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Thanks again all for taking the time to provide insight and advice...

I’m taking baby steps... I’ve been better this last week at taking more time for myself; Alone time, just to chill, so what I want and get my thoughts together...It really is refreshing...

She’s noticed me being more distant and distracted... She’s actually been good; she’s giving me my space and allowing me to be... So that’s a good start...

I realize I still have to get all these feelings out to her one way or another; But in a real way... (Almost did this weekend, but chickened our)... Not that I haven’t done so earlier on, but it’ll be a bit of shock to her to hear that I’m still so raw about...

Reality is, I’m kinda surprised myself; It’s always been there, but has simmered down ... Right now though, It’s like someone poured gasoline on ambers and the fire lit up again... It’s getting harder to hide my frustration....

She’s noticed me being more distant and distracted...

How do you know she noticed? Because you are watching her to see if your distancing is having an effect? That's not really distancing. That's playing a game.

Really try to actually distance yourself, part of which ignoring what is going on with her. Look inward.

Sending strength!

but knowing that she slept with him more times in 6 months than she had with me in the previous 6 years just drives me insane!

Buddy, any man would find this nearly impossible to accept. Sorry man, you've got quite a difficult reconciliation ahead of you.

What about her is so wonderful that you need her back? Why is she such a prize? Given the fact she likes to fuck other men.

Cc: Waking up with your WS infidelity already in your head with a song. I also have been having this, well not the song. But, I did have the same thing decades ago when my father was killed. Remembering that he was dead and a (sad) song. Now I have my WS betrayal, no song. Maybe it is our traumatized selves trying to accept what has/is happening to us. Losing my father was so very hard for me, typing this now fills my eyes with tears. I love him and miss him. Same with my WS, I miss who he was and who we were before he betrayed me/us/him. Love stories can't be perfect for everyone, people aren't perfect, people make mistakes. Big ones. The people that killed my father made mistakes. It was a series of mistakes. Intentionally made mistakes. I believe that my husband made intentional mistakes too. He regrets them and wishes he could go back to that point and do it all different. My therapist asked me what I need to move on from this trauma of betrayal. I don't have the answer yet. I sure hope there is an answer, as this spot is a difficult one to be in. So, when I wake up with remembering my WS's betrayal, I acknowledge it and then move on with my day. I have to accept it. That's what myself wants me to do.

Perhaps, at this point you are realizing that your wife is no prize. And, your fear has abated enough so you are considering getting out. Accepting what your wife did is really not gonna happen.

You have to be careful with the word 'accept'.

Your mental health and your recovery from this trauma absolutely require you to accept your WS's A. Your mental health and recovery require you to accept and process the feelings of anger, grief, fear, and shame that come with being betrayed. If you don't accept the A and your feelings, you're dooming yourself to a life of a lot of excess pain.

You may have to accept your WS as a co-parent. Other than that, you don't have to accept your WS back as part of your life.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 5:09 PM, Sunday, January 30th]

CC, as soon as I read that not only were you adopted but you were farmed out to young girls who had no real attachment to you I realized that there is a lot more to your story. You were an open wound waiting for someone to rescue you and here she came. It’s how your marriage was set up. The problem with marriage is once you get it established it’s nearly impossible to change. She was the strong one and you allowed it. Please let me put on my experience hat. You did not have a single person there for you every day. This is what children need, food, clothing, shelter, nurturing. If you never knew who was going to be responsible for you each day you did not get a chance to form a trusting bond to anyone. That is why you had depression. It goes with the type of childhood you needed but we’re deprived of. Your wife will not willingly give up her power. It is how your family has operated.
It probably feels like everyone on here is yelling at you. Their responses are done from the heart but we can all get a little heavy handed. Take what you need from us and ignore the rest.
Back to you. You need therapy to get to your childhood. You need to talk about the grief you felt when no one acted like you were important. Childhood gives us a good sense of self worth if we are given dependable loving and caring.
I think you need to take one thing at a time. Get yourself healthy emotionally first. Life is going to trudge along regardless but you will enjoy it more if your happiness comes from inside instead of depending on someone who has shown she is not dependable, the same thing missing in your childhood.

Thanks for the insight Cooley... that makes sense to me...

I find myself in a weird predicament with this whole thing... We’ve had a few very serious discussions over the last couple weeks where I explained that I was still working through my emotions on the situation... I explained the flashes, the triggers... For the 100th time during the last 2+ years... She breaks down when I do... Talks about her shame, he regret and so on... One way or another I’m the one that ends up feeling guilty... I explained that my intent is not to break her down and drag it on, but I try to convey to her that those are my feelings and that if I could use a scrapper on my brain to just get rid of it and be done with it, I would...

Anyhow, after one of the discussions the other day, she actually stayed up all night and watched sex/life that I mentioned before after I explained to her that it had hurt me when I first told her about and that she had not made the effort to at least look it up to try and understand why it had been a trigger for me... ( for those who don’t know, the show is about a lady that has this hot steamy affair with a rich guy... she struggles with her feelings of wanting the stable home life but just can’t stop fantasizing about her AP and keeps going back...) That’s the high level of it... which includes very sexy scenes... anyhow, It so closely matched my situation with us being stable here, her AP being rich and charismatic and so on... It really got to me...

That said, after she watched it, she kinda said she understood, but at the same time said "it wasn’t like a movie"... maybe not not, but I don’t know that...

Fact is, I really only know what she told me... I asked a few questions about details earlier on, but realized that she’d have no reason to tell me the exact details and probs wouldn’t, cause in her mind she’d just hurt me more and probs kill any hope of full R... One of the things that bothers me on "knowledge", is that on Dday, before she called me back from work to tell me about, she had already deleted all of the previous conversations they had had from her phone... So I didn’t get the opportunity to know the full, real story... What they said, what they shared, what she said about me... I’m fairly certain that we wouldn’t be together today if I had all the info...

To make matters worse, about a year in, I tracked down and reached out to the AP’s now Ex wife; Remember that this all came out when she found his burner phone... She has the info... ALL the details cause she saw the texts... Issue is, though she did respond a couple times, she stated that she was over it at this point... that she had moved on and didn’t want to have back and forth with me on the matter... I kind of get it; though that made me regret not doing so when it first happened... She probably would have at the time...

I will mention though that though it may look like I made a lot of wrong moves at the time, remember that all of this is happening during the first break out of covid... smack down during the first global lock down... So the combination of the Dday blurr, where nothing makes sense and not having the opportunity to go out, to see people and so on made it that much harder for me to navigate through and doing things right... Even her "coming back" was rushed because of covid... The idea at the time was that she was gonna stay at her parents and that we’d start over as dating boyfriend and girlfriend and see where that would go...

Anyhow, I’m gonna get to my predicament that I mentioned soon... sorry for being so long winded...

When we had the last discussion to agree that she’d come back, I did set clear guidelines as to what the "new relationship" we had agreed that things would be easy and simple.. That I’d have be my own man; do what I want to do when I want to do it... and I’m saying that, I don’t mean going out to party and so on... I rarely go out... I’m quite content at home... I’ve got it setup so I have everything I need here... I’ve got a nice man cave in the basement with a dart board, a gym, I can entertain myself with my guitar, and I’ve got plenty of imaginary friends in my head to hang out with in the garage to work on stuff while listening to music... lol... all of this to say that It’s not a matter of going out... it’s just a matter of doing what I want when I want...

So yes, the expectation was set... for the first year or so, she was cool; we had fun together played darts, hosted parties with the few friends we could have over (again because of covid), cooked together and all kinds of stuff... It was fun...

Issue is now, she’s gotten away from that... But I haven’t... I still want that... She kinda says the words that I can do those things, but she always does or says things while I do them to make me feel guilty about it... she kinda mops around like she has nothing to do... huffs and puffs... goes to bed at 5 pm cause she’s bored... things like that...

I’m rambling on here... Anyhow, to my predicament... I feel trapped... I’m suffocating... the more I talk to her about my feelings, the clingier she gets... ( oh, side note, I did tell her in the last few days that I felt that most of the discussions about hurt and healing over the last 2 years have been 90% on HER healing rather then mine... that it always ends up about HER pain)...Anyway, back to the clinging... I think she means well in doing what she’s doing, but it’s making it worse for me... It’s kinda making more frustrated and wanting to push even further away... which in turn makes her be more clingy and so on... I find myself kissing her because she wants a kiss... I kiss her so she doesn’t feel bad... I even have sex with her so she doesn’t feel bad... I made the mistake of rejecting an advance last week and it was a dramatic event where I didn’t want her and didn’t find sexy and so on... which she is btw; she’s a very pretty lady with a body that competes with ladies in their 20’s... anyhow, that’s beside the fact...

All of this to say that I miss that feeling of freedom that I had for those few months back then... Sure, I can take all the freedom I want; even if she’s I get that... But it’s not true freedom cause I feel guilty about leaving her alone... Again to the covid thing; that’s not really helping things either, cause we both work at home, neither of us goes out, so it’s a 24 hour a day 7 days a week thing going on... I think that definitely works into my "feeling trapped" thing... Though she has gone back to the office this week so there is a bit of breathing room there now...

Anyhow; that’s my rant for the day... I’m really not sure why I’m posting these things... It’s so not in my nature... I’m so private in nature... barely no one; actually let me rephrase that... absolutely no one knows the real me... They know versions of me, but I’ve never laid out my thoughts or feelings with any one in any manner... I’m not sure why throwing these things out here anonymously makes me feel good... well, feel good may be the wrong term to use... relieves pressure maybe? Anyhow... to whomever reads this; take this with a grain of salt... I do read, take and apply some of the advice, but realizing how long it takes to word these things, after reading some of the newer posts of people that are smack down in the Dday blurr, there’s a part of me that feels like they really need and could use the time you have to provide on advice more than I do...

Ok; now I’m done... : )
have a good day...

The COVID shutdowns have led to many families breaking up (read: family issue can no longer be avoided and people have to confront each other and many are bailing).

Clearly the space you were given was good for you mentally. I certainly wouldn't give that up. But if you are going R, then some level compromise will have to continue as long as she improves on her obligation to help you heal.

Hopefully her going back to the office will give you the space you need. It will give her something to do that doesn't make her feel like she has to cling to you and you will get some breathing room. Maybe a positive development...?

I've never seen a thread that makes me want to scream this truism more loudly than this thread does: Don't set yourself on fire to keep somebody else warm.

@butforthegrace... I like that analogy/concept... That said, to it I’ll say this... Once a log has burnt to charcoal, you can literally hold fire to one side of the coal and the other in your fingers and you won’t feel any heat on your fingers...

Butforthegrace, perfect. CC, my H cheated very early in our marriage. Travelled for work weekly. I suspected but was finally told. Did nothing. We moved, he changed jobs, we both grew up. Sounds like the perfect ending except I have never completely trusted him again. We have a good marriage. He has no idea how I feel. If I told him what would it change? He still would have cheated.

You need to deal with the underlying rage you feel. It comes out as anguish, pain, frustration etc. Rage is different. It is diffused under the surface but it never goes away. Anger is that emotion you feel when that idiot cuts in front of you on the highway but it dissipates in a few hours. I repeat, rage never goes away. Because nothing was fixed. She needs to tell you in detail what she did. In detail. She needs to own what she did. She needs you to be the focus. You need to be the focus. Rage leaves when there is acknowledgement from her of the damage she did to you. She is clinging because she feels you moving away. You need to tell her that your marriage is hanging by a thread if she doesn’t get what she did killed your marriage and it can’t be Resurrected until she gets complete empathy at what she did. But you will never forget it.

CC - based on your most recent rant, its clear your WW still does not get it, nor is she all in. She's all in maybe b/c it clears her conscience, but shes not all in for you. She's pouty and selfish, that much is clear.

You say you feel stuck, but take a step back and view it from your WW's angle. It looks like she feels stuck as well. Trapped if you will. Sooner or later, one of you will break, and it could be her again b/c she also feels trapped.

You should give some thought on a trial separation. You've missed your freedom, you still have unknowns from her affair. Take the time by yourself to heal without her. It always reverts back to her, me, me, me. You know this. She's a selfish person and she acts regretful, but she is not remorseful and that is what you need to heal. If she can't get there, get yourself out of stuck, don't keep yourself trapped.

CC - If you knew more, if you knew less, if you did this, if she/he did that. Who's to say what makes it all better and what doesn't. What is it that will settle both if your souls so that you can move past it and be happy together again? The answer is probably different for everyone. My mother thought that a divorce was her answer, but it wasn't as she never seemed happy after that despite her later marriages to others. I think that she would have not divorced if she could have the chance to do it over. So, the place that we are now trying to get passed right now - she would go back to and make a different choice. She always loved him (my dad), but he messed up. Divorce doesn't always fix it and make it all better. I was a little kid and nobody asked me what I wanted. So, I guess my advice is to tell your kid(s), that you might be breaking up your family because you have a situation that you don't know how to resolve.

So, I guess my advice is to tell your kid(s), that you might be breaking up your family because you have a situation that you don't know how to resolve.

Sorry but this sounds like terrible advice, telling OP that "he" is breaking up the family! Pretty sure it was the 5 MILLION HORRIBLE AND TREACHEROUS decisions his WW made that dropped 4,000 plutonium bombs on the marriage. That, and the kids DESERVE to know, in a sanitized way, what happened here. If OP were to follow your advice, these poor kids likely couldn’t help but wonder if it was something they did.

OP, teach your kids by example not to allow themselves to be abused by others, which is 1000% what his WW has being doing to OP.

Eventually the kids are gonna find out anyway and probably the last ones to know. This doesn't seem right. What is happening affects everyone in the family - not just the parents. For the rest of everyone's lives. Every holiday and life event is different. Unless you have lived it, you don't know what it really is to have your family go through a divorce.