[Steve_]

She has been working a lot more and gave up on the extra curricular stuff for extra cash which I applauded her for and supported her working more at her actual job.

Steve I am a very curious guy. Can you give more details?

Yeah, she was dabbling into doing some things under the table with some bad people for quick cash. I accepted I could not control her actions but had to voice my opinon, seems that it worked and she cut ties with the folks she was working for. (I cannot go into detail, but it was essentially moving products for people that were not licensed to be distributing it). For cash under the table type of deal, nothing felonious but still wrong.

I do not have regret, and I am so thankful to god and to many of you for that. I felt like I really did a good job hanging in there for a long enough time, really giving it my best shot before taking a knee and I knew I needed to do that before moving forward. Especially so if the ex decides to try some attempt to recon later, I can feel good about the 1,000 chances shes blown and keep moving forward knowing she had her shot and no looking back on coulda, woulda, shoulda.

huh?

What I meant by that was that I have no regrets looking back on how long I stood for my M alone because I can move forward never having to wonder well if i did X, Y or Z or I didnt try A,B and C, damn.. maybe I should have gave it longer, maybe I should have blah blah etc.. No I dont have that. I exhausted every possible means to salvage this M to the detriment of my own self-respect for a very long time. Even my children are at the point they just want to see daddy happy and they know mom is not nice to their dad. Thats when I really truly felt it was time to move on, when my kids were asking me if I was gonna live alone forever or find a better person, that kinda hit me. I told them "I dont know what god's plan for me is but maybe one day"

Again im sure there is several layers of nonsense there but face-value seemed nice.

So we see this a lot with KitKat. You guys open the door for friendship. Your ex's respond and act in a friendly manner. Then you guys think there is an motive but they are really ok just being friends.

Yeah I do hope that is the case LH, I dont mind the friendship deal, but I will kind of keep that at a distance as well, because she is such a manipulator she cannot act responsibly with her emotions around me. "As friends" she still wants to flirt, touch me and send me kissy emojis and other inappropriate things that I don't respond to. This has been some big game to her, and only since a few weeks back when I completed the D has she began to accept that this isnt funny and its reality.

If the ex asks for any kind of favors or unnecessary interaction i will respond with "maybe, let me see" and then post it here. I do feel like I was definitely taken advantage of on the painting and house work and I didnt like the way that felt, but I did it anyhow, for future things I will come here before giving her an answer.

I am confused? Thought you were good being friends?

I am okay just being friends, but she still reaches out in either a disrespectful way or a manipulative way, she still believes that the lies she tells work. So I have to keep her at a distance and really cut out any sort of activity with her unless it is absolutely necessary and she can act mature and responsibly. My goal is to be close friends again some day, the affair and all the breakdown of the M was saddening because we really were BFFS before all this went down. And that is one of the harder parts.