Who is this woman & what has she done with my wife

[AJM]

Thx, I have to admit, that came across as a very heart-felt and honest expression of feelings. Well written.

You may have noticed now that your feelings careen from carom to carom while on this part of the board. My advice is to enjoy the ride. Life doesn't get much more real than this for you for a while yet. This is your opportunity to awaken to the reality around you. Not what should be. Not what you were "promised" nor what you expected. But what is. It can make the rest of this really worth the ride.

As for the dating. I dunno. I have to say that I've watched many friends that tried that. They immediately dated. Two of them tried to marry the first girl they met. One did. Three of them dated the first girl for a long time. I know of one that dated the first girl he met, married her and recently celebrated their 30th anniversary together.

It's a selfish act to date somebody, but for others I've seen it has been helpful to them, even if hurtful to those they dated. I don't think that makes it right. But I don't know that it makes it wrong either. At least not for you.

Are you that kind of person? That you need the self-assurance so badly you can coldly do to others what was done to you? Would you be one of those people that woke up 7 years into it and realized you had made a serious error in judgement?

Things to consider. I'm never a fan of short-term gain for long-term pain.

AJ

[THX-1138]

Part of coming on here and venting is that it provides you a safe place to open up with your most angry and bitter emotions. And everyone here has felt those at one point or another. I hope it was cathartic for you and encourage you to use this as an outlet...

Thanks Charlie Brown,

Yes, that was an intentionally cathartic writing experience. I find that I like to write in order to clear my head, and I frequently think out loud when I am talking with my confidants. I tend to learn what the heck I am really feeling in this way.

You are correct in that I was using this space to vent, and to try out some ideas, and to just yell my head off.

I am not planning on dating anyone immediately, but thinking about the concept takes the focus off of W, and allows me to think about some possible scenarios within my own future.

One of the things that has happened to me (and to most of us here), is that I have become ungrounded in time - meaning my future plans, goals, and life assumptions have all been dashed upon the rocks of divorce proceedings. I don't think it is normal or healthy for a fifty-two year old man to have no goals and no plans for a how he plans to spend his life. So naturally, I am thinking through some possibilities. Just thinking about another woman was so foreign to me only months ago, but now it seems an eventual likelihood.

Right now, I am standing for my wife, but I refuse to be unrealistic about this. I believe the chances that she may return are small. Perhaps 15%. It would be foolish of me to avoid conceptualizing the 85% scenario.

Like I said, I am not ready to date yet. But I will be. I just don't know when.

[etc]

THX, I love your writing style. I could totally relate to so much of what you've written and I'm at a similar place to you in my own journey. This point in your last post really stuck with me:

I am not planning on dating anyone immediately, but thinking about the concept takes the focus off of W, and allows me to think about some possible scenarios within my own future.

I personally think this is totally healthy and only to be expected. Being open to moving forward with or without your W automatically assumes that you're going to think about possible scenarios of you getting together with another woman. When I get really caught in a tangle mentally about the real possibility of a future without my W, I have pictured myself happy in the long run with someone else or alone. I think the big goal here is for you to work out different possibilities in your mind and be at peace with whichever way they go. This way your happiness will not be contingent upon any one possibility. I think that's really the point of detachment.

With all of that said, take this time to really work on you without a woman in your life. Does that mean you can't have women friends? Of course not. Sparking up some new FRIENDSHIPS might do you some good, but really work on yourself so the new you is in a good position for a new relationship with your W or someone else.

ETC

[AJM]

Although there is a lot of anger, THX, you'll be fine. Keep in mind the bigger picture - there will come a time you won't stand any longer. Either that or she will return to the marriage and you will forget these times with a shrug and a laugh.

I agree, thinking of the future is a great idea. Taking your mind off of the current issues is also a great idea.

At some point you'll understand a little better why and what your W is doing. Compassion would naturally follow that. That comes sometime after the anger. If that helps.

AJ

[CharlieBrown]

THX,

The fact that these things that you have had to confront in this time were so unthinkable up until a few months ago is a sign of what type of H you were/are. You will get there on the future goal setting and I think it is healthy to start conceptualizing it. But , I agree with ETC that working on you (and your relationship with your kids) is the most important thing. If goals are important to you (and I get it if they are, they are important to me) what goals can you set around you and around your relationship with your kids? Keeping your W and other women out of it at least for now would seem healthy to me.

CB

[THX-1138]

...You may have noticed now that your feelings careen from carom to carom while on this part of the board. My advice is to enjoy the ride. Life doesn't get much more real than this for you for a while yet. This is your opportunity to awaken to the reality around you. Not what should be. Not what you were "promised" nor what you expected. But what is. It can make the rest of this really worth the ride.
AJ

Hell to the Yes, AJ. You put into words something I have been thinking lately.

Another "life as a game" analogy, this time using Poker:

Several months ago, my wife folded her cards, stood up, and left the playing table.

For months, I was like, "What?! What just happeed? C'mon, sit down and play already. Where's my damn cheese?"

...I was in denial. For several months I continued trying to play the cards I had left. I was all like..."who moved my cheese?...and hey, what happened to my teeth?...why are they all over the floor ... and Dude, Where's my car?"

Then, last week, I realized that the hand I was holding was irrelevant. Game was over.

And suddenly, I realized that a new hand had been dealt, and there were fresh cards lying on the felt in front of me. A new hand had been dealt. What I needed to do was to pick up these cards, fan them out, and take a look at my options. New cards, new possibilities. Time to quit trying to play the old ones, because they are gone, gone, gone.

As for the dating. I dunno. I have to say that I've watched many friends that tried that. They immediately dated. Two of them tried to marry the first girl they met. One did. Three of them dated the first girl for a long time. I know of one that dated the first girl he met, married her and recently celebrated their 30th anniversary together.

For the record, I will never get married again. Ever. Period. I decided that a long time ago, when I was a teenager. My parents divorced when I was 13. I watched my father burn through three more marriages in fifteen years, and my mom went through her second divorce about ten years after her first.

For me, marriage is a one time deal. Once the current contract is broken there will be no other. I swore an oath until death, and I intend to honor that oath. The fact that my wife has broken her oath affects that not one whit.

Second, I don't intend to risk being a two-time loser. This has been the most painful experience of my life (by a F@cking wide margin) and I will never, ever do this again.

And beyond all that, I don't see any need for me to ever get married a second time. I have two kids and don't need any more. I have no moral objections to cohabitation, and I don't need the approval or respectability conferred by a late-life marriage.

I am not saying that I am never going to be in a long term committed relationship again. I expect that will happen. But I will never walk down the aisle again.

Even if my wife divorces me, and eventually returns, I might not legally marry her again. I would have to think hard on that one...

It's a selfish act to date somebody...

I don't agree. Dating is risky, but so is everything in life worth doing. I don't see it as selfish. Sharing one's self and dreams and pain is what defines us as human, I think.

I do agree that dating someone without disclosing my current circumstance would be cold, but I have already said several times I would not do that. If I see someone, it will be someone who is recently divorced or still in proceedings of her own. We would both know the score.

Are you that kind of person? That you need the self-assurance so badly you can coldly do to others what was done to you? Would you be one of those people that woke up 7 years into it and realized you had made a serious error in judgement?

I have no intention to coldly do anything to anyone. That said, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, no?

____

Thanks for your post, AJ. You raised some interesting points, and you made me work through my feelings. Most of what I wrote above, I worked out on the fly. I probably won't agree with half of it by dinner time. (I'm damaged.)

[AJM]

You're damaged? Perhaps. You're hurt. And rightfully so. There won't be much debate on that. The question is not if you were hurt or wronged. The question is what are you going to do about it?

I think you have the answers although you may need to hear yourself say them a few more times. And you may need to re-adjust your time-line expectations. You were married a long time and you don't just turn off the feelings.

What's for dinner?

AJ

[THX-1138]

...What's for dinner? AJ

Dinner is Beef Stroganoff with sugar snap peas in lemon butter. I am an excellent cook, and my kids are home with me for the next eleven days. We will be eating well all week, and watching a movie tonight after dinner.

Why eleven days? Well, this very morning, the Wife jetted off to her Alma Mater for an eleven-day binge of quintessential Mid-Life-Crisis bacchanalia. In yet another pointless attempt to recapture her lost youth, she has leased an enormous home on the edge of campus, and filled it with a cadre of old classmates for a week-and-a-half of football games, bar-hopping, campus cruising, honky tonking and general acting out like a 24 year-old sorority girl.

She's been planning this trip since she took a similar (albeit shorter) version last year. This has been the focal point of her life for the most of the year, and she has literally been counting the days off on Facebook.

This little soiree ought to cost us about three grand, which is a lot, considering we have been liquidating our retirement savings to pay for her new apartment and nightlife. Just last week, she spent $700 at Nordstrom for Fall fashion wear. Baby's gotta have new shoes!

Frankly, a divorce is going to be cheaper in the long run.

[JFun51]

Analogy: For 23 years, my wife and I have been playing Milton Bradley's Game of Life together. We have been choosing cards, spinning the wheel, living together, loving together, huddling together, moving around the little paths together, learning and loving to play the game as a team.

But some time ago, and without my knowledge, she began making secret plans to leave the game which we have been playing. She made plans to leave our playing field. She began to entertain thoughts of playing a different game, with new partners, on a different playing board. A new board where I cannot follow, and where I may not ever visit. I can only watch her game from the weak distance, through a scratchy piece of glass and listen to snippets of the new game on a scratchy AM radio. And because of our children, I will be obligated to watch her game through that scratched and cloudy glass, forever. I cannot even turn away from it, not even if I want to. The only thing I can do, is to learn how to bury the pain of watching.

My wife has left our playing field. She has knocked over the pieces, taken the ball and gone home, folded her hand, and quit the game. With these deliberate actions, she has emotionally kicked all my teeth out, and stomped on my heart.

She is in the process of destroying our financial security. She appears barely cognizant of the wounds she has caused in our children and to members of both families. She has left the game and gone to a secret dimension where I am not welcome. She has cast aside her wedding vows, and her ring, and has made herself available to others.

A concept: Love. What is love? I know what it is not: Love is not the pitter-pat of a teenage crush. Love is not a thumping of the heart, or butterflies in the stomach. That is immature, teenage love. Mature love is different. Mature, grown-up love is an intellectual decision; a decision to cherish and honor another person, through good times and bad.

But there is more. Mature love is exceeded by an even greater type of love. This is called marital love. Marital love is mature love, but also requires commitment. An commitment arrived at jointly ,to cherish and honor reciprocally. Both parties agree to love each other, without condition, and without limit. The agreement is binding unto death. There is even a legal contract for this. This contract is the marital vow.

What happens when one party decides to void her half of the contract? Decides unilaterally, to stop loving, to stop cherishing, to refuse to honor her husband? She seeks to legally end the marital agreement, her contract, and her love for her husband.

ILYBINILWY

And here I am.

That is all for now.

Maybe the greatest thing I've ever read on these boards. You just described my life for the last 6 months. I'm sorry for your sitch. You brought me to tears for the first time in a month. Thank you for expressing my own feelings so well.

[JFun51]

You sound so similar to me, albeit I'm a bit younger. My wife has yet to go on the great spending spree, just depressed and completely withdrawn from life. Like you, I have been a goal oriented person who now finds myself with no plans for the future. Its like the dropping of the bomb has left me shell shocked to the point where I spend every day trying to survive the day. Its like my ears are still ringing from the concussion and I can't even hear anything else going on around me.

I have contemplated quitting my job to find one closer to home so that I can work on my relationship with her and the kids. I've become pretty bad at work anyway.

I have thought about moving out so that I could concentrate on my job and GAL for real.

When Michele talks about trying different approaches to get desired effects, its like I'm constantly shifting gears every couple of weeks, but getting nowhere.

I can't blame you for saying you'll never marry again. I cannot imagine opening myself up to this kind of rejection again. Kudos to you for sharing, venting, and letting us all in.