SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi everyone,

Been a few months since my last post. I've been concentrating on myself doing the 180 and NC as best I can (else childcare related). Hope your all finding some solace from somewhere, however small in your healing journeys.

My breakup was 5 months ago now after 17 years, full backstory in earlier posts.

A couple of weeks ago I started to notice a change in EXWP demeanour, she was attempting to be more friendly towards me, messaging me with pleasant exchanges, chatting for longer during child swap overs and asking if I wanted to attend our sons sporting fixture with her.

Last week she took our son on a week long vacation during this vacation she messaged me to say she missed me. I in a moment of weakness responded with 'I miss her too'. When she returned she had bought me gifts from the vacation and gave them to me during child handover. Then yesterday out of the blue she has requested that we meetup to have a chat.

I have accepted her request to meet as I'm very curious as to what it is she wants to chat about. I feel healed enough to stay grey rock if needed during the meetup, but found myself today constantly thinking about why she feels the need to chat about anything with me. After DDAY I left as she wanted to continue the A and I have no idea if the A is still continuing.

So I suppose I'm just looking for advice on what to expect or if anyone else has been in this position before and what happened.

Love, hugs and thoughts to you all.

I really think your best course right now is to say no to a meet up. What's there to discuss? Her missing you while she dates other people? Her trying to reel you in to be her friend (aka keep providing childcare and keeping her secrets) so no one thinks she's a bad guy?

Look, she made her choice. She did not fight for your marriage. Do you want to spend time with your WIFE while she is someone else's girlfriend? Or perhaps they have broken up and now she wants her Plan B back in place. That's cruel. And if you let her get away with it, she'll have another boyfriend in no time.

I know how terribly curious you must be but this meeting is a big long drag off the hopium pipe whether you realize it or not. It's never a good idea but it's worse when you have zero clues about the status of her affair, her motives or her emotional state. I feel like you're walking into the lion's den.

That's a long way of saying I believe this meeting might hurt you. Don't give her the satisfaction. Protect yourself.

If she by some unprompted, inexplicable reason has suddenly woken up and realized what a total mess she made of her life, marriage and family and wants to make things right, she can absolutely do that without help from you and without yanking your chain or stuffing hopium in your pipe.

You're going to go anyway (because that's what most of us newly BS would do). Try your very very best to stay gray rock. Polite, sure but do way more listening than talking. Be the first to leave.

She's currently on the outs with her OM and sees you as a backup. After everything she put you through, do you really want to be her backup?

At worst she wants to rub it in your face. Doubt it’s the case but best to be prepared for anything. If she does, walk out immediately without saying anything.

Chances are she wants to be friends. Make herself feel like what she did was ok. If you agree to be friends with her it takes the weight of what she did off her shoulders. And shows the world she did nothing wrong.

I recommend you tell her you are not her friend, you were her lover and partner whom she shot with an emotional bullet to the heart. And that you cannot ever see being a friend with someone like that. (And then I would return the gifts that honestly you never should have accepted.)

Finally if she wants to get back together then tell her that is not something you are looking for. But if she wants to try and change your mind, you won’t even CONSIDER it until she does the following things, and even then there are no guarantees.

1) tells the AP to fuck off, in front of you, blocks him from her phone, and never speaks to him again for the rest of her life

2) starts with an individual counselor who specializes in Infidelity to work on getting the AP out of her heart and see him for the piece of shit that he is (and that she is as well). Going NC is not enough. You have no interest in being with a partner who pines away for another Counseling must last at least weekly for a year.

3) tells her family what she did. All of it. Including telling her dad.

4) starts reading. "Not just friends" and "how to help your partner heal after your affair" are just two books you’ll both read and discuss chapter by chapter.

5) writes to you a timeline of her affair. Every moment with him. What was said. What was texted. She deleted none of it and you read it together.

5) starts showing you real affection. Writing you several times a week. Topics like how you must have felt when you discovered her infidelity. How she feels about you. How she sees your future. How she will be a safe partner going forward.

6) conveys real empathy. If she truly wants to be with you she will show you how she is affected by your hurt more than her own. You have been wounded emotionally. If she cares about you she would care if anyone else did that to you. The fact that she is the culprit should magnify the hurt she feels for the pain she caused.

That is just a start. Again, no guarantees. She does these things because she truly loves you and without commitment from you. Her cheating has opened up a whole new aspect of your relationship. The old one is gone forever. If she wants a new one she pursues it from the ground up.

[This message edited by Stevesn at 10:39 PM, Wednesday, June 8th]

I'm not sure you're in the mental space you need to be for this. The only reason for meeting up in person rather than text or phone is to be able to read your reactions on what is being said. It's manipulative.

Options:

She misses you as a friend. Nope. You don't need a friend that did what she did to your soul.

Talk about changes related to AP like marriage or cohabitating. Nope. See above you're co-parents not friends.

Wants to revisit her decision to leave you AKA AP didn't work out/wasn't who she thought he was. Nope. You are just now getting some detachment through NC. Parents that leave their families immediately for the AP are seldom good candidates for R. Plus do you really want to set your children up for another potiential breakup of their parents?

[This message edited by grubs at 11:31 PM, Wednesday, June 8th]

The big danger is that you take a a giant hit of the hopium pipe.
It;s up to you, but go in with your shields up and your senses alert. Do not get swayed by sweet words. Has she changed? Or has her situation changed? Do you really want to be plan B?

My XWS texted me that sort of thing for while, infrequently but still, and offer me things like pet insurance through his work for our cat. I just always responded with "well this was your choice" if I responded at all, and "we are not partners or friends— thank you for the offer but having any ties to you is not in my best interest". Just polite and also NO.

Good luck.

Chances are she wants to be friends. Make herself feel like what she did was ok. If you agree to be friends with her it takes the weight of what she did off her shoulders. And shows the world she did nothing wrong.

I agree with the above.

She’s trying to friend you so that she can feel better about treating you so poorly.

Stay no contact. At least Stay "no chatting".

No need to meet up and talk. The others are right, any and all things are for her, not you. She wanted to continue to try out the AP after Dday b/c of why????? B/C that's what she wanted to do, it wasn't for you, it was for her.

If you are hoping, and I can thinly see that maybe you're hopeful that she has somehow changed for the better, and maybe R is possible, what are you willing to give up to accept that? Be honest with yourself. What are you really hoping for out of this meet up? You also have an agenda. What is it? Then ask yourself if its even worth it..

1. "I in a moment of weakness responded with 'I miss her too'."
1. "I'm very curious"
2. "Found myself today constantly thinking"

You are definitely not in a position of strength, and you are going to get hurt. Again.

Why do you give in to her wants so quickly instead of protecting yourself? Say No to her requests for three months and see if her efforts last.

If she continued to make overtures after several months of being rebuffed, I would be more inclined to trust her intentions. When we don't force people to treat us well, they don't treat us well. Make her work harder for your time and energy.

You are well on your way to healing. Unfortunately seeing/talking to your WS will set you back. I’ve been there. Ahh the pain afterwards!!!

But I can see why your heart might want to hear what she has to say. And maybe it will give you closure and help you move forward. I don’t know. But I think the suggestion below from owing it now is spot on.

Say No to her requests for three months and see if her efforts last.

If she continued to make overtures after several months of being rebuffed, I would be more inclined to trust her intentions. When we don't force people to treat us well, they don't treat us well. Make her work harder for your time and energy.

[This message edited by DailyGratitude at 5:45 AM, Thursday, June 9th]

Many thanks everyone for you advice.

My gut is in agreement with you all; that the purpose of this meetup is for her to test the water of becoming friends in order to go public with AP and not look as bad in the real world.

I also agree that somewhere still down within my soul I crave R and I know this is weakness on my part. Analysing and thinking logically I want to use this chat as a data point of reference going forward.

I have move knowledge and information about the affair than she realises and I think this gives me a small amount of power.

If the meetup it is for the purposes of being a friend I can then hand this back to her without emotion or any further discussion from me. Then use this info gathering to move even further forward in my healing and remove that final fragment of R that is stuck deep within my heart.

God bless you all

When is this meetup?

@Stevesn,

Its planned for Wednesday 7pm next week. ExWP has asked her parents to look after our son for the evening.

[This message edited by BraveinAdversity at 3:14 PM, Thursday, June 9th]

If she by some unprompted, inexplicable reason has suddenly woken up and realized what a total mess she made of her life, marriage and family and wants to make things right, she can absolutely do that without help from you and without yanking your chain or stuffing hopium in your pipe.

^^^^This from TheEnd. If your ex is wanting to get back together or if it's something you might want to hear, booking a formal meeting with you wouldn't be necessary. People plan meetings when they want something and when they want to be in control of how they present their argument. It's typically harder for people to say 'no' when you're looking them in the face, right?

Think about it. If she really wanted you back, there's nothing stopping her from picking up the phone and begging to come home. But let's say she does want you back. It's still the same thing. She'd be trying to stay in control. That's not the way R works. The WS doesn't get to feel you out and then make suggestions about compromise. She can't just sneak up on it. She'd have to be "all in" and ready to roll up her sleeves and get to work.

To be honest, I don't think there's going to be anything you want to hear at this meeting. If it was something you want to hear, she'd just tell you. The only reasons I can think of to book a meeting are to tell you something you don't want to hear or to try and talk you into something you don't want to do. Maybe it's settlement issues, or she could be pregnant, or getting remarried, or wanting to move out of state, and you'd be expected to sit there and hear all about it without being reactive.

I'd cancel that meeting if I were you. If it's important, she'll eventually tell you what it was about anyway.

ETA: And if you decide to go anyway, speak like you're talking into a recording device which a family court judge will eventually hear. You never know.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 4:01 PM, Thursday, June 9th]

I wouldn't go. YOu're still smoking the hopium pipe. You can accomplish what you laid out below, which you say is if all she wants is to be friendly, than that will set you up to get further away from her and on your way to healing, but you are doing that right now, and YET, you're not far enough away from her grasp that just her mentioning wanting to talk, or doing a simple nice thing just you another hit of that pipe.

You want to know what she wants to talk about, so that you can finally KNOW if you should move forward. Ask her to just write you an email on what she wants to cover next week. Tell her that you think its best for your self that she lay out what she wants to cover first in an email. You;ll get your answer about R.

The group here wants to remind you that she threw you away, and when you gave her a chance last time she threw it away again and said that she wanted to try the AP on. You deserve better Brave. One of the many regrets of BS's on this forum when they look back after Dday is not taking back control of their life, and playing the pick me dance. You lose respect for yourself once you've healed and look back and wonder why you didn't wake up sooner. We want you to avoid that.

Ask your WW to email you whatever it is that she wants to talk about. Trust us, if she is really wanting to fight for your love, willing to fight to get you back, she will happily send that message in an email. The fact that she's just been a little nicer does not show any of us that she is at the stage of fighting for you. I hope you see that. Let her fight for you if that's what you want, but her friendly testing the waters is NOT ENOUGH after what she has done. She needs to be moving mountains to get you back, and you deserve NO LESS.

I can't even count how many times I was sucked into meetings to chat believing I was far enough along to not get drawn back in and/or naive enough to believe maybe he'd had his wake up call and there was hope for us.

I was wrong every time. Invariable he was on the outs with his latest fling and needed a place holder or ego stroke - they always go back to ex or exes in these moments. Nearly the minute he could see I was receptive to his overtures, his sudden interest flipped off and he'd all but disappear. Over and over and over again. I can't believe how many times I fell for it. I guess that's because normal people like me wouldn't dream of re-connecting with someone we'd traumatized unless we were truly ready to make amends and stick with it for the long all. Of course normal people wouldn't do what they did in the first place. They aren't normal. They are selfish. They will use anyone to meet a passing need.

I don't know your story - perhaps she's redeemable, a few are. I say proceed with caution and know that there's a very high probability you're being used.

[This message edited by skeetermooch at 8:31 PM, Thursday, June 9th]

Just imagine how you will feel when she walks into that meeting dolled up to the nines with makeup and hair absolutely perfect, wearing that incredible dress and heels, looking hotter than you ever remember her looking, just to tell you she wants to let bygones be bygones and by the way AP and I would like to relocate and take your child/ I'm pregnant/ let's be friends/ I made a mistake, look at what you've been missing (he's been getting) can we get back together? or one of the many other poison dipped daggers she will drive straight through your sternum and into your heart, all the while looking you straight in the eye, smiling ever so sweetly.

Are you pissed off yet. Get Pissed Off! Grasp your dignity by the throat and stand it up on its own two feet and DECIDE just what you will and WILL NOT tolerate from other people.

I assure you, when you reach that point, everything changes.

She's currently on the outs with her OM and sees you as a backup. After everything she put you through, do you really want to be her backup?

This^^^ I would also nix the meetup and limit contact.

The WS doesn't get to feel you out and then make suggestions about compromise.

This all day! On the money!

I in a moment of weakness responded with 'I miss her too'.

I feel healed enough to stay grey rock if needed during the meetup, but found myself today constantly thinking about why she feels the need to chat about anything with me.

Sorry (but not really sorry), the two quotes above don't seem to be consistent with each other.

You are not healed enough, as the first quote indicates, you still have 'moments of weakness'. If you were truly healed, you would not have replied to her 'missing you' message.

Analysing and thinking logically I want to use this chat as a data point of reference going forward.

If you were truly logical in your thinking, the logic would have told you that you do not need another 'data point'. You have enough data as it is, but your emotional part is telling you that you need more 'data', as the current 'data' that you have does not not support your inner 'want' to R.

Logic will also tell you that 'closure' (which I suspect you are hoping for) from a WS is not required, as the 'closure' will come from inside, and not externally.