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You may want to implement the 180 or modified 180 and cut off communication. NC = no new hurts.

Staying in daily communication can hinder your healing. At first, it can be tough but gets easier with time. My healing really sped up once I was no longer in contact with my XWH.

Deagle,

As hard as it may sound, you need to go completely 180 on your WW. Staying in contact with her will just really delay your healing. Why would you want a ringside seat to her new life with her AP? When waywards want to stay friends, it’s usually to relieve their own guilt. Look, we’re still friends. I couldn’t have been that bad. Stay strong and move on.

Sorry for what you're going through brother.
If she is still seeing this POS, no contact, any contact you have is just going to create more pain for you. She's not your friend, I don't think you'd want a friend that could put your through what your going through because of he actions. Think about that for a minute when you get the urge to communicate with here, literally, give it 60 seconds to think about what you've been going through and I bet you decide she's more your enemy than your friend. Any new contact will just bring more pain.

Deagle:

You deserve friends who will not betray you in the worst possible fashion. She is not your friend. Moving forward always value yourself. You will find better friends. No contact equals no new hurts. It’s time for you to start healing. Continued interactions with your WW will only deter your healing. Good luck.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 8:50 PM, Tuesday, November 7th]

She is trying out the new sporty car, but hedging her bets by keeping the old one in the driveway just in case. Do not be someone’s option. You need to be their choice.

I'm sorry your in this predicament.

My personal opinion is to cut all ties. All your doing is keeping hope alive that your WW will come her senses and come back to the marriage.
I wish that I'd done that when I had the chance.

She wants to stay in touch with me to check up on me and genuinely communicate.

Almost makes up for what she did, doesn't it?

It's just a way for her to feel less guilty and pretend to be the "selfless good-guy who just happens to need to pursue her own happiness". I highly suggest you read up on the 180 and put it into practice for your own, independent healing.

I think the question is, more fundamentally,

Is it healthy? Is it healthy for you? Is her concern for you a healthy, genuine concern, and is your need for continued contact a healthy, genuine need?

The previous posters mentioned the possible origins of her continued contact:

-She’s maintaining you as a possible fallback position.

-She’s assuaging her guilt.

-She feels sorry for you.

Or, she could be just trying to keep things amicable through the divorce.

None of these reasons really, sincerely have your best interests at heart.

Now let’s take a look at your reasons for maintaining contact:

-There’s a chance she’ll take you back.

-It feels good to hear from her.

-With open lines of communication, you have opportunities to change her mind.

-You genuinely enjoy her company.

Nothing is more rappelling to a Wayward than a needy, desperate, pick-me dancing betrayed spouse who, in the face of absolute rejection, humiliation, and disrespect, still wants you back.

And, conversely, there’s nothing more compelling-attractive than the nobility of a self-assured, confident, self respecting individual who protects their dignity and upholds their standards of due respect and regard.

The most attractive woman I ever met, who still haunts my dreams, was the one I broke up with who just turned, threw her purse over shoulder, and walked elegantly right TF out the door, never to hear from her again, only hearing OF her, living large. She never looked so damned good as when she was walking out that door.

If there’s a chance in hell of her coming back to you for all the right reasons, it won’t be because of your efforts to win her back, it will, and should, be from her efforts to win you back, and she won’t put in that effort unless she sees value. She won’t see value if you further degrade your dignity, if you seem too eager, if you seem too obtainable. She especially won’t see value if you can’t even see it in yourself…

Only the scarcity of a resource gives it its value, specialness. You’re only a catch if you’re difficult to catch.

You’re the catch Deagle. I shouldn’t have to tell you that. You should know it and believe it and live by that. You deserve better and should demand it.

[This message edited by RealityBlows at 7:44 PM, Wednesday, November 8th]

Thank you all. I told her i do not wish to speak with her any longer in order for me to heal. It hurts but its what i must do. At this point in time its been getting a little more difficult for me. I feel so depressed and tired, I've been sleeping so much more and finding it hard to get motivation. The betrayal is in my head all the time and this forum as well as sleeping are my only relief. Im so fixated on this. I try and keep busy with work and errands but cant get it out of my head.

Well done telling her you no longer wish to speak with her. I am sure that took strength. Listen, your feelings and thoughts about her A are very normal. Unfortunately, you have to go through the grieving process to move on from her betrayal. But you will make it. We all have. You have suffered a real trauma as she blew up your life. Get IC to help. Try to eat, and if you aren’t hungry, take protein shakes. Exercise if you can. You will be on an emotional roller coaster for a while. Try to get out with friends.

Take care of you. Do not return to drinking. It will not help. You have suffered a real loss, so take care.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 8:38 PM, Thursday, November 9th]

Been awhile since i posted and wanted to share an update. I've still continued my therapy and psychiatry but as the holidays are coming im getting very irritable. I hear all the Christmas music and people singing and its making me sick. I've still been struggling with my emotions and depression and picked up cigarettes after years of quitting. I feel everyone around me as well as my WW are just so happy and moving along with their lives, and im just stuck in a deep hole. I feel like S#$T. I'm going to work going, to the gym, eating, but nothing is really taking my pain away. I will be visiting my family soon so I'm thankful for that. At the same time, it feels like everything I've been working on I fall back into this hole and struggle to get out. I try and take it one day at a time, but it all keeps flooding back. How can I train myself to stop looking in the past and feeling guilty?? I just want to move forward and feel some type of happiness and love. To not be afraid of the past and future. All these people around me and I feel so alone.

You're going through one of the most challenging, and often quite traumatic, experiences a person can deal with, and yeah.. the holidays are so triggering. I know it's not much help, but we get it. We've all been there in one way or another. It's human nature to bond, to transfer that primal need to attach to the most important person in our lives. We're born with that reflex. It's that first attachment with a parent which literally keeps us alive, and then, here we are, well into adulthood and still feeling that existential need for attachment.

The good news though is that even though we feel like we need this person to survive, that's not the reality. The reality is that we're grown adults who no longer depend on someone else for our existence. These panicked feelings are completely natural though, and the vast majority of us do experience them, but they're also kind of like a vestigial tail... no longer necessary.

You're going to be okay. It sucks and it's horrible to have to go through all this, but we get there in the end. There's a cool book you might try, called The Journey from Abandonment to Healing by Susan Anderson. She's got some tips and some tools to help you speed up the process, and I have to say, of all the things I read after experiencing betrayal, this is the one which helped the most.

She wants to stay in touch with me to check up on me and genuinely communicate. I don't know if this is good for me and my healing process.

She is not your true friend.

She betrayed you.

She lied to you.

She did this to her benefit, at your expense, without regard to what would happen to you.

Does that seem like someone who is good for your healing?

Get a good counselor, you need someone you can trust, who works for you.

I want to give you this statement and I want you to embrace it as factual and totally 100% true:

Your wife’s decision to cheat on her marriage is of no fault of yours.

Get it? There is nothing you did or did not do that made her reach that decision. There was no fault in the marriage that made her decide to go down that path. When you reflect on why this happened there is no profit, gain or need for you to doubt your actions or person. She did not cheat because you were or are lacking, but because SHE is lacking.

The consequences of her actions definitely impact you and hurt you. No doubts about that.
And yes – there is no denying that in a "good" marriage a spouse should communicate whatever doubts and issues might arise. But there is no expectation of us being mind-readers and there is a responsibility or expectation that people communicate. If your wife had issues in the marriage then it’s her role to seek resolution in the marriage, and not in the arms of someone else.

-
In an earlier post you mentioned drinking…
Are you sober? Is alcohol an issue?
Let me start by stating that the traditional view we have of alcoholism isn’t correct. You don’t need to drink daily or excessively or be homeless to have an issue. Simply if alcohol is causing you more pain than gain and yet you drink…

I have this theory… Basically I think many of us might have issues with drink, but not all of us are alcoholics… We might be in a bad pattern of using alcohol but once we break out of that pattern then can use it "normally" or socially. A true alcoholic… it’s no pattern, but more like an allergy where the craving for the effects of alcohol override the negative effects. Neither I nor anyone else can state that you are an alcoholic based on your single mention of your drinking, but the simple fact you mention drinking and the prevalence of substance-abuse related issues in our modern society does raise a red flag.
In the strongest of words, I’m going to encourage you to contemplate deeply if alcoholism might be an issue. Addiction can be a strange beast that combines and/or causes all sorts of mental and physical ailments. Including depression. I have heard many people with substance abuse issues talk about how getting dry is easy, but remaining dry is hard. That the key to sobriety is life-happiness, and the key to life-happiness tends to be realizing what you are trying to subdue with (in your case) alcohol.

I want to encourage you to look into AA, get a sponsor and try to go through the 12-step program. Who knows… Maybe a years sobriety makes you realize you do have an issue, that you are alcoholic. Or maybe a years sobriety makes you realize that you were masking other issues with alcohol, and now you can drink "sensibly".

My reading is that you're 5-6 months from receiving the message about your W's cheating. Very few people heal in that short a time. You're experiencing a big loss. That brings lots of feelings, and it takes more time than anyone wants to work through those feelings.

IMO, people heal by feeling their feelings, not by stuffing them inside and trying to hide them. You've got to resolve the grief, fear, anger, and shame to heal, and it takes time and effort. You may very well be on track for healing.