Gordie #18: still not divorced

[AndrewP]

Gordie - those feelings are coming up because they're true.

Let's parse out what you're saying keeping in mind where I'm coming from on my own journey. I tend to be more skeptical of happy endings these days.

w is taking advantage of me.
Yep - and if I remember correctly this was the case for your whole marriage. It was for mine.

She’s taking advantage of my kindness and loyalty and always being there and doing whatever she wants with no consequences
She's got it pretty darned good and she should know this but doesn't show appreciation. She perhaps selfishly thinks it to be her "due" or "just the way things should be".

I guess this is where the forgivnesss comes in and forgiving people who don’t ask for forgiveness.
Nope - Forgiveness is your letting go of things that upset you. It is not a requirement not even for a Christian man like yourself. I'm sure others who know their scripture better than a skeptic like me can dig into this more.

I can choose to be resentful and angry or I can choose to let go and be free, right? ..... but I can only control me
You are the only one you can control. You have every right to be resentful and angry and if you were talking to a friend you would very likely tell them that yourself. Even though it doesn't seem like it, each day that you are there stuck in IHS you are accumulating fresh hurts.

I’ve been on a good run lately and my situation hasn’t changed, so not sure why these feelings are coming up now.
Roller coasters go up and down and you signed up for the big loop-de-loop one. The roller coaster isn't just triggered by events. Our emotions cycle up and down all on their own without outside influences. I've not (essentially) seen my ex for almost 2 years now but earlier this week was driving down the road weeping, triggered by an audio-book I was listening to.

You've been here long enough to have read more than once Sandi2's comment that she's never seen a reconciliation with in-house separation. I think I saw the beginning of one once quite a while ago here but can't remember the thread.

Heaven knows that I am no expert on any of this, much less the lives of people hundreds of miles away that I only know from one side and only through those parts that have been shared.

Let's for a moment imagine that your W is a rebellious teenager. The resemblance may be uncanny Aforesaid teen goes out with their friends, has a few beers and comes home and wanders in the door smoking a joint. What happens? Consequences. What is the hoped for results? Teen pulls up their pants (still can't believe that plumber-butt is still a fashion statement) after a 3 hour lecture and either
A - sits in their room sulking that the world isn't fair and then goes out and does it again
B - gets better at not letting their parents know that they are partying
C - moves out and discovers what the real world is like
D - gets their act together

A few tough words now that may or may not be true in your case so I'll describe my own past. This also is just my own opinion of what happened and may not be the reality of the situation. I'll never know.

My ex said that she was hugely conflicted about whether to leave or not. She said she cried her eyes out all the time. BUT she still picked OM and leaving.

Even after that my ex kept me hanging for nearly a FULL YEAR while not having to invest one iota of effort to keep me hanging. I hung myself from that tree. Even after 2 YEARS she has never actually pushed me away / let me go. After the negotiations for the settlement she said that she wasn't interested in divorce. I was grateful that the lawyers wrote in that she would do the filing (even if there now seem to be inexplicable delays).

During IHS she would rub my face in the fact that she was choosing OM over me and seemed to glory in the fact that we were "fighting over her" (sound familiar?)

IMO - part of what caused things to drag out for me, and for you are the fact that there are no consequences to their actions. In my case, my ex chose to leave and I literally was on my knees begging her to stay. In your case she's got the safety net of you and is trying to rebuild a respectable life while you after popping your own head out into the world decided to head back inside to the perceived comfort and safety you had almost left behind. That doesn't mean she's chosen you as a partner. She's just weighing her options while you are being a good boy sitting in the hallway waiting for her to decide.

To be frank, I do regret not tossing my ex out when she first said that she wanted to leave and especially after I found out that she'd been unfaithful for the better part of a year. It would have saved me a whole lot of pain and made her face the consequences of her choices a whole lot faster. But that's not the sort of men that people like you and I are and we get taken advantage of for it.

I'm sure that like me you've done a lot of reading of other people's stories. I've read a bunch of stories with the genders switched where the dutiful wife overlooks her husbands infidelities and lack of respect and just sits there mouse-like for decades. That was the case for my ex-inlaws in fact. My ex describes how her mother couldn't get out of bed because of the depression of the knowledge of her husband's infidelities. On the surface they had a "happy marriage" for over 60 years. One thing my ex told me though while digging for excuses to leave me was that she didn't want us to be sitting in a nursing home sniping at each other like her parents. Maybe there was some love there. But there was no respect. It was a facade only. Not a marriage between loving equals.

Sorry Gordie. There are no easy answers. There are only tough questions.

All of us here have lots of opinions but the only real answers will come from within your own soul. And remember. It's OK to come up with the "wrong" answers that feel right at the time. Just recognize please when it's time to change course. It may not be now but you're not heading in direction you are wanting to go.