two steps forward, three steps back (burned)

[burned]

Thanks Ginger. I am REALLY struggling with this, especially because of your comments. They cut right to the core because they are just so accurate, and it's NOT the kind of person I want to be. I'm ashamed of myself. I hurt to think that I caused her so much pain. Is that empathy? When I post here, I always talk about how awful it is TO ME that she is leaving and that I don't get to "have her" anymore. But there are so many more layers to it than that. So many regrets, so many realizations. I'm nowhere near where I should be in terms of growth and personality and character. But I swear I'm already SO much better than I was a year ago, to the point that if only she gave me that one last chance she'd be quite impressed. (But she said she had no chances left to give.)

I'm reading these infidelity blogs and I keep coming up with the same realizations: 1. being angry doesn't make it better. 2. the affair may have been the only way she was able to "escape." But it still hurt. 3. the relationship was dysfunctional anyway, and even if it weren't for the affair, she probably would have left me anyway, and that's what hurts the most, the leaving (along with the pain I caused her, for so many years). 4. they talk about red flags, deceit, narcissism, all those things that "cheaters" do, but I did all of those things, too. Sometimes it seems strange that I'm not the one who cheated. But I was unfaithful in different ways. Were we just not right for each other?

And this urge I have to tell her these things, to show her the changes, to beg her to take one more look...all of that is just me trying to control how she feels so that I will feel better. I'm starting to get it.

[burned]

I lived a life like that.

It's just so confusing to me because in your case he was like me but HE cheated and left, right? And married AP? So everything I'm reading, all of the introspection, it's all blurred together. Like, I'm the abuser, for the most part, if you can call it that. But I didn't do "The One Worst Thing." I'm the one who is sitting here figuring it out and trying to make it better. But it's already too late for her.

Were there ever times when you though to yourself, "You know, if he hadn't cheated and left, if he had shown that he was making changes to those character traits, I would have been willing to forgive him and focus on the good things?"

I know you said to not think about her, and I'm getting there. But I am curious.

[burned]

There are moments when I wonder if maybe she really is just single, that OM really is out of the picture. But she's calmly and resolutely selling the house and she accepted my lowball settlement offer with no hesitation. So I tell myself, people here say 9 months is a short amount of time. So she might sell the house anyway but maybe she'll someday think about me and wonder how I'm doing. I know this is stuff people here have said over and over and over. But think I'm starting to FEEL it.

So in the meantime I will work on me. There's a LOT of work to do. The focus is on me now. But also, enough of that WW tough love stuff. From now on when she contacts, I'm immediately responsive and super cheerful. This will be easy and pleasant for her, because I'm not the person trying to make her see all of the reasons why she's making a mistake. She wants the D, I will give it to her, because it's not my job to force her to do something that makes her look bad in her own eyes, thereby making me feel better. That's old Burned crap.

This is a fairly major shift. Switching into more of a WAW strategy rather than WW. Or should I stay the course I'm already on?

[Ginger1]

Let's just say everyone was shocked it was him who left and not me.

I am fiercely loyal. I prayed everyday he would become the man I needed him to be. He left me when our daughter (mind you, our IVF, premature daughter) turned 6 months old. Began his cheating in my pregnancy (which I didn't know about until after we were divorced). When things weren't exactly how he envisioned them to be, and I wasn't putting him on a pedestal anymore, he peaced out. Now, I was committed, even as awful as he treated me because I married him and had a kid with him. But I imagine one day if he hadn't done the leaving and he never changed, and our R was detrimental to our daughter, I would have been the one to leave. Maybe not to cheat, but to leave. And I am very pro marriage, but I am more pro health of my child. And without change on his part, it would have been very unhealthy for her.

I
l'll be bluntly honest, I wish I left before we had a child. Put aside all that "well, if that would have happened, you wouldn't have had her". Well, I truly wish my daughter was someone else's child. It sounds awful, but it's true.

At the time, I would have been over the moon to see a change. To have him treat me like a human and his wife. I imagine, however, there would have been a point where the change was too late. I would have detached myself so hard as to protect myself. I was already in the process.

Needless to say, 11 years later, my ex has not changed. He is just as awful to his new wife, but she has no self esteem, so she deals. They have no kids together. She never had a kid of her own. He treats my daughter as he treated me unfortunately. Not as bad, but a lot is the same. So I am grateful she isn't around it 24/7 and she gets to see her mom treat herself with respect.

The cheating was bad. No doubt. But that was a symptom of a bigger problem. It is bad thing to do, but I believe there are other ways to betray your vows that are almost as awful. And this is coming from a woman who was cheated on in the worst way.

Whether or not it is too late in your current marriage, you could only benefit from making positive changes.

[Yail]

But she's calmly and resolutely selling the house and she accepted my lowball settlement offer with no hesitation. So I tell myself, people here say 9 months is a short amount of time. So she might sell the house anyway but maybe she'll someday think about me and wonder how I'm doing.

A) I have no doubt she will in the future think about you and wonder. She probably is now as well. But that doesn't mean she's willing to change anything right now. But you were her husband - that's significant. There's no way she will move on in her life and from this point forward never think of you. You shared something important.

B) I do think that the WAS does fully need to feel the absence of pressure. Selling the house and getting a divorce to us feels like really assertive decisions that show the S does not care about us. But I think a lot of the time it's just that they need to feel the freedom of no attachments so they can breathe and think clearly again.

When I was depressed in college I felt like everything in my life was smothering me/pressure. Once I was able to find room to breathe without the pushes and prods from academics/roommates/family I started feeling so much better and stronger. I could tackle my life at that point and be proactive. Before that I couldn't get out of my own way. But my depession was situational - not anything deep or chronic. So this may not apply.

[AnotherStander]

And do you know what Me is? I’m petty, vindictive, passive-aggressive, impatient, selfish, and generally callous. I hide my hateful tendencies under a thin veneer of charm, wit, niceness. I’m arrogant and entitled and prideful. I resent when things don’t work the way I want them to, because I think I’m special and don’t have to put in the work. I blame others for my lack of satisfaction in life. I’m not the good person I’ve duped people into thinking I am. I’m a victim and a fraud. I ask for advice and then I ridicule it, because “I know better.”

-cough- Why are you looking at me like that? I need to copy that someplace and paste it in whenever someone asks what NGS is because that is one of the most concise descriptions I've seen of it!

[burned]

Well I’m gonna cut that crap out. I have been, bit by bit.

But yeah. No kids, divorced, possible committed relationship with OM. How do you know your ex has cured his NGS, without ESP?

Anyway it’s for me. The regrets will subside eventually. The next lady will get a better version of me. These are the things I will keep telling myself.

[MoveFrwd]

I'm immediately responsive and super cheerful. This will be easy and pleasant for her, because I'm not the person trying to make her see all of the reasons why she's making a mistake.

Surely you must see how this sentence is still focused on her. It isn’t that you will be responsive because that’s the person you are....it’s that you’ll be responsive because that’s pleasant for her. Like you are still trying to cater to her?

How about “I will respond when it is convenient for me. Sometimes that will be immediately, sometimes an hour later, and sometimes a day or two later depending on my mood, the content, and the urgency.”

Stop trying to do ANYTHING for her life. Don’t try to make things easy. Or try to make things hard. Just do what you feel is the right thing. With no expectations.


And for the love of god. Stop worrying about whether she will see whether you’ve cured NGS until you’ve CURED NGS. I mean....real talk...who cares if she can see your changes at this point. You aren’t done. If you’re that worried about it - have you really actually changed...? Consider her a distant business partner that lives in China. LIVE YOUR FREAKIN LIFE.

[TJT]

Hey burned. Sorry for my absence, I was on vacation but just caught up on your thread.

On the D papers, first of all it sounds like you all just agreed to get the papers filled out and yes you did that work but I don't see where you told her you "wanted" the D and would take it through to filing. Maybe I missed that part if you did indeed say those things, but if none of that was said, then I don't see any reason why it doesn't make sense to let it be right now and if she asks, just let her know that you will work with her on whatever her decision is to move it forward.

I will agree with some of your confusion in certain areas. I wont hijack your thread too much here, but one of the things I really struggle with is the sheer legal ramification of staying married when your spouse is confirmed to be with an OP and doing who knows what. I know some states are different but it is very, very hard to reconcile what I know would be the best decision for me financially and protecting my future with what everyone here says to do for the sake of DBing (don't file unless you want to be divorced). Then other people here have said in my sitch that it's just a piece of paper and means nothing about the relationship, which I tend to agree with but clearly there is conversation here on your thread that leans toward initiating D being a bad idea if you don't actually want D.

Anyway... aside from that part, I think others have already said what I would have responded with to your previous posts (and Yail has had a few amazing gems in here that I need to copy down!) The only thing I would add is to maybe go back and read your own trails of thought in these threads. You should be able to see how you fluctuate SO hard in changing your responses/behaviors based on your W, one minute wanting to work on things and the next being mad that it didn't go the way you wanted. Someone else mentioned that you haven't really given it enough time and as much as I hate to hear that, too, I definitely believe it's true that it is still possible to happen in time.

That being said, I also see that you are having trouble with forgiving yourself and moving on from the things you did wrong in the past. And you had a great point when you said that maybe a big part of your W wanting a D was less about OM (if there is one, which again you seem to be unsure about/don't have proof of) and more about her just not being happy. That's definitely a valid scenario as much as that stings (and one I've entertained in my own sitch...although at this point I think our sitches are quite different).

Ultimately, I truly empathize with the fact that you feel in your heart you could be the man that your W wants and how bad it kicks rocks that W won't be around to see it. I mean, I feel that way about a lot of things that I don't think have any merit to causing my H to do what he's doing, but that I just want him to be able to see my growth as a person, because I love him and he's been my best friend and nobody else at this point is going to see that point A to point B growth but him. No matter how you slice it, that's just another form of LOSS. You have to mourn not just the past but also the future - and get to a point where you are able to make room for a new future which will be uncertain but could very well be better than anything in the past.

And if I'm honest, right now, I think you may be overestimating how much you have already changed. I am 1000% confident that you have learned things from this experience and are actively working on some things, but from your W's point of view, she's likely been so hurt that it's going to take very clear, consistent change for her to even entertain getting back together with you again (and even then it may be too late). I feel if your W came back to you tomorrow wanting to work on things, you would no doubt be putting in a ton of effort but probably would not be changed to the extent that she needs you to be, and it would be very easy for you to fall back into old behaviors and therefore constantly have to reassure her that you will "be different" and continue working on it, which isn't gonna cut it and if anything would sabotage your chances even more with her long-term (I think someone else mentioned this, about being ready to recon).

This is also why you need to realize that you need to do this for YOU, because you are losing more and more time every time you hold yourself back because of how she's reacting. She's given you what you need to know; learn from that and be thankful that she didn't just keep up the status quo where you may have never had to face these issues, because the same thing will apply with any future relationship. You will NOT be able to expect that you are a changed person and will be be a better H just because this happened to you and you now see it.

Also, one last thing that stuck out in your thread that others addressed but I will reiterate - you need to stop the whole "if she knew I was this way, she should have known/understood when I didn't take her seriously." All you need to do any time you want to say something like that is turn it back on yourself. This isn't about whether you see things black and white, whether you are a good listener or not, etc. This is about your interest and attention to your W, and anyone who truly "adored" their W like you said you do doesn't NEED to see things the exact same way as the other... all you need is an actual interest and care for what your W may be feeling and thinking, not just yourself.

Now, if you reflect on that and find that you actually simply aren't interested in your W as a person, and you are just rewriting history as if you liked her and were happier than you really were, that's a different story. But that's where you need to evaluate and differentiate between things that your character flaws and things that just weren't right for you in the M.

Either way, even if it wasn't a factor with M specifically, you are spot on about all those things you called out that you need to really dig into to pinpoint all the drivers behind why you behave in certain ways. I respect you immensely, for admitting to those things (and yeah, it's fairly easy to do on the internet to a bunch of strangers, but the fact that you are openly stating them shows healthy progress for you).

Now work on being uber vigilant and mindful about recognizing when you are behaving in a way that's driven by one of those things. I know you said before you don't want to be having to "think" about everything you do in life all the time, but honestly you may have to do that for a while if you've got bad habits and thinking patterns that you really want to change. And there are likely other people in your life that will benefit from you working on those things, too...

[burned]

You guys. Thanks for keeping me in line. When today is over I’ll delve into some of those deeper issues. But for the moment I need to address something else.

This morning I’m going to the house to get most of the rest of my stuff. W has been bugging me to do this for a month, and I’ve been taking my time. I don’t work on her schedule anymore. But finally when she said she wants to get the D moving, I said to myself, OK, well, might as well get that done, too.

So I’ve been reading a well-known blog by a woman who takes a snarky approach to infidelity. Helps me keep my anger level a bit higher, in a self-protective sort of way. She has some good insight into the tricks manipulators play.

Anyway, just now, out of the blue, W texts me a video she saw, thought you’d like this, smiley face. And “Hope it goes well today, let me know if you need anything.”

What the TF?!

Didn’t respond. It wasn’t a question. And here I am thinking she wants nothing more to do with me could she BE any more obvious? I had a split second feeling of “Oh, there’s my W” and then I literally laughed, thought to myself, “I see through you now,” started the coffee maker, and went to take a dump.

I got this.