone on this forum...
He's an addict, you can't educate him or reason with him...
I meant when she is away (which is now through last week) should I ignore him when he contacts ME or allow him to be in contact with me (answer if he calls/emails). He claims he "can't stop" being in contact with her because he is "enchanted." Yes I've said repeatedly that I'm tired of hearing him talk so casually about her or telling me her "attributes" but it's like he's trying to make a case to my why she is "better" for him.
He does this because you ALLOW it, Antonia. There's a big difference between effectively enforcing a boundary, and weakly telling him you're "tired" of him talking about her.
Look up Coach's old thread about Boundaries for some specifics on how to do this. These conversations are absolutely KILLING your self-esteem!!!
I agree with both PDT and Allen. Arguing points, no matter how rationally, just made my H dig his feet in deeper as to him feeling our marriage was at an end. When I stopped doing that, it went from him apartment hunting to him moving back into our bedroom and stopping the D talk all together. Obviously (if you read my thread) it's not where it should be yet, but at least there has been progress. YOU will feel much better too!
Ok last night I contacted him via email and said that if he had to ask the OW's permission for counseling, then forget about it. I said I was going to let him go. That I cannot take the comparisons he's making between us or the case he is making as to why she is suddenly better for him and I want that to stop. I said none of it was fair to me and it was in fact cruel and hateful, and I didn't deserve that. I said "I'm done." I accept that you have no interest in saving anything with me and if you agree with the terms of the property settlement that we talked about earlier, let me know and I'll have my lawyer draw up the papers.
He responded with more of the same (it's like he refuses to stop mentioning her to me) and then I really let him have it on the boundary issues, and I said again "I'm done" and "I'm letting you go", "so why can't you just ACCEPT that and stop trying to hurt me more.
Then this am he calls me and there is no anger in him towards me, if anything it's a very productive and friendly conversation about some of the legal stuff (my lawyer wants us to file a property settlement agreement asap just to get the financial stuff squared away and that can be changed later or added to the divorce petition). He tells me that he is seeing his parents from whom he has been very distant, and he wrote them a letter last night and asked that they NOT blame me for any of this nor say anything disrespectful about me to him when he sees them. He also tells me he has insomnia again. I asked again about the prop. settlement and he said "let's just sit on that for now." He also has not made one move to file divorce papers. And yet he persists with telling me "she" is the one for him.
So I think at this point I'm going to shout out BOUNDARY any time he verges on any kind of hurt and if he doesn't stop, hang up on him. I haven't seen him in person for 2 weeks. I've told him I didn't want to see him.
When I said last night "I'm letting you go" it was very sad but cathartic, because what I meant by that is I'm going to stop trying to rationalize with him which is what all of you said above. And I really am done with that. I can see it backfires.
M45 Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11 Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy "Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying
HOLD it Antonia, you are a walking TIME BOMB here... You need to get control of yourself and stop acting on impulse.. plan a strategy and act on that plan... supress the impulses
Divorcing someone when you are HURT and CONFUSED and FRUSTRATED is NOT a good idea...
First, do you WANT a divorce?
If you DON'T then why are you telling him to GO?
If that's your strategy I don't have a lot of confidence in it...
No I don't want a divorce, but it seems like if I have lots of contact with him, he uses it mostly to hurt me and keep reiterating that he isn't going to try with me because he's so enamored with her. It seems like the more I try to talk to him like we still have something there, the more he pulls away, almost like he's trying to prove a point to me. I thought the idea of detachment meant that I was to lessen my contact with him and become very independent and happy and involved with other things and let him see that. I'm not telling him to divorce me, not at all, I'm only talking about the property settlement issues with him because my lawyer said that this needs to be nailed down sooner rather than later because I want the house, and right now, he agrees with that, but a verbal agreement means nothing. My lawyer said that this agreement can just sit there and if he never files it can be rescinded or modified later, but it protects me financially now. But other than that, I haven't said I want him gone, I just want to tell him that I've stopped pushing him towards counseling because I realize that I can't control his behavior, only he can.
I guess the main reason I haven't seen him in 2 weeks is because I don't want him to see me as a wreck. I only want to see him once I feel I have my act together and don't have puffy eyes and look miserable. In the past day or so I think I look pretty normal, so I'd be ready to see him now, I think I could pull it off without getting weepy; a friend suggested I let him come by to fix something in the house that is broken and just be ready to go out when he gets here, all dressed up, and just say "ok see you later I'm going out with so and so..." Is that a bad idea/good idea??
M45 Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11 Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy "Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying
a friend suggested I let him come by to fix something in the house that is broken and just be ready to go out when he gets here, all dressed up, and just say "ok see you later I'm going out with so and so..." Is that a bad idea/good idea??
YES! Only eliminate the "with so-and-so" part, and leave it vague. BE MYSTERIOUS!!!
