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I call it 'whiplash' or an 'overcorrection' in other contexts. But yes, I fully concede that part too.

I also did it when I was younger and dating - just as Bluer describes (being attracted to the 'opposite' of the person you're leaving). I have to think the term "rebound" actually describes that exact phenomena (though through common parlance it has been used to describe any relationship that occurs shortly after a major breakup). When I think of the term 'rebound', I think of a ball/puck bouncing of the ground/backboard/crossbar etc and propelling in the opposite direction. So it makes sense that a rebound relationship would be moving in the opposite reaction in response/as a reaction to the breakup.

I see rebounds an issue not so much as picking the opposite, though that can be an issue, as much as accepting too little just to fill the gaping hole left in your life. You spent so many years with a partner and not having one feels totally so unnatural. The reflex is to find one. Anyone. You have to get used to being an individual again. To get comfortable with that. Before you go seeking someone who really fits. I dove right in. Signed up on dating sites the day the ex moved out. It was pretty clear I was still walking wounded rather quickly, so I sidelined myself for a year. That year did wonders.

Trust is different after. More practical. Only earned and never complete.

Was that custom?

You spent so many years with a partner and not having one feels totally so unnatural. The reflex is to find one.

Yeah, I can feel this. And add to that that I feel robbed of so much time, 2 years invested in failed R, 3+ years of sham marriage during the A, and even before that now knowing the secrets and resentments that were lurking, I fucking want a healthy connection with a woman. And sex with someone who actually wants me. I’m sure I’d give the same advise to a friend, to take it slow and give it time, but it feels like the clock is ticking and that I’ve been fucked over.

[This message edited by InkHulk at 1:34 AM, Friday, May 17th]

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I’d expect nothing less

It’s funny, these days, giving myself permission to flirt a little, smile at someone I wouldn’t have before, talk a little more, it just feels unnatural. I compare these tiny things that I’m doing as a free man to the blaring red lines that my wife crossed and it just blows my mind all the more that she was able to do it. Honestly, WTF

I’m sure I’d give the same advise to a friend, to take it slow and give it time, but it feels like the clock is ticking and that I’ve been fucked over.

You're not that old. Unless I missed that you are planning on having more kids, you have plenty of time to find someone who fits. You want to find someone that fits the healed healthy you, not the dinged and battered individual you are now.

IH, how are you doing? How far along are you in the D process at this point? How much longer do you have to go? It’s funny cause I feel like you are somebody I know, but you could walk right up to me in the street and I would have no idea. BS share a bond and I often find myself thinking about this person or that one and wonder what and how they are doing. I found myself thinking of you today. I’m so sorry that R did not work out but in my own mind I thought D was in the cards. Your wife is an enigma and I have little understanding of her motivations, wants and desires. Is she now stoically accepting of where you are in terms of divorce? Lastly, if I’m being a pain in the ass with all of these questions feel free to ignore me. I just thought I would reach out. Best wishes IH.

You're not that old.

I suppose it’s all relative, but yeah.

You want to find someone that fits the healed healthy you, not the dinged and battered individual you are now.

Thanks for saying this. It’s clear, direct language that I can’t argue with at all. Makes a ton of sense.

IH, how are you doing? How far along are you in the D process at this point?

Well, I’m questioning my ability to ever trust again, so that probably gives some context on how I’m doing. All things considered, I’m doing alright.

The D process is moving slowly. My lawyer isn’t the fastest to respond, and I’ve been traveling for work a decent amount. I’ve never been thru the process, so I really have no sense of where I stand in terms of percent complete. For all things that ever mattered to me before, the marriage is over. Bigger said in a previous thread that you get married in a church and divorced in a courthouse. I cared about the church part. I know I have to get thru the courthouse and figure out the numbers and logistics, but I have no passion to do it. In my head I know that the outcome of that will impact my life and to keep my wits, but I’m giving myself some time to emotionally breathe and rest after two years of hell.

Thanks for asking, you’ve shown a lot of care over a long period of time, I’ve noticed.

I think in time you will see that you didn't waste time. You took the time to assess the situation, to give it a chance to evolve. You did it with the best of intentions in keeping your family together. Don't beat yourself up for it.

You are not late to anything. You have learned a lot about yourself that will benefit you moving forward. You will approach relationships differently, and that's not a bad thing. You will be more conscious of forming co-dependent situations. You will honor your boundaries.

In this next period of life, maybe over 1-2 years, you will learn more of that. You will have the chance to know yourself differently. It's not like you are trying to beat the clock to have more kids or something like that. There is no rush, take time to honor the lessons that your soul came here to learn. The hardest times in our lives tends to push us through doors that I think in time when this is all said and done, you will come to appreciate the richness of the wisdom and change imparted through your darkest hours. I am never saying that you will be glad any of it happened, but you will reap things from it that you will appreciate differently in time.

I used to do the same thing, this is how I know. I think about all the time we wasted in being unhappy. I think about things like when he goes out on his motorcycle is he going to return to me or did I make the last seven years of his life the worst instead of the best. I have to accept that there are greater powers than me in how the world works.

As far as seeing how uncomfortable you are in trying to be a little more extraverted and flirty and how could she do it...

For me, I let my love die. I gave up on the marriage. I don't think all ws do that. I think some can truly cake eat and buy into the fallacy of unmet needs. They want their spouse/marriage and they want more sex or more attention. I personally think your wife was more like me than a cakeeater. She let her love die over staring at her disappointments more than the gifts she had in her life. Over not taking control over her own happiness, or maybe not even knowing what that could look like. So, the short answer is the way she did it is she had mentally left. Not all people can do that, and I think you might be one of them. When you truly leave from living in the same household I think it will feel more real to you, and the actions may still feel uncomfortable for some time because it's not what you are used to it, but there won't be the tug you are feeling now that you wonder how she didn't feel.

And yes, you want to attract someone to your healed vibration and not your in-flux vibration, because it is more likely to draw another person who likes chaos. The woman that you find to share the rest of your life with is going to want you to have had some time for yourself, she is going to want to come to an established co-parenting relationship. Someone who doesn't mind that chaos could still be genuine but know that person is more comfortable in chaos than you would normally be. That's why I said FWB, I had a person to share deep thoughts with, someone who I could enjoy sexually, but without the other ties I had the freedom that I needed to be able to explore myself and heal. I just ended up liking him eventually after a year, realizing I would rather go hang out with him than go on any more dates. It was natural. You want to keep engaging in a way that feels natural and not forced. Listen to yourself on those things, those feelings of discomfort are there for a reason because it helps you live your values. It's all good stuff, and eventually will feel more exciting than it does now, and that's about the time that you will also stop looking at "wasted time" and become compassionate with yourself that things took what they took.

[This message edited by hikingout at 5:49 PM, Friday, May 17th]

To be clear, I have no plans to change my screen name to waitedwaytooevenlonger or something like that What I’m not saying is that I suddenly regret trying in R. I still believe I had to walk that path and couldn’t be in my current state/vibration without having experienced all that.

I think it’s ok to look at shitty times in our lives and think of them as shitty. It’s a pretty common refrain in the Bible to look forward in hope to goodness coming out of misery. It’s been fucking miserable, and I know I don’t have to tell you or anyone here that as if you didn’t know, but I’m just claiming that space here. That for all the lessons I may learn, all the positive change that is available to me, it was hellish, and it makes me thirst for goodness. And I don’t want to settle for something shitty just to temporarily take the edge off, I agree. I’ll even delete the dating app I downloaded to show how much I agree with that, you guys are right. But I still feel robbed, and I’m going to have to wrestle with that in myself and with my maker. I guess it speaks to how much I’ve wanted a relationship and the weight I’ve placed on that. It’s probably my own personal idol. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?

For me, I let my love die. I gave up on the marriage. I don't think all ws do that. I think some can truly cake eat and buy into the fallacy of unmet needs. They want their spouse/marriage and they want more sex or more attention. I personally think your wife was more like me than a cakeeater. She let her love die over staring at her disappointments more than the gifts she had in her life. Over not taking control over her own happiness, or maybe not even knowing what that could look like. So, the short answer is the way she did it is she had mentally left.

These words bring tears and anger, directed at my wife, not you hikingout, just to be super clear. Maybe you are right, but if so it’s so horrible. I was right there, the whole time, deeply wanting to connect with her. And she allowed herself to just fade away and blame me for it. She didn’t even try. When I felt her slipping away I pursued her with everything I had. Please forgive me if you feel offense from this, but the cowardice and callousness of this absolutely floors me.

I don’t feel that way at all.

I understand your point of view of it, and I have already understood that perspective for a long time because of my own conversations with my husband.

I do not defend it. I do not think it’s intentionally callous even if that was the result. Because to be intentionally callous falling out of love with him would have been maliciously carried out. People pleasers and conflict avoiders lose power in the relationship over time but they do not see they are the cause of it. They think they have tried to say things, many things. But we re also a bit passive aggressive and give up the argument too easily. We tend to not know how to convey things in a positive or in depth way that the other person can build from.

So, my losing hope and love was wrong. Very very wrong. At the time, for me, it was "I surrender, I can’t change him or the relationship" and though I would still say stuff I eventually didn’t feel love only pain.

Now, I can clearly see I can encourage and precipitate change because I corrected my view and practiced those skills. I can see I didn’t feel love partially because I didn’t love myself enough to make the demands of what I wanted. But it more felt like to me he was callous, I was drowning and no one cared. I was saying stuff just not clearly enough. I just thought he didn’t care and there was no getting through to him because of that.

Does not excuse having an affair instead of communicating or asking for a divorce but sometimes the path through a struggle is unclear. And that clearly was callous and malicious behavior. Just the falling out of love and checking out was more of a build up over time and not a conscious decision.

It doesn’t make you less of a victim in that situation, but it also didn’t likely come from a place of malice either. Callous is a good word because when you can’t change a situation (or believe you can’t) then you lose hope, it’s not a power move or a way of punishing someone. Callous means you just don’t care, and it comes from pain buildup and longer patterns of missed opportunities to bridge that gap in the connection.

I addressed the timeline because I was responding to a specific post. I agree it all has sucked, I don’t discount that at all. But I have heard that from you Many times. And I think you will see what I am talking about as you move through this. Might be your personality or maybe you are a Virgo, not really sure. Lol (that’s a joke, but every Virgo in my life is so attuned to talking about time)

[This message edited by hikingout at 8:12 PM, Friday, May 17th]

Might be your personality or maybe you are a Virgo, not really sure. Lol (that’s a joke, but every Virgo in my life is so attuned to talking about time)

Whoa, whoa, whoa, getting a bit personal asking about my sign, aren’t you?

I am conscious of timing passing. Life is short, my boyish good looks can’t last forever. I feel like I want something that I don’t have and worry that I will miss my chance to ever have, namely a healthy intimate relationship with a woman. Starting over now, I’m already losing so much shared history. Anybody new will never know my grandparents, my father, my babies. And I guess that pretty much leaves me, which is what it is always supposed to be about, I suppose.
I believe you that there are lessons ahead for me, but I can only speak about where I currently am.

Yes, I get that. No wait you aren’t really a Virgo are you? That would be hilarious!

Okay, so I get you completely a shared history was a big one for me, one of the reasons that I waited before deciding to divorce (not suggesting this for you, just commiserating that’s not a small thing, it was big to me)

I just want to say I am a little sorry for saying the other stuff about love. I do think it’s my biggest theory because it was my experience but it doesn’t make it true. However, I have heard you say it multiple times here a different way, and that’s why I didn’t think I was introducing anything new.

You put it in terms of resentments. Something to the effect of holding her resentments kept her from remorse. It’s because those resentments caused her great pain, and this is what I mean about losing love. That pain was her responsibility in the relationship to resolve, but also mishandled leads to loss of love and connection. So I thought you already understood those aspects of it, and it confirmed my bias or projections.

Yes, I get that. No wait you aren’t really a Virgo are you? That would be hilarious!

Nope, Leo and proud here.

I just want to say I am a little sorry for saying the other stuff about love. I do think it’s my biggest theory because it was my experience but it doesn’t make it true. However, I have heard you say it multiple times here a different way, and that’s why I didn’t think I was introducing anything new.

You put it in terms of resentments. Something to the effect of holding her resentments kept her from remorse. It’s because those resentments caused her great pain, and this is what I mean about losing love. That pain was her responsibility in the relationship to resolve, but also mishandled leads to loss of love and connection. So I thought you already understood those aspects of it, and it confirmed my bias or projections.

I welcome finding ways to feel these things, let the pain find its way out. I don’t think you said anything wildly novel here, but maybe with a new enough angle or maybe just a time frame for me that I could feel it again. There is also still some dissonance here: she told me the whole time that she loved me. She told me after d-day that she never stopped loving me. I believed that. But maybe it’s not true. How would you describe that in your story? You say here that you let love die, but that must be in some sense that it wasn’t complete or permenant, as you eventually wanted him again. Can you help me understand this nuance?

My understanding of our relationship dynamics is in flux now that I’m fully extracted from them. You stating it that way, I think it paints a picture to me of things she was doing that I had no chance to do anything about. No amount of date nights or dishes or confident masculinity was going to change what you just described. I’ve talked in the past about her writing about asking me "in the wrong tone"to change her character, as if I had any ability to do that regardless of tone! It’s hard for me to say, I tend to look inside and see what fault I have, but I think, while imperfect, I did enough to have succeeded in this marriage, and she did not. That is strangely hard for me to say and sit with.

So, here is how I look at this.

One, life is long and I was always told that connection will ebb and flow. To find a way to fall in love with the same person over and over. That you may not always feel in love but you honor your commitments.

So my framing for love has always been based on feelings. How someone else makes me feel.

When I would be telling him things he does that hurts me and nothing changes, then I started to believe that he liked how useful I was to him but that he didn’t love me for me. These perceptions were false but once you have them then you start down this path of looking for proof you are right. We had a busy life with three kids and all the things that come with family. Sex was no longer coming from connection it came from expectation. I kept telling him that I couldn’t keep up with everything he just thought I was whining, even after the doctor told both of us I was emotionally exhausted. Compliments were rare, complaints about things I did or didn’t do seemed more frequent. And due to emotional exhaustion and having bad anxiety and panic attacks, it was driving him crazy and I felt just so unlovable.

This is why I say to others loving themselves is so important. Because to believe other people love you, you have to feel lovable or you are always looking for proof they do or they don’t and a lot of time the answer you get out of this loop is they don’t.

It wasn’t my husbands job to make sure I was feeling a certain way all the time. It was my job. His affections should have been appreciated as the cherry on top, not the whole sundae. I didn’t have passions, I had a great job but I didn’t love it, most of my relationships were superficial, the things that were going on for me were mostly just laborious. I needed something to rest in, and I looked to the relationship for that. And when he started the business and I am having my last kid leave I really just felt like the good part of my life was over and no soft place to rest.

But I failed to appreciate. And I failed to say this isn’t working for me. Or if you want me to be more into sex then we need to get closer to each other again. Or put my foot down about something. But at the same time I kept feeling like if he wanted to he would. I didn’t want to beg him to love me.

I don’t see things that way now. I focus on the good. I find something nice to do for him every day because I learned the butterflies come from loving him not from him validating me and expecting all these things that aren’t even realistic. I say when something bothers me and we have gotten to know each other again in a deep way.

I don’t see love as something that has a permanent end, but I see it as something we cultivate and we choose to cultivate it on a daily basis. If we stop doing that, to me that is losing love. Do that long enough and things feel sort of dead. But maybe it’s more like a dormant stage, ready to be revived in the right circumstances.

I had an exit affair, even if I didn’t think that way at the time. I never planned to be with the ap either. My fantasy was to live alone where all I had to do is take care of me. I only felt that way because I was burned out. My people pleasing wasn’t allowing me to get what I wanted and now I was exhausted and felt like I just wanted to sleep for 3 years. And I blamed him for that. It’s more a narrative that kind of takes shape and takes hold of the lens in which you see things.

Not as extreme as an affair, I think that colors things with a lens though too. But for good reason. But it is the same in that will color a disagreement or a slight to be as big as something much larger. It’s sort of like that. I wouldn’t by any means say it’s the same but I am trying to come up with things you can relate to. Everything your wife does you see it through a lens of pain. And for me it was like that. (Doesn’t mean your lens is skewed, I am just saying mine was)

Right now you still love your wife but at the same time you don’t. You have created an impermeable exterior to protect yourself. (And also to align yourself with your decision) It was like that sort of, not exactly because some of what I was doing was without presence of mind.

This barrier of protection was there before the affair, just didn’t have the energy to think about taking the steps I needed to. ( He wasn’t unaware of this part, I actually asked once how he would feel if I went and stayed at one of our rentals months before the affair. I decided against it because were were close to the last kid leaving for college and they still needed me in the house for many reasons)

He kind of turned towards me a little more at that point. I wouldn’t say he pursued me but he was starting to recognize I wasn’t myself and maybe he better tighten things up a bit. But I felt done and too afraid to hope that after all these years of forming patterns in our marriage that we were really going to work it out. (This was exhaustion talking really it had been a year or maybe 18 months of a less stellar time in a pretty darned good marriage) I thought he would be good for a while and stop. I stayed detached, I didn’t want to lose my resolve. I felt I couldn’t go on not feeling seen or heard. At the end of the day, I couldn’t be seen and heard because I wasn’t showing up, I was too busy being perfect and checking all the boxes whether I wanted to or not. No one would have made me feel that way because I was hiding. .

When I was able to become more self aware I could see He didn’t do this to me (that’s a big difference over an affair), and when I could clearly see that I had constructed this and would have with anyone I was ever with that’s when I forgave whatever small part he did have in it. It unblocked me from being able to love him. And that was a relief because I always did love him underneath , I just couldn’t take the pain of not feeling loved.

That’s all very confusing I am sure. It’s not like I hated him or even that I didn’t have fond feelings of him still. I just was so fucking tired of the pain of living the way we were and I didn’t think I could change it. I didn’t feel like I had power in the relationship.l because I never exercised any.

None of this excuses what I did to him. And I don’t blame him on any level for that. I do believe that he contributed to the dynamics in which I didn’t feel loved, that was not all me. But it was my job to say the things and to become aware of myself in all of it. I just really didn’t know how. Now I do. Sometimes I still think on things for a while before I say them, but only because I am careful now to assess my part and decide what I want to ask for. I have learned if I know what I want and say it, then most of the time we can negotiate those win wins I used to tell you about.

I don’t know if this explains it or not. I wish I could go back and shake myself awake. I could have done so many things differently. The affair is just the big one, but all that led up to it would never have happened either. When you talk wasted time, man, I am probably at 9 years of woulda coulda shoulda. But I now understand how to be married, how to promote joy and happiness and passion and love. How to honor myself too.

So if I got here, I can’t say it was all wasted. Because it’s a really good place. (You are going to be in a really good place soon too) Yes the affair created a lot of waste and if I had a Time Machine and could only change one thing in my whole life it would be that. But there are cities that have been built in my head, all my relationships are stronger, especially the one with myself. I don’t need others to make me feel things, I need others because I want them in my life.

Now I am rambling on, but it’s because it’s so uncomfortable to say all these things I thought that was so wrong, I think I overcompensate by balancing it back out with what’s gone right. It’s not uncomfortable for the reasons you might guess, I don’t mind to admit I have been the villain in my story. It’s just I have become so abundantly positive that it pains me to complain, even if most of it’s about myself.

Sorry for the book. Happy to answer anything if it helps.

[This message edited by hikingout at 4:32 AM, Saturday, May 18th]