Help for LBH who has a WW (new thread)

[Zues126]

I hear over and over how hard it is to follow the rules. Yet, aren't the rules describing the very person he was before he got started getting serious about the girl he was dating? At least, that's the way men used to be. If they hit as hard and fast as a LBH'S tries to come on to his W.........any gal would run for the hills, b/c it turns her cold. That is what I want guys to understand. To stop acting like a jilted H who is running after a woman who has dumped him. It is not attractive, and just b/c he is M to her, does not make it attractive.

Thanks for your reply Sandi. Before I share my thoughts let me just remind the board this isn't the end of my journey, this is how I'm feeling today. I feel differently today than I did a year ago, and I hope to feel differently in another year. But to get there I have to feel what I'm feeling.

Frankly- I'm not sure I'm all about R after waywardness. It's so pop culture these days, we all have this narrative, 'oh, after the affair it was tough, but I learned more about what my partner was missing, and we got more honest, and became better partners than ever!' OK. That's great. If an A happens, maybe you have to turn lemons into lemonade.

But there is a spectrum, and an A is only one point, in one area. Towards the beginning of the spectrum you have poor behavior. Maybe you have flirting. Then an EA. Then a PA. Then serial As. Then at some point you have BD.

To me BD was a bigger betrayal than anything. And when you put them all together...EAs, PAs, BD, different houses, and finally D...to me I'm not sure there's coming back from that. At some point, what why would I want to R? There is no more damage that can be done, there is nothing left that can be saved. Why would I want to be with a person that would be willing to do this when I could be on my own, and have a chance of meeting someone that values commitment and M to a level I do?

Part of this is that I've broken free of my codependency, and I've already incurred all the losses that come from D. There's nothing left to lose. For the first 6 months I clung to the hope of R because I didn't want to go through this amount of pain or disillusionment, I didn't want to see my family broken up, and so on. At this point that is all gone, and now that I'm doing ok on my own and have lost everything that could be lost...I just don't see the attraction of going back to the person that chose this.

Because it's BS. People just shouldn't do this. Listen, 90% of the people on this forum have a WAS in a PA. We start acting like it's a normal part of a M, to bottom out, have a BD/PA, whatev. But it's really not.

Sandi, I quoted a paragraph that awakes great anger in me. I have plenty of my own issues to work on, but I would NEVER have done this to someone. My W wasn't attractive to me. She didn't do things that captured my affection. She dressed in sweatpants, gained a bunch of weight, focused on the kids 100%, neglected me including no sex for YEARS at a time, bad mouthed me to her friends and family...but I wouldn't walk away. I just figured we had to work through it and things would work out.

So the concept of trying to win back the respect of someone that walked out on a M, dropped a bomb, had an affair or three...to me, I'm not sure I'm interested. It's not OK, and I don't think I have anything to talk about with someone that thinks it is, much less to share a life. And I strongly resent the idea of trying to be a certain way to appear attractive to them. If I have to live up to their standards of attraction or they'll do this to me...GOOD RIDDANCE!

***Disclaimer- I think you agree, and that what you're saying is that you'd need proof they had DRAMATICALLY changed into a different person that regretted those decisions, a person that had been so impacted and had grown so far they might as well be a stranger to your old partner, but a stranger with kids and history you share. And that you are CAUTIONING LBH's for accepting any less.

***Disclaimer II- I still have some anger towards people that do this, and I admit that there is a part of me that wouldn't want to patch things up with WW because I want to see her punished by not getting her M with me back. This is stupid, but I'm just being honest. I don't know if this is 2% or 20% of my anger, but I am calling it out so I can get it out of my system and pray for God to help me let it go.

Thanks Sandi for all you do. Great thread.