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What you feel now is just a phase of recovery..a fucking MERCILESS one, but a phase nonetheless. The angry phase is still coming. And that one will be the hardest to conquer, but at least it cleans out the one you're in now. I still get angry, and my dday was back in 2006 for gods sake. My wife's affair was the worst thing that ever happened to me. We decided to reconcile, but its really been an MF-er all the way. If I had a chance to do it all over again, I would have cut my losses. You are doing what I wish I would have done.

See my tagline?
It’s something I possibly base most of my life on. If I’m not happy with a situation… it’s up to me to change things.
Now – I’m not so naïve or arrogant as to suggest you simply stop feeling bad about what’s going on. Your grief and hardships are normal and expected. I am however going to encourage you to recognize that what you are experiencing is normal and expected AND that you will get over it.
Your next step is then next time you are all blue and in a funk to think: I feel like crap. That’s OK because it just shows I’m human. It’s also OK because I KNOW it’s a TEMPORARY phase. Now – what can I do to make that "temporary" as brief as possible?

What I did was to have plans in place. For example: If I lay awake in the evening and couldn’t sleep I would give myself a deadline (like 20 minutes). If I wasn’t asleep because I felt so blue I would force myself out of bed and clean the bathroom, or the floors, or empty the dishwasher, or wax my car… Whatever. I had a task, that task was mind-numbing and it would make me tired. Heck… even a 2 mile walk will do.
I then realized that I only needed to have the plan in place… After 2-3 evening of chores I would simply lie in bed feeling sorry for myself, then think… heck… I better sleep because otherwise it’s the wipes again… and fall asleep.

This worked for me. I somehow managed to break early the natural and normal cycle you seem to be in AND WE ALL went through.

Clint and bigger,

So it's normal that I'm still pining for her even after all this?

I'm maintaining NC but I miss her so much despite everything.

I figure there has to be something wrong with me to still want her to come back. I'm not expecting that to happen, I know it's a fantasy but I still catch myself thinking about it and have to tell myself that she's gone. I don't know when my heart is finally going to accept that.

I keep telling my self that she's not coming back, that she's hurt me too much, that she's not worth all this pain but I just cant get it through my head, it's frustrating.

It's been 2 months of pure agony since dday but I feel like it's been forever. When am I gonna say enough is enough and finally stop wishing she comes back? When am going to stop thinking of what I could've done better? To stop viewing her with rose colored glasses and see her for the cheater she is.

I'm scared that I'm going to love and miss her forever. I'm afraid that my life will feel empty without her.

I know that you're right Bigger, that this is all in my mind and that I have to make myself happy somehow, that I have to keep going forward but I truly feel stuck.

Are you exercising? Extensive walking... maybe weight lifting? Exercise seems to help with anxiety and can sometimes take your mind off what is happening in your life... if only for a little while. I know you know all this. Just a reminder.

I am wishing the very best for you. I just know you will get over this. One day at a time... 10 minutes at a time if necessary.

Keep posting.

[This message edited by lrpprl at 2:58 AM, Thursday, February 16th]

Broken, it took me over a year to realize XWH wasn't doing the work and 18 months after dday 1 to pull the plug. Well, dday2 happened and I tapped out.

Give yourself some grace because this is still so new. You'll get there but it takes time and healing to get there.

lrpprl

Yeah I was lifting weights pretty regularly but I hurt my shoulder at work so I've been taking it easy these last couple weeks. I should go for walks though. I'm moving this weekend and I'm getting my dog back so I'm looking forward to take her out for walks.

Thank you for encouraging me to keep posting. Sometimes I think I may be posting too much or being too whiny. It feels good to share with people who know exactly what I'm going through.

leafields,

Thank you. I don't know how long it is acceptable to be feeling like this. Some people seem to want me to move on already and are confused as to why I'm still crying about it. So thank you.

I agree with Bigger's tag line. At the same time, I don't think Epictetus is telling anyone to be happy all the time. Life includes events that cause grief, anger, fear, shame, joy.

Your posts express some of that, because you have experienced the trauma of losing your partner. IMO, your clinging to your image of your W is normal at this point. Your grief is normal. Your fear that your life will be empty is normal.

Because of the way I understand human behavior, I'd say your task is to go through the terrible process of feeling your pain, because I think doing thet lets the pain go. When it comes to ending an M, it takes a lot of time, because ending an M, especially after being betrayed, brings with it lots of pain that has to be processed. But I believe Epictetus is telling us to find the barriers to happiness within ourselves and to take those barriers down.

It's not easy, but it's worth the effort.

Posting can be a way of processing your pain.

As far as I know, there's no limit on the number of posts from a member.

Writing here again to unload my thoughts and feelings to the wonderful SI community.

I'm all moved in to my new place.
I have my dog and cat with me, they were not happy to move out of the house they grew up in but I hope they adjust with time.

I messed up a bit this last Friday. I was over at my FiL house picking up some things, he warned me my STBXW was coming to visit with my other dog.

Instead of leaving like I should have I stayed to see my dog, but to be honest I just wanted to see her. We talked, she's been sober for over a month, seeing her brought up a lot of feelings and I said I missed her and still did not want a divorce, she expressed that she has missed me too but she hasn't changed her mind about anything.

I was weak, I gave into my emotions and I fell on my face again. I thought I was through doing the pick me dance, I don't know why I did it. I should not have broken NC, I should have left, instead I made a fool of myself and let myself get hurt again.

I know no contact no new hurt, I wish I could say I learned my lesson but I'm not sure I did. I hope I'm able to suppress the urge to talk to her again.

You are still grieving, give yourself some grace and don’t beat up yourself for every action however illogical.

This is your journey towards healing and you will get there at some point. The hope is it happens sooner that later because logically it makes no sense wasting your precious life over someone that has cheated and moved on. I know the feeling of being dropped like a hot potato, it hurts more than the betrayal itself. I learnt my lessons pretty soon , you will learn yours too.

Can you take a break from communicating with your FIL for a bit, atleast till you reasonably heal? You will never get over your WW, there will be plenty of chances to see her deliberately or accidentally. You should reconnect with him when you are indifferent about your WW.

Your WW’s AP is not going anywhere. This unemployed 21 yr old is dependent on your wife financially and will keep her " high and happy" for quite some time. She is riding that high and may never want to come back into the stability that a marriage offers. She seems like someone that will constantly seek the high, even if she ever comes back to you. I hope you will keep this in mind.

Thinking about the future and a life without your WW might seem very intimidating. So take it one day at a time. Say a short prayer of thanks at the end of the day for making it through the day. Write down your thoughts, goals each day.

You will be fine !

Please don't be hard on yourself. You still love her and have a history with her. You are only human. You are not some robot or a piece of stone. Cut yourself some slack.

As I previously said, please keep posting here.

Have a good day and a good week, if possible.

I had two Ddays. The first was one where she lied to me about an unreciprocated EA with a former boss, who as it turns out, conveniently moved away after his W ran out on him. I was crushed and it totally changed me. After a psyche evaluation for suicide plans, I was put on meds and IC, all the while being co.pkeyely ignored by my W, who was actually knee deep I her A with my daughter's riding coach. It turns out he was a serial cheater andcshe was just another notch on his stable-post.

After the first Dday, I realized that I had lost myself in the role of husband and father, burying that interesting and passionate man I once was, so I endeavored to rediscover myself. Long story short, I lost that 10 pounds I had been carrying around and started treating myself better, much better. Our relationship, on my end, improved. I had no idea my WW had been lying to me for over a year. Dday2 hit almost to the year and the truth, as much as I could get, came out.

It was crushing, and I reacted poorly. I just wish I had known about this site and these amazing people. I was devastated, angry every emotion you can imagine, minus suicidal. Looking back, the year I had invested in myself had given me the strength and tools I needed to process this. It was by no means pretty, but I wasn't being tossed about on the waves.

I gave my WW 6 months,which I penciled in my head. I didnt tell her because she would have treated it like craming for an exam without affecting and real progress. I worked on myself, exercised, read, journaled, and did IC. Now here is the critical thing I learned. At the beginning, I could not imagine a life without my WW. After all, I had vowed myself to her and I fully intended to keep it. But as I invested in myself, I grew and developed. And as I became stronger, my WW became less attractive to me. She essentially became less of a match. She unfortunately was still reading from the old script and fully thought she was the prize. I seem to remember that she once tried to comfort me by telling me either I had won or she had chosen me. I laughed at that.

Just after the 6 month mark, I informed her a few days before, that I would be leaving on a solo trip for a week. Nothing else. The old me would have asked if it was okay, would she and the kids be alright...but no longer. I figured if she could figure out how to sneak away to suck some parking lot dick, she could manage on her own. I don't know if she was bright enough to see the writing on the wall, but my friends all did. When I returned and asked her a single question, it revealed that in 18 months she has achieved zero growth. In fact, at that moment, i realized she was a 50 year old version of her 20 year old self. So I pulled the plug right there.

My sister always told me that I would be done when I knew I was done. At the time, her advice was cryptic. Now it makes sense. You will shed tears until there are no more tears to shed. You will pine for her until there are no more feelings left. Your heart will break until it can break no longer. And then you will stand up and move forward and start to heal and grow. One thing I've noticed is that when many of the men I know are done, it is an irreversible thing. They will give you chances until your last chance is used up and then wash their hands of you. You have no idea which chance is the last, so if like my WW, you are reading from an old script, you are screwed and you won't even see it coming...

You need to focus on you. You need to heal you. You need to become the prize for yourself. And by doing this, you can become the best version of you, not to win her back or secure another relationship, but to live your one precious life well.

Regarding Justsomeguy's post:

Amen, amen, and amen!!

Do you have any support group to lean on, friends siblings other family, therapists etc. Dont go this alone, join a group a gym karate or yoga. If you never met her you would have been with someone else. The sun does not rise and fall at her feet. you miss someone you got really use to being around, I get it , it sucks and I think I am as codependent as you are but holding out hope where there is none is an effort in futility, from here on out you come first and she is non existent.

hey mech.. i know two months feels like eternity right now but you’re just breaking the surface. nobody handles this shit flawlessly, if you slip it’s ok. just recognize when you do, and try not to do it again. honestly, i’m glad she’s not changing her mind right now. if she did, you’d be right back where you started. do you want to look over your shoulder? do you want to get anxiety every time you have to work night shift? i hope you don’t, that’s no way to live. that’s not happy. i promise.. if you give yourself some time, you’ll see this situation for what it is. there’s a good life beyond this… that doesn’t include being bound to someone that doesn’t appreciate you the way you appreciate them

Thank you all for the replies.

I've been thinking of why I'm still feeling like I want to go back to her.

I feel like if only I've done a better job at being a husband this wouldn't have happened. People keep telling me it's not my fault but I can't but feel like it is.

If I had better self esteem and loved myself more, and tried to stand on my own instead of leaning on her so much.
If only I listened to the problems she brought up, if i was more attentive, if I did more around the house. If I wasn't so fucking lazy and actually tried harder to stop procrastinating she wouldn't have stepped out and abandoned me.

I keep reading to not be hard on myself but that's all I can think. I know thinking of the should've, could've, would've wont change the past. However, I feel some responsibility for all this, like I deserve what happened.

Maybe I want her to come back so I can try harder to do all those things I didn't do and maybe she would be faithful this time.

I know this might not be rational or healthy but this is what I've been thinking and felt like writing it down.

@BrokenMechanic

I think every BS understands this train of thought. It's a way to give ourselves some sort of control over a situation that we had no control over in the first place. Having no control over something sucks, and so we tell ourselves "If only I had done X" to give ourselves that feeling.

Nothing, NO, THING, you did or didn't do caused your WW to cheat. The cheating came from a place inside her, it is a character flaw within herself, not a flaw within your relationship. You can read dozens of stories of BS who had absolute monsters for a WS, but did those BS go out and cheat? No. If she was honestly so unhappy and had so many issues with the M, she could've been an adult and told you about it so you two could work through them. Or if she didn't feel like you were improving and really wanted out, she could've asked for a D before doing anything else. She didn't want to do that, she wanted to cheat, so she did.

And you are right, it is not healthy to think you could've done anything to change things. And it's not healthy to pine after a partner who would treat you this way. I completely understand the duality of emotions you're feeling.

YOU are the prize. You will, when you're ready, find someone who understands that. Anyone who is unfortunate enough to find your WW in their lives as she is right now will have not caught a prize.

Sending support your way!

[This message edited by WonderingGhost at 3:44 PM, Thursday, April 20th]

It's normal to feel that way. I think self-blame is natural. It allows us the illusion of control, like if we change ourselves, the bad thing won't happen, right? It's kind of like the bargaining stage of grief. The other illusion though is that anyone might cheat under the right circumstances, but honestly, that's just not so. There are many people who would never cheat under ANY circumstances, because cheating simply is NOT a valid choice in their decision tree.

IMHO, and after many years of thought and study, I really do believe that cheating is about CHARACTER, meaning the way our values align with our choices. There was nothing inside your WW which prevented cheating from being an option. YOU didn't cause that. You couldn't have. Her values come from INSIDE her. This was always her, even when she didn't know it.

That's not to say that people can't change. I do believe they can. But it's really difficult, introspective, and humbling work, so not all manage it.

If only I listened to the problems she brought up, if i was more attentive, if I did more around the house.

Nope, that isn't true. My XWH wouldn't even listen to me and answer when I asked what he'd like for dinner. He pretty much ignored me & was either on his phone or watching TV (or both). He really only put his dirty clothes in the basket (if they aren't in the dirty clothes basket, they aren't dirty so they won't get washed), and watered/mowed the yard. He rarely cooked. Once in awhile, he'd get me a cup of hot tea.

Guess who has two thumbs and didn't cheat? Me!

I agree with CT on this one. Cheating really does seem to be a matter of character.

Hi, BrokenMechanic;

I’m sorry you’re here, but am glad you found us.

If I’d only this, … If I’d only that, … If I’d only not done that one thing, or had done the other, …

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said the same thing to myself, looking for a reason – an external cause – as to why my WW did what she did. I had the thought she really wasn’t a cheater at heart, and that something outside her caused her to do what she did, pushed her to compromise her morals, values, ethics, and promise to me. It took a while for me to finally conclude that wasn’t true.

So, what helped me get to that point? It was reading here on SI about others who couldn’t understand WHY their WS cheated. I read they seemed to both love each other very much, their sex life was great, they had sufficient money to not worry about bills and still take nice trips. I read where they both were in good shape, so they looked attractive to each other. They both loved their kids and had a great family life. The went to church and loved God. All that anyone wanted in a M was present, but still one of them committed adultery. But, why? Why would anyone jeopardize such an ideal relationship?

What WonderingGhost and ChamomileTea said is the answer. There is something inside the WS which overrode their moral code to give them license to cheat. Something so reprehensible to us turned out to be "not-a-big-deal" to them. You’ll try to figure that out, try to understand it, but you won’t. It’s like a man trying to understand what it’s like to give birth – Good luck with that!

My point to this long soliloquy is to say we BS’s have all been down the road you’re currently traveling. I think the brain is wired to try to make sense of what just happened and can’t. It’s part of the healing process. Eventually, if you let things take their course, your brain will stop going in circles with this situation and move on to the next problem. Some people move past this quickly, others take a little while. We’re all different, so give yourself the time you need to work through this. Your brain may want more information, or it may just need for you to take a break so it can categorize the new truth. Again, we’re all different and have different needs at different times.

We’re here for you and want to encourage you to hang in there. Keep posting – it will help to get that stuff out so your brain and your heart have room to work.