SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I’ve never seriously considered a permanently single life. Maybe I should. Again, there are some long held, meaningful beliefs tied up there. I don’t know what the future holds, but safe to say I’m considering remarrying, even wanting it. Maybe that is what has been modeled to me, I don’t know.

I would seriously consider changing your thought process to pursuing life as a single person as the primary path. You're going to be busy the next few years adjusting to the new normal. Right after I first divorce those of that hung out in the OLD site I was on called it the island of misfit toys. Make sure you are fully patched up yourself before diving back in or you'll might just find yourself with another just as damaged as your STBX.

I would seriously consider changing your thought process to pursuing life as a single person as the primary path. You're going to be busy the next few years adjusting to the new normal. Right after I first divorce those of that hung out in the OLD site I was on called it the island of misfit toys. Make sure you are fully patched up yourself before diving back in or you'll might just find yourself with another just as damaged as your STBX.

Certainly falls into the category of "counter-intuitive relationship advice" for me. There, now Sisoon can feel comfortable again.

Something about that feels empty to me, sad. May well be my over valuing marriage manifesting, but it’s there none the less. I’m mid-40’s. There is reason to hope that I have a lot of life left in me. Who knows what the future holds.

Hi Ink

Long time lurker here. I've followed your threads from the beginning and have a lot of respect for how you've handled this shitstorm. It strikes me that guys like you and me are what would be classed as "nice guys," basically guys that try and solve problems instead of creating them, hence my username . I wonder if your thought process regarding remarrying is more of a trauma response to the realization that your current marriage is ending and you are leaning into that instinct to correct that. You talk about fears in future relationships. I think a big vulnerability for guys like us is the instinct to correct things that go wrong in our lives, even if we are not responsible for them; they affect us, therefore we feel the need to fix them.
I think one thing that has changed in you that perhaps you are not taking into account is that given all the crap you've been through, your bullshit meter is much more finely tuned than it was before, and your tolerance for such behaviour in a relationship is more minimized. You are much more aware of toxic behaviour patterns, and I'm willing to bet if faced with them in the future, you'd probably surprise yourself with how quickly you'd shut that shit down. I think Grubs makes a really good point about
getting comfortable with the idea of single life only when being happy not just with ourselves but by ourselves can we ever really be happy with anyone else.

InkHulk, your sharing about the change in your WW soon as the day after your wedding was so poignant that I got sad reading it. And also it is a major clue to you having grounds for an annulment, if you should ever want to pursue that in a religious context. Seriously. It points to lack of willingness to give of herself in the marriage, going in.

As to not spending any more of your life with a cold, avoidant partner, I hear your concern. Isn't your question 'how to predict if someone will flip on you again?' Just a thought here: do you know any happily married couples in your wider circle with whom you could open up and ask this kind of awkward question? Might be hard to do, but it would be good for you to hear a happy couple telling you that most partners do NOT pull such switches as you and I and everyone on this forum had to experience.

Wish I had a better suggestion, but I'm right there with ya.

I'll try again with some good advice:

The best way to get yourself over one woman is to get jerself *under* another woman!

Hey, *someone* needed to come on here and tell *InkHulk to be a manwhore With that said, I am getting the impression that this is NOT a purely hypothetical topic. A few thoughts...

1. What @grubs and @sisoon and @ThisISFine (I apologize if I left anyone out I only skimmed this thread) said about how being single i.e., not in a committed romantic relationship, should be your focus for at least the next few years I think. You have to adjust to your new family dynamics. But I also think you need a new role besides that of husband (no longer to your STBX-WW yes but to another woman). You need to heal from what you have been through.

2. I don't think there is a crystal ball. I understand your STBX-WW was a terrific girlfriend/fiancee who turned into a bad wife. I don't know if there is a fool-proof way to prevent that from ever happening again. Maybe this goes back to 1. above?

Long time lurker here. I've followed your threads from the beginning and have a lot of respect for how you've handled this shitstorm.

Thanks for the compliment, and glad to have you join the conversation.

It strikes me that guys like you and me are what would be classed as "nice guys," basically guys that try and solve problems instead of creating them, hence my username.

Making things better rather than fucking them up DOES strike me as the better choice between the two, so you may have something there And I dig your username.

I wonder if your thought process regarding remarrying is more of a trauma response to the realization that your current marriage is ending and you are leaning into that instinct to correct that.

I have a lot of religious beliefs tied up in the concept of marriage, hold that idea for the reply to WBFA, have to deal with his "man whore" promptings anyway

I think one thing that has changed in you that perhaps you are not taking into account is that given all the crap you've been through, your bullshit meter is much more finely tuned than it was before, and your tolerance for such behaviour in a relationship is more minimized.

I think you are right, this is my best hope. I am a very very different man than I was at 23. But I’m also still that man. I’ve learned so much, lived thru so much, and yet part of that is knowing that love blinds us. Will my bullshit meter be enough once sparks fly? I work in an industry where we don’t leave critical failures up to just single fault human judgments. But that is pretty much what this is, me needing to be rational and sane, while also wanting to experience passion and fall in love. Sounds dangerous.

InkHulk, your sharing about the change in your WW soon as the day after your wedding was so poignant that I got sad reading it. And also it is a major clue to you having grounds for an annulment, if you should ever want to pursue that in a religious context.

I believe our wedding night was a trigger for her for previous trauma, that is most likely true. Forgive me for doubting pretty much everything she has ever told me at this point though.

I am not part of a religious tradition that would have me pursue an annulment. I have more than enough justification to end this marriage without digging into this topic.

As to not spending any more of your life with a cold, avoidant partner, I hear your concern. Isn't your question 'how to predict if someone will flip on you again?' Just a thought here: do you know any happily married couples in your wider circle with whom you could open up and ask this kind of awkward question? Might be hard to do, but it would be good for you to hear a happy couple telling you that most partners do NOT pull such switches as you and I and everyone on this forum had to experience.

I don’t think everyone on this forum had this particular experience. I’ve actually found people’s descriptions here of their marriages to help me understand that what I was living with was fucked up. Rationally I know that what my wife did is not guaranteed to happen to me again, but having experienced it and been wildly confused by it for the better part of 20 years makes a boy a wee bit gun shy.

Hey, *someone* needed to come on here and tell *InkHulk to be a manwhore With that said, I am getting the impression that this is NOT a purely hypothetical topic.

Clearly, someone had to…

You and your good points, you are correct that this is not just a hypothetical to me. Probably the best I can say on this topic in this forum is I’m deeply thinking about how to proceed in life while remaining faithful to what I hold dear.

1. What @grubs and @sisoon and @ThisISFine (I apologize if I left anyone out I only skimmed this thread) said about how being single i.e., not in a committed romantic relationship, should be your focus for at least the next few years I think. You have to adjust to your new family dynamics. But I also think you need a new role besides that of husband (no longer to your STBX-WW yes but to another woman). You need to heal from what you have been through.

I think this is probably correct. I’m feeling an urge to get ahead of myself here. I have a lot of objectively desirable traits, so unless I’ve got some odor I haven’t detected yet I really should do alright dating. But it’s been 20 years, the world has changed probably three times over, and I’ve never thought about what dating at this stage of life would ever look like. I was all in on my marriage, no back up plan. The blank canvas now is exhilarating and terrifying.

2. I don't think there is a crystal ball. I understand your STBX-WW was a terrific girlfriend/fiancee who turned into a bad wife. I don't know if there is a fool-proof way to prevent that from ever happening again. Maybe this goes back to 1. above?

I honestly believe that if something like this was to happen again that I would divorce because of it. It would be such a trigger to me and a sign that I was with a dishonest person and I couldn’t do it. And that is one of those lessons I’ve learned in this that I have not really tied out with my larger belief systems.

[This message edited by InkHulk at 5:41 PM, Sunday, September 15th]

Oh, Ink ... so much crap comes from the counseling industry. I started with UM counseling trainees in Ann Arbor, and it wasn't until I got with Transactional Analysts, also in Ann Arbor, that I started getting good ideas.

I got one great idea from a trainee psychiatrist that I still remember. After spending more money on a toy than I thought I could afford, I said to the shrink, 'The luxuries are getting in the way of the necessities.' He said, 'The necessities get in the way of the luxuries,' thereby reminding me that the luxuries (as I define them) are what I really want.

I'm writing to add my voice to those who tell you not to jump into a new relationship without a lot of thought. You've learned a lot about asserting yourself in your M, but I'm not sure you can carry that over to other relationships. My reco, too, is to set a goal of living a fulfilling single life.

Put your own oxygen mask in first. Don't worry about attracting other women. Every day the demographics get more and more favorable to you.

IMO, you'll find a better partner the better you know yourself.

*****

IDK about my discomfort. You reminded me that we human beings put up with a lot of emotional pain that we don't have to put up with. (I can see my favorite English teacher looking at me and using his middle finger to push his glasses back into place because I ended a sentence with a preposition.)

If there's a new M for you, I hope your wedding is just another day on the way to bliss. (On our wedding night, W rested a while, and ** TMI **. I mean, neither of us slept that night, it being the 1st time we ever shared a bed with another person.)

Every day the demographics get more and more favorable to you.

And it’s my curse as a nerd to know that is because I, as a male, have a non-favorable survival curve in front of me

This just isn’t how I envisioned life going, that’s probably part of why I fought so hard to save the marriage. But it’s my reality now and all I can do is make the next good decision. But like I said, I’ve never thought about life dynamics like this, it’s hard for me to say what "good" is.

Counterintuitive to popular advice.. I could write a book.

Basically any advice offered that required me to forgive anyone who didn’t change, to be a doormat, object or to put up with abuse or cheating is out.

The counterintuitive piece is that I can live a happy fulfilled life full of joy and do things that feel good within my moral boundaries. I can heal in relationships with others including in a healthy intimate relationship (some people may disagree and that’s ok).

Also counterintuitive is that I believed despite the fact that exwh told me no one would ever want me. I believed I could well find a partner who is much more suited to me than the Chex (cheating ex). This is a big world and there are probably thousands if not more men in my age range who I could have a great relationship with.
This is even taking into account that I would not date down much in age as a preference and I would not date out of my spiritual principles or date someone who had cheated or who was financially irresponsible or otherwise incompatible value wise. [I am happy to leave people to their own religions and spiritual practices as long as they have moral codes and I am happy to do date night at Wendy’s 2 for one burger and
stay in a Holiday Inn Express on vacation, but I don’t want 5 star accommodations on a credit card balance.]

Now the truth is I and my current partner worked on ourselves for decades trying to figure out what we were doing wrong in our relationships. And we learned great skills like communication. So there is that. And I do agree that taking time to heal is important rather than using another person to dull the pain of the past.

I wish everyone peace and healing.

Basically any advice offered that required me to forgive anyone who didn’t change, to be a doormat, object or to put up with abuse or cheating is out.

Yup. I wish I could go back and figure out how to reinforce this with my kids rather than the bull shit "say you’re sorry, say you forgive them" that I did because that is what my parents did. I think forgiveness is earned, and slow.

The counterintuitive piece is that I can live a happy fulfilled life full of joy and do things that feel good within my moral boundaries.

I’ve been playing with the idea that for all the intense pain and sorrow that I’ve felt in life, that I would hope that there is a comparable joy. But as of today, it seems to me more likely to me that our default state is a low level joy, or at least it is supposed to be, when we aren’t fucking it up. That life is good (but not safe) and potentially quite enjoyable for us, again, when not in a state of disaster.