But I will talk from my experience. I was a WAW who never actually walked. I walked mentally, and just left my body behind in the house and the marriage. And for years, my husband pretended he didn't notice. Life just went on. But then one day, I realized that my husband was involved with another woman. And suddenly, I realized that I was losing something important to me! I felt like I was being robbed.
Never, in all the times I talked about separating, or demanded that he move out, and while I dreamed of a new love, did I ever think I valued my husband as a person, as a lover, as a father, as anything. (Ugly, I know.)
And then one day, he wanted out. He was planning a new life without me. And I was miserable. I wanted him back. And I set my full will to winning him back.
It is fair to say, as ugly as it is, that I would not have changed, if he had not seriously looked for a new relationship. It's just human nature. But as Joni Mitchell sang, "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got til it's gone?"
I'm not suggesting this as a ploy. Don't do it to win back your wife. You can only do it when you are truly ready to move on. I'm just saying that, under those circumstances, it is likely that your wife would have second thoughts. What she does with them, I can't predict. And what you do if she changes her mind, I also can't predict.
Lotus - I want to again thank you for keeping up with my sitch, sharing your experience, and offering your advice.
The above... I think that you are correct with how my W would react to me moving on.
I'm not sure if that is what you are nudging me to consider?
Trust me, it has occurred to me... both as a true decision... and as a ploy.
3 things stop me...
1) Love for my W and the hope, that others point out as well, that I still hear in her words.
2) The strong belief that once I pull that switch... all is lost for my M... that I will be DONE... no turning back.
3) the thought that, maybe, I have not given this enough time. As my friend Jack has told me, 'life's lessons are hard for a reason' ... I feel that I have already learned a very valuable life lesson from all of this... but maybe I haven't learned everything that there is for me to learn. ... and as 25 has told me multiple times, my timeline here has been relatively short (even though it seems like an eternity to me)...
In the meantime? My W is going to do one of two things: 1) try to really work on figuring out what she wants with her life... "work on herself" as we like to say here... or 2) cake eat.
I guess that I can't control what she does one way or the other.
Denver
M 43 X 38 T 13 W moves out of home 11/2010 Roller coaster from hell 2/2011-5/2012 I request divorce 5/2012 W moves home 6/2012 Good time 7/2012 - 1/2015 I leave 3/2016 process of divorce
