We are all complex beings. I was married 25 years when my WW started her (first?) A. We are currently S and moving to the final stages of D. Our marriage had ups and downs, but I loved her deeply. When DDAY#1 hit, I could not imagine life without her. My sister was understanding but incredulous as she saw my WW from outside the relationship and could not stand her.
They say we see through rose tinted glasses. I think that is true. I think we love a construct, rather than the person in front of us. We selectively edit out all of the things that show our partner to be less than ideal and emphasis anything positive. When Dday hits, this comes crashing down.
The difficulty is in the justappsition of the now real and the former imagined partner. How do we resolve the difference? Were we that wrong? How much of our life was a lie. The prospect of this mountain of realizations is enormous and often IMHO we revert back to our image of who we thought our partner was. It's familiar and comfortable and wholly fictional. We see what has happened as a blip, an aberration in their character, something correctable. It takes time to admit to ourselves that this is the real them, the them that was tucked beneath layers and layers of our projections.
Like I said, I loved my wife and would have taken a bullet for her. It took me a long time to realize that she was never worthy of that love. As I detoxed, I began to see her behavior, not as an aberration, but as completely in keeping with who she was. And as I saw that, I realized that she was simply not good enough to stay with.
I sti grieve every day after 2 years S. I grieve the loss of family, holiday dinners, rituals, my old house, my old life, but I do not grieve her. I grieve the idea of a wife and partner. In my mind, when I dare to remember, she is a figure that is blanked out in family photos, a place where it says insert significant other. I can't believe I ever loved her and think myself a fool for ever marrying her. What a contrast to DDAY#1.
I think you need to be more demanding and selfish with the only life you get to live. You need to be certain that your WH is damn well worth the honour of being with you.
I'm an oulier in my positions.
Me:57 STBXWW:55 DD#1: false confession of EA Dec. 2016. False R for a year.DD#2: confessed to year long PA Dec. 2 2017 (was about to be outed)Called it off and filed. Denied having an affair in court papers.
Divorced