True-- it doesn't have to be over until it's entirely over... and even then.
As my previous thread showed, I didn't entirely "get" the DB process, because I wasn't yet ready to take the most drastic steps necessary to respond to an utterly-addicted WW. Now that I am ready to pull the trigger, as it were, I realize that I would've understood more clearly if I had likened DB to what in high school we called the "Relationship Vortex." Couples would get together, and then break up... but after the breakup, the longer they continued to be in contact with each other, the more likely it was they would get sucked right back in to a new R. DB is essentially the same principle; once you step away from all the awful stuff, eliminate your dependencies, and become happy again, then you and the R become viable choices again. But the original R has to END first. That, for me, is/was the missing piece. I wasn't ready (or willing) to actually, truly, finally let go.
And now I am.
The thing is, I don't believe I will want her back. Throughout our marriage, I knew that she had her issues, and I knew also that if our R ever went south that those issues would be viciously turned on me-- and they were (boy were they ever). But I thought of myself as kind of a hero who would help her through these problems, and be a rock of stability whom she could depend on. And, until the A, I essentially was, and she very much appreciated it. In fact, she honestly believed that I would be completely unaffected by her A-- both because (due to her low self-esteem) she thought I didn't really love her so deeply as to care so much and, more importantly, because she had never seen me be strongly affected by... well, by anything. She thought I was so in control of my emotions that I was impervious to damage or crisis. But I wasn't, and she saw me fall apart, and she has herself returned to many of the habits and problems that she's had all along.
Which is why I'm willing, now, to let it go. Not because I'm glad to get away from these problems of hers, but because those problems will now be compounded with the permanent "scarring" of the affair addiction on her psyche and in her heart. I can't say that I wouldn't be willing to do the work to keep it together, but the majority of the work would be on her-- and without her showing either a twinge of remorse or a hint of the slightest interest in introspection and learning, it seems beyond unlikely that she would, of her own volition, make the attempt. And I can't (and won't) persuade her to try.
So I'm going to get the D filed, and make it happen. While going through the process, I'm simply going to smile and say "this is what happened, and this is where we are, so let's just get it done and over with."
