Burned is still here. This is thread 6.

[burned]

I had a feeling you'd say that. I'm frustrated that I can't seem to feel better UNTIL I dissect it all. Still trying to get better at stepping back from it all.

OK maybe this is what I'm hearing: accept it as what it is, something nice. No expectations. But still act accordingly, i.e., don't respond. I think those two can coexist.

[sandi2]

I'm frustrated that I can't seem to feel better UNTIL I dissect it all. Still trying to get better at stepping back from it all.

You have a lot of company, b/c other LBH's go their share of dissecting. The thing I've noticed about LBH's is their struggle to keep it simple.....or as I like to call it, balanced. Now, I could probably come up with something that could cause you to worry a little bit over her text, b/c I am suspicious of everything a WW's does. But honestly, I don't see anything more than her responding nicely to a nicely written text by you. I see no game playing on either side.
Go have a great weekend and don't give it anymore thought.

((hugs))



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[burned]

Thanks. Not sure why I’m having a really rough day today. I know the detachment is for me but at the same time it hurts, a lot. The tunnel is just getting darker and darker and I don’t see a light. Regrets, victim mentality, etc.

[Davide]

Hang in there, but find something fun to do. Grab a drink with a friend, watch a movie, watch a football game. You gotta take your mind off your sitch by any means necessary. Don't overthink it, just do something.

[GFT00]

I hope your sleep has got better. It hurts so much when you can't fall asleep when WAW is out and the nights that you're out, you come home and she's dead asleep. Makes you question everything but I guess they say DB is for you not for her!! Keep it up man!!!!

[burned]

Gonna take some heat for asking this, probably (burned, stop focusing on her!)... but for the sake of education and maybe just to help me maintain some balance. Wondering if anyone can provide info or resources related to, How/why do most As end, which ones don’t, how long it takes, etc. Only because in my darker moments I see two people, both of whom were in and they no longer wanted, both of whom cheated, both of whom have to live with the outcome of all that. They both start at the bottom, from the same place, the two of them versus the world, never looking back. Right? Because if I’m all angry at OM for being the kind of lowlife who would cheat on his W with a married woman...that also means that my W is a lowlife who would cheat on her H with a married man. They’re made for each other.
So they say that most As end because they’re built on lies and so forth. But what if in this case it really was the start of something special, something better?
Someday I hope to have enough self-esteem that the answers to these kinds of questions won’t affect me quite so much. In the meantime I’m looking for reasons to keep hope.
It’s times like these when I wish so very badly that I could just meet someone to distract me. GAL, I know. Soon as I’m done moving.
Chin up, burned.

[burned]

Not sure who’s around on a Sunday afternoon but I’m lounging on a chair out on the lawn at my parents’ place, enjoying a beer and some Indian summer weather.

OK, fine, it’s not GAL because I’m doing some thinking about the sitch.

It’s the money thing. I could write pages of details (and I did, on paper, in my notebook). But I think I managed to boil it down to this: what if “the right thing to do” is indistinguishable from “appeasing WW”?

No matter what I do, she doesn’t have to worry about money. Either I keep paying, or she files for D and gets plenty o’ bucks. To make her contribute from her $500/month stipend and/or the $7k she “hid” from me (long story but I can explain if needed), seems sort of punitive or at least controlling.

So yeah: I value generosity, kindness, and keeping one’s word. Those are things that matter to me. Whether the recipient is deserving or not isn’t as important to me. Whether the recipient ****ed me over or not, and maybe continues to do so, isn’t as important.

So what’s more important: demonstrating that I deserve respect by taking a hard stance? Or demonstrating to myself that I try to always do what is right, not to appease her but because it’s what I think is the right thing to do?

I mean, some day down the road, if she decides to circle back around, wouldn’t I want to be the person who stood by his values despite the selfish ways in which she took advantage of me? Or is that too NGS?

It’s Sandi’s rules vs. the Lighthouse, I think.

Maybe I need another 2x4 to get back on the Tough Love Train.

[burned]

Here’s another question I just thought of.

Our WWs don’t know about DB. So they do their temp checks but maybe they don’t see it that way. Or maybe they do, maybe it’s more intentional than we like to think.

Anyway: do they realize that by temp checking, by keeping US hanging on, they’re essentially showing their cards?

Right? Because if they were 100% done they’d just go entirely NC and vanish. So the temp check is proof that there’s still something they want or need from us. Meaning THEY haven’t let go entirely.

So in one sense, DB is a bit like ju jitsu or something. They don’t know what we know. We get to use that discrepancy in knowledge to our advantage. And they don’t know that we have a framework for making sense of their actions, thinking they could pull the wool over our eyes.

No idea what I’m talking about but maybe there’s a nugget of wisdom in there somewhere.

[burned]

Or here’s another one: she doesn’t know that I think/know she’s still with OM. So in that case, she thinks I believed her lies and that we’re just parting on essentially amicable terms, forget about the past, yup, it just didn’t work out, best wishes, we tried our best.

But. I know better. And it helps with detachment, to think that the fundamental issue isn’t the A. It’s the fact that she thought she could just replace me. And get away with it.

So she’ll have to spend the rest of her life lying. And I’m glad I won’t have to be there when she tries to introduce him to her family. Last time I saw her mother her mother hugged me and said, “I love you, you’re family, no matter what.”

And I deleted the rest of this post because it was getting bitter.

[DavidUK]

Last time I saw her mother her mother hugged me and said, “I love you, you’re family, no matter what.”

My MIL said the same whilst lying helping W hide money and lie about having bought a house together. They will back their daughter and say the same to the next guy.