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Proud Dad day today for Tred. A few of you who know me know that my son is at the University of Virginia (go Wahoos!) on a NROTC scholarship, also majoring in astrophysics. He's wanted to fly jets off carriers since he was a kid. He found out today that he got selected for aviation, and will heading to Pensacola for flight school after he graduates. Doesn't mean jets just yet, but just getting to this point is a pretty decent milestone.

For me, there will be no such point as fully healed. Don't need to get in to it but the residuals of what I went through have the half life of uranium. But I consider my marriage reconciled, until of course it isn't . But I'm really glad my wife and I got to share our sons excitement today. He's worked his ass of to get there, and it's not lost on us that he went through this with us.

First round is on me.

Tred that’s fantastic news! I don’t blame you for being proud. Keep us updated on his progress.

Awesome Tred!

My best friend flew F18s for 20+ years. It's a hell of an accomplishment just to get selected for aviation. Best of luck to him!

That's fantastic, Tred! You and Sand must be so incredibly proud. Thanks for sharing the news. Cheers!!

That’s awesome, Tred! I’ve often watched jets fly overhead and wondered how a person ever gets a seat in one. I still can’t even imagine the process to get to such a point, but what an incredible accomplishment! Not a drinker myself, but I’ll cheers your bud light with continued hopes for your son’s journey!

A lot to be proud of with the young man. Congratulations to him.

Congratulations to your son, Tred! That IS cool!

Triggered a pleasnat memory. A Junior High School (middle-school), HS, and college classmate of mine also went to college on a NROTC scholarship in astrophysics. Caltech Ph.D., but he died very young, fortunately not in combat.

I bet your son knows more about astrophysics now than my friend ever did. Your son probably has done more sophisticated experiments, too.

Progress!

Incarnate - Just checking in to see how things are going and if you went on that date? I think you've gotten some good feedback here, and it comes from the hearts of some fellas who have been there and done that. I think you've shown grace in not having a knee jerk response to stuff you may or may not want to hear. All that aside, the important thing is we are here for you, and I'd like to know how you're doing, and I'm sure others would as well.

Good to see you, Loukas!

Happy Friday, Gents!

[This message edited by LosferWords at 3:40 PM, September 27th (Friday)]

I appreciate you checking in on me, Losfer. I posted an update in my poetically titled "Rose amongst the Rocks" thread.

I think, at times, my tendency to write in a more florid manner can come across as... more emotionally than I mean it to. I know I've reiterated that i am an author, and I'm about to publish my seventh fantasy novel. It's not a HUGE income, but I've been able to do it full time for the last two and a half years, so, I mean, I've had SOME success.

Like, take the title of that thread; a Rose amongst the Rocks. I'm absolutely certain, in retrospect, that it is assumed that the rose is the lady I have been speaking to. That is actually not the case... the rose was the upside, the piece of beauty and happiness I was able to stumble across while navigating this flaming pool of cess that is the aftermath of my ex's hedonism odyssey and rampant, flagrant, unrepentant adultery.

Everyone I talk to says that they see a huge difference in me. That I hold my head higher instead of bowing it. I square my shoulders. I make eye contact. I don't speak with a softer voice, I speak firmly. My phrasing has changed; I don't use as many squinting modifiers to soften my sentences and words. I've lost a lot of weight, I've added muscle mass, I spend more time with my kids because I'm not kissing her ass, begging for a little piece of soulless affection to hold onto and tide me over until she deigns to stop flirting with her walrus whore and little fuckboy long enough to fuck me.

It's like I got my soul back. It's like I took my power back. And I am sort of reveling in that while recognizing that all of these things I was stomping aside for fear of offsetting her and her path and her healing were slowly killing me.

And I'm not going to do it anymore.

I.

Fucking.

Refuse.

And I feel better for that refusal.

[This message edited by Incarnate at 4:04 PM, September 27th (Friday)]

It's like I got my soul back. It's like I took my power back. And I am sort of reveling in that while recognizing that all of these things I was stomping aside for fear of offsetting her and her path and her healing were slowly killing me.

Ha!! One of the best updates I've read here in quite some time. To relate with you a bit, check out my user name. I got my voice back. I'm not at a loss for words anymore. Really good stuff.

Now the realist part of me is kicking in. You are on a high right now, and that is okay. Please realize this is a long run. There are certain things in your post that I DO see you taking forward with you in the long run... squaring your shoulders, looking people in the eye, having your voice, spending quality time with your kids. Keep those things, and move forward with them proudly.

I hope you have a good weekend planned, bro.

I do have a dope weekend planned. Tomorrow I've got gaming night with my brother and some friends, then Sunday, I'm meeting up with some friends. I'm providing the shinai (bamboo kendo swords) and they're providing the barbecue, and we're gonna spar for a while, something I haven't done in almost 8 years. I used to be goddamn good at it, we'll see how I am now. That evening, we're going to a theater lounge to watch Serenity (the movie for the Firefly series), have a drink, eat some pizza, and hang out.

Other than that, it's revise, revise, revise. This is the fifth novel in my series, the sixth original book I've written, and the seventh book I'll be publishing (the fifth was a collected and re-edited version of my first trilogy with an added epilogue scene).

Good times. What do you have going on?

That sounds like a great weekend!! I used to practice Arnis (Filipino stick fighting), and really enjoyed it.

I am definitely compelled to want to read your writing at some point.

My weekends are usually super busy, but this one is relatively quiet, which I am really appreciating right now. My son has his music lesson tomorrow, and I plan on getting some much overdue yard work done. I need to figure out what we are going to grub on. Sunday I am going to a friend's wine party. I'm not much into wine, but I enjoy the company and food. After that I am probably going to watch the Denver Broncos lose, and there will be much cursing. I also need to practice some tunes for this band I'm in as we have a couple of gigs in a few weeks. I will probably find some time for a couple of cold refreshing beverages somewhere in there as well.

What instrument do you play, Losfer? I always kind of wanted to learn bass, but I had a 60D ring shank nail go through my left hand in 2005, and fretting is excruciating, so Inever got into it. I tried to learn keyboard, but it's either learn to play keyboard or write, and writing helps pay the bills.

Also;

I got a punching bag. Just a 40# everlast heavy bag. Turns out I still hit like a hammer, and a 40# bag is way too light, even at half power... I make it jump like a cricket and halfway flatten it out with each blow.

But working it a few minutes at a time a few times a day really firms and tones things up when combined with my better diet and sporadic weights. This is in just a week or so(sorry for the goobery pose; I never know what to do with my hands in pictures);

Weird side effect of being single; I take a stupid amount more selfies. I delete most of them, but I take way more. I guess it's also part of being a millennial. An older millennial, but a millennial nonetheless.

[This message edited by Incarnate at 9:50 PM, September 27th (Friday)]

My main instrument is guitar, but I can also play bass and keys. When I was young and full of dreams, being a rock musician was going to be my career. I'm eternally grateful that I stayed in school so I could fall back on my "plan B" of being a software developer.

Good on you with the fitness and weight loss! Staying active and eating healthy can go a long way with dealing with all the mental crap that you're dealing with right now. Keep it up, man!

The selfie thing must be a millenial thing. Like I mentioned, I spent a little bit of time on a couple of online dating sites. I'm 46, and chatted with a few women that were close to 10 years younger than me. They'd ask, can you send me a selfie? I'm like, "You want me to do what, now? Hang on, let me get my readers so I can figure out how to work this phone..." The only selfies I tend to take are with my son when we are at a concert or fishing at a nice lake or something.

Guitar seems like, forgive the term, a pussy magnet. I always wanted to learn, but never got around to it. Never had a lot of drive, and when I was younger, it was easy enough to talk to girls, so I didn't lean on anything else.

I've got a couple of aspirations currently.

One, I want to work on my standup comedy until I get a paying gig. That one bit I did on the 8th was so much fun, it really broke the ice for me. I LOVED being on stage, looking out over a respectable crown, and hearing them laugh.

Another is to get back into amateur MMA. I'm a bit old for it at 34, but I figure i can train up and hit the octagon in a few years, before I'm 40. I did some MMA when I was n my early 20s and loved it, had a lot of fun, and met a really friendly, warm, diverse crowd. Make no bones about it, the second the ref says go, it's all fists, feet, elbows and knees, but after the fight, you're bros again. 100% nothing personal. If I can weigh in at just under 250, I'd be upper max for super cruiserweight. If I'm just over, I'd be light heavyweight, which would be me getting -mopped- on the mat.

Just gotta cut ten more pounds for that!

In other news, I'm about 2/3 of the way done with revision, WAY behind schedule. Ugh. Hopefully I can get it done in a little over a week.

I'm starting to think the lady I was chatting with let me down gentle. Not 100% sure if she was really out with a pinched nerve or whatever. Oh well. She was fun and cute and I liked talking to her, but if she didn't feel the same, it's better to not have any pretenses. Messaged her a few times, and conversation quickly dried up, and she hasn't responded today.

C'est la vie. Got gaming tonight, sparring and barbecue tomorrow, and movie and drinks tomorrow night. Spent the day working on revising my chapter 11 and cleaning my space. Cleaned my desk and took wood polish to it, and now it glows!

I hope everyone is having an awesome weekend!

I started playing guitar pretty young (elementary school), before I was totally interested in girls, so that wasn't the motivating factor for me. Before that, I actually wanted to be an author. I was a very avid reader as a kid, heavily into sci fi and fantasy.

That's good that you are focusing on multiple aspirations, and ultimately focusing on you. That's so important at this stage.

C'est la vie, indeed. The last few women I have chatted with was pretty casual, and I was kind of relieved when things fizzled out. I think I'm at the stage now where I want to spend some time single, and enjoy my freedom. I spent 22 years working really hard in a relationship, and I'm just not feeling like wanting to work on anyone but myself and my son right now.

Nice workspace! Looks like a great place to get some creative work done.

So, spent a 5 day get away trying to find some tranquilly with my WS. Curious, at what stage when making love to your WS did you stop seeing the mind video of them fucking which either made you more determined to make her forget about him (the AP)with all you have in you, or completely lose focus and just end up frustrated and feel like a failure in the bedroom?

Curious, at what stage when making love to your WS did you stop seeing the mind video...

I think the time frame is different for all of us, but for me, I would say the mind movies didn't happen much during sex, but they haunted me other times of the day or night. The daily mind movies I was able to shut down after a couple years.

For me, it got to be to a point when my wife and I were creating enough new memories, moments and connecting better that put that stuff in the rear view mirror.

I imagine some level of intrusive thoughts will always be around, it's just that I'm able to shoot them down much quicker and remind my brain -- that was then, this is now.

[This message edited by Oldwounds at 12:46 PM, September 30th (Monday)]

Curious, at what stage when making love to your WS did you stop seeing the mind video of them fucking which either made you more determined to make her forget about him (the AP)with all you have in you, or completely lose focus and just end up frustrated and feel like a failure in the bedroom?

As I recall it took less than a year post D-Day.

However, due to my life-long low self-esteem, which of course worsened after finding out my WW preferred other men over me, feeling like a failure in the bedroom has continued to this day.

She tells me I'm fine and perfect for her. Of course I don't believe that. I wonder why?

She tells me I'm fine and perfect for her. Of course I don't believe that. I wonder why?

Well, she married you Kite and has stayed married to you for a long time. So there's probably a lot of truth in what she is telling you.

One thing betrayed spouses - men and women alike - have to get through our heads is that of all the many things we bring to the table, we can never be illicit, or a piece of strange, or an exciting escape from reality for a WS who yearns for those kinds of things. Real life and the day-to-day grind just aren't sexy.

I learned early on that beating myself up because someone else is emotionally immature and made the conscious choice to engage in immoral and hurtful behavior is a complete waste of time and psychic energy. If needing more sex, an escape from life's stresses, or relief from a marriage that had become rote was an excuse to have an affair, I would have had at least three of them by now.

Curious, at what stage when making love to your WS did you stop seeing the mind video of them fucking which either made you more determined to make her forget about him (the AP)with all you have in you, or completely lose focus and just end up frustrated and feel like a failure in the bedroom?

I remember a few instances early on NiceGuy, but don't recall this happening after a few months or so. You're having mind movies about things that happened a long time ago, if I read your bio correctly. Have you always struggled with mind movies, or is this something that resurfaced after you found the recent communications?

[This message edited by Sal1995 at 5:50 PM, September 30th (Monday)]