I'm going to update for two reasons: 1) people might learn from it in terms of "what not to do"; 2) I'm just having slight feelings of regret for "letting it go" - I think those are coming from the reality of selling our family home and putting my daughter through a "traveling from apt. to apt. life"
So what have I done? I've completely detached - kissed a guy in a bar and even went on a few dates. My H knows about the guy in the bar, and of course was happy that we were "even." Don't even get me started on that - yeah, we're even when I did it after you said you we're done, and you did it while I thought we had a committed M!!! I can't decide if I feel badly about it or not . . .he clearly articulated to me that we were over before I did it. The good side of this has been a restoration of my confidence. I now know for sure that my H is not my only option, and that's helped me to detach and have fun. I've been hanging out with some single coworkers as well - so I'm developing female friendships in our area for the first time. Prior to this, I only had my old "pre-marriage" gfs who lived far away. So I guess what I've lost in ground with my H I've gained in confidence for myself. I am no longer sitting around feeling sorry for myself.
My H has been interested in starting to split things - he rode me for a week to separate my phone account off from his. I just did it yesterday and now he's changed his password to the phone records (so I can't snoop). He wants to meet with a realtor to sell our house . . . we have an apt. on Monday.
I met with an attorney to consult - attorney advised me to try to cooperate with H or our entire assets (modest as they are) will be eaten up in attorney fees. I communicated this to my H -
How did exposure work? Well my H said that "they all had a good laugh about it" at work - and he continues to work. Not sure what sick people would laugh about that, but okay. He continues not to have contact with his family. I tried to call OW's bf - left a message. My H heard about the message and I could tell that got his goat. But OW's BF never called me back - wonder how he handled that.
He has his own apt. - swears he's not living with her. He has our daughter there this weekend and I would be VERY surprised to hear OW stayed there while dd was there. Even if she is living there part time, i'm sure it would stress their relationship for my H to ask her to be gone on weekends.
My H still maintains that he kissed her the time he was seen and it's nothing more - think he's come to realize that his R with her is going to make it hard for him to reconcile with his family. Maybe he's still holding on to some hope of them working out . . . after things cool down with his fam. Maybe he's really cut it off with her and is going thru withdrawal.
When I see him he looks tired and broken, to be honest. I feel a bit badly for him - he's drifting alone right now, perhaps, cut off from the strongest realtionships he's had in life - family and marriage. If he's with her, she's carrying the huge burden of being almost everything to him.
I've gotten to a point where I think that I had a role in our problems - after we moved, I had never developed a support network outside of him, so I relied on him too much. I wanted him to fill all my needs and that wasn't fair to him. He probably didn't know how to make me happy and the truth was, he couldn't - I needed to GAL myself. That's been really easy with my dd spending a lot of weekend time with her dad - I guess before I just had so little time off.
Lightly playing with trying to hold on to M still - maybe easier now that I've detached and know I will be okay if I can't. But it might just be too far gone . . .
