25yearsMLC - 10 years later I FILE D

[25yearsmlc]

25, do not waste your time on the Affair. To me, an affair is unacceptable. I will never condone it. And there is no excuses that will make it ok.


Exquisite I'm not bogged down in the affair. I'm not asking at all why he is with OW.

There is so much more history in our long m that it's not "the reason' We are apart anyhow. She may have been an exiting factor but there are rifts within h and apparently in our m, that were starting to crack before OW came along.

Last January unbeknownst to me H had again started making plans for Alaska, 2.0 and didn't tell me until late April. He repeated the pleas to get me to join him again, just as he had before.

Insistent angry pleas at times...it was not Alaska that made me nuts, it was the manipulating behind my back and not disclosing to me, while I was job hunting in places to make h happy (low taxes, outdoorsy places, low cost of living and politically like h, and near a hospital but where I could get my law license ETC ETC like algebra!)

Knowing he watched me go thru ^^ this process while hiding $hit from me, yet expecting me to join him almost by force of circumstance like a fait accompli

THAT^^^ ate away at my soul

So while the flaunting of the A hurts to know, it's so crazy and so fast that I don't give it as much headspace as I might have otherwise, and I don't consider it "the reason" we are divorcing.

I guess I don't have a lot of hard fast "never acceptable" rules - unless you mean that no matter what the circumstance, you'd file for divorce in the event your rule was broken.

I filed for divorce b/c I was put in an impossible situation and no one factor determined this,

though emotionally speaking, it was his failure to have my back when I was really sick last fall, that clarified things for me.

It was when i awoke in the hospital with a lot of fears and saw friends and family (but no doctor h there), that I knew in my heart I could not age with him, or stay married to him. If I had to choose one thing, that is what clinched it for me.



You work on the marriage or you end the it, then you do whatever you want.

but most people don't do this^^^. It's too hard.


If he was unhappy with things concerning you or your marriage, he could have talked to you about it. Another woman could not fix his marriage problem. If he wanted out of the marriage, all he had to do was walk out. You did not hold him hostage.


Exquisite ^^^ this was a 35 year marriage. Now you may not believe me but I don't think it's as cut and dried as you say. I filed for divorce, and h was surprised. I did not know of OW when I filed, btw.

Though I think he practically dared me to file, it's not what keeps me obsessing. I do not regret filing for D. I don't care much about the OW,

I simply mourn the loss of the m we once had long ago, and what I had hoped to have in our future, a future that would make the unrelenting sacrifices "all worth it"

I mourn the effects this is having and will have on our children, and their children and the generational fallout...

For now, usually, I am more focussed on my own part in this, in order to learn from it and to heal from it and to forgive myself and maybe someday to forgive h. Or at least let go of the self inflicted painful parts of this...

At this point I'm embracing what life has forced upon (or given) me,

b/c the alternative is despair, and I do not choose that.

Usually, not always but more often than not, the OW is a blip on my radar.


You trusted him and he betrayed that trust. Don' t ever forget that.


I appreciate the thought, but for me, I cannot live at peace thinking like that^^. I can't walk around "never forgetting" that.

He's the father of my children and though he has significant flaws, he has good traits too. Things I'll miss, including our history and our sense of humor and several areas in which we were very well suited.

But he mistreated me and he isn't trustworthy. I also believe he may be emotionally damaged and at least too much for this marriage to work out

That's ^^ usually enough for me to know. I think I will be a better partner b/c I will be more sure of myself and not have the nagging doubts I've had the past several years, off and on, and b/c I will dig when I'm not confident of what is going on. The way we did our first half, actually.

(I won't assume that silence or vague answers from my h means he's secretly planning a surprise anniversary party for me!!)

In my head I believe , (and my heart will catch up in time), I think that i'll have more authentic happiness and love in my life without h, than with. Definitely fewer let downs.

this^^ is what gives me the most reality based comfort.




It was NOT because of you. It was because of his own foggy history and the justifications he needed to create and believe.

Understood.

H complained to others about things he never told me. This is called "Collusion" where you do more than vent to a friend, - which we all do-- but in which you continue to harp about something (this could be your boss or a co-worker) but you never tell the right target. Either you are merely a complainer who likes to whine, or you are trying to get buy-in from this audience member, for you to do something later...like leave...and yet act as if you had good reason.

H had complaints that were divorce worthy, Not big things and things that were fixable without me, (like saying I could do more housework...I mean, really? We have 3 kids, a huge house and acreage, so hire a housecleaner if need be, it's not like we couldn't afford it)

But what matters is that I cannot recall a single time H complained of a messy house
to me.

But it apparently bugged him, or so he told himself & others, to justify whatever he was doing or planning. I guess I'm glad it wasn't a worse complaint...

Also some of his revisions are actually bold faced lies, but I think that h believes them. (This possibility - lies/vs convinced self of- , obsessed me for weeks).

My L said she thinks he believes what he says, b/c when she showed our tax returns to the court, H stared at the numbers as if he'd never seen them before...and h's L was shocked too. H's L denies knowing of other income...so, who knows??

It makes no substantive difference to me if he's lying and knows it, or lies and believes it. If it results in lousy behavior towards me, I no longer care what causes it.

I just can't spend more time in H's head though, you know?

I think I am locking myself out of h's head and locking him out of mine, b/c he's been taking up a lot of rental space in my head that I'm paying for.




Reflection for you: ( yes, I have ask myself this question ): What do you think his reactions would have been if the tables were turned? Would he have accepted your behavior?

gosh, which behavior? I failed at things. I lost a job, I became addicted to painkillers & went thru rehab while pregnant.

I held grudges and resentments, and until I DB in 2007, I kept score...

So after spending a year of my life here, a decade ago, asking unanswerable questions about "why? WHY???" and being so hurt and so angry at h, I GAL and learned to detach, and it lead us back to another 10 years. I have mixed feelings about that, but don't want to waste too much time ruminating there.

H wasn't perfect, but I was not either. This is not all on him.


^^^ hard to answer right? why? because you would NOT put yourself in this situation and you could NOT betray your spouse and tear the family apart.

I rest my case..

Um, "rebuttal"

I almost had an affair 9 years into the marriage. I stopped myself, barely, but only after tremendous self reflection. IF I had that kind of temptation at other harder times in my m, I like to think I'd say no...

Although I do think A's are always wrong, I do not think they are all alike.

Remember, I don't see my m ending b/c of OW. So much more to it. Not all of which I'll likely ever know or understand. Not all of it must be fully comprehended as long as we accept what we must.

For me, the OW on FB was more like icing on the $hit cake.