Wow it has been 4 years now!

[AnotherStander]

Now that Job has combined my old threads I see I missed some responses going back to 2015, oops!! Thank you so much for the replies and my apologies for taking so long to respond!

Because the dot button does not work for me even after one second, I just read what I wrote. I said I'd die laughing then say over my dead body. I take that back. I would not die because then I'd have to take him back over my dead body.

Hahaha! Well I'm not sure my reaction to XW would be THAT extreme, but maybe it would

Your woman sounds pretty serious about you. But if the thought of your ex showing interest would make your life turn upside down, you might not be as serious???

Well it's been almost 2 years since you posted that, I'm still dating the same young lady. The thing is, I just cannot seem to fully invest my heart into her. Unfortunately she has the same problem, probably because of a previous R she was in that was physically and emotionally abusive. So we kind of hold each other at arm's length. We get along fine and enjoy doing stuff together, but I don't think it'll ever progress beyond that. We've talked about it at length and she knows M isn't in the future, and she says she's OK with it. I've made it clear to her that if more kids (she has a D) and M is something she wants then she needs to pursue that with someone else, but she says it's not that important to her. Still, I do feel like I'm interfering with her future in that regard, it weighs on me a lot.

But a woman's reproductive years are precious, not to be wasted if she thinks she may have an interest in settling down. Don't let her think she can change your mind if she can't.

I do apologize if I am assuming too much here.

Not at all, I appreciate the feedback! And I completely agree with you. I've thought about breaking up with her just to "release" her to pursue that, even though she says it's not important to her I still wonder if maybe she just says that to stay together, and is secretly hoping I'll change my mind.

I assume that your X recovered from that horrible disease just fine. I agree with Cadet, considering all that happened in the last three years, you just don’t know if the crisis is over.

She survived the breast cancer, but she has been plagued with other health issues since then. As a result of the treatments she ended up with lymphedema, and has to wear a sleeve at all times, even while sleeping to prevent swelling. She also has rheumatoid arthritis now which has caused difficulties walking and such. That said, she is doing well and seems content and happy. She camps out quite a bit with a female friend and gets the kids to go with her sometimes. Our middle daughter mentioned that XW still cries a lot, I assume about her health issues and not about me! I used to ask D about XW more but D got mad because she thought I was prying so I quit asking. I don't know much anymore beyond what XW tells me herself.

One thing I wanted to ask you, if I may… Your much younger GF… does she have kids? Will she want kids in the future, if she is serious about the R? What do you think about this? If you don’t want to answer, I’m ok with that. It is just a thought that came across when I was reading your update.

She has a D, she will be 10 this year. We've had several serious R talks over the years. She would like another kid, and M. I've made it clear that I do not. I also told her that if she wanted to pursue that, that I completely understand and would let her go in peace. She insists those things are not -that- important to her and she wants to stay together. But as I mentioned above, it weighs on me because I feel like maybe I'm interfering with her future plans even though she says I'm not.

AnotherStander,

I'm not sure if you will ever see this post, but just wanted to say I read your old threads and learned a lot. Our situations have a lot of similarities so appreciate what you had to share.

Well it took me 6 months but I did see it Thank you for your kind words!

*M died slowly of neglect (no big issues)
*W still in love, still wants sex, but can't stay M
*180s were to be more attentive to W
*At the beginning you thought there was no OM, but at the end, you learned there was; if you had known earlier, would it have changed anything?

Yeah does that ever sound familiar! I still don't know when OM came into play, they were friends towards the end of the M and it did turn physical at some point, I think it was after we separated but before D. The M was done at that point anyway. It wouldn't have changed anything I did had it gone physical earlier. I still would have fought to get her back (even when fighting means giving time and space). I missed my old life so badly! But the old gave way to something new and different. I remade myself. I found a "new normal". And DB'ing and DB'ers helped me a lot. At first I did it to save my M. Then I did it to save me. And it did! I still do love XW, but not in any romantic way. I can identify with ILYBINILWY now, I get what it means.