The crack in my separated life...

[Accuray]

Accuray...after the confession of love for OW, I just want to give up! I know you and your wife are piecing...did she ever completely move out? Was she claiming to love the OM?

No, she did not completely move out, but wanted to work with me on a plan for me to move out. She was trying to be sensitive to the kids, so wanted to start with separate bedrooms. She's been working on a divorce plan for about 4 months with her IC and her friends. She started trimming back her spending and trying to figure out how she would live on a reduced income. She bought an economy car and tried to get something with exceptionally low payments. It wasn't an idle threat or something said in the heat of the moment. She said she wanted a divorce and there was no chance of reconciliation.

She not only claimed to love the OM, she did love him very much -- the way she remembers it, more than she ever loved me. She had also been infatuated with another coworker before the OM and tried to escalate that relationship with him but he didn't bite. She was very much in love with that guy too. The affair feelings are very powerful, overwhelming. In cases where the WAS has been sad / in pain for a long time in the marriage, it's hard to separate the feelings from the other person from the relief of the bad feelings between you (i.e. any port in a storm)

This is the first time since all of this happened that I really, truely believe that this is over and he is done. I have never seen him so serious and so done with me. The mean stuff that he is saying and doing makes me think he no longer cares about anything....

It's a marathon, not a sprint. Nothing will be resolved quickly or on your timeframe. No matter what happens, you will feel better a year from now, and even better two years from now, but you will not likely feel better next week or the week after.

As long as your H is involved with OW there is nothing you can do except to focus on yourself and your girls, and try not to make things worse between the two of you. That's all you can do.

Once OW is gone, then H will need to grieve the loss of that relationship, and he may be even meaner to you at that point, if that's even possible. 2-3 months after that, he might start to figure out that all of this was *not* because of you, and that he has some work to do on himself. Nothing can really start until he has that epiphany, and there's nothing you can do to induce it to happen sooner, but you can delay it indefinitely if you pursue him.

It's like when there is a storm outside your house -- there's nothing you can do to make the sun come out, nothing at all. You just have to surrender to it and know that eventually the storm will end. In the meantime, you can make yourself comfortable and tackle the things you CAN control, and there is peace to be found by doing so.

I can tell you that when W wanted out, she acted like she HATED me. She would say things like "I don't give a f*@$ what you want!" She would say that if I hugged her, it "felt bad". If I touched her at all she would go completely stiff like she was anticipating an electric shock. When I was the most hurting, she would smile and laugh with the kids like nothing was wrong. I just couldn't understand at all how she could be so insensitive and so oblivious to everything going on.

What I learned is that she was just coping and trying to protect herself. It's extremely hard to live with yourself when you know you're doing wrong. It makes you do and say things that you otherwise would not. That's why DB says to believe nothing they say and only half of what they do.

Over time W very slowly started to warm up to reconciling, but it was very much like hand feeding a squirrel, and that process was very painful too. I painfully learned that the more space I gave her, the better things were, which is completely counter-intuitive.

It's not all roses for me now, it continues to be a struggle in many ways. W and I both had issues, I worked on mine, and W is committed not to deal with hers. That makes things hard, although it is slowly getting better. Each month is better than the month before.

Have you considered speaking to a DB coach? In terms of my mental state, it was some of the best money I ever spent, I highly recommend it. It's not going to be a quick fix for your marriage, but it will definitely make you feel better about what you have to do.

if they are spending more and more time together does this hurt the idea of R?

No, he is on a journey with this woman, and more than likely it has an end. If you think they're going to spend 200 hours together before it burns out, then it's going to go faster if they spend 10 hours together a day instead of 1 hour together a day. The more time they spend together, the faster reality intrudes on the fantasy. The more likely that bad habits come out and are witnessed by the other person. The more likely that annoyances start to surface. If you see someone rarely, that stuff is quickly waved off. If you spend LOTS of time with them, it will start to wear on you.

Does it make H feel less guilt because its starting to become a normal thing to him instead of a secret thing?

No, he will feel no less guilty. The only way he feels less guilty is if he can provoke you into being the bad guy.

I have read that the secrecy helps to fuel the excitement of the affair. When the secrecy is stripped away, it can take some of the fun out of it. It's more fun to sneak around and to feel you're doing something secret and special. When it's public knowledge and no longer a secret between the two of them, it's less special.

I don't want to give you the wrong impression here -- there are no guarantees. Some people do get married to their affair partners and everything works out for them for the long term. The chances of that happening are very slight. Given that (1) there is a big age difference, (2) he met her in a bar, (3) you are pregnant with his son, and (4) he has low self-esteem, I would put money on the fact that this isn't going to last.

Accuray