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She also said something that resonated with me, she said that her actions have broken our relationship so far beyond repairing that she didn’t know if she wanted to put in the effort to fix it, because life is too short. At this point, it solidified her affair fog, as if I didn’t know already, and made it clear to me that she was too far gone.

Well, this is a damn sight more honest than many WW's have ever been with their loyal, faithful, stable, honest, hardworking husbands. I can tell you that. I wonder what percentage of WW's actually really do think this way but aren't willing to just say it: considered the risk for some strange worth it, and don't really care that much about the marriage one way or another.

If my WW had come to me and said, "Well, now you know the essentials. If you insist on more, I'm just going to drag my feet, act resentful, play more mind games, stage elaborate psychodramas, fail a polygraph and drive you into a cardiologist's office thinking you've had a heart attack. It's not worth it, life is too short, so let's go our separate ways."

Boy, what a favor she would have done for me! Maybe more WW's should just have the guts to just say this, admit the truth and be done with it.

Your wayward wife is a damaged, disordered, deeply delusional drag.

But she just did you a real solid here. You know exactly who she is and exactly what you're dealing with here. It's all out there.

You're married to an emotional vampire.

Run, fly, be free.

[This message edited by Thumos at 3:36 AM, Thursday, September 23rd]

I think it’s obvious I’ve lost her, but I’m at a loss as to how we came to this nuclear option without any indicators or effort to nurture what we had.

Although this deeply hurts and I’m still confused as to how we got here

Instead of thinking of your wife as a mature 32-year old woman, come to the realization that she has the emotional maturity of a teenager along with the selfishness that entails. That will explain her poor decisions that led to the implosion of your marriage. She never grew up. It's all about "my feelings!" The world is filled with people like that. Unfortunately you married one.

My WW started screwing around with other men eight years into our marriage, at the age of 40, with a baby at home. No emotionally mature individual does something like that. Only a selfish, self-absorbed person acts like that. They don't think about the damage their decisions will do to others because it's all about "me, me, me."

It’s like a soap opera where she is the star. - Michigan

Exactly! The gym rat is the hero, the Knight In Shining Armor who has come to save her from her mundane, passionless life. Guess who the villain is?

It’s like a soap opera where she is the star. - Michigan

This so much. My WW was acting out one of her trash TV shows and truly believed she had found real love. Because love is butterflies, right? And if the butterflies go away, it's not love anymore right? Musings of someone who does not have the capability to have real adult relationships. Her AP would even say things to her like "Red pill or blue pill. It's time to decide" as if the red pill of waking up and living for real was fucking a guy in the back seat of a car while his wife and child were at home. 6.5 months into the affair and he still hasn't left his wife She's a forever mistress.

Waywards like this choose fantasy over reality because they don't have a proper grasp on what reality is and how much work it takes to maintain it. It doesn't matter how amazing you are, how supportive, how fit, rich, or sexual: it's not about any of that or even about the AP. It's about them being so emotionally immature that they believe fantasy is real. No one can compete with fantasy once it takes hold.

True colors…. Your post really spoke to me. This is exactly what’s going on in my situation. My soon to be ex wife must be as deep as a fucking rock to think her new life is going to be butterflies and passion from here on out. The emotional capacity of preteen girl.

I think it’s obvious I’ve lost her

What you have "lost" is a woman who has abandoned her family, husband and children for some random guy she met at the gym.

She told you that she can’t fix what she has done because it’s just a version of "it’s not you it’s me", she can’t wait to be with the "love of her life".

While she’s in that delusion, work with you lawyer to have the best deal for you and your children.

Once the AP dumps her, she might decide that she deserves more from the D.

My soon to be ex wife must be as deep as a fucking rock to think her new life is going to be butterflies and passion from here on out. The emotional capacity of preteen girl.

Coming to terms with this was incredibly important for me and my ability to move on and will be for you. It took me a few months to get there so don't expect it overnight (and i'm not done the process either). A person like this cannot be trusted and does NOT make a good long term partner. Life is not always easy. Marriage is not always easy. If their instinct is to run away and try to live out a storybook fantasy instead of hunkering down and working through it, then they are not someone you can ever count on.

An affair requires THOUSANDS of individual decisions to pull off. There are no accidents, mistakes, or weak moments with cheating like this. A person capable of an affair on their loving partner is not someone any decent person should want as a friend, let alone a partner.

I feel your pain so acutely. I am a little over a month out from my D-Day and somehow things are just getting worse, and my WW is moving quickly towards divorce (as quickly as I'll let her, anyway). The fog is intense, and even a month out, I am still hoping for reconciliation even though, like your WW, my WW has given me absolutely nothing to work with. At this point I am hoping I can capitalize on her urgency to start her fantasy with the AP and get primary custody of my kids.

Your story sounds so similar to mine, but I do agree with Thumos that she has given you a gift. With her telling you that she doesn't have what it takes to fix it, she's basically telling you to just file. So many of us come on here wondering how we got here just out of the blue, but we get strung along b/c the WWs are cake eaters, or they themselves don't know what they want so they try to test drive both sides.

Let me just reassure you that you will be fine. Its early days for you, but things will work out. There are plenty of people here who have gone through what you have, and have moved on to their own growth and greener pastures. Marz is also correct in that, not all the WWs do come back after 6-18 months, even when they know that they made a huge mistake. Not all of them are capable of the work, the person in the mirror being the bad guy, or willingness to accept responsibility for their mistakes. It won't matter to you once you get out, so keep moving forward.

As someone who has sat in your very seat, let me tell you that right now your only priority should be yourself and your children. The Marriage is done. DOn't try working on something that is now gone. SPend time with the kids, work on yourself (sleep, workout) and get yourself to an attorney today.

Everything will turn out okay for you, and you will be better off in the long run without your WW. She will regret her mistake, but you may never ever hear it from her. Some are just too pompous and arrogant to ever admit it.

She will regret her mistake, but you may never ever hear it from her. Some are just too pompous and arrogant to ever admit it.

Amen, and trust me: You don't want to be around her when it finally dawns on her. In other words she'll lean in on someone from an emotional vampire/crazymaker standpoint. You don't want that be you. You want to be well clear of that implosion.

I read not too long ago about one of the couples that is big on the reconciliation "circuit" if we can call it that. They share services, materials etc encouraging reconciliation. The wife was the WW in this situation, she treated her husband terribly, essentially told him he was a boring stiff and then went off to have sexual escapades with a number of men.

Meanwhile, the husband picked up the pieces, taking care of the kids.

She showed up several years later pleading for another chance. He laughed in her face (frankly, I think he would be better off if he'd never allowed her to creep back in). But she persisted and after several months they began reconciling.

Now they speak about their experience. So take away from that what you will. She dumped all of her emotional baggage repeatedly on her faithful husband, divorced him, then showed up to dump some more on him years later. Now they are seen as an "ideal" reconciled couple (frankly I'm skeptical).

I watched a video of them, and honestly I could see a haunted look in the husband's eyes. She still seemed to want to make the story and experience all about her.

Maybe my own POV and imagination but that's what I saw.

P.S. Go read Julia Cameron's checklist for what she calls "crazymakers" and see how your WW measures up.

[This message edited by Thumos at 10:51 PM, Friday, September 24th]

Sorry you're here man.

Glass half full time, you've got clarity. A lot of poor guys who post here are full of hopium and try to make it work for months, years! of half assed efforts to reconcile from their wives, and ongoing cheating.

What do your wife's parents have to say about their daughter?

Thanks again to everyone for your comments and support. To answer a few questions, my WW used the excuse that my dad was coming into to town to leave me with the kids all weekend and go shack up with the AP all weekend while going out to bars and staying out late (she use to hate doing this) but now it’s exciting!! She also randomly went sky diving Saturday… something she never once said she wanted to do…It’s unbelievable how this "new" life she has created in her head has energized her to be this different person and forget about this life she created with me (the one she said she had dreamed about previously and was talking about how lucky she was to live it as late as 2 month ago). But now that she’s down the path of justifying her actions, I’ve become this idiot that apparently didn’t hear her, listen to her, or fulfill her. It was first that she had begun feeling disconnected from me for the last 3-6 months (the emotional affair started 3 months ago), then it became 1 year, then it became 2-3 years and she just dropped on me yesterday that she has felt this way about me since before we had our first child 6 years ago - lol.

She has deleted her Facebook because "it’s too painful to see the pictures" and has been lying to anyone she can about the circumstances around how we came to the decision to divorce (I told her I was done after she couldn’t give up texting him) she’s telling a story that I never tried to reconcile which is BS, but it doesn’t matter.

She did tell her family and her family were all shocked, tried to talk sense in to her and she immediately cut them off and will not speak to them. Anyone that doesn’t tell her that all they want for her is her happiness gets the cold shoulder. "This is about her journey to finding herself and finding her happiness!!"

She spoke to a counselor for an hour for the first time earlier this week and she told me that this counselor confirmed her feelings. That she was likely building a wall over time. That when we met she was in such a low place (14 years ago) that anyone could have come along and saved her - she had been dealing with depression due to her mother dying when she was young. She has always said that I saved her and was the best thing that ever happened to her…. Now I’m this guy that just happened to be in the right place at the wrong time apparently. But what therapist is going to tell you that how you feel is wrong? You’re not going to open up if someone tells you you’re an idiot on the first call.

She has yet to tell her grandparents and other extended family about our pending divorce because she doesn’t want to deal with the blowback. Everyone loved me and saw how well we clicked… so the conversations she will have with them will probably be full of lies and villianize me to justify again in her head and to her family.

She is moving into a small apartment in 2 weeks. I’m extremely curious how all of this unfolds over the next 12 months… she says all of this is not about him (she tells this guy she loves him and has only known him for 8 weeks), but it’s rather about getting out of our marriage and finding herself. Such a load of shit… selfish bitch never once came to me and told me she was missing something from me.

Limerence. The drugged feeling from all those feel good hormones swirling around in her brain. He is just a guy. At some point she is going to look at him and wonder what all the noise was about. In the mean time get your life in order to move on.

Look up Cincykid. He has a sad/wonderful story of being lied to, had his name forged, lost custody and visitations with his daughter. Found love again, reconnected with his daughter, had two more babies. This is what can happen if you look ahead, not behind.

[This message edited by Cooley2here at 2:00 PM, Sunday, September 26th]

I'm so impressed with your level-headedness in the vortex of crazy that your wife has created.

You are seeing very clearly that she has broken from reality (both past and present). She is re-writing the past and present to fit them to the script she needs them to be to justify her self-absorption.

Something very broken within her is needing this new teen life desperately. It will not last, but she will forever have to live with how she chose to change her life...and the lives of others (you and the kids).

It's great for your kids that you are able to be the calm in this storm.

Make sure you are getting the support you need.

It's all happened so fast that I worry you are still mainly in a "shock" stage. When anger and sadness really root in, you'll need support to just keep a basic level of functioning. And (especially as the main functioning, mature parent right now) you'll need to forgive yourself for just being on a lower level of functioning than ideal at times. Having some backup support for yourself and your kids will help.

You are awesome. My best wishes for you and your kids!

[This message edited by BreakingBad at 1:55 PM, Sunday, September 26th]

Your best path. Cut off unnecessary contact and get out of this crazy town. You nor anyone else can fix her or change the longterm damage.

Try and not get into a hopium addiction or you’ll keep yourself tied up in this.

Reading between the lines - she says she settled for you since she was at a low point and she is above your league. The POS (as usually POSes do may be grandstanding in front of her). Do you think you want to be with someone who think less of you? Basically she think marriage is business deal and she think she wants to go up in the ladder

You are emotionally down now, but keep your head up and do your other things even better, do not get angry, plan to improve your self and your carrier. Do not know whether her plans to get to the next level and lead a posh life be successful or not. But judging by her shallow attitude most probably she will burn out. Does not matter try to improve yourself in all areas, let her go, she has no respect for you and she is too materialistic

She's living a romantic fantasy world of a single woman.

Use this to your advantage.

While her head is in the clouds (and she's in a hurry to be single/free), this is a good time for her to agree/sign a fair settlement with respect to alimony, distribution of property, and child custody. Talk to your attorney asap.

She's no longer the girl you married. She is no longer your best friend etc.

Be civil but do not trust her. Among other things you're dealing with a hyper self centered, entitled, and deceitful person.

From your first post you described a woman that pretty much just wants to be single. What's she's looking for isn't offered in a pleasant satisfying marriage with kids. It's not about you. She wants more than any spouse can provide.

All you can do is exit infidelity and protect yourself and your kids.

Your (hopefully soon-to-be ex) wife is like many people I've known who were blessed enough to find a great spouse while young but too inexperienced and emotionally stunted to appreciate their good fortune.

I can't even imagine how stupid a woman has to be to willingly throw away a happy marriage with her college sweetheart and father of her children in order to be single 32-year-old single mother on Tinder.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 10:50 PM, Monday, September 27th]

Your WW is rewriting your marital history and of your relationship together. Its a lie she is trying to sell to herself and anyone who is willing to listen. But you know the truth, and so does she. The thing about lying is unless you're a Narc, lying is a weight you have to carry with you. Always wondering if you will be found out, that you're fake. That's not a good way to live, and it will wear down on your WW at some point, even if she never admits it to you.

She is also protecting her AP, saying its not about him, he's not a dirt bag, even though he willingly got together with a married women. Her mind is warped, but she will find out soon enough that you are the prize and when she wakes up, you will be gone. And you should be. Never sell yourself short just b/c you're trying to save a marriage that is not worth saving. She can lie, and change the story about how she feels about you, your history, even how you treat her, but she cannot lie to herself. That pain will seep through to her when she wakes up from this and you're gone.

The fact that she didnt' tell you anything was wrong and just dropped this on you tells you she lack self esteem, has the emotions of a teenager even though shes 32 and sucks at communicating. Not your issue, hers, and she will still have those same issues with her new guy.

Her new guy won't be gaining anything either. She sucks, and he sucks too. They can have each other. Two cheaters rewriting history b/c obviously it cant be their fault. He is not a prize and don't be surprise that he eventually cheats on your WW.

You will get through this and when you do, you'll be able to find someone better. You'll have experience. Keep working on the relationship with your kids and keep them top of mind. Let your WW bury herself b/c she will, even if she never lets you know.

and finding herself.

Well she's going to find herself divorced.

Again, appreciate everyone’s support and comments. It really does help to come on here and read your encouraging words. I look forward to healing and moving on from this point and finding something better. I know that I’ll look back at this as a blessing.

Now to just get through the 3 years of spousal support…ughhh Ohio sucks.