3-years amazing persistence especially sharing the same house!
I really do suffer from the patience thing and am a Mr Fix-it type person, this episode in my life has highlighted that and maybe I did this a lot when we were together In fact I did most things just to please her (typical Mr Nice Guy) and keep the peace. I’m sorry to piggyback Joes thread but I have a few questions…
1. Do you have kids together? 2. Looking at the timeline here it would suggest almost a 4-year period between discovery and reconciliation, if you had not filed do you think she would still be reluctant to work on the MR? 3. Tx did you notice peaks in her/their focus on the A and then falls? 4. Was she more willing to work at the A sometimes and then taper the focus off it or was it just solely focused on her AP/LO? 5. Did you notice a dilution in their interactions as time went by? 6. Do you feel if you weren’t “pleasant around the house” and stonewalled her this would have escalated the RC or do you feel being approachable for her but with your boundaries this method aided you? I’m sorry for so many questions and appreciate if you don’t want to share too much of your experience but any insight for those that are going through this process is of more help than I can mention.
Apologies Joe again for crashing your thread.
Mark.
I'm so sorry, I missed this post. Let me answer.
1. Yes. 2 adult sons and a 15yo daughter.
2. I don't know. All I know is that I had enough of limbo and was done with the whole thing.
3. There were all kinds of peaks and generally erratic behavior. She was in a full on MLC and didn't even resemble the smart, strong, sensible, caring woman I had loved for 26 years.
4. She was fully in affair fog. Telling people she got married too young, had kids too young, never got to live, blah blah blah. Was going to live for herself and do what she wanted, blah blah blah. Flaunted in right in my face as I broke down almost daily and was a blubbering mess.
5. She lost her main AP because his wife kicked him out and he had to flee to another state to live with his mommy. A 40-something year old man having to move in with mommy. What a prize he was. She then started carrying on with people on KIK and Snapchat. I think she met a couple others for casual sex. By then I stopped caring and starting living my life for myself. That meant ceasing doing anything whatsoever for her and I had always done A LOT.
6. What aided me was really detaching from her but also waking up and becoming the best version of me that I could be. My life became really exciting and still is. I do a lot of stuff now. Fun stuff. It didn't hurt my cause that her friends on FB asked my status and wanted to date me if we split up. Make yourself the most attractive version of you that you can be and you'll always have options. Once you have options then a cheating spouse doesn't look so good to you anymore.
No problem with the questions. These things are hard. I only come back her to try as hard as I can to help other people avoid the long life-crushing limbo period I endured. If anyone thinks that sitting by idly and doing nothing will cause a WAS or WS to magically snap out of their fog and realize what a prize their spouse is and want to stay in the marriage, they're very wrong. Maybe that happens at most 1% of the time. You have to be very pro-active and still there are no guarantees but you raise your chances considerably. It's literally your best chance.
