Hi New to this board. Still have yet to learn the many many abbreviations. My divorce is only two months away and I feel like I am running out of time. My family and my husband's family is sick of me talking/asking for advise and tell me give up so I hope the helpful and knowledgeable people here can give the advice I seek and moral support to not give in. This is my situation. We met at work and start dating while we worked together. He was in his late 20's, me in my early 30's. We secretly dated for many years due to the fact we could not be in a relationship in our workplace. I get along with his family and extended family quite well and I am the only woman that he's ever "brought home". We started living together shortly after we started dating and had been together for 7 years. After he got a new job and left our workplace, he proposed to me after a year. We had never discussed marriage in earnest and when he proposed it was the sweetest surprise. Married for 8 years and last Christmas I discovered he was secretly meeting a coworker when he told me he was go to a friend's. I confronted him and within 2 days he pack a couple of things and said he needed some time, left to stay at a motel and never came back. When I asked him to come home a week later, he told me he had rented a place. That was 10 months ago. I have been doing the pursuing since which I known wrong, but he has made no attempts to contact me. He has finally started to respond to me text in short sentences within the last month only because I end the text with a question. We've never really fought in our 15 years together and his avoids conflict. I don't know how long the emotional affair was before I found out. He is now openly seeing the OW and displays not guilt or remorse.
You may be on moderation now, post in small frequent replies and stay on this thread until you reach 100 posts (for your thread, you can also post on other peoples threads to give support). Especially on this Newcomers forum, where the posting activity is very active, and your posts can quickly fall to the bottom of the page or even several pages down. Keep journaling and asking questions - people will come! Most important - POST!
Get out and Get a Life (GAL). DETACH.
Believe none of what he or she says and half of what he/she does.
Have NO EXPECTATIONS.
Take care of yourself, breathe, eat, sleep, exercise.
Take the parts of this advice that you need and don't worry if I have repeated something that you have already done.
Here are a few links to threads that will help you immensely:
I am sorry you are here. Infidelity and the following rejection is painful. Plain and simple. Its leaves you feeling powerless.
But heres the thing. You do have power to move forward in your life. You have the power to choose to let him go. You do not have the power to change his actions or his mind.
People come here thinking that divorce busting is a techinque meant to win your spouse back. And thats impossible. Your spouse will choose to come back if he wants to regardless. The techniques preached here are geared at saving yourself.
Detach - let him go. Move forward with your life. Commit it in your your mind, that your marriage is over. Work in ways that benefit you, without thinking about him. Get a lawyer.
GAL- lots of self care. Go out with friends. Travel. Make it about you.
It sounds like you are still young, and it sounds like you have no children. Consider this a gift.
In order to have an affair, 1. He had to have lied. 2. He had to have had very little respect for you. 3. He had to have no empathy for a person he committed to.
His affair, his leaving is not about you. Its about him. He is not a loyal or committed person. He is a liar and a cheater. He is a liar and a cheater. He is a liar and a cheater. You have not lost a prize.
Its better to know this now then when you are older. A gift. Truly.
I'm having trouble following the timeline in your story. Were you together for 16 years total?
I agree with JujuB that DivorceBusting is not about changing your spouse's actions or mind.
It's about understanding the power of your actions to make things better or worse. "Better" is not always going to mean that you don't end up divorced.
If you haven't already, read about the pursuit and distance dynamic to understand why pursuing makes things worse in situations like yours.
I know it seems counterintuitive, but the best hope for your marriage is for you to focus on improving yourself and creating a rich, full life on your own.
Me: 44 H: 44 Kids: 20, 16, 16, and 10 Together/Married: 22 years H announced he was emotionally detached and considering D: 4/4/16 H announced he is going to try to stay and reconnect: 5/1/16
Read, read and more read. I get the impression that you are pursuing. You must stop. He will notice and wonder why. Time to forget the MR for a bit and get introspective. What was it that led to your problems. Honest introspection. Read about 180s here and work on you. Post often and when in doubt bring it here before you react. Your instinct is probably wrong. Many here will help you. GAL
The practices here will seem odd and unnatural. Trust that it is the best way to give your MR a chance as well as prepare you for whatever may happen. Never give up and remove expectations. There is no silver bullet and it takes time and a lot of work. You can do it and will come out better in the end.
M 53 W 54, M since 98 D15, D19 8/2013 discovered EA, W maintained contact with OM until 10/14 7/2/17 W said she wanted S, 7/25/17 moved out of MBR 12/17 W says moving out 5/18, W still in home.
Sorry you are here. I am new here also and there are others who can give you better advice.
my 2 cents .. and painful and blunt as it sounds ... he doesn't want you right now. Pursing him makes you, in their eyes, the villain in their love story. Stories become less interesting when the villain is removed. Stop texting, calling, emailing. Let them get on with it. Without a villain it will soon fizzle into mundaness.
Take the advice from those above - GAL. Meet up with old friends, make new friends, go to the gym, take up a hobby. Anything to take your mind of him. It really is the best thing for you right now.
So sorry you find yourself here Hope. I am also new and while everything that has been said to me makes sense, it is so hard to do. The best defence is a good offence though so DBing seems like the only way to go... and a way to take back some of the power in all this. It hurts like crazy, I know, but it WILL get better. I totally believe that. Keep posting... it helps. There are some wise people on here who will help you. It is also easier to see the situation when you can read it in words. Take good care of yourself. (((HUGS)))
Thank you everyone for the support. I am sadly not young anymore and do not have the ability to connect him with the excuse of the children as we do not have any. I have been keeping busy with seeing friends, going out and doing a lot of travelling, but still cry everyday missing him.
I understand the whole idea of detachment, but I fear because he has made no attempt to contact me without me contacting him first that when the two months are up, I will be divorced. Won't it be even harder to win him back? At least now I hope that he still feels some attachment to me because I am still his wife and he is still having an affair as opposed to a single man 'flying solo'.
Should I not contact him at all? How does that help with DBing? I don't want a divorce.
We all fear D but ultimately it is just a piece of paper. Your old M was already over when he chose someone else. But nothing you do right at this very minute is going to change his mind. He has not had the chance to miss you. Right now you are an annoyance to him.
But time is a great healer. With time, the tempers will subside and he will begin to see past the resentment. He will see you as a person again and not an obstacle he has to overcome in order to be with OW. Once the dust has settled, and there is no you in the picture for them to demonise, then he will begin to see you for you again.
Use the time wisely. This is a journey for you too. It will [censored] but you will come out the other end better for having gone through it. He may come back, he may not. You may want him back, you may not.
Remember D is just a piece of paper. It does not mean that you need to give up hope. That happens when you decide that you are better off without him.
