Unfaithful wife

[Walking]

Loss of a parent, drinking and depression have all been factors in my marriage break down. Unfortunately the problem with drinking is that while some of us "wise" women use it to get through the depression - it infact makes the symptoms worse. The bad news about that though is that you can't do anything about it. Your wife has to realise that for herself.

The thing that really struck me about your wife was that she said something along the lines that she perceived you/she were going along and getting nowhere - and your post was like what? we have a beautiful home beautiful children, we've worked hard for what we have and she reckons it's getting nowhere?

I can't explain where that feeling comes from but it was the one I was responding to when I left. It's like one day you wake up and you think to yourself "is this all there is?" Regardless of ALL that you have (and like you I have a beautiful home, a great job, my h has a great job, we enjoy fantastic holidays most years, fab friends, close family etc etc) but something snaps in you (probably as a result of depression) and for some bizarre reason you think that you have better chance of 'getting more' or 'being happier' if you can dump this old bozo you fell for when you were a child and move on ...

I've just spent the weekend with 8 other women and one of them is in a situation v. similar to mine. She and her husband separated 18 months ago after he discovered she'd been having an affair. I asked her why she had the affair and she said she didn't know, just that she didn't feel she was getting enough from her relationship with her husband, that she was doing all the work, they were existing in parralle lives rather than connected ones and she wanted more than that from a marriage. I understood and agreed with that too. Women want different things from relationships and after a while we get sick of trying to explain what they are (all the stuff we dbers have read in His Needs/Her Needs, 5LL etc). Anyway the good news in that relationship is that they recently went to a mutual friends wedding (separately) and got to talking and realised how much they've been missing each other. Now they are seriously discussing the options for reconciling.

Walkingback, was it then your H started seeing the OW that you started thinking about going back, or was it something else? I guess me, and several others here, are looking for a miracle answer. Any more help you can give would be appreciated.

Interestingly I didn't know my husband was seeing someone else until I decided to talk to him about the possibility of me coming home. For about a month he'd been so happy and nice to be around, he was getting a life and not calling me all the time - now I realise it was because he was in the v. romantic period of a new relationship - but then I thought he'd morphed into this fantastic bloke - just like the one I'd fallen in love with.

I called him and arranged to meet. We met, I said my piece and he just shook his head and told me that he was seeing someone else and that I'd left him and he wouldn't put himself through that again.

So there is proof that the psychology of DBing really works. I don't think you necessarily have to get a new lover (although that obviously helped my H to have a frame of mind where he detached/got a life etc) - but his changes, where he just 100% accepted that I'd made my decision and I wasn't coming home, and he loving let me get on with my life (because he was happy and occupied) made me realise that I loved him and missed him and wanted to be with him. For what it's worth ...