Retrouvaille

[AnotherStander]

Is a comfortable relationship bad? If the sex is good you get along, you are best friends., laugh and enjoy each others company is that a bad thing?

Sounds like you misunderstand our current relationship, it would be classified more as casual friends. Last sex was labor day weekend (over 5 months ago), before she moved out. I would definitely not classify our R as best friends, more like neighbors. We don't see each other much, as I mentioned before we go to kid events together, but that's about it. Texting is extremely limited and only about the kids. On average I'd say maybe one text a day. She spends much more time with OM than me.

I'm sorry about what happened

Actually I'm kind of surprised that people are offering condolences, LOL! I've tried to make it clear in my posts that I am extremely happy, I'm really in a great place mentally and physically! Is my marriage going to work out? Not likely, but my happiness is no longer tied to my marriage. I am no longer dependent on my W for anything, especially my happiness. So thank you and every one else for the thoughts, but I really am great!!

I have an honest question. I see and hear loud and clear you think your W is DONE with you. I can't imagine how discouraging that would be for you but where are your current thoughts are?

It is not at all discouraging, because I WILL be fine with or without my W, I'm beyond thinking I have just got to save my M or I will be miserable. My current thoughts are that I'm focusing on my own life with my kids and my friends. And with W too to some extent as she is the mother of our children and as such we will continue to have a relationship. And we do get along quite well as friends.

Are you going to move on with the new person you mentioned, or are you going to not date at all, wait and see if your W comes around..?

Not waiting for W. I actually quit waiting for her before she signed us up for RV, but when she signed us up I thought well maybe she was showing interest again. Now that she's made it clear the interest isn't there, I'm pretty much back where I was before and moving on. As for the new person, it's just dating, so there's not really any telling where it will go yet.

Good question SLU. Not only is AS convinced his W is done forever, but he seems to be convincing himself he needs to move on to find fireworks love himself.

The only thing I've convinced myself of is I am ready to move on. I understand that some of you take issue with that, but it is MY decision. Don't ever forget that, it is each of our decisions on how much time to allow before moving on and it is not any of your places to criticize someone for moving on. As for your mind-reading on my motives for dating, "fireworks love"? Really? LOL!

Are you done AS? Not to be disrespectful, but if you're not, what is it you are trying to do here again?

What am I doing where, on these forums? I'm just sharing my story, that's all. Do you think that every thread on here should end with a saved marriage? As great as that would be, it rarely happens. The vast majority of posters here are heading for divorce. I'm trying to let people here know that they can have a happy, fulfilling life even if their spouse doesn't return. For the small number of people that save their marriages, good for them. But the ones who won't save their marriages are in much greater need of help than those who will save their marriages.

But and it is a big but, the dating, retrauville etc all seems like pressure to me and she is backing right off to the point she is crawling in her shell again

W signed us up for RV, not me. And yes, RV does not dovetail perfectly with DB'ing because it's all about talking about all that stuff that DB'ing tells us not to, so yeah, you could say it's pressure. There's a lot of pressure to reconcile for your faith. But that's the program, not anything I did. I would say RV is better for people who are ready for piecing, if both spouses are interested in reconciling then I think it would work quite well. It did work for us in that it helped us with communication skills, but not for saving the M.

It still sounds like she is confused, does not know what she wants

She is confused because she knows it's not what the kids want and she feels bad about that. But she feels nothing for me. And that's not mind-reading, she's said that many times.

I remember in your old threads you talked about how people around you were once WAS and they wanted to come back at some point but LBS were not interested. If I remember correctly one of them was your mom. I just wonder how many months/years later she realized she wanted to come back and your dad wasn't interested..

In the case of my mom is was 2 or 3 months. My step dad went through it as well, his W wanted to return after 2 years but he had long since moved on. A buddy of mine is sort of dating his W again after 2 years. They spent a year barely talking to each other.

Here's the thing, after BD I had a serious case of rose-colored glasses on. I remembered nothing but the good things about W. But as time has gone on I have found the real me again, the guy that was happy with himself and happy with life whether a woman was in it or not. And there were several women in those days. I think that was part of why they were attracted to me (and maybe W too), because I really didn't care whether they joined me in life or not. In finding myself I've also started questioning if I really do want to reconcile. To be honest, W has MANY faults of her own. SHE was the cold and distant one in the marriage. SHE is the one that never, ever reached out to me unless it was because she needed something. She had an excuse every time I tried to set up a date for just the two of us. My jaw nearly dropped in MC when she said the sex was great, because I thought it was mediocre. Hell, she even refused to go motorcycle riding with me because she was paranoid we'd both get killed and leave the kids with no parents. And let's not forget that she racked up 15k+ of debt secretly, then after we (I) paid it off she racked up another 80k+. And then there's the OM, that was going on before BD. She's a wonderful mother, there's no question of that. A wife? She's been a lousy wife for a long, long time. Why would I want that back? I don't. In fact, I don't think I've mentioned this before, but I thought about leaving a few times over the years myself. I would consider reconciling for the kids, but I absolutely would not reconcile back to the old marriage and I have no interest in waiting years to see if maybe there's some small chance she'll change her mind.

You always keep positive attitude but I'm sure it must be so unbelievably painful to hear your W repeatedly say she's done

It really is not painful at all. It sure was after BD, it was terrible agony. But I've moved well past that. I've forgiven her for all the pain and I've forgiven myself for the part I played in our M failing. That's all behind me now and I am happier and more optimistic than I remember being in probably 10+ years I love my life now!