Looking for BITS. I'm OnMyWay

[OnMyWay]

Greetings BITS and crew!

What an amazing resource and community this is. I've read many BITS thread and I have to say how impressed I am with the way many of you have grown, taken control of your sitches, and (most importantly) have returned to help support other BITS who are going through the same thing. Just reading these threads can make a man realize there's still a lot of life left that's worth living.

So, I'm "on my way" down the DBing road. I'm not sure where I'm heading, but like they say in the Blues Brothers: "You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here." Here's my sitch:

WAW & I have been together 15 years, married 13. We have one beautiful D, who's 8. I was 31 when we got M, WAW was just 22, although age has never been an issue before. I am now 44 and W 35.

We've lived a great life together and had an amazing marriage until just a couple of years ago. We live in the west and had moved back east to be closer to family. After three years, that proved to have not been such a great move and we decided to return "home" to the west to rebuild our lives. The difference is we didn't have the same idea as to what that meant when we got back. To me it was working doubly hard to build a business and our future. To her it meant having a fabulous social life, of which I was not able to be part of as I was always working. Needless to say, we began having issues after a year and a half of our return. She had also gone back to college to finish her degree.

The fights then started, as she began "partying" a little to much and I began to get unfortunate feedback from her friends. I began to complain, which only pushed her further away. While she did tried to curb her partying, she only resented me for it, as I still wasn't around to hold our relationship together. The fights got worse. Not helping, our couple friends were dropping like flies and my wife found herself "counseling" all these people through their failed marriages. Too many divorcees hanging around, no more couples.

Middle of June '11, she sat me down and told me she didn't think I loved her anymore. Of course, that was complete malarky! What I didn't understand at the time was she was actually giving me the ol' ILYBNILWY speech. I totally missed that.

To make matters worse, during the 4th of July weekend, I had visited a friend who was dying a horrible death from cancer. After I went to another friends house and we got completely bombed, like total fools. I had to have my wife come pick me up and drive me home because I couldn't see straight. Like and idiot, I got totally belligerent with her and said terrible things. That was the beginning of the end.

After we tried MC, but after 6 visits, WAW decided it wasn't working and was a waste of her time. During the next few months, she would tell me she wanted a divorce. All this came to a head two days before Xmas, when she came clean she had a one-time PA with another man back in 2009 and hid it from me for over a year, putting further strain on our sitch. I almost lost it, but for the sake of our family, tried to keep it together. I entered C on my own, as she wouldn't come with me - didn't want to save our M.

In Feb, I started with DB Coaching. It's great and is really helping me get my head screwed on straight. W is even trying it with me, although she still says she doesn't want to save our M.

While she was gone to a girl friend's house one weekend, I found some in appropriate photos of her on her computer and lost it, my anger getting the better of me. I texted my anger to her. She came back from the weekend and said it was over - she wanted a D. She moved out the next weekend (middle of Feb.) and is living with a GF (who is also D). Her attitude was one of anger and one of little contact, making sure she doesn't do anything to give me "false hope." My daughter is home with me, as W wanted her to still go to the same school, have her room, have stability, etc. She comes over to stay with her on the nights I work.

I was already on the DB path at this time, even though I messed up with the anger that weekend. I was devastated. She made every attempt at setting me free. Said I could date other women, doesn't want to be a financial burden on me, etc. Funny thing is I was asked out the next week by an even younger woman. I "cleared" it with W, who said she didn't care, and accepted the date. I had a great time and my ego got a boost through the roof! While there'll be no "relationship" with this OW, it did help give me some clarity on my own sitch with my M.

I'm through the emotional roller coaster stage of this thing and am pretty solidly in the "I've let go" stage. I find I'm not too concerned about my W anymore, even though I know this is extremely difficult for her, both financially, physically, emotionally, etc. The BF lives on the other side of the town and for her to get here takes at least 30 mins. However, that's not really my problem. My D is very upset, though, and this is one thing I cannot forgive W for. It didn't have to be this way.

This does cause a challenge for W. She's out of town this weekend, so she had asked if it was ok to come over last Tues night to spend with D. I assured her that was a great idea. When we found ourselves alone, she attacked me with the Big D again, saying she was going to L up. Wanted me to move out (not financially possible for us) so she could live here with our D and be primary parent again. I didn't take that very well and just wanted to get the hell out of there. She caught herself and apologized for fighting (usually I'm the fighter). We talked more rationally after that. She informed me she doesn't care about me, or care about herself, and doesn't want to be married, but can't bare what she's doing to our D. She wants to move back.

Now before all you DBers high five me, know that I said "No." I'm not taking her back as we would just fall back into the same ol'-same ol', and I'm not ok with that. I've made serious progress in myself, but feel I have a long way to go. Plus, I'm not prepared to handle all her "baggage", nor do I want her coming back for the wrong reasons. I'd do anything for my kid and our family, but my instinct is this is not the right answer. Her coming back would just be like falling back into the same routine and as soon as she gets another idea to bolt, it would be a double whammy on my D. I can't let that happen.

She came onto me Thursday night, perhaps to try to "sweeten" the deal? I'm not sure. Our sex life is still quite good, albeit infrequent. I'm just glad she's out of town right now. I'm doing my best to stay in "blackout" mode until Monday, when I'll see her in person, as I'm not ready to deal with any issues.

There is so much more to this story, but I'm already taking up a whole thread here with this post. I know there're many of you BITS out there in the same sitch. Hopefully we can all help each other through this.

So, I'm OnMyWay, just not sure to where.