To bust or not to bust

[81West]

Just so we are clear, Are you saying that divorcing your spouse for infidelity is way to rigid of a response? And that they should be open to remorse and reconcilliation?

 

Responding to your edit, no spouse has any obligation to be open to reconciliation. But the upshot as I understand it here is that the BH here intends to divorce his unfaithful wife and let her fight for him from the other side. As I said, were I that unfaithful wife, my response to that would be a resounding pfffft. Too rigid. Too punishing. Too controlling.

[No Limit]

Many truly remorseful WSes want to work on themselves to better themselves and be together with their SO regardless of marriage or divorce.

[66Charger]

It appears your your definition of remorse comes with conditions.

 

It sounds like you are saying, ok I understand why you are divorcing me and I deserve it, but if I have to win your trust back, forget it? Too rigid, too controlling, pffft?

 

Good luck with that.

Edited June 16, 2015 by 66Charger

[81West]

It appears your your definition of remorse comes with conditions.

 

It sounds like you are saying, ok I understand why you are divorcing me and I deserve it, but if I have to win your trust back, forget it? Too rigid, too controlling, pffft?

 

Good luck with that.

 

There is a difference between rising to the challenge of re-earning the trust of someone who may divorce you and finding the desire to do the same with somebody who has divorced you. The former would make me dig to find the best of me. The latter? Yeah. Pfffft.

[sidney2718]

Leave it to chumplady whose byline is "LEAVE A CHEATER, GAIN A LIFE" to have something to say about something she doesn't believe in.

 

Yeah she is fun to read, never fails to dump on WS's dripping with hyperbole and sarcasm. But really, people take these articles as "advice"?

 

Well, writing them is therapy for Chumplady.

[zinger]

There is a difference between rising to the challenge of re-earning the trust of someone who may divorce you and finding the desire to do the same with somebody who has divorced you. The former would make me dig to find the best of me. The latter? Yeah. Pfffft.

 

I see your point and totally expect the pfffft. But this will only test (my Petri dish of you like) to have any assurance she really wanted/will want me not the security of the marriage. One again, she won't be broke she will be legally free and she will have a choice.

 

I'm divorcing because I consider my marriage in coma/on the death bed right now. PA will send it to the grave. But because of our history i see am opportunity for us if she's willing to do the miles. Once again pa will most certainly shut this route down.

 

This is my way forward, I'm not claiming it as a moral high ground or an example to others.

[sidney2718]

I see your point and totally expect the pfffft. But this will only test (my Petri dish of you like) to have any assurance she really wanted/will want me not the security of the marriage. One again, she won't be broke she will be legally free and she will have a choice.

 

I'm divorcing because I consider my marriage in coma/on the death bed right now. PA will send it to the grave. But because of our history i see am opportunity for us if she's willing to do the miles. Once again pa will most certainly shut this route down.

 

This is my way forward, I'm not claiming it as a moral high ground or an example to others.

 

I assume that she does not want a divorce? If so have you tried sitting her down and carefully and without excess emotion explain to her that the only thing that can prevent a divorce is for her to tell you everything.

 

She may resist on the grounds that perhaps something she'd tell you would make you so angry that you'd divorce her anyway. She won't tell you that, but she could well think it. So your job is to point out that there are no guarantees. But if she continues to withhold, divorce is certain. With full disclosure, reconciliation may be possible.

[81West]

I see your point and totally expect the pfffft. But this will only test (my Petri dish of you like) to have any assurance she really wanted/will want me not the security of the marriage. One again, she won't be broke she will be legally free and she will have a choice.

 

I'm divorcing because I consider my marriage in coma/on the death bed right now. PA will send it to the grave. But because of our history i see am opportunity for us if she's willing to do the miles. Once again pa will most certainly shut this route down.

 

This is my way forward, I'm not claiming it as a moral high ground or an example to others.

 

This completely undervalues how important emotional security is to a woman. It is almost always the primary, fundamental female need in any relationship. What you call "the security of the marriage" IS a key part of her bond to you. Clearly she understands she has put that at grave risk, but if you pull that pin YOU have crossed a line no less than she! Surely you can't think that breaking fidelity vows are any less or any more destructive to a marriage than actually, you know, unilaterally ending the marriage? You will not be testing the union, you'll be damaging its essence just as much as she has. Like a couple of gunfighters who both draw and fire. It doesn't matter who started it, you're still both dead and you still both shot somebody.

[66Charger]

Man, that twisted my brain so much, I need a beer. And a shot. Cheaterthink.

[81West]

Oh stop it. There's nothing remotely 'cheaterthink' about it. You seem to be failing to grasp that my points are directed at the impact of divorcing someone on the relative likelihood of a successful reconciliation, not the appropriateness of divorcing in response to infidelity. If you divorce someone expecting them to work to win you back and don't realize you yourself have contributed to potentially fatal stresses on the relationship, you're kidding yourself. He's not 'testing' her, he's sending a message that theirs is a marriage in which there is no chance of mercy, no chance of redemption, only an iron fist. Fine, but don't expect most women to swoon.

[2.50 a gallon]

The question you need to ask, is where did the idea of her purchasing him a watch originate?

I would guess her made her think it was all her idea.

From the little that has been revealed about the OM is I am sure this is not his first rodeo. He is a smooth operator, a predator, who has learned how to use his meager artistic talents to seduce women.

I have seen similar stories about men who use creative writing, playwrights, song writers, as an emotional string into a married woman's heart.

As to whether they had sex or not is immaterial. Mere holding of hands, touching takes it from an EA to a PA. The next step was a hotel room

I caught my Ex kissing her OM, the marriage was over.

Also do you remember how she was dressed that day. I know she left work early, but how was she dressed, maybe a little more provocative than normal?

Sorry that you have to go thru this. Been there and done that, so I do know what you are experiencing. I too was adamant that our marriage was over. But deep down inside I was totally in love with her and missed her terribly.

That too will pass.

Rule of thumb, cheaters affair down. BS while it might take some time, eventually love again and move up

Edited June 17, 2015 by 2.50 a gallon

[zinger]

Oh stop it. There's nothing remotely 'cheaterthink' about it. You seem to be failing to grasp that my points are directed at the impact of divorcing someone on the relative likelihood of a successful reconciliation, not the appropriateness of divorcing in response to infidelity. If you divorce someone expecting them to work to win you back and don't realize you yourself have contributed to potentially fatal stresses on the relationship, you're kidding yourself. He's not 'testing' her, he's sending a message that theirs is a marriage in which there is no chance of mercy, no chance of redemption, only an iron fist. Fine, but don't expect most women to swoon.

 

81West,

 

 

I think I understand what are you saying and I appreciate your point of view - even though I can't agree with it 100%. What you are telling me I guess is that - as soon as emotional security is so paramount to women - the divorce would be such a devastated blow to it that it would ruin the chance of any reconciliation, which otherwise may be possible. Paraphrasing, I'm smashing my "Petri dish" with a hammer instead of maintaining a clean and pure environment. You may be right here, but these are the consequences I'll have to live with.

 

As soon as she knew (and she did, it should be clear assuming you did read all the previous posts) that any cheating is unaceptable to me she did not "put her emotional security at risk" when she cheated - she destroyed it with the same proverbial hammer. When it comes to our marriage of course. So irrespectively from any other aspects and attributes of our relationship the mariage is over - so is any attached emotional security. Does it mean that I'm showing no mercy, etc? Perhaps, but not in my mind. I'm not throwing her out, I'm not proverbially kicking her to the curb, and I know and she knows that if she ends up today in the same situation as she did many years ago which left me with the piercing knife wound 2 cm above my kidney, I'll do the same for her today. I'm just ending the marriage which for me was always a token of 100% blind unquestioning get-it-by-default trust.

 

If - as it seesm from your post - emotinal security is the attribute of the marriage - it get void if the marriage is void and the mariage is void if there is no trust.

 

Am I expecting her to keep trying to "win" me after we divorce. Chances are odd, I realise that, but if she does - this will be the effort probably comparable to the damage. I she's not - I wish her all the best and shes is free to seek that emotinal security elsewhere. As simple as that.

[fellini]

Perhaps you believe OP that matters in love and marriage can exist on a mindset built on things like 100%. My experience in love has taught me more times than not that matters of love and desire only need to be present to be worth fighting for.

 

No one can save a marriage undoing a marriage. No one can know what the true purpose of marriage from the perspective of another is, and especially by ending it. If you already see that a PA is a dealbreaker for you, and perhaps not for her, why do you think you will learn anything 100% by, for example, removing the economic card from the table. If you already do not see eye to eye on some things about marriage, financial stability versus commitment might very well be another.

 

In the end you are , from all i have read in this thread, testing (not a good sign) your wife (not your marriage) on the basis of your quite explicit over rationalisation of your specific marriage. Your concept of your wife and your marriage seems to reside almost entirely in your head, and towards the left.

 

Don't be surprised if she finds this less than something worth trying to rebuild from. Most women know you cannot build love, rediscover it, or otherwise, from the perspective of an engineer. And definately not entirely on the terms of one side because the rational hand of justice fell heavily on his side.

 

You continue to believe that her affair was something she did only to you, and not to first herself. Selfish people do not strike out against their spouses, they hurt them by being indifferent to the pain they will cause in order to be selfish.

 

If you believe she did these things to kill your marriage just so you could divorce her and renew as a couple, then you clearly shouldn't be together anyhow. Until your heart can tell your brain to stop with the nonsense of over valuing her affair and being exclusively in charge of the forgiveness tool, and only seeing her A as something personal, it is you that cannot live in this marriage, not necessarily her.

 

 

 

 

 

81West,

 

 

I think I understand what are you saying and I appreciate your point of view - even though I can't agree with it 100%. What you are telling me I guess is that - as soon as emotional security is so paramount to women - the divorce would be such a devastated blow to it that it would ruin the chance of any reconciliation, which otherwise may be possible. Paraphrasing, I'm smashing my "Petri dish" with a hammer instead of maintaining a clean and pure environment. You may be right here, but these are the consequences I'll have to live with.

 

As soon as she knew (and she did, it should be clear assuming you did read all the previous posts) that any cheating is unaceptable to me she did not "put her emotional security at risk" when she cheated - she destroyed it with the same proverbial hammer. When it comes to our marriage of course. So irrespectively from any other aspects and attributes of our relationship the mariage is over - so is any attached emotional security. Does it mean that I'm showing no mercy, etc? Perhaps, but not in my mind. I'm not throwing her out, I'm not proverbially kicking her to the curb, and I know and she knows that if she ends up today in the same situation as she did many years ago which left me with the piercing knife wound 2 cm above my kidney, I'll do the same for her today. I'm just ending the marriage which for me was always a token of 100% blind unquestioning get-it-by-default trust.

 

If - as it seesm from your post - emotinal security is the attribute of the marriage - it get void if the marriage is void and the mariage is void if there is no trust.

 

Am I expecting her to keep trying to "win" me after we divorce. Chances are odd, I realise that, but if she does - this will be the effort probably comparable to the damage. I she's not - I wish her all the best and shes is free to seek that emotinal security elsewhere. As simple as that.

[eric1]

I think everything is getting over complicated....

 

- Zinger does not want to be married to someone who would cheat on him

- His current wife is someone who would cheat on him

 

The simple move is to divorce, heal himself and then (if he so chooses) finds another girlfriend who could one day be his wife.

He knows his current wife well and she has many qualities that he looks for. She has her own personal journey to go on to make sure she's ready for other relationships. She may never succeed, she may or she may say **** it and go back your her sign-creating dirt bag boyfriend.

 

If she does decide to work on herself after divorce it'll be a pretty foolproof way to know she was interested in reconciling and fixing her, and just not manipulating Zinger to save the marriage.

[Friskyone4u]

Eric is correct. This is not complicated. For Zinger, what she did appears to have been a deal breaker. I still can't figure out what he knows or does not know about the extent of this affair, but it seems divorce is what he wants and needs at this time.

 

His wife obviously has big time REGRET right now with good reason, and her reaction when he confronted her to me indicates this was a lot more than a little hand holding and lip kissing.

 

I do think there has been way too much focusing on this OM. He is just a single guy who wanted to get laid like most single guys and not some super predator as he has been portrayed. Probably nine of of ten single guys his age would not give a **** if she were married to three men if she offered herself up, which she did. Just my opinion, but I think Zinger you should focus all your anger and energy on your wife and stop worrying about some little peon.

 

She did it because she wanted to and she is the villan here, not OM.

[No Limit]

and I know and she knows that if she ends up today in the same situation as she did many years ago which left me with the piercing knife wound 2 cm above my kidney, I'll do the same for her today

 

Change that after the divorce is finalized, the rest of your post is fine. As soon as you've moved out, cut her off completely - you have to in order to heal anyway.

[fellini]

I think you see everything as simple, and this is worse.

 

It is ZINGER who is claiming he is keeping a door open to stay WITH HIS WW.

He did not say what you say he wants. He has been quite ambivalent about this since post 1.

 

Although you probably wish he wasn't vacillating because you think he should turn his back on his WW completely, and never look back, it is Zinger who has to make this decision, and he clearly has NOT reached that point.

 

His attempt to put each option into a seal tight box is not simple, it is rather, complex, because life, and post infidelity, doesn't comply with that need to see everything as black and white.

 

When Zinger says he is done 100% with WW, then things might get very simple. But he clearly has not. His WW is like a child's tooth that refuses to let go, hanging by a thread of nerve, and the child won't let anyone just pull it out for fear of not knowing if there will be pain, and how long it will last. But there it hangs, an impossible nuisance.

 

I think everything is getting over complicated....

 

- Zinger does not want to be married to someone who would cheat on him

- His current wife is someone who would cheat on him

 

The simple move is to divorce, heal himself and then (if he so chooses) finds another girlfriend who could one day be his wife.

[81West]

81West,

 

 

I think I understand what are you saying and I appreciate your point of view - even though I can't agree with it 100%. What you are telling me I guess is that - as soon as emotional security is so paramount to women - the divorce would be such a devastated blow to it that it would ruin the chance of any reconciliation, which otherwise may be possible. Paraphrasing, I'm smashing my "Petri dish" with a hammer instead of maintaining a clean and pure environment. You may be right here, but these are the consequences I'll have to live with.

 

As soon as she knew (and she did, it should be clear assuming you did read all the previous posts) that any cheating is unaceptable to me she did not "put her emotional security at risk" when she cheated - she destroyed it with the same proverbial hammer. When it comes to our marriage of course. So irrespectively from any other aspects and attributes of our relationship the mariage is over - so is any attached emotional security. Does it mean that I'm showing no mercy, etc? Perhaps, but not in my mind. I'm not throwing her out, I'm not proverbially kicking her to the curb, and I know and she knows that if she ends up today in the same situation as she did many years ago which left me with the piercing knife wound 2 cm above my kidney, I'll do the same for her today. I'm just ending the marriage which for me was always a token of 100% blind unquestioning get-it-by-default trust.

 

If - as it seesm from your post - emotinal security is the attribute of the marriage - it get void if the marriage is void and the mariage is void if there is no trust.

 

Am I expecting her to keep trying to "win" me after we divorce. Chances are odd, I realise that, but if she does - this will be the effort probably comparable to the damage. I she's not - I wish her all the best and shes is free to seek that emotinal security elsewhere. As simple as that.

 

My only point really is the experimenter can't insert himself into the experiment and expect good science. As long as you understand that you're not testing whether she would work for the man she married and the marriage she had, you're testing whether she'll fight for someone who abandoned her in a self-inflicted crisis. Abandonment cuts a woman to the emotional bone. Eventually people come to resent people who make them feel small, inadequate and powerless and she could easily see you as differently as you see her now. She knew how you felt about infidelity and now you know how she feels about divorce. If you both want to deal mutual death blows to the marriage you have, that's a perfectly reasonable response to infidelity. But if she doesn't fight for you after the divorce you will never truly know what she would and could have done towards reconciliation in an intact marriage. If you actually want reconciliation and rebuilding as opposed to being vaguely open to it, divorcing your wife is a significant risk to that. Sometimes in love we have to be willing to let ourselves be vulnerable even when things are painful, unfair and uncertain. Underneath all the stony logic, dropping the guillotine on your marriage if you actually still want it does not communicate strength and resolve, it communicates a need to control born of fear and self doubt.

Edited June 17, 2015 by 81West

[Furious]

zinger

 

You're being generous as you've mentioned in regard to the settlement you are willing to give to your wife your in the divorce. It's obvious you are not vindictive and it's not about material things. it's respect and love that you've invested in and your wife has destroyed what was most valuable to you.

 

You can only make decisions based on the core values you treasure. There is no shame in that.

 

Emotions cloud clarity, your feelings are not something you can just shut off. I've been there, when emotion and fact gets jumbled up and a part of you wants to reconcile and a part of you cannot believe that the person you loved is not the person you believed they were.

 

In my opinion, at this point you must place yourself first. For those who are not accustomed to putting themselves first it can feel almost wrong. The irony is that cheaters are the opposit, they always put themselves first. For some reason most cheaters cannot handle a betrayed spouse putting their needs first, the common cliche is that the cheater has just cause and the betrayed spouse is at fault. This strikes a nerve amongst cheaters, or doormats who buy into it.

[No Limit]

It is ZINGER who is claiming he is keeping a door open to stay WITH HIS WW.

 

Yet from update to update it becomes obvious that they have no future together anymore. zinger's actions speak a whole different tune than wanting or even considering R - and I'm not talking about the divorce, I'm talking about leaving home when things get too heated. I think the only reason because he even mentions R at all in his posts is because he's far from the "acceptance"-stage, yet he doesn't want to do all the hand-holding for a whiny WS who has yet to be honest with him. The more time passes and the longer his soon-to-be-ex-wife withholds information from him that HE had requested, the less attractive R will be for him. And who can blame him, honestly?

 

Mind you I also think all those people backing WS attempting to push zinger to not divorce also play a big role in this. If they had gone against WS instead of zinger, she would have more incentive to get off her butt and do something - now she's still too comfortable and remains in the "Ah well, he'll come around" type of thinking. For this marriage, a fatal mistake.

[italianjob]

My impression is that zinger is currently at the window, probably leaning toward divorce, but looking for signs in his wife behavior. I'm also under the impression he doesn't like what he's seeing. I think he still sees a lot of regret but no remorse, and she probably didn't really approach the "Was this a PA?" question in any convincing way. Logic says it's probable this was physical, and she's offering nothing to reassure zinger in that department.

 

So, yes, I think, as it is now, this is heading for divorce...

[drifter777]

Yet from update to update it becomes obvious that they have no future together anymore. zinger's actions speak a whole different tune than wanting or even considering R - and I'm not talking about the divorce, I'm talking about leaving home when things get too heated. I think the only reason because he even mentions R at all in his posts is because he's far from the "acceptance"-stage, yet he doesn't want to do all the hand-holding for a whiny WS who has yet to be honest with him. The more time passes and the longer his soon-to-be-ex-wife withholds information from him that HE had requested, the less attractive R will be for him. And who can blame him, honestly?

 

Mind you I also think all those people backing WS attempting to push zinger to not divorce also play a big role in this. If they had gone against WS instead of zinger, she would have more incentive to get off her butt and do something - now she's still too comfortable and remains in the "Ah well, he'll come around" type of thinking. For this marriage, a fatal mistake.

I strongly agree with this. It's likely that the reason she's not frantically working to prove that it was an innocent friendship and/or she cheated but it didn't mean anything is that she knows zinger and is confident that all the noise and threats he is making now is just bravado. She could be thinking that very soon he'll start to panic at the thought of being alone and come crawling home. That he always reacts this way to any conflict in their marriage and then "comes to his senses". She might be right and zinger will be home - praying that time will heal him - within the next week or so. I think making a decision based on insecurity and fear of the unknown is suicide of the spirit, but I and millions of other men have taken this broken path. When you are drowning in pain and fear any life raft - even one with holes in it - looks like a solution. It definitely is beginning to feel as though he is following this script and I hope those of us who know can dissuade him from it. I want him to understand that this is not a way to live; it's a way to die.

 

zinger - all you need is strict adherence to No Contact and to begin working with a counselor who understands that this is your decision and what you want is to move forward and heal. Do these things and you will begin to feel much better by the day.

[sandylee1]

This completely undervalues how important emotional security is to a woman. It is almost always the primary, fundamental female need in any relationship. What you call "the security of the marriage" IS a key part of her bond to you. Clearly she understands she has put that at grave risk, but if you pull that pin YOU have crossed a line no less than she! Surely you can't think that breaking fidelity vows are any less or any more destructive to a marriage than actually, you know, unilaterally ending the marriage? You will not be testing the union, you'll be damaging its essence just as much as she has. Like a couple of gunfighters who both draw and fire. It doesn't matter who started it, you're still both dead and you still both shot somebody.

 

She ended the marriage when she stepped outside, not Zinger.

 

This sounds like a cheating spouse saying please don't break up the family , when their actions actually ruined everything.

 

I think Zinger's plan is a good one IMO. If she doesn't fight, then she's not serious or sorry enough about what she did.

[Realist3]

I see your point and totally expect the pfffft. But this will only test (my Petri dish of you like) to have any assurance she really wanted/will want me not the security of the marriage. One again, she won't be broke she will be legally free and she will have a choice.

 

I'm divorcing because I consider my marriage in coma/on the death bed right now. PA will send it to the grave. But because of our history i see am opportunity for us if she's willing to do the miles. Once again pa will most certainly shut this route down.

 

This is my way forward, I'm not claiming it as a moral high ground or an example to others.

 

So very noble.

[Friskyone4u]

I guess I am just a stupid "C" student, but what i see here is a lot of projecting as to what Zinger wants because he really is not giving the group much information, just little tidbits.

 

Maybe someone following this can tell me what i have missed but since he caught her at the Mall, all we know is she does not want a divorce ( not surprising), and that he thinks he does but is not sure. And then a few pages of how to pound this single OM into the ground, both literally and figuratively.

 

Does anyone know what details Zuinger HAS BEEN TOLD BY HIS WIFE. I have not seen other than they met at an art show on how any of it progressed, how long it has been going on, or anything other than she claims she has not slpet with him. Zinger must know a lot more by now.

 

i guess he'll tell us when and if he is officially divorced or if he reconciles. But right now, i don't think he has even asked for a polygraph or anything that wouild either confirm or refute her story.

 

like i said, maybe i just am not paying attention well enouigh