Hey 25yearsmic,

Love your insight and your quote on forgiveness being our way out of hell.

Yes, I know you are not saying affairs are ok or justifying them in anyway shape or form. I understand that you are just trying to convey to Wsh, what we all are saying, and that is to focus his attention on himself. To get out and GAL and stop focusing all his attention on her.

This is all great advice and is exactly what he needs to do. I personally am very grateful I found this site and was able to use the same advice from everyone's posts to help cope with my own sitch.

Look, if you are here you are hurt. You do not understand what is going on and why your S is doing this to you. IMPO, I have learned early on that the advice given here is NOT to save your M. It is simply to save yourself from your M.

I was not in a good place when my W left. Crying, not eating, not sleeping, having horrible thoughts of suicide. I thought my life was over. I thought my world was crumbling down on top of me and there was nothing I could do about it.

Then, I came here. I started reading and I discovered that almost all of the WAW or WAS's have so much in common and that the LBS's also share so many similarity's in their sitch's that I realized I was not alone. That there have been many before me that were/are in the same sitch as me and the techniques they have discovered here have helped them move past relying on their M's to make them happy. This was my 2x4.

I started using what I learned here, not to save my M, but to save myself. In the past I relied too much on my M for my happiness. That is who I identified as when in social circles. That is all I have known for the past 16 years of my life. I became comfortable with that person and never in a million years thought that would change. So I am grateful that this site has taught me to love myself and become who I want to be as an individual and not someone who is just "her husband". IMO, it has helped me become a much better person/father than I ever was and has also helped me get past my own personal demons.

I also become ok with the fact that my W wants a divorce and I now look forward to the future. I know that I was not perfect in our M, and I will be forever sadden that it didn't work out, but I am stronger now and more confident than I ever was before and that I will be ok. Life goes on. I have my own identity now that I am proud of, thanks to this site and everyone on here.

Since I have seen that a lot of our sitch's are so similar, I reacted to a post that Wsh had said in regards to his experience. He simply put that his W was acting like it was him who cheated on her. This is also the same with me and my current sitch. I still get this on a daily basis. I used to cry when my W would say horrible things like this so I am sure Wsh hurts inside when his W tells him the same things. However, again, the things I learned here has helped me move past that. I just wanted to let him know that this was something common that they do and part of me believes it is to help them move past their guilt of betraying their spouses. The other part agrees with you in that they do this to justify their actions.

However, I am sorry, but I will no longer allow my W to place blame on me for her A. I am not trying to keep score or deflect the blame back on her. I am just simply standing up on my own 2 feet. I most likely never would have if I did not get out and work on myself. I probably would still be sitting here crying over the things she was saying to me.

IMPO, I think this is what Wsh needs to do as well. He can validate her feelings all he wants, understand why she chose to do what she did, but I also think he needs to realize that it is not all his fault. It takes 2 to make a M work and she stopped working on the M long before the A.

I only hope that detaching and GAL helps him as much as it has helped me and so many others on here for that fact.

I also want to thank you personally for all the kind words and insight you have offered me. Being that you are a veteran here I read your posts very carefully and thank you for taking the time to help others where you can.


M: 37 W: 36
T: 16 M: 11
D2: 8,3
PA: 2015
WAW: 2016
W Filed: 2017
2/07/2017 W officially dating OM2