SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Catching up and prayers going up.

Always appreciate prayers. I do want to clarify my comment about "it’s happening". Not all the kids are home today so telling them isn’t imminent in an hours timescale. But it should be the next few days. Prayers don’t expire that fast, do they?

I will just keep them coming.

Even better.

Ink, the hardest thing for all of us to accept, me included, is that we do NOT change our basic nature. We are the products of genetics and environment. Period. We are not blank slates at birth and we begin to make decisions immediately. If something impedes our growth mentally, physically or emotionally we had better catch up by about age 4 or we are who we will basically be for the rest of our lives.
Something in the life of your wife slammed the brakes on her development. You can love her but you can’t change her. These feeble reasons she gives you are because she actually interprets things entirely differently than you. Her seeming inability to feel true guilt seems hardwired in her. You are coming at the issue from a much more loving place. Thank your genetics and your childhood. Although some people are able to overcome a bad one and be healthy adults. Again they need to look at their family’s different personalities. Someone in your life has passed on your loving heart.
This is when you need to accept that you can’t fix her, or change her. You can’t change yourself. None of us can.

Yes @InkHulk, prayers for you and your family. I understand that all this truly has to be heartwrenching.

Ink, have you considered calling together an "important family meeting" ?

We are not blank slates at birth and we begin to make decisions immediately. If something impedes our growth mentally, physically or emotionally we had better catch up by about age 4 or we are who we will basically be for the rest of our lives.
Something in the life of your wife slammed the brakes on her development. You can love her but you can’t change her. These feeble reasons she gives you are because she actually interprets things entirely differently than you.

I think some days I might have jumped all over this thought trail. But for where I am right now I think I just have to say thank you for your thoughts on the matter. You may be right, maybe not, I’m not sure. And even if you are, and she has this handicap, if she would have been faithful there is no way I would have ended the marriage over it, it would have fallen squarely in the "better or worse" category.
So I guess it again falls into the category of trying to figure her out, and my heart just isn’t in it.

I will say that I’ve been thinking a lot about the entanglement of my daddy issues with my current situation that OIN pointed out. I’ve thought of it before, but that comment was right time, right place. I think I need to be extremely careful to separate the two situations. I can’t undo what happened with my father, no matter what happens here. I just have to face this particular situation as a unique event in my life. That book just arrived today, I think I’m going to jump it to the top of the list over hikingout’s recommendations. Sorry friend, this seems more urgent

Ink, have you considered calling together an "important family meeting" ?

We have two kids with jobs and all of them have busy summer schedules. Calling an "important family meeting" multiple days in advance will almost certainly leave an ominous feeling in their hearts. I don’t know the best way to do this, but it will get done.

I just lurk around here sometimes, even though I joined back in 2017 when I was going through some things.

I just want to tell you InkHulk, I missed the very beginning of your story, but I have read through some of your threads and I think you are truly a stand up kind of guy. Even in your pain and confusion, you have been thoughtful and graceful. You are a good man.

I just wanted to tell you that, as a random person on the Internet, every post I have read of yours, even when your feathers are ruffled, says that you are a good person, and a good man. Whatever happens with your wife (and I understand you are divorcing her), I just want you to know and believe that you deserve and are worthy of receiving all of the good things and the kind of love that you have to offer. I think you do know and believe that, I just wanted to show you some support by saying that you are absolutely correct in that knowledge and belief.

I am rooting for you and your children. Your wife, meh. I only want her to be okay just because the healthier she is, the better Mom she can be for your children. But that’s all I got for her. Sorry.

PrettyLies,
I really like your screen name, seems dead on for this topic somehow.

Thanks for the kind words. I grew up with major self confidence problems, was doing fairly well with that in my adult life, and then the affair…. I don’t want to build myself up on the quicksand of external validation. But that said, I’ve shared a lot of myself in this space, and it feels good to be liked for just being yourself. So thank you, you brought some happiness to another internet stranger’s life. I hope it gets paid forward to you and whatever hell brought you here is well resolved.

Ink, when you do tell your kids, I think that rates a new thread rather than a continuation of this one.

PS - I was the person who called HikingOut the foggiest wayward I’ve ever seen when she first came here. Her transformation over the last 7 years has been astonishing. Hoping and praying that you have a similar transformation but at a betrayed spouse level.

Ink, when you do tell your kids, I think that rates a new thread rather than a continuation of this one.

Reasonable suggestion. We’re working on scheduling a time, might be tomorrow.

PS - I was the person who called HikingOut the foggiest wayward I’ve ever seen when she first came here. Her transformation over the last 7 years has been astonishing. Hoping and praying that you have a similar transformation but at a betrayed spouse level.

I’ve only had the privilege of interacting with her in her butterfly state, but if what you say is true then it seems like as good of proof as any that people can turn things around.

And that’s a pretty damn high bar to aim for. I’m going to get thru this week right now, can worry about breaking out of my cocoon later.

ETA: also, that is a hella low post count for being around seven years. I feel kind of honored to get one, seems like good luck.

[This message edited by InkHulk at 5:30 PM, Monday, June 24th]

Plan is to tell them tomorrow night.

Please pray for me that I can compose myself to be there for them.

Please pray for them, that their young hearts would be spared as much as possible.

Fuck, it’s all real.

Prayers and hugs, IH.

My screen name is because I believe it is better to be told an ugly truth, than pretty lies.

You are very welcome. I am sure I’m not the only person that has been silently supportive of you.

I know you are dreading it.

My prediction is they already know and to be able to talk about it will be a relief. You can’t live in the same house and then not really understand something is very wrong. Even if you have been the most careful person on the planet.

Try and think of this a point that can start the healing for them. Anything they have been holding into that’s not true, any small blame they have assigned themselves. It will be a hard conversation but you will find your children root for your happiness. The more fulfilled each of you are the more they can focus on their own stuff.

It’s going to be important to your healing too, having it out in the open. As much as you dread it, there are positive things that can come out of it too. In the ways we know you to conduct yourself, you will be there for them every step of the way and my money is on they know they can count on that too.

I dreaded telling my kids who were both young adults at the time.

My oldest’s first response (and I am literally quoting): "It’s about damn time, Mom."

The point, if you aren’t already aware of the potentiality: Things are not always as they seem and you can’t predict how they will go. I don’t know exactly what reaction I expected but that was not one I had even considered.

And btw, my relationship with my children has only grown exponentially better since the D. 😊

I appreciate the reframes, and I suspect there is some truth to it. Yes, they can see something is very wrong between us, we aren’t hiding that. But this one is just too parallel to my own experience as a kid. I can’t get that moment out of my head, I remember it so vividly when my parents told me. And it wasn’t out of the blue. It caused me to question whether I even belonged in the universe. Literal existential crisis in a teenager. Maybe my kids won’t be like me, but I already know they kind of are. This is truly the moment I’ve been dreading. It’s my point of no return.