Mondays for days ...

[Train]

This is likely going to be lengthy - my thanks to people who will hang in there with me through this one. I'm half-responding to points made last night and half-journaling my way through some of my thoughts, the past few days of which have been foreign to me. And, frankly, they're freaking me out a tad.

The other part of it you're missing is that you ARE supposed to be doing . . . just doing on YOURSELF!

I'm not per se missing that; I totally get it. To be honest, though, besides GAL and exercising, no matter how many minutes or hours I spend trying to figure out things to improve about myself, I cannot - for the life of me - figure out what more I can do to "do myself." I'm pretty happy with the person I've turned out to be. OTOH, I cannot force myself to love the idea of being a single mom. I KNOW I'll survive it and be fine - at times even happy. But am I going to "enjoy" it? No. I've been here before. No matter which way I slice it, there's nothing to per se look forward to in the life I'm going to be living. And there's no way to "prepare" myself for it. I can pretend it's going to be great. I *will* pretend it's great. But there's not much great about it.

At worse, they won't notice, and at best they'll RESENT THE HELL OUT OF YOU for making these improvements NOW, after they've gone and done something foolish like having an affair.

Obviously, I'm having a hard time with these "changes." I keep asking myself: What would/do my changes look like to me? To H? And I think: Okay, I've changed my hair. I've changed my outward appearance quite bit. But my personality? I haven't changed much about who I am, nor do I know that I want to. We've discussed this before a tad, and I'll get into it a little more in my responses to HS below.

Piecing is like an iceberg, and 95% of it comes AFTER they return to the marriage. It took the fetching Mrs. Puppy and I probably 2 - 2.5 years just to get back to a HEALTHY dynamic between us, and fully 3-5 before our marriage was one of those "stronger than ever" ones you hear about on here.

I'll also be getting into this a little more in my "journaling" below. But I don't think I have it in me to work so hard at a relationship with my H for that long. And, frankly, I'm beginning to genuinely feel he isn't worth it.

so yeah, sometimes you're no lady, lol

Now on to HS's comments ...

Your H was a predator in this case. He sought this woman's attention, asked for her number and pursued her.

Not that this matters ONE iota, but just to clarify, I was sending my H to the grocery store - right into the lions den - almost every, single day at the point in which he met OW. He made friends with a lot of the people that worked there. I know, it sounds completely odd. At one point, he even came home and said to me, "All the women there love me!" (Some accomplishment to have a fan club at the local supermarket, eh?) I'm beginning to think he and OW struck up a friendship, not through work, per se, but through his constant presence there. He started going in there more than I asked him to go, I've learned. So it's my guess he was seeing/speaking to her daily ... and several times a day. And then he asked for her number.

You think you can change someone wired like that by being a tad less critical to him at home?! *cough* *cough* Me neither.

This is my point EXACTLY on my personal growth and changes. Nothing I can do is going to change or fix him. I understand that's the point of focusing on *myself.* But when I feel like there's not much I can DO, I'm left with, well, nothing much to do.

Your husband deserves to get his butt kicked. He has a way of looking at life in a very selfish way. He gets what he wants, who cares who gets hurt in the process. For some reason certain women are drawn into men like that. Perhaps it's some sort of urge to be the one that changes them

I know I'm just an "online stranger," and it's likely hard to believe me when I tell you this, but TRUST me: My H was NOT this man when we first met. I *vetted* him - I *chose* him - because he WASN'T like this. I mean, I didn't even find him *attractive* enough to be a cheater; I know that sounds terrible. But one of the reasons I knew I had fallen in love with him is because he was so NOT my usual type, but I loved him for taking such good care of my girls and me. I took my time choosing him. He had his sh!t together. He owned his own home and his own car. He had a great job. His parents have been married 50 years. He did nice things for me. He worked on my car. He even attempted to cook me dinner ... once. He took care of my DDs when I had meetings for work, playing with them and letting them dress him up, etc. He NEVER had a "wandering eye" - and, believe me, I watched for it in the almost-2 years we dated before I married him. My DDs' dad was the "bad boy"; and, yeah, I was young (only 19) and stupid when I met him and became pregnant with D17. I knew he wasn't a long-term catch. So I KNEW what to look for *after* him. H did not provide ONE indication that he was a "bad egg" or a cheater. Not ONE. This has *infuriated* me since 2005 because I keep going back in my mind, trying to figure out the signs of him being such a douchebag ... and figure out how I must have missed them. But the simple fact is: there was not much "bad" - as in "bad boy" - about him when we met 12-13 years ago. He was just a hard-working guy who liked me, adored my kids and would do anything in the world to make us happy.

Changing yourself to somehow re-attract a man that abandoned you twice? Who will you have to become to maintain his interest? Is it even possible? Tough questions....

Exactly. THIS is my struggle right now. Why change ME? What about ME is making him do this? What could I possibly do to make sure it doesn't happen again? And, even if he fell on his face eventually and begged for forgiveness and went to get help, will I EVER be able to trust him again? Can I trust my own judgment?

Please be very careful hanging out with a married man- that's how affairs begin.

Does it help that his W is hanging with us, too? But seriously, this point is very well taken. I know that I'm in a very vulnerable stage in my life and probably not making the best decisions.

I hope you don't take what I wrote as hurtful- that's not my intent.

I didn't at all, and I can't begin to thank you and Starsky enough for your honesty and your help and your time in helping me through this. Like NOP to Starsky/Puppy/Choc (lol), you both are godsends to me. You're helping me keep my head on straight at a time when it sometimes spins out of control. And I am grateful for you.

Because this has already gotten way out of control, length-wise, I'm going to "journal" in a separate entry to try to pull some of my thoughts together.