SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

See a dr about chronic depression. Meds for that.
See a therapist who deals in traumas.
Get an outdoor hobby. Running, hiking, biking, woodworking, the list is endless. You do.not.need.your.wife.for.happiness. Make your own.
Talk to an atty about financial stuff.
Find a group of men who are bs. They will give you some suggestions and support.
You have stuck yourself in a rut. Stop doing that. Just climb out. Go about your life with this one thought front and center…IT IS THE ONLY ONE YOU WILL HAVE! Fix it. You have the ability.

Your children probably will be happier once you divorce. My daughter said she could not wait till we divorced. You might be sending the wrong message to them by staying? They are better off seeing a healthy father. They probably already have decided their mother is messed up as mine did. Also, I know a lot about being a victim. If you see yourself as a victim you will always be stuck. I had a drawing on my wall once. It was of sheep in a pasture. They had been trained to walk thru a gate by their keeper. There was not any fencing in the picture and the 1,000 's of sheep would only go thru the gate one or two at a time to exit. They were the only ones holding themselves back.

Friend – I feel a need to preface this by stating I am truly trying to help you.

I absolutely HATE it when posters come here and rant/whine/complain about the terrible situation they are forced to be in. Usually with some reason or excuse about how this is their destiny and there is no other option. Very often it’s "the kids", but you can also see finances, family... all sorts of reasons.
Look – if you decide to remain where you are feeling miserable, with no attempt to change it, well... go ahead and be miserable. Don’t expect changes, and any amount of whining won’t make anything better. But if you want change – if you want improvement – it will only come once YOU take action and make changes.

You insist you need to remain in your marriage, and – IMHO – use your daughter as your excuse.

I challenge that...
I think you will end up like all the others that say they are only there for the kids, until the last kid leaves, and then they find another "good" excuse...

I am 100% certain you can find all sorts of studies indicating it’s best for kids as far as family is concerned to be raised in a conventional father/mother environment, preferably in a neighborhood with like-minded, comparable income and even same race and religion, where the parents show mutual respect and caring to each other and to the children. Second best is probably some combination of the above, with some leeway on diversity where the parents show mutual respect and caring to each other and to the children. Third best is possibly a single-parent/shared custody arrangement where the parents show mutual respect to each other and to the children. Somewhere way below that you will probably find divorced parents who do NOT show mutual respect to each other, and at the bottom possibly a father/mother environment with abuse and no respect.

I am also fairly certain that a mixed-race, same-sex couple of different faiths living in a commune with people of all sorts, creeds, nations and sexuality can create the ideal family-environment for their children, as long as the parents show each other and the children respect and caring.

The common thread through the "best" situations is respect and caring. Much more than diversity or social status.

While checking the above out, you can also search for the impact of family-of-origin on relationship choices. We have a tendency to seek what we know, and to expect what we have seen. Women from abusive families tend to find abusive husbands, alcoholic families tend to find alcoholics...

Your kids... they are modeling their future relationships and expectations on what they see at home...

Chances are its too late for your older kids, but the youngest one – the one you are "protecting" and using as your reason to remain in misery... She’s learning that dad’s aren’t supposed to be happy, marriages are supposed to be confrontational and misery, and that there is no need for her to feel positive towards her future partner...

Think she hasn’t noticed you no longer wear the ring? That you don’t sleep together? Don’t think she’s heard the arguments and quarrels? Don’t think the kids talk together? No rumors? Really think they don’t know what’s going on?

IMHO the best you can do for your kids is to show that when you are kicked down to the ground and trodden on, you recover, stand up and move on.

Not saying you need to divorce. But you have to demand change.
Both from you, from HER and the marriage.

You state in another post that your WW plans to rugsweep and go back to the marriage. You also state her IC encouraged her to lie. You also talk about how negative this is all making you. How you have told her you plan to divorce once the youngest reaches some maturity (unclear on what that is – college? 18? Joins the Army?).

I’m going to encourage you to take a stance...
You have numerous options. Maybe not great or good options, but options to move your from misery to less misery, to less misery and eventually to content and even happiness.

I can make some suggestions:
Like... tell your wife that you are going to divorce once the youngest reaches a certain age, and whatever relationship you two have until then is purely functional. Don’t expect her to have any wifely functions, nor you as husband. This is purely functional to create an environment for your daughter. One of you moves into the guest-bedroom and you reach an agreement about how and whom you can date (if needed). Spend the time until D moves out to clean up finances and to facilitate whenever D is finalized. Then accept that she does whatever she does. Be that date the coach or go out all weekends or whatever. After all – this is only a relationship of convenience.

Like... Tell her that it’s best you two divorce and find the best way to do that while still being the best coparents possible. Use professional help (IC) to guide you, your wife and your kids through this process.

Like... Tell her how all that has happened has completely emotionally emasculated you and left you an angry wreck. How you don’t want to be that way and/or feel that way. That for NOW and probably the next six months you are purely focusing on YOU and your personal recovery. There is no focus whatsoever from you on the marriage. She can do whatever she wants, but what she does will show you DIRECTLY what your options might be when you feel personally stronger. Like... she CAN have her affairs and fool around if that’s what she wants, but in doing so she’s letting you know she doesn’t want you. She could help your recovery with assurance about her fidelity, but it would only be to help you decide your next step six months from now.

These are just ideas. Just something that IMHO sounds a lot better than remaining unhappy by reasons of yourself, alone.

Friend – I realize change is tough, and that nothing I suggest is easy. But there really is nothing easy about infidelity.

Speaking as the child of a serial adulterer. Them living together was extremely uncomfortable for me, and I didn't really feel safe anywhere. Even when they were not actively fighting, I could still feel the tension and went out of my way to avoid them. Every time I wanted to spend time with one, the other would take some kind of offense as though my choice was based on the shortcomings of the one not selected. It was years later, as an adult with a family of my own, that I began to realize just how unhealthy that dynamic is for a child.

They divorced, and while bouncing back and forth between two very different households was not fun, it was far less uncomfortable for me.

My advice for you is to not worry about your children. Kids are resilient. They will adapt. Girls, especially, tend to be more intuitive about stuff like this. I'd wager they know you're not happy, and as teenagers should have enough wherewithal to know you did all you could to provide a typical home life for them. I'd bet they won't hold it against you.

The finances, however, are almost never as bad as you imagine them to be. If you know the ultimate result--namely that you're going to leave--then rip off the bandaid and do it so you can get started on the rest of your life.

You may have addressed this at some point in the past, so forgive me if it's been addressed, but is the POSOM likely to come sniffing around once she's single? While they ultimately shouldn't matter when it comes to you divorcing your WW, it's certainly understandable as A factor. But it shouldn't be the only factor.

Stay strong.

[This message edited by 1994 at 1:48 AM, Thursday, December 19th]

Nine years post Dday and seven divorced. Barely any contact with X since my sons finished high school. We all know the depth of trauma inflicted. I'm mostly "healed". My sons live with me and we have a good relationship. I swallowed my pride, I did my duty as a father. A man owns nothing save his integrity and honor. Only I can compromise my integrity, and no one can take my honor, without my surrendering it. That being said, reckoning days are here. My honor demands it. I will die a mere man of many faults and missteps in life, but I will no longer let myself harbor the burden of dishonor. I can never choose actions that could inflict emotional damage, even close to what was handed to me. My integrity limits my course of engagement. Yet the time is coming. Violate the sanctity of a man's family and you have waged war. Give Pearl Harbor, expect nothing less than Hiroshima. There are worse things than death around here.

[This message edited by 23gone at 8:28 AM, Saturday, December 28th]

23gone, you are scaring me. It sounds like you are plotting to physically harm your WW’s AP. I hope this was only a predawn rant. I am now 29 years since DD of a long term EA. I stopped plotting AP’s Hiroshima after 5 or so years and was never fully committed to the idea, but there were especially low moments when it seemed almost reasonable. I too held onto my honor. I still do. And to be the man of integrity that I aspire to, I admit that I still feel humiliated when I acknowledge to myself that she chose him over me. I don’t like it but until the flux capacitor is a reality, I can’t go back in time and change the trajectory of my life. I can’t change anyone but myself and only I am responsible for my own happiness. Going nuclear on the AP will not cure what ails you, even if it provides a momentary relief. It would come at a terrible cost, and not just to you but to your sons. Hold tight to your honor. Hold even tighter to your duty as a father. The POSOM is not worth your integrity, your reputation, or your freedom. Be well, my friend.

Notsogreat, Honestly, this has nothing to do with her. She was merely a weapon of attack. All men know the rules. Any man who chooses to knowingly violate the sanctity of another man's family, one he knows personally, has waged war. A young man may deserve some leniency, but a man of 40+ years is fully Complicite, and as guilty and loathsome as any criminal that would harm the innocent for their own purpose.
Accountability for betrayal is 100% on the spouse. The malicious disregard of another innocent family are 100% on the scumbag POS. Equivalent to seeing a person trying to light a house on fire full of sleeping people and, for a cheap thrill, give them a barrel of gasoline, a lighter and saying "go ahead do it ,we'll have lots of fun!"
Society has expectations of civility. And, a legal system to supposedly foster such civility. Laws for addressing such crime have been removed in past decades. All men know, without the penalties of societal law, there is only jungle law. Been that way since man has stood upright. You are right, nothing can undo the damage. There is no feeling better. As I said before, All a man owns is his honor. It is what it is. Karma can pick up the scraps. And so, I will vent, for the sake of civility.

There are possibly 2 men whom I carry an ongoing grudge for. None of them for having had sex with my then-fiance. That was all on her.
The more serious incident had major impact on my young family. Took some years to deal with the pile of crap he left me in. I had the daily reminder of seeing his nice house while I waited outside my crappy apartment for my ride to work (we couldn’t afford a car for about a year, thanks to him). After some months I realized that gazing at his house and remaining angry at him was only causing ME issues. He was having champaign, lobster and bacon for breakfast no matter what I was thinking. So I changed the anger to pity, because those that are pitiful and remain pitiful... well... we lose all respect and interest in. All of a sudden I might be looking at his roof thinking "poor guy. Sold his honor and integrity for some bucks".
That guy no longer lives in my brain. He has no impact on my daily life. He taught me a life-lesson about trust that I still use, but that was due to him, not thanks to him. I could meet him on the street and feel nothing for him, including no interest in giving him a second chance. At the same time – I admit that if I were to pass him dying of thirst in the desert, I wouldn’t even bother to spit in his general direction. Don’t know if I have forgiven him, but I just don’t think too much about him or what he’s doing. He’s basically a non-entity.

On my d-day I could possibly have gotten away with at least beating the OM. Seeing as he was in my apartment and I was armed, I could possibly have shot him. I’m even guessing my ex would have covered up with some false rape charge or whatever. Possibly cost me my job, but probably gotten away with manslaughter. Yet I didn’t. Have never regretted the restraint I had.

I wonder what good you could do by hunting down OM Think your kids would find visiting you in jail honorable and/or tell your grandkids that you are a man of integrity? There is IMHO immense honor in taking one on the chin, getting out of a toxic situation and moving on with a good life.

All men know? Call me a wimp, but I don't think infidelity is a crime worthy of capital or corporal punishment.

Did the ap target your W in order to destroy you? That would be war, I agree. If that happened, accept your loss, and rebuild yourself. But also notice that attacking you indirectly is the way of weakness. In fact, his indirect attack did you a favor in some ways by showing you who your W is ... except if that's the case, the best course of action is to stop thinking about them and to start living your life in joy.

More likely, he took advantage of an opportunity to act out his own dysfunction. More likely, if he thought of you at all, it was as some one he wanted to sneak around because of your strengths.

Your case may be different, of course. If you outlined your sitch on SI, the posts are no longer easily available. Even if the om targeted you, though, I don't think this post would be much different.

Your available posts seem to blame WSes (or maybe just WWs) for transferring their love from BS to ap AND you blame your W's ap for a devastating sneak attack on you. Is it one? the other? are both conditions necessary? What do you think really were the causes of your W's A?

I agree with you in some ways. I fully agree that your W's head and heart were messed up - she dodged her issues by cheating - her issues with herself, not issues with you or your M. But that doesn't mean I have any respect for her ap - I don't. Remember: they always A down. Your W A'ed down with ap; ap A'ed down with her.

But how does blaming her help you? How does perseverating in your desire to destroy the ap help you? How does letting the POS live rent free in your head help you?

You posted a year ago about how the A messed up your Christmas. You're posting this year at Christmas time, usually thought of as a time for loving each other, at least in Christian society. It's a time for reflection and joy, but that's not what you say you experience.

Your hate for POSOM is eating you alive, and he probably doesn't care on whit, if he even knows about it.

My belief is that the best revenge is living a good life, and IMO, no one can live a good life holding onto anger the way you say you're doing. Like some other responders, my recos are:

1) find a good IC;
2) tell them you want help giving up your anger and dealing with the feelings that have poisoned you for so long;
3) kick your XW and her ap out of your head.

Sure, an alternative is to attempt to destroy the ap. If you do that physically, you will probably hurt yourself more than you hurt him, since I can't see any pleasure in prison. If you do that financially ... IMO it's easier to make money than to cause someone to lose it.

I detest my W's ap. Like many others, I wouldn't piss on her if she were on fire. But I don't care about her, and I don't think about her except when this sort of thread comes up. I certainly don't care about your W's ap, because he failed as a human being.

I do have some care for you, though. IMO, BSes can live great lives whether they D or R, and I hope you figure out how to do that for yourself.

sisoon post #30:

Your available posts seem to blame WSes (or maybe just WWs) for transferring their love from BS to ap AND you blame your W's ap for a devastating sneak attack on you. Is it one? the other? are both conditions necessary? What do you think really were the causes of your W's A?

Well, one of the things that makes affairs so painful, IMO, is that BOTH of those things can logically be 100% true. Or even THREE or more things. Something like:

1. "I feel subtly disrespected in my place at work and I was always bad at sports and don't know if I can handle myself in a fight, and I feel shame over that. I believe in my heart of hearts that my WW's affair would not have happened if my masculinity were better sorted."

2. "My WW was the one who cheated so her actions are 100% on HER."

3. "My WW's affair would not have happened if it were not for POSOM who used a unique set of circumstances for his own gain."

I suppose it is like a meldown at a nuclear reactor plant, which will occur only if TWO or more components fail (I read once). Well if the nuclear reactor meltdowns, then which of the two components are responsible for the failure? Can't they BOTH be 100% responsible? The meltdown would not have occurred without EITHER of them failing.

And YES I am aware that there are some very brave strong men who have been cheated on, we seem to have a lot of military and law enforcement--men who have taken on physically demanding jobs where one has to handle being in confrontations. But still, the affairs involving these men, aren't the affairs involving every man who comes on here.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 7:02 PM, Monday, December 30th]

Well, yeah, WontBeFooledAgai. I was picking up on shame.

The fact is that a BS needs to resolve shame to heal and move on. That means embracing it, not pretending it doesn't exist or dodging it.

One needs to get the shame-inducing messages out into the open so they can be addressed and replaced with nurturing messages. Holding on for dear life to anger is often done in order to to expressly hide from shame.

If 23gone wants to heal and enjoy the benefits of healing, he needs to address and resolve his shame. Or he can use his anger to keep beating himself up and beating other people up in his head.

There's no shame in feeling shame. There's no shame in staying full of shame. Shame is just very hard to deal with.

But shame can be resolved. We all take on some shame as we live life, but none of us has to live with shame forever.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 11:02 PM, Monday, December 30th]

sisoon post #32:

There's no shame in feeling shame. There's no shame in staying full of shame. Shame is just very hard to deal with.

I chuckled when I read this as it is an interesting turn-of-phrase. But there is truth to it.

I don't think it is everything though.

Most of us learn at an early age that "success" with the opposite gender isn't so random. It certainly does not always seem fair but that does not make it random. I'm going to guess that most of us as young men had that one friend who just seemed to always have the best luck with women. We probably learned that we were better off learning from what our successful friends said and did. And related to that, as we get older we tend to improve on the things we were not naturally good at. If we grew up shy or socially awkward, we learn to make eye contact and to manage our social anxiety better. We learn that we can grow physically stronger through compound movements with heavy weights, say. If we were not good at school, we learn that we can buckle down on our work and do ok for ourselves financially.

And so, related to this, I believe that MOST of us also learn to take responsibility for our relationships, especially when they don't work out. When we have a breakup that we did not initiate, we (most of us) do some soul-searching on how we could have been a better partner, on what we could have done differently. Along the way, we internalize that our "success" in relationships is quite largely, a combination of how we act and who we are.

So when we are cheated on, it sure as hell is difficult to turn off that feeling that it was us. Yes our partner's cheating is 100% about WHAT THEY DID, but very often it sure as hell feels 100% about WHO WE ARE. Especially if, growing up, we always felt like we were picked last. We finally we find that one person who loves us, and then when they cheat on us, it feels like they are seeing us for "who we really are", or at least, who we deep down are afraid we really are. We feel that our cheating partner just saw right through us for who we really are.

It's a mindfuck indeed.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 3:34 PM, Wednesday, January 1st]

There's no shame in feeling shame. There's no shame in staying full of shame. Shame is just very hard to deal with.

I think there is immense wisdom in this. I think it is so important to keep our emotions grounded in reality and the experiences we have that generated them. It was my experience in my youth that when I first had significant anxiety in my life that I lost track of exactly why, and then I started feeling anxious about my anxiety, and that caused a terrible downward spiral into a deep depression. I think I could have dealt with the anxiety if I had properly figured out its source. But the runaway feedback loop was truly devastating.

If you are feeling shame, don’t judge it. Figure out where it is coming from, how much is from reality and how much from lies you believe. Let it perform its function and then move on.

Although you’re technically still married you’re not living as a typical married couple, why not behave as a single man? Be selfish. Go on trips alone or with friends or take just the kids. Do whatever makes you happy. Where you sleep at night should not matter in the end if you fill your days with what matters to you. Quit thinking about her and your marriage. Allow it to be just a piece of paper until when/if you want to legally and physically leave or reinvest in the marriage. In other words, make her irrelevant to your daily life and overall happiness.