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I think I'm finding a sort of calm at last, 18 months past dday1, 8 months after dday5. My reluctance to divorce (or separate) has been predicated on two things: the best interests of our kid, and a reluctance to throw away the life we've built together. Sometime after dday3, I stopped giving a crap about the second one, but later, when I discovered that our kid was having suicidal ideation (she's autistic and highly anxious, too), my focus has been making sure we get her healthy and give her stability to get through this difficult stage in her life.

We've kept things calm in the household, but I struggled internally with the decision to stay. There were many times I wished I could just walk away and live my own life. The thought of waiting another 4 years to do that was hard. But time passed, and now it's only 3 years until our kid finishes high school and turns 18. It's like I've rounded the top of the hill. His affair started 4 years ago. My chronic illness started over 3 years ago. There's less time left to stay than what I've already lived through.

I no longer feel like making an effort to work on the marriage. Am I giving up? Yes. I surrender. I wave the white flag. He thinks he's changed enough because he understands why he was susceptible to cheating and he believes he will never do it again. He doesn't want to change other pleasure-seeking aspects of his personality, so I guess this is as good as it gets, and if that's not enough for me, then it will be up to me to walk away in 3 years. I think I can keep the peace going for that long? I don't hate him. I'm not happy, but I am striving to be content. Life objectively isn't terrible (good housing, financial stability). Even if he had another affair, it wouldn't change my desire to maintain a stable environment for our kid for the next 3 years.

So am I really at peace with all this, or am I just fooling myself while coasting along the POLF? I guess it doesn't really matter in terms of what I've resolved to do, but I'd like to be honest with myself, which is why I'm soliciting opinions. What do you all think?

***Admission

will start this by admitting my personal bias here. I am not a fan of the staying for the kids concept - my parents did this when I was a child for a few years and it was terrible. The actual split of course was terrible, but the peace that ensured post split was so much better than anything they could have offered me/us (my younger sibling) had they stayed together I find the staying together mantra a bit idealized in most cases.

Putting that aside I do have a question with the caveat that I of course do not know the level of autism, what therapies she is receiving etc so this is not meant to be an attack on your parenting or a one sized fits all type response.

Why do you think your child's ideations will subside once she graduates high school? What I mean is, say she graduates and you announce you are separating/divorcing, how would that be different from now? What is your plan for addressing it when you do it?

I ask as you do not indicate why your child was suffering these feelings - fights? Seeing you sad/angry? Tension? One of the unintended lessons I learned from my parents behavior was to stick it out though thick and thin. To be strong when the shit hits the fan. I would argue that shielding your child from these things now will not address how they address things in the future when you (perhaps) are not around. Life if going to create future situations where your child may experience similar anxieties - again without knowing where she is on the spectrum, would it not be better if you were there to support her in dealing with it now than leaving that for later on when she may be on her own? I have no idea about the answers to these questions, and to the extent you do not want to share the details with strangers on the internet I do get that.

ThisIsSoLonely, those are very good questions. Sorry I was not more clear. Her autism is mild to moderate, and her anxiety stems from school and social interactions, nothing to do with home life. I have never cried in front of her, and my WS and I don't discuss the affair or argue in front of her.

My goal for waiting until she's 18 is so that we avoid dealing with shared custody and moving back and forth between two households. Even if I got the bulk of custody (I do the primary parenting), I can't manage our current home alone which means that she'd have to move with me, but I think WS would want a 50/50 arrangement anyway. My *hope* is that she'll go off to college after high school, so she'll be living somewhere else. Regardless, after she turns 18, she can choose where to live (that's my understanding) and there will be no discussion of custody arrangements.

The ideation is already improving thanks to therapy and a better school environment. My suspicion is that us splitting up and me moving out would be a big blow to her emotionally not what she needs right now. I could take it up with her therapist to double check, but let's call it a mother's intuition.

Just looking at divorces in my family and in friends’ I think you are smart to hang on. For some reason it seems that the age of the child, and the level of maturity, are important. I have seen teenagers fall apart where their younger and older siblings did not. I think the heavy burden of navigating hormones, cliques, homework, society expectations make it tough for teenagers. By 18/19 things have settled down a little. They are out of the house and beginning to be on their own.
Good luck

So am I really at peace with all this, or am I just fooling myself while coasting along the POLF?

I remained long after I made the decision that I was done-done.

For me, I found peace with this. I used those years to get my ducks in a row (set aside money, make sure assets were split where possible, etc).

It was so much easier to endure the day-to-day when I knew it was just a temporary thing.

So you could be feeling real peace.

Make the most of this time and be open to modifying it, if needed.

Thanks, Cooley2here. I feel the same way from a developmental standpoint. It would be different if my relationship with WS was more volatile. Neither of us like confrontation much, and I have a pretty good poker face. The kid recently said she thinks my greatest strength is being able to maintain my composure.

EvenKeel, that is really good to know. I do get stabs of guilt about staying while feeling done, but then I remember everything he did and tell myself it's okay to feel done. I am trying to keep an open mind about reconciliation. I know 3 years is a long time, and a lot can change (as it has in the past 3 years).

Just looking at divorces in my family and in friends’ I think you are smart to hang on. For some reason it seems that the age of the child, and the level of maturity, are important.

I agree that the age and level of maturity matters, but but but...it is hard to attach the actual "divorce" to children's behavior when oftentimes the lead up to the divorce is what causes the real stress. I was a PERFECT example of this. In the several years following the divorce I was a mess - I got involved in all kinds of risky behavior during my mid-teenage years. From the outside you could attach this to the divorce, but that is the easy out and misses the majority of the issue. My relationship with my father was MUCH improved after the divorce and in all honestly a lot of my behavior was related to having to move schools at the start of high school and starting over with knowing no one (something that would have happened anyway due to my parents employment situations).

The stress of the lead up to the divorce was terrible. The anxiety - that "chill" in the air - as a child I could feel that. Much like the OP, I also never saw my parents cry and while I did hear some arguing in the beginning, for the most part my sibling and I saw and heard nothing. Conversations were had when we were not at home. I do recall being allowed to stay at my best friend's house more often than usual for a time, and I now know that is when my parents were having it out so to speak. But, especially as a pre-teen, I was totally aware of the unspoken stress in the household. I could just sense it. Things were not the same. And perhaps the OP's child can also sense the calm that comes with the POLF on the part of the BS?

At any rate, I put little into statistics regarding divorce, to the extent IMO it's not the divorce itself that does the long term damage. It's the lead up to it and how parents deal with it in my case that left me in such a mess. Moreover, there aren't any statistics I'm aware of regarding staying through infidelity and its effect on the kids. I can only look to my WH as an example of someone who had parents who stuck it out for 4 years post A discovery (his farther had a 5 year A) and who divorced the summer of his graduation from high school....and he is not the model of a well adjusted person. Although on the outside, in his teens, while his parents were together and thee kids were "unaware" of the infidelity, on the surface appeared to be well adjusted, did well in school, none of the outbursts and crazy behavior I had, and appeared to have a successful childhood. Yet he has been in therapy for 4+ years dealing with his difficulties with addressing conflict, his desire to live in fantasy, his disassociative events (which have subsided largely in the last 2 years), his inability to be honest about simple things, and his incredible desire to control the outcome via manipulation.

He now admits that he was aware of the tension in his parents house even though he had no idea infidelity was the cause of it, and that he often walked on eggshells to avoid stepping too close to that tension. He spent a lot of time in his room playing video games to avoid his parents as his father often seemed irritated and his mother was almost robotic in that she tried so hard to pretend they were a happy family - and that it felt forced. He would have argued with me for eternity that his childhood was a happy one before, but to listen to him tell it, even 5 years ago, it never sounded happy to me. It sounded plastic.

That is where he and I are the same - I also do not recall my parents feeling happy. There were few examples of love or affection between them and as a result I think I simultaneously craved that romantic ideal, and recoiled from it. My WH has inadvertently modeled what he believed to be acceptable behavior to that of his father - a charming narcissistic person. He still struggles with not just shutting down and keeping problems to himself - therapy has helped immensely with that but he now relates so many of his issues to his childhood and to life after his mom discovered the A.

It's all anecdotal evidence I know - but I don't think many people are able to shield their kids from the aftermath of an A as well as they think.

[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 6:13 PM, Tuesday, May 21st]

ThisIsSoLonely, you might well be right about it all. Certainly during WH's LTA, he was irritable unless he'd been drinking, and I did my best to hold us together and be happy. Our kid is already in therapy, and it wouldn't surprise me if she needs it for many years. The pandemic was hard - I am about 20% functional due to ongoing Long Covid problems (since 2021), and that has taken a huge toll on everyone (I got sick many months after WH's affair started).

The emotional air in the household is clearer now. WH shows real affection to me. I can't fully reciprocate, and I'm sure our kid can sense the difference between my tone toward her and toward WH. She's a teenager, and she's quite astute.

That said, I think there are practical considerations in these situations that are also important. A safe neighborhood with access to good schools. Financial stability and keeping to familiar routines. Me having physical help with driving, cooking, and cleaning, all of which WH provides. Our teen is on the autism spectrum, and destabilizing her life by splitting households, giving up activities, and shrinking her world to what I'm able to do - these would also be hard on her. Which is worse - parents who aren't super affectionate and loving, or dealing with divorce, financial struggles, and moving houses? I honestly don't know, and the answer might be different for different people.

Many of us wish our teenage years had played out differently for all kinds of reasons, but no one can say for sure what is the best/least damaging path. I've talked to adults of divorced parents who wished their parents had patched things up. I've also heard from other who (like ThisIsSoLonely) were relieved when their parents split. Someday, when our kid is older, she will know the truth, and I will find out how much she sensed and what she wished had been different about her adolescence.